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unless a different time and or place is designated by the board uh is there a motion for this uh item so moved second all those in favor who say I I thank you um item two approve the designations authorizations assignments for 2024 yes president Str voson uh this item is naming the board representative for the county committee for uh this is the 2024 election cycle currently truste jenez has been in that role on behalf of the board um trusty gimenez do you have interest in retaining that seat on this committee um yeah unless someone else wants to do it this is oh is this one part of that Kim for all the s assistant soups and uh directors okay got it yeah is this one under action this one under the action item yeah this for staff approval it's the it's the attachment so we just need a motion for this correct so I'll move to approve the annual designation authorization and assignments for 2024 for B bu USD staff is that a second second all those in favor will say I I I motion carries thank you we move to adoption of agenda is there a motion to adopt the agenda I'll move to adopt the agenda I'll second it's been moved and seconded all those in favor will say I I I the agenda is adopted thank you uh we don't have anything under recognition ceremonial uh item seven public comments on consent agenda conert candle agenda items uh we have one speaker uh Mr David Cohen uh before you come up where is our speaker I me State the speaker conduct for all the who wish to address the board during public comment periods I have to do this speakers are requested to state your name and affiliation for the record each speaker speaker will be G given three minutes to address the board five minutes per organization and a maximum of 20 minutes per topic speakers are reminded to communicate with respect fairness and courteousness to each other and to all present you are reminded not to use the name of any District employee in your comments the board welcomes orderly communication from the public welcome Mr Co thank you and congratulations uh trust sh Nason on taking over as president and thank you trusty Newen for your service Service as president in the past year um I'm David Cohen representing uh myself as a city council member for the city of San Jose just comment on an item on consent but also just to I happy to be back here amongst friends even though I've never actually spoken in this room it is still my home to be here in front with the Board of Trustees um I am excited that you will be accepting some of the gifts that we've offered from our office to the city council I uh this year we offered a$1 thousand Grant to each of the schools in the varas school district um several of them have taken us up on this offer and tonight you're accepting I think four of them on your consent agenda but we've left it wide open for the principles and potentially the ptas at each of the schools to let us know what they'd like a grant for so these grants cover things from buses for field trips for for a couple of classes to uh the Cherrywood uh Hispanic uh Heritage Month Festival um to siert getting new books for their Library so um for those of you who haven't yet let us know what you'd like at your schools uh please please reach out to my office the the offer is still still stands and uh we're processing a couple others right now but um just want to say how much I appreciate our partnership with the beresa school district as all you know it really is uh really important to me and the success of the students in beresa is really important to all of us and I look forward to continuing partnership with the families uh staff and students in the barasa school district thank you council member Ken for your support thank you all right moving forward on the consent calendar is there a motion to approve the consent calendar items I'll move to approve the consent calendar is there a second second it's been moved and seconded all those in favor will say I I I consent calendar is adopted thank you moving on to item nine uh comments from the public on non agenda items uh we have a couple of speakers today um speaker contact again all right um before we uh call on the speakers I uh remind the speakers of the uh speaker conduct speakers are requested to State a name and affiliation for the record each speaker will be given three minutes to address the board five minutes per organized ation and a maximum of 20 minutes per topic speakers are reminded to communicate with respect fairness and courteousness to each other and to all present you're reminded not to use the name of any District employee in your comments the board welcomes orderly communication from the public and we I'll call upon uh Miss shiku Habibi to the president vice president trustees superintendent Dr Fuentes and cabinet my name is Shu Habibi I work as par educator at toon Elementary School and CSA chapter president chapter 364 president I would like to express my appreciation on on behalf of my chapter beresa 364 to come to an agreement with beresa Union School District in spite of all disagreement from both sides I am I can say I it wasn't simple and easy but with our assistant superintendent human resource Mr Cabrera lead leadership we accomplished this past year negotiation in our best interest especially District classified employees with raised and health benefits I want to Hope also for seap soon the negotiation come to an end in favor of teachers and District because we need our teacher in good hands thank you thank you for those comments next we uh next we have Mr uh Jose [Music] Herman hello good evening my name is Joe Herman um I am the President of the California Teachers Association of beresa I'm also a second grade teacher at brooktree elementary I've been teaching in the district now 28 years and so as you know we're continuing to be in negotiations we've gone to mediation with the state mediator and I'm here tonight just to express our members frustration with Management in negotiations and how now we've been in the process of negotiating oh almost over a year for the 2324 uh contract so we are currently working on expired contract and as you know teachers are so dedicated to students they come before school they come after school they're school and maybe an hour before school working planning their lessons working so hard after school they might be there 3 to four hours planning you know we know these principles you know how dedicated teachers are and what their students mean and how they've planned lessons tirelessly on the weekend they may be spending hundreds if not thousands of dollars of their own money to meet the needs of their students so now we're struggling in negotiations and our our members will do anything to get a raise that by the time we're probably finished may not even match the cost of living inflation and so our members now have gone to work to rule where this difficult decision for them to only come in you know during their contracted hours to now come in at 7:30 and we walk in together you know to leave at the end of the day and not stay four hours planning lessons and to kind of send the message that you know our work we don't work for free you know we want to be appreciated we want to be respected and this seems to happen every year where we're constantly struggling just to get the basic raised to live in this Valley to provide for our students and I know the district has been struggling with you know average daily attendance the students that we have just to keep them in the classroom but when they see labor unrest when the fam see labor unrest it's even harder to get them in the classroom if we want to bring new families into the district and they see labor unrest you see teachers that are unhappy that's not going to help bring more students into our district so we have work to do we should be working together we should be working together and we are working together still but these relationships are not fostering right now they're not building we need to be building our relationship we need to be working on the things we need to be working on you know increasing so we can get budget stabilization for the district these are the things we need to be focused on now I think we need to settle these are the things we need to be working on let's settle let's come to an agreement let's get this done okay we can work together we know we can you know this is an awesome District to work in but we need to make it work we need to make it work so thank you for those comments we'll move to item 10 uh reports and presentations um District professional development presentation Dr FAS thank you um at this time I'd like to invite uh Nicole pares to the podium to share with the board an update regarding our professional development offerings that we provided this school year thank you and good evening um members of the board executive cabinet Dr Fuentes um I am pleased to have this opportunity to do a brief report this evening um regarding the two District professional development days that we held um this fall a quick overview um there were two days they were on a August 7th and on November 1st the professional development days were um provided for classifi and attended by classified and certificated staff from across the district the sessions were held at various School sites as well as across the street at the County Office of Education and the schedule for both of those days um were two halfday sessions um from 1 8 to 11: and the afternoon session was 12: to 3 and the highlights of those two professional development days is that they were available for all staff the sessions for certificated staff members were designed in collaboration with the cab professional development committee um we had a series of meetings with that committee to get input and um determine the topics for those sessions for um certificated and they were designed to meet a variety of needs of the staff AC from across the district and the outcomes were really aligned um to support District goals and focus areas and I'm pleased to share that overall the PO the feedback was very positive from the participants so to give you a sense of the topics um for elementary teachers and instructional Associates over the course of two days of those two days um they engaged in professional development related to our um false Science Program designated ELD uh Universal Design for Learning which was provided by the county office and Trauma and healing informed practices also provided by this um County Office of Ed for our Middle School um the session were designed to have content area specific um focus around differentiation in that content area as well as um a session on trauma and healing informed practices with Dr Nikki Elliot um our middle school music and PE teachers had an opportunity to do to engage in vertical um collaboration and Alignment over those two days and the feedack back was very positive and they appreciated that opportunity for our special education and service providers um there was a menu of um sessions that were assigned for folks to attend based on their specific um roles and um and needs of the of the positions they held and you can see um the list of topics there for our clerks and secretaries uh they also had sessions uh August was designed around office procedures to support the successful opening of a of the school year and November really focused on strategies for ensuring an environment of welcome and belonging our noon Duty supervisors had sessions that really focused on um safety and supporting students uh a safe lunch period for students our library media techs also attended trauma and healing informed practices and in November they had an opportunity to attend a session led by um one of our own library Medi Texs um around uh ways to and create resources that really promote reading enjoyment and engagement I wanted to be sure to acknowledge and highlight the various presenters and trainers that made both of those days very successful um we had uh presenters and facilitators from um our adopted Core Curriculum Partners um as you can see we had Dr Nikki Elliott um we had some Consultants that came and helped us out and um the county office was a fantastic partner in both of those days um and I want to be sure to thank and acknowledge the administrators the managers um and the certificated and classified staff that took the lead in um presenting and doing some of the trainings briefly I wanted to share um the quantitative feedback so for every session we asked the participants to fill out um a feedback form that basically asked the extent to which the session was relevant and meaningful to their work and so what you'll see on these next set of slides is for Middle School um you can see for both the morning and afternoon sessions 80% or higher of the participants felt the sessions were um relevant and meaningful or very relevant and meaningful um the same Trend was true for our special education and service providers um the feedback was very strong and I'm specifically pointing out the the three and four the bar graphs on the that rate three and four um the participants found the morning and afternoon sessions to be very me re relevant and meaningful and here's the feedback for Elementary in November um again 9 % or higher and I I'm happy to share that while the slides are not here for the August PD day the trend was the same and the data mirrored um what we saw in November in terms of the quantitative feedback around the the relevance of the sessions just a few pictures to highlight the great days that we had together I could fill up many many slides with pictures but and so the quantitative feedback tells one story and we know that the the qualitative feedback that we get through comments and feedback is also critical to knowing what our um staff um thought about the the both PD days and so um ed services um along with our principles we took some time to really dig into those comments and feedback back to analyze what the staff had to say and we identified trends that we called pluses what worked and we identified trends that we called Deltas meaning suggestions for change or needs that were identified and so what we identified for pluses is that the teachers gained understanding of how to give more students access to content and implement the strategies that they learned um there were many comments around being able to approach challenges from a a place of respect and support for the student there's a better understanding of trauma the nervous system and strategies to support students um teachers discovered English language development resources that are available to them um the presenters were knowledgeable and engaging and they appreciated the time to collaborate with their colleagues um really valuable suggestions and needs that were identified are additional resources to support social emotional and behavior needs teachers and staff um named that they need time to reflect and plan and Implement what they learned at those sessions um more time for collaboration excuse me collaboration with colleagues and for Middle School in particular um there was an ask for collaboration time across the sites in same departments so the Math teachers from each of the sites having time together for example and with that analysis we work to identify some next steps um for perhaps this spring and into next year as we plan um namely provide finding creative ways to provide more collaboration time uh providing addition strategies and support with implementing designated ELD um modeling of designated ELD lessons um identifying and providing additional trauma and healing and formed training and effective strategies to address bullying Behavior are some next steps that we identified I want to be sure to acknowledge our mot and custodial staff for all of their effort s and support in making sure our facilities were ready um our principles assistant principles and site staff our instructional coaches and of course Education Services thank you thank you for that presentation um any comments uh questions from the board okay I just would like to add um I just want to just give my Commendation to the ed services team and all the Partnerships that we have across the county and and with our providers that added to each professional development day I know it takes just quite a bit of time to orchestrate all of those sessions um one of the goals has been over the years to try to increase as many options as possible for staff we understand you know the importance of relevancy and we continue to try to improve in that in that area to make sure that um the need you know PD is matching the need whether it's we have a new um curriculum adoption or that you know we know um looking at the last slide with the future areas of Interest knowing post pandemic we've had increased needs with students and and me mental health and wellness so I'm not surprised to see you know interest in more trauma informed practices Etc so I think all of that just resonates also with what we see in the classroom um but I I also just wanted to give my thanks to our team inter internally and all of those that were involved in providing that training to our staff thank you thank you so much all right uh Item B is um District enrollment presentation Dr FAS thank you at this time I I'd like to invite Uh Kevin Franklin our assistant superintendent of business uh now that we've completed a um first semester just about of school uh we want to be able to provide the board with an update on what our enrollment looks like across the district as well as sight to site all right good evening um please bear with me with my voice I haven't had my normal voice for the past three months or so and I have this cough that I can't seem to shake so that may come up as I go through this brief presentation um so um the typos kill me and I know that there's one on here so I apologize for that um I'm usually good at catching them but Joe pointed this one out to me but um our enrollment has increased by 180 students over what we had originally projected uh for 23 24 and so that's why we're kind of giving this updated presentation to kind of show where we're at and what that looks like uh by each School site however um while we do see this uptick in our enrollment as we saw with Tom Williams report a couple of board meetings ago or at the last um Regular board meeting um this looks to be an anomaly um it's not a trend that's um looking like it's going to continue based on the data within the community and so we have increased our enrollment um for this current year and revised our projections in the two out years so the enrollment and Ada are higher in those two future years but we are still projecting declining enrollment so hopefully that makes sense so here's an illustration of what that looks like um we have the downward trend of enrollment over the past um 10 plus years you know dropping over well over a thousand students districtwide and so the green is what we have had historically as far as enrollment and what we had originally projected and then the blue is the revised enrollment figures um they on the right hand side so this is what the enrollment looks like by School site and so you can see we're kind of up and down all throughout all of our elementary schools middle schools are all um relatively close in enrollment um however that changes as we project out a little bit but you can see where we have a number of schools that are below uh 400 students and and a couple of them under 300 so um we do have Vincy Park and Cherrywood that are over 500 but on the flip side we have uh Summerdale and Toyon that are below 200 so just wanted to show what that enrollment is at each School site and then this next slide is classroom U utilization so as we talk about the the lower enrollment numbers what does that look like as far as our classroom usage so um in the darker orange color are classrooms that are actually in use with students meaning that there there are classrooms with teachers who have a roster of students so there could be classrooms that are showing as available classrooms that are yellow but those classrooms could be utilized for storage they could be utilized for music they could be um you know being used for some sort of intervention or maybe that's um school psychologist or speech pathologists you're using those rooms but they do not have actual roster of students so um on on this chart you can see Ruskin and sommerdale have the most available classrooms based on the size of the school and the enrollment and then on the with the middle schools you can see Milla is has the largest amount of um classrooms not currently in use with 16 and then camont they have the highest number of uh middle school students so see they have less number of classrooms um so we did not count classrooms that are being utilized by pe staff and I understand sometimes they do utilize classrooms but those are not included in the class counts because they're not uh being used at all time by the same teacher okay any questions about our enrollment and the trends that we're currently seeing and the utilization across uh our district at each School site any questions on the board okay nothing specific thank you thank you for the presentation all right we'll move forward to item c um measure L and measure U construction Bond program update Dr F thank you at this time we have Tony conab who will provide his monthly update thank you okay our first screen our first picture is actually of the new gym we're I'll get into that a little more but we're almost there I see the light at the end of the tunnel um we'll update measure L and measure U again measure L we have some funds remaining in one of the future board meetings I'll bring some projects to finish out the bond and then to measure you again the projects we completed in the last month um the rusin Playfield we actually pulled the fencing off I think this week and they're actually starting to use it there's actually grass on it it's actually nice and green I think we only found two go for holes y two so it looks it looks a lot better but there's still a lot of work to do um and again it'll keep it'll take a lot to keep it maintained um the other project that we completed were the exhaust fans for phase one so all those all those exhaust fans on the ceiling and all the restrooms have been replaced um things we have in progress are again the gym at pedmont so we do have a few things left we have to test the fire alarm we have the mechanical unit is up and it works the manufacturers actually going to be out next week to start it up because that's part of the requirements by DSA now once that's started we'll actually able to get heat in the building so then we can actually put the floor in which will take about five days but by somewhere between Christmas and New Year's we should be done and I know we actually have internet so because I know all the cameras work around the building so but it's looking better um and then the morel exterior door project this is draging on where we're still having some problems with all the doors there's I think there's I think 16 doors that we still have gaps under that we're going to have the contractor address that during the winter break oops did I okay sorry um next thing in Project progress is the fire alarm replacement at brooktree Majestic Noble in Summerdale Majestic Way is almost complete we hope to test that sometime early in the new year they're currently working on Summerdale and again these should be completed by the end of July of this coming summer um exterior door numbers projects they were actually working on pedmont right now and they'll have pedmont Morell done by the end of winter break uh projects that we've bid we bid the HVAC and roofing project at the pedmont district office our recommend we bid it we had six biders they were all over budget we later on in the board we're actually making a recommendation that we reject all bids and we'll rebid the project um the next project was the LED lighting replacement again eight biders that came in under budget we have a recommendation to award um exhaust fan phase two again we had 11 bids again under budget and we'll make a recommendation to award um projects in design again we have fire alarm replacement for Toyon Vincy Park Northwood um we're working on the warehouse replacement project and we also have things for the the PA and security system phase two which again are the projects that are the schools that are listed um we're working on the exterior window Pro replacement project at pedmont again that's going to happen this summer again that's part of the grant money that we're getting and then the last project is the additional SDC restrooms at Toyon we actually received DSA approval last week so we're out to bid right now we'll bid it in January we hope to start early February and complete the middle of March and here's some pictures of the gym this is basically looking South down the fire lane this is looking North the opposite way um oh again this is some one of the gates we replaced at rusin this is on the back side the front side last month I think I showed you where we had ornamental dat Gates the back side we actually just put in chain link gates again and this is the play field at rusin it looks actually there's actually a bunch of weeds but it looks great to be honest um and then this is the schedule um and one more picture of the gym any questions any questions from the colleagues um I have a qu did you have a question I have a question about uh just because you mentioned Raskin um the Ruskin playground the correct me if I'm wrong is are the playgrounds open for the Community for the public general public to come in after school hours to um for recreation purposes for their dogs to run around and so on the they they should be we just haven't we haven't leased them out until basically the beginning of March we didn't want to lease it out to a soccer field or somebody like that just because no what I mean to say is like you know after school hours can somebody enter the fields correct enter the field and like you know yeah just like normally any other school one gate will be open all the VES are down so they can use the field the play Fields um the reason I'm asking is and you know pardon me there's a little you know might be gross but when I walk around my local park um I see a lot of uh dog experiment people don't pick up after their dogs yes My worry is if they bring their dogs to the school grounds and let their dogs do their stuff and not pick pick up after them might have effect that student's heal a child's health so can we put up some signs saying that know your children play here please pick up after your dogs or put some signs or something actually think we have signs at most of the schools because I know we have that at Noble for sure some problemes yep I mean we can look and see what we have for signage but yeah obviously we can put signs up but there's not much we can actually do to prevent people from not picking up after their dog I understand I mean I was G to say the one good thing is that I believe uh the city the dog park in the area should be opening up shortly right in the next month or so yeah that's when construction is GNA begin soon within a month um yeah so pretty soon the other thing on his on our side is time change it's usually dark by the time uh our gates are open after the after school programs around 6:30 so that kind of prevents people from coming out this time of year summertime is a different story right so I I would say you know if we already we have signs put up more signs I don't know if we can authorize like a fine uh of certain amount like what we have at the don't yeah that that's a big big issue but something that strikes fear in the in the you know it doesn't we don't need to go in that direction it's common sense to pick up after your dog because kids play there it's a it's their health at risk um so I just wanted to point that out to see if we can maybe add more signage okay make it more visible maybe big letters may maybe a banner whatever it is you know I'll pay for it I don't have a problem it's it's ridiculous I I get frustrated walking in the park because I cannot take two steps without understand I have dogs I pick up after my dogs and I get frustrated when other people don't too I pick up after the dogs that the people that don't pick up after the dogs so that's my job every day it's it's ridiculous and every time bending I'm getting old I cannot keep bending every time but I just wanted to present that I'm I apologize for making it gross but any other comments okay all right thank you for the presentation all right moving on uh item 11 superintendence report Dr FAS thank you um I just have really not much to report since we just recently met I just want to again extend you know a happy holiday to our barasa community wishing everyone you know a safe and restful break our students last day will be uh next Thursday on the 21st our district office will be closed for that first week and reopen right after the new year thank you thank you for that um any comments and announcements from the board um I have a couple of things to say uh first to thank council member coen's office for providing us with those grants um and uh if there's if there are schools that do need GRS maybe make them aware they don't know already uh make make them aware of uh the availability availability of those grants and if the schools don't need it maybe the PT do uh please spread the word if uh if anybody can uh utilize those grants um the uh other thing was uh I just wanted to thank the board uh for uh you know letting me serve as a president for this um uh school year it's a privilege and honor for me because uh 29 years ago when I arrived in the UN States I would have never dreamed of being in this position I knew that uh Community Services is in my blood because my parents grandparents they were always all Community me community service members so I knew I was going to do something like that but being sitting here having the privilege of sitting here would not have been in my in my um uh list at all so I thank um you for the uh trust and uh you know I I feel honored to be uh representing representing the board as a board president for this uh this school year and um uh the last thing I wanted to say is um uh after the budget stabilization presentation last week um I had some chance to reflect upon some of the U data and the comments that were made uh I I uh there was a lot of information that was given to uh the board a lot of uh heavy discussions went on um and I'm sure they made a lot of comments uh during that uh uh that presentation but just wanted to clarify that there's uh no one up here who wants to who's advocating for any of those things like any of the layoffs or the school consolidations we are not advocating for that at all it's all within the context of the data that was presented to us so it was kind of bothering me that you know we are we were um having a lot of those comments and discussions back and forth but none of them that meant that uh we are in favor of doing anything like that we just wanted to try to see what are our options and within the context of the data presented what are the options that might work that was the only uh uh point that we were trying to make that is only thing uh I wanted to share so thank you all right great moving forward to review and discussion anything there okay any public hearings I don't see any public hearings item 15 review and action um item a uh item a is uh of naming the board of board representative for the Santa Clara County committee 2024 election yes thank you um president s vason and this uh refers back to what I had mentioned earlier in the meeting it is recommended to the board to select a board member to vote in the 2024 election for members of the Santa clar County committee on School District organization your current representative has been trustee Hugo heenez who has expressed interest in continuing unless another trustee would like to take on that role trusty him menes would you like to continue that position yeah and this has basically to vote um to select the person who will be part of the committee so it's a vote to vote for the person who will then vote on any uh you know uh basically you know School uh District boundaries and and Etc yeah thank you is that a motion to um to appoint trusty himis to this position I'll move to select trusty humanis to continue serving this position I'll second it thank you it's been moved and seconded all those in favor will say I I I motion carries 4 to zero thank you uh next item Business Services um uh public hearing disclosure of the California the CCA collective bargaining umou uh sorry what did I say public hearing disclosure of the csca chapter 364 collective bargaining memorandum of understanding and berasa Union School District Dr FAS thank you it is recommended that the board first conduct a public hearing on the disclosure of cca's chapter 20 364 collective bargaining mou and then second accept the certified disclosure of the California School Employees Association and its chapter 364 collective bargaining memorandum of understanding from the Santa Clara County Office of Education thank you uh will sorry sorry so we'll open the uh public hearing any comments from um the general public seeing none we'll close the public hearing and uh the second one needs a motion correct to accept the certified disclosure I move for acceptance there a second I'll second it it's been moved and seconded all those in favor say I I I motion carries 4 to zero next item is to is for the 2023 24 first interim budget stabilization plan and presentation Dr foas it is recommended the board approve the 2023 2024 first interim report and budget stabilization plan and the district's positive certification of fiscal solvency um prior to that motion we do have a presentation here from Kevin Franklin our assistant superintendent of business right good evening once again um so the first interim is using data as of October 31st 2023 so uh by the time we end up presenting we usually have uh new information um so it kind of makes some of this outdated so I will point that out uh when we come to some of those slides but essentially this is the first update of our budget out of two we update again in March at the second interim and then um again when we do our estimated actuals with the budget so I already went over the enrollment and the separate presentation but this is this is another graph of that with the Ada you can see the Ada is funded Ada and so you can see how that kind of spiked when we had some hold harmless years and so you can see just the corresponding um dips that have corresponded with our enrollment uh uh declining and decreasing over the the last 10 plus years uh you can see too in 22 23 we had a little bit of a a bigger Gap in a lower 88 percentage and that was due to covid and a lot of the absences we were experiencing uh but we're projecting that to not be as significant and be back at the levels that we were at prior to the pandemic and we've used that to project out over the next two years so these are our budget assumptions uh that we're currently using so again I mentioned that that we updated the enrollment our enrollment is now back up over 6,000 we're originally projecting less than 6,000 students and we've updated the corresponding Ada for what we project our ada8 our ada8 to be at P2 submission which is in the springtime and that's what we're funded based off of we assume one one and a half% in step and column increases for our certificated and classified salaries stir employer contribution rate is staying constant at 19.10 the pur employer rate was when we developed this these figures right here however um a report came out last week that those estimates are changing and they're going up by I want to say I think it's 0.1% uh next year and then by about a half a percent in 2526 so we will make that adjustment in the second interim once those are all finalized um Cola is 8.22% this year that's not changing where you'll see a difference is we are currently utilizing 3.94% as Cola for next year and about a week and a half ago the legislative analysts office came out with an update for the projected Cola and the projected Cola is now projected to be 1.27% the third year 2526 is projected to be 3% so we have a significant drop in Cola projected for next year that we'll have to uh make adjustments for in the second interim and then about a quarter perc uh decrease in 2526 and that adjustment will follow as well Kevin can you please share with the board uh that drop in Cola what is the equivalent in our funding for that loss so the equivalent in the equivalent in funding for that uh for that percentage drop for 2425 is 1.82 million and then another 1.82 2 million corresponding in um 2526 so right now we don't have that revised figure because in in the budget because um we don't know what the governor is currently going to do um to address the the shortfall um but one of the other factors um at play right now is that state revenues are currently $26 billion do lower than what was projected at uh the governor's enacted budget back in June so again if you recall the state ended up pushing out the tax deadline and the tax deadline just uh we just passed it November 15th and so the tax receipts ended up being lower than projected and I want to say even back in October or uh early October they were still projecting um that they looked like they were going to come close to meeting that that number but what it's turned out to be is it's turned out to be a over $60 billion shortfall over uh last year through uh next year so again that's going to play into how much uh funding the governor has to uh currently fund schools and to fund prop 98 and so that's in addition to the to the cola adjustment that is currently um projected to happen so one of the questions too is is um you know why is the cola 1.27% so there's um eight data points that are used to calculate the cola and their every quarter and so they have most of the data points um to calculate next year's Cola there's the last data points that they'll have in the spring um but essentially what's happening is that while the cost of goods is still high the cost of goods relative to uh one year ago is relatively flat and that's why the 1.27% cola is what it is and so I think one of the areas that you can see that is um is with gas so a year ago the cost of gas compared to right now I think right now just down the street it was about uh$ 395 so it was under $4 um at the Costco gas station so when you actually think about and compare to what the price of gas was a year ago um there's not that actually much of a change there might even be a decrease and so it's factors such as that that are leading to this uh 1.27% Revision in Cola just because the cost of goods has not significantly increased year-over-year um like was projected so we've seen inflation slow down and so with the slow down of inflation we also have the lowering of the projected colas so does that make sense I think sometimes too what um gets confused is the amount of tax revenues received and how that impacts the cola the way that the tax revenue receipts impact Cola is that the governor has to have and the state have to have enough money to fund the cola and so that's where the tax receipts come into play because if there's not enough um tax revenues uh within the state the cola might not be able to be fully funded so there's a bunch of options that the the governor has there's rainy day funds there's um you know the prop 98 um Reserve fund and so um we have to wait and see how the governor decides to address this shortfall some of some of the talk to has been to to take back some of the the the onetime dollars that are owed to to districts um but again we have to wait and see what those proposals are in January we'll know those by January 10th and so then those will be then incorporated into the second interim so um keep that in mind as we go through the rest of the presentation because we are currently projecting everything based off of a higher Cola uh at this moment these are the projected general fund revenues um as of the first interim so again we experienced this increase in enrollment which corresponds to an increase in Ada which is great and it's very helpful for the district however it does not help us in the current year the only what the reason being that the district is funded based off of uh average of our Ada from the three prior years so we have an increase in the current year the current year is currently not factored into the calculation of our revenues for the for 2324 but it does impact 2425 and 2526 so we've correspondingly adjusted those revenues up as a result of uh the adjustment to the three-year average hopefully that makes sense so that's why there's not an adjustment to our current year lcff revenues there may be a slight adjustment at the second interim for supplemental dollars but we have to actually wait and see what our um what our calpads data reflects for our duplicated count and what that percentage is and so we'll have that by second entum and we'll update the supplemental dollars at that time but it won't be a significant increase uh there was a slight increase in federal revenues um but not very significant where we saw a little bit of an increase was in our state revenues and that was funds for the summer um uh employees summer assistance program that our classified staff is able to participate in and so essentially that's dollars and revenues that come in that we end up then just paying right out and it's just a pass through of dollars to our employees for participating in that program it's a dollar Ford dooll match with the state the employees set aside a dollar out of their pay tax for every dollar that they set aside to be paid out later the state matches in the summer so it's a benefit for our classified employees um there was an adjustment of $612 dollar increase um in our local revenue and a lot of that was due to uh funding from the e- rate program and e- rate reimbursements that we received this year for technology okay general fund expenditures for first interim for 2324 so we had some slight adjustments um in our salaries and benefits some of those are based on the salary settlements that we uh have currently reached with some of our uh Union partners and then we had um some increases in our books and supplies due to utilizing some of our restricted Lottery funds and donations and then we also had um an increase in our services and operating expenses some of those are because we're having to uh contract out services for hardto fill positions and other after school based program um you remember we have elop funding we're we're currently um trying to utilize and maximize that funding some of it was carryover so we have additional expenditures that we have um budgeted for on the restricted side that accounts for a lot of that increase Capital outlay has been adjusted for just some of our projects that we thought we were going to complete in the current year and those have been pushed out uh into next year just based on when those projects will be complet completed so those expenditures are not reflected uh anymore in the current year budget they'll be reflected in 2425 so our multi-year projections so what I want to make sure that I mention in our multi-year projection is that our expenditures for 2425 and 2526 include the reductions as recommended by the stabilization um plan in the stabilization plan and by the committee and so those reductions are included to meet those expenditures there that you see in 2425 and 2526 so the net result in those two years is reduced deficit spending on the unrestricted general fund side we still have restricted deficit spending that's on purpose that's spending down restricted one-time dollars and then that will level off so hopefully that makes sense those expenditure reductions are included in there and they're included along with fund 17 to meet our 3% Reserve requirement if we do not have those expenditure reductions included in the budget we would not have a positive certification we would not be able to meet the 3% Reserve requirement and we would have a negative fund balance so on the restricted side as you can see we are deficit spending still in the current year uh about $2.6 million so you see our beginning fund balance in the general fund go down from 3 million to about 400,000 however we do have a healthy enough fund balance in fund 17 and so we're able to meet our 3% reserve requirement the reserve calculation includes fund 17 uh in calculating it to meet the 3% so uh we do utilize fund 17 in all three years so again as I mentioned we have the expenditure reductions on the unrestricted general fund side included in the budget and that's where you can see that the deficit spending uh has been eliminated ated for next year and for 2526 however we do not have that $1.8 million loss in revenue and corresponding expenditures that I just mentioned uh in regard to the drop in the cola included in this so it's quite possible based on what the governor's January budget is that we will have to make additional expenditure reductions in the second interim to continue to meet our 3% reserve requirement and to keep our positive certification so again we're certifying positive um and the main and most important thing is that uh we analyze the governor's budget hopefully it's favorable I don't know how he's gonna um move around the the the state revenues to to fully fund education as he had uh promised in his enacted budget six months ago but um essentially the economy within the state has greatly changed and shifted over the past six months and specifically over the past two or three months and that has kind of led to where we're at now and needing to potentially uh commit to a subsequent expenditure reductions to meet our 3% any questions about the interum any questions from the boat um can you uh and can you please explain one more time the multi-year projection how the drop in the cola will change those will likely change those numbers of the yes SL eight I think yeah yeah I just just wanted to get a like a rough picture of how what what those numbers will look like um right so essentially we would have about a $ 1.83 million drop in our unrestricted revenues for 2425 so that 63.3 million would drop by 1.8 million so the that net result that you see there a positive 36,41 would turn into a negative 1.8 million deficit spend for next year and then that would correspondingly also move into the third year so we would have uh a negative um or we would be deficit spending in those two years and we would not have a positive ending fund balance we would probably have a positive ending fund balance at least for 2425 um because of fund 17 but we don't have enough uh Revenue in fund 17 to meet 3% there's about $2.8 million I believe sitting in fund 17 so we would only have about a million dollars counted towards our 3% 3% just shy of $3 million next year thank you and also to put uh things in perspective with these turs and the pur employer contribution I know I'm sorry I'm asking you to go back to that uh to that chart over there with the budget assumptions uh so historically just just for perspective sake because we only seeing this this year out years how uh how has the how have the contribution rates been since uh maybe in the past five years how much has it increased so I think in the past about eight years or so all of them have almost doubled so uh stirs used to be around 10% contrib employer contribution um and perss was uh I think around 14 or 12 and so they've all all of them have increased and almost doubled over the past seven to eight years and pers actually we don't have it reflected on this chart but in 26 27 27 28 the rate is over 30% oh wow I think that put undue pressure on many of the smaller school districts I think it's think we're not unique to that uh to that challenge I know but I think to add to your questions that those are also um key areas for advocacy right in terms of as the governor gets ready to present his budget in January we know that there'll be lots of advocacy done between January and may when the May revision comes out and certainly for um public education there's several critical areas in the current um in the current Governor's budget there is intent language for um additional funding like to support us with with um different initiatives that the governor has put out for us to do like T expanded TK and and elop Etc so wanting to ensure that that intent language continues to move forward you know we had um intent language with learning recovery money that they took back this year and with the intention that they may give back in the future so reminding the legislature of that intention to provide funds that they gave and then took away and and said they would give back in addition to that is um revisiting the stirs and purs in years past school districts have received an allocation of support from the legislature for those areas we've not received that in several years and um and then also just looking at you know the state prioritizing public education right and making sure that all of the initiatives the governor has put forth that we all have implemented can be sustained and we know that there's also continues to always be additional need that we have and so again it pushes for that revisit of the formula and how we are are funded overall you know across the state because we have a lot of disparity in public education between Community funded districts and state funded districts like ours and also depending on the demographics that we serve and again that's a good REM reminder about the intent language because um you know I mentioned at the special board meeting uh last last week that you know the one-time dollars that the governor uh ended up approving for for schools over during the whole covid period were um were recommended to be utilized differently than ever before so um utilizing those funds to to help keep Staffing levels the same and to increase Staffing levels and to increase services and then to have those um taken away and then given back to us with intent language that we cannot use in our budgets um that's where a lot of these shortfalls are coming from and that's where you have a lot of school districts now struggling and having to to look at Staffing reductions a lot sooner than planned for because you know a lot of districts had those budgeted and had those dollars in their multi-year projections funding staff which is not usually ever recommended that you fund one ongoing staff with onetime dollars and so uh having those funds taken away and now having the threat of even some of the intent language to help soften some of this and soften these reductions uh potentially in the future um you know they're just putting a lot of uh school districts into uh tight situations and um you know we're we all still have needs that our students have but we're not going to be able to fund those staff anymore uh because we don't have those revenues and so you know a lot of this is coming up a lot sooner because you know if you remember the go when the governor's uh budget originally came out um this past year it was a huge reduction to our one-time funds cutting them almost in half to the tune of like four to five million dollar um with the intent language I think we were scheduled to get back over the next couple of years about a million dollars uh which you can see would be very helpful for our budget but we can't count on that and we can't utilize that in our multi-year projections and now with the way the state's budget is looking it's looking more and more like we won't even um receive those dollars in the future so um that's kind of how we got to this situation right now right I I I agree and thank you for that and uh I think one one other thing area for advocacy for uh uh I hear and uh just trying to recollect these my notes from this uh the dynamic Cola right I mean because uh there there's there the cola applied throughout the state from uh end to end but it doesn't match the actual cost of living per region and I think there was some uh uh some school districts or or County Board of Education and different areas that we're talking about having a dynamic Cola um you know over here in Silicon Maly the cost of living is much higher than maybe somewhere in in in in rural area in um in California so having the same amount of cola doesn't make uh sense I think that's also something that that should be pursued by uh you know the elected officials to to try to convince but thank you thank you for that presentation really appreciate it thank you perfect uh next item on the list you need to uh we need a motion in a second to approve oh yep I missed that thank you for the reminder uh is that a motion to approve the 2023 24 first interim report budget stabilization plan and the district's positive certification of fiscal solvency there a second thank you it's been moved and seconded all those in favor will say I I I I motion passes 4 to zero uh next item on the list is board policy 1330 use of school facilities Dr Fus it is recommended the Board review and approve board policy 1330 use of school facilities for a first reading and this policy is just an update on two items um first just an updated language that the board is authorized to utilize school buildings um as voting centers on election day as well as um 10 days prior to the election in addition for any other key dates that may be needed um to drop off setup or pick up a election materials in addition to that there was a recent uh Supreme Court decision that reminded school districts that when charging religious groups direct costs for use of facilities we need to be sure those costs are on par with what we charge other similar types of organizations thank you is there a motion to review and approve board policy I'll second it okay it's been moved and second it all those in favor will say I I I motion carries 4 to zero uh next item is bottom line utility Solutions Inc agreement to replace select bathroom fixtures using the Valley Water fixture replacement program Grant Dr Fus it is recommended the board approve bottom line utility Solutions Inc agreement for the replacement of Select bathroom fixture at all School sites using the Valley Water fixture replacement program Grant perfect thank you uh is there a motion to approve uh this agreement move to approve second okay it's been moved and seconded all those in favor will say I I I motion carries 4 to zero thank you so much item C under Human Resources uh we have approval of the tentative agreement between CSA chapter 364 and berasa Union School District Dr fentis it is recommended the board approve the contract language changes in the tentative agreements with California School Employees Association chapter 364 we also thank them for their partnership in reaching this agreement thank you is there any comment is there any motion to approve I'll move to approve and uh also I want to say thank you to CSA um and thank you for your partnership and uh thank you for the work that your employees do I'll second that it's been moved and seconded all those in favor will say I I I motion carries 4 to zero thank you um next item isou between basa Union School District and Teamsters Local 1 15 regarding the 2023 24 reopener AR article 8.1 it is recommended the board adopt the memorandum of understanding between beresa union and Teamsters Local 150 regarding 2324 reopener article 8.1 and again we'd like to thank our Teamsters unit Local 150 for working closely with us on this mou thank you there any comments any motions on this move to approve there a second I'll second that it's been moved and seconded all those in favor will say I I I Mo carries four to zero thank you next item under Education Services uh item one is seventh grade comprehensive sex education curriculum presentation and recommendation um recommended adoption of Health connected agreements Dr Fus it is recommended the board approve the adoption of the health connected agreements for the comprehensive sex education curriculum for our seventh graders and we do have a presentation this evening to share with the board more about the process regarding uh this curriculum adoption by Nicole Paredes our director of curriculum and instruction good evening once again uh the purpose of this evening's presentation is to update the board and the community on the seventh grade comprehensive sex education curriculum SE selection process timeline and the recommendation it's important to understand the journey that baresa Union has been on uh with this work and so I'll take us back to January 2016 when Chia which stands for the California healthy youth act required School District to provide students with Comprehensive sexual health education at least once in high school and once in middle school and from that requirement um beresa established in Spring 2017 the healthy youth task force that served to advise on the selection of curriculum for middle school and Elementary uh Middle School adoption was prioritized at that time in 2019 the health education curriculum framework for California Public Schools was approved and in that spring uh there was a review and selection process for seventh grade comprehensive sex ed curriculum and Community participation and transparency was Paramount in that process and really set the stage for all of the work to come and so not being here at that time I certainly want to acknowledge and appreciate all of that work that happened um as it laid the foundation for the work we engaged in most recently um so in the spring of 2019 there were numerous information meetings teachers parents administrators and community members were all involved um the curriculum was available for review at the district office um the group really worked to take the curriculum which was positive prevention plus and um worked really hard to uh make adaptations that addressed the teacher and parent concerns of of that time and the feedback that they received of course um for any parents and caregivers that want to opt their child out there is an alternate curriculum that was developed and is provided uh numerous information sessions um for parents on how to initiate um those difficult conversations um both for parents and teachers and there was extensive teacher training on the positive prevention Plus curriculum and then we all faced the challenges of covid so in Spring 2020 there was a pivot um from using the adapted version of positive prevention plus um that's uh fondly referred to as the berasa version um and due to the pandemic the the shift went to using the online curriculum that positive prevention plus provided um and nearpod presentations were created to support teachers teachers were trained and how to use those resources and of course parent sessions were provided um looking to Spring 2021 the following year continued with teacher training and parent information sessions and moved forward with finally implementing positive prevention plus with the adaptations that were uh created in the previous years um and the bosd version was implemented um last school year the uh barasa verion with those adaptations um it became apparent that they needed updates and some of the resources that had been pulled in to support that uh version of the curriculum were no longer accessible and so it was very challenging and cumbersome for teachers to use the pieces that had been pulled together and some of them were not available so I moved forward and held a meeting with all of the seventh grade science teachers um really to talk about our options and next steps for what we wanted to do last school year and based on the feedback from the seventh grade science teachers the decision was to move forward and implement the buusd version again last year with the understanding and agreement that we would engage in a full curriculum review process for this school year so we did that and in Spring of 2023 last year we had teacher Representatives um middle school science teachers that engaged in a process to review several curriculum um there were four different curriculum that we reviewed and they narrowed it down to two and they were positive prevention plus um the newer version and team talk which is by Health connected and then this fall we expanded that curriculum Review Committee um to include teacher Representatives as well as parent caregiver representatives and we engaged in a full curriculum review process with very clear and established criteria and the goal was to come to consensus on a program that we could recommend for adoption and this was the timeline that we used um to engage in that work which I just described to you we started in March through May um and reviewed the initial set of curriculum and narrowed it down this October and November we expanded that committee and did the full review of the two options that were identified here we are in December with the recommendation to you uh for adoption and pending approval we will move forward in January uh to order materials train the staff and um implement the program I want to highlight and acknowledge and extend my deep gratitude for this small But Mighty um Review Committee we had three amazing middle school science teachers who committed to this process we had a parent and a grandparent who uh were fully engaged and supportive of our work uh one of our instructional coaches and I was on the committee as well and all of this work was Guided by our consultant who baresa has worked with for numerous years Heidi winig from cardia services and she really is an expert in uh the work related to comprehensive sex ed and facilitating these processes so the curriculum that the committee reviewed as I shared was um Teen Talk by Health connected and positive prevention plus the considerations and the criteria that we utilized um really aligned to these critical questions are the teaching methods and levels of information a fit for seventh grade students in varesa does the curriculum incorporate social emotional learning does the curriculum meet the needs of diverse learning abilities and styles does the curriculum support opportunities for active engagement between students their parents and caregivers and or a trusted adult whoever that may be are the lesson materials unbiased and inclusive and are there options for teacher training and support um and I should mention on the committee of those three teachers we had um both General eneral Ed and special education U middle school science teachers so the process we engaged in with our Review Committee we had two meetings um between October and November we um did an overview of the process made sure everybody understood the requirements under cha the California um healthy youth act um and what the selection criteria would consist of We did an overview of each curriculum followed by individual review where they rated it based on the criteria that we had set forward then we engaged in a collaborative review of the data and the ratings and we compared the curriculum and finally we um went through a process of consensus building in order to come to a decision on a program to recommend so uh the the consensus building process um after you know laying out all the criteria and reviewing we did an initial straw pole and you can see here that um of the five people on the committee I was not a voting member our instructional coach was not a voting member um nor was our consultant it was the teachers and the um Family Representatives um there was um one person the 20% for positive prevention plus that had concerns that needed to be addressed before they could support that the the moving forward with that recommendation and you can see with teen talk um everybody was fully and strongly in support um and or I can support this decision so we engaged in what I would call robust discussion on the strengths and weaknesses related to each program um to really understand the concerns and what people really valued um with each program and then we engaged in a vote and the question was which program is your first choice four out of five said Teen Talk Health connected was their first choice and so given that um Teen Talk didn't have anybody that said they couldn't couldn't support it um and the vote showed the majority um voted for that then we engaged in the fist to five consensus protocol um and the determination around consensus is if you're a three or higher that indicates consensus and I'm really pleased to share that of our five members four of them said they were a five and one said they were a four so very strong support for Teen Talk by Health Connect and so it was a unanimous consensus to recommend to you this evening um the adoption of Team talk there are 12 Lesson topics um that are organized into um chapters or chapters um and they all meet the requirements of CHA and so those are the topics that are covered um not different than what is covered in positive preven plus the curriculums are designed to make sure they address the required topics um parent engagement very very important um as we know and so per Chia which is the California healthy youth act um we will and we do provide parents with very specific information about what will be taught um within the comp sex ed curriculum uh we will hold parent information sessions and provide parents with access to the curriculum for their review um prior to it being implemented um parents and caregivers um of course have the right to opt their child out of some or all of the lessons and we will send a letter to them explaining that process U making sure they know the scope and sequence and what will be taught and and if they decide to opt their child out how they go about doing that and for families that do decide to op their child out we provide an alternate health and wellness curriculum um that they work through while their peers are um receiving the comp sex ed curriculum so our next steps in this process um pending your approval we will order the materials um we've designated March um possibly April but I'm leaning towards March for the professional development for the teachers um we will we have already on the calendar parent information sessions um that will be held in March and the letter to parents regarding those sessions and the opt out information and may possibly June but more than likely all May um our middle schools will provide comp sexed instruction for seventh grade our school sites select the specific dates around the activities that they have um planned in May um I want to acknowledge our curriculum Review Committee members um this list includes teachers and our parent and grandparent and then our instructional coach nand Paul and and Heidi winig once again um for supporting our work any comments or questions how long does the unit take uh to to to teach the students the publisher says one period but we looked through it uh really carefully I met with the teachers um just this week and we think most of them will take one period some of them may take two and so we're looking at at three weeks total instruction and we're we we established a recommended pacing um but you know teachers will will do what works for them um but one to two per lesson mostly one and it's in science class it is in science class yes any other comments um I had a question the um yeah you okay yeah I am I don't know why I did that you mention at the start of the presentation you didn't mention elementary schools is there anything changing the elementary school nothing changing for elementary last year I brought forward um positive prevention Plus for our fifth grade and that is what they're using no changes to that um I may be coming back to you because they're updating the curriculum and so I just want to update you on that when that happens but for this year no change and um just curious about the committee U there was only one parent and one grandparent um was it that was all us needed or only those two volunteer no I put it out districtwide more than once wow um and that I know that several of the teachers also put it forward and um the we initially had a meeting scheduled in September and I had uh one other parent that was available in September but wasn't available in the October date I had to I couldn't move forward with the September and they said please just move forward so um but we did put it out to everybody all seven all Middle School um families yeah I was just hoping for more participation I was part of the task force uh way back then when we were starting to talk about it so and we had a a room full of parents uh asking questions which is yeah so I was a little surprised when I saw only only two community community community members um on the uh committee um I just wanted to mention this because I was in the same situation uh we have a lot of immigrant families in this area um I'm one of them and we didn't grow up uh learning about this uh in schools so some of these things come as a surprise um you know what what is the teacher talking about and I just wanted to you know mention that um they should when we when we communicate talk to the parents about it uh empathize with them you know understand where they're coming from because they might be shocked uh truly shocked to look at some of the information that is U available here because there are cultural differences and uh I want to acknowledge uh my uh Middle School principal I know he's in the room I can see him in the back for for sitting with me and you know and talking to me about it uh and along with the science teacher explaining to me don't be alarmed this is nothing uh you know that's uh the kids don't know already or uh or you know so it's better they know the right thing than learning it uh the wrong way so but I just wanted to still emphasize that you know when we do communicate or interact with the parents uh let's act with some amount of empathy to understand that they don't come uh learning about these things some of these topics are pretty heavy so I just wanted to request that absolutely yes thank you thank you for the presentation perfect thank all right is there a motion to hang on is there a motion to approve the adoption of the health Connector agreement Health connected agreements for the comprehensive sex education curriculum I move to approve for a second second okay it's been moved and seconded all those in favor will say I I I motion carries 4 to Zer thank you so much moving on to the next item uh School plan uh School plan for student achievement 2023 24 School site plans Dr FES it is recommended the board approve the 2023 2024 school plans for student achievement for all of our 13 schools prior to taking your motion we will have a brief presentation as you know we have our um our lcap which leads the work in our district and our school sypa plans follow uh in alignment with the three goals that we've established so we have a goal in uh ensuring a positive learning environment we have a goal on improving our academic achievement for our students as well as increasing parenting Community engagement so I know this evening um Dr mccu will introduce some of our principles who will be sharing with you some elements that they have in their plans that they are working towards with their school communities okay real quickly I'm just going to read the purpose of school plans excuse me uh documents that represent a school cycle of continuous Improvement for student achievement the annual process of developing reviewing and updating the sipsas includes a comprehensive review of data which we work on uh with our principles um also developing actions that are necessary to achieve these goals the plan also addresses funding proposing expenditures related to state and federal categorical programs and then of course each year the school school site Council and the local governing board approve the sipsas for each schools so with that in mind our goal number one is ensuring a productive uh learning environment that promotes wellness and positive School culture for all students and we have Dr Samantha Rainer who's going to talk about what they do at Summerdale Elementary School good evening how are you um so I will start with our second bullet um so last year at Summerdale in the 2223 uh school year in January we had um a a PBIS walkthrough um so they use the tiered uh for Infidel uh for Fidelity um walkthrough tool and so that walk through um we scored 91% and so that um communicated to us that our tier one um strategies and supports from our PBIS program was very strong and so that moved us into what we thought were you know going to apply for an award but um they came back and said um how about participating in this two-year Grant which will strengthen your tier two and possibly your tier three behavior supports um in the school so with that being said we are in year one and so we are um part of this grant is looking at um our mtss and PBIS evidence-based practice and data for Equity practice for the whole that serves the whole CH child and in that um our staff is embracing the culturally relevant and sustaining practices and competencies as well as looking at the social emotional uh awareness as well as trauma informed practices and so with that our mtss PBIS team um had a two and a half day training with uh the county of Ed and in that training we that that team selected uh six modules or five modules for our staff to be trained in throughout the year the first training um took place at our October staff meeting on culturally sustaining and um uh practices culturally relevant and sustaining practices and with those module trainings uh teachers are encouraged to um do follow-up activities with their students and also um part of that work is um inviting our school Community our families to also um dig deeper into their cultural uh cultural practices um within their own family units um and so they selected five more modules our second train module training took place uh this month on planned Praises so it's taking some of those negative behaviors we see and how can we turn them into positive Praises um and being very specific in that uh that praise and so we'll continue to have these uh trainings throughout the year there's a coaching piece that's embedded in that um so it's a big undertaking and is a it's allowing us to um strengthen our mtss and PBIS team um and uh which then leads into the other bullet the top bullet which are tier two checkin check out program is another piece of our PBS program at Summerdale that is pretty strong we have um checkin checkout coordinators that meet probably B monthly to do check-ins as a team to see how our students who are part of that program is working and in that program students who need more support are provided with the mentors usually our teaching staff uh my secretary my clerk are also mentors um anyone that the student can see cons consistently um they set Behavior goals they check in in the morning they check in in the afternoon and there are incentives incentives that are um part of that program to keep the students engaged and motivated but changing that behavior the negative behavior into more positive behavior and it has been very successful um and we do um acknowledge and celebrate our students with a checkin checkout breakfast uh that our social worker Mr Hare um cooks for everyone our mentor and mentees um and so it's a program that um I'm very proud that sommerdale has um because it gives us that next level to support uh our students with behavior and then our third bullet um our social worker is um doing has been doing for the last couple of years with our third through fifth grade students who tend to have a little bit more um um you know more work to do work uh to have more work around with the social behaviors and so um forming those uh social groups at lunch um is something that he does and does very well and that interaction with the with with each other helps them to be able to communicate better with each other especially when there aren't a lot of adults around so um so that's some of the things that suell is doing and uh we're deepening the work as we move along thank you Dr rer I also just wanted to say you know I think what's really critical to the work that they're doing with PBIS is we know consistency especially for our younger children in elementary having consistency regarding um you know student expectations and what is that climate that we want for our school how do we want students to feel um not just in the classroom but you know how should they be when they're in the cafeteria when they're out in the playground um having you know staff model that behavior for them as well as you know um mentoring them and guiding them to make better decisions I think um I just want to commend you and your staff for taking the time to really dig in and have those conversations so that uh across your school um everybody knows like how it is to be a Summerdale star and that you know that's what they want to thrive to do too thank you all right uh moving on to goal number two improving student achievement for all students by providing comic cor State Standards instruction with the Strategic use of technology and providing professional development for all staff and we have Miss Tina Tong Choy from Cherrywood Elementary good evening chusty is an executive board I'd just like to highlight some of the programming that we have going on and um first we like to provide engaging resources and we really expanded kind of Beyond just using the technology and really encouraging students to utilize it further so for example for Accelerated Reader we've developed program where they're using the computer program but we've also developed nine Milestones that students can reach and just last Friday we had our first AR assembly of the year and we were able to award 412 U Milestone prizes to students so it's really about getting students to read more enjoy reading also we've been able to utilize our level learning program so this is a program that our Mandarin immersion students use and it helps teachers be able to know what reading level they're at and students and also they're able to um students are able to expose themselves to many different reading resources that uh we don't necessarily have in our library so it's really expanded the learning opportunities for them there also parents are able to get reports to see what kind of learning is happening um especially in the area of reading uh also for Imagine Learning our students have been utilizing that in this fall our one of our third grade classes was recognized for the uh National Ready Set solve um program and they were one of five schools in Northern California to receive that award as far as professional development goes uh the latest professional development that the staff has been involved in is going to the National Chinese learning conference and also cab and once again our teachers have been very involved in this um professional development because they don't only attend the conferences they have presented and nine out of our 10 Mandarin immersion teachers so far have presented at either one of those conferences and as we expand and take in the professional learning today I was notified that we will also be a site for professional learning for the national Chinese language conference this coming may we are going to be a host site and that means we'll have 20 to 30 uh teachers ad ministrators uh traveling from across the country even some International uh Educators who will have the opportunity to come and see the programming that is happening at Cherrywood so very excited that professional development happens both ways at Cherrywood uh as far as our library collection that also is related to just the global competency learning that we've been really trying to strive for as a school and so as uh different programming is happening such as Dali such as Hispanic Heritage Month Lunar New Year our librarian also has done a great job expanding um our Multicultural book collection as well as our bilingual collection so uh the students in that picture during devali they weren't only reading stories but she also provides um opportunities for them to expand their reading by doing activities they happen to fold origami ideas in that picture so uh students are very engaged in checking out different literature as well as being provided that literature and also we've really benefited from Dr Nikki Nikki's strategy Keepers training so over half of our staff has um participated in that professional development and last year we had eight staff members actually go through the year-long training so our staff is very well trained and so we have spent uh resources on trying to bring that to our students bring that to our parents at parent coffees we've been able to provide literature that's uh parents can use at home to continue the strategies with their students and continue the same language also our teachers have been able to purchase we've been able to purchase things like breathing buddies breathing balls um literature also to help support uh that learning and we've definitely seen um an increase in just students being more mindful both in the classroom and outside of the classroom and then as far as uh instructional rounds and demonstration lessons I think we've really been able to benefit from demonstration lessons and teachers being able to go into each other's classrooms so as we have an a different learning model uh at sherrywood teachers really need to be collaborative they need to know what's going on in each other's classrooms and so we have set aside funds so that they have the time to do that and we also have been able to utilize our instructional coach to continue the learning after the demonstration lessons so that new strategies can be implemented new ways of organizing classrooms and curriculum can truly be uh utilized and um sustainable so those are some of the things that are happening and I'm proud to say that Cherrywood continues to um grow uh academically and also just um helping our students be um effective Global Citizens thank you thank you thank you so much again I just want to thank principal Choy and her entire staff at Cherrywood for all of this work that they've done to support both their Mandarin program as well as their students who are not in the Mandarin program and making sure they have equal access to learning all of the cultural richness that Chinese culture brings I think they've worked hard at that and also just their Multicultural work I know they've been host to Ruby Bridges events year after year and that's also another opportunity to engage the students as well as their community so thank you for that work and congratulations okay moving ahead to goal number three increasing parent and Community involvement and education and we have Miss Tua burough from Lane View Elementary School who's going to talk about what's going on at Lane view good evening how's everyone doing this evening so I'm happy to be here to talk about rebuilding Community involvement after covid right with parents and the larger community so what we've been doing at Lan view is we are bringing back what they had before right before everything got shut down so we're having our seal Gallery walks if you have time we're having our first first grade one Tuesday I think it's at 1 1:30 I could let you know the time if you're able to come and participate in that um we're gonna have Avid showcases so Avid is at elementary is fourth and fifth grade so they're going to start having those events for parents to come in and then having our parent Workshop so we surveyed the parents for some ideas so when we come back in January AR the first one that we're going to have is going to be about school reluctance because you know that's the real thing why some students are scared to come to school so we need to kind of address how how can parents address that issue with their children um so having parents socials so in the one little picture there that was our first day of school parent breakfast so being able to provide those opportunities for parents to come and have conversations with other people at school other parents and larger School staff and community so that they're able to just have those conversations and last year we started with our school social worker having many lessons during those times so we're continuing to do that this year so that again we're providing that education that parents were asking about um or mentioning in the survey when we ask them for ideas we are also in the process of bringing PBIS to lame view so we have a PBIS leadership team that is functioning as school sites members and we are recruiting for parent members starting with PTA School sou Council but one of our biggest goals to expand to our larger parent Community we want all parent voices so that's something we're still trying to figure out as a staff how do we bring our other parents in who are unable to be as involved as our PTA parents maybe how can we get them in as well and we also had last year was our first one we ever had was a steam night that was in collaboration with the teachers and PTA and that was a very successful event so we're having an a the second one this year in May um actually I believe it's May 23rd they already have that date because they really gungho about it so that was a very fun night because the kids were able to have um to participate in different events that the parents ran um and pretty much that said one thing I'm really trying to do again is getting that further involvement with all of our parents so trying to figure out do we need to have things at night record them during the day so that's what we're talking about I'm asking parents when I see them in the morning because as we know this is one of the harder things making sure we have every voice in the room with our School site so any further ideas I'm always asking the community and the parents what can we do to include them in what we're trying to do at Lan view thank you thank you in my experience I think the best best time to trap the parents is in the during drop off have a coffee chat coffee and donuts they never say no to that so just just tell them please this is the way for donuts and this I've been there so thank you principal burrows for uh your presentation I know it's a lot of work to come up with all these different opportunities different times of day to try to reach our parents and you you know I know that participation will grow with all of the different strategies that you're trying to put into place and I know this isn't about parent engagement but more on the instructional side I just also want to mention I I received this week a notice from one of your teachers principal burls very proud that they were certified for their Avid uh walkthr and really excited about being able to achieve that so again like PBIS and other programs that we do uh consistency in those strategies is so important to make sure that the students are are understanding the um benefits of that and that they're putting that into practice with their learning so I know your your Avid team was very excited to make that uh first you know pillar of accomplishment they sent it my way to make sure I knew about it and so congratulations to all of them for reaching that Milestone WR and just want to thank all of our principles for coming out tonight and all their hard work on their sipsas I know they enjoy reading my feedback and comments and it's a collaborative effort and so I also want to um also um thank Hong ho she also is very valuable in this process helping uh with the data and um our other ed services team members so thank you very much thank you any other comments from the board so thank you for the opportunity thank you for the presentation thanks for all the hard work all right on this item hang on y all right um so do we have a motion to approve the 2324 Suba plan for the all 13 schools I move to approve is there a second I'll second it it's been moved and seconded all those in favor will say I I I motion carries 4 to zero thank you so much all right moving forward to item e uh under B [Laughter] program thank you all for being here tonight under Bond program item uh one is is reject all bids for bid B 01223 24 hgac and roof replacement for the old District project Dr it is recommended the board reject all bids received for bid B1 20232 24 HVAC and roof replacement for the uh previous district office project over at pedmont as was mentioned earlier uh during our bond presentation perfect thank you is there a motion for this item I move to reject second okay it's been moved and seconded all those in favor will say I I I motion carries uh 4 to zero thank you item two build Corp Inc approval of an agreement for the LED light replacement project phase two at Lane View and Rus and elementary schools Dr Fus it is recommended the board approve the agreement with build core Inc the lowest responsive and responsible bidder for bid B22 2023 24 LED light replacement phase two at Lane View and rcin perfect have any questions that a motion I'll move to approve this agreement with build Cor in thank you second it's been moved and seconded all those in favor will say I I motion carries 4 to zero thank you item 16 request for staff followup is there anything from the board I think any items F future agendas I think as such and I'll entertain a motion for adjournment second that second all those in favor will say I I meeting adjourned at 9:15 p.m.

78 salaries and benefits reflect position control as of November 1st including vacancies um and a big one budgeted salaries and benefits now reflect compensation increase that you guys approved uh in September so that wasn't included in the original budget because it wasn't approved yet so you will see an increase in salaries and benefits um I'll turn it over to Sharice now thank you good evening board okay so this chart is a comparison of the original budget that we brought to you in June and the first inter in projections that we're bringing to you to this evening and then the difference between those two categories so this chart is a summary of all unrestricted um comparisons and then we're going to break down what those differences look like look like in each category here in the next few slides okay so this first one talks about revenues um the big decrease in the lcff revenues that has to do with a lower unduplicated pupil percentage so um it didn't drop that much but it's a large amount of funding um as we as we know any small changes in Ada um and unduplicated those can largely affect our our funding in lcf uh state revenue there was a little bit of an increase um unrestricted Lottery had a change in the rate since our original budget um and then Transportation Revenue that went up as well the reason for this is we have our final numbers from um the 2223 school year and that drives our revenue for our transportation that we get um from the the state and then um the small increase in local Revenue has to do with facilities use as well as a small uptick in e- rate Revenue okay so this pie chart we bring to you guys just so you can see how much lcff affects our unrestricted revenues um as you can see it's 96% um and that's our local control funding formula it's made up of state aid property taxes um and and lose so that's 96% then we have small amounts that are on the unrestricted side as well for revenues okay and then this is a chart that just shows the differences on the expenditure side so those top three as you can see the certificated classified salaries and employee benefits all of those increase due to the compensation increase that um Marie referenced um books and supplies and then also Capital outlay those two increased due to our transportation vehicles um those were part of the the committed reserves that were brought to you guys last year so it will hit the bottom line in the reserves category and the committed reserves will just fall off of that $2 million that you guys said we wanted to yes shice the um Services other operating that th000 explain again why so sorry I kind of skipped around Eileen so see how on books and supplies as well as capital outlay it has transportation vehicles in both of those and that's the reason the reason for that is certain Transportation Vehicles if they're over a certain amount they qualify for Capital outlay but between those two categories we increased $2 million because of the transportation vehicles that are part of the committed reserves does that make a little more sense sorry I skipped over utilities I'll go back to it okay so the service is another um operating decrease due to utility costs at this point we have better trending information and so that decreased in that category um and then the other outgo is we have a lower enrollment in our bu County Community School okay so this chart just shows all of the unrestricted expenditures as well as our special ed contribution um as you guys as we've stated in the past those four green categories those are mostly made up of um salaries and benefits and that has to do with Staffing so Chic unified most expenditures come from Staffing because we're in the people business um so that's what the breakdown is on this chart so that's 88% of our total expenditures comes from special ed uh contribution as well as the salaries and benefits okay and then this last difference or um I'm sorry this last description of the um the breakdown of the unrestricted so we have transfers in from other funds we have the RDA pass through that's going to be about 3.7 million is what we're projecting right now um and that goes to help us pay for our restrict our routine restricted maintenance account so what you guys know is maintenance and operations um developer fee admin support that's 3% of the total fees that we collect over the course of the year and then on the contributions side it's about 31 almost 32 million um about 25 million of that is special ed and that was an increase of about 2.2 million over our original budget that we brought to you guys and the reason for that increase has to do with the compensation increase as well and then we also had an increase in our non-public school uh students in special ed okay and I'm gonna hand it over to Jacqueline all right so as um Sher and Maria talked about for the current year the other thing we always do is do a multi-year projection um at you know December in this point we're starting to talk about the program for 2425 so in our multi-year projection um we use historical enrollment to kind of project future enrollment by cohort by grade um right now we're still being funded on a three-year average the hope is if we can continue to grow that we'll actually be funded on current year but we're not quite there yet which means our enrollment isn't where it was preco essentially um I do want to point out that our multi-year projection as of this evening is based on the department of finances Cola projections um at 3.94 for next school year and 3.29 in the third year um we are getting notification from the state that that Cola is definitely softening um and the anticipate anticipation sorry I can't speak anticipation um that Cola will not nearly be that High um when the governor comes out with this proposal come um honor before January 10th the other piece I want to speak to on here rather than read all this is the very bottom one um we are backing out in 2425 um one onetime expenditures of which we had a significant value this year um as Sher alluded to our um transportation department um instantly started ordering once the board approved the $2 million to get vehicles so we could actually get them in the door um related to diesel emission changes we wanted to get on those early there was also some it infrastructure that were one time in nature as well um so because they're one time we don't want to carry those forward into future years so we decrease those in the out years there we go um so this is the multi-year projection in front of you you can see in the current year we show a negative change in fund balance of 5.4 million um which is a lot um but here's why it doesn't concern me because we have several million dollars of one-time expenditures so when you back those out we're closer to about a million dollars um which on a budget this size is very manageable we have very healthy reserves um to weather the deficits um as projected in in you know with the higher Cola um in the two out years so for example the onetime expenditures we talked about um were the transportation Vehicles the other really large one was the finalization of all of our shade structures um which according to Julie kissell will be all completed by the end of this month so that is great for our kids to be able to have shade um come spring when when temperatures start heating up significantly so the other piece that um does continue to hit our budget every single year um and is a constraint to the ongoing money is our Pur increases at this time stirs has stabilized at 19.1% and that's the the percentage that the employer contributes um towards the state pension um the pur percentage continues to grow so what I want to reinforce here is that these are increases year over-year these are not increases for that particular year um so for example in 20 2 23 was 1.4 million and then in the current year it would be an additional 840,000 and next year an additional 500,000 right so these Compound on top of each other um because of the increasing rate which is the very bottom line so right now they're projected in 2526 to be over 28% on the employer contribution related to purs um so it's definitely a constraint um on our budget but a reality of having pers members as part of the school district too so that's part of the managing um that we'll look at going forward cash cash is going to be really really important I think as we see um softening in the state revenues with the governor um as they have in the past and deferrals cash deferrals which is a way for the state to make a cut but not really make a cut they say here's the check that we owe you on June 30 and we'll pay you July 6th it's only six more days right but the state can say that that's an expenditure for the future year and therefore it's a cut in the current year um so it'll be really important that we really monitor cash going forward um and keep a strong balance there um obviously as we deficit spending that will go down so that would also be part of the managing piece but very very similar Trends year-over-year November is always our hardest month um we we spend all our money and then we get property taxes in December and so that's where we see that big spike and then we typically see another spike in April so the good news and all of that but going back to one slide there yeah um let me see if I can there we go the projection doesn't look very uh doesn't look very favorable and that's because we're deficit spending over $5 million for the current year um then that will stabilize out as we as we control the budget but the pattern will be very similar starting out spending money over over the first five months December spikes with property taxes and typically Federal reimbursements related to our title programs um come in in the second half of the year as well so right now we're we're basically right in the middle of the table right there right and so uh our cash flow is going down right because we're spending more than we're than I mean the definition of deficit is you're spending more than what's coming is right about when school will end you know getting that's about right about there um so what will that look like I mean I mean it will look like we're going to be operating in a in in the red at that point in time am I not reading this correctly it's just lower than previous years it is lower than previous years because we're deficit spending we're spending more than we're bringing in but we will still project to end the year with a $50 million in the bank okay all right thank you yeah so the left access access is all positive numb I got the concern would be be if it dip below zero oh okay is there a secret to that there we go um so the good news is we have to self-certify and I'm happy to say we are self-certifying a positive budget which means we can make all of our obligations in the current year and the two out years um so after the board takes action this evening we will smend submit all the required documentation um to but County Office of Education by December 15th which is required by Ed code so next steps more importantly where do we go from here so like I referred to earlier honor before January 10th the governor will be coming out with his proposal um for the 2425 school year um we already know that there'll be a softening of statutory Cola um the legislative analysts office came out and said um as a result of Lower State revenues um the three-year deficit is about $68 billion from a state perspective um so we don't know at this point what that will mean for prop 98 which is the funding for K12 um schools um and where the governor may choose to put his priorities on what aspects of prop 98 will be funded and what would not be so we'll certainly be looking at that uh continue to monitor enrollment in the current year but more importantly look at attendance of the current year because ultimately that is what we are funded on um and then we've already started converstion regarding 2425 um but we'll be in active conversations with Jay and his team related to what does that look like um given the feedback from our community U meetings as well as looking at our lcap goals and that plan that will go forward at the same time as our budget and that's all we have this evening is there any questions I have on the next steps I know January 10th is the governor and then January 15th we is P1 attendance reporting period one attendance reporting for for all leas up and down the state right so we'll have our first Glimpse at the attendance rate for our students my question re is revolving around um the steps that we've already begun actually for um putting together our lcap for next year and um our if we need to make cuts the timelines there I'm aware of them but I'm I'm concerned about the um the June deadline for I uh the lcap and and having you know that F because all of the the input and and stuff is is happening through um early May right yeah we'll be doing those um meetings through March and through May and then again those are recommendations from our community and what we want to keep right and not and then we will make decisions off of what those meetings stating um through priorities and from those meetings from not just from our community but from our students but um we will have an idea U from past meetings and where we've been we probably had 12 meetings already this year on direction of what's working and what's not working and so we're going to have to make some possibly make some tough decisions on those priorities of what um the community is saying um what to keep it's the what's work working that concerns me because I think that that the money that we put into uh student supports through counseling and and other interventions is working even though you know we've got issues with the things that we've talked about here tonight with student behaviors and and those kinds of things the things that are going to help I think stabilize and and move that um issue um in a positive manner forward are those Personnel that have been providing support and we are a Personnel uh district and so if we're going to need to make Cuts you make them early and I say we're looking at a three or four year problem with funding you don't want to wait until the Third thir year to start making your Cuts you plan well and you make your Cuts as early as possible so that the impact in the third year out if the state hasn't recovered oh my god um and so I I just I guess I'm sounding my own alarm to pay for us me as a board member to pay really close attention to evaluating the what's working I don't want I think um some of us have been here we've had to make Cuts before unfortunately and um knowing those priorities but as jacine has told us before and has told us I'm cutting $1 this year is like $2 the following year and four the following the year after that so um we do the best we can to make our Cuts obviously everything we do is for students but we're going to try to if we do have to make cuts and and we'll wait until January when we we make those decisions we'll keep them as far as away from students and student support systems and the stuff that we're um doing for academics also because those are very important for us too here's a fun question so what's kind of the loow hanging fruit out there I I think we need to have an opportunity to look at that a little more closely because again we've just begun these discussions and I really don't don't want to send shock waves and alarms out there where anybody thinks oh my gosh there goes you know X Y or Z but eileene you are absolutely right come June 26 which is our last board meeting um where we have to approve the elcap it does have to align with our budget so you know it may not be the same but we're not going to get there by just saying oh goodbye to this it's going to take a thoughtful approach in some time at that point we'll be making some honest conversations if we do have to make Cuts with our community in those lcap meetings and saying okay these are things that we have funded before when we you know we had a certain amount of funds but we if we're going to make you know Cuts we're going to need your guys' input um also but again as timelines and and um uh that we have to meet in March um make some very tough decisions before those meetings what I know we can do between now and and the January conversations is be sure that we have our processes and protocols in place so if we have to make decisions we're making them in the most thoughtful manner possible that includes um involving Union leadership in those conversations to ensure that again if we have to make um tough decisions the process and policy is in place um to make sure that um we you know we handle the humanity um in those situations we've been very fortunate to um to have that growth mindset when it comes to our grants um so we are able to protect some of our main things that you're talking about when it comes to um things that are working for our students but again we'll have some other things that we'll continue U Michelle bunch and the team that's constantly through Community Schools and other grants that we're looking at to try to keep some of the support services through grants but again we'll um we'll come back um after the January 10th to 15th to try to figure out if we're what we're our next steps will be and then as always we're always back in March for second inter room so that um presentation will incorporate anything proposed in the governor's um budget that comes out in January so that's statutorily required as well yes and hopefully our attendance rate is is up which would always be a great thing um not only fiscally but certainly you know kids aren't learning when they're not in school right and so we need we need kids in the classroom to be learning so it's it's win-win in my from my perspective any other questions from the board okay and we don't have we do not have public comment and so um I'll ask for a motion I move we accept this U report as presented seconded all right we have a a motion from Mr tennis and a second from Mr Lando uh um I believe we were unanimous last time yes we were thank you um so let's uh just all say I if you approve I I and thank you staff thank you by the way that was a good that was a good presentation sorry was in my own head about taking too long um moving on to 10.3 Human Resources uh 10.3.1 discussion action on resolution number 1622 d23 a resolution authorizing Personnel commission stiens to be used for direct payment to the chico Community scholarship Association by Mr Shephard all right thank you president Doby so before you is a resolution essentially to recognize the generous willingness of our Personnel commission who essentially are in a position to um to Monitor and sometimes mandate some of the um ramifications of us being a merit system within the classified um Division and um I'm going to name them even though they're not named in this resolution because I think it's important for the public to understand the commitment uh the personal commission members make to ensuring that um we we Implement policy uh with Fidelity so we have Gloria bever and Scott Jones and Beverly Patrick who again are are willing to generous ly um sacrifice the stiens that they are um that they deserve to support the chico um scholarship Association so the resolution before you is to um is to recognize their willingness I do need to point out and I would hope that any uh motion that's made will include a change to the date at the bottom of the resolution um is initially proposed to be presented um during the November 15th board meeting and sitting here I realized that had not been um amended to reflect tonight's board meeting date no questions no comments no public comment do we have a motion I move approval with but I think we should change the date on the last paragraph uh from 15th day of November 2023 to 13th day of December 2023 thank you I'll second that second that MO motion with thanks to the um Personnel Commissioners that uh they meet at least once a month and there have been times when they've come in more often and it uh they they have a lot to do they do there's a lot involved in approving the stuff in that department and I appreciate their work all right with that um they don't get paid for for doing it no this is the this is the stipend that you would be authorizing be um donated to the chico scholarship Association yeah and it's really big hearted of them to donate that much time oh you're good um okay um with no further discussion I'll call for a vote uh all those in favor please say I I I it's unanimous um much appreciation to them for their generosity um next is 10.3.2 discussion action on resolution resolution number uh 1623 d23 elimination of classified services and ordering layoffs in the classified service for the 2324 school year thank you president Doby so as always when we have a reduction in positions um specifically this one is for uh Kuma non um represented U members they're not represented by CSEA and when we are in a situation where there's uh no longer funding or and usually no longer a need um we bring resolutions to the board as we have as we did two months ago and the month before that um requesting that these um that these be eliminated okay so for clarification there is not an individual in any of these particular roles I'm glad you asked that question and I need you to ask it every time it's great correct there is not an specific person um attached to these positions okay um any public comment I have none here um I'll call for a motion sorry is your mic on no my mic was not on I move approval resolution 1623 d23 the elim elimination of the three designated positions second I have a proposed amendment oh uh I think we should change the date in the last paragraph from November 15th 2023 to December 13 sketch just seeing if you're awake anybody is it's you accept it as do you accept that Amendment yes I accept Okay we see you I want I want to see all this in the minutes next month all right word for word all right so uh the motion is to approve with the with the change of the date at the bottom to reflect today's date uh all those in favor I it's unanimous moving along you guys make such long titles uh 10.3.3 discussion action resolution number 16242 3 elimination of classified services and ordering layoffs in the classified service for the 23 24 school year thank you and again as I said these are very similar resolutions this one is related to a CS a position it is represented by CCA however the position is no longer needed so the the recommendation is for the um to remove this position and yes we're going to need to change the date again yes I understand my my my um order I was just looking at um um the attachment there it is that was weird um okay and so this and this position isn't needed somewhere else correct okay typically in these situations my understanding is that um these positions are really small pieces of someone's position and they uh we add to that position so the position itself grows and so we eliminate the smaller piece mhm okay with the date change with date change yeah um I'm going to move approval that we approve this uh for um as it is but with the date change for today's date that was horribly worded so I'm going a trust Rio to make that make more sense second second H by member tennis all those in favor I I I um and then uh the next item is 10.3.4 um discussion action updated 2425 student calendar so again thank you president Doby so this there are three changes to the calendar that was approved um actually a couple of years ago uh we realized after uh reviewing the calendar a little more detail for the 2425 uh calendar year I want to make sure people um understand that that the uh start date of the school year was incorrect um on the previous calendar it was I believe August 15th and it's actually August 19th to make sure we get the right dates we did add the districtwide um staff development dates those are in green those weren't on the previous calendar and we also added excuse me we we shifted because of the date this the first um day of school change we shifted the elementary minimum days which are in the light blue we shifted those a week so we have those three changes um to make sure we accurately represent what that school year should look like I got a question are there any fewer were in class days on with these changes there can't be okay yeah that the the student EXC me the teacher contract requires the same days if I'm interpreting your question correctly 180 student days um so every year this the student calendar has to have 180 student days okay okay so see no further questions and no public comment do we have a motion I move adoption of this calendar the substantive change being that the first day of next school year will be August 19th second okay um just a interesting not truly a discussion point but um this there's a there's a few people who sometimes reach out to me about the February days and um making it either two three-day weekends in a row or one 4-day weekend and it also happens to align with Super Bowl Sunday um and yeah so there's been requests that I've gotten um several times in the past about you know making it be two three-day weekends so that there's a Monday off after Super Bowl Sunday um which is an interesting I'm just putting I'm just putting that I want everybody else to carry the burden of of that as opposed to as as opposed to the 4 Day weekend 14 15 167 yeah this well interestingly this school year we will have that happen so we have two 3-day weekends for some reason in February this school year but not next school year so it may be interesting to see if there's a difference in attendance data compared to like last year for example because there may be there may be an impact on attendance staff attendance um yeah so anyway just just Dear season is what Alters staff attend yeah Dear season hunting seasons for sure um okay all those in favor of approval I I thank you um next up is uh board that's us 10.4.1 is informational board will discuss information obtained from sessions attended at the California school boards association annual education conference question seeing that we are at 9:20 um I mean I I can I am prepared to share what I took away from it prepared to share um um so we can we can just rattle it off real quick and not put it off for another meeting um is there any particular feelings about about it yeah I don't know that I'd use the word choice rattle it off but yeah I I kind of I think that's no we only have five minutes A lot it yeah you're I'll have to turn theer I think we should get it done oh right I saw that so we can set a timer and when we get to our one minute you have to stop okay um great well who would like to start I'll start um I was I went to the uh there was a couple of sessions that involved student behaviors one that was specifically focused on student discipline and um there was uh zero diversity of opinion on the panel zero I mean everyone made comments that were just I mean by way of observation very much in line with sort of your reaction that hey you we're g to do we're doing a great job here and and uh yes you know there may be discipline problems out there in the world but really they didn't even say that they just said there's just really great things you can do to help control student behavior and they were all in the vein of you know just sort of positive reinforcements and you know just the the tears of things that are valuable but but there was a no rec there was no discussion whatsoever of whatever that code section is uh k um zero mention of it which I thought given that this is the csba conference in San Francisco it was an hour and 15minute session you had a panel of experts from you know like the greatest Minds from just they were mum on it and and you know I thought that was um not cool did you ask a question about it I tried there wasn't they didn't leave any time for questions honestly yeah um there was only two questions asked so I actually came away from the conference overall with um a bit of a bad taste in my mouth feeling like uh they need to do more advocacy on behalf of school boards you know um there is a um I mean I could get very philosophical here and just say in that environment I don't think they're looking for lively sessions with people on a panels of differing opinions uh you know meanwhile while that was going on you know that very same day I think or thereabouts was you know a really spirited debate between Ronda Sanz and Gavin new you know and I just say that to say that like hey you know there there's there's a value in in batting around ideas and getting different opinions I mean uh you know you know I mean uh it's just a conversation at a csba meeting you know but there's no reason why you can't you know liven it up a little bit by having people of different views so if I was going to give any feedback I would I would say that to them has anybody been to one of the table talks that they have like on the trade show floor it's like always kind of at a in between time or overlapping time I don't think they had them this year did they did yeah did did did those give it more of an opportunity to kind of have those you know more lively they did last year I went last year yeah didn't remember the I do remember there was a lot of like round T discussion that would be maybe something to remember for next time um because there were there was always one or two on my I always had a long list of ones I wanted to go to that were always at the same time but um but yeah to maybe actually lean into that a little bit more and um on that I just this is not my share out but on on that similar note the very last session I attended um the board president that was part of the presentation panel emphasize to the crowd a lot of times to do the survey and really emphasize that we need more information on this topic um so I think that they need to hear feedback from us that they're not they're missing the mark in a sense so um that's good feedback Matt is there anything else you want to add along the same um sort of train of thought I went one of the dis um topics I went in um was safety and it I was to hear kind of a variety of safety issues um maybe even issues regarding um staff and um student behaviors and um things of that nature but it was basically all directed at um school shooting situations which although that is obviously the the greatest fear I feel like there's there's so many other like issues in regards to safety that I would have hoped we could have you know talked about others but that to say I I think what I appreciated it was just an opportunity to spend time together and get to know each other and um something we actually don't ever do it's hard to do when you're bound by the brown act um did you have any anything else while you have the mic to share out that you want to sh awesome she seeded her time to me well I'm not going to seed my time to you but I am going to agree with you um there was one session um that I found extremely valuable because they were very specific about the laws surrounding the topic um how they developed where they were and what the implementation was the rest of the topics that I attended um were not on point but it was because Chico Unified was way ahead of what they were presenting we were already been there done that and um there wasn't an opportunity for dialogue you know with even with the presenters you're not talking about the same session I was in you're talking about a different one yeah yeah yeah no it was a different everyone um but the principle's the same I was yeah I was disappointed because there wasn't more of an opportunity to do the round table discussions that I found very helpful in the years past that yeah I was missing that too there was several sessions that I I got a lot out of I thought were really valuable but I think it would have been nice if there was an additional you know a little bit amount of time built into to really talk among or have some kind of lad discussion instead of just absorbing absorbing absorbing you know laws and statutes and case law case studies and Etc um uh is there more that you no okay great thank you in that case two that really stuck out to me were um actually ones in which a lot of questions were asked and answered which I really appreciated um one hopefully we'll be talking about as a whole group later on um because I made a move to agenda as a discussion about having student board members we've done in the past and I still think it would be really valuable to have um some of our high school students uh up here with us being a part of this discussion about things that affect them so uh got a lot of information about how student board members are legally uh selected and implemented and what rights and responsibility they have so I look forward to having that discussion when that item comes up um and then there was a good uh discussion on uh Community Schools which I think three of us attended um which basically said that everyone knows we need to do this and there's a bajillion resources but no one has the right the perfect plan yet so again looking forward to uh our discussion of that upcoming about exactly how we can wrap around services in a way that really affects student outcomes positively and there a ton of resources I'm still sifting through all the things that they they threw at us but I look forward to sharing that as well oh my mic's already on um I'm gonna try to go fast uh I got a lot out of most of the sessions I went to um the first one on my Quick List quick I'm gonna be quick I'm sorry um is was also a different presentation on student board members it was presented on by Shasta County Office of Education and Franklin cvy um this is a second presentation by Franklin cubby I've attended at csba I did one last year and one this year different topics but um they seem to have and maybe they're just good salespeople um but that's sorry it's this it's a company that does um the seven Hab Habits of Highly Effective XYZ and also um one of my favorite um books that kind of led me inspired me as a early teacher was the leader in me um and having that program in schools anyway so Franklin cubby was there um supporting the student board members concept and um Shasta County Office of Ed and chaste high schools have student board members and so hearing that those anecdotes was was really powerful um and and how they do their process as well um the next one I went to was a superintendent evaluation um session which was was kind of enlightening for me um and maybe something that we talk about um in the in the future um in kind of more formalizing the process um uh revisit the idea of having a strategic plan that is a umbrella uh that encapsulates our lcap and our um our facilities master plan and our budget and and and um so what they do as brief as possible is um as a board um and as a staff obviously set strategic goals they usually have about six um and then the board agrees on four to six priorities um and one to two governance standards which are csba governance standards to set the evaluation based on each year and then they they get Revisited every monthly meeting um during close session the superintendent reports on how how progress is being made on those goals and so it's a um and then there's a midterm and it's just a little bit more firmed up um and and all the agenda items are linked to those six four to six strategic plan goals um in some way uh so anyway I I thought it was a really good presentation um I think that you know there's room for improvement in both of our superintendent evaluation process to make it more meaningful for us and for staff um as well as our board self-evaluation which um Franklin cubby also has a lot to say on that but that wasn't a Franklin cvy presentation that was a csba presentation so they have facilitators for those processes as well um I have like 10 pages of notes you guys I'm sorry and I'm not going to obviously read them I went to a chronic absenteeism um work uh presentation that was um really enlightening uh really talking about relationship building and SCH you know schoolwide approach um something that stood out to me was um that 20% is what they stated is like a threshold of chronic absentee um cases on a campus that impact then that 20% threshold so if you have 20% of your student population that that um are are labeled as chronic absentee um students it impacts the entire student population so so um that was an interesting points maybe that we kind of revisit at some point because I know that we do have some some issues with uh chronic absenteeism I don't know to what degree off the top of my head uh one that I went to that um I cried in was uh the presentation called the inclusion Trifecta it was presented by Murietta Valley Unified School District District um and this was a program a a relationship based Paradigm of academics activities and Athletics to build a meaningful inclusive campus and actually School District it's the entire District that has really kind of leaned into this um and so they have a few programs under that they have um student mentors like our little buddy system but on every secondary campus um and and uh I can talk a long time about that but I'm not going to uh we can maybe dive into that a little bit deeper at some point um they also do uh co- teing um in in a very particular way and then um uh so basically core subjects are required to have co- teing sections um at all of their secondary schools and then Athletics and this is the part that like I really got emotional about um is that you know obviously they're also partner I shouldn't say Obviously but they are partner partnering with Special Olympics which is great but they also have a Unified sports program um and so a unified Champion schools is what it's called and um they they hold space for um inter mural competitions um among each at each School site each quarter so um they school students from all the schools go to a campus and they'll do like a day of of like a uh oh what's that what's that game when you throw a bean bag cor like a cornhole tournament for the whole day um you know was fully inclusive um and a lot of times the the the Buddies you know the me the peer mentors um are are there with their buddies so anyway a lot more on that that was um something that struck me as being a a multiplier for culture change on a school campus in that those building connections and that relationship building and giving students Buy in to to be there um so I was I was pretty blown away with that and I would strongly recommend anybody reach out to Mir at a unified school district um that was probably the biggest one and then yeah that's that's that's that's good for now thanks I knew I was going to go way over my time I don't even know if I kept it to the five minutes that it was supposed to be but here we are okay moving along Rio I don't expect you to have transcribed what I just came what just came out of my mouth give her a hammer cuz she nailed it um I just made that up we're getting a little silly uh all right do we oh yeah for board um yeah so 10.4.2 is the discussion action item on chica Unified School District board self- evaluation um I am not sure to what degree um we had submitted our self- evaluations our personal individual ones we did get feedback from the community um I know last meeting we talked about that um as like we're going to review it and I I know we've read through it we've read the comments and you know um we all I think understand what it is that we do as a board and um you know where where we can can improve um and and really to how to communicate what we do better to our community so they do understand what our what our task is um but that said I don't know that there's additional comments to make on this um or if we you know are are good with our current status and self- evaluation or want to see you know our own individual comments kind of compiled um and and bring that back next meeting it was kind of a Loosely done process this year and I blame myself for that honestly I said I just said a lot of words I somebody to process that for me Caitlyn Dolby right that's me oh a lot of words I've sing a theme tonight oh thank you madam president because um that issue was was one that was bothering me about whether or not to continue to put time in it and I think we've answered that that question with what we now know is coming in the way of what we need to deal with in the next four or five months and that isn't it but we got a lot out of that survey no I got a lot out of the survey and out of the stuff so you know for my own use that was a helpful tool and I'm that's I don't think we need to spend any more time on it and I'll end it there anybody else okay um I don't think that we particularly need to take action on it okay yeah okay great um we have one person signed up for items from the Oh no just kidding that was earlier um items from the floor additional items from the floor after today's presentation would we like to yes please that that's why it's on that's why it's on there thank you sorry really quick before you start you know the spiel about 3 minutes and the 30 seconds on the Bell yeah when does the three minute start as soon as I stop talking to you and you start talking all right let's get it done my name is Morgan Pace I have a stepson named Gavin Fahy that goes here to marry sir can you start over and put your put put the mic a little closer to your mouth I couldn't quite get my three minutes started again yes it's going to get how's that should I get drink water how's that thanks good decision hi so my name is Morgan pace and I'm a nurse here locally in Chico my stepson Gavin Fahy goes here to Mary gold Elementary and towards the end of September my stepson Gavin had some behavioral issues and his behavior was deteriorating in class and towards the end of that month uh date was set for an sbit meeting um and before that meeting on October 5th um my spouse was phoned by the principal to state that there was an incident where our son stepson reported that his teacher pulled his arm and the principal didn't think that there was much Merit to it but she had to go ahead and investigate it over the next month or so my wife receiv received multiple calls every week about gav's behavior um some of them seemed pretty benign reasons for phone calls but I degress um his behavior was surprising to to me as the step said because I just spent every day with him over the summer and didn't see any issues in his behavior uh the phone calls from the school to my spouse over that time period seemed pretty trivial and increased in frequency and absurdity to the point where my spouse finally had to tell them to stop calling me on November 2nd there was an sbit meeting regarding Gavin's behavior and attendance where principal Heath Margie starky Mrs Thomas Mrs Schneider uh the Friday teacher Mrs Pratt the reading teachery counselor a few other members from the deescalation team not a single member present during that meeting offered any reason as to why Gavin's Behavior was getting worse instead his mom and his dad who was present um gave out an authorization for some sort of school psych evaluator for um evaluation which was not authorized on November 14th a parent teacher conference between my spouse and Mrs Thomas the teacher um transpired and my wife was appalled that the teacher read off the report word for word and said very shortly thank you and didn't say anything about uh anything good about my stepson um on 11:16 we received an email saying that Mrs Thomas is gone and will not be coming back and after Thanksgiving break we noticed the immediate change in Gavin's Behavior he was visibly less stressed and happier and back the normal kid I was used to seeing the timing of that and a positive change of his behavior was suspect anyway um I'm not going to make it all in 30 seconds that was not the 30 second ding okay you have 30 seconds carry on all right I'll just I'll just summarize it and saying that um my stepson was assaulted by that teacher on more than one occasion it was not brought to light by anybody who the principal was aware of it everybody at the sbit meeting was aware of it before the meeting nobody ever mentioned it like school's mandated reporter nobody ever made a report to the police department for an assault on a student found that out when we went and filed our own report that no report was ever made so you guys have some investigating to do as to what transpired there thank you um could I encourage you to also um go ahead and email us whatever you had written out fully if you because I don't think you have yet no I come close can you do more work please to give us more information but yeah no that I always would encourage you to also send it electronically to all of us you can send it to the board um that way you can also get your full it's great to come in person but you can also if you can't fit it in three minutes you can email us also okay I'll do that thank you all right thank you all right um item 12.1 is um under board member request to agendize item this is a discussion action the request is to agendize the addition of at least one non- voting student advisory member to board meetings we'll turn it over to uh the member that requested and as always walked that line about discussing the discussion without discussing the content um but again I was at at the csba the um it seems fairly common and also seems fairly useful to have direct feedback from the people whom our policies most directly affect um it's also a great leadership opportunity um for our high school students so worth at least talking about in public and um we do have a public comment on this from Julie three and then we'll go to motion long day yeah wow okay there you go don't want to break anything um yeah I just wanted to stay and and add my support to your proposal to have this agendized um two years ago actually the same month when we were here with the covid and the masks and all this um and I was really watching a lot of Schoolboard meetings and and there was a lot that had some really nice student representatives and I found it to be very um you know an important thing to maybe think about you know we're in these crazy times right I mean this definitely isn't like when I was growing up I don't think we really needed them but going through the covid stuff and a lot of the stuff that's going on in these C on your on your campuses I think it would behoove you to really um put one in place I don't know if you've been watching the chico City Council in the past couple weeks but they've been you know deluged with a lot of the um the people that are protesting palestini the Palestinian um conflict and are um you know wanting to have a ceasefire which obviously City council's like we can't do anything well in those meetings there's a couple of students there from Chico high that are bringing blood on their hands and that are really bringing some very specific harsh allegations about what's going on in their campus in terms of the bullying and the harassment of the of the Palestinian community and the Jewish I'm like and mayor kulage even said hey take it over to the Chico School Board I'm like okay I mean are you guys prepared so having a student representative in these times is going to be even that much more important I believe um New Jersey actually passed a um law the governor did it in 2022 requiring districts to have at least that have one high school to at least have a student rep and that to rotate it by each High School um as at least a minimum requirement the Jersey City District actually had led the charge in with the model program in 2018 where they have one per high school and they actually then added and supplemented to give more empowerment to that student representative and they gave each student representative from that High School $10,000 to then go back and like a budget Authority and empowerment and then collectively all eight of those um High School representatives were given 20K to then collectively spend for district funding so very inspiring program I think you're going to need to think about do you want one from Chic oh high one from PB one from Inspire I think there's a lot of pros and cons um you guys are very competitive with your high schools I think having one from each would be really beneficial um there are some um school districts that will allow the student body to vote for their one representative others apply and then you guys as a school board decide which one to hire we did that at Eno with our patient ambassadors from the high schools and it was again nice process for you guys to then evaluate each one of these um candidates um obviously no close session no confidential data is given it's kind of across the board Berkeley actually has an interesting program they actually voted to allow 16y olds and above to vote for student I mean for School Board elections that gave them the student body that are hey we've got some you know skin in the game and we can vote for our school board Maryland um actually um gives voting power to their student Representatives so that's may be something to think about um so yeah I think and Shasta County go go Shasta County so yeah I think it's a great program and I think there's a lot of opportunity to be creative and and uh things to think about there so good idea thank you all right so Mr Le would you like to State your motion yes um I move that we agendize a full discussion uh regarding adding uh student representatives to our school board Sor are are you no are you first go ahead okay I I was just going to second the motion and I know I called 97 no 1997 student rep to the board who now lives in London oh cool so I I'll be able to add to it if we approve it and um if I may just I know that says non- voting student advisor remember on this um there are specific rules that we'll get into during the discussion about when and how students can and can't vote there there are laws in place at the state level about what they can account so um could I uh ask that we have take the opport take this as an opportunity assuming it's approved tonight um for staff to um give us an update on what feedback is coming from our students kind of directly to them just so we can hear hear what is going on now so we identify what's happening and how could we maybe Elevate that or or fill in any gaps to get a direct voice um to to the board I just want I just want a little bit more context around around getting student feedback directly to the board and I mean in the absence of a representative what mechanism are you thinking of for us Gathering that information us I think what I heard you say is at the same meeting where we discuss adding student members will'll also get an update on what students are hearing no what what student input is already being given yeah we have the minutes from those meetings when we meet um with the different elementary junior high and high high school kids we have the minutes of those meetings and this year we've already had our first set and we'll do another one in the spring with them right before the Alca yeah so just like a snapshot of what that looks like and what kind of feedback sure comes from that that's all I just wanted to see what we do and how we could maybe make it bit better or more signif more significant um so yeah that's acceptable okay um yes I would like to see um hear a uh thorough history as much as possible you say there was a student representative back once upon a time oh yeah we had we had yeah and there's not anyone maybe maybe Miss Robinson can deliver that that that portion of the the the agenda item a history I want a history not right now don't give it to me right now I don't want it okay but when we when we do delve into this I'd like to hear you know essentially why we don't have one anymore I'm curious to what happened you know there are any reason so about it then and you can you can have the con you know when we when we talk about it um I'm prepared to to vote second it or or has it already been seconded yeah okay so all right well let's start the vote with with Mr Lando Lando I tennis I Dolby I Robinson I con and I all right that's unanimous uh do I have a motion to adjourn so moved seconded we will adjourn that was weak

in the ghs auditorium you can come hear performances from students and staff enjoy some coffee and Ender Raffles for cash a KitchenAid stand mixer Yankee Candles and more it's $5 for admission uh to support French Club and their trip to France in April drama club has become rehearsals for their play myth adventures and our student actors are having lots of fun and making great progress they're currently seeking volunteer community members with expertise in stage management or technical theater to potentially Workshop or Mentor our student crew as they reive the revive the multifaceted Club um you can contact Anna Hartman at an har1 gpsk12.org if you would like to help out um and the last thing yesterday an email was sent out in regards to continued misuse of student restrooms to parents um it highlighted a lot of negative language and vandalism that occurred leading to request of parents to Aid in the enforcement of those infringed upon policies this speak speaks to a larger issue as a whole that's been continue on for a multitude of years the actions of the students who committed those infractions do not represent the stance of the student population as a whole who grow weary of the continued shutdowns and setbacks we are just as eager as everybody else to see strides made forward and to have the school return to its functional standard of normaly um that concludes what I have to say but if you have any questions I would be happy to answer thank you Shane any questions please remember Johnson musan I was just wondering if you were setting the rules and the policies how you would address the issue with the bathrooms I can't give an accurate answer right now in hesty um because I don't know the full story um I think having repercussions serious ones um or at least holding people accountable for the actions is the biggest part at least from a student perspective I've seen a lot of people just kind of walking off scottf free without what appears to be any R percussions so making it a a little more known as to where the standard is and what is being tolerated um and again I don't have the full picture so I can't say for sure whether or not that is happening or not thank you any other questions or comments for our student representative thank you Mr Tumi have a wonderful holiday break okay so we'll move into item five budget update uh business manager Andy pette has a holiday concert to attend for his one of his children tonight and so he's been given permission to not be here and uh Christine's going to give the budget update okay so the um all of you got the reports from the most after the most recent warrant there is um there there are a few places where as we've talked about before you may see some negative numbers that's because at this stage um one example is the preschool tuition account because we do not have all of the projected Revenue because the year is not completed so that status should change um circuit breaker also you know Andy has talked about many times that as the year progresses we reclass expenses from one account to the the other so that we eliminate deficits um by charging the things to the account in which they were budgeted um so that will happen in January and the same is true for school choice and the special ed tuition account so in general those costs are charged to the local and then um periodically throughout the year we reclassify expenses in chunks rather than um doing them all individually as we get funds in um for the revolving accounts so um in terms of salary We are continuing to review um We are continuing to review our salary because we do have some open positions so we're looking at encumbrances to ensure that we're adjusting appropriately um and then the operating expenses nothing out of the ordinary has occurred we are tracking as expected um in terms of expenses at this point I just will share that the committee knows well that that can change at any point but at this point um we're tracking as expected thank you do we have questions or comments from any school committee members about the budget I'm not seeing any if it's okay I had included the um I can talk about the budget hearing timeline now or in my report it's in both places so whichever let's save it for your report then yeah since it's because it's written out in the report that's fine whatever is preferred okay thank you um Okay so we've got now items six seven and eight on the agenda related to our ongoing discussion on redistricting um and uh that involves a number of different I guess moving Parts is the best way to describe it um so I thought it'd be helpful to start with an update as far as where we are at because in in between meetings um discussions continue at all levels and and um we've continued and I know that the Administration has continued to look at ideas that have been brought forward even as recently as last week would you say that that's yeah um yeah and so we're we're GNA talk about first talk and then um I know at the last meeting not everyone was here but we did um uh put put it out there I I have been the only one that came forward with motions uh kind of as a sketch for what we might do to address this and move it finally over the Finish Line um but we'll see where we're at in terms of motions if anyone else has brought motions to consider we'll consider them all together and try to come up with um uh some final decisions and because I do think it's at least more than one motion but we'll talk through that um if you have a general update for us do you have a General update I think um we haven't done a ton more work in any specifics um the only thing I will just remind everybody that um administratively we will Implement whatever decision the school committee makes um I think it's quite clear that regardless of what decision there is there are pros and cons um the number and specific people who may be impacted by those Pro perceived pros and perceived cons can change depending on what factor it is but the um there are many different elements that you folks of course wouldn't necessarily be considering with this discussion because you're not responsible for the implementation of all the different pieces for example um scheduling at the high school we have to do course selections shortly and that impacts the budget it impacts the schedule and your decision about redistricting impacts course selections and the schedule and the budget um so the basically um there's a lot of impact that is you know this this decision is somewhat like an iceberg and that the tip of it as complicated as the tip of it is there are many many other details that are not necessarily clear to the committee they wouldn't necessarily be it's not your responsibility to deal with those details but that is in in great part why um from an administrative standpoint it is exceptionally helpful for there to be a decision sooner um the primary reason as you will hear when I talk about the budget timeline for various reason reasons and dates I have to have my superintendent budget finished by February 2nd so if a decision is made for example at the January school committee meeting that would leave me less than three weeks to adjust the budget I am fearful that there would be inaccuracies in trying to adjust the budget with all the complications related to all the pieces that could be connected to redistricting um in three weeks obviously if the committee chooses to make a decision in January I will do the budget I'm just I am cautious about that kind of a timeline um but I will answer all the questions to the best of our ability using the numbers that we have and the processes that we've sat and talked about from an administ administrative standpoint um but just know that at the end of the day we will do whatever the committee would like I would like to clarify one point the conversation about how long would it take for all all intradistrict students to age out would be six years because we have students who are currently in kindergarten and for them to get to the middle school which at that time would be sixth grade um so they need to go through grades one through five at the elementary so for all students to age out that's the timeline and that's why um but that's that's just a clarification in case that was not clear as to why that would be the case so any questions I'll do my best and if I can't remember Karen will and we'll uh thank you and I just want to remind folks who are following this discuss discussion and interested in all of the details for the November school committee meeting uh the superintendent did put together a very comprehensive overview of everything that has been um discussed and planned on um and numbers put together until this point um and that was not included again for the December meeting but it's simple enough to go on the website and review uh that document which is very comprehensive um I know I have had a couple of questions that have come up for me since our last meeting but I want to open it up to the rest of the committee for any discussion or questions of the superintendent or questions of other committee members in the subcommittee um that might have come up please go ahead member Johnson wasad uh superintendent can you speak to the question about um class sizes what I can speak to somewhat um so in the summary that Amy just referenced there was a section where um we have estimated how many sections of each class would be needed um I'm looking for my other um hold one second please I have quite an accumulation of things going here so if you bear with me I think I have my chicken scratch numbers but maybe not um one of the things that we did do is look at if we had um two sections of classes um [Music] primarily there's some impact at all three schools um depending on the decision primarily um at Four Corners if we have two classes of the anticipated grades four and five for next school year only um we would definitely have class sizes that were a little bit larger if we have two sections versus three um if it's two class sizes we es two classes we estimate please know these are all estimates the class sizes We Believe would be about 25 or 26 if we have three classes it would be 21 or 22 estimated we have um a lot of moving Parts connected to class size um for example as you folks know we had a private school opening Greenfield so we had students unenroll that we could never have anticipated um if we were doing estimates two years prior so I do have my rough numbers so if you bear with me so these numbers were estimated working on the um working with the factors of leaving intradistrict Choice as it currently is or not having intradistrict choice we didn't reconfigure this with any um other option so these were the numbers we were working with if we continued with intradistrict choice we estimated at Four Corners that grade three would have 54 students grade four would have 57 grade five would have 64 which is why we estimated each of those grade levels would have three three sections if we reconfigured everything um moved the lines for school enrollment and did not have the intradistrict choice the estimated class sizes would have been grade three 42 grade 450 grade 5 53 which is why we said two sections um again these are estimates these are the numbers we used for factoring I just want to be clear about that um Newton is fairly consistent in numbers whether the students through interdistrict Choice remain in the building or not because of potential realignment of school enrollment lines um they the only significant change could be at grade three it might go from 30 to 36 but either way class sizes with either of those numbers are quite small um grade five would be 46 48 regardless so fairly consistent and then um Federal Street again looks like the numbers would remain two sections um the highest could be if we reconfigure School enrollment areas and do not not have school choice um in District Choice the grades four and five were are estimated 45 and 43 but still that would be two sections so there is some variation but primarily at Four Corners does that help yeah and if if you looked at the worst case scenario in terms of class size what would this what what would you anticipate in terms of possible negative impacts on learning and how could those be mitigated so this class size is always um it's something that's discussed periodically I don't have um any research I didn't pull any research um to bring tonight but you know there there is discussion frequently about class size often in the last time I reviewed the information which again I'm not saying was was in the last six months by any means um any discussion about class size is generally considered more so at the earliest grades um you know happy to look at it we the teachers through the um curricular materials that have been identified there are natural times when students have oneto one or they have small group instruction um you know certainly it's it's proportionately um a little more challenging to address more students I'm not going to disagree with that and we certainly could look to hire um instructional assistance again um it is correct we do have openings so that you know could be a challenging resolution as well um so it's I guess the the impact of class size versus the choices the other choices um you know something the committee would have to to prioritize which is the which side that falls on I don't know how to say I mean it's it is a factor certainly not in most grades though and then um I imagine that for some students um if we didn't do a a phased approach it sounds like there are many arguments against a phased approach um for some students they're very resilient might not be that difficult other students may have already have relational trauma it may be really difficult and and significant so what would the what would the schools do to to help those students who are having a hard time with it if that happened so we have not gone into a ton of detail about um that piece only because a decision hasn't been made but um we have we would Implement strategies that are somewhat cons consistent with things that we do for our regular incoming students as well as we have the ability to provide additional supports for students who have challenges with change or anxiety or other school-based um challenges we have social workers in our buildings that are very kind and good at supporting our students um we can schedule individual tours we can schedule meets with staff in building um we would do things like the ice cream socials the playground groups for students to meet their peers um there there are a variety of things that the principles have sort of given as um ideas for ways that they could welcome any new students into the buildings um if the committee chooses to move fifth grade into the elementary that is one less grade um that would be welcomed to the middle school you know that's one less transition because that the incoming grade wouldn't go and then the exiting seventh grade would not need to transition into the high school at that point so you know we would be able to um add some additional activities for any new students transitioning in um family meetings there there's a lot of different ways we can support students and if they are known students within the district um having staff from one building participate in any planning and meetings and transition supports that would be needed or something else that we can ensure thank you sure uh secretary exam please excuse me I don't know if you'll know this off the top of your head but what is do you have any idea what the average class size is at the middle school for fifth grade now let me check I told you I might not know everything I'd have to check I'm we're gonna oh are we phoning a friend pH a friend we would estimate um about 18 or 19 depending the class and is that because is that because uh the um fifth grade those electives as well or are they still the the mod their day modeled like it is of the grade school no the middle school has a middle school model where they change classes and all of those things they do and they swap there's teams of two at the middle school so students swap between two classrooms so it's more more a middle school model okay thank you member Neeve go ahead um have you thought about um um this is sort of to piggy back on what Glenn asked have you thought about family engagement actions that you can take um this year before we're faced um after the summer with potentially moving all of these children around have you thought about um have you made a plan for reaching out to families sending information home in newsletters or folders having meetings about this issue because I feel um like I'm not ready to make a decision on this issue because I don't feel like there's been any family engagement about intradistrict Choice specifically so like I mentioned already um we have not made concrete plans because the committee hasn't voted on anything yet there are several pieces that I haven't moved on um until there is a decision including meeting with grade five teachers grade8 teachers those pieces are somewhat um on hold until there is something specific to talk about but certainly there are many different ways that we can reach out to families um including some ways that we already have you know sending the summary of the redistricting home to every Elementary student um in their backpack was was one of the ways that um you know we tried to engage or at least make sure families had information um so we're the administrators are quite happy to make concrete plans and share them with the committee as soon as there is some something to plan for my only thought about that is that we did a several meetings throughout the community where we met with families and talked about about this whole process in the beginning and now that we're faced with in District choice I feel like we need to take at least a little bit of time and meet with them in the same sort of setting so that we can get um their opinions and thoughts on how best to make this transition because I do believe that it is a transition we have to make but my second part of my question is if we voted on the re reenvisioning moving the fifth grade and the eighth grade tonight would that give you enough time to begin your budget process and then could we vote on intradistrict say in January I would say that the committee can do whatever it would like and I will adjust so okay I just wanted to see what your timeline was like on that um the budget is you know I I can do the budget in whatever timeline the committee gives me I just would like to put the caveat out that the shorter the timeline the more opportunity for mistakes so but whatever you folks decide if you folks um as a subcommittee or full committee want to host Community meetings again just vote and tell me that and we will schedule them are you all set M Den are you all set for the moment okay yes go ahead Vice Martini uh I have several questions um and a couple of them are along the lines of what has been asked already so I hate to be redundant but I didn't quite get the whole answer that I was looking for um when it comes to uh class sizes I really appreciate the breakdown that was provided last month thank you that was a very um helpful comprehensive document and it really helped to outline the differences between redrawing lines with or without introd District Choice the questions that I still have are um about the possibility of delaying redrawing lines or do nothing um so could you uh would you be able to explain what the differences would be between doing nothing for the next year and um what the impact would be on class sizes if we did that versus redrawing lines without in District choice I will do my best thank you so what I will say in general well let me reframe I'm trying to answer your question in a way that is as clear as possible I know um and as I said and I will continue to say that this whole thing is a lot of if then and some of them are if then and estimated so it's until we're unless we are talking about the actual students that are in the seats in front of us and making a decision about them for today everything is an estimate because everything can change tomorrow so I just want to make sure that members of the public understand that that's I know you understand this is a crystal ball gazing yes corre thank you yes um so if let's just for the sake of my clarity say that we just use the information that is here but we delay it a year and if we talk about um well I'll just say either either way whether we have in District choice or we don't have in District Choice the current fourth grade will have moved to six and the bubble for lack of a better word at this point that we anticipate in grades three and and four and five at Four Corners if we leave intradistrict Choice as is we'll decrease by one because the fifth grade that would have been there next year will have moved to the sixth grade does that make sense okay so what that would result in is instead of using for those three grades nine classroom spaces we would be using eight classroom spaces so the space configurations that were of concern especially in my um opinion the primary space issue of potentially having to move one of our special ed education programs um could be eliminated because we would have an extra classroom if we waited one year if you don't have intradistrict choice and you wait a year I'm not sure that it would um have any substantive change other than an extra year of students will have aged up because the space wouldn't change the classroom spaces that we are using I don't expect would change but it would allow an extra year of students um to move up to the middle school before there were any changes did I answer the question you wanted to ask I guess I'm looking for a comparison of class size in grades three and four as they stand now and would stand next year as is versus redrawing lines with no intradistrict choice the challenge I'm having is I don't have the current class sizes in front of I have the anticipated for every grade I can think of but I don't have the current do you know what the current I bet she does if you hold but one minute I'm happy to hold no do we have any elevator music oh um well she's looking I don't know if you have any other questions that I can answer I have plenty of other question why don't we move on and then we can come back if she does a little search okay so um I I will go uh I'll jump to the uh other question that I had that is similar okay um to what has been said so um School community activities they have increased since the pandemic and that's been really lovely uh to have more opportunities for um students to spend time together outside of school uh and doing positive things so that's um that's very good I in from my knowledge so far um there is not as much um of that available in inter school um so that um students who are currently attending different elementary schools have a lot of interaction with each other um which I think is something that's um essential when we're talking about redrawing lines and helpful in general when students transition to Middle School at whatever grade level they do that at so um I wanted to know what Staffing funds connections with other departments like the rec department are um available to be used for transitional activities and if we were to do redistricting what resources do we have to make that happen um and any of our staff I would say are potentially available you know any of the change that we're talking about um I expect that I will need to be meeting with our Union representation just to make sure because we need to be accountable to members of our unions about um holding to their contract language and if there are change changes in their work we need to have conversation about that so I'm putting all of this out there again as a pending discussion sort of conversation but um you know the staff participates in family engagement or outside of school activities um every year there are events that occur um you know logistically we can talk about ways to um you're talking about having Collective Elementary activities correct that's what it sounded like yeah uh I it would be helpful to me um to know that we would be able to provide something like a calendar of events and activities that are going to be broadly available to families as part of this transition oh so once there is a decision whatever activities we create to help with the transition piece you would just want those um shared out in a in a calendar that's available like publicly yes and I want to make sure that we've budgeted appropriately to support activities like that um generally those types of activities are not a big budgetary impact um one piece that I already said is our staff does um it's they choose but it is also a contractual requirement that they participate in outside school activities I will say you know many staff participate in more than than um they're required we also are able ble to use Title One funds if we have snacks or activities that are provided at those because one of the goals of title one is family engagement so even things like the Bingo for books or the ice cream socials are things that we utilize um Title One resources to support and um you know the a lot of the um outside of school activities for families are funded by PTO so that is a conversation that would need to be had um because each school does have their own PTO um but I don't necessarily anticipate that budget or resources would be a challenge it's more the actually just sitting down and planning and inviting okay um and just one um other related question do we have the ability to offer um transportation to such events for um families for whom that would be a challenge we do offer that currently so I expect we could continue thank you we do have class current class sizes okay I just want to recap the question so I answer what you're asking you would like to know current class sizes and compare that to what it could be next year in both scenarios of redistricting basically basically yes perfect okay so you correct me currently at thir grade okay so we have the current third grade they're at Federal why don't you just answer instead of me trying to read your notes current third grade Federal Street has two thir grades one's a 16 one's a 17 there's currently 33 of them Discovery School has three third grades class sizes of about 17 there's 51 of them at Newton there are 34 third grades there are two class size at 17 current fourth grade Federal Street has two classes they're 17 and 18 Discovery has three they're approximately 16 Newton has three they're I have other questions but I have said a lot so I will refrain if someone else would like to pipe up well please keep going so the the general idea is um the class sizes would be consistent or increase generally would be consistent or increased by a couple of students generally um the Four Corners as I said um if they have three sections um they would be about 21 keeping in mind um you know we have a class rolling up so comparing a current like this year's third grade is next year's fourth so this year where'd you go give me your give me your stuff back so this year's um okay sorry didn't throw me at cirk ball Kate um this next year's projections again projections at first grade Federal would be 30 Four Corners would be 3 2 Newton would be 27 so that would be two sections of each based on our general um standard for dividing classes second grade Federal would be 46 Four Corners would be 34 Newton would be um Federal third grade 39 Four Corners 45 Newton 31 I just say fourth grade or third grade third grade fourth grade Federal would be 33 Four Corners 51 Newton 34 and then if we had a fifth grade at the elementaries Federal would be 35 Four Corners 48 Newton 42 oh they're not um I don't huge variation not huge variation no just we don't have huge variation except for the bubble grades where we have um you know a larger class that's going through um obviously you can see that as I'm reading current um estimated class sizes for next year there's a few um and they hit all the schools at various grade levels that is that is typical by the way to have grades that have higher enrollment than others so we deal with enrollment fluctuations every year we do um move teachers from one grade to the next as the bubble moves from one year to the next um that happened for this school year we had to um ask some teachers to move from one grade level to the next to accommodate a larger class moving up in the grades so um you know there there could be some impact on class sizes if if you make the change but we also have the potential of having increased class sizes just by students moving in or lower class size because students move out um and kindergarten projections are outstandingly challenging because many families who have kindergarten students um sometimes they enroll very late in the summer and so that's a that is a moving um number until quite honestly even after the start of school I guess my very long point is um class sizes are always a factor that we're monitoring and can change frequently and without anticipation depending on a variety of factors that doesn't help but it is the case so member Martina you said you still have more questions s yeah but they're about other things and see member wall would member Wall go ahead when we started this whole discussion last year the year before whenever I think our goal was to have the vote in September of this year so that the whole year could be spent planning for what's going to happen uh and how to go forward and how to make everybody comfortable what I would like to propose is that we postpone the actual imple implementation of what we vote for tonight for a year that we go ahead and and make the vote on intradistrict and redistricting now but postpone it for a year and do the meetings that need need to be done with the school committee make sure that all of the children feel comfortable with what's going to happen instead of voting tonight and in January and make budget problems I it just seems to me like it's all gotten too rushed but we need to make the decision tonight in some way so that would be my suggestion on what we do go M forward thank you member wall member Den I see your microphone is on did you no but but while you ask sure um I I sort of agree with with member wall I think that um I'd like to vote on the format for re envisioning tonight I'd like to make the suggestion that we postpone the in District Choice question until next month um I I'm a little frustrated that this idea of family engagement is about when we make the choice to do it or not that engagement should have occurred well before we're in this position I'm sorry I just have to say it we needed to talk to all of you about how the interdistrict choice would affect your children we should have been talking about it all throughout the fall um and I personally would like to extend an apolog ol for not spearheading that if I needed to do it I'm sorry and I also want to apologize that you're all in this position I think that's it's really tough and I understand and it's terrible that we can't make all of this easy and right for everyone some people are not going to be happy and that's just sort of how it is but it's a transition that we have to make together and so for me I don't think that the parents are racist I think that they're afraid of their voices not being heard I I think that they're afraid that they're not going to get the time and the energy that they and their families need to work with this situation and I'm sorry that we have not made a plan to give that to you but I'd like to make a plan to give that to you because I think that in the end everyone is going to be satisfied with what happens because we will hopefully spend the time to give everyone a feeling of belonging in our community so that we can all move forward and see that the kids are really a lot more resilient than we think and this could end up being a really good thing so I don't think we need to postpone it for a whole year but I certainly would like to take the time to hear some of the quieter voices that haven't come forward and maybe we have to go to them but those are the voices that I'd like to hear from before I make this decision but I'm wondering why can't we decide on the format for reenvisioning tonight is that something that we could decide on tonight and then hold off the intradistrict choice because they're two separate pie you asking me to answer that question I guess so I'm wondering if they can be separated that way because on it seems odd on the agenda that we're talking about in District Choice first before the format for reenvisioning wouldn't the format lead to the discussion of intradistrict choice why are they opposite um the items on the agenda are there mainly to make sure we don't break open meeting law and we are not um beholden to address them in any specific order and I've been asking for three months now for folks to come forward with the on the committee with the um motions they would like to see and the process that they would like to see um and I think it's difficult I'm not saying that we um are able to arrive at a decision in an easy way um but I I also there's a couple of things here so item six which technically we're still on as an update um is about making sure that the Administration has a chance to update us on anything that is new since our last public meeting and also um it I anticipated that like I did members of the committee would walk away from last month's meeting with questions and things that they wanted to to think about um I have often told the committee certainly the officers and certainly the superintendent have heard me say when I'm asked a question or I'm presented with a problem I don't know I have to think about that for a little bit I don't easily think on my feet about it so the update piece is a way for us to have a conversation and see where we're all at and I'm so pleased to hear that folks are coming uh up with ideas that I think can help us get across the Finish Line um this month and have actual votes taken this month that help help the administration the community the teachers um and the families all plan um and the so the other piece is um specifically to in District choice and the redrawing of the lines the boundaries um they are two separate things they're treated by the administration which we've heard over and over again as two very separate things um and they have separate processes which is why they're separated um on the agenda but they certainly as we have heard all of our families talk about and our our staff and and teachers talk about they are certainly also connected so we have to address them in both ways unfortunately um I still have I still myself have one question I'd like to ask of the superintendent of the administration that I haven't heard asked yet but I want everyone else to have a chance to have their opportunity and then we can talk about actual motions that we would take and how we want to approach those so does anyone else have anything in terms of comments or questions related to the update piece before we before I ask mine okay so Vice chair Martini kind of stole my thunder on one of them which is great it means we're thinking similarly um the the first question I have um and I'm not putting you on the spot we've talked about this privately and I'm asking it in public I said to myself I don't know the answer to this and I feel actually a little bit embarrassed to say to the superintendent I don't have the answer to this question and did I miss something really big in our talks and that question is we've heard that we don't keep track of intradistrict choice which students are in a school because they've been choiced in there from their home school to a different one we've heard you say that you don't keep track of that so how do you have the numbers how do you get the projections in that with that question so that is absolutely correct whenever way before me the option to choose an elementary school outside of your neighborhood school was implemented or at the point at which we adopted power school as our student information system a field was not added for anyone to check the box that indicates whether or not a student is outside of their neighborhood school we have a box for the students who come from different districts to us us as school choice the state um program so the way that the numbers were gathered for us to do estimates was Jake waldsmith our transportation coordinator literally went through all the students one by one and identified who would be in different areas the numbers that we are looking at that are not straight numbers of students who are in buildings based on intradistrict Choice the variation between the numbers we talk about if we have intradistrict choice or if we do not also include the students who would move schools if we redraw lines so for example if the neighborhood of lighten Woods is included in the neighborhoods the streets where um students are routed to attend four corners when we look at the numbers for Four Corners we move all of those streets into the four corners area and then remove students who are in the building through intradistrict Choice which again are counted and moved basically manually so we have the total for planning and estimating purposes um we have this challenge each year when we're looking at enrollment because students move in and out of different neighborhoods um and different schools so there will be some variation um streets are identified in ways that we want to keep um as many students in the areas where they are currently routed there has been a lot of conversation um relatively speaking in public about um streets specifically that are connected to Four Corners and why they were or were not included in the street map of um streets that went to Four Corners I cannot speak to why that was or wasn't at the time um so I just wanted to share that it was a manual process um once there were two factors that would impact sort of um the next step in that would be um we are moving forward to the last process of awarding the transportation bid so that we will have our known Transportation vendor and then the second piece is that vendor would have to get all of our streets all of our students who are expected to ride buses and they would basically do the routing um and let us know what the routes look like and we would have more specific numbers of students within the areas that we've identified that would be attending each school but this is the estimated way that we would look at how to um consider the numbers of students in each area very long answer but no that's okay and then I mentioned that Vice chair Martini kind of stole my thunder because the other question that I brought forward to you that I couldn't remember that we had discussed or not was what happens if we delay the redrawing of the district lines to 25 26 school year and you've kind of answered that already that at least for the big issue of space there's an improvement there yes the in in my again in my estimation looking at the numbers we have and rolling them forward yet one more year and I've reviewed this with Mr Browning because that's the building where the three classes are um it looks like based on the current numbers that we are rolling forward two years that if we delayed A Change by a year um that would free up a classroom at Four Corners which would allow the aces program to remain at Four Corners which was a concern voiced by many people including me about not wanting to disrupt um specialized program I do want to share a couple other pieces connected to the delay it's not a it's just an objective statement it's not a vote of um preference um the implementation of full year science and social studies at the middle school I believe would need to be moved a year to coincide With The Changes because the Staffing patterns that would result at the elementary level would allow us to um address much of the cost of the increased teachers needed at the middle school the other piece would be moving 8th grade from the high school to the middle school would allow us some additional staff that are needed to provide the contractually required number of preparation periods at the middle school so doing any one piece without the other creates impact so if for example the decision is to delay um any change in the format until the 2526 school year which is absolutely something that can be done if we don't don't keep the change to the Middle School consistent with that the committee would be looking at a superintendent budget reflecting at least eight new positions just for the middle school so I would not recommend moving in that direction I would recommend keeping both of those changes to occur at the same time um the other piece which again all of this can be dealt with if um if we wait the year and leave intradistrict Choice as is just as a an option at Four Corners we would still have two grade levels with three sections so we would have two classrooms where we need to account for how to provide all the required preps but if we have an additional year um one that that could change because enrollment could change enough students could move within the city that the class sizes are different and we don't have three sections just by natural change so it's hard to sort of predict all of those pieces out two years it's something we would have to figure out but we would have until 25 26 to figure it out so um okay those are just other you know um pieces that coincide thank you thank you for that um does that prompt other questions or comments from the rest of the committee I I saw Jean first and then uh Glenn and then uh member Martini so if we voted tonight to redistrict in a year and to also restrict all students to the schools where they are in the district we would have a year then to work with the students well a year and a half to work with the students and their families and to make sure everybody understands what the future will bring which would be better than saying next year you're going to be moved I mean does that make sense I think so I think we're kind of all headed in the same direction um and let's get the other questions or comments out there and then I can put out what I think we just heard and would want to propose for motions or at least starting point motions member Johnson M go ahead I'm just curious so with um if we decided to get rid of intradistrict choice would one of the implications of that be if a family moved from one part of the town to another in the middle of the elementary school term that that student would be changing elementary schools as well potentially generally yes I mean it as a matter of like if we were implementing the policy sort of as written um one thing that we don't do is ask students to move a school if they move to a different location for example after April break you know um students are able to stay and finish out in that regard um if for any reason the committee would like to revisit the policy in that regard that's obviously your option but um one of the challenges with students not being in their neighborhood school is we would wouldn't be providing busing which we don't do now for families that are um choiced into a school not their neighborhood school so you know that can be a factor that's challenging for some families if they're not able to access a bus but as a policy is written now yes I would be looking for students to move um at the end of the year in which they move um but that like I said that's up to the committee at the end of the day how you want that policy written sh Martini go ahead uh you already um read my mind on a couple of the questions here um because in in thinking about um the possibility of putting this change off for a year um I had to consider things that were brought up at the last subcommittee meeting for re envisioning um one of which was the need for six additional full-time staff at the middle school in order to provide full year social studies and science um and um just now I think you said it would be eight positions actually so could you clarify the yes those two numbers pretty sure pretty sure I can um we would need to increase the science and social studies content teachers um I'm thinking hold please what I'm what I'm considering in my head I'm reviewing the need for additional preparation periods depending on the drafted schedule do you remember sorry this these are all these pieces so they have to add team okay so that the configured the middle school schedule is not currently configured with full year science or full year social studies so one science teacher teaches I'm giving very rough half year of one group of students the other half year of other student so we need to increase that um to accommodate the schedule that was drafted for the Middle School assuming full year science and social studies we would need additional teams therefore we would need additional preparation periods as well so that's a that's a piece of it is accommodating all of that okay uh and you've already answered that you would put off um implementing F year science and social studies if we put this off I would recommend that I think from a strictly budgetary standpoint if we were to increase I'll just use my number again for the sake of rough if we were to increase by seven staff at the middle school and we had staff that came in who would be placed at or near the top of the salary schedule that would be um almost three4 of a million dollars so if the committee wants to move to full year science and social studies for the next school year I am quite happy to put it in the budget but I think that will be um that is quite a bite to take um for the budget and um honestly that would mean hiring likely new staff that are outside of the of the district already and then if you were to implement the changes the following year and remove 8th grade students from the high school we would then have staff at the high school that could be negatively impacted because they are losing all or parts of their schedule so because many of our high school staff teach some sections of 8th grade so if we do it all at one time we're able to create full schedules for all of the teachers even with the loss of eth grade by adding electives or by having some staff split their day some at the high school some at the middle school so it's just um a number of dominoes that we would anticipate that I think are able to be avoided the negative is some of our students who are going to have to test continue to have less of the science and social studies instruction but we've been doing that already right uh well I certainly heed what you said about the mcast pilot coming um for my mind I um recognize the importance of mcast in certain ways and I would also say I'm much more concerned with the developmental needs of 10-year-olds um who are our fifth graders and the need for them to have F year instruction in really important subjects like that um so and and I think it's quite obvious that we have to do these two things at the same time because it's an untenable suggestion to say we should add that many FTE um to the budget but it kind of relate relates to one other question um in regards to the budget you had also mentioned at the last subcommittee meeting there are two open positions at ghs that could go uh unfilled is that rate and we would have potentially um the need to hire a halftime history teacher so that would be one and a half less one of the positions that was unfilled has been filled it was an internal um staff person who knows the risk of if a change occurs that there could be a change in like someone made that choice to to request that position knowing the um potential consequence of that um but at the end of the day um that that position may not be um necessary based on scheduling and then there is another position um that is not filled it is not fully filled and we do not expect that we would necessarily require that if the current situation continues as is so if we get an extra you know 40 kids then um all bets are off but okay so I'm sorry for being a little Daft but um if we redraw lines for next year oh boy okay then uh we do not fill that one position that is currently open or we do um hold on the redrawing of lines is there for eth grade goes to GMS oh you're talking about doing everything now uhhuh okay okay if we were working with the numbers that we are currently working with I would not at this point recommend filling that position okay so that would be one a difference of one when it comes to full-time employment in the upcoming budget as of right now as of right now it would be one FTE that would be reduced but potentially seven increased yes at the middle school but potentially six decreased at the elementary correct and then um uh other potential changes again depending on what actually shakes out with the schedule which is why I started the entire update by saying um course selections is something that we are mindful of in terms of timing the high school is ready so of course selections also dictate um sections and schedules okay well I'm right with you because my next question is directly related to that so can I okay what is the eth grade foreign language offering currently and what would it be if 8th grade were in the middle school currently they have the option of Spanish and French based on the projected and drafted schedule again very um just I'm reiterating this more for um families who don't necessarily work with school schedules all the time this is not a definite it's an estimated and drafted schedule what we believe we will be able to provide is some level of Spanish instruction for 8th grade at the middle school exactly the length of time that would be available whether it's half year full year we would still want to continue to do some work with but we do see a decrease in the need for sections at the high school if the eth grade leaves um and given the need for an increase in preparation periods at the middle school it seems like a very natural way to ensure we have a staff person with a full-time job and that we um provide some level of language enrichment exposure or a full year of Spanish uh potentially but I don't know yet until we actually kind of nail down um the exact schedule thanks sure anyone else right now member Johnson M said just a quick comment appreciation of you superintendent and this is and superintendent this is really helpful to have you lay it all out and there are so many moving pieces and you have uh I know there are questions we're asking that are too detailed and haven't given you enough time to prepare but the amount that you have at your fingertips I think is pretty remarkable so thank you I point well made thank you thank you um the principles have been incredible in this process Jake has been incredible um we we literally talk about this in some way probably 4 days a week in some in some configuration of Staff because there are so many pieces we're trying to think about all of the options and all the possibilities and all of the changes that would occur so um it is complicated and I'm not going to pretend it isn't possible that there's something that's going to come up when a decision is made and we go to do the implementation um I'm sure there is something that we will look at and say oh boy we didn't we didn't think about that but um you know we are trying to be responsive to the questions that come up and relook at things um if the vote is delayed one year what I would say is that we would have the opportunity to move through this year having the conversations um about the detail like um working on the conversations with our unions about the impact on um redistricting on them even so much as we would have to do moving over Summers and so we'd have to talk with custodians about how that would look and Food Service about changes in lunch schedules and um all of those pieces it would give us time to have those conversations I would hope I guess from my perspective that the committee would choose to continue the redistricting subcommittee because you folks would need to let me know what you want to do in terms of Engagement and Communications how you want that to look the community meetings on the early end were driven from the subcommittee that was something that was asked and we we did so um that would certainly be a request if the sub committee wants particular type of of um engagement with families and communication I think that would be um helpful to come from an ongoing subcommittee about this thank you anything else for kind of the discussion part member denif please thank you Dr DeBarge for getting into the other parts of the iceberg because even though they aren't our respons responsibility as you said hearing that we could maybe fix some other things that were on the list by waiting is important for me to hear so that changes some of my thought process for the motion so I appreciate it okay I'm going to try to move into the actual over the Finish Line kind of motions piece and people may or may not know that I do a lot of math for a living and I know that scares the V Jesus out of my parents based on my math grades in school um and I do try very hard not to do math in public but my brain is saying if we Implement a delay of the redistricting lines to 2526 we may also be able to to accommodate a Kinder gentler redistrict or a intradistrict choice change and let me give you my example let me give you all my example I would want to try to talk through two things related to the choice question new intradistrict choice in the Elementary grades would end for 2425 so the upcoming year because we would agree to delay the implementation of the redistricting okay and then I'm going out on a limb here but I think also we could say that elementary students who are already in intradistrict Choice could all also remain until they grade progress to the middle school do you follow me on that do you all follow me on that frighteningly I did if so yes and I think May yeah yes probably on the years for smaller and smaller groups of students each year um but the math gosh I don't even like talking about math in public but I think it would work so I don't remember what you started with yeah I started with the new stopping new interdistrict Choice um and all Elementary grades for the 2425 school year okay so I think one decision that the committee will need to make at some point is whether you want that process to continue I there is a policy about it um it doesn't really speak to intradistrict Choice it was a process that was practice when I came into the district um the practice at that time was having an impact on class sizes at Four Corners and so um what I've done since I've been superintendent is the only consideration I give for intradistrict Choice are for the siblings incoming siblings almost always kindergarten of students who will still have a sibling at their School of Choice so if I'm an incoming kindergartner and I want to go to Newton which is not my neighborhood school and my sibling will still be in third grade that scenario I have been approving but if I am an incoming kindergartner who wants to go to Newton that is not my school of neighborhood and my sibling will be at the middle school I have not been allowing that so for the past three three I'm trying to remember if Dr H had dealt with Choice before I got here or not at least the past two years the only in District Choice um requests that have been honored have been for incoming kindergarteners who will have siblings in their school so I would estimate rough maybe somewhere between 8 to 12 students across the district for the past two years at some point the school committee is going to need to decide if you want to keep having that process or not um if you do not and we're talking about allowing students who are in schools of choice to age progress out we will have to stop allowing new siblings to come in because there will always be a sibling um unless what you're what you're saying is I've actually found another sliver of our school Community to make Angry where maybe they weren't already angry well um potentially yes what that would I'm trying people I'm really trying here what that would look like is there would have to be a decision about when that would stop and then any family who has an incoming kindergartener they would either need to make the decision if they want to have their two children in two different schools or if they would want them both to attend the neighborhood school because the older one would be allowed through this scenario to continue in their school of choice where the younger one would need to not be otherwise we will always have someone intra District choicing so that that population of families would have an impact related to your second question can we continue and allow students who are inad district choice to just age progress out if you wait the year I think if we wait the year to redraw the lines if you wait the year I think that would be the case because of that third um because of the classes at Four Corners an extra year will have aged out meaning we will have an extra classroom that would prevent the special ed program from needing to move given the assumption that our numbers hold thank you okay thank you um comments on that thoughts on that other ideas pleas I saw a member didn't even a member wall could we let these 8 to 12 sibling collectives age out and stop redistricting is that something what talk about maybe okay so here's the scenario mhm what if the family has a third child that's not in yet or what if the kindergartner uh I don't know I don't know if this is actually a scenario I don't think it is I was going to say what if the kindergarten is the oldest but I don't I don't believe that's a situation I think the again the school committee you folks could vote to do whatever you want I just think there will be scenarios where the one that is in kindergarten or card oh my goodness the one that is um the siblings may not be the end of the line there could be other siblings I got no thank you that because my brain didn't go there so thanks you answered that thank you member W please I just wanted to say if problems come up policies can be changed in the future this is not the be all to end all this is just to say that we want all of the schools to be Equitable that is that was the goal we were trying to accomplish and and uh these these other little things can be handled in the future not tonight sorry we're working through the details um don't do that uh we're trying to make sure that that an evolving scenario doesn't give us a hiccup somewhere else is all we were just talking about um so should we try for a couple of motions here and see how this works and I will explain ahead of time what I've thought through and put down as proposals for um I have three total motions to get us to a point where we're implementing um an equitable move forward for the district so the first one would be and this is just so we can visualize it that new intradistrict choice in the Elementary grades would end for students students coming in for students requesting it for 2425 I want to say coming in but it's not necessarily just kindergarteners coming in it could be a family wanting interdistrict choice at a higher grade but still Elementary and we would stop that as as well um and then the second motion would be for 25 26 school year we would follow the policies that have been uh put forward as relating to this process um more closely and those policies are JC jca and EAA um and those are included in the materials for tonight they've also been included in November and October uh committee meeting meeting materials as well um it so we would start following those policies more closely um and then in addition to that piece the elementary students already in elementary school through an intradistrict Choice spot would be allowed still to remain until they grade progress to the middle school and then the third motion we would with the 2526 school year adopt the reenvisioning our school facilities option 2B redrawing the boundaries for the elementary schools to better reflect the makeup of the city and allow for the three elementary schools housing to gr to house grades K through five and move grade 8 to the middle school so that's three separate motions that we would put forward one at a time discuss one at a time vote on each one anyone want to put forward something different an option a comment now yeah secretary exam I think having those three together I think the only one that would have to be decided this evening with those three would be the last one of adoption of two be the other two could be considered at a later date okay so I'm going to vehemently disagree with that okay in part because I want us I Tru believe when when we are entertaining something big regardless of which organization and who's doing the entertaining and the planning that we need to put it forward we need to sort you know I've said this a couple times put it across the Finish Line as Jean just said policies can be changed and this gives us a timeline that is much more friendly should there be those moving part issues those logistical issues that come up even you know within the next few weeks or in in nine months I think we've got a framework and there is nothing of course preventing the school committee from putting forward another motion later on that addresses something we hadn't considered already right so that's why I would vehemently disagree that was vehement if you couldn't tell yeah okay other comments questions before we try those yeah member Johnson was on I'll just say I I think it'll be clear to me once it's an actual motion I I got a little lost in there sure so let's try with the first one and see how we do so I'd like a motion that new interdistrict choice for all Elementary grades will end beginning with the 2425 school year I'll make the motion will someone second it second a second from Member den and let's discuss member Johnson we side and member Den you have your microphone okay um yeah I'm supportive of ending the in District Choice um on that timeline um I just think that I I I guess I just believe that people should go to their neighborhood school um so and uh I I realize it's going to be a difficult transition and people made decisions for their families based on an assumption of the you know existing policy continuing um but policies do change and looking at the bigger picture I think that that would be the best and uh the best way to to to proceed thank you V Martini please um I just want to clarify this motion is to end new in District's choice not existing new only new requests would not be entertained for 2425 moving forward okay thank you that was helpful clarification further comments on that okay so let's take it move it to a vote um anyone abstaining any no votes no two no votes so that passes with one two three four uh yes votes okay and then we have member den and member Johnson M knows we're no correct just want put that okay and Susan Farber did you get that you have that if I can read the motion back to make sure I have that new interdistrict choice for all Elementary grades will end beginning with the 2425 school year that is what we just voted on yes thank you thank you okay I have a second motion well for these votes since they're so substantial could people actually vote Yes or No rather than just take I mean I want a roll call vote is that what you're saying doesn't even have to it could be just I but but I just feel like I want to hear the voices of people actually voting for these Solly reasonable sure thank you for for suggesting that okay so we have motion number two I move that but on motion number one to we already passed it well we he we heard the Nos and we heard the abstentions but we didn't hear who's voting I okay the people who voted I were myself member Martini member wall member extrom thank you so the second motion would be a motion that beginning with the 2526 school year the Greenfield school committee policies of JC jca and EAA are closely followed Elementary School students already in an elementary school through intradistrict Choice May remain until grade progression to Greenfield Middle School so move and a second second and discussion I guess the reason I I mean I'll discuss because I guess the reason that I propose it this way is we've heard of from so many families that there must be a way to consider a way to allow students to um phase out of an an already made an established interdistrict choice and I just felt like with the way the numbers are going and the plan going for the delay in the redrawing of lines that it seemed possible to try to accommodate with the community had so clearly told us they were interested in so that's why I'm proposing it and I will vote Yes for this can you repeat the motion please sure I move that beginning with the 2526 school year Greenfield school committee policies JC jca and EAA are closely followed Elementary School students already in and Elementary School through interdistrict Choice May remain until grade progression to Greenfield Middle School further yeah further comments question discussion before we vote okay let's move to a vote and let's do a roll call vote please uh secretary exam no secretary exam I a yes member johnman yes member Martin Excuse me Vice chair Martini no chair pretti yes member wall yes motion passes what was the vote count please there were two Nos and four yeses thank thank you and then there's a third motion related specifically to the interdistrict or the uh redrawing of the district lines um and I would take a motion at this time that beginning with the 2526 school year the Greenfield school committee and Greenfield Public Schools adopt reenvisioning our school facilities option 2B which redraws boundaries for the elementary schools to better reflect the makeup of the city and allow for three elementary schools housing grades K through five as well as moving grade eight to Greenfield Middle School can I have a motion to that so moved and a second second and discussion please I guess I I think the plan is a good one I think the timing I would prefer that it happen sooner I feel like our our minds tend to focus on the changes um that are presented to us so we look at we look at what we're going to loss that's like kind of a human bias is that we look at how a decision is going to negatively impact um students certain students but what we take for granted is the negative impacts of our current system on students who are already here because it just feels normal to us because it's been kind of going on for so long and we have a we have a situation now where two of the low-income housing uh developments are going to one Elementary School and one Elementary School does not have any of the low-income housing developments there and that creates really big inequities and problems for students that they're dealing with right now and so while I I you know I think we could have more robust engagement I'm not 100% sure we will have more robust engagement just because we extend the timeline certain things will go easier for us in terms of the change but I just feel like we should feel the urgency of the the students who are dealing with inequities now and um try to make these changes more quickly to to help them so it's challenging with the current motion on the table I guess I could respectfully ask whether you would accept a friendly amendment to to change the timeline to this year um but I'm not I'm not sure exactly how to vote because uh if this is the only timeline available I do want this to happen um but I may vote no just to express that I want would prefer an earlier timeline was it member Martini that made the motion I'm sorry was it member Den member Den you made it and and member Martini you seconded it yeah to open it for discussion I'm inclined to agree with Glenn and I would make a friendly amendment to change it to this year okay and I think I think that's a problem because I would absolutely vote no I think we very clearly established with the community engagement on this that as well as the concerns around budget and planning that 2526 is uh friendlier to all of those I do understand very clearly what member Johnson mad is saying um and member Den appears to agree with I don't necessarily disagree but I find it very ironic that member den and member Johnson mad both are wanting additional time to do it right but they want to rush the timeline you want all kinds of communication all kinds of Engagement all kinds of planning around how it will happen but you want to shorten the timeline I feel like giving a longer timeline 25 26 allows for not only better planning better staff uh uh engagement in the process Better Community engagement um in the process but we remain able to be flexible with additional changes um should they be necessary throughout the uh upcoming Academic Year 2425 which is why I would strongly urge that we stick with the motion now originally presented just a point of personal privilege since you mentioned my name I don't remember at this meeting calling for more Community engagement on this I feel like we've had Fairly robust Community engagement um I know that it could be improved there could have been more on the intradistrict choice uh element in terms of community engagement but I just wanted to to first of all say that I don't remember saying that and second of all in General Roberts Rules of Order we don't kind of call each other out by name we speak to the issues and and not the personalities and the people advocating decisions he's right and I'm the one that called for more engagement specifically on intra District Choice only and I'm not rushing anything I'm sticking to the timeline that we discussed within the revisioning subcommittee so no one's changing I'm not changing a timeline this was always the plan this waiting a year this is the first time we've heard of it so in terms of process um member Den made a motion I suggested a friendly Amendment it sounds like you accepted it I think we have to find out whether the person who seconded it would accept the friendly Amendment as well I think that's Vice chair Martini I'll accept the amendment because I think everyone should have the opportunity to make a vote on every available option so that we're really clear and uh there were a few things I was thinking about saying earlier and maybe I'll maybe I'll put it out there now um in terms of uh engagement from the community we've had a lot of people um contact the committee and share their views and I appreciate everyone having the vulnerability to do that uh and that we're talking about people's children which is the most important thing in their life um so um I want to just Express express how much I relate to a lot of the perspectives and points that have been brought up and a lot of the issues that we are talking about um for me just by happen stance in a lot of ways um I think I might be the only member of the committee who has a child in an interdistrict Choice spot who would be directly affected um by ending that and uh I also have a student who's through fifth grade at the middle school and I know how um important it is in so many fundamental ways that we change that um and it's not something that I would want for my younger student who still wouldn't be affected if we delay uh for a year but I can't I can't make decisions just based on about how I vote on something uh based on on my personal situation you know so a lot of so many people have been so thoughtful um and respectful in the way that they've shared their views and I really appreciate that one or two have uh Express their thoughts that the committee isn't listening to people particularly about um whether to end intradistrict choice and that's not true um people need to understand that there are numerous different perspectives and people with opinions on not just both sides but multiple sides um of that and um the committee is listening just not only to one person you know it's to everyone and trying to balance the needs of all the students um so uh that's hard and um there have also been uh you know one or two people who have expressed that the feelings of those people who are um upset or have fears on behalf of their children just aren't that important um or uh have expressed opinions about why people have made certain choices um for their children that are off base and alienate people and that's unfortunate uh I think and I'm not rehashing the vote that we just took but uh in explaining why I voted no I think it's inequitable to um allow in District Choice students like mine to continue and uh move students who don't have the same means and uh and I think that Justice delayed is Justice denied too so I really feel the inclination to to make changes for the coming school year rather than the one after um it's not fair having schools with drastically lopsided numbers of um students who are designated High needs in different ways it's not fair to the students to the staff um certainly to the families so um um that being said I I would I'm going to vote no on the proposed on the amended motion because even though I do think that the subcommittee has done a really really good job for a long time in trying to engage the public um if folks were not reached that's still on us um as a committee and there needs to be more time um and people need also time to make choices um and they will have more time if we implement this another year out so that's my point of view and I'm sorry that was really long-winded so you're you're not entertaining the friendly amendment I am because I want everyone to vote on the amended motion I'm sorry I miss I missed that okay so you're entertaining that we're go where we would um the the superintendent would like to speak go ahead I was trying to be subtle but thank you that was okay I just would like to clarify as a point of objective information given the vote that you folks passed to allow intradistrict choice to age out if you vote to implement the changes for this upcoming school year we will have a space issue at Four Corners that will result in the special education programming needing to switch a program at Newton will move to Four Corners and a program at Four Corners will move to Newton that I just want to reiterate that we went back to that math with the um second vote we can do it I'm you know logistically it can work but I just want you to be reminded that the timing goes back to that um those numbers thank you further discussion on the motion as amended Vice chair Mar Trini please I would just add along the lines of all those relating things um I am also a parent of two children with disabilities and it's uh I'm not going to support something that's going to um that's going to move those kids secretary extrom as much as I absolutely agree with you Glenn that I would love to see it happen much more quickly because I really I just I more of a rip the bandaid off and and make the thing happen as opposed to everyone mul it over and come come up with a nine million ways that it wouldn't work and I also have um worked in my tenure to think about the people who don't show up here and for whatever reason it is the the people that we do hear from I'm thankful um but the vast majority we don't hear from and so I've always been very conscious of that but I won't be able to support it because of the interdistrict piece that we just voted on and that was that was my deciding otherwise I absolutely would be there with you so we are past 8 o'clock I would like to give the committee a choice to finish out this Vote or to take the break that we've agreed to take at 8:00 what would we like to do finish out and then take a break or take a break finish out and then take a break and anyone all right we'll just do that no one's speaking up so we'll just do that uh other discussion on this this is why I wanted to vote to do the fifth and the eighth grade vote first because now we're in a corner this is why I didn't think that the in District Choice should go first okay point of order this is not it's not it's not contributing to what we're doing that's wonderful but it isn't contributing to the overall conversation okay I I asked multiple times for folks to engage about how they wanted this to go I went forward with what I thought made sense so other discussion related to this motion the amended motion before we vote okay let's move to a vote so um I think it makes sense Susan Farber would you please read to us the motion as amended beginning with the 20242 school year the Greenfield school committee and Greenfield Public Schools adopt the reenvisioning our school facilities option 2B which redraws B boundaries for the elementary schools to better reflect the makeup of the city and allow for three elementary schools to house grades K through five and move grade eight to the Greenfield Middle School thank you and let's vote uh we'll do a roll call vote please secretary Extron member come around to meet at the end please I'm sorry can you come around to me at the end secretary extrm no member Johnson mad no member Martin uh Vice chair Martini sorry no chair pretti no member wall no em no that motion fails okay so we will take a f minute break and then we will come back and uh attempt to do the original motion again I think is what makes sense but let's take a break five minutes you [Music] he [Music] see him without my glasses on so thank you okay we're going to come back to order school committee um so I think I would actually like to try to reintroduce the original motion regarding um the redrawing of the district lines and I would try at this time to get a motion beginning with the 252 six school year the Greenfield school committee and Greenfield Public Schools adopt the reenvisioning our school facilities option 2B redrawing boundaries for the elementary schools to better reflect the makeup of the city and allow for three elementary schools housing grades grades K through five as well as moving grade eight to Greenfield Middle School can I have a motion to that effect so moved and a second second and discussion no discussion okay let's do a roll call vote please member Den come around to me again please secretary ask from yes member John smad abstain M Martini yes chair pretti yes member wall yes M Den yes motion passes okay thank you thank you all for your work on this we have what I would call a very a a a a solution rooted in a lot of uh work on behalf of the superintendent and her staff thank you and um amazing Outreach and engagement from the subcommittee for uh redistricting and I thank uh member wall and memb Steve and Johnson mad for that work um and of course all of the members of the community and our staff who engaged in the process throughout I thank you for helping us to get there and hopefully this is a a good path towards Equity um for for our district so thank you and we'll move into the rest of the agenda I have a question about the agenda sure under budget update it says budget hearing scheduling and timeline were we not going to do that did I miss something uh you kind of did you didn't miss anything we uh have it in two places it's also in the superintendent update and so we're going to talk about it there okay um the we're on to item nine there is a memo in the packet related to uh new substitute teacher and new substitute instructional assistant wages um and I would refer folks to that subtitute I'm sorry substitute what whatever I said was wrong substitute teacher substitute instructional assistant wages um there's a memo reflecting that um we need to increase those amounts because we believe it will help uh to improve uh being able to get people to do the work uh so at this point I would ask for a motion that the substitute teacher and substitute instructional assistant rates be increased as outlined in the December 12 Memo from the superintendent so much and a second second and uh Christine please I just need to um point out that there was an error when the packet was put together there is supposed to be attached a document summarizing the rates from neighboring districts and unfortunately that was not what was stapled to it however I can give you a general summary so we are um lower across the board than every District that was looked at um including the fact that currently our substitute IIA rates are below minimum wage um there are districts that distinguish you know retired teachers um former teachers degreed level non-degreed level um suggestion that I had to make it a little bit more appealing would be to just have um whether or not it is a currently certified or retired teacher with the experience that would greatly benefit our students or someone who is not retired uh I mean not licensed um so that that is the um proposal and my suggestion is to bump the IIA sub rate to a little bit over minimum wage which is quite honestly just about 50 cents an hour more than most of our neighboring districts um I shamelessly would like to pay them just a smidge more um but as has been said we and reported including for me in my superintendent's report we continue to struggle to get subs of all kinds but we definitely need instructional assistance so um hopeful that this will um increase our subs we get on average anywhere between four and six Subs a day and we can have as many as 20 to 30 absences so um this is greatly needed at least as an attempt to increase the subpool thank you further discussion okay we'll move to a vote anyone abstaining any no votes I forgot the motion already did it happen it did it did um the motion was uh that the sub subtitute teacher and substitute instructional assistant rates be increased as outlined in the December 12 Memo from the superintendent we'll start the vote again any extensions any no votes so that passes unanimously thank you and we are on to um the policy section um member Johnson mad do you want to do the usual um with with these two items that would be 10 and 11 absolutely thank you for item 10 uh I move that we amend policy BDA school committee organizational meeting revised from Full section b as presented on a second reading is there a second second okay and um I guess I'll just give background and then we can have discussion um the policy committee moved forward a revision that would bring our organizational meeting in line with the town Charter um and also so it recommended um adding a public comment section to our organizational meeting at the last meeting um there was not enough um support for the organ uh for the uh public comment period so that was stricken and the um the policy that was approved on first reading is included in your packet without that um and we have not had a policy subcommittee meeting since that full committee meeting however we also have not gotten um any comment against the idea of of bringing our policy into alignment with the charter so I felt comfortable bringing it to us for a second reading without a policy committee meeting in between any discussion all right um secretary extrom do you want to call for a vote would you like me to do a individual member call uh nope you can do it regular any extensions any no votes motion passes all right thanks everybody um so we do have some Logistics to figure out I guess with our new thing so I how will that proceed superintendent in terms of like we're going to be meeting as early as possible in the new year January 2nd I think that the town clerk will be doing a a swearing in ceremony the way it happened I think last two years ago was that it was here and then there the the city council immediately went into their organizational meeting so I wonder if we could almost schedule it so that as soon as their organizational meeting is over or sometime soon after that then the school committee could do ours we all get sworn in the city council organizes itself and then the school committee organizes itself but so I think just as a you know operational um step we could potentially do the evening after um I don't know I'd have to check in with the city clerk to see if the city council has any other agenda items other than reorganizing the city council I don't know if you're suggesting backtack meetings that evening but um we could certainly look to see if the third is is available I think if we could do it on the second that would be great um so there are organizational meetings at 6:30 in the evening is it okay it's already posted on the City calendar city council organizational meeting here uh six oh it doesn't actually oh it does say here at uh uh 6:30 on the second so could we do ours at 5:30 so the way that we schedule meetings we would pull for a qu quum which we could certainly do uh well could we because we've got new members coming in so you can't even pull for a quorum right now but what I would recommend is the typical way we do it is we ask Lauren to do that piece and Lauren to at the same time Reserve uh the space that is available and Reserve gctv to be there as well so we need those pieces to be to fall into place to make sure we could schedule it uh yeah go ahead well go ahead GL no go ahead um so is it by virtue in the past the mayor has been the person to swear in school committee members so by virtue of changing the policy it would now be the city clerk well yeah that's true on a mayoral year sometimes the mayor gets sworn in and then the mayor swears everybody else but at any rate there will be some type of swearing in ceremony I think we should we should do it on that day I don't I think that you know I don't think the city council is going to go into a full uh I mean maybe you can look at their agenda but I my assumption is it's just going to be organizational so we could meet potentially meet here at 5:30 on January 2nd and I think that you would pull for Quorum the same way you would you ask the people who need to be in attendance whether they can make it or not so maybe this superintendent could just work with Lauren to pull um the people who need to be in attendance on that day and see if there's a quorum for January 2nd at 5:30 what my proposal I mean I'm the the chair is the one who does that process not the superintendent okay well I'll I'll I'll be chairing the meeting as the the um member proem so I guess I'll pull for forum and get it scheduled thank you I think did did we vote on the the uh did we already vote on the organizational meeting policy piece did we we finish that vote yeah we finished that vote sorry I just got confused okay um so now we're on to the first reading of policy section I instruction um I move that we approve the first reading of amendments to policy section one instruction as presented so just a point of clarification that it is not printed it's over a 100 Pages it is not printed for individual members right now it's not in your packet it is available in the online um uh materials for this meeting meeting if you were to go online you would find it there um we did not print it to to save the trees and uh any member between now and the next time it's voted on can certainly request from the central office to have the full uh packet printed for them uh to to review before we do the second reading do we have any sort of question sorry we need a second on the motion sorry second okay discussion do we have any sort of little collection of changes that have been made or when the changes have last happened since it's so large the markup of the suggested changes is in the online okay the markup is there so you can see what the proposed changes are sorry any other discussion Kate um I did look at what was provided electronically and it was really large and has a lot of red strikeout in it um I find it difficult to it just seems difficult to me to have an overhaul with that many pieces provided all at once and not to have some kind of outline or explanation of those changes in a concise way and also I will say if it ends up in the meeting materials in a link which I believe is sort of like what occurred for November which was 147 Pages or something it's really difficult for people to find something in the meeting materials that they are interested in amongst all the stuff that they're not so it would be great if we could get that posted separately on the website so you're asking for the section I of the policy manual to be posted separately for ease of access and viewing yes that can be done thank you can I offer just a helpful um note that might help with some of the red um yeah it absolutely is voluminous with red what the um format had been that had been started prior to me getting here is all of the sections have if there are Greenfield and then masc versions available of policies they're both in there almost always the recommendation from Administration is to follow the is to include the masc version so much of the red us see is the deletion of the Greenfield version of policies that are um duplicative from masc in Greenfield so just like half at least half of all the red is that okay I guess I have a follow-up comment um with much respect and appreciation to masc I don't know that all of our policies should be exactly what they say um I I and I don't want to ask for an explanation of every single difference in there um all at once because that is a ton of material um personally I would prefer that it be broken up into smaller chunks this is 120 pages and I yeah well I guess um yes it's 120 Pages yes there are a lot of separate little pieces I guess I'm curious why um the suggestion is to approve all of section I in one swoop as opposed to looking at the individual ones or whatever ones that is the because that's what we've done previously sure um a little context so this is part of our project with the Massachusetts Association of school committees over mask um the service they offer is to help School committees to completely to to take a fresh look at their entire policy handbooks to um overhaul them basically bring them in line with best practices and current law and then digitize them and put them on a website so they're more easily accessible to the school committee members and the public um this project was started before I came on which was I think in May of 2019 it might have been 2018 and you know it got significantly to delayed um I think usually School committees have moved through this process more quickly by now and part of it is that you do have a subcommittee that is looking at these things and a superintendent who you know we have hired to look deeply into instruction and I I think you'll will find aspects where the mask recommendation is not what we're going with um because we it is being each policy is being looked at freshly um uh and brought before being brought to the school committee um but if people want more time and um you know I I'm realizing that in general um the uh the process would be to bring this to the policy subcommittee the new policy subcommittee will be established at the first regular meeting of the year in January which means they won't really be able to meet between until prior to the February meeting so if you wanted we could do the first reading now um then we could vote on it and then it could be brought to the new policy subcommittee or there could be a motion to table to January and it basically wouldn't change the the timeline in that regard so um but personally I I think having it on a first reading and then the school committee in January could decide if they wanted to um to delay um you you could do it that way as well so I think that might be my preference be let's let's pass the first reading and people when they have more time to read it and they have questions and comments they can ask the superintendent they can bring them to the policy subcommittee um and then the next school committee can decide decide when they want to do the second reading Glenn can I say something thank you I took a panel on this in hyenes specifically on this issue so can I share what was told to me so once we complete this work it goes and gets hosted on the masc website and enters a searchable database meaning our policies will be searchable by all the other school committees and we can search their policies if we're not on there we cannot search our policies the way that we might need to in order to collect information quickly and um gather data points that we can compare to other districts so it almost behooves us to really just get it on there as fast as we can so that we can utilize that service and then we can go through and make all of the changes that we want and we'll have better better data points at that moment because we'll be able to utilize the searchable database of other districts if that makes sense so that's part of the hosting and one of the reasons why we do it and it doesn't have to be in line with masc to be on there it just has to be the work has to be finished we have to go through the policy manual and say that we are complete and if we do change something I ask specifically if we want to change a policy how long does that take and I was told just several tops unless it's a really giant thing any other discussion let's vote apologies any abstentions any no votes no uh and yeses I I motion passes thanks everybody thank you member Johnson mad for walking us through that okay we are on to item 12 requests for new agenda items anyone have requests at this time I do VI chair Martini please uh very unrelated well maybe not entirely unrelated mostly unrelated to uh stuff we discussed tonight but something that I um have been wishing for um I've been looking back at um meetings pertaining to the music program and uh and I appreciate the discussions and the information that's being provided but for my part I'm still unclear and it would be really helpful to me if you could please provide uh an outline like a piece of paper um of the GPS music program and that would be particularly helpful to me when we're talking about um the upcoming budget in January and February and March so it would be great if you would have time to U put something together like that around that sure thank you very much thank you Vice chair martini and do we have other requests for new agenda items okay we'll move on to reports from the administration ASP please I was told to talk fast I don't I know I just put my code on too uh professional development We are continuing the work with the teaching lab we had a faculty meeting today and um kind of wrapped up the think right pair share we're going to move on to questioning in January the administration had a full professional development yesterday at e team and we'll be rolling that out in the New Year investigating history um educurious our p partner has been working closely with our 5 through seven history teachers and providing coaching support in their role out of the investigating history curriculum and that's been going really well and we are still uh plugging along at the high school with the roll out of illustrative math in grades 8 through 10 through geometry um they had a professional development today at the faculty meeting with illustrative math they also have a onetoone coach from better lessons that they work with every other week so that's going well we had a site visit from desie Dr sharmi Curry came she's the associate commissioner of the ssos team she came on Thursday November 9th and spent uh the majority of the day with Christine and I and we toured all of the elementary schools um she wanted to see our highquality instructional curriculum resource ckla in action at the elementary level and I just added a little quote from her because um she wasn't familiar with CK until she visited Greenfield in our adoption and she was impressed with the content per grade level and how rich the materials were so it was nice to get that feedback um she also was very impressed that our school and District administrator uh I'll have a level of oversight in the implementation and and tracking of that Library news sadly our elementary librarian had resigned recently uh we are fortunate enough to still have our uh volunteer retired certified librarian Deb Kern who's been filling in she goes once a week to each elementary school so that students can still have access we are strongly looking for replacement so I urge anyone if they are interested to please contact me in the meantime though however if anyone would like to volunteer and help out in our elementary libraries if you could contact central office and uh connect with Lauren Rice she will help you with on boarding in that process and then my last update uh I sadly had to miss one of my favorite events of the Year this year I had a personal matter I had to deal with but we had our unit UHC Mentor mentee December celebration where we get together uh share positive things that have happened you know for the first half of the year um they are a very competitive bunch and so I am always tasked with providing games that rise their level of competition to the highest and I heard it was quite quite competitive this year um and we also uh eat together we do crafts and just really laugh and have a good time so I heard it was a huge success uh Mike Browning thank you for taking over for me and a shout out to my admin assistant who um realizes she's not crafty when I task her with some of these things to do for projects such as this but she does them anyway with a smile so that's all I have tonight thank you thank you are there questions from the committee for askp I'm not seeing any thank you Karen and uh Christine go ahead thank you mine's um not as much fun so we've started the budget process for fy2 and to that end all of the building ad administrators have shared with their staff that they need Supply requests for next school year um we're asking them to submit those to their principles um next week mid next week Andy Karen and I have budget meetings scheduled with all department heads and building level administrators um basically through January 12th through January 19th and then um the budget will get submitted as the superintendent budget for publication and then um you folks obviously will get it to vote so I this is related to the budget hearing request the city puts out a budget timeline that I have a copy of if there are any questions and if we work backwards from the date on which the mayor must receive the school committee budget that is March 11th the deadline for school committee budget vote is March 8th so if we work backwards we have to post for the budget hearing for three weeks prior so my suggestion to allow the committee um a little bit of room to breathe um if there are questions or a need for a second night my suggestion would be that the budget hearing get scheduled for February 28th that would allow that following week of March for a potential second meeting because not forgetting we need 48 hours for posting and then if we work backwards assuming the 28th is agreeable three weeks for posting of the budget hearing brings us to February 7th but then Lauren and I have to get material to the Greenfield Recorder on certain dates so that it is published on particular dates so that puts us sending the budget summary and the um press release regarding the hearing to the recorder by February 2nd if that followed backwards so we have to get the budget to the mayor by March 11th so I think we need to post for the hearing by the 7th of February any objections thank you okay I don't have any objections I'd like you to discuss a little bit how our timeline differs from the other departments in the city oh certainly this is based on um the timeline for um City departments so they actually are um it it's not a horrifically un inconsistent timeline they're doing department head meetings with the mayor um around the same time that the department heads in the school are meeting with me and Karen and Andy um we have a separate requirement for posting our budget hearing the city posts theirs separate we have to post ours separately um and then the mayor gets our budget um and then incorporates that into um her full budget book which is then presented and then the mayor has a timeline of April ail 1st to present the operating budget to the city council so the mayor needs our piece of the budget to create the full City budget so we need to be in the middle of all of those pieces with a final voted request so oh I have to finish my report I apologize I was so excited we got through that part thank you um so the I was very pleased to have the opportunity to present the mass Association of school superintendent academic Excellence award um Elise bonitz is currently the number one ranked student in our senior class she is a GPA of a 4.46 right now um an Inc has she has taken an incredibly rigorous course load she's current president of the National Honor Society she has and um a musician for the high school and um so we Karen and I and Derek surprised her in a class with balloons and flowers and embarrassed her horrifically which is always the goal and then um on December 7th I was able to attend the Franklin County um dinner where all Franklin County superintendents attend the culinary students at Franklin County County Tech um cook dinner they do a very very nice job and then all the superintendents are asked to come up one at a time and read the biography which you folks got at the time um through email we read the biography of our student and um it's a wonderful night I was able to um talk with elely and her parents for the evening and it it's extremely enjoyable to be able to do that um so her um a summary of that is here and again you did get her her biography but if you have any interest in getting it again I'm happy to share it and then Staffing um a couple of pieces oh wait let me go back I apologize I knew there was something I forgot um at a prior meeting I had talked about the fact that we would look at the transportation routes in town there are questions about why do some places get busted why do others not um safety of roots Etc I want to let everyone know that Jake and I did walk the bus routes um the other morning and I forgot my gloves it was a memorable day but um we walked all of the routes um around to and from Newton School um the route from different areas to Federal Street so we are going to do a little bit of work in crafting some suggestions um or options for cons consideration for the committee um I hope that that will be in January at the committee meeting for consideration um but I believe that it warrants um consideration of some changes and then um the sad things the aforementioned Jake has given us his resignation so we're losing Jake but I'm very pleased for him in that he's leaving us to pursue um another academic degree and I hope that when Jake finishes his bcba program that he will come back to us um that's a very um exciting opportunity for him um I did fight with him I told him I wasn't taking his resignation and he basically slid it under my office door so um I have posted we don't have applicants yet but he's going to be with us until the end of January so I'm hopeful um so a few other pieces that are um budgetarily related last year with the budget for this current school year um I did recommend and you folks agree that we cut the float custodian um that is not breaking in our favor we have had um custodial vacancies that were out for much longer than anticipated we have had some Personnel issues um con within our custodi IAL unit either leaves or other issues not necessarily um huge concerning issues but still situations that resulted in the need for our current custodians to work overtime so at this point in the year we have already um surpassed what was spent in overtime last year let me look we have a summary in FY 23 the maintenance custodial team um had just over 50,000 in overtime for all of FY 23 um to this point we have almost hit that total in overtime so really it is um you know a a recommendation to save budget money which in the short term had we been fully staffed would certainly have been fine but at this point um the overtime that we would spend for the remainder of the year if we stay at this pace will well over overlap the cost of a float custodian so um I'm going to post that position in the hopes that we can address the overtime expenses um assuming that we can in fact fill the float custodian position so the other um situation that um I'd like to move forward with is a a long number of years ago prior to my arrival there was an additional position in the superintendent's office and we're looking to um reinstitute a part-time position and I want to explain the re the bouncing ball of this in our payroll department we use munus there are many updates and changes that need to occur in munice for our processes to be efficient right now with the responsibilities that are in the payroll roll SL HR department Barry who is our payroll um primary payroll person and doing all of these HR pieces who would be working with the city Side to do all the changes in munus does not have the time to make the changes in munus because all of of all of the HR pieces that are in that office so we're just continually sort of behind the eightball um if he's able to spend the time working with the city to make the backend changes in munice then the goal is that our operations will be more efficient and you can see in the long run the benefits um so I would like to reinstitute that is a part-time position and it may not be needed forever but we definitely need to sort of provide time to make the adjustments that we need to address the problems that create inefficiencies so that we can potentially streamline operations again um I was looking at the history the position has gone through a few configurations it seems different responsibilities moved back and forth um but I did talk with Andy about the history of that position and his best recollection is that the decision was not that it wasn't needed it's that there was a very very lean budget year one year and that the result was the position was cut not that it wasn't needed so um so um and then we're back to using a staffing agency to try to help us fill some of our positions specifically our IAS we have had some success already and we continue to move in that direction so and then um I would like to thank our school committee members um Susan and Jean and the mayor who's not here um for so far two and a half wonderful years and I greatly appreciate all of the support and guidance and work that you have done and it has been a great pleasure for me to work with you and I will extend that same sentiment to the mayor um privately since she's not here so thank you thank you do we have questions or comments for the superintendent okay I'm not hearing any we'll move into the school committee reports um my report is only that I would Echo Christine's sentiment about our uh committee members who are rolling off um and I acknowledge all of their great work and um wish them the best and hope that uh they'll still uh continue to be engaged with the schools um and I have also made it very public that I do not plan on running for or being chair anytime again in the near future so I will be done uh as chair and that is my report and we can move into uh the subcommittee reports do we have anything else we would want to discuss related to redistricting this evening okay and what about anything from policy anything additional nope uh budget anything additional I mean Melissa Webb gave a really good budget report and we talked about elevators and and uh the cost of things rolling off and starting and so yeah no there's nothing okay if if there was something that was important to share at this point I absolutely would but it but it was all sort of what needs to be thought about in the future okay and the collaborative member Den anything to report no okay and I would just add uh the district Wellness committee uh work we should be aware as a committee that there um is a spot for a school Committee Member to represent on that committee and their next meeting is very close after the beginning of the year um I think is it on January 4 let me just it's really early so I just want to make sure folks are aware of that and um it would be the new chair's responsibility to that assign that person and I would just say publicly that I'm happy to continue in that role and also happy to let someone else transition to it however uh that would go and it is at 4 o'clock on the 8th Monday the 8th of January is when that committee next meets um and they are working on the wellness policy for the district so I think it would be be um helpful for us to have someone there and I'm just putting that out there we don't need to discuss it now we can discuss it with the new committee well actually so when is the meeting M Monday uh January 8th at 4 oock and they meet in the um central office area in the conference room there and the first regular school committee will be the 10th so the committee assignments won't be made correct until the 10th likely correct so I'm just wondering if we I don't know if we can but I I think it might be good to make a motion to I'll make a motion and see we can discuss it but um for Amy pretti to continue in that role for that um first meeting in January until the committee assignments can be made I'll second it okay any discussion I would just say I'm fine with that I really just think it's important we have representation there and if I continue fine if I don't continue after that fine too okay any further discussion uh any we'll move to a vote any abstentions any no votes okay so that will be the plan thank you member Johnson mad and uh that it concludes the regular meeting we do need to do an executive session um so I me make sure we are not returning an open session so uh motion to enter executive session please for exemption reason number two to conduct strategy sessions in preparation for negotiations with non-union Personnel or to conduct collective bargaining sessions or contract negotiations with nonunion personnel as well as exemption 7 to comply with or act under the authority of any general or special law or Federal Grant in Aid requirements this is the approval of executive session minutes from the dates listed there uh can I get a motion to that effect so moved and a second second and um we need a roll call vote on that please member Jive yes secretary exm yes member John mad yes Vice chair Martini yes PR yes member wall yes and that passes unanimously so now I also need a motion to adjourn the uh public session please so moved and a second second and any uh we'll move right to a vote on that any extensions any no votes okay we are adjourned at 9:01 from the public session thank you all

thank you so much for being [Applause] here

[Music] are liveed states DAV here m j can I have a motion and a second to approve the minutes from the following meeting we have November 16th 2023 and special meeting December 11 all those in favor oos all right no need for an executive session so Dr P you want presentation love to very EXC um every month we get to recognize some students from our schools that are really helping us make the difference that we want to making our whole they are helping us um show everybody how to follow the rules be good to each other be kind to each other stick to your studies try and do your best is the kind of um leadership and role models that we need to help everybody do their best and we really appreciate their efforts and we would love to have the opportunity to thank you and give a little round we and I don't think we've had too many who knows to you all for coming out Mr mph would you come join me when I say come join me that means you read them so I don't mess up anybody name well thank you everyone for coming out this evening um like Dr petrielli said um we're super proud of all the students um and just showing what it means to be safe being responsible and being respectful are three schoolwide rules um so thank you very much students if you hear your name come on up okay that top one is one from a prior month but there aing here so they were unable to make the awesome so let's hear it for Luca shellenberger we have Regina and dry thank you Logan stalard awesome Amelia Morales Jolene melen I I'm sorry curly check out Ella [Applause] Nelson Natalie chelki papaka giovana shellberg Giana Kella zavon thoron Saban y am Jan Zoe tierno Jeremiah herandez Josh Sylvia cudra Dariel Nunes Nova Jenna relli D mun Alexander Riley Liam [Applause] up Nick bar brce Brown Dy Wang Ella Nelson thank [Applause] you so congratulations again to all of our award winners and thank you families for bringing them out to be recognized we're going to take ause right now if anybody would like to take their Home Supply understand you're more than welcome to stay as well and thank you again for coming out yeah that's aw all right thank you take care have a good thank you I'm you on theor let's [Applause] it conratulations I know Missy on that first see you by all right at this point we will um open for public comments for agenda items only can I have a motion in a second thank you9 any comments on motion second please close the meing to the public motion second all right you're up thank you well it is the December meeting so it's traditional for me to talk for 45 minutes nothing else to do um well aside from missing a a certificate that I so um things are going things are going pretty good uh the um you'll see on the hi report that we didn't have any I asked all the students to try and not do it until I'm save up they agreed that that they would let loose in February lat later in February but but things things are going well teachers are taking care of business the kids are obviously getting very excited teachers are getting very excited at the uh looking forward on the calendar but I think you'd be pleased if you walk in the halls and see see the teachers teaching and the kids learning things are dou all right so um Safety and Security drills took place for both of our schools uh no need for a bus evacuation they're just done twice a year monthly reports they were uploaded for your review as Dr Petrelli said we do not have any um hi reports for this month but we do have to affirm um the the superintendent decisions associated with the harassment intimidation bully from last month that was case number 10528 can I have a motion in a second second any questions Mrs or Mr Jones yes Mrs Helma yes Mr Juliano yes Mr Davis yes Mrs Allen yes Mrs Reed yes Mr ban yes all right if you remember from last month we started to group our items together so we're going to do 10 H um 1 through four can I have a motion in a second to approve it those and then I'll go through them motion second okay so item one is just to approve um well to acknowledge the names for our school Volunteers in the month of December 2023 they fulfilled the appropriate paperwork um number two is just to approve use of facilities we are back in full swing to allowing uh groups using our facilities and um they've been filling up the calendar which is great uh number three is to approve the revised District C this is to accommodate for our closure um for the wi main break so obviously we had to add a day to the trimester add a day to the end of the school year um hopefully no snow days so we don't want to go into that third week of June um and then the fourth one is just to approve the submission and certification of the 2223 H grade self assessment um it's been submitted but it needs to be board approved in order to certify any questions okay I'm going to do a roll call Mr Jones yes Mrs Helma yes Mr Davis yes Mrs yes Mr Juliano yes Mrs Allen yes Mrs Reed yes Mr Golden yes all right 10 I is just to approve a guild trip for 73 they are doing the walking trip for the uh constitutional Center on June 3rd cost to suited is $13 can I have a motion in a second motion any questions Mrs yes Mr yes Mr J M Julian yes Mr Davis yes M alen Mrs Reed yes Mr Gold yes all right 11 A B is Personnel we're going to need a motion a second to approve those items 11 A and B collectively and then I'll go through them motion second right our first one is just um some staff that we've needed to fill for some vacancies we have one person that's coming back on an hourly rate it's it's just to fill a vacancy but she's on a college break she worked with us in the summer and worked with us um during Co a little bit um the other is a new part-time instructional Aid we have a long-term sub for kindergarten for a leave and then um some homebound teachers for some um positions that are needed for some students on the can I have I Mo a second I gotta use that and then we also need to approve the placement of a school psychology practicum student from Rowan that's going to work with Ryan all from January 16th through April 19th 2024 any questions Mrs Julian are you one of our new staff members who are ol all right so there's Olivia she's here and she's going to be working with us soon I guess once all your paperwork back you'll be ready to go nice to meet you from hereen I knew I knew the name Jake welcome um any other question Mrs Juliano yes Mr Jes yes Mrs Helmont yes Mrs oriente yes Mr Davis yes Mrs Allen yes Mrs Reed yes Mr Golden yes all right 13 we're going to approve a through G can I have a motion in a second moot oh I'm sorry I skipped 12 I wrote 13 on my paper twice I didn't catch that 12 is just to um approve the application for the request to weigh the space requirements under the preschool expansion guidelines so it should be an easy P it's just they require in a preschool expansion um guidance that it has to be 950 sare ft we're restructuring because we're adding a fourth classroom for next year um so in order to do so we wanted to have all the classes together so I think it's like 800 and some square feet and then 788 or whatever so it's four classrooms two of them are I think 86 and the other one is and it's really it's a certain portion has to be instructional space a certain portion has to be closet and storage space um and then the the bathroom has to be a specific um the lady at the state said it should not be an issue but we have to follow the waiver that goes to the county office for review and approval and sometimes they'll come out and they'll do a facility check and a site check and things like that but we don't anticipate any problems so can I have a motion and a second on Mo second any other questions uh Mr Jones yes Mrs Helma yes Mr Davis yes Mr juli yes Mrs or yes Mrs alen yes Mrs Reed yes Mr yes yes all right let's do 13 a through G can I have a motion to Second motion second so does everyone have a chance to review and sign the bill and then Item B is just to approve our November 2023 there's first sign oh you did oh good so we're good okay perfect sorry um B is just to approve the November 2023 listing for source for teachers C is to approve the cafeteria dispersement for the month of November and the amount of $ 26379 B is to approve our care dispersements for the month of November and the amount of 9,482 36 e is to approve the following out of District tuition contracts for the 2324 school year it's a preschool student um this was actually for esy um this student actually at another added District placement now but this is just for ES I'm sorry this is just for September and then I believe they went to the add of District placement the following um month f is just to approve some travel and professional development for our staff members most of this comes from title two it's a grant um G is just to approve uh the agreement with Berlin count school district and Es Northeast which is old source for teachers this is an increase to the rate just due to um minimum wage requ enironment going up in January so that's all that is any questions on those items or bills or anything like that right Mrs oriente yes Mrs Juliano yes Mrs Helma Mr Jones Mr Davis yes Mrs Allen yes Mrs Reed yes Mr Golden yes I'm going to do public comments for any business can I have a motion in a second to open the meeting to the public oh my God what is wrong with me good Lord I have Christmas on the out here I've been on a bus for two weeks in the morning I'm fried probably easier the I'm fried um so all right so let's let's go backwards uh committee updates negotiations uh Joe and I have some um contract like the just some language checks from uh nja rep so hopefully we'll have that maybe even at reward hopefully we'll have that ready to go if not January we should all be ready to go and approve that and um move forward bpsa um I guess we'll wait till February when Mr Lee is here to set up those meetings he doesn't want to do any of that uh finance committee we skipped tonight um we had one that was unavailable um you might have been unavailable so we just said it's December let's take a break um school boards associ I haven't seen anything come over through them and services um so they are giving some of the clemon administration some of their office space and in Clon um and they're in the early stages of partnering with Ruckers for CTE education and mental health education for high school students and they would work with school districts and that would begin in 2025 if they receive a grant so it is a grant and someone asked why they weren't partnering with candy County College and they said it's due to the grant Ruckers reached out to them okay um help okay um we had the German the new German teacher came and did um uh presentation on the German exchange program that he wants to cool yeah they he had six or seven students with him that were interested in it how it's going to work is they would um let me see if I got this right this really I was there so fix any of these issues um so the German exchange students would come in October and our students would go for two weeks in August a and um the fee is partially going to be done by fundraising some by families um of the students and then some is a grant from the organization that the teacher works with um anything else you want to add to that they they can stay in people's houses yeah that's the best opportunity because they'll go to Germany for two weeks and they'll stay with the host family so they'll yeah they'll eat their you know their meals and they'll go and see you know the sites in the areas and then they'll do kind of the same thing when they come here they'll say whose family's houses two weeks are for a longer period two weeks as it's two weeks for each except our houses will have a lot more because there's a lot more students from Germany that'll come okay so at least that's what they said so but he had done it in his former District which was mine one so um he's been doing it before and he had showed us pictures and he was hoping at the next um meeting J the next meeting he's at to give us some more information on it I wasch yes he's he's very passionate about he was very passionate when he presentation it was very informative and all and the board was very much on board with it a great experience um second thing was Mr Lee's resignation and he spoke to the board and um let all of us know that he's grateful to be working there for the last 16 years um next thing was we updated um some policies that needed to be updated and um approved second reading of a bunch first reading of one believe um we approved the over course guide for next year and um our reor meeting is January 2nd at 5:30 and we're doing a board retreat on Saturday morning through 27th of January at 9:00 a.m.

[Music] soon to the open public meetings act ACC public notice has been given by the secretary of the Ean Township Board of Education in the following manner posting written notice on the official btson board by the Board of Education Office emailing written notice to the Bron and County Times And The Courier Post as well as filing written notice with the municipal Mr renti can we have a roll call please Mr Bach Dr capella here Mr fisicaro here miss Fox here Mr Kath here Mrs N here Miss Lee here Mr Thompson here Dr wil here we have a quum thank you Mr oeni oh okay all right great uh we're now going to look for a motion to head into executive session whereas an njsa 10412 allows for a public body to go into Clos session during a public meeting and whereas the Board of Education of e sham Township has deemed it necessary to go into Clos session to discuss certain matters which are Exempted from the public and whereas the regular Board of Education meeting will reconvene following the end of the Clos session at approximately 7:30 p.m.

[Music] oh [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] oh [Music] you [Music] [Applause] [Music] oh [Music] all I thought you said he was giving me no I want to remind board members to please make sure their microphones are on during the whole meeting please all I'm calling to order the workshop for today I call the workshop to order for Bullhead City School Board on on Thursday December 14th at 5:30 p.m.

allow access to others um through a view only for everybody Gateway serving on the committee okay anybody else um then just getting back to the process of posting these docu working documents um my request was that could we post all of them that we will be working on over time so that we could be working on NE while we may agendize which ones we're going to be talking about next we could still be working back and forth as we need to because there's going to be some alignment issues we're going to run into otherwise who's going to be responsible for that is all my is that something that is in Hillis capacity or do one of you need to take it on is all I'm curious about doing well for setting up like the Google Docs I'm wondering if Russell could make one of those folders with you know how Shar D that are like the shared Drive version because what happens is like let's say Adriana makes I make it or he makes it the employee owns it so if I administrator needs lose my mind and run off into the woods and then they cancel my account then that those files aren't available anymore but if Russell creates sort of corporate folder then that kind of exists outside of any individual yeah I think we need to talk to yeah so we we can do that and have that we should be able to have that all ready to go before the next meeting so um I would have a request to have uh just make sure that there each policy is a separate document rather than like a big Mega document that can get confusing too agreed so you can go and pick and choose and that way too when people go and look they can see like I tried to name this last one like committee draft ones that you knew so they'll know like if it's just the title no one's none of that has been discussed as a whole group so you would just be seeing like one of our random musics right right so that would be a really good idea speaking of which are we we're starting with ji we said correct are we looking at aod do edits or the one that just says ji edits so I'm happy to like look at that and you guys critique it now but it I think that would be the most efficient if and we could take anybody's draft and start there um but for the next ones we would need to like make a clean Dock and start doing the comments because I think yeah if we try to make a comment one now we'll end up using the whole time for that that's true um so we're opening about their copy of J edits yeah and we're adding to it or what are we doing kind of like last time right we opened yours last time and then critique youres yep okay and I'm just gonna make sure I gotta find that that is that in that folder you shared with us the government the main folder if you look there's a folder that says opoc edits I just was trying to keep my drive clean so I put it in there got it and then you should be you two should just be getting edit access because you weren't on that particular document and then I changed your guys's to edit too kind of started this last time too yeah cuz we did the like pink and what we couldn't do that's right um it's the same I I did it the same way I did last time where anything that I was wanting to delete completely I left but struck out and then anything in color um two the two different shades of purple I I wrote myself um so can we do you think we should post it still like can people that are watching can they see it on the screen oh they will okay so then I will so can I put things in the abadaka edit J ji edits uh yeah do you guys want to do like a 10 minute break and you put comments in it directly or do we want to go like paragraph by paragraph to to be honest if if we were going to like kind of merge our systems it would make sense to do like a 10-minute break and please look at what you see and just put your comments and start there we can do that is everybody okay with that okay so we can go and put put edits and stuff in the apaka copy of ji edits yes should do suggestions or comments right yeah comments if you have a comment about something or if you want a reording you can put it in that way uh edits are for grammatical things and emojis are emojis I just want to clarify you said that um Nicole is gonna be Nicole Eve Marquez is gonna be our new member okay I didn't recognize the name so I want to make sure I didn't and she's on oh perfect hi Nicole and then sha is still that's doing it she just didn't come to this meeting or should I take her from edit access right now um I have not confirmed with her um we were supposed to talk at leadership today and then that didn't pan out so I need to reach back out to her I just have her as a viewer on it now since everyone's gonna see yeah I think that's perfect she may she may even choose to watch the video because I know she watched the last one and I think she talked to you and Brian question that has nothing to do but generally speaking how long do districts keep um most HR related records are six years students students there's a portion of it that's for certain number of years and then the there's What's called the permanent record card and the permanent record card is supposed to be kept for all so a different I think they've got a really long one if not permanent so I think they're longer than some of the other record times so a lot of them my and was likey find it's POS was it was it in Arizona yeah I think it would be the other thing that's true probably like thing it's not actually your work it's the title student rights and expectations and I'm like they still need to so I get the expectation part of this supp but I'm not sure what the student rights part of this policy is so it's atug with that and then if you when you get down to the the rights and responsibilities they do start talking about like and the parents will help them too so no it's actually crazy that was and I have and all and I've only read the ji part not the J wonder about [Music] you uh Adriana you didn't delete any of the original policy right well now that's uh no that's all just crossed out all the right the black their view points was a cross out byy them like if you look at page oh they're not page numbered but the last paragraph on the page of jir that scratched out is was the original contents they have to go get the forcl this box for it yeah there's certain Finance ones that are forever too there there's there's a crazy number of Forever Records the districts have to keep train just expiration but now that it's digital not so much before I had a destruction but now I think I don't care there oh I see where it is we really run into trouble is when people want stuff from like the 50s or 60s you know because there's if there's Windows of time rules as they exist now didn't exist so it's not like we have all the way back to 1884 yeah exactly for and just to clarify we're uh putting in edits for ji and ji jir as well okay make got it it as long as you're not a mouth breather I think a mouth breather well just if any comments we make to each other people need to be able to hear what we're saying so what [Music] this is student rights and responsibilities I think it makes sense that it says like student right yeah because use the phrasing everyone think this applies to people other than so I had and when we talk about that I had issues with the voice of that jir to begin with because sometimes it goes back and forth between everyone like all district personnel and then sometimes it says just students so for me I feel like it should be either clarify the language of like what we're talking about or delete the parts that say all that's my rationale but I I can explain that when we we talk about that I just want to throw out that it's 5 it's like two minutes to 5:30 um so I don't know if we want to like if we all got to Jr if we want to stop there just because I want to make sure we have enough conversation time but I'm also not doing anything so maybe I'm just being impatient I have a lot of jir I still need to read through but if we want to talk about ji and be happy to what we end at 6 or we end at 6:30 uh 6:30 I think is what it's scheduled I mean we could do like 45 40 you know 45 minutes also can we or can we not motion to extend the meeting you may not want to do that but you know to finish I don't think there's an actual end there's not an yeah in the past it was just trying to um make sure again my name is blanking I'm your student Adam was trying to make sure Adam wasn't staying up who's Adam oh got it got ites sense I'm open to staying but I I have a diabetic dog that does need to get insulin so I couldn't stay much past like the regular time I me again I I will just I can keep reading as we as I need to but I think coming to consensus on ji which is the actual policy to which jir needs to align might so whenever we're ready to talk about that has everyone had a chance to look at ji at least yeah we're ready to go okay um James how did you think what were your thoughts on this do you want to so do we just go comment by by comment now uh we can yeah yeah okay um so for uh ji sorry I'm trying to find it again uh for ji uh my comment up at the top there behavior of students um oh that was just uh so I that was before I saw your rewarding and it's just uh I was trying to keep the same language and use something different other than pment because basically I had to look that up because I wasn't real clear what that meant um so I figured the behavior of students a little minor thing but if the if the yours is more acceptable than the original then that's fine me I don't know what your thought process was for uh what you had written um I so I guess I would make sense right if I explain um the Curious thinkers kindhearted leaders and collaborative Learners that is our iic plan and so I thought that if we're talking about the conduct and like the behavior of students it would be nice to align it to like our ultimate goals for the kids so I didn't do it in a clean like behavior of students but it was like these are the things that we're trying to um like instill in our kids and then how they interact with individuals contributing and participating within the community because if we are district moving towards restorative practices it ends up being a lot about like your impact on your community and those around you and then um repairing and restoring any said harm to that community so that was kind of it's like uh my gentle start into the idea that like this is how we think our kids should like leave us and this is like what's important to their behavior um isn't our strategic plan changing though it we this so this particular those like key words are like the jargon of the first original strategic plan but into in iteration but in this last iteration They concluded included all of that and they're just creating different benchmarks is my understanding I think the confusion may be or there's confusion but the distinction may be that there's the Strategic plan which was renewed last year um that strategic plan still in place um and then there's the student outcomes Focus governance work that the board's doing which aligns with the Strategic plan and that has the five actually take it back four um there's four draft goals that are currently um developed by the governing board and then in addition to that last Tuesday night at the board meeting there are five board guard rails at the board developed collaboratively and five superintendent guard rols that were developed collaboratively with the board and superintendent there were seven and the board was kind enough when I pointed out that it did appear that the superintendent had two more than the board we did take it back down to five so um so and I have I brought copies of those with me in case they'd be helpful to the committee so I do have some hard copies if they're helpful my I I like how it's fleshed out a lot more um my only uh comment and this is just an open comment is uh like I was uh mentioning to Daniel before is this document itself is designed for student students rights and expectations but there's several paragraphs where it kind of either directly says everybody or implies this community type of approach to things and I feel like the language should reflect that as well too um uh so I would I would ask the question should we uh say and expectations for how everyone conducts themselves um or should we make it very specific and say students um and eliminate the other parts that are uh referencing adults I'm open to either I want my my assumption is that the student part should stay students because we have in governing board policy all of the like staff ones so I mean I know we don't have like a community like outside stakeholder policies necessarily but we do have staff student so I lean towards student and then I think but maybe we might be best going and um looking at each of the everyone's because sometimes the everyone that's there is it's like like the attendance one it's that they'll support the kid and making sure that they come to school so right like that's not really a policy for them but then there are the there I have seen the everyone's I can't think of offand that we're kind of like and you'll do this too grownup right right so I we might have to go one by one yeah I I feel the same way because you're right there are specific things that are like yeah that's specifically for kids like when they talk about the materials and textbooks that are checked out that's clearly intended for kids and should say kids but then the other parts I don't know I feel like it's uh a little less like point point point youu you you and more you know we have to do this as a community if we're talking about uh if we're talking about much more inclusive practices um forgive me is are what is what we're talking about right now part of jir or part of ji because ji it's uh my because so could you be more explicit like yeah what specific text are you referencing in terms of your concern about that like everyone or everybody in ji right so her when her purple section there it says and expectations for how students conduct themselves as curious thinkers kind-hearted leaders I like all of that language I would just offer a friendly suggestion question of saying for how everyone conducts themselves as curious thinkers kindhearted leaders and cl and I appreciate that but in BO board policy staff behavior is a completely different section of policy corre and it's outside the scope of what we've been tasked to do so I I think we need to be cautious about that I think what we're talk policy in here is about actions that the superintendent or his designes need to do in order to ensure that the policies related to student rights or student behaviors as we go on are being implemented within the balance of policy so I'm not sure that I I I I I'm not sure that that explicit overlap of like talking about everyone's behavior is what really lives in this particular policy I agree I think what the James is pointing out is because later in J there's directives to District Personnel about student rights um but I don't I agree with you in the end Al that that's not I think we just have to wait till we get to it yeah yeah it may be it's not my H to die on it's just I was just thinking in terms of consistency of language and maybe that when we get to those parts that we just you know cut that and then um just throwing that out out here you know when we get to the end of this takeways I think what we said at the beginning who knows maybe next year we'll see this committee for staff conduct like oh yeah we did we did talk about that it's a logical it's a logical Next Step yeah so but and I'm definitely good with having the conversation when we get to jir I just want to make sure because I haven't read any of that I'm like wait what language are they talking about right now right right but other than that I mean that was just my own little raised eyebrow thing um but I I definitely like the language itself okay um I see Allan's comment about Equitable treatment and access do you mind if we just decide really quick before you say that are we all good with cutting out the crossed out part because I'm just going to delete it the deportment the deportment and the conduct and stuff yep okay yeah yes I would say unless there's a comment on it that means we agree okay um Alan's bit about Equitable treatment and access I think that should be Equitable treatment and equal access right because isn't the goal of Equitable treatment is that everyone has equal access to the educational program okay so change how he has it it's uh it should be we should keep the second equal so it should be Equitable treatment and equal access are we good is it better if I like it or do you want us to like leave it so that they know at some point someone said that yeah because they can also watch this video oh good and Google Docs the other thing it does well is it's a um it manages revision tracking so those old versions still exist that's true Equitable treatment and equal access education program um and I'm good with the another rights afforded to when your second comment yep yeah I just I figured we we have explicitly mentioned some rights but then like I just want to make sure that the policy acknowledges or may be other rights that the law affords to students that we haven't explicitly written in here so um and then when I get down to so now we have let me to make sure you're kind of thinking James that from includes to District in that next paragraph We would cut that out and add what you have in your comment yeah so I was I was just trying to find a way to say it that made sense in my brain because I felt like the wording was convoluted and difficult to understand so that's my suggestion it I mean like I said that's definitely not my heel to die on I just thought that was a little bit easier uh to digest than that word salad that is currently there I agree that James's language is a little easier than constituted School authority of compliance I think that's one of the reasons why people are so like it reading policy is such a challenge because of language like that I think it's a good change I think that's gets rid of obedience yeah oh thank God uh okay I'm good Alan are you good with that yeah I I I need now now that you've done that I need to read that paragraph as a whole yeah go ahead and that purple part ahead that's something you added yes sir um at the begin in your in in your sentence um in order to for the district to provide these rights rights are not provided they they exist so instead to ensure these rights and then can we go sorry be I'm I'm good with that paragraph can we go back to the the previous paragraph the last purple piece MH where you where you've written the staff governing board and superintendent have responsibility continuously throughout all policy policy speaks to the board has responsibilities and the superintendent has responsibilities and I think this starts kind of getting into that area where James is like wait is it everybody is it staff is it students like what's so should this be so that I put there because in jir so this might be exactly what you're talking about in jir it starts talking about how like we have a respons responsibility to support them in their responsibilities but there wasn't anything said in the uh prologue right well that Welling but again that's so that's why I wanted to have this policy the policy so I I think it makes sense as a staff member that I have a responsibility to help students I don't think I have a responsibility to ensure that their rights are protected like I that's not really my like I should not be held responsible if a student's rights are violated just in general right because I didn't like intervene or I didn't figure out that their rights are being violated do seem like something that is my responsibility as a staff member is that legally true that he doesn't have the need or he does have the need does he that he that a staff member he's not responsible for ensuring the rights Le for the rights in this policy I think I mean if Daniel were like a special education teacher sure that's like a different if I was violating their rights this implies that I'm corre protecting don't think and I do think when we talk in regulations maybe speaking to the role that staff that all staff have responsibilities too you know in I don't know why I don't know what all that wording is because we all do have responsibilities to do our part to support students rights right right and make you know so like we have to be aware what they are and we have to be watching for violations from o you know that might happen from peers or from other adults and like we have roles and roles and responsibilities within the scope but I I agree um that I that the impetus of being responsible for ensuring the systems are in place um for students rights is really it sits with the superintendent and then from the superintendent's office we all then have responsibilities to follow follow the follow what we've been told we need to do as employees I agree that would be a scary thing to I mean because I couldn't be I couldn't know all the laws and rules and how to interpret them and stuff like that there there are that's not true there are certain prescribed ones but they're very limited the best example I can think of and correct me if I'm wrong Katie but would be the um we're we're all of us who work with the students in the district are mandatory reporters mandatory reporters I lost mandatory reporters right halfway through what I was trying to say so that would be an example of where we are all responsible for protecting students rights but very specifically prescribed in law I think Daniel's right just broadly stating it doesn't make a lot of sense so two random things Nicole I see that you're putting edits in that's awesome I'm unsure though if those are brand new things you're putting in or if you're Crossing it out for something so if it if you're putting brand new things if you could put it as the comment um because she has something up here that we do probably need to go back to um so in terms of what you guys were just talking about I think there's two options I was going to P I pulled the whole sentence and put it in the comment so when we got down to the like what's the role in here we could either put it back or we can or we can just delete it could you save the comment so we can see it too oh I'm sorry yeah comment so I just put it there or it sounds like maybe it was appropriate but not appropriate with staff in it so I can take staff out and just put it in there I believe it was appropriate just without staff because that's the governing board and people that would be held accountable in an instance that a student's rights were violated that's my understanding okay yeah my feeling is that it's more es especially since this is specifically for students that as we go through the document we we need to start like deleting things that don't specifically say student or that imply an adult or some other staff member so since that's in policy G instead well and the only place we would leave that kind of stuff in in terms of staff is where it's the policy is explicitly stating a responsibility of the superintendent of the board to do something related to the policy right that makes sense um does anyone can anyone look at the original one that paragraph so we didn't change anything about the 18-year-olds I did change Guardians just because not everybody has like a not everyone's parents the ones who are actually parenting them so I thought Guardians would be more inclusive um but do we know if the superintendent shall develop what's her comment maybe I can't see it are you asking about my comment oh I'm sorry I saw her name like scrolled over it so I wasn't sure so is this a brand new comment you wanted to add or you change I when I looked at it I saw her name so I think her cursor was just on it so I thought she was writing it okay got it yeah that's uh the superintendent shall develop and promulgate uh I have that's my comment and it's the same uh same process as that previous paragraph where I was just trying to use a few less Sunday words and something a little bit more easy to digest so if the if you like how uh I reworded it great if not then that's okay too I think that's fine I look up promo gate um James to yours I would just add um after situations we' put to ensure something to ensure that they're Implement what am I doing now or something along or equitably administrated Oh you mean the last sentence yes so these these guidelines will help explain student rights in different situations to ensure you know whatever the wording that we want because that's a part of the thing that was left out in your comment that the point of the guidelines is to make sure that they are you know being carried out a suggestion on did you say it sorry to probably to ensure Equitable Administration what's a better word for that execution implementation implementation there we go okay so now hold on I think she just was doing formatting things add a question mark oh she was asking what Pro can't even pronounce it PR yeah um and by in terms of parent Guardians most commonly in all the special education legal paperwork it's parent/guardian oh parent/guardian okay I think I that's fine I just wanted to make sure that we were I mean I don't know I I don't know that it functionally matters but I could appreciate where there might be some parents who might be put off by that their role being being excluded that's fair okay but I do appreciate you adding Guardians because you're right not every student has parents who are involved in their educational lovely grandmas and foster parents doing wonderful things so sure they're included um add to list two times um so just so we before we move on to J Nicole put um this about defining the relationship between students board superintendent in relation to conduct um because people don't know and we did talk about doing a glossery so I don't know if that would just fall into our glossery but I also wonder and J you'll probably know best are those things already defined like this is quite fur like down in the list of all of the board policy is that already Define somewhere like in policy a or something you know it's possible but for the most part one of the things that I've noticed about board policy over the years is that it doesn't necessarily provide definitions and it and it will you know reference things like State Statute but it never seems to reference sort of dis um definitional authorities so I do think I've never seen a set of board policies with sort of a glossery of terms but I think if we want it to be accessible to our parents and our students it would actually be a brilliant addition we could we could we we could do it policy by policy and make an exhibit to attach to each policy that has def terms on it if we wanted to okay so right now I have option to make one is to just do um gosh sorry I don't have the actual board docs thing open let me just take a look really quick sorry um to Nicole's specific comment though about the relationship between things um I think the next paragraph outlines the board's role and then at the bottom the new one we created with james' language it seems like the board you know has the authority and responsibility to establish reasonable rules regulations and expectations and the superintendent creates and shares guidelines Implement those so I think that those I think the relationship between those two or three bodies I think is already defined here so then what I have what I hear us saying is I'm G to put where we originally wanted a glossery of terms I put slash exhibits now um I added it to the list of two that we already had there um and so that you know Daniel some of the things that we talked about in the previous one was that we needed to discuss like how an item could be connected to drugs and then um we didn't have speech defined so those are things that we were going to add so we either do it the way you said or we'll make a whole just straight glossery but do we feel comfortable resolving this I guess I should I'm comfortable with it as long as Nicole's comfortable with it since it's her comment yeah Nicole will you um comment like just reply to one of your comments and let us know but then we'll just move on until we see yeah I was just going to follow up on my comment from before so um we could so the first section and just section J is students and the policies and then the first policy is Ja student policies goals priorities objectives the glossery wouldn't necessarily be an exhibit or regulation you could we could create propose to create a whole new policy called Jaa and have that be um a glossery for the entire section okay and then just dump everything there and that's kind of how statutes are set up in the statutes anyway because at the beginning of that chapter it'll be a you know one section that's just definitions for the entire section so I'm GNA put propose to board a Jaa policy and then can I at you yeah okay um and while you're adding Katie um if we can go back to the the never come up for me excuse me there we go kgip the in the paragraph that we just wrote um the superintendent will create and share guidelines is it guidelines or is it procedures or is it guidelines and procedures because guidelines are kind of you know you kind of want to do this as opposed to procedur so do we want to make sure it says guidelines and procedures then it should say guidelines and proced yeah okay things okay or whoever it may be I'll clean up to like General formatting um because I I know I have different fonts now in different colors um did we okay so we're good so we'll wait to hear from Nicole see if that's good did we delete what you had James oh that's in the next one resolve everything for Jr okay yeah you ready to move on to Jr I think so can we have a couple more minutes to go and at because I was like in mid edit yeah yeah that's fine I mean are you guys good with that you want to take five start up again at six for Jr sure sure sure for y what for okay all right it's six o'clock are we ready yeah I'm like just starting the responsibility section so okay are youall ready very good um first thing we're up to James's comments about whether this direct should be directed towards students or all people I feel this should be directed specifically towards students agreed yep I agree um okay so each stud so that we're going to can delete delete that too expected I'm good with changing to expected yeah you guys good with expected I got little bad oated um my comment about emotional safety um I don't like that phrasing because so let me just get there sorry no no you're good I just want to be able to write as we talk academic physical and emotional safety um also academic safety I guess but emotional safety like let's say student doesn't like doing math they feel unsafe because they're being asked to do something they don't like doing parent argues well my you are upsetting my child they are not emotionally safe that doesn't feel like something that we can like measure or maintain I think that so I let me tell you my thought process first and see if this works I wanted to make sure that we were hitting all of the different ways that we have as a district have thought we should like be there to like teach kids and and learning so like I the the commas weren't like academic safety physical safety emotional safety so it was like these rights include academic programming maybe um because my mind it was just like academics you have rights to like learning um and then physical it could be physical safety and emotional well-being yeah um and then in terms of like that specific example you gave I wasn't really thinking of it being I think that's a really nuanced example so I'd have to ponder it a lot more um but the well-being portion is more of like their own personal mental health so it' be like eliminating um incidents of incident of bullying with them or it might be um their emotional well-being in terms of like being able to like advocate for themselves so if a so theoretically I could see an example where a parent might be like my kid has been asking you for help for months and you haven't given them help like you're not making sure that they're like that you're respecting their advocacy and their emotional well well being but those situations happen now even without it being in here yeah I like emotional wellbeing better because anything any Edge case you know for example oh well my kid likes climbing the slide and you tell them not to well that's because they we also have to ensure their physical safety right which takes priority so anything same thing with anything that makes me uncomfortable as long as since I made mandatory part of academic programming or physical safety then those take priority over emotional wellbeing right yeah she say access academic programming well I I don't know I also want to make sure that we're thinking about this in context is what this paragraph is about because this paragraph is about each student respecting other students rights and then we're we're talking about these very specific rights that students have to respect for other students this is not the same as speaking to that's the adults having to respect so which may be something else and someplace else but so we're if that's what this paragraph is about and focused on then it to me that makes it a little bit different than a parent who might argue about I like I like this a lot also because you know obviously there's someone being disruptive or upsetting or bullying a parent can approach the district and say my child is being denied the right to AC ofic programming by another student this right so so let's start first does the edits are edit satisfactory to everybody or do you think there should be something in addition to the new edit we made to that good okay and then okay let me look I like James's new language yeah seems much clearer just a little bit more student friendly if I could point out break probably needs to be singular because students is plural tell me where um in James's comment students who impact others negatively or it says breaks the community agreement oh that might be me actually it should be or am I reading the wrong one sorry the carment before it yeah envir so this environment will make sure a district will make our district better for Learning and helping educational mogers to achieve their goals okay um so now we're at your first thing about um and I'm torn because I I see what you say like we're supposed to be talking about the students but I feel like if we don't acknowledge that we have a responsibility to support the students in that I think it's like a disservice to the kids in some way so I think I think that it should say because this is student student facing and it is not a directive to staff it is a directive to students that like notifying them that yeah there are these responsibilities of Staff which to be correct with Allan like this should accurately reflect whatever is in staff guidelines which I hope it does just for my two sents I would agree with sentence okay should we have it since it's District Personnel do we need to also consider that are like including like the superintendent and the governing board because those are different from Personnel no um yeah you could include that however you want to word it word Smith and it's up to you oh sorry I guess not yeah because it because the Personnel is just right you could say the you could just start with the governing board the superintendent and all district Personnel or staff or employees I mean per you could put staff or employees staff might be weird because then you're not sure what's happening sorry I like to type fast for better and I I like Personnel because that would also include things like parent volunteers yeah Prett much anybody yeah anyone that's there for official District business yeah I don't know if it would District Personnel I think is like contracted to this District in some way like a actual employee would volunteers and volunteers or okay volunteers because there's still like some sort of agreement when you're a volunteer I don't know I don't know if Personnel is like a legal definition but just a regular definition of personnel engaged in an organization organized undertaking you don't actually have to be a member of the organization you just need to be engaged and yeah ultimately I'm indifferent but I if we if we don't put volunteers the words leave it although most people are read the word I'm guessing it's my just my my hunch that most people when they read the word personnel they think employee yeah and if I'm a volunteer and I see personal I'm not necessarily automatically assuming I'm because as a volunteer I'm not an employee so there's two I think Simple Solutions add volunteer to that sentence and then Define or Define Personnel in our glossery I would say add volunteer because we don't want to Define Personnel here because it's probably in a Million yep okay and we don't make glossery unnecessarily where are where are we okay you do whatever you wanta whenever you want okay so so help me out with this one um are you wanting James on this one are you where does that replace like where does the deletes start so start starting from students going down to uh School Community the end of that paragraph sweet School Community I was unaware of your edits that you had in there so it was a little smaller section and I just felt like it it just sounded mean um and it reminded me of like the whole no excuses three strikes in your out time period back in the 90s uh where it's like violate do this yeah that stuff you know I I just I was trying to find a way to reword that section and that was my suggestion yeah I give me one second um so I'm just gonna try to so I I try to make a clean break so if you look at the top of that one page there's the original with the purple and then is but I got to make yours bigger because I don't know why it's so small comes out of the comments okay go ahead Daniel sorry um I like James's language um I like J to but the the issue I had was the explicit mention of restorative practices which was not being done at all of our schools so I ultimately I'm indifferent but I think we should probably address the like restorative practices and like what where does that fit in here um because if you look at like our strategic planning like in terms of the equity goals and you look at um like the work that's being done in those like four committees restorative practices is where everybody's heading um and and I I printed this out for my um child Justice Advocate but I was like oh I'll bring it tomorrow um but I'm also wondering if we all have like an idea of what the restorative practices like all are um because I I think well I'm going to read it to you and tell you that these are and then let's see if maybe there are all happening at schools so we have restorative projects and it could be any research project based on the infraction they had um or we put like a lot of times we have kids like if they try if they were fighting they might make a sign about like how to solve the problem so that's like the restorative projects the other we made four domains as assistant principles restorative conversations that could be one-on-one um like a restorative dialogue a verbal written apology um and an adult to student conversation then we said Community restoration which includes restorative circles um and then Community amends which was it includes like the cleaning and community service for the group you harmed um and my understanding is that at least those practices are happening at all of the schools maybe not all of them and I don't want to like you know so I hate to throw it out there but you are wrong at my school the only one of these that anyone could even argue is happening is you could say that the adult that is issuing consequences to students while talking to them is having a restorative conversation I think that would be a leap of logic but there is no restorative projects there is no apologies there's no restorative circles in the context of discipline we have restorative circles as like a community building exercise but not in the context of discipline there is no adult student restorative conversations happening um so yeah so we are at least at my school and I would also say that this is pretty common from my I do not work at more than one school but I would say that monov Vista is very ahead of the game when it comes to implementing restorative practices and more schools are similar to my experience than yours I that's a kind of a leads to a larger question right in terms of implementation districtwide of of District initiatives and how they are being uh laid out at the site level right um and I guess to this document are we are we is my assumption and you know check my check my perception here but my perception here is that that makes this document even more important to have that language in there because at some point or another if there is a an employee at a site that's saying hey why aren't we doing this it's specifically in at um and the language is being addressed in there it becomes in my opinion an advocacy piece at the site level to say you know hey policy says that we're supposed to be doing this why is this not happening which I am I am more than happy to have restored practices in policy but we should understand the moment is in policy it no longer becomes a goal it becomes a districtwide expectation I think that's kind of where we're headed so I I I just would like to make sure that we have have some clarity on the difference between policy which is ji and regulation because they don't have the same legal weight or ex or legal expectation of implementation and that's why I think it's important that we be thought thoughtful about what's what's in which one Katie would you could you yeah so I was kind of gonna say you know as far as the policies that the board adopts those are the board's expectations for the district and then like you said Alan the regulations are going to be in the purview of the superintendent those are what then are kind of like the logistical pieces of how to carry out these policies and ensure that the policies are being met um and then even beyond that I'm sure there's other internal documents and initiatives and things like that I think what our goal obviously in committing and creating this committee or at least mine um was was to start to push from the top the ability to then allow and enable consistency across the district in these areas without also like and still being General enough to not you know to be at this level as an umbrella versus micro trying to micromanage from the top but I think this putting this in here then creates the expectation for every school to be engaging in this type of stuff instead of like punitive measures all the time I think Alan brought something up right now that might be new learning for me so can you like Define for me you said that policy and regulations are different I would love if somebody would point out like Hey we're on policy hey we're on regulations but could I hear like a succinct definition of what that is so I can put it in my mind in terms of lens yeah I mean Jay always does a good job the way I would see it is like a policy is completely and solely within the realm of the school board okay we have no power over the day to day operations of the district so to speak but we're basically the ones at the Helm of the ship Jay is I don't know I don't know the I don't know all the analogies here right but he's gonna be like some he's not at the hel but maybe he's a skipper I don't know how this works and then everybody else is like a worker on the ship right and so we're trying to push it in a certain direction Jay has to make sure everybody's doing what they're doing so that we can get to where we're going safely and then everybody else is like falling behind so I would say the policy is like The Guiding Direction the regulation sets some sort of framework or structure to to try to get us there and then below that it can be even more detailed stuff internally to help also we're only looking at policy right now so you're talking about no we're not just look right now we're looking at a regulation jir is the superintendent's regulation anything an R is a regulation anything with an e is an exhibit and I think it's I think it's perfectly fine if this committee recommends changes to regulation like no problem with that I think one of the important distinctions and and Katie really hit on this is that um the board adopts policy regulation does not get adopted by the board um the board is notified of changes to regulation so they have they have an oversight role for regulation but regulation is typically prepared by the administration and brought to the board by the superintendent to to basically say we are making these changes to the regulation board to create an opportunity for the board to say yeah you might think you are buddy but we're not right and I think the other thing to add to that if you end up and this all TI un tyeing it all full circle right so if we go to the guard rails on the superintendent guard rails that we just made up or proposed on Tuesday um it's on the last page um number two no where is it did they put it on here oh here I think it's the last one right or oh did we take it out out so we H we had the similar one to um number four on our board guard rails which is the board will not conduct its duties without including students families teachers and community members inclusive of those that speak other than English in a manner that inspires broad Community ownership of board policy our idea and adopting that as one of our own guard rails was to also then basically impose that on Jay and the administration as well and so for him to be sitting here and hearing your recommendations for what this regulation should be I would be alarmed if he then came to us and had some completely different proposed like regulation that's out of the ballpark of whatever yall have talked about here saying I should show the secret version so that's kind of question and and this is in terms of like addressing what Daniel referring to in terms of the regulation versus the policy is a uh a policy can be grieved you can grieve regulations can a regulation be yeah okay so the the difference for my understanding would be I don't know if you can sue over regulation right yeah and then the ultimate the book stops with you on the regulation or does it still come to us if they it's still it it's really gray because there's not technically an appeal process but the superintendent is required to notify the board of changes to regulation do you have better language holder or did I get that right yeah policy on reg right right for grievances it goes to supervisor and yeah yeah so and then there's also similarly there's a similar thing for parents like if there's a parent student and there's a student agreements policy so in terms of advocacy like if we kept this language in which I think we should um that's related to restore to practice if there was a site that wasn't fulfilling it a group of employees or an employee can say hey I'm filing a grievance yeah you are not going and following the regulation uh that is set down by District yeah and and I will tell you honestly you know from my perspective it is helpful like if unless the unless the committee is out of you know out of agreement is doesn't agree that that's what we should be doing I think it's helpful to have it in here even if we're not seeing it consistently implemented currently because what it does is it gives a framework to enforce it through if that makes sense I mean enforce is kind of a strong term but it makes it easier for me as the superintendent and the other members of the leadership team to say you know there's a level of expectation because it's in policy and one of the things that that happens a lot and I think Adriana can probably speak to this having been a member of the AP team recently but probably it's also true in her function as as a principal very often when she comes to Dr Lauren or Dr dupin or Miss Shapiro or myself saying hey I've got this situation you know here's what I think I should do but I want to check with you we will often go to policy um with a lot of help from H at times um to find what the appropriate policies are that speak to the situation and then the guidance we will provide will include the policy and if that includes an employee concern or parent concern we even go so far as to provide copies of those policies to the parent or the or the employee who has the concern if it's I one I would like to keep restore practices then because if that's what we want to do as a district which should be in policy somewhere or regulation um and two if do you don't mind James can we work I really like adrion language with that in mind can we work on refining that because I feel like it's well just as good as yours I actually a lot of the black that I had the black font that I had left the original I think you did a nice job of doing so I was trying to put them together so if we look at paragraph two that's James paragraph but we need to just include some things that I had added in purple um the break like students who impact others negatively or break Community agreements of the district or their school community may face you have fair and discipl fair disciplinary actions you had a comment on that about logical and Progressive yes um the reason I chose logical P Progressive and want to like um ask the team to consider for fair is that it actually is a two-parter um currently the district already um follows a progressive discipline um and it's always very important in my experience for parents to understand like what level of discipline the kids are at um and why why they got a five day suspension versus a two-day suspension and so um the APS and the principles but mostly the aps because they do discipline have to kind of present that to the families so I thought it need needs to be in there that we do Progressive discipline and then logical we are trying to make sure that it's always proportionate to what the kids do like I know in my personal practice it was like if you have a learning mistake you get a learning um if you have a small poort choice you had a small consequence you know and I and L M Linda they do conscious discipline which has logical consequence so here's where I'm going to speak to inconsistency across the district because Progressive dis displine does not mean the same thing on every campus because for some campuses Pro for some campuses look at the the amount of impact that that the behavior has had and they make a disciplinary decision based on that level of impact and so if a kid has like seven or eight low level they kind of stay at the same level because of the level of impact other campuses are like oh this is your second one so now we we have to go to a larger consequence and then a larger consequence and a larger consequence because the number of times it's happened so Progressive does not mean the same thing and so I I strug so I struggle with the word Progressive unless we're going to Define progressive and what we're recommending it means for us as a district I love Progressive that sounds great to me um because I know like a huge issue that we have across the district is the kids that are stuck at you know oh you got another fight here's a three-day suspension oh and they're back oh you getting another fight here's another three-day suspension right and this kind of you know goes on and on and on until inevitably the parents pull the kid or there's some huge issue that causes them to leave the school um because there is no Progressive miss this one being followed right at those schools oh fight equals three-day suspension regardless of how many fights you've been in as an example so I am very happy with Progressive I'm very happy with logical um I just want us to like Alan saying to be sure that that's the direction going as the district superintendent and board member if that's where we want to go it's I'm happy yes can I this is unnecessary I'm sure but I I I I thank you for saying that manav Vista is like ahead I use this previously I just want to I don't know honor and validate like at least the efforts that are happening um because I think that maybe we have some schools that are more in like the execution um phase of it and or the maintaining of a system but I I really do want to honor and value that um the people that work on discipline and the people that I have I have interactions with have like a real strong intention to get there and and they are really trying their best and there's there's a lot that goes into making this what the systems that we all really want like I'm I'm sure you could talk to well I want to say one or two but I'm sure you could talk to people from onav Vista and they're not pleased with the system that we have um and and while I really feel commitment to making sure that they feel that I think that ultimately that's true everywhere and and and I do think that there is a lot of of hard work that's going into it even though we maybe haven't seen them that's all that's my plug no you know I just I I I will never um try to belittle the hard work of people that are working on this but I think you would be shocked to see some of the things that happen in our schools and um there is a a lot of covering not covering up but I'll just say ask covering apology for my language that occurs with discipline yeah um that prevents things from being more widely known the classic example is furpa um furpa explicitly states that everyone with an educational need I'm forget the exact language is able to be aware of student discipline right so for example if I have a student that at recess gets in a fight there's nothing wrong with my AP or whoever emailing me and saying your student got in a fight at recess it was the consequence and so on but across the district like for example there's an issue where oh well Suddenly It's a furpa issue when we want to inquire about oh were there any consequences given for this action are there any restorative procedures H that's fura we can't talk about that oh everyone's mad oh it's because furpa prevents us from making it more widely known how hard we're working and so I think that and I know everyone's experiences are totally different so I I don't mean to intimate that and I also wanted to be like um I don't wanteded to come off that I I don't know I might be coming off like suie sunshine but like things we have work to do at manav Vista and we are struggling and I know that we are every day we're committed to doing the best that we can with what we've got and I do believe that of the other schools and I wanted to kind of just really just make just make sure that everybody knew my intentions I have a suggestion go ahead Alan go ahead I I was just gonna say um you know I I appreciate what you're saying because I my comment is simply observational and because I'm in a position where I often am interacting with the disciplinarians on campuses when actually with Jed and specialed kids um and there is a lot of inconsistency and and some of that is different people have different levels of learning in terms of what is or is not allowed or what and things like that some of it is like how much PD have we really done on even what the current policy actually is related to all of this and so there's a lot to that um I think our job is to give guidance for what we think needs to be in these documents to help start fixing the inconsistencies and then part of part of Jay's job as superintendent is then making sure so what PD like what are the systems of PD and supports for everybody to make sure that that's happening totally and I don't want to diverge us I just I didn't want to make it seem like one of us is doing everything and I can't believe you know that that's not the work of the committee and so I don't think you're going off topic right it's all about trying to work through this and then also you know the history of inconsistency has probably and I has bred you know a a culture of distrust or um folks who probably don't even if they're told something has gone a certain way probably I have some skepticism over it and it's like you know understandably so and so like I think both both realities are true at the same time and unfortunately it's going to take a lot of time to repair all that um which getting back to the language um I guess just starting I want before we dive into logical and Progressive two easy ones um can we eliminate schools rules I think it should we want to maintain consistency I don't think we should leave space open for schools to be vastly different from one another I just to I I want to get uh I I just had a suggestion it was something I was thinking about putting on a future agenda item um if the team thinks it's appropriate and I I I feel like it's a step in the right direction because the conversation has come up in other committees as well too um which is we have two other committees in this District that are covering very similar things and I feel like it would be a good idea to uh find a way to either collaborate or share information at least we can get the true lay of the land in terms of what's Happening what what these other committees are working on so it can inform our work a little bit uh more efficiently um and I'm not saying we have to have that discussion now or if we don't have to have the discussion at all but I feel like if we can find a way to share more information between the Committees it will make our work uh more powerful and uh we'll be able to align uh excuse me I feel like they'll be able to align better with what we're doing because policy is first so um assuming that Shauna actually is joining this committee when sh once Shauna is in attendance we will she and I are co-chairs of one of those committees and she's on the assistant principal group so that would be that we very natural space for us is in this group to be able to get that update on what's happening what's the thinking where are we going where each of those committees going in terms of their work so does it make sense because I was gonna I don't want to like to take up over but I also believe no but I also think we talked about when we first started that we need to do our work to be the to ultimately be a guidance knowing with both of those committees understanding that ultimately they may have to make some changes in the work they've done based on what the policy ends up being so I I I I I would I'm cons I I want to I would be concerned about the um you know tail wagging the dog um right if you know if we if we are always worried about what are those other two groups doing um I I really just thought of it as uh sharing the work that they're looking at as another resource to inform what we're doing that's all I go the other way like I think it might be better to have representation from here go to those committees and tell them because I would agree ironically the exact same two people can do that I can I can do a couple so we Sorry since we're at 6:30 do we want to take like 15 minutes to get these last two paragra or these two paragraphs we're working on done and then we can take another 10 to decide what we're doing for the next meeting or whatever I think that's fine sure um okay so then if so basically let's look at his and then I the things that I thought was the logical and um Progressive proportionate because that's always been a concern like why are you getting six days um and then the including restorative practice experience um I I think Progressive and proportionate are in direct contradiction to one another at times and I think we should pick one I'm sorry what did you just say say say that again Progressive and proportionate I think those are in direct contradiction to each other at times because for like let's say for example you have a student that's been in a hundred fights and they you know graffiti the wall or whatever right they're under Progressive they would receive a more severe punishment than a student who has been in zero disciplinary incidences and graffiti the wall right whereas if it's proportionate then those this those consequences look very similar right so the consequence to be logical but Progressive and proportionate would be like for I mean a student who's been in 100 fights graffiting the wall might be the last straw and they get expelled right I don't know so so I could maybe clarify how the discipline um works because I think that or I got to just start talking about monov Vista so the people that I work with um we you would the proportionate part it takes in all of the aggravating and mitigating factors of the situation and so um it's going to it it actually Pro wouldn't like it wouldn't likely be the same because um it's Progressive to like what like what all of it I don't know how to explain so you're saying it's not Zero Tolerance no it's like you take the aggravating mitigating factors and you figure out where it is and then you make sure that and we also talk about proportionate being like um it's I can't who gets to decide what weight is given to the factors what about uh that are in alignment with the infraction that would work I I well I don't know I guess because I don't know what our Progressive discipline system is currently um perhaps that's why I'm struggling with this conversation so Katie so have not been an AP my experience as a teacher is that it is up to the individual person processing the discipline might be an AP it will it will almost always be an AP for lower level things it could be a behavior interventionist it could be someone else um but the the aps are developing a matrix but a matrix corre currently exist and has not been an I think that's hard to develop right I mean I can't imagine try to I think I think they're just about done to L of them exist already I don't think it's I mean I this is like the bread and butter Curr and judges don't have so I'm used to a person just deciding from their own personal experience suspensions we have to suspensions we do have to um share with the district like uh Eric ends up having like a say because he's trying to like basically create like inter rer liability for them um the aps they have a practice of like every time that they're going to suspend we kind of have like baselines um like again just mon Vista like we've had like a two days for fights um and then it kind of increases or decreases based on that but that's kind of like our Baseline and this my perception was that we all kind of had the same baselines and then when we have like a unique factor or a unique situation they have something called calm meetings in which every everybody who's available will come together and then they will cross compare um and I know currently they use the um like the method of like the Google Chat so as they're doing it so it's more collaborative than it probably seems but I can't say that it's collaborative every single time what I've noticed is I I see the Baseline like as a teacher I see where that Baseline is and I can tell when the consistency and implementation is being hit because that is when I see a suspension documented in Synergy that is when I get communication about those things however what I also frequently see is people in charge of discipline making decisions to avoid that Baseline so for example students receiving in school suspension where they are in a kindergarten classroom all day so that they're not hitting that Baseline there is no consistency they don't have to document those things or for example students you know their parents get called and the parents come pick them up and sign them out technically it's not a suspension right these things are being done in order to avoid that Baseline because there is no consistency in policy well but I also I also think that and I because I don't know every single kid who's been disciplined on a given campus but I mean related to the word fair I I really think Equitable is a more appropriate word because like we have students who have disabilities and they're either on a Section 504 commodation plan or they're on an IEP and they have federally protected disciplinary me things that are in place that's different than our n their non-disabled peers and so um in my conversations with assistant principles often they will do an in school suspension for a special education student um because they can manage that ensuring that they're getting their services in a way that you can't do when they're out of school suspension and then there's only a certain maximum number out of school suspension days before you start running into other special education processes that kick in and I I so I I think that um and that's clearly some of that and I don't know which obviously I don't know but again I think that this is about in the in whatever the systems are that Jays eventually to put into place to help start making consistency happen I think part of it is we need to be very open and honest about those kinds of mitigating fact factors as well and when they do come into play I agree and I I think that I have no issue with taking into account the particular like circumstances around students their needs I think the issue is more so when people are paperwork averse or don't want to look that yeah well sure no and I appreciate that and I also it is a hot button for those of us in the special ed department when we hear that a administrator has called a parent to let them know about behavior and then the parent comes and picks them up it's like that happens once okay but if it happens every time you know that's going to happen please stop telling me it's not a suspension just because you didn't call it one so can we can we kill uh fair and do um logical Progressive and proportional because would proportionate in Equitable was another word he just used to I would say would proportionate account for the Equity that you're talking about um I it might but I think I'd prefer Equitable because it it's a more holistic term it's also a term we've been using philosophically that sounds like I say that is a high standard for our district however I would really I think as a teacher it' be really useful to look at a consequence that students been given and say okay is this logical is this Equitable is it proportionate and is has it followed Progressive discipline I think that would be really rigorous I think that'd be a really high Bar for our district but I think that would be a great and relatively easy way to examine our discipline systems and see if they're meeting the bar that we want them to meet I just want to not to stifle conversation but Adriana is kind of read my mind right now it is 640 um oh TT meeing below and I saw your note there and I was thinking that rather than because I don't I I don't I definitely don't want to make decisions uh in yeah hurriedly thank you um so and maybe a little break from it to give some process time and maybe put some comments into the document uh that we can go and kind of hash out at a future meeting I think the conversation is is awesome and definitely worth having um but like I said it is 6:41 we can definitely continue I don't want to cut things down but I think if we take five minutes to finish this paragraph we'll Bean a really good stopping point I yeah and I was just going to say I deleted the one that I had put so this is now like the this one's kind of final with the exception of it doesn't say anything in this part that like it's not only discipline but it's restorative practices but I don't think we need a re Wordsmith that's just I just put like we need to include it and then this paragraph here was technically part of this um so I just want to tell you the intention of it I felt like we needed to have someplace where we talked about like well what is discipline and what is the like restorative practices experience um so that's like a total add-on so do we want to can we move that to the glossery sorry this read I don't remember and I I changed the language above to just may face disciplinary actions that are logical Equitable proportional and Progressive yeah so the paragraph that's right now above next meeting begins below we no longer need correct we're moving right yeah and then under that is where we would need to be in the next meeting y this is we'll start with well this is actually finalized so I could now move this down one yeah um oh wait no we didn't finish the restorative where can we throw I think we if we add a line about restorative practices in here this will be a really solid paragraph I I think like um in conjunction with any disciplinary action students have I don't know the right um to participate in a restorative practice experience I put exper expence because um and there was like a should provide a path not restor to practice it's like long and it's a very and restorative practice is a very formal process we may want to use some softer language so it doesn't necessarily solve it either so I just put like experience like they're gonna kind of go this so in conjunction with any disciplinary action students have the right to a restor kind like restorative experience restor like that I think though I think so meas to address beh their behavior and encourage all UPF responsibilties of Goods ship in the school community and then these These are fine in the glosser but I feel like probably we should like we should give them a once over later to know that those are the definitions you actually want maybe we come back to looking at those definitions so we remember I like that in the glossery I think our above paragraph handled a lot of specifics of that that in the glass okay all right I'm then going delete this that's nothing so are we so do we want to like pick our our next thing that we're working on yeah to be your first like starting point of like our new system of edits yep the next policies you mean so we're finishing we have to finish this yeah but theoretically this I thought we had talk wasn't J was it JK I'm I'm so I don't remember the rest of Jr is still G to take a little bit of time oh yeah we still have another G take a huge chunk of a meeting next time so I mean we could maybe have sorry we could maybe which one was the next meeting that we had in our little timeline January I mean yeah what did we say January 16th at 5 but then in the like the order we did I think we had we started with the um student discipline right and then we went to like student R responsibilities that's not included in here yeah it's on the last one oh there it is so I think the next one we talked about was dress code was going to be huge because it's just that is very inconsistent and there's a lot of like unknowns for it and then um the JK the student discipline those are going to be our two biggest ones I'm G to have a ton to say on jih maybe not everybody else will I think what you have to say will be relatively uncontroversial okay okay cool um okay so that's yeah okay so so I guess are you all planning then to just do your best job of finishing J at the next meeting and then not try to bite off more than we I want to I think we should at least start another one so that we're ready to go and just in case we J student addess I do you just want I was like or you just want to get secret societies and K yeah do a couple like do a couple easier ones I don't know I think okay let's do it all right so student dress okay jica and and we'll work on getting all of them sort of digitally up in the folder which may help make it easier even if you know the team because because if everybody's okay with it I think what we may should do is just post a read a readon link to the folder give everyone the edit rights to the folder and then post that this committee is working within this date range on right at the meetings which will be posted they will be digging in deeper to whatever works in in the virtual and then Hilda will let us know when we're allowed to actually start adding comments do those documents I'm not trying to look like I'm running my two-year-old's bedtime is seven and I live like one minute away but I I try not to miss it twice a week so thank you guys hope you get some sleep the four-year-old will still be last meeting we said we were just gonna make new calendar future dates January 16 right yeah so when we come in thank you Katie that's a good idea and knock it out can you add add a little section I don't know do we want to add a little section about trying to find to have a little discussion about how to share or uh collaborate with other committees oh like a future agenda item yeah as an agenda item yes and I'd like to just make sure that it's how will we I I think that you were like you had a really good point that it's not that they're going to be guiding so it's more about like how are we going to share out the information I think that's a good agenda thing as opposed to like how will we bring their work to this committee yeah so we can have a conversation about what that would look like how that would be implemented although it may be beneficial to you to see their The Matrix that's been developed because even though even though the changes in policy will drive changes to that Matrix seeing what's in there may cause you to go oh hang on a second we didn't even address this particular area and we need to make sure that is absolutely blow up their work unless it's necessary so there's a way to work around what they've already created that would be nice all right so I'd like to move that we adjourn the meeting we do that without get second James say all in favor oh sorry all in favor I my meeting is adjourned thanks everybody thank you that that's my job

at this time I'd like to call the meeting to order please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge Al to the flag the United States of America to the Republic for which it stands one nation God indivisible and justice for all thank you let the record show that all board members are present with that we will move to item A2 Dr CTO thank you Madame President uh tonight we have a public hearing that we'd like to open for um for the fiscal year 2324 for an expenditure budget revision and I'll turn this over to our assistant superintendent Mary Dallas spell thank you Dr Cotto good evening Madame President members of the board cabinet and Community tonight uh we bring to you our first budget revision for fiscal year 2324 so as required by Statute districts propose and adopt their budgets by July 15th of each year um if we receive notification from ad that we have exceeded our budget limit by at least 1% we are required to revise it in our case we did not exceed it but however we do like to still bring it back to the board periodically throughout the year especially as we've have some ADM adjustments carry forward adjustments just to keep the board aware of just any budget changes throughout the year so that's what we're doing tonight and as always all budget adoptions and revisions require a public hearing which is what we're here for tonight for so here's a summary on what the budget revisions are mainly attributed to the first part is um the we had an increase in our actual enrollment counts in comparison to what we initially estimated so we do start in the spring early summer just having an initial estimate on what we think our funded average daily membership will be and so now that we've passed our 40th Day we get updated numbers from the state and so now we are able to go through and update our budget based on what we're getting funding for we also adjust our budget limit as you know we take our annual financial report by October 15 to the board and so that reflects all of our our previous fiscal Year's actual activi and so now that we have known expenditure amounts we are able to um update our December budget revision to account for those carry forward um adjustments and then finally we do uh update our state and federal grants based on Final allocations from the state as well as to account for some of those carryover figures so because we are funded as school districts on current year counts we need to adjust our budget based on known and funded ADM so as I mentioned we do initial estimates in the spring um late and so now that we're well into the Year this reflects actual enrollment that we are receiving funding for and so again we do the initial estimates we receive funding and so this now reflects um the students that we have in our schools and so the largest increases were in our a waiting which is our um high school student counts as well as our B weights which reflects our special education categories and so combined that funded ADM increased by 618 from the 31,900 at our adopted to 3253 now for our revised budget so what that does is then it calculates out to what our base support level and so we did see an increase in our M fund which is our District's largest operating fund it accounts for our the majority of our salary and benefits as well as our operating expenses and so due to the increase in ADM that we uh received um that's different from what we initially projected we received the funding from the state to account for those students and so as we know now that we have the increased students we've had increased costs that we have incurred throughout the year and so we have current year students current year funding and so that is the revision that we're seeing now in m in capital funds um we have our unrestricted Capital fund um speak a little louder so our unrestricted Capital fund budget limit it increased $1.5 million primarily due to carryover so the budget had been committed to Capital items that didn't arrive by June 30th deadline and so the those items have now been paid for in the current fiscal year and then finally the largest Capital fund that we're making adjustments for is that emergency building renewal grant program that is the funding that we received from the school facilities board so we initially came to the board estimating 1 million knowing that we were going to have adjustments throughout the year based on approved applications from from that agency and so at this point we have $7.2 million in approved projects primarily due to the Marley Park Roofing and weatherization project as well as the Valley Vista roofing project that you see occurring next door classroom site fund excuse me had a slight um revision of 6,293 again just that was a very slight adjustment due to known carry forward and then finally is our special projects allocations fund those are our federal grants and our state grants so uh federal grants just reflects known allocations and carry forward and really the largest change there is our state grants that went up $1.3 million specifically related to the SRO grant that that we are receiving and funding from the state and as always we have our website that provides all of our financial reports our audited reports and our annual uh comprehensive and budget reports available for public viewing at any time so at this time it is a public hearing so it is a moments if anyone has questions from the public and or the board um we do have an action item later on in the agenda and so at that time I will not present this again and it would just be for board discussion and action thank you Miss pedel do we have any comments or questions from the public thank you do we have any comments or questions from the board thank you very much and with that we will continue on to a regular meeting we will talk uh we will go to item C1 um I asked to have our organizational meeting in December because it is not is it it is not an election year we have the same board members this way we can um elect a board president and they can start over in January they can change the seats if they want they can just start fresh with the agenda reviews and they'll start from day one January 1st and with that I would like to move to elect Don denmore as governing board president effective January 1st 2024 motion made by Crystal Chapman seconded by Christine Pritchard motion carries congratulations Miss Densmore thank you very much and with that we will move on to item C2 action to elect a governing board clerk I will entertain a motion I would like to nominate Christine Pritchard second motion made by Don denmore seconded by Jennifer Drake motion carries congratulations congratulations congratulations Miss Pritchard next we will move on to item D1 Dr CTO thank you madam present um tonight we have an awesome band performance and uh we have Mr Craig mcy will'll introduce our guests thank you Madame President members of the board Dr croto and guests tonight we are pleased to have the simmeron Springs band here with us performing and under the direction of Mr Christian Torres take it [Applause] [Music] away [Music] all [Music] I [Music] oh [Music] la [Music] [Applause] uh the students just played nebula this was something that we were able to play on our November 30th conf what we're about to play is actually a piece that we picked up last week um we kind of had a short turnaround but we wanted to kind of give a Showcase of what's to come we are preparing for our uh return back to the aboda uh and this is that we were consider wanted to give a sneak peek like what you hear please HP over back at Willow Canyon to hear the Cs [Music] the [Music] [Applause] great job Mr Taurus thank you great job students great job on the low brass back there love it thank you so much it sounds wonderful thank [Applause] you all right with that we will move on to item E1 Miss denmore thank you this is the time for the public to comment members of the board may not discuss items that are not specifically identified on this agenda pursuant to ARS 38-43 1.01 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 in order to facilitate accomplishing the business of the district in a timely manner a time limit of three minutes will be imposed for each individual or group addressing the board when you approach the podium please state your name for the record first we have Grant blasic Madam president members of the board cabinet and Community I'm Grant Blac just a taxpayer and surprise but as such I want this board to tell me why you voted in 24 social workers one in each School in the first place while you approve the curriculum teach ing social emotional learning before turning your back on that why it was done without public knowledge only until last month to move funding for social workers to a source of funds expected to expire Madam president Pritchard had plainly asked in a prior board meeting for all social workers to keep a stable funding source now because last month social work in this context was talked about as I think it was the quote it takes what a minute to get a resource I want to make the point that social work is so much more than that I want each member of this board to tell me please about any instance that you've spent any time with your social workers to understand what they do in the schools and tell me how SRO and ssos and school admins and School staff and teachers and school psychologists are to be trained to do social work and I would please like an email response to this question is Grant you've done that work to learn this and I appreciate that thank you I just doubt that most of those parties have a lot of free time to take this on things like coordinating crisis teams conducting suicide assessments or the hours of work doing interventions that's just the tip of the iceberg for the sake of our families our school staff and our Vital Community Partnerships tell me about how you informed yourselves of the circumstances and of the buyin that you got for them to take on this work before you announced it last month that they're going to do all of this schools School staff are school resource officers now on multiple occasions I have witnessed this board entertaining and promoting false accusations about the social workers work cut their pay maneuvering now to eliminate them I'm sorry to say that the members of this board many of them have Dishonored themselves by a steady attack on an honorable profession thank you thank you okay next we have Julie Kent Partridge and if you could step just a little bit closer to the mic so we can all hear thank you president chaen members of the board Mr Coto my name is Julie Kent Partridge I'm here today to address you and the community regarding your removing social workers from the diart school district before I start is important for all of you to know my level of expertise and why my perspective should be considered ly I'm an ad certified Master's level social worker not employed by daart I'm also an ad surrogate parent for special needs students throughout our state in addition to these things I'm a city and state adviser specializing in things related to disability advocacy my commitment to the city and School District Stands Strong in the sense that between my husband and myself we have raised nine children in Surprise and they've all attended the dice Art School District we now have grandchildren in this District I'm committed to being solution fol focused and feel your board should consider hosting a study session where the public and Advocates like myself can come to teach you about the true value of school social workers and counselors until then I want to express my disappointment of the governing board's decision supported by Mr Coto to deprive diart students and schools of social workers questions I have for this board are you not worried about the lawsuits that will now come as a result of unskilled staff to per that are performing necessary self harm and SU side assessments and other social work D Duties are you not worried about the burnout and compassion fatigue that untrained and unskilled staff will suffer as a result of doing these things and in addition to their already overloaded roles do you not realize that Master's level social workers have went to school for a dedicated four plus years to learn these skills do you not realize that SRO are not to do social work functions do you not realize that you are incorrectly using SRO and ssos in your District do you not realize is that using an SRO as a crossing guard and to help with personal staff situations is an ad grant funding violation do you not realize that the best practices will always include SRO and ssos working tandemly with school social workers do you not realize that you're making a nonpartisan issue a political issue and this is an embarrassment for our district do you not realize that you are primarily focusing on the Quant the quantity and good grades by using your Esser dollars for nine more Math teachers versus using those funds for school social workers do you not realize that ad grant funding was available but Mr Coto did not communicate that with the board and the public at the last meeting as he chose to prioritize funding towards Sr and ssos do you not know that SRO and ssos are not disability and Trauma informed trained in the diart school district and have contributed to mental health harm and dis to disabled students and families throughout the daart school district students deserve to be safe and to feel safe School social workers are that value not only do they support students and families they also care for the staff thank you for your time and for your listening thank you next we have Melanie Karen blasik good evening Madam president board members and cabinet my name is Melanie Karen blak I the 2021 recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award for from the school Social Work Association of Arizona I stood before this board and received acknowledgement and a certificate from you and I'm quite emotional about this issue of social work during covid I went to the food bank to pick up and deliver food to a parent who was unable to go out into the community because she was undergoing treatment for cancer I brought Aid to a parent who had been physically abused by their partner I sat and held space for parent for children whose parents passed away right in front of them and prepared them for their first anniversary of their parents' death I've also sat with kids whose siblings have died by suicide because of a strong relationship I had with a student I uncovered a situation where a child was being sexually groomed and got the police involved and stop the situation I've coordinated with the crisis team when one of our students died I've LED Christmas present drives and on my Facebook page today it is a reminder of the hundreds of gifts I have received for my school for my students and took care of them during Christmas I've discovered and supported a child who experienced a heartbreaking case of bullying that they didn't tell to anyone for about about three months I worked with individual students to get them to school and improve their attendance and I know that's a focus of the district this year I've worked with children coming and going from Foster Care at just Disney disan rates as they transitioned to their school and had to stand with them as they said goodbye to us once again and I've done an insane amount of number of suicide and self harm assessments there are ones that still haunt me to this day these examples are just the tip of the iceberg of my work in this for Ashton ranch and for the district I'm repeatedly asked to return to Ashen by my former colleagues just last week a student who had been going through cancer who I spent time with as she went through treatment asked where I was and she how much she missed me being there to support her because she said I'm the only one who listened just excuse me I left the district not because of my work because I am passionate about school social work I left because of the school board and it's unethical I don't even know what the words are for this one it's just unethical treatment of us as social workers Because of You hundreds and hundreds of students have missed out on an award-winning social worker now every student in those coming into the district will not have access to these state board licensed professionals who do more than you will ever know about because you don't take the time to listen and learn about students and their fam's needs thank you thank you next we have Elizabeth tii hi um my name is Elizabeth T I'm a mother of five with two children currently in the district and three more coming I wanted to address last month's board meeting with how displeased I was during the vote of removing social workers as they bring services to the table that not only benefit our special education department but they the general population of our students as well it breaks my heart to hear each one of you say that we cannot justify the financial cost of them yet the board quickly used the funding that could have been used for both social workers and SRO and only applied it towards SRO everyone is quick to say we're in the business of education but Overlook the part where children are actually bullying each other whether it's verbal physical assault or pure embarrassment I made a post on Facebook to address the fact that funding was only used for SRO then I noticed da densmore's liking of a comment left by another parent that states schools are prioritizing physical safety and turning it into a welfare Clinic the fact that Don Denmar believes supporting our children's mental safety is turning into a welfare Clinic makes me question her ability to make decisions for our students as the backgrounds of our children may vary from broken families foster care system grief and even trauma I want to make it clear my family and I are made up of law enforcement and Veterans we love our men and women in blue working with our children we just want to ensure they are equipped to work with our students with IEPs and 504s this District was fast on cutting social workers sorry but did not have the policy or plan in place to protect our children's mental health now we're being told School psychologists are capable of handling these matters but then it takes a little over two days just to hear back from our school psychologist I couldn't imagine a c a student crisis having to wait that long because a school psychologist is already busy some form of a licensed professional needs to be on these campuses for prevention and intervention purposes especially when we know students don't get along this support will allow teachers to continue educating without having to stop and entire class to diffuse one student's Crisis crisis lastly I am very disappointed on how this District failed to do a proper investigation on the staff that handled themselves inappropriately during the investigation of my son's assault after we filed a due process and we got an email back from your District's attorney stating that she stopped the investigation because we filed a due process complaint because of this halt the principal was then promoted to a district position and now we're seeing that the vice principal is being recommended for promotion as to a principal position not saying they're bad people but an investigation could have shown that there was poor choices made during such a critical time for our student which was all documented by the body camera footage of your school resource officer I wanted to make it clear that these promotions are frustrating to witness especially when we have yet to have any form of resolution to our matter thank you for your time thank you next we have Heather Stone ladies and gentlemen thank you for the opportunity to speak with you in front of you today um I my name is Heather Stone I am here as a community member I am also a certified school psychologist who does not work for diart school district and I would like to speak with you today about the essential role that school social workers play in schools so I am very fortunate to have a full-time social worker at my school we work as a team but our roles are also very different so my training as a school psychologist focused heavily on assessment and eligibility criteria for special education so I learned how to administer cognitive assessments how to do academic SC testing and to do rating scales I had a few counseling courses but those even those were geared towards providing very brief support such as a one-time talk with an upset student and just kind of getting them to a place where they could go back to class so as a school psychologist my role focuses heavily on special education and I spend the vast majority of my time working with students who have IEPs or students who may are in the evaluation process or may need to be evaluated very soon and due to uh the case volume I have I mainly end up like doing the evaluation and then once we have the determined eligibility then the special education teacher takes over as case manager my school social worker on the other hand is on the front lines when it comes to general education mental health she does crisis management she works with students individually and in small groups she does lunch bunches and she's often present at resour recesses just to do informal check-ins with the students she does a lot of Family Outreach and really builds those relationships with parents she coordinates donations for Thanksgiving dinners and Christmas presents for needy families she attends CFT meetings for students who are in DCS custody she oversees mcken Veno Services she connects with families for resources either it's academic such as a family needing help paying a heating bill or outside therapy such as you know High needs case management or behavior coaches I myself do not have the training to perform these services I don't have the expertise I don't have the time and I certainly don't have the expertise and the relationship that my social worker has with our students and families and outside providers are essential and they cannot be replicated by anyone qualified as they might be in other areas thank you for your time thank you next we have Christina Rogers my name is sorry good evening my name is Christina Rogers and I'm probably going to disagree with the people back here that have already spoked but I actually want to thank you guys for um making the vote that you did and supporting our kids education my feeling with I'm not saying social workers aren't needed but I feel like if we would focus more on education less of those behavioral things will happen right now if you look at the districts all in Arizona were ranked horribly but also if you look at our math test in dce in diart from 3rd to 8th grade we are below 50% Proficiency in math and Ela these things need to happen if our kids are more educated if you guys focus on what you guys are actually went to school for what schools are made for is to educate our children a lot of the behavioral things will go away those things need to be it needs to be addressed we have psychologists we have behavioral interventionists we have school AIDS we have a lot of resources even resources for you guys to send people to social workers all of those things are in place already for schools we need to focus on our education so that our education will be better and our kids will no longer need all of the social workers and all those things schools are here to educate so get back to educating so our scores and our kids will get what they [Applause] deserve thank you you next we have Haley Crawford good evening my name is haly Crawford and I'm a student I'm speaking on behalf of Mr and Mrs LeBlanc myself and multiple other parents that are afraid to speak on this topic recently the board voted on a budget in which social workers will no longer be funded I realize that this has become a controversial issue however let's look at the facts one salaries for social work were funded by an essr Grant those funds have been used and the grant has been expired two to clarify we are not getting rid of school counselors our district employs passionate and caring administrators that offer therapy resources to all of our students if therapy is needed it should be acknowledged outside of the educational system three safety has been a major concern for everyone therefore bringing our SRO officers makes perfect sense not only does it help repare the relationship between Law Enforcement Officers the kids kids and the community but it expels the lie that have been told about our officers in blue that risk their lives every day to protect your kids the kids and Community will have a firsthand experience realizing that the police are not the bad guys together with the bonus of added safety that everyone has been wanting Bravo to the board and the administrators for having the forethought to use tax dollars so wisely I'm not sure how many citizens have seen the words and actions of some of these social workers and their supporters from various platforms but they portray the kind of behavior that apparently they are helping our children with such as anger extreme cussing false accusations threats and outof control screaming to name a few their behavior contradicts everything they say they stand for in fact their behavior at times is worse than the children they're claiming to be helping my warning to parents is to take a good long hard look at the social workers their job their description their behaviors and ask is that really what you want to support is that really what you want to fight for in support of your children in closing if one cannot see what is happening in our school then they are not looking it is our duty to Shield our children from harm I urge the public to research social workers their actions and their speech for yourselves by watching their personal social media post videos and such and then decide who you will support I'm an older sister I'm a leader I'm doing this for my siblings for my friends and for the Next Generation to come the daar governing board is on course and you have my full support as well as a mass majority of the communities thank you next we have Karen Devine good evening I'm Karen dine president of the League of Women Voters Northwest Maricopa County the League of Women Voters of Northwest Maricopa County a local League affiliate of the League of Women Voters of Arizona believes that equal access to equality education for all students is crucial crucial to Preparing the voters of the future the League of Women Voters of Arizona's stated position on Public Funding supports a uniform distribution of State funds to include allocations for social services for students and their families additionally we believe in funding for Quality education wherein the primary goal of state and local school governing bodies is the achievement of the best quality education for the students in their schools we believe the criteria for school funding should be based on current research thought and best practices regarding teaching and learning as well as other factors impacting academic success such as School Readiness and parental engagement the Arizona Department of education's school safety guidance manual for school counselers social workers States School social workers bring unique knowledge and skills to the school system and the student services team School social workers are trained mental health professionals School social workers are instrumental in furthering the mission of the schools which is to provide a setting for teaching learning and for the attainment of competence and confidence School social workers have unique expertise in child and family work because they address school and Community stressors that interfere with educational success school social workers know the services a school system provides and they know the scope of services available within the community their skills in navigating these services are crucial in challenging barriers to school and Community Resources that enable academic and behavioral success therefore the leag of Women Voters Northwest Maricopa County supports funding that includes Social Services for students and their families in our public schools and we ask that the daart Unified School District recognizes the unique value of school workers to a student's academic success and prioritize funding for the social worker program thank you thank you next we have Kathy noga good evening I am Kathy noga and I'm coming here as a concerned taxpayer of the diart school district Arizona school students are among the worst in the nation when it comes to unaddressed mental health problems we rank as one of the highest States in adverse childhood experiences with 22% of Arizona children having one experience and 24% having two or more diart students do not have adequate access to counselor scho social worker or psychologist social workers were included in the Arizona Department of Education school safety Grant because they play a vital role in keeping our schools safe they are instrumental in furthering the mission of the schools which is to provide a setting for teaching learning and for the attainment of competence and confidence the Arizona Department of Education grant for SRO which daart received states that SRO are paid to teach Law related education only it specifically states that Law related education does not include counseling according to the disart job postings a teachers's essential Duties are instructing students developing lesson plans maintaining behavior these two Sr and teachers do not have the training to be a social worker also how will teachers how will they attend to their own required duties if they are attending to those of social workers the district has guidance counselors not mental health counselors in August daart ended its contract with Southwest Behavioral Services now you are eliminating all 24 social worker positions daart is leaving their students with no mental health support how will daart address these mental health issues without the proper resources will you put the academic success and safety of students at risk the state recently awarded 562 school counselor grants 312 SRO SRO grants why did you not apply for this grant if you knew the current funds were ending according to the Arizona Department of Education 10 T of millions of those school safety Grant dollars remain unspent other districts can't find social workers and you daart are letting them go the school safety task force is asking legislators to create more Avenues to spend funds I ask you if these Grants open will you apply for more social workers or will you leave the students of daart without the emotional mental health support they need thank you next we have Tina M good evening my name is Tina Mika and I'm a parent in this District I am very upset that over the past two years the personal opinion of this school board on social emotional learning and their own political agendas have now left every family in this District without the mental health support that they will need beginning next year I will be reading two statements from teachers I am reading it for them anonymously because they do fear retaliation from this board the first statement reads teachers cannot wear yet another hat we are overwhelmed by the increasing number of students that come to school angry tired stressed hung hry anxious or sad our school district broke their contract with Southwest Behavioral Services beginning this school year that alone was a huge resource lost to many students needing a caring adult with whom they can trust my own child was one of those students not all students come in similar packages they can range across the board I'm a very involved parent who has always been there for my own kids yet sometimes what it actually takes is another caring adult to be able to listen objectively guide and provide Strate strategies and tools that kids can use to have a healthy Outlook and a balanced happy life my child loved her Southwest coun her Southwest counselor and thrived under her care next you decided to eliminate social workers another layer put a place in the purpose of helping students crying out for help the social worker at our our school alone has positively impacted so many of our high-risk students and helped them overcome their unique challenges teachers cannot provide what a social worker can provide we cannot spend the time going in depth and getting to the root of the problem like a social worker can teachers are not trained to do the work of a social worker with each of these Cuts how can one rationalize that these are improvements for the district how is this truly best for students we are all here for the good and betterment of our students yet these decisions are doing the exact opposite to date I have never seen a board member walk our hallways or visit classrooms except for that one day in March to read a book how about we observe what a social worker does on a day-to-day basis and then make a decision how about observing a classroom that has multiple behavioral issues and taking notes it's easy to make monetary decisions based on a dollar amount since that's what it boils down to I challenge you the board to make educated decisions based on multiple angles of looking at problems after all this is what we teach our students to do the second statement reads as an educator my job would be next to Impossible without the help of a social worker in our building I can do a lot of things but teaching a class of 28 students and meeting the needs of a student in distress is almost impossible I guarantee you social workers have more training experience and knowhow in working with students who desperately need someone to know what they need at that exact moment to make the statement that the front office staff or police officers on campus can do the same job is absurd they are phenomenal at what they do but taking away an entire position and adding that workload on staff that already do thank you thank you next we have Austin Smith good evening members of the board my name is Austin Smith I am the state representative I'm humbled and honored to represent derer at the Arizona legislature on behalf of myself Representative Steve Montenegro and Senator Jana champ I'm here today to express our thanks to the governing board for continuing to place academics safety and parental rights at the Forefront of your decisions while being example of what a fiscally responsible board looks like at your last meeting you approved supplemental curriculum from Hillsdale College this is a free resource but most importantly it is free from harmful ideology what is subtly woven into nearly every public textbook in recent years I also want to praise you for taking full advantage of AR ARS 15-15 4 in which you strategically applied for grant funding of school resource officers at every school thank you all for prioritizing safety thank you next next we have Mr Buckingham sorry I'm not sure the first name if you could state that when you arrive at the podium know before I begin uh I'll just make a comment uh you folks uh this is not a poor District you should folks should invest in a little bit better audio equipment uh it's really really disappointing I came over here to hear I wasn't sure I wanted to say anything but uh you know I do now but the first comment I'll make uh uh get some decent audio equipment or have people speak a little bit clearer into the into the uh mic here a comment uh I'm a uh 80-year-old veteran retired Federal investigator a team leader and supervisor what have you uh I following my retirement way back when 60 years ago I wanted to be a school teacher I went a different career when I after I retired I decided you know I want to spend a little bit of time with my grandkids and I was a volunteer in a school back in Minnesota and when I came out here to Arizona I volunteered about 200 yards north at Park viw for two or three years two years became Parkview or became Freedom Academy and I continued on uh it was the extent of my ability in kindergarten I volunteered at any rate uh I got a little feel for the school and what's going on there the comments uh I guess the specific comments I have is uh what research have you conducted to make this really momentous decision uh have you uh what's the impact on the kids uh What uh expertise uh will replace uh these social workers who will have that expertise what have you uh I heard this comment about the last comment frankly I was a little disappointed uh about the sro's and I recall uh of Aldi Texas there were 400 good guys with a gun and they didn't stop that bad guy with a gun so my point being have you know before you just uh drop this this social workers uh do some research has there any other districts in Arizona that has social workers and drop them or around the country and drop them what's uh what has been the ramifications what's the ramifications covid really hit these kids I was kind of bumped out of my volunteer gig back in uh in March as a result of covid uh what's been the impact on these kids as a result of covid have you folks studied that in this District uh at any rate that's literally all I want to say other again I'll reemphasize uh make an investment in decent audio equipment thank you Madame President uh that was our last speaker thank you we will move on to item F1 Dr CTO thank you madam president uh tonight we have a student update and Mr muy will introduce our student thank you madam president members of the board Dr Coto uh tonight we have brayy Ratliff from Valley Vista High School who's going to give us an update from the daer student council on what's going on out there in the district um good evening everyone I just wanted to give an update on what we discussed at our last um district meeting so uh Shadow Ridge is having their winter formal on Saturday and valy Vesta we're still planning our State Convention that's coming up in about a month Willow has started um planning their hoopcoming and all those festivities daart just finished Mr daer and they had a great turnout so they're very happy about that um old schools collectively just ended a food drive and we donated about 19,000 pounds of canned food to people in need and that's all thank you very much 19,000 that's a lot of food great job students next we will move on to F2 Dr curo thank you Madam president a couple updates tonight uh Felicia joer our head varsity cheer coach at Willow Canyon High School was named the Arizona cheer coach of the Year by the national Federation of State High School associations also known as nfhs uh this year's honores were selected based upon their coaching performance in the 22 23 school year their lifetime community involvement their school involvement and their philosophy of coaching uh the nfhs relies on its members and State Association to recognize those who are leading in their sport shaping their athletes and contributing in a positive way to their Community um and uh Miss joerger was nominated by the AIA and she is um nationally recognized so we want to congratulate Felicia Jager on that opportunity and that award great job uh continuing on um we have two students uh Haley Helman from Shadow Ridge High School and Tristan Wright from diart high school they have selected as two of the five Arizona nominees for the 2324 US Presidential scholars in Career and Technical education two of the five there's five in Arizona this district has two of those five uh they were selected by a review team consisting of uh CTE stakeholders based on evidence of academic rigor uh technical competence professional employability skills and Ingenuity and creativity so we want to congratulate Haley and Tristan uh we will have them here in January to be recognized by the governing board so congratulations to them a couple more clarification was asked at the last meeting regarding uh billing on mips and currently we do not uh Bill our social workers do not bill in the district so that update and then my last update um is we want I just want to congratulate our newly elected officers miss denmore and miss Pritchard for next year uh congratulations and I want to say thank you to miss Chaffin uh for your time and commitment as president and it's been a pleasure working with you so miss denmore thank you for your time as the clerk and I look forward to working with you as president so with that that's all my update all right we will move on to governing board update and I'll just go ahead and say thank you to Dr croo um it has been a very enjoyable experience to serve as a board president you and Miss Bowen have been wonderful to work with in cabinet so I I want to say thank you and thank you for your flexibility in our gender reviews around my little one I appreciate that so much um I I just appreciate it very much so um it's been a wonderful experience very educational experience it's been an honor to serve in that capacity and I just want to say thank you guys and I want to say a continued thank you to our Law Enforcement Officers our ssos and our SRO who are choosing to be at our school every day thank you for that and I want to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and happy holiday season go first um I continued to attend several more uh schools that received an a rating so it's always fun to celebrate that and uh this time let's see I went to Sunset Hills and Canyon Ridge and and um Valley Vista so looking forward to attending some more next year thank you um I was able to attend Freedom traditionals Winter concert last week um absolutely fabulous the kids did an outstanding job um I have to give kudos to Mr Swanson and Miss McLoud they do an outstanding job with the band orchest in choire the kids just you could tell that they absolutely love it um and then last night we did The Polar Express at freedom and that was a lot of fun too with all the games and the choir again with Miss McLoud um we had kindergarteners first and second grades it was great so thank you and kudos to them and I also want to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year just want to thank uh Miss Chaffin for her time serving the board as president um and you did it gracefully and um I don't know that I would have done that right out of uh having a baby but you did it and you did it very well uh thank everyone on the board for your faith in me uh going into next year um also want to wish everyone a Merry Christmas Happy Holidays happy New Year um I did not not uh attend any uh major events uh recently but I did uh make my way into a few hallways thank you I too would like to thank uh Miss schaen for her leadership over the last year and ditto to what Miss Dunmore said as far as I don't know how you did it as a new mom so you did it wonderfully and uh I appreciate your leadership so thank you um thank you also for the um the nomination or being voted for clerk next um year I appreciate that as well and look forward to working with Miss denmore and all of you um I did want to um say a few things um wanted to express some words of thanks but then also end with some words of appreciation um or reassurance um several people have reached out via either directly to me to speak to me personally or through email um saw a couple things on social media um but to reach out to share words of support in regard to the elimination of the Esser funds that um saying that they they understand that it's um the funding has ended and just wanted to reach out and say that they got it some of which are employee groups that were also eliminated also um impacted by that those funds ending so um I always appreciate it when I'm given the opportunity to speak to decisions that are made or for people that aren't 100% clear on reasons are rationale for why things are done and take the time to reach out and seek facts um so um I did also want to thank them as well for their Grace again there are more than just one employee group that um their positions were ended due to the funding and um appreciate again their Grace I also want to um provide reassurance to our community that our children our students will not be left without they will not be um floundering in schools and and no one paying attention to any mental health needs or crisis that they may be going through um we there part of being a social worker is not providing those interventions your on your own sometimes it's assessing it's connecting people with the right resources in the community um evaluating needs networking um and again connecting with community so it is not necessarily being the provider of all intervention and so with that as far as that being a role of a social worker and being that person to connect one with Community Resources we do do have um very qualified staff and our psychologists and our guidance counselors our sro's or whomever teachers that when they see a child that is struggling or in need of extra service that they are able to identify that child and get them connected whether that if they don't know how to connect that child then they will get with someone who can and I'm very confident that our psychologists um if if not anyone else guidance counselors are still even of that of that related field will be able to do that so just want to reassure the community that children will not be left in crisis um also want to um provide the clarification I know there's reference to um there being different narratives of this board only speaking for myself I can tell you everyone has a narrative and there are community members with very um distinct agendas and narratives of their own so um what I will say is that I know speaking for myself um it's I'm always coming from the purest of intentions I'm in this for the kids and I would never make a decision to hurt a child in a way of removing a needed service um this is not a matter of not seeing value in a profession or not seeing value in a role it's a matter of not having the funding someone came up here and made reference to um the math interventionists so it makes me sad to think that our district would be pointing at don't take my money take theirs should we cut teachers should we cut like who are we supposed to cut again the narrative is very intentional unfortunately so I'm clarifying it is not about this big bad board eliminating a very valued profession or a very valued role it's a matter of not having the money so the money would need to be cut from somewhere and I guess I just want to know where that would have been so again big difference I appre appreciate the people that have reached out to say I get it we support there was really no option the money is not there and wanted again to reassure the community that we are very much in tune to what our students will need and have very capable staff to be able to identify a a child in crisis or a need and will hook them up with the proper individual or resources that they will need to get the help that they seek that's it thank you we will move on to item G1 I move to approve consent agenda items as presented motion made by Crystal Chapman seconded by Christine Pritchard motion carries next we'll move on to item i1 Dr kle thank you madam president uh tonight we have a bond override committee update as we have stated so we've had two meetings since the last meeting and I'll have Mr mcy um introduce our committee chair tonight to give us those updates Mr mcy thank you madam president members of the board superintendent Cotto um yeah it's with pleasure I bring forward one of our spokespeople tonight and you've heard from him before he's going to be updating two meetings November 28th and just recently this past Tuesday um on December 12th uh Patrick Campbell and he's got a great summary for us tonight thank you sir Madam president distinguished board members Dr crto committee members and uh public Community um obviously like I stated we had two meetings since then we've been very busy uh you'll be happy to know that I've cond 16 pages of notes into four for your briefing tonight appreciate that so um but but important stuff so we've had a lot going on so uh we held a meeting November 28th as stated uh it was called to order no public comment at the time um I do appreciate um member denmore she has attended U most of these meetings she forgot to mention that but she was there and I think that stuff matters uh minutes were approved uh we started with a briefing by High Ground public affairs consultant um 30 years of experience his name was Paul bence um his job if you will is a public opinion survey and what we're looking for is basically if we send out Bond and or override to the community for a vote if you will we want more information on exactly what that would look like acceptance denian that kind of stuff um their goal is an accurate impartial or accurate impartial results um their experience working with school districts they have quite a quite a resume if you will on Bond and overrides and the effects um of that um we had an in-depth briefing on how the survey would work it was fascinating um the margin of error for them this is their stats was a 4.89% plus or minus uh with a 95 95% confidence rate um some facts that were shared with us that I thought were important here were 40% of registered voters in this District um or over the age of 65 um I'm also happy to report I'm not quite in that category yet but I'm getting close um 32% with children under the age of 18 um they discussed the survey strategy in depth I don't have time tonight for all of that it was quite a lengthy briefing um and then they agreed to draft an instrument for the survey to bring it back to us at the December 12th meeting which they did and I'll discuss that in just a little bit because I kind of want to keep it in order if you will um one of the things that were shared with us um were the history if you will of bonds and override because we wanted to know the importance of History where we've been um including recent history but some of the highlights were 2013 there was a bond for 8 86.8 million failed uh 2014 the Amo Amo override also failed 2015 it passed by a margin of 51% um and then 2019 the m&o failed again along with the bond that was one 152.5 million that failed but in 2020 the m&o override passed and the reason I share that with you is the number that I'm going to share with you here in a minute um which I believe will make make that make a little bit more sense um there was some great information um shared by Miss meridel over here about the um spending um and obviously she's always on top of that with us as far as how how that um tied together um the one that we currently are in now we're in year three heading into year four again history matters as far as when that stuff starts falling off and the amounts currently um what it funds is1 130 teachers and that impacts class sizes Etc I think that's kind of a huge number when you stop and think about just walking around campus um you guys know I work at Shadow Ridge but just thinking the thought of losing 130 or not having the funding for 130 teachers is is a as a kind of a crazy thought if you will um teacher salaries keeping them competitive all day K I know that's been a huge plus um something that's been a a Hot Topic uh the math reading Arts PE athletic programs um for the fiscal year 223 it's 23.9 million and then going into this school year the estimation was 24 million that's what shared with us um we did Community Committee brainstorming again um all of the current funding things that I just mentioned the teachers the salary the all dayk all that were came from the committee individual members the 28 members as all being important items and there were others but again it just shows reassurance from the public and the diversity of our group as far as what um what they felt was important to do that and to keep it going um next on that same 28 November we had a briefing by Mr Kevin Shipman again fascinating um he spoke about school enrollment the construction history um I think it's important for folks maybe that haven't been here long that realize when diart sort of blew up and constructed if you will and there was a a very a time frame that was shared with us that that showed that um a lot of construction happened in a very short amount of time fast forward to where we are now in 23 moving into 2024 and you realize that some of these things roofs repairs hvacs these things are coming due um the he talked about the typical cycles of neighborhoods enrollment um 23 to 25,000 students High School capacities where we're at with projections moving towards 26,000 um new homes to be built in the next 10 years again these are estimates but it is if you think about where we're already at as a city and as a district moving forward that's kind of a big number um he shared the cost with what it would cost to build a K through 8 versus the cost to build high schools um and again those numbers are staggering when you really think about it um next was a transportation overview um scheduled was Doug Curry but he couldn't make it because of uh family emergency so um Karma um was nice enough to come Karma Valente was nice enough to come and fill in for him um she shared basically the history of the bus and how much it cost cost for transportation the 46 buses regular buses and 32 sped buses currently need to be replaced because they're reaching what would be a target of 15 years um for replacement on those um I'm not going to lie I couldn't believe how much it cost for a school bus um so the number that was shared with us was just slightly under two uh um $250,000 and about 175 for a sped bus times that by the numbers I just gave you and you get a number close to 17 million just for that um um so anyway so moving on uh the December 12th meeting um that was also called to order no public comment meetings were approved um the gentleman I referred to earlier Paul B he came back and he brought us a very detailed survey of exactly what it would look like so some breakdowns from that um it showed the number of questions um two it's in two parts four sections 42 four 41 total questions it's an average of a 15minute survey um that number that I wanted to share with you one of the questions would be question 18 Again these surveys are done slightly different they mix the orders and whatnot but again they're looking for a very accurate um opinion of the public to give us an idea of moving forward with a recommendation potentially to the board um what it would look like potentially moving to a vote um the number that came up with was 127 million for the bond um the breakdown of that was um quickly was the bus Replacements at 17 million the new K to8 Elementary School 35 million High School land alone they said 10 could be upwards of 12 million facility Renovations this is in total and I'll get to that briefing here in a second that was 48 million Safety and Security was 17 million for a total cost of $127 million um so what the agreement was made at the end of the December 12th meeting this last Tuesday was that that number would be used as a number to put towards the survey just to get a sense and and a feedback from the community yes it would be something they support no or hard yes or hard no so um so he finished breaking down exactly what it would look to us I mean it looked really good they're expecting to start this survey right after the first of the year um so anyways that's that it's going to be we'll be getting feedback from that once they get the feedback we'll bring it to the board um last we had a maintenance and construction needs um or I'm sorry next to last we had uh Mr Todd Butler um from maintenance and operations he came and gave us a very detailed briefing on mechanical HVAC Plumbing flooring Roofing weatherization uh freezer conditions and things and and these are things that you know even as an employee like I I didn't know uh but it's good as a committee to understand these things and now we can put together a more um a better informed opinion of exactly where the district stands and I do appreciate all the very openness um that's been shared with us by the folks that have been helping us out with the committee um Marley Park very specifically there are some AC and unit uh Renovations they shared charts with us um the costs and discussions and basically the breakdown from him as I shared earlier was about 48 million for all of the necessary Renovations and upgrades and things that need to happen um lastly we had a a briefing by Jason jger who's uh the safety director um and he went through reasoning rationale aain programs and a lot of the different needs including things like automatic gate openers and things that if you worked on a campus would make a lot more sense as far as Safety and Security um for our staff and our students um and he had a whole list of things he went through including radio Communications internet upgrades um fire panel um upgrades and things like that and with that I'll stand for questions if any all I know it's a lot thank you I I do appreciate you you being the committee chair and I do appreciate every single person on that committee and your time willing to serve and really taking the time to gather information and make sure that information is accurate so I do appreciate you and I do thank you for your time ma'am thank you um I also just want to say thank you but not just to you but to everybody on the committee thank you for recognizing my presence at those meetings um you know it's interesting that the meetings are the first um in my time on the board that have been open to a board member coming um not only are they open to board members they are also open to the public yet I'm usually the only one there eating all the brownies there's food people there's food there's snacks there's a whole lot of empty chairs they're in this room you should probably come and find out what you're going to be potentially potentially voting yes or no on um there's a lot of really good information that's shared in these meetings uh information that I have never been presented with before um so I thank the committee I thank uh Dr Coto for the transparency with this committee um it's been eye openening um and just an amazing experience and again thank you to every single person that has volunteered for this board that comes um you know and they're usually the Tuesday before the board meeting but they are all publicly posted on our website they I have also asked that they all be live streamed on YouTube so anyone can watch from the comfort of their couch to make your own snacks actually for what it's worth ma'am I've uh several um staff members at Shadow have approached me and said that they actually do watch good so I thought that was I've been looking at the views they they're tick they're up ticking so thank you do we have any other questions all right thank you so much thank you all right next we'll move on to I to Dr CTO thank you madam president tonight we continue on um with our adopted uh policy monitoring uh tonight is chapter two there is two um policies in that we are not recommending any changes if you remember we brought we did changes in the last Board of meeting for chapter one um and uh that was in consent With The Changes tonight that you approved so now we're on uh policy chapter two and so I will stand for any questions or revisions that you might have I was just um looking at 2-2001 under evaluation of the superintendent um second actually I guess first full paragraph but um unless otherwise mutually agreed between July 1 and September 30th the board in consultation with the superintendent shall adopt standards or goals with the superintendent it shall be evaluated um in the in the past I believe we we usually did it over the summer so then that way we started the school year where the superintendent and the board were clear on what the superintendent schools were um I would recommend the board consider um rather than having the end date be September 30th we do like between July one and and August one something to think about just so again we're superintendent is very clear before the school year starts what the expectations are what the goals are and they can start working on them right away rather than you know meeting September 30th that means they may not be finalized until October and then in a couple months theoretically you'd be ready for your mid year Madam president member Pritchard um we can definitely make that I would ask that maybe we go a little bit past August one because that would mean we only have one meeting sometimes in July so that would actually make that the only meeting we could do it so maybe August 30th so you can include the August meetings or are you want it in July um again I'm I'm open to discussion I know in the past we we just met more like we'd have like a steady session sometimes in the summer you know rather than just speing months a month when it comes to superintendent goals we had typically had like a board Workshop or a study session we can do that definitely and I think as long as we have the goals ready for the superintendent before school starts I I feel like that's the the essence because that way you know I mean if if we don't approve the goals till September 30th you got October November December like you're you're two three months in a school year already so I feel like the earlier the better so do we how do we feel about do we want July 1st to August 1st do we want July 1st to August 30th I don't even know why really we have to say July one I mean in theory we could always started in um June and just say like prior to maybe August 1 well that was I was thinking about that too don't we normally do the superintendent's evaluation in June the end end year the end year right yeah so if we did the end year at the beginning of June um would that give the superintendent enough time to create the goals by the end of June well or but I'm saying as long as they're done before August 1 okay so basically if I hear you right you're saying um before August 1st so in instead of between July 1st and September 30th we just right before August 1 that's what I'm thinking okay does that seem I don't have a preference we got it okay I'll be there either way thank you do we have any other thoughts okay then we will move on to I3 Dr curto thank you madam president uh we have two CIP reports for you this evening Canyon Ridge Elementary and Kingswood and tonight we have Mr muy introducing our principles for those schools thank you madam president members of the board superintendent Cotto um first up we're going to get to hear from uh the proud principal of Canyon Bridge Elementary and that's Joe hoppy okay Madam president governing board member superintendent Coto cabinet and guests I am Jill hoppy and I am the proud principal of Canyon thank you I also want to recognize that Andrew griel our assistant principal and Justine Palmer our TLS who are with me today and they got to I got to sit in the middle of them so they're my support too so thank you for allowing me to present our continuous Improvement PR plan and progress we are making so far this school year um I am going to stay on script I promise because everybody who who knows me knows I could talk a lot about Canyon Ridge and so I want to honor everybody's time so our AAS data shows that we continue to grow and Achieve higher than the state average we earned a ranking of 54th in the state for traditional K8 schools during the 2022 school year in 2023 re celebrated earning an a label and an overall ranking of 29th in the state of Arizona our goal has been and will continue to be earning a ranking within the top 10 KH traditional schools in the state our El enrollment is slowly increasing in the 2122 school year we had 12 e students last year we had 17 El students and this school year we have 19 El students over the past two years we have taken advantage of el tutoring opportunities our El students meet with our tutor after school for additional instruction including helping them prepare for the aella test we closely monitor integrated and targeted e instruction during our weekly walkthrough additionally we have strategically placed um our El students with teachers who have experience supporting El students last year we took advantage of our own staff who have relationships with the students administering the aella test and we will continue to do that again this year this slide represents our CIP testing goal we are striving for 76% or more of our third through eth grade students proficient or highly proficient as measured by the aasa or making a minimum growth of 3% our Benchmark one data shows that we are on track for meeting our 3% growth goal and we are also working diligently to decrease the number of students who are minimally proficient we have Dibbles goals to monitor our K3 students literacy growth yesterday and that's why it's not up here um we received our middle of the Year data and we are on track for meeting our goal we use this goal to ensure our students have tier 2 and tier three interventions I'll share our plan for that in just a moment to meet our academic goals our CIP also includes a PLC implementation goal and instructional goals all of our plc's are using an implementation rubric to determine the quality and effectiveness of their PLC each PLC creates an endof thee academic goal and quarterly goals to ensure they monitor student learning progression at our by weekly instructional cabinet meetings there is a standing agenda item to discuss the PLC goals and their progress we know that strong instruction leads to Student Learning you see that we have goals aligned to the daart instructional protocol we strive for 100% of teachers to post objectives and success criteria check for understanding within each lesson purposely use engagement strategies and embed academic conversations within lessons the last goal on this slide is to reduce the number of students chronically absent from school because we have had challenges with chronic absenteeism so our action plan really includes these items so this year's theme is a team Canyon learning is a team sport and it really really emphasize that all of us in our community our Learners our students our teachers our families and we want to take every opportunity to learn as we can both students and staff closely track learning data students receive targeted enrichment and intervention Based on data data staff participate in ongoing opportunities to discuss and analyze student achievement data and staff teach to the standards that following dart's scope and sequence our staff is receiving ongoing spiraled mini PD aligned to the instructional protocol data and stem our Master Teachers that model best practice instruction and Mrs PA supports of all teachers and students Mr griel and I monitor instructional goals through observations weekly walkthroughs and quarterly data sweeps our second quarter data sweep which we did in the end of November showed that our teachers are implementing elements of the dip with 80% Fidelity our action plan for attendance is to um really truly have our teachers and our staff build relationships with students and we know if there students are excited to come because they have fun and engaging lessons they will be there we recognize students with weekly attendance celebration and for students who have chronic absenteeism teachers Mr gasel and I develop support plans with our parents support so that was pretty quick K guys so that's it thank you for the opportunity and I'm ready for any questions thank you so much for this presentation I I appreciate you having everything put together and I also appreciate the opportunity for enrichment not just intervention because sometimes we get so focused on the intervention piece that we've got students who were like hey I'm killing it over here and I love that we're challenging them too yeah thank you so our our sixth grade teacher Mrs beneski we have an intervention block and she used to be our gtia and so she has time with our sixth seventh and eighth graders um in the morning to do Define stem opportunities Project based learning and they love her and they love to um work with her on her those gifted things thank you you're welcome I really like your theme um the team Canyon learning is a team sport um and I I also appreciate all the detail put into your data I really appreciate that thank you um but I like the theme and I'll tell you it's I ever since my girls were little in in Canyon I can I mean it's it's always had a very close-knit family type feel or team feel um and I think that's what gets you guys where you're going and I think that's where that this is what's going to get you to these new goals as well but um you guys do a lot of great things there and I like to um hear that um just as far as still holding on to that um Team approach family close-knit We're All in This Together type climate that you're building there um really makes a difference for our students and families so I appreciate that thank you and we have a champion program to and we've had it for years and years and that champion program says any student that might have a need for any reason um we have a designated um adult on campus that that is just their check-in their hello their feel so we'll have um Miss Mar first grade teacher working with seventh graders because they we've have such Legacy and longevity of staff that we have these relationships that span generations and I think that that makes it just home there well and and there is research behind the fact that if a student is able able to have like one meaningful relationship one meaningful adult in their life that can really make a difference in academics as well so I'm glad to hear that you provide opportunity for students to connect with somebody that they need to process with maybe in the beginning or end of each day that you have that um available to them because that's really going to help them too through their day if they're struggling or what have you so thank you for doing that you're welcome we good okay thank you our next presentation comes from another proud principal from Kingswood Elementary we have Tim Brooks I'm glad she went before me because the mic is at the right level so it's perfect all right okay well good evening president Chaffin members of the board Dr Coto members of cabinet and guests my name is marily Lee Tim Brooks and I'm the proud principal at Kingswood and at Kingswood our catchphrase has been last year and is continuing this year that kns level up and this year really proud to say that we did level up um and have received the a rating for our school and that's the first time that Kingswood has received that rating so we're really proud and we're really excited about that and we have a lot of positive momentum going on on our campus um that we're continuing through this year as we focus on our CIP this year so this year we started with a strong clear Focus outlined in our continuous Improvement plan and we maintain the strong Focus throughout the school year we are implementing systems to support teachers monitor instructional practices and results student by student standard by standard student by student standard by standard so historically our data shows um growth in the past three years we've continued to make growth in all three areas Ela Math and Science and we are very proud of the fact that we were in the top 10% of schools in the state for overall growth this year um over the past three years you can see the data shows we've increased proficiency levels in ela by 20% in math by 11% and for science in the past two years we've increased by 21% and we are above the state average in all three of those State tested areas our Zella data uh shows that we are making progress we are decreasing the number of students that are pre-emergent but we're still continuing to focus and support all of our elll students we have strategically created a master schedule that ensures our elll students receive both integrated and targeted instruction throughout the school day and we know that our El students need those targeted supports and one of the strategies that we've incorporated into all of our class classrooms is the use of sentence frames as es scaffolded support in order to increase those academic conversations among peers student to student as a campus we've created three main goals for our continuous Improvement plan our first goal focuses on strong instructional practices during tier one if we can strengthen our core instruction in our tier one we know that we're going to be reducing the need for those tier 2 and tier three interven itions our goal for all of our students and all of our subgroups is to reduce the number of students that are minimally proficient and increase the proficiency levels action steps for our first goal include meeting weekly in our prep connects with each grade level team we examine student learning data we adjust instruction as needed according to that data we plan small group instruction for tier one for students that are not mastering skills and Concepts and we create intervention plans for students based on standards that are not mastered our second CIP goal focuses on increasing parent education and communication and that is focused on student achievement and growth we really feel it's important to be continuing to work with parents as partners and a lot of times they just aren't really sure what to do and how they can best help their their child so um we are also focusing on celebrating our students achievements that remains at the Forefront um increasing our social media spotlighting students and teachers and something that we added this year to support this goal is a parent University which focuses on helping parents understand the student assessments that their children are taking um how they're based on standards how to interpret their own child's data and so they can continue to work with them and support them at home our last goal focuses on effective implement mation of multi-tiered systems of support we hold weekly meetings with our intervention team and we review data uh weekly such as unit and module assessments we look at Lexile scores from achieve 3,000 we um look at progress monitoring data and um CFA data and in those weekly meetings we um review and create skill groups for tier three um they are put in place for students and are aligned to the standards and students are regrouped as needed we also continue to um talk about the needs of our El and ESS students um they are a focus during our prep connect meetings our RTI meetings our intervention team meetings um and we involve our resource teachers in those meetings and and they've been very very successful and having that open dialogue um our teachers meet weekly as part of a professional Learning Community to review our individual students progress um their lesson plan utilizing scope and sequence um using our curriculum and our standards with Fidelity I have gone very fast because I wanted to give you an overview but we are very very very proud of the progress that we have made at Kingswood and our whole Community has really worked together um to stay focused and things don't happen just by chance it happens with a lot of hard work but we have been very very specific with our Focus um and staying consistent with our focus and our priorities and we're starting to see those great results and we're we're really excited about that we are spending next week celebrating um we should hopefully see some of you I think on Tuesday to to receive our a banner uh we'll be storming the halls with all of the kids to celebrate um and just some other just really exciting things because we know um it is important to take a moment and celebrate and then get back to work because we we know we we have a lot to still do so it at Kingswood is a great day to be a night and I just want to thank you for your time and any questions that you have i''d be happy to answer at this time thank you so much I appreciate the presentation I I congratulations on the growth that's phenomenal in since 2020 you grew 20% 11% I mean it's that's a lot of hard work and focus thank you so thank you I I look forward to next year I can't you know you keep going you keep growing it's it's wonderful thank you and congratulations on your your a label obviously but also those gains in uh science too that's amazing yes but you uh you've probably seen firsthand when you first came to daart and you came to Kingswood um mid year maybe was it right was it mid year that year I was hired in the middle of the year but I actually started in the summer so okay but 17 years ago yes I remember um but look at the difference and I bet it's neat for you to to have started there and then now kind of Full Circle back at Kingswood and just to see the growth of that school I'm sure it has a lot of meaning for you thanks for all the hard I want to recognize some of the um staff that came with me and I as I was looking at um teachers that joined me tonight for the presentation they every single one of them was here when I was there back 17 years ago so there's a lot of commitment and a lot of pride um and this is something that um everybody has worked really hard for um you work very hard thank you so much for your hard work all of you thank you um and congratulations on everything the um the growth is absolutely outstanding I see Miss Lindsay crying over there she was a baby kindergarten teacher back then yeah thank thank you so so much for everything for just turning around um turning everything around at Kingswood really from what I've heard so much positive you know from that one over there um but thank you to all your staff it's it's I know that it's um that it's hard work to get to where you're you're at um so it's definitely not unnoticed thank you I just want to say congratulations and um you mentioned parent universities can you elaborate a little bit more on that I can we are fortunate that we have a family Outreach specialist on our campus and we've really uh focused on that two-way communication with our families and helping them um to we use so many acronyms and so many different things in education and we just take for granted that parents know what is Dibbles and what is what does aasa stand for and and all of those um those terms and so we um invited parents to come in and we've actually sat with them and went through um what is aasa what is how do how do we get points for that and how um are students measured with growth and what kinds of things are they assessed on um how do we look at individual students data how do we use benchmarks to U make sure that we know students are making progress and just involved the parents in that conversation so they really felt um equipped when they left to continue working with their kids at home because we know our parents want to help them but a lot of times they just don't know what to do do they don't know where to start and and what their kids need and so that's um that's where we started we have another one scheduled um in January we'll be talking more about benchmarks and as we're kind of gearing up and getting ready for um testing in the spring do you get a good turnout with that with parents we had we had a handful I would say um a small group but the word of mouth is is spreading um I do coffee with the principal also we have really traditionally had a good turnout for our coffees so we're promoting it there um and I take advantage of that time also to share schoolwide data and share our school goals and let them know we are that a school and we've really been working to um share that out with the community so it's at the Forefront and it really you can feel that momentum and that energy just across the campus and and with all of our parents too so that is great I love it good job nice job thank you all right next we'll move on to J1 Dr CTO thank you madam president uh earlier tonight we did have a public hearing on the revised budget for 23 24 school year uh there were no comments and no questions so we will turn it over to board and asking you to approve the 2324 revised expenditure budget all right I will move to approve the 2023 2024 revised expenditure budget second motion made by Crystal Chaffin seconded by Don denmore motion carries we will move on to J2 Dr crto thank you madam president uh as you know over the last two months or so uh we have had boundary change committee meetings for the Assante area um and tonight is come to time for the board to vote on that so Dr asai will give a very brief overview of that process and then turn it over to the board for a vote Dr asai good evening Madam president members of the board um I just wanted to walk you through our process one more time uh so you would know be aware of what the committee did on 9:22 we called for committee members uh we did end up taking everyone that applied we didn't say no to everyone because we wanted it to be a Community decision we hosted Community meetings uh or committee meetings I'm sorry on both October 17th and October 23 uh to get community input about here's the situation we reviewed numbers why we needed to do the boundary changes uh possible outcomes possible ways to do it um and they ranged all over the place uh before we came to our decision um on 1023 they did make a decision to make a recommendation to the board uh that we'll go over in just a few minutes we went over at last board meeting uh we did post for the public meeting we held a public uh meeting on 111 or we I'm sorry we posted the public meeting notice for the governing board on 111 we did add an additional open house to the process on November 8th uh we weren't required in that process to go up to Asante but we know that this is a far way to drive to the district office for our families up there uh so my team went up uh we had about 30 parents attend probably it was a good uh it was a good showing um on 1116 we had the public hearing here in which we presented the committee's recommendation the recommendation to remind the board the committee had was to turn a Sante and Western Peaks both in 2K5 schools and to make simmeron a 68 uh with the kids that are in sixth through eighth grade coming down from Asante to sron uh this will alleviate the crowd overcrowd for we hope about four to 5 years uh we know that area is continuing to grow uh so we are helpful hopeful that there'll be other Alternatives as well uh but for now that's probably the best we can do within our budget uh so tonight we're here recommending that the board approve the boundary changes and I'll answer any questions thank you do we have questions all right I will move to approve the proposed boundary changes as presented second motion made by Crystal Chaffin seconded by Christine Richard motion carries we'll move on to j3 Dr CTO thank you madam president uh now we've come to a time where we get to welcome uh a couple people to our daart family and and um and a new position for another person that's already in dard so for these awesome recommendations I'll turn it over to Dr polling thank you Dr CTO Madam president members of the board cabinet and public administration is proud to recommend for the position of director of Transportation Danielle daniiel Moore for the assignment for the 23 24 school year she has extensive experience currently the uh Transportation director for Cave Creek unified and previously the director at AA free Union High School District she'll receive salary and benefits commensurate with the position position her education and experience her resume is attached and below is our um standard hiring process and with that I'll stand for any questions and uh she's also with us tonight so thank you do we have any questions all right I move to approve the appointment of Danielle danielak Moore as director of Transportation second motion made by Crystal chaff and seconded by Don denmore motion carries congratulations congratulations welcome to daer glad to have you welcome we'll move on to j4 Dr crto Dr polling you can continue thank you Dr Coto Madam president members of the board cabinet Community with the promotion of Dustin Hammond dir of Community Education we're recommending the addition of an interum Middle School principal in order to provide adequate coverage for the rest of this school year we're recommending appointing of Miss Amber Luna to fill this intern position for the remainder of this school year she's currently the assistant principal and as we do every year for intern positions we would run a standard hiring process to have a permanent uh principal starting July 1 so with and Miss Luna is also here welcome and with that I'll take any questions thank you do we have any questions all right I'm move to approve the addition of an interim Middle School principal position and appointment of Miss Amber Luna as interim principal of sonor and Heights Middle School for the remainder of the 2023 2024 school year motion made by Crystal Chaffin seconded by Jennifer Drake motion carries congratulations congratulations congratulations all right J5 Dr crto continuing on with our third recommendation Dr polling thank you Dr CTO Madam president members of the board cabinet Community with with your last vote we are now recommending the addition of an inter Middle School assistant principal in order to provide appropriate coverage we're recommending Steven seavoy for the remainder of this school year his extensive ad ministrative experience he's retired from PE Unified School District as Deputy superintendent he'll receive salary uh Comm Comm with the position as education experience his resume is attached and Mr SEO is also here as well thank you do we have any questions all right I move to approve the addition of an interim Middle School assistant principal position and appointment of Steven seavoy as interim assistant principal of Sonoran Heights Middle School for the remainder of the 2023 2024 school year second motion made by Crystal Chapman seconded by Don denmore motion carries congratulations welcome to die start Mr seavoy yes thank you for coming out of retirement for a brief time to share your expertise we appreciate that all right we'll move on to j6 Dr Coto thank you madam president our last action item tonight is to discuss and set a date for an executive session for the my midterm evaluation so I will turn it over to the board for any discussion thank you very much our meeting for January is set for January 25th are we good with having that midyear evaluation on January 25th we expecting are we expecting a heavy agenda in January I'm Madam present a member denmore um I do not know yet you know of I do not as of right now it is not a heavy agenda okay I'm okay with that then well you'll be board president so okay let's do that January 25th then yeah it will not be a heavy agenda then all right so with that I motion to establish an executive session on January 205th 2024 for the superintendent's midyear evaluation second motion made by Crystal Chapman seconded by Don Densmore just clarify that is the the very coming next meeting meeting right are you right that is correct we voted to revise our calendar so our only meeting in January is the 25 right okay I just want to make sure yeah I want to make sure I understood too thank you motion carries item K1 do we have a request for future agenda items okay I move we adjourn motion made by Crystal chaffman and seconded by Joe Grant sorry okay oh my gosh motion carries weird

good evening at this time it's the last call for request to speak press this I just talk to my principal disine and Par of the kid that they're so good evening good evening I'd like to call this meeting to order I can't hear it can you you hear me that's terrible good evening it's terrible can you hear me good evening I'd like to call this meeting to order Mrs Richards roll call President Schultz let the record show that all five board members are present thank you would you please join me in a moment of silence and Pledge of [Music] Allegiance to Black of the United States of America and the stands nation under God indivisible I make a mo I'd like to make a motion that we approve the agenda all those in favor I I motion carries 5 Z Mrs Richard superintendent report yes we are very excited this evening to uh accelerate everything that's going on in our schools specifically our letter grades so at this time can I have Mr lson haiser and Dr Lindsay come up with Shaun and Miller and we are going to introduce the best District in the state of Arizona can you give our schools a round of [Applause] applause you're going to get to celebrate each of our schools and then uh we have Marcus birkshire here to celebrate specific data points so Dr Lindsay take it away all right we're going to an alphabetical order so to kick us off I'd like to um celebrate Bridges Elementary for their a letter grade [Applause] and congratulations principal ble and assistant principal Mr Berg the board the board is going to come take a picture with you as well sure in the center sounds good good congratulations Bridges we want you to do stand over here on all right next up we've got Centennial Elementary and we've got principal Rachel Broadley and assistant principal Matt veral so congratulations Centennial we're so proud of you [Applause] guys [Applause] all right we can advance the slide next up we've got our sharks from chaperel [Applause] elementary principal Christine Hansen and assistant principal Terry pepper way to go move over down a little bit [Applause] coyote Nation congratulations to Coronado Elementary we got principal Armstrong and assistant principal Brian Griggs scoot down a little [Applause] bit next up we have Cortina Elementary principal Kelly papy and assistant principal Chrissy devono want to break the rules [Applause] congratulations all right next up we have HTA Higley Traditional [Applause] Academy principal Karen bacon and assistant principal Amanda day y way to go ladies [Applause] all right next up we have power Ranch Elementary with inter yes congratulations power we've got interim principal Mr John Dolan receiving congratulations the power ranch super proud of you guys way to go next up we have Santan Elementary principal Ray Marcado will be accepting this award congratulations Santan super proud of you guys major award [Applause] do you want to do a big picture with all the elementaries why don't we have everyone try to come in we're going to do one with all the elementaries Ray will be right in theid keep going a little bit around [Laughter] we [Music] [Applause] all right as we transition to secondary schools once again a round of applause Elementary all those awesome A's all right first up secondary we have the whoops upside down saam and [Applause] Spartans Mr pots Mr keing Miss mola representing today we'll do a we'll do a secondary one okay and Higley High School come on down Higley [Applause] High we have principal Allen Fields accepting the banner well done Mr fields and higly high [Applause] oh where's Mr Dolan the higgle Virtual Academy [Applause] vipers congratulation that is a nice color and a wonderful logo I I don't know who designed it but they did a great [Applause] job and finally we have williamsfield high school principal Dan Fox athletic director Daryl stangle all right let's have everybody come on out right there good there's four so we should be nice excellent way to go secondary schools n our a oh in the moment you've all wait oh wait it's already on the screen congratulations so as a district when you look at all of our schools and the scores of all of our schools together we earned an a as a district congratulations to Higley Unified School District our governing board if you would come and accept our Banner please you guys get hold it this time we stay on the outside oh no oh no I'm standing I'm standing on the [Applause] outside president Schultz members of the board where excited for the next chapter of higgle Adventures if individuals are in the audience this evening that we are highlighting will you please stand up and wave let's begin with Jessica Batista she is our director of public information and [Applause] marketing Jessica joined our team on November 13th as the Director of public information and marketing we did Stiller from Queen Creek and we're pretty proud of that anyway we're excited to have her here and we're confident that she will make significant strides and advancing us toward meeting our marketing goals welcome Jessica as I believe everybody in this room is aware we need to celebrate Higley kns once again principal Phils are you still in the room right back [Applause] there Higgly Knights 5A state champions again two years in a row led by head coach Eddie Zoo they won this in the fight or the championship game on December 1st against Desert Edge congratulations knights we are so proud of you additional recognitions will be happening during our January board meeting [Applause] congratulations our Air Force Junior RC Cadet corpse Commander Tyler bubela from williamsfield high school received first place in state second place National sons of the American Revolution enhanced scholarship Awards in addition Tyler was selected as the October 20123 Gilbert Town Council student citizen of the month the award was presented at a special ceremony on Tuesday November 28th at the Gilbert Town Hall we're so very proud of Tyler and can't wait to see what's [Applause] next in November Higley High School had 12 students compete in the academic de cathlon which is the ACP Invitational the students scrimmaged with top teams in the state and earned to combine nine Awards which include essay economics math music science speech and literature congratulations to Miss Matthews and all of these students for a job well done participating students included Cody stelle Logan Pendleton Savannah Pendleton Jana Lopez Chase Goodwin Ryan cornette cydney Deo Victoria Tesh Colin Westbrook Marshall Moser Ranken twit and Mason Cole congratulations to these [Applause] students on this slide we have the academic de cathlon participants who brought home Awards we'd like to congratulate these students on their achievements congratulations Cody for economics Logan for economics and Essay Jana for essay Chase for math Tori for speech and literature Ryan for music and Sydney for first place and [Applause] science Higley Unified School District has earned two national awards for its exemplary financial reporting and accountability bestowed by both the association of school business officials International and the government Finance officers of the United States and Canada these recognition misss stand as a testament to the district's ongoing dedication to exceptional financial management in addition the certificate of achievement for excellence in financial reporting was bestowed upon Tyler Moore higley's Chief Financial Officer this was by the government Finance officers of the United States the certificate of achievement is the highest form of recognition in governmental accounting and financial reporting this was judged by an impartial panel to meet the high standards of the program including demonstrating a constructive Spirit of full disclosure to clearly communicate its Financial story help me in congratulation congratulating Mr Moore in the entire finance department we are so appreciative of your hard work and yes you do have to stand [Applause] up okay moving on to our points of Pride can we have Miss Patty gleon and Miss Stacy Utley come to the [Music] front well what an amazing night we get to continue the celebration um I'm so excited to see all of you um president Schultz thank you so much for having us members of the governing board and cabinet so tonight we get to celebrate preschool and we're going to start with preschool first and we would like to honor Julie Val as our teacher point of [Applause] Pride you have to come up front all right so up we exit hold all right we are recognizing Julie tonight um because she has been the Cornerstone for our preschool our preschool since we opened in 2013 her solid classroom management skills and her support of instructional strategies have created a classroom family environment where all children succeed and they're ready ready for kindergarten she is passionate about her students and playfully connects with them to build a strong relationship that is vital to Student Success her students and families love her she's a problem solver and a solution and solution oriented and we always count on her to get her done and her get her done attitude there are many ways that Julie has contributed to the success of our preschool and our students throughout the years but one in particular comes to mind she had a particularly um challenging student last year um and she worked diligently through the year to learn about him connect with and work with his parents and seek outside support for him and then make sure that his transition to kindergarten provided all the support that this little child would need she is one of our treasures and we are proud to recognize her as our teacher point of Pride at all right so next we are going to recognize Carrie tis is our classified point of Pride for kolie [Applause] preschool all right Miss Carrie so we're recognizing Carrie because she's such an amazing support to everyone in our preschool and even in the Middle School when needed Carrie is compassionate kind and comforting to everyone she interacts with and that means every child parent teacher and guest that comes to kolie ecdc she's always ready to come and help when called bringing her trusty thermometer and her positive attitude her office is warm and inviting and all the children know her love her and trust her as she triages and takes care of cuts bruises bumps and other assorted boo boos she knows her job inside and outside is and is on top of every protocol procedure and care plan making sure that everyone in our Center is safe she also helps in a variety of other ways when she isn't caring for our Littles she'll help in the front office do lunch duty help out in the classrooms when needed she helps make kcdc a very special place to be and we honor her as our little cougar support staff points of [Applause] Pride all right so fun I get to do it all again all right um now we're going to celebrate our student point of Pride would Morgan Fontes and her teacher Carrie brunette please come forward Morgan come on up there show your beautiful smile there you go Carrie do you want that sure so I was happy to nominate Miss Morgan here because she is a ray of sunshine in our class she enters the room each day with a huge smile excited and ready to learn she loves learning and engaging with the other children in the room she always is excited to participate in classroom activities and she always works hard Morgan is kind and compassionate she has the ability to include everyone and make them feel special she is everyone's best friend in our class Morgan is a leader and always willing to help out she is the first to volunteer whether it be as a helper to answer or to answer a question her confidence and spunk Make Her Shine in our room we are lucky to have her in our [Applause] class did you notice the skip right it's so good all right and then our last point of Pride from kolie is our volunteer Nancy McCormack would you come up [Applause] please got to get our hugs in all right so we're very excited to honor Nancy um fondly known as gamy in our Center um I know it's so perfect it is and that's what she that's what who she is so um Nancy or gamy as our little cougar family finally calls her has been a gift to Mrs campuzano's class and preschool this year gamy has been a consistent volunteer and she actively seeks ways to contribute in the classroom Miss Miss Jessica's classroom and in any classroom that you found that needed help which is wonderful um she shares her love joy and her playful presence with our little cougars we're so happy when she when we see her come into the building and she's genuinely happy to be with us she even shows up to volunteer when a grandson is out sick what a beautiful blessing she is for all of us thank you [Applause] gamy you oh yes and would you introduce who you brought to um celebrate you tonight my husband oh her Julie's husband Mike is here all right and I think you're family I know that's right all of our staff at kolie yes I know we got a lot right there and Morgan's got her whole family grandma grandpa mom and dad and her mother is actually a teacher at our school as well miss Haley yay and theny I'm from Virginia so I don't have much family here but my it's my grandson's fourth birthday so he is at the arcade with his friends and my daughter was very upset but I said that's okay you need to be at his birthday party but you'll join them next right okay there you go so thank you and thank you all for coming to support them today [Applause] too congratulations thank congratulations yes and wait there's more um now we switch over to San and again what an honor to be director of both of these amazing schools and to be recognizing these fantastic people today so I would first like to acknowledge you Jennifer Ziggler is our teacher point Pride from [Applause] San come on out okay oh wait a second that's wrong one hold on here I don't think I can say it by memory not very good is that it or is that's not you know what I put it in take it out like there this one there she is okay thank you sorry about that okay worth it it's worth it um so we're recognizing Jay-Z as we finally call her um because she's become the Hub and the backbone of our Center bringing Jen Ed and special education preschool together Jen is the first one to jump in to partner with and help her colleagues with challenging children and to provide service to anyone in need need she is solution-minded and full of ideas always bringing her best self to the table to support in any way she can she wears several hats this year in addition to being a stars and a 4day BB teacher she is also one of our leadership team she's helped with the itinerant teacher duties as we wait to hire um a a person for that position and she's now a part of the preschool eal team at sasman this year as well and also head of our Sunshine committee so again you are all always doing everything Miss Jay-Z it's so wonderful so her students and her families adore her she makes everyday learning experiences fun and exciting for Littles and brings learning to life with lots of props and decorations to immerse them in their learning she absolutely loves Disney and like Disney she shows how she knows how to appeal to all the senses of the children that she teaches thank you for all you do and we are so excited to honor you tonight [Music] right so our next Honore is our classified staff and we took her right out of the building because she was working today Raina Fishman would you please come up here she's our [Applause] custodian [Applause] I know I need to give you the day the night off don't I but I know you have so much to do come on up here we need to talk about you all right all right we love this woman uh we're very excited to honor Raina tonight as our classified points of Pride for San ecdc Raina is an amazing woman with a work ethic that is raled by none she keeps our entire Center shiny clean and safe for all of our little Spartan family she has a great attention to detail and takes such pride in all her work I have never seen anyone work as hard as she does and our Center is big and she does it all by herself she knows um everything that oh this is a part two that I love about her um to go along with her Mighty cleaning skills she has a wonderfully big heart and she loves our teachers and children and always makes time to check in and see how everyone is doing she knows everything that is going on in our Center and it's kind of like the mom of our Center taking care of all of our needs and making sure everyone is doing well thank you for loving us and doing all that you do to care for us Raina we love [Applause] you this is for you too thank you all right and next we have our student point of Pride Daniel Barnard will you please come forward and one of his teachers Lauren or excuse me Len is going to be talking about him today and reading a little bit about him thank you oh Daniel so good to see you can we give him a round of applause right yeah okay Daniel can you all right we are very excited to honor Daniel Barnard as our student points of Pride at San ecdc Daniel was nominated by three different teachers Mrs child wrote he is the kindest student and has the most helpful moms Mrs Marcel was his teacher last year and she wrote I would like to nominate Daniel Barnard from Len Garrett's Kinder prep class as the student point of Pride I was Daniel's teacher last year and he was kind always helping peers and a joy to have in the classroom he is respectful of others and a true asset to the classroom and school and always has a smile for everyone Mrs Garrett that's me is she wrote this is Daniel's thirdd year at our Center it has been a joy to watch him grow as a student and a kind friend to his peers when Daniel is absent I often hear friends say I miss Daniel and then they all say me too Daniel is so excited about learning new things and is genuinely excited when his friends have something good happened to them he comes from an incredibly kind family Daniel adds a special love to our classroom [Applause] family and then I have to tell you I would have nominated Daniel too um I I love hugs and whenever I see Daniel in his classroom or coming or going home from school he always seeks me out to give me a hug those hugs are the highlight of my day Daniel they're so good you have an amazing future ahead of you and we are very very proud and honored to have you here with us to start your journey one more round of applause hold back thank you stay up there okay and then our final honory tonight is our volunteer and would Lauren Davis please come forward she's one of our Middle School [Applause] Tas okay again we're very excited to partner with our middle school and we're very excited to partner with c and Lauren is one of our rtas so we're very excited to recognize one of our Middle School volunteers Lauren Davis Lauren Volunteers in Mrs child's brilliant Beginnings classroom and has proven herself to be indispensable she comes to help every day in the AM and an early release days after school she's made wonderful connections with the students and is adored by The Littles in her class she knows the classroom routine and always helps any way she can she independently runs the name Writing Center as she greets the children at the beginning of the day like mother like daughter Lauren was meant to be teaching and working with young children um she is the daughter of Jennifer Davis who is the prayer professional in the classroom as well so it's pretty wonderful she is so dedicated that she even comes to school to volunteer when her mother is absent that's which doesn't happen very often um thank you for all you do to make a difference in the lives of our children Lauren we are so proud to have you as part of our class family got this okay now who did you bring today to celebrate you everybody there you go all of our my husband my daughter her sidekick my work wives I've got three of them here my work family that I live with every day and and you guys okay yay very good how about you miss who did you bring today um uh before the everything I give the thank you the honor to Jesus Christ and God because you know what for him I know here thank you for everything that him because he gave me the strength he help me to me and do it everything do it you know for everybody and fair for he and C for everybody stuff in the S prechool thank you for everybody and my family is here thank you everybody yeah we love so good so good and then Daniel who did you bring today um I brought um my mom's yay and little brother yeah and little brother and you know what I got to speak for Miss Garrett um I brought some I got some dipped pretzels was for you I don't know thank you think we just heard about her always thinking of others and then who did you bring I brought my family her family is here as well so thank you thank you big round of applause ready okay president Schulz members of the board next we have our higgle report of upcoming events and in case somebody missed it winter break is about to start nobody missed it uh we're all looking forward to that and wish everybody a wonderful holiday on Tuesday January 9th we'll have our first citizen committee meeting here at the do at 5:00 p.m.

[Music] [Applause] la [Music] la [Music] [Applause] [Music] a [Music] e [Music] [Applause] [Music] la [Music] la [Music] we want to thank you and Mr Gibbons if you could introduce and let everyone know who we have here school we like to make a lot of loud noises and I hope you enjoy what you heard tonight out of the combo group behind me truly this group is something I'm extremely proud of honestly I haven't done much teaching with it's a group of guys that literally came together and said we want to play music I said let's play some music so it's a group that has gotten together outside of school times outside during lunches during any little speck of time we have that got together and just put together some tools for you so I want to get out of the way of them because truly this is a student run group I want to give them a chance to introduce themselves starting over here with our how long you been playing what year are you in school let's go back the while you ever want to hear from them again let me know they do tailgating they do EV we'll get them out to you thank you so much for you guys' time tonight thank you best free board entertainment we've ever had you guys did awesome okay well we have a quum so we'll get started okay I'm just gonna start he'll come in okay I'm GNA call this meeting to order at 6 606 and just so you know that's the first time it's never been six o'clock on the dot but it was for a good reason um all right right I need a motion to um adopt the agenda I move to adopt the agenda I second all in favor I I I so let's see Jason hold on Jason J so three to zero and I think that we have our other board member out there and he'll join us I guess when he decides um we're going to go ahead and do um we're going to do the Pledge of Allegiance and then we're going to have a moment of silence in honor of jir Jenkins I pledge aliance to the five of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and jce girl here we go approval of the um board minutes from last time do we have any questions on that any questions on the minutes all right I'll take a motion then yep maybe I'll do that again I second all right all in favor I I I motion carries four to zero we we won't have our dear Bob Delino he's not going to be here today um all right so we our current events the superintendent report yes we have a lot of activi is going on uh right now across the the district as we close up the um end of the first semester boys basketball team was undefeated in recent Joe partan Memorial Classic Tournament boys soccer won the Battle of Ironwood tournament and Nathan Alvarez was voted player of the tournament the Esports officially finished the fall H season as a top team in the state and then the JB team finished three and top three and that includes Varsity middle school wrestlers took third place um over the in November 18th weekend with gunar Merkley winning first place and he was nominated for athlete of the Year by their league softball team qualified for the state playoffs uh and then uh Middle School Host a very successful astronomy night attended by over 200 students and community members this past week chance for them to learn about the stars and the Hands-On uh observations high school has had a therapy dogs that came by for one after or one lunchtime uh just for the kids with everything that's going on there uh Alexandra ptit who's our a teacher was selected for a national award by by the National Association of agricultural Educators for Exemplar performance and dedication uh to uh agriculture agricultural education she's one of 36 Educators Nationwide who receives the 2023 National Association of agricultural educator teachers TurnKey scholarship award uh we had the counselors at the high school had next next steps Expo which is designed to help kids take a look at what they may do postsecondary Ranch Elementary uh had pancakes with Santa vent for the families uh breakfast for dinner Jolly Old St Nick was there uh holiday store was there by PTO uh Fine Arts at the uh the high school hosted the winter singalong I heard that Santa Claus was present um attendance jumped from 2:45 to 318 so a very very successful event a lot of a lot of people there went for a very good cause cta's uh hosting a family event tonight uh through Miss uh Mrs Fields fundraiser uh PTO hosted a movie night and over 60 uh families uh registered and showed up the Grinch even made an uh uh uh appearance they also had an activity with ananta service League uh where the kids got to um go ahead and buy gifts for family members The Beehive meals uh support it's CHS but we are anticipating that this will expand uh through their gratitude they gave generous holiday gift of 10 pre-assembled family siiz frozen meals to each staff member at Coles High School we're working with them and they're looking to do that for staffs throughout um the district uh just with everything going on the the decision was to choose um the high school first you'll notice in the donations uh that ended up being close to a $99,000 donation um from this organization so it's very much appreciated by uh the uh staff um Julie's Department uh Miss Cook uh received excellence in financial reporting award um this is an annual award uh that the district has received it's the highest form of recognition uh and the uh finance department should be uh congratulated it's a a tough War but it also lets the community know that we do uh follow all the standards that are necessary to maintain uh public monies in the manner we need to uh and the human resources Dr dupus has been elected by his peers to be treasur of the Statewide organization that represents HR professionals uh across the state uh and his uh team is busy getting ready for job fairs one already occurred in November and there's a few more coming up uh uh over the next couple months we will be hosting panal County uh job fair here in January Harmon had their character csil assembly they with the support of some families in the community we they were give away two bikes and numerous gift cards to students and Mrs tibon who's also recognized the band in in uh conjunction with Ellsworth um hosted a concert recently so good things happening there the comes High School thespian were named a gold honor troop for 2223 and their student directed play princess party Smackdown earned a superior rating in the AI aiaa one act competition simonon partnered with incanta veterans Club to honor over 50 veterans at the school Veteran Day assembly CCS had two more students complete their their coursework and and are official graduates so again a celebration for those kids graduating and uh at Ellsworth Laura Rial the librarian was a recipient of the fiesta wishes for teachers grants grants we had several teachers across the district uh receive those her money will be used to purchase equipment for the video club and then tomorrow night um they will have a holiday evening with the Grinch and my understanding is Santa may show up to that event uh similar to the event Christmas singalong so that's the things that are happening around the district okay what do we got next here okay we have some recognition of of Staff members and then uh Mrs lus will do some recognition of the okay High School um this month uh each month we take time to recognize a variety of different staff members depending on uh those areas that are recognized that are at a national level as uh teacher day or teacher week or custodian this uh month is National special education uh the special education day is December 2nd uh and so we want to go ahead and recognize I'm going to ask some people to come up and then I'll I'll uh talk a little bit about them so we have a variety of different individuals from around the district that do a variety of different things with special education so we have a certified occupational assistant at Ellsworth Nancy Allen [Applause] you just wait up yeah wait up here we'll get a picture uh we have uh Jackie Douglas a resource teacher at [Applause] Ellsworth another resource teacher this time at the high school Destiny Warren resource teacher Ranch Christine [Applause] purle resource teacher at Ranch Lori [Applause] Baka at uh CCS uh a resource teacher Christine [Applause] griev prayer professional at CTA Cheryl Tapia [Applause] occupational therapist at Harmon Ashley Sarno a resource teacher at Harmon Linda Griffin a resource teacher at the middle school Jenna [Applause] broy speech pathologist at the middle school Stacy Burke [Applause] cwick resource teacher at Simington Michelle Esposito and a resource teacher at Simon Katie Lucas and all of these people are those special people that take care of kids in need uh kids that have been identified with a disability and they go above me on to help these children to make sure that they get the same education as every other child in our system uh and they give on they give a special they're special in the way that they reach these children the way that they go ahead and have that heart to sit there and say I'm going to make a difference in the life of this child some of these kids don't have that opportunity in lots of settings and these people make sure that they have that opportunity it is an unbelievable job of what they do and what they do for kids and how they make those kids feel so special so on this season of giving and sharing we want to thank you so very much for everything you do because you're doing amazing job with a group of kids that really really appreciate it so thank you very [Applause] much good evening Madam president honored board members Dr Wyman and our honored guests um I decided to to go with the the theme that we had tonight in regards to honoring special education and talking about special education it is something that is near and dear to my heart as a former special education teacher I appreciate the diligent work that special education teachers do and the services that they provide to their students and I wanted to take tonight to ask Miss Isabelle to come up and share with us in regards to I have some very amazing young people at my high school and what they step up to do and they see an area of need and they come to the table and say I want to do this please let me do this so I wanted to isab I wanted Isabelle to come up and speak about what she is doing with coyote buddies and if Miss Heidi Bush will come and join her as well as M Madison Gonzalez hello I'm Isabella hatch a junior at comes high school and the recipient of the December Banner student of the month award now normally a student of the month would not typically come up here and speak however while at a meeting with Mrs lus celebrating the accomplishments I and a few other stud students made this month she went around in a circle and asked us all what we wanted to be when we grew up when it finally got to me I told her how I enjoyed working with special education students and wanted to continue continue doing this when I'm older she was thrilled that I wanted to be an educator and then asked if I knew who the president of the coyote Buddy's program was I told her I was the one who restarted it she then asked if I would speak at the board meeting so here I am today sharing with y'all the wonderful experiences I've had in these classrooms and how it has fostered my love for the special education Community for those those who are unaware KY buddies is a club that provides a bridge for special for general education students to meet and form friendships with special education students in classes I've participated in Kye buddies for the past two years and was quite upset to find out that the club would no longer be active come the beginning of the school year I met with the original founder of the club spoke with the teachers in the special needs classrooms and got the sponsor got a sponsor for the club who shared the same love and goal I have for these kids although some of the paperwork was a bit tedious I couldn't be more excited to have the club officially up and running again we have a little over 60 total students signed up for the club and they love the chances they get to see their buddies as I stated earlier I'm in what is called a peer facilitator class which allows me the great opportunity to assist in the wonderful Miss Heidi and Mrs Bush special education classroom this elective is by far my favorite part of the day every day I'm greeted by the sweet voice of one of my favorite friends Lizzy cheering my name as I walk in I get a couple more steps in and I'm off and sometimes offered a beautifully colored drawing from Bella and I ask her how PE was and she tells me all about how it was either super hot she ran so fast or how in one particular day she was bumped with a ball this class has fostered my love for the special education community and has shown me different ways of learning and developing skills I'm so grateful that a PE facilitator option even exists as an elective I believe that this allows general education students to see the wonderful talents and skills of these students each minute with these students is rewarding many believe that we are the ones teaching them however this is not true these students passion and love to everyone they meet and teach me patience each day now for the past two years my wonderful mother has been asking me what I want to do with my life well I finally have an answer mom I want to be an educator to the bright and happy faces that I get to see every day I'm well aware that every task comes with its challenges but I know in the end this will be a rewarding profession thank you everyone for your time it's going to be hard to follow that no words no words that's what I'm saying I have amazing kids on my campus and they outshine me and my staff on a regular basis but I will absolutely accept that and want them to miss Bush and Miss Gonzalez probably are standing here going H I wonder why I came other than that I may be here to support Isabelle interestingly enough Miss bush has been running to multiple staff members on our campus going I'm going to the board meeting I don't know why I'm going to theard me what do I got to talk about I got to get ready Miss lus what am I talk Miss kachinsky what what do I have it's okay Heidi it's going to be fine don't worry it's going to be okay you're just going to be there with Isabelle and you're going to help to support her as she speaks not a problem and probably uh Miss Gonzalez was like I don't know why I'm going at all but I'm not stressed about it which I greatly appreciate I have again going along with the theme of special education that was honored this evening I wanted to give my blue Apple Awards to special education teachers Miss Bush and Miss Gonzalez are actually in an ASU program and I forgot to ask you what the name of that program was huh the fellows program and they are going to school to become Educators Miss bush is currently serving as the specialized teacher on our campus and Miss Gonzalez is serving as the PA professional within that program as well and I wanted to take this evening to honor both of them with a blue Apple award [Applause] want and then finally I wanted to honor Miss Jill Miller but unfortunately with her being U multifaceted and have multiple commitments she was not able to be here tonight because her her son has football practice this evening and so she couldn't join us this evening but miss um Miller is our register on our campus as well as an admin assistant for bis kachinsky she serves multiple roles in ards to doing um open enrollments um helping to organize and orchestrate and plan graduation which is a huge task they're actually having their first graduation meeting in January that's how long it takes um and Miss Miller is oftentimes the person behind the scenes really making the magic happen and nobody sees it and I wanted to make sure and speak in regards to Miss Miller and all that she gives Colmes high school and thank you that's all I have and good evening thank you [Applause] we also take some time to recognize volunteers um in this case we're actually volunteer recognizing an organization but an individual within the organization that goes above and beyond and if there's one individual that we can always count on this is the individual so if I could have Sean Gillan from R Metro please come up and then I'll read a little something we want to recognize and express our appreciation to the rural metro and specifically Sean Gillan and Sean serves as a vice president of the comes Education Foundation so he goes above and beyond in that area he's been instrumental in many successful initiatives he helped establish a recent Lou whitesman Rural Metro Fire scholarship fund which was handed out to a student last year and we'll be handed out again this year to another student he's always ready and as a true as a true fireman always responds when he's asked sure we can always pass the boot um the same dedication he shows he shows in supporting our schools and our districts he's generous in his time not only helping our elementary students with career exploration he volunteers as a battle of the books judge he always volunteers and the first to raise his hand for the mock interviews uh as a panelist and help the kids at the high school um he also uh provides special and memorable memorable experiences for our students when he brings the different Crews and fire trucks to our campuses he and his team uh have worked to provide food time and money uh during the holiday season to help families in need throughout our district to help individuals with the installation of car seats truly shaa is one of those people that goes above and beyond quietly in the back that most people don't notice but he's the foundation and the glue of what makes a big difference in our community and so we would like to not only thank rural metro but Sean in particular so thank you very [Applause] much student of the month thanks Sean for everything you do for the district I appreciate it Madam president members of the board Dr Wyman thank you for this opportunity I look forward to it every month could I have Isabella hatch come back up from the high school as a peer facilitator in Mrs Bush's class which we've heard Bella not has not only exhibited exceptional leadership skills but has also demonstrated an unwavering commitment to the well-being and inclusivity of the fellow students what sets Bella apart is her remarkable display of characteristic of caring which we've heard this evening 's passion for fostering a supportive environment is exemplified through her initiative in Reviving The Coyote buddies Club thank you Bella for doing that not only has she enjoyed her time as a peer facilitator but she's gone above and beyond by reestablishing that Buddy's Club congratulations Isabella and when you're ready we'll hire [Applause] you could I have Addison B scroggin come up from the com Center for Success could I have kalissa Parker come up from comes Middle School Miss lip titit uh wrote what I'm going to read it's a pleasure to have kalissa in my home room and CC CSS classes she's always kind and willing to participate in our advisory meetings she's both kind and considerate not only to me but also the peers as well she's sensitive thoughtful and empathetic kalissa incorporates all the traits of being a caring person she's very well-deserving of this award congratulations kalista [Applause] could I have Dylan Rose Irvin come up from comes Traditional [Applause] Academy Dylan Rose Irvin is a very caring kindergartener she's always helpful and kind to her friends as well as staff members here at CTA when Dylan Rose is on the swings during recess and sees another student waiting to get on she immediately gets off and lets them go on without being asked she's always patient when waiting her turn as well Dylan Rose also cares about her academics she comes to school every day ready to learn she listens follows directions completes her best work and always tries her best congratulations Dylan rose [Applause] urban could I have Hannah Smith come up from Ellsworth this is Hannah Hannah Hannah's name is my first daughter's name so I was very excited to see her name Hannah's one of the most caring students in our school if someone belong uh if someone's belongings fall on the floor she's the first person to pick them up and say here you go with a smile sorry I lost my spot she helps her table and her whole class uh with the rise code and she's a shining example of what it looks like to be a kind and caring student of others we are proud to have her in our school and in my first grade class keep it up Hannah that's from mward could I have Abigail Amaro come [Applause] up so interestingly my second daughter's name is Abigail this is one of those nights Abigail is a very helpful person in nature she acts her acts of kindness are a regular part of her beh behavior and not just random occurrence she's a supportive friend and makes a point of including everyone she genuinely cares about her friends and her classmates classmates and is an excellent role model she always has a kind word at the ready she's compassionate by nature and helps to create a positive atmosphere in our classrooms we are very proud of Abigail she is a wonderful member of our school congratulations [Applause] AB could I have Gemma Matthews come up from [Applause] Ranch here's Gemma Gemma not only does her best in class but she also helps others while working uh on the rules and being an outstanding example and role model she's shown Great Character when new students start in the classroom and I know I can count on her to make others feel welcome she has built rapport with her peers by interacting with her classmates in a compassionate way and has shown them that she cares about them and their well beinging congratulations [Applause] Gemma and finally could I have Harper deas come up from [Applause] Simington right when thinking of a student who exemplifies the trait of caring Harper is the first person that comes to mind on our campus she's a true definition of caring and lights up the room with her kindness and her smile Harper is always concerned about the well-being of others works hard to make everyone feel welcome and included and is the first to step up when a volunteer is needed I have seen firsthand the help that Harper gives other students when they're struggling sad or nervous if another student needs a partner Harper's hand is always first to come up and to cheer you on even if she doesn't win congratulations [Applause] Harper we'll now take a moment for pictures and then continue on with the board meeting thank you for e yeah okay we're gonna wrap this up in just a little bit like 30 second warning thank you okay the next thing on our agenda oh we're missing we're missing a board member Jason Jason anyone know where he's at okay all right well well but he's might anyway so we have governing board member update so is there anything that um you guys have that you would like to share for the good of the whole okay um the vigil for jir was last night and you guys did a really great job honoring him yes so just want to say that yes it was very nice um Jason do you have anything that you would like to share for the good of the whole as as a governing board member update got anything do you have anything I'm G to take that um can I selfishly promote the Into the Woods play that's being auditioned for right now is that the thing I could do as a Bo temp I just did right yeah you just did there you go okay so moving on we have um the public comments and um looks like I have one here so before we do this um I I need to read my little it this is time for public comments the board invites the viewpoints of our citizens throughout the district and considers the responsibility presentation um of these viewpoints vital to the efficient operation of the district members of the governing board may not discuss items not on the agenda and will be limited to directing staff to study the matter for further consideration and possible decision in a later date therefore there's some procedures that need to be done um anyone uh Desiring to address the board shall complete the form uh we will there is a three minute time limit so we'll have somebody doing a a three minute time limit uh questions or comments on matters are under legal review will not receive a response members of the governing board may not discuss items on the agenda personal attacks are discouraged at the conclusion of a Call of public individual members of the board May res May respond to any CR criticism by the individual who was addressed so if we were to be criticized we could respond other than that we are legally not allowed to respond um the expectation of the governing board in the district is not that every is that everyone treats one another with respect and that the speaker presents their viewpoints in a civil manner okay so moving on I do have um Andy HW is that how I say it okay Jason going to but thank you and uh it's okay um thank you board um president and board for uh for hearing me this evening um I'm I guess wanted to uh educate the board on a on a matter at and an issue um my wife and I were contacted last Friday informing us that our 10-year-old son had been suspended from from the uh the school bus at at comes Traditional Academy for two days uh Transportation employee that contacted us um made what we feel like are very serious accusations about our about our son and uh threatened additional suspensions and everything there uh we asked for details and facts that the district used to to uh make these accusations and Implement such a swish a swift punishment without notice to us and to date we haven't received anything any facts information from District staff uh we don't understand how the district could have such conclusive evidence that they could suspend our son without notice yet they don't have that same evidence to provide to us to understand facts there we weren't contacted about any prior behavioral issues or anything like that our son is very outstanding student and at at the school there um I've included the transportation supervis supervisor the director support services and most recently the district superintendent on my communications in hopes of receiving answers but we have not to date uh so I'm respectfully requesting the government board to step in to make whatever resources available to provide this information to us help us understand what uh what happened and why um our son right now is very confused about why he was suspended from school doesn't or from the school bus excuse me um and we'd just like some some facts some answers there so we can um help help address Behavior or um if the accusations and Punishment were unfounded then we'd ask the governing board to step in and take whatever correction action necessary thank you thank you okay Dr Wyman okay I will I we will be in touch with them we'll just be in touch all right thank you all right so um we have uh the consent agenda has everybody had a chance to review the consent agenda do you have any questions or concerns over anything I do not no that's a no okay so I'll need a a motion to accept the consent agenda I move to approve the consent agenda as presented I'll second all in favor I I I motion carries four to zero okay so our next um let's see our action item um 81 discussion and consideration of adoption of the 2324 revised budget everyone's favorite topic Madam president members of the board Dr Wyman remaining members of the audience Arizona revised statute 15905 addresses School District budgets notices adoptions and adjustments the statute indicates the districts May revise their budget as needed uh before May 15th of each school year however if the expenditure budget exceeds the general budget limit or the total capital budget limit by 1% a budget revision is required by December 15th this agenda item will satisfy this requirement the district's annual expenditure budget revision number one takes into consideration the Arizona Department of Education budget 75 report that was released on November 17th as well as our current 100 day projected ADM our average daily membership as a reminder ADM is the total enrollment of fractional and full students minus withdrawals of each school day through the 100th day and this is the basis that we have to build our District budget the adopted budget in July was calculated using 4052 ADM tonight's revised budget is based on 3,755 ADM or a negative 295 the correlation to the decrease is approximately $2.3 million of our Revenue control limit to accomplish the reduction discussions were held with Dr Wyman and reviewed with the leadership ship team to ensure minimal impacts on our staff the revisions include the governor's one-time funding being fully allocated to the m budget page seven will no longer reflect an allocation to Capital additional allocation from our daa which is our district additional assistance um will be allocated to m versus Capital that's again on page seven vacancy Savings of unfilled positions classroom site fund allocation for allowable teacher compensation CTE funding for allowable Career Technical and education expenditures and then various budget adjustments such as are there items in M that can be allocated to other funds as well as reviewing all open purchase orders for possible reductions in expenditure control lastly this is the fun one everybody loves as with the expenditure budget adoption in July I ask that per Arizona resides statute 15 905 and governing board policy dbj that expenditure budget revision be subject to the authorization of expenditures of money budgeted within the M section of the budget for any subsection within the section in excess of amounts specified in the budget however the total expenditures of the M budget will not exceed the total budget of the fiscal year 2024 what that means is on page one there are 135 different budgetary cells I can exceed any of those cells as long as I do not exceed the total M budget are there any questions thank you I know right okay well if there's no questions then I guess I'll have to take a motion here all right I move to adopt the 2023 2024 annual expend expend budget revision number one as presented second all in favor I I motion carries for zero okay um 8.2 discussion consideration of approval of contract with applied economics yes uh Madam president um as we go through uh uh a potential period of growth within the district or at least our boundaries we have used uh demographers to kind of give us an idea of what's the projection out over the next 10 20 years the last time we did this was in 22 uh normally if in a normal setting within our district we would do it every couple years if we ever get into hypergrowth sit hypergrowth situation like uh qc's been in recently you might do it every every single year just to keep on on top of what's taking place we went ahead and reached out to four different vendors to ask them uh for bids we received two bids back uh and uh applied economics was the most responsive of of the two bids so the recommendation is to utilize applied economics what will happen is um after uh your approval we will meet with applied economics applied economics is used throughout the state uh they do projections for school districts on a regular basis and they look at complete enrollment demographics and development analysis District enrollment projections patterns of the enrollment over time uh they will provide an executive summary report as well as a a board presentation most likely that board presentation will be april-ish it may be may it may be April we have to meet with them uh as soon as we uh as soon as you approve this if you approve this we will go ahead and meet with them and start the the process they completed the last several um demographic studies of our district including the 22 one so they have a lot of the information in terms of a cost analysis uh the savings between this uh bidder and the other bidder the other B bidder was somewhere in the neighborhood of seven times greater than this pricing um they're from out of state and and uh maybe do not have the resources in in the state so I would recommend approval as presented do you have any questions why do we need this just a prediction of what's going to be going is that why right there's a couple different reasons why you do it what they go ahead and do is is tell you what's going to be projected out over the next 10 12 years when you go ahead and look at the SFO I don't I don't know if it's called the sfob anymore but the school facilities board they've changed their name you have to go ahead and prevent present to them a capital facilities plan and let's say we're going looking to build a new school in eight years this projection would say it looks like you're going to need a school in eight years so therefore here's your report when we go to the sfb then we would say that we've looked at a demographic study of what's necessary and therefore we're asking for um uh asking for uh a new school now you ask for a new school somewhere between 8 to 10 years before you projected to build it so that they can put it in the system but you have to have IR rationale for why you're doing it so this would be a situation where we would take a look at what we believe would happen what we try to do the last time we did a study uh our current capture rate is 40% of students we would do a 40 50 and 60% capture um to see what would happen if uh with the new H housing that's coming in if we were to accelerate the number of kids that were capturing what would that look like and then they will go ahead and say uh you're now projected to get a school they look at it at the high school level they look at it at the middle school level and they look at it combined at the elementary level to decide when you're eligible at the state level to get a a new school a step you have to take to get to another step so we just had we just had it done a year ago right two years 22 2 2 that was two years ago I may have misspoken it was two years ago it wasn't last year we didn't do it last year we did it two years ago I have it on my desk I can I can pull it but we didn't we didn't do it last year was two years ago past couple years have been quite amount of change potential right yeah I was just wondering like we've had so many um we'd had a drop in our student enrollment I know we do have capacity in all of our schools do we not yes we do okay so is this something that has to be done right now could we table it and do it a little later when we start seeing a little bit more enrollment I don't know what what is the cost of this 13 the cost is 13,000 um and and yes you can you can do it whenever you want like I say normally because we're anticipating uh because we're anticipating some growth we would anticipate what we're seeing I don't know that that's Zach but what I'm seeing just in looking at over the next five to eight years we would see about 8,000 homes coming into the into our area um and so uh uh that's why this this becomes part of the conversation I know the last one we did two years ago spoke to the concern about the declining enrollment in the panal county um and across the across the state they've had the same conversations with other districts so but in terms of when you do it uh the only thing was we would have to go back out to bid which is not a big deal but we' have to go back out to bid because the bid's not one that you would keep for the next seven months and then say we're going to do it but but it's other than that it's no big it's no big deal so did the last one have uh it seems to me like the last one had like they knew that the which what um communities were being projected was that not on there yes they they had they didn't have all of the communities no they had some of the communities the the stuff in the northern half of the district uh was not accurate um up here uh what's being built over um on the church Farms what's called The Church Farms property was not accurate uh I'd have to go back and look I believe they had the Meridian uh Germain zberman Farms was in there uh they had had the land north of um Germaine as having some housing and and that's not going to happen because because uh uh the town uh or the town of Queen Creek has made that urban employment down in the South uh portion of the district the southeast portion of the district um I think they had estimates at uh both Wales Ranch and wees farms uh and so um uh they did not account for uh from what I'm understanding I've not seen it but there's a h a significant development that may take place behind La between meridian um uh by the olive uh Mill uh that may impact it and that's not in there there's um I think the Ironwood Springs and the Edgewood are not uh were not as anticipated the um uh some of the apartment complexes that are being discussed were not there so there are some things that are missing they I mean you can look at the report and if you're happy with the report we can delay it um but again most places trying to be proactive would go ahead and and try to get one um every couple years okay do you guys have any other questions okay all right um I'll take a motion yeah I moveed to approve the contract with applied economics in the amount of $1 13,920 as presented second second all in favor I I motion carries four to zero um discussion and consideration of approval of contract with graduation graduate graduation Solutions and Jes Unified School District is it graduation or graduate Solutions it's it's grad Solutions but I think your title is graduation Solutions okay and here with grad Solutions is Chris uh Dickinson and uh Kimberly santon and so we brought this last month you had some questions I've reached out to them to answer those questions I can speak to some of those questions but they're also here if there's anything you would like to ask of them the one of the questions revolved around the the letter and the potential impact of uh of students that are taking it the focus uh of the of the program would be on seniors and fifth year sixth year seniors and so therefore those students are not tested so you would not necessarily get the the negative impact uh of a testing results because uh on a letter grade the uh that's the ninth graders and the 11th graders that are that are tested uh if you look at alternative schools which this would be part of the alternative schools there's a uh a significant component of the alternative school letter grade that deals with persistence and that is really trying to see those kids that maybe are not on target to graduate are they completing classes and moving forward to to graduate so in this case you would get the potential credit of the persistence portion of the letter grade for those students uh that would be uh would be in the in the program uh there may be some impact to the alterate school depending on how many kids are there uh we also talked I think the question was about about uh wrapping it up and how long it take there would be an initial pilot that would probably run the spring semester just to make sure that we're aligned with ad and the uploading of data and everything that works through there and then starting July 1 we would have more detailed conversation of okay we got everything ironed out uh what's the the pace uh that we would like to ramp this up um but if you have questions or if you would like uh grad solutions to respond to anything uh that's what they're available for any questions from you guys on this yeah um so I mean as we look at this what you know give me like you know some just a few more pros and a few more cons as to why this would be a good thing and why we should be considering it again I think the major Pros uh would would be the notion of we've talked about it quite a bit um where we're at on a staff or excuse me on a student enrollment issue uh and this is a a different uh and potentially unique way to go ahead and increase uh uh what would be considered part of our enrollment we don't get 100% of the funding for that but uh when you're starting next year if if uh depending on the number that we would would choose to go to it would allow for a significant uh increase into um uh the district's budget if those individuals come that would be as part of the program where they would be a Statewide or broader base than just in our district where kids in other parts of M County would be count as ours as they're in this program they'd be working with grad Solutions uh to to graduate but they' be considered our our kids that's the big that's the big incentive and the reason why I brought this forward as a as a creative and different way to uh try to address uh the declining enrollment issue um and some in some of the negatives again there's still the potential uh for a grad rate as an excuse me yeah grad rate or a dropout rate because they become our students and so therefore a grad rate or a dropout rate could could take a an impact um and that becomes one of the the primary uh negative parts to it I thought the letter grade had a a bigger impact but in talking with them the letter grade is is potentially not as great an issue especially relative to proficiency on uh uh on the passage because it is um primarily seniors and and then fifth and sixth year seniors uh you will as I've said before for with the grad rate the positive part of the grad rate is that that the way the grad rate is done by the state of Arizona is they look at four five six and sevene cohorts and so when I've looked at our data for the last uh several years you see about a 3% or a 4% increase between the cohort after the fourth year and the cohort after the seventh year so you'll see 10 11 12 more kids that would not graduate graduate sometime between the end of the fourth year and the end of the seventh year in this case that number May in fact increase because there would be more kids that that you're looking at so hard to tell you might get a negative out of the grad rate dropout rate or you may get a positive on year five six and seven which is all calculated by the the State of Arizona for the cohort so it helps enrollment numbers but I don't know that IT addresses the issue of the community enrollment but tell me what impacts it has to the budget to the budget in terms of the budget it would be an increase what happens is as the kids come in the money is given uh they become our students it's a pass through we pull 10% off as a 10% uh 10% off on each of the students um and so therefore depending on the number of kids you have so if you do 10% of $7,000 um uh that gives you your starting point then you start to talk about how many how much you're G to have depending on how big your program is uh you could end up some scenarios could end up running where you would add $250,000 to the budget um so it's not insignificant um in terms of the the potential size uh is that going to happen overnight no uh but it has the potential to grow that would allow for U uh a significant amount of money to our to our budget when you start talking2 200,000 $250,000 what impact does it have with Staffing it doesn't have an impact per se because that's the role of grad Solutions because the kids are are working through grad Solutions so the funding that's that's funneled to grad Solutions through us is because they go ahead and provide uh their own place where the kids and that's why you get some of these situations where the kids are not directly in our area and they would be working with grad Solutions and they can speak to it more but then it's their responsibility to go and have uh the certified teachers to work with those students and to go ahead and continue to move those students on so in this case um uh that's who would pick up the the Staffing issue we would still have our our normal Staffing related to those kids that attend our alternative school um Andor our online program it's two different programs so I don't anticipate new Staffing unless those programs grow but this would be their responsibility for the staffing so there wouldn't be new Staffing in in this scenario so we get the 10% yes okay are you done with your questions I'm done okay I have some questions then do you have any questions okay um so who would be their contact Point who would they who would they be directly working with in our school they' be working through Dr ghouls be down at the um uh alternative school because the way the law reads is you have to be a district that has an alternative school as well as an online program and it's the combination of two in the state of Arizona if you don't have one or the other then then this is called a Dropout recovery program a DRP you cannot run a DRP unless you have the two so since we have the two we run a DRP some of the work would actually also be quite frankly through through our through Julie and her Department because it's it's it's really more of the conversation of the change in the dollars through through there so it's it depends on what it is you're trying to ask what we would do is if this is passed as part of that P pilot program would be to go ahead this spring to make sure that they're connected with the people in our district that they need to be connected with everybody's sure of what the roles and responsibilities are and everything can be uploaded the way it needs to be uploaded and so that's the part of the pilot program before we start to say hey let's take this thing uh bigger and and and better let's make sure that it it's working and this will just be a pilot program program through through to the start of next year and then the start of next year we would say okay we're going to ramp this up or if something happened and and it wasn't a successful piece we might address it differently but we want to go ahead and move we don't want to just jump right into it because there's some things that need to be aligned between AD and ourselves and grad Solutions so that so that everybody is so we're not locked into anything at this point is that what you're saying well I I'd have to look specifically at the contract but all the contracts have an out if if there's a concern and yeah also if they were to gradu if they're not in our community and they were to graduate they're not going to be are they going to be in our ceremonies how does that work go ahead sure all right good evening everyone I'm Chris Dickinson with grad Solutions um the graduation as you're speaking so if we did enroll students outside of your district and they graduated through your drop out recovery program we offer a graduation ceremony for all of our students okay but as they're your students they're obvious you are obviously welcome to invite them to your ceremonies as well so I guess that's something that we'll have to discuss then right okay we would discuss and I and I would guess depending on where these kids are from again I don't know I would want to speak for you but if if I'm a a student that is is in um Eloy let's just say in the county I don't know that they want to necessarily come up here to go through our grad stuff I just want to have that figured out before so that we're not worried about that at the end yeah so if they did graduate through the program um that we would be operating in partnership with you guys the diplomas would be with um the district so um when you were talking about Staffing there's just a few details that Brad Solutions cannot do and that's like signing the diplomas and things like that uh but everything else we able to cover okay um how many other school districts do you have uh we currently have five partners and two of those are County Superintendent um accommodation District okay okay any other questions so I guess my question is this impacts average daily membership but not necessarily I mean but only benefits the the district monetarily wise at a rate of 10% per student right that's what I understand correct okay would you like me to kind of dive a little bit into ADM let's do it okay um so with Dropout recovery it is a very unique program that the state uh set up so ADM works just a little bit differently for for these types of programs so ADM or Dropout recovery programs do not use the 100 day count it is a year round program completely uh so an ADM is split up into 112 pieces so um when a student meets minimum monthly progress that is uh set up with the program uh for us it is uh 50% of a course per month they meet that they get a satisfactory satisfactory means they get you guys would receive one 12th of an ADM for that student um through ad every month uh and then with the contract since we're providing curriculum instruction wraparound Services ESS Services all that that's where we bill you uh for that portion of the ADM generated by that student uh so uh it will affect your ADM uh these are recovered students so you'll be recovering the ADM that essentially was lost because of dropout or or whatnot uh if we look outside the district that's where uh that can increase Revenue while we're serving more students but the ADM just works a tiny bit different since it is on a monthly basis instead of that annual if that helps any other questions no okay okay so um do we want to make a motion I I don't so I'm not I'm not I'm not opposed to it I just I guess I'm still trying to figure it out in my head so is it is is there more Pros than cons I I don't know that's just me personally so since this is a pilot program if we decided at the end of this year that we did not want to do this we could could we revisit this at the end of the year like what what would you be more comfortable with that yeah okay would it fair to them just only give them half a year to show their effectiveness in this program do you think you could show your Effectiveness by the half a year it's only half a year okay seems like those kids that are attracted from outside the district actually benefits us greater than in maybe I'm seen it wrong because we didn't lose them right we just now we're correct and our internal kids the priority will be if if they're stepping out that we would grab them down patent Dr goals we would grab them at that at this um at the alternative school now just because we grab kids at the alternative school doesn't mean we still don't lose them so the con the concept here is we give you one more chance so we're just trying to work with our families to say okay for whatever reason didn't work this didn't work we'll give you one more chance they may or may not be successful in that setting any more than they were in any one of the other settings but so the the role is not to to jump over what Dr gsed to do in down at the alternative school it's the kids are going to drive there first but then some of those kids are not successful down there too and here's one more opportunity if they're successful fantastic if not at least we've tried everything to make sure the kids are successful that's internal the external kids obviously are as Mr Beach said a little bit different of a story I guess I have one more question so you work with a number of other districts and whatever how do you how do you determine which student goes where soas of ouri us Ser students c number stents more questions so if we're making a motion we need to make sure that it says with the provisions of the contract to re-evaluate at the end of the year correct okay yes but we want to give them as much time as possible for that pilot right we don't I mean if we're going to do it want to do it but we don't want to push it back another month do we no I'm just saying that if we make that motion tonight right if if you make the motion tonight like that then then the the contract that's in here we wouldn't use but they'll get me a contract tomorrow the next day and we would go ahead and sign it forward the way you work year round you're not stuck on a you have to be done by May type of thing it's every month you could have a possible graduation almost okay that's where you started okay okay then make your motion I motion to approve the contract with graduation solutions for district Dropout recovery program as presented with or with the provision that we've discussed pilot um for six months pilot for six months after so the P so after approved by ad right six months after I think that's fair to them because they want to show they want but that's how you have to make your yeah okay yeah let's try it again try it again round two take two take two I motion to approve the contract of graduation solutions for a district Dropout program recovery program with the provision provision of the approval of the ad the ad pilot for six months after approved by ad okay that do that right yeah thank you thank you Judy all right I'll need a second I second all in favor I I moing cares four to zero O Okay um thank you guys for for coming I appreciate you coming and answering our questions um discussion and consideration for approval of IgA with Arizona dep Department of Education all right um Madam president board members Dr Wyman colleagues guests um this item is to enter into an intergovernmental agreement with ad for the purposes of a consumable Arts Grant so in this grant it would provide up to $1,000 for all eligible teachers um in order for them to purchase consumable materials for their classrooms and their art programs um within our district we currently have 18 teachers teaching in an Arts curriculum type program um we have 49 preschool through third grade teachers that are also eligible for a total of $67,000 if granted this um grant that we are eligible for so this would allow us to purchase those materials through their approved vendor um in order to get those materials to the teachers if we are awarded the grant um so the the grant closes at the end of this month so we will submit it um before the winter break and then hopefully be notified in January that we received it um teachers will then be given an opportunity to choose their own materials um and we will go ahead head and order them for them and then distribute them when they come in are there any other questions about the Grant I don't have any questions I do have one um stipulation though yeah that if you're awarded the Grant I would like an update absolutely on what they what they're doing absolutely definitely okay all right so I'll take a motion I'll motion to approve the I GA with ad for the Arts consumable Grant second all in favor I I motion carries for to zero okay discussion and consideration of approval of the division of schools facilities preventative maintenance plan for the district schools Madam president members of the board uh this is a annual uh report that needs to go to this schools facilities board all it does is just document that we went through the required checklist of uh different components and the facilities uh that needed to be uh prevented maintenance task done so they require a checklist that you have to the check checklist is adopted and developed Statewide it's a requirement that we go through that checklist and then what did they do with it once they get this checklist it's just that we we verified that we did those tasks and and it's documented that's all those and so then do we but but part of it is is the state trying to make sure that school district that the Assumption made uh early on was that school districts weren't taking care of their buildings and so if we're going to throw all this money in the school districts how they taking care of this building just prevented a maintenance plan shows that yes we are reviewing the different systems that we need on a regular basis so when we go to let's just say uh we have a system that fails um in one of our schools like the smoke detectors right they'll come back and they'll say did you maintain this did you not maintain it um and so so it becomes utilization of that there's also a capital uh facilities plan that this becomes part of the capital facilities plan and it's just I'll just say State oversight to ensure that school districts are uh maintaining and have a plan to maintain their uh facilities so this is just saying that you you you finished the checklist and you're sending it in is that what you're saying we've done we've done the checks throughout the District of all the different components okay all right okay I have a question okay doesn't have to do with this but it does have to do with um the middle school now I know they used to have the banners that went along The Back Fence and in a storm those were blown off with all the construction that's going on back there do they need that for sound and dirt and you know to wouldn't hurt as far as the schools facilities board goes that's not a a building components for I think the Builder of all the homes would be responsible for controlling their dust yeah yeah well but we used to have them and they got destroyed in the right Windstorm uhhuh so they're just gone if depending on whether there's a claim filed with insurance the insurance um may give you some dollars for it I'm not quite sure I know when it occurred um but so we could would take a look at that but in the absence of the insurance and depending on what the cost is and and what the deductible is we may then have to go ahead and and purchase from our own uh to address that so um I can take a look at it um I don't know off top of my head but that's the way it would work okay so I'll take a motion if there's no other questions do we have questions okay let's do this motion to approve the 2023 2024 division of school facilities preventative maintenance plan for the J comes Unified School District as present I second all in favor I I motion carries for to zero discussion and consideration of approval for a letter of the non opposition for foreign trade zone on the corner of Ironwood and posos Road this is the LG project uh the board approved back uh in May of 22 I believe uh uh approval of a letter of non- opposition um the Arizona Corporation Commission uh because they did not start the building for over the year they have asked all the taxing entities uh that are in that area to come back in and either re uh it could either be a letter support or letter of non- opposition and so we are the largest taxing Authority in that um in that portion of uh the county and so they're asking us or Arizona Corporation Commission is is saying that all the tax and entities uh they're asking them to come back and re um re-approve so that's what this is it's it's the same it would be an up a slightly updated version but it's in essence the same letter that was submitted to the corporation commission for this foreign trade zone the way of trades a foreign trade zone works is not the entire 650 acres are not considered they they deem it all a foreign trade zone but the reality is only certain components of the buildings will be deemed foreign trade zones and so if you had a million square feet you wouldn't necessarily have a million square feet of foreign trade zone you might only have um you know 100,000 square square feet of that um and what it does is it changes the taxing rate right now the taxing rate is zero because of State trust lands so when they go ahead and build this uh for the majority of the of the area it's a 15% taxing rate uh but for that foreign trade zone area it's squeezed out and it comes in I got to look in to see it's uh it would be 5% uh as a as a taxing rate um and that's standard for foreign trade zones uh again this is exactly the same as what was done before um uh the letter the first time was for the whole 650 Acres just like this letter is so it's exact same thing but they're asking us to redo it because they did not start building until uh after a year had taken place uh from when they said they were going to build and so uh for whatever reason the Commerce Authority asked that all taxing entities uh go back and Jen so they're they're getting it says here it's usually 17.5 and they're getting it for five% that's what that's what the tax rate would be on that portion so when they go to figure out their taxes for the for their the whole building the whole 650 Acres a portion of it would be at 17.5% and a portion of it would be at 5% so I don't know EX ex actly how they calculate that but in essence they'll look at the total property and they would say this qualifies based on on what you're doing for the 7.5 the rest would be taxed at the 17.5 and so here's your tax bill and here's what you need to pay uh the assess valuation for the district if you want to know the benefit the assess valuation for the district will be significant in this and quite quite frankly our our uh taxpayers will benefit from the tremendous increase in the assess valuation for the area and so if we were to ever go for a bond as an example uh the cost that's passed on to the taxpayers would be significantly lower because the brunt of who would pay for that particular Bond would be coming out of this taxing entity when they get done building all these different plants in that area north of Germain that whole Corridor will increase our secondary assess valuation tremendously and they would end up taking the brunt of any sort of bond or capital uh override type issue and so there is a long-term uh but it's not going to happen immediately but there is a benefit to our taxpayers by doing this okay all right I'll take a motion I'll motion to approve a letter of non opposition for the foreign trade zone within the school district boundaries as presented second all in favor I I motion carries four to zero okay so now we have a number of discussion items um so discussion and information on student achievement rep November report all right good evening Madame President members of the board Dr Wyman and Miss Wagner uh we have some updates from the curriculum instruction and assessment team tonight uh we were hoping one of them was going to be um those updates to the high school course guide we're still working out a couple of those dual enrollment pieces we want to make sure we have that um lined up for you so that'll come to you in January um but it'll be fine that'll be time in time for the registration process um trying to respond to a couple of the questions that you have asked um in some of our previous meetings so we're going to start tonight uh with Miss Christine Murphy and she's going to share with you some of the new course offerings that will be a part of our professional learning day when we return from break in January so Miss Murphy will get us started good evening Madame President members of the board Dr Wyman and audience members um just want to go over some of the opportunities we're offering for professional learning so in on January 8th we have professional learning back at the high school because we needed the CPAC in order to have Dr Wyman do a welcome back for us and then give the Colmes Education Foundation an opportunity to present the mini Grant award Awards to those recipients so we have had registration um this is our offerings for general education teachers so the sections that you see that have the new Banner are indeed new sessions that have not been offered in our district before the other sessions that you see without the new Banner were sessions that were new in July or I'm sorry sorry in October and so we're bringing those back because we still have some new staff that are are needing some of those um in introductory courses so to speak so we have had registration this is our practice sessions and all of those are new and the sessions that we have designed that are new um many of them are from within our district and several are from we have three outside presenters coming in two are from panal County and one is from from um northern uh Phoenix Valley area she's going to support us with some differentiation and these are basically out of need that we've seen from instructional rounds that we've gone on from feedback in the surveys and from our content and instructional coaches working with teachers so we're trying to be responsive to the needs of our teachers in The District in our student services department we have some unique needs there where they've been working on some assistive technology elements it began in October with a panel discussion and so we're moving forward with a session for our student services departments around assist of Technology the other sessions we have for student services are based on the unique needs of those role groups so we wanted to give them specific opportunities some of those consession sessions continue into the practice at sessions because they're robust sessions where they're doing some learning and practice intertwined and then we plan to end the day with intentional planning using standards we want to focus teachers on using backwards design to plan their instruction we will review the three stages of backwards planning with them and give them guidance to ensure their work and time is focused on planning rigorous learning experiences using their standards we're excited for this opportunity to give some new experiences for our teachers and we plan to share the feedback and more details at the February board meeting what question questions might you have which ones are these would be something that if I had been here the whole time and am ready to go to the next level would I would I go to okay so if I go back just so I have a frame of reference so these learn about it sessions if you have been here a while we tried to put together some sessions where teachers who have learned elements in isolation like learning plans mini lessons we wanted to ensure that they see how those work together because during our instructional rounds we've seen that teachers might be doing learning plans that then aren't sure where to fit in those mini lessons or doing mini lessons but aren't really sure how everything works together so we have the um optimizing your I'm sorry it's not that one at the bottom so we have flexible learning plans how to integrate a learning plan with other instructional practices sometimes we've seen where we might lose sight of some of those best practices where we might still need to do some direct instruction or small group instruction when we moved to learning plans that became the focus so we want to kind of reframe everything and bring everyone back using formative assessment um which would lend us to using our new resource missam and helping us really look at data and analyzing data that's not a session we've offered and moving into assessment um we've seen a need for small group at the secondary level and Elementary level and those would be what we've seen a need for So based on people who are further along we would like them to start using small group instruction so we've brought that one in um and then the collaboration kind of diagonally collaboration optimizing your teaching and fostering questioning those are outside presenters and those are based on teachers asking for more support with that okay you're outside who's coming like so we have two members from panel County we have Michelle Addie she is our stem specialist in panel County and then we have um Kelly Kota he's a math specialist from panel County and then uh Karen Brown she is a specialist around gifted instruction so she's doing that differentiation session all right what other questions might you have okay thank you for your time thank you Madame President governing board members and Dr Wyman thank you for the opportunity today to um address you in two different areas um one is my goodness I never get this right my deal Ah that's okay okay um so uh the first area if you remember uh months ago uh you approved um the curriculum for our careers in your future um seventh grade course and that was um heavy with Hands-On kits that our students used to explore some of the different um uh career Pathways and we integrate that with our major Clarity platform as well and so I've invited Mr Lee uh he is one of our career and your future teachers at the middle school he wears a lot of hats there he teaches some other courses as well and I appreciate him being here he he went from school to soccer practice to back to this meeting so I appreciate his time um so he prepared a short presentation I'm gonna turn the time over to him good evening Madam president uh board members Dr Wyman and guest uh my name is Darley uh like Kei stated um I am one of the uh four teachers we have six semester basic or six teachers that teach in semester um all our seventh graders half of them first semester and the second half so uh this this year we implemented uh let me go and change this here um in our this year in in the middle school we implemented the new program into the career in your future classes so we implemented uh what's called the Conover company Mecca System Kit so each box basically contained items tools for a specific career this case the students uh what they would do is they would go and watch videos they would follow along with the videos and Within These kits which are included in the Box each item that they would get to learn the definition of each of those items and how to use them and how to use it in that particular career it's a step-by-step process which they would use and follow uh some examples that were were used uh are from the kits that we had this year are the cosmetology electronics distribution Communications Healthcare which seems to be a very popular one because we had a lot of uh visitors come in from the outside some of the students parents came in and talked about the opportunities in the healthc care career so they really kind of engage in that very well uh also automotive technology manufacturing of course is a big one in the area because we know that companies here are coming moving to Arizona to get an opportunity there to get interest into that as well um and several others so and uh We've also had an opportunity to take some pictures with them to sh with you guys what they've been doing so initially what we' did what we did for each of the classes is we provided them a Hands-On exploration of each of the kits as you can see there so of course putting them on the floor would probably be the best way usually about four to five students would go there and open up the box we'd show them the contents which it has a picture on the on the outside of the box or inside the box and of course like you can see in the pictures that they they're able to get Hands-On uh and then from there once we jumped into each of these uh kits um usually one kit takes about a week for the students to go through they would do go through the videos learn about the vocabulary and then also what skills they learn from this uh as you can tell the one on the right side would is part of the automotive skill other the one on the left is a little bit of uh the different different techniques of how to use like the hammer things and the saw and things like that so um some more pictures here uh this one in particular was manufacturing on the left side and then the one on the right looks like that's also graphic design and of course uh the teaching what we did is we observed them to see what to so they could demonstrate what they've learned um you know Electronics is on the right side cosmetology is the middle that seemed to be one of the popular ones because they were able to do uh work with mannequins with the hair and also with the nails and facials and so forth and of course uh the manufacturing technology again uh computer AED design which is like a 3D printer and also Electronics there Healthcare like I mentioned earlier so they were able to take different vitals um off each other and we also uh along with that we like uh we have been using before the major clarity as part of the curriculum we kind of geared it towards matching up with what particular area based on their assessment that they took I'm sure you're pretty familiar with major Clarity of them taking the assessment and matching up what would be the top five careers that would match up based off their skills off of the assessment and they would line it up with that as well uh students work individually and in teams as you can see here and then I believe we have a video of a couple of students here to give you some insight into what they've done so you can you can tell she was a little nervous but she was able to get through that so she did a really good job for us we got one more video one also so of course they they volunteered but when they put them on in on stage they uh get get real shy but they did a really good job so what questions did you guys have any do all of the students go through this our goal is to get all the seventh graders that attend our school to get through them again it's a sem sem on class so this we got through this first part will be finishing up second second semester will beginning the rest of I see it's a class that they takeen and they they just figure out which which ones they are interested in yeah so they take the assessment and then from there we match them up with which would be a best fit that's great I like it all right thank you thank you and I just want to note that um Mr Lee was uh involved from the get-go he was part of our commit when we were looking into different uh programs that were available um so he not only helped us in selecting this program but um as you can see is obviously very involved in the teaching of it and and I would invite any of you to to check out our Mecca lab I don't know if that's the official name but um it uh it's really neat to see the kids uh really engaged in those Hands-On activities um my second uh part of the the presentation today centers around Career and Technical education um we just just completed our um monitoring with the Arizona Department of Education so every five years uh we go through this process it's pretty intense um by the end of this um uh monitoring I had submitted about 600 documents to the ad so it it consumed uh most of my first semester um so there were nine areas uh that they monitor us with and they are listed there on the screen um just briefly and I I do want to refer to my notes but um so that you understand exactly what is involved in in our CTE programs um the first one there is standards aligned and integrated curriculum and engaging instruction so it's very obvious that there are technical skills that um that our teachers have to teach um however along with those technical skills are uh workplace employability skills leadership skills um we are expected to integrate uh math science Andor Ela in our curriculum um so uh we spent time over the summer uh creating our uh scope and sequence that indicates each of those standards um and keep in mind that uh we have CTE teachers that are not math science and ELA teachers but they had to identify specific standards in those content areas uh that they could incorporate into their program and support those those other areas so um we're trying to do our part to to uh increase uh student learning in other areas as well um the prepared and effective staff um on a very surface level uh we just had to make sure that they were certified in the proper CTE area uh but along with that was some quality uh was whether or not they have an industry certificate related to it U maybe um a graduate degree a number of different things that better quality qualifies them to teach uh the access and Equity uh really is based on a board policy we want to make sure that all students have access to our programs and that the materials that we are providing are are non-bias uh the facilities Equipment Technology and materials again these are um making sure that we are in tune with industry that we are providing uh equipment that is industry standard that our facilities reflect a workplace um uh the business and Community Partners this is where we are looking for um uh contributions from the community uh whether that be in kind whether that's donations whether it's just simply uh providing us um an assessment of our programs so our programs each program is required to have an advisory Council um the student Career Development this is where major Clarity plays a large role in CTE because we use that platform to allow students to explore the many uh different Pathways that are available to them the pring technical student organizations that is um uh not a club and I want to emphasize that it is uh is an organization that helps students develop leadership skills it's also the same organization that allows them to compete uh both at the local state and National levels um that is a requirement uh the work-based learning is an opportunity for our students to apply their skills outside of their normal classroom so this may include um a clinical for student it may include um some uh I call it contract work there not a legal contract but it could be the graphic design students creating posters for uh the dance uh recital or whatever it might be so they're using those skills outside the classroom to to pretty much uh could be just creating a product uh in the case of graphic design or providing a service um and then the data and program Improvement at the district level uh this is this is where uh every year um the uh federal government because we receive Perkins funds analyzes our program to see if we are meeting certain measures and and three of those measures are whether or not we're meeting uh the math science and Ela requirements so uh that's uh a little bit out of our CTE teachers control uh because it's it is based on uh the overall efforts of our our campus um but because it is part of our our uh data um it it provides a little weight for our teachers to understand that that's something that they need to support in their in their classroom and they can't just focus on the CTE standards um this is the uh the scoring guide that is provided to us there are two areas there are compliance indicators and there are quality indicators the compliance indicators are non-n negotiable in order for us to have an approved program every program must receive 12 out of 12 points if they do not then the first step is to go on an improvement plan the second is the quality indicators and there are um 35 points possible uh this is kind of the above and beyond that CT programs can do to show their quality um if you see at the bottom there's a rating scale um that they uh after they total up our score we fall into one of those C categories so the process looked like this um I had to submit some District level compliance and quality program support documents uh once I did that uh they then allowed me access to submit the program level compliance and quality documents so the teachers had to uh have these documents available submit them to me and then um I in turn would then upload them to uh the Arizona Department of Education this is where where the 600 documents came in um it was uh very time consuming to say the least um and then once I did that then we received a preliminary report we had 30 days in which to revise if we were deficient in any of the areas um and then after the revision period the ad came out to do a site visit uh the purpose of their site visit was to uh really was more of a facility and Equipment um visit so that they we are showing that as a district we are providing adequate facilities for our CTE programs and that um the equipment that we have uh is truly what we say we buy um and that it's kept in a safe uh environment that it is um uh well taken care of and so forth and then uh after that site to visit then they give us a final report which um they provide both to us and they also provide a copy to uh evit the good news is is that all 13 of our programs were totally compliant um and then even better news is out of our 13 programs 10 of those programs were considered distinguished so those uh those are the those 35 quality points that I had mentioned U and then we had three programs that were near distinguished they were proficient um to give you an idea of how close we needed 32 points to be distinguished and those three programs had 31 so we were extremely close to having all uh 13 of our programs considered distinguished uh we did find through the process and this is really the purpose of the process is to find areas where we can improve and so uh these three areas specifically uh kind of stood out overall with our programming that we need to look at uh one is uh working with our uh Partners in the area uh for them to evaluate our program so that's part of our advisory Council um not only do they advise um but they also are able to really evaluate our program to make sure that we're meeting those industry standards right so that um we get their input and that's very valuable to us because we know that in a lot of Industry uh especially with technology things change rapidly and so they're able to look at our equipment and see if there's some different types of equipment that might be better suited for uh today's work uh place um we also found that um we uh really struggle a little bit with um our work-based learning annual report and part of that is and and work-based learning is an area of emphasis for us this year uh to give you an idea with work-based learning this requires us really to put those students in those environments uh where they use their skills and it sometimes requires the cooperation of uh businesses and Industry in the area and um we find that that's sometimes difficult to do so if we can't find a partner then uh we I don't want to say Resort but we we do have what's called a school-based Enterprise so for example um I'll take digital photo for an for an example um is difficult to find uh digital photography businesses we have a lot of independent contractors um but putting them in that work environment is difficult because most of them work out of their home and we're not going to send students into the homes of folks so um uh the digital photography program then creates a business on campus and so they offer services to uh the high school and and I know they've done some work for the elementary school so those kids are applying those skills there and then the last one there is the uh program meets the deter the determined level of performance those are those indicators that the feds give us um again they are some are are in our control others are not and so we do the best we can um those that we know we are totally in control of uh those are ones that we really want to focus on and and um improve those areas um so overall though we did very well again the the credit goes to those who are doing the work and that's our teachers and other support staff all right any questions I have none no okay thank you very much thank you all right um I'm back now to talk a little bit about some of our assessment um information let's see if I can work the clicker there we go um so we just finished up in third through e8th grade taking our second mimic um for the aasa um test the first set of data here is for ELA and then we will look at math so um in this chart what we're comparing is our percent of students who passed that mimic be this year with the percent of students who passed the mimic last year um as you can see those are slightly down from this year to last or last year to this year excuse me um in all of our grade levels in ela which is definitely not the direction that we are hoping to see so we have spent a lot of time looking at that data and trying to kind of determine our next steps in that process when we compare however the data from the students this year that took mimic a to mimic B we are starting to see some positive shifts forward particularly um you can notice in sixth and seventh grade we had some good growth um this year in those areas so again we are wanting to see the growth from mimic to mimic however we do traditionally see a little bit of a dip in this middle time of the year um and then in our next mimic we have traditionally seen um quite an increase so that is something we are looking at at as well um and then when comparing our cohort data so students from one year to the next um this is where we really definitely want to see our students improving and that is um by and large what we are seeing um in most of our grade levels we are seeing that Trend that they are improving from one year to the next um we do have some areas that are a little bit um concerning and we've spent a lot of good conversations in the last few weeks at those sites having conversations about data and how to access data and how to use data for instruction then moving into our math data um again this is comparing last year mimic B student per passing to this year mimic B student percent passing um so again um very minimal change some positive um some remain the same looking at mimic a then um to mimic B of this school year we are starting to see the trend moving into a more positive direction where students are making uh more growth and so that is what we want to continue to see as we work through our new math adoption and then comparing our cohort data again um not huge changes positive or negative but we want to see that data trending more positively um so we are working with our staff on understanding the data how to find data um and how to access the data inside the platforms um and that's what some of those professional learning sessions are going to be centered around in January and moving forward one of the things we are working on completing right now in terms of assessment are all of our fast Bridge screeners K12 um that includes math reading and social emotional components um we are looking to do some updates to the assessment calendar from the beginning of the year we had some new testing information um new test dates things like that that have come into play um so we want to get those published for everyone um particularly High School act dates things like that have come out um we are going to be working with our sites um to analyze their their data for student needs um creating plans of actions and using that backward design that Murphy talked about um in our um learning sessions with them to design um intentional lessons to build on our student needs um we're going to continue to work on building an understanding of the data culture districtwide um what is data how do we use data and build some deeper um understanding through our current practices and forward and um we have those new sessions in the pl day that we are going to be offering um and then offering to take uh on the road after that PL day to try to reach more people um as needed are there any questions that I can answer for you around assessment when um it says meet with sites to analyze data when when did that happen or when is that going to happen yeah that is currently happening um so we have recently completed all meetings with every site to update some goals that they had set um previously so we have shared all of the site data um with all the sites and um have gotten into specifics on how to to look at that data um one of the things we were finding is that a lot of teachers weren't quite familiar with the platform how to get in and find exactly what they were looking for they knew what they wanted they just didn't know how to get it so we've been um providing some understanding on how to get to that that data and then we're hoping to build on that um in the upcoming sessions at the professional learning day so here's I have my data now how do I use this effectively to improve instruction because that is our ultimate goal yeah when you when you say you went through the data did you find anything that was um I want to say like reoccurring um I think one of the things that we have had some conversation around is um and considerations for updates to that assessment calendar is right now those assessment windows are really wide and so it's sometimes hard to they're about a month long and so sometimes it's hard to gather accurate data when you're looking at your entire school or your entire District when you have such a wide window um and within that then what are those practices for giving those ass assessments look like so that's another area that we're kind of exploring and looking at as far as could be um impacting some of those results that um in that negative way that we're not wanting to see any questions okay it's not it's not pretty it's not thank you all okay so is that let's see um discussion and information on the 23 24 student enrollment numbers share with you uh Tuesday uh morning or Monday night Tuesday morning so I don't know if there's specific questions you want I know there's also questions on discipline which I was going to address in just a second um so I'm just here to answer the principal's here to answer any questions that people may have I guess my other question is do we expect another budget revision based on the trend a lot will depend in terms of uh when I look so as an example I I compare on a week on a weekly basis our our our data uh in comparison over last year so last year at this time for whatever reason this week we lost um we lost about 20 kids this year at this time we ended up uh gaining a couple kids so it's hard to tell what's going to happen we'll see sometimes there's either a drop or a a pop um coming out of uh Christmas break um as kids decide with the second semester I I want to move um so I think that would be the the indicator will be within that first week uh or two weeks because again if some kids move and then don't show up we have to drop them after 10 days of non-attendance so I think within the first two weeks we should have a a pretty good idea for the most part um it stayed fairly consistent uh trend-wise but but we'll have to wait and see I uh um so I did uh going through the the comments um I did appreciate those those principles that are taking the time to like let us know what you're doing um to with the with the students I think that's I hope you keep it up and um I think those are those are definitely positives so thank you do you have any comments All right so we'll move to 93 for a student discipline process okay I was asked to go ahead and and just give you I'm really looking at process uh if you'll remember in uh the end of September uh gave you some data on what was going on in terms of the number of of uh uh rule violations that that uh U students had violated that same report will be given to you at the end of this semester um so next week I've run some initial numbers on that but so this is really more about trying to pres present uh how does discipline work in a in a school district I will tell you this this is not unique to this District this is a Statewide process but I just wanted to make sure that it was presented so people could ask any questions uh about uh about that portion of it um when you look at student discipline you're really looking at three areas where students could uh violate our rules uh their state statute uh the prominant State Statute that you're going to violate see a violation of rule is stat title 15 title 15 is one that uh is what uh most of Education deals with however there are other um titles if you're dealing something with drugs as an example they're not necessarily in title 15 that would be the title that deals with with drugs uh in terms of District policy uh section J deals with students so as a general rule that's where most of the areas are going to be if the student's going to violate a polic it's be under Section J however obviously the whole policy manual applies to everybody so they could go ahead and and potentially uh violate a policy in a different in a different section but section J is what applies to the students and then you do also have Federal uh statutes whether it's uh Title 9 or idea or federal laws those are going to be the things that are going to drive um the parameters on student discipline the process uh as a general rule is Step One is classroom management the expectation if it's not a s a serious event that it would be handled at the classroom level if it's a serious event then obviously it would go straight to the referral process but generally speaking you try to handle it at the lowest level if a teacher has continually tried to deal with a student and the student is not changing their behavior then they would write a referral and that would go up to Administration that referral then drives an investigation by Administration based on that investigation of what happened and they would go ahead and uh talk to the individuals involved kind of get a feel for what happened because not in all cases but the majority of cases that that administrator will not been present when the incident occurred there may be sometimes where you're out on the campus and a fight for example breaks out then obviously you would see it you would write up the referral but the majority will be written up by other teachers based on what they find there's then an imposition of the consequence so what do we impose for what the kids did There's notification to the students and the parents and then the consequence is put in place so in this case if you're going to do a suspension then after the notification then the suspension would start the process is based on the idea of due process for all kids so all kids are provide a due process they get a chance to understand what the specific allegation is and then go ahead and provide uh their side of the story um I know a lot of times there's discussion on free speech um but in the schoolhouse and based on the way the statute uh excuse me way the laws have have been addressed in this country it's not unlimited for students that's just kind of what's happened over the the years Ida deals with special education students they have their own set of requirements uh under federal law uh and so we need to uh keep that in mind and then there needs to be equal protection so it's not discriminatory whether it be gender race disability or any other the protection areas what we do are some foundational pieces to student discipline is it's Progressive so the second time or the third time for the same violation of rule will get progressively uh more severe consequences uh however if they have multiple if I ditched one day but then I got caught with something doing something in the classroom another day those would be two different rule violations so you wouldn't necessarily jump those kids up it depends on what it is but there is uh severity that does increase um we use a Matrix which I'll show you in a second that talks about um uh what they get what they can potentially get as a consequence the issue that's there is is the Matrix is for K through2 so it's fairly broad based the other piece that some people don't understand is in essence what you're talking about with student discipline is administrative hearing guidelines so an administrative hearing guidelines means preponderance of the evidence not beyond a shadow of a doubt which is in court so what does preponderance of the evidence mean mean if we were to go ahead and talk to five people or 10 people in this room about the situation if the majority of people feel it happened then that's a preponderance of the evidence that becomes critical because you got a situation where one kid says I didn't do it but based on three other kids saying he did do it the administrator would take a look and the preponderance of the evidence says that the student did do it and that's just an administrative hearing level um uh that's utilized in student discipline for for students in in schools not only in Arizona but across the country what are the definitions of the rule violations that was established in the state of Arizona by ad and a committee matter of fact I believe uh Jennifer Cory was on that committee when when did that occur 15 years ago so what you'll see from most of those rule violations those that are covered under State Statute almost use identical language as what's in State Statute that can freak some parents out if you're a brand new kindergartener parent and you see a definition that is described out of Statute for some of the rules that are there but it's been mandated as part of the Arizona safe that all schools in the state use the same set of rule violations and the same set of definitions those that are not covered by State Statute were developed by the committee and I can show you those in a second consequences that could occur you could have just a student conference and talk to a student you could go ahead do detention or in school suspension there could be a change of placement that could be a removal from a class um or it could be a removal from an activity a short-term suspension is up to 10 days a long-term suspension is 11 days or longer but one day shorter for forever because an expulsion is technically forever now I will tell you although it's technically forever nowadays um there's very few cases where it's really forever because they have a right to appeal to get back in but but the most simplistic definition that provides you what the the range of um consequences are there's more than that but this gives you a rough idea of of what the major consequences would be a couple things and this becomes real important under parental appeal process on a short-term suspension or less so 10 days or less going down to detention going down to all that the law does not allow for formal appeal to student discipline up to a 10day suspension you may speak to the administrator however the application the consequence may not be overturned by the district office or the governing board that's state law it's not anything we're doing here if you do a long-term suspension or an expulsion then you get into whether it's the governing board in the case of expulsion um that a hearing officer may make the decision on expulsion and that it could be appealed to the governing board long-term suspension uh the same thing now in both long-term and expulsion they the appeal is on the record so whatever was presented in the hearing is what's appealable you cannot come into the appeal and add additional information and again that's just covered under States uh state laws and federal laws what we do um and if you guys could open up the first one the definitions nope it's the one before that nope there you go so you can see here are the definitions that are used this is not our definitions this is what Mrs Corey was doing uh on that committee so this is what was used and is used across the entire state every single school district has the same set of uh definitions and that's been as she said in in place for 15 years so if you have a referral you're looking at that definition it becomes very critical you look at that definition because in some cases the definition automatically might mean you're not going to give the student um a violation of that rule because it just didn't happen the way it's defined okay you can go out of that one so once we determine what the rule is that they violated and go to the Matrix so that's the middle one there then this is where you sit and look and say okay if they violate cheating the Curren is the first time the range could be from student conference to short-term suspension the range is that big because we're dealing with kids from kindergarten to 12th grade and so what happens at kindergarten level may not exactly be the same as what happens at at 12th grade so there is going to be a little bit of adjustment within there if it happens a second time you get a written warning potentially up to long-term suspension now again if you're a Kindergarten kid who does something relative to cheating that might be different where what a long-term suspension came in come in if we were to find kids were cheating on a state or federal exam that's uh uh an AP exam as example I've been in some situations where there was concerted effort by the entire uh class to go ahead and cheat on an AP exam when they got caught um and uh so therefore it might be more significant because of the level of of that and when you go through this we have this uh Matrix across all the rules that the kids could violate um and so what we attempt to do is work within our schools and between our schools to get as close to as possible to giving the same consequence for uh the uh rule that's violated but each situation is unique and you have to take into account all the uniqueness then the other thing we have to deal with if you go to the third one please is then this is the guidelines that we've received from panal County I will tell you this is unique to panal County I never received these guidelines or none of my principles did in hila or in Navajo um or in Maricopa but they start to tell you whether you should call law enforcement or not call law enforcement and that's kind of gives you an idea of um of what what the expectation is depending on on what they what they want so if you and this is just again what pcso was asked of of us all of this is in a notebook that all administrators have they both have a hard copy as well as they have a file um that they can go ahead and utilize it so you can go ahead and get out of that one and then okay so I know I went through it fairly fast but I just want to give you an idea of what the process is principles are here myself is here to to answer any questions that you may have but that kind of gives you a process whatever we're doing is is not again unique to Combs but it is driven by Statute whether it be state or federal um and uh kind of moves forward in that process do you guys have any questions when you let me see this pcso law enforcement trouble I can get you a different copy I can get you a copy so you'll have it he he found it okay are we good we're going to go ahead and um move on to the uh self- evaluation so I assume that this is all out of uh is it all out of like a score of four okay so um is this on the I don't care so we have um board relations with superintendent so we have a score for the do we need to yeah you guys all have a hard copy um I don't know so um one the board Parts information ues uh needs issues needs and complaints in the matter of allowing the superintendent the opportunity to solve related problems in a professional manner so we got we gave ourselves a three out of four um the board clarifies interprets uh its position and controversial matters pertaining to the district thereby enabling the superintendent to properly carry out the wish the wishes of the board and again three out of four the board um disregards personel ities and considers the recommendation of the superintendent in an unbiased and unobjective manner is like 3.2 the board communicates views of personal Effectiveness including uh views related to the superintendent in a confidential and professional matter and it's a three out of four um there are comments I'm not reading the comments are you guys I mean do I need to you guys can read I assume okay okay um section B um um relationship with the community um the board recognizes citizens have entrusted them with the education development of the children and the Youth of this community uh again a 3.2 the board recognizes the community expects their their their first and greatest concern um what was that oh oh um okay concerned to be the best interest of each and every one of the young people without distinction as to why as to who they are or their background may be the 3.2 now obviously I don't know we all didn't I mean there is needs improvements there's satisfactory and there's Excel and there's a number of needs improvements um the board enacts policies in supporting the efforts of the administration helping the people of the community to have facts about their schools to the end to the end that they will readily provide the finest possible school school program School staff and school facilities and we gave ourselves a 2.6 I think that um it's a Common Thread that we need to be more um active within the community and the schools um Sports relationship between members during meetings um individual members of the board treat treat each other of the bo professional staff with respect during board meetings a 3.6 um differences of opinion influencing board members votes are biased and issues at hand and not on the personality basis 3 3.6 all members of the board conduct themselves in such a manner as to emphasize that individual board members have the authority only when conveyed in a legal legal conducted board meeting with the at least a quorum present is a 3.4 um so section D holy moly um board relations with staff and Personnel Board requires superintendent to rem recommend personal Personnel for their consideration and consistency adheres to the procedure 3.4 the um board members make every effort to become acquainted with the person Personnel of the district 2.4 obviously we need to do some work um the board members uh personal friendships and District Personnel are maintained without allowing them to affect overall board decisions and or policies in a 3.2 um board relations and instructional program um the board makes an effort to keep informed about the instructional program by providing periodic reports as deemed necessary and by periodic visitations to the school 2.2 guess we need to make some visitations to the school um the board attempts to gain information from the community pertaining to instructional program needs gave ourselves a 2.6 um the board maintains policies necessary to enable the um educational staff to develop in the educational program required to meet the needs of the community and that's a 2.8 um okay board in relations to financial management of the school board establishes policies to provide it provides the necessary resources to Property Management um properly manage the finances of the district 3.2 the board requires requires the proper accountability for the expenditure funds expenditure of the funds of the district three the board provides just Justified uh funding to maintain a highquality education um program uh 3.0 um and the board keeps the community informed about the financial needs of the district and we're giving ourselves a 2.2 um list of priorities uh student achievement student enrollment and student discipline is one uh Community engagement for normal operations retention of students and staff hiring qualified staff and distributing positive information about the district uh concerns about the district count on how that message is communicated student discipline seems to be a concern and is impacting the students count the student count and there seems to be an unclear me message than shared with the School principles regarding those concerns concerns about the student count and how the how the message is communicated uh student discipline seems to be a concern that is impacting the student count and therefore seems to be unclear um then we have decreasing enrollment Financial challenges as a result to decreasing enrollment and discipline challenges so that's what looks like there's a fairly um Common Thread there um weaknesses um let's see um let's see here as a board we need to be more present in our schools we need to be to go observe and talk with staff in the schools this would give us a give us a give us as a board a better idea of what what is working well and what needs to be improved I um the district spend I'm not gonna say that okay um list any significant uh accomplishments made by the school system during the year new Math and Science curriculum some improvements in test scores more Outreach to the communities by social media um online news such as the Queen Creek times uh for the most part it appears the site principles have done have gone the extra mile to try to address the concerns with student count it may um not be a quick fix but they seem to be invested most of the school sites are doing a great job and getting the word out about the great things happening at their site and CTA was an a school so that was it obviously there's some some common uh common factors that I think that we definitely need to improve on and hopefully uh we can we can do that so anything you guys questions comments thanks okay so um let's see here I'm going to call for an executive session at 8:22 right um I need a oh um I need a motion to go into executive session right I move to go into executive session second all in favor I at 8:22 okay okay can I go first because I'm

oh orientation by fire okay we live okay good evening and can I call a meeting to order and have a roll call please Dr Lopez here Mr halt present M mcris present Mr Willard I am here Mr Carlson is absent see can uh item C is to adopt the agenda I Mo ad agenda as second all those in favor I I I can you please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance in a moment of silence Al to the flag of the United States of America and to the rep for it stands one na under God indivisible withy and justice for thank you next item is item D recognitions first one we have is Aaron to begin recognitions for this evening I'm going to ask Mr Hart to join me up front please this evening we are recognizing Mr Aaron Hart physical education teacher at degia elementary for being a winner of the extra yards for teachers Grant degia held a special assembly to surprise Aaron with the award in front of all the staff and students that he teaches each and every day in his nomination letter his colleagues celebrated his commitment to teaching and his and his special signature move move fist bumping every student every day Mr Hart impacts each and every student at to graia twice per week with his funfilled lessons he gets their blood pumping in both indoor and outdoor activities he teaches our students how to play games that transfer to our recess times as well Mr Hart sees students in the hallway cafeteria after school Etc he always has a fist bump for students and does it with a smile and encouraging word at all times he literally is the most famous teacher on campus Mr Hart has been a classroom teacher before so he values the connections that he can make with students and sees the importance of his specials class his special class keeping kids engaged in school he truly is a special person and teacher Aaron is one of only 20 Southern Arizona teachers to receive the grant the bar stool Sports Arizona Bowl partnered with the college football playoff to award Grant the grants to teachers who continually go above and beyond for their students and positively impact their lives Aaron will receive a $1,000 grant that can be used to fund a project buy new classroom technology or purchase classroom supplies along with the grant he will be given two tickets to the barstol Arizona bow game in December where he will be honored on the field with the other Southern Arizona teachers receiving the award please join us in congratulating Mr Aaron [Applause] hars I'm gonna have you step over we're gonna do a picture yeah you got to tell us Ally give the strict directions [Applause] yeah Chelsea pings I think this is your favorite part of the day a close second behind culinary arts piz so we are also recognizing tonight Chelsea Ping's Morana High School instructional coach who was selected as a recipient of the 2023 40 under 40 award and and named Woman of the Year by the Tucson Hispanic chamber of commerce in the Arizona Daily Star Chelsea joins the esteemed group of community leaders in Southern Arizona and was recognized at the 40 under 40 Awards breakfast last week the 40 under 40 Awards is focused on leadership Community involvement and the contribution made to moving our community forward this year's theme of inspiration asked what was inspiring about the nominee and what they do to inspire others within the community the response Chelsea pings has worked as a teacher and instructional coach at Morana high school and she lights up any room that she is in as a teacher she constantly had her students engaged with movement talking and always digging deeper her students adored her and loved being in her classroom her lessons were never the same because she always made small adjust small adjustments to make each one one better says Mrs Caitlyn coffen the principal of mirand high school as an instructional coach this year she is kind caring and supportive as a teacher leader she is incredibly organized driven and gets things done well the first time every time and is now impacting every classroom at Mirana High School I added that last one congratulations Chelsea on this achievement thank you for inspiring your students your co-workers and your community through all that you do [Applause] f [Applause] back okay next item is item e board Communications okay there is none so we'll move on to remarks from the public I have one for Ali Pierce all right all right hello good evening uh Dr Sher members of the board senior staff president Lopez I am delighted to come and chat with you all tonight with my small humans uh in tow so hopefully they will uh be on their best behavior I am Ally Pierce and I am a high school teacher at marinah high I teach 9th and 12th grade English I also uh have those two cute little humans who are enrolled at Twin Peaks in first and third grade and then I'm The Treasure of the mirand Education Association and tonight I came out to chat about some of the good things that are going on because often times uh our focus is on what what isn't going super hot I will tell you that it might sound negative at first but I promise there's a win uh so you know this school year has been challenging for a variety of reasons we had like a small tornado uh that damaged our campus significantly uh our students are definitely uh showing some challenging behaviors and we've had a a number of just really difficult uh tragedies on campus so things have been really hard and it can be really difficult to focus on the positive uh I have a a class my last class of the day uh my sweet baby freshman who have really challenged me to see the positive in them and uh it has been a lot of a lot of work to mitigate some of the behaviors that I've been seeing and this is not something that we're just seeing in my building uh this is something that that teachers across the the state have been talking about and I I've actually started calling them my naughty noodles because like using an endearing name makes me feel less um uh intensly annoyed by some behaviors that have popped up and you might be thinking like this does not sound like a celebration at all like why why are you telling me about your freshman being naughty well I have had the distinct pleasure of working with our new admin our new administrator at marinaa high school as well as our established um admin team and I have while I've never had a class quite this challenging not to toot my own horn but like I tend to really do well with classroom management um I have been so incredibly supported by my administrative team I have had my admin in my classroom supporting me a ton and I have found that even through some really challenging conversations ations I've completely been supported it's been fantastic and I know that a lot of that has to do with the fact that mea um our Union has a really strong relationship not only with our Administration on our site but also with senior staff in the board so while uh it has been challenging the Silver Lining is that through our our work collectively as a union and our work with the lovely and talented Dr streer in company we have been able to deal with what has been a a challenging year so we all know I could keep talking but thank you so much and I wish everyone a smooth end of the semester thanks thank [Applause] you next item is item G superintendent comments president Lopez uh governing board members members of uh the audience we've had a lot of uh really big events uh celebrations and um just opportunities to team build over the last month and so I'm going to go back to November uh and and start this off with uh back on November 16th we held our grand reopening of the pal program at the old Thornydale location and we dealt with a little bit of rain that night uh but overall we had a great night with a really nice turnout uh where we really got to reintroduce the pal program to our community and I really want to congratulate our pal team on putting together a great event uh there's still a few additional projects that we're that we're working on over there but I will say that the classrooms the new playgrounds uh look fantastic and uh certainly uh happy that our our pal team is able to support our littlest learners uh also I had an opportunity back on December 1st uh to do a superintendent governing board campus visit at mirand middle school so I do want to thank the MMS team for opening their doors to Mrs marronis uh Mr Carlson and myself uh for that visit we had a day that was filled with great conversations and enjoyable classroom visits uh during our classroom visits we saw a variety of activities across the campus uh a pretty impressive character autopsy um a few uh Dynamic visible learning uh classrooms uh if you haven't seen how math is being taught at a lot of our secondary schools it's the the level of Engagement from our students is really exciting um and not to mention we did get to see some preparations for the holiday choir activities as well uh as we met with different employee groups there was a common theme that emerged around the Community Field that exists at Mar Middle School uh some of the comments that we heard from employees were I found my dream job here everyone is nice and will help out with anything you need this feels like a family there's a lot of support here a teamwork Spirit there's camaraderie and a sense of community and then during our visit with the student leaders we heard several positive comments as well I really L the teachers I'm really comfortable with my teachers we have amazing relationships and our teachers incorporate Lear with fun activities I want to congratulate the Mirana middle team uh not just for putting together an impressive day uh but for the outstanding work that they're putting forth uh every day at that at that middle school also uh just last week uh we have the opportunity to attend the ASA and asba so that's the Arizona School administrators and the Arizona School boards Association uh joint annual conference the annual conference is the celebratory end ofe Gathering of school board members and District leaders from across the state uh we had two great keynote speakers uh focus on current Statewide education initiatives and really just an opportunity to network and share experiences with Ed other educational leaders across Arizona I want to thank Dr Lopez Miss maconis and Mr Willard uh who were able to attend this year's conference with me uh not just an opportunity for us to learn as a team but also grow together as a team during our few days also uh special congratulations to miss maconis who received the certificate of orientation from the Arizona school boards Association and that's really a testament uh to the work that she's done since becoming a board member of becoming oriented to the role and becoming a member of Asda so congratulations Mr MC also congratulations to Mr Holt who received his associate of in recognition of the number of professional hours that he has put forth since beginning his term on the school board so congratulations to your hold on that recognition as well uh and then finally uh earlier this week uh Miss micronus and Mrs Kaufman the principal at Morana High School uh we had the opportunity to attend our second impact Morana uh education day or I should say program day uh impact Mirana is a program of the Mirana Chamber of Commerce and Community Partners that is an immersive experience that takes a cohort of business and Community leaders through an in-depth behind the scenes look at the many Dynamic sectors of the Mirana Community uh this is a seven Monon program that is designed to gain a comprehensive understanding of all facets of Morana and learn how to be a more impactful Community leader driving the future of our community so amongst uh just under 30 participants it's nice that there's three of us that are representing uh the morani and F School District we had a great first program day which was the public safety program day where we were able to uh learn about the the inner workings of the Mirana Police Department Northwest fire uh as well as what's happening at the Puma county level with regards to Emergency Response uh this last Tuesday uh was was really a neat day as we did the Agriculture and Agri tourism program day and if you think about the history of Mirana we really got into the history of ranching and farming and how that uh has evolved and now what we're seeing around our community with regards to Agri tourism think about the pumpkin patch uh think about uh some of the different dude ranches in the area um really just a nice way to continue to learn about our community that concludes my report for today thank you Dr streer next item is the consent agenda can I have a motion I move I move that we approve the consent agenda as presented any questions all those in favor I I next item is item I there is no unfinished business so we'll move to item J mrowki come on up good evening Dr Lopez members of the board Dr streer senior staff and members who have joined us from the Morana Community um I'm here to present a addition to policy EBC on emergencies um the line that will be added um is uh honoring new state statute um passed by our legislature and the line reads emergency response plans developed by the school district governing boards are required to address how the school school and emergency responders will communicate with and provide assistance to students with disabilities we actually are already in compliance with this when we passed our Emergency Operations plan part two 28 pages of details on what we do and emergency res um emergency situations um a section of that a subsection of that is dedicated to identifying specifically what who those students are and the plans we have in place we have health plans in place for all those students who need a special attention and so we're already in compliance thank you I have a motion I move that the governing board approved the revision to policy e emergencies I second do we have any questions all those in favor I I next item is Jade two Mr contorer thank you um tonight um will bring to you the fiscal year 24 budget um District expenditure budget revision number one the State of Arizona allows governing boards to revise their expenditure budgets throughout the school year to reflect actual carry forwards prior year expenditures actual student enrollment and interest earnings these were mere estimates when we actually um adopted the budget in July if you remember we actually propos a budget develop that budget in June so um we still have three months of activity that affects this year's budget with those numbers that we just mentioned the district will have the ability to continue to do the um revisions to the expenditure budget when when we find necessary up until May 15 um and we would definitely be bringing another revision at this time the district is making adjustments um reflecting actual student enrollment and carry forward amounts um that was the largest impact of this budget that here um is before you um the Major Impact was in maintenance and operation we had an increase of over just over $2 million and in District additional assistance which is our Capital dollars it increased by just over a million dollars um that's the presentation for thank you do I have a motion the 202 I moved that the governing board approved the 2023 2024 School District annual expenditure budget revision number one I second any questions all those in favor I hi next item is j3 Miss Rey good evening president Lopez members of the governing board Dr streer members of senior staff and our inperson and virtual audience this evening I am bringing forward five High School courses for consideration of approval by you all this evening the first course this and all of these courses have been approved by the educational services department um in collaboration with our High School principles as well as our CTE coordinator so the first course that we're asking you to approve is piano one2 this is a class that will be taught at Morana High School it is a year-long music performance course that is that is designed for beginning and intermediate students who are interested in learning how to play the piano or keyboard I want to let you know that no musical experience is necessary and students do not have to provide their own piano in addition to piano one two we are also at this time requesting approval of piano 34 which would be the more advanced and intermediate and advanced compo um course that would be subsequent to piano one2 the next series of courses I'm going to request you to approve is our freshman athlete training that's freshman athlete training one two this is a course that also will be piloted at Marana High School next year this year-long course is recommended for any student who has prior participation or a strong desire to participate in a Mirana High School competitive sports team it will teach and challenge athletes to reach new levels of Fitness Nutrition coordination speed strength joint stability and flexibility so they can reach their Optimum level of success in the sport of their choice in addition to the Freshman course we're also asking approval for the varsity and junior varsity advanced athlet training course both of these courses are out of the PE department at Mirah High the final course that I'm requesting your approval for is public service leadership and life- saving elective course this is a semester long course that has been a developed over the past couple of months in a collaboration with in collaboration with Pac County Parks and Rec as well as the town of Morana we and the members of the PE department at Mirana High School participated as as well as our CTE coordinator to put together a high school course that allows students to develop the transferable skills that they could use in order to test for lifeguarding within our community as well as develop their leadership skills along the way so we're pretty excited about this course I'm personally very excited about this course as a former town of Mirana lifeguard and Mirana High swim coach uh the need for Aquatics programming has been increasing dramatically within the Mirana Community every single summer within minutes of opening every single slot for a youth in the Moran Community is completely filled and so the town has seen this need to increase aquatic programming as so and so has the county and so the town of Mirana has recently allocated $64 million to build a community center Just Over Yonder that will house not one but two in incredible pools and Aquatic facilities and so the opportunity for our youth to be employed in our community is going to be increasing exponentially over the next couple of years so this course would help students learn the skills to test so they could actually serve as lifeguards for either the town of Rana or Pina County as well as bring in Rich CTE workplace professional skills and uh bring in Role Models within the piranha Community to really elate and lift up students in order to see the opportunity they have to lead Youth and programs within our uh Community while being employed as lifeguards thank you I have a motion I move that the governing board approve the new high school course proposal as presented I second any questions I do so for two things we point three um when it comes to the actual lifeguarding courses is it taught by somebody who can sign off on their class work so they can go directly to take the test or do they still have to go through actal course work to then take the test so that there are multiple program there are multiple certifications for lifeguard training that you can earn star guard American Red Cross and so because we have different intergovernmental agencies that government agencies that utilize different certifications the beautiful part about the Morana Community is we had the leadership from those organizations come together design a course that was program agnostic so it was not necessarily connected to a program but really developed the skills that students would need to master in order to earn certification with the town of mirand or with pumac County so they will be set up success for both so they can actually choose which agency if they would like to choose to certify as well as to apply for employment from so they so just to clarify so they still would have to go through they don't have to just take the test and do their prac say so go through the course work again both the town of morand andp County have committed to like a challenge course because the students will have gone through and done all of the skills the water skills as well as the book knowledge skills and taken practice tests it would just be more of a challenge course to go ahead and uh attempt to earn the certification perfect and then my next question is this already cons the CT course in the state of Arizona or is this is this not technically a CTE course currently it's not a CTE course one of the things Mrs libert and I are looking at is could this at some point be an entry point course for the EMT program or one of the other public service programs offered through CTE right now our commitment was to embed those workplace skills so that the students who are leaving this course not only have the greatest possible chance of earning employment but also being successful in that employment and then with that are they going to be so it says public leadership are they going to be working with the town specifically to be able to do like leers actual opportunities inside the town or is it only based at the high school it's a great question so we're actually bringing Town leadership and leaders throughout the community to the students and so we anticipate uh we we currently have a whole host of guest leaders including uh the mayor we have um the town manager we have our chief of police who was a graduate of the of moranah high and uh we even have uh your very own Dr streer on the list of uh future guest speakers of this course you've been volen told I have one question Hunter are you finished so on the on the lifeguarding do we have existing staff who are certified to teach this do we need to come outside community in to teach this as former lifeguard as well I didn't know that about you so we are incredibly grateful for the generosity of those of those partners that we have and in fact members of the town of Mirana staff the town is act is actually donating their employees to teach the course and so the individuals from the town of Morana who certify lifeguards for the town are going to be the primary instructors P County their instructor will be supporting as well throughout and the one of the one of the things that we're really excited about is to make sure that we bring uh members of the PE faculty at Mirana high are also excited about getting certified so our hope is that not only can we get members of the Morana High School staff certified and me other members of musd teaching Corp certified but then that one or more of them will become a trainer so we'll actually make this a self-sufficient program moving forward thank you the town also said that admin was gonna do it because they heard you used to do that years ago I'm very excited yes all right all those in favor I next item is item four conduct executive session can I have a motion I move at the governing board can conduct the executive executive session pursuant to ARS 38-43 or3 A1 for for personnel relating to the superintendent valuation I second all those in favor hi so we will be going into executive session and then coming out and um adjourning so I just want to wish everybody happy holiday get some rest um I know everybody needs it so take care that's

you want to be on Friday Funday want to be on Friday Funday want to be on Friday Funday help me out good morning wild cats it's Friday we're going to have some fun it's the end of the semester the semester is flowing by we start off in August with sweltering heat we've rushed the field multiple times after football games we've won Conference titles we've won Regional titles we had a great homecoming week and dance now it's time to study for final exams we're going to talk to some of our students and get some help for finals all right cats I'm here with Maggie Maggie what you're in school are you I'm a sophomore how's your fall semester been Maggie it's eh so I'm studying up on some words that you kids use winter break is upon us I'm going to have to talk to my own kids I want to know what they're saying our teachers need to talk to their own kids your parents are going to want to connect with you more over break we got to know what you guys are saying so I made some flash cards here you ever Ed flash cards to study of course of course classic study skill so here's a word here that we hear in the hallways every now and then mid what does mid mean it means like me like not good not bad just kind of eh okay so kind of like you said your semester was kind of mid yeah it was kind of mid I guess you could say it was maybe like in the middle yeah it was definitely in the middle mid is short for middle I get it now I got it I'm here with a repeat guest Lauren doing how's your fall semester pretty good so far I feel like it went by really fast it does it goes by fast one minute we're in August next minute we're in December final exams are upon us classic study skills making flash cards you ever do that yeah yeah good so I'm doing that trying to figure out how I'm going to talk to my own kids over a winter break your parents are going to want to talk to you what the heck does OP mean oh that's somebody you don't like your opposition you're not cool with them can you use it in a sentence like oh my gosh that teacher is my op I think I got it all right wild cats I'm here with t what's your name how's your fall semester been pretty good would you say your fall semester has not been mid yeah every now and then I hear kids in the hallway say like I'm him or he is me what the heck does that mean it's supposed to mean like you're like cool or you're like like a really good person are the goat of all time I'm him he is me like you're cool or like like rad huh you guys you guys heard the term rad before yeah they used to say that when I was in high school like half up I'm here with Daniel Daniel what year in school are you a freshman freshman how's your first semester high school I'm good good good definitely not mid can you help me with this flash card what does cap mean I hear people say that all the time it's just like fake like I guess like not real like yeah can you add an ing to it can you be like hey you're capping yeah yeah that's allowed okay sometimes I hear people say like No Cap like I'm the best No Cap did I use that right yeah yeah so it's like no lion then right yeah okay cool thanks for your help all right wild cats I'm here with Zach Sydney David every now and then I hear kids say hits different hits different what's that mean uh yeah I think it's pretty self-explanatory like different than normal I guess I don't know different than normal thanks for the help on that one how about every now and then I to see kids B they'll just say B yeah I think it's another way of saying yeah yes so instead of saying yes they say bet so like if my friend were to ask me something and I said oh yeah let's do that she'd be like bet like yeah let's do it instead of just saying the word yes you say bet yeah okay why didn't you just say BET right there bet yeah okay all right why do we wear just one airpod do you have two airpod not right now but so you can hear oh okay so it's a safety concern yeah being safe good for you how about past the Vibe check or that that thing's a Vibe a good thing it's a good thing to be around it's a good thing to be around yeah I don't know it's like something good I guess something good I guess bet like it's a Vibe yeah it's a Vibe bet but this is a Vibe Friday Funday is a Vibe yeah Friday Funday is a Vibe okay great we got it time here with Brian Durk Durk Brian and Durk common study skills making flash cards you ever do that Dirk uh no I just look at the paper and stuff okay well I make flash cards that's what we did back in my day every now and then in the hallways I hear some you say like that's bessing what's that mean like it's it's tastes good it's delicious tastes good or delicious would you agree with that DK yeah I agree can you use it in a sentence this food is busting every now and then I hear people say like busing busing can I do that uh no that's not a lot no that's almost like a double negative would you say like whoever saying that it's not as got one more here for you how about like some says like Riz r i z z Riz it's like um game like like they're playing basketball no like you can attract like the opposite gender like flirting yeah yeah yeah okay can you use it in a sense for me d uh Brian has W RZ Brian has W Riz can somebody be called like a rizer or a rizzler or is it just RZ oh yeah yeah you can be called that that's a Vibe all right all right W okay I'm here with Taylor fre you excited for final exam yeah no no no I'm not excited for final exam common study skill you ever make flash cards yeah yeah what do you use flashcards for like vocab perfect so today I'm trying to expand my vocabulary you guys use a lot of different words that we're not always quite clear on what you're saying one I have here W just w What does w mean it just means like that you won I got won yeah like you got the dub like you you won the dub like the D B yeah yeah yeah okay but it's w but it's just W can you use it in a sentence the volleyball team got the dub yesterday sometimes I hear Kid Say like that was a w day yeah yeah that means you had a good day would you say you've had a w semester no shoot would you say it's been kind of mid yeah yeah yeah mid okay all right I think I'm getting it she's thinking about it she wants you she's got a big drink come on come on with your big drink we'll see all wildcast I'm here with can you help me out what is the word stand it's like uh when you're like kind of like a fan of something like a fan of something like I I'm a St of school yeah I guess yeah kui Evan M you guys use like your own little lingo around school want to be able to connect with you guys every now and then I hear kids say take the L what's that mean it means like just take the L like like that EV can you have up pretty much what it is like you're taking an L you know you're taking an L you know no I don't use in a sentence uh it's like you're losing you know okay l means losing Ashley Sal Jennifer can one of you help me out here low key what does lowkey mean kind of like laid back like not too too much but like not like not nothing it's like in the middle but not mid better than mid you yeah it is I lowkey am excited for it today okay all right I think I got it I'm Devin I'm Jack so I'm making flashcards for myself so I can study up on these terms I hear you guys saying in the hallway one people say every now and then is like drip like man that guy's got some drip what's that mean it's the clothing rare it's like if you have a good drip that means you have a good outfit so like stylish yeah so like would you say like like you got some good drip uh not right now not some days you do though I would say so yeah would you say I got good drip yeah would you say I got like like low Keys some good drip yeah yeah that's cat Clarissa Mindy sopia have you guys had a good fall semester um yeah pretty good yeah I'd say so no would you say like you're kind of taking an L this semester yeah Big L so we got two pretty Goods would you say like better than mid yeah you say mid yes yes I did say m actually so I'm trying to get down uh with the lingo that you kids use every now and then I hear like somebody say like sus that person sus or sussy what's that mean like time vernacular hey that's a good term vernacular good job you're ready for final exams what's that mean um it's a shorter term for suspicious could you use it in a sentence all right wild cats thanks for the help I don't think I'm capping when I say we have had a low-key W of a semester it's definitely not been mid make sure you study on your final exams we don't want you taking an L on any of your grades have a great weekend it's been a great semester have a great break we'll see you again in 2024 [Music] yeah

good evening everyone and welcome to the ashon planning board meeting Thursday December 14th 2023 um we will have two um public hearings tonight that involve the um uh 320 Pawn Street um the the current site of mazi's restaurant and 400 Cedar Street which is a special permit um with T-Mobile the third public hearing we do have listed 9 to 49 Homer Avenue has asked for a continuance and so we will deal with that when when we get there um but first on the agenda tonight well first I'll call the meeting to order at uh 7:20 and um remind everyone that the that the meeting obviously is being broadcast and and recorded three members of our board um are all have um illness related uh reasons for not for not being here T is is the season so we have three of our members there in person and three members um including our associate member who are who are online so it really is a very hybrid meeting this evening so um everyone can have uh hopefully patience as we go back and forth a little bit other than that the first thing on our agenda is the clerk's report Kate are you ready with the clerk's report this evening yes Madam chair we the planning board has received eight emails since the last planning board meeting uh few of them have come in the past like day or so so I have not responded and and some of those are for a hearing tonight so we may we may hear from some of those people as well okay great thank you um at this time I will at the um the next item on our agenda is public comment I will open it up for general public comment if you have a comment that best fits under one of our agenda items today it would probably be best um to wait until that agenda item if you can otherwise I I will open it up for public comment limiting it to three minutes uh per resident uh so we have one person at the podium at this time Mr Mark Don please introduce yourself with your name and address okay Mark son 49 hathon Road sorry here about all the illnesses it is it is the season um I'm I'm going to ask a question that will'll be involved in the two agenda items and I was going to ask a um how it can be run better CU each each usually agenda item no matter what it is it usually like takes about an hour to go through I like like to ask the question halfway through like 40 45 40 so minutes into it why can't you stop in ask citizens participation so you can get fresh ideas to keep going at a better Pace why can't that happen well I'll answer that that sometimes that does happen Mark that every public hearing is different every meeting is different and so we go by what we are doing that evening and when is the most appropriate time for public comment so often everything doesn't fit into such a rigid uh formulaic way of doing things but um we'll certainly try to get in public comment on all the um agenda items this evening because the reason why I'm saying that because I w i watch it at home I kind of know that it goes on for a pretty good amount of time and I turn I turned my zoom on and I turn take the headphones off turn the TV on CU it's on whacka and then I listen from there I stretch out on my bed so I won't fall asleep sting sitting town because I know there's a lot of detail that happens but if people can get involved more they'll be more active for the um to the public that's about it for now so if it can change for the better for public to um pick up the pace in it it' be good thank you uh thank you Mr Don at this current time there are no other um public comments okay um we will then go to the first item on our agenda the first public hearing which is 320 Pawn Street um for anyone listening at home this is the um current Mazi restaurant building um Peter do you have an introduction to that uh yes so tonight is the opening of the uh here the application so I'm just going to hopefully uh excuse me bear with me while I read this into the public record the pling board will open the public hearing to hear the petition for JP Morgan Chase Bank NA requesting site plan review and design review per chapter 40a section 6 of the Massachusetts zoning act in chapter 280 excuse me 282 D um comment 9.6 design review and 9.4 site plan review of the Ashen bylaws the applicant is proposing the development of the existing site of 320 Pawn Street a financial institution known as Chase Bank will operate internally within the typical Bank hours with a secure ATM vestibule open 24 hours a day the overall project site is 38,3 33 sare ft in the Adaptive work will cons will consist of external excuse me exterior improvements pedestrian safety and Property Maintenance the property in question is located at 33 excuse me 320 Pawn Street assessors map 26 lot 209 and is within the base zoning District Highway Commerce and the overlay District Pawn Street mixed use overlay District uh excuse me so at this current time um we we we the planning board uh have received this application and we are opening up the hearing for C plan approval and so representing the application uh I would like to introduce Josh kleene and also Mr Andy Fitz uh so Josh and and Andy uh I will make you co-host so you can share your screen and please proceed with your presentation great thank you and thank you for having us tonight so again my name is Josh Klein I'm with st field engineering and design we are the site civil as well as the traffic engineer on the project um we're excited to be in front of the board this evening and kind of start the process so I definitely will be brief I'm happy to answer any questions we kind of understand you know we'll be back in front of the board as we kind of work through the process but just to kind of share my screen and kind of highlight what we're I'm just to kind of show the site so you know this is an Adaptive reuse application Chase is going to be um kind of maintaining the building um for the for the application maintaining the parking areas and the access um but we will be doing um you know kind of some cleanup around the site so um I think a couple areas I just want to kind of highlight is that large kind of trash enclosure kind of the large freezer on the right hand side of the building and then this picture does a nice job you could see you know those improvements that were done with to do that kind of damaged a lot of the Landscaping over there um so just had to exit out what I'll could I wanted to kind of pop open is the landscape plan I'll kind of Orient the site and then show just some visuals of the building um so kind of highlighting those key areas again there's there's not there's not much site Improvement the site is is really kind of locked in in a lot of ways you know the access um can't really be modified the parking areas you know we're maintaining the building so our goal really is to try to kind of clean the site up introduce some additional Landscaping features and really you know make the site operate well and operate safely um so Chase is going to be removing the trash enclosure that I highlighted and kind of putting a smaller enclosure in the place of where the freezer is so that external freezer is being removed they're introducing some additional landscaping and what would be really nice about that is that will kind of help soften up this Viewpoint I think if you've been out there today and seen this beside of the building a lot of Mechanicals freezer equipment there's really no Landscaping um then we'll kind of go through and and freshen up the land escaping around the site we're going to be providing new adaa parking spaces the current spaces um do not meet the slope requirements and then we're all applicants also going to go in and we're going to kind of clean up the front edge so there's a lot of landscaping that was damaged um that was part of the original approval so what you know we're proposing is kind of going in and replacing any of those shrubs that might have been damaged during the dot Improvement um and kind of re replanting kind of Pawn Street again to kind of again bring the site you know up to standard when Chase moves in that's kind of the quick overview of the site again you know it's really kind of a tenant fit out in a lot of ways you know Chase is kind of coming into this restaurant space and kind of building it out um wanted to pull up the color elevations um as well these were these were submitted I think this does a nice job kind of showing um you know the architectural features you know one of the things I like looking at is you can kind of see that new Landscaping by the trash um that's being reposed again kind of softening that that of the building um um some again you can see some of the parking lot plantings and kind of the new architecture of the building um we also submitted which I will kind of jump to is just a 3D representation um kind of of the proposed Improvement so again kind of Chase looking to you know kind of bring in their own their own standards and branding um to the existing building but again kind of maintaining the massing the parking areas kind of the improvements out there today um that's really a high level um you know look at the at the application I mean I'm happy to answer any questions and kind of get into any of the the technicalities as well all right um so thank you for the the the brief overall um presentation I think at this time I'd just like to open it up to the planning board for um obviously any general questions comments about where the project is at this time um I can start with one we received uh a email to the board asking about I think that was publicized about there was because it's a restaurant there's grease traps and they're going to be removed and I think it was just a valid comment is there any way they're not completely removed saved because uses over time change and I think it was just in keeping with sort of a green community of ashelin not taking away resources that could be used and also if if someday that was a restaurant again it would save someone money going in um and I I don't think um I just wanted to make sure that was raised I don't see thoughts of the applicant on that yeah you know again we'll have to work with um you know the health department and building department um to firm if you know if there would there's a way that we can do that successfully but it's definitely something we can bring up to the team uh to see if they can accommodate and then I think I have um if I remember correctly on the submission I appreciate thank you for very detailed of matching up with bylaws and requirements and I might be misremembering this but I think along the front there is missing a tree to be compliant with our bylaws and I I think you said maybe it's not going to really fit but I wonder if there's a way to revisit that or somewhere on the property no no I I can hear you oh I can hear everybody now okay I I was wondering um if Kate was referring to trees that may might be missing from parking areas just to understand her question more fully um well I was going to bring that but I think if the parking is not changing I'm not sure that we can talk about that but maybe we can but I I think it was well sure yes let's let's ask about that and I think along the front it said that there was one short from what would be required but they were kind of matching what's there yeah so we we do meet the parking lot trees um so the you know kind of the restaurant only had three of them um we did add an additional two trees it we did have to kind of offset them a little bit the site's kind of riddled with Seer drainage water easement so even if you even if you wanted to you know build a new building you really probably couldn't just there's so many easement um but we were able to get the parking lot trees um the site was approved with three Street trees so we're kind of maintaining those existing Street trees I can kind of share the chair we are um kind of looking to supplement um that all that Landscaping along the front and kind of infilling what's out there today um but again so we had these kind of Three Trees we added to additional um kind of avoiding a water line and an easement and then there's these two trees along the frontage and then this additional tree here so those are those three existing Street trees that are going to be protected do you have any any other questions Kate before I jump in um I'm good for now thank you um and and please um it be a little bit difficult from being virtual to um obviously being in the room so uh jump in uh planning board um as you need to it's hard for me to see everybody um but my question was in in the documentation that was submitted to the town it it seems like um on one of the elevations or maybe multiple elevations one side of the building is is for Chase and then another side of the building is maybe for something else um and I was wondering if there's more more information about that it's a great question so I mean the the Chase Bank will not be taking the full building um so there is kind of available space for a future tenant but at this time as part of the the site plan approval application um we're just proposing um the Chase Bank so you the hope is you know something may work out maybe Chase expands into that future space or in the future and if Chase is able to collaborate with another tenant um but we are just here for the chase at this point other questions from the planning board Trisha I'll jump in um okay so in looking at the site I think this makes this this project makes a lot of sense um my questions were were just out of curiosity I I was reading a little bit about Chase's um solar power and EV charging station efforts around the country I think Chase has been kind of leading that way um as you might know Ashland um the town of Ashland through its town meeting about a year or so back approved a net zero initiative um and as a planning board we've been more sensitive to those types of initiatives are you at all interested uh in trying some solar on the site or having some um EV charging stations on site that are public where people can bring their car and and do that um and then in addition as you know that Route 126 has is going to have some bike paths on it um any possibility of maybe having some um storage for bikes or a place for folks who are moving down 126 on bikes to pull over and rest uh some sort of maybe place for them to sit or or a place to to leave a bike um anything like that that you're willing to do yeah it's it's great great feedback and great questions um so the good news is I have a little bit of time to kind of get with the team um to discuss it so um what we'll do is kind of between now when we go to the design review process and come back uh we'll meet with the team and kind of see what initiatives um or ideas we might be able to kind of bring in front of the board that'd be great and just to to clarify I don't I don't think I'm suggesting that the board require that this is not a special permit it's more of a conversation to see if Chase would be willing to do that um and if we can find some some ability to partner that way um and it would be exciting for Ashland and hopefully exciting for you as well as the applicant Peter a question for Peter machic um at what point in the process I mean this site obviously um was before the planning board not not too many years ago um but I I assume it still needs to go through um given any changes in parking needs to go through through some kind of technical review at the police department and the fire department um would that be would would that be happening soon in in this process yeah so these plans are going to be have been distributed to the planning off I mean to the fire department police department that hasn't been done well has been done I just haven't received any comments back could we could we augment that request to sort of see that if there is willingness by the applicant to have some EV charging stations for cars that that would be reviewed by the fire department as well of course yeah of course yeah so obviously it's an early stage and and we're happy to have a tech review meeting that hasn't been developed yet however you know we're happy to and and I spoken with the applicant I know they they I know I understand their time frame and their timeline uh but the plans um the plans have been circulated and and comments are will be kind of fed back through the planning board um any other questions from the board if I could just I had oh go ahead I just wanted to uh State for the record that although I'm not a direct butter I do live at the condos at leech Mir behind Shaws and I think I'm like within 100 feet of being a director butter but I'm not um so I just want to make sure that the public is aware that I do live fairly close but I'm not technically in a butter and therefore I am allowed to be in this in this uh decision process but I wanted to disclose it for the applicant and the public thank you and I had wanted to um not knowing at the time that we'd have such a split meeting I did have um and I I think I think it went forward had Peter put in um the binders Peter let me know if it if if it it wasn't able to happen but to have um the uh the bylaws that relate to um the site plan review and design plan review you know what Trisha um I apologize you did ask me and I dropped the ball so I was focused on getting other things in the packet so uh so I apologies yeah that that's okay I mean like I said I kind of we ended up to have a very uh split format here unexpectedly this evening so I had just wanted to um you know given that you know Amanda is new to the board and um this uh type of project of kind of a change of use in a way is um is fair is fairly new that um I was going to kind of direct our attention a little bit to what um like what are the requirements of site plan review what what we're looking for in that context and I don't think we need to go through the the whole list here I think the board has a general understanding but um but maybe those we can make sure those are in the um you know in for next time or or sent around um the things that go into um site plan review are both basic things like Wetlands Scenic views minimizing um vegetation removal screening objectionable features different things about um utilities um noise abatement um parking things like that zoning requirements so um it's a little bit different list uh as We Know Than a special permit um but I'll let the Board review those you know review those on on their own we're obviously this is just opening this project but we going to pay attention to those and the other thing is that will be I assume um we wanted this to open here but it might move fairly quickly to the design Review Committee that will be looking at um really looking at carefully the exterior facade um and given given given Marcelo and I's review of those criteria in in Fair detail um in dealing with 9 to 49 um Homer um I just wanted to those were going to go be in the binders as well but I I thought just to I'll just briefly read through those so we kind of know what goes into um what goes into the design Review Committee um which this which this project would trigger one is um landscape of course number two is building orientation but under building orientation there's a number of um considerations height Street facade spacing of buildings or signs materials textures and colors roof slopes and scale obviously some of those are relevant to an existing building and some of them are not number three is open space um landscape and usable Heritage so anything historic probably not a lot on this site pedestrian access um which would include bicycle facilities um and actually that's that's the last one for for actual criteria so I just wanted to kind of list those out knowing that what we will be um you know if if we're ready to send it right away to the design Review Committee that that that would be the list of what we would be asking them to investigate Marcelo yeah you beat me to the punch on that one I've been looking at the at the B laws and to me I mean from what I've seen this project seems to be more of a straightforward uh type of project I think the improvements make sense I agree with Anna and and the comments are good um is is there a way that we could um narrow down the items for the design review to to to of the bad remove those that do not apply so we don't get into in into unne necessary review of things that that definitely don't apply at an existing building so yeah I think I know the answer I'm just I'm just thinking out loud to see if it seems to be a it should be it should be able to be a kind of a narrow review of of straightforward by law items right right I I would agree with that that'd be any other comments from the board but there's definitely things um well by the way I I was to say that in my opinion this project can be sent to the design review um pretty quick I I don't I don't know that there's any large objections that would we would need to discuss before doing that I I would support the design review I I wonder if there is going to be some potential changes that um Josh said he was going to talk to the client about that that would affect like the final um like I think he could Envision some spectacular stuff we were talking about biking things around um and maybe even if it is some solar I don't know so I that that would be my only concern I I would support it but I would have a concern if it's the applicant comes back with some really great stuff but we didn't review that with design review because we already went through that process I think um um I I would say for for one thing that the sustainability list which should applicable to all our projects should also be forwarded um to Mr Klein um who can pass it on to anyone on the on the applicant team and obviously the things on those that list many of them are not going to be applicable but they can look for the one such as such as a bike rack that would be applicable you know on that list such as solar things like that um so that so they have that list but that list is um the sustainability list is most of those things really fall under probably the planning board purview it's only things like landscape obviously there's some comments about landscape on that sustainability list that should then cross over to the design Review Committee um I think other things I think in in design review committees um review they would be sticking to to their list as per the bylaw um but that doesn't mean other things that they might have some idea about um where those bike racks might go if if the applicant thought that that was a a good idea for their project so there still might be a little back and back and forth there but they it seems to it doesn't seem exclusive that it would um interrupt the process does does that sound okay Kate or yeah that's fine I I could see some changes that would affect obviously landscap rep put but it's that's fine I think if the applicant is ready to go we and the board supports it I I guess I'm comfortable with the applicant bringing those answers directly to the design Review Committee in order to help place them in the landscape um I I I agree with that and and and I think there's no reason to to to delay kind of the process of the application seem this one it's one that merits kind of do do things and and see what what can be improved I I think sending the list that we put together for the sustainability features that would be good um but making it clear that there are things there that the town aspires to and uh they're not specific requirements unless they are in the by lot so Ju Ju Just um second thing what what Anna said you know we would like to see a proactive uh offer of of something that that makes sense for the town um but but but I just want to make sure it's clear this is not a a bargaining situation I think um this could we do have a history now of putting together a memo for the design Review Committee and maybe these things can be expressed in that memo um Peter and I could put that together um I'm happy to circulate it to the board or if there's just and then and then obviously comments would go back to Peter or if there's just one other person that wants to work with me on that list we could do it that way too I agree and I'll be happy to to work on that if if is is that acceptable to the rest of the board or anyone who wanted to jump in there it's absolutely a straightforward project so very very minimal sight Improvement input is all that we're looking for if at all so as long as we don't complicate it with a short or List quick and in and out would be helpful agreed right is that the general sense of everybody Yes sounds sorry sorry I'm just adding that sounds reasonable to me okay thank you I would also say just just as um something that might be helpful for the applicant in going to the design Review Committee that I think would be it would be helpful to have just even just photographs of the current building I'm sure we all have been there but you kind of forget it's it's kind of hard to picture in your mind what what is changing and um and that might be just good make the conversation go easier if you can see what's there now and then and and then just photographs and and just what you're what you're changing um with the uh historic don't forget it was a blockbuster oh that's well those are uh you know oh boy that that is very good point I I do have one question for for Josh and I I I didn't quite see it um didn't pay attention when you put up the the site plan um there's a patio in front of one of the proposed new kind of fronts and entrances or that that say Chase um is is that going to to to be modified or use in a different way or or demolish and and done over the the patio is going to remain we're going to redo the landscaping around it just to kind of soften it um but at this time it's going to remain um and you know may be a program piece that the bank uses in the future it could be part of a a future tenant space so they're going to kind of clean it up and and Rel landscape it but keep it will the site lighting stay the same or are we looking to add more based on the flow so we are replacing the lighting um we have to meet kind of Bank security standards um just for safety purposes so we are going to be doing new lighting it's downwards downward facing full cut off shielded LED lighting so the goal is really kind of containing it into the areas for Bank customers but it will be kind of all new Lighting on site thank you Peter do you do you know if a a new lighting plan is required by the site review design review process so within the plan there is a lighting a new lighting plan submitted okay sorry I didn't see that yep it's uh sheet C4 okay uh I'm looking at it and obviously we'll we'll take a look at it a little bit deeper um into consideration okay um what this time before before we go any further um I will just um open the um open the discussion up for public comment if if there is any at this time and again I'll place a limit of 3 minutes um for speaker so in the room we have no uh we have no public comment and I see no public comment uh via the zoom meeting okay okay well that being the case I'll just summarize that Marcelo and I will work to put together a memo um with Peter to the design Review Committee um reflecting both the design review committee criteria as listed in the bylaws um and also but but looking at those of which ones may not be applicable to this project and also looking for minimal intervention where things are already existing such as Landscaping um is that um and and included with that we'll also send over the sustainability list to see when changes are made and when changes are appropriate if if if that list could be taken into consideration does that uh sound like a good summary um I would also add the tech review which I know is obvious but I think we should do a better job like we are of containing where we stand so yes yeah so the tech review is a little bit obviously separate from the memo but um but Peter will obviously make sure that happens and and get that information back to the planning board thank you and just to to look at the timeline of the calendar and and to this is you know for Josh and Andy um I think you know looking at looking into 20124 uh which is right around the corner um the first meeting in the of the design Review Committee uh is is earmarked I would say for January 4th um and so it would be January 4th that you may that you is your first opportunity to appear uh with the design Review Committee which would have you coming back to the planning board on January 11th um if that's um acceptable to you and then furthermore I would uh request that we continue uh and push out the date of final decision to at the minimum of January uh 26th that sounds great thank you is is Trisha any other planning board members is that from a Time standpoint is that um does that sit okay with everybody so we we would have one more meeting before decisions do is that true there'll be two meetings so we're going to meet uh in January 11th and then January 25th and then coming back on the 11th obviously and receiving input from the design Review Committee then we can kind of take the Pulse of where we stand at that point so I was going to ask that about that Peter so is is is the intent that the 11th we would have had already a memo from the design Review Committee to to discuss at that meeting you know what I think on the 11th I I would I would assume yes the Des Review Committee would have a memo coming back to us they at at their last few meetings and and you know speaking you know for in my own opinion the design Review Committee has been pretty good to get memos to the planning board uh you know within within a you know 48 hours of of having their meetings P personally I would rather kick that out just a little bit further because otherwise it just seems like we're always moving these dates and I don't want I don't I I agree um with Marcelo and with other members of the board that this really should be fairly straightforward but we usually also in a meeting go through um criteria you know and we go through um the approval document if if that's the way we're going and that and that does take some time and sometimes there's some answers sometimes we're waiting for the tech review to happen and things to get back so I feel like two more meetings to me is okay we're going to be kicking that date down the road you know likely again okay versus having just a more comfortable date and um you know and having a little bit more breathing room here instead of always looking at that date would February 9th be acceptable would that would that would give three meetings with the planning board and February 9th would be the day after the planning board meeting it would be the Friday the day after the first meeting in February I think that's a Min I think that's a minimum for me but it's fine at least it gives us a little breathing room okay is that acceptable to the applicant yes okay that'll be fine it's just it should be a straightforward project but there's just always pieces that have to come together and we just keep having to kick that date down the road and it gets a little repetitive I guess appreciate thank you thank you should I make a motion yes please all right I make a motion that we continue the 3 320 Pawn Street site plan approval JP Mor Chase Bank to the January 11th planning board meeting subject to going to design review endorsed by the planning board potentially for the January 4th meeting subject to an extension of the date till February 9th 2024 is there a second yes on second and a roll call vote andit I I Katherine Jers I and terisha Kendall I so that is continued until January 11th thank you thank you very much all right all right next on our agenda um is the special permit um application for 400 Cedar Street the applicant is T-Mobile Northeast Peter can you give us an update yep uh excuse me so since the last time uh this application's been in front of the board um the applicant uh has has gone through and completed all peer review um with our uh peer review Halen Ward and so this application was supposed to appear at our last meeting we continued uh because that was not completed yet however since our last meeting a new plan has been submitted um actually two new revisions have been submitted um there was letters going back and forth um from our peer reviewer and it was just uh today that I received uh that's within our packet uh it's a top letter in our packet um from haly and Ward uh d dated December 14th that the approved excuse me that the proposed um application of moving the antennas from the top of the water tower to the side uh is acceptable in all uh construction methods uh furthermore I do want to highlight an email from Adam brayy December 13th um and that included a um uh a letter which is dated December 13th um regarding the engineering evaluation regarding the anchor antenna installation and that is a stamped letter from a civil engineer um and that is within everyone's packet furthermore I want to identify December 12th uh T-mobile installation on Cedar Street peer review number two and then additionally uh November 22nd install T-Mobile installation on Cedar Street structural peer review number one uh and so those elements are all here tonight uh furthermore I think the planning board has received a few emails uh those have been printed out and added to the packet um and that's what's what's in everyone's packet uh I did include a uh legal memorandum dated o December 8th 2022 from Lisa me and that was dealt with a very similar plany board application uh which was on 20 Pond n Rosa Road uh mean 2020 it's correct correct I'm sorry2 thank you uh that was added uh just as some uh to help any uh if if the planning board or any members or a question comes up regarding legal guidance uh so that was added uh here tonight so with that said um uh from a from a structural standpoint um the applicant has met the standards of the town of Ashland and it has been peer reviewed uh uh which is which is a typical uh process that we go through uh anytime um we're mounting telecommunications equipment onto town-owned property in this case this is the uh water tank at 400 Cedar Street so other than those updates um I would like to hand it over to the applicant uh who is represented tonight by attorney Adam brayy uh thank you Peter members of the board again Adam brard with Prince B Thai uh just for the record also um on the zoom is is Garrett uh Conroy Garrett is with Center Line Communications he's the project manager for um this this project can answer any additional questions that the board may have relevant to the application uh I think Peter summed it up um pretty well we've been working T-Mobile has been just a quick history I think I think it's on the record but just so um the board and the public knows T-Mobile's been at this location since 2002 and has modified the site two or three times um since then the latest requested modification was in January 20122 so just under two years ago where it um was looking to replace its an some of the antennas currently on the tank are um three sets of three panel antennas on the top of the tank so nine panel antennas with some remote radio units and some tmas or Tower mounted um antennas um for ancillary uh equipment what the um applicant back then in in January 2022 asked the um town to do was the right to just um replace I think maybe six of those nine antennas keep the same number of antennas um the town at that point under the guidance of um third party consult consultant Haley Ward said you know you should really consider putting these uh antennas on the side of the tank and not on the top um the applicant was amendable to that at the same time the um the underlying agreement with the town was um up for Renewal so the town issued a request for proposal for lease agreements on the tower which T-Mobile um responded to and was awarded the bid I think in May of um 2022 September um let me just back up to those dates uh yeah T-Mobile responded to that bid and in May 2023 um and then um we negotiated T-Mobile negotiated a new lease agreement with the town um for an installation of its equipment on the side of the tank and and um entered into that lease agreement I think the end of the summer where was fully executed and then in August uh early September we filed the uh modification of the special permit here with the with the board to uh relocate those antennas the the installation will actually include um eight panel antennas so not nine so we're actually going to be reducing the number of antennas and that's simply because of the locations that we're proposing on the on the tank and where the where the town wants um team will to go they'd like to have the full nine array but they're only going to get eight they're good they're okay with that and then some anary um remote radio units so I think that's it we the applications filed under the um 2012 fed fedal tax um Relief act I just want to make sure I say that exact term correctly it's um it's under what we call the Spectrum act which is the federal middle class relief in jobs creation Act of 2012 and specifically under that act section 649 or what we call the Spectrum act which is basically um allows carriers to collocate on existing facilities or base stations provided they don't substantially change the dimensions of that uh facility we clearly don't change that um the any we don't substantially change those Dimensions we're not um increasing the height of the the tank we're actually going from I think 99 ft on top of the tank down to 75 ft the height at the top of the tank is 91 ft so we comply with that requirement um we are uh not going to um protrude from the exterior of the tank by more than 6 ft it's going to be more like 2 ft similar to the other antennas that are on the on the side of the tank we're not going to um um be doing any excavation on the outside of the site I don't think we're doing any excavation because our equipment and is all above ground with our cabling on cable trays um where we are installing we Curr T-Mobile currently has two um equipment cabinets on site we're going to be replacing one of those with two smaller ones the uh eligible facilities re request substantial um requires that you not go above four um radio uh cabinet so we'll be at three um we comply with um the any uh requirements from the prior decisions with respect to any conditions that the town had had and to the extent that there were any um uh concealment or stealthing requirements as part of those prior decisions comply with those there were none so um we're we're conforming to the existing characteristics of the tank with respect to the antenna sizes and um well obviously I'm not sure if it's in the plans but we would um agree to paint the the antennas to match the color of the tank should the town want to do that so we certainly comply with the um what we call the 649 Spectrum act and I think because of that the you know the board would you know should should move forward with its um with its decision thanks thank you thank you um at this time I'd like to open it up to questions from questions or comments from the board I I I'll go Trisha no in my view I think the the only item that we had discussed that we were concerned about was the structural uh integrity and the and the analysis of the structural engineer that haven't been um confirmed positive um I don't think there's any any other things in my mind that that need to be reviewed thank you any any other members of the board um I don't know if it's a question but I was curious about all the emails that we got about uh the concern from Health point of view from lot of the citizens that I'm just curious uh is there something that we can do to make sure that we first acknowledge all those emails but also at the same time um make sure that by approving such developments we are not really causing a long-term damage um and ignoring all the emails so I'm curious like does the public health team ever vain in all these topics is that something that could have gone their way just to make sure that we can respond to all the emails that we've been getting you know I think so are you asking Deepa um that you're right a lot of the emails um arrived just in the last day or so um and haven't really had obviously I Kate had acknowledged that they were received but um not not responded to because it just hasn't been time so are you um are you feeling that um that given the emails that were received it would be it would like is there time to to acknowledge that that receipt and get back to the residents um before moving forward is that your question um more so um yes acknowledging those emails is different thing but kind of responding to make sure that um as a planning board we are looking into the health concerns that folks have and I don't know if it's something that we could have um expertise team like our Public Health that we have weigh in on such topics I'm not sure if that's even a so I mean this is a I think I really appreciate what Deepa is saying and where my head is at is what I like in your comment is we may have legal obligation to not consider the health issues presented to us as part of the spectrum act right on the other hand the public seems to have grave concerns that we may not have the jurisdiction to address is there another entity that the public can go to to essentially air out the concerns and feel confident that although the Federal Law requires certain kinds of activity and by the way it's not just federal law I don't know uh how many members of the public are here with these concerns but I'll say that just yesterday uh there was a news article at least two towns in Massachusetts have attempted to create a moratorium against this type of technology and the AG's office the state of Massachusetts has ruled that that's not appropriate and so there is pretty recent controversy around the issues of the health of these kinds of Technologies in Massachusetts and so we as members of a public committee I think need to recognize that there is controversy out there but there's also very very strong Federal and local Authority indicating that organizations such as this one cannot limit this technology so we have to be cognizant of both our legal our legal limitations we cannot say no for health reasons but the Public's concerned so on that issue my personal opinion is that the health concerns out there the reason they are so delicate and controversial is because there has not been definitive research to outright say one way or the other there's been research that is fairly uh all over the place and there are some scientists who are leaning one way and there's others who are leaning another way and uh that to me my personal opinion is that that appears to be why there is so much controversy in this field and I will simply State a personal preference that I hope that there will be more significant research locally we live in Massachusetts it's a very intelligent educated State and I would urge the public to bring their concerns towards the scientific community and to really push for more research on this topic so that folks like us are not simply our hands are not just tied um because at this point it appears that the research is not so significant that the federal government or the state um are changing their perspective so until they do until the research shows definitively the concerns that the public appears to have um that's where we are so that's my own personal opinion in in my opinion just to answer your question I think obviously if it's a Board of Health matter you know it can be taken up by the Board of Health um is it a Zone yes we do have zoning and and Zoning has been a tool to kind of instrument the placement of of of telecommunication Towers I think overall if it's if it becomes if it's a concern of this citizens I think it doesn't it touches more than just a zoning Bo the board excuse me it touches more than just a planning board who reviews the zoning it also touches the Board of Health and it touches the board of selectman because it's a policy issue and so I think that's where I would stand but I think regarding the Spectrum act and and the application I think we have to we we are we have to limit ourselves to the application our bylaws current bylaws not our any future bylaws and then kind of go from that point on I um and I I appreciate that uh that summary I thought it was um ve very clear and it kind of describes um the kind of the kind of tricky place that the planning board um you know finds itself in that that we do have um we do have federal laws and other regulations that we that we need to follow that we are not um we don't have um an authority above those um but yet our residents um you know have the right to show concerns about about those things and obviously we we care about our residents so it puts us in a very tricky position about about perhaps dealing with some issues um that just that just isn't in our realm of expertise you know um and and and as you say are kind of waiting for um some more definitive information that that we can utilize as well in doing our job so um I I appreciate that um I I appreciate that analysis I I want to see if there's anyone else on the planning board who would like to speak and then I wanted to open it up for public comment anyone else from the planning board okay then we will um I will open it up for public comment again um three minutes per resident I I see a li limited amount of people online here Peter um maybe you can manage whoever's in the room sure no I'll I'll I'll manage everyone in the room and I have my timer um so we have currently one person at the podium Miss CC duet thank you Peter and if I may there are a number of residents who wanted to be here tonight and couldn't and ask that I speak on their behalf as well I have prepared an 8-minute statement that I hope you'll allow me to present to you um how does the planning board feel about that I'm looking for inut I'm I'm supportive I I appreciate that fellow board members are supportive of hearing from the public given our difficult legal situation we at least need to hear okay okay thank you very muchow CE sorry I I will allow that but we will be keeping to that timeline of eight minutes okay thank you Trish you're welcome my name is Cecilia ducet I'm an Ashlin resident and and the director of Massachusetts for safe technology and the international nonprofit Wireless education thanks to each of you for giving your time to our town please do not approve modification for the T-Mobile special permit that was granted in 200 and two until you consult with an expert attorney who writes protective zoning bylaws for municipalities much has happened in the 21 years since that permit was first granted today we know far more about Wireless technology risks and the laws that govern them than we did when your predecessors unwittingly approved special permit that allowed cell towers in residential areas today we know there are several Public Safety risks over which you do have control public safety risk number one cell towers and related equipment have been the cause of major fires from coast to coast you may remember the Spencer Church fire that burned to the ground recently it had cell antennas in the steeple that served as a lightning rod it is important to know that a cell tower fire cannot be immediately extinguished by firefighters with an electrical fire the power company has to First kill the power to prevent the firefighters from becoming electrocuted this process can take up to an hour in which time especially if it's a windy day the entire neighborhood can burn down the Cedar Street cell tower has homes very close by in all directions fire risk can leave hundreds of Ashlin residents vulnerable when we allow cell towers in at close range public risk number two is legal liability did you know that Lloyds of London Swiss re am best and other major insurers have long since recognized radi frequency radiation as a world leading risk on on par with asbest and do not provide insurance coverage they have put exclusions in their policies which can leave Ashland assuming liability if our zoning code is not protective public safety risk number three is energy consumption did you know that wireless technology consumes 10 times more energy than hardwired connections and that the itle E forecast 5G will use three to four times more energy than 4G Wireless technology is a leading contributor to climate change public safety risk number six is there has been no safety testing Wireless industry Representatives admitted to us Senator Richard Blumenthal at a congress Committee hearing that they have not funded any independent research to prove 5G is safe before coming to Market in a 4-minute clip I will send to you Senator Blumenthal correctly States so as far as safety is concerned we are Flying Blind here studies show that close-range cell towers decrease property values and in town and in turn our Town's tax revenue Ashlin deserves better and there are many fine examples to follow a good attorney in Wayland helped years ago to establish zoning setbacks that recently allowed the town to legally reject a cell tower application at the whan Roden gun club which abuts a neighborhood we know the industry routinely threatens to sue uninformed towns if they reject an application The Tide Is Now turning last year Pittsfield Massachusetts residents opened a lawsuit against the city after a cell tower made 17 children and adults so sick that they had to abandon their homes the Massachusetts Association of Health boards sent an amicus brief to the court in support of the citizens and we are awaiting the judge's ruling on that last month public servants in Stanford Connecticut through the initiative of their state representative took the time to become informed on wireless risks and rejected a plan the industry had crafted with the governor to place 5G small cells inside neighborhoods Stanford even said the threat of a lawsuit is not reason enough to put citizens In Harm's Way just last week the Burlington Public Ser uh Burlington Mass planning board voted 7 to zero to reject an industry influence zoning law update they voted to instead hire a consultant who specializes in Telecom law and can skillfully represent the town's best interest not the industries just yesterday Children's Health defense filed a groundbreaking lawsuit for Ada protections for a man injured by cell tower radiation just like with big tobacco The Tide Is Now turning on big Wireless 5G is a bad choice for our communities and our planet the industry pushes more product which then requires more capacity which then requires more hazardous cell towers 5G uses exis ing 3G and 4G longer wavelengths to carry signal and data plus 5G adds another untested layer of radio frequency radiation using short millimeter waves that quickly degrade in bad weather industry solution is to fill our neighborhoods with millions of cell antennas right outside our bedrooms so their signals can get through to the devices they've convinced you you need the responsible solution for Ashland and every Community is fiber optics to and through the premises once we are wired we do not need Clos range cell towers and we can meet industry's capacity needs with existing equipment responsibly placed away from sensitive areas like homes schools medical facilities senior centers and recreational areas the industry however is prone to taking the path of least resistance they Target location where they don't have to pay to run electrical lines or to pave roads to the tower hence the cell anten is installed dangerously close in residential areas the New Hampshire legislature has already investigated 5G risks and issued this groundbreaking report recommending science-based setbacks at a minimum of 500 M or 1,640 ft transitioning away from unsafe wireless connections for primary connectivity and investing in fiber to and through the premises other communities are already doing this around the world and Anna to answer your question the FCC has now been sued for ignoring 11,000 pages of scientific evidence of harm we do not need more science we need public policy to catch up my ask of you today is threefold first pause T-Mobile's modification request for the 2002 special permit and engage the services of attorney Andrew Campanelli Mr Campanelli worked for industry for years until he realized the harm they are inflicting and now he represents municipalities he's one of the nation's leading experts in Telecom law and he can advise us on our legal options with this T-Mobile application second for the short fee of $88,500 Mr Campanelli can review our existing zoning bylaws and recommend rewrites to help Ashlin retain local control to the fullest extent allowable under current state and federal law third I would like to partner with the planning board the select board and the Board of Health to provide towns sponsored educational Forums on wireless risks and safer Technology Solutions I've done so with the hansam Maria Town select board as well as with Town health and the burkers citizens and municipality leaders are grateful to learn the facts and safer ways to still access today's technology but without these very dangerous risks and to codify it in their zoning bylaws thank you I'd be happy to answer any questions are there any questions from the board Peter are there any res other residents um in the room that were looking for an opportunity to speak of course no uh there's somebody coming to the podium okay thank you hi my name is Lori Wen and I co-administer sustainable Upton and environmentally oriented group of Upton with 373 members we've been working with our planning board to update our wireless bylaw that was written in 2012 during the age of large cell towers with long slow waves a mile away from people's homes in May of last year at our town meeting we weren't able to get the two-thirds needed to pass that new bylaw but we had a commanding majority of citizens vote with us to show their concern now we are working closely with our planning board to finalize a better bylaw we hope to pass this may we are told that 5G need instead of the long slow waves from a mile away we are told that it needs to be on light utility and Telo telephone poles every 2 to 500 ft right outside our homes our schools playgrounds daycare centers and senior housing there's been no safety testing this close infrastructure or the effect of the satellites that surround the world the Earth and pulse microwave radiation down to these cell antennas we don't know it's effect on children adults pets or wildlife the wh classifies emf's radio frequency radiation in the same category as lead and DDT because of this we are basing our bylaw on one written by a telecon litigation attorney the same one that CC just spoke about and hope to work with him to have an effective bylaw that protects Aesthetics which is allowed in the FCC law property values and safety which are also allowed the bylaw we are using as our basis has already been been accepted approved and is in use many public servants were skeptical of the need for this at first but now they see our citizens concerns and they have concerns themselves our Board of Health did not feel there was enough information for them to rule that they felt that wireless technology was safe and they have submitted that to our planning board so they have that information as well in addition as we have heard it is a climate killer and I heard you have a zero uh policy for climate in this town which is wonderful but the small cell antennas that are going to go on all the telephone poles right outside of homes all emit energy and they will and they're combustible as well and they would not fit I don't think within those guidelines so I feel that um I'm very grateful for the opportunity to speak about this and I'm glad to hear that the tide is turning I'm aware of those cases out in western Mass they uh uh moratorium is not okay but a strong bylaw is a very good effective tool and I hope you'll consider it thank you thank you uh next to the podium Mr Mark Doon Mr Mar do please introduce you yourself the name and address okay M I'm thinking the board to let cc go full length with her her readings there I'm looking at this is through the uh the emails that came in did the emails come in dueing business hours yes or no yes they did Mark was there any border Health officials in the office at the time the the the you put me on the spot Mark but but yeah you know the the direct the board of health manager you know Mr Raj Gupta was probably in the office yes property in the office oh not sure he was we both have very busy schedules Mark so to say he was in his seat I can't confirm nor deny but uh now the reason why I'm saying that because the people were in trouble themselves to send emails if they didn't want a response from the Board of Health department so I'm coming to it they saying was there a Bo of health personnel that saw those emails before this meeting tonight no and you said they my property was here in the office in their in their department but they didn't see the emails why well Mark number one they were not addressed to the Board of Health they were sent to the planning board to the ashin planning board account but it had bo health issues had health issues so so Mark to your point and this was going to be my comment as a planning board member to the planning board I I think for me as I'm listening to the public input including your questions what it boils down for me is the the federal and state law in light of our current bylaw truly limits what this planning board can do however if there is citizen concern just like in Upton that specific information needs to come to the Board of Health citizens should and could do that in addition if citizens want to propose a bylaw a town meeting in Ashland or involve the planning board or request planning board involvement for a bylaw that for example Narrows in certain uh setbacks not a moratorium but setbacks related to schools for example I have not seen such a proposal yet right so until those things happen there's there's not a lot that this planning can do with our current bylaw and federal and state regulations and for the setbacks years some years ago including the P Roser and the one up on Cedar extension the water tower there was the setbacks talked about that and this is going to be not going to change because the property itself is not going to be differently set back it's going to stay where it is so the frequency see the r the radio um com combin ohms and everything the technical side things is going to be an issue that the board may hear from citizens again but I sure that the citizens who did these emails would like to get an answer from the Board of Health themselves maybe the Board of Health can come in as an agenda item to come in to talk about this the next time it comes in and get their opinions so those emails can be answered properly thank you and I just want to clarify that when I brought this topic up I think um I understand that it's definitely under not our preview to kind of make that call but I'm just surprised that all those emails came to the planning board instead of Board of Health which would have been the right way to come to kind of a solution for that um those questions instead of coming to the planning board so I think that's where I was wondering um why the Board of Health was not involved in these emails versus the planning board where we definitely like Anna very nicely put it it's not in our jurisdiction to even look at those concerns unfortunately I I think as well um many of the concerns that were mentioned and then talking about um revision of bylaws um and and also some of I'm familiar with many of the news articles that Miss Miss deette mentioned um and many of them involved um locations of new cell towers which is not what we're doing here our bylaws may may maybe they do need an updating is for for new cell towers th this is about a specific federal law about replacement of of existing um you know things that are already on existing towers and and that's what this um application falls under um you know maybe our bylaws far as other things maybe they they could look use um a closer look and updating I'm I'm certainly not opposed to that nor nor is it an area of my expertise but um but the the the problem at hand is um a lot narrower um I think I think than that um k did you want to weigh in or or Amanda um on this well well I think I mean I appreciate and I think it's clear the board does appreciate public comments um and I think it speaks to me of maybe we have to do a better job of like publicizing when there are limits on things so it it's probably frustrating we're having a public hearing and I think we've proven we're very much willing to hear and and we did not ignore them people took those to Heart we're in a position that we cannot do what's being asked except um the looking at the bylaw for the future so I think um I think there is some onus on the board to maybe try to to um maybe even put some of those things on our website about when we're publishing a hearing on a specific thing so people people have easy access to that um I'd like to see that I guess I'm I I I I think I agree with with everything Anna said and and you said um I I think the this explanation is is a very compelling subject to to consider um but but I think we are in the third um um hearing on on on this um antenna replacement and I think it's very difficult to come at at this meeting and say please don't approve this based on on on on that long-term uh potential plan for for doing things differently um I think the we are responsible for for dealing with these application under the laws and unless those those laws change I don't know that that we want to um basically submit the the the town to a lawsuit uh of of something that's covered under federal law so it it is kind of a difficult position uh and and um you know changing the the bylaws and investigating more I I think not not many people will will will be against that um but it is I I I just don't see the the immediate application to this to this case and and um I I don't think that there's um uh that would have the authority to Simply say oh no we we're just not going to approve it for that reason yeah agreed I think um to Kate's point the you know understanding around and I think this goes to deep as original question the understanding around what we have perview um and jurisdiction over in regards to this application um the two prior hearings and and sort of where those queries were directed as they came in today um this goes back to to Mr Don's question um where you know those came in during business hours to the planning board not to the Board of Health likely because we had this hearing but you know these issues are outside of our purview in the scope of this specific application um and so I I also just wanted to thank um everyone for the public comment um but agree absolutely with um Kate and Marcelo and um the other board members uhet it looks like someone else is at the mic yeah we have one person up at the microphone waiting for a public comment so I'm going to introduce oh yeah we're gonna have two people so uh I'm just going to uh turn it over to whoever's at the microphone so please introduce your name and address and you can State your statement um I'm Jay Mackin I'm at 386 Cedar Street so you can figure out that I'm pretty close to 400 um I've been before this board numerous times over the last 20 something years uh bought my house in 94 um I will say this when I did my research and figured out that um the Niza thing was under control and I decided to move to Ashland the last thing I anticipated was that this board not necessarily you would continue to make decisions that would drive my property value down well that ship sailed because it already has that being said in light of all kinds of new evidence you're continuing to listen to Big cellular who's working on radiation regulations from 1996 if I'm correct that's a long time ago um I plead with you stop this enough's enough and the FCC is under a lawsuit it's only a matter of time before they start going local and the town and particular board members even could be at risk of having put citizens at risk um stop it put an end to it and in fact don't grant their request shut them all down thank you here one comment um oh I'm sorry somebody's going to speak oh okay I can hear you to come back yes hi well no it was it was not about your comment in general it just the but but I I don't want to cut off the the other person that wants that wants to speak I I I was just um going to say but but with with all all these um um um public concern which is which is very important to listen to um these these um um these lease renewal is is a lease that the town is put out for for Public public RFP so the town is is charging a lease to to for for these locations so it seems to me that that this effort it's it's again I feel it's very difficult for the planning board to to basically ignore all all the regulations uh but it would be very easy if the if the town as a whole did not want these antennas the town can let the lease simply expire and not renew it that would be a simpler way but but that's that that that would be the right way to approach seems to be the only thing that I can say and I've heard this been pushed over to a board of health issue and not this planning board I've never gotten a notification from the Board of Health to come here and speak about this issue I've only gotten it from this board and that goes back over 20 years so if you don't have a the ability to make a decision on this which maybe you don't then why pretend that you do I I think it's I think it's important to understand and I know it's difficult to understand and a number of people who have been um saying this is that um the planning board is put in a very particular very difficult position here that we're we're required to go through this process though we have no control over the other aspects of things and we are legally obligated under federal law to approve these kind of modifications um we don't put out the rfps we don't evaluate Health none of that is in our purview only this little piece we're required by law to send out when things come like this for these these kind of U updates we're required by law to notify everyone within 300 ft so that is what we do but our power here when when when someone says stop it stop this from happening it it's it's not within our power to do that we don't have that jurisdiction that power is not given to us so it puts us in a very difficult who power is it in when I get notifications to come to these okay well the FCC is being sued it's coming think about that it's coming Peter was there yes so we have one more person up there would like to make a public comment so please step forward to the microphone and introduce yourself with your name and address hi my name is Melissa I live at 173 Leland Farm Road so I am in the ledge Mir um condos as well and from what I could tell from seeing a map I am in the footprint of this uh technology and I do have my own concerns that um are pretty much my own research and experience um I want to make it brief and that's I am very much concerned about anyone just W being willing to wash their hands of this before actually being able to be consulted by people who have been doing the work that have the information that you need um I think it's a great idea if you're worried about legal and I keep hearing the legal the legal the time the time where do we stand where do where where is our voice going to land who is going to help us because if we have concerns and you can address them I think someone I I just met these ladies and I didn't know about them um but they have an OB obvious logical solution and that would be to get some legal consultation that would represent um the residents as well as help you be more informed about where where you stand legally because I I would hate to think that after I've invested my all of my time and effort to be a resident of this town that I have no voice that people who have been here for two times longer than I've lived here have no voice and I think that's really what you're trying to sort out is how how much much can you do for us well I think just taking the time to think that over and get some legal consultant um that knows how to answer your questions and how to direct that and and tell you what you can do it would be so much better for me as a resident to know that you're making those efforts and not just wash your hands out it so just here where we do have a legal consultant we have Town counsel who offered an opinion okay and so and just to kind of clarify the legal consultant that has been suggested through public comment is someone who works very closely with municipalities to create bylaw changes and that's not what's up for consideration tonight right and so there isn't that I'm aware of there isn't a way to consult your way out of a Federal Regulation that it sounds like a lot of people in this room disagree with right so what for me it's really really straightforward we have a federal law and we have state Juris jurisdiction very clean in Massachusetts right now as to what this board can do we also have a democracy we have a town meeting model in this community and we appear to have very strong passionate residents in this room who believe a bylaw should be proposed and that is the proper course of action and you don't need a legal opinion for that you can read our bylaws there's a town meeting model and any citizen concern can be brought through a citizen petition to a town meeting for a bylaw change with any expert that you wish to hire you don't need the planning board to tell you that that is democracy in this town period so if you disagree with our jurisdiction and you want to change the laws you can do that through town meeting I I believe that is pushing it down the road when um if other towns are able to but that's what other towns are doing that's direct democracy that's the beauty of America that's why I moved to this country right however I feel that there's there's no consider consideration of what you can do even though the federal law says something there's something else that should be able to represent local municipalities right so our job is to follow the law which is the bylaw the regulation and federal law you're saying we need you to go against it this board is essentially sharing with you an agreement with our Town Council that right now the law in this jurisdiction does not allow us to rule against it however it's a direct democracy there is a Town Meeting Mall other towns like Upton have chosen to go to town meeting and create bylaws that are narrow and create setbacks Etc and they're hoping that that will fly and I wish them luck and I hope it does for them because I would support that bylaw if I saw that but that is not what I'm being asked today to rule on I'm not being asked to create a bylaw if we want to have a bylaw conversation my opinion will be I'll support a bylaw that is limited in scope and create setbacks but that's not what we're discussing today I really thought that the zoning thing could be addressed that's what I was hoping I have not seen that on our agenda that is not open meeting we we're not discussing the zoning bylaw we're discussing an applicant in front of us based on our current bylaw the current Federal Regulation and the current state regulation that's being discussed by the AG's office with other communities this is the reality on the ground if there is direct democracy interest in changing that your proper mechanism would be town meeting through a bylaw and an attempt just like Upton to go a different route so in other words we have to pay our way to get anything done uh this is the beauty of democracy that it's not about payment it's about acting through voting and through town direct democracy which is town meeting to change laws that you disagree with I just don't see a willingness here I'm going to just make that comment thank if I could just clarify when I presented to the planning board it was probably most of you were not on the planning board at the time but Lisa me was there and I asked her if she is an expert in Telecom law and she indicated she is not an expert in Telecom law so with this T-Mobile special permit we are asking that you speak to an expert because the industry leads us to believe that our hands are tied but they're not one little finger might be tied but there are many things that we can often do that our towns simply do not know about out so please give Andrew Campanelli a call he'll do a free consultation on the phone with you and tell you what he thinks but do not just go by what you think you've been told by industry or what you've been advised by an attorney who does not specialize in Telecom law so at least do us the courtesy of speaking to Andrew Campanelli and if he says yeah the way it is right now you're screwed T-Mobile is allowed to put that toxic cell antenna up they're allowed to add new technology to that cell tower they're not just replacing antennas they are putting in new technology that we should have local control over not industry with all due respect to our friend from industry here T-Mobile's parent company in Germany in the year 2000 commissioned a study on telecommunications equipment and health and they found cancers DNA damage infertility headaches nose bleed nausea dizziness anxiety depression and so much more and they buried the report I have a copy of that report that I will include for you and for the Board of Health please don't just kick this down the road use your voice and get the federal laws changed right now the Telecom industry has dozens of bills that they are working on at the federal level to completely strip every one of our towns of local control that is something you could actively do is stand up as a town and say Do not pass these bills reach out to Jim McGovern Lori and I have already met with Jim McGovern he said Gee that cell that cell phone pulses microwave radiation that dis reggulator maybe that's why I don't sleep anymore so let's do what we can from where we are let's use our voice and not just roll over and say that's the law let's change the law that is what democracy is meant to be yeah I think and I think that's actually um and this is just J gr I think actually that is what Anna is is saying and um it may not be I don't feel um we feel that we are listening to the residents we're trying to hear you what you have to say I'm I'm a wondering if you're um if if you're hearing what an what um Anna was saying and in and what the board is saying that um that we're actually are are could be interested in in these uh bylaw changes in further steps in a better understanding but it's looking at it in a um the issue at hand is not that issue no I understand that please please I didn't interrupt you right um I'm ask I'm I'm trying to get to a point that what we have in in front us today is extremely limited and the The Proposal the the questions you're act you're act uh asking and the possible paths are are are Broad and ones that we can look further into but um those two are they're related obviously but they may be two very different things um um tell Council um obviously is not Lisa me is very well not an expert in telecommunications but she is an expert in Municipal law and that is what we are we're we're part of the municipal system and so she so she's advising Ashland her job is to advise Ashland in areas of M Municipal law so um so that is the situation we are in and I not to kind continue to argue with the public but I I'll also add that there's two planning board members myself and an associate member who are attorneys and you know I I don't throw that around because frankly usually that's not a good thing um but I can tell you I'm trained to read regulations and laws and this issue is very important to me outside of this particular hearing and I have friends who've been impacted by Wireless technology who've been involved in some of the issues that you discuss so I am personally very familiar with your concerns and I am very familiar with the Telecom issues and I could not find enough legal basis for me to comfortably rule against this application and so this idea that we need to speak to a telecom Council who may have a different view I I appreciate that opinion but I think his expertise lies in B laws not in somehow overruling federal law and so with all due respect I I think that we are very much hearing you and we may even be personally in agreement with you and we may even support or the bylaw that you might propose if it's narrow right because a moratorium is not going to fly but a narrow bylaw that deals with setbacks May in fact be workable for Ashland and I would personally support that if you brought that here right but for you to tell us that we need an expert to overrule federal law I respectfully disagree with that well I'm not saying to overrule federal law I'm asking that you check in with somebody who does this day in and day out and ask his opinion on what T-Mobile has proposed I don't think that is an outlandish request I think that you do not have expertise in Telecom law Lisa me does not have expertise in Telecom law the industry tells us what they want us to hear and we have not checked in with an expert in Telecom law that's what I'm asking for the 2002 special permit condition that they're asking for he's a nice guy give him a call I'm sure he is I will just say the when I went to law school one of the first thing you learn very quickly is that the right answer to any legal question is it depends right and so this idea that o there's this expert I can talk to I can tell you in Telecom law like any law there's going to be the right attorney will say whatever it is that you need them to say and a good lawyer will find a way to make an argument that you wish them to make and so just like there's experts at the firm who support our applicant there's going to be experts who are going to try to find a different way to interpret it what I'm telling you is my job as a planning board member is to review the arguments and to become comfortable with my position and what I'm telling you is I would not feel comfortable um denying this application based on the laws in front of me right now okay and I can respect that I don't and I don't need an expert to tell me otherwise because I've already thought it through um and you can find an expert on either side of this issue is including the science which is which is why this is so complicated and I get that but he will tell towns no you don't stand a chance bottom line if there's nothing legal that can be done he will tell you that but he knows the law better than almost anybody in this country and it's he doesn't just do Municipal zoning bylaws he goes through the courts and he wins cases if we can stop it often times before the antennas go so that sounds like something that you may want to bring up to the select board who would have the policy jurisdiction to discuss that with you it sounds like you're you're pushing the town to be willing to kind of handle it legally and that is not something that we as a planning board have jurisdiction over um but I appreciate your opinion I think you've had a very strong public comment um and unless there's other public comment I would say that it's time to to move forward thank you one more thank you yeah so um um Trisha Peter is there anyone else in line yeah Marky just stepped up to the microphone I Mark I will give you one more chance to speak and I will take no other speakers in line okay thank you okay that we talk talking about this applicant at this moment at this time what would happen if another ocate with the same agenda item comes before the board will any of this that came up tonight be included in the discussion don't me answer that Mark sometimes I feel like I forget things very easily as I'm getting older but I assure you that if the exact same issue came before for us this board is quite passionate about trying to be consistent and we we've been learning a lot as we go and I think you've been here to so many of our meetings where we are always aiming to be better learn from our experience and I'm sure we would we would discuss some of the similar issues and and probably learn as we go so learn as you go yes the two-way street the middle of the power up compromise talk it through from a big power up to a understanding that everybody's happy with this tonight everybody was in a um big PowerUp and there was a compromise but not a true understanding because the issues and laws and stuff like that got in the way and people wanted to be hurt either either way one way or the other and The Advocate wants to be heard one way or the other so we got a kind of down the road not kicking it down the road or anything like that but have the understanding that next time this something like this comes up all this that was tonight including any emails the Board of Health should get an assist in the in the uh preparing for when it comes up again thank you m thank you all right so um back to the board we have um so we we have uh two options I think in front of us we have um we have a draft document um which is a bit old now maybe I think U Peter has gone through it and change appropriate dates and document lists the document is otherwise fairly straightforward and simple we can go through that document tonight we can take a vote on this tonight or we can um potentially postpone this until the 11th um and um ask attorney me to come in come in person respond to any of our questions um can I get U as are people looking one way or another what to I think those those are our two options we continue we continue to our next meeting or we um or we go through the approval document um and and take a vote tonight I mean I'll just say I I reviewed the the proposed decision I I think that it may have been drafted prior to the passion of public comments and emails that we've received and it also does not reference Town Council opinion as far as I can tell um and so as long as it's amended to adequately recognize the extens of public com including Town Council opinion um I would be comfortable with this document and I can just add that since that since I've reprinted everything obviously I've added all the documents I came in from Halen Ward and we've kind of moved past that um and and that's where it kind of stands so obviously uh just to give some color to the draft Peter I have a question for you um this is not the first of these permits that that that we processed we processed one I think than a year ago or so yeah we processed four a year ago at 24 Albert Ray Drive yeah and wasn't there another one before that one yep it was at um actually this site at 369 uh excuse me Cedar Street and then we processed one again at 20 pondosa prior to that yeah so so what I was gonna say I remember I this um one minute Marcel we can you just repeat that we're having some technical issues in the room can you hear me yes um I was just going to um say and and I remember in one of those applications which was I think as narrow as this one uh there were opinions specifically from Lisa me that were included on that discussion in in that um in that decision if if if I'm not wrong um unless the the the the conditions change I don't think this board can change the the the direction of the decision uh but those decisions and I'm fine by the way if we if we want to postpone uh the vote if we can and and include um at least a come and speaker or whoever um but I think that that it unless it's going to I want to avoid that a Circ circular conversation because all all these elements have been discussed this not the first time it's the first time that the public has come which is great and and uh moving forward there probably a lot of work to do and and and the town and I agree by the way the select board uh probably needs to hear this because if the town as a whole wants to avoid this in the future it can very easily not renew new leases right uh but but if if if the language that we heard from from Lisa is already at hand we can just include it in this decision I think yeah so um I'm happy to to include the email that was dated from 2020 that was uh circulated to the board and I'm looking to I'm actually have the decision Marcelo so I'm not sure it was not in any decision regarding Albert Ray drive but I'm happy to add it if the board is requesting that in order to get new from Lisa if the board requests that as well I mean I would say Lisa's opinion is part of my consideration so I think we should I think we should include it okay so that it's obvious what we were relying upon as part of our decision okay you're talking about her document from 2020 correct okay because I think it was it was it it was included in our packets we referenced it several times tonight I think it's an important document well why don't we then review this document um and then see as we review it make any changes that people had or updates and then after our we we then we will see with a document in front of us if we are if we feel ready to take a vote this evening so does everyone have the document both at home and ones that were in the binders but people aren't there um and Peter do you have the um do you have the document up for poten no I do not I got to I got to do that I think it was emailed as well yeah Peter can I ask a question about uh paragraph six on page four that talks about um in accordance with 938 of the zoning Barla the special permit shall lapse after two years from granting what does that mean does that mean this is up for re reevaluation to years so that means that the that so so in that's typical G that's excuse me so that is um boil plate language that's typically in our decisions and so what that states is that so this is a modification of a special permit however when you grant a special permit typically you have two years to enact act on that special permit so number one a special permit is not valid till you number one record it at the registry of deeds and then number two you have to act on that special permit within 2 years of the issuance okay and actually that law has changed in the state and so that is now 3 years and so that's just a little bit of a bookkeeping item that I was on a webinar today and that kind of came up the process change that so we could say 30 years to tell you the truth um and that would mirror new changes to mhal law but that's just the process of a special permits within Massachusetts but TR Trisha were you suggesting that that we read I mean I have the document here that that we read that uh openly um one one once more um I I was suggesting that um we we had already received it to review but like meeting minutes I assume people have some potential changes or questions um so that we go through it kind of in the way that we do meeting minutes or or any approval document um oh okay I I was referring to the email from Lisa on Tuesday December 8th 2020 oh no I um we we can go through it um if anyone wants to or feels that it was unclear no it's just that that the the public has not probably seen it uh right and I think I think it it it it makes it backs up exactly Anna's explanation of of the situation for us that that's fair why don't um Peter can you bring up Lisa's letter oh sure and we can kind of uh it's not very long but we can we can kind of read through it or offer it to the public who doesn't have a view on it right now I also think that needs to get on the website with this application but maybe just in general as well but I can that it is on the website is that we do I don't I don't think so this was not been added this is uh yeah I'm I'm happy to do so and just um to add some color oh sorry cha I was just going to say uh you know just just to make it clear that I I think I know deep maybe maybe deep an I I was on the board during 2020 and I remember this document from before I can't remember exactly the context but when I reread it it was familiar to me and I would have been on the board at that time I can't remember member Deepa if you were also on the board at that time and if this seemed familiar to you um obviously at a similar um it must have been a similar application this was this is a similar application uh and and this was for 20 Pond rousa Road and this is a uh just add color to everybody on the meeting in in in the room uh 20 P Rosa Road is the home of our DPW and there's a land lease that crown castle has and so crown castle leases uh land um and has erected through permits a uh a tower a modern pole Tower and I believe there are four um telecom companies that have antennas on that Tower um and so back in 2020 one of the telecom companies and I forget which one was looking to take down old antennas uh and put up new antennas so very similar to the process that we're talking about here it was a ification to existing special permit TR I remember that meeting and I also remember C's presentation during that meeting so that that was at the same time yeah I couldn't quite recall the the order of events y um would it be helpful I mean we're kind of showing it up there would it be helpful if um I read part of the text um I think the third and fourth paragraphs are what's the meat of the the message so the one beginning while I am sure yeah so it says while I am sure it is confusing for the board to re reviewing this item under a special permit which provides discretion to the board typically typically they are doing so in light of the overlay of federal regulations on the local bylaw please know the Federal middle class tax relief and job creation Act of 2012 the ACT is very clear that while a local permitting agency May is very clear that while a local permitting agency may not deny and shall approve any eligible facilities request for a modification of an existing wireless tower or base station that does not substantially change the physical dimensions of such Tower or base stations the sole focus on a modification is on dimensions and no other extraneous potential consideration such as health in fact preceding the act the FCC was very clear that it prohibited local permitting agencies to deny permits for applications for cell towers based on the environmental and health effects this FCC order was upheld in the case of cellular phone Task Force versus Federal Communications a lot of numbers and 2000 factors or alleged factors such as the environment and health impacts are not to be considered as a basis to deny a permit of course with the act the factors are very clear for modifications the health and environment are not included in those factors and this is the position the print planning board is put into this is the law we must follow so this is a document then that we are going we can enter into the um the agreement or the approval document as part of the as part of the text on which our decision is based yes that was my suggestion that we include the reference to her letter I agree with Anna yeah same um we we I don't know that we have to do this but I did bring it before so there's there's a lease related to this and the reason I would bring it into here in case there's conflicts I don't remember all the leas language or maybe we have to be silent I but I just want to bring that up um and like in other words our decision is is out is not contingent upon but congru with the lease so I don't know if we need to be silent or if we should cite it but we should talk about that I think and then I mean there's particular things that I don't I don't want lost like for the town if um like the removal for painting antennas which I think might be in the lease but I don't remember and they the applicant offered if we wanted them painted I don't want to talk about paint colors here but like we should we should say that that could be a condition that they they shall if they work with the town so there's a little there's some conditions that have to be discussed our condition would be that they would follow the lease agreement and that they would work with the town but I'm not sure it talks about painting in the lease agreement so adding that they would cooperate with the town relative to painting is that a condition Peter that we could include is the applicant willing to include that condition yes well I I I I think I think the town um leaded this through an open public RFP that was W and awarded um I don't think we can um suggest that somebody can change those things without knowing I mean this is that's not our area of um I oh sorry go ahead may I um there is a reference to tank maintenance in the lease that does reference or require um the applicant to um work with the town in the event that the town would want to uh paint the tank in that case I don't think we need to mention it in the decision if it's in the lease or you just want to reinforce it I I don't know I don't I mean it seems like without that should be a nice little package together but I do not know legally I don't see an issue why we cannot just say that the applicant should work with the town and follow the lease agreement as as Pro as provided as written or whatever as written you know I don't see any issues with that and I think that could be a minor edit uh to the to the application to the decision does that satisfy your concerns yeah I think so and then there's just there's some pickier things if we're going back yeah go for it um it's actually almost January 2024 the date at the top oh jeez L yeah you getting into the nitty pit yeah well I'm just joking I we can't have it not correct so no no no I was just yeah I was going to say can we start at the top and uh I had that circled too that the date was wrong I think that's also for when hearing closes um also on page one yeah go slow Peter so we can go through it um Amanda are you seeing your correction on that screen where where you need it see it it's no it's paragraph three so it would be December the the sentence above though it also continued to December 14th so the very first sentence of that paragraph you're in yeah I think in the and then just before you go further I think in the very first paragraph it's just a very minor correction yep jeez what is going on you were having some issues there Peter okay okay if you go up to that very first paragraph it can't see the whole thing um one two three four re see where Adam's um name is underlined um two lines down from that is the word removal and it has a comma after it you should take out that comma because it it reads kind of strange so to modify the existing special permit for the removal and replacement of antennas unless that's meaning something that I don't understand no okay that's it all right so move slowly down if anyone has any other Corrections um the second paragraph 300 ft has both ft and feet indicated in the second oh yeah second paragraph the last okay here under documents of record under the second bullet point it kind of just ends in an application for special permit modification in the alternative was there something after that or was just supposed to have a period I didn't understand that which bullet is that Trisha the second bullet point down it's right where the cursor is it says and an application for special permit modification in the alternative is that the end should it there be a period there or was there more text I'm not sure what in the alternative means I would have to go back and look at the the the original application but okay I think that I think that language comes from the um cover page which says eligible facilities request pursuant to section 649 of the spectrum act and an application for special permit modification in the alternative so there should be a period there is the comma should the comma be taken out or just it's fine the way it is there I think that's exactly how we had it in the letter so I if I if I took it from the letter I took it from the letter that that's fine it just it I wasn't sure what uh the meaning was unclear to me it looked like maybe something was missing thank you for the correction um so are those I see those revision dates um on the drawings have been updated since the copy I have is that the current revision date or was that updated again today those were updated today with the with the plans that were approved by Greg Aldridge so those should be 124s no they're still 12 12 the site plan the site plan is dated 1212 but all that list of rever revision dates the 122 is correct on the current drawings is that would correct okay does anyone have uh any other changes then you see the peer review letter dated today's date um and signed by Greg Aldridge I see that that's on there the very last letter you have that Lisa and where was um was Lisa's letter already added in or is this the place no um I'm going to add it in right now okay I'm just borrowing it from uh for and did we want to add in um various emails [Music] from various emails from residents received on and prior to December 14th that's a question for the board and I believe someone had mentioned it before but I think it's good to include them in that category so it's clear that we review them and we consider them is there uh emails I think that first email just needed to be various okay or it could be it could I just wanted to look I wanted to make sure there's more than one I just make it plural that's fine is that okay or does may maybe it's emails received by residents emails received by the planning board from residents regarding the application how about Resident emails received by the planning board just it's fine but it just simpler okay is that okay yes thank you um so on this one uh point four prior to the issuance nope right where you are point four MH prior to the issuance that also ends town of Ashen with emergency contact information for Sight supervisor or for the site emergency contact information for for who contractors um I think that's a kind of a typical for the site is the intent seems to me so if something happens at the side that that might be true I just nobody can be contacted yeah I mean if that's the intent I was just going to open one I think that's a um having trouble opening things here I think that's a kind of a typical um condition um so I was just going to see how it read on something else can go on without me while I try to find something item six you can say after three years you said that was the new law yes um in in the decision it refers to like what I think it's last sentence plans dated September 27 20 oh that has to be updated down here and the revision date like so I don't quite get what that all is yeah nope I have to I have to uh make sure they match so tell me when you're done with that Peter I'm all done don't don't want to interrupt your thought process so on that number four that I was I did look up the [Music] um Mena special permit and so the last word on that is emergency contact information for Sight supervision just to be consistent with yeah it doesn't need to be capitalized but so so emergency contact information for site supervision is what we have on our other documents that's a signature block and the letter from Haley Ward that was already added in is that right that was added in today correct okay you you took off the highlighted part that you sent out earlier and added in though Yep this is the peer review it's highlighted right here in Gray okay MH then at the very end of the document in the decision I think that's the okay all right yep so that was the last the revision date that wanted to make sure was on there okay all right anything else that anyone can see all right is there any further discussion someone want to offer a motion I'll make a motion to approve the application I just don't have it in in my screen uh what is the name of it sorry 400 Cedar Street special permit modification 400 C Street special uh permit modification for the um T-Mobile antenna is there a second second and any further discussion all right then a roll call vote an tki i Marcel I Katherine Jers I and Trisha Kendall I do we need to vote specifically for the decision Peter or is this sufficient what we just did this is sufficient I think we voted for it um oh yeah that's what I thought I thought we were actually voting good for the okay yep I'm sorry I just do want to makeone okay with that that we were actually voting for The yes no that's fine it just we read it as the um not the title we didn't read the title of the decision we we read the title of the application the application okay so are we supposed to read the title of the decision itself um we can okay yeah I mean do we have I don't know if we have to no I think we I think the vote was formalized then I think we're good uh the one thing I do want to say is that this is a situation where yes it's a we we gain the votes however typically everybody signs the decision and so I don't know if you know if if one person want if we want to make a motion to allow one person in this case I would ask the clerk to sign the the the the decision Andor if the applicant would be okay if I could file the decision by next Wednesday with the town clerk which then would allow all members of the planning board to sign it just so procedurally the hearing is procedurally the hearing is closed okay and they voted to approve the application now typically every member of the plany board signs his decision right now since I have three members on zoom two members that voted right I can't have everybody sign it here tonight got it so therefore or if you would allow me time right because we extend it till tomorrow I I say sure yes we can would you concur that would allow me to to file the the decision by end of day next Thursday which would be the 17th 17th because you're trying to get everyone's signature correct I think that's the right decision if we can do that I I think in light of the public comment we should take the responsibility and all sign it okay that's yep thank you for okay one other question do we need to formally close the public hearing or does our vote automatically we can formally close the public hearing at this point I'm sorry we can formally close the public hearing with a motion okay I will make a motion that we form that we close the public hearing for 400 Cedar Street special permit modification is there a second I'll second that and a roll call vote Depot an a tus minitz I I Katherine Jersey I I am Trisha Kendall I okay so so Peter you will need us to come in to sign anytime between now and Tuesday right correct yep okay MH and yes and all right um okay okay thank you to the applicants and also to all the residents who um who came to participate we do we do appreciate we do want to hear your voices next on the agenda is 949 Homer Avenue this um this project has um as as you know um requested a continuance I believe Peter you can correct me if I'm wrong they just needed more time bus okay correct excuse me so um working with the applicant on 9 to 49 Homer Street um uh there was obviously a long conversation at our our last meeting regarding the the pallet so the color the warmer and the cool um and so therefore in working with the applicant is my here nothing uh they have requested more time to put together the color samples uh as we requested then also to continue to to check off some of the outstanding items so on December 13th we did receive an uh email excuse me from uh Attorney Terry Morris that was filed with the Town Clerk and therefore he's requesting to ex to move the to extend the public hearing to January 11th which is going to be our first public meeting in the new year and furthermore he is looking to extend the date that we have to file a decision to March 1st 1 2024 um I have a question are we are we allowed to discuss this at all or is it simply we have to uh approve the continuance so we can discuss would you like to discuss matters surrounding the continuance or the application um General the application but it's really planning board business about the application but I I don't know if we're allowed to discuss that so we're not why don't you put it out there Kate and then Peter we can understand what it is and see I I guess I believe we had a list of things going to the um applicant of sort of open items some of them were somewhat under our control so I kind of wanted to see where that stands because we we just keep like waiting not waiting we get everybody confused um and then also I'd sent to I think Trisha maybe copy Peter about I don't know I think attacked by a fly I think early on they I'm starting to be concerned I feel I'm so sorry uh the sustainability checklist I think did go to the applicant but I think I asked that be added to the memo of what's open and then I just wanted to try to deal with maybe the things that are a little bit in our court to to make sure we're doing everything we can that they're not um open still so regarding that checklist I did receive your email oh did you get it wow um for sure yeah so regarding the email I did get your email I did add that and and I'm working to continue to update that checklist um so there like things that um we we talked a couple times about getting Town Council opinion on things and I I I really hope that we don't show up at another meeting and like waiting for that again those are the kind of things I'd like to kind of get a status check in or find out if there's anything we can do I think there's a few open things with maybe some of the Town reviews um can we tighten up all that stuff I I imagine things are going to go a little slower over over these next few weeks but Peter and I did talk shortly after our last meeting about updating that list and also adding the planning board items that were a part of the design Review Committee list that you had mentioned adding the sustainability list and trying to go through and say what was kind of resolved what was you know that we actually had something in writing that it was resolved so Peter and I did kind of go through those things um I'm not sure that it was if if it was completed or added to the binders after knowing that this was going to continue um but but we have been talking about that so just so you know um and and I guess in addition to to my concern about some of those just everybody's busy a little bit fall off our plate that um I think I the applicant has a right to say I'm still working with gcg but we know there's some open things and I feel like we could end up in the same thing like oh it's I was supposed to get a traffic study but I didn't and that review so it I mean do we have any responsibility to say we there isn't a traffic study that exists and if you come in January without a traffic study I fear you will not be on the path to March 1st I mean that's those kind of things I I feel like we have to kind of Step Up where this really stands if we want to help um kind of not have this just waiting all the time I I think that's fair and I think that's I think we I I think we expressed that at a few of the um at a few of the recent meetings where we're showing our frustration over not not over the project but over the process and the delays but Peter if that list can be buttoned up you know and sent to the board and sent to the applicant saying you know these are things that must be completed for the project to move forward would that be appropriate to yeah I think that was I think that can be appropriate and arranged you know um to to get that list together and and and to go get it over to the applicant and I know yes I have to go back and take a look at it and and work on it so and I'm happy to take a look at it too because we were talking about it together to make sure it was updated yeah idea that can happen Kate are you good on that now yeah I just the the stuff that is in our court too though I didn't specifically hear answers about that but I I get it that it's being worked on but I really um I would be frustrated if we kind of keep hearing the same I haven't gotten it yet um I guess I'll just be honest the one about um Town Council opinion about the grinder problem because that was brought up twice and we still haven't seen it so because that may be more investigation when we get an answer right so those are the kind of things I would like to see okay I can put that on my list my my obviously now that that's on my radar I'll make sure that first and foremost and I can send out to email tomorrow yeah I think it's definitely important if you have priorities put them out there so we know what your priorities are um because it might be tough to check tackle the whole list at once so okay anyone else priorities on that list or anything you want to add okay all right then um is this is this January 11th we continuing this to Peter uh yes January 11th and then the decision due date will be moved to March 1st okay I will make a motion that 9049 Homer Avenue site plan and special permit application is continued to January 11th with the decision date pushed out to March 1st I'll second it and a roll call an tuski i Mar I Katherine a guy and Trisha Kendall ey so that is continued next on our agenda is a continued discussion with the sustainability committee regarding the development of the new tree bylaw I don't see anyone online here for that Peter there anyone in the room yes uh Margie grusel and Chuck litz are in the room oh so I did not see them in the room I can only see the heads that are in front so they've been patiently listening to all of our proceedings so far okay so um all right so I I think this is kind of a an update about where things are is there yeah so I think it's an update from where where we are um excuse me um so I haven't produced and put together any updated information and and I don't know if Margie has has put together any updated information uh but Margie would you like to speak and uh to move the conversation to introduce myself please introduce yourself with your name and address for the record marchie gasel um a Adams Road um I I I didn't put together any updates but to summarize where we are I sent you um my comments relating to your last meeting and um I would like to ask that looking forward that we plan to discuss remaining issues that you would like to discuss at the remaining four meetings in January and February so that we um can have the public Hearing in March so you're asking for like a plan of how we're going to use the remaining four meetings I think it would be good to determine that and um I based on the last discussion there are a couple things in my mind that I think I assume you would want further discussion about um that was a couple new ideas one being the clearcut idea and how we would how we would Define it and how we would incorporate it and um then there was the suggestion I I'm not sure if the the clearcut would address the other suggestion about concerns about potential tear Downs in the future maybe that maybe that's not an issue that we need to discuss but it seemed like it was kind of hanging so Trish I know you're virtual so if I'm kind of overstepping the bounds of my RO as Vice chair but my concern is that it's almost 10 p.m.

my union had a holiday party and sort of R was little bit down man you've never barg with to see she we had like 10 month let me do it [Music] sorry drink water huh water ban need a [Music] banana relax it's three minutes laugh you know when we're done in the office huh it's up to you that's for you yes Merry Christmas all righty it's 5:30 so I so at this time I'd like to call to order the annual organizational and regular board meeting meeting of the alrock Union Elementary School District Board of Trustees for Thursday December 14 2023 uh you know marel will you call to roll today is the regular board meeting of December 14 2023 at 5:30 pm members of the board and attendance president mfam present vice president Cora presid clerk Andres Kinto present member Linda Chavez pres member Andrea Flores Shelton here members of administration superintendent Dr Bower present okay wonderful thank you so the Board of Trustees of the Alam Rock Union Elementary School District do hereby acknowledg that the district schools and Facilities sit on the traditional lands that the MMA aloney people and the Board of Trustees further acknowledges with respect and reverence the MMA aloney people tribe at the San Francisco Bay area for their stewardship of these lands so if you will please rise and join me in the Pledge of Allegiance i al to thank you please take your seat okay okay so we move to item 1.02 the nomination of and election of the board president so at this time do I have to take all the comment on this time okay so first I'll open item 1.02 to public comment okay see not seeing no call for public comment I will uh open the agenda item to nominations from members of the board yes uh Clark nominate second okay any other nominations uh seeing none uh you know seeing none there's a nomination on the floor from clerk quo and uh seconded by truste Flores Shelton on for the nomination of orena Herrera loera as president of the board any uh other questions and comments by members our okay seeing none I'll move for a vote I'll call you as I see you uh trusty Chavez hi uh vice president Herrera Lera hi clar ptero hi and trusty Flor Shelton yes and my self voting I uh the motion you know the vote is unanimous I'd like to congratulate my colleague on on being elected president of the board so with that I hereby hand over to gavl and the title thank you and I'll put this on the side one second I'll take the half of the gabble there yes thank you Whole Enchilada is yours and as I'm putting this in I want to thank you uh um men truste mfam for your service and your great um leadership as our president in this past year and uh please uh oh there there we go it's yeah honor Him and acknowledge him as he hands over this C to receive the G he gets to eat hold on pictures on shaking all right thank you com com sure if you have some comments to make as I up here yeah um like to thank uh uh board President we know that um well former board president uh and for the work that you've done um really appreciate uh your um your stad practice and in in pursuing the the goals and the and the betterment of alrock going after whether it's a you know working with established relationships or developing new ones so that you can go ahead build Bridges and and uh create support for the work that we're doing here um obviously another thing that marks your your time here on this board is your desire to make sure that we acknowledge those important milestones in the 90th anniversary and things of that sort it's very important um every society goes out there and remers certain things there's key years and so I really appreciate um that you reminded us that it's important to make note of those big things that are happening because if we don't make sure that they're you know they're brought to the attention and the Public's not going to know and so uh I'm actually reminded by the pin that we created for the N the 90th anniversary so thank you for all the work that you've done in the district thank you thank you any other comments before we move forward Andre Shelton and trustee fam I'll call you for the time being um also want to just extend my appreciation for your leadership this year in my first year um on the board and for your um focus on bringing us together as a governance team with the superintendent um I think that's something that we can look at as I look at as one of your achievements so I really appreciate the tone the tenor um and the the focus on getting us out of here on a pretty you know good time too so congratulations and keep it up president Ed thank you trusty you okay seeing no other comments we'll go ahead and move to item 103 nomination and election of board vice president oh yes uh Madame President yes oh truste fam uh I I nominate uh Mr Andres Quintero uh as uh her consideration as a board vice president thank you trusty Pam um any other uh nominations before we open it up to public comment okay seeing none I'll go ahead and open it up to public comment at this time okay seeing no public comment I'll go ahead and uh um I'll just have you uh raise your hands I won't call you by name um all those in favor please raise your hand all right unanimous vote uh for board vice president ginto uh truste uh we don't have a second on the motion oh was when you nominate you don't need a second under parliamentary procedure um thank you for that information Rio's here is that correct okay thank you um so we don't need a second thank you Mar for um just alerting us to that all right um now moving on to uh nomination for board clerk um item 104 um vice president Kinto nominate uh uh board member mfam okay thank you um and I'd like to nominate uh Andrea Flores Shelton for board clerk any other nominations at this time so when we have two nominations how do we um go about that protocol is you take the first you vote on the first nomination okay and then the second one that doesn't pass okay thank you um so we'll go ahead and then uh go with the nomination of um trusty fam I'll take public comment on that okay seeing none we'll go ahead and move to vote um and this is for the nom ation for trusty fam for board clerk um all those in favor please raise your hand okay um all those uh say voting no um raise your hand okay and um abstain well yes so the vote does not go through so we'll go on to the next nomination um trusty uh Flor Shelton for board clerk at this time I'll open it up for public comment all right see none we'll go ahead and go to the vote those in favor of truste Flor Shelton as board clerk raise your hand okay um all those W know raise your hand myself okay so um for no and I'm sorry four yeses and one no with a trusty fam voting no um congratulations uh trusty Flor Shelton clerk FL Shelton um all right and thank you uh uh for being the clerk um vice president GTO this past year uh and you're do yeah all the signing and um doing doing Network all right moving on to item um at this point we just appoint the superintendent as secretary um and so I'm going to open up a public comment on this item seeing none um I'll go ahead and go to the vote all those in favor please raise your hand and okay unanimous vote um superintendent as our SEC as a secretary to the board all right um item 106 discussion or modifications of the agenda um any modifications on the agenda for today that anybody has I just wanted to know if we could add to the consent calendar um I'm sorry I lost it oh 4.03 proclaiming January as Schoolboard recognition month I'm not sure how much we need to thank ourselves can you just put on the consent calendar second okay um any other changes or amendments to the agenda okay see I'd like to we have some big items that I'd like to get to them quick that way we can um have a conversation and then move on with the rest rather than getting to them really late so 5.01 and 6.02 I they're going to require some discussion and so I'd like to get them while we're fresh we're all you know very very clear-minded and I think it makes sense if we get to them I would I would ask we put right before comment so that everybody can be here but if you're not amenable to that then at the very least after 3.06 so you're recommending for 501 and 602 to go after two item two before okay all right any other amendments before we vote um and we could take them all together right we don't have to take one by one somebody refresh my memory here um I'm GNA want an amendment but on the consent calendar I guess I'll do it when we get to we get there okay thank you all right any other changes before we vote on the current amendments no okay so um as we have it currently is to move item 403 to consent calendar um and include that I'll put it then um right after 9912 and include it in consent calendar uh moving item 501 and 602 uh right before um any public comment on this item okay seeing do we have yeah welcome I could catch this under the teamsters spot but uh as far as Maxa I mean that that building is unsafe it's unstable it would be costing a lot of money to just try and make it even stable again but right now you have a lot of encroachment of homeless camps here and stuff and right now it's a safety issue for the community for the students and for of course the staff that I represent and the other bargaining units uh represent so I'm hoping that the district goes through with the Demolition of this and as soon as possible thank you thank you any other public comments on this item okay seeing none then we'll go ahead and vote on the Amendments on the agenda uh all those in favor please raise your hand could you raise your hand yeah okay just want to make sure all right uh unanimous vote for the um agenda items that were moved um next we'll go to item 107 welcome and explanation to the audience any person may address the board on any item on the meeting agenda persons who wish to speak on an item on the agenda will have an opportunity to do so when that agenda item is introduced and presented during this meeting there is a limit of two minutes for each each speaker the board has a right to limit total comment public comment on any agenda item to no more than 20 minutes persons who wish to speak to the board about any matter within the jurisdiction of the district but not on this agenda will have the opportunity to speak during item 2011 on this agenda as stated below all right thank you now moving on to item 2011 uh public members who wish to address the board on matters not on the agenda request to address the board provides members of the public an opportunity to speak about any matter under the jurisdiction of the district but not on this agenda if the subject you wish to discuss is already in the agenda please provide your comment when that item is called during the meeting those who wish to speak on within the jurisdiction of the brown act prevents the board from discussing any item not on this published agenda but the board May refer to staff for followup on any uh formal written requests that are brought before the board at this time there is a limit to two minutes for each speaker the board has a right to limit total public comment on any agenda item to no more than 20 minutes written matters may be placed on future uh meeting agendas uh with that I'll go ahead and open up item 2011 at this time welcome good evening trustees and Dr B I'm practicing my speaking skills um I would like to bring to your attention something that is very dear to my heart because I was once there um I would like for you to consider in the future and for next year um new teacher training and coaching um unfortunately we have a lot of new teachers every year and we don't have enough coaches and trainings um to support new teachers and it's becoming a problem because teachers need support in the classrooms especially after the covid and you know it's it's really frightening for teachers that are new um dealing with new situations in the classroom and that they don't really know how to handle and it's um they don't know where to look for help and I know that it's impacted right now and administration is very busy and stuff like that and subbing and all these things are also a problem um but I will for for next year or this year or whenever for you guys to think about what to do um to support new teachers in our district thank you thank you hi good even evening uh board and superintendent my name is Joelle Herrera and I'm here to speak uh on behalf of uh Lupita Gutierrez who was terminated by this District uh in the month of October after being on leave for almost a whole year and I um I just want to say that uh you know it's a it's a case where it doesn't seem like this should have happened it's it's a sad case for me I have a a personal interest because I actually helped her and uh uh as a former HR person uh with her application and and getting prepared for interview and I want you to know that she had opportunities outside of this District outside of this County uh because of my networking and I have worked for five different school districts in this County over my my years and I have worked for know a few different superintendent so about nine superintendents and I'm very dedicated to the educational field I retired from that field and knowing what I know about this case I some nights I haven't been able to sleep because of the way it went I also want you to know that with my own eyes and ears I have witnessed undue board member influence that resulted in the ter mintion of a teacher that I knew and at the time as a site administrator it was kind of like not much I could do about it but I was directly in involved in it because I was at the same side and I just saw it happen those kind of things happen in today's times and so for my part you know there's someone in our County her name is Miss Ceres during these holidays and she's been fired okay thank you Dr era yes ma'am thank you all right uh now we'll move on to item 51 uh Dr Bower or yes UHA has U the context of that okay thank you presentation good evening uh good evening Madame board pres and congratulations um good evening board members um and Dr Bower superintendent um thank you for this opportunity to or for staff to be able to provide some additional information to the board um in order for the board to make uh a Sound Decision um and to make a sound decision on the item um before you um with that um I'll start by um just going over um some timelines uh you may recall that back in May of 2023 this year um the board approved um a contract with ehp uh to help the district conduct a feasibility study for the workforce housing um at that point the district selected two sites to do the feasibility study um the first site is the Renaissance at mson and the other site is the district office um since then um the district has completed that study or um the feasibility study and the board approved um that report back in September of 2023 this year as well um and at that point um the districts or under the contract there was a savings um with the contract with HP um the contract was for $398,000 um up to that point uh that we spent about $230 5,000 so there was about 165 thou $163,000 left in the contract um The District's desire was to keep that momentum from moving forward um and working with the city and getting the entitlement process so at that point we asked ehp um to help the districts with the pre-application process um the pre-application process has now um been completed um so we're entering into the entitlement process um but before we get to that um I just want to share with you um the site plan for Matson or Renaissance at matson's as you can see there this is the Matson um site plan uh the workforce housing um is that little area kind of yellow um and it was the district desire to go forward with 78 units um this is a more detail rendering um conceptually of the site itself it shows you kind of the lawn area inside the the the facilities um the rent that was that that was discussed was that um we will be charging uh a range uh between 1,500 um per month uh for one bedroom um up to 2100 for a two-bedroom um and 2500 for per month for a three-bedroom um one of the main objective of the districts moving forward with the workforce housing is also to generate Revenue um that could help out the general fund um based on these rent um rate and the number of units we're estimating that on an annual basis uh the districts would be generating about $1.6 million per year so back to the entitlement process uh when we completed the feasibility study um we were presented with three different um kind of pathway that potentially the district could go through um the first um pathway was the full City enement process this would be the longest process it's estimated to take about 18 uh 12 to 18 months um there is a some requirements such as the amendment to the general plan um the rezoning and also um uh a squel review um the second option would be to utilize ab12 I'm sorry AB 2295 um this is the a quicker process it's estimated to take about 6 to 12 months um there's no General plan Amendment requirement um no rezoning requirement but there is a squa uh review uh the third pathway which is the most streamline um this is the one that is projected to take about three months um there's no General plan Amendment no rezoning um and sqa is exempt in this process um and we have been engaging uh with the city during the application process um and the city has agreed that um the district is able to utilize um options number three which is the which is the most expedience process that we can go through to um get the entitlement excuse me um as a matter of fact we uh The District staff um and ehp staff met with City staff early this week um to confirm um some of the discussion that we've been trying to trying to get confirmation on so one of the highlights is that they did agree that we're able to use the um s b35 and ab22 95 process for the entitlement um they also agreed that um there's no uh zoning requirement um additionally there's no traffic uh study requirement um the city is under review or is reviewing whether there will be a fee assess to um Park um but they're still determining that um and we'll get a decision from them um pretty soon um they also share with us that um there is a height uh limit um to the building itself um the limit is 35 ft that you can build upward okay just a reminder when we when the board approved um the feasibility study back in um September um there was certain um Next Step that was shared um the first one is um submitting a pre preliminary review request to the city um um and confirm applicability of the inclusionary housing ordinance um that has been done um the other um step we needed to take was to determine the entitlement pathway and SE what process um that also has been done um there's two stuff that we're still working on which is the um just responding to this uh City on various tasks um that was outlined in the feasibility report and then uh actually submitting the entitlement application um to the city so this chart shows you um kind of the timeline um if we were to go with ehp proposal um to to assist the district with the entitlement process um as you can see here there's two um kind of major step uh the first one is planning and application um that takes about three months I'm not going to go through all the bullet points but just want to highlight a couple of one um that are important um during this process we need to complete a schematic design um to submit to the city for their review and also the other one I want to highlight is that we need to determine a project delivery method meaning how are we going to build the the workforce housing um and how are we going to rent that to the to the contractor that will be selecting whether it's going to be design Bill a designed bid bill or a lease lease back um traditionally um with any capital or bonds project that the district's been doing we've been using the design bid Bill uh methodology but there are other methodology for the board to consider um and we plan to bring more information to the board um at a later time um The Next Step the other step in this process um is the entitlement and SQL um and that takes is projected to take about three months um so the whole process um if we were to move forward with ehp um the entitlement process would take about six months or so um if we were to go out and put out an rpq um for a consultant um to go through the entitlement process um that estimated time goes from six month to about 12 to 16 months um and really the the the timeline that really adds to this is Staff having to create the RP issue that evaluated have the board interview negotia agree um so that process alone takes or adds um about another five to six months into the entitlement process so um that's for the entitlement piece um the other component of the proposal has to do with the Demolition of moxa um if we were to go with ahp um you'll see there um it's estimated to take about uh 5 months um for the whole process um from issue and RFP uh um to get a contractor to actually do the demolition um and then close out the project so that whole time um is about 5 months if we were to go with ehp um if the districts um needed to go and issue an rqp um for the demolition of moxa um that timeline goes up from 5 months to about 10 months to 11 months um again it's the the added timeline is really you know the district's working on on the um RP and going through that whole process we'll get another consultant on board um and this is just for clarification um with ehp proposal um there's two component um under phase two uh phase two uh under the entit proposal the proposed budget is $687,000 um of that amount um ehp we fee uh would be $150 ,000 um the rest of the budget includes um other Consultants such as Architects engineer um environment studies and also fees to the city um so of that 680,000 um budget um again ehp portion is 150,000 uh for phase 2A which is the moxa um demolition um the Propst budget there is $85,100 um and of that amount uh ehp fee would be $20,000 and again the rest would be for other consultant architect engineer um and also permitting fees um to the city so with that uh be happy to take any questions that the board might have thank you uh CA if the board's okay I'm going to take public comment and then we'll open it up for questions and comments from the board uh so at this time I'll open it up for public comment on this item welcome good evening um honorable Madam president and trustees my name is Manny uh some of you know me as a former uh city council member representing East San Jose I also uh I'm going to go back a little bit further to the days of moxa I was also the develop manager of the marks I useing back in the early 90s so I'm here today uh just representing myself so I just want to be perfectly clear about this and I'm here to ask you uh to really make a a hard decision here and that's basically not to approve this uh contract creat proposal and I'll tell you why uh first of all the community has really not been engaged to what's going on with this whole uh proposal there's lot of support for Workforce housing and I think this is a great site for it but the community really hasn't seen the whole development proposal here including the demolition of the youth center the uh those of you that recall the executive director of Maxa Esther Med that was the jewel of moxa I'm going back to the early 90s here and I know that you've had it now for several years but I think it's important that the community have the opportunity to to express concerns proposals on the entire site in that includes the youth center before it's on Legend and also I want to commend uh all your work in looking at this pability I think it's very good but again this proposal is not just about feasibility it's really about selecting a developer with this proposal you basically are locking yourself in with this group but they're also they're developers they're a developing company so let's not forget about that so you're locking yourself into developer without really going out to the development community and getting a response from devel committee for the whole development of the site so I'm asking you not to improve this contract today thank you thank you anybody else I don't see any others at this time I'd like to open it up for comments and questions from the board uh clerk Flor Shelton CL thank you um thank you assistant C I have a few questions um the cost of the moxa demolition I am just unclear in the um attachment is the 85 you said 85,026 for the coordination of it and that the backup says the actual demolition could range from 600,000 to 925,000 is that am I reading that correctly yes that is correct the um the budget for that that included in erp's proposal um is mainly them serving as project manager and so they would be the one who would be preparing the RFQ for us um and putting that out to bid for an actual contractor to come in and actually do the demolition um in their proposal there's certain requirements I think you saw two line items um that the district and it's a requirement Mar can you you have the um I forgot what the requ but there's a kind of a Hazmat study oh yeah and also um Environ yeah so those are the two consultant that is required before we can even move forward uh with preparing the RP and actually getting contracted to actually come in and do the demolition okay so the um so just even stepping back a little bit further it f the for the B the bone monies can pay for the demolition correct and we have 50 million I'm just GNA what's the dollar amount we have for the workforce housing and that we have available to us period right now so measure s has $71 million 71 okay great so it could be a million of that just for the moxa Demolition and that's in the five month the five month timeline correct yeah yeah and the MAA building um is a little bit more broader because it's even though it's on the same side as the workforce house housing um it's not really attached to the workforce housing so technically we can use other measure Bond measures to pay for that um project okay thank you and just so I'm also clear once we get through the expedited um entitlement Pro U process so if we were to go through option three which gets us let's say summertime then what then at that point or during the time we'll be actually putting preparing the RP for an actual development um in addition to that as we go into the process we need as I mentioned we need to determine our delivery method which you know how the contractor is going to um be building the um the workforce housing itself and so we'll be creating the RP and issuing that for any contractor to develop the workforce housing to actually build it so we have I saw opportunity for the schematic design of the workforce housing like if we wanted because I know we have a schematic now it's kind of boxy like if we wanted it to reflect the moxa building if we wanted it to reflect the vision of Esther Medina's original design of The Moxy Center we could still update that schematic design yes we for that yes we very early I mean we right now only have the conceptual design uh we need to go into schematic in order to submit that to the city for their so I'm just I'm sorry I'm just going to play it out so summertime we get through the expedited option three then we put out an RFQ just spitball for me when we're breaking ground so breaking ground if you were eight to 10 month yeah right is that if pardon me is that if we don't put out an r and and just go sorry want to make sure it's organized some of us had the same question but have so the summer by the end of the summer the demolition would be done the entitlement process would be done then we have to put out an R then we decide on a developer how do we break ground before the RFP is done and we've picked a developer or maybe I don't know we wouldn't be breaking down uh we would be breaking ground um before the RFP to select a developer and so that would happen the RP's got to take maybe three to six months correct so then we wouldn't have a developer until 202 yeah five uh it'll be sometime in yeah late 24 late 24 okay so so so um this is my last question um so that that then can provide us the time to do community engagement on uh vision for vision and and other things right and to make sure that the neighborhood and any other stakeholders are engaged in what we now see is the timeline yes that timeline would seem to provide us that opportunity to do that because we haven't picked a developer yet and we haven't picked the final design for the workforce housing correct okay thank you thank you uh truste L Chavez so on page two of this item it says that the U you're going to get half a million uh but the third for the third party cost but the ehp how much is that what percentage usually they go by percentages is there a cap off and if not can we do a cap on yes so um in the two proposal um the the one for the entitlement process ehp fee is $150,000 up to 680 7,000 um the the the remaining amount is for other consultant like Engineers architect environment studies and also fee to the city so that's for the entitlement process for the demolition of the moxa building um I believe that yeah ehp U fee would be um 20,000 of the $880,000 $885,000 um and $100 sorry $85 $5,100 that are being proposed um that's the additional Fe so there's there's two components to the proposal one is the entitlement in the entitlement process ehp fee would be 150,000 in the demolition marxa ehps is 20,000 thank you since it wasn't written and it just said the Fe thank you thank you uh trusty fam uh yes uh coir could you could you give us a you know idea of the status at the Moa building as it stands right now I mean I have visited it twice before when when I was on the bond committee and I know you you were there on those you know when the bond committee visited the MAA building uh you know uh and I know from you know the when the bond committee visited the building in I believe 2018 and 2019 the uh conditions have deteriorated so could you give uh the board and the public us you know update as to the status of the Moa building sure um as right now it's it's in really really really bad condition um all the windows are broken is a it's all boarded up all the copper wires in the building has been gutted um because there's a lot of vandalism people are going in there instilling copper wires um there's roofs in the ceilings there's graffiti everywhere inside everything is broken the basketball gym um there's shattered glass the backboard is broken so it's unusable it's very dangerous to be even walking in there um and the biggest nuisance is that we get vandalism on a weekly basis so we have to sense that out there uh period frequently almost on a on a weekly basis just to address some of those vandalism Madam president I may have a SE supplemental question uh has the has the city uh act I mean you know then has the city declared the building uninhabitable or not suitable for use or you know condemn the building at this time uh We've shared the condition of the bill with the city I don't know for sure if they condemn the building um but if they see what it looks like it's it's not usable thank you uh trusty Chavez when my husband was on the uh the committee I also visited that site several times in 17 2017 18 and 19 and I just went recently two months ago Dr b um and the condition there not only is it exactly to the point of how Mr C described it but the worst thing is is the criminal element there and in the neighborhoods spilling out is even worse because if you take into consideration the neighborhood the people who were there putting up with all this vandalism all this crime and when I went there and it's sad to say there's certain things that you can see like on when I spoke to different police Chiefs throughout the years one of the things that they all mentioned was that there will be uh telephone wires that have sneakers on them and that's kind of like a a sign for drugs and that's what's happening in this neighborhood so if you were residents of this neighborhoods because I seen it and I didn't just go once I went the next day and the next day to make sure before I vote on anything the idea of moxa was a good concept but the way and the condition and the let's say disrespect for the property that is there now um we have to do something we have to do something as soon as possible as far as I'm concerned thank you thank you vice president GTO yes I want to thank staff for the work that they've done up to this point really appreciate um all the the work that's been done but um so it's just kind of bittersweet because I I like the work but I'm I'm concerned and nobody I I think a lot of people are really pumped about moving this forward but um I also I think I was the only one here who went through the really really difficult times you got here towards the tail end um but the very very difficult times that we went through as part of our bond program and so I air on the side of caution even if it takes uh more time and so I got a couple questions and some comments I I want to make sure has this contract been vetted and do we have a written opinion from whatever attorney looked at it yes we actually shared this with our Attorneys at dwk all right cool um and I think that would be a good practice and I would know about this if we were to have legal ass form uh stamped on any contract that comes before the board that way we know it's been it's been looked over you know how the county has County council's seal of approval that way we don't have to wonder we we have the comfort of knowing that it's already been it's gone through so great um uh I um have a couple of concerns related to the overall the budget expected range from 69 through 925,000 um in terms of that that uh that range is that factored into the 772 that's in the front on the cover on the cover page looks like they they they split the baby in the middle yeah com all right so my concern is if this actually goes all the way up to the 92 five range and we went ahead and approved 772 and change orders as all of us on the border very well aware limited to 10% how would we get to that 925 that we're on the hook for for the work that's been done okay um I I believe the the the request for tonight is only up to the 772 which covers the entitlement process and the um the project manager for the demolition I believe the other amount that you're referencing is an estimate for an outside contractor to actually come and do the demolition of the mxa building so that's outside of di got you so we are paying for that was my question to they'd have to bid out for the demolition 772 and we' give them a little short the authority to hand over about $925,000 worth of work on behalf of alrock that's what it says here uh 600 to 925,000 what exactly is their preliminary estimate of what they anticipate a contractor cost to come and demolish and remove separate the material and transport it and site preparation for the uh for the actual demo work itself so as as P said the 6 65,000 that's really on the entitlement process so that's the architectural fees that's the city fees that's all the other fees associated with just the entitlement for Mak profit the other 70,000 I think it is let's not let's take it Point by point because we can't let's talk about exact figures as it was written because we're going to base our decision off in the first part in the entitlement it says 500,000 for third party cost that's phase one and it's listed in the five to seven month range right underneath so that's half a million bucks right there all right the 600 925,000 is in Phase 2A and it's under third party cost so there's 500,000 for the first part in entitlements and then a little up to a little under a million $75,000 less than a million in phase two a phase 2 a it says that ehp Fe is 20,000 there's 85 total cost well what exactly is the 65,00 going for part of it is tangency okay um part of it is for the environmental and then be that was coming in at 16 25,000 of it is for the civil engineering and that's on the phase 2A that's the demo side yeah so breakdown did you want to go through each item on the breakdown for the 687 um you're talking about the range between 600 and 925,000 no 68,000 that's just an estimate not part of today's um uh uh proposal that is just kind of letting the board know that we anticipate once we move forward to that point of putting out an RFB for the actual demo we anticipate a range of somewhere in there between those two numbers of what it's going to cost to actually demolish it remove the material and site preparation um for drainage purposes right you can't just leave foundational hold there you need to do site preparation work um that's where that number comes from but that's not part of today's cost for proposal just an informational uh point that we've included in there for your understanding that there's the management there's the preparation to get it for demolishing but we still would need to develop an RFP Beyond from this a separate RFP with going out for proposals for corporations to be able to bid on to do the actual work in demo and uh and site preparation of the MOX so that's what that is that's more of just an informational and it is not inclusive you any of the costs that were coming with a proposal to you today those will be in addition yeah no but I think it's very important to give the board a clear picture as to what the total cost is because from what it looks like here it looks like oh this is it like wow it's going to be pretty cheap to demolish it's only 85 Grand and ehp is only charging $20,000 so thank you for that clarification much appreciated um and so um with that um the the demolition of the building uh from everything I've heard in terms of all the things that we as a board member here kind of pick up on stuff anything over 14k regard is required to go out to bid correct am my am I incorrect in that um so therefore I would assume that the demolition of building rather than through an RFP should go out to bid so we can get the the lowest price yes and that's that's part of the the work that ehp doing they're going to be um preparing the RP so that we can solicit it and put it out to bid so that contractor can can put a hard bid on it so I assume that RFP and the bid process are two separate things do we do we use an RFP process to put things out to bid or is there a bid process um it's kind of in line um when you're going out with soliciting bids you can put out our um to potential biders um and it kind of lays out what the district is asking for and then and um you know then contractors can submit their bids um if they're interested in doing the work all right cool all right well thank you thank you very much for those uh for those answers I think it it eluates more however um I I still have concerns uh because of my um experience on the board um I have um Everybody submit my opposition to item 5.01 the previous is premised on my deeply help belief that the district and taxpayers of Al Rock are best served through a competitive process they more than likely yield a lower price for the same services that are being proposed under item 5.01 additionally while I'm fully aware the government code section 53060 allows for school districts to contract for special services um a recent history with our school with our bond program should have us there on the side of caution not so long ago the Infamous alumrock 3 would regularly cite Authority granted to them under under under the uh grants them via the government code section 53060 to engage in questional Behavior Aus to I would hate to see the district Falls the same trap additionally while government code section 530 60 grants you this Authority um I just want to make sure that we are clear that uh we're not going to go through uh an RP and that we are in fact going to go through a bid process for the demo so we can make sure that we get um the best price uh possible so that's my that's my two cents um I would encourage us to uh go out go through a competitive process I get the timelines that have been provided however um the timelines are based on on on the direction that the board gives uh five to six month process seems somewhat somewhat excessive to go through RP I would encourage us to provide the support the staff needs so that we can give them the the the the ability to go through and put together on RFP uh bring it forward and allow us to move in an expeditious Manner and so uh I won't be supporting item 5.01 um based on my desire to I encourag us to go through a competitive process and so those are my that's my position thank you and I see uh trusty Flor Shelton with additional questions and comments and trusty Fam I'm G to ask mine and then I'll go in that order um thank you C and Mark for the presentation can you go back to the maybe second slide uh uhuh yeah yeah uh second yes um and I had all my questions answered and then I heard trusty GTO so I just want to highlight and confirm right um because this is a very important I mean everything we vote on is very important but this you know when we talk about money and this amount um we definitely I want to make sure that I'm understanding correctly so here we see that in the initial uh contract that we had um with ehp which is um who we are looking to um either move on today with or not um the contract they had initially approved for we as a board uh was 398 390,000 and the actual work that was completed um actually came in under that I want to highlight that because that is very different I know the Alam three were named whatever that was you know this past that we have that still continues to follow us um back in those those days this was unheard of right um I think you know and we goingon go into those details so this was unheard of I want to highlight the fact that we had approved for a certain amount and they actually did the work that they said they were going to do for under that amount so thank you for highlighting that for me that's very important when we're talking about trust um working with organizations um and then I also want to clarify and uh when we move when and if we decide to move forward today uh that ehp would be hired to then help create an R of pay to then open it up it's not a bid it's an RF pay that we open up for others to then come to the district and then we determine at that point as a board who we're going to move forward with and this is kind of next phase whatever I mean the demolition the um in that case would be the demolition right it would be a for RFP and not a bid an RFP and bid is pretty similar um it's it's got a little Nuance but it it's almost going and soliciting a projects that you want biders to bid on okay um either process you take you know um it's it's it's it's okay for for us to to go through um but in both case um we would either put an RP bid out or developer to actually come and build the workforce housing and then on the moxa building demolition there will be another RP and or bid in order for contractors to bid on to do the demolition of so there's going to be two separate bids one for the developer to actually build the workforce housing and then the other one is for another contractor um to do the Dem of the mo building and all of those will come to the board we'll look at who's bid and move forward with where we decide okay I just want to highlight that um all that is very important and and I think just um because it is a moxa site right and we all know um you know a lot of us have emotional ties to that whether is you know from founding to a youth that had Services there um and so I I get that um and I think think it's very important to highlight that we've been having these discussions and it's all been public you know um and it's been tough right as a board member is probably one of the toughest things that as a youth I was able to provide get Services there as an adult provide services there and then now as a board member have to talk about demolishing this right it really does hurt my heart um and so you know I want to highlight that because I know it's very real um for our community and um also the fact you know I want to highlight that this is not the first time that we discuss this um in public uh because for me um having worked very hard and I know just um vice president GTO mentioned that came in at the tell end of this uh but I still worked very hard for us to be here where we're at the five of us um have gained trust from our community and have continued to have these discussions in public um including you know creating a Workforce um housing committee with my peer here uh k um where we've had a lot of these discussions feasibility studies and I look forward to also um having discussions about things like what uh clerk Flores schelton mentioned um you know the these designs and things that we'll continue to look at as we move forward um and so I just want to highlight that that we've done this process in public and that I I look forward to continuing to do this uh this process in public with community members so I want to highlight that it's not new it's not like we're going to it's we've been doing it and we get to continue to do that um because I don't think that was clear and I think some commentary mentioned I was like well wait we've been doing that and so thank you staff thank you uh trustees um I mean this is exciting you know to even be having these discussions and to be at this phase because I remember initially back in the co days where we looked at this phase of a twoe threee and now I feel like we're almost in that middle piece um almost breaking ground and I think you know even if it's a oneye process it's almost breaking ground from where we've been and so with that um I feel after the discussion and the answers I feel a lot better um to uh be able to support this today and I'll go ahead and open it uh back up to CL for sh thank you so much um um few comments first off vice president ketto take your comments very very seriously um yes you have the full experience um I do want to say how Vivid um the early days of getting you know um another superintendent another um experience where the entanglement that that we um found ourselves in and yes you car carried on and you were there trying to untangle that so um I I understand your concerns um today I feel like this is a project this is a a very different project than the overall this is not the bond program we're not handing over a contra or if this were to be approved to have the keys to $70 million this is a very limited project um from feasibility to entitlement to demo coordination that's the way I see this I see this as um and then to me in my world and um there's lots of ways to bid things out rfqs requests for qualifications request for proposals requests for information you can name the RF whatever those are all bidding processes because with public dollars you got to compete you got to compete and I do think um because they came under and because this is a finite project I am comfortable with moving forward with ehp for this for this only right um and and so that's that's where I feel um safe having again lots of Lessons Learned I do want to say um you know the demo we take very seriously as well right a community Jewel an institution how many times have we driving past that thing on 68 and it was like this Beacon that we've only seen just I mean when I was here 10 years ago the defer maintenance on that was $12 million that was 10 years ago if I recall right I also was involved 15 years before that when the city the county and moxa were all trying to sit together to say how do we save this 15 years ago 20 years ago was people didn't come to the table then moxa sadly tragically folded and then it came back into the district's hands and then our hands were tied our hands were tied so this is a tragedy that we're going to you know un it's hopefully it's like GNA be a phoenix right we're gonna Rise From the Ashes um but I do want to say when after the building is demolished whenever it's demolished if it's demolished um what I've learned from the comments about encampments and vandalism we have to make sure and maybe I'll uh discuss this more when we're dealing with that RFP and that contract but we have to ensure that that there's going to be a time where it's dead space right so how can we ensure that that contract contractor at that time is securing the space in many of my dealings with encampments through my work um once you clear an encampment and you're handing it over to a contractor you put that burden on the contractor to secure the space so that is not rein camped inside um the contract space so we can cross that bridge when we come to it but I do think there are a lot of neighborhood concerns with one of the most blighted buildings in the city um and it's time as the owners that we act and again in in whichever time frame is appropriate I strongly believe in community engagement on airing out this timeline airing out um what will be very hard for people to see but I think it's time we turn corner thank you trusty uh fam and then trusty Chavis okay um let's see here uh you know if I may ask a question to Mr Chang uh could you give us an a quick explanation of the entitlement here I mean it's all right do we you know are we in So at the end of this process will we have the entitlements from the city under the screen I mean who who grants the permits in this the city does okay yes so so once entitled we would have the permits in hand from the city and you know thank you for clarifying that because I would say one of the biggest concerns and it's still a big concern you know into the next board you know the new board president is the issue of uh Public quisi public Quai public property zoning IND City and you know uh uh Municipal infringement upon the local control School site so you know um you know I I you know the value of this project I understand it would be of a great immense value and you know it's incumbent Upon Us in order you know to to have that guarant legal guarantee from the city to ensure the the success of this project uh so thank you for clarifying you know that you know uh how far along are we on track on on the entitlement process here have we had a meeting with the city to that extent yes so we've uh we I share with you we met with City staff um early this week we met with the um Public Works uh planning housing and parks department um and that's really to um get an update on the pre-application process um and some other questions we had regarding um you know the pathway that I shared with you the three pathway and they did confirm that were're able to utilize the most expedience one um and we talked about you know um traffic control squa um um we did get confirmation that we didn't have to do traffic control um so there were other discussion uh with the city um early this week um so what the next step is if we move forward HP we can start submitting the application put the entitlement itself okay right so basically this get us on the filling out submitting the application and getting the ball rolling on getting getting that piece of paper from the city yes okay very well and I think the other you know uh you know and you know one the other comment I wanted to say is uh you know and I you know I too understand that you know the the historical significance of the moxa building I mean one of the things that you know wanted to say that you know there were you know it was it was a great hope for for our community when it opened and I you know know the I understand the value and all the pride that came within and of course you know the the the beautiful murals that are in them and are no longer with us anymore and I guess to to that point I was going to say you know I am all you know I want to say I'm still always in favor of community engagement about you know when we're doing something uh of you know of that magnitude uh the other part is and you know as I I have seen and as trusty Chavez has uh mentioned uh what is it uh you know part of that is that given the condition of building uh some you know there may be a chance that we may have to act before nature nature acts on our behalf right you know building you know as trusty for Shelton mentioned you know you know even even back then there's already $12 million worth of deferred maintenance that some has grown and I've seen and others have seen that uh you know the the building maybe on its last legs and you know it it may be better for us to uh do do to control demolition you know where we could at least ensure you know safety protocols and proper clean up as opposed to having um Good Old Mother Nature do that for us if you know with the deterioration of the building so uh thank you very much Mr Chen for that presid yeah oh I'm sorry and then they come back I'm glad that truste um Andrea mentioned about safe and I believe that it's our duty to Aid in the safety of that neighborhood and um is the district enabling these conditions by not moving forward sooner um it served the purpose before but it's nice to look back and think about it but it's not the gem that it used to like somebody just mentioned but right now to me it's like a lump of coal because it's not serving any purpose other than vandalism and making that neighborhood even more unsafe there's a lot of complaints from the neighborhood and uh I don't know if any of you have heard of them but I sure have and that's how come I have gone every once in a while to go see and they're correct so are we going to make this a safe space for the kids or not to meet I think safety comes first and by not doing so there's been a lot of money spent just on painting on labor and let's face it it's not safe when they do go in there because I win in there and it's like he put it nicely the way the condition of the building is I mean you see like sometimes when you see in movies that everything is torn apart wires and graffiti everywhere these guys were intentionally destroying everything and this is what is in that that criminal element is is in that neighborhood right now do you really want them around children look at how close our schools are to all this I I have always been a stickler for getting more bids but we all know the condition of that building we all know how it's been for years and how many times Dr Bower has texted us or emailed us that there's something going on there or something needs to be done um to me I think because we're all monitoring what happened before I don't believe this board is allow anything like that to happen again and so I feel comfortable moving forward on this decision today thank you thank you uh vice president gimto yes I my comments are based on what I've lived through I didn't want I so I want to prep I want to make sure that my colleagues understand that I trust each and every one of my colleagues that you're doing the what's been the best interest of of the students of alrock um you uh board member Chavez we have difference of opinion sometimes in ideological issues or philosophical issues but I still believe that you're doing what you believe is is best and so um that stands for everybody else not that we have big differences um with other board members I'm just I'm expressing my concerns and I'm not intending to insult or to hurt anybody's feelings it's um my my desire to to to express my concerns as a as a du elect board member I am entitled to that and I'm and I would I would hope that you would all understand that I'm not doing it to disrespect you or to hurt your feelings in any way shape or form um I'm I as I stated before I believe that you're here for the right reasons I can wholeheartedly see that now on this board with the composition of of my board colleagues now um I my greatest concern is that we are somehow you know somehow getting ehp into position where they are the only ones who are going to be able to do the work they came in they were the highest bid uh in the RFP process and they were brought in I expressed my concerns at that time uh that there were other firms whom I don't know I don't care for I don't give a damn who they are but um they they were there they had done work in other big districts with big Bond programs and they didn't make it um and it was the same exact work that they were gonna they were offering at a lower price um nevertheless they were brought in now we're being brought ehp and saying these are the only person that can do it because we're already moving along if you don't jump on you're going to miss the vat and I I I don't believe that um I believe that competitive process is better however um it looks like support's there in terms of the max up building um unfortunately I'd have to agree with all that it is too far gone um I want to make sure that the public is clear that this is not laid solely on the encampment population in the creek um in other instances some people have blamed uh unhoused folks for what happened uh it came to me directly from uh staff while we were doing a side visit that there was folks who were using you know very very sophisticated equipment essentially elect electrical contractors that went in there and tore the place apart ripped out all the wires so let's make sure that the vandalism isn't laid squarely on those folks who are going through unfortunate times there's a lot of issues going on in the creek I know them and I don't like the issues that are going on but on this one there were elements that were a lot more sophisticated at work than your just typical person who's drug addicted or going through a difficult time and needs a couple of wires to to rip out they were using very sophisticated equipment that usually is is uh owned by electrical contractors how they got any unnoticed and tore this place apart it's some very very um you know difficult to understand um since there's so many homes around the area um but I just just want to make sure that our our own house population isn't is isn't the ones who are targeted as a result of MOX are being torn down because of them no there were other elements there thank you oh want to make sure to clarify when I say the tail end I the tail end of the difficult times now that we went through such as investigations and all that stuff that's why I was verying not the work for tell thank you thank you thank you all right seeing no other questions or comments we'll go ahead and uh oh question comment I thought you were voting already no all right trusty chave much every month is being spent because of the VanDam the latest figure we got um just going out there and painting and boarding that was about $10,000 a month that were just a month it's being thrown down the drain or on the building whatever you want to say thank you trust ches I was asking I asked that too so I'm glad you asked it in public I just have one question um to my colleague vice president Kino in terms of uh bidding process do you want to consider um that we go to a bidding process where we have to take the lowest cost bid lowest responsible bid because you know those are those are things that are afforded to us right that before the process you must take the lowest bid it just ends up being in this state you know are we shorting ourselves own quality or any I don't know local preference so those are the kind of things like I hear you and I'm like if we're about trying to stretch this 70 million do we want to consider those type of things where here on out any RFP that comes back is a I don't I can't remember what it's called lowest bitter winds you know I've seen that at the city I've seen public works and it can be really you know uh efficient and it can also be sorry so something to consider vice president um in terms of the 500 Grand and then the 600 925 will that come back in the form of an RFP where the board will go ahead and ultimately decide or is ehp going to go ahead and designate who's going to get that contract directly in terms of the um the the the third party costs or third party contractors yes so in terms of the contractor that's going to be um doing the demolition itself I think the range was 600 to 900 that's actually going to go up to bid or proposal and then um based on the bids that we got we'll bring the recommendation back to the board at that point so that the board can take action to move forward with whatever firms the board desires with and then the 500k uh within phase one is that directly something that ehp directs or does that come back to the board to make an ultimate decision so the um the $500,000 that I believe it's um embedded in the entitlement process for other consultant these are like Engineers architect um the it's included in the proposal but the district um Administration has the the last say on it they would come to us with recommendation um with whatever architect firms whatever engineer firms to do the schematic and um surveys um that need to be done to be able to submit the application to the city so those 500 care within the 772 or the I mean the 687 correct gotcha all right all right thank you for that clarification trusty Chavez um and to truste Andrea's Point um on the lowest bidder I don't like that either but sometimes you get what you pay for if you go with the lowest bidder so me I think that sometimes you do have to um spend a little bit more to get the quality that you need that's it thanks thank you and I think the ehp previous contract that we had was a good example of that we went and we went with one of the higher biders and we got some money back yeah right and so um anyhow all right so I think we're ready to vote so I'll go ahead and open it up to vote those in favor uh of this oh no motion motion motion by trusty Chavez it's a motion to approve to approve yes okay second second by trusty Flores Shelton all right with that we'll go ahead and move uh to the vote um at this time if you can uh raise your hand if you're in favor of um the motion all right uh oppose okay motion passes uh with opposition from uh vice president uh Kino all right thank you and thank you for that uh presentation and information and questions and comments by the board all right moving on to item 602 do I have a motion on item 602 motion motion by truste Chavez do I have a second on this item second for com uh questions uh second by trusty Flor Shelton all right at this time um I'm going to go ahead is there a presentation on this item no but I I need to clarify for you guys I did that on my one on on but I want if it's okay the public to know pleas and then you can and then you need public comment on this so yes uh the our main firm in Alam rock is Ron and Roberts right um roio provides the services almost like um District Council right General Council to guide the the work of the rest of the of the the the legal things that we bring that we need to address right and unfortunately Ron and Roberts had a retirement and that was the person who used to help us with the HR issues with classified employees and so because um we need support on the every day to answer questions and roio help been spread very thin he's staying with us he's not going anywhere we're just asking the board to allow us to bring to dwk the questions around classified employees that we need to resolve on the everyday basis because Ron and Roberts kind of lost that support you know when the person retired thank you so that's that's that's it's Focus around uh HR but classified employees issues thank you for that explanation uh now I'll open it up to public comment on this item welcome hello Sandra ver welcome um thank you board for letting me speak that was just part of my question is that I noticed I know that um our main council's contract is up in 624 again for Renewal and then this one aligns for 624 with renewal so that just kind of raised the red flag because I do understand that we have used dwk in the past when we did not have our current representation and so it is on area's behalf that we're asking that the contract either be modified or to clearly State because right now when I look at the contract it states that it is for personnel and such matters it does not clearly State HR and classified and I don't know if there's a way to make that distinction so that we can say that this firm is being used as a subsidiary or a subsection to what we already have thank you thank you anyone else on public comment all right seeing none any questions or comments from the board vice president kto yeah I'm concerned about the expansive nature of the of the language here um ran Roberts has been through us through some very very difficult times they've uh gone ahead and taken on those issues and actually bore some serious uh damage from some of the individuals that used to be on the board because of the um work that they did on the opinions that they delivered and so they were they were basically yeah they went through some very difficult times in so I find it very difficult to go ahead and set them aside um bringing in another firm that does exactly what they do is essentially saying what if we bring in um I don't know two two heads of HR have the same exact responsibility same exact um role I think I think you know our HR person would be feel like they're undercut and so um I I am concerned that that would happen here um I would be amenable to a a a POS not actually no I'm not gonna underclub myself here let's go ahead and have further Dialogue on the board and see if uh what the will of the board is um um because I I've stated my position that I think that uh if anything we should have a serious conversation with ran Roberts tell them to take on more more support so that they can give us the support we need uh before we take any action if in fact they say we won't then I'm glad to go ahead and say all right we're going to have to look for more support in the future but um if they haven't told us outright we won't then I feel that it would be not appropriate for somebody uh for an organization that's partnered with us through some of the more difficult times they've been there and I mind you we went out there during those very very difficult times went out there we sought out other firms they said hey some we're not touching on rock it was bad it was very difficult so thank you Jessy fam uh Dr Dr I just want to clarify for everybody that I talked to roel about this and he was the one that gave us kind of the language so he knows about it we do have some items that we really needed to address and because he is helping us in so much so many other items he kind of welcomed the help but I just I just wanted to clarify that for everybody thank you trust fam trust well then if that you know given that's the case you know and and would it you know either the superintendent b or Madam president would it be possible just to um you know uh just amend the contract just add the add the language that you know this would strictly be you know for uh a you know H you know Human Resources matters related to you know support you know in the support of the uh management of classified employee I think of those that made the motion accept to make that Amendment you have a motion yes I make motion but I want to say what I'm gonna say first before I Amit okay okay um when I seen this I seen that um there rean and Roberts are stretch very thin and every single time the post session items are like this it's because they're way too busy on that I would like them to focus on that and that is a priority to get it out of the way and also if this firm can Aid them in moving the district forward and in being able to answer the questions when they need answering right away then I think that this in no way is saying that we're not going to be with rean and Roberts or Rehan and Roberts isn't going to also always provide us a service the quality service that they've been given us this is just to Aid them and the district because there's a lot more work that needs to be done but they're band with is already stretched thank you thank you so and do you accept the uh Amendment um sure to include that so I I I'll be I made them so to amend to amend they will men item 6.02 to include you know to uh you know limit the the jurisdiction to uh you know to in support of Human Resources management of classified employees I I don't want I don't want it limited I I believe that whatever the district's needs are need to be done first without tying the attorney's hands so you don't exactly I think it's best just to okay especially since roio already wrote the language and he agreed I think that we should just go with the way it's written thank you uh vice president so this language was provided to you by ro Ruiz he told us that it's okay he reviewed it he red it okay and stamped stamp that's very good okay trusty uh Flor Shelton thank you um interestingly enough I this item was supposed to be heard after the interim budget right and I'm I as newbie again I was looking at this from a a cost lens right and I had asked the superintendent don't these agreements come to like with an up to amount like are we just and I understand we don't we don't know sort of roles and how things come in to us but I I would suggest given that this expires 2024 I guess uh Rohan rean and Roberts also expires in six months those are all yearly they're always coming to the I'm sorry to say so I guess yeah okay thank you I guess what I'm looking for is at some point from a budgetary scheme some analysis about what are these contracts costing us um and so I'd like to if we can amend the motion to include direction to what was that so we're gonna get a heart attack well I I think we need some like you know we need to get real here okay so like what what are these contracts costing us and so I'd like that to be as a second I'd like to include that in the motion that we come back um and I just do think it's good to have folks on contract it's like a retainer contract right if we need help we need help but we also need to understand what is the district putting out in these contracts um and I understand limiting it if if rehon is in the primary position and they're in the backup position I think that's you know that's how I understand what you've explained and if that's and then the other thing is when it comes to labor negotiations we have Jess C right so he's in the primary position and there this is not for those purposes none at all okay so I just want that on the record I'd like to submit a substitute motion vice president and then trusty chav okay uh my Subs motion would be that we go ahead and accept this language uh except that we say the district um to provide representation to District on classified employee labor related labor employment and or personel related issues and that uh we amend this for a six-month period so as to so the we 300 robbers an opportunity to ramp up and be able to catch up on on our on our our work I hope that my colleagues will be amendable to that given the fact that if in six months they were still backlogged they're not they're not able to hire on any more any more attorneys then we take it on at that time and um take the action that the board deems appropriate a second hold on one second because we have a motion on the floor trust sub clarify and isn't this so June June 20 30 2024 yeah isn't it here so I would say cut it back 6 months rather than the full year it's June 30th it goes through it's only six month weeks June 30th is six about six months six and a half months can I ask the board a question2 we're in agreement we're in agreement just highlighting the agreements okay trusty Chavez I was to say because put a line on it can it just say on demand and on the need basis that's it no no only six months just if we need it we use them and I think it's there June 30th up to June 30th putting a timeline I'm saying it's already here yeah yeah but since I'm I was the one to make the motion and I can amend the motion but there's a substitute motion which already take but he didn't he resend it right now no I didn't you need second oh I second to substitute motion that's on the floor that takes precedent over the okay for six months six months as amended with the c language sh okay so let's now have a conversation about that truste Flor Shelton can the maker of the motion include that uh financial analysis come back on both legal agreements I agree on that should have thank you limited to I want to basically after District on you just put classified employees between on and labor okay so just to clarify we're just voting on this language here um no that's the motion to approve it oh motion to approve the entire okay pass so with her request can we also do a breakdown on how much each case is costing o so that that way we know that the tab is running and how much of the tab is running and itemized M president trusty found I guess I agree with you in spirit but there's the issue of you know legal work is a highly variable uh Endeavor and expense so it's sort of like you know uh I could not fa I mean I I fear the logistical issues that would entail it's you know it's sort of like is that even logistically possible uh so hold on one second board vice president then I'll come back to you I I don't think what you're asking for is way out of or and the law firms keep it down to the yeah you know what is it 10minute increments so you'd be able to get yes that should be given to should be easily be able to give to us a close session yes because everything is already incurred trusty hold on one second okay are you done with your piece we'll go back to trusty Chavez okay I would just like to have it be analysis and let because I don't know if we want every single case I I don't know if is there's some part of um I don't want something this big detail I just want analysis I want someone to give us like medians and ballparks because I think uh fam trusty fam you're you're right um so I I'd like the experts to be able to come back and give us some analysis so we have some idea about the financial impacts instead of telling you which spreadsheet you know columns I want trusty Chavis I'm asking for one page of information D case cost it this much D cost it that much easy accurate detail how much of it's costed so far thank you okay so um with that there's a new motion on the floor so do I take public comment on this now public comment on the new motion on the floor open it up for that okay seeing none restate uh yeah do you want me to restate please restate your motion so I'll read the whole thing um notwithstanding the terms of the agreement of the agreement attorney's scope of services may also include the appointment of attorney to provide representation to District on classified employee labor employment Andor Personnel related issues okay and just to clarify we're just voting on the language for that therefore as well as the analysis of costs for Legal Services okay and then we'll come back after this to the item well this path has been the other ones no it's MO and move approval uh because if we're not going back to this item then I I would like to see it to end um or go from up into including June 30th 20 2024 the six month period well yeah because it's already here on the item no it uh goes through including June okay so that's clear it's in there so all right want to make sure okay um okay all right so now we'll go ahead and vote then on the item uh with that all those in favor please raise your hand all right unanimous vote thank you so much all right moving forward or back to item 301 uh alen lock administrators Association do we have anybody we do welcome to the podium I know hour um good evening Board of Trustees Dr bow AR USD staff in the alen BR Community my name is silia Cario and I am the principal of Mya Elementary and I'm also the president of the alen brck administrators Association it is a privilege to for me to speak tonight to represent a group of vibrant Educators administrators who work tremendously hard in service for to our schools and Community there are exciting developments taking place across arusd and our administrators continue to work to serve their respective sites or Department this November and December for the following schools I would like to share kuron is excited to be receiving their clear touch boards earlier at dors of the staff participated in a second 2hour sips systematic instruction in phic awareness and phonics professional development that they are moving towards full implementation of the program you're invited to their holiday movie night on December 20th Lindale celebrated Ruby Bridges walk to school day for the second year by wearing purple walking together as a school on the black top and students participating in read aloud classroom discussion and activities around Ruby bookus led by classroom teachers District Representatives came by to cheer and show support they have Christmas trees two Christmas trees up in the downtown Sasa Christmas in the Park one is from the parales family decorated with ornaments made by their SDC students and the other from Mrs McDonald's TK classroom Lindo also received a synopsis Grant to initiate a box gardening project at Lindo involving teachers staff parents students and Community stakeholders the initiative will involve all and help raise awareness around native plants and Indigenous backgrounds resilience and their medical social and historical uses students will learn about animals and insects the internet interact with these plants through life stages and about natural conservation we also celebrated the classifi reclassified students in an after school ceremony with food certificates and gift it was attended by students classroom teachers parents and families at R Academy sounds presented a schoolwide assembly about antibullying and their fifth grade students are practicing their presenting skills by making the mov announcements in San Antonio fourth and fifth grade classes will get vaping and bullying presentations by the San Jose police department and then last week all of the TK F classes participate in a ra B science activities the Panorama survey increased by double digit in student climate and student SE secure survey from 59 of students being saved to 74% amazing um at adant one uh the adante fifth grade Co soccer team won the little Hills Soccer Championship at home we came in third but it's okay it was great for the first time in atalanta's history the adalanta wrestling team placed first place in the County's Championship it was the first country team championship LED primarily by Artic girl student athlete wrestlers they are super proud of their team and their accomplishments and representing arant and our district in such an event their teachers also recently attended a ki's training and are looking forward to the implementation of kis across the school now for academic Services they continue to provide PD activities UPS to support all teachers and when a start of testing session just around the corner they're working to be fully prepared and trained to make this happen alac summative testing starts February 1st and we have about 3,200 students to test a lot now various schools will will be participating in the that the showcase on Tuesday December 19th at 6 p.m at the Mexican heritage Plaza uh president fam visited several schools marable one of them and read out loud to the kindergarten students La Rock students have been going on field trips to see The Nutcracker The Tech Museum AMC movies and Peter's Bakery to bake and eat cookies yummy and schools have held various CAC SP presentations on anti-bullying migrant education and Children's Mental Health present by The District's SEO Department all schools are will be holding a winter program this holiday season and I'm sure miss Kio has a list of performances in case you are able to attend one or a few of them and on behalf of all the a USD students staff we would like to wish the board members and Dr bar a safe and happy holiday season thank you thank you uh now yes give my hands up Round of Applause now I'm going to move on to Teamsters anybody here from Teamsters welcome thank you uh distinguished board members and uh it's nice to see a functioning board I represented the teamsters bargain group out here for close to 20 years now and I've seen a lot of boards that weren't really too functional including the one that fortunately uh vice president Cano survived um I was this board doesn't throw chairs at each other it doesn't have uh restraining orders against each other or against the superintendent you have open polite thoughtful dialogue and it's a pleasure to see that uh this is what the community deserves and needs is functioning adults here to do the job otherwise shame on but you're not those people and I I represent five school districts out of my 10 public sector Entre TRS um and I also have private sector I think at the end of the beginning of the new year I'll have 12 public sector so be my final term though my final three years I just got reelected for this is my 30th year as an elected business agent uh so I've had a lot of chances to see some really good and some really really bad it's also nice to see that we have a really great superintendent I've seen a couple of other ones that I had some real concerns with she's put together a very very good leadership team here also lucky enough to have somebody that I can trust like uh Jess Cerna I I can trust uh our superintendent uh and it allows me as a longtime business agent as a longtime Union Leader to go out on a skinny Branch every now and then because I promise you I couldn't do that for a lot of the board members or a lot of the superintendents and a lot of the districts I've represented over the last 30 years uh so it's really a pleasure to see something that's working in a functioning manner like I say you're your public service that's what you are your public servants my members they're public servants and they care about the students they care about the community uh again I I I'm so glad we don't have the uh the old board uh with the the restraining orders and the forensic grand jury and all those wonderful things that you should only read about on a Sci-Fi uh uh story so thank you all for that and uh I've been meeting on several negotiation sessions on a work classification study with uh some of your leadership team and and J C we're close to that being done I we have a re we have a final document to review and I believe it'll it'll go through uh I like that our unit gets to be functioning adults too and uh I look forward to seeing this community Thrive uh I'm I'm glad we're getting rid of a a blighted building and and not maybe making it drag on and the price Rises and all kinds of people get involved so they can get their figures in the pie uh there's been some corruption here this District before you guys probably know about it especially uh vice president KERO uh I I'm happy to say I don't see that anymore I can't say that about every District that I represent people at or every private sector contract for that matter so I'm really happy to say that and and thank you all have a very happy holiday season and again I I hope to continue this relationship that I have with Teamsters in the district to to really be a a professional and collaborative uh relationship and thank you all thank you uh now we'll move on to IM 303 California School Employees Association anyone here um Sharon sends her uh greetings and she's not able to make it because she has she's attending one of her grandchildren's recites tler we said hello uh item 304 alen Rock Education Educators Association area welcome back good evening um on behalf of area now clerk fam right no no clerk is I'm sorry now board member fam we would like to thank you for your leadership and your role as president on the board and that has created um open lines of communication between the units and the school district so on behalf of ARA and Joselyn and myself thank you for all of your hard work and dedication to the Alam Rock Community this past year and it will continue on as your new role um as area president I have had the privilege to visit 18 of our school sites and have gotten to meet many more members that I had not gotten to meet by the end of this school calendar winter break I will have gotten to 20 and I will have 22 completed by the end of January um we have started to create some working Partnerships with weekly meetings to get ahead of some of the things that are happening at some of the school sites and some of the things that the teachers are bringing up to me um they would like me to address here tonight one of them are clear and transparent flow charts with orders of operations for who is to do what and how that is to be done um at one of our school sites there was a breakdown and some of the teachers had not been getting their pay for failing to fill sub positions but nobody really knew who to go to until we finally got that taken care of but there's other kinds of orders of operations that the teachers are asking for a little bit of clarification on um like with SST processes how is that supposed to be done who is that supposed to be done with and the clear and direct kind of manuals and outlines that we can produce for that we are in the aftermath of coming back from unprecedented times with covid and so some of the things that are difficult for the teachers right now are the behaviors that we're seeing in the classroom and some of these behaviors that we're seeing are just due to the lack of isolation and our community is one of the strongest hits because when both Mom and Dad have to work a lot of the times the children are left at home and if you are an only child or if you're only playing with your siblings you play with your siblings a lot differently than you should be playing with your classmates and so trying to get some more support smaller class sizes things like that to make the teaching portion of our job easier a lot of the times the teachers are feeling the struggles and the pressures of trying to actually do the academics but because of the behaviors and the things that they're seeing in the classroom that's getting pushed to the Wayside so that they can deal with the problems that are at hand um one of the other things that the teachers are having a really hard time with is we talk a lot about seal and the kimojis for the children but one of theal and kimojis for us as adults is to also take care of ourselves while we understand that in our contract we have 35 meetings as an obligation as part of our work duties one of the hardest things is to go through a 405 minute work day where you have a lot of behavior problems and things like that and then have to turn around and sit through a 2hour PD we are not at our best at that point and a lot of the information that go that is coming out go straight over our heads it's really difficult to sit there for two hours and try to concentrate and do the best job that we can when we are physically and mentally exhausted after our long days one of the things that I heard here tonight that was brought up we are in support of Workforce housing because we all know that it's extremely expensive to live here in the Bay Area I have some teachers in the district who actually have had to make the choice to not be one of our members due to the fact that they really need the cost of our membership dues in order to survive they're alone here in the Bay Area they have moved here no other family or members to support them and while the workforce housing will answer some of those needs the one thing that I heard earlier today was $1.6 million of Revenue that will come out of the workforce housing with 78 units it's over $20,000 per unit as a profit and while I understand that there is a cost of doing business that's an extra $20,000 that's going to be coming out of the teachers's income going right back into the pockets of the school district I don't know how I feel about that and I don't know how that sits with us and so I would like you to take some of those things into consideration as we move forward one of the last things is that in our schools a lot of the times when the teachers need help they call the office today I was trying to get to a school site and I called the office three times and nobody answered the phone I called the principal's line nobody answered and I called the cell phone number that they provided for me and nobody answered and when I got there they were just like oh so and so is at a training and the sub didn't answer the phone I guess and that's one thing for me but when I got into the staff room the teachers also echoed that and that is something that's been echoed throughout the district when we have kids now that are having seizures in the classroom and they call the office and they need help and nobody's picking up the phone what am I supposed to do with the 23 other Littles in Kinder or first grade when one child is having a seizure and I can't get through on the phone calling 911 of course but again is there something we can do whether it be walkies for every teacher instead of trying to depend on the phone system because again the phone is on the wall and if my child is over here having a medical problem I need that support I need that phone answered when it rings so please when you go into close session and when you talk later today talk about some of these issues and look into them and see how we can best support all of the members here in the district thank you thank you uh we'll go ahead and move on to item 305 superintendent B thank you I just want to wish everyone a safe and peaceful holiday I know that it's been quite a year 2023 has been quite a year for Alam Rock I'm looking at Tony colon over there and he's nodding and I know that all of all of us have worked very very hard to make sure that our students feel welcome that our parents know that they are safe and that being able to do all of these things is it's difficult sometimes and I totally honor the work that every single staff member M whether it's classified or certificated um I want to thank you for your commitment to Alum Rock I've always say that I have the best team from the custodians to the assistant superintendent I have the best team in the state and I want to thank you for that I see some of my principles in the back you know and they have also been at it a long long time and so thank you principles as well um thank you everybody thank you alumrock community for supporting alumrock um through many many things but especially uh as we unfold as we wrap up 2023 and unfold 2024 with a great hope and and enthusiasm about all of the things that are coming in the New Year have a blessed holiday thank you thank you now moving on to uh 306 port trustees Communications comments from anyone uh board vice president kto um just uh had the privilege to attend uh Okala um after school program they had an amazing Showcase of some of the great work that they're doing um involving science technology art um I think there would be a great opportunity to showas some of the very uh important pieces that they put together uh that have um both an artistic value but also a very very important statement about the what's going on in society um and so I would encourage Dr B if you could reach out and see if they would be willing to lend some of those pieces to Showcase here in our district office because they come with a very beautiful explanation at the bottom as to what's going on um so they also have a photography exhibit too um but uh yeah just kind of caught my eye and I thought wow some of the great work that they did should be showcase uh Beyond just uh this evening so just a suggestion yeah thank you thank you anyone else okay I'll go trust you P all right well I want to say that you know this has been quite a year with my uh recently concluded presidency of the board you know I uh wrapped up my third annual tour of Alan rock with my uh you know what Lindale which has a special place in my heart you know having come out of Lindale and to as well as aptitude where I started in this district and uh of course I can't forget last but not least the Renaissance at fiser middle uh you know great things happening Fisher had a the the eighth grade social studies class had a great debate about the portering act and I had fun telling them you know that the mo was it uh the most uncontroversial Amendment to the US Constitution the Third Amendment which prohibits the government from quartering soldiers and houses so it's uh you know uh quite fun to see our eighth graders uh debate Civics and in class and I we got to see you know I got to tell the fifth graders at lale about uh street hockey and uh got to see you know uh you know the art the artwork of the season in the windale office which you know the third graders this month had the you know have the honor of doing and then of course you know uh got to see you know uh read to the children in aptitude and to see you know that you know where you know where I started in this District some what is it third 34 years ago uh you know and I want to say that you know a lot of great things are happening in our districts uh in our schools and I I hope that uh all of us will be able to come out and see our kids at the upcoming winter uh Visual and Performing Art showcase as well as the various holiday pageants at all our schools you know uh uh you know uh education a partnership between families and schools uh this uh all of this would not work without that strong partnership uh also wrapping up my recently concluded presidency uh doc you know I and Dr Bower and assistant superintendent Chang had met with uh State assemblyman Cola to you know see where you know where we could get uh you know where where the state can help us with uh you know uh with our upcoming uh teacher and work staff housing project but also uh getting making sure where we you know where where are putting our you know getting our you know making sure that our state representatives uh work hand inand with us to secure more for Alam Rock and I want to say that uh you know in in retrospect what what a year I mean I want to say you know I you know to superintendent bow and her Administration I certainly uh on more than one occasion stretched stretched your comfort zones but I mean I want to say that we you know one or two you know uh was it Russo mcky Elementary is our newly redesigned Environmental Science school uh was it I worked with uh you know uh Brian Wheatley who's you know the San Jose UniFi trustee but also this year's president at the Metro Ed board we've been we've collaborated we've got uh uh Silicon Valley CTE providing Career Technical education programming for our kids in our upcoming spring break in April 2024 but it we've you know we accepted you know the feasibility study for teacher and staff housing and we're moving forward with that I U brought get you know the uh the East Side board PR you know the board presidents and superintendents of the East Side Alliance and later you know the board president vice presidents of the East sign Alliance together and you know to fight for you know for our for local control of our school size which is as I mentioned uh you know in in the previous item you know uh the importance of that to to our future efforts in uh securing our children's future so uh all in all I mean you know and also meeting our parents where they're where they are Copita and March Madness and you know all the way through to uh shepher Middle School's Halloween screen Fest and so you know I guess you know one of the you know uh one of the things you know why I took on the board presidency was you know to try to get as much for this District as I could I lobbied City County and state leaders on behalf of our district and you know we want that you know at the end of the day uh you know we we've done this we kept the books balanced and we Prov provided our teachers and staff the you know the the pay increases that they so much deserve and uh when the going got tough you know we brought home the bacon so with that I wish the new new or I should say this is your second time with the gavel I wish you well and trying you know bringing home as much bacon as I did because you will certainly hear from me if we're missing some bacon this year in 2024 so with that I conclude my remarks and you know I wish everyone a happy holiday season thank you trusty fam and we are one of five so you're still one of5 keep bringing the bank in um thank you so much for your s Service uh anyone else before we yeah I'll just say um happy holidays to everybody um it's been uh a year just reflecting uh trusty fam on joining this board thank you very much for your trust and I've been on my learning curve um I attended the California school boards Association conference um was that two weeks ago it's all a blur um so I feel like I'm doing my due diligence and I'm looking forward to getting into um doing school visits and I don't I think Dr Cudo there you are Dr Cudo I'll be reaching out to you and seeing how I can jump in and visit some schools and with um yep I'm looking forward to it and I have a a beautify SJ Grant I want to talk to you about too um Myer partnering with the Hank Lopez Center on some fun things so all sorts of ideas for the coming year and again it's a privilege and an honor uh to serve with all of you and our community so Merry Christmas um Happy happy Quanza and happy Hanukkah that is what we've been celebrating at the city with my team and I just um have been really again privileged that we're a light for everybody and that's the season that we're we're in right now so I'm really proud that Alam Rocka shining bright for everybody thank you thank you trusty Travis um last month I said that uh I I like that they contributed to the um playground equipment for Lindale and we were scheduled Dr B and I for a visit there at the Lindale uh school but unfortunately Dr B got sick but um I did say that I was going to do this month's paycheck and another the next month paycheck and give it for the playground so here's my check and I'm not sure who to make it out to but here's the bacon as it was referred to so who do I make the bacon out to uh Mr CA the Alam Rock School District okay and I also put and that it can only be used for the playground equipment okay so I I'm sorry about restricting it but I'm restricting it so Al make it up to alrock what school district school district okay no put it towards the MOX thank you I guess I will just hand it to Dr B because that's what was left um and the next next will be coming um from the tech mrock and I was also really happy to see that uh Mr and Mrs travoli also did a donation and I think that um where your heart is is where you put your money at and so uh if anybody else want to do a tax donation before the December uh 31st um it can be written off uh and I encourage everybody if you got some extra Pocket Change um to dig down deep and maybe uh perhaps start donating to Alan Rock and that's when I'm going to be doing uh 10% of my paycheck every month from now on thank you thank you trusty Travis um and with that I would just like to um highlight the fact that I know uh trusty FL Shelton and I um and Dr B were able to go to the csba in San Francisco luckily it was close this time come back home and head back um easily um and I was glad to attend the track for experienced board members have focused on effective governance and so you know I was glad to hear the feedback earlier from a gentleman um and it's not just again just me right the I and the president but all five of us and um I'm very uh glad to be a part of this board you know that we're able to have the conversations we have that we don't agree on everything because we shouldn't that's why we're here to have conversations um but that we get to respect one another um on the this board so I am very proud um of being on this board and uh very excited for the next year um as board president and um I do want to highlight a a a quote that that I that they said that um for me meant a lot um because really highlighted for me all those that steer that plane in the classrooms as teachers in the schools as uh principls our superintendent and you all have your roow and the plane you're steering um but just that reminder for us as board members that our job is just here to light the runway right to bring the resources to highlight um and to make it easier for all of you to steer your plane and so you know um steer the plane in the right direction right on behalf of our children and families and staff that we represent so um with that I'll go ahead and move on to item 41 move approval move to approve second second by trusty uh board vice president ginta and second by trusty for shelter um any public comment on this item see I'll go open it up for comments or questions by the board see none um I think the only thing I'll highlight before we vote is that the janary meeting will be the following um Thursday so that because I know sometimes we put it on our calendars and it's just the second Thursday of every month just make sure you don't um miss or show up early to that one um anything else on item um can you please have us uh send us out um Outlook invites so they're automatically that way we don't have to go out there and create and if there's any that's like emergency or something like you have to make an adjustment okay we all be on the same page rather than yeah that's helpful okay um and see other questions and comments by the board to a vote at and then you said the number and okay uh yes uh I know we're in adjustment mode here um so this time uh I will allow thank you for it's okay come on up we did have a question we understand that during June July and August adjusting the board meetings really doesn't make a difference but the April board meeting does fall within our spring break and we do know that a lot of our parents go away during spring break and so I know that we're pushing back the January could we possibly push back the April Spring Break um the April meeting so that it doesn't fall within our calendared spring break this year thank you that was all thank you very important um I don't know the maker of the motion any I'm hesitant to move from the steady every second Tuesday of the month but um given that I also know that we have staff here yeah yeah we we have we have District staff but I understand the public yeah so if it's okay with the board if we move it up to April 4th yeah instead of afterwards because afterwards is just getting too close to the other and we have L caps and we have all kinds of things I'll by motion to if you're okay with that adopt it with the fourth on April in April April 4th so that that I we can have it is are you okay with that he yeah I amended I amended my MO tot this with April 4 amending it instead of 11 second yeah that's fine thank you all right um any questions comments from the board so no I just want to clarify that I was saying I am hesitant to move the second week flot given the fact that the district's on break that seems like a pretty significant thing that should be taken into account when we're so as just as we're moving in on January 18th it makes sense to do it here and so it'll um read April 4th and then first Thursday of the month on that line okay all right um seeing no other questions or comments by the board we'll go ahead and move to vote all those in favor please raise your hand all right voting uh passes unanimously now we'll move on to item 402 move approval by vice president ginto second by trusty Flores Shelton um any presentation or comments I just uh uh I had my conversations with you guys on 101 but this is for the public the only thing that was added to this by law was a new document that is required by the county of Santa Clara who is the one that uh oversees these board by law of complete of Interest so that is the major change change there is there are no changes on the actual bylaw or on the exhibits that are currently in gamet we're just going to add this and this particular document includes spells out for everybody to know who needs to fill out a 700 point so that's the major change the other the other thing that we needed to do as a district was to update this bylaw because it should be updated every two years and we had not done that since 2018 so that's some a reminder for us for me to bring this every other year okay all right any questions or comments I just want to make a comment because um of my employer being the city of San Jose and the department I work for I just want it to be really open and honest that I'm really mindful of the conflict of interests and that I have um one time and I will continue to do this to get advice from councel whether or not I need to conflict myself out of anything because of the incompatible offices and activities so I just want to be really transparent that I'm super mindful of you know everything from uh you know the park uh Park discussions you know related to Workforce housing I have had I keep a really strong firewall to the extent possible and not hearing about those things but also want to make sure that you know that I would be fully transparent with you all about that so that's my only comment thanks thank you um I'll take public comment at this time oh we'll wait a little longer just in case okay seeing none uh board I'm glad that this is here and that we're able to move forward um as has as was brought up to the board in the past uh there's been conversations with the District Attorney's office Public public and charity unit to provide uh a workshop essentially or a mini Workshop to um all 700 filers for the district and so as uh Dr B mentioned that um it would be at a management meeting because it's more difficult to Wrangle a lot of managers that board members would be invited if you're available to make it um the uh the DA's office has suggested to speak to um U to the council for the lawyer for the district and so they'll they'll um they're working on setting up a a workshop that will touch on any issues related to you know um work that's being done in school districts and public sector that type of stuff um um the the idea came from a workshop that I attended when I went to an L conference where it essentially like a Scared Straight type of situation if you do this you're going to get that and so that's sort of the idea here that they're going with just providing case studies as to what happens if you fool around and you violate conflict of interest um in that type of stuff so good information for everybody to have when you're making big decisions thank you okay seeing no other comments or questions we'll go ahead and take it to a vote all those in favor please raise your hand all right vote passes unanimously uh now we'll move over to item 404 on as information only um on this item I want to remind the board when we did our board evaluation last time we were uh [Music] reminded AR we aren't we now the item 4.03 we move that over to consent thank you trusty pan did you have a no okay so yes so reminding the board that we were told to look at our board valuation process or decide on that um is on for information only um at this time and Dr B you brought the examples of so um I asked Dr B to bring the examples that we've used in the most recent years one of them is the one we most recently used uh the other one is the one provided by csba that we've used maybe a couple years before that um if you want to pick one of those um you know read through it it's on for information only um or give direction to the board I'm sorry give direction to the staff for when we're in that time um that we know which one we're going to and as a board we know what we're being or what we're evaluating ourselves and each other on um at that time so um do you have that Dr have the copies for everybody okay do you want to pass it's in your it's in your folder oh it's in your folder in our folder um so yeah I don't know if anybody has any comments or questions it's on for information only so um we're not necessarily voting on this it's more giving direction to our staff when we get to that point cool any thoughts on any one of the two yes after reading the trusty Chavis uh since we didn't really have a time to look at this can we just uh go move forward and and maybe discuss it if there needs discussion if not this is the information that we need and just we'll submit it to Dr B so that way because uh time wise we have a lot on the agenda and maybe we can just move on this um anybody else um okay um I don't see anybody raising your hand i'm G to go ahead and open it up for public comment good evening everyone my name is ninaa I just wanted to thank you all for discussing this process because it's especially important considering there's no legal obligation so I really thank you all for doing that um I also think that it's important that you conduct these self evaluations on a regular basis because they ensure that the school board runs at the highest efficiency level and I hope that the school board shares its self assessment process and the key learnings and insights with the public thank you thank you okay back to the board any comments questions S I think the only thing and um you know I think we're getting better and better every year right and so um I know that we were recommended by roio our Council to pick um uh evaluation um proces that we would use in December now I mean know we haven't you know done that sometimes we're picking it you know a month or two before and we're I really each other and ourselves um in that process so I think if we determine one in January I'm guessing that would be appropriate that would be so much better than we have in the past and so um I think that's a great Point trusty Travis gives us time to review um and maybe find another process somewhere that you know we don't have in front of us that might be better so um Dr B we can come back board vice president I would suggest that we toss this into a study session um that way we don't have to make any sort of big decision now we can flesh it out more once we've been able to you I know we've seen it but that way we can all talk about the issues or any problems that we saw or um anything we want to expand upon uh rather than just having to jump into it right now or having to bring it back at a regular board meeting we be we'd be feeling rushed to just make some superficial comments um because at some point in time we're going to have a stud session uh and if we just tossed this for I don't know half an hour 45 minutes at most I think that would probably be better than us trying to Hash it out here right now okay good point and I think um also at board president I talked to Dr b um in at csba actually and that we should have um a review of the governance handbook and where that's at and maybe also um you know it's time to bring it back out make sure that we all line see if there's any changes so maybe in that we could also bring that up and review at that point good point okay so with that we'll trusty Travis as well as update so that we can be updating it every single year instead of 10 years from now yeah I like that okay may I ask yes if uh so what I hear as direction right is to find a date in January for a is it January when we will be doing the the study session ideally yeah or I was thinking if there is a study session that come that requires more substance this would be something before or after does this is not going to take place until following year correct so we would have I don't know if it's in three months so within the next two months maybe yeah I just I'm going to remind the board one of the things that um it's very useful when we go to csba because it reminds us about a lot of things and there's also the governance calendar that we have kind of put on the back burden which is okay because we have been through a lot of things but one of the suggestions in the governance calendar was that the self evaluation really needs to happen like in right before the summer because that's when the board you self- evaluate and then you set the goals for the following year the school year and so we haven't done that and and I think it is very useful to have a board study session where you discuss those kinds of things you have approved uh the district strategic plan you have approved the district long-term facilities plan and so those are your blueprints for the board goals right so that your evaluation your self evaluation aligns to the district goals that you've approved so those are the kinds of things that we haven't had a chance to have a a good com you I'm saying you know as a body you have not had a chance to have that conversation including the governance book handbook right it was written almost like in the middle of the pandemic if you recall right and you remember that and then we haven't brought it back so it's about four years old so I think it's it's important that gives you a little bit of time to review some of these things before you come to the study session so that when by the time you come to the study session there's some documents that you have reviewed and consider and you know give give direction to the rest of us trusty chis can we also um have in writing the current mandates that have been passed in the last two years sure thank you okay any other questions or comments okay so we'll look for a time within the next two months in other words between January and February okay all right moving on to item five 40 five um information only um I'll open it up for any questions or comments by the board please read at your own Leisure um would it be C that would give us an update go ahead sorry ready yes ready an update thank you madam board president um yes um at the last board meeting the board directed the administration to look into developing um an rpq for affordable housing um so subsequently we reached out to our um legal team at dwk um who has put a draft um together that was provided to the board I believe last evening um and so here tonight I would like to invite Miss uh Clarissa K Kennedy with dwk um to be able to provide um a summary of the um of the rpq and also to provide an opportunity for the board to to ask any clarifi questions thank you good evening there we go sorry about that good evening um so as CA said uh we were asked to put together an RFQ for um affordable housing and this is a distinct um we separate project from your Workforce housing project that you were talking about earlier um and it's also different in that this RFQ will be intended to select a developer or development team that will handle the design planning um construction operation funding of an affordable housing project on a portion of the the site that's not being used for the workforce housing piece of it so unlike ehp that's going through the entitlement process for your Workforce housing and so you're you're sort of taking out in smaller bites this RFP is comprehensive it includes everything excuse me so we would the proposals will be pretty meaty proposals that will come back to you for the selection process um to determine which developer development team you want to go with and usually it's going to be a team of folks um who are going to present um how they can fund design construct and then ultimately operate in affordable housing project on the site um another key component of the um RFP is that it's a ground lease um with the goal of having the some of the lease revenues from the units themselves coming back to the district that revenue is general fund Revenue so it's not restricted um in the same way as as other types of monies that you might receive if you were selling property so it allows for an ongoing income stream um The Proposal would have to put together a funding and financing uh strategy that lays out what that looks like you know and ultimately the there's a lot of upfront costs because you're going to have construction so there's you know going to need to be Debt Service on that piece so you may see just as an example um at the beginning the income isn't as high as you know and it sort of eventually ratches up excuse me ratchets up as The Debt Service on the construction is being paid down um and ultimately when The Debt Service was completely paid you know ultimately at that point the lease Revenue should be you know maximized for for the district and then at the conclusion of the ground leas term the actual uh facilities that are built the workforce hous uh itself would uh revert to the district's ownership and and operation unless you wanted to extend that that um contract or bring in another operator for the site so I'll pause there because I said a lot um for any questions you all have uh board vice president uh I just wanted to make sure it underscore the importance of making sure that whoever responds to you know whatever responses we get that we have like a really firm understanding of individuals or firms that are going to be committing to providing a minimum amount to the district uh I don't want us to get into a situation where we sign off and agree we're moving forward and they're like all the finances aren't working out and we're going to wind up paying you nothing and we're just handing over very valuable land and the children of alam Rock aren't getting anything ex changed and so um I know that you're very very excellent firm and you guys are are very experienced in this I just want to make sure as one board member to really underscore that point that um we have Rock Solid language that doesn't let anybody wiggle out of that weasle out of it absolutely there's a you know in the when you when we're vetting the actual proposals that's probably going to take a team of folks on the district side to really dig through um the financing plan that the proposers are making to the district to really almost forensically evaluating it to make sure that you're going to get the most Bay for your buck um in terms of the the value of your property so I absolutely agree before we move forward I see your hand I think it's important to um this is on for information only and I heard you say whatever responses we get I don't think we're there yet um and so just before I just want to make sure we're clear before anybody goes out and does anything that as a board we haven't decided I'm not saying I'm against it I'm just saying that we need to move as a board appropriately um thank you um so thank you for sending the draft RFP I have not had a chance chance to review it this agenda item and last month's agenda item were both information only so I'm I'm asking is this coming back for Action next month or what I I'm I'm just feeling not up to speed on the the plan uh superintendent so last month when this came up we were directed to have a monthly update and at any time the board is uh you know free to let us know is this the time do we bring it back to approve the RFP that's not not anything else right to for the board to say okay guys we are ready to move forward but you not tonight you're right this is for information only we just need that direction from the board because every month you asked us to bring you an update every month this was the next step and so we we're expecting some direction from you guys as to what is your am I saying that correct but to my but last month last month was um was information that I I think I asked the question then how can we direct anybody to do anything when it was information only so so expenses are incurred and when RFP is coming back to us so yeah I would expect like I think we need to talk about what is the action item that's coming back because I'm I'm I was still um not clear on how under an information item we directed staff to to even do anything last time so again maybe that's my na day on how info items work thank you I think say something I just don't just GNA agree with what Dr Bower stated okay thank you um and I think you know having been part of the workforce housing and how the idea came about and the committee and you know how we move forward again I'm not saying I'm not for this affordable housing project I'm just saying you know making sure that we move forward appropriately um as a board and so um board vice president King the item is agenda I'm expressing my wishes as one board member I actually mentioned as one board member um to uh coun Council who's working on this that was my only intention I know that it's information and I'm not directing Council in any way she the only action that can be taken is by the board majority I'm very well aware of that and so I want to make sure that nobody out there is thinking that I'm somehow unilaterally pushing anything on Council it was just as one board member I actually prefaced and I mentioned it so I want to be clear about that um thank you for bringing this as an information item um I look forward to when it is brought back as an action item and we can actually as a board take action and provide Direction and authorize staff to move forward on this so I don't is is there I like to ask my call is there any hesitance on moving forward with no I think it's just um if we want to put it on the agenda next month I would I would encourage just to Dr B be able to bring it back as an action item words remember at the end of the meeting and any board member can send that request to bring it as an action item we right now can ask you bring it can you please bring it back next month that anybody can do that yeah the answer is yes yeah I'm asking that real quick back um I see trusty FL Shelton and then trusty Travis um yeah and I think the and maybe it's because I haven't read it but if it could come back with with what would be the financing scheme for these because this is not or uh this isn't going to be funded by the bond correct no it's it would actually be funded by the developer who is selected so that this would not be U utilizing District funds at all right so yeah just lots of questions about sort of the framework the the I guess the scheme right that that allows us to do this and sort of under and I know you walk through a lot of stuff right now that I haven't again haven't read it so I'm just I do feel not just approving the RFP but the framework around the role and how this is very different and who are our partners like would we want to talk to this to the city or to the county or is that a part of the RSP process don't you AR like would would you be concerned about having talking about saying hey let's talk to theity is there like confiden Ty I'm I mean again I'm talking about like the the housing department all these people right so it's just like I'm I'm just kind of saying back to you you know back to like jumping to approving the RFP I just want to kind of make sure that there's sort of some parameters around the information needed to make a decision about that I know I have trusty Chavez but if you're going to respond directly to her question so the logic and going out for this RFP would be that we're going out there and seeing who's going to give us big bank for the buck as a district not attempting to look out for why because we want to figure out how to max how to maximize that that land for the kids of the district because we are and I prefaced this last time we're we're on the hook for a lot of stuff that were not were not funded by the or or we're underfunded by the federal government all kinds of stuff and so we got to start getting creative as to how we can fund those things with the with the asset that we do have the idea was to go out there and find who is going to go out there and get us the the best deal I would assume that if we were were to limit it to the city and the county or any local jurisdictions we're going to probably wind up being in a very tough difficult spot to find the best the best deal for the district in terms of generating Revenue so that that's what I assume I'm sure I'm sure C can probably provide a better response I'm just gonna just to respond back to you in terms because I think you're um I am back to what I remember you saying last time we don't have expertise here right this is not our expertise so we're looking out for expertise um I guess my question is back to um I will just read the RFD how about I do that since we just got it was it this morning um and I won't speculate on all sorts of things in this regard I I think my issue is just what is the action item bringing bringing coming back to us and the information that helps us get to supporting affordable housing of course right you know so that we don't stall it out trusty Travis and I'm asking for when we do get something that it not be last minute because we do need more time to give it more thought before we even go take taking any steps and if um that can be provided to us in the timely end thank you considering we have two weeks off in December and this is a veryu huge um huge item I doubt that will'll get any information before the two weeks in December but I don't know maybe we can um to BR and deep to you know ask the questions I don't yeah I'm again it's affordable housing so absolutely I'm all behind that um and I want to make sure that we do it right and since we're not expertise in that area um I know it'll be back in January for oh that request was put on there but I don't know if that's sufficient time at least for me right to dig deep ask the questions and then vote on something uh trust superintendent just to ask clarification uh I want to to make you know make it known that know when you mean affordable housing you mean Workforce housing because they are two separate things but two different en no affordable housing we're looking at this item as affordable housing this is not workfor housing okay I just wanted to make so just to clarify that we are all on the same page because as someone and as you all know I've been I've been me deep in the whole public place I public properties resoning issue and so that's why uh you know I you know uh the the entitlement process for affordable housing is much much more challenging and it's a different animal so I wanted to make sure that uh you know we the board as a whole knows what it you know what type of task it is compared to the workforce housing so okay thank you very much for clarifying than you so I just wanna I I want to be clear to prepare for that item that we will bring in January we can have if you guys go and read the RFQ QP or PQ I remember and you whatever questions that you have if you send them to us so that we can present prepare a presentation around the concept because this is still a concept yes right this is still a concept the board actually is going to need to vote around the actual use of that property for that even before we bring that so those are the kinds of things that I'm just kind of connecting dots when you we're talking about pqp because has to do with zoning right and so the Board needs to tell us or the Board needs to make a decision around yes we want this two acres for this kind of uh use right and so then then after that and those items can be brought at the same time I don't see a problem I'm just saying that if whatever other questions you might have if you can send them ahead of time you know the holidays are fine you know some of us work some of those days and so that I can you know share with CA and Clarissa so that we can prepare for January 18th okay and we bring a presentation around the the whole concept will that be okay with the board Yes sounds great uh vice president um um want to thank uh St um know that in the my previous comments when I brought this item before asked that um we make sure that um it was being done by that there was no involvement by anybody who's already had a contract with the district and so dwk is working on this so very uh very comforted by the fact that it's being done in an unbiased Manner and it's going to be presented everybody's gonna have a fair shot at going get thank you great I'll see you January 18th and I realized I didn't take public comment so I want to open it up before we move on any public comment on this item after hearing that discussion all right seeing none we'll go ahead and move on to item information on creations of solution of or appointment to board created committees as uh per board bylaw um I oh there it is I did my homework it's in our packet so I'll go ahead and read the ones that we currently have in place um or at least yeah um should have in place uh board vice president I'd like to remain the shair of Workforce housing and I'd like to remain share of small schools and innovision okay self nominated good um so we have Budget Finance curriculum safety and wellness smart schools and Innovation and Workforce housing some of these have been um kind of you know since the pandemic I think some of them may haven't met um and I see two hands so I'm go ahe and go with clerk Flor Shelton first yeah I'd like to share my preferences but which ones currently don't meet um so I think the only one that's for sure been meeting is the workforce housing I don't know about the other ones um vice president small schools Innovation we were supposed to have a meeting we didn't okay um and so looking forward to setting up a meeting in the near future yeah so the only one that's been in the workforce housing trusty Travis oh have a question oh sorry sry um so um I'd like to propose um that we create a community engagement committee that can help um support the superintendent and the um the the communic ations uh contractor that should be coming um to the district soon um so I'd be interested in support of creating that and I don't know if I need to make a motion to create that um and then I'd like to be on the safety and wellness [Laughter] Comm J Chavis uh I'd like to be on the budget and finance and curriculum okay any other comments by any members of the board [Music] um we don't have to have all of them and we can have new ones it's up to us so um if I don't see any other can I be can I suggest that we combine safety and wellness and curriculum together because I feel like seal has become such an embedded part of what we hear from area right it's kind of like they kind of go hand inand um so that's a suggestion good suggestion you need a motion or second I guess say it again we're all just kind of working it out we're working it out and I think so we don't need the chair at least one chair every one of them has at least one chair on so that's good [Music] um M trusty fam do you want to um participate in any of them I will give back to you on all right um may I say something about uh I think the recommendation that trusty Flores Shelton is very good because we are about to roll out Universal Design for Learning that that merges the safety and wellness with curriculum that's great so that's something that we're just when when you were talking about that I'm like oh yes because perfect we had I think that that will be a great opportunity for the board to become more familiar with that um very um um we're we're ahead of the curve when it comes to that and so I'm very proud and uh Happy that that the board is interested in engag and if you're okay with that I think that will be a great um asset to to the to the to to our district great thank you for that support still support on the workforce housing as we have been working together so um and trusty fam will think about what he will yes do in the future um if any okay and let's see I'm going to open it up for p comment at this time welcome take your time hi I'm vet I teach at hover media arts academy and just a thought about the safety and wellness and the curriculum for me uh it's coming down to what the purpose of your committees are going to be I think there's a lot of overlap there but there is a lot of things in curriculum that is curriculum specific so I'm just curious about what the purpose of the Committees will be if that overlap would always be necessary or if it could be a at this time these two committees work together thank you thank you okay see no um we have the Committees we have at least one chair um what was the name of the community engagement committee engagement yeah I mean I'm starting you know I don't know if it's like Staffing these committees becomes a burden I just well you know I'm throwing it out there as is it helpful yes yes okay yes I think I'm saying yes in the sense that sometimes people have a perception that we don't go out and engage the community when we make decisions and I think I need to do better around advertising that we met and this is when we met and I think that that's part of the communication space yeah and I'm thinking about it not very weedy like go to this and do that you know it's it's like the framework you know and back to there's a real intentional focus on the school community of course right and with some of these projects that have kind of larger stakeholder involvement and you know what is our community engagement you know framework how can new supports help us and I don't know I think it's a development year it would be good to have a committee and we can report back uh vice president and I just mentioned that there's going to be a firm that's going to be brought on to help with public relations what when are we going to have that contract come up or we just finished the the process and so we were not ready with the contract for right now um we're still the negotiations so hopefully by January so the RFP has already gone out we got the results and so the board's gonna go ahead and yes interview some groups or something I think the STA we did that we interview them oh okay because it's Services I know they're all services lawyers everybody's services but uh we've always gone out there and interviewed so when did we uh when did the board say go forth and bring us somebody that you decide I think you're right [Music] so think all those questions are we'll deal when it comes up yeah yeah no I think those questions are valid and I think you know when we when we bring them okay so coming back to this I'm wondering if we could include this maybe govern to and you break down I think it's important to highlight what the Committees would be focusing on a summary of what each committee will be doing so I i' like I'd like to include that there okay great um and so we'll go ahead and bring it to a vote at this time um all those in favor of the Committees and the chairs please raise your [Music] hand all right uh the vote passes unanimously now we'll move on to item I'm sorry sure for president I just want to be clear um the curriculum safety and I I have because I have trusty Chavez and trusty Flores Shelton so they are co-chairs correct is that okay yeah is that that's what I understood I just want to make sure that I understand so so the first one first one Budget Finance trusty Chavez uh curriculum safety and wellness trusty Chavez and trusty FL Shelton small schools and Innovation kto and Workforce housing kto myself commune engagement committee for Schon okay perfect all right item 47 approval to appoint the board representative um for the county commit election for 2024 uh this is on agenda every year um and I think I representative is Vice President K is that correct um is that the current to what to the on the item 307 of the county committee election um the boundaries the boundaries yeah yeah no no yeah yeah I know I know it's okay and I think you been doing a great job but um any nominations or um any discussion on this item um as far as nominations to app Point anybody in particular or are we happy with uh vice president Kinto if kto doesn't want to do it I'll do it yeah it doesn't require much you so I you're okay with that would you like to give it up this yeah go fore if you want to do it you know what I I can I would volunteer as well um okay so we have three people do it I'm sorry are we volun are people volunteering or getting nominated so first uh we don't have no nominations are on the FL at vam president self nominations okay so two self nominations trusty Chavez and trusty fam so trusty Chavez was the first one so we'll go with just like we did in the beginning of the meeting go with that V first and then see how that goes and then move forward um wait there's no motion and there's no second as we're hopefully getting a motion in a second remember that nominations don't require second oh that's right okay so there's self nomination good I'm going open it up for public comment before we go so I'll open it up for public comment at this time all right see then we'll go and take it to a vote for uh trusty Chavis to represent us um on the county committee um can I sorry can I ask like it's like first come first like I feel like we don't have like a I I don't really understand we have two volunteers for one appointment and they I'm I I just don't really understand what our motivation is here can you explain presid been you count committee one it does it sets up the boundaries for school district so a year president sure trusty middle of the explanation but I so so uh every year you know there is uh there's a county committee that exists to delineate modify the boundaries of school district and so you know uh for example if a say a certain if there is a a so there is a say a not a lack of a school uh in a certain part of the district that borders another District that neighborhood could could could petition to seced from one district and move in you know and be you know um join another District so you know part of this is that uh you know we you know districts like ours need a strong representation on this committee to ensure that uh our district has you know uh you know interest of represented so you know so that we so that we can maintain the uh the the current boundaries of the district as well as the investment that we have we have and will be uh making in the district you know if we lose a parcel you know that's a loss that's a significant loss of tax revenue so we we you know given the history of the county committee it's important we have someone that's relatively well ined form so that when we select someone that someone you know that someone will you know V uh defend our interests and again protect the in Integrity of the boundaries of our district so but that I you I end my comments thereor president yes additionally um this body is the one that actually draws the boundaries for the districts that are on the board of education so they don't draw their own boundaries they drawn by the little obscure committee okay um a long time ago in ancient history we got involved little nonprofit that I'm part of and I was a part of for 16 years to advocate for the changes because Alan Rock used to be attached to Morgan Hill Gil Roy or somebody Jerry Mander District they gave us no representation and um we worked with a very well informed board member by the name of Frank Beal who served there and said hey this is not right and so we worked to set up a district that made sense that allowed people from the community to be able to get elected to that district and so Darcy green eventually was able to get elected Peter and so others from this area have been able to get elected as a result in the past we used to only have people from South County representing us out here in the east side from um and so that's also another really important part of it having somebody who well informed the only role that we play is to go out there and cast the vote for that person um and so it's it's not it's not like you are on the commit right right so truste FL Shelton and then so just one followup um in the last few years has there been any action has there been because I mean try fam makes it like the scenario sounds like a school could leave a district which has any has that happened to any District in the last like five to 10 years other than the outside of the Coe boundaries small parts of santaa that have tempted to go ahead and move forward if you had a county committee then um you'd wind up them them allowing it to happen and they legally would move over into another district and they'd lose that that tax Reven thank you trust there are also Pockets inside San Jose that they're considering now um of trying to get into the boundaries of the city um versus the county and makes a big difference whether on your tax increments this isn't the unincorporated areas this is about School District boundaries yeah my understand inor go ahead every District every school in our district is within the city city has an Annex them and like half a street is on the city Side even Joseph George is within City District brers so we don't we don't have it doesn't affect our district on some of the things are my tax thing says otherwise and I'll maybe I show that later we live in unincorporated but our schools are in the city yeah our schools are in the city but where you live might be different okay uh superintendent I know you have I was just going to mention that the other one was the recent basa case because they had to they purchase a district office that was outside the boundary of basa and the district office must be so they had to go through that whole process of you know asking that the district you know had all of that process to Reign the boundaries of beresa to allow basa to purchase that new property did they just Annex it was I by two blocks so or you know you that used to be in Orchard district and a swap of you know one parcel from varas and went to Orchard and that Orchard par parcel went there yes way swapped okay so we still have two people nominated um and so I guess we'll take it I mean is this like a quick one we can have one show up or well let's go ahead and vote on Name by name we'll start with trusty Chavez since she was uh self-nominated first um all those in favor of trusty Travis to represent the district on this committee please uh raise your hand all those oppose all those abstain okay so four POS one for we with a second nomination all those in favor of having trusty fam um on on this County committee raise your hand may want to rep it to representative to vote to be the representative to vote and represent our district on this County committee raise your hand I see four um four and one make sorry anybody oppose anybody oppose no Iain unanimous unanimous okay for trusty P to was on that count thank You2 approve citizens oversight committee appointment motion motion by trusty CH second by trusty for [Music] Shelton is I'll defer it to ca we are well CA looks for the name I think it's Matt Mr K we have been looking for and this is a great opportunity for me to tell the world please apply for the cboc committee we are really uh in need of members uh unfortunately we have not been able to meet quum that's why we have we are two reports delayed and this is the committee that look us looks at the way we are spending bonds monies and that's basically the it's an oversight committee so uh anybody who meet meets you know the the group that that we still need uh please apply it's it's our application is online is very easy or we we follow up with a phone call you know to talk to whoever is interested to verify address motion service CI citizens of mod oversight committee who are interested call the district or go online yes um the qualifications are there hope to encourage you all to look into that and um in the meantime the name of the person we are hopefully apping tonight is Mr Matt KS Mr Matt KS okay so with that I'm gonna go ahead and open let comment on this time seeing none I'll go ahead and open it up for comments or questions by the board okay see none we'll go ahead and bring it to a vote at this time those in favor of a of appointing Mr Matt Matt Matt K KS Mr Carn please raise your hand right vote passes unanimously thank you so much um moving on to item 601 Dr B I'm gonna defer it to Mr Chen he's going to have a presentation about our first intro good evening again board um tonight I'll be presenting an overview of the first inter room report um and with that uh some of the topics we'll be going over um the key assumptions uh that we use to develop the first interim um we're going to go over the multi-year projection and then the next steps and Future F considerations um the first assumptions we'll go over are the enrollement projection um we did this rooll projection about a couple years ago and we've been tracking pretty close and I'll show you the numbers um in this next slide um so for 2324 um the demographic study um said that we were going to be serving 7,376 uh when we did a one body count in October um that number is 7,41 so about 25 more than what we projected um and as such you know we're going to we're going to stick with the enrollment projection or the um demographic study um so for 2425 um we're still projecting to decline um but that number is is projected to be 7,093 and then moving over to 25 26 school year um that number uh the enrollment projection will be 6,810 um with those enrollment projection and the cola that is presented in this um graph right here um for the cola for the current year it's 8.22 um with the cola and projected enrollment we're projecting to um generate approximately 114 uh million dollar in lcff entitlement um moving over to 2425 um the Cola for that year for next year it's going to be um projected to be 3.94 and I'll talk a little bit more about the cola uh for the upcoming year um so for next year we're projecting our lcff enement to be um about 11.7 million million dollar um and the numbers below are just the changes in um El of entitlement from one year to another um so because of the reality that we're living in with um enrollment declining enrollment um even though there's a cola um or LC of entitlement actually goes down um and then moving over to the third year 2526 uh with a projected col of 3.29 um the LC f enement is projected to be about $110.6 million so other assumption we use I already covered the cola uh and for lcff um the caveat here is that with the state's budget uh situation right now um there could be possibly a reduction in Cola we won't know that for sure until the governor comes out with the January budget proposal the state has a a January 10th deadline to have all of that kind of be available um to be introduced um sometime in mid uh January so we'll know we'll get some move some new information then um other revenues State revenues that um is included in the second inter first interim is the onetime learning recovery emergency block grant um that amount is $8.6 million and again this is on the restricted general fund um and the onetime Arts music instructional material discretionary block grant um we have received what 4.6 million in that and then the expanded learning opportunity program which is elop um these are grants um that are annually given to the district um we're projected to receive about $12 million these are grants to provide services for before or after school or extended a program including summer um and so that was a a program that was initiated by the state about a couple years ago um so that's part of the the first inter room uh for local Revenue um our biggest part of money is the partial tax um we generate about $4.6 million in partial tax um per year every year and then federal revenue um our biggest part of money in federal are the S 3 remember this year is the last year of S 3 um and so we have about $10 million left in S3 and we're projecting to utilize all of that um in the current year so by June 30th um we should um exhaust all of the funds um in terms of um assumptions used for the expenditure side um we built into into the first interum all the salary increases for all bargaining units including management U for the current year and the cost that also um continues to go out on on on the out years as well um the per rate for next year is projected to be 26.

all right um and Camy County School boards I haven't heard anything them either so you backing off of Kim saying having their ree on the second um we also need to schedule ours it will not be obviously before Pine Hill so we're doing our board meeting this second too so they're going to do three work straight into the board okay so so um does Thursday January 4th work for everybody since we generally do Thursdays um go with January 4th we'll establish you know president vice president committees um the U meeting calendar all that stuff that re work so if January 4th works good I'll tell that to Jody we'll go ahead and get an advertisement in the paper and and draft our agenda prior to winter break okay good so like 7 o'clock 7:30 it doesn't generally take long so it works best for you guys I mean it's usually about a half an hour do seven seven okay for everyone all right so we're going to need a motion and a second then to approve the date of January 4th uh 2024 at 7M for the 2024 reorganization meeting all those in favor oppos orain now we're open I don't have any old business make got do something here thank you while we are still in in new business I just want to take this opportunity now to formally welcome our selected superintendent uh Mr Lee congratulations thank you so anyone at home that's listening we're anticipating in the February time frame uh it might be sooner but that's the likely start date correct so thank you so much for the opportunity and I'm super excited to get started and we're super excited to have you absolutely all right thank you now we're g to go to public motion is second to open the meeting to the public for discussion of any subject um all right motion second close to the public motion second we don't have a need for an executive session so let's go ahead andj the meeting can I before we move to I didn't miss anything this time uh I uh I feel uh a responsibility to remind us all that today is the 11th anniversary of the Sandy Hook Elementary School um unfortunately it's been 11 times I've said this to a school board just to uh a make sure it stays in our minds and B to reassure you and and and those in the public that I know I'm speaking for Mr Murphy and Miss bre and and every everyone in the schools that it is always in the Forefront of Our Moment it is always the first thing that we're thinking of as we are driving to school um it's the first thing we're thinking of it's uh when cars are pulling into the lot and the doorbell rings um col mind certainly changed Educators forever but Sandy Hook was the one that ripped your heart out and uh it's just I think it's important that we just remembered on these and God speak for those parents that are still dealing with it and we do everything we can make anything else from anyone before you turn all right motion second turn the meeting motion [Music] Miss [Music] I'm trying to

now therefore be it res that the Board of Education will go into Clos session for the following reasons that outlined in njsa 104-112 items 2.2 through 2.4 do I have a motion motion by Mr fysic Caro seconded by the Miss Fox any questions or comments before we head into executive session Mr rinti roll call please Mr Mr Bach yes Dr capalo yes Mr ficaro yes Miss Fox yes Mr Kath yes Mrs N yes Miss Lee yes Mr Thompson yes Dr wil yes motion carries thank you we'll see everyone at approximately [Music] 7:30 [Music] he [Music] oh [Music] oh [Music] n [Music] go not [Music] he [Music] I [Music] you [Music] a [Music] oh [Music] a [Music] yeah [Music] yeah [Music] he [Music] oh [Music] n [Music] he [Music] not [Music] n [Music] I [Music] yeah [Music] one [Music] yeah [Music] oh [Music] those who were able please rise for the pledge I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for Allie uh reading our mission statement tonight will be Dr Capello thank you Mr K oh you are very welcome the mission of the eim Township School District is to promote excellence in an environment that engages students in meaningful learning experiences in partnership with students dedicated staff families and Community the district provides a strong Educational Foundation that will Empower our students to achieve their unique potential Embrace self-directed lifelong learning develop the skills necessary for appropri risk taking and responsible decision making respect themselves and others problem solve individually and collaboratively become a contributing member of a diverse Global Society thank you Dr Capello all right we're now going to move into uh skipping section five we're going to go or skipping section four we're going to go into section five public comment this meeting will now be open to the public referencing agenda items only however if your questions or comments pertain to litigation student or Personnel items or negotiations we would ask that you see the superintendent after the meeting since we do not discuss these matters in public please limit your comments to 3 minutes per person and state your name and address at the beginning of your comments would anyone like to speak on agenda items only seeing none we'll move to the approval of the minutes we need a motion to approve item 6.1 and 6.2 do we have a motion motion by Dr Capello second by Mr physico any questions or comments on the minutes seeing none roll call please Mr Bach yes Dr Capello yes Mr visicaro yes Miss Fox yes Mr kth yes Mrs null yes Miss Lee obain Mr Thompson yes Dr wil yes motion carries thank you moving to item seven superintendent report and administrative items we need a motion to approve item 7.1 through 7.10 do we have a motion motion by Mr Thompson seconded by Miss Fox uh before we head to a roll call hand the floor over to Dr Smith thank you Mr canthon uh I'd like to start off by first recognizing um we have a few board members for whom this is their last meeting today um just starting with Dr Capello who read the mission statement um the uh three years it's felt like much much longer and I mean that not in a good way in a good way right we this board has accomplished a lot in the last three years in no small part due to all of your contributions um what comes to mind just thinking of you is uh among other things that bifocal lens you have of actually being deep in the engine room of Education you know working for the NJ dooe and then having also that very local lens of a parent of our district and that's such a rare pairing of lenses and I I know it's helped us see better as we've navigated all these challenges so Dr Capell thank you um and the uh Leo Ryan who's not here this evening but the this would be her last board meeting she served um as board president among other roles and we I'd be remiss and not extending thanks to her for guiding our district through covid uh state aid loss and other challenges and earning in the process the enduring thanks of our district and then lastly uh Dr wil who um I'll say a great embodiment of quality over quantity of time um as you've been on the board and um but thank you for your contributions on the curriculum committee and in other ways and look forward to just keeping a breast of your continuing uh engagement and support of our community so thank you um and then also uh John rinti so our business administrator who is uh retiring and this is his last board meeting and I don't know if you did did any math on how many board meetings you've been to over the over the years as board secretary and you're so good at math I don't want to put you on the spot but um last meeting I I did and I I forget what the numbers were but they were 250 yeah around 250 something like that 250 yeah so um you know and John what if we were playing free association with your name Li light would be one of the last things I would associate with you um way sooner would I say absence of ego which is a Hallmark of leadership and I think I'd also say wealth of [Music] experience yet ever fresh eyes and it's that kind of unicorn combination of EXP experience and with the ability to still find novel solutions that has helped guide us through um I mean not just challenges of covid but um material challenges of increasing costs Staffing challenges budgetary challenges conundrums wrapped in riddles encased by puzzles um and through all that cuz those are all that's all the fruit of the tree of you but your roots the soil that your roots are in is um unshakable values you know that I've gotten I feel privileged to have gotten to see as we've gone along every decision is inescapably an ethical decision and to know as we go through those decisions that your values you know and I would say commitment to Mission to serving kids to putting that purpose of our district first to know that that's been buttoned down and lashed down so securely on the deck of the goodship etsd when it comes to you has made it only possible to get through some of the waters that we've gotten through and uh yeah I just I I'll like I told you before I'm going to try to uh have your my little inner John voice uh at times you know so and if that fails me I have your cell so I'll be calling you okay um but just uh on behalf of our district and and me myself personally John thank you so much so I thought we what we could do is uh just call everybody up that was recognized and we could kind of get some pictures together um and uh there's some plaques here and John we had a little something for you too so um so maybe first we'll have uh have our board members come up for where's John John John you gotta come on Lisa and Brian and Amy Trish Diane they're here to see it's about you man come on up they came all this way out in the cold the uh I I I tried to hide but you wouldn't let me yeah yeah yeah yeah no no no it's too much fun it's too much fun um and uh just one little thing too here because people if I even if I held this up it's in small font no no one would see it on the live stream but um it just says uh etsd is dedicated business administrator and board secretary upon your retirement thank you from our entire Community for all you've done for our district and then there's a quote that John's used in his email signature um which is uh just has some poetic Echoes I think for um him for you you know I pondered that email quote many times as we've gone along and and and now it's emblazoned on the award here but it says uh he is your friend your partner your Defender your dog you are his life his love his leader he will be your your faithful and true to the last best last beat of his heart you owe it to him to be worthy of such devotion and uh there's a lot of Echoes In that of the work itself so um I think it's I'm just that's going to stay with with us also thank you so we'll get some piics maybe yeah all right squeeze in a little bit all [Applause] yeah it's I don't usually talk because I I don't uh like to be in front of the mic but I I I think it's important for me to say a couple of words tonight and I just want to thank the current board all the past board members the administration The Faculty the staff and all the employees of the school district you all been great to work with and you all help make my job easy and without all of you um there's no school district and I just want to thank everybody for doing their [Applause] part I still have some typical superintendent comments don't want to miss out on that I just because there's some some great things to point out about our district in the last month since our last board meeting starting by recognizing The Many Many students who've participated and performed in our winter concerts over the past two weeks both during the school day and in the evenings their hard work and dedication has been on full display huge shout out as well to our amazing music teachers for helping prepare our students all year and for those wonderful performances I got to attend van xan's fifth grade student council inauguration this week where the students being inaugurated gave speeches about why they ran and their ideas for the year I'd like to thank all the staff involved with student council not just at VanZant but at all our schools for fostering leadership and service in our students themes which are directly tied into our fifth grade social studies curriculum uh among the superintendent items on the agenda I'd like to thank ETA for their collaboration on the two sidebars and also thank the cabinet and their Department teams for their work in preparing all that qack documentation for the county submission lastly uh the adjustment to our current calendar current school year calendar that's on the agenda is to move our last inservice day to June 4th where it traditionally has been from its current day of May 24th this will enable our schools to to be closed for students on the first Tuesday in June since our schools are used as polling locations and that'll be in my update tomorrow as well and that ends my superintendent comments Mr K thank you Dr Smith uh would any board member like to comment on uh section seven I think we're going to save comments about other board members until after we get done with our business items so then we can get business done first any other comments on the superintendent items seeing none roll call please Mr Bach yes Dr capalo yes Mr ficaro yes Miss Fox yes Mr Kath yes Mrs N yes Miss L yes Mr Thompson yes Dr wil yes motion carries thank you Mr renti moving to item eight under curriculum instruction we need a motion to approve of items 8.1 through 8.8 do we have a motion motion by Dr wel seconded by Miss Lee any questions or comments on curriculum and instruction seeing none roll call please Mr Bach yes Dr Capello yes Mr ficaro yes Miss Fox yes Mr canthon yes Mrs null yes Miss Lee yes Mr Thompson yes Dr wil yes motion carries thank you moving to item nine under Mr Shin's favorite section finance and operations we need a motion to approve items 9.1 through 9.16 do we have a motion motion by Miss Fox seconded by Mr Bach any questions or comments as it pertains to finance and operations Miss N I have a question on 9.13 and John I'm sure you can answer this about the Hillman Bus Route 222 can you please explain to me why the dates are December 6th to February 29th are you anticipating we're going to bring that route back um no um it's because we had to put it out the quote and because of the quote limit we can only hold the route so long and in and then in the meantime we're going to have to put it out to bid to continue it for the rest of the year okay and this route is a late bus it's uh no it's a um an MMS route Jager route Marlton Elementary and uh a Marlon Middle School L run so it's four runs okay okay I I understand thank you you're welcome thanks Mrs null any other questions for finance and operations seeing none roll call please Dr B Mr Bach yes Dr capella yes Mr ficaro yes Miss Fox yes Mr Kath yes yes Mrs no yes Miss leay yes Mr Thompson yes Dr wel yes Mission carries thank you Mr shinty moving to item 10 for personnel we need a motion to approve items 10.1 through 10.10 do we have a motion motion by Mrs null seconded by Mr fysic any questions or comments as it pertains to Personnel seeing none roll call please Mr Bach yes Dr Capello yes Mr ficaro yes Miss Fox yes Mr Canon yes Mrs null yes Miss Lee yes Mr Thompson yes Dr wil yes Mission carries thank you moving to item 11 policy we have no policies moving to item 12 committee reports are there any committee chairs who would like to share a report Dr thank you for uh the curriculum and instruction committee met W was just this past Tuesday thank you uh where we had an opportunity to review the family and consu consumer science curriculum uh we also talked about some of the summer enrichment opportun some of the enrichment opportunities that are coming up in the district um and uh just wanted to say to Danny it was a pleasure to work directly with you all these years and um thank you thank you thanks Dr capella any other committee chairs like to share a report seeing none we'll close out that section we have no old business and we have no new business we'll now move to item 15 open public comment this meeting will now be open to the public referencing any items of Interest however if your questions or comments pertain to litigation student or Personnel items or negotiations we would ask that you see the superintendent after the meeting since we do not discuss these matters in public please limit your comments to 3 minutes per person and begin with your name and address would anyone like to comment on any items of Interest hi good evening have to excuse my voice disability it's on it's I'm a little off unfortunately um my name is cig Capello uh obviously live in one kendle court and my wife is Dr Capello uh I wanted to take this opportunity to thank this board of education I've had two kids go through here and I will tell you that live in Marlton because of these schools and because of the job that you do for the life of me I can't figure out why anyone would want to be on a school board and I thank you greatly it is a difficult job that that just doesn't pay that well so I wanted to say thank you for that um one thing that I I see in this board my wife unfortunately tells me nothing so I know very little about what's going on unless I tune into the to the meetings but what I see is uh this board does really great and that you've not fallen into the traps that other boards have where members want to be celebrities and want to take on causes and work against what's going on in the district so thank you for that that is the best for the district and that is what really makes this board outstanding uh the faith that you show in your Administration is excellent this is an amazing Administration the community has so much faith in them and I think that it's very commendable that the way that you work together of course we don't always agree uh the community and the schools but you do a really awesome job of getting back to everybody and uh and doing just wonderful things so I wanted to thank you for that I wanted to thank the uh business administrator and um that's a a great job um that I've heard that you've done over the years and uh basically thank you for uh a wonderful job that you do and and thank you to my wife uh she's really enjoyed her time here so thank you all for [Applause] that uh my address is 152 Thornwood Drive good evening my name is Chris delli and I represent a group of 200 plus parents concerned with the current language arts program being implemented within our school district our goal is to work alongside administrators to reflect collaborate and improve this critical component of our children's education reading is the foundation for all learning and implementation of a research-backed curriculum that teaches students using a systematic and explicit approach is crucial in building foundational reading skills starting and kindergarten research tells us that what our children are being offered in general education special education and the intervention programs is insufficient and District's incorporation of queuing strategies is harmful the research that supports a structured approach to literacy with systematic explicit instruction is not new it has been around for decades teaching practices have taken too long to incorporate these meth methodologies we are calling on Isam Township School District to stop ignoring the mounding substantial evidence that support structured literacy time is of the essence the literacy of our children is at stake we appreciate the board of education's support and attention regarding this matter our group looks forward to scheduling a meeting in January with Administration and learning their plans to take immediate action for all students who are in this critical stage of reading development and for the upper elementary and middle school students who have missed their opportunity for research and evidence-based foundational reading instruction and continue to struggle thank you all for your time thank you hi I'm Lisa argust 31 Albany Road um after the two free full day kindergarten initiative passed I did not think I'd be standing back up here so soon or really maybe ever again um but I got word of a group looking to improve our phonics and reading curriculum here in Eve sham and it piqued my interest um so I took a look at the group's page and um through the school year I have heard concern from many parents about their children struggling in reading and in spelling I see the lack of spelling and vocabulary skills in my own household which we try to work on so just like I tell my children when you see something say something so here I am again um I know that our school district has already made changes by implementing new phonics programs and maybe we need to just see how that plays out but we fear it's not enough and regardless the issues we are seeing are more than just phonics it is clear that we need a more robust program in all areas of Reading Writing and spelling we lack in capitalization punctuation grammar vocabulary sounding Out words and in many cases even just reading a sentence I also find it kind of odd that my first and fourth graders do not have spelling tests I have heard some teachers say let it come to them and that really makes me pause and even more concerned so I'm excited to see what is to come of this the discussions forthcoming and I thank you for listening to us and also on the topic of curriculum I'm concerned about math in our district and not the math curriculum per se um I know that's improved over the past few years from what I've heard um but it's more so the approach and Pace the approach and pace of teaching that's really it's a topic for another day because I'm really here to talk about the phonics um but I just since I'm here I did want to make mention of it um I really do see the teachers rushing through chapters to get everything covered before the State Testing no matter if 50% of the class is struggling and if students are struggling at a CR or D level what are we doing for them why do we have to hit rock bottom before interv intervention comes into play why do we have to rely on outside tutors why can't we slow down and teach to the class not to the State Testing deadline I think we are teaching preco ways in a postco world many of these children lack the basic fundamentals in Reading Writing and math from being out of the classroom for so long and I think we are seeing those effects start to surface and I wonder if anyone's thinking about that so thank you thank you do I my name I don't know what to do on this side of the microphone uh Trish Everhart 25 Derby Court I'm here to uh well congratulations to miss wil I didn't Dr wil I didn't spend any time with you on the board but thank you for your time and your service I want to say thank you to uh Dr Capello great job um I loved working with you on the curriculum committee for your three years with the uh School Board I enjoyed sharing ideas with you and talking about Netflix and binge programs now you will have so much more time to catch up on life thank you for your dedication and commitment to the curriculum in the district good luck to Lea Ryan who's not here but Le and I go way back to our PTA days together long long time ago sitting around the table speaking with uh other PTA presidents and the previous administration and the current administ Administration uh she has done a wonderful job she has really taken herself to the Pinnacle she was a mom she was a PTA mom and then she became a schoolb board member at our encouragement and then she became School Board president so shout out to you Leah for a great job during a very stressful and challenging time that the district had in front of them job well done sorry she's not here tonight but she did an excellent job good job Mr renti I came out tonight to thank you for all the time that you spent with me going over the finance information when I was uh on the finance committee and just as a regular board member you helped me to understand that aspect of being a board member you made time for me you walked me through my challenge of understanding some of the material and I want to say to everyone one I hope you had the opportunity to go in and speak to John he was great um with just helping to digest the budget and was his door was always open and I could call him at any time uh of the day to walk through the agenda so I could be a better board member so good luck to you it was a pleasure working with you we've had our differences but we were able to work through them and I wish you a lot of luck I really enjoyed working with you good job happy retirement thank you anyone else like to speak go once going twice all right uh we'll now move into board member announcements uh I think I'm going to lead off here um I'll say something about each and every one of you uh Dr wil um every year Dr Smith and I we go to testify at the New Jersey state senate um and every year I go in right behind Dr Smith because I have a fear of public speaking um and he leads he intros he gives a great speech and then I add a couple comments about Plato and Aristotle and then we go on our merry way and every year when we go everyone who's there is part of some organization right um they're part of boards of Education they're part of nonprofits whatever they may have you fighting for their funding um you went just as a parent and you went as someone quite frankly out of everyone who's there that day that didn't need to be there um because of one role or another that they had and I think that speaks volumes about your level of commitment to our schools that whether you were on this board or not you were willing to give your time to make sure that our kids got the most out of what was available and I already started volunteering you for stuff in January so I look forward to continue working with you thank you um Dr Capello uh I would love to talk about your sense of humor because that's my favorite part about you but that would get us both in trouble um so we're going to talk about the little things um I remember in the summer we've only had the the pleasure of having one committee together in our time here um I was having an off day my job during committee meetings for everyone here uh is just to make jokes to keep the mood light I don't really do much um and I didn't make as many jokes that day and Dr Capello noticed and she pulled me aside afterwards and meanwhile she has more than enough things going on in her personal life to make sure that I was okay and she does that for every single board member whether it's making sure that my gavel thing is turned the upside down because it doesn't work when it's right side up um whether it's making sure board members have accessibility to meetings in in various scenarios depending on what's going on in your personal life despite a mountain of things that most of us couldn't fathom in your own life you made sure that we're all okay and that level of caring and compassion is isn't a role you have right that that's just something innate within you and wherever you serve after this those people are going to be very lucky thank you mrin um there's no one I work closer with throughout this time than you um that I've been on the board when you look at the rest of the cabinet and you look at Dr Smith these are all education professionals they're all former principles teachers blah blah blah and then there's you John um and you're a numbers guy right you don't do the the whole teaching thing um I remember this past summer after a very heated meeting the two of us went we grabbed a room and and we were letting off some steam and halfway through you got real emotional about it and you're like we're fighting for little kids and that's why we do everything that we do here and every decimal point every line item every meeting for you has been in service of little kids and to everyone who hasn't gotten to see that side of John I'm very sorry and everyone who has you're very privileged to see that for the one person who isn't an educational professional in our cabinet everything for him was about little kids so thank you John anyone else okay that's Mr fgar I can honestly believe I will not be able to match that it was actually phenomenal um but I do want to say a couple of things because I have felt like I've worked with many of you for a long time and uh for Dr wil uh I think just Dr Smith alluded to this this was more quality not quantity in terms of our time together and um I didn't get a chance to get to know you prior um like Anish did and Dr Smith did um but getting to know you here uh your knowledge your thoughtfulness uh the way you handle yourself conduct yourself and the way you truly care about what's going on here that is a that's the quintessential type of person every person should be like that when they handle themselves and I'm grateful for for the the small but quality time we had together so I really hope that our paths cross again sooner than later and we get to work again that would be deep down my pleasure uh John um write down everything I say I want the board minutes John um it's been a long time and you have been a phenomenal leader when it comes to to directing the Financial Health of this District I I didn't think I was going to be back on this board I was planning on after you know like 2018 hanging it up and then that whole financial crisis hit and you know the whole reduction thing hit and I was like you know I feel like I got to be back here and I I ran again but I knew that even though it was going to be tough that it was going to be okay because is you were there this Steady Hand guiding the ship and in that time we went through three superintendents but it was your steady thoughtful hand that had been guiding us through some very rough and murky Waters and I am so grateful for my for me to be able to come back and and experience the true greatness that you were during that time which you would never admit but I am not sure others could handle what you went through and how you handled it and you know it's like they say in Game of Thrones you know eventually you have to put down that sword and your time to rest and I think you well deserved it you absolutely deserve that and you get to go and enjoy the literal fruits of of your labor and I am so utterly grateful that I got to be a part of this experience uh to see you work and how you do things and I will be eternally grateful for not I am not grateful for myself I am grateful for my kids my daughter who's here because you made this a better experience for her and I will always be grateful for that thank you for that Dr capella the worst decision I ever made as a board member was not picking you over hand when we did the interviews my bad I suck all right um you have become a such a a a Shining Light in terms of bouncing ideas and and telling telling these these stories and anecdotes about how things are done other places and I have relied on your intellect and knowhow and just your awareness of the state level for almost virtually everything that I wish I had a book for all the things that you have said because my mind is not going to keep them in there uh but more more than more than that more than that I am so grateful for your friendship because as Anisha said the the brevity is so important our our jobs here we we handle we handle quite a bit there's a lot of stress that comes apart with what we do sometimes and that's that's our responsibility we take that that's why we're here but sometimes we need that's step back and we need just to have people by our side who make us laugh make us thoughtful make us think uh and even all the way down walking down these steps this final moment from our last executive session together we were still talking about not just Eve sham but just education in general and I'm so glad that you didn't give up after that interview that you came back and you ran and proved me wrong I'm so grateful so grateful for that so I just want to thank you um from the bottom of my heart not just as a board member but as a friend for all of the the kindness you've afforded me and for all of the the great true amount of wealth that you provided all of us and I will be eternally grateful to you too thank you so I want to thank everybody for giving me the opportunity to serve on this board I know it's only been three short months but I have really appreciated the opportunity to get to feel what it's like to be a board member I've also enjoyed my time with all of you I think um I've been so impressed by the hard work that you all do and by not just that but the heart that you've shown as well and to the administration I see how hard you work the late nights and the long hours with ever shrinking budgets but ever greater needs so thank you for that I think as board members we often get a bad rap or thought of as unresponsive or uncaring or that we're out of touch and so to the community I want you to know that despite the silence you might receive over email or when you stand up I know what it takes to make one of those public comments and to be met with silence I want you to know that your thoughts and your remarks are not going unheard this board is listening they are investigating they're Eng enging they're talking amongst themselves and they're talking to the administration there are things that can't always be shared um despite the fact that we might want to but I hope that you will take my word that this group of people is working for you and for your children and for all the children in IAM to make sure that this district is well run and continues to be well run so thank you everybody for the opportunity gonna try to compose myself because that pull together you got this thank you um I have been a teacher and an administrator and most of you know that I work for the Department of Ed and I really was wondering when I first joined the board I actually talked to my husband about it that do you think they know where I work I'm like oh yeah they know exactly they they've done their you know homework on you um I truly have been in every county in the state in in District I have seen phenomenal things and I'm sure some people may think I'm biased cuz I live in this town and I was on this board but there are amazing things happening in this district there are um administrators who are so passionate um we have a be I'm so sorry I'm not going to be able to work with you anymore John I'm so sorry um just we we have just a dedication and a passion that it I don't see everywhere and I know we don't see everywhere so it is is a remarkable thing to be a part of this was not an easy decision to not run again it did not come very lightly um and I it sometimes very much regret it because I am going to miss this very much and the partnership and the friendship that I have had and I'm so happy to see Trish here thank you for coming and um Dennis and Jeff who were on the board when I first started and certainly Leah for their guidance um it was just a remarkable group that we've worked with and our new members as well thank thank you I I have can any other board members wish to speak I would like to you how I'm not forcing you no I know I wanted to yeah okay Dr Capello you were kind of like my first buddy here cuz we sat together and then we became like the tattooed except for Janice maybe like the tattooed side of of the table and I I will miss you very much on the curriculum meetings and just you know good luck with everything you're welcome Dr wols I was not involved in in the n in the election process because I had missed that but I am you came in and like hit the ground running and I have really enjoyed my short time working with you and talking with you in the curriculum meeting and I very much hope that you stay involved um John I didn't really work very close with you but I will miss your smiling face across from me every meeting and you know you have very much earned your retirement and good luck thank you Miss Fox any other board members um I'm not going to say anything uh to our steam doctors uh who are leaving because we'll cross path again no doubt about that um but I did want to just you know take the time to say um thank you John I really appreciate uh the time I had working with you and um I will legitimately miss you thank you seeing no more comments do we have a motion to adjourn motion by Dr Capello seconded by Dr wil all in favor hi thank you very much [Music]

um roll call pres Melinda saski Fred rushon here Barb Zar ziki here Sheila Bernat here and Dr Stewart I think you're going to be presenting Galileo tonight actually I'm going to have Jen do some presentation first and then we'll talk about some things that the leadership team uh and the instructional team have discussed relative to these data okay okay thank you thank you Miss good evening good evening good evening good evening Jen so we are going to go through our Benchmark 2 Data um the dibles well the first part is is Galileo and that's k through eight math 2 through eight Ela and then thir through eth science and then some of our dibles which is K through 4 meeting and K4 reading and ended um actually the window ended today but most of their testing was done um at the end of last week and then Galileo ended right after Thanksgiving so all right so a couple weeks ago I met with um our instructional Empower empowerment um people and Galileo because we had some questions about Galileo um and how the program actually worked so we met for about a half an hour with them um I had some questions but they did tell us that the questions in Galileo are like similar to the state like filled to the state standards and generally the same blueprint as the test will be that we do in April um with this amount of Standards um tested on that um there's similar in difficulty as much as possible they can't take the same questions they have to create their own but they're similar um and it's based on item response Theory um I put the definition there um I am not a master of um data stuff so um the but um it it basically is it gives us a way to look at how the students answered each question so you can go in and see how many students have answered A B C or D and see what the misconceptions are and uh gear your your instruction towards the misconceptions it also helps them create um questions so that if they see there's a big skew in how students are answering it they can adjust their questions within the test on that um what we did find out which we suspected but we didn't know for sure was that the developmental levels are a moving Target so I might I can show you when we get to those slides but um to be proficient might be 800 points on the test we take in August but it might be 900 points in in when in the mid year one and so you not only have to make that growth to stay where you are but you also have to make additional growth to move up in the in the ranges depending like on your proficiency ranges and then Galileo told us to pay attention to the risk levels when we're reviewing the data so there's a specific report in there that shows us the risk levels um but we do need to keep in mind that when we look at the data we tested early in November before Thanksgiving um and then had um the week after Thanksgiving for makeup test so really honestly we only taught about a third of the standards as of that point the test is for the entire year so just kind of keep that in mind so there's some extra things on here that I usually didn't show you um the top is what we generally do give you so that is um the percentage of students who are at risk uh minimally proficient proficient and highly proficient on the first Benchmark and then on the second and this happens to be kindergarten map in the middle you it shows you what the the ranges that they need to score for each of the categories so um you can see that if I was um like partially Prof proficient on the first benchmark test and like the low end of partially proficient so I had like 382 points in order to stay partially proficient on the second I would have to have an additional 33 points and then if I was going to move from partially proficient into proficient I would have to actually grow a lot more than that 79 points I believe um to actually move category so they basically that's telling you that their expected growth for a student from the first Benchmark to the second is about 33 points um if you're in that partially proficient range to make you know the equivalent of that amount of time's growth um which in the end we hope would be a Year's growth added up and then at the bottom um it it shows you overall the proficiency of the grade level in the district so overall it ended up as the average being proficient can and then this is the the risk levels that Galileo told us to look at so on course means the students are right where we need them to be and they're progressing exactly the way we need them to be in the standards um low would be kind of what we call your bubble kids so those are like kind of on the husp so they might be just need a little bit of a push to be proficient and then the moderate students would need a little extra help so they might need your like tier 2 or your tier three assistance we have have no students in the high the high range which is a good thing you no students that are that high at risk all right so first I'm going to just kind of show them and you can look at them and let me know if you have any questions um this is the first year in a long time we've done first or or kindergarten or first grade math with Galileo so it's a new experience for the teachers and for the students Jen I have a quick question so this is not a state test this is something we give to the students to see where they're at yes okay it's we use it as a diagnostic so it usually has like two two questions are still per standard um one to two questions per standard and it lets us know where kids are struggling and where we're doing well so we kind of know how to focus our instruction rest of the year cool I have a question please yes so I'm looking up at the top MH and I see the division between not passing and passing mhm and um I'm I'm just trying to understand and relate this to the the graph that was just shown M and uh so it it looks to me and I'm not an educator but okay I have looked at graphs and it looks to me like for example on grade 1 math benchmark one mhm that we have approximately what 64% of our students who are not passing their math test or their their their grade level expectation that was in the first the first Benchmark yes that's the top graph and then the the one on the bottom is the second graph is from the November test so there there was some some improvement that's shown there and it's not really passing and not passing because we haven't taught all of our standards yet so for the first test for um uh uh for the first test all of the items have to do with the standards that students are in this case are supposed to learn in first grade so we're right at the beginning of the school year and they haven't been taught any of those standards yet right so we have some students who clearly already know some of those you know already are proficient in some of those standards and we have a a bunch of students who are not but they have not been taught them yet so the The Benchmark number two would indicate that the uh the Educators the teachers have provided information that is helping those students to get green and blue it moved about 20% over right and they and and so we're talking about then what was taught in half of half of August September and October and then they did the testing in November so about 10 weeks of school which is about one quarter of the school year um um they were taught you know what essentially because this is essentially a midyear test MH that in those 10 weeks what they taught then again is the test has uh questions for the entire year standards and so yes they've you know they've learned things that they've been taught in that period of time so the expectation would be in in the next benchmark test we're going to see some more movement to we should green and blue right and we're going to talk a little more about that when Jen's done giving all of these data yeah thank you I know that I know that the ladies are familiar with Galileo and I'm trying to we all have we all have to re we we have to review these all the time and actually the information that Jen is sharing with you about the um uh with that other chart uh with the at risk chart um we've not used that before so that's a new tool for us uh and helpful information for us good now the the tricky the tricky part will be if you see the growth on this chart and then if we go to the next one um you would technically if you would have expected the blue to be higher because we had so much growth but it's not and part of that is because we haven't taught all those standards yet yeah so it's kind of confusing a little bit but so it's not it's not really a measurement of knowledge that they've acquired it's a it's kind of an indicator on the progress that they're making yes yes and then how much assistance we need to give them in order to get them where they need to be perfect thank [Music] you can can you go back to that slide I'd like to ask is it is it would you like to go through your whole presentation and then then take questions or do you want to take questions per slide I don't whatever works for you we can go through them okay we have we have some insights we would share with you and you will see some Trends as we move forward so you may want to hold your questions and then and then ask after you've seen the whole set u because then then you'll understand some of the things that that we're going to say about what these data led us to make some decisions on there's a lot of perfect go back one slide just yes just for clarification there's a lot of red on here okay there's 23% of the kids and then if you move to the next slide Cassie M you're showing high as being none a zero High means high risk high risk right so those so the colors don't correspond between we're looking at growth so it means that the students we don't have we have students they're making growth they made just not be making enough growth to move either outside of the color category okay so this color pattern isn't the same one as the gra okay why I say it is confusing because they're showing you different things I wish they had different colors so they're showing okay all right I beg thank you that's okay okay um we're going to stop here just for a second just because you see that there's once again a drop and they went from like as a whole in second grade from partially proficient to minimally minimally proficient as an average um but once again if we look at growth we notice that overall the students made an average of 48 points growth from the first to the second Benchmark so I mean there's growth happening even though it looks like the proficiency rates are not um growing but if they were say at the bottom of the um proficiency and they needed to go like we wanted to move them up to Prof to the next category they would have needed to grow 124 points so it's just showing or making growth they just aren't making the growth to move out of the categories from like minimal proficient to paral proficient Etc uh an example is excuse me in the middle bar of information where it says minimally proficient uh DL range so for the first test it's 399 to 547 for the second test the bottom number only went up by one to 400 but the top number went up to 641 so we had a we had a lot of kids who Moved within that within that range but not enough to get to 641 I'm using that as an example or 642 to get them to the next to the next number so uh when you look at at partially proficient uh you know the range is from 548 to 595 and it changes to 642 to 719 so I mean there's not even an over there's not even an overlap there there's an expectation of this hum us growth uh in that in that process thanks Jen similar to The Great similar to that much better seems to be a trend and it's very similar to last year I did look at last year's to see if we were where we were as compared to last year and it's very similar now okay you you say it's very similar to where we were last year as far as the growth or the yeah yeah but on unfortunately as I recall last year we didn't do so well in math on the state testing and stuff so shouldn't we be wanted to be looking so that it's better than it was last year of course we are absolutely oh that's bad I'm I'm just having a hard time believing that nobody is highly high risk yeah in this data I'm just having a hard oh yeah it's because they're making growth they're making growth they're not stagnant the kids are moving they're just not moving enough right they're not they're coming in with deficit yeah I understand that and they just can't get over that hump because that Target's moving got it they can get close to it but they just can't get to it and we're also dealing frankly with none of us has a degree in uh in test analytics and that kind of thing but we all do know and and particularly our Educators know that the folks who work on these things uh who develop these tests um do all kinds of things to uh uh to make them as valid and as reliable as they can um and so um we kind we kind of have to uh believe that part and I understand what you're saying Melinda especially when I look at this one but we're also talking about fifth grade so Cass if you go to the next slide um it still shows zero but look how many are in moderate and and you're going to see this trend clear through eth grade that things are moving to the right um so I don't know what specifics you wanted to talk about Jen on these but we just we wanted to share these with you and then and then talk about where we think we need to go that is sad mhm that beautiful seems to be getting worse as we progress up the ladder MH they're not even getting close to moving can you go back one slide I just want to see what the range is for that one 47 that's a lot of points it on this Slide the the problem I have is okay I can see I know I understand we're testing on movement but when we go go from 71% to 90% in not passing in uh men uh minimally proficient I to me what I'm seeing there is that the kids are not moving up at all they're moving back when when we have a 20% does seem to be showing much growth that I'm not seeing any growth when we have a 20% loss well actually if you look at the bottom it's the numbers they did I mean their average developmental score did go down any yeah this one is the one that does not show growth yes most definitely go back to the seventh grade there was even a bit of growth in seventh grade a bit points let's let's let's talk let's talk minimum okay um anything is it go ahead can can we go through the language too then please and and Jen before you go too far into that so at at 5:55 we do need to stop and have the hearing okay you can continue the workshop there's nothing that says you have to start the regular meeting right at 6 o'clock um but because we announce the hearing at 6:55 we do need to stop the workshop to do that and then we can come back and take as long because this is a really important all of this is important information for you and it's important for anybody who happens to be um uh watching our [Music] meeting just so I understand Ela is English language those that it's not their native no no this is everybody English language arts it's reading reading writing okay thank you yes great question eight points six points worth of growth the last one was eight yeah this is not this is not I hope you guys hope you guys got some ways to go with this because this is we do six six points of growth is basically the kids haven't learned anything better there S no down there's no growth there so grade went down eighth grade went down too no eighth grade stayed the same no no they went down three oh yeah I'm sorry yes pretty much stayed the same stayed the same man in this in science for the state assessment they test in fifth grade for third fourth and fifth and they test in eighth grade for sixth seventh and eighth grade standards so even though they may not be testing in like fourth third and fourth grade what the teachers are teaching does affect you know what the test scores are for the state assess I will tell you with science for both seventh and eighth grade at least on the top graph is a huge I know it doesn't look real positive um just looking at the graphs when compared to years past we usually do not make growth in seventh and eth grade science this time of year so that was actually a good thing that they maintained her grew a little bit um not the norm science for okay um so what you might want to do is uh adjourn the workshop yeah uh for a few minutes um at this time I we need a motion to adjourn the workshop I'll make a motion that we adjourn the workshop is there a second second all those in favor I Melinda saski I Fred rushon I Barb ziki I Shila Barnett okay at this time I'm going to open the public hearing I guess there's nothing special I need to read for this one um 555 and this is dealing with our budget changes okay uh Dr Stewart do you want to do we have to have a vote on this to open no it's just uh it's just you're calling to order okay I'm calling to order um we have attached the uh expenditure budget revision and uh uh there are minor changes in the total for M and uh uh only a very minor change in the expenditures for um unrestricted Capital outlay the changes are based on the changes in our average daily membership since our enrollment is down um the other thing is that there were some miscalculations and some misinformation uh in the first budget so it also provides Corrections for uh for those things the amounts are very similar to what you approved in July uh but probably a total of maybe a couple of $1,000 difference uh total in the in these that's a lot where did we take the $100,000 out of um it spread across okay spread across we had uh a couple of teaching positions that we ended up not needing and so you we put those on hold so we could remove that those amounts of money from the budget um uh and we just you look for the placees you know you make you make your best estimates for line items in the budget at the beginning when you're setting up the budget and by this time in the year you know where you sort of have over budgeted uh in categories are under budgeted so you you move some dollars around or you cut some what did we cut out of school sponsored Athletics do we do anything with it how come it's down 28% um because this is based very much on uh what we've allocated to pay okay uh and uh you know for those for those sponsored athletic things the other part is that last year we still had some funds uh some budget in there for the middle school and um they're not doing they're not doing some of those things paid out of our budgets what they've been doing has been paid out of 21st century after school programs okay so by losing how many students did we lose it's right around 110 I think for our ADM it's about 110 Cass would you go back up to the top we can see in terms of their calculations what it is um oh this is the one that has it wrong okay so the number where it says 2024 ADM uh on this document it did not self it did not populate correctly and the number is 2051 so keep in mind that that is that's this is average daily membership so it's not necessarily the same as when we when we say what our enrollment is uh but it was right around 100 and as I reported to you last month uh about 90 of those students uh have gone on to the two new private schools and that's that's about if if you look down at the bottom that's about 8% 8 and a half% probably yeah about the same the other thing that um we did have in this budget uh is the legislature um gave all districts in the state a one-time um uh boost of and ours was just over a half million dollars and so that made up some of the difference in the losses in ADM there were also some changes in the formula for special ed uh which increased some of those dollars um sometimes you calculate those out and you go well okay there's only one student in this category but the thing is every dollar does count in terms of uh educating our special needs students so um that's pretty important um you know all of those things so lots of factors in those Melinda all right so we need to close the public hearing huh you guys have any questions on the budget we're going to get to vote on this later think call I'm sorry we have to call what yeah yeah call if anybody has any questions okay does anybody in the audience have any questions okay then basically going to call for an adjournment um does this take a motion it probably does I need a motion to adjourn the work the U public hearing please I make a motion we adjourn the public hearing I second that motion all those in favor I Melinda zaski I Fred rushon I barbariki I Sheila Barnett and then you can resume work regular you can resume the workshop yeah but doesn't the regular meeting it does not have to start at the announced time okay does not I would really like to to re go go back to yes some of the most important you can reconvene your Workshop we need to reconvene the workshop I think I need a motion on that I make a motion we reconvene the Workshop second all those in favor I Melinda soski I Fred rushon I Barb ziki I Sheila Barnett okay take up where we ended up I think we're on science seventh and E science we talk about seven now if I remember correctly you said it's only third and eighth grade that test for science on the state testing or fifth and E grade and grade test in grade band so fifth grade test third fourth and fifth and then eth grade Test sixth seventh and eth okay okay good if you want to look at dibles first or do we want to talk about first what are Dibbles so DBL dibles is um like a basic reading skills assessment for K through 4 um not really comprehension there is something called The Maze they take but it's a paragraph and they have to choose the correct word to fit in the lines other than that it test like basic reading skills okay thank you and we've been using it since 2006 for particularly for uh K through 3 and then we've added uh fourth grade recently so fairly recently All Things Considered it's a nationally recognized reading um uh reading skills assessment and this is this reflects what's currently going on in the classroom right it's not something that is it's reflecting down the line yes it is it's well so just like Galileo benchmarks move so does DBL so benchmarks Al move um as far as um like how many letters students can name and so they're they one minute time tests so um each section so kindergarten takes a bunch and first grade takes a bunch and as they get older they just move into oral reading fluency which is how much of this paragraph can you read in a minute um and how accurately do you read so how many mistakes do you make while you read the little the little ones they do like letter naming U phonic awareness is just hearing sounds it has nothing to do with print um uh reading nonsense words um and reading whole like site words is the different test of okay okay so like just like Galileo benchmarks increase so to the dibble's goals um very similar um and far as far as the color coding goes for them and just as a as an example phic awareness um is actually one of the most important things for students to learn to read and it's just hearing the sounds so it's if you tell a student cat they should be able to say act has nothing to do with seeing a word it just has to do with hearing the sounds um so but if you see I mean there was an increase in the green and the blue a little bit of an increase though also in the red which is the below Benchmark but just like I said as Galileo moves so today so like the beginning of the year they were supposed to be able to do five sounds at the mid year they they're supposed to be able to do at least 29 sounds so it grows but overall um when you see the squidly lines it means they were not ready for that test so they were exited out of that test oops keep going cuz it's there you go that was mix up that's supposed to be the less fun here's first grade I know it's a lot of information but but generally we're doing pretty well as far as the basic skills go um to so is it the same red yellow green blue the same meaning yep what is the difference between the boy and the Moy okay Boi is beginning of year Andi is middle of year middle of year a good question okay and then the numbers to the right uh for example 228 and 208 is that the number of students that were tested yes thank you oh it says total students maybe I need to take one of these tests I don't know there's a lot to look at on that page so one of the things that we did recognize is well that we've known that we've been working on with instructional empowerment is um we our our Educators don't know the standards very well so they've been following some of the adopted programs and resources that we have but they don't always match those resources and programs are created for National use not for each state that has different similar standards but different standards so you do have to adjust you have to look at the standards and what the standards and how deep the standards want you to teach and look at your resource and and you need to adjust they're just resources so a lot of work has been being done in our PLC meetings which are planning meetings and our data meetings within the school days to actually align what the standard tells us we need to do what resources we have and what we're actually having students do because we also are find have found that they may be teaching over here but when they ask the students to do something it's something that's not directly related to what the standard says and so we're working very hard at aligning all those pieces together but we also recognize that 45 minutes prep time is not enough time to do all that work so we will be doing PLC meeting we met and decided that on our professional development days at least 3 hours or half of that time once a month will'll be spent with the teams doing this at elementary we are going to pull all like first grade teachers together all second grade teachers together because across the district we need to have the same expectations um it's a little easier at the middle and Junior High because they're already together but they also need the extra time and then um because depending on the calendar that's adopted we may not be doing FX Fridays next year um if we are not then that time we're red Fridays could be used and we have we could use grant funding and other things to bring teachers into also that work to do the alignment pieces um we do want to continue to work with instructional empowerment and then um changing our Benchmark schedules so we we test in August which is you know the beginning of the school year then we do again we test again in November for a mid year but it's really not mid year and then we test again the end of February and historically that's been so then we have the results and we know what to really pushing push and retach before we take the the state assessment but we never do an end test so we have the um State assessment but it doesn't really break things down by standards for us and we don't get the results till the students are gone so we would like to rearrange that and still do the first one in August do the second one the end of a um January February so that we have the results ready for conferences when we meet with in February and then do an end ofe test um in May so I was going to give you a timeline so think about uh if we test early in August and then we have those 10 weeks before we test again currently in November 10 weeks is one quarter of the school year and yet when we test in November we're testing for two quarters of learning and we've only had one quarter of teaching so in discussing this issue and trying to figure out how do we have data that uh that really tell us how well we've done so for instance um one of our principles mentioned the other day that on one of the first grade tests there are 30 items okay only 14 of those items were on standards that had been taught at that point so that means that if everyone one of our first grade students had gotten all 14 of those items correct they would still all score below 50% because well most of them because we hadn't even taught the rest yet so we feel that those data to say midyear test in November is is just not accurate um when do we have time to teach we teach in Aug I mean we test in August and we test again in early November we really need time to teach so so the leadership team felt and for the same reason that Jen was saying we need an end ofe test too we don't stop teaching after we do the February test we don't stop teaching even during the State Testing because usually there's only one test a day during that time we're still teaching so we need to we need an end of year to say okay we've now actually taught for four quarters let's see where we are in four quarters where we you know where we've had the opportunity to teach all the standards so we feel that that's part of the reason that these data look the way they do they're testing for 18 weeks of instruction and we've only had 10 so it's going to be more reliable then it will be more reliable and more valid and teachers have had time to teach and kids have had time to learn um and so that's why we want to change that schedule so we'll still only do Gile Leo three times a year we'll do it at the beginning and we'll do it where it really is in the middle which is early February and then at the end in May and then we get those results right away so teachers already know the changes they need to start making for the following year and and changes in their instruction whereas right now when we wait for State Testing we don't get that until July we'll have a better handle on what how students learned all of those State Standards if we actually test them in May on everything we yes the other thing we're talking about doing this not this school year but then next but next school year because well and we we could still do the the May testing this year okay yeah we still want to do that because we need to see where we're going the related information that I'd like to share with you too is that um uh you're hearing lots of pieces so we also we already know that our folks are not as familiar with the standards as somehow or other we have a assumed they were so we want to fix that problem and ie is working with us and helping us with that they're also helping with all of the changes in the systemic changes not the Cosmetic changes but the systemic changes in instruction and that takes time and then to see this happen to see the results with kids takes time so um can we predict any any dramatic changes in the results that we see in May for Galileo no we're not going to PR predict huge changes but we should start to see little changes and by by next year mid year we should see more changes if you noticed on those um at risk charts for the younger kids it was skewed to the left and the older kids got the more it was skewed to the right which reinforces the the process that we've already put in place that we we are not using the best instructional strategies for our kids what should happen over the next two years is that what you've seen in what you saw in those charts for K through 2 for instance um uh first of all those will even look better but each year a grade the next grade will get better because of the cumulative effect of it of improved instruction better alignment of standards and resources and our own assessments and our instruction but it takes time systemic change takes 3 to five years so U we should start seeing changes but we're not going to see big leaps I don't think um historically we haven't seen big leaps um I will also say to you that um I I say those things with some real confidence um uh in 2006 the district uh received um a grant called reading first and U we had that Grant initially for 3 years and then uh an additional 2 years uh Jen was at first a teacher and then assistant principal for me when we when we started that process or maybe assistant when we started it um and and it was in place at Mountain View school and uh at uh Desert Valley for third grade and at Coyote Canyon I will tell you that in those 3 to 5 years our students grew Leaps and Bounds and the things that are being taught to our teachers or retaught to our teachers right now with ie are exactly the things that we were uh were using and learning and teaching then it works I guarantee you it works but it takes 3 to five years to be seeing what you what you need to see and then you have to maintain it and that's part of what's happened is that it has not been maintained in this District uh in in at some point it started dropping off and it's dropped way off so our commitment is to to reinstitute those things plus any of the new research that's been made in that in in the time since then I mean we're talking about a lot of years and so there's there's some additional research um but Jen and I can say with confidence that if we stick to this it will work it will produce results um and fairly quickly and also I mean as far as reading goes the things we did in Reading first are now being brought back we have um 33 students going through letters training and letters training is a science of reading that teaches it's not a program or a curriculum um it is it just is best practices that can be applied to any resources but it is bringing back all the things we learned in Reading first it's kind of cyclical it came back but it's all very much research-based um uh it's not a bandwagon thing these are not bandwagon oh let's jump on new math let's jump on what was the Hong Kong math or whatever you know let's not it's not a band bandwagon kind of uh TR trendy thing this is now at this point 30 years of of research that somehow or other in our district has fallen by the wayside and uh uh we're committed to bringing it back so as long as you have us um we're going to keep pushing that if you have other questions we'll try to answer them uh what what are we going to be that that's great for the reading and stuff but what are we doing as far as helping the math and science it's the same thing Barb it's all the same thing the it's instructional strategies and they work for any subject they work for it's not just that we're doing these things we know it works from when we did reading yeah okay um um but when we applied way back then when we applied some of the same strategy IES and I will tell you that teachers did apply them across the other subjects because once you get into the into the habit of of good instruction you don't turn it on when you teach reading and turn it off when you teach math you do it across the board and uh and and so we should see our math scores impro improve increase we should see science um uh if we did some assessment for social studies we should see that increase as well we also part of instructional empowerment also is teaching our teachers to allow students to have productive struggle which is hard for us because as teachers we want to rush in and rescue when they don't know the answer but they're being taught to give them problems and let them work through them because it's the only way they're going to learn so why give a student a problem if you're going to solve it for them and so they're learning different ways to even teach math um sometimes it's giving them an equation or showing them a connection from something they learned and then having them make that connection to the new learning but having them make the connection to the new learning because they're the ones who have to make the connection or they're never going to remember it but that is something that that we're having to Rach and that's what they're doing that's not new St new all I did that 30 years ago guys so well and if you know you're right it's not new if we kind of pull an example you know Melinda you've talked to me some about the struggles and the frustrations you've had with some of the college students that you were teaching and um and I would I would venture to Guess that for some of them they had not had productive struggle that they were used to having people step in and tell them how you know how this needs to be done or how this how to do it and and I may be totally wrong with that but I'm kind of thinking about the conversations you and I have had about that and the frustrations um uh if we think about our own experiences sometimes we learn the most when we've been the most frustrated yes in our learning processes because whatever it is that we then figure out man we remember so we don't have that struggle again okay so tell me what I'm going to see in in in May am I going to see more growth in this we do have another if we still want to go forward we do have another test in January or in February we have a test in February it's still scheduled okay um um there won't be much on but because we've had we tested in November we had Thanksgiving break we've had three weeks of December yeah that's and then we're going to test again and so that's the problem with our current schedule there will be only six weeks there will be these three weeks since Thanksgiving and three weeks in January and then we start testing again no we test the end of mid February oh mid February okay so maybe maybe seven or eight weeks but it's still that short time and that's the test where historically we've looked at that as being the end of your test as that's being the the last test um so you know as long as you keep in mind that it's February and there's only been this other little brief window we may or may not see much change we typic we typically historically see change from the first to the third first to the second is usually not real strong as you saw usually we see bigger gains from the if we compare the first to the third but I think where we really would see things if we actually did one in May let's just hope we see change yeah yeah it will be it will be slow not pretty it isn't pretty but it's also why we're committed to to doing the things we're doing and and I will tell you that it's not easy it's a struggle and uh uh it's a struggle for our teachers it's a struggle for our kids but we also see kids who are embracing the the process of uh of owning their own uh their own growth and their own uh setting their own goals uh uh one of our sites had uh had data walks with their fourth graders and the fourth graders looked at their own data and made their own goals for the next test so it will be fun to see where that goes okay thank you very much appreciate your time thank you Jen um I need a motion to adjourn the workshop I make a motion we adjourn the workshop I second that motion all those in favor I Melinda saski I Fred rushon i b pres zi a Sheila Bernett okay now I get to call to order the regular meeting of the Bullhead City School Board on Thursday December 14th at was it 626 6 623 3 oh on the computer 623 thank you Fred um let me get back to where I'm supposed to be here don't you have to B yeah I have to do a roll call here um I Melinda present Melinda soski Fred rushon present barar ziki present Shila Bernette here would you guys please stand and stay the pledge with me I pledge delg to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liy and justice for all amen okay um citizens president I hope that the two of you guys signed in and uh that kind of stuff are you going to play this statement me read it this is the time that the public may speak to the governing board regarding issues within the jurisdiction of the governing board and subject to reasonable time space and manner restrictions as the governing board May establish see policy B DH comments will be limited to 3 minutes per individual unless specifically waved by the governing board at the conclusion of the call to the public individual members of the governing board May respond to criticism made by those who have addressed the board may ask staff to review a matter or may ask that a matter be placed on a future agenda however the governing board cannot take action on matters that have not been noticed in advance as part of the agenda okay hearing that um Mr Barber you would like to speak to us yes okay so I looked at the same I looked at the same data he needs to introduce himself oh I'm sorry would you please introduce yourself James Barber okay thank you okay so um I looked at the same data that you guys were looking at and my initial reason why I'm here is because of that plus I've looked at the state the state uh test up until 2022 I'm having I'm having difficulty finding the state testing for 2223 I got seen that and it it did not bod well for this District nor the high school now uh my issue is uh on that report that you guys showed and it showed the three bars and I remember glancing there was the red column not one I looked at the I looked at the whole thing not one student was placed in the highly the highly critical area or high risk highrisk area now one student was placed in that in that column I'm like but I'm looking at 55 70 70% of the students did poorly uh minimally proficient and I'm thinking that does not translate I'm a data analyst that did not translate but in in in understanding how she explained it the test that was given in November that Benchmark number two should be at the half year mark okay I can understand that that explains why almost every test the students did worse than what they did in the in the previous one now I remember me growing up we had killer drill I tell every parent that I meet I said the first thing you need to do is teach your child how to multiply hm I tell him multiply well he's only five still I learned how to multiply at five never had a problem in math in my entire life until I got to differential calculus but I solved that problem too all right Dick and Jane readers they worked but they're out of favor because it happens to show two white kids where's the replacement where is the quality replacement for those readers they worked I would imagine some of you guys on this board learned from Dick and Jane readers and uh I see one some someone's a superintendent and the other person there's a doctor on this board and I would imagine you guys did well in life also so it seemed to work now uh I'm glad to see the district understand their problem but the real thing is are the parents going to be proactive L informed on how well their children are doing Bes besides their their quarterly report card or year a halfe report card they need to know when a child is failing and not later not not in December or when the test comes back thank you Mr Barber thank you sir I need um a move to move for the adoption of the agenda please I'm I make a motion that we adopt the agenda as published I'll second that a motion all those in favor I Melinda saski hi Fred Rushton I Barb ziki I Sheila Bernett again the community has stepped up and donated really huge donations hugely to our to the school we appreciate everybody out there who's who's doing these kind of things and um I'm hoping thank you notes have been sent and I I just can't say enough it's just really neat to see what the community does yes okay Madam president if I may um since the items are on there relative to the um uh the food uh distribution programs alarm Tech alarm Tech sorry we're getting we're getting an alarm um I want to mention to you that uh the uh if you notice the donation from the Aquarius yes our district has a long u relationship with the Aquarius and uh this year um because of both this event and our publication or our promotion of this event in the public and out in the Press um that Lance did um the parent company of the Aquarius has uh increased their participation to include Arizona Charlie in the Las Vegas area and the program has increased in Nevada to 7,000 families wow and it all started with this little project which is not so little if you know if you notice it's not so little but started with this project and uh because of uh because of the nature of this project and its success has now grown to cover Nevada so um I will tell you that sh it is it's a feather in Sharice cap and all the folks who work with her in the homeless program so I really wanted you to know that um um something that's big for us is now bigger for uh for others as well so when I caught her stuffing stockings today it was a good thing thank you for bringing that up appreciate it superintendent's report um you have multiple reports here we have discipline and whatever uh if you didn't compare the uh discipline report for November of this year compared to a year ago um uh uh there's a significant difference and um that's something that's ca for celebration of course and you all are are doing that next month um but the other thing I will say to you is that when we have students in engaged in the learning process there are fewer discipline problems and so U this is an early indicator that the things we are doing in our classrooms uh uh is changing the culture on our campuses um you also saw the work ticket report and our facilities report probably the biggest thing going on right now is resurfacing our parking lots and uh two weeks from now uh we're hopeful that that project will be done so um we're pretty excited about that that uh the trailer has been the construction trailer and uh and a u portable ouse have been placed on our den project property and all of the permits have finally been approved from all of the various County and City things uh there should be big equipment on that uh site within the next two weeks and dirt moving so we're pretty excited about that um I did want to let you know that we um have a new agreement um um uh a memorandum of uh of agreement with NAU uh to participate in their grandparent volunteer program so in the community in our community there is at least one grandparent who has been vetted this is a this is a program where the folks who participate are um uh you know screened and that kind of thing um but we have a a grandparent in our community who wants to be a volunteer at Sunrise and we hope that this program grows as well as well but it's managed by uh uh a department at NAU so we're pretty excited about that new partnership um and then finally I wanted to let you know that um as of this week our child care center is full and um uh so uh but we also know that we're going to have some additions to that Center in January and so we have some wiggle room for growth is particularly in the infant room uh but right now the infant room uh has five and we'll probably have a couple more in a month or so so um that program is very successful and um we're pleased with it and we are in fact discussing um uh some additional modifications to that for next year so we'll be bringing those to you later good okay any questions okay we're to the point where we're supposed to update each other what we've done um I went remember one of our goals was to visit schools y m okay I actually visited three schools well I went to kindergarten classes because I wanted to them to know that I was available to do any kind of reading after uh after in star in January um and I I really enjoyed getting into the classrooms and and seeing that um I met the assistant principal up at uh Diamond Diamondback and she is very busy very busy um I came back and talked to doctor Stewart about about diamond back and was fully satisfied with what is going on up there so is there any other reports that you guys would like to make Fred did you get the visit I did not I had intentions but I caught a bug here and I was down for a week that's no excuse I could have gone I didn't how about you Barb fix no unfortunately I have not been able to okay Sheila I have not but I have planned on every Wednesday to try and do that now that my schedule's cleared up all right so we're working we're still working on our own goal to get into the schools and don't forget your reelection um I haven't seen any paperwork on that so I'm not going to say anything until I see some paperwork okay um consent agenda it's really a full agenda is there anything on there that you guys would like to talk about specifically we've already talked about the the the Galileo of points M um trying to remember where where the employee retention plan was was that on the agenda it's on the agenda it's on the agenda itself yeah okay is there anything that you would like to pull no I if not then I needed um a motion to accept the consent agenda as written I make a motion to accept the consent agenda as presented and written I'll second that motion all those in favor I Melinda saski I Fred rushon I Barb ziki I Sheila Barnett moving on to 6.1 since we have no old business um this is the the budget revision that we just heard Dr Stewart explain to us um it looks like an 8.5% reduction because of student enrollment um am I getting that right yes it's primarily primarily uh reduction in enrollment okay all right so do I have a motion to adopt or do you have further questions I make a motion that we adopt the revised um budget I'll second that could we make it with the correction to the uh 2024 ADM number I make a motion that we accept the revised uh budget with a correction to the 2024 ADM all second that all those in favor I Melinda saski I Fred Rushton I Barb B ziki Aila Bernett item 6.2 purchase of a special education bus um is this a bus with a lift and all that it would be yeah um and we're looking at uh we're not looking at a huge bus but we're also not looking at one of the small buses we're looking at what I consider a midsize midsize bus but it would have a wheelchair lift on it uh a couple of reasons one is that the current one that has the wheelchair lift uh is over 20 years old uh and is in good shape and continues to run well because of the good care from our maintenance our vehicle maintenance department we did have to replace the lift on it this year um U because that broke but we have increasing numbers of students in our special needs program and increasing numbers of students who uh need door-to-door curb to curb um Transportation uh we know that it's unlikely for us to actually take possession of this bus for at least 18 months so it's a good idea to get started on it at this point uh and then that way we've earmarked those dollars from the current budget to roll over into the next budget uh and then you know who knows there might be increases in prices in the meantime and I would come back to you and say I need more than the 200,000 to pay for this um because that happened with us on our one of our most recent buses that between the time we ordered it and the time that um uh we took possession of it um lots of things changed and and there was an increase in price so uh I just want to get the these dollars earmarked and get the bus ordered so that we you know so that we have it down the road and this 200,000 would come out of our current budget the budget we just it would come out of this budget yes and it's there I've got it earmarked in the in the budget um but what it allows us to do then is um is just simply say this is earmarked for this it the money because we I can't imagine that we would get this by June 30th of this year so it's going to be in the next budget year but we would then say we know that these $200,000 from this budget are going to roll over and they're already designated in that budget for this purpose Dr stur might there be a way that uh wherever we order this vehicle from that we could lock in the price if we placed an order you do that but but the contracts are always written with uh you know unless there's some extraordinary you know there might be some extraordinary change so as I recall with the bus the last bus that we purchased uh we had a locked in price U but then um due to all of the uh uh supply line problems and whatever the costs of some of the some of the things relative to that bus went up um we were really fortunate that the company with whom we uh uh had that contract um uh they came to us they came and met with us in person and said the costs have gone up this much as I recall it was in the neighborh neighborhood of $60,000 they ate the cost of most of that um uh we agreed to pay the 27,000 extra I had it in the budget it was from uh savings from um paying off what we owed on the what we call the Volkswagen buses the Volkswagen settlement buses we paid that off early and so I had money in the budget um in a separate budget because that was uh uh interest that we saved so it had to go for you know for buses so it it was a wash um but it happens and so you know yeah we can say it's locked in but there's always a loophole are we intending to uh utilize the old bus even when we get the new bus yes we will need to um the advantage this gives us though is that we would have then two buses with the wheelchair lift and so if one of them broke down we could at least revise our routes and make sure that we were still picking up our kids who needed that kind of a lift right now for the several weeks that we had no lift on that bus um it was a scramble you know to to serve our kids are we going to be considering Diesel and gas and hybrid and electric we'll put we'll put it out to um we usually in this case we don't usually put it out to a bid or a um an RFQ but we go to the vendors that are on the state contract list uh we send them uh you know here are our specifications um and we usually say give us your best price on the various uh fuel options do I have a motion any more questions do I have a motion to approve the purchase of a special education bus uh setting aside about $200,000 I make a motion that we approve the purchase of a new special education bus uh around $200,000 I'll second that motion hi Melinda saski I Fred rushon I barbariki I Sheila Barnett item 6.3 proposed 2024 2025 school calendar Madame President and board members um excuse me um I met with the superintendent uh advisory committee employee advisory committee and then subsequently with of course the leadership team which involved our directors and our principles uh to discuss the calendar for next year this calendar is very similar to the current calendar uh beginning uh in this case because the calendar dates changed but the Monday the last Monday in uh July and ending uh the last uh the next to last the the fourth Thursday in U May uh this gives us 150 student contact days which we must have um uh in the past we've had 148 149 but the last couple of years we've had 150 and certain of our grants require that we not uh have fewer days so we have to have at least 150 um you see no flex Friday's on there um the administrative team the leadership team um uh had some discussion about that are some of our funding goes away for that and um and frankly we're having some difficulty uh having finding people to be working on those Fridays and for some of our after school programs um our funding for 21st century uh expires at the end of this year we can reapply U but we all thought it might be a good year a good time to just have a year off take a year off give people some rest and um and then uh reconsider for the following year it would also give us um some Fridays where we could have additional professional development uh where people could be paid for those additional uh days because they would be outside of contract and we do have some grant funding U Jen's really good about uh finding grant funding to pay pay some uh extra dollars to folks for PDS that was that was going to be my question whether we were going to pay extra bugs for that yes we would that's outside of contract um the uh the only thing that changed between the discussions and the recommendation from the superintendent's uh employee advisory committee and the leadership was to move the fall parent conference um uh the advisory committee had it as I recall on the 26th of September maybe it was even early in October but to move it back to the 12th of September so that we would have an opportunity to meet with parents before the end of first quarter and that's that was the only change um the advisory committee had uh initially recommended that we move spring break a week later um uh but uh they also recognized that the high school district had already approved its calendar for next year and many of our students many of our Littles are supervised by uh older siblings uh when there's when there's no school so if we had our spring break at a different time from the high school we'd have a lot of kids who might not be supervised so not a good situation comparable to it is comparable so the 10th through the 14th of March is the same as the calendar for the high school and you notice that winter break moved uh a week later so we actually have three weeks in December as opposed to two this we this year um uh because of the placement of Christmas and New Year so um that changes a bit uh now uh Thanksgiving break uh does a high school have that full week off too the same as we do I don't really know but I think so I think somebody would have brought it up if that were not the case I think that they do uh we did in fact have uh they do okay we uh we had some discussion about uh about making that a three-day school week and or a two-day school week and having another you know another long weekend um uh but the majority of our employees said no let's leave Thanksgiving week the way it is so it becomes sort of a fall break it is kind of a fall break um and and we don't have we don't have the best attendance when we have a short week so you know we try to have as few short weeks as possible some of them are unavoidable because of Monday holidays but we really try to have as many you know as few short weeks as possible I recommend adoption this calendar do I have a motion to adopt the 2024 2025 calendar school calendar I make a motion to adopt the 2024 2025 school calendar as presented I second it all those in favor I Melinda saski I Fred rushon I Barbara sariki I Shaya Bernett okay item 6.4 recommendation to award a school year 2023 2024 for eate management lit fiber contractor tww and authorized the district to apply for an e-rate reimbursement for the service um uh regularly we have the opportunity to apply for eate funds if you recall those uh usually pay about 85% of the expense and we pay 15 um but James is here to answer any questions you might have about uh this application in the application process James who do we normally contract through good evening um in the past it's generally been uh sou L Altis Optimum um last year uh tww won our RFP for manage lit fiber and internet access uh primarily due to price and again this year on the P that we sent out um tww and Optimum were very close on price tww was just a little bit better of a value for us so this really isn't a change from what we're currently doing correct um because of some of the changes between the Consortium with the high school district and Elementary District we went back out for RFP on those Services because some of those services are moving from the Consortium to being solely uh Bullhead Elementary um Services starting July 1st okay so we had to get names changed and and that sort of thing okay any questions for Mr mcnut okay thank you I need a motion to approve the recommendation to award a school year 2023 2024 e rate management lit fiber contractor tww and authorized the district to pay to apply for an eate reimbursement for the surface do I have a a motion I make a motion to do what you said okay yes do I have a second I second that motion all those in favor I Melinda saski I Fred rushon I Barbara zeraki a Sheila Burnett item 6.5 revises employee retention plan can I say a couple words first absolutely you're the president that doesn't mean I get to say a lot of words words um Mojave daily news this was November 28th and I would I would really like people to go back to this page this was very interesting there are two articles on this page for Teacher shortage both of which have a lot of interesting unreliable wrong facts in them compared to what we have been experiencing ing I would suggest that you guys read this maybe Lance can find us and send us a copy of it or something but it's really really good the 28th you say it's it's just it's what's being pres what was presented by these two authors um as being fact and it's it's not um so I would like you guys to read that um the employee retention plan that is is here did you guys get to see this no okay you approved it several months ago that okay yeah um um Cass would you but we need up yeah please this actually came out of came out of a committee that uh that Jen uh chaired or worked with uh from last year and uh lots of work went into this um uh and it's it's good but as with any new uh set of procedures um you find as you go along oh we never thought of that or you know those kinds of things so um we've already made one Revision in it and relative to uh uh paying our long-term Subs just like we pay our teachers when they have to cover for somebody else so um and we pay by the way we pay for that out of our our m&o budget just like we pay substitutes out of this part we're paying our long-term Subs out of this other part the same part where we're paying our teachers when they cover for somebody else okay so it was brought to my attention um a month or so ago that um well first let me say both of our speech therapists our certified speech therapists we are Contracting with the two speech therapists that we've used for the last several years they were here in person they both had to return to the Philippines but we contract with them uh and they provide the services to our students virtually uh the benefit of that is first of all they know our kids secondly our kids know them and uh and so that's been a very smooth uh situation this year however um uh when there are needs for uh evaluation of uh students for speech those evaluations get done but then there needs to be a meeting with the parents an IEP meeting an IEP written for speech uh and that paperwork done because uh those two individuals are in the Philippines um uh they're not available to do those things so our uh special ed teachers one special ed teacher at each of our sites sits in does the meeting writes the IEP does that paperwork that's above and beyond their contract uh their current contract so it's it's similar to covering a class for another teacher so I'm proposing that we add the section um I'm thinking it's on page three but I could be wrong oh right there on page two that we add uh this section uh that we give a supplemental stien to special ed teachers who participate in speech only IEP meetings and complete the pre uh the requisite paperwork on behalf of the speech teachers who work virtually at a rate of $35 per student um and the difference between this $35 and the 25 or the 50 during the day is this is outside of school time and uh most the I meetings are either before or after school um uh and $35 an hour is what we pay for uh teachers non-contract uh time so for PDS and those kinds of things for which we pay a separate uh rate it's $35 an hour so in this case uh I'm proposing $35 per student an hour hour and a half is probably what's involved in this um but I think that folks and Kate and I've talked about this and I I think folks will be very appreciative of getting the per student to do this is there are you going to prop this doesn't propose a limit like no it's however many we have to do we can't predict in any given year how many uh spee well we can for students we already have who have uh you know are in speech and have an IEP but we don't we can't predict how many new students we might have and I'm also proposing that we do this retroactive uh to pay them for the the hours they've already spent this year doing this any questions so these two ladies in the Philippines or a man and a lady a man lady excuse me I I'm that um are actually working with our speech kids virtually yes they are kind of middle of the night for them but they are they're doing it say that's no issues right Kate no they they adusted their lives in the Philippines to do um Services we tend to um use them more for the older children and not so much the preschoolers or kindergarten first grade because they're a little bit more difficult to work virtually um and they've been doing a fantastic job Mr R he um has been helping me survive at Coyote Canyon with all the um preschool IEPs and things like that um and so they Rex and Michelle agreeing to this and you know working with us it kind of guarantees that they can come back to the United States they will come back to bhead City so all of the time effort the professional development all the things that we've done with them and for them and they've done for us will get to re those benefits for a long time um and that consistency is good for the special education program and we do have two SL slpa slpa working they're working with this the younger students um and and officially they're supervised by two uh certified speech therapists so they have the training they have the language uh development training um they both have bachelor's degrees in in that so they're both well trained and they've been with us a long time um but they have to be supervised by someone who's a certified uh speech therapist so um and as and as Kate says this is kind of a win-win for everybody it's been it's been very nice this year because the services um you know for students just have rolled on with the people that they know and and um um and um you know after they've done their two years back in their country both of them have indicated an interest in coming back so um you know coming back to the US so um some long-term benefits well if they came back here then at least they would start gaining their sleep back um any other questions for Dr Stewart okay I need a motion then to approve the revision of the employee retention plan I make a motion that we approve the revision of the employee retention plan as presented I'll second that motion all those in favor I Melinda saski I Fred rushon I Barber ziki I Sheila Bernett item 6.6 authorization to Pilot an H1B or Hib excuse me H H1 it is H1 H1 mm H1B H1B V Visa petitioner program too many P's for me Madame President and board members I apologize because I typed the Hib and it's H1B sorry um this is another uh Visa program so the J1 uh is the Visa that most of our in fact all of our current Filipino teachers are here and that's a cultural Exchange program um excuse me where they can be here a maximum of five years uh initially it's three and then they can they can apply for two additional years um uh but it's an exchange program and so the idea is that they come and work with us teach us things about uh what they know that we you know maybe don't know they learn things from us both uh professionally and culturally um and we learn from them culturally as well and then they they go back to their country and have to go back for two years the H1B uh Visa is um the Visa that folks get to come to the states initially be employed in positions that are high need uh low volume so nursing we all know there's a nursing shortage in the United States um teaching a number of other professions where there are not as many uh folks available for those jobs as there are jobs and um and the folks who apply for H1B are usually folks who want about the fourth year to get their green card and then apply for citizenship so these are folks who want to come uh tend to be folks who want to come here and stay here uh We've not participated in this in the past uh we didn't even much explore it because there's some expense I will tell you that we're looking at just about anything we can think of to attract teachers and uh so Jen and I have um had meetings with uh at this point too and probably in the future at least one other company that um uh would look to bring us some H1B um teaching candidates um and so the reason I have it on the agenda is because there is some expense so initially uh the expense uh is uh involves some lawyer fees because in this case we're not a host we're not a uh we're not just a destination we are a petitioner we are petitioning to the federal government that we have positions that we can't fill we have we have openings that we desperately need certified people in and we can't fill them so we are petitioners for employees H1B folks can be from all over the world and in fact one of the companies that we uh have met with to to get information um uh currently has in their in their teacher pool uh uh folks from uh uh Spain uh Sri Lanka um Uganda um India Canada Canada Canada's a new one actually they just signed their contract with with a group of teachers in Canada last week um so you know this would give us some a a pool of folks from all over the world to help us with uh with our teaching thing the expense for us uh the cost for four years per person would be about $13,500 um that's an investment and so it while in the in the terms of our budget is not a huge amount of money it is something we've not done in the past um but we we think we're going to have to think outside of the box to start attracting folks and um so the reason we're asking for a pilot rather than just full-blown let us go after this is that we are having extreme difficulty finding anyone to teach pre School specialed classrooms because that requires folks to have a degree in special ed and a degree in early childhood so it's difficult to find those folks it's difficult to find them in the United States and um and even when we've asked about it for our Filipino teachers um uh we've been told we didn't understand quite how this worked but that's how it works is that they have to have both of those degrees that is right now we have two openings yeah J1 W let and J1 will not let folks do this so um so we'd like to that's where we'd like to start we'd like we'd like to Pilot this program with one of these companies and we'll talk to a number and figure out you know where we think we have the best fit um but to try to find specifically preschool teachers who are certified to teach special EDS so that we have uh uh certified people in those positions and you're looking for two people we're looking for two right now if our numbers keep growing we might need five we have we currently have 48 yes we currently have 48 three and four year old special needs students holy in more art will be starting in January like January 2nd we have two starting three starting January 2nd so they have to be a certain age to come into the preschool program at three or 3 years N9 months years old at 3 years old if they have special needs they can be in the preschool program and so we have three starting uh January 2nd there's another two that haven't that we've already qualified and said that they can start um but they can't start until they turn three which will be mid January um and then there's a couple more asip which is the program for birth to three years old that the state runs um we have a few more of those on the list for like February March April um and it's not counting any of the kids that just walk in off the street um every day they're coming in and we could have 60 before the end of the year and some of the students are very high needs um ordinarily we have 10 or so in in each section we are now running half day sections for these students uh in our classrooms and um and for the very high needs kids we we probably only have five at a time in those classrooms so um uh you know we first of all we want to serve our kids we and we particularly want to serve the kids who are uh High needs you know our special ed kids and we're obligated to do that by law anyway um but we also want to have highly qualified people in those classrooms how many people are currently serving these children we have a well we have substitutes in the preschool yeah yes what we're talking about in the handicap yeah in the preschool that are special I have one certified special education teacher and she has six kids in the morning and six kids in the afternoon starting in January because the new ones are going in her room and they're the highest need they're the ones that we would consider like the life skills kids at either Desert Valley or Bullhead middle so their needs are a lot higher than some of the other students um I have a long-term sub in another classroom um and then one classroom that's taken so um we've been really good this year about being inclusive and sep them into the other programs the other classrooms on campus um but that's a lot when you have three-year-olds mixed of four and 5-year-olds and threeyear olds with disabilities mixed with four and five-year-olds of typical behavior and things like that so there's been a lot of growing pains um but like Dr sh said they they just keep coming people are moving into our community for our program um we're getting open enrollment for even the school age programs open enrollment on a daily basis I had phone calls this week of parents want open enrollment from Kingman and from Fort Mojave wanting our specialized programs here in our district so we have that we have that kind of reputation for our special needs kids sounds to me like we're a minimum 10 teachers short my teachers would tell you absolutely yes yeah I mean it's we have really high numbers like our district numbers are going down of you know Dr St and our ADM is down and I I question it came back up it came back up we just have more temporary after things giving break you know so and each of those are raising um each of those classrooms also has at least one pair of professional um and and we're looking at uh we're looking at an additional shifting from someplace else an additional uh pair in the room that has the really really high knees kids um because there's a tendency for uh them to be runners uh you know so you know you if you've got one that runs out of the room and runs across the playground somebody's got to go and then that only leaves one person so uh we we really try to address the needs and and the fact that we have folks requesting to bring their children to our programs indicates the quality of of of what's going on but that still leaves us with a minimum of six short well if you're doing those numbers yes but the but the funding is not there our our legislature we've been school districts in Arizona have been fighting for years for increased funding for special needs uh to to bring the funding up to the level of uh to bring the funding up to the level of the expense and um unfortunately the legislature did increase some of those uh weights they're called weights uh for students uh uh a year ago U but it doesn't begin to it doesn't begin to cover um some of the expense the the way they have it weighted doesn't make a whole lot of sense because autism self-contained so those would be students in a re in a one of the life skools classrooms gets funded at a lesser rate than an Autism resource student so the self-contained student in that life skills type classroom requires more service they're getting occupational therapy Physical Therapy speech therapy you know there's a teacher with two Paras in that room um whereas the student with autism resource is going is in gened and then coming into the resource room for services and things like that but they're funded higher so there's a little bit of a backwards makes on that um and then the state has to base their funding on what the federal government's giving and they aren't funding special ed to the complete amount that they're supposed to be funding it to the states either maybe we should ask for some of the money back from Ukraine we we need to um what what can we do about this I mean I'm sure you guys have some ideas well we talk program rating our congressman and pH sure we talk we talk with our legislators and and um and of course you know our various alphabet groups have lobbyists who you know and and you all put those these things like this on your list of legislative topics uh for for asba for instance to you know to present um and as I recall this is one of the items on on the list whether it was one you all gave or somebody else in the state but it's it's on that list um this has been an annual uh request for I will tell you Fred as long as I can remember um and um uh you know the the increase that was made a year ago was the first increase in like 10 years in funding so when you think about um and and this is I'm not complaining about this is not a piece of complaint this is fact um uh for a teacher and a pair professional in a classroom with high needs kids um just salaries and benefits alone are right at $100,000 okay and um uh and then you factor in OT occupational therapy you know however many times a week you factor in the expense for speech therapy you factor in the expense for uh Physical Therapy um of those add-on things that's not even included in that uh and so um you know it's one of those where you kind of want to say to somebody here's the situation do the math you kind of want to say that um but that's kind of a rude way to say it but U you know it's it doesn't get thought through the the unintended consequences of inaction don't get thought through and we're really blessed here we have our inhouse occupational therapist who is bursting at the scenes with her case Lo we have a contract with a physical therapist that has worked with us for as long as I've been in the district um and she keeps her rates very reasonable very low our speech pathologists we were able to get from the art from the Philippines that saved us $350,000 right there we were having Therapy Services were over $500,000 for the number of students we have that receive speech therapy services Kate did research on that because we you know both of those therapists had to return and so we looked to Outsource that and she's not exaggerating they would tell us the per hour rate and for the number of students we had it was half million dollars a year the lowest one was 300,000 a year so you know so to contract with our two people that to continue the services that they were already doing with our kids at 120,000 looks like you know looks wonderful roughly 12,000 so um uh you know we play all the angles we work all of the we blend all the dollars we can find and and we do what we can do and pretty amazing to do wonderful things with with what we have awesome thank you I have a question about how how would you contract that because if they're going to come we're going to pay this money for them to come here is there going to be some sort of a contract that they're going to be Here For Those Years yes yeah the um the J1 for the h H1B yes um uh yes because we are the petitioner they are agreeing to come to work for us okay um uh yeah and and when I quoted you that amount $1 13,520 that's for the that's the total for uh four to five years uh in there is uh 20 2420 per year um so there's the initial uh uh attorney fees um and and the companies handle that they have the attorneys who know all of the immigration law and all of that stuff uh and then we have our annual annual piece of that but that also I will tell you that um the applicant ends up in that same period of time paying at least 8,500 So currently with our J1 Visa uh employees they all pay in the neighborhood of $110,000 to come here um and for for you know considering what the economy is like the Philippines because that happens to be where we've gotten our folks uh that's a huge amount of money um some of our folks have have had to morgage their homes to be able to come um you know and and they're all well Tred they're all experienced we we don't get any firste people you know from uh uh from the Philippines and I'm sure that would be true whether it was Spain or Uganda or Sri Lanka or any of those places um so this is not this is not uh us just pay paying our piece the applicant is paying a big piece too so if we don't get the preschool teachers but somebody else comes in line who would like this H1B are we going to look for a science teacher or a math teacher a language arts teacher if you want us to Pilot something else or if you want to say to us let's try this and for as many positions as we get I was willing to ask you for a pilot um you know I don't want to to go too far out on a limb on this at the same time we have we have a dozen positions that we could fill right now exactly and now that all of our schools are C or better um uh we don't have that limitation anymore um uh you know we don't have that limitation of uh where we where we place teachers so I was asking you for a minimum um uh if you want to give us more we would love it let's be reasonable though in terms of the budget well how much how much will the budget allow yeah how much will the budget allow is that not a fair question no it's a very fair question I just hadn't thought it through because I was thinking the you know I was thinking the less than 30,000 here for you know over the course of four years four five six and and what are the hardest positions how many of the hardest positions that we have to fill are there well those preschool um math math math math middle school math because we all love math even our two speech people yeah both of our speech people are interested in the J in the H1B Vis visas both of them basically I may I make a suggestion that we go ahead and approve the pilot program for right now and have and ask Dr Stewart to look look into adding as as she gets to check on the budget cuz she's just off the top of her head spouting numbers would that be okay AB awesome okay so can I have a motion to approve um the pilot for the H1B Visa peti petitioner program um at this time for just preschool special needs Madam president I would like to uh ask for approval to submit this plan for approval and backing okay for this pilot program thank you is there a second I second it all those in favor I Melinda saski I Fred rushon I Barbara Zari I Sheila Bernett okay we've given we've given permission for the two but we're looking for more okay okay so find us some more money okay well and that gives that also gives us some wiggle room in our conversations with these uh these various companies and um uh you know we'll look for the best fit as I said we've we've had information from two at this point we'll we certainly want to hear from at least one more we like to have at least three three proposals you know in front of us um but then we're going to look for the best fit with our district thank you item 6.7 bedb agenda this is first reading so I don't think we need a motion on it um did you guys get a chance to read mhm okay to read this when I read it I I it just is very logical yeah yeah very much so I mean it's not really nothing new in there that we don't do or the cast doesn't do well we added that we had not in the past put the time that the doors would be open we we have started doing that as soon as we saw this so uh this is just formalizing the the process so this is just first reading are there any questions for Dr Stewart no okay we'll see that again item 6.8 convenient to Executive session presant to ARS 38- 431.073 an officer appointee or employee May demand to have a discussion or consideration occur in a public meeting obviously they decided not to have it in public right well so this is on my performance goal so rather we not you don't want it in public okay I need a motion to move to Executive session I make a motion we move to Executive session I'll second that motion all those in favor I Melinda saski I Fred Rush hi Bari hi Sheila Bernett we are now in executive [Music] session [Music] h [Music] [Applause] [Music] oh [Music] what [Music] a [Music] [Applause] [Music] oh [Music] d [Music] w [Music] a [Music] n [Music] [Applause] [Music] oh [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] he [Music] a [Music] [Applause] [Music] h [Music] all [Music] [Applause] [Music] sh [Music] what [Music] a [Music] [Applause] [Music] oh [Music] oh [Music] the [Music] he [Music] m [Music] a [Music] l [Music] he [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] all [Music] yeah [Music] oh [Music] you [Music] all [Music] [Applause] [Music] he [Music] n [Music] w [Music] B [Music] m [Music] oh [Music] what [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] all [Music] oh [Music] oh [Music] reconvene into public session please I make a motion to reconvene into public session buun those in favor I Melinda sabraski we didn't have a second I'll second oh we did have a sec Oh I thought I heard a second I'm sorry I beg you pardon well I'm going to Second it oh thank you very much Fred you're welcome you're you're just right on top of this thank you I'm Melinda saski I Fred rushon hi Bari I Sheila Bernett um 9.1 future topics what would we like to see I I just have a comment something that I I want to recognize at this meeting um there was a asba had a student artworks contest oh yes yes and a young lady at Fox Creek jior High was uh uh listed in the as a finalist for the seventh and eth grade artists uh although she didn't win she was up there with five other students throughout awesome the entire State wow and I think that she needs to be uh in fact what I was intending when I was planning to visit I was intending to go there and congratulate her and I'm still going to do that that is a good idea it might be interesting even Fred for her to come to us with her Arts yes invite her yes yep uh her name is Chelsea in is her last initial I'm just going to leave it at that because I don't know that I could say it right but congratulations to you Chelsea well done thank you Fred I've forgotten all about that I had also it was on my original list to note but thank you for remembering are there anything any special future topics we'd like to discuss not present okay upcoming board [Music] events Lance has probably collected everything in every let's see what things I'm supposed to go to yeah want to see one thing that listed I do know on February 3rd our quanas club is doing our annual wine and Jazz which will be a night of aore um all right so that should be some fun for scholarships and whatnot that we're raising good all right do we I don't see the bowling night on here yeah I was just looking for that myself I don't see the it's January 27th okay January 22nd 27th 27th January 27th I um and no you don't have to bowl yeah I'm G to tell you that because I don't plan to bowl but I'm going to be there cuz I think it's going to be fun I think it's going to be I think it would be amazing keep us updated on on what's going on yeah my question is Cassie are are you needing prizes for best bowler or best dressed bowler or somebody with the funniest gutter ball you just want to give something away even do we get to do bumper bowling I'm in then are you are you guys looking are you guys looking at prizes so I am not going to be able to atton but I would be more than happy to donate Jen are you looking for prizes we will be yes okay keep me in mind yeah keep us in mind so we can cuzz I would love to be there to award somebody for the most gutter balls cuz that's would be mean all right uh time and location for our next meeting [Music] um the 11th I believe it is 111 January 11 huh oh yeah 111 111 I already have down anybody have any problems with that no 5:30 for workshop and 6:00 CL for regular meeting then I need a motion to adjourn the regular meeting I make a motion we adjourn the regular meeting I second that motion I Melinda saski I Fred rushon I Barb Zer ziki I Sheila Bernett everybody have a safe and happy Merry Christmas have a merry and a happy and happy Hanukah yes happy what well we're in Hanukkah right now aren't we huh hanukkah's right now isn't it I was going to say tomorrow that's what I thought I saw [Music] yeah [Music] oh

Wednesday January 10th we have another sped parent meeting night preschool to kindergarten Miss Miller and her team are doing an outstanding job with these meetings so we encourage you to attend if you can next week we have our spelling be at the hcpa at 5:00 p.m.

and I don't know like I want to honor the fact that you're here and I would very much to pick some topic that we can focus on today it sounds like you're suggesting to prioritize like planning like how are we actually going to make it through four meetings um so one way to do it like I'm looking at your memo to us that you sent to us November 30th and it looks like numerically there are eight items I think it says seven but it's eight I think you kind of skipped a number once so there's eight specific items that you wanted us to think about do you want to pick one of those to kind of focus on today and then plan out when we're going to handle the rest um what topic do you feel like we can make progress on I didn't bring the memo with me I figured that you might have comments about it in response to my response so I I mean I'm going to just speak in support of a a detailed plan to get us there because I the board actually received a email I think it was today about someone that seemed surprised that we're talking about it and and I glad that they were able to find out we do not want people to be surprised and that was part of our original thought if it's consistently showing up on our planning board agendas we we want people we want to hear from people so for that reason alone I support having it continuously on our agenda not not if we don't need to but but I believe there are open issues and um we I think we saw tonight in from that email that the the board has probably some responsibility to try to keep making sure things aren't out of the public eye so that would help with that okay and what I'm saying is that I would like to know what you consider to be issues that are important to you that we discuss and perhaps you're not prepared to do that right now um I'm wondering if I guess Trish is there do you have a um were you thinking of meeting with the um person that sent in the email and would that be helpful feedback to bring as well or what was your thoughts on that well um and first I think with Margie's comments I I think which I have in front of me um I I think it's just that and and I think next time we talk about this we actually should be talking about line by line of the bylaw and what the bylaw says and Crossing out sections and saying oh let's change this percentage and and let's look at it in the document I think all of our next meetings have to be looking at it in the actual bylaw document or or we won't get there with our gen our discussions will be too General so it's either in the document and we talk about it or it's not in the document and we say hey it has let's put it in the document right now and the by the document I mean the bylaw you know so so um so I think that's where our discussions should go so next time I think it's about discussing the bylaw and no other document right I mean we can bring supporting stuff but we want to focus on the bylaw and I know Peter has been been you know working on that and you know getting into shape and it may still be rough but that's how we're going to kind of get that document in the right place and not go off onto tangents which like we said before some things may have to wait in regard to that email um so um just to be completely transparent um I believe John Dudley um who's a business owner in town he actually owns the building from which I rent space so he is my business landlord and um he had reached out to Peter regarding the tree BW then he reached out to me I think we spoke I believe it was just yesterday um I encouraged him to as his email said he had concerns um from the um landowner developer point of view like what this might mean for development in Ashland um I told him that the planning board is looking to hear diverse points of view that we always need to consider all aspects of a problem and so I encouraged him not just to talk to me because I obviously do not represent the board um but to send a letter to the board as a whole so this was addressed to me but obviously went to the whole to the whole planning board I also encouraged him to be able to come to a future meeting with anyone else who may have similar views in order that we can understand those views and help um take take that into consideration as we potentially um figure out the the real detailed parts of the bylaw so that's that's where this that's where um and so I wasn't surprised to receive this letter today after talking to him yesterday so so I was before you spoke Trish I was going to say I was going to ask whether if I were to provide you with an updated draft that would facilitate your decisions about what what points you want to address and it sounds like yes that would be the case yeah I think that's where yeah kind of need to be I my plan is to take the draft that I finished today and share it with the sustainability committee and get their comments at our meeting on Tuesday after which point I can share with you I think that makes a lot of sense my my other s my one suggestion for the board is I think there's a massive benefit to having a public discussion obviously about the draft when we have it ready on the other hand I think the work to fix the draft is work that cannot be done at 10:00 at night it's it's work that requires true kind of collaboration and might take a few hours to get done right and so I was going to suggest a retreat with the sustainability folks um to really focus on a working session to air out the draft the retreat would obviously be open to the public if people want to show up but it wouldn't be a public hearing and then out of that taking a draft to a public discussion so that controversial items that maybe where gray areas in the working session can then be aired out more publicly like hey all right so we kind of have these sections of it that maybe we didn't all love or that we argued about that we can air out more publicly so I'm just suggesting because I feel like my brain this topic tends to be later on in our agenda and I feel like my brain is no longer at its full battery and therefore I always worried that we could do so much if we had like a retreat Focus two hours to work through this and get to a draft and be done with a draft just throwing that out there I think that's a great idea after you guys take your first tab at a draft I think you need to write it give it to us and then maybe the planning board should have a retreat that you're invited to hear our debate and rewriting that's kind of what I'm proposing but um one question Anna uh first of all you not fooling anyone your brain is at full power now I can hear you so what what would all I heard was my brain is at full power what what would be wrong with doing it on an open meeting but putting it first in the agenda because I agree with you we have to devote proper time oh I'm I'm all for doing it out in the open I just think it should be earlier on like what I'm saying is if we keep if we can if we only have time for it at the end of an agenda then I think we need to retreat I totally I totally agree I I I am in favor of putting if we can uh in the front of the agenda that would be my suggestion but I I do believe that we need to hear all the voices from everyone just like Trisha mentioned and uh and and and I've been an advocate to make sure that this goes through the public so that is successful um so I I would just propose if if we have room in the agenda to put it like first in line as soon as we can and and go over let's get that draft for sure because we need to see it and then we probably will be prepared to attack it head on early if it's possible can um Chuck Lids 150 Oregon Road um I wonder if we could have a very a small group of perhaps one member of the planning board marging myself Peter uh Samantha no um and and just try to work out an agreed thing that the that the sustainability committee could then approve and then we can have um either in a separate meeting largely for you or however but it seems to me that you need a draft that you can assume that we're in sustainability is in agreement with um because then you know you can say okay no we don't like this or no we haven't listened to this group but until you have that sort of thing it seems to me it's going to be very hard to make a a definitive decision yeah I mean by the way I completely agree with this has to be public you know this is going to have to go before town meeting that we can't do this in secret thank you I wonder if you've kind of come to that point not a stopping point but maybe a point where it's really great to have the public comments for us to move to the next step um I think the draft that was shared last time was at a good place there's a lot of work that the team has already done and I wonder even though that's not the final draft or final version that's going but you're kind of that midpoint before now and the four meetings that you have wonder if we should really focus on Public public comments it's like a focus session on public comments only and then we take that and then we can have a mini group like you suggested and then go back and refine it and the three meetings that we have left in the early year we are literally refining it we have the comments we working on it and then you can refine it to the end I think the hard thing I mean I'm always open to public comment the the the if opening it to public comment without a draft feels very feels a little bit backwards to me because I feel like the public deserves to comment on the draft the public the the idea of like just public comment whether a tree law bylaw is good or bad I'm not sure that's as helpful as here's what we have in mind what do you think I think the last time what they shared was it a good place to have cover a lot of that there's lot of those small minor Corrections that maybe that can come as a draft but I think that was good amount of info that document that they shared last time for people to discuss and if there's something that's absolutely not making sense in those few pages maybe that's what we tackle and probably attack um I mean there were sections like incentives that were blank and there were sections that had text that was not filled in I would really prefer that you use the draft that I completed Marcel are you jum looking to jump in uh you know I was just going to say I I I agree with Deepa to to me I I feel that not the getting getting way far down the line without proper public input maybe just counterproductive I I there's a train and I'm having trouble hearing you without the train that that must be just my accent no for some reason the volume is low can you is very low for whatever reason is is it just Marcel that's yes okay well I think okay can you guys can you guys hear me yes yes oh okay h no I I was just saying I I I kind of agree with Deepa that the the public input before we get down the line too far and and and and and not include whatever we're hear it's could be counterproductive I heard Margie saying that there's a drift that was Advanced up to today um what what if that is enough like Deepa was saying a good draft that that included finalize all the the blanks that that we had before and maybe we start getting feedback from from people in the community because we have not had anything at this point and that that concerns me a little bit so I would propose and it's kind of a combination of these things that um that there is kind of a small group um that meets soon before the next planning board meeting on the 11th doesn't have to be a complete Retreat I think that'd be hard to get together um but a small group of sustainability um sustainability advisor Peter someone from the planning board um could be two people from the planning board um if we can get two people to to volunteer um to go to go over to have a first set of eyes on that final draft make sure it reads make sure we understand your writing we're you know kind of listen looking at the FI you know the recent draft and then kind of clarify that we bring it to the planning board on the 11th early um and and then maybe it's it's ready for the public the next week maybe there's a a public forum mid January you know on this with a document that the planning board fully understands you know that the sustainability committee fully understands and has and and can support um you know and then we can have that that conversation with the with the public things can still be changing but there's something down on paper that we can cross out this number and put another number or um so something kind of definitive does that uh kind of mix things there and get us to January 11th with with a document that we're looking at hopefully for the final time before a public forum sounds good to me okay absolutely okay so Peter we would be looking for a date I think the week after our January 11th meeting for some kind of public forum right on on the the sustainability committee had planned to do also does the sustainability committee have a meeting that night uh the week of this 15th in January I have to look at my calendar and guess if we're going to be meeting that night we have not as consistent meetings we don't meet the particular week of the month we meet every other week except when we don't when it doesn't get posted and that is in part of Vice chair's problem because the vice chair namely me doesn't have authority to post it so I have to send it to the chair who sometimes post and sometimes doesn't but just to clarify why do you want to know if we're meeting right after your meeting because if you're having a public forum I would say you could have that the sustainability committee could host a public forum yeah we can do that yeah we can do it together if you want but yeah it was our plan after the holidays to start the public forums I not but not every week night I'm available to come to a night meeting please respect my schedule sure absolutely so it's kind of one of those I I would think that well this is just me but I would think having it be a planning board meeting uh will get more attention because the Community does perceive you as having power where they perceive us as being a source of pressure group so policy so I for one like the idea if if we can find a way to put this on top of our agenda planning board agenda um it is a make it a public hearing and perhaps uh put it up on the town website as you know the planning board is having a meeting and there happens to be a public component relating to this the um tree bylaw early on in the meeting um I would highly recommend that approach and I would like to have the draft be available at that public meeting so that as we're listening to the public we can reflect upon the draft take notes see and that document is available to the public so even if the public is just coming in to talk about the general concept they can look at the draft and say oo I don't like this section I think that will be a very useful exercise for the public so right now on January 11th if we're putting this on our meeting trishy cut out this is where when you Char just kidding excuse me Trisha you cut out we're having we're having issues in town hall yeah just kidding yes no we're back we back okay so as Peter disappeared again I have no idea if you can hear me can you hear me I can hear you we can hear can hear you okay so we just in this meeting put two things two public hearings on our January 11th agenda is that when we were looking to also have a public forum for the tree bylaw well one of those tends to not show up one of those tends to not show up um but I think that's important do you not want to discuss your input before we have the public forum it sounds like in light of the fact that we're starting to receive public comment and I'm starting to agree with deepa's point that there could be benefits to attracting the public early on in the process it doesn't mean that's going to be their only opportunity but it sounds to me like to the extent there's some public and Trust coming we should invite those folks who've reached out to come to that meeting and we should ask sustainability to bring a draft that can be publicized and put on our website yada y yada so that the public input can be kind of more official and we can have your draft for it and I'd like to see the Public's reaction to a draft so that when we're thinking and talking about a draft we have context for what does the public care about what what bothers them what excites them that would be my curiosity I hate hate to volunteer but I wonder Trisha if we start a bit early on 11th kind of give this enough time and Justice to this important topic and then we continue with the other commitments that we do have on 11th already slated so I hate to say that but I know um it's better than spending 2 hour of a separate Retreat I could do 6:30 I think it's maybe EAS if we start early sure I a dedicated time I could do 6:30 that night and and this would be for the public forum component yep we could do that it doesn't have to be a part of our official a public forum doesn't have to be all of us don't have to be present for a public forum if someone can't make that our our meeting can can start right after the public forum right like we don't all have to be at a public forum I I would suggest we do a public forum at 6:30 we have our meeting at 7:15 and the first agenda item on our meeting could be this topic and so the public can show up talk about the draft and then when we open up the record for our planning board meeting we can discuss the public comment received at the public for as we look at the draft together and discuss it that way it's a very focused 45 minute session for the public and the the planning board can have a normal discussion with the sustainability Folks at our normal meeting so that would so that would total maybe an hour and a half 6:30 to 7:15 7:15 to 8:00 so it' have about an hour and a half for both components together of the public forum with that seem seems reasonable and then that seems reasonable would satisfy deepa's point in mind that we need some focused earlier earlier in the day use of our brains yes is a point of information there is a further draft than what was um seen last time so we're we're not there yet obviously but we are a little further along I think I think I think we can still have the preliminary meeting of you guys two people from the planning board I'm happy to do it if someone else can't Peter to still review with the with the sustainability committee or you know a part of you still review that document prior to the 11th in a small group I think that might still be a good idea so as you've already said you have another draft that no one has eyes on for us so okay yeah I'm H I'm I'm back in town on the second so I'm happy to meet the week of the second well the second third fourth or fifth okay um so just to confirm I said that after the sustainability committee refuse the draft next week I will send you a copy okay okay and then we will have a small group meeting the first week of January or sometime before the 11th and then we'll have this public forum on the 11th intertwined with our meeting does that sound okay yes and if C if members of the planning board can't make it before 7:15 then you can't make it before 17 7:15 okay is public forum hosted by the sustainability or the planning board you know what we'll post is the planning board meeting but I'm it's going to break out the time is conversation public conversation on tree you know proposed tree bylaw and then I think we can use social media and our town website to kind of promote it and then we will list specific times for that conversation and then we'll have our public hearing starting at 8 o' we could also post it on our social media yeah I think it's kind of posted as a joint meeting almost to make sure okay yeah because both boards will need to um both boards will need to have it posted so okay I have another question everyone agreed to that plan yes yes yeah all right okay separate question um it had been my intent to meet with developers but I only encountered one along the way but now I would like to speak with John Dudley if that's okay can you HCK me up oh sure sure oh introduce you yes yeah of course great okay are we done just send me a separate email and okay thank you oh Rob has a Rob we have a comment from the audience Mr Rob share excuse me Rob can you please state your name and address sure Rob share 41 Bay Colony Drive um yeah I've been feeling like a lurker here so I thought I'd check in so say hi to everybody but also uh really um thank you guys been through a tough meeting um that electromagnetic that cell tower stuff I will follow up a bit with Town Council doesn't seem like a very easy issue but a lot of good thoughts the other thing is um you know thanks both you guys and sustainability for moving ahead in this tree bylaw I hadn't realized that the planning board was so uh strongly involved so good for you guys for taking this on and uh working with sustainability so uh just one note in January we are pushing the Valentine forum for the 29th but it sounds like you're earlier than that so that sounds good um and I guess um you know just keep the select board in mind we're going to be very interested in this as well but that can happen later so um I think you guys have set out a very ambitious schedule and um you know good for you I hope you can stick to it and get that out there uh but um you know I'm willing to you know happy to help in whatever way I can I can't speak for the board as a whole of course but um there is a lot of interest and you know as we prepare for uh the Springtown meeting and we'll have our own you know town manager form and all that stuff later on so as we get closer there'll be more public input as well so anyway sorry go ahead Rob I didn't mean to interrupt you oh no I was just wrapping up so I want you guys late enough as it is please I was going to suggest I think it would be important once there's a draft and we scheduled the public forum to invite the select board and share the draft with them so that if the select board wishes to lur and participate and offer public comment at a public forum they can also do that um L do you guys see this says continue to be a joint kind of project or is at some point a sustainability going to go on by themselves with this how's that going to how are you seeing this well I think it's as it's a zoning bylaw it needs to go through the planning board so okay so you guys are going to stay with it we're inherently in the process yeah okay I mean that My Hope Is that this is a collaborative process that we can work together on and ultimately have support for the product I would like to at some point get support from the select board as well so that ultimately we can present it to town meeting as a very successful joint effort I would think we would anticipate a select board to get some kind of formal meeting at some point or or at least part of the the warrant review to review this whether it needs to be how in depth but usually we expect I would think one or two representatives to come before us and review it at some point so all right thank you all right thanks everybody thanks Rob all right next in our agenda oh yeah no we we actually we did continue Homer okay sustainability committee sorry I'm off next is the re-release of unit 19 seven belter Circle within Leah States um uh Peter can you give us the like little brief thing about sure what we're doing here so that everyone understands sure so I was contacted by the an attorney a title attorney that is doing was doing obviously doing his due diligence on this property this property is for sale to my knowledge and there's a purchase and sale agreement upon due diligence they found that the lot was never um it was formly released however it was never recorded at the registry of deeds uh so therefore the attorney um is asking the board for a re-release of the lot and So within our documents here tonight um you can see that um behind the agenda in the meeting this lot excuse me not lot but unit number 19 known as 7 belra Circle was released by the planning board on February 19th of 2003 along with unit 18 which is known as five vure Circle uh this lot unit release within the subdivision known as leer Estates um and this Le Estates is a 55 and over condo Community um right off of Olive Street past the community center on the left hand side uh the Covenant is dated uh the Covenant he here is is is within the application so this Covenant was for the was was was put in with the subdivision so therefore with the release however with the failure to record this the title attorney is asking for re a re-release that I have put together um here and so the title attorney is asking us to re re-release the lot so they can then record it at the registry of deeds looking at all document I see no issues why the planning board should not sign this as an administrative matter so there's um do we have any way of knowing there's no open issues like we had with let's just say whittimore there's no open issues with leer Estates Leah Estates is a private road uh and it's a 55 and old condo development so therefore there's no liability on the town regarding the roadway roadway construction or any items in that and the bond is closed cleared up there's nothing open with town for the past decade and you scrubbed everything want to do wi again no no no no and Leo States has been it's a fair it's a very mature project that was that was permanent back in 2001 um and there's been no I'm actually pretty familiar with it I used to live across the street from from that estate that's where I used to take the kids trick-or-treating when I lived over there yeah so yeah it's a very wellestablished Community it's fully developed it was it was finished long before we you know moved in there so um so they they can't take that approved decision and just record that I'm just curious because I I so typically at the registry they like to have something that that's within the 6 months of record of typically within 6 months so I asked the applicant well what do you want to do here you know I do have the release from 03 uh do you want to do a true test copy with the town clerk Andor would you like to apply you know take this to the planning board for a re-release and they said that they would they preferred to come here for a fresh signature uh from the planning board and then take that to the registry of deeds and so that's what I have I've done I've done this in numerous numerous times this board has done it numerous times um there was actually a case that I found for Le Estates and and what happens is the lot the lot is released right it never gets recorded at the registry of deeds and so therefore decades down the line when somebody does a title search they find that there's this Gap right and so therefore that this re-release just closes that Gap with with within a title search so shouldn't this um re-release refer to that 2003 planning board release because like that's I didn't dig into this and I'm going to trust Peter as a professional planner and the planning board then because I see it documented but without that reference I don't I don't feel comfortable like signing it so like Can it can we put the reference to the previous release in the one you're asking us to sign tonight I'm happy too I I don't see an issue with adding that but I can tell you that the the biggest item that the reference is is to the Covenant and that's the legal document that they're looking for a release from and so I'm happy to add a note as a it's a re-release um so I've never I've never had to do that but I'm I don't see an issue and I well I just going to be honest based on whittimore I would be comfortable with adding that but if you're asking me to release a covenant without seeing documentation that that's like I would ask for a letter from Town Council that the covenant's released if we don't reference that other decision for me but I don't I mean there's plenty of people that can sign it without me I can abstain as well so I think that's fine Peter can you just can you just add that in and and um I'm refer to the earlier document and and since it wasn't recorded where you know what is is that something you can put into a document like this or is it screw up the whole legal part of the document I don't think so it kind of gives it the history it kind of says why we're doing this in 2023 I may lean on our two attorneys to help me write this but Peter I'm curious like all the dates that you have on this paper other than the April 9th that I see on the C where do this July 25th 2001 date here all come again so this July 27 2001 versus July 25th so those are those are dates of the site plan that were permitted okay and so and I can bring up I have a I have I have record of the the full recorded site subdivision site plan so should we attach all that to this document well typically you wouldn't attach it to a re-release but if you would like to see it just for the sake of the conversation I can bring it up so k What are what language are you proposing I'm simply I think the re-release which it says right but the re-release is contingent upon the 2192 well it's dated 2003 release of of the planning board I I'm basing my evidence why I should sign this on that decision back then yeah and did Peter send that did he send that around I mean yes yes yeah okay yeah so it's just referring to that document which does refer it's releasing it's fully signed by the Ashen planning board in 20 2003 it talks about unit it says unit 18 it says unit 19 five belra Circle and seven belri Circle so it does it it kind of says that we're just cleaning up someone else's air right this is exactly what we're doing we're just cleaning up someone else's era so if we can just refer to the earlier document because it is part of the paper trail then um chall to the lawyer this I going to say this release is made upon the understanding uh understand ing in 200 three was it three that you guys said 2003 on3 can I say by the then do you want to read that sentence to us can I say thus release is made with the understanding on February 19th 2003 said unit was released by The then asham planning board you just need a DN release yeah released it reads a little bit awkward I'm trying to figure out how to make it read better okay um this re-release rather than this yeah this re-release is made with the understanding with the understanding that on February 13th with the understanding that on February 19th that yeah the said unit yep was released by The then Ashen planning board exactly perfect does that is that suitable yes do and in this case do we have to attach it because it was never filed like I can I think we should because that that's a paper trail it'll disappear if it's not part of what we're signing tonight I I agree looks like we sat here and made it up which we did except we have pie no yeah no I agree I found this in the building office I I found this in the building office file for that particular unit you know so it's let's attach it okay uh released by The then Ashland planning board and attached here too that's here too Architects don't say here to it's just here to like I said it referenced reference there in is one word is it one word yeah one word getting Le I'm sorry what here2 yeah is a lot of things but he doesn't say that oh my sound good to everybody should I make a motion I hear to make a motion I make a motion that the planning board vote to re-release of Covenant definitive subdivision plan Hillside Estates Ashlin Mass I'll second it Anna tki I Catherine Jersey I and Trisha Kendall I so okay got that done unless we have reports on any topics um we can skip down to the meeting minutes I think right can I just um a number eight I have a item eight comprehensive plan so I just want to say to the board I think I was remiss last meeting when it was late like it is now and I I didn't um I didn't bring up that I I have I I guess it's I don't want to speak for him but similar concerns did we lose our of um the decision-making process of of the comprehensive plan without planning board input and as a representative I mean I we are supposed to bring those things back to you and we went through that with a sort of revote of the doc but my understanding of that document was to be the collaborative um with those three groups so I have not seen a change yet I do have concerns and I would um say I have the very same concerns if I can continue because I don't right now feel like I'm representing the board so there's there's a meeting coming up next week I I hope that we'll um see some dramatic changes but I I definitely share that concern I want to report that to the board you mean a meeting of the steering committee yeah have you reported that concern to the steering committee to the two co-chairs uh yes all right can you ask them to put it on the agenda for that meeting so that it gets discussed for sure yes Mak sense to me yeah I would think that all and I'm yeah I'm sorry TR I I was just going to say I would think that all groups um who are reporting back to their respective boards would feel or committees or who they're reporting back to would feel that they are representing those boards or committees um I would imagine yes but as a planning board member for a comprehensive plan that we have statute I think that might be the difference so I I I agree and and if I was representing not the planning board I would not well I person be having this conversation at the board but I I think it would be a very different thing and I think there's a difference when I'm asked to represent the planning board in the process I I think the planning board has to be part of those decisions however that comes about but isn't isn't the planning board part of the decisions as being part of the steering committee Marcel we don't need to rehash this but we told you about incidents where decisions were made and planning board was not present that has not been fixed yet but but but you are rehashing it Kate so I'm just asking the question the the the the revote of the document to me and I I guess everybody has a different reading that's what I find the the document says that the sering committee will be the lead and they will basically run the the process moving forward and with the help with the project management team when when required that's the way I read and I read specific excerpt of it when we did that vote if if that is the case that's why I'm asking if any concerns have been raised to the heads of that steing committee because that's how I read that document I I I just don't know what else to say well I I mean that may may be that I have a different understanding and I might not be the right planning board represent representative to that group I don't know how you R reach that conclusion but if that's your conclusion this this there nothing that I can say about it yeah I I I think seems it seems as though as though we're trying to force a way of of operating of that committee that is not what is the General understanding and and and if if that that could be a a personal view of of people on the matter and I respect that I just don't understand well I I think what made it clear to me a little bit when Deepa said it seems like a power struggle and I had never considered it that way I consider a policy and a process um but if it's seen as a power struggle then I would think the planning board should be in on reviewing the power of things and I really thought when this was ironed out at the beginning with the select board Town manager and planning board that that was the way the planning board would would be part of it but yeah we don't need I'm I'm just being fair to my colleagues in reporting where it stands and where I stand with the process and I totally appreciate it but when DEA made that comment was as part of the discussion and that's was the past the way it ended is that we revoted to to to remove any power struggle so going back to how the discussion started it just I I don't think it takes us anywhere yeah I I I agree with Marcelo I thought we took away the power struggle because the the power according to the document lies with the steering committee as a whole of which our two planning board members are a part it that's absolutely I agreed to that but if the steering committee is never making decisions I I think that's a Nuance that maybe maybe if you weren't there and seeing the meetings or maybe don't have the same concerns that I do but so as much as I enjoy this back and forth and trying to figure it out I think I feel like we're rehashing some of the past where what I'm hearing from Kate is more that she is of the opinion that this continued debate is showing that maybe she shares my concerns that she and I may not be the right representatives to the steering committee that's what I'm hearing so I I don't want to spend a lot of time I personally don't think there's a lot of value to us to continuing this debate at every single planning board meeting but I think there is a lot of value and I appreciate um because at the last meeting I was the only one who spoke up and I certainly appreciate that Kate is sharing a similar concern and hopefully next week at the steering committee meeting my concerns and Kate's will will be addressed and we don't have to keep this coming back as a topic no I I take apologize for that I just I thought that if I didn't mention it it looked like I didn't have that concern so but that's it thank you I I totally agree with with Anna I mean I think after that meeting there was one meeting and this is going to be the second one um so and and this is this is now and I hope that things improve like can I said let's see I go that's why it's important to raise it to to the chairs and get that discussion going the the um what what what I have to say just like you feel that way Kate I feel that we we are rehashing something that was discussed and every time I hear oh they didn't make a decision this way that way and and I may not be the right person okay that that seems like a like a um I I want to use the right word see seems like a like a suggestion that is consistently thrown out there um and I feel pressured by that suggestion so if if that is the case I I I don't know how to resolve it I I I I I don't want you to ever be part of something that you don't feel that that is working or or that is unfair to you but but I just don't know how to solve that problem and and and just trying we we try to solve it to remove the idea Team B disbanded we did not want that we want the the structure of what we agreed to to remain and but then we keep hearing the same the same concept without having given the time for the steering committee to do just exactly that so that's how I feel about it so you got to cut off a little bit in the room Marcelo uh because we lost the power for about a second um and what I'll say is to me there is a there seems to be a focus on planning board jurisdiction at least for me relative to the role of the planning board in the comprehensive plan process I think at the next steering committee it will be very clear how the steering committee leadership approaches the jurisdiction of the planning board and if my role in that room is not uh productive to that leadership position then I would assume another member of the planning board might be a better fit for that role that's at least my position so I'm not saying that somehow you should be under pressure to solve anything other than someone else on this board may be the right person to step up to the role that's created by the steering committee if that role is contrary to uh a specific planning board's perspective so my perspective is that planning uh a comprehensive plan process is squarely within the authority of the planning board and so if I see that the steering committee meeting is such where it's clear that that's not the way leadership of the steering committee views the process um then I do see it as a power struggle that is not not productive and therefore I would step back so I hope that clears it up because it's not a matter of you solving it it's really a matter of me stepping out if I am getting in the way of whatever leadership position that's presented at that meeting and I agree with that and and and and I personally don't see that yeah we keep going about of the jurisdiction or the planning board on everything I from everything I've I've seen and I'm not a lawyer so I I just I just say from the architect's point view um the the the reason this uh whole process is taking place is in part because of you because you were passionate enough to push it through and we all uh sign up on it and and it's moving forward and it's taking place so that that was leadership right there the idea that that the planning board has to have a final say on every decision there I'm not sure about that I I I think that at some point we need to let go this idea that we have to control it because it's under the jurisdiction I get it but it is why is the town's master plan is the town's comprehensive plan it's not the planning board's comprehensive town and and I think we need to let that process develop as an organic Town project not a planning board project I I I don't think why we have to be attached to that concept but I respect it that's how you feel about it yeah I I agree I thought that I thought the whole point was to give the power to the residents and to the people of Ashland and this was something that was supposed to come out of what they wanted not what we wanted and so I thought the fact that we could get two co-chairs out of that group that was chosen by the planning board and the select board to rise up and lead the people I thought was exactly what we had hoped for I didn't think it would happen but exactly what we would hope for and then the planning board and select board would step back and allow the people to lead that was kind of my I don't know glorious interpretation of where I thought we were going um so if that's uh if that's not the direction if that's not what you signed up for then I think like Marcel said I think that's something you need to decide for yourself so and then we'll we'll figure out what to do with that so [Music] um but if there's no other comments tonight and I'm sure it'll come up come up again we just need to get through the meeting minutes that we stay on board I mean the one thing I'll say is I don't I don't disagree with anything you said I think very strong leadership of the steering committee is extremely important and select board or planning board should not be running the steering committee um so I I actually agree with that fully um I don't think this has anything to do with strong leadership of the steering committee I think it's more about how how are data decisions made between meetings of the steering committee is that a town hall decision with the co-chairs does that involve select board members does it involve planning board members I'm of the opinion that it should involve planning board members those decisions that are made between meetings I don't think that opinion somehow says oo the chair should have role um and I personally take offense that uh saying that this planning board has a jurisdictional um role somehow belittles the chairs and this has become kind of turned into that as if me or Kate are attacking the chairs um and frankly that's one of the key Reasons I'm starting to question whether this is the right role for me um because it's it's a complete um misunderstanding of what jurisdiction means to somehow turn it into this sort of oh you must be saying that the chairs have no role uh when it's actually the exact opposite it's about supporting the leadership and offering planning board expertise to the process yeah and as planning board it mean the planning board like bringing issues potent as representatives of us bringing issues back to the five of us or the six of us in order then to bring them back to the steering committee oh absolutely and and that whole thing with with uh the experts on different survey topics was the prime example where had it been handled consistent with what I'm presenting Kate and I would have brought that document to you for feedback and input as to who the experts should be and then the planning board would contribute at to the project management group our input for who the expert should be right so we can we can call that as I think was acknowledged kind of an early mistake but I think we have to move on it's time to move on from that and to see what happens at the next meeting at the and the next meeting this thing is still in its infancy so do we have to judge everything by the early mistake or can we can we all do better right and and kind of move on so I I would say let kind of let it play out a little bit right let it play out go in with an open mind everyone should go in with an open mind to be a you know and and see what happens absolutely like I said I'm looking forward to that meeting I'm I'm still on the steering committee as a planning board rep and so I remain hopeful that uh other than saying it should have been handled better it actually will be handled better um and I appreciate Kate reinforcing that she apparently shares my my concerns um and I I certainly do not want anything I've stated here tonight or prior meeting to put pressure on anyone on this board it's more about finding a constructive way forward and if I feel that I'm getting in the way of the success of the process I think that other people on this board can step up and do an excellent job in my place um and it's not some kind of pressure point it's really about wanting this to succeed I think yeah I think um we'll we'll obviously wait for you to decide um decide your position on that if you have any questions obviously you can bring them to us but otherwise it feels like kind of a personal decision and if we can help in any way with that personal decision let us know but I'm I'm not sure you know what that would be so all right but I appreciate I mean I think it's you know we have to be open and obviously trans transparent in the discussion but I'd say let let it let it play out a little bit now that these heavy duty discussions have happened to see if things can resettle in a different way that's more productive so [Music] um so obviously comprehensive plan will continue to be on our agenda um so there's always another opportunity to talk about that um meanwhile we just have to wrap up these these meeting minutes um from October 26 we can look at first um and then November 9th I think these were remarkably a couple of our shorter meetings um so maybe they won't be so bad Peter do have a October 26 ready uh you put up on screen um sure if it's quick I I don't I had very few Corrections yeah I have I right now I'm sorry it's right in front of me right now I can open it's right in front of you right now okay sorry we're having trouble hearing but um I guess for me on the October 26th the only things I had was line 72 um you're just miss missing a well not you the we're just missing a d the board discussed an updated letter I guess it probably doesn't even it's not even that big of a change line 72 adding a d to update [Music] um yeah that might have been oh I know the the other thing I had was after line 92 this was when we were discussing um um we were discussing the first letter that Anna had and Kate had brought to the memo had brought to the design had brought to the planning board and I thought that should end um by just saying the board agreed to request that the select board add this topic to the Joint meeting on November 15th appr sure your prior your prior comment um I guess I read it differently it's I I I think update later it's almost should be hyphenated but I think that's what it meant isn't it oh I guess I think you're maybe right actually yeah so because it's an update letter from M tski so yes not it's not updated oh I guess I guess the D would make sense okay I think you're right I don't think it needs a d no D on 72 this is what happens at with minutes at uh 10:50 at night um think I think that other sentence needs to be added after 92 I'm just impressed with I'm just impressed with marcela's pronunciation of my last name so well I've been I've been working on my [Laughter] russan so Peter did you hear that sentence that I gave or something similar yeah I said I said the uh the board agreed to have the select board add um this topic to the Joint November 5th meeting yep something like that okay that's all I had um I'm just curious that line 73 where concerning the integrated comprehensive plan team and process should that be very particularly address the project management team versus comprehensive plan team because the concern was the challenges within the project management team and not the overall process I would say that's a good change so instead of saying concerning the integrated comprehens of plan team should we say project management team correct what line are we on 72 uh 73 sorry okay I think that's right com it makes it seem like the concern is for the entire comprehensive plan team yeah whereas the discussion truly was about the project management team so project comprehensive planning management comprehensive plan project management team team okay try to say that five times quickly got it any other um oh we're glad to have you back on screen there is are there any other changes to October nope okay I will make a motion to accept the October 26 meeting minutes as amended second roll call vote an teski i I Katherine Jersey eyy and Trisha Kendall ey okay so on to the November 9th meeting minute um I it seemed to me that in absence that it seems to me that Peter should lift list himself as absent oh yeah because it's so unusual you know so um and then on line 82 I just felt we should add Samantha's last name as the sustainability coordinator her last it just says Samantha oh yeah you're getting tired oh yeah oh yeah I'll di online 128 I think we considered reviewing and correcting our bios but we did not um I think we were like hey should we do this and then we were like not tonight so maybe we should remove line 128 because I think from what I recall Trisha you were you brought the BIOS in and you were like we should do this but I don't remember us actually making edits am I wrong I think actually the things had been in the folders for a while and then I said hey let's take this opportunity and a couple people said I did mine or um okay good as it is or whatever yeah maybe we say some members reviewed and corrected their bios because I did not do mine okay the members accept Anna their bio I failed the assignment I did not do my homework so I just want to be accurate that yeah that's fine we can put some just change some members reviewed and corrected their bios and certain some ones did not um since I was absent on N did Amanda not vote for those two public hearing I I don't think she was able to oh is she good okay well because um I don't think she's been sitting on it for the whole time oh okay so all right should I make a motion Trisha are there any other changes to November 9th uh I'll make a motion to approve the November 9th 2023 minutes as amended second second and a roll C Anna tesis I Kate oh Katherine J A guy I Trisha Kendall I um Amanda should be able to vote on this one I think but it doesn't really matter so okay we're good um anything else before we adjourn I just wanted to make a quick note I did send out the uh 20 2024 schedule the only one thing was in February our second meeting Falls the week of February break um and I don't know when everyone's travel plans um we there are five Thursdays in February um it is a leap year there's 29 days sounds crazy but it's true um so we do have an option to move that second meeting to the fifth Thursday which would obviously open up that short week which I know some people do travel for including myself uh selfishly uh so just to give everyone a head up on that I would suggest we do that okay I won't be there that day as well so I would say avoid school vacation week I think it's a good call to move up if the rest of the board is y yeah that works you don't have anything in yeah okay okay so I'm sorry totally I thought we were voting on the minutes and not ading oh no no no we were voting on the minutes we were voting on the minutes you're you're you're you're good so um if there's nothing else anyone nope we're good I will make motion that we adjourn at 10:55 and enjoy a little holiday break I'll second that and a roll coote Anna teski I Catherine Jersey I and Amanda haes I Trisha Kendall I all right happy holiday everybody happy Holidays happy New Year guys happy New Year what do you me to say bye bye I just got to get at the