Reader

even January I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all next up adoption of the agenda do I have a motion Mr President I move that we adopt the agenda I second thank you we have a motion and a second all those in favor signify by saying I I all those opposed motion passes 5 Z next up is recognition this evening we have Mr buckler from Center Grove Elementary he's going to talk about his fantastic team and the student who just did the Pledge AES Mrs J cof and Kelly BS come up we're g to recognize them this evening so I'm G to start off and read a few words about Clayton Clayton is the son of car and Clayton Mizer he is the fifth grader in Mrs Hof's class Payton is an outstanding role model for his peers C elementary school he is a leader in the student council and is making tremendous and is making a tremendous impact as a pure bud when working with this buddy he is positive encouraging and supportive he is always smiling and willing to go above and beyond to help any student or staff in need his positive attitude and effort exemplifies the night's Creed that are our daily expectations he consistently gives his personal best and is an excellent example of the best of our Cento Elementary students so now we're going to recognize our support staff this is Jesse poy and I'm going to read some kind words about her Jessica consistently goes above and beyond for our students with special needs she utilizes various strategies in the classroom to keep the students engaged she is their biggest cheerleader celebrating accompl accomplishments big and small not only does Jessica support our students she is also an excellent resource for her peers she will shares her experience and knowledge to build the capacity of all she works with cero Elementary School is truly fortunate to have such a dedicated staff member working with our students and finally Mrs Kelly BS Kelly is currently in the second half of her first year in kindergarten at Center Grove Elementary School Kelly enter into her new role as kindergarten teacher at the beginning of the year with a positive outlook and a team Focus mindset when looking for a volunteer to work with our beginning Learners last year Kelly quickly took on that challenge she brought a wonderful sense of creativity to the kindergarten team and they are very happy to have her on their team Kelly has demonstrated she is flexible willing to stretch herself as a teacher and gives lots of energy and effort enthusiasm to her students each day Center gr Elementary is fortunate to have Kelly as a dynamic member of our teaching staff you for do pleas nice job Stacy where would you like us for all right next on the agenda this evening we have a report from the teaching and learning Department Dr Hoover yes um so glad to talk tonight about um more work that we're doing um and tonight we're going to focus on counseling and mental health um Christy Berger is up here she is our director of counseling and mental health for the district she's in her third year with us um in this role but as if you didn't know she had been a North Grove social worker and the Middle School Central counselor before um going away and doing a little work with the doe and so um she's going to explain a lot of the programming but um I want to spend just a little bit of time reminding us how the work that she's doing um connects to our bigger sister system of learning for what we're trying to do for students um when it comes to academics and those goals and so so um we focus on supporting and enhancing all the parts of our system for learning to meet students academic and social emotional needs because those things are tied together um our success criteria for ultim ultimately measuring how we're doing of course are those assessments with I learn I read sat and also our graduation rate um our works District to provide effective counseling and well-being supports impacts our students ability to be ready to learn and ultimately to that success um tonight Chrissy's going to share a lot more details about what is going on as they're doing that work at the building level and District level um three takeaways for tonight that will really be the emphasis is first what are our current barriers that are um impacting negatively usually Student Success um and then what kind of supports are we offering for counseling and mental health um from our team to help with those stud students that have those needs and then finally what are the opportunities for our parents to partner with us to support our students along their whole academic career um so I'm gonna let Chrissy talk awesome thank you good evening everybody um just a reminder our counseling team and our mental health Team provides a variety of sport supports to our students so we focus in on academics career and social emotional learning so we have 26 wonderful school counselors and social workers on my team that support our 10 buildings so you'll see that divided here that our Elementary staff has either a full-time school counselor or a full-time School social worker in each building in addition to we have three counselors who provide instruction around the employability skills of Regulation connection and collaboration to our elementary students every other week and then at the Bridges Academy which supports K12 but also about 100 preschool students we have a social worker that supports there our middle schools each have two school counselors and a social worker our high school has eight school counselors and two social workers to support their students including our Simon youth students and so we've had a wonderful Mighty team for a while and last year we were able to receive a grant from the Indiana Department of Education to expand our comprehensive School counseling team and when we wrote that we wanted to be intentional on how could we provide more proactive and preventative supports to our students without coming and asking for more support and staff all the time um so we trying to be creative and we wrote into that to be able to pay intern stiens so that would attract college students who are in their master's program for School counseling or School social work to come work here for a little bit of money um while they're in grad school so we were awarded that Grant last year which goes for a couple more years and that allowed us to add five School counseling interns this year and four School Social Work interns so we were able to add nine to our staff which is wonderful to be able to provide more support to our students but it's also really helped us train them in hopes that they would want to come back and work and C our grow in the years to come so that's our team and I have a lot of data that I just wanted to share of how we collect the current needs of our students so that we can switch our programming to support them and so the 26 counseling staff that I just talked about we track how our time is spent so we pick um days throughout the year because we know again our roles change dayto day depending on what's in front of us and so they track their whole day how do I spend my time from 7 to 7:30 and we as a team divided into six different categories that we agree on so you'll see Direct Services that's one-on-one support for our students small groups whole group just any ways that we're working in front with students scheduling for our high school they do that very many times a year uh crisis response program planning consultation and collaboration is with teachers administrators and families so that's um a wide group there and then the clerical work that just goes with our job non-counseling task that is before after school duties lunch duties um testing you know the things that make schools go so they obviously support in that space so I was really excited to see this far um into the school year most of our time at each level is spent providing one-on-one direct service towards our students or working with families teachers um in their Administration so we look at that to just make sure we're on track in the supports that we provide our students but we look at every data point that we possibly can um one is the Columbia screener so this is a evidence-based tool that's used to identify level of risk for suicidal ideation among our students so we unfortunately deal with this multiple times a day with students in all of our buildings and this could come to us through a parent request a teacher request student request they self-referral or appear um and so you'll see the data for fall semesters we started using this tool and tracking it in 2020 um obviously we know in 2020 and 2021 School looked a little different for our students so I really look at last year's data and this year um and I'm excited to see that that's trending down so fall semester last year we had 155 colombias that our staff administered so that's not students that's just numbers of times that they did that and this year we're at 135 and those six questions is an evidence-based tool um it gives a level of risk so low moderate or high and we share that information with parents parents come in have a meeting with us and if it's high risk we encourage them to see an outside person for that support and I'm really proud of our team and the work that they've done I would say I think it was 95% of our students that were high risk this year have gone to the hospital and been admitted so we know that the way that we are supporting our students is on track with what the medical field is seeing to support them um if you all remember we came to you this year um to adjust our student survey around the employability skills again of Regulation connection collaboration and work ethic so our K2 teachers answer three questions about our students are three through 12 the students answer that question um about themselves which we think is really important because it's one of the ways that our students have student voice um that we can hear what they're saying we can guess what we think the current need is and the current barriers are but they can really tell us in this information um and just a reminder the three through five they answer six questions 6 through eight answers 26 and 9th through 12th grade answer 14 different questions and so the data points I'm sharing today are focused on regulation because that's a theme um K12 so you'll see that our teachers say that 84% of our students are on track able to recognize and manage their emotions three through fifth grade students said they are 40% of the time almost always are frequently using strategies to calm down when they're upset our sixth through eighth grade students that was a little bit higher that they know how to regulate their emotions and then we felt for high school it was really important to put in a healthy coping strategy we know that in our conversations with students we s to see a increase in substance use in high school and so we really wanted to focus on that healthy coping strategy are they able to go to that when they're feeling overwhelmed or stressed um and this is one of those resources that we will use to show proficiency for the state and the new accountability um current supports we have this is just overarching for all of our students in Center grve um and just tier one as a reminder just like academics that's something that we provide for all of our students 80% of our students should respond with that core instruction and then we know some students might need some additional teaching or R teaching so you'll see tier two it looks like that small group some one-on-one skill building with our staff um they might be brought to our student support team a mentor program and then tier three is where we're really looking at Community Health supports uh safety planning functional Behavior assessments to kind of see what's behind the behavior um to note for tier two and tier three parent notification Andor permission is required for those for our staff and so we're constantly in parent communication about that they're invited to those student support team meetings to talk through how we can best support and work together um I think I've said this several times but again our core instruction just ties back to the employability skills from the state uh the new GPS dashboard is going to require us to show proficiency on those skills um we haven't been told quite yet from the state how Works to show Prof proficiency so that's why we're using the student survey to show the growth from Fall to Spring in hopes of using that for the way to show proficiency um and then I wanted just to provide you a little bit more insight on what that actually looks like in the level so Elementary as I shared we have the lessons that our students get every other week which are all on our website um and we provide Guardian extensions and teacher extensions so that we're seeing that transfer from school to home we also working on sense of belonging for our kids so a focus for our Elementary staff is morning meetings or Community time where we come together ask questions that don't connect to academics um just get to know one another and really support each other and talk about you know what's your favorite season um and so how can we build those relationships within that tier two again is for that smaller group of students we might have small groups our student support plan we have reset rooms in our um buildings and then tier three is when we're looking to Community Health supports and Diving a little bit more individualized for those students at the middle school our tier one instruction is rville we use that for our employability skills um instruction and that was new this year we've had a lot of really positive feedback from the students uh teachers and a couple of our parents have even emailed to say that their kids are coming home sharing things that they've learned and they've been excited about that something different that middle school north does that I think is neat to highlight for tier two is um instead of their school counselors doing lunch duty they provide um assignment lunchtime so they work with the classroom teachers identify students who maybe have several missing assignments um those students and parents are notified that they're going to work during lunch to get caught off on that so our counselors provide organization um help them learn all the things that they need to complete their assignments and help stay on track so that's decided with the teachers and the parents but we also have several students who self-re into that because they want to get caught up um the high school this year we worked with Stacy to do a be kind CG campaign really focusing on what it looks like to be kind to others ourself in our community um something that's different at the high school is we partner with kickit which is a nonprofit organization that provides supports to students who um are homeless or at risk of being homeless and so they have a case load of students that they support with resume building connecting with outside resources and a variety of supports and then tier three it's at one-on-one counseling um suicidal or they partner with their administrators when we have a homicidal threat and then we work with Community Health um last Community Health just wanted to share our increase in partnership with them so over the past three years we've been able to see an increase in the staff that they're providing for our students so just a reminder they're in our our school buildings they do the intake with the families um and they bill through the families Insurance to provide those services to our students so we have full-time therapist which they're your typical when you think of therapy they're clinically licensed um and they give a mental health diagnosis to our students life skills clinicians they provide those skills they come alongside the students in the classroom practice those skills reinforce positive skills and then this year we partnered with our special education department um and brought on Two And intensive life skills clinicians and so they support our special programs team lift base um and they get to see them a little bit more frequently um because they're specifically in those two classes and then this year we're currently serving 334 students um ac across all of our buildings and something to know is that we do have a waiting list at every building because this service really is helpful to families because it helps to eliminate those barriers of Transportation parents having to take time off of work um and so they really are interested in being able to have those supports the kids are missing less school time by not having to be taken out to go um to counseling and so Community is continually looking and hiring um but along with the nation we're seeing a decrease in mental health professionals so they are constantly looking to add more so that we can provide more supports to our students and then this is just a reference for um the mental health diagnosis that our students from Community Health have been diagnosed with and something to note is we aren't super surprised to see this because it's what we see in our counseling offices But anxiety and depression is really high for our students and continues to grow year after year and then last we've really worked hard over the last three years this is going to play um we've worked really hard over the last three years to increase our stakeholder engagement we know that parents are essential for our students to be successful in school and so we've tried a variety of ways we've held in in person parent information um we've sent home different clips from our principles about topics around bullying social media we in May um for mental health awareness month have had a mental Wellness Fair where the agencies in Johnson County come so families can see what's provided if they need it now or if they need it in the future and then this year um per parent feedback we are partnering with our school psychologist and we're doing evening zooms um on the parent information series and so parents can hop on it's a they can get the information around the different topics there and then we also share out the recording and resources with them to support the needs that they have so I'm really proud of the work our team has done and I think um it's ever changing in schools we all know that but I think we worked really hard to make sure we're eliminating the barriers that our students have for academic success and so hopefully tonight you guys could get a glimpse into the current reality what our team is doing um the barriers and how we are working with families to support our students sorry yeah correct they were admitted so different than just treatment so when they're high risk that's usually um is that they are currently actively thinking of harming themsel or others and so we give them a list of places to go um and then obviously the parents choose where they would like to take their student and so those students have been admitted and the ones that have not it was lack of beds available not of need yeah right yes and I would say most of the parents are desperate for help and so they're happy that we're reaching out they maybe didn't know where to start um and so we've encouraged that communication of we can provide you information for local resources but our teams worked really hard to be accurate with our um risk levels and so thank you for saying that it's been hard work yeah I will thanks I like counsel I know I was trying to get it all in my 10 minutes I'm sorry think I really so they um work with the team of teachers as you know and when they meet with them they fill out a spreadsheet of students who have two or more missing assignments for that past week so then they come to lunch until those assignments are completed and they work with the counselors and we actually have a handful of retired teachers that have offered to volunteer and have come in with like the academic content of it so they've done a really great job that's a commitment by the north Administration to do the lunch yeah right yes yes next question if if you feel it's valuable Maybe so let me address that one what we're working on that Middle School Central has had two cafeterias during construction and so now that we are down to one cafeteria that is a conversation so our our were as a secondary schools including the high school we've been working this year on um some some issues some supports for making sure um that we're giving accurate um feedback to students that they can grow and Thrive and so in part of that it's we don't know how they're doing when they don't do the work right right so the punishment for not getting your work done should be getting your work done and so we really like that and we think that the other two schools can adapt and they're working on that this semester so next year we're we're having mechanisms to capture kids they won't love them either giving up lunch with their friends staying after school and some having special study halls at the high school um they may not love but if they do their work I don't really care if they love it I'm not their friend and they are tracking which students are repeat offenders if you will I don't like that word but um they've had really good success of not many of the same students so they're learning those skills and sticking up with their homework yeah yeah we spent a lot together yes we did I I like that you partnered I like that you partnered or working with kickit u through attending the Spire Community uh meetings I learned what kick it really does uh I also learned that Homeless doesn't mean that you're without a roof over your head correct it just means you're at Grandpa and Grandma's uh or half your family's here and half family's there you could also be out of our our district uh but we still bring them we go get them and bring them y um so um I like that you've partnered with you know wherever we can we need to partner with these groups we've definitely increased our community agency Partnerships um since I've been in this position and I think that's been really beneficial for our community and just the variety of supports we have so we are always looking for Community Partnerships if they're willing to help our kids any other questions I just kind of want to share it because you so many things you uh have asked about as questions lead right into to this whole graphic and the that system for Learning and and a lot of the work christe's and her team is doing is focusing on that safe supportive environment but that collaborative piece is really important because they're also working to get students and families to resources but they're also then in the class talking to the teachers to make sure this child is supported and really wrap around way when that's needed um but also working on the preventative side you know we have to deal with the emergencies and the urgent but trying to help support so we're giving all kids what they need that maybe will have fewer kids that have those intense needs over time but um really plays into that standard of care that all students that that's defined there um on the right side of that graphic that those are the things every kid um should expect and deserves when they when they attend our schools and her team is really important to that and and the next slide I'm always I can't say enough that we're better because we work together one school has a great idea it's working there we better do it somewhere else because the other school's got something to share with you and and being a professional learning community and relying on each other to grow um and learn from each others our some of our best resources are right here just in another school School building so it's really important that we continue to collaborate um and we show adults do it that and we expect kids to do that too so really proud of that whole teamwork and how Christy's team just Blends in with the academic pieces of it because as she says at the end of the day they're here to learn and she her team is just working to get kids in the classroom so they can learn Youk all right next up is public comments and there were no no one's signed up to speak tonight thank you Tracy next up is reorg reorganization of the board for the 2024 calendar year as is our go ahead go ahead as is our normal process this time of year um seven first thing we need to do is the election of the board president Mr President I would nominate Amy counts to serve as the uh next president of the School Board second thank you Mr Daniels thank you Mr Russell we have a motion in a second I guess we should ask Miss C if she's willing to accept can I can I name my [Laughter] doesn't have to be unanimous not at this time and it doesn't have to be unanimous Amy I think you might lose four to one all those all those in favor signify by saying I I hi all those opposed motion passes 5- Z congratulations Mrs counsil Mr Alexander before you um switch seats and hand over the gavel uh we have something for you tonight um I couldn't remember in in hockey and soccer three is a hat trick I think four is a called a hall is this a hat trick or a hall for you it would be a hat trick sir okay so uh on behalf of the board and the school corporation we'd like to present to you in recognition of your outstanding and dedication dedicated leadership uh of plaf for thank you for being the president thank you got the gold silver gold every time it's different with that Madam president I will turn the rains over to you all right let's do this did you need your water yes pleas okay everybody has to bear with me my there we go all right so on to 7.3 um do you want me to announce positions yeah I think those all right so with the board organization do you that's really no go ahead that's you okay maybe that one back over thank you he thank you so um we'll have Rob Daniels as vice president secretary will be Gary Robinson um and then Jack Russell and Scott Alexander as members um and then various board Representatives um Gary Robinson for the central N9 career center Jack as the uh first alternative and then the Ed Foundation sorry Jen you're still stuck with me and Jack is my backup uh Bargersville Bargersville Redevelopment commission liaison is Rob Daniels Johnson County Redevelopment commission uh liaison would be Mr Alexander um I can continue reading if you want me to or we can read ourselves so um does anybody have any questions or um discussion on that no ma'am no all right anybody have a motion Madam president I move that we accept the reorganization of the board as presented I second thank you Mr Alexander and Mr Robinson um all in favor um any opposed all right uh motion passes 5 Z and let's see board y so 7.4 are board meeting dates um you have it up yes does anybody have any questions comments concerns right all right any wait minut go ahead I thought February was gonna be the 8th it is it is it's on it's on the screen in front of you mind my packets sorry right no updated it and changed it I'm good all right all right do I have a motion do I need a motion yes do I have a motion Madam president I move that we adopt the calendar for school board meetings for the year 2024 thank you Mr Daniels second thank you Mr Russell um all in favor I I any opposed all right motion passes 5 Z and all right on to the consent item it does anybody have any questions over the consent items presented just moving as a whole so each item all of all of the consent all right we'll we'll vote for all of the consent okay they did on the reorganization yeah we did oh sure right of right an eight I I got this Madam president I move that wek you approve the consent agenda as presented second section eight sorry second thank you Mr Daniels all right okay uh all in favor I uh any opposed all right um consent passes 5 Z Madam president a couple an item I'd like to point out on this evening's consent agenda in this evening's Personnel report the board approved the appointment of assistant superintendent Dr long to serve as the interim superintendent Dr long has served as an administrator of Center gr school since 1998 including more than three years as the principal Center Grove High School and 20 years as an assistant principal the board is confident Dr Long's ability to step into the role and provide the leadership necessary to keep our school corporation moving forward I'd like to congratulate Dr long on the interim superintendent appointment this evening thank you it's my [Applause] honor you're stuck with me we'll do it okay um section 9.1 um is I'm sorry my screen is jumping it's the second reading of the proposed policy revisions Dr long will provide us with additional information so these are the policies that we reviewed uh our first reading uh at the last board meeting we've had no uh recommendations or we've not made any changes to the policies uh so we typically don't review them again the second time but if there are any questions we'd be happy to answer them if the board has any I was I was fine with the changes that were proposed at the last meeting and Dr Long most of these are suggested changes from theola correct some of them are required because of Law changes um required because law changing right but everybody uh on our team in their reviewed the policies in their areas and have made the changes that are appropriate and match what we do um on a day-to-day basis thank you anybody else have anything all right and I will need a motion Madam president I move that we approve the policy revisions as presented thank you Mr Alexander I second thank you Mr Robinson just just for clarification I think there were also bylaw changes in there correct or were they just policy I just want to make sure we're I think these are all policies okay thank you yeah yeah our bylaws are thank you for clarification all right um all in favor I any opposed motion passes 5 z um and I do need to announce that um at the closing of this meeting um immediately following we'll have the uh board meeting for the board Finance meeting so does anybody have anything they want to add before we close the meeting just announcements supplies uh just want to remind everyone that April 13th is the Galla of the Grove that the foundation puts on uh raises money for uh scholarships which the scholarship apps are available now uh and the trivia night is the next Friday the 19th I believe and there are still tickets available you can get them on the foundation site I Mr Robinson on my te for that I'm going to trivia night so I hope some of the other board members are there and uh like to thank Christie for uh the great presentation and how well we're doing in such an important area so yeah just briefly I want to thank Dr long for stepping in nrm superintendent we look forward to him leading Us in that role and you know I know they right things ahead we've had discussions with him already about some plans and and we're we're excited to to have him take over thank you nothing to report this evening all right I don't need anybody else no all right so I will close this meeting I got we're Jour there we go okay we are journ now we can call order I have to get to it I'm sorry here the iPad doesn't like to move unfortunately thank you I don't I got it okay all right so I am going to call to order the uh Board of Finance meeting on January 10th 2024 all right and uh first is the adoption of the agenda do I have a motion or any Madam president I move we adopt the agenda as presented for the board of Finance meeting second thank you thank you Mr Alexander and Mr Russell um all in favor I any opposed right motion passes 5 and section 3.1 um is the uh Dr Taylor is actually going to us with this thank you thank you for saving me um this is a procedural meeting that we hold annually um it is a requirement of Indiana state law and that's really loud we'll SC that back a little bit um Howard if you go to page two of the first attachment of the summary um the law stipulates that we cover five different areas during this meeting um the first of which is that the board signs and establish a resolution to establish a board of finance and as we've done in Prior years we continue to use the entire board and the same officer structure for that board of Finance the board of finances main goal and this is number two here is to oversee our public depositories and any interest or Investments that we may make with public funds um and so the board of finance will make that decision and have the right to reject any depository for reasons if needed with a bad experience I will also then provide an investment report and you can see that's listed here in U partially listed here under number three you can see the history of our investments 2023 was a very positive year for us as I hope it was for all individuals in the room um if you're able to make some return off money that was invested um we do have some limitations on how much we can invest that's why you'll see our total investment has stayed at that cap for these last two years um and and similar our total checking account hasn't RIS very much um but we were able to earn some additional interest and that was calculated and added to the budget for 2024 that was presented in September the final two items number four and five will cover in separate action items this evening that is all I needed to share on that topic Mrs counts all right do we have any questions or discussion excited a little yes very positive do I have a motion M president I move we adopt the resolution presented to establish a board of Finance great I second thank you Mr Daniels and Mr Robinson um all in favor any opposed all right motion passes 5 Z all right and on to the investment resolution and Dr Taylor is going to thank you this one will be even shorter so it's just a summary document that's written to Dr long um it explains that we do have a board policy in place 6144 and some of the details of that policy the resolution is attached in here along with the policy if there are any questions um this has not changed other than dates from the prior school year or calendar year thank you all right any questions discussion do I have a motion Madam president I move that we adopt the resolution authorizing the assistant superintendent or his or her design need to make investments as presented second thank you Mr Alexander and Mr Russell all in favor I any opposed motion passes 5 Z and now we have the section 4.1 I believe it said yes the reports of the fiscal condition of the school courtt Dr Taylor so this will take just a little bit longer but want to just kind of talk about why we're giving this report tonight and if you'll go on to the next slide for me Miss Howard um this is a requirement again it began in 2019 as part of Indiana Law um I will cover tonight six fiscal indicators that are available um on the distress units appeal board and that's an awful name because we're talking about positive things tonight but it was a board that was created so that if units were to fall short in any of these fiscal areas the distress unit appeals board would hear here have a hearing on them and would make some adjustments um there is a public website link there that I made available unfortunately all data is only from calendar year 2022 we won't receive 2023 until well into this next year I always present this about a year behind um there are no official ratings provided just simply data and comparison from year to year and we've added some additional information that's important to Center Grove um just to kind of enhance some of the data points because what the state has it's rather limited and so we'll work through those those six areas and we'll start with the next slide please um this is average daily membership or ADM as we call it and this is simply the the number of students in our population throughout our schools um and in this case we're just looking at the fall count um there are two counts a year um it's actually fall and it's in October and February so fall and spring aren't really appropriate to labels anymore um but that is what the state still calls them and then each virtual student would only count for 085 per of a full student in these counts um we don't have a lot of virtual students that are full-time um and so that we don't even you don't even see their sliver on there because they only be one or two students but as you can see some some positive growth and enrollment that's been a great trend for Center grve and the next slide will actually show the detailed numbers of how we've grown and so again we'll look back to 2018 when we were about 8,400 students um growing up to 9680 or 9496 it's not labeled but it's right there in the middle and that's where we were in October of this school year so great growth and then we project out based off those prior years where we anticipate future growth coming um and where it may land and we expect to roll just past the 10,000 student Mark sometime around 2026 to 2027 next slide please the second indicator are fund balances and again here you'll see how our fund balances have really maintained a little bit of growth um and some fluctuation over the years um again a lot of this changed in 201 2019 when our funds were re were Consolidated and reestablished um but we do have just slightly a little more in our fund balance in 20122 it's just under 8 million there the third indicator are fund balances as a percentage of expenditure so they take the number from the last slide they compare it to how much we expended in that school year and you'll see that we had about 99.8% um as as a cash balance for lack of a better word um at the end of 2022 um and that was down just a little bit from our our really all-time high of 10.4% in 2020 um the board has established a goal to be in that 8% range and so we're exceeding that very well um and you can kind of see that broken out just one last time and this is more of a center growth slide but how it's changed over the years and you'll see there's a drastic change between 18 and 19 where we actually started tracking cash balance and a lot more funds because the state changed the way the fund structure worked um and again we came in at that 88.5% here as an opp operating balance so for us this is actually how much cash we felt we had on hand compared to our budget not our expenditures and so this is something we wanted to have 8% gives us about two months worth of operational cash if we had to make payrolls or anything else if we were lacking in funds from our our current funding sources um again I'm I'm happy that we haven't had to dip into that but I'm also happy it's not growing excessively we we don't want to store extra cash we like to spend the revenue that we get get that we receive um out in our classrooms on the daily basis we'll look at then um number four it's annual deficit to Surplus um and again you'll see we're extremely low in this area um we don't carry any deficit at this time we don't carry any surplus um you can see that we're spending just below our revenue and so in 2022 there was a slight little orange sliver you can see there at the bottom of um we did have a little bit of additional Revenue that was went unspent that year um but not even enough really to make an impact on this chart and as you can see it's it's less than far less than 25,000 um it's probably in the the hundreds to thousands uh we do report this to the board on a regular basis um in in a communication that we that we have with the board um and and we share and this was how this um we call it a speedometer looked and so ideally if we did everything perfect we would spend every single penny that we were budgeted um in revenue and you'll actually see that we were just slightly over that year um we spent a little over what thought in our budget and part of that is that we got additional Revenue as well that year we had grown in 2022 after um we had closed our budget out and so that's why there's just a slight slight increase there we love to live between that 1% difference there um we don't want to see it too high in either Direction moving on to the fifth indicator this is re this is revenue by type and you can just kind of see where the funding Revenue comes into Center Grove um obviously our largest contributor to funding is in that state revenue area um and that would be tuition support from the state and the Department of Education um another one to be to kind of pay attention to is the the fuchsia kind of purpley color there um that's our local property tax revenue and says our other other local Revenue I'm sorry our local property tax would be then down in the green and the light blue and the light blue is pretty hard to see um oh no the light blue is not on there it's the salon collar sorry had that one off finally the last one and that's why I said it's not on there is if we had an operating ref ref inum it would have shown a light blue sliver on that slide um but we do not and so that is a flat line but it is yet an indicator and one that we had to share annually um and ours remains at zero just looking ahead kind of looking how this would play out for 2023 and 2024 you can kind of see where our tax rate fell um landed and then where we did increase and we talked about that increase with our solar project and setting us up for more operational cash in the future so that we could maybe spend some more money on our on our classrooms um and you'll see that was that slight increase and we have received our final budget report and we'll be able to hit that number spot on this year how does that tax rate then um compared to the other County Schools well I don't have all their 2024 tax rates so I have to take a look at 2023 and you'll see we landed kind of right number fourth in the county um at a dollar two even though we will go up to a little over dollar six we'll still be well below Edinburg Clark Pleasant and Franklin in our County and just above Nev hen Ley Jackson and Greenwood finally one last thing we like to talk about is since we talked about um how we manage our our operating balance we also like to look at how our debt plays into that and you'll see this is a chart that shows our our projection um for current and future debt payments you'll see the light blue sliver there that I've called out that is inclusive of the projects that were approved at the November meetings um the solar project and then our our reoccurring um goo bonds and you kind of see we're making a really big payment on those in 24 and 25 that's why the sliver and the triangle is so large and then it's just a small piece of our debt as we move forward throughout the years this chart also has changed from what the board's previously seen where I now reflect the red line in the increase where we kind of went from that prior 2009 goal of staying at a doll four to moving it up just over to a doll six and so you'll kind of see we're going to stay right below that in all of our projections um and there is available room for more debt as as early as 2023 if we chose to do something else finally the last thing is assess value we do have these numbers in and they're official and so we like to share this as part of this presentation this is how much re or how much value we have in roughly White River Township um in Center Grove schools and you'll see it's it's increased there was a humongous increase last year we all know that as the housing market went up and our our our property taxes as well went up um but the values of our homes went up and so that's what that 20% really looks is is indicative of um you will see though that it did reset um some of this was driven by state legislature change and so we actually grew 2.6% % 2.59 um in the past year um still great steady growth we we're happy with that it allows us to continue to operate we would love to see more years of the 20s but we know what kind of pay that means for taxpayers as we are also and so we understand that and um but the 2.5 will be enough for us to carry forth our 2024 plans that's the last slide I had to present tonight I've covered all six factors and would welcome any questions the board may have does anybody have any questions no no thank you Dr Taylor all right well that adjourns we will now adjourn the um Board of Finance meeting thank you thank you

good evening everybody it is January 10th this is the Ashland meeting of the school committee our vision statement which we open every meeting with is the Ashland Public Schools is a forward-thinking district that cultivates the academic and social emotional growth of each student through a supportive collaborative Innovative and challenging environment students will develop into self-motivated resilient lifelong Learners who who Embrace their role as responsible contributors to Global Community this meeting is being recorded by waca cable TV our order of business this evening is our Open Session call to order opening procedures agenda review and adoption there'll be time for public comment our administrative items include appoint a new school committee secretary the grant approvals FY 24 fund code 274 individuals with disabilities Education Act Part B idea fy4 fund code 240 262 idea Consolidated Federal ENT application new position special educator to work with aged 18 to 22 young adults paway School Improvement plan Warren school Improvement plan the vacant School Committee Member process superintendence update warrant approvals the consent actions includes the minutes gifs and donations committee reports of activities member updates action items and then we will adjourn are we not doing the tour rate uh or did I just miss you saying that um I think I missed one uh thanks Paul um the fy2 preschool tuition rate increase recommendation is number four on the list so are you guys uh okay with the order of business this evening and I'll also take roll call Pa kle Tina yes and Mark Terry is absent this evening and we had a resignation of one member which is why we have an open seat uh we have enough of us here tonight three of us to have a quorum so we will move forward with the meeting and uh we will start by asking if there are any members of the public that would like to offer any comment this evening and then seeing none we will move to our next item on the agenda the grant approvals actually schol the school committee secretary oh gosh that's very important is there anybody at this table that would like to be school committee secretary will to at least I'd be happy to do it I'm happy to to step back into that role okay I would appoint I would make a motion to appoint uh Tina as the secretary and I will second all in favor I I secretary congrat conratulations thank you okay moving on Grant approvals and thank you thank you Tina much appreciated please um so where to start I guess learning how to write grants this year was really really helpful and informative um the 274 is a unique Grant this year that was specific to funding allocated for the new IEP development and the roll out for school districts um obviously it's a big lift and I think obviously the state decided that there would be some money that should be allocated at with that um so I was able to write the Grant and get awarded $266 48 to be used towards that new rollout so in my proposal I broke down um the need for support from an individual to come and work with the district um Alan Bloom has been identified as that individual he's um a special ed kind of everything he's worked in a lot of capacities over the last 40 years um he has committed himself to Ashlin for some time for next school year and with his IEP work and goal writing he's created a new or an application that helps teachers and special education professionals right really concise and meaningful goals specific to obviously student needs which we do anyways but there's always room for growth and Improvement um he's also written a manual and in the grant I've written um an ask for about 60 manuals to be distributed around the building and to our ashack to our special education coordinators um to our superintendent to make sure that we're all on the same page with that so that was approved and that's how I plan to use that funding hopefully if you say yes thank you thank you for that the grant writing process can be a lot so so Jim uh she's already got award the Grant and this is our acceptance of the funds yeah and is it at FYI or do we need to actually vote and no we actually need to accept all grants so we can expend the money okay yep so we can do one at a time so sure if you want uh do we have a motion to accept the has described so moved in a second all in favor I I I that's how it's going to go tonight easy note taking for uh Gretchen both the 240 and the 262 have been grants in existence for I don't know how long but certainly for as long as you know the last at least 20 years um in those fundings were they're pretty much together about $800,000 worth of funds that support um a cleric salary one being the administrative assistant that works in our office um a Koda which is an occupational therapy assistant seven esps um there's money in there for contracted Services supplies and materials other expenses um to support any special education needs that come up unexpectedly uh about really the the bulk of it is all professional salaries that have been used um or alloc ated to this Grant and just kind of really looking at those salaries long term and that'll be a conversation at some other point is there a better way that we could be using our grants to these professional salaries need to be absorbed in other positions but right now it's working with what we have and and Jim the uh at least this this grant this was already put you know consider we already knew about this and it was part of our budget there's not a yeah we just didn't we didn't have the funding amount over the summer typically when we approve appr the grants like Tittle one title three we just didn't have the number so okay but it's been part of the budget process for fy2 but and and I assume we were pretty close with the with our budgeting it doesn't change very much it was like $220,000 more this year compared to last year so what is the amount Britney if you um the 240 is $742,500 the 240 and 262 grants as presented second all in favor EXC totally got it backwards that time mess sorry I wasn't gonna say anything um I jumped the gun yep thank you so we're going to keep Britney up here yes let's do that and while it says new position looking to add a new position what I've asked Britney to do tonight is to describe as we're going through our budget process uh it's important to to get out there that we're looking at potentially creating another in District program for our um students and while we're not quite ready to to determine what that position looks like uh partly because we are going through the negotiation process right now with with the bargaining units that I wanted Britney to still be here to you know give an overview of of what we're looking to do as we move forward within our budgeting before we meet as a a committee with um the budget Workshop so uh it's sort of just an overview of what we're looking to do I fully support it mikee fully supports it Chris does as well we've been you know we had a nice long meeting today to really hash out some details that we wanted to um ensure that we have answers to uh the questions that we have uh before we present it to the board so great um so just to give an overview um students with disabilities can potentially receive support from a school district up until 22 um a lot of our students in District that have needed the support of a team to make that determination have had to be sent out of District just because we didn't have our own internal program um in the last year and a half what I've seen in those placements largely that are not necessarily close to Ashland is programming that is tailored to the community in which the program exists although the students remain ashin residents so if a student is working a part-time job it might potentially be in NAC and when they turn 22 and transition out they're now back in Ashland and how logistically do they get from Ashland to NAC um in my previous District I worked through some of the things that Jim has spoken to and obviously specific to ashleen there are other considerations that we need to work through um so I'm I'm fortunate to have that experience and how to create a program from start to not necessarily finish because it's still inexistent in my previous District but start to success right and maintain a successful program um and as many say if you build it they will come thinking about those factors and how we work with families and the community to make sure we're giving our students what they need without building too much into a program too quickly um Christine cavy is here if it's okay if she comes up and stands with me I'll have Christine introduce herself good evening everybody I'm Christine caveny I'm one of the co-chairs of ashack and I appreciate Britney inviting me here tonight um we fully support the idea of an 18 to 22 program we think it's important to keep our students in their own community and um I appreciate that all of you um your support too for our special education students so thanks Christine so and thinking about what we could do better more differently this is one of those programs that we've had conversations with um has you know Christine's been a part of a lot of the conversations to make sure that there was community buyin and an understanding of what it would look like for our students I've been meeting with a handful of parents identified as people that I think would be valuable voices at a team to make sure that we are developing programming for our students um with integrity and uh planful lens instead of just saying we need this and this is what it looks like um knowing you know full well that this has to be accepted and approved in a budget process but regardless of this year in the future it will be something that I continue to ask for just because of the value it can bring to a community in the program we had um reached out to some local businesses in advance and there is a significant amount of support that is already in existence you know here in Ashland it's a little unique because students are 18 through 22 versus that traditional you know up to 18 maybe 19 um and what that looks like can be very different than what is standard in existence we're focusing on jobs and transition Independent Living budget um and successful access to communities as I'm sure many of you are aware uh programming in adult agencies after 2 22 looks very different so I feel very committed to making sure that we give our students the best chance at independent access to their communities prior to that point because because I can't control what happens after 22 so uh so just quick question uh curious as to whether any of this was happening in your previous District as well I know from the town side they have uh personnel and services and things like that and particularly as in in an older age like this uh will there be any kind of coordination to you know uh both support them during the same the same time period but then they'll be transitioning potentially moving services that are provided by the town staff as yeah so in kind of anticipation of a seamless transition with this program I've already reached out to um mass rehab commission um palal which is a parent advocacy League that has a built-in transition program um not program necessarily but a a curriculum that they use that they can work with families to support those next steps um speaking with the Social Security office could they come in and do a training to teach our families how to budget appropriately they're all on board um Mass Down syndrome they're all you know outlying kind of existing agencies that can't really give us necessarily direct like once a week we're going to be here and help you but they're going to come and speak to our families and our Learners at the same time about how we can support them collaboratively as they transition into that 22 year other questions no I'm fully you know I'm we I we've had the opportunity to speak about this at Ash packam I think it's a wonderful idea I'm very curious to see how it works out when we have the budget discussion I think it's a very worthwhile thing to pursue and I'm hoping we're able to make it happen yep yeah I I can't speak highly enough of the work that Britney's been doing on this program but all our programs in general right it sort of I think we counted we have 15 uh individualized programs I think currently uh since I've become superintendent we've really focused heavily on keeping our students in Ashland right we we value that we believe in that and this is just one more step uh that for those 18 to 22 so we're looking forward to having something more concrete by the time we get the final budget together excellent thanks thanks you're welcome Happy new year thank you Christine take that long ride home get out of here okay well you're the best Sarah sure Sarah you're up your turn whatever you want Sarah you're going to be my assistant sure okay whatever you want the tuition rates first oh Chris is doing that oh Chris are you are you doing that Chris is the money guy sorry hello I'm just I don't if you can see that but go ahead Chris must be an increase he wants nothing to do with ex I let him do all the right but it's a decrease you it looks like fiscal 23 though um but I can talk about the form that was given to me okay um I don't know I got I got 24 here so I can speak to it um yeah I noticed that too when I was looking at it this the packet I thought the email that I have um from from Gretchen that PDF should have fisal 24 the list on it um fiscal 25 I apologize um so page eight though for reference if anybody's looking for it on their computers so um similar to last year we're back uh again this year looking for um a rate increase for the um prek program um essentially it's 2 and a half% um and the intention of that is to offset incremental expenses you know inflationary expenses primarily and you know the the salary dollars um to to kind of keep the program running at the same capacity it's been running at um very good capacity ad if you want me to use um so that that's why we're here and that's why uh this is here so they can plan their fiscal 25 um rates Jim are you you able to find the uh the Excel it's just the third tab there but there's another tab down there there's three I did the same thing I'm not person so I missed the other tab got does anybody have any questions about that no I mean it this seems in line with with the the amounts that it has has previously increased and every year our job alike we pull other area preschools and their cost of their tuition too it's pretty um Equitable with the increase of a 2.3 to 2.5 every year and we still remain kind of in that high average when we compare to about I think the last response I got 42 responses um out of areas and we we fall in that higher average range for tuition costs but we also have a lot of full day programming trying to meet the needs of the community too and that's at a cost too to be able to keep the kids longer and is that a comparison to private and public programs or just other public program I've just looked at other public yeah just to see how they're managing a budget um with that integrated inclusive model right because it's a lot of special education Sal not easy either right it's not no two preschool programs are the same there's so many variables and unfortunately it's not mandated yet um for Universal prek um so there's not a lot of guidance that's hard and fast with the Department of Education um it's using our best guidance for three and four year olds and supporting that special education entitlement so we're just trying to offset that with some Community peers because we know it's right to be um you know in an inclusive integrated model and also try to offset our high budget cost for all of our Personnel so Sarah apologize if you did say it um this the spreadsheet shows our current rates are next year's rates but carrying the same enrollment so and I know that fluctuates based on our capacity and the number of students we have uh in the program that are getting Services right so do you do you expect it to be the same enrollment or yeah so that's a great question and if you talk to Mrs LOL who might be watching watching from home um she is in the middle of preschool registration for 2025 which is crazy for me to think about September already but this is when all of our area preschools are doing their enrollment and we want families to be able to choose the right program for their kiddo based on our special education placements and what our PTO and our site Council have been talking about there is that need for full day care um but that does limit how many positions I have in the space at paway so we did make a slight change to what our sessions are we're keeping the same number of classrooms um but we're running two halfday sessions the morning for the three-year-olds the afternoon we're making um multi-age because we also have um with a changing demographic families that are looking for afternoon slots as well um so we want to make that a multi-age opportunity then we're doing two multi-age full day rooms and then our two straight grade four-year-old year before kindergarten um so the same number of classroom rooms um for the integrated model and we'll continue with the two specialized program classrooms to support our higher need students okay so it sounds like the change is based on uh the the peers in wanting to adjust that but like programing but other other students that are coming in for services sounds like that's going to be relatively constant not the changes aren't driven from that side yeah and I think we've talked about it before preschool is a world so different than that traditional K through 12 we're dealing with early intervention referrals doctor referrals and we are entitled to provide those Services if a child qualifies for special education as soon as they turn three and I know you're routinely getting oh somebody just turned 2.9 I got five this week yep yeah yep lots of referrals this week so so you're not anticipating a significant uh change from that from that yeah no it still would keep us at about 120 if we're full I obviously will not fill that this January thinking about September because there's so many variables that happen over the summer and throughout the year but it allows for about 64 Community peers paying tuition and up to 56 special education Slots of any varying need because if you qualify for an IEP regardless if it's just for articulation or if it's for more specialized programming that still is an IEP when we record that to desie so we have to keep all of our rooms integrated for that ratio yeah great thanks does anyone have a motion to approve the tuition change so moved thank you I'll second all in favor I I I Mrs L will be busy the next couple weeks with our registration sounds for sure so moving on to um our school Improvement plan I think you've seen everyone's but the Warren school and ours so you're pretty familiar with the format um esmer did a great job making this format for us so hopefully it looks familiar and you'll be able to navigate it pretty well um we have worked really hard um since I've been in the position um with Jim and really trying to align with um the elementary school so you'll see a lot of the initiatives especially around equity and curriculum planning um and professional development to really align with providing um support in our curriculum hegerty foundations to get our Learners ready for those more traditional grades um and to be able to work collaboratively as we move children through the age groups um looking at them vertically as they grow and um have that exposure here at the preschool level um we have a very small But Mighty site Council um Ronnie Pi is one of our Representatives as well as our wonderful nurse Karen who is a jack of all trade she does a little bit of everything um really took this lead we workshopped it out to staff our preschool PTO um and really tried to get consensus of we have a lot of things we'd like to do but where do we want to really prioritize um utilizing the new new strategic plan those four buckets as Jim refers to so under Equity we really want to kind of take the model that the Warren and mindes school is doing and utilizing some data teams data at the preschool level is very hard a lot of it is work samples right you have to draw a person and you need so many um uh you know identifying components or added things um so we're looking at how can we look at inter rator reliability how can we talk the same Lang language about classrooms and how can we make sure we're scoring kids on our standard-based report cards to really be able to show where they're at and where we can see them grow and progress um so we're going to kind of utilize their model and obviously modify it for our tools we still are leaning into the teaching strategies goal the tsg assessment that Mrs White had established probably almost 10 years ago um making sure we're keeping up with the INR reliability that looks at all of our early learning um early cognitive skills as well as social emotional development teachers have always looked at that independently to write their student support plans or to look at their class but we've never really looked at analys analyzing the data across a whole program so what do all three-year-olds look like what do all four-year-olds look like is there a teacher that has a strength could they Workshop off how they're teaching the specific skill um and that's been even more apparent since the pandemic especially around that social emotional learning that kids need more explicit instruction because they didn't have those Early Learning experien going to the library going to the play group even going to the grocery store um so we want to make sure that that's embedded in our learning so um our also our professional staff is pretty small But Mighty we have about 11 professional staff of service providers and um special education um staff and they have developed a committee to really identify what are the areas that we want to Target for data teams we're going to have one in February have another one in May um and then really kind of work on them quarterly next year to kind of move forward with those along those lines um our curriculum leader um jeie this year she's been instrumental in helping plan those and analyzing the data as it's come in and being creative with looking at some of the data is really streamlining just how we analyze work samples or when do we take data so we can look at everyone's development on draw a person or everyone's letter ID at a certain week um you know within a certain months so we can see how they grow and progress over time um so those are pretty much the highlights there the resources needed is intentional time you know um we utilize our curriculum meeting this year I've also established um a rotating schedule of common planning time where the halfday teachers can meet together on Fridays and the full day teachers can meet um you know on the alternating Fridays and they're planning small group instruction so they're focused on an area where all classrooms are getting the same instruction um working together and identifying how they would do it and differentiate it based on the kids in their class um the next one is our social emotional learning you've heard a lot from probably Jenna already you'll hear from Pete too and also Jen Cutler we have a lot of seal um initiatives going on in The District Preschool is really the foundation for all of them we continue to have a lot of kids having their very first experience outside of the home with us um and I like to call it curb to curb we're supporting them literally how they say goodbye to Mom and Dad whether that's good bad or sometimes really challenging um how to support greeting peers working you know from the ground up so that they can be successful um parts of their classroom and Community um and and enjoy school so we utilize our PBIS it's be kind and be safe our little bumblebees that you see around last week we had a PBIS reboot so um we were all dressed in yellow and black all day we have a Great Seal Team that supports that we also are um part of the zones of Regulation which is a prek through five initiative that Jen Cutler has supported reported Us in obviously we have to modify a lot of those lessons um because three and four-year-olds don't even know what feelings are yet so really shaping what they're feeling and putting words and vocabulary to that before they can begin to take perspective for someone else um so that's embedded within there the over the last two years our staff has also been researching a new social emotional curriculum which Jen Cutler was able to purchase for us with grant funding last year called paths um and that's great it uses utilizes puppets for a lot of the self-regulation and emotional it's very preschool based um we piloted a bunch of different ones um borrowing um curriculum from different preschools and we settled on that so we're in full implementation stage with that this year um responsive classroom is another initiative we like to lean into that K through five is doing and working with Mike to continue to um slowly train all of our staff so that they can utilize that so that's all familiar programming once they get up to kindergarten um and our needs to kind of meet those kind of um initiatives is really the responsive classroom training um money that you know Mike and I are already in communication of and then working with oural team and Jen to really support um some coaching and being able to get in and give some positive feedback to teachers who are teaching all content areas every moment of the day with preschoolers and really like learning how to embed that as part of their language every day about being kind and being safe um and being able to support how they're feeling the third is Resource Management we all know paway is now officially the oldest building in town um yeah um definitely School building maybe I don't know I I'll roll into it you win the prize you know we see Mr pay's ghost or hear him quite often Pat had warned me about that um and so we joke about that but um obviously facilities and um you know Chris working with us on kind of the ongoing maintenance of the building that is you know definitely something that we need to stay on um and focusing on safety and really making our space now that we're going to live here probably for most of our educational careers um making it inclusive you know making sure that we're updating the accessibility um you know the the new pavement the new stairs the ramps the playground um you know as well as just overall Building Maintenance so um what our staff really wants to focus on is making that playground more accessible because that's also Town use outside of school hours so bless you we have a lot of um parents willing to help out we have a lot of really great ideas from staff um the preschool PTO which is separate from the K through2 PTO they've acquired a lot of funding through the baa Grant process and that's all been allocated for making our outdoor education or I should say indoor too cuz it's inclement weather recess more accessible and more equipment to provide for everyone so we'd like to do a playground audit we have a committee going on that too reaching out to try to um find a good price to be able to ask for money and you know looking at maybe doing a long-term multi-year plan for a campaign to make it fully accessible and inclusive um in the meantime we've got some nice grant money that we can be mindful of you know what could we Implement now to make the short term better but also you know we can use once we get a full playground remodel um there's a couple districts that have recently done that so the committee is also reaching out to them to see how did they start a campaign could they find any um businesses in corporations to help match donations things like that um so they're really excited about that um I think that has it's a great space like we have a full field a track the the playground equipment but there's a playground structure there that was put in when kindergarten went over there which was maybe how long 12 yeah was it before you Jim it was your kindergarten moved back to Warren 15 almost 12 12 years ago when my senior was in so years so they put that green and blue structure in there but our preschoolers can't use that during the school day because it's not a regulation and we'd like to remove it and reallocate it someplace else in town that could use it but that takes money to be able to take it down and make sure that it's certified and able to be used in that capacity so finding some short money for that maybe to get that moved and you know a better use somewhere else in town would be helpful and it would free up some space for us I think all the other facility stuff Chris is on we'll talk about when we have the Strategic plan presentation um and then the last curriculum planning that aligns a lot like I've said with Warren and mindes we're really trying to provide an early childhood experience that is fun and play play based but we're also trying to set them up to to be successful Learners when they move to the Warren school we are a small I talked about maybe 100 to 120 kids it's a very intimate setting we can do a lot of really great teaching um within that to get them ready so we've implemented you know the hegerty the foundations that you've heard about all theal curriculums we really just want to make sure that we're aligning and we're having more intentional time um you know Administration comes down and occasionally we get some teachers coming down but when we had our spoiler issues and we were closed for a day we were able to send our esps up to Warren and just to give them that perspective of what the expectations are some of them hadn't been in there since their kids were in there you know I'd love to be able to find a way for teachers to go up and do that and observe some teaching um just to better align us vertically um and then P professional development is the other committee our staff has chosen to really find preschool specific that's a really hard thing there's not a lot of people in the prek world um and our preschool PTO has also recently allocated some funding for us I haven't even told you that to help out so I won't be asking for as much um but to really Identify some people during our professional development days to look at how can we incorporate um good teaching and learning with the preschool standards specifically while still you know trying to support whatever the district's initiatives are that's where we're are right now lots to do questions for Sarah no it always amazes me all of the stuff that Happ know there's a lot going on there's a lot yeah there's a lot going on but it's like an an awesome time to capture and have kids our families are fabulous the kids are sponges um it makes it much easier to go to work every day you know when you're greeted even when it's pouring rain this morning you know and uh the snow has disappeared there was some tears that the snow had gone um but hopefully that will come back so Sarah relative to the uh to the playground uh did did you say you already put together uh a team to look at I'm ready for you to join us I'm not volunteering that wasn't a volunteer this has been built yeah no we are you say yeah we're trying to look at a a model of a public school district that maybe started it from start to finish um Bellingham just put one in um and for our beginning research and Outreach it was around 300,000 I don't know you know the cost of all of it how much they matched but it was multi-year campaign and fundraising um so I'd like to think about something long-term wise if if the money is that big I mean I think there's two reasons why I asked is one if you start getting different funding sources sometimes there's conditions and different things things that you need to be aware of right and so um you can use them but if you're not sure what the end state is or how long it's going to take some of them are like hey if you don't if you know it's not 20 years or however long usable life is there's all sorts of yeah depending on the funding on funding source right and uh so you do it strategically like that um and just if if it would be helpful I can uh ask the the team to get me the um some of the data on the pricing for stuff that we did you know like the play surface you want to be accessible I'm assuming that's what you're you know that's one of the components you can't have you know the the current play surface is not and the cost of mulch every year is you know a lot um so thinking about something that's going to last and be more sustainable is definitely something I think the committee my hopes are is that they'll help us when um keeping us forward moving right because I've got a lot of balls in the air and making sure that we're thinking about if we are taking funding how can we make this you know place it in action immediately um so that people see that how their money is being spent it's not 5 years down the road here's a playground where maybe those teachers aren't there anymore those families aren't there so just having a thoughtful plan of could we do pieces of it at of time maybe just do the surface for and the other component is if they're like wait hold on a second now you figured out a strategy and they don't that you got this funding from Source a and now that's not going to be permanent right and so being thoughtful of that obviously you will be but if you want to help out we'll gladly take your guidance talk to me a few months okay I'll give you a few months awesome a little busy yeah and should have a well-deserved break after mes any any further questions concerns we don't have to vote on this uh it's just an FYI but thank you for all the great work thank you for the folks on the site Council um thanks for your staff at the school great thank you appreciate you thank you Sarah Pete hi Pete thank you so you're you're looking twist my arm you're looking at Britney so we know where this is going no that was to encourage her to go home yeah uh first just good night thank you thanks BR to acknowledge and just thank our our council members from last year uh Tiffany Farrell Ben cre Roselia Morell Kristen quern Kerrie cober Donna Shaw Daria Tucker Kate Alman also served as a non- voting member of the council and just their their work is instrumental in helping us to collaborate with the entire School our parent community and determin where our goals were for this year one second if you have a can you send it to us we don't we don't have access to it in the folder either so okay the first one but okay um one of the parts that that really worked well for us and you know as now my 20th year of being a principal I will say that this is the first year ever that I've felt just the cohesion of all the work that we're doing that it's all coming back to our data team meetings and that's driving our decisions of what teachers are doing on a daily basis in their classroom to the goals that we're setting as our whole school and how everything just continues to come back to to this process U we're very fortunate uh Mike had written a grant to connect us to S3 the systemic student support team that is connected through desie uh and we were able to be the recipient of that Grant this year so what's great as you'll see through the plan is just how many structured meetings we have with this team and with other schools who are going through the same process um we have run into a few glitches as we've been identified as a year one school and from our last in-person meeting U the S3 team that visits us there were three individuals that came from the team they recognize that our school isn't quite a year one school we're almost like a 1.5 or 1.7 because of how many things we've already had in place prior to this year and they recognize that when we're doing some of our collaborative work with other communities it may not be as meaningful for us because we are a bit ahead so um they're spending a little more time with us when they come to the school for their site visits uh so much so that they're actually coming for our next round of data team meetings to observe and then meet with the teachers afterwards and uh give more specific feedback for our teachers that are on this team um so as you'll see in the equity piece the data teams is one of the big drivers of how we're bring Equity to all children and it's with that idea to make sure that we're challenging all students and equally important that we're having strong documentation of what was done so that each teacher isn't Reinventing the wheel for a child each and every year and the goal is that by the end of this year through working with S3 that we'll have a strong document that identifies for the teacher what the goals were for the year how the child progressed towards those goals what successes were and also what challenges were so that we're not repeating those same challenges um another goal around our Equity piece is to continue to be a champion School through uh Special Olympics with the unified pieace um this was actually a goal that started with two teachers and their individual goals for their practices by Daria Tucker and Erica zipy and they came to me and they said what they'd like to do of really investigating and could we receive uh that recognition of being a unified school uh in meeting with the special Olympic team they came in and they were really excited by what we had already had in place and we ended up qualifying immediately for that U delegation and as we move forward it was now saying how do we create more opportunities for our students to play with one another to have sports activities alongside of each other and where it's not something separate that's happening um and really to give some great credit on this as well of someone who's not part of our site Council but has been instrumental in this is Tim Ryan our PE teacher uh who has really embraced this U and has made it part of his daily instruction uh each and every day with all of our students as we continue we look at our social emotional learning and again as I started tonight I mentioned about that cohesion that I finally feel after such a long time of doing this work is Jen Cutler's role and her work in supporting our data teams as well and now she's at a place where she's using the data points that we've had from Desa a couple with our attendance data our Behavior data our teachers anecdotal records and we're creating individual plans that now take place to support our students it's now where we're looking at our atrisk students and working with Children and Families at times of where appropriate to bring parents in and work with them in outside resources as well about how this moves forward again that matches up so well and you heard Sarah speak about this I'm sure that Jenna spoke about this as well is the responsive classroom component and that's every teacher and adult in our building using those pillars of just how looking at our students and teaching treating them with respect and building relationships for our children with each other and our adults in the school so it's continuing that commitment to ensure that we're training all of our our teachers with responsive classroom which is an undertaking and you'll see this is probably the first line where it list is a price uh because this is an outside training that takes place Mike and I have had a lot of dialogue about this uh where a past trainer that we used is absolutely outstanding and it would be a little cheaper for her to do our trainings but we do want to make sure that we're contining with responsive classroom and continuing that relationship with responsive classroom last year we were actually able to have an audit from them as well so it was great to get some feedback about how our implementation has been through these years um and where we're continuing to go with this work um as well as mentioned from the piece of a community service piece and that all of our students will be having that community service project uh by the end of this school year we have not identified that as the staff we've started our conversations dur confy meetings uh but we have not final ized exactly what this will look like for all of our K1 and 2 students but it will be something that will be during the school day so all children have that opportunity and they understand that importance of just being part of a community and how they do give back to our school and what respect looks like of of their uh responsibility of being part of the community as we look at at Resource Management uh the the providing that safe environment and this goes with some of the changes that we've already made with the new buzzer system that has been put at the war in school it's the drills that we're practicing on a regular basis uh the Safety Committee that Mike leads at the district level with uh with other emergency organizations in town where we can collaborate play in our drills talk about our potential liabilities how to correct these liabilities in addition to that we have a voluntary Warren school safety committee meeting where we meet and we talk about the the pieces specifically at Warren school uh what has been great is working with the Ashland police department and specifically with the Ashland fire department deputy chief Morgan has been the flexibility that they've given us so during our drills we've purposely created problems um so the first fire drill of the year which happens within those first few days of school we do a typical fire drill uh the deputy chief is excellent about doing it early in the morning so before kids are transitioning because we have kindergarteners where this for many of them it's their first time in a school so we want this to happen from their classroom not when they're in art class or one of these other locations um after that first drill takes place uh she works with me and her staff and we actually begin blocking EG esses um at our last fire drill we block two esses and we do it during in opportune times so it's during lunch and recess passages um and what's very exciting for me to see and again I've done this for a very long time to see how our young students are responding so well that when they come to a problem in the hallway and we set up carts with red uh rep bulletin board paper on it and they see it and there's no hesitation they turn and they just go to the next exit uh it's become just something that's normal for our kids to react to which is sad and sense uh but it's great that they are getting that preparation and again kudos to our teachers staff and and support staff because they're supporting the children to learn all these Pathways and and uh plans of how to be safe during emergencies uh as well and this is a large shout out to our it Department U led by Paul Carpenter the technology infrastructure what's happened in our school um our Wi-Fi is working far better this year which is a a critical part because it comes back to some of the pieces that I'll speak to in a few moments uh but the the IT department was able to roll out cromebook carts for every single classroom this fall every child now once again has one to one Computing in our school and that's an important piece when we talk about the uh curriculum components that we're doing right now and some of the changes that we've made again it comes to our data team meetings which is which is guiding all of this uh but at this point in time I'm excited to share that since the fall every kindergartener first grader and second grader has their own Chromebook they do stay at school each day um and the teachers have Chromebook cart that organizes this so that they're not trying to figure out how to manage charging every device every night to make sure that they're ready to go for the children and Pete those were some of the ones that came came over from the mes right some of them are recycled machines from from the other schools but they are meeting our our purpose that wholeo ofs exactly yes yeah Paul Paul and his staff was able to re repurpose all of those cards uh to each room um as we look at the curriculum piece of this and again it stems back to our data team meetings and what's guiding this is Sarah spoke about this earlier the importance of small group instruction is that all of our classroom teachers are now doing small group instruction on a daily basis with our children and this is really where we're seeing that great growth for our students that are excelling with the curriculum our student that are students that are on Pace with the curriculum and that our students that need remediation or in some cases introduction to some skills and it allows the teacher to now look at this and every six weeks because we have five of these meetings throughout the year where we look at every single child they're coming back and we're creating goals creating new groupings and we're moving this important to note as well is when a teacher creates their groups they don't have to wait six weeks to move a child if a group is advancing at a faster rate than one child that child may move down a group or move up a group as well if they're advancing at a faster rate uh as this goes through different data points have become critical for us and this is where we're using the Amplified data um if you remember last year Kate Alman spoke about the Amplified data and this is where we're doing the mandated testing from the state for the dyslexia screeners it's not just for that dyslexia screener though it's giving us great reading information about how our students are performing and how they're growing during the year and the nice part is because we've now been using it for more than one year we can actually look at the child over more than a year's rent of time to look at that growth of what's happening in addition we're now using I ready as well for mathematics and we're able to do that same piece of looking at math skills with growth and it will be able to support us for growth over time um an exciting piece about the IR is similar to the Amplified U platform it also allows teachers to create groupings based on specific skills So based on student performance on the assessments that they've done online it will then tell the teacher here are the next skills that the the program is recommending that the teacher should work on next that is what drives our data team meetings of when we sit with our experts from those fields whether it's Taran Marquez in math Kathy FIA Su Nash sui in Reading uh myself and the other administrators supported that but then we're looking at that data we're talking about all right let's now look at the informal data from our day-to-day work that the students are performing at and that's how we're creating the day-to-day lessons that happen for our children um that other big piece and I spoke about this earlier in the year is stmath and that was the necessity for the Chromebook initiative that we had to have is as a recipient from the grant for stmath through the 18 Foundation um every child needs to be in stmath every single day and as a reminder stmath the beauty of this is that there's zero language um so with our large e population and our many children that come to the war in school that do not speak English they're all able to access this problem uh this program and it's a challenging program U it's solving puzzles and when I say puzzles I'm not talking about the the jigsaw puzzles but it's mathematical problems that are going through geometry it's going through addition at the beginning kindergarten level it's about one toone correspondence recognizing that um one of the pieces that we've done based on a recommendation from another school who had been a few years into this we do not send this home with children and when we find that children are logging their minutes at home we have some conversations with parents to keep it as a school activity because we've found from the other districts and we've now seen from our handful of students that have done this at home at times we have children who are moving so quick at home they're getting support from a parent they may not understand the concept um and this by doing it on school we can guarantee that the child still understands the concept starting at grade two and then moving up because this is a a program that mes has applied for the same Grant it actually gives quizzes and where the quizzes do have language involved um so they're able to then check to say how is the child maintaining these skills and doing these pieces as well U as I mentioned about the difficulty of these puzzles and Mike not to put you on the spot but as Mike and I went to a training for the first time last year we were told to start with certain puzzles um Mike and I obviously could figured we could move to through this pretty easily um I think I went into like a seventh grade problem and quickly realized I have no idea what they're asking me here because there's no language so I went down to a second grade level uh Mike started with a fifth grade go back to kindergarten I I was more frustrated than anybody in the entire room yeah it was just one of those things and the kids the kids are so resilient which is incredible we as adults we were probably a lot less resilient right for sure exactly well and to that resilience is is what I've now been able to watch with our students and children that I know well our second graders who just started with this program but knowing these children now for over two years before they started the program is it does support resiliency but that's not what the frustrations I think were from Mike and I know from myself it was it builds on its own knowledge of how the puzzles are are moving forward and there are pieces that are consistent so it allows the children to tackle new information on a regular basis and keep being pushed in their mathematical thinking it also allows us to differentiate so if we have children um that are in one of our specialized program programs and that grade level work is not appropriate for them at this point in time it allows us to change their place of where they are on the program as well if we have students who are moving very quickly and they are showing Mastery of this it allows us to move forward with them as well and continue to challenge them that information is also used during our data team meetings and our teachers use that of determining what's the next steps in stmath but also what are the next steps that they'll use during their small group instruction so coming back to to my beginning of this is again for the first time my 20 years as a principal I finally feel like we have this one piece through our data team meetings that's bringing everything together and giving our teachers meeting so that it doesn't feel like we're just chasing that windmill all the time of what's next great news questions comments no I'm similar you know to to my comment um about pway it's always amazing to hear all of the stuff that you pack into every day thank you thank you for all that you do and I love to see the the data teams and how that's continuing and I can't wait to get I'm sure at some point you know before the end of the year we'll get an update about what the data looks like and I I I'm really excited to I'm sure you're excited to see it because you see it all the time right I'm really excited to see how it's it's pretty impress together thank you one of the pieces that's also nice is we were able to uh include Kate Alman in this S3 team uh that works with the data team because she had done some of the work where we originally put it to us that was before her transferred to MZ um and when we spoke to the S3 team although they said this is isn't something that other districts do uh they saw Great Value in keeping her so that way there is the vertical articulation that will occur at some point even better right that's fantastic well thank you to everyone on your site counsil it looks like some of them came back so for this year people having fun which is good that's a good thing um and uh thank you for all you do thank you you thanks okay folks um next up thank you Jim just a quick just quick question um with with the departure of Aaron who was did wasia St Council Le on someplace that we should consider putting that is a good question do we want to wait until Mendes yeah no I'm Mendes are you no I'm Middle School okay and Mark's High School yeah she might she might have been she might have been warmed she is safety I mean well yeah so they're going to be some well we we were doubled up on good yeah Paul yes so that we don't need to double up anymore anyhow um we're talking about U the the vacant seat on school committee um and I just wanted to give you uh whoever's watching because we we have had some interest which is wonderful and we want to uh there are two things that we need to do is one is follow the law um the law dictates some of what we're doing here and then the second piece of it is we need to create a process so everybody knows what to expect moving forward so so the legal piece is is that we had to post within a certain amount of time that the position was available and we have to make a decision within a certain amount of time after that so that has all been done um January 18th is the deadline for submissions and January 24th is the evening that we will be making our decision after we have a public process of interviewing all the candidates the decision is also a joint decision between the school committee and the select board obviously it's our appointment um but the the way that the town Charter is written um the the select board will um be partners with us in this selection um again for anybody who might be watching this meeting now or tuning in later to find out more about um what we do um on the school committee first of all I'm the chair my name is lorri tosy this is my 13th year um Tina I think it's is it your third year this is my third and Paul eight eight or nine sounds right um yeah and Mark is um few years behind me I think um Jim and I probably have been around the longest at this table so my kids were students when Jim was high school principal um and we've worked really hard um both Jim and I and everybody since to create a culture of collaboration um not just with each other but with our administrative team and with the other boards in town and we have seen a lot of progress because of that uh and because of that we're also you know looking for a you know somebody who has a collaborative Spirit um for sure that's important to all of us because that's how we operate there's no drama we focus on the work and we don't always agree but we always listen to what everybody has to say with respect um the school committee position itself Again by law we only do three things even though uh we sit here and we're talking about all kinds of different things on the agenda everything we talk about fits into one of three buckets um the first one is we hire and evaluate the superintendent um as far as the hiring that part's been done I've been involved in that many times and and fortunately Jims have stuck around for a long time so I haven't had to do that recently but uh certainly the evaluation process happens every year and that's how we set the goals for the superintendent is how we set the our um goals for the community our educational community and um we work with the superintendent all year long on those goals and that's a process and it's a public process so you would be part of that if you're looking to do this job um the second thing that we do is policy um we do have a policy subcommittee but it's really the whole board that's involved in voting on any policy that comes through um and that's kind of the overarching um sort of budget well but budget also but I'm what I'm saying about policy is policy means the overarching sort of rules of the district we don't deal with the day-to-day um we don't hire our fire teachers we don't supervise teachers we don't uh hear about you know what the problems are in the buildings we hire um the superintendent who then hires his administrative team and so just so that everybody understands because I know I know I knew nothing about what school committee really was responsible for before I joined this board um so we're more working at uh the policy level and then we have administrators that make sure those policies get enforced and then the third thing is budget so um we are responsible for the budget of the whole District um there are lots of different levels to that there's a certain amount of money that we get from the state a certain amount amount of money that we get from the town and then within our own system there are uh priorities um that uh we have to prioritize where a certain pretty much finite sum of money is going to go so we spend the whole year Jim mostly with his administrative Team figures a lot of that out and then we start we hear about it along the way and then at some point we join in on the conversation and ultimately the vote on the budget is our responsibility so the person you know needs to understand budget or be willing to learn and understand it um a great collaborator understand policy and um participate in the evaluation of the superintendent so that's the job um I can share with you in the community that so far we've received eight people have put in a talent Bank request to uh for the position and the deadline is the 18th so we may get more um the I've only been involved in this one other time some people dropped out by time we got to the public hearing so I don't know whoever is interested in this job I don't know who how many people are going to be here on the 24th but whoever shows up that night will and they fill it out a talent Bank um will be the people that we interview and so now we're GNA I'm going to open up a discussion because we do need to talk about what that process might look at like um because we do have a number of people we need to be mindful of the time um I'm sure people who are interested in the position want to know what to expect as far as questions or whether they're going to need an opening statement that sort of thing and then um tomorrow Jim and I are meeting with um the town manager and the chair of the select board to um get their input again because they're 50% involved in this decision so that's what I know so far and then the rest of it um I'm going to ask ask my colleagues to just chime in on you know what your ideas are about a process I'm thinking opening statements at least you know for sure yeah I think to give everybody the opportunity to just share who they are why they're interested and want to be a part of the process um I think it but I I think it would be nice to have all of the candidates answer the same questions yeah um to kind of get input on kind of I don't want to say foundational things but so that they're all they're all given the same opportunity to answer the same questions um what those questions are I don't know what the process should be to come up with them if we should discuss those now if we should take some time to think about it and give feedback um but I think it's fair to in how many questions I think we need to be mindful of how many people are here um I don't think we want to ask 10 questions of each person you know I think we need to to be thoughtful of of their time of how long the meeting will go of our you know obviously there'll be deliberation um you know after the fact as well too so right um I don't know what the magic number is but I think I think it be if you multiply it like let's say we're going forward with what we know right today which is eight people if you multiply that times you know even five questions that's might be too many lot right so even so I would ask people to come up with a few I think maybe you know any two or three of your most important questions the ones that you feel are will give you the most insight into you know the person that's applying for this position um the other thing I will say too is as far as process because you know the appointment ends on the 24th but then in May uh the seat becomes open again for an election so I I think that the person that does apply for this job um I would hope that they would be prepared to commit to running in the election I mean obviously things happen or you may decide you don't like it but the truth is uh being on the school committee from Fe feary till May maybe gives you the opportunity to attend you know five seven meetings maybe maximum um and there's a learning curve it takes a long time so I think even though technically the commitment is is to the end date is the election but if there's not an intent to run in the election then it we've got to start over from square one all of us um the other thing I'd add to that is given the so the way that it works is you're appointed until the next election and then uh you then run for the remainder of that particular seat's term so given the the cycle that this is on you'd actually be in back-to-back elections just I want to make sure people know what they're signing up for right um that if you were to continue you'd be back to back personally that's not a big deal but I know it can be intimidating process for people well and also just the the timeline for getting your name on the ballot you can't decide in May that you want you have to make that decision and I don't I need I'm actually my my seat is up in May so um I'm going to have to be pulling paper soon to get signatures um and and I want to say that the timeline is is March well it starts soon it starts end January the timeline to turn in signature in order to be on the ballot is March so it's a decision that needs to be made pretty quickly um probably as you're in the process of interviewing right exactly and whether or not you would have an opponent is completely out of our control unfortunately I mean I I've run for election five times I've had an opponent twice um and so most of us we get a lot more interest in the school committee position when there's an appointment versus having to run a campaign and not all of us love doing that um but that might be a reality for the person that signs up and it might not be sometimes when you're already in the seat and if people are paying attention and they understand the circumstances then that might and encourage others not to run against you but we have we can't guarantee one way or the other but we do want everyone to be aware that that's a factor so having said all that if you're still interested um you know I I don't know if you want to try to hash out questions tonight Mark's not here so I think you know I don't know that that's yeah you know I I think I want to think about my um suggestion is also we're on a timeline that is because these deadlines are uh are in the town Charter or the the state law don't don't yeah we you know we can't have additional meetings to figure this out so which also goes for us in terms of forming questions so I I I'm going to propose uh if you trust me with this is to send me you know your most important questions and because some of them may even overlap with each other so if you send me anywhere from like three to six questions and H let me put them on a list of everybody getting whatever number we decide to maybe everyone gets three questions um and then the night of the meeting I will present you with the three that you're going to ask hopefully they're the three that you came up with but if you've overlapped with somebody else you might be asking a different question so um each of us asking three questions so 15 well the number that the number is hasn't been decided yet do you think maybe two I mean one I'm even fine with the entirety of the committee asking three questions like if we come up with with the same three or whatever whatever number whatever ever magic number we we land on yeah well and so I I intentionally wanted to make sure you you spoke first I I did send something to Lori I think what you said overlapped with what I sent her you know totally pretty well so what I had said what might be a good idea is that um we give them n each n 90 seconds you know we take them in turn not like 90 90 90 but you know when a k is getting interviewed give them 90 seconds to introduce themselves provide any information uh and then my thought is if if if we give it to you that's what you you can be the Arbiter of hey if I if I give you three questions and order them in the priority I would like to ask and and in the ideal world we only ask our our number one question but in the case where her than I is over the same question then you just you know choose hers and bump mine to the second one or something like that and we or maybe we do four though Tina since Mark and then maybe then everyone feels like they at least say and then I would ask the my question that you've said hey this is the one that that that worked and then I asked that to everyone you ask your question everyone and then so each of them so get four and then certainly you can you know if I asked the question you can ask a follow-up question because based on their answer at the time right we'll have to time the answers if you've ever watched the debates in town like we will have to time the answer just because we really could be here for hours um and we're not going to be throwing trick questions at anybody I mean they're going to be questions related to the position look we're looking for people who are you know invested in this community invested in education are good collaborators are willing to understand you know budget and policy are good with managing people that or people you know that might fill you know where we have we all have different strengths and weaknesses that we have three lawyers on on the board and you know what I mean so somebody's you know we all com things from different angles a very different experience exactly so I mean it's not going to be like a popularity contest or anything like that it's just going to be like who's really a good who's interested at the right you know level Eng of Engagement and who's a good fit with uh with the board yeah so so so what I what I did the 90 seconds each of us ask a single the single question um and instead of trying to figure that out at the meeting if we send them to her she can you know give us what that those questions are and then turn it over to the select board for general questions and I think the expectations they work it out with with Rob is isn't that they will all ask a question it's just like does the select board have any questions or comments um and maybe there's only one or none or two or whatever and then come back for um any general follow-ups or I want to also think we should if a candidate put something very specific to them in their talent Bank form to be able to ask a question at that point about you know hey it was very interesting that somebody has done this and maybe there's a question about how that would apply here how um and then provide the candidate an opportunity to ask us questions because you know if it was me on the other side I'd be as much interviewing them as as they are me um and then just give them like a 30 second wrap up of their you their thoughts at the end and if if I did quick math on that I I think that probably Keeps Us in in in one to two hours time frame for if we if we're diligent with the time but and any body's welcome to reach out to me or any of I don't want to volunteer you but I think you'll be fine you know uh reach out to us beforehand if you have questions that are going to assist you with making your decision about whether you want to continue on with the process or even just to connect with us and hear more about what it's like from our perspective because we all have different Paul's I've been chair for 10 year 11 years Paul just chaired the building committee um for several years Tina's on ashack I mean we all have different um ways that we've contributed to the committee so um if you want to hear more about any of that I strongly encourage you to reach out to anybody so I think that I mean if you guys will send me questions I'll make a a list of the top four um that will get asked to every candidate and so everyone should come prepared to do a 90c opening just of introducing it's going to be on wacka um and it's going to be a public process we're going to have to somehow figure out how to make a decision you know in a public way just like when we hired you know the superintendent um so should we not require but should we you know really ask them to come in person um as a preferred way I mean somebody can't they can't but I don't think they should be disqualified but you know to to say that's our preference for them to yes to be it is a hybrid meeting all our meetings since Co since we were were back we've been hybrid so there's the opportunity uh and that by the way moving forward too the the preference is for all of us to be here when we have when we can't um as in my case I there's a couple meetings I'll miss next month and I will tune in and other people have had to miss and they've tuned in on Zoom but the preference is if you can be here in present I think it's important to to understand what our expectations are we is we've tried to come back in person so yeah so that's um that's the job uh you guys will send me your questions I'll ask Mark to do the same um um and then once you get feedback from the select board will you kind of and kind of figure out what the whole format will look like yes will you be sharing that with the people who filled out Talent Bank forms even if it's just a a rough overview 90 second intro questions from the school committee questions from the select board yeah because on everybody's Talent bank I believe um they had to leave their email address so I think what I would do is sometime before the meeting I would write up a final like here's how it's going to go because there's a piece of it that I won't know till tomorrow after Jim and I have our meeting um and and and probably to get back to you that they're still interested to to know so we have an idea of if because I mean at the end of the day if if somebody's filled out and they're no longer interested if they let you know then we don't need to publicly say they didn't show up right and be be thoughtful of that absolutely um right like your name won't go on the agenda or anything like that I don't I don't think um but it will be good for us to know who to anticipate being here so that we can Pace Pace the evening so I think we have a process um and I'll Circle back with you all with just FYI tomorrow after our meeting or Jim will um to let you know um the input from the select board I mean it is their decision too so I do want them to feel like if they have to make a vote they're you know going to need to feel like they've they've done their due diligence so whatever that looks like um and then hopefully we're voting on a new member on January 24th so you guys you good with that yeah that that sounds good yeah just thanks everybody for their their uh yeah uh their interest people interested I know we're thrilled to have the interest and I got a feeling that's going to be the most difficult meeting we've ever had regardless of all the other AG I know I'm already stressed out topics you know um because we have a lot of people with just a lot of great things to offer and um so but my hopefully um you know we'll we'll run a a a process that helps us get the right person and um you know and then if it's something that interested you and you weren't the person then just keep watching for opportunities to to be involved so cool all right good and then that does do some things to our meeting there's there is one thing I am going to keep in our agenda because I do have somebody from the Warren site Council who had uh created a really wonderful very brief though presentation about communication and it's presenting it in a way that we haven't discussed it before and um she had to get child care and things like that so she's planning on coming that night it will be short and this uh the select board isn't coming till 6:30 anyway so we do have 30 minutes in the beginning I'm going to give U at least probably 15 to Caitlyn perfect um but if there's something else you need to squeeze in sure um figure that out so we're not we're going to push some of our other business but Jim will will talk more about that we dive into that yeah please thank you I want to extend uh an offer to any of those who have filled out the talent Bank form to either reach out to myself or Michael to um if if they have questions about you know our role and how we've worked uh with the school committee again it's um it's an exciting time to bring another person into the fold uh I always look at these as great opportunities uh for uh our our committee and uh to to grow and get stronger so it's um it's uh exciting uh the last time we did this uh going back to 2015 uh we we actually had a I found the agenda today I went through all of the old agendas and tried to find it and and was able to and we booked three hours that night just for for the uh wer eight people I say do you remember how many people uh we had I want to say three ended up being yeah so but some people had had more than three had contacted me with interest but by time we got to the date people had changed their minds but I mean that's how you I mean you start the process it's it's got to be a thoughtful process after you find out some things I can contact Adam and he can keep the clock and like down meeting sure that be Wonder prefer we don't do that I was ad so uh so just for an update I I think it's important um a couple things one uh before I get into the next meeting which is um in February the first meeting in February uh because of the 24th being taken up due to uh filling the position uh there are a number of of major pieces that we need to discuss as a board uh and you need to be involved in and and waiting until the fifth member is part of this group uh seems appropriate uh and one of those is the Strategic plan uh I think we're Michael we're ready yeah I keep it's time we have we have a new vision for almost year now no no no we no we I think we uh it's good to go we had a really good meeting with our um Mike and I with the Prem a couple weeks back and then we brought the whole administrative team in together uh and finalize the plan uh and so we want to finally share it uh and get your final input on that but waiting until uh the the the February meeting is is important um then there's another component is the calendar survey uh that was sent to the community uh well over 900 responses uh to that survey I am not going to tease out uh the information that that I've sort of um starting to uh go through uh but we have a presentation that we'll present that night as well I do need to at some point get the calendar set uh for 2425 uh what I can tell the community is anticipate us going back to the starting um pre Labor Day uh this year was an anomaly because of the MZ school right we we started later partly because we needed the time to ensure the building was ready to be turned over to us and we front loaded P PD too and correct right so but that being said um the calendar is important but I know families are always wondering when the year is going to end versus you know when it's going to start it's going to start before Labor Day that's we're going back to that that model um and we'll have have that Wednesday Thursday of the week before Labor Day Friday's off because that's part of the teachers contract uh and then we start in Earnest again after Labor Day so those are two really important pieces that that we need to discuss in February will you be asking us to approve the calendar that night or just a presentation I think I'll just start with the presentation because I think you're going to want to have some good thoughtful dialogue and I believe the last time I did a calendar survey it was we had tremendous Community input um as part of the uh school committee meeting that being said I think that is on February 13th is that I think it's the 14th you think it's the 14th 14th no no Valentine's Day think it is is that a Wednesday I think so so Mike and I will will be remote because we're at actually at a conference but we're still going to present the meeting is still going to happen with us as we talk about hybrid we be hybrid that day um with those two pieces but it's critically important we get those um in front of the committee uh as soon as possible um so couple other things we are starting um negotiations uh tomorrow um with our first bargaining unit with the teachers unit starting tomorrow uh and then the the rest will follow if you will there are five units that will be bargaining uh this year uh and uh so that's that's starting I sent out a memo yesterday to the community just to remind them about inclement weather uh just you know it's going to happen at some point maybe when I'm not around uh there might be a snow day called someday uh but you know um I think you got a lot of hopes up some kids saw that were like wait a minute yeah no I I actually had a couple students email me Mr Adams we're not no sorry you're going to school today uh I'm just trying to let you know that be prepared it's somebody might reach out to you and say hey uh the weather's not cohesive to have school so but that being said uh we do follow the pattern and and I want to be clear with the community it's not a you know Jim Adams decision strictly or me I mean when you listen you know I'm from Vermont I don't make those calls lightly I take my time but that being said it there's a tremendous amount of collaboration that exists with our facilities of Maintenance Crews uh with Chris with John Murray uh with the the DPW with Doug Small Roy carera um chief of police uh Donna Walsh who's in charge of the busing for Conelly busing all of these individuals even this morning at 5:00 a.m.

[Music] good evening and welcome to the Greenfield Public Schools school committee meeting for Wednesday January 10th 2024 it's 6 o'clock p.m. and we are meeting at the johnzon community center um uh let's do a roll call Secretary denev all right secretary genive I'm here Vice chair Martini here chair Johnson mad here mayor dorer here member petti here may uh member seon here and member CHS here we are all present and have a quorum thank you we will uh move on to the public comment is there any public comment tonight no one has signed up for public comment thank you we'll uh hear from our student representative Tristan hello as you can see my partner Shane's not here he's practicing his driving um student council is gearing up for three field trips on Friday January 26 we are taking three teams the most we've had in 10 years to the special Olympic fix unified Bachi tournament at Oakmont High School we are excited to have so many teams and fans attending we will be bringing students to the regional round table on February 2nd in the state conference in March next week is midterm so we will once again host cookies Coco and crammen to encourage all students to study for their exams on Thursday January 25th we are running a music Bingo fundraiser to help offset the cost of the masc conference we hope to get a large turnout to this fun event it will be in the cafe from 6:00 to 7:30 and you all are invited Key Club is renaming the community closet to its old name the secret layer to celebrate this we will be restocking clothing for the cold weather Personal Care items as well as school items for the new semester additionally we'll be supporting the ghs food pantry open to all students located in the nurse's office we look forward to helping out at the Green Field Winter Carnival in February Key Key Club meetings are Thursday at 2:15 in the ghs gymnasium French Club echoing the French holiday tradition French Club hosted a and I'm sorry I might butcher this it's a little French galete D Roy or king cake party this week one slice contained a secret cherry and the lucky student was crowned King for the day we look forward to our February candy gram fundraiser taste the world cultures in March and our trip to France this April drama club continues to work hard rehearsing our spring play myth Adventures our performances will be March 22nd 23rd and 24th in the ghs auditorium NHS has been working hard to help out the community wherever needed with help from adopted family to the Greenfield Middle School spectrum is working on a bake sale for February to raise money for Club t-shirts thank you okay and uh Dr dbar has a comment so um the members have um an additional item on the student report but as Tristan and I talked prior to the meeting um the students have not spoken to Mr Morrison about the items of concern on the agenda and that would be the appropriate next step for them to address any concerns they have so he he agreed that they would do that and then um you know follow the protocol if Mr Morrison's not able to address the concerns it will come to me and then if they are not pleased with my response then certainly it can be a concern raised to the committee but um so that's why he very graciously agreed that he would follow that process and not raise the concern here so thank you just thank you any questions for Tristan thank you very much Tristan we'll move on to uh reports of the administration um what I would like is to hear the full reports from the assistant superintendent of teacher teaching and learning and the superintendent and then we can have a question and answer did I skip something budget update sorry we don't want to talk about money budget update my ego is not bruised chairman Mr Johnson W okay that's great uh you have your January reports uh in your packet uh both revolving special revenue and the local budget uh believe it or not as the it's even January we are starting our review process of encumbrances both salary and operating expenses um those on the revolving account as I've reported previously that are showing deficits if you look at the prior year revenues we haven't collected close to 50% of the revenues that we anticipate getting so so those will normally take care of themselves as the normal course of business occurs for the rest of the fiscal year uh things are trending uh according knock on wood to uh what it is that we feel uh things should be at this point in time with all the Personnel changes that we still continue to have throughout the year but uh I can answer any questions that you might have regarding either the local budget and the special Revenue fund report member NE um I've been wondering Mr pette for a little while if there's an an additional way that the budget could be presented visually I have a hard time understanding if I'm looking at things exactly the way that I should be and I'm wondering if there's a way to dumb it down into a py graph for example um I just uh find that I'm not sure that I know what to look for so maybe maybe we need need maybe I'm alone in this but I don't want to speak for anybody else but it would be great to maybe even have a little bit of assistance and how I should be looking at the budget properly I would I get I don't know as far as protocol would go as to whether or not that goes to the subcommittee for discussion first and or I have done this I think it was the second time that we were here uh in Greenfield of doing a little professional development regarding how to read these reports I'm not adverse to putting anything in a in a graphical representation I'm just you know want to be respectful of the protocol and also uh a better use of everyone's time not saying that I mean to put it in a pie chart is very easy to do but I just again would be willing to offer up either of those as an option for consideration do you have a link to was that recorded is there a link can we go back and watch the presentation um I would have to remember what year it was that we were here and it was a workshop so I don't even I don't think the workshop was recorded oh I would say at the time work yeah it was at the high it was at the high school we did it in the library I believe and yeah so yeah I think there are a number of ways we can pursue it but I think would be great to get you on our calendar to come and do a workshop like that and I would say remember the the the cliche of there really is no such thing as a stupid question is is true so please feel free if you're looking at something and and need a question answered I'm that's what I'm here for so I am at your service thank you I'm excited about a potential workshop and having uh availed myself of Mr Fett's uh time and asking questions that might be um some might be worried would be stupid but wasn't you did not treat me that way at all and we're very generous with your time with a one-on-one so I hope members will Avail themselves of that as well but I think looking at a graphical representation of some of the items might be useful both for us and for the public to get a better picture of the budget um thank you can um for clarification is that a discussion that when you just referen graphical representation of some items do you expect that to be just a clarification or do you want that to be a subcommittee item um I I think for let me put it in the think about it a little bit and we can I can talk to the superintendent and we can figure out uh the next steps but thank you so much for bringing up that issue are there any other questions on the budget mayor dorer hi thank you I'd like to say too I've spent a little time with the visit manager and he was great explaining everything um so I actually like the the the detail but I can understand both points of view I mean I definitely can see the advantages you know but I have a question on this how how many vacant do you have a lot of vacancies do you have a lot of vacant positions and how are they represented on the budget that was how are they how are they represented on on what we see that was my question I can speak to some vacancies and then I'll let we'll we'll tag team the answer for you if that's okay so we do have um some vacancies we have some instructional assistant positions open um we do have some professional positions open such as um speech pathologist position is not filled um our bcba's uh board certified Behavior analysts um are not filled and I I will let Andy go into more detail but for some of those positions rather than a an employee we have had to move to using contracted services so we've hired companies that can provide the service for us instead so um you know Andy can speak to how that's represented but some of the vacancies are truly continuing to be vacant and other vacancies um the funds have moved from one place to another to be spent as to how they're represented what we do as a matter of practice for budgetary controls and if you look and see on the second column third column in from the right if you count a percent used there's the encumbered re req column those are encumbrances so we encumber the salaries for all the Personnel from the beginning of the year so we know if there are 10 teachers that are getting paid $50,000 then there's $500,000 that would be encumbered if that one of those teachers leaves that encumbrance would be reduced and you would see an available balance and the available budget would increase so that's how it would be reflected in a sense that theoretically we would have the budgeted amount for the total salaries what's been expended encumbered be what what's be remaining for the remainder of the year and if a position leaves then that incumbrance would go away and then would increase the available balance in the far right column so can you show show me like specific may I sorry give you if you look at the first first P floor May or just order um the first if I I I'll say a I'm going to say a quote unquote simple one would be if you look at the first page under North Parish the par professional the the 109,000 you see that it's expending now so when we built this budget there were anticipated be $19,000 of salaries that would be charged to that line with the various changes and it could be a combination this might I think it might be a bad example but at the same time I'll say you know that whether it's not pair professionals we move to another building or not but if a pair pro professional at that position left then you look and see that encumbered the 43,000 170 and then the available balance of the 37,000 so that would be a an example of the possibility of a position being vacant and therefore we don't we don't encumber the position if it's a vacant you know because we we know then that would make those funds available potentially to use as Dr dbar is saying if we need to contract a service we could potentially do a budget transfer to a contracted service line so it's like throughout the report you would have to kind of look and see and do a deeper dive as to seeing what the the devil behind the details if you will regarding uh how it is but the the concept and what it is that you're getting at as far as reflecting the vacancies it would all be in that encumbered column as to once a position becomes vacant that salary becomes unencumbered and therefore the far right columnist the available balance would increase I pretty much get that but may I just last part so can we look at that specifically I don't even know what the initials were that you said I didn't and I pardon my I didn't know what that was bcba the board certified Behavior analysts their a professional position that works with students generally works with students with um more significant needs they do very um specific recommendations for changing learning or um Behavior patterns for students so uh I'm trying to think of so you have a followup about the bcbas if I may here's a the visual example using that in particular if everybody were to turn to page seven of the the munus report you will see Midway down there's a budget transfer of [Music] 12,539 mhm which is a combination of the we reduced the therapy specialist line because as she's saying we had a vacancy and those that's where those board certified Behavior analysts would be so we took 55,000 from that line added it to the contracted service where we're Contracting with a company down below and then the Delta between the 55 and the 120 would have been a another transfer somewhere through the report I just want knowing where the bcbas were so that's where that's the visual depiction of where it is that that bcba transfer had occurred It's a combination of moving 120 into that line taking 55 from the therapy specialist line and the balance from another line somewhere I just admittedly haven't gone through while we were talking actually I I it's up above the psychologist line so we did we took money from the psychologist line and the therapy specialist line and moved it into the contracted service line that's how the I'll say the mechanical and to some extent visual depiction of those transfers occur thank you very much member seon thank you um I was just curious about Capital Project funding like this is our our sort of annual this happens all the time we don't always I think have capital projects maybe we do but where would that show up and how would I get updates like as a as a project is progressing it is not on this report you're absolutely right um it is something that I'll say for whatever reason I don't think we've had that as part of a regular report it's it's very I can there is a section in the city's general ledger that is all the capital projects I don't think there's anything stopping us from including those going forward if the committee would like that it's fine it's easy enough to include it that'd be great thank you thanks any other questions on the budget update thank you we'll move on to the um superintendence update and the assistant superintendent update and what I would request is I'd like to hear the reports from both of you first and then members can have up to five minutes to ask questions of either of you if that's all right um thank you good evening everyone um an update first on professional development we have a January 26 full PD day coming up we started our second instructional strategy work on questioning at our recent January 3rd faculty meeting we will continue it throughout the faculty meetings in January but the teaching lab will be back on January 26 to develop integrate and fine-tune our skills with this instructional strategy the Middle School history teachers will still engage with educares on the 26 they're continuing the roll out of investigating history curriculum in grades 5 through 7 they've also been provided onetoone coaches to help them with un pacing planning and implementation and then our High School Math teachers are still in the midst of the first year of the illustrative math roll out for the math curriculum resource we adopted this year and they will receive teach and learn Parts three and four on that Friday um strategic plan updates for curriculum as you know we have four categories in our strategic plan and I just like to keep you up to date as to what's going on in the one that I oversee we um had the Statewide system of support team join us today for uh District Administrative walkthroughs we went to three of the six buildings today and we'll they're going to come back tomorrow and walk through the remainder of the buildings um it's really great professional development for our administrators we get to work together go through classrooms we have other building administrators join us in different buildings so they get to get out of their building and come view the instruction that's happening at buildings that they don't over every day and we get to calibrate instruction and student engagement throughout the district um just like to say we do use it in the aggregate it's non eval evaluative but we use the walkthroughs to continue to plan our ongoing professional development and really support our administrators across the district curriculum mapping um big shout out to margarite Rancor who's here tonight though she's on the curriculum mapping committee and has been working really hard to uh map all of the lessons for K through 4 we have four other members that have been working on the ELA and music curriculum mapping for this first year of the cycle and we hope to be uh finished soon so that we can meet as a group and review the curriculum for this first year and finish up by June of 2024 it'll be the first year of the fiveyear cycle that we have started in our strategic plan and then um we've had some really awesome things happening and I feel like I I know about them and I don't get to share or highlight them with the community and with folks watching and with all of you so I included some curriculum projects for um teachers will reach out to me and say hey can you come visit this is happening or we have this going on really would love you to be part of this or you never going to believe what our kids did so I really thought some of these highlighted a lot of the great work that's happening in our classrooms and I think that um paying attention to all of those good things really is a good reminder as we start the new year um Miss Valentine's fourth grade class at Federal Street they were working on uh knowledge CK unit on empires in the Middle Ages and they were doing unit three which was gloomy castles and jousting nights and part of their project was to create their own armor and shields so I share with you some of the finished products from our fourth graders at Federal Street um I had the chance to uh engage with Miss Creek's Advanced Euro class they created gingerbread structures based on famous European architecture um based on what the pictures illustrate if you I can't imagine trying to do this with materials that you make gingerbread houses with that they did a phenomenal job they worked collaboratively in small groups they had to research a structure deliver short presentations and then um really highlight the aspects of that structure so I included a couple photos from there they are on display at the Green Greenfield High School library cases so uh during her walkth through hopefully on the 26th they'll still be there so you can see many of the other ones that are there and then as you know Beacon um holds a special place in my heart and uh the beacon students at Greenfield Community College they had a popup holiday popup shop um before the holidays and one of our Beacon students created their own business called Beacon beads and were selling their wees at the pop-up shop so just wanted to really thank Max FIP for that work and highlighting all of the good things that are happening with them and then Miss Pollock always um has something up her sleeve she's our ghs librarian phenomenal person that just really tries to expand students opportunities and experiences and she has lyrical Faith who is a award-winning spoken word poet coming to the library on Wednesday January 24th and uh middle and high school students will be able to engage with this award-winning poet and engage in a poetry writing event with them and then Mr Martin and Miss Zimmerman um if you've never participated in the yellow conference um it's youth engaging in legislators and officials and uh many of you I think have participated in the past or at least attended it's definitely worth uh just coming if you're not participating but just to see it is our students really taking those Civic standards and engaging in Civic engagement with adults and leading really deep conversations about matters that are important to them and then last but not least uh just wanted to highlight we have been in partnership with UMass for many years um and getting student teachers and interns with them but they cordially invited me to be part of an elpac partnership which is an educator lure partnership and really how to de develop student teachers so that the partnership between the university and local public schools expands and we really can foster the growth of student teachers in the program and have them stay in communities such as Greenfield as part of our employment and really fill the vacancies that we have so we had our first meeting last night it was phenomenal and I really look forward to the collaboration with them and seeing what can happen in um really supporting getting Greenfield Public schools vacancies filled and really having programs that meet the needs of public schools thank you thank you superintendent okay mine's not as fun as Karen's but um we are moving through the fy2 budget process uh we are doing budget meetings with building and District level administrators um this week and next we've already begun the Staffing review to ensure all of our positions including our vacancies are captured for next year's budget so um that's the first step in referencing the Strategic plan one of the pieces is that our um we would have a technology committee which we did and that they would administer an IT survey to all of our staff which they did and that information about technology that they want or currently use and need to have updated or replaced will be um a critical piece in looking at the budget for fy2 um especially around the use of the last of our eer grant funds Easter 3 is the funding period is zooming along very quickly so we need to make sure that that's utilized very effectively um unfortunately I'm sharing that Merl melli our director of Early Childhood will be leaving us um I'm moving forward to fill that position Merill has agreed to stay until we're able to fill the position thankfully I appreciate her flexibility with that and um I share because some of you may have known Joanne Wallace used to work in the superintendent's office prior to me being in the district and she has come back to the district as our accounting assistant so we're very happy to have her back um you will find the schedule for the January 26th building visit I will share it with City Council next next week um January 26th is so um members had talked about having the school visits in January after the new committee school committee members were here and the new city council members were on board January 26th is a professional development day as Karen referenced so there won't be students in the buildings but that will I think give a little bit of flexibility for us to give you tours so um we have the general time frame I'll ask the principles to identify a few spots they'd really like to highlight for you folks if any of you are planning to attend and there's some an interest that is specific to you please let me know ahead of time and if we can accommodate that around the PD schedule we'll definitely do that okay um weather the most hated Topic in any superintendent's job um I was hoping and hoping and hoping it would never snow and yet it did and it was quite the Humdinger so um I know um superintendents have to make very challenging decisions about weather and school schedules and um folks don't always agree with the decisions that get made and that is that is okay that is part of the superintendent's job but that is one of the things that I am charged with and basically is my sole responsibility so so I've shared this before but I'll I'll share again that when we make weather related decisions about closing early delaying or closing completely um I don't do that in a vacuum so the minute anybody starts talking about a storm on the forecast um superintendant begin collaborating with each other and I begin speaking with Mr Warner from the DPW um we track the weather very carefully I also consult with a meteorologist so that I have many perspectives on the weather and generally if it's a very large storm and we know well ahead of time everybody's favorite is I make a decision the night before so nobody's phone rings at 5 o'clock um that is not always the case and we don't want to unnecessarily impact school schedules so in this most recent case we did not necessarily anticipate the need to impact school but at 4 :0 that morning there was a determination that we did need to so um the primary factor any time I make a decision about changing the school schedule is 100% safety students and staff um that does not mean there are not other impacts anytime we change the school schedule for anything there are impacts and I appreciate that but I also need to just share with folks that um there are many factors that go into to the decisions we make about how to adjust to a chang school schedule and they may not be known until the morning we are changing the schedule and so sometimes we have to make difficult decisions um and there are with any decision there are impacts and some people are pleased with the outcome of that and others are not but um well I greatly appreciate that the decisions are not always um supported they're difficult to make but we make them with student safety as the priority so um so that and as I've shared with parents and I will remind them in the most in the upcoming update I always respect their decision to make a decision different than I have about School attendance if I open and they do not feel their children should come obviously students may not come to school if I have closed school but um I can't imagine they're clamoring get in if I've called a snow day but um you know parents are able to make that decision if I have opened school and they don't believe that is in their child's best interest I just ask that they call so that we know their children are home so thank you and then um finally member Martini had asked for a summary of our music program which was actually fabulous timing with the budget upcoming so um our elementary schools offer General music we have two music teachers split um across three build three Elementary buildings and we do support excuse me the district um funds half of the strings for kids programs as you know and then our music teachers are going to be integrating vocals into the elementary program because that is a change that is in the new music standards so they'll be um building that and then the middle school we have instrumental lessons as well as band and that um that structure the offerings have been consistent um Mrs fenmore thought all the way back to about 2017 that that's what has been offered at the middle school and then at the high school now we do offer band for grades 8 through 12 um just a reminder that I've shared that in the past we made a change to the music um Staffing because we had a music teacher at the middle school who changed positions of their own valtion um and when we were not able to hire we looked we were looking at the um student enrollment in music courses at the high school which some of them were extremely low so we made the decision to split the position um so that's why at this stage we have banned um at the high school as well but I do know that the music program is a priority for at least the remaining members you know the consistent members of the committee so as we launch into the fy2 budget that's certainly something that um we can build into the budget if that is what the committee would like so I think that's that's it thank you questions from the Committee Member Priti thank you I think that um askp this question is for you but I'm not even sure it comes out of discussion that happened at the uh wellness policy committee meeting this past week and I may not know exactly what I'm talking about but I and Christine may be able to help too um CK when there is a change like from the state that says hey now you need to work on putting nutrition into the curriculum does that go into the CK CK a framework or is there a different way that that gets into the curriculum when it's mandated do you understand what I'm asking about that and you're referring to the adopted Ela curriculum correct so if there's a change in health standards We Begin teaching Health in grade five so if it's a k through four change they would have to incorporate it into their science or social studies block okay it does not get adopted into their Ela block but if it were in the other grades that are covered by CK CK it would be worked in there is that what you're saying no they have a separate Health curriculum and they have a separate Health block got it okay okay I believe that answers the question that came up so I'll follow up with the nurse leader you're I just want to make sure that the committee cka is just the English language arts um re resource yes yeah and there was some discussion at the committee that perhaps when those new like mandates come down like you have to put financial literacy in or you have to put nutrition in that it would get woven into the language arts curriculum and was that true or not and I was the only nonk through 12 person in the room so I was doing my best to keep up with what they were asking like I could follow up pretty because we talk about CK and your report just about every time so thank you appreciate it mayor disorder I'm glad you said what that stood for and this is like my third meeting today I'm joining all of these new things and there's a lot of initials and I think I'm probably not the only person here maybe I am the only person here that doesn't know what all the initials stand for but that being said do you think that maybe for um tonight and like the next night because this was that was the second set of initials pardon my ignorance but I didn't know what they were and I'm I'm glad that you you said that it was in a meeting this morning I thought there were three of them and I thought I'm not going to ask because the senator was on now I thought I'll find out afterwards but we're amongst friends that I'm comfortable with here tonight and we're going to be working with and to say that there there's some things that I don't know and I imagine that there others are too well if you would like an acronym you are in the right place education is rif with them we we could just use letters all night long if we tried um so please I appreciate you're saying that and you're probably accurate that others are not as well-versed and thank you for um bringing it up because for us it's like a second language so um we will try to be cognizant of act the jargon Busters for the members of the committee so thank you for bringing that up I would just quickly add that I learned what CK was after hearing about it for two years just the other day so I asked too because I didn't know what it was so yeah you're good I saw member martini and then member Den in regards to acronyms that is something that um members of the committee uh here and there have asked to be spelled out and I think that's not just for us it's for the public uh we can't expect everyone to know um what lots of the acronyms that um that we hear here mean and um generally speaking they probably ought to be spelled out at least once for people um especially as members of the public don't tune in to every single meeting so uh if it's the first time that it's come up in a meeting I think we should spell it out um in general and uh I just wondered if um in addition to the um three items that um you had highlighted here whether there are any other um interesting pieces that will be included in the January 26th PD day in terms of offerings for the staff let me pull them my agenda but I need my phone sorry I didn't bring it I know we have um a Crisis Prevention and Intervention which is CPI training being offered I know Food Services is having a a special um culturally diverse Chef come in and work with our food service staff the K2 um teaching lab is spending four hours in the morning on foundational skills and the foundations of reading and then in the afternoon they'll be doing the questioning work um sorry my memory I've been working on it all day you think it would be right in the Forefront um Mr messing our director of pupil services will be spending the day with our special education teachers as well as our counselors and lcsws um social workers sorry so easy to do in education um and they'll be going over uh policy and procedures and new um IEP formats and regulations uh the nurses are the nurses are um also uh engaging but Melissa has yet to confirm what they actually will be participating in and well most of the day is just spent with with curriculum [Music] um we will have a power school training too for our admin assistance because uh Power School is upgrading so there's a lot that is new for them to learn [Music] and um Merill is running an inclusive practices um for inclusion strategies to support all students at the prek level for our a staff that's great thank you very much and IEP is individualized education plan right okay remember Den I had to Google ssos while you were talking Statewide system Statewide system of support yes which and then you mentioning abbreviations and and uh Vice chair Martini also made me think maybe in a future working session we can make a little cheat key for ourselves and and the public so that we can reference it in the future because it does get really complicated and sometimes I feel like whoa what was that just blew right past me frequent acronyms that's what we'll call it and just just so the committee since you brought up ssos those are the that's the group of people that the district works with um because we are in status so they are supports for us and help um provide resources they also help us um write and implement the strategies through the tag Grant I don't know if there's an acronym for tag it's targeted assistance grant that it's too easy forgot um through the targeted assistance grant so it's a team of three people and they've been participating with us in the building walkthroughs and creating the professional development related to um our instructional practices thank you no that's I wanted to know that anything else M Den oh no any other questions for yes member ston uh this is for askp um uh sorry that's an acronym our assistant superintendent Karen patod um I am really excited to hear about the partnership with the UMass licensure program and like hoping that that helps us fill a critical need that we have for educators but I was wondering who are some of the other um lure progr programs that we have existing Partnerships with do we know if there's a particular program or set of programs where we're getting the majority or if we have a fairly diverse you know um set of applicants who are coming from from various programs um we've worked with Smith college in the past in Mount Holio uh Mount Holio used to do a big launch in the spring when their grads were getting ready to uh step foot into their careers and and we used to be able to do an interview night they haven't done it since Co um but UMass is our primary connection now for our interns and we do have two Elementary joining us this spring so we're excited about that excellent thank you other questions thank you very much thanks everybody next we have the consent agenda the way a consent agenda works is items are listed there with a an action included so in this case approving minutes and acknowledging corresponden um any there so I will hear a motion to approve the consent agenda and a second um any member who wishes to may ask that one item be taken out of the consent agenda so it can be considered separately um so um thanks for playing along let's try it um I'd like to hear a motion to approve the consent agenda as presented so moved is there a second so Mo motion from Member martini and second from Member Den uh would anyone like to remove anything from the consent [Music] agenda any discussion let's move to a vote all those those in favor say I I all those against say nay anyone abstaining motion carries uh I'll abstain the motion otherwise carries um by all other members um next on the agenda is subcommittee assignments and I have a um handout for you with my proposed uh assignments I would take a motion to approve the committee and repres representative assignments as presented is there a motion to that effect so moved is there a second second motion from Member Martini second for member ston discussion yes member mayor dorer so um do we all how do we all call each other to decide when we're going to meet or how does that work yes scheduling Can Can Happen among the members yeah you can determine I would encourage people as much as possible to schedule your meetings for times when members of the public could participate if they could but I we know that schedules such as they are sometimes don't allow that but to the extent possible consider accessibility for the public otherwise it's on your your plan in the superintendent does like to attend um the committee meeting so please incorporate her into your planning and scheduling thanks any other questions or comments discussion about the motion to approve the uh assignments member Martini do we need to um have separate motions in relation to new subcommittees or uh to disband or otherwise reorganize existing ones um my understanding is that it's the chair's um ability to put forward the organization and assignments in the first meeting of the year um but if members would like to discuss those things separately um we can do that okay so um can you describe the school committee handbook ad hoc because I don't remember discussing it yes and uh we do have that on our agenda it's a bit of a chicken and the horse kind of Chicken and the Egg kind of thing but um the school committee handbook um you know basically um the school committee sets um Poli policy for the for the school district and then the superintendent works on um operationalizing that and creating procedures for this the school side however the school committee needs I believe its own handbook for how to operationalize certain things that are in our policies and the the way the way that things get organized the way the things actually happen isn't spelled out in the policy manual because it's policy it's not procedure so items that I would like this um handbook committee to be working on would be essentially there's a whole section of our policies which which are um policies about the way um the school school what the school committee will do um and I would like I would like this committee to figure out how to operationalize those things what are the what are the steps um and um for example the policy calls for the school committee to evaluate itself every year um but there isn't a procedure for how that will happen um who is responsible for it when does it happen um what is the first step you know so those are the types of items and they're um I was hoping to have Liz lefon here to talk about this she is our representative from the Massachusetts of uh Association of school committees or mask um she has gone through this process with many different School committees and who have found it very helpful and has shared with me a bunch of different um sample handbooks um so uh those can serve as models and I believe that um that Miss lefon can work with the with the committee on um on establishing our our first handbook and then a can be a useful tool for orientation of new members and um just kind of create some clarity how for example um how do how do folks get an item on the agenda for the school committee um how do how does that process work so those are the types of questions that the handbooker would address thank you um I agree with the need for that I have been on the committee for a little while now but um I still have questions that I don't know the answers to from time to time about what the expected um procedure is for things so I think that's a great idea could you also speak to the ad hoc committee that was formed last year in relation to superintendent evaluation which is not listed here yes um so I've been I'm I was talking to the superintendent about the possibility of setting that up as an advisory committee the advantage of an advisory committee would be that it would allow not just school committee members to serve on that but uh other people um then the group would basically make work on making a recommendation about the process and the tool that's used for the superintendent um evaluation but I haven't quite gotten there yet in terms of um fleshing out what that might look like and having all the conversations with the superintendent that I want to have before that happens so that's why that uh committee is not yet here and so I you know there is precedent also for school committee chairs to bring back these assignments to the committee to add new things um or change things as needed so um I I hope to be um addressing that in the future okay so that's a TBD be determined yes thank you any other questions yes member ston so if you look on the web page for the school committee um there's listed an additional subcommittee the racial Justice advisory committee but to BU knowledge um for the past several years that committee has been unstaffed and I just want to know what was the history why did we have that to be begin with why is it currently unstaffed do we still need it um and then if if not could we get it removed from the thing because I want the public to be I want the public to have the most accurate understanding of the infrastructure that is available to school committee members and that is also available to them um to ask questions or to probe things thank you for that um yeah I think that it the committee was formed um in the wake of George Floyd Floyd's murder and it was at a time when many school committees were quickly putting together um statements basically that they were putting out and I think that the interest from chair pretti at the time in the committee was to do some more substantive work on that I think we um I think first of all I would like all um of these committees to keep equity and racial Equity at the of your work and to think about the equity implications of everything that we do um so I think our commitment to that is um still there um and that I think that we as basically found that the the biggest racial and class Equity project that the committee was taking on was the redistricting and reorganizing of the schools and so our Focus kind of shifted to that um and so I think um the superintendent will work to get the um the website to both reflect what our current structure is but also somehow to give people access to Prior information and that's the the trick of organizing the website but I'll leave that to to other folks um to figure out so does that help yes thank you thank you other questions or comments about the assignments hearing none we will vote um all those in favor of approving the assignments as presented oh I'm sorry we need a we did have a motion in a second okay so now all in favor say I I I I I all those against say nay and those abstaining I'll abstain thank you very much um we move on to the school committee handbook um and I think we have covered that with our discussion of the subcommittee assignments um is there any are there any other questions or discussion about the handbook that folks would like to have tonight okay thank you um and let's see the next two items review school committee calendar of topics you don't have a school committee calendar of topics in your in your packets and um there's also the item school committee 2024 goals um so discussing the school committee calendar of topics uh essentially we would like to have um a month-by-month list of the kind of recurring items that school committee must addressed at various times of the year um secretary Geneva has already started some work on um this calendar um and I would um one of the one of us um standing committees that you all just approved is the executive com subcommittee I'd like the executive subcommittee to meet sometime between now and next month and um go over that and bring you something but I would like the um school committee to have a calendar of topics that um can be a tool for us and others in the community to know about the flow of our work over the course of a standard year remember geneve would you like to add anything to this um well Vice chair martini and I discovered when we went to hyenas that one of the number one things to implement in order to be functional is to create a year-long agenda and to align it with um all kinds of benchmarks and we didn't have one and we didn't know exactly how to start so we took some good classes and learned quite a bit about that and um spent some long lunches writing all of these ideas and thoughts down and then brought them back and um I had some conversations about them and member ston and I have been working on a little draft and just beginning the Journey of this that hopefully all of you will work on with us and be a part of so that we can create something that in essence would be something that the public could View and know what to expect how to hold us to account and to get an idea of where they fit into the timeline and how they can best support us and how we can best support them so hopefully we can move that along and share it with all of you shortly thank you member RTI I'm sorry it's just kind of a point of order I don't have the calendar of topics we supposed to have that in our materials no I as I mentioned I had I guess my eyes were bigger than my stomach in terms of what I could sorry I misunder what you said okay I'm looking for it and I no thank you remember NE has started work on something but we will take it up in executive um thank you I'm sorry I just misunderstood great thank you any other questions or comments about that all right thank you um similarly with the 2024 goals we don't have a draft for you to consider tonight but I would like to open it up for discussion tonight we would like uh your feedback as committee members of what you would like to to see us do this year if you have any um and then again we can bring that to executive committee and bring something back to you next month so I would just open it to members who um anyone who has any feedback for us as we're putting that together member priet you're you're asking for a discussion now yes discussion yes we'd welcome people to share their ideas of what what would be goals for 2024 um I'm so I think I I think this is an interesting idea um I think it helps organize the work and I appreciate you putting effort into it um I would very much like the committee to have a discussion or perhaps an ongoing discussion about how we look at uh what I think is inevitable and that is uh working towards a brand new elementary school that would be one elementary school for the whole uh district and um I've talked about this at planning and construction and I've talked about this with the capital pieces that the school committee has a seat on and um I think that um the idea of bringing the capital uh budget to the table to improve transparency is also really good idea that we'll tie into this because I do believe we as a committee are kind of in the dark about um how much some old things cost to repair in buildings and that money we're spending on things like elevators could if we have to do it two or three times quickly get us half of a new brand new elementary school that's 21st century and I think a goal is to work with the city to put together a 10 or so year plan uh to make that happen for Greenfield thank you other comments um I would love to see us have some targeted professional development ideas so we've already just discussed one about having PD on the budget to make sure we understand what we're even looking at but I think that there might be other professional development opportunities that we as a as a committee could do together and so I'd love to set aside time for us to discuss what those are and come to some agreement about maybe like once a quarter like we can't we can't be doing it all the time but to have a few that we think are really key for us to do um sooner rather than later thank you other comments mayor disorder um I I have two great um and I like what the other people said those were good ideas um one I was wondering if it was I don't know if this is a goal or not but I'm just going to say it right now because it might be into goals that um we have all our meetings in part person and um that's a goal in the city which this is part of the city like I don't um to have our meetings be hybrid so that there can be some remote participation it's kind of that's an equity issue and an and an access issue there's a lot of parents I imagine with young children that we don't want them leaving those kids at home alone so they can come to the school committee meeting so that was a a goal I'm thinking it falls under that just a I don't know that I'm we're going to try to Institute that for the rest of the you know for other boards and commissions and I know that we meet here and I know that when I've done this here I needed a little extra help that we have the things here and you know maybe somebody can help us a little bit to get started I took a video of Kathy Scott doing it the first time I don't know that I'd remember how to do it by myself but you know at anyway that's one goal and the other thing is as you were talking about this it reminded me of as you were talking about another ele Elementary School when I was going around knocking on doors there was a couple of people that asked me and I see that other school districts are doing this just be kind after I say that would we be looking at by any chance at the future uh a with high school like high school or middle schools schools joining together in our in the neighborhood is that anything if anyone has an appetite for that um that was something that was asked of me for I think that Gil and there are some high schools and everything that are joining together because there's less students and if we're looking at one thing in a long range plan like an elementary school um you know I think we graduated 71 it was just a thought of something to look at in the future you're talking about looking at regionalizing of schools yeah okay thank you m Childs I'd like to piggy back on to that because I saw that article too about a whole bunch of our neighboring towns that are all banding together I think even if we aren't ready to regionalize yet or if we're not in the right position to yet we definitely should be exploring areas where we can combine resources I believe we already do in some sports and certainly there are more programs and then as a second thing I would really like to see the committee work on our Outreach to the public and communication so that we're really welcoming and hearing people in the town and I want that value to be something that we keep in mind when working with the school district so that the school district also will be communicative with the public it's hard right now I mean used to be in the good old days you could put your ad in the paper and on the radio and everyone in town would hear it but now there's not a good central place to communicate from so it's going to take effort and creativity in order to reach everyone thank you I'm learning I need to learn how to turn my head just make sure I see everybody any other um feedback for us on the goals for the school committee member Martini uh I appreciate all of the comments uh and they certainly uh many of them are in line with uh priorities the committee has talked about or they seem to be priorities to me because of the frequency with which we have talked about them such as improving our communication uh improving our own functionality uh when speaking about PD uh and about long range planning um I would also like to add um my hope that the committee will uh prioritize the organization and focus that the committee holds on student outcomes um we have here to for certainly talked about student outcomes in committee meetings um however it tends to uh happen in my View kind of randomly and and um not in an organized way and and I would like the committee to um Center that as a priority when it comes to things like our annual calendar that will be forthcoming um and and things like that that uh said for my own um my own views on the goals I think it would be helpful if members would if they have additional ideas in terms of school committee goals um to please send them um and I don't know uh what would be the appropriate um or best Avenue to do that perhaps to the chair so that they can be distilled uh into something more concrete when we talk about our goals the next time thank you remember deneve um I've thought a lot about goals especially in working on the draft list that I sent you um but one of the things that kept coming up is that our year ends in June it doesn't end in December so when June rolls around we I'm hoping that we can take a look at the goals and of course we will not have accomplished very many of them this year but part of it is that in June we look at it and we say oh this is what but we've completed and we cross those things off and then it's not such a heavy lift come July because we've already created our goal list and our strategy and our yearlong agenda we can go back and say well we're going to carry these things over and add onto it so it's sort of as a self-perpetuating experience and it won't feel so difficult it's difficult now because this is the first time we're doing it but it's going to just be smooth running once we get into it but I feel like one of the most important goals especially to piggyback on the student outcomes comment is that June is the end so we have to stop and take a look and see what we've done and what we've accomplished and have we reached some of these goals how are the student outcomes compared to when we started so that our plans for the year starting in July are more targeted so that we're really ready to go with a new yearlong agenda come time students are back in the schools thank you thank you any other comments member pretti thank you I'm just curious if you could speak to how you plan to organize the goals the work um uh towards them and what you think um how how you think we will uh dole it out so to speak and and then measure thank you yeah I think that the when the executive committee meets and um discusses goals um we want to take into account our capacity as a school committee certainly there's we can't won't be able to do everything um and then I think that there W once the kind of go the school committee as a whole has kind of signed off on the goals we can work out an operations plan for how we're going to make it happen which which committees are going to take on which parts of the work do we need new ad hoc committees or advisory committees to accomplish things so thank you for that member Martini can we uh set a date by for members to please communicate their additional ideas in terms of goals to yourself prior to the executive committee meeting I think you said you wanted to do that prior to the next regular school committee meeting so yeah um superintendent could I ask people to send their thoughts to you um just because I'm just aware that we are a uh you know I just I don't want to I don't want to get into where we're deliberate that's part of why we're having this discussion now I don't want to get into too much deliberation by email but I think that would be an appropriate way for people to share um their feedback and maybe we ask if you do have things you didn't you think of you know tomorrow and you realize oh I should have said that because you didn't have much time to prepare your thoughts um please please um share those with the superintendent by a week from today just to the superintendent yeah any other questions or comments all right thank you very much the uh the executive committee will meet and work on that thank you so much for very thoughtful discussion I think it's going to be very useful tool um the next item is um um requests for new agenda items and I'd like to to speak to this for a second before we talk about it going forward I'd like the process for people um to get agenda items on the school committee agenda to be to ask me to put them on and um if I um if I respond that I don't want to or or you disagree with uh with my decision about the timing of it we can certainly add an agenda item to a school committee agenda such as this one um where a school committee could vote to put something on an agenda um uh even if it was something that I didn't agree with but I just think it would be easier going forward since I am responsible for building the agenda for folks just to ask me if you'd like an item on there and if you feel like you're um you're not getting a response or you're not getting the response you want we can certainly add it to the agenda for this full committee to consider whether to add your item to a to an agenda so that's I don't know how clear that is but that's and obviously we don't have a handbook for this but that's basically what I'm proposing at least for the time being and maybe the handbook committee will find other models for for how this should be done um but uh but it is on the agenda tonight so are there any agenda items that folks would like to see on future meetings member Den I'd like to add two things in the future um one hybrid meetings um having our meetings be hybrid and see where we are with that uh we talked about it back last September I believe we voted on it um and I'd like to talk about meeting times and potentially changing that great thank you any other agenda items that folks would like to see okay hearing none can move on to the um school committee reports um report of the chair um I'll just say um it really was an honor to be voted your chair and uh it's been a bit of a a scrambly time as we get a new government and a new committee uh going and and I've had uh I was away and so um appreciate everybody's um accommodation of me and your your help with with the work um I wanted to just say something about um the importance of Institutions like the school committee um it really is important and special that we have a system for educating children um for for preparing them giving them information and insights it really makes a huge difference in people's lives to get a really good education and the concept of um a Democratic Society creating um bodies like school districts school boards School committees to have the public input into that that these are public dollars and the public should have a say and how things go uh and how their children are educated and so on is very important and um we're at a time when many uh institutions in our world are under under attack and things are are tough and um you know um member Priti and I went through the pandemic uh you led us through that pandemic that was not easy that was it's tough there's a lot of strains um and we're seeing uh across the country um School committees coming under attack uh School committees being the target of um of forces that are really trying to limit what young people have access to limit what they uh can learn about and so I just wanted to say that our work is important and defending and protecting this institution of a school committee is important and each one of you plays a role in that um and I don't underestimate the um responsibility you placed in me as chair to play that role and um uh so I I just want you to I know there will be times as school committee members when it gets tough there's a lot of work uh there's a lot of feelings from the community in particular about the way children are educated you may be the target of attacks um but what you're doing is really important and I really appreciate it so that's my report for tonight um so subcommittee reports um obviously we have not had um reports of the new committees um but I thought it might be useful to just kind of get a picture of each of these content areas and kind of where we are and where we're going in the next few months um I did not ask the superintendent for help preparing for this but we did vote last time on a redistricting and reorganization of the of the schools what do you see um superintendent in terms of that work and what the the school committee um will be asked to do around it so at this point um there are a few logistical issues that um we need guidance or decision-making from the committee about the timing of the students so we're going to redraw the lines as was voted but there's been discussion about do all the students move into the new school at one time do we do it um basically allowing students already in a school to age out and then just have incoming kindergarteners each year do we just pick a hard date and everybody moves to the new school so we're getting numbers um around that which is challenging Karen and I met with Jake we're not letting him Escape unscathed so we're working with him we're going to really need to do a lot of work with kismesis to identify numbers and what rerouted bus um routes look like and numbers of buses so that we can give the committee all the information they need to consider those choices um we will also need some conversations I expect um we'll need to negotiate some items with multiple of our unions regarding um the steps that will need to be taken um around the redistricting so the Committees will need to the committee will need to be involved in that and then um as we get into next year or as Karen gets into next year I expect there will be some Financial impacts that the committee will need to consider but we're trying to get all of the nuts and bolts so to speak done um as much as possible while Karen and I are working together and we both have the background of the work that's happened so that we can get all the logistics so a few um challenging choices we'd like to bring to the committee I hope by March we hope by March thank you any questions from the committee about the redistricting I I just have a comment I was watching that um with baited breath and I wanted to thank the members of this committee that you know were here and the superintendent and the assistant superintendent you know you were all familiar with it that you actually made your you know that you you made that decision in in December um before the you know before it was a new turnover I thought it was difficult I was following it and some of it you had to be have the wisdom of Solomon but you you proceeded and and made a decision and as a new person coming in I'd just like to say I was grateful for that that you you know made your decisions thank you other comments or questions seon as the person who will be coming on to help chair that committee um I was curious if you would welcome any support in terms of um helping to plan the communications and and working with the community at large to just like message this so um the short answers absolutely I see that as the work of the subcommittee so I expect you and I will be touching base very shortly to talk about how to move that and um the first items of discussion so I assume but absolutely I think that the this is the committee's decision you know Karen and I bring Logistics and pros and cons to the committee to make decisions but I think you folks will really need to kind of make the decisions about how you want that dealt with sure right thank you other comments or questions okay moving on to policy um I will continue to chair that committee it's the same committee as we had before with member Dena and member pretti um where we are um as you know we've been in this arduous multi-year multi- superintendent process to revise the uh redistricting I mean the policy the policy manual and um this superintendent is determined not to pass it on to the next so we are going to finish fully revising our policies and where we are now the policy committee is in the middle because um the full committee um approved the first reading of section I and so our first meeting will be to take up section I as a subcommittee and come back with any recommended changes to the full committee um and so that work will continue and we only have a few more letters of the alphabet left to go I believe L is the last but J and K are pretty meaty J and K are big so we'll get there we will get there um I wanted to bring people's attention to the fact that um we will be refreshing the way the website uh posts the policies I mean essentially we're kind of in this limbo state where the um Massachusetts Association of school committees will be hosting our policies on a separate searchable website that will be um much more user friendly and they will be updating it going forward um and so we've been updating policies but they haven't all made it onto our current website um but we also can't wait um to have our new policies available on the website but for now I think the plan is going to be and we'll see but the current possible plan is to have links to Google folders where you will be able to find all the the most upto-date documents but it won't be in the same format where it is now where it lists every single one with a link to each one as a separate PDF so um we're going to try that as a way of keeping it up to date until um mask uh is able to create that special website for us so but you should know especially new members that you know you unfortunately you can't just go to the website right now and get the most upto-date um policies but we will get there so any any questions about the policy process or anything okay um the budget subcommittee has not met but they must meet very soon Christine if the budget subcommittee would like to weigh in on priorities before the budget I would beg of you to please schedule next week because a reminder the superintendent's budget has to be ready to be put into the Greenfield Recorder by February 7 second and that is flying along so um I'm sorry I don't I know that you folks just voted policy uh budget is VI Sher Martini so if there is um a desire to um meet prior to the superintendent's budget if we could coordinate fairly quickly that would be very helpful I will be sending you an email immediately after this meeting to wonder thank you and uh I think that not right now obviously but uh going forward into the future it will be helpful to have a uh budget calendar where uh dates are spread out earlier uh so that the committee has time to think and identify priorities um going into the budget season I um have heard a little bit about that through uh professional development with masc already and we'll happily look um into that more that being said if anyone would like to speak to any um priorities that they would like to um have the committee entertain in terms of the budget then please speak to it now yes any uh feedback from the Comm for the budget subcommittee to uh on a on priorities for the superintendent's budget member Priti I think I would be interested in the committee discussing um the information we got tonight from the superintendent about the music program and um in combination with the discussion about the funding that we give to the third party that's name I'm forgetting right now is the Art Space Str strings for kids I'm sorry strings for kids um and whether or not in our fiduciary responsibility say that eight times fast um it it's the best way to approach funding music education in the district thank you other feedback for the budget subcommittee member ston um I know that this has been something that you all have been working on for some time around social emotional learning um and in particular like restorative practices I'm just wondering if there could be um additional emphasis put there both as a reactive when when conflict or when behaviors do happen but also as a proactive of trying to stop them before they before they get started um and and giving our students and our staff tools to work together um a little bit better you know what I mean so I'm just wondering if we could um find ways to have some more resources dedicated to those but also to weave that into and throughout programming thank you mayor dorer and then member Den I just wanted to to say one thing for transparency that I believe coming up on city council not for this year but um especially for um C assistant superintendent Pat note um that we will be looking at perhaps changing the calendar a little bit to be more in line with the other municipalities in the state um 95% of cities and towns vote on the the final piece in actually in May um and do the capital after which as you saw last year we were you know um how will I say fudging a little bit with capital to make sure that we could cover enough operating in the operating budget all around and most cities and and towns throughout I think 95% do capital in the fall and 90 to 95% do um you know vote on the final budget that's a charter change it won't come for a little bit but I just in transparency I thought I am sitting here with a little bit of knowledge and you're my friends and people my co-workers and I thought you don't want to rereading something in the paper and the other thing on budget um was it's always very helpful for me to have the numbers of remember is it October 1 the children in the seats is that what they call it kids in seats on what officially it's the October oober 1 Sims data but yes it's children in in that helps me to look at the budget you know for like last year and this year that's all thank you other questions or comments yes member Den I'm hoping that one of the things that we can work on in the subcommittee is really wrapping our heads around um knowing what capital improvements need to be made what we've already done or haven't finished what is left over and where we are with different projects and have sort of a master list for these things so that we can start thinking about it long term because some of these things um we could maybe find funding for in other places and we can work with legislators on it um so I'd like to have sort of a master list of the capital needs and maybe even maybe we even look at that when we go on our school tour I'm assuming you would prefer to not climb on the roof I don't want to climb on the roof but I'd love for you to tell me all about the roof I will do the best I can there are um I think the biggest issue for the committee well one of the biggest issues for the committee to be mind aware of is projects that were approved in the past that aren't finished yet projects that were funded and due to the time has passed the cost is the the amount funded no longer covers the cost of the projects and um you know I would like um Mr Bud our new facilities director to weigh in we have a list of projects that Mr hee had started and then um you know fresh eyes always brings A New Perspective so adding both but um you know the the capital projects that just works with the request to have the capital finances in in the budget report so that's pretty easy to take care of thank you other questions or comments for the budget subcommittee okay thank you um planning and construction member Priti did did you attended a meeting recently of that I don't know the January meeting was supposed to be yesterday and it was cancelled um there I think that out of respect for the change in administration it was felt that um it was not conducive to having the meeting that yesterday there's just so much going on with the transition that um to push any to even discuss work moving forward from planning and construction felt kind of unfair to Mayor to orer and her team um and I believe that's why not to put cuz Gan wall is the chair of planning and construction not to put words into her mouth but that was you know kind of the discussion that she had had briefly with me when she decided to cancel the meeting um but I would be happy to talk with um member child's right you're yeah about planning and construction um and we can go from there uh it is I would a more big picture than any of the other work that I've done um as a part of the school committee it's very different than the work that I see city council doing or the work that I see us doing in terms of the scope and the application of what they do like for example we um spent three or four meetings touring uh all of the city-owned properties that weren't schools to see how space is used and we learned a great deal um and those questions now kind you know the questions that we got from that investigation now kind of need to be addressed with how the city moves forward with use of space and things like that so that's where that committee is at in terms of their work um and it's it oftentimes feels very overwhelming but it's also really neat because it's people that the folks on the committee are not folks you'd normally come and be working with with school committee work so it's a nice diversity of um voices and um I think you'll I think you'll like it and they meet at 4:30 on the first Tuesday is that right the first Tuesday of the month the second Tuesday of the month whatever yesterday was yeah um but I'd be happy to talk to you about it thank you any questions or comments about planning and construction okay uh CES that collaborative for Educational Services remember any have there been any meetings since the last time there was one and I could not attend okay I am sorry no problem but nothing very substantive went down okay thank you and the district Wellness Committee Member PR thank you so we met yeah Monday or yesterday Monday we met Monday as a committee um with the person from I don't know she's from Dy she's from somewhere and she's helping us to assess uh how the district's operations fit into the Wellness Plan or our Wellness Plan needs to be um adjusted and it's a lot of stuff that is very operational and I just kind of listen to most of it um but my my understanding of what we need to do as a school committee and um I think between myself and nurse leader bednarski um and whatever the superintendent wants we can um I think the best approach is for the S the policy subcommittee of the school committee to put a policy in place that says because we um support the wellness policy of the district with uh whatever we're empowered with I'm not quite sure how to word it but we need something very simple that says operationally um we support what the wellness committee work H is is implementing in the district sorry I'm not very wor Smithy about it tonight um and we can get that done I think pretty simply and hopefully have it at a February or March meeting for us to approve and it seems like that's the last piece like the com the the wellness policy for the District Operations is in place and they're now kind of implementing it I guess uh growing it I don't I don't exactly know what the right words are um so that's what we would need to do as a Next Step here and then we continue with rep repres presentation as long as that committee continues and it is a mandate of the state that we have it so we just have a seat on it thank you all right um member ston this is unrelated to specifically the wellness committee but it occurred to me when member Den mentioned that she was unable to make the CES meeting would it be useful to us to have alternates identified for some of these where it's just one person to make sure that we're not missing some meetings just in case something happens something for us to consider we don't obviously need to make a decision right now thank you I will take that under advisement appreciate it any other comments or questions about the district Wellness committee all right then um I'd like to hear a motion to enter into executive session pursuant to Massachusetts General Law chapter 30A section 21 A4 to discuss the deployment of security Personnel or devices or strategies with respect theto seven to comply with or act under the authority of any general or special law or Federal grant and aid requirements approval of executive session minutes from December 13 2023 meeting the committee will not return to Open Session may hear a motion so moved member Martini made the motion is there a second second member Pro Yeti seconded secretary denie will you call the roll call yes secretary genive I'm a yes Vice chair Martini yes chair Johnson mad yes mayor dorer yes member pretti yes member seon yes member CH yes and unanimous thank you and do I need to do a separate motion to adjourn this meeting the public meeting okay thank you all right I'd like to hear a motion to adjourn the public session of the Greenfield Public School school committee meeting so moved PR member Priti um made the motion and member ston seconded um and do we need to do that by roll call let's we'll do it by roll call just for fun secretary Jive will you please call the Roll Roll Call Secretary Jive I'm a yes Vice chair Martini yes chair Johnson mad yes mayor dorer yes may member pretti yes member seon yes member CHS yes okay the motion passes unanimously we are adjourned from the public session at uh 7:38

e all right i' like to call the Wednesday January 10th meeting of the Bethany Board of Education to order it's at 6:30 uh we'll start by uh Pledge of Allegiance flag uned States America stand one nation under God indivisible liberty and justice for all would like to welcome everybody uh so we'll start with the uh PTO report please state your name uh go slow and talk loud please I have a lingering cough when I'm sick and over Christmas so have to bear with me all right all right excuse me uh my name is Melissa zaldo um the PTO president for this year next year so um starting off this January we got quite a lot going on um restaurant nights tonight actually we're hosting a restaurant night at Billy's and then on January 16th through the 18th we're doing a restaurant night at Grand de Petz down the street from billies and then just this afternoon I found out that we'll be having um two more restaurant nights uh at an anonos in Beacon Falls uh one January 31st and the other March 6 all you have to do is call place your order mention that it's with you're with the PTO and oh the restaurants are going to donate a portion of their proceeds from the from that day or night back to the PTO um the big thing other big thing we have going on right now is our Glow Run um we're bringing this brand new event this year to raise money for um playground enhancements regist ation is now open um and what this is is basically over the course of eight school days children will learn how to be World Changers through fun and engaging videos they'll determine how to identify a need formulate a plan rally a team launch their ideas and grd it out at the end of the event they will participate in a Glow Run in the gym the gym will be um transformed with glow lights inflatable tunnels all sorts of stuff the company were part with is sending staff to help facilitate that run and um as well as music and activities to get the kids um moving our goal is to raise $8,000 for playground enhancements and as of yesterday afternoon we've raised $1,999 so just under $2,000 I haven't seen the numbers yet for today um if we get 55% of the school just register of students just registered the students will earn um a pajama day for the entire School uh the actual event kicks off tomorrow on January 11th and um along the way they'll be giving assignments more or less on how to raise money and um they have the chance to earn prizes between the 11th and the 23rd like these prizes are like little games and things like that they're like really not much but kids you know kids love prizes um to help get them excited for the Glow Run which will be held on the 23rd um we're also looking for volunteers to help out with daily um distribution of prizes so if anybody out there wants to volunteer um we do have a registration form available on our website uh Lego Club the first session for Lego Club starts tomorrow January 11th um as I mentioned before we are capping registration this this for the winter session only just because of all the respiratory illnesses that are going around we want to keep the students and our volunteers safe um we the registration is full but we do have a waiting list and students um if they are weight listed we'll get priority registration uh for the spring session um if a student can't participate and they're already registered just let us know and we're going to offer that space to the next uh student on the weight list um also uh we're planning a hockey night at quinac University that's scheduled for uh February 3rd it's at I think 7:00 p.m.

2 p.m. uh we have four trustees in person trust will be joining us uh pretty soon shortly he's stuck in traffic and uh um we'll see him soon um okay and close session we have student discipline student suspension student suspension expulsion student expulsion readmitted common quote section 35146 48918 uh Item B conference with negotiator code section 54957.6 uh item C Public Employee dis discipline dismissal release comp government code section 54957 at this time if there are any public comments on the closed session items seeing none uh we will now adjin the close session thank you thank you all for your patience welcome back happy New Year again uh the board will reconvene to open session uh will lead with the flag salute Miss boak will you kindly lead us with the flag salute ready I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you uh trusty Jimenez would you please uh read the disting mission statement baresa Union School District uh provides all students the skills to become lifelong Learners and success sucessful 21st century Global Citizens thank you and trusty hog would you be kind enough to read the Norms of the Board of Trustees yeah focus on the best interests of our students at all times be respectful listen openly address problems and process not persons keep each other informed maintain confidentiality work toward the future learn from the past equal participation from all members and stay on task thank thank you for that um disclosure of action taken in closed session there were no actions taken in closed session um adoption of agenda may I have a motion to adopt the agenda move to adopt the agenda now second it's been moved and seconded all those in favor say I I uh agenda has been adopted um we don't have anything under recognition ceremonial and uh public comments and consent calendar agenda items is there a public comment on nope uh we don't have any public comment on the consent calendar agenda items um consent calendar May I have a motion to adopt the consent calendar I move to adopt the consent calendar second it okay it's been moved and seconded all those in favor say I I consent calendar has been adopted thank you um next is comments from the public on non-agenda items we have one speaker uh for we have one speaker uh before I call speaker let me read the speaker conduct uh speakers are requested to state your name address and affiliation for the record each speaker will be 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're reminded not to use a name of any District employee in your comments the board welcomes orderly communication from the public with that we will invite uh shiku Habibi um Mr bi give me a second can you please fix the mic um good evening my name is shiku habibi good evening Mr president vice president trustees superintendent cabinets um I am here for my colleagues they requested for um electric vehicle charging a station for a district and uh I have been asked multiple times to bring this to your basa Union School District attention that it could be done in a um parking lot each School site and would benefit our colleagues and our employees since the number of hybrid cars and electric car has been needed and is demanded maybe we can have that install in our parking lots and um I want to ask you what is your thought is H if there is any plan if not why not thank you thank you for those comments uh right we will move on to reports and presentations uh quarterly reports on Williams complaints uh Dr Fus thank you at this time I ask Dr mccu to please uh share our report for October 1 through December 31 2023 no complaints were filed with any school in the district during that quarter indicated from October 1st to December 31st 2023 that's always good news thank you for that um RMB California data dashboard report uh Dr FES thank you I'd like to invite Dr mccu to please uh present our updated information on our California data data dashboard all of the data was updated Statewide and publicly released so we'd like to share uh the progress that our our students in our District have made okay all right here we go see maybe [Music] is it on it's on [Music] okay I all right sounds good thanks Kim [Laughter] thank you okay okay we go all the way to the beginning here I think it went the wrong way all right here we go so tonight's goals here to understand the changes enacted within the 2023 California school dashboard also understanding all the different details and all the different data that's uh within the dashboard and then uh reviewing any next steps on uh ability to use this information to plan uh efforts with the principles and school sites all right so as we know the uh lcff evaluation rubrics um oversee the six indicators and uh they're listed here um mainly what we're you'll see also are the five local indicators that we have to do a self um diagnosis on and making sure that we also um provide basic conditions Priority One implementation of the academic standards with priority two parent engagement uh priority three uh priority six is school climate and priority seven is access to a broad course of study so those are also within the data dashboard and so we've uh rerouted um back to the odometer um in the past it's been the the odometer and then last year it was the um cell tower so here we are with uh lowest performance in the red um next in the orange yellow and then at or above grade level or at standard is green and the highest performance band is at the blue level and once again um a lot of what we'll be talking about is the status and the Change Report because they're looking also at last year's data and comparing it with the 2023 data so are we improving in the data and that's going to show um within the odometer so another big part of the data dashboard is identifying our student groups and so big picture of course are all students um and then we get into the different race ethnicity um student groups in our district which are American uh African-American um American Indian Asian Filipino Hispanic Pacific Islander white and two or more races we also have special programs that are identified within the student group um information and those are our English Learners our students with disabilities our students who qualify for free and reduced lunch who are socioeconomically disadvantaged students homeless students and Foster Youth and so um in order to have um the data pop up on our data dashboard the number of students within each group gr have to be 30 or more the exception there is for the Foster Youth and the homeless students would have to be 15 or more students um student groups with the uh 11 to 29 students have results displayed but are assigned no status level so let's get into it with our academic indicators showing our student performance relative to grade level standards and both English language arts and math and that's um tested within the esac which is the smarter balanced uh assessment which is given in the spring of the school year um third through eth grade students take that test and students who qualify for special needs take the California alternative assessments and those students are usually are moderate and severe students who take that uh test and that's an individual one-on-one test and so with our English language arts overall results as a district we are in the green level which is great news and we are 32.5 points above standard uh we did drop by 2.1 points but that still puts us in the green level with over 3,700 students being tested and so when we start digging into the student groups you'll definitely see that there's some disparities amongst our student groups for example our students with disabilities are in need of some support in the red and you'll see our students who are identifi as Hispanic and socioeconomically disadvantaged are in the orange our African-American students in the yellow and then English Learners Filipino White and the green and Asian and two or more races in the blue and then like I mentioned before um students groups that have less than 30 students are American Indian Foster youth homeless Pacific Islander I ask a good question on this thing so the um there were two two type of tests right ASB back and car ca for the special so the data that we seeing here is a combined result of uh all this so that's why it's separated by um with the spe with the students with disabilities also showing on the same chart and the students with disabilities out of that 3,000 let's see where's the number out of that 3,718 students those are also the students that took the C as well so so they're all encompassing and I would say we probably don't have more than a 100 students that take the call as a districts so the majority of our students are taking the regular ASC test thank and within the test also just FYI there are modifications so the students can also you know um use a calculator there's different pieces where um text can be read to them and other modifications for students specifically with disabilities to help them support uh their taking of the test and of course all that has to be put into the system before the test is given okay so our math results districtwide we're also in the green level and here we've uh also are 11 points above standard and overall we've increased by 4.5 points and number of students at three 3,713 and once again our student groups so to celebrate none of our student groups are in the red yay thanks John all right um orange we have a handful more so our uh students with disabilities that were in the red for English language arts are in the orange here and then African-American students Hispanic and socioeconomically disadvantaged so there's definitely some work to do um with our math uh student St specifically those students that represent those uh student groups um no students actually in the yellow group so it's really a have they had the um standard met or they didn't there aren't any subgroups in really in the middle right so uh green English Learners Filipino two more races white and then our Asian population in the blue okay the next indicator in the data dashboard is our English learner progress and so of course uh with that our students take the lpac which stands for English language proficiency assessments for California and once again um the results are from both 2022 and 2023 and then the students that were identified to be reclassified which are RFB students are not included so this is a percent of students who Moved at least one level and it's called the lpy level so there's different levels within the lpac so it could also be from a low two to a high two um going from one to a four standard uh so you'll see that there's different levels here specifically for the elpac and overall our El students are making very good progress 54% of our students making the progress towards English profic proficiency and increased by 3% and the number of ELC students here um 923 and this is a little bit more detailed um on the left you'll see uh the scores from 2022 and then the scores from 2023 and then you'll see the levels increasing actually we did have a handful of students a percentage that decreased one level so that is a little problematic making sure that we support those um students maintain the level is that turquoise color and then that blue level there are students who maintained at the level four which is the highest level and those students hopefully are getting reclassified soon and then you have the students of the purple who've uh progressed at least one level and that's what we're really aiming for is um increasing um that one level that's our Hope from year to year and then we get into to our chronic absenteeism indicator and um this is where our students if they're absent 10% or more of the instructional days that they're tagged as chronically absent so out of 180 days that's 18 days and for the most part it doesn't matter if they're excused absences or unexcused absences or out of school um suspensions and uh the last couple years with Co this is the one uh indicator that was really difficult to um increase but or decrease um we want to decrease or decline the absenteeism rates and so uh we did decline as a district overall by 3.5% which is great um but we still have 16% of our students who are chronically absent which means they've missed that 18 days of school which is significant but once again with covid and everything that was going on we happy to making a dent a progress in this category and then once again you'll see um our student groups represented here once again no student groups in the red yay uh orange we've got African-American homeless Pacific Islanders and then uh lots of um student subgroups in the yellow there and then our Asian students in green and no student groups in the blue so once again this has been a very focused attention um one of the things that we just heard from the county office because we don't have any student groups in the red and we don't we only had the one indicator for our students with disabilities in ela and the red as a district we are exiting out of differentiated assistance so it's a huge accomplishment overall as a district so yeah I think we're really really excited about that so that I think out of the county 25 of the districts were in differentiated assistance last year so um it's a little lower this year I didn't don't know the actual number but we were told um in December by our uh um colleague over at the County office that we have not been invited back to those meetings and so that was a s yeah and I think also just with you know um the area of chronic absenteeism it it does take a concerted effort across the district right it's the the district team with the data and sharing all of that at the site level but then at the sites the principles you know the teachers with their students in their classroom not just monitoring but making the connection with those students and their families because I think when it comes to Chronic absenteeism a lot of of the strategy is education and really uh getting to know our family's needs and what are the reasons that they're not coming to school and trying to provide the right resource support so they can be at school so it it is a um uh a lot of effort and time that goes into being able to improve in this area and to um exit differentiated assistance so definitely takes a lot of people across the district to make that happen and just to remind everyone it excused absences or unexcused they both count towards chronic absenteeism and that's a huge um yeah our for our parents ESP right so right because oftentimes they think oh well I called because there was a doctor's appointment or there was illness and we appreciate knowing because we you know we know okay it's not anything um serious however for chronic absenteeism it still counts towards that time frame of them needing to be in school so with the um so the just a academic question the someone calls in sick or they have appointment so the absenteeism is like for the entire day or is it even if any part of the day are they considered absent for the for the day I mean if they're out for like four days or something I mean four hours or something then is it is it like an entire day no so they're considered absent if they miss the entire day show for part of the day then they're not absent yeah that's also part of the education that Dr FES was mentioning making sure sure like making sure a student doesn't miss an entire day of school for the dentist for a morning dentist appointment right that they they make that effort to come back to school y yeah okay thank you you all right the next indicator are our suspension rates and so once again um the definition the specific definition for the suspension rates is for students who have been suspended for at least one full school day and so a student with multiple suspensions is only counted once in the data and also includes our students from kinder through 12th enrolled for at least one day and uh doesn't matter if students are tagged in school suspension or out of school suspension they still count towards the suspension rates and so um overall as a district we're in the orange which was an increase over last year by .3% and uh 1.6% of students were suspended at least one day which doesn't sound like a lot but when you start digging into the data and looking at the student sub groups we have um similar issues with who is being suspended um our African-American students which is a small subgroup of students are in the red um and then we have a a number of students in the orange Hispanic homeless Pacific Islander socioeconomically disadvantaged and students with disabilities um yellow Filipino green Asian English Learners two or more races whites and no students in the blue and once again this is a comparison from the 22 data and the 23 data and when we were coming back from covid we weren't suspending a lot of students and an increase of just a little bit of a percentage is going to show up on the data dashboard and so that's what we have here and we were meeting with our principles today and um talking about supporting specifically our African-American students who had been suspended and knowing and I had mentioned um knowing a lot of the students and the families within that um student group and how we need to continue to support those students and what we can do to not only help the students but also help the families as well because that's part of the reason why they're being suspended is some of the things that are happening at their home and they're coming to school and they're having some difficulties transitioning to school and um there's definitely more work to do with um that student subgroup and then I talked a little bit about this I kind of jumped a little too quickly but I was happy to explain a differentiated assistance where we are not in it anymore because of what we had been in it before was we had our students with disabilities and English language arts and math and in chronic absenteeism and so that's kind of where we're at uh schools can be in CSI not the middle one but the one on the end if they have students in those two subgroups too so for example um if you have students who perform at a school level that are performing in the red category in English language arts math and suspensions or chronic absenteeism um they would be identified for CSI I'm sorry not CSI but additional targeted support which is an improvement which is atsi and we do have a couple of our middle schools that we've um seen that were identified for atsi the Silver Lining is 12 of our schools were in atsi last year based on our chronic absenteeism rates this year we're going from 12 of our schools to I think it's three of our schools so even it's an increase or a decrease we'll we'll take it but there's definitely still work to do within you know really digging into some of those data points to see how we can continue to support students um at those School sites and so here was a combination of what we just talked about with a very low on both Ela and math and that was last year with students with disabilities and the very high on chronic absenteeism rates and that's it any questions okay all right thank you thank you for the presentation all right uh next item is superintendent report Dr FAS thank you uh first I just like to wish everyone a Happy New Year and welcome back hope everyone had a restful um break and ready to go for the second half as we look at closing out this school year moving towards June um also just wanted to share uh We've made some good progress in our um facilities development over the holiday so the good news is that our pedmont gym is very very close to being officially open and we're looking at that possibly being as early as next week so looking forward to celebrating uh that new space for our students knowing um what a a significant impact that will have on the pedmont community being able to have um being able to compete in at their own facility at their own School site you know for the different Sports Seasons and for their um music performances Etc so looking forward to that um also uh just wanted to share you know we're still um unpacking the governor's budget that was released today so I know there have been a lot of statements across the news being made uh in terms of the uh potential reductions um I think the most significant impact that we for beresa is the cola being less than 1% it's uh projected at 0.76% so that is a significant loss of revenue for our school district we did a quick calculation of that today and that's an impact of $2.1 million so um we already know from the work we've been doing with our budget stabilization committee for the past year and a half we were working towards um meeting our $6 million reduction now we have an additional 2 million that needs to be added to that and so uh we know that this is just an initial proposal from the governor there's going to be a lot of work a lot of negotiation happening uh through the legislature from now to May uh but either way we still need to take that into consideration because when we did our first interim um review of our budget in December it was based on the previous projected Cola which was over 3% and now that's reduced down to 0.76 which will be reflected in our second interim budget in that's presented to you in March so uh a lot of challenges um that persist uh that we will continue to unpack and work together uh with you and with our community to determine uh the best path moving moving forward knowing that we're not alone in facing this dilemma this is H being you know these challenges are being faced with for all districts across the state um and so everyone's going to have to get uh very creative about problem solving so that we can um continue to support our students to the best of our ability thank you thank you for that Dr FAS um next item is comments announcements from the board any comments or announcements from the board all right seeing none we will move forward to the next item under review and action uh review and action item a um board policy 13122 complaints concerning uh instructional material Dr Fus it is recommended the Board review and approve board policy 131 2.2 complaints concerning instructional materials for a first reading so this policy along with most of the other policies that are on this agenda tonight uh evolve around uh the same new legislation that was passed in terms of um the parameters that the board has in uh in um to not discriminate in in terms of our approval for textbook and curriculum material adoption so this is uh through new legislation that was recently passed through the governor as there were concerns being expressed as school boards were Banning materials um and you know both core content materials as well as Library materials uh for their schools and so there are new parameters put in place that limit the governing board's ability to just outright do that with without following certain guidances and so the new language is now embedded into a series of policies with uh new forms that been created uh by the state that every uh district is required to uh adhere to thank you any comments and questions so I have question so doesn't this I mean uh school districts already are like you know uh losing most of their autonomy doesn't this uh kind of U you know give the State Department of Education more power then because school districts needs to have the flexibility to be able to decide what works for the for their community and what doesn't um doesn't will will this interfere in any of that so yes and no so yes in California we are um local control school districts however we're still a public entity and so as a public entity we still have to adhere to Statewide requirements because there does have to be a level of uniformity from school to school school district to school district across the state and so this just further clarifies regulations that were already pretty much in place they're not necessarily new but they're being Amplified in terms of protected classes and ensuring that uh there are no discriminatory actions towards our our students or our families that we serve okay interesting right is that a motion to approve this um item I move to adopt this board policy there a second second okay it's been moved and seconded all those in favor will say I I I the board policy is adopted um item two board exhibit E1 13122 complaints concerning instruction materials and again uh it is recommended the Board review and approve uh this exhibit e131 12.2 it goes along with the previous policy and this one is the actual form that a Community member parent employee could uh submit in concern uh that any materials are being discriminated that there's any sense of discrimination towards uh either Banning or not adopting certain materials thank you um there are no questions can I have a motion for this item I move for approval second second yeah it's been moved and seconded all those in favor will say I I motion carries thank you uh item number three is board policy 13123 uniform complaint procedures it is recommended the Board review and approve board policy 131 12.3 uniform complaint procedures for a first reading so what this does is it takes these parameters and it embeds them into our uniform complaint procedure any questions no questions I have a motion move for approval I'll second okay it's been moved and seconded all those in favor will say I I hi motion carries thank you uh item number four is board exhibit E1 13124 Williams uniform complaint procedures and again for both this item and the next upcoming item it uh embeds the same language into our Williams uniform complaint procedure which oversees uh instructional materials and facilities for our schools um so it is recommended the Board review and approve board exhibit E1 131 12.4 U can do a combined motion of me it's the same thing you can yeah may have a if there are no questions or objections may I have a combined motion for item four and five I move for approval a second okay it's been moved and seconded all those in favor will say I I items four and five have been uh approved thank you uh next up Business Services uh public hearing disclosure of collecting Collective bargain agreement between California Teachers Association berasa seap and berasa Union School District Dr FES it is recommended that the board first conduct a public hearing on the disclosure of the California Teachers Association beresa collective bargaining agreement and then second accept the attached certified disclosure of the California Teachers Association VAR s c tab collective bargaining agreement thank you we'll open it for public hearing and we have one speaker uh before we go to that I'll let me read the speaker contact one more time speakers are requested to state in name address and affiliation for the record each speaker will be 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're reminded not use the name of any District employee in your comments the board welcomes orderly and orderly communication from the public thank you uh with that we I'll invite Mr Joe Herman to the Ping okay test us good evening perfect hi my name is Joe Herman I am a second grade teacher at Brook tree I've been in the district about 29 years I believe it's my 29th year and I just wanted to say Happy New Year welcome hope everybody had a great holiday with your family and friends including everybody out there so welcome um I'm here tonight to speak uh regarding the contract that we just settled cab is very glad to settle um get back to business our teachers and our Educators can get back to the business of totally focusing on delivering the services to students um one of the things we're concerned about is that it took us about a year to settle the 2324 contract and in delivering services to students when our members our educators are out of the classroom when they're doing actions they're you know very stressed about you know getting a r ways getting the medical benefits working conditions and not being able to settle in a timely manner and then moving into the next year it's it's very difficult to deliver those services and to have happy and healthy teachers so hopefully for the future we can settle in a more timely manner that's always something that our members would appreciate as well as our community to create that labor peace so for that we're thankful um the 6.5% raise helps our cab members and sounds like the rest of the district greatly um it helps B USD to continue to recruit and retain the best Educators the raise helps to lift beresa in many ways so that the district is not in the bottom third comparable to the other 30 or so districts in the county so we're raising beresa and that again helps to recruit and retain and continue to recruit and retain the best um one of the great things um in this contract was we had some great language one of the things uh you know there were no takeaways one of the great things that we had was the tk3 prep which is 30 minutes one time per week um which we have worked and struggled for a while a very long time to get that language into the contract so that's really going to help our Educators deliver the services to continue to deliver powerful educational lessons and of course is that enough time is 30 minutes enough time per week to get you know the math the science the social studies the reading the language the El all of that is that enough no it's not enough so we'll continue to advocate for more prep time um and as you know uh coming up the budget is very slim so we're going to be working on contract language so hopefully we can get something I know prep time costs money but we're going to be working to get you know language that will help improve working conditions that won't cost the district a whole lot of money um some of the contract concerns that we did have of course were the health benefits um our families um currently the entire raise from what I heard with the exorbitant cost of medical benefits the entire raise for our families will go to paying medical cost and we have a lot of teachers and Educators in our district that have children their families that go to the school so I'm hoping that we can work something out hopefully non-m monetarily that we can you know reduce the cost to our families of our members so that they have reduced cost and we can make it more Equitable okay because we want to retain those teachers and students in our district as well we know that many families leave the district because of the high cost and we want to retain and keep our current teachers and their families in the district and here we are again we are now on the next round of bargaining um as you know for the 2425 school year the projected Cola now is 6 you know so we're going to continue to survey our members um we want to continue our relationship with the board with management to deliver the best Services possible to our students we'll continue to do that we're looking forward to that and happy New Year thank you and have a good evening thank you thank you for those comments Mr Herman um seeing no other comments we'll now close the uh public hearing and I'll need a motion to accept the uh certified disclosure of the cab collective bargaining agreement do I have a motion I move for for acceptance there a second okay it's been moved and seconded all those in favor say I I I motion carries thank you very much uh next item is any feedback uh resolution 23-05 authorizing the issuance of barrier in school district 2024 GE refunding bonds Dr F us thank you it is recommended the board adopt resolution 2305 authorizing the issuance of barasa Union School District in Santa Clara County uh 2024 General obligation refunding bonds we do have a uh brief presentation for you this evening um Mr Franklin if you can please introduce our guest of course so we have um Chris Hyatt from Kent uh LLC they're our financial adviser and she's going to do a brief presentation about this item thank you good evening thank you for having me back tonight it's my first time in the new building this is a great facility happy to be here and happy New Year um so tonight I will be talking about a potential Bond refinancing opportunity so we can Dive Right In if I can figure out how to click this oh it's doing the same thing that it did for you uh oh okay might have to wait a minute here oh the down button makes sense okay um so to start under current interest rates uh we are estimating that there is a possibility to produce taxpayer savings by refinancing one of your series of old bonds from the election of 2014 which was measure L Series a which was issued in 2015 um we're estimating right now about $750,000 in savings after all costs which would be savings for your tax taxpayers in the form of lower property tax bills all of the costs associated are already built into these numbers and are contingent on the actual issuance of the refinancing except for the credit rating from Moody um so at least right now savings are still looking good so we will proceed until there's a reason not to um the term of the bonds would not be extended so we'd keep the same term as the original issuance um and lastly generally cons generally it is considered to be a good thing to refinance debt and we usually advise districts to put out a press release if they end up moving forward with a bond refinancing and we can help put that together so what does it actually look like first under I wanted to show you a snapshot of interest rates the chart on the left shows interest rates going back over the last 60 years so from a historical perspective rates are still pretty low um you may remember that rates definitely spiked up after covid in 2122 but as you can see from the chart on the right hand side we've seen some pretty dramatic decreases over the last six months um the January dates weren't on here yet when this presentation was prepared but rates have come up just a little bit to start the new year um the FED has signaled that they will continue to that they will start cutting rates in 2024 um so hopefully we'll start seeing that happen but even under current rates we're already seeing significant savings for your taxpayers so here's the summary of the potential refinancing so this is a snapshot as of January 2nd and we're seeing a total Savings of about 750,000 um over the over the course of the term going out to 2031 the most important number here is highlighted in yellow which is your present value savings percentage 88.3% districts generally consider moving forward with refinancing when that number is over 3% so you're well over that threshold here um on the on the right hand side a few more details the interest rate on the prior bonds was 5% we're right now looking at about 3.21% so that's what's generating the savings there um the call date on the bonds is August 1st of 2024 and you can see that we are able to reinvest the reinvest the escrow to generate a little extra savings that's giving us an extra 55,000 in total um so the numbers look very very good at this point um these are extremely sensitive to interest rate movements so as I said those numbers were as of January 2nd still around there right now but every day the savings will fluctuate depending on where the market is so every increase in interest rate in the overall Market of 0.1% decreases the savings on the refinancing and every decrease increases the savings by about 50,000 so we'll continue to monitor the savings but at least right now we're at that 8% Mark so a very very healthy refinancing so if the district were to consider moving forward this is the potential next steps and timeline so before you tonight is a resolution that would allow the district to move forward with the refinancing it also includes the approval of some form documents the preliminary official statement is the document that would go to investors who are interested in purchasing the refinancing um there should be an escrow document in there and along with a purchase contract those are all form documents there's some blanks in there because obviously the bonds have not been sold yet so things like interest rates aren't filled in so don't be surprised by the blanks um if the district does move forward approve the resolution then on January 24th uh we would get an updated credit rating back from Moody's we are planning to speak with them next week pending your approval tonight um and get your credit rating updated and then we would plan to sell the refinancing February 1st and close on May 3rd having that extended closing period from February to May allows us to use tax exempt bonds if we closed any earlier than May 3rd uh we would have to use taxable bonds which come at a higher cost so definitely want to wait until May to actually close the refinancing are there any questions on this any questions on the board so the uh interest rate that you were uh you mentioned the 3.25 yes so do we like if we don't lock it today is there a risk that it'll go up tomorrow nothing yes that's right so every day it will fluctuate so by how much I'm I'm thinking is it like will it go up like 1% or something now it's like Point yeah so we obviously wouldn't move forward if rates go up enough that the things diminish um so we would work with your District staff to determine what that level would be but we will certainly have updated numbers as we get closer to the bond sale to say okay we're at this level is this a comfortable level of savings for the district okay um but we would definitely not move forward if there's not sufficient savings it's not it's not worth the the it looks like at this point anything would be good savings because we are at eight right at eight right so this is a very healthy refinancing right now and there was ALS we also built in a little bit of cushion in these numbers so even with the rates increases we've seen over the last week or so we're still at around this level okay am my bu was from now till February 1st where you where you propos to lock the interest rate of there's like a big variation and we don't want to exactly lose that extra money and and and if there was an increase we can always sit pause and you know sell March one or April one this get the approval of the resolution gives us the authority to move forward when the time is right thank you all right thank you for the presentation uh um so this is a resolution um Dr FAS do I read the resolution or um no you just you just simply need a roll call vote okay all right um I'll entertain a motion to approve the resolution adopt the resolution I mooved for adoption second it's been moved and seconded um M Gomez a roll call vote please I I hi I I thank you um the resolution 2305 23-05 has been adopted unanimously thank you very much uh next item is the acceptance of the 2022 23 annual Financial audit Dr Fus it is recommended the board accept the 2022 2023 annual Financial audit report and we do have a special guest from Nigro Nigro I believe it's Jessica to present uh their review thank you this is actually also my first time presenting in this newborn room so I did get to see it kind of preview when you moved in but very nice enjoying the new surroundings um as was said my name is Jessica Barry I'm an audit partner with Nigro and Nigro I've been working with your districts for the last several years just want to give you a brief overview of our process and kind of walk you through what's in the audit report so just me talking sorry nothing on PowerPoint giving you our our overview and then more than happy to answer any questions you might have at the end so just as far as our process goes we break it up into three different sections throughout the year beginning of the year actually it'll be starting fairly soon for you again this year um is our site level auditing we're out at the individual School sites and we're looking at attendance taking procedures and then also looking at ASB activity a lot of your funding is driven by your average daily attendant so we want to make sure there's proper controls and procedures over how attendance is being recorded at the sites and then again dur middle schools where there's more AC ASB activity we also look at the procedures there money coming in money coming out making sure it's properly authorized that there's the the checks and balances again at those uh move a little bit forward into the usually later spring or early summer we'll come out for what we call our interim visit your books aren't closed at this point in time so we're not looking at final numbers we are looking at controls and compliance at this point in time so controls again as I said those checks and balances we pull expenditures look for proper authorization purchase orders in place we see money coming in is it deposited Tim we look at payroll matchup what's being paid to Personnel files these are all on a sample basis obviously we can't look at every single transaction but we pull kind of a cross-section um of transactions throughout the year and in different funds and just look for those procedures in place we also do some compliance testing over various State areas and federal programs so we rotate different Federal programs that we test each year and then we also look at State compliance this is kind of a hodg Podge I say there's certain compliance we're required to look at this can be anything from you know adopting your lcap in timely manner to certain categorical monies being reserved only for particular types of expenses so really a lot of different things that we look at as prescribed by state fast forward again we're coming back in the fall now your books are closed so at this point in time we're finishing up some compliance testing but mostly looking at Financial we're working through your un audited actuals and we're tying out the numbers that are presenting their to different support into backup items that we receive to say are your financials as they're presented us presented fairly and really just working through those financial numbers so those are our three main sections all of that leads to lovely audit report that you receive each year um I'm sure very exciting reading for everyone but I'll just kind of walk you through the main sections of that it starts off with the letter this is our opinion letter and this was a clean opinion so what you want it's saying that we agree that the financials as they're presented here are presented fairly in all material aspects so that's that opening letter right after the letter is what's called Management's discussion and Analysis this is usually where Point people or Point Bo board members if they kind of want an overview of the audit it gives a truncated or condensed financial statements and it also gives comparative information so it'll have prior years numbers as well as current year numbers you can kind of see what the main shifts were what went up what went down so it's a little bit of the cliff note so to speak of the audit report after that are the full financial statements there several pages of those and then a lot of pages of notes I won't go into too much detail I can answer questions if you have any there's a lot of required disclosures especially over debt pensions and OPB certain accounting policies that goes into a lot of detail in the notes after you get past the notes there's a few additional schedules in the back more schedules on pensions more schedules on OPB those are all required to be in there um your budget comparison from your budget to actuals will be in the back a schedule of your average daily attendance a schedule of your instructional minutes there'll be a schedule of your federal ws and expenditures for the year those are usually the ones of the most interest a few other miscellaneous schedules back there as well and then there's three letters once you get past those schedule so our first one is really that overall Financial letter saying we agree that your financials are presented fairly um there's three in the back that go over um controls and compliance is really the focus of those letters so one over governmental entities so in governmental standards one on Federal and one on state so really kind of saying the same thing but in different areas again for controls and compliance these are all um what we call unmodified or clean opinions on each of these letters and then after the letters we would list any findings the resolutions off of any prior year findings and then any management comments or best PR practices of that very end section of the audit report so again brief overview kind of just hitting the high points but I'm more than happy if you have questions I can answer those or I can dig into any area in more detail thank you for the report any comments and questions so thank you I did get a chance to review um the audit report I did go through some of the figures and some of the the thing um for entertainment purposes you know you you need to you need to keep yourself busy and you know I'm very curious how the audit process works and uh very good report thank you for putting it together um thanks for your presentation tonight of course thank you I think I'm on bond next so I was just kind of hanging out here sure I just wanted to also just thank Jessica for her time because I know um you know they're very meticulous and they do lots of onetoone interviews with folks across the district uh to talk about what our practices and procedures are so we always um are open to any um any way that we can improve our processes and procedures as well you know any um you know I know we've been working on those ASB practices for quite some time so it was nice to see no findings in that area but we know we can always get better as well so any um best practices out there that you'd advise we're always open to that too of course definitely all right uh so with that we'll go to the next item with oh wait sorry not so fast please hang on while we take a vote on the acceptance of the 2022 23 annual Financial audit is there a motion I move to accept second okay it's been moved and seconded all those in favor say I I I the uh annual Financial audit for 20223 has been accepted uh next items next item is accept syps of the 20223 bond measure L and U annual independent financial and performance audit Dr Fus it is uh recommended the board accept the 2022 2023 Bond measure L andu annual independent financial and performance audit and again Jessica will uh provide an overview of the process for this component thank you um I'll will say the process is somewhat similar for Bond although we have a little bit different Focus so we don't start off with the attendance piece since it's not really relevant to the bond but we are out at interim looking at Bond um we look we are focusing a lot more expenditures when it comes to bonds and to contracts obviously that the purpose of bond being to build your facilities and so there's a lot of focus on the compliance over ballot language instead of other like federal or state compliance areas that we would be looking at districtwide so really an expenditure and contract Focus as we're working our way through the bond we pull a number of expenditures Midway through the year and we look through contracts we're looking at change orders we're looking at proper bidding making sure that's being conducted um throughout the different uh contracts that we pull for sample our process at year end is very similar to the overall District audit where we're going through we're looking at the final numbers but really specific to fund 21 where the bond funds are being housed and spent and we're just tying out those numbers so the numbers that are in your audit report are really just a for the bond or kind of a small piece that's been taken out of the main audit report that you'll see and then just shown with a little more detail specific to the bond in this report um as part of our audit we also have always done a s sidewalk each year which is kind of a fun piece where we'll go into our projects that are under construction or have recently been completed this building actually was part of our sidewalk this year since that was one of the big projects that was happening again just making sure that what's being spent aligns with boutot language and also aligns with what we're actually seeing being done for the various projects so the report itself obviously much smaller than the district report so a little bit of an easier read starts off with a little bit of background information actually on the first page and then our letter again clean or unmodified opinion that you're seeing in that first letter saying that we agreed that this is presented fairly you have your financial statements directly after that all the fund notes and disclosures um not nearly as many but there are some tables that'll show you're currently outstanding debt under the bond measures and the future payments on that debt we move forward with a refunding or refinancing then that'll shift a little bit as well for future audit reports since those will affect your numbers um and then there's some letters in the back again more controls and compliance letters that are listed in the very back of the report so again a lot smaller lot less detail but happy to answer any questions are there any questions on the board on this item so is the is the uh report presented to the oversite committee also they they do go through the opportunity I see a couple of vacancies on the on the oversight committee is there a challenge filling them up yes of course there is not everybody is like me they don't raise that and the parcel tax oversight committee we have vacancies so if anybody's interested yeah we'll take applications yeah we should uh uh broadcast through our Council PDA to get interested parents I'm sure somebody out there is like me who wants to be uh involved so so yeah perfect all right um there are other questions thank you so much for your time today really appreciate it of course thank you all right um so I'll entertain a motion to accept the 2022 23 Bond measure L and U annual independent financial and performance audit yeah I move for acceptance It's been moved and seconded all those in favor say I I I the um audit report has been accepted unanimously all right all right uh next item under human re resources um we have item one approval of the agreement between California Teachers Association basa and basan School District Dr ftis it is recommended the board approve the contract language changes in the tenative agreement with California Teachers Association varesa cab and again I just would like to reiterate our thanks to cab to president Herman uh for your partnership in reaching this agreement we we we appreciate everyone's uh hard work and efforts towards making this happen thank you any comments uh questions from the board move to approve okay second it's been moved and seconded all those in favor say I I I thank you uh motion carries uh unanimously all right uh next item is approval of the proposed salary and benefits compensation adjustment for management supervisory and confidential employees Dr FAS it is recommended the board approve the proposed as salary which is also 6 and a half% as our other employees and benefits compensation adjustment for management supervisory and confidential employees I know we have some of our um District uh administrators here and again I just like to thank them for all of their hard work and their efforts across our district divisions as well as at our school sites thank you any comments or questions from the board right I'll entertain a motion move to approve second it's been moved and seconded all those in favor will say I I I I motion passes unanimously thank you so much uh next item is the adoption of amended agreement for services as assistant superintendent of education services including contract extension and compensation increase Dr Fus it is recommended the board approve the amended agreement for services as assistant super intendent of educational services including contract extension and compensation increase per uh our legal requirements this term this contract has been extended for a term of three years commencing on July 1 20124 and ending on June 30th 2027 the annual base salary for 2023 2024 will be increased by 6.5% same as all of our other berasa employ employees effective July 1 2023 um for the annual based salary for 2023 2024 fiscal year which will be $224,600 Health and Welfare benefits uh shall be received the same as the Health and Welfare benefits as our certificated management employees thank you um any questions or comments on the board if not I'll um ENT rain a motion I move for approval second has been moved and seconded all those in favor will say I I I motion carries unanimously thank you so much um next item is adoption of amended agreement for services S as assistant superintendent business services including contract ex extension and compensation increase Dr findus thank you it is recommended the board approved the amended agreement for services for assistant superintendent of business services including contract extension and compensation increase again this contract has been extended or is recommended to be extended for a term of three years commencing on July 1 2024 and ending on June 30th 2027 uh in terms of annual base salary and increase base salary of 6.5% again the same as all of our other employees effective uh July 1 2023 uh with that annual based salary for 2324 fiscal year to be $23,660 of Business Services shall receive the same Health and Welfare benefits as our classified management employees any comments or questions from the board thought I'll entertain a motion I move for approval second okay it's been moved and seconded all those in favor will say I I motion carries unanimously thank you all right next is the adoption of agreement for services as assistant superintendent Human Resources uh including contract extension and compensation increase Dr FES it is recommended the board approve the agreement for services as assistant superintendent of Human Resources including contract extension and compensation increases uh this contract is being recommended for extension for three years commencing on July 1 2024 and ending on June 30th 2027 annual based salary increase of 6.5% same as all of our other employees effective July 1 2023 for the annual based salary 2023 24 fiscal year being 213,00 934 and the assistant superintendent of Human Resources shall receive the same Health and Welfare benefits as certificated management employees thank you um any questions or comments on the board not entertain a motion move to approve second it's been moved and seconded all those in favor say I I I motion carries synonimous thank you so much and also before you move to the next item I would also just like to uh commend our cabinet team for the work that they do and the oversight that they provide to all of our district functions across beresa thank you U the next item is the adoption of agreement for services as superintendent including contract extension and compensation increase Dr FES this item is for you so the thank you for that and the motion there's a motion to approve the rational behind it behind this is um the following is a summary of the major provisions in accordance with legal requirements um the term of employment is four years uh the 20242 through the 2027 28 school years the salary for 2023 24 school year is 27 3899 reflecting the same 6.5% increase received by all of the District employees Health and Welfare benefits uh will continue to be the same as provided for all other certificated management employees is there any questions or comments from the board I I'll make a comment so I just want to thank you superintendent for all your work during last year and thank you to the cabinet thank you to the teachers um and I think this uh raise is deserved by everybody and obviously you know we try as a board we try to stay competitive and give everybody the the best that we can and I know we're getting a bargain in a lot of cases we did look um you know in comparison relative to other similar districts and and our staff is this will bring them up a little bit closer to not the highest you know in the county but um you know hopefully uh we'll keep us competitive so uh I will gladly uh move to approve this motion and I second it thank you it's been moved and seconded all those in favor say I I I motion carries unanimously thank you so much uh next item under D Educational Services uh board policy 51453 non-discrimination harassment Dr find us it is recommended the Board review and approve board policy 51453 non-discrimination harassment for first reading again this is going back to our previous um discussion about the updates in our policies it's incorporating all of the language regarding uh not being discriminatory towards instructional materials and embedding that into our non-discrimination and harassment policies okay um there any there no questions from the board I'll entertain a motion move to approve there a second second it's been moved and seconded all those in favor say I I I hi motion carries unanimously thank you so much uh board policy next is board policy 6161 do11 supplementary instructional materials Dr FES it is recommended the Board review and approve board policy 61611 supplementary instructional materials for a first reading okay any questions on this uh item okay is there a motion move to approve is there a second second has been moved and seconded all those in favor say I I I motion carries unanimously thank you item number three in the list is board policy 61631 library media centers Dr FES it is recommended the Board review and approve board policy 616 3.1 library media centers for a first reading and again this is also capturing that same language all related to materials in this policy okay there are no questions um I'll entertain a motion move to approve is there a second second okay it's been moved and seconded all those in favor say I I I motion carries unanimously thank you item 16 request for staff followup is there any other any requests for staff followup any items for future agendas if not I'll entertain a motion for adjournment move to okay it's been movement seconded all those in favor say I I I meeting adjourned at 8:40 p.m.

we were texting uh and I'm driving around looking at the ponding that exist from the rain at 5:30 but that's the conversation so it's not just the simp a decision that one person makes and we're having conversations with the 20 other superintendents within the Metro communities uh we you know we have to understand that we have 400 plus employees and a lot of our employees don't live in Ashland and they're coming from different areas as well so we're trying to be mindful of of making sure our staff is safe as well so these are all things that uh people probably think it's just a simple hey it's snowing don't have School you do that and we extend to June 27th and 28th and um then people are really unhappy with me so coming back for a day here and a day there so uh that's really all I have um for the update uh so excellent oh we have and you're not on here Mike so I guess no he's not this week okay cool unless he wants to be you been shut out no I think when he was when he had his surgery I'm I'm officially back so I've been back um and I I look forward to giving you update next meeting I guess excellent it's fine welcome back thank you I hope you're feeling good feeling great awesome looking Paul do you have a Wars I do uh between December 14th 2023 and January 10th 2024 I Paul Kendall authorized by my signature payables the amount of 1,126 n48 this includes general fund expenses of $727 N9 52 revolving expenses of $420 $42,715 and Grant expenses of $3,274 111 and meals tax expenses of $68 91 thank you do we have minutes we did we did just one set or just one okay because the date's not here on the agenda it was um December 13th okay thank you anybody have anything no want to make a motion to accept the minutes make a motion to accept the minutes from December 13 2023 second or I move too sorry all in favor I I do we have gifts and donations we do so I've got a a little list so bear with me uh $100 to the helping our own fund from Alison cognetti cognetti uh bright funds $200 for gifts and Don for EDP ashin PTO $243 for the grade S field trip Rebecca Williams $50 to helping our own fund the me family $11,000 for helping our own fund the jrom family $50 for helping our own fund Planet aid $27.90 for miscellaneous GI donation turncliff family $100 for helping our own fund then Maguire family $2500 for helping our own fund and Roberta and Juan Flores $50 for helping our own fund for a total of $672 3.90 thank you for all those generous donations do we have a motion to accept them so moved second all in favor I I um member updates I have no idea uh hold on seems like it's been a while since we've been here yeah let me let me look at my calendar last me was roal so that probably makes it yep um let's see what what what's happened um yeah I don't know there's been a there's been things we we're actually having a we're giving a tour to another District uh of Mendes tomorrow um and I know there's a bunch of other things but I didn't I've not gone back to my calendar and a look but so yeah I have no update since our last meeting Ash pack I believe is next week though I'm going to have to double check with my calendar um it and yeah me and you observed a budget meeting yeah oh that's right yeah so we had thank you for reminding me of that Lori and I had the opportunity to to sit in and observe um one of the administrative budget meetings and it's always I know I've always known how much work goes into this before it comes to the school committee and how many different layers um there are to but it was nice to be able to kind of you know see the process and see all of the you know the collective Brain Trust if you will of our administrators come together to identify the needs and figure out um you know some of what we need obviously this was only one of a million meetings that they all have together but it was nice to be able to to to watch the process and hear their conversation so thank you for including us in that perfect thank you and I don't have anything to add besides that um so I will take a motion to adjourn motion to adjourn second all in favor I I thank you everyone have a good night have a good night

they're playing against Dartmouth we had 100 tickets available and they have all sold out um we were trying to get more tickets but it was going to be in a different section and it it just wasn't worked out but um so thank you to everybody who purchased the tickets the tickets will be available well at will call at the arena um Ski Club ski club was supposed to start uh yesterday but because of that weather it was postponed back by a week so other things we have coming up in the future um our sweetheart dance is being planned for February 9th um that the planning for that's underway um we're also going to be looking to give a valentine popsical for the students um probably on Valentine's Day we're working out the details for that and our next two P PTO meetings are on January 18th and February 15th thank you okay thank you very much public comment policy uh 1 120 in the bylaw what that means is that this is the public comment uh section you're allowed to come up state your name your address you have 3 minutes to um uh to discuss what you want to discuss it's not a back and forth it is a uh an opportunity for somebody to bring something to the board's attention and if it needs action we will uh distribute it to the appropriate parties so anybody here from the public want to come up and say anything going once going twice sold committee reports excuse me approval of minutes approval of December 13 uh minutes has anybody taking a look at them you need a couple of minutes does anybody have any changes comments or author I'll make a motion to approve them as they printed Angelo and who seconded Amy Amy can I just ask for a no the uh under new business okay we were post we table the policies and discussion to a future meeting after the new policy committee is formed so is that coming back to does that mean that it's coming back to the policy committee on their agenda what's that the under new business minutes okay K's not in yes okay it's just Robert's Rules of Order gets technical on this I'm just trying to make sure that it's just a matter of semantics on language okay I was just looking to clarify what that meant that it's coming back to the policy committee foron yeah it's got to come back to the policy committee that was the idea we had talked about this and I'll get to that briefly when we go through the Committees okay we'll discuss that I just want to make sure I understood what it meant no it's so we have a motion on the floor in a second any any further discussion all in favor I unanimous all right committee reports we'll start with Finance Amy okay finance committee met last night um if you take a look in your packet at the operating budget summary as of December 2023 you'll see under general education salary and Ben benefit projections remain status quo from last month general education supplies is showing a slight deficit of $ 5,478 due to the purchase of additional iPads and increased cost of some some software renewals general education is now showing a surplus of special education still has a surplus of $441 15 under operations and overhead you will see there is a slight change in the estimated deficit to services and that is due to the purchase of a new time sheet platform all the other accounts under the section remain status quo operation and overhead ends the month with a deficit of $652 which is slightly higher than last month this brings us down to the bottom where we show the overall budget is now showing a surplus of $73,500 and this is still largely due to savings found in salaries and benefits as had been requested Brandy modified the table uh at the bottom of your page that will show for the prek account and the 10 248a funded account under prek the starting balance uh in July was $6,450 so far we've spent $4 44,7 46 for salaries and supplies after some encumbrance adjustments and deposited an additional $ 27516 for tuition payments so this leaves prek with a bank balance of roughly $64,000 46273 and that is as of 123123 for our 10 248a our our rainy fund day account our rainy day fund account um we started the year with the balance of $369,990 74 we've expended $1,987 197 and that was for salaries Pavilion work and new classroom supplies and then we deposited 82,2 19788 that deposit includes the $78,000 Surplus that we had voted on from our 2223 uh school year and the interest accured on that so far so now as of 123123 this gives us roughly $349,450 in the 10248 a account Brandy reported that she's going to begin her midyear scrub of all accounts in the next week or so and hopes to have a more accurate budget projection for the finance committee at our March meeting um Brandy also reported that the audit for the 22 and 23 uh school year has finally been completed and all issues that had Arisen between the Boe and town have been SED and all the issues that had been SED in the past excuse me have been corrected and there were not any additional items flagged for this year and the EFS report that she has to submit has been audited and certified without errors or need for adjustments and then um Mrs bird was going to go through a detailed budget presentation with the finance committee but it was just myself and John Paul so um I had a six son so downfall was nice therefore we opted to not do that and we'll all wait for her presentation this evening any questions I just want to make one comment that uh I think the way that the operating budget summary has finally been set up you're to be commended Brandy I think this is finally it's something that's easily read does anybody and if anybody on the commission has any um modifications or improvements they want to make to how we present information please say something because when we started doing this 10 years ago it was almost impossible to understand it now it's relatively simple and it's it's it's visual on top of it and I think you know Brandy and Kay and everybody involved in getting this thing together so that it's now straight like the um the reny day account account I mean it's easy to understand what we have what we did and so I think you guys would be commended thank you but if anybody has any changes that they want to make to the paperwork on how it's presented please say something okay we're just trying to make it easier so everybody understands what we've got and where we're going with it all right so that being done um I'll move that we accept the report of the finance chair second Sean all in favor unanimous uh now regarding the other committees we presented a list to everybody of the various committees who is involved who is chair and what your meeting is does anybody have any um Corrections they would like to make any comments they would like to make uh do somebody want to be on a committee that they're not on do somebody not want to be on a committee they are on you know speak now or forever hold your peace I have a question uh negotiations you have um only two people on it is that because your for chair is typically the third is it I'm on all the committees as but more importantly negotiation were're just completed we're in the first year of a three-year contract we shouldn't have to do anything for at least two years two years AJ yeah two years so um the idea that the negotiations would be meeting you know much before next year I don't know they I don't think so I think it's a wasted effort yeah I don't think there's much coming up unless something unusual comes up other contracts need to be negotiated for another two years which is a nice thing so does anybody um is everybody happy with what they've got is everybody uh does anybody want to jump does anybody want to change speak now or forever holds your piece well then I'll have K is going to uh put together a uh meeting date to get that done and you know we should have hit that first right about Donna I apologize let's Okay that's that's done but um one very important uh we have a new member Donna sitting here has agreed to um take on the role of uh secretary so that alleviates from you uh that uh the need to take minutes and you just have to review what Donna does so welcome aboard thank you and uh she'll be working with Kay and uh she'll be taking minutes oky doie anybody have any issues questions comments okay thank you Don thank you you welcome aboard thank you so no other the Committees have met yet K will'll put together a proposed meeting dates publish them and we'll get started unless somebody's got something hot on on the uh on the item that they want to discuss okay uh unfinished business none new business Boe meeting dates for the town clerk those have to be published so they are included in your packet uh right after the um Financial breakdown and they are is January 10th February 14th March 13th April 10th May 8th June 12th July 10th August 14th September 11th October 9th November 13th December 11th and then we include the January 88th 2025 meeting so these have to be published um so that uh it's normally the uh the second Wednesday at 6:30 does anybody propose a change somebody want to see 6:00 5:30 you know midnight anybody Now's the Time if we if if somebody's got got something that they want to you know let's discuss it now or again forever hold your piece all right then I need a motion to uh approve the board dates as presented through January of through January 8th motion approve Jo second I'll second Amy second all in favor hi unanimous all right now to the me of the meeting superintendent's proposed spending plan I have a question before you start is there a reason why there's 12 copies journey in here just am I missing something oh you already made cop so what happened was I made the copies and I gave them to Donna to include in the packet when she made the copies and so I had the set of copies for everyone at the table gotcha so like please don't tell Matt Brer that we did that that's okay I just sure I wasn't Miss yeah there must be something different it's all the one thing different I I don't mean to be I don't mean to be uh to be critical but this doesn't bode [Laughter] well very good catch didn't she all right where we have to Mo you might want to move to the side Mr we need to call your assist here [Music] there it is all right Don's gonna click in for me yeah so good evening everyone and thank you for coming to the annual budget show so we'll get started Donna if you would so for the new board members um I thought it would be important for you all to kind of understand what the budget development processes um and kind of remind those of us who have been on the board for a while or you have been on the board I just come to the meetings um so as you can see from the timeline on the slide we started our budget process in September thank you to Brandy for setting a timeline that ensures that we stay on target um we had a goal of getting everything done and set before the holiday break and we were able to accomplish that this year um because this is not a new process by any stretch of the imagination it's a process that we've had here in the district for quite some time and quite honestly it just works for us so the Board of Ed received a budget development update from me over the course of the last few months we've talked about it in finance um we've talked about it here in this meeting so this is the official presentation I will be making um this presentation to the board of Finance thank you m uh Dr Lane for correcting that uh in the last weekly I had put that the original date of January 29th was when I was going to go before the board of Finance m co Francesco has let me know that that has been moved and now I will be going on Friday at 3:00 so uh for those who want to come see this again uh I'll be in front of the board of Finance February 2nd at 3:00 um and hopefully then the board will adopt the budget it's a little out of order from What U most places are it's just because of the timing of the board of Finance typically the budget would be approved by the board um this is my superintendent spending proposal um hopefully in February if you like what you see you'll adopt it as your board of education budget so right now it's just my spending proposal Donna people often ask for the why uh Excellence for all and bile that's the tagline of our district strategic plan um in order to achieve the Excellence that we've committed to um in terms of supporting curriculum instruction culture climate and Community engagement and Future Ready facilities this is why we are passing uh hoping to pass the bud that I'm presenting to you this evening Donna and again I know I talk fast sometimes so if there's anything you want me to repeat or slow down Sean will tell me all right so in addition to the wise that we have in our budget we have other key budget drivers um there's always you know we try to have that through line between what we're looking to accomplish in our strategic plan our goal of Excellence for all and by all to these other drivers that you see on the screen there is that interconnectedness between all of these things so factors driving our budget always begin with salaries and benefits these are contractual factors based on negotiations student need and other efficiencies that we try to find class size we take a look at historical data and enrollment projections to set class size predictions and strive to stay within the board's policy on class size as best we can as you know from previous reporting our enrollment continues to grow Bethany is the place where people want to live and raise their children and educate them and we're very proud of that um unfortunately sometimes that causes little hiccups because more children require more needs uh require more costs because of needs and sometimes that means extra sections in order for us to have those lower class sizes that we pride oursel on having technology as a district we remain committed to staying Forward Thinking in the area of technology which is by the way not just purchasing new Chromebooks each year this includes additional resources to support student growth in areas such as coding and other stem Pursuits which we're now seeing an uptick in um because of our Design Lab and the work that's being done with Mrs Stokes and Mr defasio special education state and federal mandates along with student IEPs Drive our costs in the area of special education students needs change unexpectedly and often and because of that budgeting for them can be challenging and can be quite expensive we give it our best projections based on the information that we have on the children here in the school at that time curriculum putting the right tools and resources in the hands of our teachers and students is Paramount to good teaching and learning we also need a suite of interventions and Inter enrichment resources to help those students who require extra support or additional challenge supplies pretty basic we have to determine instructional Supply costs we start at zero consider what we have in stock and then determine what we need and where we can obtain them at the best competitive prices I love a good coupon utilities as many of you know from the rising cost of utilities that continues to be a challenge as we move forward um Brandy has done some great work over the last year to make sure that we're always staying on top of getting the latest and greatest rates that are going to be uh more in our favor and we work very closely with the town on that our facilities through the years we've been able to successfully fund several building and ground projects to maintain our facilities and keep them updated this remains a constant in any budget in order for students to learn and for staff to teach we need to provide them a safe and clean environment that is conducive to those things and Mr Fallon and his team are uh right on top of that transportation we have an obligation to transport our students to and from school and we're Bound by contract negotiations for this service as a reminder or for information for those of you who are near the board Bethany Woodbridge and Amity not orange negotiate one contract with Transportation providers and we're very grateful for those Partnerships that we have with our transportation team because many of them are uh local drivers health and wellness uh remains a focus of our district because our goal is to address the needs of the whole child uh in order to increase their opportunities to be successful unfunded mandates you hear me talk about that a lot at the close of each legislative session local education agencies must plan for any new unfunded mandates and there are often a lot which may or may not impact our budget most recently you've heard us talk at nauseum about the K3 reading programs which thankfully will not impact our budget because of our success with the waiver so once we look at all of those drivers we then look for ways to try to find uh balance with any other challenges that might be kind of coming our way our goal is to always create a budget that is fiscally responsible to our community and the ability to fund education while striving to meet the needs of all of our students and our staff Donna all right the journey I know you don't like to be kept with in nobody wants to be in suspense you have 12 copies in your packet of this very same slide um so starting with the contractual uh benefit obligations that we had for level Services we began this process at 8.11% increase Which is higher than we were last year last year our starting increase was 4.49 we went up to a summit of 959 which was again significantly higher than last year which peaked at 7.96 with what we thought would be our final destination at a 6 .62 however at the end of December we were notified of another Grant thank you Cheryl and Janice Howard that we received which would continue to cover the cost of our boost program which is a program for students that receive intervention the acquisition of these funds is what gets us to land at our current requested increase of 5.44% which again is higher than last year but please keep in mind that this budget starting number was higher than last year's starting number because it included the additional teacher for the extra section in grade six and the additional teacher which we added afterwards that came from the 10-4 248a account for the additional section of kindergarten so there's two extra teachers in this budget that we didn't have to have in last year's budget at our starting so that also contributes to why we started out much higher uh this year than last year what are the costs of just those two teachers by themselves the teachers by themselves not necessarily because of their salary but salaries and benefits it's about $100,000 per person um that impacts the bud almost half increase trust yeah and then our contractual obligation what are contract yeah so it's also worth noting that um the increase for certified staff is $234,990 increase for certified staff or a 3.12% increase to the overall budget so the teacher contract has an impact the overall budget of about 57% of what I'm proposing so I'm proposing to you a 5.44 increase in the budget 57% of that is teacher contract contract but not necessarily those two new teachers or with with those two new teachers y all all of the friends are in are in the pool okay so that 235,000 is 100,000 for teachers what was the contractual cost the contractual increase for teachers is $234,999 over what last year's was right that was what they raises in plus two teachers yes so it's all things okay I'm going to get to that so hit the button Donna so the total increase is$ 40, 423 or 5.44% the reason why the math may not be mathing for you right now in your head is because we have Grant offsets so when we do the grant offsets you're not going to see the full increase of the teacher cont contract on the budget because of we're a the fact that we're able to offset so many other departments with all the grants that we write okay so Donna just some additional context to the conversation as you look you can see from our slide enrollment continues in the 400s we're at 450 to be exact and we've come a long way since the dips that we saw in 2017 2020 um again since Co during the peak of the pandemic people were moving into communities like Bethany cuz we're great and now you know they keep coming but we feel as though we're starting to level off um I've not been able to get exact numbers and there's a couple of factors I'll go into a little bit later um with the numeration I'm working with Mr Bron over at town hall to talk about that but there's some impacts on what we had projected for numbers for this year bless you uh prior because of the change in kindergarten legislation and some other things so we'll we'll touch up one of the interesting things you can see from this graph is that uh you you see where Co hit in 2021 and the increase in the uh in the number of kids from 376 to 415 then the other joke is in 2024 you can see what was going on in 2021 all those kids that were conceived in 2020 2021 and outcoming due yeah but uh it's an interesting graph because it shows how we dipped to the uh into 2017 and then stayed pretty pretty even for about six years and then all of a sudden when Co hit it really sent the real estate markets really not caused people to move in and we have what we have yeah and so as I said currently we're working on the actual projections for next year but what I'm going to show you on the next slide is that the larger the grade levels some of the larger grade levels are moving out of the system because we have a large sixth grade class they're moving out but they're being followed by another large fifth grade class so what I've done and I don't want anyone to panic okay not yet Don don't click the button but when I click the button you're going to see a projected enrollment slide all I've been able to do up until this point because again we've got to still do some things next month as a board figure out what we want to do about kindergarten entry with the age change I've just rolled up the current classes into their next grade level okay so when you see the numbers on the next slide it may you're going to see that like in fifth grade classes will be a size of 26 that's only because I have not adjusted the the number of sections I've merely rolled up the grade the number of students in each grade level we currently have the capacity and I don't want any teachers who are here or listening to freak out we currently have the capacity within our staff to adjust for sections so that we can get to those class sizes that we want so when Donna clicks the button Don't Panic okay when you see the slides and you see 77 kids for fifth grade 26 students in the class we don't need to add another teacher to the budget right unless something drastically Chang and more of those families from that 20 2021 busyness come um we're in good shape it's just a matter of we might need to shift and adjust some teachers at different grade level show them the which we always do I said Donna but she didn't she missed the queue Donna so this is what it looks like so currently we have four sections of kindergarten right we had a large kindergarten class we had 56 students we felt that that was too much to have for those Littles in that year so we added a fourth kindergarten this year we still have four sections we might want to take one of those those sections and roll it up into the first grade we have the capacity to do that same thing with where you see that there are four sections of fourth grade we have the capacity to roll one of those teachers up to fifth grade teachers if you're listening I'm not saying anyone's going anywhere I'm just saying we have the capacity message for the ones that are listening I don't want them to blow up Kim's phone um so this is kind of where we are with Productions we're still growing but we still have capacity to just move people around I'm not looking to add another teacher I think that would be fiscally irresponsible for me to try to pad the budget with an extra human just in case again if something drastically happens and changes within our enrollment we do still have access to the 10-2 48a account so I would rather come back to you and say 20 more families moved in they're all in fifth grade we're definitely going to need another section I don't want to put that into the budget I would rather say may I please go to the 10- 248a and pull out the necessary money for that new teacher okay and that's exactly why we have that fun correct correct Donna a all right what you see next are the Departments so after we look at enrollment and all of that we go into looking at each of our departments the BCS budget came in a bit higher this year Mr Reed sale after remaining flat for the last couple years Tom asked for an additional $780 I'm working with him on that one um but that's because of consumables subscriptions more kids more materials right it's just kind of basic uh the Board of Education Randy and Donna worked uh together to review all the accounts with me to identify any of those needs that account has uh decreased part of that reduction is because of some changes in software platforms but also Legal Services last year we had a greater number of dollars in that bucket for Legal Services because we knew we were negotiating contracts we don't have to do that for this year we've gone back to the you know line item uh amount that we had prior to negotiations the curriculum Department uh requested an increase for professional development for software and I want to say a lot of the PD increases aren't just you know we have Cheryl here and she lik likes to do all kinds of new things I mean she does but most of what she's asked for is because of some of these unfunded mandates that have come newly legislated trainings for staff that we didn't know until July 1 that we were going to have to do they continue to do that to us so that mean that related to the reading material that we're required to purchase or is that coming from W yes and no so what she asked for was what we thought we were going to need but then as again you said it the waiver the grand offsets you'll see how these numbers look really high but then they come down because of the grant increases so same thing with facilities all of our service provider contracts have gone up It software more networks more kids more Chromebooks more more kids with Chromebooks more licenses all of those things are going into uh the request for these numbers same thing around with special education increase in numbers okay so the total increase from what all of the Departments asked for um coming into this budget is $16,300 okay okay that development that's only for the school right like so I'm thinking about some of those mandates about board members being trained and things like that that's going to potentially have a cost so to is that a different line item we yes those line those uh costs go into the Board of Education the Boe central office so any of your the cave membership uh the trainings going to the conference all of those things that uh is reflected in the Board of Education a district office line item it's not part of the school line thank you for that question so even though Department um budgets overall have increased by 11638 to it's less than the $159 $159,600 from last year but it is what brought our budget up to 99.59% so Donna all right you've heard me talk about the grant funding that's the next part of our process uh as you know I've said it for the last six years love a good Grant right we apply for and rece receive a lot of revenue from lots of different Grant sources the information on this slide reflects some of those grant funding streams that we've received dollars from uh over the last 6 seven years so idea 611 and idea 619 those are special education grants so th those are dollars that they give us to offset the cost of our special education program Title One and title two those are grants for uh they look at our number of students who receive free and reduced lunch students who receive intervention and those are entitlement grants that we have to apply for or from the state they give us funding to support things like uh intervention and such title three are dollars that we receive for our multilingual multilingual Learners so our our El students um Miss Kel's able to apply for dollars to help support the cost for educating those students title four is an enrichment Grant um as you've heard you know we like to do lots of different creative and Innovative things with our students here that's with the title for is open choice or the dollars that we receive for the students that come to Bethany from New Haven Jamie H is a private funded uh grant that we apply for that um supports a lot of the Arts programs so when they do um magic story book and when we do our drama club we apply for Grants from the Jamie Holly fund to offset the cost of providing those programs to our students the rural education achievement program Grant is a Federal grant that we receive um that's a grant that you can apply for for for professional learning and Staffing um to the federal government um because we're a small rural School Co relief or grand dollars that we receive for the last several years same thing with Esser ARP Esser we were told last year there were no more of those dollars to go around um but then lo and behold they keep sending out applications for programs and grants funded by ARP eser dollars so that's the very same grant that you heard me mention a moment ago that Cheryl Kel and Janice Howard wrote that will Now cover for yet another year of of our boost program Donna so historically since 2017 you have you can see how our grant uh funding has ticked up that always works out in our favor last year we received $276.5 in grant funding it does look from this slide like we have a dip in our grant funding but the year is not over don't count us out okay so that's just our historical grant funding Donna in total over the last uh several years since 2017 we have received 3,557 $17.79 in grant funding so we're pretty proud of that so what do we do with that grant funding so we're able to lower our projected or proposed budget amounts based on the number of dollars that we currently have in hand because most of these grants span two years so we try to be really judicious in our expenditures of these grants so we know that we always have a little bit of money to help bring down any of the cost that we are anticipating for the coming year um but we can't say that we're going to use all of our 611 Grant because we don't know what's going to happen next year and we don't know if they're going to fund us at the same level especially with special education funding is kind of messy so what you see on the screen here are all of the different grants that we were able to access what they're used for and how we're able to lower the budget so using all of these Grant offsets we're able to save $23,750 from our proposed Grant uh from our proposed uh spending increase that's another piece that gets us from that 959 got us down to that 652 Donna and then usually I'm able to stand before you and say and we're waiting on our insurance cost and our insurance cost has gone down because they've finally given us our our our insurance number we don't have our final numbers on insurance as of yet but working with Brandy and from our meeting with uh our good friends over at town hall we have a not to exceed is number usually they say like don't exceed 9.5 or 8% so we budgeted at that 8% for the increase in Insurance knowing that they're going to more than likely come in with a number that's going to go low lower not higher but lower um so there should be additional savings to the budget um which will hopefully bring that 5.44 down a little bit lower and I'll hopefully have that information before we come back for the uh presentation or your vote hopefully in February but as of right now keeping it level from what it was last year so that kind of kept us at that 6.62 and then Donna you're going to see the journey again click it again sorry those 12 pages I think you might oh yeah this one is a slightly different slide it's not a 12 pager that you have in in a handout it's just that uh you see how we were at a much higher um lesser rate sorry we had lesser Grant dollars to offset before we got the ARP Grant so before we received that Grant literally right before vacation we were saving $223,700 boost program offset were able to save $286,700 uh from the budget Donna you're doing a good job Capital Improvements uh we know that we have a 5-year strategic goal uh in our strategic plan this year we didn't propose any Capital Improvements we have just really focused on getting all of the information we need for our HVAC assessment working on some Roofing projects and the facilities committee will be working on helping to develop a real plan once we have a a deeper understanding once we have a deeper understanding of what it is we need to help bring our facilities forward so we're not proposing any Capital Improvements for this budget uh that I'm proposing to you now because we'd I ideally like to get in on the next wave of Grants and and some other things so that if we do have larger projects we have grants to pay for them and we don't have to go to the town for dollars Donna all right budget history sorry it's a little small to see but what you can see here is just the trajectory of the budgets proposed budgets for the last 11 years um this year as I said is a little bit higher and those are the dollar amounts so last year the approved budget was 7,538 5955 with a 3.58 increase over the previous year this year what we're looking for is$ 7,949 next slide Donna and this is the same information just in a percentage so you can see over the uh course of the last 11 years or so where we've gone we had those two flat years we've had some low years um and again the difference between the 3.58 increase last year and the 5.44% increase this year is largely due to the very well-deserved teacher contract if I do say so myself not that anybody asked Donna again more students increased costs so so Donna all right and that's what I have for you all uh proposing a 7, 94918 budget uh which is a $410,500 23 increase or 5.44 uh% and just lastly for some additional context the current rate of inflation is at 3.14% compared to the 3.24% last month and 7.1 won 1% last year there'll be some new data of course tomorrow um and the Connecticut Association of business officers which we call casbo is reporting an average of 5 a half to 6% for most budget requests this year some districts are coming in as low as 3.5% or as high as 8.83 per.

thank you so much for being here

in districts with greater increases many of those increases are due to either the negotiation of a new teachers contract or they fell off the arpa Esser spending Cliff meaning they used all their dollars to go go into salaries and personnel and now if they want to keep their classrooms staffed with great teachers they have to find a way to pay for it so um and again before I take any questions I'd just like to thank the leadership team the department heads for their due diligence in developing the budgets that seek efficiencies they're fiscally responsible while at the same time we don't compromise in the quality of Education or student support here in Bethany Cheryl Kel our director of special services curriculum and instruction and her administrative assistant Liz harsh Tom Reed Swale principal at BCS Jackie nathman the climate instruction specialist the school secretary Denise Sheek Val trudan Brandy Spargo business manager extraordinaire Don richardi food service coordinator Boe clerk your new Administrative Assistant Kevin Fallon and his entire facilities team Linda saffron Matt Bruder Chris y yigu Puma um I appreciate each of your uh support I'm grateful to the unwavering commitment you make to our students our staff and our town when preparing your budgets and for what you do in the district every day questions I know it was fast and it was a lot but I'm here no I think the first thing what does any have a question but the second thing is does everybody understand what we have where we started where we ended up and does anybody feel the need to have a workshop to go over this stuff in the past that's always been an option but that's why we try to start this thing with in September and the problem with having the elections in November means that we're now bringing people on in the middle of the of of this process so sometimes the the new people don't get up to the speed in time but um I think this is pretty straightforward but this is a committee of nine so if anybody feels there's additional information that they would like to see they have question questions um you know let's get it out and you know maybe somebody missed something I will say this much the 5.44% increase you had asked a question before three change of that is the new teachers contracts which is appropriate yeah I'm not denying that I'm just saying that you have to understand that you know you don't need to understand the people need to understand that that is well but that's why I'm I'm I'm I'm reiterating that because it's a very important point you know there's been there's been discussion about we don't pay our teachers enough well they renegotiated the contract I think everybody's happy with that contract I haven't heard anything yet and so that's what the results of that contract are coupled with the increase in students we're not doing too badly but if anybody wants to have a workshop on this you know that's it's up to there's nine of us here it's not my decision to make it's everybody's decision to make okay can we just have a quick like a recap for everybody um the process now you're going to the board of finance committee on February 2nd but you know where that goes when we're expected potentially to vote all yes so uh as I said at the beginning I will be going with John and anyone else who wants to come and sit in the audience we'll be presenting this as the superintendent's spending proposal um the only reason that we're presenting it as a superintendent spending proposal is because the timing of the Town Board of Finance meeting um to get this information about our budget is before your next scheduled Board of Education meeting um in any other time and space ideally it would be I would come back before you see if there's any questions if there's any other information put this before you for a board vote so you're not going to vote on it tonight you have time to think about it but I'd put it before you for a board vote if the board votes to accept the superintendent spending proposal it then becomes the board of education budget and again if timing were in a different order then the board chair and myself would then go to the board of Finance present this budget see if they had any questions or any feedback for us about things that they wanted to see changed attitude whatever um and then we would come back and we work it if we needed to um that again is not the case this year I'll go to present it to them uh as not your budget but as my spending proposal that I presented to you that hopefully you'll approve in February that information will be provided to them following that all of our budget information gets rolled up into the town budget and then we don't really have anything to do with it until we have the town meeting in May or later in the spring um when the whole board budg uh The Whole Town's budget goes before the community for for a vote and approval see and that's why I I made the the the I threw it out there that we have a month excuse me please we have a month if somebody feels that there's information that they need um or they wanted we've had workshops and we haven't had them in in a long time uh because the material presented is been uh been pretty straightforward distinct there's really not a lot of wiggle room so to speak I mean it's not a uh it's it's I just want to remind you of something because you said it goes to the prior to that in April we will excuse me just for a second um the first select woman would like to say something I just want to remind you there a step entire budget goes to a public Hearing in April prior to everything being approved in May the annual meeting okay thank you I skipped that part miss one step but if if there's information that people want or if there's something they think is missing or if they want to question it we have a month if you want to have a workshop but it's up to you guys I have a question I don't feel the need for a workshop personally but I know there's still a lot of uncertainty about the kindergarten change for next year how if at all is that reflected in this budg so it's reflected by leaving that section um for kindergarten right now if we looked at the projected numbers they were in the 50s from what um had been previously projected a year and a half ago um I'm working with Mr Brinton over at town hall to see how many of those students that were in that projected enumeration for kindergarten actually meet the September one cut off and how many do not um it was in the town bulletin and we have received six so far families who would be interested in learning about the process for writing the appeal having their child evaluated to see if they'd be appropriate for kindergarten um some of those children have birthdays that are September 2nd some of them have birthdays that are at the end of December um so and kind of a few in between so right now um I have met with the kindergarten teachers you know they said worst things worst case scenario every every body comes into kindergarten we still wouldn't need necessarily need four classes we would need three but if we have we find we have a lot of those students who have those later birthdays we might want to use that four section to keep those numbers low because we have those kids who just kind of made it in uh by the Skin of Their Teeth so that's where we are and again I hope to have more information on that when I get the information from Mr Brenton I won't you know wait until the board meeting I'll provide that to you in an update any other questions I don't have any questions about the budget two things one one of the slides you showed provided information about how much on a yearly basis we get in Grants but you had said not to Discount yet because the year's not over so can we um like in the May meeting get like a recap on how much we've received and see how close we get to last that was one but two um having work with EJ and when Dr Pinter was on the board on the negotiations and we had a town representative here um and everybody here I think agrees the teachers needed the money that the contract that we put together and voted on to put through um strengthens in numbers so I really um suggest highly to all the Board of Ed members here all nine of us to try to get to the April hearing because I have a feeling knowing how there are residents in this town who complain about the fact that education is so much now we're coming in at an even higher number um I I think it's just for showing support of what we did for our teachers for our community for our school if we're all there to have a presence so once the date is available and is put out in the bulletin if we can all try to be there I mean we'll be there working but I mean as Board of bed members I think to make a bigger showing it could really make a big impact to make people see we did what we did it was a right thing to do because I guarantee someone's going to get up and have an issue with it which is how it always is thank you that's a valid point but the budget don't forget the budget is still in flux this could very well you know if our insurance cost if our insurance costs come back uh astronomical which a lot of people are getting you know wakeup call bills you know this could very easily become 6 and a half% 7% it could just as easily go down a little bit more so um you know this is the best guess at this stage in our lives yeah I mean his what have we been running for I mean for surpluses every year somewhere in the area 300,000 correct yeah that's a real number that's a huge dent on that that 410,000 and if you add in we lose grants you're almost $900,000 we got to come up with just need to be mindful of all that so it are all these grants that come in are are very valuable to your budget yes and uh is they go in perpetuity I mean is there any danger of you know have you heard anything that besides the covid-19 things right the only grants that don't kind of exist in perpetuity right now are the ARP Esser grants Title 9 is money is federal um title n idea 611 619 those are federal dollars that come into the state and then the state you know allows you to apply for a certain amount of dollars same thing with the title 1 2 3 and four so those are those are grants that are existing in in the sense that they come from the federal government into the state and then districts can apply uh for those grants the Jamie hly Grant those are again um grants that we use to support the Arts programs with the school and those grants it's really contingent upon how much they R in their fundraising each year um that they can allocate to districts um and again the ARP Esser grants are the only grants that you know they keep telling us there's no more money there's no more money and then Boop there's an extra you know $600,000 that districts can apply for for this program that program uh the other the open Choice dollars those dollars were only eligible for so long as we have open Choice students that attend the school so it you know you have some HVAC stuff coming up and that would be from which kind of grant that you could get some money for them those would be from the Department of it's D what is that in stand right out of my head it's not an educational grant it's from a different branch within the government do you remember what that is Services Department of administrative Services sounds good but it's it's a different it's a different arm of of the government so they're not education all right because I thought there were there was specifically uh grants for schools that you have to go through the department of administrative services oh really yeah okay so they control education when you when you apply for school funding to build a new school that goes through the educ the Das Department of they control the construction for the state of Connecticut and they have a uh school department that handles school um construction and so if there's grants coming out to uh upgrade the HVAC units upgrade the windows upgrade the security Das handles it through the educa their through their education Construction Services Department okay all right so it has nothing to do with the S funds no with what the Esser funds no no it's a different there's it's it's a different department okay those to correct me if from wrong like those special education reimbursement grants that we get we get a percentage of what we apply for is that correct so we can't really if we apply for 100,000 we get 20,000 not not that not that low but yeah it's never fully funded we usually get about 70 to 75% back of what we hopeful we're hopeful that we get 70 but we could get less depending on how Rosy the financial out look of the state well it's two things really it's not just how Rosy the financial uh State of the State is it's also the students that you have in your district and what you're expending because in order to qualify for excess cost you have to spend four and a half times the amount for a particular student um and so as students come in students go out you know we might have a particular year where we have a lot of students that we're spending extra dollars on because of the services that they need if that student graduates we no longer have that you know return on investment if you will um for the cost of those special education dollars so it really depends on the kids that we have in the seats there there's definitely been leaner years when I first came to Bethany we didn't get a lot of dollars in excess costs but we weren't also putting out lots of dollars on special education so and we also had a couple of one year we had a couple of Heavy Hitters we had a couple of student I think two students were accounting for like $250 or $275,000 and cost um Ju Just two students yeah we've had students that were outplaced that's and that's what you have to deal with you know this is all the problem with the special education budget because some years it's some years it's here and you really have no way to allow for that because you don't know who's coming into the system how many how many special education students do we have this year kisel we have about 91 right now it's increased yeah a couple years ago there were 63 you know that's a question I always ask because that's a big unknown know in the budget process is in August if a kid enrolls who's a very you know uh who who whose needs are you know you may have to bring in a nurse you may have to bring in no one knows what that number looks like thankfully we do get a lot of that as reimbursement but it's never 100% no else okay thank you so I'll ask it one more time does anybody think that we need more information uh any additional breakdowns anything now is the time to do it all right then sold American we now have our marching orders okay thank you all right administrative reports well look it's me again well wait a second before we go into that um we're not everybody seriously everybody's happy with what was presented um no one sees any holes no one has any questions okay administrative report superintendent all right so my report this month is rather short um again in your packet you should only find one copy of this particular document uh it's the enrollment summary for 2021 2022 22 23 uh this year we started the year with 445 students as of December 31st 2023 our enrollment is currently at 450 students we gained five additional students this month uh Personnel uh following staff of resigned from The Physician and and Katherine harzog the special education teacher will be transitioning to another District in February um the administration is working to hire the replacement for her and they are also in the process of interviewing candidates for our open fourth grade position my report question so other than two two uh two teachers were fully staffed we still have um the opening I'm sorry there is one other one it's the part-time custodian Mr Fallon is uh got a finalist coming to meet tomorrow at 10 o'clock so we might be fully staff in the custodial Department how many do we have now we have two three fulltime and part time custodian so we're filling the part-time custodian position uh speaking of the parttime speaking of the custodian have uh somebody asked it last month uh oh Sean I read the report I wasn't really nice are you satisfied with what I'm good okay no it's I'm not trying to be factious I mean dead serious you got a question let's you know yeah no I was thrilled with that know little things is people have to feel safe and people want clean bathrooms in clean thing to operate it that's what they want and if they don't have those things they're never going to be happy so I was thrilled what I actually Mr F and his team are doing a great job yeah all right so that takes care of that Cheryl iron thank you um on Friday January 12th we will have uh different professional learning activities going on for teachers special education teachers will be working with literacy how on the topic of Dyslexia grade five and six Math teachers will be continuing their work on problem solving and a few grade levels be reviewing student data results Specialists will be working on the standards in their curriculum and under curriculum uh students started the midyear benchmark assessments uh this week and the teachers will be reviewing this data to determine any areas and of need needs and strength and Grant update we plan to use the $74,000 grant related to our reading waiver to add to vocabulary and comprehension modules to our amplifi platform we've had access to parts of the module because amplify is currently used in the district and fortunately it's one of the state approved programs teachers already have um had some professional development for the portion um for portions of the module and um we would just need to pay uh for the additional parts of the module the grant will cover all the expenses and will not have an impact on the budget at all uh will also be in compliant with the State Department of Education in area of special education planning is underway for our extended school year program you may have heard it as esy summer school for new members this is a program where students who are identified as students with a disability who require Services over the summer so we're in the process of planning that now any questions so there there was something thing that you had to get back about the reading waiver and I might have missed it in what you said I had to get back um the state gave you a waiver but you need to add resources we the other day the C the um orange and Woodbridge didn't get their waivers correct I think that's what she's asking about no no I got that but didn't you have to add something on they said oh you're you're you're okay but you need to just do one more so so what Miss Kel explained is that we have um the amplify program already here in our district okay we hadn't been paying for the vocabulary portion we' kind of done our own homegrown version of vocabulary and when they said you need to strengthen your vocabulary pieces of your your reading program amplify is one of the programs that they're saying is approved by the state to use you can only choose from one of the approved State programs so once we found out how much money they were going to give us well we already have it we just haven't been paying for it and if they're going to pay for it seems to be the easiest one to to choose since we already have amplifi in the district okay I think you said that I just couldn't yeah pull it out the narrative okay thank you any more questions or comments for for Cheryl all right Tom you're on um so we've again been really busy uh coming on the tail end of December we had our holiday toy drive that was a huge success uh those toys were donated to troop I and the youth Continuum uh the last week of December we had our spirit week for students and staff uh our staff did a secret snowflake uh Miss nathman and I went around um on Friday with a snack cart um in Lou of our uh December community meeting we had a holiday sing along on the 21st uh and we had several different holidays represented through songs um so we were really excited for that uh on the 22nd we had our annual uh Summit volleyball tournament congratulations Miss Walkin um The Victors uh so so we wearing that wearing that badge of honor quite proud uh and then um and then uh we started our winter Benchmark uh this week so we have those Benchmark windows for our assessments like I ready um and so we gave that initially in the fall we're giving it again now in the winter and then we'll be able to take a look through our data team process um and and our case reviews uh and really look at students and their progress and their um their growth towards their growth targets uh looking forward this month we've got our Winter concert coming up on the 17th next week uh we have our January community meeting scheduled for the 26th uh and our agenda is really full we're focusing on kindness and Martin Luther King day uh presentations will be brought by the kindergarten classes um as well as our MLL students will be presenting about their Heritage so we've got a lot of things uh that are coming up up for that community meeting um we're also working to schedule midyear goal meetings with uh certified staff as we get that Benchmark data in it really allows for staff to be able to look at the goals that they've set for this year here um and be able to take stock of where they are and what we can do to support as we move forward um and then we're currently in the planning stages for work around Black History Month in February women's History Month in March um and we're in discussions with uh Deb Sansone uh regarding drama club for this year so we've got a lot of things that we're working on as we move forward um you know we're can to plan those and get those set as we as we look to the end of the year thank you Tom anybody got any questions for Mr re whale I think I had it on my list to ask what if you dressed up for the snack cart was there a discussion costume there was there there was a costume the uh the hats were were a little undersized so we had to do a little bit of hat adjustment but there was definitely some costuming going on we we were elf Baristas this time so I'm sure miss nathman the next time we decide we will have new outfits so anybody else I I kind of got something down I don't know where this will fit in maybe can give some inl I greatly enjoy when the faculty come in and do presentations I don't know what the board's feeling is but me personally I'd like to see two teachers in two grades come once a month before the board take up a seat and tell us about what they do let's hear their gripes let's hear what's going on in the sixth grade let's hear what's going on in the fifth grade let's hear it right from our teachers is that something we could inter entertain if the teachers are willing well there's nine of us what do you feel I that's I mean I I like when the teachers come in it's pretty enlightening to what's going on in the building the the question if they're interested in doing it so so it' be a request that the board would make of me and then I would take it to the teachers union and see if there's an I was going to say one of the things you have to first off you have to find a couple of people that want to come in on their time off and I think it may be a great idea um I don't know what anybody else thinks I think it's a it's an excellent suggestion but I think it's also an inconvenience on the part of the teachers and they're going to want to have to do it I think we could make a motion to extend an invitation yeah it's I have no problem if you want to do it as a motion or just do it as a you know the board consensus that we would like to have a discussion I have a an upcoming meeting in in February and we can bring it up at that meeting it it's really cool when they come in and they do the presentations they're just informative and you pull out the little details of what's going on the life and let's give them a seat at the table let's we'll we'll present it to the teachers and we'll see what we can do yes I think it's a great idea I know we've been we had them come in some curriculum meetings you know some of the Specialists especially would come in and share get they doing what's that get them in first so they can leave we won't make them to the end yeah that's fine it's we can we can we can we can make the presentation and see what comes back you would like to see two I'm just two different grades the same twice a year to come in tell us what's going on I just think it' be an opportunity for the teachers to do something what's that yeah um put that on agenda any interest in parties yeah however they want to do I'm just I just tell us what you guys do let's try it around the ring and see who wants to write it okay so we we'll make a note of that anything else okay Chairman's report um since this is the first one I'm doing uh we'll start with some basic and then we'll go from there I meet with K once a week usually Tuesday Mornings at 8 to go over things usually doesn't take more than an hour um the last couple of weeks have been involved with the budget and some other issues um one of the questions that came up is we don't have anybody who's handling Aces even though Sue is still listed in the book as the bethle rep yes you're but didn't know there there's two questions here that this is a two-part question one is do you feel that it's [Music] worthwhile going to Asus it's you know it's not a committee okay it's you you become it's like another whole Board of Education it's taking this body of people and doing it again with the probably you know a lot more money I don't much more you know but is it of any benefit to us I've been trying to figure that out I don't think so okay because I don't see you know I've talked to K about this I said you know how can I help Bethany at Aces and and I don't know EJ did you you know I think the only way you can do it is to to sort of report back to the people here so that you know for the public record you have an idea of where cuz some of your tax dollars go there you know I mean some of the citizens of Bethany's tax dollars go there some students from Bethany May filter through the programs that they support do we have any K program we don't have any AD currently um you know once the kids get up into the high school level they might be more interested in like the ECA program some of the Arts programs it's not necessarily only special education programs that they administer um they might get into the Early Head Start program before they enter into our system um so it's inexpensive there's a lot of money that flows for that both state federal local tax dollars and so having someone there to say like do we need to spend that yeah you know I I thought Sue had a unique perspective on some of their real estate transactions you know like do we really need to get but that I really couldn't have commented on from an intelligent perspective you know but you know I was often there just to be a face in the room you know from Bethany to say you know okay yep you know well do we have a volunteer then it is it's an interesting um exercise in Regional governing it doesn't have to be decided upon tonight give it some thought you don't have to make every one you know if you make every other one just to be a face in the room I think it's an a valuable experience they probably liked you better than me do I have a volunteer when do they meet uh daytime usually it's the day after this meeting but in the middle of the day yeah but you can do a zoom you know I always did zooms well they don't have that one I used to be in personal I did it oh really yeah oh well they they they come Zoom every time well give us some thought maybe next month we'll we we'll we'll figure out a Vic them um I'm sorry I said give it some thought and you know we need somebody to do it if somebody if if you guys feel that it's worthwhile and you can find somebody who's willing to give up some time then we can go with it okay it's just my my point was that it's was a much greater responsibility than I expected okay because you're actually become it's another whole Board of it and it's much bigger than this so it was it was sort of shock because I thought I was getting on a committee but it wasn't anything like that what's that there's information about about it okay I'll take a look at this I'll I'll read it over the next week or two when I've got nothing to do but they got you know another whole set of committees you know they have their own finance committee they got their own policy committee they got you know the whole fall wax duplicated that just at a much different level okay uh the second thing so then it's it's something to thought give it some thought if somebody wants to do it you know we can use somebody to uh if the board feels that it's worthwhile chasing and so far according to Susan EJ it sounds like it is worth while then we need somebody to to sit in on it um second thing uh now that we have the committee chairs um ironed out I tend to be a processed person um in order to keep things relatively stable and San um I'm not looking to micromanage anything but I would like before people start contacting K or the school for information I want it coming through me first I don't say I'm going to get involved but I don't want nine people calling K what could be the same thing so all I do is all I'm asking is that before we start making phone calls to the school call me first we'll discuss what you want to do and nine times in 10 I'll probably say knock yourself up but I just want to be kept in the loop because there has to be a a process there has to be a chain of command and partly because some of this stuff may involve money in other words if we go looking for information there may be a cost associated with generating that information so we don't want to go off willy-nilly sometimes we may already have the information but all I'm saying is that before we uh um before we start making phone calls to the to the uh to the superintendent I'd like a phone call first if that's not too much okay can I'm just you started talking about committees are you talking about specifically committee related work or you want everyone on the board to go through you for any contact there should be there should be no reason why the Board of Education members are contacting the superintendent for anything other than board of Education work right I'm asking if are you only things related to our committee assignments or any contact we have with or whatsoever no because you may have if you're having personal problems if if you need to get a hold of Tom re or somebody else that's I don't want to be involved in that I'm talking about Board of Education business I'm talking about the committee chairs I'm talking about the members of the board sometimes things come up and people want an answer to a question question I may already have the answer and if I don't I may say you know I meet with K on Tuesday I'll find out for you I just what we don't want to do is have nine people calling the superintendent most School uh Board of educations have that policy in place they they don't want um random phone calls just generated and that's I'm not trying to be a control freak but far from it it's just allows everybody to be on the same page because sometimes something may come up and you know you talk to her direct and I don't know anything about it somebody asked me about it I'm sitting there like a you know what I'm saying so if it just WR routed through me first and then odds are nine times in 10 I'll say yeah talk to K or I'll bring it up in Tuesday's meeting I'll get back to you but it keeps the process intact it keeps the chain of command intact that's all it's I'm I'm not looking to step on anybody's toes I'm not looking to to to to be a dictator or anything else I just don't want um I just don't want all of us you know there's nine of us if if if we keep coming up with questions you know she's going to spend half her day answering our questions and that's what she's not there for if anybody's got a problem with that now's the time to talk about it I I got a I got a question on you know the the the Committees themselves okay the agenda that gets set so how does that work or does does the chair of the committee set the agenda yes okay yes so K are do you get in touch with the committee chairs and say what do you want to do next time or something so usually when we have the committee meeting it might be a little bit different this time because a lot of people are new to different committees we'll set the agenda for the next meeting in the meeting prior and if there's something else that changes usually the commit chair would reach out to the office before we have to post the agenda for the town and say please add this thing to the agenda or within the meeting itself they could make a motion to add something to the agenda would it be reasonable to just like you know maybe send the agenda to the chair first before it gets published and say you on board with this or is there any changes and then let them respond and say yeah there's usually that back and forth whether it happens through an email communication that the committee is on or if it happens um as I said in the meeting prior we usually say you know the committee chair will say so for example your policy what are some of the things we'd like to cover in our next policy meeting and then we'll put that at the bottom and so when those minutes are written up and that is used to create the next month's agenda then reach out to the chair and say this is what we have is there anything else that needs to be added or changed to the agenda okay I've not done that in the past it was usually Sue perview to do that but now it'll be Don or myself okay I'm just looking to get into how the process works it's a touchy feely thing so you know it it it's we're all learning do you want to be involved in that I'm already a member of all the Committees okay well do you want to approve agendas for the Comm I don't no that's John Paul if I could so as I was listening to what was what John Paul was saying before in my mind I'm thinking of it as this as chair of the curriculum committee if there is something related to me in my role as chair that I need to reach out for then we would deal with that as chair back and forth but if all of a sudden I had a question like you know when are you replacing the freezers in the kitchen and I start calling up and going hey what's the can I see all the specs on the freezers and how many freezers you got that's the kind of thing where John Paul's saying hey you know call me first so this way we can get everything together and he can go during his meeting and say okay I got a question from a board member about the freezers can we get this information cuz if I ask it and Sean asked it at the same time because we both heard the same thing in town about somebody complaining about the food not being cold enough or something then we're not three or four of us all contacting the office and then so something that's outside of the purview of our role as our our chair in our our committee meeting then that would be corre the chair the chair the chair is responsible for their own committee I am a member of all the Committees so I'll see the agenda eventually but it's your B I'm not going to tell you how to run your committee unless you run it off the rails but I don't expect that yeah I don't expect that you know you're you're you I I I expect everybody you know to to to do what they think is best and how best to do it and I'm not going to tell you what the best approach is everybody has a different approach to everything I'm just trying to get you the process for how it works that's all I'll give you an example I think you you called the attorney no I just you call K I was trying to access yeah no I understand policies and password basically see something like that give me a boo give me a call we'll talk about it see what you want to do I and then we'll run it up the flag pole and send it to K and have get get the information okay but you set your own agenda as as a chairman of of a committee you set your own agenda you run it the way you feel you want to run it okay but I didn't call the attorney I just I know that what you know I understand that get a password but that that may have been but that may have been a bad example but but that's what I'm trying to say is that you don't want to be going you want to have one Central clearing house that's all okay I so K when did when did you want to try to to set the the the dates for all these are you going to communicate that again to the chair of and say I was thinking about this that and the other thing and then coordinate yes so what I will what I was asked to provide is in um a future update probably by Friday um is to say you know if we follow this meeting pattern so for example the curriculum committee usually has met the Wednesday prior to the Board of Education meeting so I'll look at all of the dates for the Board of Education meetings and I'll look to the Wednesday prior and I'll set those as tentative dates and share that with the curriculum committee chair and say do these dates work for your committee as the chair and the same thing for for finance Board of Finance point is always Tuesday night before the meeting yep and then uh Transportation or they may only meet once or twice a year at the beginning of the year and Facilities may meet once every 3 months okay but it's it's all how you guys decide K will be in that particular case k will provide you with what we've done in the past and then you can modify it to suit your own you know you guys may decide you want to meet on the Monday night or something who knows whatever whatever float your boat okay um other than that that was the couple of things I think we covered everything else the Committees which is the only thing like I said just figuring out where we're going from here and the the big one is the board is the uh is the board budget is the uh school budget that will get ironed out next month and hopefully we'll have a little better uh a little better handle on it correspondence unless anybody else got anything they want to talk about nope thank you um correspondence nothing okay uh public comment anybody from the public want to talk um now's your time okay then I think anybody got anything that they want to discuss before weour all right motion to adjourn second second third four all in favor thank [Music] you [Music] I'm glad to see somebody other than me having

4:00 okay so we will start in 5 4 3 2 1 good evening and welcome to the board meeting I'm calling the meeting to order at 4M um Britney can you do roll call I can Linda B present uh Britney banan I am present Colette Chapman present Lynn Davidson pres Michael Gordon present Suk kifl present Katie senko present awesome moving on to 1.02 um overview of itinerant Services interim assistant superintendent um catch off yes excuse me good afternoon uh board president kifil members of the board superintendent rikman assistant superintendent Cooper and the asdb community um I would like to ask our three regional directors to come on up and give a presentation of and an overview of the itinerant Services here at ASB good evening president kifil superintendent rikman assistant superintendent uh katoff and Cooper governing board members my name is Jason Lily and I'm currently serving as the lead director of asbi itinerant programs starting in July of 2023 it tenant programs have been operating uh with the three regional directors to provide service guidance across the state to districts and Charters the asbit tener program makes up about 51% of the total ASB enrollment and we have agreements with over 200 school districts and Charters within the state tonight you'll be hearing from Greer Martin Parish who is the newest director she is in the director of region one a rosetta Hicks who is the director of region two and I'll be wrapping up this report with news from Region 3 uh Southern Arizona and our distance program if you could please hold your questions and comments to the end of the presentation we would appreciate it good evening board president kifil superintendent rikman assistant superintendent catch off and Cooper and governing board members my name is Greer Martin Parish and I am the proud director of region one itinerant programs my region encompasses all of the area north of Phoenix for a total of 65,8 49 square miles the counties that are served in my region are Apache Coconino hila and we serve the PAC in area only in that county laaz Mojave Navajo and Yavapai I currently have one supervising teacher of the deaf and heart of hearing with nine dhh teachers one supervising teacher of the visually impaired who also provides orientation and Mobility Services for the entire Western half of the state with seven full-time and one as needed tvi I also have one full-time and one as needed orientation Mobility specialist my team has an administrative assistant who works out of the Cottonwood Hub and a registar who works here from Tucson there are currently six hubs sites for our region that are housed in Bullhead City sholo Flagstaff Cottonwood page and Window Rock we are currently serving about 125 students across about 80 school districts and charter schools now that you know a little bit more about my region I'd like to share some of our highlights from this last semester that was organizing an in-person regional meeting that is usually held virtually due to the distance between our staff we were able to reserve a large room at the camp verie library and bring all teachers together in person for the first time in two years superintendent rikman assistant superintendent katoff and special education director Sarah soly also joined our meeting this provided an opportunity for team building and connections among staff among staff members in supports of pillars one and three of the agency strategic plan pillar one is excellent communication and relationships which ensures First Rate customer service as my teachers were provided an opportunity to strength strengthen their relationships this encourages accountability that is built on productive communication and supportive of cultural sensitivity pillar three is superb organizational culture with a priority of advancing a climate of continuous Improvement we have monthly Regional meetings and as stated previously they have all been virtual except for this last one in December our regional culture was definitely given a boost by having time to see one another in person and connect in ways that are difficult to do virtually this experience supports professional development and improves job performance by creating a climate of support and connection for teachers who rarely have face-to-face contact with other asdb staff it will be a priority to plan an in-person meeting each semester for my team our biggest challenge is currently Staffing while we do not have any vacancies on our teacher of the de and heart of hearing team we do have multiple vacancies on our tbii and O andm teams the positions are currently posted and we are investigating the option of utilizing contract teachers to fill these positions I would like to take this opportunity to thank my team my teachers and orientation and Mobility Specialists are doing amazing things across the region I am so grateful for their drive to support students and encourage their growth my leader leadership team has been an excellent source of support for our teachers through the transition of my starting as the new director and being housed in Son thank you for this opportunity to share the great things that are happening in region one now I'll turn it over to miss good evening board president kifl superintendent rikman assistant superintendent catch off and Cooper and governing board members my name is Rosetta Hicks I am the director in Region 2 I um for the itin programs my region encompasses all the areas within Maricopa County and Apache Junction which is located located in panau County we cover a total of 9,224 square miles I currently have 10 teachers of the deaf and heart of hearing eight teachers of the visually impaired and three orientation and Mobility Specialists along with two supervising teachers of the de and heart of hearing who also Al have student case loads and one supervising teacher of the vision impaired who also provides assessment for asip children in Region 2 my team also has an administrative assistant and is currently hiring for a register we are currently receiving support from other Regional registers we are also in the process of relocating our office space actually next week starting on Monday um we provide services for about 550 students across Maricopa County throughout 80 school districts and charter schools now that I have finished my regional summary I want to First acknowledge my team I express my gratitude to them at every given opportunity I will not able to I will not be able to do this without them I want the board and all individuals hearing this message to know how amazing the Region 2 team has been while supporting the students district and each other year after year we have experienced many changes in Region 2 and I would just like to highlight the fact that we are still standing through everything while we continue to face challenges as it relates to Staffing I appreciate the Statewide model and the team really working together to ensure that we continue to do our best to meet the needs for Region 2 students and districts all of our opening positions are posted and we are are also considering contract companies to help with the Staffing shortage we have continued to work on providing excellent communication and relationships through our strategic plan pillar one the team has come together to ensure that we have open Communications with districts as we work together during our staffing shortage we continue to align oursel with pillar 3 superb organizational culture by offering PD opportunities and most importantly my leadership team and myself continue to model servitude leadership thank you for this opportunity uh to share a little bit about region two I'm gonna call back up Jason good evening again in addition to my lead duties I'm also the director for Region 3 and our distance program that provides virtual services to students across the state region 3 comprises of cois hila County minus Pac Graham Greenley Pima panal Santa Cruz and Yuma counties Region 3 has a total land area of 38824 square miles and spans the entire Arizona Mexico border across the region we have one supervisor for the teacher of the Deen heart of hearing and 14 teachers of the Deen heart of hearing one supervisor for tvis and orientation Mobility Specialists with nine tvis one orientation Mobility specialist and we are lucky enough to have three dual certified so they're both tvi and omm and um sorry um d certifi uh Region 3 also has a registar one administr one admin assistants in Tucson the distance program has one admin assistant in Yuma who is also the backup admin assistant um for All Region and we have one supervisor uh for the teachers of Deen heart of hearing and tvis uh in Yuma as well uh uh regions one and three have tvis uh TOs and comms who have some students who are served virtually so we have teachers who have Hybrid models where we have some in person some virtual Region 3 also has the two office locations so one of them is here on the Tucson campus and we have one more in the Yuma area our Yuma office um I have made into our area for the distance program so it houses all of our materials as well as our admin administrative supports um in All Region 3 serves about 375 students and our distance program serves about 70 students virtually across the state um in Region 3 we have about 90 districts and Charters um one of the highlights of our from our region this year is that we were able to host the functional listening evaluation training during the first quarter uh this brought together all the regional uh teachers of the deaf and heart of hearing audiologists from across the agency and some ELP staff um the creator of the fle Dr Cheryl Johnson is an Adjunct professor of U OFA and a resident of Southern Arizona she lives here in um uh Green Valley um this and this supports our pillar three uh I was lucky enough to know Cheryl on a personal level so we were able to get her in um Region 3 was able to absorb uh five districts from Region 2 this Academic Year uh two in panal county and three in hila County but we also continue to struggle with Staffing as in the Yuma area specifically we have three posted vacancies that we've had for over a year and recently added an additional vacancy for Teacher of the de and heart of hearing in panag County um as well as a tvi position to provide some virtual Services um as a whole um and uh asbi T programs virtual services are growing and we are working to provide better quality of service uh for students who receive those virtual Services distance was able to purchase Universal microphones and green screen batd drops for teachers who provide the virtual services and um the feedback we are getting from our teaching staff is that these materials are helping improve the quality of the services we are providing uh this helps to support pillar one on a personal note um I have been on intermittent FMLA for most of second quarter uh because I am in the process of adopting one daughter and have been fostering a second my girls are 10 weeks apart um and we hope to have both finalized by July I cannot thank my admin support staff enough for all the hard work they've done to help me in this time um to keep the region going uh I have uh this also has been a huge year for me and I want the board to know what an amazing team I have in Region 3 as well as I've had the support from my fellow regional directors and the asdb leadership um during all this time I am grateful and blessed to be part of this ASB Community um in closing we'd like to thank you for taking the time to learn about our three distinct regions and the Statewide itinerant program as a whole now if you have any questions please we we're available to respond any questions thank you moving on to 1.03 call to the public for agendized items none okay having none moving on to 1.04 superintendent report superintendent rman good evening superintend uh sorry president kifil members of the board of directors acting assistant superintendent catch off and assistant superintendent Cooper Welcome to our January 11th 2024 board meeting our first board meeting for the New Year I'm happy to see you all here last week it happened that I was having lunch with a friend and that friend asked me what was my goals for 2024 for asdb and my resp response was really yeah I'm looking for a new assistant superintendent for the 2022 Sunset audit um and I have various other goals after that discussion I started to really consider and I realized that I have gotten I've received a lot of feedback from the community and more recently from the board through the superintendent evaluation and I definitely needed to reconsider the goals for asdb so I'd like to start talking about asdb as a house if you will a metaphor asdb is kind of our house so we have our foundation as you know the value of believing every child who is deaf who is blind who is deaf and blind can learn and grow and be successful we have a vision of excellence and Innovation we have a mission of commitment to Excellence in creating and providing educational services to our students in the state of Arizona and we are committed to excellent Innovations and our leaders in service and as you were just hearing what they were talking about the commitment to collaboration with the parents with the school districts and with the community community and we're also committed to Excellence in Innovation to partner with other agencies and that's the part of our foundation it's our operating principles if you remember our operating policy our pillars the um responsibility collaboration and transparency and that's stands for a how we behave how we interact our respect as we navigate with each other and you the board are developing the Strategic plan that strategic plan has four pillars and again you just recently heard them talk talking about pillars one is excellent communication and relationships pillar two is superb outstanding development culture in the organization and pillar four is excellent management of resources so those are the pillars the foundation of our house and then we have the wall walls the walls are our policies our procedures our teacher qualifications our continuous Improvement efforts all of our efforts to work at our operating system and then we have the roof the roof of our house and that's our results the better our results the better our roof the better our roof the better we're protected from the environmental elements I think the other day I was talking about the walls and then later the roof and I will talk about that a bit later but if we go back to the house as a whole there's something missing what's missing the soil the ground that which is underneath the foundation that soil if we don't if it isn't strong if it isn't stable to support the foundation then the foundation cracks and the pillars and the walls fall and the roof begins to crumble and fall we have to have a stable strong soil underneath the foundation that's what the soil is the soil is our culture our climate of culture if we have a culture of distrust disrespect speaking negatively about each other then the entire house will not hold will not stand we have to have a climate and a culture of respect respecting each other of trust we have to have a sense of psychological safety and then we can work together we have to be able to speak positively about each other you just heard the three directors of itinerant services and they spoke very positively about their organization about their work that they're doing so the first goal and I do have eight goals and I will have to look back in my notes to make sure I cover all eight goals but my first goal is to focus on improving the climate of culture of the agency we talk talk about how we can be better respectful of each other and how we can be better at developing trust that's pillar one of developing excellent relationships of focusing on Improvement in communication as you know I have been working on improving my communication and clearly I need to sustain continue work working on that but that's goal one goal two is the Strategic plan we have five years of strategic planning right now our third year we're in our third year and we're starting to look at the measurement and the Strategic plans we want to put in the targets of each measurement and we want to start watching the data that we collect and what we've collected so far and analyzing that data and using that information to help inform our decisions and we haven't started doing that but we want to do that so right now in the third year means a year and a half July of 2025 we will be proposing to you how we can improve the measurements the metrics of how we're going to provide data that's useful informative for you the board and to us as well the second goal that's the second goal the third goal is really agency relations that includes our public relations efforts and as you know we have contracted with an outside called live livage and last year 2023 we got the most positive metrics that we've had thus far TV newspaper articles great PR the robotics team that was in Phoenix they had three times that they were commented and videoed about our robotics team and we're continuing to work with lvid to do the public relations with Phoenix media Tucson media and all over the state we've hired a part-time agency Relations Specialist and her work is going to be focusing on the development of quarterly agency prints outs they'll doing agency surveys to collect information on our strategic plan that was the third goal the fourth goal cognia accreditation sorry interpreter error the fourth goal is accreditation about six years ago we decided to get accreditation from Advanced Ed agency so we were supposed to get reaccreditation name cogia decided to postpone by one year so that means next fall of 2024 and spring of 2025 and we are currently starting to get ready for the accreditation review it will probably happen later in the fall possibly early spring and we have filed ass Melissa we have assigned Melissa de to do the work and take the lead for the accreditation for us there's going to be a lot of work involved with that the fifth goal as you already know actually about this is our Master facility plan we're continuing to progress with that and you will be hearing more about this from Albert Duff we contracted as you know with an architectural firm called Lea and currently Lea is working with the different Ed programs here at asdb and looking at their needs figuring out how the buildings are going to meet those needs we hope to have an open house in March um that will be advertised shortly and you all will be invited to come to the Phoenix campus and the tunison campus for open houses that we have planned we have discussions with the community about the Master's facilities plan and you've already heard some feedback I think you will hear more probably later into this evening the sixth goal is the Recruitment and Retention of teachers qualified staff you just heard from the itinerant directors about our vacancies we have about teachers currently in the working positions here at asdb 32 positions are still vacant that's more than 10% the breakdown of the vacancies and you've heard some from the three directors the biggest vacancy numbers are at the Phoenix campus Phoenix Day School for the Deaf pdsd they have 13 teacher vacancies which has really had an impact it's not just on our students but the impact is definitely on the students but it's also impactful on the teachers and other staff that are taking on the additional responsibilities and duties they are worn out so the thrill of the Christmas holidays that are happening that we just had that we were able to have a week of rest and coming back is letting us move forward and part of that is because we haven't had the teachers and we don't have the professional staff and it's the greatest impact on our finances as well so several impacts across the board that affects the students the other teachers and the people that are currently ly working with us and finances as well we are really looking over and analyzing what are we going to do with this because the programs out there the number of those coming out of graduate programs is dwindling numbers the students that are graduating are shrinking and we are competing for those same pool of teachers of those graduates they're just not there it's not happening so we're going to have to do something else and we're planning to do something else right now temporary assistant superintendent catch off is taking the lead with Courtney Fritz to write a plan for establishing our educational preparation not from a graduate program just getting certification a certification program so we're not even getting those with the master's degrees we're not giving master's degrees we're just seeking certification we've already had I think 10 or 15 teachers with emergency certification which means they're not qualified for teachers of the deaf or teachers of the visually impaired certification but the only way that we can fill the positions is to hire them without the qualifications and to get the emergency certification and then place them for three years while they get the training that they need and then they get the regular certification is that working I'm not sure but we are seriously considering erecting our own training a two-year training program next week we will have a meeting with the Arizona Department of Education for that discussion the ad has already approved another school district to do their own training so they can bring in people to become teachers to get the emergency certification these people can move to Texas and get a job as a teacher with a certification there probably not because it doesn't have the regular requirements in the certification but that's what we're seriously considering that's how dire the situation is currently so the seventh goal We are continuing with our 2022 Sunset audit we are currently in the process of finalizing that so if you was at as the board remember the Arizona auditor general gave us eight recommendations we've completed most of the recommendations we have yet to complete all but we just met with the Arizona auditor General's office to discuss the process for finalizing they just recently had some turnover so instead of the 18month followup which is supposed to happen in March of 2024 it will be postponed to September 2024 and I will allow assistant superintendent Cooper to expand a little bit further on that so the last goal of mine is a search for the assistant superintendent we just finalize our contract with Anvi this is Shane Feldman's organization he will be helping us with the national search for our next assistant superintendent we already have about 12 or 13 applicants for that position most of the applicants are internal here in the state inev will be helping us to broaden our search with networking nationally and asking others who are qualified to apply we will be scheduling and setting up an interview panel in March and our idea or interv recommending that we include the community and we include our own staff on the interview panel so our thinking is that we will have two representations from The Early Learning Program two representatives from itinerate services and two representatives from the two site based campuses maybe an administrator or a lead or staff which a total which makes a total of six and then we will invite the Arizona Association for the deaf and select a representative for that panel panel and invite the national Federation of the blind the Arizona chapter to send a representation send a representative so that we have blind representation on our panel so that makes a total of eight so if you have any ideas of those who should be on the interview panel I am open for feedback or suggestions we plan on scheduling come March the final selection hopefully in April and then in May at the May board meeting a candidate will be presented for approval that is the current plan I will keep you updated I also have a PowerPoint with the variety with the Inc comprehensive information from iny and I will will be sending out to ASB as well so that we are all on the same page so that is my 2024 goals the eight goals so that doesn't include everything there's a lot of other work that is happening behind the scenes ASB as you know if you take the time to read the board report there's a lot of information there about the other work that we I have been doing for example the PBIS programs established on both campuses the new information system that's been implemented Etc so I'm now open and happy to accept any questions thank you Anette um I guess if you could flesh out just a little more of the emergency certification that would train people in the field of deafness and blindness you said it was a three-year emergency certification that would allow them to receive a two-year training through asdb training on site is that accurate or and first and also who is providing this emergency certification and what's it what's it based on I do understand the labor shortage and it's a it's an unbelievable challenge in the field but I'm just curious about this who's supplying the training when it's being done inhouse and uh and what's the timeline again on the emergency as compared to the the U the training has being done on site I believe assistant superintendent catch off is taking the lead on that so I will turn that question over to you all right excuse me so in the state of Arizona right now you can get an emergency sht if you're currently in a program um for example the U OFA program to to get um their certification so that's one piece right now where we do have staff who are on emergency sechs who are in programs but they have not completed the said program so um they're they're kind of flying the plane while they're learning about the plane and and Aviation uh and and that's Arizona as a whole that's happening um everywhere in Arizona there's also something called the EP which is called an it's an educator preparation program and this was approved by the legislature approximately honestly don't know maybe two three years ago to where they allow school districts to create their own educator preparation program this can be a two-year program where then you get a um kind of a special CT that you're um a qualified classroom teacher it would be different than excuse me if you had aert as a tvi uh dhh or any other certification that's available in Arizona it's really um state of Arizona's way of trying to to deal with the labor shortage and the teacher shortage so we we have started investigating what would that look like if we did it here um if we brought in people who did have a bachelor's degree um but if we created our own educator preparation program what could that look like for those two years prior to covid we did a substantial amount of work with coming up with an endorsement here in Arizona for a tvi endorsement and and a dhh endorsement that was well over a year of working with the universities um if you recall surveys went out uh stakeholders the field as to what are the most important things for folks to learn so we're we are looking at that to see is there a way that we can in a two-year period what would it mean here at asdb as far as personnel and resources if we took our own kind of created our own EP that is allowed here in Arizona um there's been initial um as the superintendent mentioned there's been some initial uh looking into it uh we have a more formal conversation with ad coming up I believe next week so a lot of the details are still in the future as we're trying to figure out what this could look like okay just one two quick follow-ups um is there a requirement of having a bachelor's degree for the Emergency certification Andor the in-house training so for the EP you would have to already have a bachelor's degree okay uh for the Emergency certification I I believe so because our folks would be getting their master's degree in tvi or dhh so my assumption would be that they already have a a bachelor's and the certification would eventually come from Department ofed because I know it's a certification body there's there's only a couple of them that are are available so so who's actually providing the certification ultimately so in both cases it would be the Arizona Department of Education with the emergency CT they're basically saying they're assuming that you're going to finish your program within a couple years and get everything completed uh with the EP it would be similar to where um they would be they would be the the final entity to say here's the uh the certification okay so it's not coming through aeer or through the blindness professional certifications or even acvp it's it's through Department of Ed directly correct because that would be through their their EP program okay it's interesting thank you and we really are in the exploration phase um I personally think there's a lot of Promise as we're uh it goes back to that almost looking for water of if your Well's not really pumping out enough you got to start drilling other Wells um we obviously love the U OFA we love all the programs that are that are pro providing us teachers but as inette mentioned nationally those enrollment numbers have gone down so nationally we're fighting for the same folks and we have to be a little more creative it's true and the emphasis on specialization just isn't isn't there as it used to be so okay thank you yep any other questions all right thank you thank you Annette moving on to 1.05 assistant superintendent of curriculum instruction report interim assistant superintended catch off all right uh good afternoon board president kifil members of the board superintendent rikman assistant superintendent Cooper and the asdb community um you all have my board report and I look forward to any questions but as mentioned in the board report the OD was pleased to facilitate a unique professional development opportunity for asdb Tucson in the dhh elementary Department our teachers collaborated with and hosted a group of 11 Boston University graduate students students for an entire week of ASL in English bilingual programming and instruction uh this took place over dece I'm sorry November 27th and December 1st uh the Boston University students designed and Applied Materials and instructions based on the models provided by their professors Kristen de Perry and Todd zubek based on this experience uh our asdb teachers now have access to all the templates models and resources uh that were provided by Boston University and that they observed over the week-long um experience training I do want to give a huge thanks to the OD director uh Michael Olivier our curriculum specialist Tina shartzer and Rose Andrea Cola as well as Tucson Principal Paul Sanders and assistant principal Melissa Brown for all the hard work that they put together to make this happen repeatedly so let me back up bu does Boston University does this every year repeatedly during their visit they talked about how our Hospitality was off the charts um and I'm not making that up uh we we really went out of the way to to roll out the red carpet for him and and it showed uh I also wanted to thank the entire Elementary team here in Tucson for their Hospitality as 11 graduate students basically took over their classrooms for a week I also want to thank Sabrina Lily bridge and glattus VI aobos for assisting with all the day-to-day requests that happened while be was on on campus as well as Kim bitrus and Jessica Calvin for working behind the scenes on items like travel and hotels for the Buu staff the pdsd literacy coach was able to come up during that week and pdsd has already started implementing a lot of what we learned from Boston University and Tucson has big plans for implementing that model uh moving forward next year we are really looking forward to continue uh working with Boston University and if any of those 11 grad students end up becoming staff here based on the Fantastic experience I'll make sure that uh the board is is aware of that before the break all staff on the educational side of the agency were given the opportunity to provide an anonymous two stars and a wish uh survey about their director or principal this was a very short survey to where they could give two stars which would mean two things that they really like about their director or principal and one wish of something they wish the person would do better um or could continue to build on the purpose of this was to give all of our leaders some formative data now uh instead of the end of the year so they could take that and make changes while we still have the staff here throughout the year this information has been summarized and provided to each principal and director these leaders will now be letting their staff know that they have the information uh thanking them for the two stars and they'll continue to work or they'll continue to do those uh and what they'll be continuing to build on when it comes to the wishes my staff also completed one for me and I appreciate their honest feedback as you know superintendent rikman has been Gathering a lot of input from agency staff and our stakeholders this year as evidence by the three Hall the three town halls that were completed in October uh the steering committee me meetings and the two stars in A Wish survey that I just referenced another form of data that we recently collected was the portrait of a graduate survey that was completed before winter break we received about 145 responses uh these responses came from staff asdb alumni parents Guardians community members and some of our partnering school districts a summary of this data has been included in my board forward materials this data will assist the agency as we move forward and and prioritizing what we need to do in our day schools as well as what needs to be in place as we move forward with our Master facility plans as you can see a lot of it focuses on post School outcomes in CTE uh and we've already started investing a lot en that as evidenced by our CTE director position this year so in conclusion We are continuing to grow as an agency we're increasing opportunities for communication as well as implementing best practices as we move into the future and our world keeps on turning to quote the great Mel Brooks as long as the world is turning and spinning we're going to be be dizzy and we're going to make mistakes as we move forward we might not always be perfect in the implementation of what we're trying to do or what our plans are but I do believe as long as we're communicating and including the right people in these conversations which includes the asdb staff and our community and if we continue to remind ourselves that we are here for the students we will continue to build the asdb that we all want thank you I have a follow-up question for you um on the two stars and one wish survey did you notice any themes across the board I did um a the majority of the staff do feel like they are being supported by their current directors and principles so in the stars um everybody felt that their their principal or their director is trying to support them the best that they could one wish and it kind of came up for me too is um trying to respond within 24 hours especially when it comes to email um everybody's busy um so that that is something that as a team we've already discussed uh ways that we can make that a priority um but you know the a lot of people want information uh they want feedback quickly and as we continue to to move forward in this world where there's texting email a million different ways to get information we do have to figure out the best way to get that to people thank you I just I wanted to say that I also appreciated that um receiving the special ed newsletter um that was very informative and I do want to say that I appreciate that she shared her two stars and one wish information in there that was really nice to see thank you thank you any other questions for okay then moving on to 1.06 um assistant superintendent of agency operations and Support Services report assistant superintendent Cooper good afterno board president kifil superintendent rikman acting assistant superintendent catch off members of the board and the ASB Community before I proceed with giving updates from the agency operations and support services departments I would like to provide more of an update on the performance audit and sunset review that was conducted by the office of the auditor general in which the audit report was completed in September 2022 and as outlined in our response we agreed with the one fin finding and eight recommendations in late February early March 2023 is when the auditor general began their six-month follow-up review to assess our programs in implementing those recommendations and addressing the audit finding in the meeting we had this past Tuesday we were provided a status update on their follow-up review where they did mention the eight audit recommendations we received and the one finding almost all of them have been completely implemented and as you are aware we're still working on implementing the master facility plan and reviewing the appropriateness of our iterant program fees reimbursement amounts and cost of services that we are providing additionally we are also addressing the recommendation as it relates to how asdb investigates and resolves complaints from staff students parents and the public which includes implementing time frames specific to this we are still in the information gathering stage of selecting a complaint management software that will let students staff and other submit complaints and assist us with tracking recording and resolving those complaints in a more eff efficient and effective manner our goal is to have the finding and all recommendations fully implemented before the Auditors begin their next test work which is scheduled for fall 2024 now specific to the departmental reports there are a few key items that I would like to highlight the IT department student information system team and data Integrity are actively working with each of the educational program areas to ensure their needs are being met more specifically related to addressing the scheduling attendance student count and Grading issues within Synergy there are also a few State reporting issues with ad that we've encountered some of these issues have caused additional work for the agency operations team as well as each other regist draws which has caused Ripple effects when it comes to ensuring that the funding and the associated voucher or fee for service revenues are being processed and received timely in other words it's affecting our cash flow however everyone is collaboratively working together to ensure all of the issues are being addressed and over the next few weeks and upcoming months it is expected that the team will review the operational effectiveness and efficiencies of our current student information system processes I was going to provide an update on the master facility plan um however superintendent rikan mentioned most of what I was going to report on I do want to add though the team is taking all data and information into consideration to ensure all agency needs are being met the two open houses we have for the campuses are currently scheduled in March and that will allow all staff students and the community to come and see the proposed consolidations and provide feedback that will be taken back to the architectural firm for evaluation I do want to mention we're also looking into the possibility of doing new construction for all of the agency programs for business services the budget Financial reports for November 23 and 2022 will be provided separately under agenda item 4.01 we have entered into the third quarter of the fiscal year and based on a review of the financial data thus far we continue to incur expenses for items that were not previously budgeted for such as contractual obligations for the transportation and nursing services and because of some of the Recruitment and Retention challenges we continue to face with the number of vacant positions we are having to use contracted St staffing agencies to help meet the day-to-day educational needs for our students and as you are aware I've been here for going on six years now and to be transparent I continue to ask myself since we've become an Lea these last few years how we are going to cover the gap between what we received from the federal government in grant funding other non-federal resources and what we receive from the state compare to the actual cost for our students to receive special education this all comes with my understanding that as an educational state agency we try to fulfill the needs of all of our students no matter how costly it can be so with that said the business services team and I make every effort to find a way to cover those costs and because of the contractual obligations continuing to be significant cost to the agency we will be buckling down and begin working with the various departments to forecast their year-end projections this will ensure we continue address the funding gaps as they arise with the limited operational and fiscal resources the agency currently has as it pertains to the agency's fiscal year 2025 budget package submission we have a meeting scheduled with the State Office of strategic planning and budgeting so that they can provide an overview of what is expected to be included in the executive budget we are hoping that most if not all the funding issues we are seeking monies for from the state will be funded in some capacity it is expected in the March 7th board meeting I will be able to provide more specific updates the media team has several projects that they have been working on which includes updates to the agency website creating donation marketing materials and working with the human resources team to create multiple videos for recruiting over the last several weeks the team has been supporting the two school campuses to ensure there is adequate media coverage for next week's Western State basketball classic which asdb is hosting here on the Tucson campus so good luck to our pdsd road runners and the Tucson campus Sentinels as we all know Staffing is one of the biggest challenges we face as our biggest commodity is people doing the work I want to remind everyone that Recruitment and Retention of staff is not just a responsibility of our human resources department but a collective effort amongst all each of us see that teachers PA professionals and highly skilled staff recruitment is becoming more and more challenging each year and as such we're having to adapt and learn new ways to attract and keep staff we're encouraging more staff to participate in our recruitment efforts such as the open houses and we've just recently implemented paid practicums and internships another transparent moment I want to mention is the ongoing levels of frustration and confusion over our various HR processes in alignment with the ACT operating principles accountability collaboration and transparency we realize that there needs to be better communication with staff on the front and back end of our HR processes to this end the team is modifying the existing resource documents to create more transparency which will include streamlining and identifying more clarity on the roles and responsibilities for all involved in the processes again not just HR another major issue we continue to hear about is the need for us to fix compensation compensation is extremely important however it's often challenging to get it right this is especially true in our current Staffing climate where there is a rapid wage increase to combat the labor shortages and inflation so to the team's credit this is an area of focus that we continue to address and as you all are aware we're in year three of our compensation restructure project where we are looking agency-wide around compensation and how to improve our strategies so if you recall at the November 2nd board meeting you all approved an increased adjustment to the classified coach and special recruitment salary schedules to retain recruit and complete with other employers who are required by law to adjust their salaries to the Arizona minimum wage increase of $13.85 which went into effect this past January 1st as you know as an agency under the State of Arizona were not required by law to follow that minimum wage increase however we make every effort to try to stay competitive so effective January 6th all staff members on the classified salary schedule will receive a 75 cent adjustment wage increase in their base salary except those staff earning an annual salary of over $100,000 an email communication of this increase is expected to be sent out over the next few days also included in today's consent agenda item is 6.01 we are proposing updates to the teacher salary schedule this is to reflect a change from from 20 years of experience to 25 years of experience we've also updated the schedule to have consistent percentage rates between each step and if approved the contracts for the teaching staff will be issued with salaries for the next school year as you are aware we were previously issuing contracts for the school year with current salary information and at the March 7th board meeting we will present all other salary schedules that were proposing adjustments for the new year so that staff members who leave for the summer know the change is going into effect upon their return from summer break the other salary schedules include changes to The Interpreter and related Services salary schedules where we are also proposing extending their years of experience from 20 to 25 years and as we continue to address the compensation for all of our agency positions we're looking at the feasibility of how the cost of living adjustments have been given over the last couple of years as we continue to increase staff salaries we're also in the process of modifying our listing of all positions and identifying when the last time a salary survey was done for each and increasing the frequency of when those salary surveys and market analysis will be completed so to conclude my report for today's meeting my message is that we as an agency will need to be mindful and ensure we address the challenges of our fiscal and programmatic sustainability as funding is becoming tight staff turnover continues to be high and resources are hard to come by that wraps up my report and there's no other updates to provide at this time I'm open to answer any questions or comments at this time any questions I have one um have we considered from a um hiring and retention standpoint since we are using so many contractual um Services right now possibly a head hunter or a recruiting service yes but no I should mention that as you're aware um as a state agency we're having to use the state contracted vender um which is Acro um so they have been assisting us we are looking at other avenues at this time to be again to be creative um and head hunting has been an area that we H that has been mentioned or suggested for us to look into okay thank you no other okay moving on to 2.01 um approval of the consent agenda consistent with board policy to include items three 3.01 3.02 5.01 5.02 5.03 6.01 6.02 7.02 and 7.03 I'll make a movement to approve 3.01 3.02 501 502 503 601 602 703 I have a motion do I have a second this is Katie I second all those in favor say I I I I opposed seeing and hearing none motion carries okay moving on that's a consern No 41 I'm sorry thank you okay moving on to 4.01 um Finance report Kim bitr director good afternoon board president Kel superintendent rikman assistant superintendent Cooper and assistant superintendent tchop members of the board and ASD Community you have proi been provided our most recent board report that covers the financial data for November 2022 and November 2023 this data was covered in more detail at our most recent finance committee meeting held on Monday January 8th with board President kifil also in attendance for superintendent rikman and assistant superintendent Cooper the total student count provided in the board report for December 1st is a summarized total based on the data available in Synergy the new student information system we are still working on getting the detail information including eligibility category on the student count similar to what has been provided in the past the current data shows 2,23 students as of December 1 1st 2023 compared to 2090 students December 1st 2022 in order to provide accurate data we will continue to validate the information reported in Synergy as we navigate the new system and the changes ad has implemented as of December 1st we had about 510 FTE which includes 8.5 FTE from FBC at that time we employed 729 staff only 55 are full-time with the 1.0 FTE there are currently 167 vacancies across the agencies vacant positions are posted in techfield the highlights of the November 203 financial report showed the collective revenue of 3.

[Music] h [Music] he [Music] oh [Music] all [Music] he there's the beach that was in front in front of the cond microphone still forget my this is our patio right here this is let James know when you're ready yeah board members please make sure that your microphones are on for the entire meeting Barbara yes I'm calling the workshop to order at this time roll call presid Melinda saski here Charlene Diaz Fred rushon here barbariki here Sheila Barnett here okay we have something special tonight right a presentation is that what this is I hope no no that's ours from asba oh do we have a presentation yeah okay we do okay okay um the artwork presented from Fox Creek High Junior High School finalist for the seventh and eighth grade division of the first annual asba student of artworks contest and we had a winner Chelsea are you here please come here talk to us did you bring your artwork with you so we can see I think you all ought to go down there and have your picture taken with her would be nice come on you guys let's go have our picture congratulations Chelsea that's awesome makes us proud picture that is beautiful good job so what did theba do for you they just give you a certificate very nice what did you use the Amazon gift card [Music] I excellent so get get her to turn around and get a picture proud no that's only one no and then you all pose with so um so Lance can get a nice picture of all of you with Chelsea and her artwork excellent Chelsea do you have a did you title that or do you have a name for it and I know she has proud parents too yes yes she has every right to congratulations Mom and Dad excellent we have um item 1.4 MH um a whole set of policy and regulations exhibits instead of going through individually I'm sure that we all saw them were there any questions on anyone that we could bring up they were pretty straightforward there were transportation and office rules and it's just our continuation of you know moving through the policies we kind of got sidetracked with other important things going on for workshops and so we thought this was just an opportunity to you know resume that resume that process for for you all these are pretty straightforward um I think my only question was on the one of the Food Service ones where they said that um we would get to set the the amount of that kids are charged and and we can do that but since we're on the program where we don't charge students anything we haven't updated that or haven't needed to update that for several years that was my question we were still doing free lunches we're stilling yes we still qualify for free meals for all of our students breakfast and lunch and after school snacks when we have after school programs uh and those kinds of things so we haven't needed to adjust those in several years however if the need does arise the policy is in place yes it is in place and uh and if we were to need to do that what would happen is that um uh the the Department of Agriculture determines how much they re verse for those meals you know reverse the the district for those meals and then um uh we would recommend something let's say they recommend I'm just going to pick a a number it doesn't mean anything but $232 well we're not likely to charge $232 because who has who has the change so we might set it at 250 to make it a around number so you know we would come with a recommendation that would be close uh to that reimbursement amount and uh but a you know something that would be fairly easy for people to pay that's how it's been done in the past nobody has any questions on them okay get to see him again you will will yes we will um and so uh depending on what we put on the the workshop for next month um uh you know we'll bring another set of policies and and try to review them and see if they're if they're pretty standard like these we might give you more uh simply because you know it might not be uh things that you would have a huge amount of discussion about so but it looks like a lot so we're we're just going from a AA to zzz yeah whatever they are it doesn't go to Z though so you can it goes to h i j k I think it goes to K yeah it only goes to K so we're just going going to k um but total that's still over over 700 pages of stuff so um you know to get through them so about the time we get done we'll want to be looking at the beginning again want to start all over again we'll start over thank you thank you for helping us out in that um item five 1.5 adjourning the workshop I need a motion I'll make a motion that we adjourn the workshop I second all those in favor I'm Alinda saski I Charlene Diaz I Fred rushon I barbariki I Sheila Bernette okay so we're gonna wait just a few minutes and start the next [Music] meeting [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] yeah [Music] e [Music] h [Music] oh [Music] you [Music] oh [Music] oh [Music] he [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] yeah [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] h [Music] oh [Music] you [Music] a [Music] w [Music] n [Music] he [Music] a [Music] [Applause] [Music] oh [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] all [Music] oh [Music] h [Music] all [Music] oh [Music] w [Music] n [Music] I'm calling the calling to order the regular meeting for Bullhead School District on Thursday January 11th at 6: p.m.

able to go I'm still getting I'm still getting that symbol they can see on there so go ahead Rene agenda flag the United States of America and to the for stand na indivisible andice all thank you next item is [Music] it first item tonight is the is the reorganization of the governing board pursuing to ars1 15- 321 a for the purpose of organization of the governing board the board shall meet at the most public facility in school district such meeting shall be held between January 1st and January election for the reorganization of the board tonight for the election of the officers the new president of the board shall take the office upon the election the board May then elect a vice president after we will take nominations after all nominations are made a roll call vote will be Tak Tak on each name in the order of its nomination until one is elected nominations do not mean to be seconded with that we will call for a recommended motion for nomination of President nomin nom no [Music] well no yes now we'll take a recommend recommended motion for the nomination of Vice I nominate I Nom I nominate Tom Carlson this will be for Dr Lopez yes Mr car no yes no since I Mr H yes Mr Carson no yes we're going to move to item D2 which is the reopt of the rules and policies legal council has advised that since the law is vague as to an action taken by a fire board will be deemed the action of the present board and after January with the board being reorganized all the policies will by definition be policies of a prior board it is advisable to reopt the policy so that there's no argument that they are effective and intended to be effective I the governing board reopt the rules and policies of the governing board School District questions any questions all in favor next item is motion I Mo the governing board approve the use of sagers of governing board members on employee contracts and District L subject to the use of approprate procedures for such signatures including specific approval of contracts and warrants upon which any such fact signatures are fixed second second any questions next item is4 motion I not that the governing board not continue to live stream the regular governing board I I just like to reiterate to the public that the reason why I want do not want to Contin this it cost $653 per meeting well okay so what is the alternative then what's your alter what's your plan if we don't do this well I do have a question to no I don't think pay $653 a meeting bro there's other op I think we need to research that what op so we B down this path before and ask these same questions I don't remember what the answers are but I do remember the outcome was nothing else is practical can somebody telling me what is our average viewership on the YouTube channel when I it's under 50 people I can give you the The Rundown for last year um so I'm going to go January last janary last January there was 180 February 99 March 163 April 274 May 105 June 33 July and August were not stream September 150 October 114 November 134 [Music] December some me ask a question do we record the meeting this is just a live stream is the meeting recorded if we don't live stream and then it's put on YouTube after that was that the next day when does that recording not then we put it on our put video is on YouTube the audio just talking the live stream not actually recording understand by you would have you have to have minutes for the meeting be written be okay so I want someone to tell me one of the four of the six of you because you guys had to know this question this questions were coming so so what are the Alternatives I don't remember what the answer was last year when I asked that question we take a YouTube video from last last January that's a joke folks um so okay so so so no one has an answer as to what the alternatives are you guys voted no so what what is your alternative that's why I'm trying to clarification is this recorded we're talking just a live stream but are we still recording it goes up on YouTube anyway so we have full transparency no okay I misunderstood the way it worked before was Lor would transcribe she got a little recorder down and she would transcribe the minutes that seems like I probably change my book I thought record anyway and just talking live stream it's not going to be record yeah I don't think I did V so thank you second so come up alternative and again I'm to vote but okay well I'll make an alternate motion I move I move the governing board continue to live stream regular so are we paying monthly we don't a motion have a second okay your voting on not continuing no I [Music] to I want to continue the live not continue fail continue all mo carries next [Music] tonight we have an exciting celebration and and in order to to do this I am going to ask Marsh tonight we would like to recognize Marshall Bishop twin peace K teacher and Julie Bradshaw elementary teacher for receiving 20 $ 52,000 in federal funding to launch a Statewide professional learning program a at teachers to help positively influence the social and emotional well-being of kindergarten through third grade students and improve their academic performance Miss bishop and Miss Bradshaw collaborated with W centers amazing systems thinking and the P County School Amazing Project the community project was sponsored by representative ra rala both Miss bishop and Miss rcha have extensive teaching experience and success using the ninja life ha series with their students using the ninja life Hax social emotional book series or curriculum 120 teacher participants will learn how to Foster emotional resiliency in students and how to help students develop social emotional skills essential for their wellbeing and success the program addresses the five key competencies of social emotional learning self awareness self-management social awareness relationship skills and responsible decision making the 120 participating Elementary School teachers from across six areas of Arizona will receive training from Miss bishop and Miss Bradshaw teachers will learn how to use the books and participating schools will receive the book series 200 books to share with fellow teachers schoolwide the book and curriculum will be translated into Spanish to make them more accessible to all students we are excited to have this opportunity to impact other Arizona teachers through this program and represent MD which we have had success implementing that helping students develop the social emotional skills early on sucess not just academically also relationship please join us in thank you years of work [Music] okay next item is item F board [Music] Communications item G have three first one is sunny I'm here as part of my girl SC and I am here to shout out to so Mr cro came to our Avenue which is from 6 night so talking late at night a picture not exactly and he ran the whole car badge with all our girls and our children even the ones that AR drive and even taught some the leaders a couple things had hoods up for cars and he was just amazing and I said that I would um to compliment him and then I didn't do it so I decided to embarrass myself more you guys in how wonderful and I do have you canate and I also wanted to thank School District in general there are a lot of schools that are used as Girl Scout locations and I'll know you guys that but we do appreciate it and we're about to appreciate it a lot more because start so you'll see a lot of Girl Scouts a lot of places and we really support we really appreciate Mor's Community for [Music] good evening president Lopez members of the governing board Dr Sher senior staff and community members my name is Chelsea a and I'm the choir director at l Middle School and also the vice president on behalf of the mirand Education Association we would like to take a moment to reflect on the legacy of Dr Martin Luther King and the profound impact he has had on shaping the ideals of equality and justice in America as we approach sou Martin Luther King's tireless efforts and unwavering commitment to civil rights played a pivotal role in dismantling racial segregation and promoting equality for all citizens this dream of a Nation where individuals are judged by character rather than the color of their skins and light for us all as we honor his memory it is crucial that we reflect on how his principles continue to resonate in our communities especially in our Public Schools our public schools have the power to Foster an environment where every student regardless of their background has the opportunity to thrive and succeed as we reflect on King's Vision let us actively engage in doing the work to ensure equality for all students in N USC thank you for your dedication to the education and wellbe of our children Switching gears a bit I just wanted to share that teachers have been hard at work this week weling students back to the classroom reviewing procedures and expectations and jumping into third quarter as an educator it is impossible to show up for work on the first day after a break without spending time in advance lesson planning making copies creting slides this planning often happens outside of contract hours due to our dam schedules during I would just like to acknowledge the work that all NC Educators did in preparation for the semester we see you and we appreciate all that you do for our students have good evening president board members senior staff I am Chris I currently serve as the for the count be for who is the current treas who is in her sixth term going on her 24th year in that position approached me about two years ago to come on board and succeed her she she retires at some point this year when when the election occurs in that position I essentially serve as the BP of um what a lot of people don't realize is that of 1.5 to billion that our office manages on a daily basis the actual majority of it is not the counties but collectively the 17 school districts in um so the other day I was kind of ging about the service that we got from our banks um in the lack of personal contact UM as a former legislator and in fact as an educator for 22 years um I understand the value of relationships so I set about to as my personal goal to personally attend a board meeting in every one of the 77 jurisdictions that we serve throughout the course of the course of this year so I'm here just as an introduction I realize that you can't ask me questions in this form but when you guys get to the most exciting portion of your evening the approval of vouchers and warrants um if you do have any questions I would be happy to explain how we actually pay pay those warrants that and since I'm here in Mor I should also mention that I successfully survived corale Elementary thank you guys for serving thank you for what you do my fellow Educators thank you so much for your service Dr Lopez governing board members members of the audience I hopeful that everyone found the holiday season to be en joyful uh relaxing and rejuvenating I want to offer a heartfelt congratulations to our students our staff and our parents on a very successful first semester the collective efforts of the NP uh Community have uh truly created a thriving learning environment and I am proud to be part of such an accomplished dedicated with that said I am filled with excitement about the possibilities and opportunities that lie ahead for us in 2024 so tonight I will simply say welcome back happy New Year and I'm confident that we will continue to achieve great things next item is item five agenda Gover board approve the cons agenda as present [Music] micophone [Music] student Club to Middle School Career Technical exploration student Club High School spee shoting speak shooting student Club so it's always exciting to see what clubs come on board first off you should ask for questions V so um in the calendar so do we finally get rid it looks like in November no tonight's approval on the calendar is just the clean clean up of the induction preser just it's adding that one future work [Music] forar any other questions evening Dr Lopez MERS of the board Dr members of senior staff and our virtual name audience I am last semester at the T last semester I brought some High School courses for for approval uh we've done an audit and have found an opportunity and so we would like to bring forward two more courses for your consideration for approval and these courses have been approved by our high school leaders our C coordinator uh as well as the educational services department and so the first is graphic design 34 when we did a recent audit of our CTE programming we've already previously the board approved uh graphic design one two and one of the things that's really important in CTE programing is C programming is to have computers of C Pathways and so we would like to add graphic design SC forward to compet sequence for this particular pathway which would provide an opportunity for students at both Mirana and Mountain High School to be able to be see C computers of this particular pathway as you know graphic design is designed to prepare students to use technical expertise creativity and aesthetic principles to design and create visual concepts that meet specific commercial or promotional needs as well as Inspire inform and activate students who are compers would have the opportunity to earn industry certifications through the Adobe professional certifications there's a whole host of them that our students could take and earn those industry certifications on the second course that I'm bringing forward to you is an opportunity for our students to have uh to earn dual credits by taking world history uh P commity College world history and so in this year-long dual enrollment course students will study world history from prehistory to the 21st century with an emphasis on the cultural development of Africa Asia the Middle East and Americans this would extend our this would be an optional course that could extend our social studies offerings as well as increase opportunities for students to earn dual cir the running of this course would be dependent on student interest as well as ensuring that we have Educators College requirements uh set by The Higher Learning commission to be able to teach en if approved uh the the scope and sequence for this particular course uh the CTE course is set by the state uh this the ad C uh C leg of Arizona Department of Education and in the case of the PCC world history course been developed by Community College our Educators would utilize that course uh scope and sequence and then uh we would request recommendation from the college uh Department leads as to textbook that you could utilize and then we would engage in that process our process for for text appr I the governing board approve the new High School courses as present questions all right for my second item this evening I am bringing forth a contract that would establish a partnership between Arizona State University and the Moran UniFi School District uh last semester Dr strer and I had had an opportunity to sit down with a represent a representative from as digital and uh the representative Meg was amazing and she shared with us ways that Arizona State University is really working to partner with all all school districts across the state in order to offer services and resources that individual districts can have and so they the ASU Prep digital and ASU is really committed to working on increasing achievement for all students across the state and by partnering with them we would be able to have access to teacher professional learning specifically they offer uh support for online instruction asynchronous courses um helping us to create online courses and asynchronous courses that our students would do and study on and or take vertually whether it's through we have the opportunity to grow and develop our own foror but then they would also provide us with opportunities to access some of their coursework as well what really got us excited is there is they have a grant right now that supports students increasing their performance in eth grade mathematics on the state test called math momentum and so they actually provide a virtual coach for uh our eighth grade math teachers that would be able to work with our eighth grade math teachers on using some of the resources to prepare the students that state test and our teachers would be able to ear exens for participating and our students would G free access to use the resource to help them uh with filling skill gaps for in addition they offer Pro problem based learning and lesson plans in specific areas that we were intrigued about we have a host of elentary science lesson thing that we could offer our teachers so we're excited about the opportunity to explore ways that we can leverage the resources of digital to support our own student treat I'm that the governing board approved the master service agreement with Arizona State University for the ASU PR Digital Services any questions does the University of Arizona have nothing like this just saying we have not been uh contacted by the University of Arizona to establish a partnership of this nature I'm hoping we get that call soon all right tell me to call so what what is it cost I didn't see anything other than um two paragraphs here they're really cryptic Bo schedule avilable enrollments sure and so the costs of by a per course schedule so if we wanted our students let's just say we wanted our students to take third year calculus your ASD prep digital and utilizing that framework similar to the way that we work with mdl we would then just pay these student fee cost in order to take that particular course in in addition uh they offer the in one of the one of the offerings that they have in the partnership is the opportunity for our students to take Universal Design Universal learner courses and so our students uh we would pay $25 for course that could give students in our schools the opportunity to take actual college courses so they can experience what a college person is like and so that that could be so again it's like a $25 fee for our students to go access that course so we pay on a on a the service agreement is we pay as needed for those services but the resource exchanges are there's no cost you would not incer cost to be able to access some of the resources that okay so in your example you said about your Calculus so would that be at the going AG rate for credit hour it says here aspg will invoice each student who has been enrolled in a digital classroom and therefore has access to the course regardless of the students's demonstrated level of usage correct so being roll a student in one of their courses I know that the universal learner course2 per student so we would be invoiced for each student those courses for $25 so is that $25 the same fee that you're [Music] par it says it's student correct so have papor this time so each student gets an invoice a determination will be made whether we cover that cost or whether we ask for a to take the online course and then once students have completed the course I we they have the option of actually if they pass the course with a C or higher they can then request to have that converted into college credit and then then that college credit course would be passed on to families at I think it's at $425 for credit hour yes so the initial $25 is to access the course it says in here that it's done to the student when we were talking about it with Meg it was really it was my understanding that we could offer this as a Ser people districts do it one of two ways either hey we're a high school families your child has the opportunity to course for $25 and then we would have a a way to charge the $25 and and then pay it for it that way or if we wanted to offer an opportunity for students to explore an online course as a part of so so seems like seems like P switch is going on here so going to offer up to to parents hey you know come take this class well the district will pay the 25 bucks okay great now like like the example this G okay so the student gets a c or better now decides oh great you know I can get credit for this okay so here 1200s I think the last I it's only optional pass right so they don't pass or even pass or don't want to pay correct so the philosophy and the reason why they're doing it is to provide students with an opportunity to take the coursework so they can actually go from I didn't think I could be successful at in college level work to being able to do it and there's no obligation for students to have to do anything to get they don't have to pay anything if they don't want to credit they would prefer not to do that but it does provide students with an opportunity to sh their mindset from being non col going to seeing themselves able to complete college level I that part that's a huge and and a $25 nominal cost is is something that we are we were excited our B right 25 bucks not a problem well my well my concern is that is that we are not going to be completely upfront and open Kono about the detail of this program being oh okay if you you do get a good grade and you want to convert it to college credit right have your checkbook you got to pay5 Bucks do that right we could say I mean I mean the district could do that great but that's not what I'm he oh no we would absolutely do that that would be a part of like we would Orient parents we would provide them information on it and communication on it and all of that it would totally they would sign off that they have an understanding of this is why the purpose of it and in fact one of the cool things is that parents can actually enol in the classes too the parents are able to enroll in the classes as a part of this programs what our's the difference between two varies by [Music] institution no yeah it's it's aom it's nominal as well it's $40 [Music] for so I will say uh these are inory online courses and they cover and they're online our P en moment it requires an in-person live teacher my biggest concern is why would you set up kids to hey take take these courses and pay specifically but we without a doubt that's we want toide our students to we want all of our students to to walk away feeling that they have the ability to access college but it's still optional if I'm understand so take the class I just want to also clarify this is a master Services agreement can access all of this making this partnership it does not mean that we are planning to do so in an imminent future the primary reason for bringing this to you all so quickly after our meeting in December was the grant for uh the mathematics piece it ends in at the end of this fiscal year and in order for our teachers to be able to access those tools and resources and learning opportunities we had to get it in place as as possible but we like there was not a here's how we're going to be implementing all of the all of the elements of every single this thing and it was really confusing I mean I'm not that bright I'm not stupid either and I did not understand this thing so I I mean we want to have you know the Math teachers have access to this so that but in terms of rolling the students I think it's I think the implementation is confusing and I don't think that I don't think we as an Administration as a district have a good plan or we don't have a plan to implement outside of outside of the with outside of the Masterpiece this actually is just an Prov ENT point to make a plan and to consider how we some of the resources the ones that are at no cost or if the ones that are at cost which we communicate to students and families about how they do that in a way that is transparent and very clear so the only one we have a plan for right now a direct plan for is the implementation of the don't we already have an agreement with for the sign language and High School where they have to pay a fee to earn you college credit much higher than yes it is and just so everybody knows if you take a p class they send you a W2 at the end of the year so you have to report that as income for students so you get hit there too I still move that Bo Master service agreement with the Arizona State University for the ASU Prep Digital Services all right and my final agreement my final item for all of you this evening is an opportunity to if this is a followup of the course that you all approved in December for public service leadership and live streaming because we are going to be working very closely with the town of Mirana on this project this the agreement that you received really just extends our partnership with them so that the rols of who is doing what and who is responsible for what with regard to this particular course is is very clear and uh we have a clear understanding and clear agreement of who's going to be doing what and who is responsible for what and for our audience um the high school course that was approved is an uh is going to be a course that uh we're going to be piloting at Mor High School pending the approval of this agreement um during zero hour for students who are 16 or older and have the ability to get to Zero Hour but it will provide an opportunity for students skills um involving life saving uh CPR first and lifeguarding skills they will have the opportunity to engage in pool work um during rodo break and the and a little bit before spring break in preparation of being able to after the school year is over um work with the town of Morana and count to earn my card certification and possible employment within our community and so uh in addition to the actual life-saving pieces our students are also going to have the opportunity to learn leadership competencies and CTE workplace professional skills as they engage and learn about opportunities to be Role Models within our community and support uh the development of professional skills and support their development of their of professional skills I'm the Gover board appr the intergovermental agreement with the to Mor for public leadership and any questions a great question uh one of the things that is that we have a very involved student body at both Mar and and so one of the reasons we we we elected for mirand just to give that a go to work out the PS of the course along the way and they have a full which is very nice um the because this is going to be added after the current master schedule has already been implemented we thought that zero hour would provide more of an access point few students have the opportunity to few students take Zero Hour courses and because students are going to be required to drive to go to the pool and to do their pool work we wanted to make sure that we were trying to capture the best audience for it if this class is a go and if this class is a successful course we are hoping to then it's actually in the course books for both high schools right now so we could embed it [Music] into and so so there someone Mountain View they have to drive to Morana so would we at least allow them maybe an excuse tgy to get back to Mountain View so this this semester only High School um and so we're hoping that the class uh we were able to have a successful go in it so that that way we can operate in both high schools in the future so the only way for a Mountain View student to participate in this have his own car the only way for is for any well not necessarily for our car have access to transportation to get to zero hour because we don't transport students from their homes to the school for that oh right students are walking across the parking there yeah and so this semester if we're not advertising it to Mountain View students we're going to Pilot it work out the per that high and then hopefully be able to offer it embeded within the master schedule next good evening president Lopez governing board members and our audience tonight I bring before you a an agreement with W University the district's been contacted by the College of Nursing for a field experience student and that is attending bin University with the request to have of our schooles this requires that we have a field agreement place and since we accepting field placement students as a recruiting strategy we are asking you to approve this students I move that Gover appr fiate just one student at this [Music] time University Maryland so student she's l so I'm not sure if she completed her other on but now she's ready to do her plac all inor good evening president Lopez vice president H the board Dr streer Anda uh I'm here to seek approval for an intergovernmental agreement with the aiz Department of Education for the purposes Grant this past year Ed included in the budget funds for consumable art supplies to distribute these dollars AB is awarding Grants of no more than $1,000 per recip recipient excuse me ad defines eligible recipients at K through 12 public school art teachers Arts teachers and prek through third grade classroom teachers with an approved app Grant application These funds will provide dollars to purchase consumable supplies as P brushes sheet music dance crops theatrical costumes and more these materials will not only provide extra dollars for teachers but enhance this IG has been reviewed and approved by I know that the Govern the intermental agreement between yeah so$ per each [Music] yes so first come for sure yeah yeah this is a unique uh Grant application where ising governmental to go along the application so we don't know if so but yeah I mean that's up to 41 Arts teachers in our school district and 173k through third grade teachers we write the application uh in the state federal office and and we work with principles and teachers to determ want qualifying questions all in favor next item is item l f request to item M future meetings next meeting will be February yeah come on up here you're [Music] okay gu sorry [Music] I watch

something in the wrong spot no you sir so what do I do okay and that's the big one right is that yes this big one right hi uh they were out on the counter out in the lobby yes thank you also after we're having a little bit of technical diffic difficulty [Music] yeah let he's on um what going to okay perfect 7:30 on from 7:30 till about no okay [Music] I'm already over time it's a little Delay about 10 15 minute delay technical difficulty we can do it without the streaming if they want to start without it [Music] are you hey happy year the kids ladies later no went I just kep

I'm gonna go live on my end but don't go live on your end okay and it's not showing anything you see anything do you see anything on your screen I'm sorry really online's not popping up let me go out and go back in

okay uh let's begin with the pledge I PL Al to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and for all welcome to everyone this evening both those online and here person just a reminder we are live streaming um since this is our annual reorganization meeting I'll be presiding over the meeting until uh president is elected so we will begin with oath of office um but this year we have none that need to be given so moving on to the next item uh annual conflict of interest forms so asking for approval for those forms for Travis and Lorie Shephard motion by Pat second by Earl any discussion all those in favor any post abstain thank you next up um compensation approval so the board currently receives 2,000 a year for Service Plus a perum of $100 for regular meetings and 60 for special meetings um that isn't the maximum amount Allowed by the state so um asking for a motion of the amount that you would prefer to stay with what you've had or to increase that amount I make a motion that sorry go ahead I make a motion that we leave our rate the same second second by Earl any discussion all those in favor thank you and then then um moving right on to electing officers so beginning with the election of a president so if we have a motion to nominate like to nominate any second a second any discussion all right all those in favor and I will happily turn this over to you I'll abstain from all right so we'll move on to vice president we'll entertain um nominations for the position of Vice President I like to nominate Cheryl Miller please you have a nomination for Cheryl Miller second okay so we have um first and second any discussion all those in favor six so any abstain one Cher next we'll move on congratulations chery next we'll move on to secretary do we have a um nomination for secretary I nominate Pat have a a nomination for Pat do I have a second second second by Cheryl any discussion all those in favor and any so i' got six in favor and five asains next we'll move down to appointing um treasur and Deputy Treasurer will um recommend you want to recommend Nikki recommend I I recommend Philip Marsh yeah thank you um so we have recommendation for Philip Marsh's treasure um and then for Deputy treasure myish okay so we'll take those as a a one vote so do I have a motion to accept those as recommended so mooved have a motion by Travis I have a second by Pat any discussion all those in favor seven o um next we'll move down to executive secretary I'd like to recommend Debbie and okay we have a recommendation for Debbie to the executive treasur do I have a motion motion by Burl do I have a second second by Travis any discussion all those in favor 70 um so that takes us down to um board meeting dates schedule think the board go ahead yes um the proposed dates are in your packet it follows the regular schedule of the 2 and fourth of the month except for where noted on the calendar so asking for approvals so do we have a a motion to accept those board meeting dates as presented so have a motion by maryn do I have a second second second by Cheryl any discussion all those in favor seven um next we entertain you want to make a recommendation on legal counsel yes I'd like to recommend Jason Jud as legal counsel okay we have a recommendation Jason Jud for legal councel do I have a motion to accept that moved motion by Pat do I have a second second by Travis any discussion all those in favor 70 next we have we'll take a um recommendation for nsba legislative AA on maryn wi okay so we have a recommendation for Marilyn Wickham to take that position do I have a motion motion by Chelsea do I have a second second second by Carol any discussion all those in favor and any obain maryn maryn abstain 6 next we have an isba policy liaison I'd like to recommend patat Sullivan yeah so we have a recommendation do I have a motion to accept that recommendation motion by Mary ly do I have a second second by Chelsea any discussion all those in favor six any abstain Pat abstains six so um next we'll entertain a um motion to allow the board president to um appoint individual board members to committees and representatives to various organizations so I have a motion by Pat do I have a second second by Chelsea any discussion all those in favor 70 so next we'll go through committee appointees um I think what you'll find is that um most of these all of them will um be the same as what we had for last year but I'll go through and um name all of the Committees for appointees so the first is for the transportation committee we have two repr Representatives that will be Cheryl Miller and Earl tager for the athletic Council representatives there will be two represented by the board that'll be Amy pedet and Earl tager for the wellness committee Representatives that will be one person and that will be Amy pedet for the facilities committee representatives there will be two we'll have Chelsea Morrison and Pat Sullivan for the um essential Services committee representative that's one position will'll be Travis Shephard for the nsba affiliate advocacy representative that's one individual that would be maryn Wickam for the area plan commission um that will be one individual and that's Travis Shepard for the North Vernon Redevelopment commission representative that's one individual and that's Pat Sullivan for the Jennings County Redevelopment commission representative that's one individual and that's Cheryl Miller and then we have one volunteer representative committee that's for the jchs Alumni Hall of Fame selection committee um that meets one time per year and that volunteer is Mary as I did said last year you know um I think sometimes you forget when you're on a board um the requirements and the commitment of your time and services so I just want to say thank you to all of the board members um for their dedication to the school corporation and to our kids and our kids first thank you for your willingness to serve on those committees so that should take us in the agenda down to consent agenda items so if we'll entertain a motion to accept the consent agenda items Mo motion by Earl do I have a second second by Travis any discussion all those in favor 70 so now we'll ask if anyone is present from the community who would like to speak to an item that is um on the agenda or any other topic okay hearing none we'll go on to Old business and we have some Neola policies thank we are ready to ask for approval of Neola policies um I'd like to take them in a group if that's okay absolutely um so do I have a motion to accept the Neola policies I have a motion by Pat do I have a second Mar ly any discussion all those in favor 70 next down under finances we have a an appropriation transfer well that's just an inform that's the normal year end to uh close out the books from the State Board of accounts standpoint okay so no action yeah you you guys had the resolution in December this is just the detail of it for you guys to sign off on great yep great it's the finalization of it perfect next up is the 2020 for roofing project which is going to be at Sand and cipio this summer and I was asking for approval South Central was a low bid so I'm asking for approval to finalize that so asking for approval for um South Central Roofing to get the bid for the um Roofing projects at San Creek and cpio elementaries I have a motion by Travis do I have a second second second i' had any discussion or questions those in favor 70 next under new business uh just sharing a first reading of the ol policies another set of them you have any questions if you'll reach out I'll be happy to look into those for you and that is a first reading so little light bedtime reading for everybody um next we'll um go down under programs yes this is just an informed presentation from the idoe on the I Lear redesign um I learn will change its format in the 2526 school year so this is getting your heads up we have an opportunity to Pilot these changes next year and you do have a presentation in your um folder um the first picture is just a picture there are 12 other states that are doing a same same kind of transition to um through the year testing so right now we just have one large test at the end of the year a summi of test what we're moving to is some checkpoints before we get to that summative test some people are using the same blueprints for each checkpoint some are using unit modules and what we're in Indiana is using as a scope and sequence so there are two major goals to this um the first one is to improve the quality and usefulness of State assessment systems through Innovation um and how are they going to do this how do they plan on doing this is to provide actionable data for educators and families and we're go we go go into more details about that at the end the not next year through the pilot but in the 25 26 year there will be a shorten Summit of assessment so it won't be as long as we've we've had um and it'll still be in the same time frame um they're also planning to connect teachers directly to instructional supports for students and then provide end of the year report end of the year reports that consider student performance across the entire year so we'll be receiving data three checkpoints and then also the Sumit of assessment at the end um when we do start this and it should reduce overall testing by incorporating required data points into a single system um so some um some formative assessments where we have to pull some data throughout the year hopefully some of this will take its place um and that's something we're going to have to look through to see what formative assessments we'll still need to keep and what this data will give us um it'll also provide quality PD for assessments and instruction data literacy the second goal um is to provide actual data for educators and families um they will provide a dynamic repor reporting systems for educators and this data we will get throughout the year instead of at the end of the year after they've taken the summit of test we will get data throughout the year um the very first checkpoint that I'll talk about um they St said it'll take us four or five days to get the data and then from that point after the checkpoints for the checkpoints it'll take 24hour period so educators will get immediate data where that they can use to help inform their instruction in the classroom and Remediation and intervention um it will also provide families with um data throughout the um school year if you remember like I step and I learn at the end of the year you would get the information you could go in the portal and you could check this will be a process where families will be able to look throughout the year depending on each data point um provide year round information for instructional responses um it'll be able to connect teachers to immediate resources and intervention remediation at that time highlight learning progressions masteries of Standards at the time of learning and it'll provide 100% alignment to Indiana State Standards the other part of this is the checkpoints are low stake um data students will be given multiple chances for the same test and I'll and I'll explain that here in just a second so what we'll be able to find is what students know at that time when they take that test and we won't have to wait until the end of the year so the next one um say yeah this is it so last spring the doe had asked school districts for their um St when when they when we taught standards so they took our our feedback to come up with a scope and sequence from across the state and so that's what we're looking at here so if you take a look at checkpoint one it's a 9we window where students are going to be given the teachers will be given educators will be given opportunity to take a test any time during a nwe window it'll open midt and at that time students will be tested over four to seven standards it'll be 20 to 25 items and then there will be a checkpoint two more in the middle of the year it'll be a little bit wide of window because it's around Christmas and there are different I think it's a 10-week period and then there will be a checko three same thing at each of these checkpoints there'll be four to seven standards 20 20 to 25 items then at the end there will be a final short shortened Summit of assessment that will only be 30 to 35 items so it won't be as long as we are taking it now next year during the pilot year though everyone will still take the longer um final assessment um this is just for Math and Ela um they they may do science or social studies in the future but at this time this is just for Math and Ela if you take a look at the next screen though this is a little bit broken down deeper students will take that first checkpoint sometime after mid September in that nine-week period teachers will have the flexibility to give it when they want to give it within that nine week period once I give that checkpoint and I receive the data then I'll be able to use that data to instruct my to help me with my instruction um I will also it'll also help me with remediation and interventions with students once I feel like I've remediated or intervened with students what I will be able to do is then give that checkpoint one I will be able to retest it on those same standards I can use that checkpoint retest all the way up to the summit of assessment so there'll be that checkpoint one and then I'll be able to retest one more time to see if my interventions and Remediation work with students if a student does fine on that checkpoint they do not have to be uh remediated or no intervention they do not have to take it again we don't want to over test and so if a student has mastered those standards and they don't need to do it again then they won't have to so you'll have the three checkpoints which is what's different for us now in that shorten assessment um throughout this year all that data will be provided for teachers and so I think it will oh it'll be in um slides in just a second but they'll be able to use that data throughout the year instead of waiting till the end of the year um which is the a big key to teachers and then on the next slide this it's kind of hard to read up here but this is just a blueprint that a teacher will have and if you look it shows all the standards and then it shows what will what standards will be tested during each checkpoint so teachers are able to um instruct according and then test according to whatever that was in that window once again they'll have one checkpoint and then they can redo that throughout that whole year until they get to that Summit of assessment and so if you look then if you take a look to the right here the right is our current I changed my instruction over time to become stronger and more efficient to better meet the needs of my students that's what we're doing now and that's looking at the whole system what this is moving to is more direct and immediate I Chang my instru instruction right away for specific student to meet a specific student need that has by been identified um it allows me to change my instruction throughout the year I don't have to wait um I I really think it's it's going to be helpful to us next year will be a pilot year so we'll be able to to implement the checkpoints and the checkpoint retest but the summit of assessment will still be the same for next year the year after that that Summit assessment will be shorter any questions it's just an inform look forward to seeing how that works yeah anything that can be done more real time and make adjustments I think it would be good look forward to seeing great results um so next we go down under professional staff you have some recommendations yes please I'd like to ask for approval for the following recommendations Chris Billings as the Jennings County High School assistant lighting director Michael Bowen as the as the S Creek Elementary teacher Joe houseb as the Jennings County High School Building Trades and civil construction teacher entertain a motion to accept those as red motion by Mary Lyn second by Earl any discussion all those in favor seven next we'll go down staff there's a list of recommendations yes asking approval for the following recommendations Abigail Banks has a San Creek Elementary PA probe Sophia Barrett as the Jennings County High School librarian Jelena Belding as Jennings County High School volunteer assistant track and field coach Leela Chandler as brush freek Elementary parro Lexi thank you I always have to stop and think compare the two Jennings County School's buade David Grider Jennings County High School bed Paro Dylan Griffin Jennings County High School athletics support Leah Herman Jennings County high school music Paro termination Sonia Jackson San Creek Elementary sped parpro Carter leak new County High School assistant track and field coach hether Lucas North and Elementary sped parro Michaela stinum Northburn and Elementary sped parpro and Shelby Wilson norer Elementary parro we entertain a motion to accept those as red motion by Travis do I have a second second second by Cheryl any discussion all those in favor 70 and I think we have Miss Cher in the building yes exactly Leela Chandler who's our newest um Brush Creek Elementary PA Pro is here and I would love to have you go over if you at M St on the side they would love to be able to introduce you to the school corporation and her her proud mom is here with her tonight as well but we're so grateful to have Lea with us and then I think we have one additional yes and also Carl pimpton Jennings County High School girls head wrestling coach entertain a motion to accept that nomination Move Motion by Pat do I have a second second by Chelsea any discussion all those in favor seven next we'll go down under finances some donations yes I'm asking approval to accept the following donations Anonymous $100 to Brush Creek for student lunches Don CS $200 to Brush Creek for student snacks Alicia Roberts State Farm Insurance Agency 375 to Hayden for Mr Robbins field trip lunches to Lucas Oil and the Old Spaghetti Factory scotes $50 to Hayden Elementary for the 2324 Art Club cpio United B United Methodist Church $100 to cppi Elementary for student lunch accounts USA Football $750 to the Jennings C County youth football program to purchase new uniforms and or equipment Jennings County FFA fresh food fresh fruit with a value of $1,400 to Jennings County elementary schools for students in need and activities John and Jennifer cardier $250 to Middle School stem program Rose acres two cases eggs to the Jennings County High School Panther Pantry Keenan castair and family seven bags of food to the Jen County High School Panther Pantry Wayne Samora $200 for the jins County High School winter formal K&G Sports $225 to the JS County Elementary music program an Bailey a in the classroom books 20 $102 value to the elementaries and four donations for the Hope food program $101 Middle School $100 from the Middle School athletics $40 suy Webster and $50 Sand Creek Elementary I have a motion to accept those donations as R motion by Earl do I have a second second by Chelsea any discussion all those in favor 70 next we're down under property update update on the CTE renovation um project just wanted to give you a heads up that we are coming up on construction bid soon so advertised in the paper over the next two weeks um the bid open date is February 1st and Our intention is to bring back the winning bid to you for a February 8th meeting so things are moving along which we're very excited about and then next we have under um relations we have an mou yes asking for approval first for anou with the health department very similar to what we do annually at the Red Cross entertain a motion to accept thatou motion by maryn do I have a second second second by Cheryl any discussion all those in favor 70 and then a second asking for approval of anou with B state to allow student teachers counselors Etc do I have a entertain a motion to accept that M Earl do I have a second second by Pat any discussion all those in favor 70 and I think we're done under other I don't have any other having nothing else on the agenda entertain a motion to adjourn motion by Pat second by Travis all those in favor 7 meeting

right welcome everyone the echo going that's my computer yeah okay we good yep okay welcome everyone first planning board meeting of 2024 um January 11th um a note to everyone that uh we are here live obviously but we also are broadcasting and recording the first item on our agenda tonight is a special item usually we start at 7:15 we are starting at 6:30 today I will call the meeting to order at 6:30 um Margie do you need to do you need to call your meeting to order in case I'm I'm on we can um Mar I'm not sure how many folks from the sustainability committee out there but uh we've got car myself as Margie I think is in the room um from the sustainability committee as well oh Margie you have to pull this closer and you have to press it on like the yellow but but I'm sorry Ash did you did you we we couldn't hear very well did you officially call the the yes you called the meeting to order for the sustainability committee yes okay great just in case all right so um just a very brief background so this is a um this is an effort the ashin um tree bylaw that the sustainability committee has been working on for quite some time um through covid obviously things were a little slow and um recently they've brought it to the planning board to try to um get our input try to um create a bylaw that might work for Astron to try to put a lot of different ideas together so this part of our discussion tonight is not um an official Forum there is no official warrant this is a a public discussion about some of the things that we have been reviewing in order to try to gain some input um from the public and and to answer any questions I do want people to note that the in I do want people to note that the um the information that was available online is a little confusing relative to um what we're going to go through today and so I ask that if if you have questions if things really don't make sense and they're not resolved within the presentation do please ask the questions because there it these are kind of complicated thoughts and issues and policies we're discussing some of the things I think didn't come out properly in the documentation that that was online and available for you for you to read so we're considering it an an open discussion um a time when we were really trying to listen to people who are here obviously and also people online and we hope that we um can gain a lot of information that way we're going to start out with um a presentation Ash did you want to did you have any statement before Mar Marie begins her presentation yeah as as Margie setting up the presentation if you don't mind uh I just wanted to qu provide a quick point of view as to why sustainability is uh is pursuing this and and believes that it's important for ashin to adopt um as we've been talking about uh from the sustainability committee we've had you know a goal of Net Zero uh for the town and in in today's world while we can continue to make progress on reducing our overall carbon uh emission you know the only way to actually absorb carbon uh is is through vegetation trees uh and so from a pure carbon neutrality perspective it is critically important but trees are super critical um overall as well which Marie will go over um we believe that you know uh trees as the as the as the diagram shows right uh please sustain life and and and we we we really need to sustain our trees our goal with this is to as um as Trisha put it you know really have a public discussion we're trying to incorporate as much public input before we take this to town meeting um so you know nothing you see is baked it's its points of view you and and if you've got uh strong points of you please share them uh we we want to try and represent the needs of the town as best as we can we're early in the process so please don't think that that anything we're putting out there is is absolutely locked uh and and in place um Marg hand off to you thank you so much for giving the shs thank you and and just just one minute before you start margerie just to um for people who may not know people both in the audience on and online Ash who was just speaking is um the current chair of of the sustainability committee um Margie gaso who's going to be presenting is also on the sustainability committee Peter machic is our town planner and the rest of us here are on the planning board so just to get a little familiar with the faces with the faces that are here so with that Margie I will turn it over to you okay good evening I understand that there has been some confusion and um misunderstanding on on the bylaw so I hope that I can clear some of that up this evening I have a short presentation and then we'll open it up for discussion because our main purpose tonight is to get feedback a couple comments before I begin um we would like to create a tree bylaw that is fair and serves the best interests of the community it is not our intent to stop development but to develop in a responsible way that considers and maximizes the benefits to the community and as I said we hope to gather as much feedback this evening but if you would also like to submit written comments you can do that following this evening um you can email the sustainability committee at sustainability Ashlin mass.com or Andor the planning board so the purpose of the tree by law is essentially to prevent clear cutting and and our intent is to work with developers so that their clear cutting is done only when necessary and in a way that is thoughtful and preserves the values of Ashland and and the property values themselves the bylaw will apply when a developer comes to the planning board for a permit to either build subdivisions multif family dwellings or other commercial projects and it would be triggered by the following things a site plan review which pertains to construction or enlargement of a commercial or industrial structure site alteration special permit or subdivision approval the bylaw does not apply to existing residential lots shall I admit somebody oh I'm sorry so we're proposing that trees that are 6 in in diameter at breast height which is 4 and 1/2 ft above the ground level or larger and that are located in the setback areas which are essentially around the perimeter of the property be defined as protected trees the requirements for applicants will be that they'll have to submit a tree protection plan that shows the trees on the property that will remain and those that will be removed the plan should show how these remaining trees will be protected during construction activities and they'll be required to either replace the trees that they remove or pay an equivalent value to a tree fund that will be established to allow the town to plant and care for more trees the equivalent value will be based on a formula that considers the cost to purchase replacement trees and to plant and maintain them and it will apply per inch of um diameter at breast height that has been removed trees provide many essential services that make life possible they create oxygen and they filter our air they promote our physical and mental well-being they provide shade evaporative cooling and reduced temperature extremes they reduce our need to use more energy and thereby bring cost savings for example they can lower heating costs by 20% and air conditioning by 30% trees connect people and build stronger neighborhoods they provide privacy they increase curb appeal and they can add value to our homes and re research has shown that that can range from 10 to 19% increase in value they strengthen the economy and they provide savings and value as Ash said in face of climate change they are very important for moderating temperature and wind which can improve public health during extreme weather events they remove pollutants from the air so but they reduce pollution ozone and smug they provide stability for land and control erosion and flooding they improve our watersheds and drinking water and of course they beautify our environment I think many of us live here because we appreciate having green cover I feel that I have to bring up soils um soils are Bec becoming more and more recognized as being important and so my point is that it's not just about an individual tree it's about the whole environment in which they grow and soils are a really important part of that for one thing they support biodiversity which is also essential for dealing with climate change because if you have more variety there's better chance of surviving they also play a big part in regulating flooding heat Islands water quality and I can't see what it says drought response and soil is really important in carbon storage so the soil which includes an elaborate network of microorganisms organic matter the roots and together with the leaf litter actually comprise the largest amount of carbon that's captured from the atmosphere and in this diagram on the left it simply shows that there are many different parts of the trees that capture and store Carbon on the right what it shows you is that the dark green color represents the live above ground and that is the proportion of carbon that is stored in that component and all of the rest of it is stored in the other components which include the organic which is the light green and also includes the live below below ground material Deadwood and the as I said the leaf litter and so save protecting and preserving trees is important it's a strategy that we're pursuing in order to manage climate change and it's part of the Net Zero resolution that we passed some years ago I think that might be oh no here we go so what is your vision for the future of Ashland and this is when I'll turn it over to you right thank you Margie so um said this is really about um about a public discussion so Margie has given her presentation we're happy to take uh questions to try to really get uh make sure where we are now is kind of understood um but also looking for comments and feedback um Peter will be managing that process both um in the room and online good luck Peter I'll help out when I can um uh and um obviously for people online you probably usually know the routine but you just want to make sure that your hand is raised and then um when your turn comes up uh Peter will will address you directly so Margie you don't it's up to you if you want to have a standing desk is very fashionable these days or if you want to take a seat so first there anybody in the room would anybody like in the room want to go first and step up the microphone sure yes CE please and just and just because this usually comes up sometimes in planning board meetings I'm not going to put um a time restriction on on speaking tonight but I would say to know that there are a lot of people in the room so let's make sure that every everyone um gets a chance and and we can always come around a second time if we have an opportunity okay thank you Trisha so I have one question and then a couple of comments I'd like to share when we talk about replacing the trees or paying into a fund can you help us to understand under what circumstances they wouldn't replace the trees but would rather donate to the fund under what circumstances well I think there are a number of factors can you hear me okay um okay so to some extent it would be up to developer to make that choice but it would also depend on the configuration of the property and whether there's suitable space and and the right environment for the trees that they would want to plant okay all right thank you and then um as many of you know I fell down the rabbit hole with the wireless radiation issue and in addition to the human health harm that we've discussed with these boards before there's a deep body of science showing that the radi frequency radiation is very harmful to birds bees and trees in the rest of the environment so on this crazy Journey I've had the privilege of connecting with many of the world's leading experts on these topics I'm certainly not an expert but I put our bylaw forth to a couple of gentlemen who are and Ed fredman has been the chair of the friends of Mary meeting Bay up in Maine and he said um and I'll read from a couple of emails that these guys sent back to me so Ed Freeman said one comment regarding your draft ordinance language which overall I think is excellent I would reconsider the use of the word clearcut in Massachusetts it appears to mean removal of all trees in a stand while this may be part of your intent I think the general public idea of clear cutting is probably more toward substantial or total cutting of a stand usually on an industrial basis yet your ordinance definitely focuses on a Timber harvesting at a much smaller scale even to the point of keeping track of individual trees so he says I think you can have language that addresses your main concerns without saying this control of clear cutting is the intent and he was kind enough to provide the language that we might want to align with at the state level and in the glossery of Forestry terms they say clearcut is one a stand in which essentially all trees have been removed in one operation note depending on management objectives a clear-cut may or may not have Reserve trees left to attain goals other than regeneration and two a regeneration or harvest method that removes essentially all trees in a stand and in the draft that we have today we Define clear cutting as the removal of 50% of the mature trees as determined by the Ashlin tree warden so I think his um information was a way to help us align with what the state guidelines already are or the laws to save ourselves any trouble down the road and then the second gentleman that I reached out to is um Albert man Anville and he has retired from the US fish and wildlife services and he offered us some comments about bird habitat protection so he says one of my jobs with the division of migratory Birds management was to adopt and Implement all reasonable and necessary efforts to avoid or minimize take that's the unpermitted killing injury and crippling loss of migratory Birds so-called incidental or accidental take which the US fish and wildlife services does not permit so he also helped to co-author voluntary communication Tower guidelines and he says that clear cutting selective cutting even aged stand cutting and related tree shub uh shrub clearing efforts can be especially problematic during bird breeding season when trees and shrubs are being cut but nests are active he was successful in stopping some of this this activity but it's a huge issue so he suggest you might put a simple Clause recommending against any tree shrub removal or cutting during the nesting and fledgling periods for protected migratory birds and there's more than a thousand species that are protected arguably this sensation could be for most of the year since something is generally breeding nesting rearing chicks and helping fledglings for much of the year from December to late spring for bald eagles to early spring to early summer for other Raptors to Spring and Summer for song birds and winter birds and into the fall for Birds rearing second clutches the protections are all codified in the migratory bird treaty act and its implementing regulations and the take issues that Trump managed to remove during his administration were overturned by the US federal district court order in 2019 and he was involved in that um so it's now the court order has now been codified into a new migratory bird rule by the United States fish and wildlife services and then he adds that bald eagles clearly present in Massachusetts and I know from Mr denman's photo City Post we do have them here in Ashland um so in addition to the MBTA protections also protected by the bald and golden eagle protection act disturbance take and take resulting in mortality are prohibited under that act unless they are given a permit you might point out that if disturbance be if disturbance becomes an issue the cell carriers would need to get take permits before the fact otherwise they could be in criminal violation of Statute and he's included some attachments that I'll go ahead and send there's another um part to that around disturbance and the noise from chain sha CH chainsaw CA logging trucks chippers and you name it can constitute a disturbance so there are some other factors that go with the trees with the birds so I also just wanted to comment that when we started introducing 5G into our town and at one of the earlier planning board meetings I asked Mr klasnic who's an attorney for the industry when they were giving us these applications I read through it and they were saying oh like on the Ponderosa site they were just going to take down three antennas and put up 9 or 12 in its place same platform same cell tower no big deal to them and I asked him I said are you putting 5G in our town are you introducing new technology into our town and he said yes but nowhere in the application did he indicate that so we need to be very careful about what we're allowing the wireless industry to do in our community they have um there are many reports around the country of Telecom coming in literally under the dark of night sometimes and clear cutting the trees because with fifth generation technology their signals are very small in addition to the bigger wavelengths that they're using and those small signals are disrupted by things like trees so they just come in and Lop off the trees so I love that we're going to have the arborist and Ashlin involved in all of the planning board decisions and something that with new technology we need to be mindful of and if we get to the point of revising our wireless communication facilities by law we have a good example out of Americans for responsible technology and one of the things they do recommend is that all of our applications are reviewed by a certified Arborist so thank you thank you CC so with oh with but some of so I can I'm going to just go to the next online person and then we can kind of rotate back and forth I think that's most uh fair and Equitable uh thing to do so uh the first person with their hand up was Joel AR bitman uh Joel can you please introduce yourself with your name and address hi Joel AR bitman Woodridge Lane in Ashland thank you Mr machek I have a few comments on the proposed bylaw first I want to thank uh especially morgie uh for all the work she's put into this it was an enormous amount of work and I think she did a great job with her presentation I also want to thank the sustainability committee and also the planning board I know there's a lot of work that's going to go into writing up a new bylaw among many other climate programs the town should consider I think a tree protection plan is critically necessary about a week or two ago I watched an interview with the Secretary of Energy under Obama a guy named Steven Chu he indicated that we have already baked in a 3 degree temperature rise by the year 2100 it's unimaginable the impact of what that's going to do that's already going to happen no matter what we do I mean we're really in trouble here uh a lot of you know Common Sense articles are talking about planetary Extinction there's no way to overstate the risk from climate change it's threatening our food supply our air our soil our water and most of all our lives and our health while I strongly support the tree bylaw that I see it as far too timid it doesn't go far enough and I'll give some examples one simple thing we could do to broaden it a little bit that would be not risky and not costly uh would be why not consider providing an incentive for homeowners to plant trees all of the focus here is on restricting cutting of trees which is great uh but why not go farther why not and maybe the fund for that could come from those who are cutting the trees we could reward homeowners from that fund who turn around in plant trees so maybe we could take a look at a uh uh thinking out of the box and broadening the program a little bit the bylaw as proposed I think is very limited and much too Limited I think it needs to do a lot more it only applies to development and Redevelopment projects a planning board member recently said and I may be misquoting I don't mean to that there are only a few very large project areas remaining in Ashland I mean the town is approaching buildout and there's not that many more sites that this is going to apply to so it's well meaning but I think it's it's very limited um the bylaw should cover all trees in Ashland including private property I I understand the politics of this you know the committee has been uh shy about trying to be too aggressive but it's time for residents to start understanding the risk the to be educated and informed and to understand what they can do and I think they'll respond in a positive way if they're given that information uh let me see what else I had uh what is the ratio of the number of trees that might be covered by the bylaw for these development and Redevelopment projects compared to the total number of trees in Ashland in other words if the trees that are going to be covered are 2% or 5% of the town's tree stock it seems like given the risk of climate change and the urgency that this is a drop in the bucket I had a couple of technical comments on the the the law the bylaw has proposed that I hope you'll review carefully and and perhaps uh make sure that these aren't going to be problems one of the things built into the bylaw as proposed is that it has a very good I think a very positive thing what I I'm going to phrase it a look back provision if uh somebody has cut down trees even 12 months prior to the beginning of their development project or however it's worded those trees would be includ be covered by the tree bylaw that's very good the problem I see is that if I'm a land owner say say I have a five or a 10 acre parcel and I'm going to be moving to Florida and I'm going to sell off my land so that a developer can come in and do all this work maybe it would uh with this law in effect maybe it would be better for me to cut down all my trees on my private property that's not covered by this bylaw and then wait 12 months to sell it my land to a developer I can sell off all the timber and make money and maybe the the lot is a lot more appealing to a developer because there you I just Exempted them from the byw if I'm understanding it correctly I really think that needs to be addressed and for this reason at a minimum I think larger Parcels even privately owned Parcels should be covered by this bylaw last comment on the technical stuff I didn't know about this in advance but I if I'm understanding uh the way this is going to get worded this 20 foot perimeter it sounds like only the 20 foot perimeter of a given of a of a Target parcel uh will be covered by the tree bylaw and the rest of it won't be just as a simple example to make the point my house is set back about a 100 feet from the street I left hundreds of trees on my property there's huge trees everywhere if I if I were allowed to cut down all of the trees except for the 20 ft near the lot line we would lose 60 70% of my trees instead of doing the 20 foot perimeter what I'd like to see is a change I'd like to see the bylaw say if you're within 20 feet of an approved structure that's very different then you can cut the trees down they'll be in your way and you have a right to clear them so that you can do your work we don't want to interfere with that process but to do it on the property line seems very illc conceived to me finally I would strongly encourage the town and the sustainability committee to hold a public forum that would be open to all residents about what we can do as a town and do individually to help with the threat of climate change asine residents would respond I believe in a very positive enthusiastic way I think fearing being more aggressive we don't have the time given the urgency that climate change presents and that we should be bolder than the committee is currently buil being so I support this but I think that we should we should look at a much more aggressive stance and I really want to thank everybody for making any effort you've made here it's a it's a great project so thank you very much thank you Joel um is there anyone um inhouse that wants to come Mike right I think you rais your hand for us I'm sorry and just a small announcement there was a iPhone found in the women's bathroom my mom oh okay I have it please sure yeah my name is Mike Kane I am a a local small developer and Builder um and I I also own uh my company's name is mg cane properties and I also own 126 cell storage over on Pawn Street um I had met Marie back in October 22 when this early stages we talked about this and I kind of been forgotten about it till a week 10 days ago when I found out this uh meeting was going to take place um so I haven't heard anything about the costs of implementing this program on developments so I said well let me take the bylaw the costs and apply it to two projects that I built here in town one is my storage facility on Pawn Street and one is um um Wilson Circle which was a six cuac I built right kind of close to the Oregon Club um and um so I took the numbers out of the um bylaw and I hope they're accurate tell me if they not now Wilson Circle uh we had to cut 250,000 Square ft clear cut why High groundwater septic systems 8 to 10t fills for septics and what have you very expensive to build you couldn't save a tree and fill 8 ft around it obviously um so when you do the math and people in the room and planning board members here have copy of this um to cut we had to cut 861 trees with an average 10in U diameter at breast height we have to replace five times that which is 435 trees at 2 in diameter at $750 a tree the cost is 3, $220,000 to the tree fund the house is sold for 750 to 900,000 this would add $538,000 to each house and this is very typical of any subdivision single family subdivision that will be built in the future in the town second uh example is my storage facility um similar math we had to cut five acres replacement trees $ 3,937 th000 that's a commercial project I doubt anybody would build that if they had to pay that today um the facility didn't cost to build that with land and construction those are two real examples of projects that were built applying this bylaw to it and then I just did a hypothetical for a typical anr lot approval not required typical Lots in town at 30,000 square ft um estimating to cut 20,000 Square ft to fit your house your septic your driveway maybe you want solar exposure a yard what have you appli the same math using the very minimum tree size of 6 in three replacement trees per comes out to $155,000 added on to the cost of the the house so there are huge costs involved in this bylaw and they could be higher I was very conservative with the numbers of trees and the sizes of trees these numbers could be 25 or 50% higher when you do the actual measurements um so that's a comment on cost and I have a question I guess for Margie um you said it didn't apply to existing single family homes yet the site plan alteration special permit bylaw 5.8 applies to this tree bylaw correct correct so um 5.8.2 says applicability no person shall undertake the following land clearing SLG grading activities without first obtaining a sight alteration special permit from the planning board clearing of an area greater than 5,000 square ft or grading if involving more than 100 cubic yards of Earth so if I wanted to build a swimming pool with a patio around it or detached garage or Barn you know it's disturbing 5,000 square ft clearing it it this would apply by the way I read it no I was actually wondering about that and I would like to ask Peter so I think with the purpose and I think when they were when the simula created this is that it would apply to any newly created residential development but this applies to this B I agree and I don't think we really haven't had that discussion yet and I understand your point and your question and I think that's a discussion that everyone has to have yeah with this I mean by the words it clearly applies to anybody 5,000 you have a great point of view I'm not I can argue that and it's a great point of view and it's a great point to talk about yeah so and so you've got a huge expense for new developments possibly redevelopments I think will shut down most new developments you can't no one's going to spend you know half a million dollars for trees on top of the cost of the land and the house and what have you um and then if it applies to existing residences there'll be huge costs to those people to put in a pool or detach a garage or what have you so the costs are very important the costs haven't been discussed or mentioned that's what I thought my role should be as a as a developer in Boulder thank you Mike are you I'm sorry are you I I was going to say are you open to a question sure absolutely um so um in your calculations those were based on what was online which is basically clearing that the that the bylaw would apply to the whole lot it's not um it's not calculate or is it calculating the buildable is it's based on the bylaw that I printed off that printed offline so it's not um what Margie was presenting in her presentation was that the the protected trees would just be in the setbacks so this is if we cleared the whole lot um and the alternative what the the bylaw is looking at is protecting only those trees um that are in the setbacks already right right but you're talking new construction right right new conr take the the example again of Wilson Circle which by the way I want you to understand that is the town's only Net Zero Energy subdivision the houses are super insulated solar powered all electric 100% off the grid but they're on the grid but they're they don't use power off the grid and the people live there for Zero Energy costs no electric bill no gas bill no propane bill so I consider myself to be a very green build a very green person but the cost are the costs and I don't see where I made any mistakes so here this kind of the second part of my question right as a developer which I am not right um you had talked a little bit about that development um and I don't know that development very well um but about some of the things you need to put put in septic systems roads there you know W you know different things is it possible in a development like that to um that there are areas of trees that can be saved um more easily you know that maybe don't fit Within These tight restrictions but in looking at in looking at a um you know land like that are there areas from your point of view that can be saved um and such that the if the bylaw was written a different way there'd be like a middle ground between clearing it all and and restricting a restricting a developer to you have to save these areas and someone might say those areas just don't work for what I'm trying to do do you understand my question yes I do and the answer is in this particular case no because of the of The High Ground Water because of the septic systems the huge fills you had to to clear very large areas clear-cut very large areas now we we be minimized it but we you know we had we had Wetlands to deal with we had detention pwns retention areas to deal with so we stopped where we where we could but we couldn't build without cutting those those trees because you need because you needed to put the septic systems in what would be the setback areas was that right well when you when you have a a a new construction um and you have to remember most of the good land all good land is built you know the old the flat Fields without any trees and great soils they've been built 50 60 years ago everything that's left is is hilly it's wet it's lousy soils it's Rocky and you've got to kind of regrade everything in order to make it buildable and livable and it's just very difficult to say we can do it this way and save these trees in some cases it it's possible I'm just saying in this particular case it was impossible if you had sewer it might be a little more easy to do that um but we didn't have sewer so okay thank you I thanks for uh taking my question I guess it answered my question and that is if there is no land in ashin that doesn't have trees on it not much okay not much yeah so and you couldn't have found a different 5 Acres that you wouldn't have taken so many trees now well this was for sale I mean you know it could have had another five acres but but if you knew ahead of time it was going to cost you $3 million to build on it because of the trees you might have looked at some of the other properties oh yeah I would would have bought it I never would have bought this it would be un you couldn't sell the property the houses but you're saying there's not enough property in Ash to build anything that isn't isn't I didn't say that at all I just said most of the most of it's treed and in order to build you got to cut a whole lot of the trees down and in a subdivision it applies to the bylaw yeah cut down and Mike I think that's fine I I certainly didn't mean to put you on the spot like just again cost I just want to get cost out they're real yeah and I I also want to make make sure that I mean this is an informal meeting but um generally uh questions are directed to the chair um as in town meeting and so it's not really a discussion between members of the public so I just want to be careful of that that can direct it towards us right um that's the way it works she's the boss that's right Your Best Shot man I'm ready all right all right I'm gonna take the oh excuse me uh I'm gonna take the next uh hand from the audience and I believe uh on my screen uh Julie n Julie n can you please unmute yourself and state your name and address Julie nardone 86 Elliot Street um if I'm visualizing this correctly it's as if I'm looking at a giant say square and most of the middle is for all intents and purposes clearcut so we're just talking about a border around the edges and I think uh the point of this by law is to act as a deterrent to take down what's left which honestly it's really not that much because it's just around the perimeter um I think the pricing you know if you don't take the trees down you don't have to pay for the pricing um I'm not sure I I dwell on that um I in the mitigation section honestly my first reaction was that it was actually on the weak side um you're taking down uh I think from the presentation the trees are 6 Ines and larger and the more mature trees are the ones that absorb the most carbon and then where we where people are being asked to replace them with very small trees 2 inch trees um we took some we had some uh trees that sort of fell down and were diseased ashes and we actually spent extra money um to get larger trees because they take a long time to grow you know if you got these little saplings all over the place um I I just I was confused why you would take down a say an 8 inch tree and replace it with all these little saplings instead of just replacing it with a more equivalent tree um so we're kind of replacing something with something equal um so that that's pretty much all I had to say I I think it's a very good a very good start I thank everyone who worked on it um so thank you very much thank you Miss nardone uh so we have a half hour left scheduled for this uh discussion so I'm just going to ask people to hold keep it to three minutes or or or shorter uh and I do have seven people online and a couple people in the audience so let's do another one from the audience but I think I think we just need to be respectful of all everyone's time tonight so if someone would like to step up to the microphone I saw Mr hickey you had your hand up please feel free and we'll just keep on alternating one after the other um um Chu Lids on 150 Oregon Road um and I of course know Mike K's development extremely well it and I will say that it is the way he described it as extremely green it's a really impressive piece and I commend him for that but I would say that um one could have cut down much less and still come up with a way of putting the septic system in for all these heal is just directed to me Chuck and not to much I'm sorry um so um while I think um you know this is an issue I think we need to talk about whether um we have some mechanism for um for making exceptions where it's essential to the house um nonetheless I think that we could have done left a lot more trees there thanks thank you Mr litz uh to the next person online uh I think Cara um can you please you've had your hand up for a while can you please step forward and state your name and address hi this is Cara um I'm at 31 Donell Lane um I'm part of the sustainability committee and there were a couple stats that I wanted to um put out there um in relation to costs in helping Margie uh kind of figure out this bylaw um I did some research into what um is typically spent on Rel Landscaping a a construction site for a home um and from what I could tell um the average part of the budget that is spent on Landscaping uh for new residential homes was about 10% of the project so I we fully know that this would be an added cost but I think we need to also realize that developers are already spending money on landscaping and it does increase the sale value so part of this is not new costs um and there is a return on this investment um besides the Net Zero sustainability storm water and all of that stuff um and I just wanted to throw that out there all right thank you um to the next person in the in the audience can you please step forward and introduce yourself at the podium with your name and address you I'm Lori dud and I at 561 Chestnut Street I've been a 25 year resident of Ashlin and the reason why we moved here is because we liked the diversity of Ashlin I like that there are blue collar and white collar workers that you can go to football games and lacrosse games with and I just feel like this bylaw is going to change the Dynamics of of our Our Town um I don't think that it's been vetted enough uh the repercussions of residents and businesses hasn't been totally evaluated um and I would like to see some more options considered specifically tax incentives for businesses for keeping the trees and for Developers for keeping the trees having the town vote to purchase more land for forestry um I also live near the Warren Woods there's a huge field there where trees could be where trees could be planted you could make it into a tree operation PE I was part of the Earth Day growing up like people love to get together and plant trees I think that having fines and fees and taxes on residents and on on the the developers is it's just a bad knee-jerk reaction I don't think it's a good look for the town I don't think it's a good look for the board um also the the second thing that I want to go over is that um this is going to drive off all new development I believe my cane is spot on there's a lot more things to development that isn't realized like Ledger your septic your Wetlands there's so many things that make it so hard to develop this everything here is on Rock like we're just on Rock entries and everything it's just it's it's very challenging um this going to make businesses come to a halt it's going to make stagnate the entire area and um the businesses that are here are going to stay you drive off the businesses and what that does is that puts all the tax burden on the residents the higher taxes are going to drive off the young adults it's going to drive off the elderly and it's going to drive off all the blue collar workers the higher taxes are going to kill diversity within this town um and I think that the tree cing law will turn Ashlin into a bedroom community like Dober and Sherborn and do you know what Dober and Sherborn don't have a lot of is businesses and blueco collar workers so um what they do have a lot of is elites and treats so um I don't want this to become an elitist Community that's not why we moved here um and I think there are more collaborative solutions that Ashley can come up with to to can help the environment help the businesses and help the residents that's sorry fast thank you thank you uh so uh to the next person uh on Zoom uh Kathy Rooney can you please unmute yourself and state your name and address hello Kathy Rooney 136 Fountain Street uh so I just want to say thank you for holding this discussion and to the sustainability committee and to margi for all the hard work they've done so far and I know people in the background and planning departments and the tree warden for sure have been involved with this um I'm a little concerned that um this discussion has already gone to the extremes of elitist versus too much cost to um not enough trees because one of the things I've seen in town for the 25 plus years I've been here is that we've lost a lot of the Farmland we've lost a lot of the trees and we've lost a lot of um field habitat which is actually one of the most valuable habitats in the state um for biological diversity so I'm really concerned um that in part of in part of this with this tree bylaws our streets in particular are creating a lot of the heat Urban island effect and we need to be replanting along our streets and um we don't seem to be doing it we cut down a lot of trees um forever Source we cut down a lot of trees because they're old and past their Prime and they need to come down because they're damaged they' been hit by cars whatever and they never get replaced in town I think that's a big a big mistake we're making with our development I know that what um some of the stuff Cara said about um the amount of return on investment that planting into trees near trees and with and saving as many trees as possible on a property adds exponentially to the property values to the resale value to the rentability to the keeping of tenants if that's what you're doing um your return on investment is is very high for taking the time and effort and money to not cut down so many trees um so I just wanted to say thank you and that's my um that's my Comics thank you uh Kathy uh with that said I will take the next person here live in the audience I think Steve and then you sir please introduce yourself with your name and address my name is Steve hickey I live on Franklin Road I am a builder in town um I also own one of the probably few remaining tree lots in town um one thing that I just quite don't understand with this at all there several things but one of them the py board through any of the for site plan review for any of the proposed projects that you're talking about with this BW you have the ability to work with applicants to fine-tune and tweak those projects any project that's comes in front of you you can deal with planting more trees moving things around working with the developer to get a project that works better for the town you have that ability now so what is this adding to it it's a tax it's a tax and it's a tax only for property owners new PE people that would be building something new in town to try to contribute to the tax base it's it's I I I can't even believe that it's limited to just new projects existing homeowners are all exempt they can do whatever they want I'm I'm just it's it's ridiculous you have the ability to work with applicants I've seen you do it I've seen you request more trees I've watched you do it it doesn't add anything new in that regard except making you pay look at project like the Middle School the new middle school and look at a project like the DPW building right say round numbers if you took down 10 10in trees in the perimeter that's 100 in of tree you have to replant them at 2 in right that's 50 trees either project plant 50 trees and one of those did collectively they plant close to 50 trees no but yet you're requiring other people to do it or guess what pay in at a cost of what 40 Grand I I think it's wrong I think it's wrong and I really would like the board to tell the public why you think it's okay to put this cost burden on individual private property owners thank you all right thank you Mr hickey next up on the audience Lori Lori can you please unmute yourself and state your name and address hi my name is Lui Georgio I live at 85 Oregon Road um I've been a resident for 28 years my mother grew up here my grandparents grew up here um and um I don't think it's right for or um someone to tell you what you can do with your land I I I'm actually really taken aback by this um I think it's really important I hey I like trees like the nest person and I will plant trees but I don't want my town to tell me what I can and cannot do um if I Tred to sell my property and I have to go through this bylaw no one's going to want to buy it that leaves me with my property which was mine so I should be able to do what I please um I think more people need to know about this situation that we have here and um I think that definitely I just I don't agree with it at all that's all thank you thank you so much for your input in the room sir can you please step forward and state your name and address I sound like an idiot no you were great I was just trying to move the move move comments along so good afternoon evening rather thank you what happened oh I got you the H yeah did I do something wrong no no it was okay misunderstanding so my name is Kenard Del 26 Deer Ridge Road um I tend to agree with the comments of of a number of people in here I think the what I I had drafted up some written statement that I was going to make but then it was all based on what we had to work with online which now appears to be different so my my first comment is presentation is nice but the detail is in the words and we need to see those words because that's where the first round of some of this Net Zero stuff came out didn't come out in the way the bylaw was passed with the what the information was that was available to us so I'm just saying let's get the information out and have a public forum that can discuss this because I too worry about overreach overreach to people telling us what we can do and not do with our property that's just not American on top of it I always think about these issues in three questions is it needed what problem is it solving for and we heard all about you know the uh the the benefits of trees and how they take in carbon and all that but again a solution needs to fit the size of the problem we can't solve everything about climate change in a town that represents 1.6% of the mass of the of Massachusetts uh area it's 1.6% of the total state area we're not going to solve it with drastic measures in our town and this is a drastic measure uh is there a detailed assessment of the cost we talked about the cost for Builders what about the cost for administration you got permitting and site reviews and and um you know all the inspections and everything else that's going to go in behind this it's going to be a cost to the town which means it's a cost to the taxpayers so where is the detailed cost of implement this change um is it manageable and reasonable the I reacted very strongly about the imposition of these rules on homeowners trying to figure out what the heck they have to do to comply I appreciate the fact that the clarification was it's not for uh existing properties I do not agree with going back and revisiting that comment because I think that's really a bad thing for the town um and I think the fines and penalties are just out of this world it's absolutely ridiculous to have the kinds of fines and penalties uh that are encompassed in this document now I'm not saying that we do nothing or you know anything else but I think there's an approach here that can work and that focuses on educating rather than regulating um offer people options someone just suggested incentives or other things but offer people options for planting the right kind of trees when they want to replace trees or need to replace trees that they take down or fall down um because of Storms and we have a lot of storms we have a lot of trees that are falling down so help people understand what they should be planting do some educating and I think a lot of people would gravitate to that we are opposed A lot of people are going to be opposed to the idea of saying you can't do anything like put in a pool or put in a patio and the illustration in the document that was online was a home house it was a house it wasn't a development it was a single house with some proposed changes so that really triggered me to say this wasn't about developers it was about every homeowner in the town so we need Clarity written clarity about what the prog program is okay that's all I'm appealing for thank you very much can I respond to that last bit regarding the diagram that was in the document that was a mistake that I made by including that particular diagram it was meant as a placeholder to show that a tree plan would be needed it was borrowed from a town whose bylaw actually applies to residential property and I did not mean for it to apply to residential property I'm asking for the actual docum thank you thank you uh great points next up online uh Mr Rob Shar can you please unmute yourself and state your name and address great Rob thank you Peter rob share 41 Bay Colony Drive uh first I want to um thank Margie sustainability for pushing on and this and planning board for looking at it um and working with and also the people who have come forward tonight to talk about it especially uh the developers who have to deal with it in the real world so I certainly appreciate those comments um I I think I could tell I'm sure there's some details that we still need to be clarified on this one of the things I thought was um most uh just a couple major points was I think you need to emphasize or Define the setback and how that might typically work so when um when uh someone is saying it's going to cost x amount of money I think some uh distinct um uh examples could be helpful and help helping people understand what's really involved uh I for example you know if someone's building uh an apartment building um and what would the setback requirement be and how many trees might be involved you know so that kind I think it could be highly variable um so that's uh you know that's something I would suggest that that you look at in terms of actually helping people to understand uh what's at stake here um the other thing in terms of you know I I certainly like the fact that people are talking about uh positive incentives I think that's something worth considering um and maybe something in that direction would be good as well I think one of the things um this does is try to give people an incentive to save trees so you know that's a good way of looking at it uh one thing I would in terms of the cost maybe right now we have a situ sitation where there's no direct cost to cutting down trees I mean I think uh Steve hickey made a great point I know there's a lot of discussions with the planning board about saving trees and doing that uh maybe you know part of the answer is is to reducing the costs we're you know we're at a position now where there's zero cost to cutting down trees without good reason maybe if there's at least somewhat a cost maybe not everything that's in this uh proposal that would at least uh be a starting point um so that's um you know those are that's kind of my initial uh reaction to that um so you know think about positive incentives and um looking at this I had just a simple question um is the anr exempt from this proposal or not it wasn't clear all right I read that I thought it was exempt is that true we are still discussing okay how to deal with an anr yeah so you know so I'm sure we all recognize this is still very much in a draft uh draft case so you know I think you've made a good start here I think some practical examples of what we might be dealing with and what its effect would be um could be helpful in helping us to evaluate it so um thank you thank you Mr sheer uh is there anyone in the audience that would like to speak that has not spoken okay I'm going to go to the next person with their hand up online on Zoom excuse me uh Mr Rob mulen can you please unmute yourself and state your name and address yes hi my name is Rob mulen to candle light way excuse me Rob can you speak up a little bit okay yeah I'm on two candl light way in Ashland I've been looking at this with maie for a long long time and I'm glad that it finally came came about I was very much surprised by the numbers from Mike Kane and I want to kind of hope that you guys on the on the planning board and and sustainability committee work with him because I can't possibly imagine the numbers that he was bringing around and kind of come up with a scare scaring kind of thing you know because we're only talking about the setbacks I don't think he calculated the number of Threes correctly that he's going to have to take down even if you know because it's like it's like juli andone said it's just a kind of a small area around the extreme there that the trees at this particular Point get to be protected that was not the original plan Rob Rob just for a clarification uh Mike did say that he was calculating over the whole site which is what the online information said so that's what he that's what he did but I just wanted to clarify that okay so so I want to make sure that when we have a next forum that you know when we should come up with numbers I I agree that cost is important and you know building building contractors have to have a have a job and they they they have to be able to sell their houses and all that so so we should work on the cost I think cost is important and we should all make good calculations and maybe his pieces of land a group example to work out that's that's my suggestion for the next time thank you so much Rob uh is again there's anybody else in the room that hasn't spoke that would like to speak at the microphone okay moving on to the zoom meeting uh Britney can you please unmute yourself and and state your name and address hi yes um my name is Britney Adams iono I live at 32 Warren Road um and uh I haven't heard anybody draw attention to the bylaws um own attention paid to uh invasive species and I just wanted to say you know I I don't think that the development of more housing in Ashland which is critical um and the development of more business which is also critical to our economy has to be at odds with the um the ability for us to save valuable trees in Ashlin I also want to say and it's going to sound ridiculous on face value but not all trees are good trees right and so um when we talk about trees on a lot that's for sale is there a way possibly that we could have an arborist or a horticulturist go out and assess okay you know 50% of the LW is is invasive trees or 60% of the lot is invasive trees and then make it so that the cost to replace those trees right if it's if it's 80% native trees that's going to be a costlier um replacement uh for the developer um versus if there's 80% invasive trees have that it am I making sense I I I know I'm rambling a little bit here but um I I don't think it should just be a blanket you know it's however many trees you cut down you have to replace because frankly if they're Norway maples have at it like I said um so that's just one thing I want to draw attention to I really don't think that they need to be at odds with one another like somebody else said we have so many concrete Islands in in the town um that should also be focused on when it comes to replanting or or planting trees in general um before we consider other options but um I'm in favor of the bylaw but um just needs a little bit of tweaking I think thank you thank you Britney uh with that said oh anybody else in the room once twice three times all right so the next person with their hand up is Brandy Kinsman hi everybody um good evening thanks so much for the the presentation and the discussion tonight um I just had a quick question because I glanced at the bylaw online but um I was curious how this would affect projects like the YMCA and possibly Town Projects down the road would those be um applicable to this to this bylaw and how would that work you want to take that or um I would say that that has been if you've watched um the planning board has been discussing this with the sustainability committee on very ious meetings and that has come up in our discussions given that the two public um two Ashen buildings that that are just recently constructed and you know a building like the YMCA which is you know kind of a different function so I would say that it has not been entirely resolved and it's one of those big questions it's one of the reasons that we're having this discussion because the the the problem is is complex and I I don't have an I don't have a consensus answer for you right now Randy okay I appreciate that I'm just I'm concerned you know I'm concerned about you know businesses coming to town I'm concerned about you know future Town Projects but I keep thinking about the YMCA that is going to be fundraising to open a new um state-of-the-art facility here in Ashland and I'm listening to Mike Kane and his numbers with um development and I'm thinking about additional millions that the YMCA might need to raise is to basically be able to um to be able to open and I'm concerned about that and I I I'm I'm in favor of protecting trees I think that um you know we should look at ways that the sustainability committee may be able to um help educate residents on small ways that they can also help protect trees and plant more trees um because I think that would be an important part of the whole um the whole tree initiative um but I am concerned about how you know a a blanket tree bylaw might might have some some um Downstream impacts that we as a community may or may not uh be ready for so thank you thank you uh so we have another hand up and so I'll just jump right to that uh Miss Joan uh on Friday can you please unmute yourself and state your name and address sorry Jung and Frid one Shore Road um I have a couple of comments one is um as I understand it it's one it it's if you take down a 10inch diameter tree you have to plant five trees of 2 inch diameter if I understand this as an example if you take down a tree that me that covers 35 square feet of your lot you're going to lose 175 square feet of your lot in order to um replant that many trees of coverage and I'm wondering at their full growth and I'm wondering if one of them one of the um one of the collaborations on this may be that you could instead of five trees for every tree that you do one or two trees for every tree I mean I think that five is is pretty um it's it's pretty unfair because you would lose you lose five times your land and I'm not sure how that how that comes out as being f there um the and uh I'm just I think that um the TW the 12-month look back I'm I'm concerned if it's only if it's only for um development projects that may be one thing I can understand why someone might try to clear their land but I think if it's for if it ends up being for a residential also then I think that's a problem because I don't think that's fair to to a homeowner who took down a tree because they needed to and and um now they have to now they have to replant so those are just my comments thank you thank you Joan So with no more hands up on the zoom and oh uh last oh uh so the last hand that was just raised is Charlie Charlie can you please unmute yourself and say your name and address hey everyone uh Charlie Pine I'm at 206 East Union Street and um just wanted to say I agree with what Mike Kane said and the woman in who came up to the podium um you know adding that much to builders cost is just going to make uh really expensive houses in this town it's going to turn it into a Dober Sherborn and um I don't want to live in the town like that and I don't really want to have uh the town telling me what I can do and not do with my own property so uh thanks for your time and I just want to say we really need to think about this and what are the int unintended consequences of just cramming a whole lot of uh cost uh to developers and just ordinary people thank you all right so I think um I think we're nearing the the end of where we put the public discussion for tonight I just I wanted to open it up just if anyone on the planning board wanted to make any comments um don't have to it really was about listening but I wanted to open up if you did um I'd like to make a comment I'm just I'm thrilled at the participation because I know sometimes collectively we get cynical when there's um a forum and a discussion so thank you people online coming out because that that's a great starting point um this is maybe partly to Margie and sustainability is uh one thing I think um collecting some of the questions and like an FAQ out of this is that is that at all practical I don't know if it's practical but I think it's important okay so wait maybe collectively we can try I we're not going to get every question and I don't think that's the intent but at least kind of some of the bulk of them and start working on that yes I I agree there were a lot of things that were said that we need to address and respond to and then I guess this would be the board and sustainability like of of um like kind of next steps about open issues and and how do we bring the public along to make sure they're included on um that I assume we'll keep having more discussions and forums until we get to something that we feel is is really appropriate yeah so certainly not the yeah it's certainly not this one discussion no I I agree I just kind of wanted to put that out there that it's still I believe staying on our planning board meetings which might be small chunks and people have access to watch the sendin comments um Etc so okay thank you if I may this is Ash Ash can you hold on just just a minute I want to get through the planning board and then I'll go back to yeah yeah no worries no worries no worries Marcel I just wanted to Echo what um um what Kate just said I I've been more than two years in the planning board I don't think I have had so much fun without a plate of food in Fr me it it's great to see this level of participation because I liked every single comment and from the beginning when we started talking about this I was uh we we talked about it I was convinced the most important part is EXA what happened today and and for for a specific reason because the the this effort that's coming from the community can only work and it can only pass in reality if it really what the community wants and uh and every single one of the points was important it's very easy to put your blinders on your own pet uh uh thought about the tri by law and not see what the other uh other viewpoints are I'm personally in the construction industry so I understand very well what has been said about cost and that that is very reasonable but the the same is true with with the trees uh I I I I I like the direction of everything but it has to be holistic it has to be something that really works cannot be uh just a punitive way to uh kind kind of um uh comeand deer people into into action I think the action needs to come up from the town like like it's coming and the last point is is uh the the the the fairness of a regulation is is something that that that I that I have expressed the fairness between private private and public impact like Brandy just said is very important because if there's a burden for the citizens the town cannot be exempt I think the government has to be just as participant on the pain and on the benefits of any regulation otherwise it doesn't make any sense to me so I think listen to everybody and I hope we have many of these before so so that this can be filtered into something that really works for everybody otherwise it's not going to be successful I'm not sure have more to add than what Marcel just said but I think each of the comments that was suggested whether for or against I think had so much value and I think that's what we were looking for and I think you have so much takeaway from this evening that I think the idea was to refine it as we go along and Mar long I think thank you so much for the participation both the positive and the negatives and all the cost breakr I think it is totally an eye opener when you look at numbers that way and I think we have so much work more to do what would be helpful I think Margie is to kind of set those timelines where we can boil boil down those points that were shared tonight and see what we can work and progress so that we have this continuation and come back to the community to say hey here are what we heard last time and how can we improve on these five things for the next time and maybe that's how we start to boil down and I think that would be a great next step for this so thank you all for amazing participation thank you and and now I'll go back to um uh the sustainability committee members or Ash on who ones who I haven't spoken yeah I I uh I I'll uh I'm not sure there are other members I think ch spoke uh and Margie's already spoken so so just want to kind of put out there that our goal here was to uh get something out there that was at least you know structurally big but but but not so big that that no changes could made be made uh and and uh get get community feedback before we would move anything forward right um thank you again for the participation really really appreciate the input um this is exactly what we needed um our goal is to come back and and hold multiple forums so so certainly keep an eye out for it I think we've got uh an amount of digestion to do with with all the feedback that you've given us and uh certainly looking forward to collaborating further with the planning board as well to to refine this uh a little bit further and then represent it um back to the community to to see if you know at least some of those points have been addressed clearly uh hearing both the pros cons you know people in favor and this saying you know uh I heard some folks saying that this doesn't go far enough other saying this goes too far that there's going to be need to be a middle ground you know uh as a community for us to sort of go okay this makes sense um and and the only way we're going to get there is is through debate so so again thank you for debating it and and we'll make sure that there are uh additional opportunities for us to do it you know certainly not intended to be a one andone deal uh thanks TR for hosting it uh I I think the the uh participation was brilliant thanks Ash um Margie did you have any final words you've spoken enough today okay um before you chase us out I have a processed question sure uh you want me to go up there yes please things like this have to have a Target date what's your target date for making something happen well I think because you're clearly not prepared now I mean we we're not we we had a nice presentation but all kinds of issues were were were brought forward about the lack of data and even even uh Ashwin recommended or or acknowledged that data is not necessarily available to us right now so what are we going to see the data and when are we going to see something solid that's going to then go to town meeting what's the plan jimy sorry okay um I mean I think what the sustainability committee has been working working toward with the planning board is hoping to do something at Maytown meeting but this was our first putting this out there um and and I think there's a lot to work through I'm I'm not sure I'm not sure there's a deadline I think it's more important and I would anyone on either board can um disagree with me it's more important that we put up some things out there that is a warrant out there that's well thought out that the data is there that we've had enough opportunities for public participation that it's well texted that there aren't mistakes in it and that may take longer than that may take longer than we were expecting so I it's going to I think it's going to so so it may right so I'm saying that on the spot here we're not going to make that determination but marging the sustainability committee will be working on it you know with with all this feedback that that we've been taking which we take very seriously and um and and then we'll look at it in that way I'm going to upset some people I'm probably going to upset ashin totally it was a nice presentation but it was without substance okay and I spent enough time on the planning board six years and enough time on the board of selectman 14 years to know that something this substantial ain't going to happen in May I'll leave you with that okay I I I understand I appreciate your experence I should not I'm just not going to make a call on the spot at the end of a meeting um we really kind of ended the the public participation part of the meeting um and we had asked for you know speakers at many times so we are we are going to end that at this point what what I was going to wrap up and say is that um this is obviously a very complex issue as other people on the board have very clearly stated and other people on the Sy sustainability committee have stated that it was very informative to get this kind of discourse back and forth um I think part of the planning board's role as you know from being on it for many years is that is that we have many different things to balance right we're not in the court of one particular um it's not just about sustainability or just about business or just about um affordable housing or just about health or just about anything the planning board actually has to look at all of those considerations and try to find something that actually that works for the town and as you noted that can take a very long time and we're not about to I at least speaking for myself but I think I I can speak for the board we're not out to put anything out there quick and dirty that is not our intention we want something that's appropriate for Ashland and that will with understand the test of time and that is something good and though good things always take time so obviously that's up to the sustainability committee and the board as a whole not not just me but um we will have to be looking at it which is why I can't give you an answer just from me but we do appreciate your time we appreciate you coming out it's great to see all these bodies in the room and to have this kind of discussion we're honest about that we're really glad to hear all of the discourse and if you have any other comments please send them to us you can send them send them uh to the planning board then uh Peter machic will distribute them to both boards so all right thank you thank you all great make sure you guys have your microphones yeah I don't know that a to I'll see you later I'll keep that yeah yeah yeah you can just leave that on the edge of the table I'll I'll take care of the the me sign and cheat yeah yeah I just didn't sign and cheat yeah just you just pull it right out of there yeah oh um I guess we need to have is Ash still online oh Ash has no Ash is not we'll just say you close the public we we just going to say that the what was that Mar we will just say that the public hearing for that sustainability committee is closed because they're because they're all leaving okay all right everybody next on our agenda is um Clerk's report that was a big gap we have received five correspondents since the last planning board meeting and then related to Clerk's Duty I I did mention at the last um the 400 400 um what was that for the cellio tower I we we received the board received a lot of comments like right very close and and the um sort of responses that we approved to send on the board Wen did not feel appropriate to me but they also didn't fall on the we said Peter would answer specific so they're sort of a holding pattern um if the board I I believe that we do want to respond to people um so I said I sent a draft of something that was a little more tailored to we've received I think nine comments on that project um Peter's going to print that out he didn't get it he didn't get it printed out I'm sorry I didn't bring copies I have a copy but but it wasn't the in the materials it was a followup into the materials okay cuz I read the original I guess if there's another version no okay we can also put it up online if that's easier do you want to just put it up online yep I is going to okay yeah so um Kate had drafted a response excuse me that would be specifically for um those people that were writing in regarding the cell tower I'm sorry I I'm happy to print it too I just I have it shared on the screen so the first paragraph is part of our standard um I the second paragraph is the related to I think something along that lines appropriate to that that project comments which I believe I said it's total nine and hopefully some of those people heard that I hadn't so they do know that we intend to but I I don't want to wait too long I guess no I think it's appropriate um yes so really we're looking at the second paragraph here um I think even the first half of that is really just about factual what happened I would I would say for me um I would just be looking for a little rewording of the sentence that starts the board acknowledges right in the middle I was going to say the same because I think it um I think it starts to imply that the board as a whole is making a suggestion that residents should put together a citizen's partition when really it's not what we we didn't discuss or vote on that like it was more like a suggestion was made it was I I agree what the way I understood it was a suggestion of a of of of a a recourse that existed for those who were interested in pursuing it uh but not as something that would that was coming from the board so I'm not comfortable saying it that way not not a I don't think I'm even trying it's just a word so we just said the board we we basically heard that people were interested in in that is that true I mean that's what I no no the the the there was a suggestion by some of the comments from the public that the board should put a stop to the project and that the board had the authority to do so there was discussion on on on those terms and um and what was said from from the table is that we were not allowed to that by law but that efforts to change the bylaw to to make our town more more uh to to more defensive against the federal law would be a recourse for the public to enact and pass um a town hall meeting uh change of the B so what about that sentence the board acknowledges hearing tend to strike of that and then say um that there could like we're referring them to the citizens petition just simple to get rid of I the question is why do we need to say that I mean the I would just repeat basically it's almost like meeting notes um well not a response the the citizen I feel like I would want to be like we were valuing people here so I want to guide them if they're interested it's on the website but our website is not super user friendly so I I don't I mean if you asked 18832 people in Ashley and I don't know how many of those people would know that they could do this agreed so the intent is to kind of give them some guidelines to hey here is the like try to keep it lowkey but try to be helpful I guess is but but uh what I was just I agree with that but what I'm saying is that if if this is a what we're trying is to be responsive to to the questions and the things that were brought up so I think the response should squarely stay in that intent to respond and say we heard this this and that and we also discussed with the public the possibility that the public May pursue that that Avenue right to if if the bylaw is something that the public in general is not happen it's just word smithing I believe yeah exactly fure toak the it could just be as simple as instead of the board acknowledges um it could be something as simple as it was noted that um it was it was noted that um residents are always able to or res it was noted that residents are always able to um create a Citizens partition a Citizens petition um for consideration at town meeting the process and form for which is is is given here you know I think that works so it's it's not um yeah it's not it's not putting a board opinion on it no I I that wasn't my no I understand it's it's it's obviously hard for the four of us a long sentence for the same time to but something like that will do it because it will clarify that yeah we heard this and and the other thing is I I I don't know if Peter published Lisa me's letter with with that um case so if it's not published I think I have to attach it but if it's published I can just refer people we can just refer people too oh I understand what you're saying I'm happy to add that to that so then we can just say right reference that letter on see the link here we could do that hyperlink it yeah just just put a hyperlink in and that's that's 100% that's actually pretty easy that's very easy to do so we're where it says reference December letter and then I can put the link right there and then um with that sentence let me know when you're ready sure oh so in where it starts the board acknowledges instead of that it would be it was noted that residents are allowed to pursue bylaw changes through a citizen's petition through a citizen's petition um information on which can be found here or something like that yeah that's cool can I did you write it can I is your handwriting readable it's readable to me S writing how can it not beable let's see it's the bottom blue well okay how about like this is fine like can I just get me and Trish look at the last draft and is that I think it's fine um and we will clean that up so cool thank you and you can send it okay so next on our agenda oh public comment it seems that it seems like so long ago that we started the meeting um and there is one hand up for public comment I will I will limit it to three minutes since we've already had a lot of public comment Mr Moon can you please unmute yourself and state your name and address you have three minutes for public comment okay P 49 Road M good evening and the reason why I'm not there is because I S was watching the mass all that treat by law and C participation which made me feel proud that people come out to do this through um talk about it and you gave him the time and the effort and I congratulate Maji and sustainability for bring it bring it up and that letter is like you acknowledging the board's acknowledging about citizens participation for this cell phone towel too but now your understanding that Citizens need to be heard and and if they want to be heard at tell me need to have a petition that's going to be signed and and U spoke of so I'm I'm glad the board is turning around to say that this is what it is as not just the board being the board there are citizens that they uh know and they're out there to hear or they're hearing back from other than other than that happy New Year and um all all throughout throughout the town everything's going well and I'm know I wasn't there for that cuz little too crowded for little too crowd for me it's condensed and everything and I I was watching here on TV so thank you for the time and just a participation live what's on and stay with that thinking and be good thank you thank you Mark all right um I don't think we have any other hands raid for public participation then um next on our agenda are public hearings um first one of those is 320 Pawn Street this one has requested a continuance Peter can you just update about where that is yeah just a quick update uh last week the applicant uh of 320 Pawn Street met with the design Review Committee I was on the meeting and um it was a good conversation and uh the takeaway was that the um applicant is going to refresh its Landscaping plan uh after uh receiving comments from the design Review Committee and um and they're going to resubmit those on the first meeting excuse me the first design review committing REM excuse me they're going to submit comments and get back on the design review board's agenda um the first meeting in February and so we will see 230 Pawn Street on our first meeting in February so they have asked for continuance until um February 9th they've also included the um and have agreed to move the final date of decision to March 1st um also in our pack ET I did print out the tech review meeting um one of the comments from the tech review meeting was the placement of the dash excuse me the um dumpster enclosure um and so I have connected the fire department and the application team for further discussion regarding that trash enclosure so uh those are the big items um and uh we'll we'll we'll wait for the design review com comment letter um which hasn't been sent in and excuse me a report which hasn't been submitted but I just want to kind of bring everybody up speed on on what's going on with that project so right now they're going back to design review next before we will see them on the 8th of February ninth I'm sorry you have eighth on the paper wait so do I yes I'm sorry and you have eth for our next meeting so is it eth it's the eth you know what I'm looking on their request and it's the ninth you're right the eth so they're requesting to go on the ninth but it's really the eth no way I'm not being in here on a Friday night no that's a typo that's a typo yeah I I'll I'll make a motion to continue the 320 pwn pwn Street s plan approval uh to the next meeting February 8th can I make a friendly amendment to that subject to the decision um to March 1st because that was if they're pushing that right that you said that they requested they agreed to it correct oh I didn't know that I thought they requested but we probably I didn't know that the final date the the date of final action is agreed to be moved to March 1st okay cool okay in that case is there a second second and the roll call vote Katherine Jersey and Trisha Kendall I so that is uh continued next on our agenda is 9 to 49 hmer Avenue site plan and special permit application this is continued from November 30th um and yeah yes we have a lot of materials which is awesome we actually there um so I think the two focuses of the meeting correct me if I'm wrong Peter one is to look at the these materials which are on the other side of the desk here but also including just for Deepa is a window and um happy holidays and um I think the second part is just to review the um updated the items list of the outstanding items list to see where to see where that falls um but Peter do you want to give an update kind of about where that is let me introduce obviously reintroduce Terry uh Morris and Ron bour they're the application team so just to kind of note from the last time we have met um the applicant right before the holiday break they did submit revised site plans um they also have re um they have submitted a uh comment letter back to GC CG which is dated uh December 21st and then addition uh with the request of the planning board they did uh from MDM Transportation consultings submit a memorandum regarding the proposed mixed use development uh in a traffic count memo which was requested by gcg and so with that all this information came in uh right now it is and I've confirmed I've spoken with Terry and and Ron on numerous occasions I've also spoken to Rick Salvo who's the uh civil engineer who's not with us on the call tonight however I had a lengthy conversation with him and um all the plans and items are actually at gcg for review um I spoke to Mike Carter today uh face to face he was actually here in town hall helping out with the downtown project uh and so him and I were able to kind of touch base on the review process so he was going to do that he was going to start looking at it uh obviously I think everyone kind of stands everyone was on kind of holiday break uh and so that is on the top of his pile and to move this project uh and to look at look at that and so that's where things kind of stand so I feel you know that that we are in a good spot regarding the review of the Civil Engineering Process and with the submitt of the um the traffic counts on a further note I know the board asked for a email from Lisa me regarding an opinion uh I did email Lisa prior to Break um and and Lisa is working on an opinion uh I was able to speak with her uh today um she's actually in the office on on Wednesdays and so um I was able to touch base with her and she you know and I explained what the request is from the planning board and what's going on um and so I think I will have that to the board within days um and it won't be too long to actually have that opinion which I will share immediately with both the board and the applicant regarding the um the the special conditions and the uh grinder pump within the Wastewater system which was spoken upon by the DPW in the tech review and so that is coming it's on my radar and so it's just in process is it worth since we're talking about this stuff right now um to bring up that items list the outstanding items list and just see where we are sure I can I'm happy to do so I don't remember if if it's been up updated recently or so this one is from November 1 and I haven't I just haven't got around to it um I'm happy to kind of pass it around and and I think Terry I shared this with you back uh back when uh but I can just kind of read it uh number one was the environmental impact statement study excuse me environmental impact study and I think we had I almost think we and and we had something we had it and this is the the the what they had developed from the from so the my recollection of that stand that it's we when that first came I said do we have a common understanding of what that is and I don't think we do because we we got something from the applicant it was sent to gcg I don't think we've heard back what what that was saying is I don't think there's any contaminated soil there like I don't even think they called it like a phase one but maybe it was similar but that is not really what I was thinking based on what design review originally raised as an issue can you um yeah and I guess we have to go back and ask what what exactly we want gcg to look at then because actually I'm not sure it's worth going over this list cu this this list is actually we we've updated it since then this one is still talking about getting information from the police and fire departments which we already have those letters okay so um I hate to go back through hash through yeah yeah that instead I think we you know we we can update it and um is it something we can update send out and put on the website so that it's public yes yeah um yeah yeah if anyone sees questions on here that they want to adjust but it's like we've already went through a lot of these actually and just quick question because you you say gcg is is reviewing the the latest information right correct yeah so I remember in one of those meetings we said that uh we wanted gcg to aine on on this specific item is that something we can do included in let's make sure it's included in their memo so that we can actually cross it off you know I'm working with you know I'm happy to reach back out to Mike Carter today he got all the information he's going to take a big you know uh take a look at it and and go from there okay yeah it's just kind of important to know it's kind of what we're to know what we're asking because environmental impact study can things can mean a lot of things yeah so um and I'm not even sure what what's intended um so we'd want to go back to I think it did come from the design Review Committee to see maybe what they were looking at to see if those so so it was about like how this kind of construction could potentially have impacts to facilities near it right and that was sort of that that was the flavor of water sewer water sewer fac what do you mean facilities impact to facilities if like the water table and all those kind of things so it it was very broad brush I asked this question early like do we have a common understanding of I don't think we do I I think personally that I believe what the applicant submitted was sent to gcg if they think that's adequate I'm not here to reud that what I can say is it absolutely did not meet the request that the design review brought up that we all sort of thought was important to at least talk about yeah that's why I said I'll have to go back to it because I don't it doesn't sound like anyone has a clear memory of of being able to describe what that was but but just to narrow it down from from the point of view of um beyond that but gcg is doing the review from the point of view of construction engineering and Code Compliance that's what gcg is going to tell us yes when everything works correct at that point like Kate said we were not going to second guess gcg on that correct correct so that the important thing is that gcg includes all these whatever items that are really outstanding in their memo so that it's just just one last letter letter yeah yeah and if that's in the in the in the flavor of you know there should be no blasting there should be no whole R you know that was already that's already been taken care of already confir by the owner yeah and that's why I'm wondering because on um this isn't the latest this is a design Review Committee report to this so this is before Marcelo and I responded to it but I see on page five um under site and landscape and maybe this isn't the only time it's mentioned but under site and Landscape um it says we recommend that an environmental impact study be conducted to assess the impact on the surrounding buildings and their foundations yes so and I think right and and so I think that was the result of my question that resulted in my question does gcg have a recommendation not to permit blasting at the site now when we talk to Mike Carter on site Peter and I looking at the site he just said that they it it just wouldn't be done in the middle of a downtown area but if we need to want to put in a condition where we just call out no blasting then that's maybe that that was what I was asking for from gcg okay but you're assuming that's the only impact about blasting that's my that's that would be potentially missing other issues I think it just needs to be generic pretty much the way the design review asked asked the question of the third party not not lead them to only blasting that that's fine I'm just re I'm just saying what but also but but also not make it uh vague enough that it cannot be answered it has to be consistent with building code regulations and standard engineering practices not just widely appropriate I don't know the the the common of blasting was raised with a civil engineer here and I think even Attorney Morris or somebody in the team confirmed they're not going to do blasting so we could put it as a condition although we know the answer already and I think that that has been settled that's why I I'm thinking if gcg can give us a report that is comprehensive that from the point of view of the codes the regulations and the and and the uh accepted practices of engineering and construction these project complies okay that we it gives us the Assurance right right and like I said unless there was any other reference that's where I found the reference the environmental impact study maybe it was maybe there's another reference I didn't make it through the whole document but we can double check to see if there's another point of Interest under that under that subject um so so anyway the the bottom line is that we're still sending things to gcg to kind of make sure and to Lisa me um to make sure everything everything that we had on this list um has an answer correct and and that has been resolved but like I said I hate to go through this list because it's it's out a date we have some of this information already um so that'll be top priority to kind of get that um summarized again with the documentation the other part I think of the meeting tonight is is looking at these is looking at these colors it's look that let's do it yes and so uh Attorney Morris and and and Ron I know you're going to give your presentation from Zoom uh is there any items that you want to open up with or do you want me to just organize the uh the two the two uh material the two material samples uh Peter I think that our expectation was that we would be focusing on resolving the color issue since a considerable part of the last meeting the discussion at that meeting was devoted to this issue so I think it's appropriate to start with that one if you would if you would got the window okay I'm just going to take a minute and I'm going to we're going to organize everything on the table and then you can give the presentation and walk us through I will be uh dependent upon Ron to do that since uh it's an architectural item and he was responsible for assembling the materials that are before you tonight you got while you're doing that I'll if I'll share my screen okay I just want to turn the volume up in the room that would be helpful Peter thank you is is any louder uh Peter can you uh enable screen sharing please yeah just a little bit louder if you could wacka I got it at Max you got at Max okay um okay Ron you are a co-host thank you still the same I'm assuming I'm assuming you can see my screen with the first image you can okay just hold on Ron yep no problem we're still we're still organizing wasn't there yeah so that's yeah that's all just extra this is just extra y this is all the same that correct that one all right uh Ron I'll just monitor but uh I think the planning board is ready for the presentation all uh material is laid out on the table and the floor is yours thank you uh good evening everyone um so the first image we have is the uh board which represents the um the cooler colors and what's common to both options is the board that has the white trim on it so that'll be consistent and the uh the other two boards will be based on the the color tones of the building um so as you can see there should have been 11 by 17 of this image so that you could look at it against the uh materials and um this is is a an accurate representation of those I believe um so we were looking at um a brick veneer on the in on the insets that was similar to the adjacent uh Pizza building try and pick up that that vocabulary so that we can show that continuity uh we have the white border of the composite trims and then on the gables the lower second floor of the gables which come out um would be the 4in composite gray slate uh we'd have a water table above that and the Gable would be a shingle style and that would be the uh 7in night gray uh moving on to the area where the brick is that's the inset we would have a 6-in composite siding which is Pearl gray on the upper on the mid level and the upper level would share the same uh night gray siding uh the uh lighter Roofing color is the Owens corny dri rwood so there should be a panel there with that and the brick that I'll show in the next images for the paving is the uh similar to the uh downtown uh brick um so um when I show those images you'll see the patterning that we've done in the plaza for the next board which are the warmer colors um same the same you know vocabulary for the building same order things just different color pallet so the brick inset veneer is again similar to the adjacent building and then on the Gable second floor we have the 4in U baked clay with a 7in mud flats cedar shingle composite shingle above uh on the inset we have a 6-in composite straw hat for the second floor and the continuity of the shingle in the uh in the um the Dormer above the window that you've seen um on the on the rear wall is uh you know lowy glass uh standard window are there any questions on that before I move on to the the plaza no I don't think so so Peter and I walked the down from the downtown from the town hall uh through to the site uh to get a it was for me to get a little better understanding of both as get an understanding of how that patterning worked on the sidewalk and there's a general theme that has some nuances to it because of the width of the sidewalk and the positioning and as we uh approach the building where the sidewalk narrowed um where the pizza ument building is um we found that it would be kind of it would be possible but probably not the best use to uh use the brick on that very narrow section so as the build as we open up to the site we started with a border along the sidewalk uh curbing that would be consistent with the downtown and that would be a 1ot border of the um downtown brick and then we would have our concrete sidewalk and then our Plaza itself would also be of that material so now we're we're we're extending that vocabulary you've created in the down town to the to the point of being at Alden Street uh so as future development happens you'll already establish that edge and you can see from the plan with the uh sort of axon or the iso um we do have you know that that consistency it generally Falls where the telephone poles are there's one pole where it's a little more on the sidewalk the pole itself so the brick will basically BCT the pole but another instance is it essentially uh Falls within the field of the brick and then these are additional images from more of a street level [Music] View and that's what that's what I have for this so if there are any questions I welcome one just one quick question in this rendering H have you made any changes to the the plazas entering the the building they seem to be have more brick than I remember them but has there been any change there well one of the one of the earlier changes was to inset the benches for example in this upper level uh the upper plan to the left you'll see the bench is inset flush with the building so we took a look you know inset into the landscape slightly um other than that I think the reason it reads more is because there's less material than less material variety than there was before uh where earlier if you remember I had a brick the brick was at the introduction to the plaza and then we had a patterning of a different um material so by making that all the same material you've essentially you know visually uh looks like it's increased the the area but it really hasn't the material change the St I think you had the stone Pap something that which which this is yeah I love the Border bordering of that um walkway I think that really adds a little bit to the drama and there's a lot less distraction at the entry with kind of uniforming with that break less busy yeah but I wonder if you'll have challenge looks like your warm palette the transition and the brick seems to match exactly versus your cooler palet the transition brick and the brick that you're suggesting for the facade seems to be different so I don't know if I'm I'm sorry it was the volume was very large I couldn't make up what you were saying so this is not is not I think there's a so they did give us bricks they stole bricks I stole bricks so in the essence so I think this this is this is the correct size brick okay right but this is a little bit more orangey than what's existing so this brick is the is is is very close the color it's just the brick big it's a little bit big so is this so that so this kind of the same correct that's the color just the color yeah definitely yeah so I think I think the thing is like are we leaning more more leaning cool um I do I do want to say that um Ron that we appreciate the the samples like I I would say you even went above and beyond on the samples because there's some things here obviously that may maybe we don't need but to have this kind of samples this this is kind of what we needed everything labeled and it was interesting because the renderings um and kind of just the the point of how difficult it is we got the renderings my first question was where's the blue where's the blue clabber because it looks blue on the on the printed renderings but it's gray yeah so um it's really important obviously to to see these things I don't think we'll be hauling them outside but you know yeah that's really the double-edged sword with computer renderings is it depends what printed on yes it is can't trust it do you want to see the rendering no no you see the real step live yeah this is more you can see the renderings but the colors just don't color no so yeah don't it doesn't not the same so my question is what what what is the next step uh is this something that U or something that's part of the procedur condition or be a suggestion or no I think we can I mean um what we don't want to do is what happened with um say 12 where we said hey we'll pick the colors later and then it comes back well and it just comes back to haunting we don't want to deal with it later so we want to deal with it right now said we picked this color palette okay that's in the it's either on the latest renderings dated blah blah blah cool scheme or whatever warm scheme whatever we pick okay so before we do that can can we ask for their opinion sure yes just to have we don't have to agree with that so uh Ron is Ron Ron uh so be before we we kind of make a um a discussion here to see which which pallet we prefer can you give us your your your designer opinion of what would you go with personally and and why so that that can inform what we discuss here I I think my preference would be what's on the screen and the reason being is is um I I think the colors provide interest is a little you know there's enough uh variation in them that the elements seem to pop a little more and it's also I think more in tune with the colonial nature so you're you're talking about the cool scheme the cool schee right the brick um I think if we pick up the you know that brick patterning or the brick uh coloring of the adjacent building it helps to provide that continuity of you know it looks like it it really fits in um I think we've done a lot of really good things and and I appreciate your your input as difficult as it was sometimes but um and um but I think that this would be my personal preference um Charlie if you want to weigh in on yours and your reasoning you know that would be great I know Charlie likes the uh the warmer colors I I think that you and the board should make the decision run okay I don't want to have them say I that's that's fine I just wanted to I know that you you know you uh seem to like the the mor thron I think we I think we kind of we're going in these two directions um because the brick in town seemed to be a cool brick but the brick of the train station seemed to be a warm brick a more orangey brick right and that's kind of got is going in these two different two different directions um I mean I think I prefer I think I prefer the cool scheme I think it could work either way but I think the cool scheme gives a little bit more I think I think it is a little bit more Colonial I like how it ties in with downtown which I think is more important maybe than the pathway which is so prominent in downtown is more important than tying trying to match a brick across the street I think for me um I also think it's just and maybe some people won't like this I think it's a bit more modern and this is a little bit I don't know more um rural kind of looking to me um versus the gray um but that's where I would land but I'm interested in wherever they El land um can you speak kind of closer to I personally agree with uh uh with Trisha I I think connecting to the downtown more directly is better and I I personally think that the variation of architecture that the building has uh has it already provides a lot of a lot of interest and variety and I I I I think those colors kind of allow the architecture to express its shape when you start adding sometimes a lot of extra color texture to to a massing or a composition it can become it can kind of distract of of of the essence and I think it's actually nice that it it goes different than what the train station is because this ties to the downtown the train station remains unique and that's I think it's a plus so I I agree I agree as well I think I I do love the cool palette and I think this whole project is going to be something that's literally a showcase as you turn around the corner so I don't think anybody would think of connecting the pallet on the train station to this particular project so I think there's a good uh Synergy in all those elements and I think each one picks up the ele colors from the other so I think it's a great palette that's there the warm up palette I think I it'll just merge in that it'll not be a project that's going to stand out so I don't know if we have that as an intention but I think cooler panle definitely is going to stand out so I love the Palette too I will let the professionals decide but I do like the um and I think I was going to point out the brick tying in like I I I remember Kevin asking for that way back and I feel like that that does help make it continuous with the downtown I think it it will look like we sort of did actually plan it all right so I looks like do we need to take an official vote on the cool PL on the cool pallet okay that would be [Laughter] nice all right I will I will make a motion that the planning board supports the cool pallet as presented um the colors as presented um for 9 to 49 Main Street second b and a roll call vote de Marcel I Katherine Jers and Trisha Kendall ey so there we have a color palette woohoo do I have a question do we have CU I mean probably in the decision we'll need the exact right the the color names or numbers and like yeah okay but that probably has to go part of it you can't just say the cool pallet right decision no no no I think you know I think from that point on I will take the Translating yeah we'll translate what was what was obviously you know Ron did a great job and and I and I think the application team again is they submitted to cool and the warm right what will be approved and and I can ask Ron just to kind of put an updated you know a date on it and then that will be approved off of that and then obviously we can mention the colors uh of the the Hardy Plank and the decision uh to kind of really kind of formalize that that's that's just kind of um adding additional language to the decision um and then kind of moving forward excuse me Pete I just W to um Trisha said 9 to 49 Main Street that's I always do that 9 to 49 Homer I always say Main Street sorry I don't know why I want to make sure we're approving the right col the right Street 9 to 49 Homer a and the one thing I will say no one brought it up but I feel like 128 Main Street looking at that building is closer to this pallet with the with a grayer with a with a more cocky color building so I think the the the cool is um adds a little bit of diversity which I think is a good thing yeah I think it was Navajo beige maybe over there or something like that yeah I just know there are all these Hardy Board plank terms that yeah yeah so um okay so what and and the Border along the side so in that we were also um just to confirm we were also uh approving the sidewalk design that did okay I with the I think so with the border and the I think what was presented today is much better and I think um it ties better more appropriately with the downtown project which was all along the objective including the change in the plazas now I just by looking at it you can you can tell that it belongs more in the downtown that that than it did before so I I don't okay do we need a well I think that'll be included the in the drawings like it'll be on the site plan or whatever yeah I I guess these renderings or whatever the final ones should be included as SP so there's a record there'll be a record obviously I think as a PL obviously the the the revised C plans from a from a civil standpoint are being reviewed but yeah and I'm sure you know Terry and Rick will update those plans to include the brick this the brick stripe that is is obviously throughout the downtown yes so I would say it would be good to um I'm sure you're not in a hurry to come haul all this way again but it would be good to have it in the office so that Amanda and um Anna can at least see what we were looking at yeah before before that is before the the ones we aren't using are picked up the ones that were're and actually if you if you put them like that ideally outside and just take a picture and have the picture part of the record okay I can do that that's not a problem uh yeah no I can keep these in the office for Amanda and Anna as they come in and they can kind of check it out so yeah I'm not sure they've had a chance to to take a look and see so yep that's no problem I'm happy to do that do so all right then do we have anything else um on this project tonight it seems like we got over we got through a big hurdle here tonight um I think that's correct Madam chair and that and then we have other things that are are going to gcg we're waiting for Lisa me and we'll go through that list kind of with the fine tooth comb but I think we're getting down to the nitty-gritty on that list as well yeah I think we're getting down to the to the to the to the eliminating items one by one I think we just need to continue to do so and and and with respect for both parties and we just can kind of obviously move you know kind of you know Trot through the process and uh and move forward great all right and I obviously I'll continue working with Terry and and and Ron and and Rick and Charlie and uh and and and Terry I'm sure I'll be on the phone with you tomorrow then when would we be looking uh um when would we looking to see this again are we looking two weeks I think two weeks I think two weeks is appropriate um I think at this point you know I think I'm I'm expecting to you know hear from Lisa and from and from um and from excuse me uh Mike Carter soon and and I can also express some of these points of interest that need to be addressed and so I think we should have a good update uh of where things stand at the next meeting um and then also um with 320 Pond coming back in February I think there's plenty of room on our next agenda uh in in our next agenda we will also hear uh well I'll finish that later but obviously I think we have room in our next agenda and and we can kind of move continue to continue the momentum all right so maybe in the meantime um you and I can work on the updated list and get it out to the board with any documentation that goes along with that list and that'll leave room for anyone to ask any address any remaining questions anything that is still jumping out um as part of that yeah I don't think I know we've talked about a bunch and I'm sure it's on the radar screen but I don't think that sustainability checklist is on here did I did I miss it and I know you said that has to be updated but I don't think that's on here yeah I think it's on the I think it's on the new version okay but um I'll add it to this one to check so Madam chair yes um so when are we looking to come back and I'm wondering if there's a uh depending upon the intervening period whether it's appropriate to to work on a draft decision um I mean I I'm always in favor of working on the draft sooner rather than than later because there's a lot of information to make sure we put in there like the colors or the sustainability thing so um yeah I mean if Peter if you have time to start we start to put that together because that's a long discussion even once we get to looking at the decision to go through it Point by Point yeah I think um a s no I think I'm I'm I'm I'm happy and I think I'm ready to kind of take a look at it you know I think uh everything in hand you know I can I can start to do that so is that is that okay with the board obviously that is not the same as a vote but sometimes I also feel it starts to clarify and help helps us to pinpoint issues um yeah the majority of this is also resolved so it's just like boiler plate that may help us to kind of nail down some of those finer details right yeah okay right right okay so then we will be continuing this until our next meeting on June 25th no June I'm sorry January 2 we'll continue uh 9 to 49 Main Street until June 23d yeah that one was on purpose all right can I have uh someone who's going to make the motion properly I make a motion we continue the hearing for 9 to 49 Homer after to meeting on February 8 oh no January 25th January 25th two weeks okay I'm sorry that 9 to 49 Homer site plan special permit application to January 25th and a second roll call vote Marcela I Katherine Jersey I and Trisha Kendall I and we already have uh yes the date is already out there somewhere yep March 1st okay mhm okay M Madam chair thank you very much we're very happy that you're pleased with the uh with the color scheme well thanks for uh I'm sorry it's very old school of us but uh thanks for hauling all the stuff in it obviously made it it just made it much easier to look at you know so thank you for that your most welcome all right so we'll see you in two weeks okay Happy New Year you too all right next on our agenda um [Applause] we'll go for item six so there any is there any updates or reports anything there I do not have any I'm sorry we all had a holiday um there are some things under seven uh um Kate do you want to give a report on comprehensive plan um just sure to remind people the next meeting is January 18th and we will have an update from the consultant about the public forum and then we're getting heavy into the um like recruiting public opinion phase so you all start working on your friends and and a plan to engage them yeah I'm also really interested in uh and I'm sure the information's coming in the proper order but the meeting in a box concept and what that is and are we a meeting in a box like does that something will happen even at the planning board level is that really for the more the Committees further down um it it's all of the above I mean it's really to recruit um as many people as possible it's to the widespread and and thinking that some people won't be able to come out or can't come to a form but it's more on their own time like I could do a Wednesday night in my living room and I get a few neighbors oh but it's not it's not in any way to limit like I I um haven't really gone forward but I way back in the summer I talked to some of the people the senior at Park Road and they have a activity room and like meeting there and getting people so it's really all of the above and as many people as possible in that meeting in a box kind of format like I assume that's a I'm just kind of curious what it is I mean she she keeps the consultant no I know I asked for the elevator speech version of it because I've been recruiting people but I can't you you need the elevator speech version yeah I'm curious about this we don't have it I mean hopefully January 18th I can try to ask again CU I think it's so familiar to them it's it's a con I mean you can look up the concept she said I didn't invent it but okay I think the general thing is you took one of those surveys it's a version of that that at a smaller scale keep replicating someone came to your meeting you asked them to go do five of their friends MH um I would like I hope that we can get to the point of doing like a business round Table Right of a separate you know meeting in a box for the business Round Table separate like sustainability whatever I mean it's going to take a lot of effort um so I think that will see how it shakes out but that would be my goal I already have a list of like 40 people that I'm I got one no so far they didn't say they know they won't come they said no they won't host it so um yeah all right but yeah all right cool because this is a big next stage you're entering into the next six months are kind of the critical information gathering right data Gathering so okay um all right design Review Committee I do have a couple things on that um yes it and actually I printed out was that something I was supposed to hand yeah yes this is so um on I think it was December 12 December 12th right which was yeah we're right in the middle of a lot of other things I think but a talent Bank form did come in for David uh I don't know how to pronounce that spatara spatara spatara um so I think since that time since December 12 he has attended a design commit uh design review committee meeting I think they are going to be having some kind of report or summary for us you know on that um so maybe on our next meeting we will be having uh David come to the next meeting and I may try to reach out to him before that on behalf of the planning board if everyone thinks that's a usually I do so thinks that's a good idea I think on this it really said select board but of course select board isn't um involved in this particular this is the one committee that select board isn't isn't involved in so um um design viw committee is looking for more people to add they have one opening in the alternate like there's two alternates and they have one opening as an alternate member but um I so the design Review Committee met on Thursday um it's recorded it's a little bit of a bear to download the recording but if anyone wants it Peter has it and so I watched that recording because it was it involved um 320 Pawn Street Mazy so I wanted to see how that went um and then they had also talked about this candidate at the end and I had I had really forgotten that I had glanced this in my email I think it went to all of us but on December 12th and immediately got buried and and everything else that was going on so um so I went back and looked and Peter we found this and we printed it out and um I already apologized to the design Review Committee that I I didn't see it you know know um and no one no one from the design Review Committee witched out about it either so I think everyone was just busy but then this I assume this will be on our on our next meeting looking at this application so for that position um the other thing I just wanted to make sure I reviewed um with the planning board in regard to that meeting so that that was the meeting they were looking at Mazy and they had received um the planning board memo that you guys had received to I think received it more recently Marcel and I put it together right before Christmas um but I wanted to get it to them before their January meeting and um We spelled out things according to the bylaw as we did for 9 to 49 hom RAV um and the things that are defined under the the bylaw that describes the design review committee's um jurisdiction so we did that and sent it to them there was a little and and they and they went through those they you know they went through those there was a little con confusion at the end of the meeting about um because we had referenced Marcel and I had referenced on there to review the sustainab check sustainability checklist in reference to the items that we listed below like in reference to the bylaw so at the end of the meeting they were they were kind of I think a little confused about oh we didn't go through the sustainability checklist we didn't talk about solar panels we didn't talk talk about EV stations we didn't talk about is the building all electric so in a in an email I sent to them that you know just just to respond that that um that they seem to be right in the Wheelhouse on their meeting about what we had asked them to do but those other aspects like things on the sustainability list like EV station solar panels that they're really in the jurisdiction of the planning board which is what we discussed at n for 9 to 49 Homer in making those distinctions and that things like um storm water go to Conservation Commission as we started to like I said kind of Marcelo and I figuring that out back with 9 to 49 Maine through the bylaw yeah what I would have taken out of it is those elements in that sustainability checklist that pertain to design is what their focus should be like if there is a solar panel on and Architectural facade or the roof um it impacts the design of that project so that's what they have bike racks and all those that's a checklist that the material checklist is what they should be looking at on TV stations I guess so that wouldn't be ultimately I I think the process seems to sort of be working better I think than before I was on the board so like if we could pretty simply take that checklist the sustainability checklist in market and it's purple it goes along with these things I think right yeah that might be a good idea I haven't gone back to look at the sustainability checklist and say these things actually do fall under the bylaw and that's a good idea to see if they it's a good idea because it can become vague right or like okay and then occasionally said no solar panels cuz no but it really is this some Oddball R so I'm just trying to like ultimately simplify maybe it doesn't nothing maybe ever a cookie cutter completely but to not have that doesn't how to spell it out yeah so I and it's different when it's a renovation than when it is a new construction you yeah oh at least you know we can at least go back and take a look at the sustainability checklist and see if it easily kind of pans out that way or if it immediately gets kind of tricky and muddled um but I think it's more just a it maybe just like a routine of going through that the same thing you know each time um yeah so I just wanted to make you aware of that conversation that went back and forth just just recently with with for the design Review Committee to try to keep the process kind of streamlined and to be to to start a to continue a pattern that we started with 9 to 49 is what I was hoping to do okay um sustainability committee I think we got that covered um and I don't oh there was something else wait a minute oh it was um I made a note to myself under other it was um Metro West um communities Metro West communities what's it called metros uh Regional collabor Regional no the uh the the housing around the train station MBTA oh MBTA thank you MBTA communities um but because it isn't on our list but under just wanted under other we're looking at um you obviously we had a break Alo was away he's back now and so this is one of Peter and El's top priorities this is my top priority the MBTA communities so we are looking at um and just yesterday we were discussing this about having a um maybe a a kind of a for like we did here about MBTA communities for the public to EXP AB yeah explain the regulations um explain kind of where we are now about where what we think we're going to do it's not finalized yet because there's still a lot of questions out there but this is what we're intending start to get feedback on that so we get that public discourse we need to consult with um Joe who's also on the committee Joe manani but we were hoping that maybe at the very end of January to still have that in January but at the same time be moving forward with um boy the spreadsheets and the questions and the consultant correct yeah we have a consultant uh we did receive a grant from Mass Housing Partnership so we do have a consultant um they I've been in contact with them however they they've been swamped obviously with other with all working all these different type of different communities so um we've uh we talked to him before the Christmas break holiday break and uh and and we are in the queue uh however I'm still looking to touch base with them um um and and so we've had emails sent out and so we're we're trying to um schedule our next meeting to kind of take a look at steps and where we need to go um however on our side you know Alvaro has done a great job you know working with the gis creating the layers but also more importantly getting into into the state compliance model because that's where the rber really hits the road and understanding where our bylaws need to be edited and or and how our bylaws going to affect the rate of De I mean the the the units per per Zone and so he's doing a lot of that Alvaro he's back um he had a great Break um and and so him and I are really kind of starting to crank next week on on what the compliance model looks like uh changes to the bylaws that need to be made um in addition to our consultant our consultant um was needed in acquired because we the board and the board of selectman decided if you remember to go back and to do a um an economic feasibility study um regarding the uh percentile of affordable housing units that we want to include within our bylaws uh within our bylaw change so not to rehash the entire conversation but right now communities are are kind of having to get in the green light to allow for hey Lo Mee still going on yeah I know think I think that's just my computer I'm sorry are you talking about to allow for greater than 10% affordability correct yeah so the co consultant is to both see if we can get greater than 10% affordability and to help us in writing a general bylaw right yeah those two things that's funny I think I I think it's great that we're getting a consultant for that and maybe I agree with having a public for for that because that is impacts the entire town I think that's very important we did get an email from somebody relative to this that I in my view raised pretty good points relative to the philosophy of how this is being approached and maybe that's one of the first items that I think should be discussed with the consultant because because it was it from from the big picture point of view I think what I understood from that communication is uh you yeah you can find ways to go around trying to comply with but that does not address the the the real or the essence of what the the thing is being proposed for is just for compliance and I think it's a good point that should be yeah I agree I think the where the working group kind of landed was because that strip that was in was in part of our analysis right yeah was we're kind of waiting we have this comprehensive plan process going and we have to make kind of these big decisions so trying to weigh in of you know do we sit back and wait a little bit for comprehensive plan what are our options of places we might have to include anyway to to meet the requirement and that's partly why I think the the meeting comes into play too to try to understand how the public feels about that about um more more businesses say more mixed use um at the train station in in that zone um I think those are real questions to the mixed use is a little um uh they recently I mean a couple months add that it's potential for mixed use under the MBTA um communities but the I think it's really tight and I don't think it would apply because it calls it you're downtown and it can only right now and again things change next month they might edit that again but it it says only in your downtown and so I don't think we can say that's our downtown um I guess we have to see what the I guess have to see what the actual rules are yeah I think the way I the way I understood it is that you can require mixed use but the square footage of that commercial can't be counted for residential for the units well obviously yeah it's not residential but I think it also I I recall reading it was it was pretty tight about that because they that would allow them to say well you already have a downtown commercial right they they don't want you to introduce under that law introduce commercial somewhere else yeah I mean I think it's I think that's a good question for Emma yeah I can reach out but yeah and and I think that I agree having a Consultants we have contacts the state obviously and so that's a good question that I can we can put forward and and the questions about that um strip I didn't mean to even like go down the path of mixed use but whether we want that to be high density higher density residential that's a question for you know to throw out there too right to have and that discussion whether it's mixed use or whether point of order because I feel like other when we're getting more discussion about something that's pretty heavy in people's eyes probably shouldn't maybe continue without being an agenda item yeah I just I feel like it's it could be perceived as we weren't trying to be transparent and I I know that's not the case but that's fine I don't really want to go into it either I mean Marcel did you have a point that you want wanted to finish that no I I I agree with that not just just the point that they were just rehashing what happened last meeting there were opinions on that area yeah and I'm just pointed it out because we got a communication relative to what was discussed um and and they were opinions that that that may not hold when you have a big a big Forum so the the fact of trying to open it up to have these type of discussions I think that's the yeah the way for so that that was the whole point that what we wanted to do is to hold a forum similar to what we did today on that to really get the information out there we have a lot of information to share and a lot of options to share so to get that kind of feedback all right that's what I was trying to see it was on my sticky that's what I was trying to remember um yeah okay so that's that are there any updates that we need to go over is there an 501 that need uh no there's really no update to 501 um I know there was some emails going around but um at this point I have no confirm you know trass development still owns the property they still manage the permit um that permit was obviously issued a little late little over a year ago and so that special permit is still live for how long so in our bylaws it's two years so one more year two yeah one more year uh and so I haven't had any update from from anybody that it is passed on to a new developer uh Andor um they have they they've chosen not to go forward so um obviously it's it's still you know uh status quo at this point uh just to make not Starbucks is continuing with construction um you can kind of see they put the roof on uh they continue get they continue to get building perit I mean building application I mean building excuse me um inspections and so that is moving forward the next up is we are waiting uh for Starbucks to submit um a building application for the interior of that building for the fit out uh that actually comes from Starbucks not the owner of the building and so that's our next step on that project but things are moving along smoothly over there uh and those are the two big items um regarding uh projects that are ongoing Village of the americaas I haven't had an update uh I should I haven't reached out to the developer there uh since coming back from Christmas break but that Chestnut Street Chestnut Street yes I drove by today it looks like things are moving along and again I can tell you they've been receiving building inspections annual I mean obviously weekly uh and so I have not had any red flags come come off of that one yet can I move on to administrative matter b um I think everyone knows um we had a new application the Ashland Brewing LLC doing business as Clover Road Brewing this is for five 151 Main Street this is actually the old fire station so at the next hearing we're going to hear the application of that it's for site plan review and so we'll meet the owners what's going on I I believe I've sent that have I sent that information out to everybody no it's going to be up online to it's we've sent it out to uh I think we've sent it out to everybody um and uh and so we're moving forth and so that will be on our our next agenda did did the historic Commission get that do they know about it uh you know what there's a great point and I'll I'll make sure that they go out there and the building is still owned by the town right this is a lease correct so this is a lease um the building is still owned by the town the second floor of the building still has Town property in it um and so so Culver Road is going to be taking the basement the first floor and uh the basement area and they're going to have access to the second floor where there's employee bathrooms and there's a there's old actually kitchen up there for that the fire department used to use um in so but this area but the lease will cover the building uh and most and really most important that first floor of of the truck Bays um I haven't you know Alvaro got back on Wednesday until so him and I are just been playing catchup so we'll get that up online and out to everybody you know as soon as possible so uh that's just been a little bit of Hiccup and and we'll take care of that and then really our next meetings uh our next meeting is January 25th February 8th and just as a reminder uh the second meeting in February is the 5th Thursday uh and it is a leap year so uh to celebrate the 29th of February we're going to have a PO plany board meeting remember yeah and then other than that I do want to mention and I do want to thank uh Linda Kane if Linda Kane is out there and watching this meeting Linda Kane has been our um has produced the minutes for the town of Ashen planning board for about 11 years and so Linda Kane is moving on I did receive a letter before the email before the holiday that she is resigning her post and uh and she wanted to thank the Plenty board in town of Ashland uh and and I think the Plenty board and Trisha did uh with an email thank Linda for her for her service to the board but I just want to publicly uh thank her and acknowledge the work that she's done for the board so um and so the last two minutes of November 30th and December 14th were done by Linda uh and I want to just thank her again so we're starting on a clean sleep so Trish now you got left by Preston you're left by Linda no one likes me yeah it's um it it's actually amazing that she um and I'm not I don't even know if I've ever met her but it's amazing that she was seemed determined to finish all of our meetings like December 14th that was our last meeting and until today so man kudos to her that's just amazing the question is do we have someone else uh we do so in the short term uh we're going to be we're going to be taken care of uh and in the long term I think we're still ironing some issue iron out that situation all right but DEA looked like she said she want to do it Deepa really read it in her eyes oh yeah you have to buy that vowel yes we'll get you the EB back all right so we're looking at the meeting minutes of uh November 30 November 30th give Deepa one e is this the one that I had I had given you just a couple things I don't remember what they were though it was very minor I think I I think I yes do you want to put a reference on line 54 Miss Kendall asked about item e signage or concerning signage is that like are we attaching the report to reford what item e is about oh we can do we can attach the the I don't know if there's a simpler way to do it or would you just say item e item e concer just elaborate what IEM you was I don't know that's easier so yeah item e was just a present a generic indication of signage locations um so we could say item e regarding indication of signage locations or something like that just to give it like to give a little indication of what it was about otherwise I don't think I had any changes why oh jeez spell oh this is what what is the game show can I have a te can I have it yes 8 yes she's Vena gotcha does anyone have any comments on November 30th or do you need more time ready for a motion yeah I think so make a motion to accept the November 30th 20203 planning board meeting minutes with the small edits mentioned second rollot Marcel Kath Jersey gu TR kend I okay on to December 14th dea's name again for there is one last name missing on line 101 I don't know if that would be on the tape for tell me when everyone's good yep good so just that last name yeah and dea's name in in the attendance got and I'll go back and answer for that yeah otherwise just just seems like the only one missing okay are you good Kate okay um all right is there a you want to make another motion Kate I'll make a motion to approve the December 14th meeting minutes second we'll do it as amended as amended yeah all right uh roll call vote you and goodby marcelona I cathine Jers I and Trisha Kendall I does anyone have any further anything to add at the end of the evening we did get we we did get writing from the 320 Pond to extend to March 1st I saw the one for 9 to 49 Homer but yeah it was from it was on the last meeting we haven't oh I'm only saying because we just read the minutes this said February 9th so I got worried the minutes that we just read said we extended it to February 9th oh to febru okay um and someone said they saw it I didn't see it but I'm fine if you all saw it that it's it's extended to March 1st everything so this continuance to stamp on on December 13th so in the second paragraph if or don't me read it from the top read the important part I guess I read the important therefore it seems prudent to extend the time for a reasonable period that would allow for the board to fin fin action without a need for further extension accordingly this letter will constitute an agreement by the applicant W JK Homer LLC to extend to extend said time until March 1st 2024 if necessary she's talking about Pond oh 320 P sorry 320 pond because these meeting minutes say we're extending till February 9th correct and now today meeting minutes we're going to extend it further out to March 1st so there was a new continuance yeah but we so when it came up I said subject I wanted to put a friendly Amendment you said no we don't need to it's in writing and I'm fine with it but I I'm just confused well at that meeting yes we moved it to February 9th however at the at the at the continu the continuance memo that we accepted that's the one we do okay have doation for March 1 no that's fine I just yeah yeah take final action so and this is from Josh Klein okay Chase Bank soen this came after that so yeah so so we're good yeah yeah I'm sorry I was I thought you were confus on projects okay so oh um so anything any announcements anything else hanging out there that we need to address all right so Kate and I will do that one little response letter thing yeah I'm sure you I'll tweak it and you'll probably I missed something but that's why I wanted to help but it's simple yeah either if you can read my writing and um Peter and I will work on the that list yeah I'll get together with you on that list and we'll get that out so that everyone has it and can respond to it otherwise I think we're otherwise I think we're good right will the sustainability team come back with for the Tre while I think I'm I'm just going to I think they just have to meet with their committee and decide kind of how they want to because there was a lot that got dumped out there yeah okay so certainly not the certainly not the end of that discussion it's a tough discussion it is oh yeah some clear buckets that needed attack so I think they were very clear there was a pattern in the conversation that I think it's easier if you just boil it down to those four three four topics though yeah so we'll see take I'll take a breather and then see where it goes next I will say has been working very hard on it for the last couple months and um it's come a long way it's come a long way it's it's um it's a tricky it's a very tricky tricky bylaw because it's not just about a tree right it also reaches into and I think it is a property race because don't go too deep here Peter we're trying to end the meeting so a lot of things to think of okay yeah no Rabbit Hole make a motion to stop Peter do I have a second all right so I will uh make a motion to adjourn the meeting at 9:33 second second uh roll call vote Catherine Jers and Trish K all right thanks everybody

here present here here here here here thank you ma'am can everybody please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance Ali to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for stands one nation indivisible andice great our um next item are is if there are any and thank you for this audience if there are any audience members who would like to speak now is your opportunity seeing no movement to the mic I think we can say nobody wants to speak tonight all right and the next line item is the presentation of the budget first I'd like to say good evening thank you for being here happy New Year here I hope everybody enjoyed their holiday break um and I'm I'm really excited because in the next few minutes our superintendent of schools Dr Solen will present the board of education budget and like all of you I am looking forward to hearing what it will take to support students staff and the community as a whole so first off I'd like to thank Dr Solen and the team in advance for their efforts in preparing the budget and working through the rigorous and comprehensive approval process that will follow and I hope that we keep all students all students at the Forefront of this process as they are the reason we are here doing the work I know the treasure Community is growing and thriving and why we should be proud and celebrate that it also presents us with challenges one of which is the challenge to maintain our worldclass status um maintaining and improving upon the Excellence we as a community have come to expect and demand requires sustained investment and Community Support so we get get the privilege of making choices that will that will make the make that will deliver on our promises our vision and our mission and values we ask and thank our parents and families in advance to join us by being a part of the process the Board of Education encourages citizen participation in this critical decision-making process so without further Ado Dr Solen please to the podium to present the 24 25 school year budget proposal evening I know that uh there weren't any audience comments everybody was on the edge of their seat just an eager anticipation um and I you know Echo uh chair rosenberg's comments about thanking you for being here this evening um and I want to thank everybody who played a a role in this process the budget process starts with our teaching staff and support staff uh with at the building level um I analyzing the things that we're doing and doing well and things that we need to improve upon uh collaborating with one another to identify things uh points that'll leverage uh our our work and enhance the experience for our students our staff and our community and um goes through the the principal process up to central office and we spend a lot of time uh with the administrative team and with each other evaluating those various proposals um beyond that that work uh there's also the logistical work of putting all this together uh Mr massana and his team spend countless hours putting together budget books and resources uh before we leave this evening each member of the board will receive a thick binder that is is uh an incredible reference that not only outlines item by item but also provides a lot of supplemental information um and for members of the public that will be available on our website tomorrow as will this presentation each uh evening throughout this process will meet you know many Tuesdays and Thursdays for the rest of the month and the following day the presentation if there is one from the night prior will be available on on our website if people want to follow along um just to kind of kick things off here uh our board member responsibilities are codified in statute that the board shall provide an appropriate learning environment for all its students which includes adequate instructional books supplies materials equipment Staffing facilities and Technology two Equitable allocation of resources among its schools and three proper maintenance of facility facilities and of course a safe School setting the superintendent responsibilities uh are kind of the things that I've already articulated uh with an eye toward you know making sure that we have appropriate and balanced uh Equitable I should say rather than than balanced uh resources between schools uh to sustain that safe and clean learning environment of course maintaining our statutory obligations and our uh goals meeting the the district goals and i' like to remind folks of what we provide uh there was probably a day long ago where schools were exclusively responsible for Reading Writing arithmetic as they would say the three hours um and you know I think everybody recognizes in uh 2024 our responsibilities are are far broader than that to include all sorts of uh um needs for our students and opportunities for our students and our our community but this is really at the end of the day why we P provide this um Miss Rosenberg talked about you know the the students um and and this is uh you know as we start to debate numbers and things like that I think it's always good to remind ourselves of why we're here in the first place and why what the decisions we make are so important so our budget filter uh are really the district focal points uh complex thinking and social emotional learning that really the decisions that we try and uh make really difficult decisions about what's included in the budget what's not included in the budget and this is the lens that we look through to try and help us uh and and guide strong decisions uh since we have focused on these things I don't think it's coincidental uh or accidental that our our performance has really improved um it it's causal uh social emotional learning just to kind of elaborate a little bit on those two areas of focus for us um the power of social emotional learning uh is not just for personal fulfillment but it also has a positive infl influence on behavior on academics on personal success and it's an essential part of what we do additionally complex thinking is a tremendous life skill that our kids just like social emotional learning will have to carry forward to provide them the best opportunities for success in life I love that quote from Justin Trudeau the pace of change has never been this fast yet it will never be this slow again there's constant acceleration and so you know this our work is a little bit of a moving Target that the students who began the school year um is is kindergarteners I think they'll graduate in 2037 or something and so that's what we're trying to prepare students for and what the world will look like 13 years from now um is is tough to Envision and so we are trying to to meet those evolving needs um on a much much smaller level closer to the present uh this budget process is also an evolving um you know Beast that we'll start here we'll go through this process just so everybody knows the we'll spend the next month as a board of education and Community identifying what our goals are uh how we're going to fund those goals um ultimately that'll move before the Town Council in April and at that point the Town Council will uh add modify to whatever that number is that the board has identified as a community and then we'll come back together probably in June uh late May to so solve as a a board where we want that money that's been allocated by the town to fall so the budget environment uh is influenced by some internal and external factors internally within the chesher public schools we know that our enrollment continues to climb uh that we you know have contractual increases year-over-year not just uh within those that we employ but also our vendors special education continues to evolve uh our facilities haven't gotten any younger uh we're really excited about the prospect of adding two new buildings and taking three older ones offline in a couple of years but we're not quite there yet so we have to be conscious of how we maintain what we have till we get there and then uh you know unfortunately I think we're all aware that uh medical benefits costs continue to escalate outpacing inflation external factors State of the State uh you know I've stood here and some of the worst Financial Times and gratefully I stand here today um where the state has a a much brighter budget forecast than they have in in some years past um state and federal revenue is certainly a factor for us uh I'm sure you know that ARP uh American Rescue plan and eser funding is expiring this year so that's a consideration that influences this budget state and federal mandates I'll hit on some of the more uh recent State mandates that uh are impacting us and uh Vin when he presents next week he'll certainly elaborate on that much further I just want to take this moment to thank Vin again not only for putting the budget process all the the resources together but uh doing so when he was he's been under the weather so we're sitting him in the naughty Corner in the back for now um and he's he doesn't he's not uh no longer sick but he's just making sure that we don't get sick either so thank you Benin um and then obviously Treasure's continued growth and development uh Miss Rosenberg talked about you know our community thriving and uh treasure being a Vibrant Community you only have to drive around town to see new construction and a lot of um a lot of growth that's happening in our community uh I'm sharing this slide because we tend to reference ourselves against similar communities and um about 25 years ago uh the Connecticut State Department of Education created uh what they ultimately called District reference groups the district reference groups uh are exclusively devised based on economic criteria in the community it has nothing to do with student achievement or anything like that it's all about um economics and rough size of the community and um that data was run again just this past year in 2023 uh to revamp the district reference groups uh chesher remains in what's called District reference group b District reference group a is basically Fairfield County and now Madison has been included in District reference group a um you see District reference group B on the left and on the right we've included um some folks that were new to dur b or were in dur B and have now entered other durs uh just as a point of reference and again this is on will be on our website uh for people to take a closer look at if they wish so a lot of the data that I'm going to share almost all of it when I reference District reference group b this is the collection of towns that I'm talking about now kind of moved on from the old um 25y old District reference groups so per pupil expenditure uh this is a little bit of a history of the chesher public schools per pupil expenditure uh dating back to 1819 um and we have uh historically spent less per pupil uh than the state average um the current 2223 data from last year uh outlines you know that we had spent 19,1 189 and that number is basically it's it's Apples to Apples across Connecticut the districts are required to submit the the uh financial data in a certain form so that it is Apples to Apples comparisons and it's a simple total of our our our number our financial uh our budget divided by the number of students in the district to come up with a per pupil expenditure cost um so I think you know I share this because we uh are definitely fiscally um responsive and were resourceful and that you know our budget would have to increase by $10 million per year to meet the state average just within durg B our budget increase would be five a half million per year if we spent what that that group of towns that I just showed you spent per pupil on average our budget would increase by $5.5 million so I talked about the administrative team putting forth uh budget requests and items in the in the budget and things that we consider so that initial budget request uh was 7.88% uh representing a $6.7 million increase over our current budget of of 429 so again my responsibility is you know to advance our goals um and I do that with fiscal responsibility in mind um I know that you know our community certainly prioritizes education and um has made substantial Financial commitments not only through our operating budget but through our capital budget with the uh construction of new schools so trying to strike that balance in terms of a proposal that is certainly uh could be modified uh we identified a total increase of 6.05% um meaning that the overall budget increases 5,138 836 uh and I call out independently their medical benefit increase because as I said the escalating cost of medical benefits is a challenge for all Connecticut residents all national residents really but um just for us the the increase to medical benefits is about 20% uh of our overall budget increase the driving factors as I talked about some of those internal external factors increasement increased enrollment uh the way that that gets translated in this budget proposal is in the addition of regular and special education Staffing and I'm going to get into a lot more detail on this um higher special education cost uh teacher and administrator positions that were being funded through arser uh since 2021 um that has been basically folded into this current budget um higher wages is outlined there it was $10 an hour in 2019 and the minimum wage is now $569 an hour uh that 50% increase plus is you know born into this budget as well and then you know medical benefits facility operating costs those are really the Marquee drivers so I like to try and um frame our expenditures in a few different areas maintenance um you know when I look at what is is this budget is constructed what is being spent how we maintaining our budget so it's been um whenever we engage the public about financial priorities class size is always uh a really important item for our families when we talk to them um it also happens to be an important um you know criteria when we talk to our staff special education service this this budget maintains our class sizes our special education uh the quality of service we provide there our medical benefits um some of you may be familiar with the fact that you know we'll get a quote for medical benefit costs for the year and that there because we're self-insured there's this is operated through something called the medical benefits trust fund and it's wise to have a few months uh balance in the account to make sure that if unexpected claims come in higher we don't have to turn to the town and make sure that um you know they can fund us to keep us uh functional and so in years past that that uh rainy day fund if you will had run down and we'd have to fund our operating budget by the amount of money that we're expecting in claims over the year plus maybe several hundred thousand dollar to you know kind of give us a cushion this does not do that and I'm going to talk a little bit about that in a moment the other thing it does is maintain Elementary supervision and and support uh that had been in place through our ARP eser plan um when our enrollment at the element schools were 300 students lower than it is today um and it also includes secondary math support folded in postco in terms of restoration um I use that term for a budget line that perhaps had been frozen or went under previous years uh in an effort to try and balance our budget uh we try and restate uh that budget line and there is a moderate increase to maintenance to address building and Equipment issues and then advancement um those are things that maybe weren't in the prior budgets um but something that we're moving forward uh it's a short list um but important to those who participate so the bounce forward transition uh the bounce forward plan if you weren't familiar was when the federal government through the state provided uh significant funding to navigate the pandemic a lot of our money uh of the 1.8 roughly that we received was spent on uh circus tents for outside dining and uh fun stuff like that a lot of cleaning uh uh PPE that VIN is modeling this evening things like that we spent a lot of that money there and now uh we spent uh a lot of money as well that you don't necessarily see here on uh professional development our belief was that you know if we spent all of the money that was not dedicated to PPE and to um you know really addressing the the virus itself on positions those positions could help students for a very limited amount of time and a limited number of of students if you hire three social workers each year maybe they're reporting 100 students if you're fortunate and in three years the money's gone uh you either have to spend all that money um and you lose the benefit for the 300 students by but by providing professional development in the manner in which we have across the district we in increase the capacity of the 400 plus certified and several hundred non-certified people who work in the Chester public schools in perpetuity they influence the daily experience for however many thousands of kids that we have for the rest of the days that they work in our school system so we dedicated a lot of money into professional development and we've think that's been really uh beneficial and rewarding um the positions that we added are outlined here uh we had assistant principal support at Norton and Chapman to uh provide some assistant principal support who would um really oversee intervention supports and evaluations of Staff um that we in this uh proposed budget we're requesting that we maintain a full-time Elementary reading in math specialist at Highland um we have somebody there uh but again as the um enrollment grows swells to 900 students in that building uh we think it's important just on a ratio basis like I said maintaining class sizes to maintain that support uh moving forward and then we've employed two uh math support teachers one at DOD and one at the high school uh that has proven to through our our data to be beneficial for those students to be honest with you uh when I was at Dodd Middle School as a principal and chesher high school as a principal those are that's a resource that we really tried to advocate for and were never able to make happen in our budget and um I I don't want to say I told you so but at this point you know when we look at the benefit that it's had for our students uh was what we had proposed uh back in at that time and so you know we think it's important to retain that um and maintain that service for our students so in terms of advancement I mentioned it was um you know relatively small uh in a $90 million budget uh and I know you heard uh on the board from members of the community looking to adopt a fencing program this would be the cost uh of that program additionally uh I've worked with um Mr parisino and others to try and draft a policy because chesher and then as we found out pretty much nobody had a policy articulating how a club would become of our city Sport and so I think that's something we'll work through in the policy committee but um I just wanted you to be aware as we were planning this is what the cost of that would be when it says less Revenue there's a participation fee for students in a in sports of $125 uh per sport except hockey is is more expensive but um this kind of outlines what the revenue would be to offset that net budget impact uh so another element you know it's this could be any uh Thursday on the chesher herald that you see you know some something new coming to town and this was just literally this past Thursday I was like I have to take a picture of that um because it really it's illustrative of what we've been experiencing so October 20 October 1 2023 this past October as in a few months ago uh our enrollment is what you see on the top line but yesterday the enrollment is below that and in a typical school year usually it's like it Nets itself out we have some students move in we have some students move out but between the months of October and January that's not high Market traffic for housing um and the numbers are usually pretty stagnant uh but you know this is you know like I said illustrative of what's happening in the in the community that our enrollment has grown by 34 students and predominantly is one would expect in the prek 6 grade range um and then maybe they have older siblings in the in the middle school and occasionally the high school but um this does not include our 44 open Choice students which are predominantly uh they're about 50% at the high school level um because if you recall when we and we'll have to do this again soon uh when we take a look at open Choice seating frankly we're running out of seat so I mean we love to diversify our U community and involve open Choice students from New Haven but at the k6 level we really don't have space to do that and so we've taken advantage of the opportunities that we have at the high school level um and that's where you'll find like I said about roughly half of uh not a little bit more than half of our open Choice students so the projected enrollment through NASDAQ which is grounded in birth rate of chesher residents uh for next year is 4,224 students and um as I indicate in the notes below we're pretty close to that now my guess is by June we will have eclipsed that um and over the summer is when we tend to see most of our students coming in so uh the growing enrollment is something that we're really conscious of as we build this budget uh as I said we've grown about 300 students since 2021 the pandemic at the K through6 level um at the same time our enrollment has declined uh by a couple hundred kids at the high school level and that we knew and um we did not change our staffing at the high school level because consciously through the last contract negotiation most Connecticut high schools if not it's almost uh entirely every Connecticut High School does not have their teacher teaching six classes on an eight period schedule they have them teaching five and we were an anomaly to that and if we wanted to retain that it would be really expensive and frankly it's not better for kids it's not you know to provide teachers collaborative opportunities the way other districts do is beneficial so we didn't reduce our staffing and so I think when you look at how does that relate to the rest of dur B like right our enrollments declined but our staffing hasn't it puts a square in the middle of dur Bay um and I think it's really powerful to realize that it to be at the top of durby we'd have to add 18 general education teachers to our staff which you know it would be 800,000 on a straight budget line if if it were 20 teachers um no excuse me that would be um 10 teachers so 20 teachers would be 1.6 million so um it kind of gives you a sense of you know where we are our our ratio of students to staff is solid um at chesher high school we're in a good place um but I I don't want people to think because we' seen declining enrollment that oh we should be cutting Folks at the high school that's really not what the data says so net certified Staffing changes in this budget uh we are actually just the way that the the class sizes are shaking out uh we are down a teacher next year at Chapman based on the number of kids that are gradu moving being promoted and uh versus the ones that we have in doitt and Highland will add a general education classroom teacher Norton in terms of general education teachers Remains the Same except um we did include an intensive education classroom there U and that's been very successful for us and this will allow us more flexibility in terms of you know uh alleviating a little bit of pressure at Highland and accommodating the students that we have in the community uh by adding a position at Norton uh I mentioned the middle and high school math coach positions and the reading and math specialist at Highland Darcy as well um so you know the this plus it's plus five in terms of the uh certified positions then this uh these are teaching positions and then there's a a one point know Administrative Assistant Principal the non-certified changes uh again these are U impacted by enrollment uh with one maybe minor exception that I'll explain so the Intensive education program at Norton would require a an U par par educat per professional over the course of this year to accommodate special education needs is students move in and situations change we've had to hire an additional 6.8 pair professionals that we will um have to carry over into our budget next year so that's included in this budget uh given the substantial number of kids at Highland uh for safety and and management we're adding two cafeteria AIDS there um I'll get to DOD with a funny story in a second but and we need an additional bus driver and um again given the volume of students and the special ed needs at Highland we're uh looking to bring somebody in part-time to support special education services there um and as it relates to DOD uh the if you recall the in one of the more recent legislative sessions the lunch period was shifted to 30 minutes by Statute used to be 25 minute lunch and we added 5 minutes and um as a recovering Middle School assistant principal to be in the cafeteria with 250 13 year olds um who've already eaten and are full of energy it it can be challenging my good friend Don wonus used to say to me if I only had one day to live I'd want to spend it on calf Duty because it'd feel like forever forever and uh that I I don't F it's just developmentally part of what happens for 13 and 14 year olds in the cafeteria and I I really applaud uh Kelly and Ryan the the leadership team there for thinking outside the box and saying what can we do to make this better for our kids and more productive um so that there are positive outlets and they're suggesting you know if we could get some kids out of that space for 10 minutes to do something positive and I'm like that you know we thought that was a brilliant idea for our kids and worth the investment there so um that's included in this budget uh obviously I mentioned medical benefits the current Reserve is 1.64 months of claims that was as of uh November 30th as you see uh we try and keep it at two months or better um but this budget doesn't look to close this the deficit between 1.64 and two um because there's a lot of lot of Road left to Ho here and the other thing is that this is a um a projection as of the Fall about what our medical claims will look like I think by the time we get to April we we might have a better sense of not only uh the projection for next year but how have our claims looked over the course of the next several months the next you know because we got like roughly four more months of reporting before we get to that place so uh we wouldn't recommend a change but an 8% increase uh is beyond the pace of inflation and the medical benefit increases have been beyond the pace of inflation for for several years now um but it's uh it's a necessary evil unfortunately for us and and Vin will go into much greater detail on this when we start to talk about medical benefits um the overall budget increase as you know is a little more than $5 million this pie chart breaks out God bless you this pie chart breaks out where the increases lie so in enrollment related salaries uh takes up a substantial chunk at 16% uh medical benefits is north of 20% teachers salaries is 15% and I want to be clear that you know our teachers are not getting a 15 15% raise that we have 400 teachers um their last couple of raises have been um like two and a quarter two and a half 275 this is um next year is the last year of their contract at 3.02 is the the total amount all in so it's just that's a that's a volume issue um a relatively um nominal raise for a large number of people is uh $766,000 outplacement in special education pupil Services costs about 11% and then you can see the other items there non-certified salaries same thing it's not a 10% raise we have uh a large number of folks who work in uh our uh par Educators unions our our secretaries our building maintainers who really do so much behind this the scenes to make us successful and that's a negotiated contract I think the board's aware of the the adjustment that we have in our transportation contract which is still ultra competitive um under the circumstances and then everything else lumped in is about 10% we'll go through these line by line as we move through so what isn't in the budget that uh I know I've been asked you know in years past you know if you could articulate some of what's not there that maybe you know we'd love to see I think we as an organization as a school system could do a lot better at um providing our younger students pre-engineering skills uh environmental science skills when you look at uh where job demands are as I was talking about you know in 37 the the jobs are there for engineers and people with technical skills today they'll continue to be there is is we move into the next decade and to be frank you know we don't most of the teachers that we hire that's not really a natural inclination for them um and not that they don't have the capacity a lot of them you know if our teachers could teach anything I'm convinced but the it's just not been their background and um one of the things that we were considering is the addition of a special in grades four and five to provide exposure to robotics to provide exposure to environmental science to leverage the new Greenhouse that we have um and provide students those scientific experiences and and I think that'd be you know something that would help thrust us forward and then feed the the broader opportunities that our kids have at the middle and high school level once they've been uh provided these these opportunities at the Elementary grades another reality for chesher public schools is uh central office support uh you know we're we're really quite lean um this is the the rankings of the 167 districts uh Cheshire public schools in terms of the number of students per central office administrators is last that 4.7 um represents me Marlene Vin Robin and this is last year's data so it was part of Ryan Murphy when he was um split between Adult Ed and and this position so even if uh that moves to 5.7 uh the ratio still puts us well under tremble um and you know the I've been asked before like what what does students per central office administrator have to do well you know administrators at the building level navigate challenges and then they turn to central office administrators to support those challenges and um when there's less of us to go around it's uh you know it's it's taxing and um beyond that I think it limits our growth uh and particularly you know we are um I wouldn't say fortunate because it's not lucky that we've hired people like Marlene and now um Kevin to serve as our K8 curriculum person but um additional support at the secondary level would be really welcome um so it's something that's on the outside looking in in terms of this year's budget so this is uh a real painful and frustrating topic for me the right to read this is one of the mandates um if forced so a very quick overview uh in the implementor bill uh there was a push and justifiably so to ensure literacy by the end of third grade for all students in Connecticut the state department of Ed has mandated that that be achieved through one of a handful of programs that they've identified um in the legislation it indicates that districts uh alternatively May file for a waiver and demonstrate that their performance uh or their uh excuse me their curriculum is grounded in scientifically research based uh strategies which we strongly believe that ours is unfortunately the waiver wasn't judged against that the waiver was judged against whether or not we had one of the pre-approved programs and we've subsequently been told well you know you get a program that's how you get approved and for a district our size a program would cost us $650,000 and uh there are a number of uh in incredibly well- achieving districts like chesher that are in that same boat that have expressed uh a lot of frustration over the way that the legislation was interpreted and so I've spent a lot of time lately uh trying to educate people about that and uh work to to change that and so that's not the $650,000 is not in here it would be incredibly painful to have to turn around and I don't you know I don't want to say this in a budget meeting but I don't care about the money even if this was free the we have incredibly talented Educators that have worked very hard to be knowledgeable about the science of reading in our school system for me to I I couldn't turn around and say to them without being sick to my stomach that hey you know all that great work you've been doing now we're going to train you in a program that hasn't demonstrated uh better success than the success that you've already had so we're going to spend your time doing that from now on and by the way your kids may not have the same successful results they have now that is heresy it's it's insanity and so we've been spending a lot of time trying to address that and I appreciate the the time that Marlene and Kevin and Pat Castle are our reading Guru have led to uh lent to that process so our recommended budget as we kind of start to cruise to the end here uh this illustrates you know where our overall budget breaks out the 90 million uh how that's allocated budget increases by by category how much each line went up and if pie charts aren't your thing the the budget book will certainly help you to see line by line and I I see I know you see these broad sweeping titles right because I can't put all of the detail that uh are you outlines what each element uh encompasses but when you look in the budget book there is incredible detail and it'll give you a lot of a lot of information there uh our class sizes I talked about how important that is for the people in our community um it's 18.7 is the actual average class size for k6 in the Treasure Public Schools this year next year it goes to 18.8 so a tenth of a student increase on the average at the Middle School uh the the actually the upper half illustrates some of the average class sizes uh for next year but the middle school is down on the bottom half of the page uh projected class size average of 24 and grade seven 22 and a half roughly in grade eight this uh line graph uh shows you and what the history looks like here for those grade levels and we're roughly within you know the the tolerance of the last you know since 2017 I've already shared you know but I think it's worth repeating the high school uh students per Jen ed teacher right in the middle of dur be there as well and our projected Revenue so this is not money that comes to the chesher public schools all of our Revenue goes to the town of chesher this in essence offsets the cost of our operating budget uh the ECS I think is up I want to say like $29,000 or something over last year which you know we'll take it but um not a substantial increase EC s has been uh essentially flat for like 25 years um special education excess cost Grant uh we're hopeful that that uh sees some movement uh we've been advocating that in this for this in in the legislative session birth to three Revenue to offset as well as the pre Smart Start are um costs for for those programs um adult education we still receive some Revenue uh we do pay wng for to facilitate that program for us as you're aware and then building use is roughly $10,000 that the what we charge people to rent our facilities I know you're aware that the treasure public schools are the facilities for the community um and so that's a lot of Youth groups in town and things like that we we've stayed relatively flat on those fees as well for a long time our performance relative to durby I already kind of shared the um durby spending but this gives you a visual about what districts are spending not not surprisingly uh Fairfield County leads the way there um but you know you can see the other communities in durby and how we compare our district performance index uh this is a a combination of like 20 factors that the state looks at to rate the health of the school system and the success of the school system uh we performed exceptionally well there third in dorby ninth in the state and you know as I indicated I think we provide an excellent value our achievement in the top 10 in Connecticut we have multiple Blue Ribbon Schools or schools of Distinction as well um Highland CHS recognized recently um Norton had been recognized and I know Highland was within a whisker uh because of student participation they would have been recognized um D Little's one of the top Niche schools in in New Haven County all of our schools are performing I apologize if I left anybody out dad Darcy they're all awesome I mean you don't you don't get there without H having every school be successful um so you know we have we as much as uh academics are important we want well well-rounded students and we we've done a tremendous job they providing opportunities for our kids like the only advancement that we're talking about today in this in this budget is along those lines with fencing um the all our schools and our our kids outside of the academic domain have done amazing things and we're really proud of that I want to remind folks I don't think people in this room need reminding but perhaps in the broader community that um in investing in our schools is an investment in our community I have to say it because I've I've coined the phrase as much as I'm worried that it's starting to fade that people don't move here for The Nightlife uh they move here to get a great education for their family but our friend Andrew martelli's given me a run for his money her money with the uh development that he's spurring um home buying we know that people are willing to spend more I think we experienced that through covid the houses in this community uh retained tremendous value I think in large part due to what we do in the cheser public school system I like to remind people obviously of uh the filter again that we use to to decide these things um and investing in our our schools is really done three ways the operating budget which we discussed tonight the capital budget which our planning committee discussed earlier this week and we'll continue to advance in school modernization um we're excited about what's happening there and the development that helps offset all of these costs is really important in our thriving community so again key takeaways as I close with the last two slides here um aside from inflation you know this this uh this is a thriving Community people want to live in that's why we have a plus 34 enrollment in the last three months and plus 300 enrollment just at the elementary schools in the last several years uh we're really really leveraging our resources to get the the greatest achievement and success that we can for our students and staff uh like I said you know an additional 5.5 million do just to land in the middle of dur B three million is a lot of money that we would take um in addition to this proposal to to you know be there and more competitive within dur B but we are very efficient in what we do and it's a reflection of all of the people who contribute to Our Success the community support that we've had is tremendous our parents are very involved and supportive of their students in our schools and our community uh we have tremendous students and and um I think second to non-educators who make this success possible so uh with that uh I do want to put a bow on tonight's presentation I mentioned that we're handing out the budget books um in Vin's words the superintendent ma message is a mustre uh we also encourage you to read the enrollment report from NASDAQ uh each budget line there is extens of detail uh and I'm sure the people that have served on this board for many years will tell you that there is almost nothing you can't find there but that doesn't mean that we don't encourage questions we ask that not only the board members but the community come engage ask questions um and that really helps us as a Administration and board shape the best possible path forward for our students and and a strong budget for for our success so with that I guess I'll entertain any questions from the board go ahead Tim hot there yeah you mentioned the Chester enrollment growing yeah did I don't think you mention it could you give a brief comparison if you know how we compare to the state um I do know that for the first time in a long time state population increased recently um I can and and this happens a lot through the budget process when we get asked a question that I don't know off the top of my head we'll we'll come back and get you that information um the NASDAQ report has some of that Connecticut has declined by six and a half% since 21 uh that's the projected change from 21 to 2030 is to decline 6 and a half% um but I could get you more population or student enrollment that's is that population no that's pre1 12 uh enrollment and that's a projection but I can get you you know our enrollment relative to other districts and things like that yeah just just something that a reason reasonably good comparison of sure where we stand yeah I think when you look at our overall enrollment change it's uh really interesting because we've had when I first started in Treasure in 2005 we had 5,500 students we really uh hit the trough about 4,000 students and now we're increasing and what you're seeing is that the prek 6 grades are growing significantly with these small grades small smaller grades at the top end uh with those folks move so it's almost stagnant because these big numbers are you know are competing with the smaller numbers up at the top um and as we continue our our you look at the SLR report that was done a few years ago our enrollment is is on an upward trajectory but I'll get you some better data you were talking about uh Staffing changes numbers you're talking about teachers I I think you said you were going to add you were proposing to add five new teachers right it's not it's interesting because it's not a a net five change over the people that we've employed it's a net five change uh over our budget because uh a few of those positions three of them were already in our budget last year but paid for through resser um got it and so you know when we talk about fiscal cliffs and you hear you know communities facing $3 million fiscal cliffs this is $240,000 when you add in the administrator less than $500,000 fiscal cliff okay $400,000 fiscal cliff it's funding for five teachers but it's only an addition of two new teachers is that what you just said okay another question I was actually wondering about more specifically is is the prek to kindergarten prek is that Net Zero it's a good question right now uh yes we have a waiting list for a second section you know we we fill the first section we have a second section section that we're starting to populate um and we're assuming if we fill that then yeah it would be Net Zero if not we may have to make a reduction there I I don't know you know I think by the end of the month uh I'll have a better sense of exactly where we are with that sure thank you and the last point just a comment about the right to read sure said it before I'll say it again we are achieving our students K through3 are achieving at the top of the state so it seems to me if we make this change it's more likely to hurt than to benefit so I just encourage everyone particularly parents with y kids to be aware and try to engage on this because forget about the cost and I think asking teachers to do this is a ridiculous exercise but the actual achievement of our kids I think stands at risk just just defies can I get an amen here we go thank you any other questions from the board Mr perini just late yeah like add invest we haven't as big a St glad to see you have St but given the $460,000 ,000 I would and I appreciate all the great work this know I'm sure that oral got that was the more reasonable number challes the district hand excep well but I I say that price yeah that like 6.2% right I know it sounds a big number for US yeah it's a percentage basis it's it's really Nots glad we've met with vendors we've I've had conversations with CF it's not a flip uh recommendation uh it is something that we've contemplated and and you know certainly appreciate the board given that full consideration in this process I am yeah graduat we start thank you for thank you appreciate that support any else there will be many opportunities for questions though in and participation again I want to thank uh all the members of our administrative team for coming tonight and and all the work they did in preparing this so thank you very much pass it back to you m Rosenberg as far as process for MERS board what to expect next and then for those at home sure you know have to get involved yeah I I would encourage first of all any um members of the board you know again not you don't have to wait till Tuesday if there's a question it it is helpful if Vin Marlene and I are aware of that question if you send it to the three of us and that same you know uh ask goes for the community as well if there's something that you want to hear us talk about email uh the three of us um or any of the three of us and we'll try and incorporate that into a future presentation we try and carve out a little bit of time at each of the upcoming meetings to hit on um questions um January 11th uh that's today this presentation Tuesday uh there is the public budget review so Vin is going to go into more detail uh special education has um grown and uh taken a more significant part of our our budget which is really critical and so I've asked uh Robin an Cary our PPS director if you've seen her present before she does a great job kind of articulating where that where that money goes and how it impacts our students um so we have Tuesday next week Thursday is a business meeting which will be held here uh the following Tuesday we're back at DOD middle school again at 7 pm another public information session at DOD that Thursday at 7M the uh special board meeting to adopt the budget is 7:30 at DOD middle school on Thursday January 30th ultimately as as I mentioned before it's it'll go to the Town Council I send a man uh memo to the town manager um and we'll start talking about this in March and April and hopefully final finalize our budget by the end of of June so but please I encourage again members of the board or the community with questions to either come to these meetings or shoot us an email and we can address the the questions there just with that you can send us the electronic copy of this so we can an yeah it'll it'll definitely be on the website unfortunately this file is too big to email so it'll be available on our website in PDF or uh Forum if you need a different format let me know I can give you a flash drive or something go ahead make sure you change January 30 Tuesday yeah I think you're right there thanks Doc well thank you Dr Solen I'm I personally am trying to digest this before we take a deep dive and those other dates um and we'll write some questions down and I encourage my colleagues to do the same so if there are not any other questions can I get a motion to to we are ajour thank you everybody oh vot excuse me all those in favor of a German a quick unanimous

for um Pi speaker yeah DJ she was at uh yesterday's um management meeting so said forward want be present okay present my laptop I'll bring it up I'll share my screen okay so this is ready on thank you are we going to are the attorneys here they're coming [Music] okay hello are you L the is going to be here and you don't [Music] calar they do they do okay that's why then thank you so much turn my phone off maybe that's why you was so sof I thought I turn did I turn it off again in the car the GPS lady was super soft on my phone we like is it here you just IIs ohis okay it's not so bad it's not so bad yeah and I guess the traffic it's also not so bad right Miss like it was when I came like a couple weeks ago like December right it was gnarly traffic oh really but it was like the holiday time people getting ready to travel what not she made me nervous I was like oh got at least three hours oh I have of how long it took like not quite two hours because I want to say I left yesterday was different because it was raining really bad yeah now you left yesterday around did it did you get a lot of traffic going back up yeah but then kind of getting closer to San Francisco side down here was actually trff and I used to work in M for a few months a few years ago oh that was horrible yeah it he he check the agenda yes I'm just wondering too when I saw hello I don't think so sorry trying to get the text how are you hopefully we all got good vacations in and rest rest rest was good anybody say they're not coming Linda is going to be 15 minutes late and I don't know numb where should I sit by right nice to meet you it's because the big door is open youing for yes we're putting out uh for program okay and we want to send you the original RFP okay we'd like to tailor and I'll send an email Tor some some changes there sure that we want to make that are you know done correctly okay some of those are you know um uh working on site for example um uh uh travel time um right now the contract reads where the program management has responsibility of 25% of the design phase we're thinking it should be a longer period or extended to the full project okay what we encountered was well it's really outside of us now that it got to 25% so there's accountability issues you want them to be like just a PM PM but the B right 25% I think we're all here now or we have quum I know Linda's going to be late I'm going to call meeting to order at 6:31 can you hear us yes I can hear you okay um can you do roll call please today is a special board meeting of January 11th 2024 at 6:30 pm members of the board in attendance president Corina loera president vice president Andres Quinto pres clerk Andrea Flores Shelton here member Linda Chavez she will be late member mimf pres members of administration superintendent Dr Bower pres thank you uh now I'm going to read the land acknowledgement Board of Trustees of the alamro elementary school district does hereby acknowledge that the district schools and Facilities sit on the traditional lands of the MMA aloney people and the Board of Trustees further acknowledges with respect and reverence the MMA alone people tribe of the San Francisco Bay area for their stewardship of these lands please join me for the pledge of alleg I pledge of alleg the United States of America and to the for stands na thank you uh now I'll turn it over to superintendent for discussion on the delivery Mo method options for the development of the workforce housing for disc Madam I'm gonna turn it over to Mr Chen so that he can give us a little intro about this thank you Dr CL um good evening board president members of the board um tonight we're here for the board study session uh regarding the deliver method um on the development of the workforce housing um just a little bit of recap um you know the hous is currently at the phase right now so we're working the city through that um and at the last I mention that um you know one of the critical steps is to first of all understand um the three different options of develop um what direction the district um so that will be a cable step um at the next board meeting but tonight it's just for information and for um to receive information from our country with dwk and provide OPP to ask questions so that uh for the next Bo meetings you'll have with that I'll introduce M Carissa Kennedy um who will be um leading the the study SE um regarding the um we put the and as we to the slide I was going to do it at the end but we can do it now um if you're okay with opening up for any public comment and then this way we all have the awareness of any members of the public wishing to address the board on this item do you mind we pause there okay so I'm going to go ahead and open it up for a public comment on this item um members of the public shall have the opportunity to address a Board of Trustees on the agenda items identified for today okay see none uh thank you so much I apologize Mr Danel can you pull the ladies here are the vi okay so um hi Kai um newk County um we're going to talk to you about um the project delivery methods that you might be able to use for Workforce housing um I'm here really to we're here really to talk about the basic structures of the project delivery methods and some of the like um pros and cons of using one over the other because there's no one correct project building method for every situation there's pros and cons for using them and um depending on how you do your financing how you want to have um how much input or involvement you're going to have in it um there's there's um better project delivery methods than others so um I'm actually going to start out with okay so hello this oh maybe I'm not pointing you at the computer work yesterday oh there you go there we go go slow okay so okay the three different options that we're going to talk about today is design build and last year they added um they split up design build because there was a traditional design build and an alternative design build and in case you guys have heard of progressive design build that's sort of a term that's coin by they call it dbia design build Institute of America and um that's what alternative design build is kind of more that and I'll explain to you the difference as we're going through um but then there's also design bid build which is the traditional form the low bidder that kind of you know famili with especially doing the public works and then the last one is lease lease back which is U it's an alternative it requires financing to be involved in the Contracting itself and you know of course you're going to have financing for your Workforce housing project but it'll have um there are other implications in it's it's a requirement of the contract the other two contracts don't have to um involve financing in the Construction contract oops too much now fing are so strong okay I'm going to start out with design build and as I said in the beginning there's traditional and we have the code section for it and alternative um the thing about design build so the lines that we have here and I'm sorry I realized Afters the green and white may not be the best way to see the difference but then the district has a contract with the design build entity team and it's the contractor and the designer at the same time so it's sort of One-Stop shopping where if you have a um an issue with things you only have to go to one entity you don't have to hit the the architect and the designer separately I the architect and the contractor separately on the side the construction manager that's an optional thing sometimes people also want to have a construction manager to help them manage the the day-to-day of it and if you're going to do performance specifications then you do that you'd have a bridging or criteria architect so basically they're the ones who say that you know hey we need a building with f house this many people we want to have a laundry room um it should be good size you know you should plant it for two bedrooms or that sort of stuff um that's the bridging or the criteria architect and the difference between bridging and criteria is how much detail so so if you think about criteria architectes I mean it's not quite this but it's almost like sketchy something cocktail backet and then the bridging architect you go further on into the design I've seen bridging Architects go through so you start of with schematic which is a nice picture of what the building supposed to look like and then um the design development is sort of the next part of it and I've seen people go like maybe 50% into design development with like a bridging architect but it's up to you you know you don't have to you can leave it for the architect that's going to be part of your design build team um it can be an entity because some of them will actually create a firm or business to the design build but for the most part my experience is that it's the contractor and they have the Des designer as a consultant it could be the opposite way where it's the consult it's the designer and the contractor is the consultant but the contract cost is more the construction cost is more expensive so it's usually the construction company that's sort of the lead um and then they will have either sub Consultants or subcontractors under them so this is just this is the way how the legals the legal connections go just that's the purpose of showing you the the model okay so just to thing I get kind of super excited about this because this is what I do all the time if I'm confusing you if I need to go back and expend something let me know because for me ex is every day so you know I might skip ahead you something that I'm I'm not explaining myself so um before I was telling you that you have to have a design professional that may prepare the performance specifications and that may include plans that was a bridging our criteria architect and then the design build entity is selected using a two-step process and then you have a request for qualifications which is similar to free qualification it's not exactly the same thing but when you're done with a uh RFQ you're going to have um a short that's the people to send the RFP the request for proposals to and then this is you would select them based on um best value so um the difference between um traditional and alternative for design build is that you have I mean neither of which really affects your project but it's like traditional there's a minimum million dollars the project be at least a million dollars which is super easy right and and for um alternative it's 5 million again super easy I mean I don't know what you build for 1 million or5 million anymore but um that's what the minimum is there's other requirements but I'll get into that later um just question sped dbe is design build I guess you could put DBT design okay um and the design professional who prepares the performance specifications there's a conflict of interest um requirement that the statute requires that whoever performs prepares the performance specifications can't be part of the DB so whoever does the initial design or whatever it is they're prohibited from being part of the team afterwards so sometimes people will not want to be your your criteria or your vision architect because they want the bigger project okay so another thing about this it's not a hard bid contract where you say you got to take our contract and leave it well we could take that position too but for the most part it's a negotiated contract so that means that once you once we select somebody there is like at least a month amount of time to negotiate the contract with them before you enter into it like you know when you do hard bit you just say like oh okay whoever was the lowest bidder reward the contract you start right away that's that's not what happens with the DP we have to negotiate with them to reach agreement on ter um there's several ways that you can structure the um the compensation and this is another difference between traditional and alternative so alternative is kind of one of these things where you're doing it on a Cost Plus basis so normally we structure it where you have here's the here's a stipulated some a set some for the design portion and then when the design is done they bid it out and we negotiate up front what the margins are for bonds Insurance markups um so maybe some things about contingency and stuff we set that up up front so that when they bid it to the subcontractors their markup is already set and the thing is you know um when we do low bid we just don't know what these margins are but we can know what the margins are in a design build contract and we negotiate and you know help set it um sometimes when we do that we might start out with a not to exceed amount because you got to tell the designer how much money they have to spend right I mean they can't um design the Taj Mahal if you don't have that kind of budget for the Taj Mahal so you give them idea what the budget is so that's Progressive and you can enter into that sooner rather than later like get a set cost for that um but it depends because and again you know when you do this design build the community is not not going to see a building right of it because you got to look at a design portion first and so you know you can tell them and keep them inform that the meetings about what their progress is with it but they're not going to see anything for at least a year after you hire the design build team because it takes I would say at least a year to get it through the building department maybe more depending on how backed up they are so that's something that you should be have open communication with your community so that you know they're not why am I not seeing any work being done you approved the contract and then um so you know part of this is like the bullet point about different architect from the bridging or criteria architect finishes the plans and specs and submits it to well it could be DSA but this one I'm sorry it's not DSA it would be the building department with the input of a prefabricated building designer or Builder um depending on what kind of building that you're going to design um that you're going to have and um and so that's a difference you know um from which I already explained to you I'm sorry if I'm kind of repeating myself and then the dbe is responsible for design and construction so in other kinds of construction you know change orders we'll have we'll have conversations and there'll be a fight between the contractor and the architect because here's a change order hey it's because you left something out of the plans and then the contact contractor says that your plans weren't good enough right and the designer is like no it's because you didn't build it right and then there'll be that tension between the two about who's responsible for the extra cost if you have a design filled entity they can't put that on you because that's their problem to fix I mean you know something we have to remind them of on occasion I mean that's how it supposed to work okay so phasing and when the costs determined um so design go is sort of called a turn key project and so TurnKey project is a situation where kind of tell them what the criteria documents or the bridging documents I want a building that's so big and will house this many people and will have certain amenities in it I'm giving you this much money come back later right I mean that's the ultimate TurnKey project nobody really wants to do that but um it's supposed to be so that you give the design Builder the flexibility to use your expertise to kind of save money in ways that they can in order to get you the project sooner faster ler cost or whatever is depending on how you structure the compensation um but there there is that thing about um if you make it a true- turn key then you're allowing them to use all their expertise in doing it but you lose control there's nothing in the statute that says you cannot have take a lot of control in this kind of project delivering method but understand if you are you probably won't be using the contractor's expertise as much because you're substituting your own requirements you you're giving them more uh more rules to follow that makes it less where they can be less flexible on um so in phasing I think I was talking to you about this before when you enter to the contract you have to understand that we start out with the design uh and then we do the construction so if anybody thinks that because you entered into the contract they're going to see construction right away um you're going to have a lot of disappointed people because it's going to take a while to get the design through first because normally when we have like and I I'm skipping ahead a little bit but when you do the little bit contracts the Design's already done so once you wor the contract you get going already this contracts a little I mean this project method is a little different can I ask you real Qui question uh and this has you know very generic but for the workforce housing do we still need to go through Thea no it would be the building department just to clarify this would be the city of s the building department yes okay so one of the advantages of a design build is that you don't have to wait for the building department to tell you that the um they can get started on everything except for the construction before the plans are completed so maybe they could start ordering things or doing stuff in that fashion um so that's one of the benefits of this but I think they need to wait for construction until all the SQL is completed on the project it's kind of a weird thing that SQL has to be completed before you can start construction whereas a lot of times you have to have plans and SPS but in this case it's more or less the same thing that you you're not going to start construction till the plans are done but you can enter to the contract and sign up your contractor early so you know in a market where it's competitive to get good contractors you can you can kind of like um you you know save it early even if you're not going to build for a couple of years and they'll build it into their plan about when they're going to do the building but you know you can select somebody based on best value and you can tie them up early so they're not working with somebody else's project especially too like you know this next year's an election Year everyone goes out for bonds and everybody gets more competitive you know when there's more money in more jobs you know it's harder it's it's harder to lock in contractors just just a note there on the SQL piece because this is a city of San Jose project San Jose is going to be the lead Agency for purposes of SQL we're used to be in our own lead Agency for our projects but they will be the lead agency they will do SQL as part of the entitlements process so the work that will be done on the entitlements will handle the as do the legislation to get around the well it may allow for um like a notice of exemption which is like a shorter you know the 35 day one page following at the recorders um because the project is exempt from s but the city of San Jose is determination okay and then I just added something about increments because it has how you want to plan your project like when you do housing developments you know they won't build the whole thing at one time they go increments as they do it I mean I don't I'm not sure whether or not the Project's going to be that large or if you want to break it down that way but then I think it does make a difference in how you find out about the cost you break it down into increments excuse me in my experience people try to do increments because they want to get it out faster so the community can see that certain things are being done you know cuz the plans have to be approved for increment one and then before we start working increment two the plans for increment two needs to be approved it's not just a picture of the um of the the the building it's oh thank you it's also you know what what what's in the soil under need so we can't just say because we're putting this kind of house here we can put it in the next spot sorry can I ask about the in plan so in the design phase we would know how many incremental steps there are yeah I think you would work with a developer to decide whether or not you're going have increments or not sorry you know I can't get don't worry I have my little bch in my first okay um again you don't have to do an increments sometimes it's good like depending on the situation if there's an issue of like maybe like funding or when the funding occurs and you can only do a certain amount of threat and that's why you want to do it in increments but there's too many variables right now for me to say like in every situation how it is I think my my question was more do we go in do we go in knowing that we want increments or we wait like we would say we want to show the community progress or we want to chunk this down cost wise so we say your design should have increments like you have to give that type of we could do that in the RFP it's certainly your choice if you want to do that and I think the more detail you give to your developers outside the more chance that they're going to give you a better proposal for what you want okay thank you again it also comes down to two like I like I said flexibility so if you're going to tell them that this is a situation you can ask them for a proposal do you think it's better to do an increments or not what what would be the price difference that we would have with doing the timely difference well we're open to increments we're not open yeah okay I don't know somebody I was trying to think about how to organize this about whether it design build person only because for other Workforce housing that I've seen you done it is design build you know in some ways I could have started with design build because it's what we're all familiar with it's the lowest price um and uh this and I have references both to just the default 201111 and to kupka cupka District um kupka is a caliform uniform public construction cost accounting app it's the higher bid thresholds um if you see here uh the architect and the general contractor does it no here no well sorry if we had a cat they would be enjoying that but I'm sorry so the architect and the and the general contractor don't connect so there's no um contractual per between them so that's why you get the finger pointing and then the construction manager is not connected to either of them so that's why they're your agent if you have one again not required just optional and then um so the general contractor will have their own contractors and you know you notice we don't have a relationship with the subcontractors and the architect will have their subc consultants and we don't have any relations with their subcontractors so again in these situations what I like best about it is that you have one person to go to um instead of having to go to all like that's why when you hear people doing multi things it's it's more complicated because you're acting like a general contractor and you're according everybody in this one the AR uh the general contractor's responsibility to bring in the project I will say in for work course housing it's not a DSA project you're not going to have an i there inspector of record from DSA you're used to having on your school facilities projects we sort of bling contractors and making sure they're doing things in accordance with the plans and STS that may be why you want to sign up construction manage or someone else to help really oversee the project because you're not going to have that independent person there doing that sort of guard dog you know sort of role um in the workers housing perspective so that's that's one reason to have someone else there watching what's happening if if this is the structure you and like anything else I mean you can hire a project inspector to to make sure that they comply with the plans in specs you just need to in their contract make sure that they're given the authority to go that and stop the project if you're not following it um as difficult I mean as hard as it may be to believe I mean having the project inspector does make the contractors have to follow the rules more because um a lot of times like out your complaints in projects were like the project inspector is delay in the project no the kidchen you not following the plans and Mak you redo it to make sure that you're following the current structural plans that's not really our fault that the project being delayed follow the plan and will be okay because in a lot of other private works construction you don't have to follow plans that they can substitute things you know hey it's the same quality you know but we're going to use a different brand or something if you give people license to do stuff like that they might be the other product might be easier to get if you buy another brand but we might get into a fight about is it really the same qu you know quality when you do design build a lot of times it doesn't stop for that but if you write into your contract that they still have to confer with you before substituting things then that so occurs but again you're taking on some of the flexibility from the contract of the Builder to finish okay okay I'm sorry it's I'm so used to saying the esa it no my mind I didn't register it but the architect needs to submit to the building department without the Builder's input so therefore like you know when you design in a vacuum right there's things that you may not see that a contractor might see to say like hey I don't think I could actually build build it like that you know can you can you explore that or maybe there might be something you need to put into the plans to make it better or or to make it easier to construct that's not this is done without that so when there's jaaps in the plans that is a Genesis of what might end up to be a change order because if the build the designer has to fix the problem later on it wasn't part of the original scope of work that was planned so they may come back as a change order you can in these sort of situations hire a construction manager to come in and do the constructibility review that's what it's called a constructibility review um and help you in that sense but sometimes and that might help cut down the change orders but the Builder is not involved in it so sometimes if something was missing you know we could tell the Builder like hey but you missed it when you did theability you don't have an option in the design to build and you really wouldn't because of the conflict of interest issue you really wouldn't have the Builder coming to do preconstruction um Consulting and then be the Builder later okay um so like I said before for traditional design bid Bild it's based on the lowest price only so in might not be the contractor that you like but if they're the ones that are the lowest bid that's who you're picking we can do pre-qualification of the contractors to try to eliminate people who have known problems with their firm but or you know whether or not they're financially stable enough to do a project of this size we can ask these kinds of questions um and it won't come up to be like a whole due process you're bad contractor thing can be pre-qualification that way but it doesn't always catch everything you know what I mean it's not like this is the absolute answer and we're going to make sure no bad contractors come out of it because got to say in my experience we had um in more than one District we had contractor and they pre-qualified they did a lot of airport work they were very highly rated and they got the contract and they said um right after they rewarded the contract they made an announcement that were Japan's own company and they said and it's not not they were Japan's own but they said we want to close down our USA operations oh my God so when they made the announcement basically everyone's like well I'm not stay here because where's my future here right so pre-qualified we had no way of knowing that they were going to say this and then the people who were left after the Exodus weren't necessarily the same people who are around for the other projects because it really comes down to the people work on your project so that's why I'm saying that we can do all these things to try to pre-qualify but we can't it doesn't eliminate all the variables or the things that can go on okay um so in this particular delivery method you have to pick the lowest B no matter what that's what the rule is yes the lowest responsive responsible bid so so sometimes people try to qualify their bid and say like if this and this is the price those get rejected because that's not responsive um they cannot try to negot because that's the form of trying to negotiate the contract under this project delivery method they don't get to negotiate which some ways is kind of nice I mean um and then it's a lumpsum price so you know how before I was telling you you get to see what their markup is you don't get to see what their markup is in this situation so you know in a normal bid a contactor like one like maybe for the electrical sub they mark it up 5% but for the mechanical sub they mark it up 14% you don't know right and the reasons for the differences in the market we don't know either it's it's it's um unknown to us and you don't get any control or look at what the subs are you know so that that's sort of the situation for the um for design B build so teacher in kind of a nutshell then it it's the cheapest way of going the less expensive way of going but also carries the potential for the greatest risk is that a fair statement I don't know for the greatest risk I mean because it depends on the variables to know what the risk is but definitely it would just in the studies that different universities have done on it it's the cheapest upfront and I just want to say that upfront when you enter into the contract um but as you go along in the contract if you count like having to have a lot of change orders and or end up in litigation and all those like you know I don't want to say like look when we help district go to this thing um we try to minimize the amount of litigation that it could could occur or liability as much as we can as we go throughout the project but I don't have like a 100% that you're not going to end up in litigation um you know that that there's never any guarantee that and I think because of this one with all the change order possibility the more money you end up in change orders the more possibility somebody will try to follow a lawsuit at the end so that's why we're just saying like up front it's the cheapest but and it's hard because they tried to run things is like you'd have to run two identical projects in the same area having the same construction and materials rates to order to see like which which is the cheapest and non cheapest and not to say that you won't end up in litigation if you the design build or the S stop I mean it still occurs you know it's just there's sort of more of a partnership between the owner and the Builder and the architect and the architect in these other situations so um let see I think can I also ask this piece of paper it's also saying back to the incremental conversation you're doing you have to bid each increment because they're really actually different projects yes and the thing is when you do that too like so you guys have heard of like escalation right it's the same thing as inflation but it's kind of like what way of buy to materials and things so as time goes on the building materials become more expensive and the longer you wait to um bid it out or you know that you push out certain costs the costs only increase I mean I would love to say I mean like even during covid even during a time where you know everything was really um the escalation was super low it still went up every year you know you can kind of also tracked by you know how we do the thing for bid thresholds for materials it started at 50,000 we sent out a ebast every year to say and this year it's going to be you know 109 you know 109,000 and then next year it's 1,00,000 like for this year it's like 114,500 that's basically following you know the inflation or the escalation over time so it started out at 50 and there's no guarantee that it has to go up every year but even even in times where things are bad for contractors it still went up I think when you're went of like $500 or something silly like that but it still went up it didn't go backwards but I'm not saying that it could never go backwards but I don't know what kind of event it would be to have that happen but I mean and that's part of the thing like if we doing an increment um it's hard to control the cost you know the longer you push something out that's why sometimes getting a contractor in early and getting certain things set up front you're you're you're making a settlement up front so you know you're controlling what your cost going to be as opposed to waiting till after the design is done and then bidding it out because the thing is like there's people who bid out hard bit contracts before the um sign is absolutely complete can you submit it to the building department and they do this thing called a back check where they give it back to the architect and said well we want you to fix this this is and this sometimes people will try to bid when they submit it to the building department before the back check is done and then you kind of end up with a bid that is not accurate at the end if they made a lot of changes you're just risking it I mean people who do that is because they don't expect to have a lot of changes and you mentioned that uh there's studies um that um that have been done this on this type of delivery system um what characteristics would would would you be able to identify in firms that have been successful um what design to BU yeah like I'm I'm assuming if you go with a pretty reput large firm that has a pretty solid track record you're probably you're gonna keep yourself from avoid avoiding those bats the bat cases that you've been able to yes and no I mean again to me this is just I mean this just solely my opinion sometimes you go with a company that has experience and then there might be a change in management throughout it you know someone's dad retires or you know and it's next somebody else or maybe there's a change in Partnership and somebody else is running the company to be a little different so you can't expect just generally because somebody has a good reputation that that means you won't have any problems on your project there could also be other issues like really it's not only only Tau management that makes a difference it depends who you're for or your superintendent is these are the people who run a job and you know we don't have any control of who they assign to like I've seen projects where they assign the kid straight out of college or whatever it is and when things go bad they bring in the you know the guy who takes care of fixing the fixer you know to get it done at the end and these are ratable companies you know I mean I think ultimately to me what's well pretty important in this is whether or not they're going to build build you a good quality building I mean when we when we talk about good contractors that sort of the underling like whether or not you're going to have problems on the job it's unforeseen and you know I think it kind of depends because there was a period of time where there was a lot of lawsuits and um it caused a lot of different problems of neighboring districts and that's why they try to move to different kinds of project delivering methods to avoid the lawsuits but then you're right they kind of built relationships with certain contractors and where they had a good relationship and they could work things out and then they had best lawsuits but that's not always how it goes when you have a little bit you don't control who's going to be the Contra you say design you know we would still have to you know put it out for bid we you know even with the uh non-traditional one still you know that's still a variable to deal with yeah and and the thing is too like there are times too when times get rough too like some projects even for good contractors it goes totally off the rails because their mechanical so files bankruptcy right and that's an important mechanical contractor FAL bankruptcy you know hopefully you would think that um the General would try to bet that you know and make sure but there's still guarantees you don't know like inner workings of somebody else's company right and then I've had projects it's not really the general contractor's fault but their sub went out and that to replace that sub to have the people come in knowledgeable in order to do it that caused a big delay in the project so kind of along what and was asking characteristics could sounds like it's like luck or something to get a quality product I'm sure it's not so you were saying if that what we want as a quality product what have you seen are the again back to like our proposal what would be those like success metrics well I would suggest you do pre-qualification for sure and one of the pre-qualification things you would ask for in all of the project methods is what is your experience in doing this kind of Workforce housing because normally the prequel that we do is like what is your experience with Thea and doing school buildings for this one we would say what is your experience in doing this kind of housing residential housing situation and that would be one of the indicators of about whether or not that can be and please excuse my sort of meance about this because understand that when I'm involved it's usually because something's gone wrong yeah I I don't I don't necessarily always hear the good projects right you know or to me it might turn out to be a good project but when I was involved was because we're having a rough patch and the idea is always to try to get it back on track but you know again as I said like I don't needan to be too Nish about it but that just comes from my experience so so just automatical success it's obviously seeing the end product that you may take something to I mean that seems like no or would it also be experien in this city or in like certain like if someone's like oh I've had great projects in Utah you know we're going to be like that's different than California yes so well and the thing is okay I don't know if we get Utah so much but sometimes we we yeah and you have to be like licensed here in order to do it I think also too is like you could ask them who are they planning to use as their subcontractors or who do they Norm us subcontractors because like I said there's certain subcontractors mechanical electrical Plumbing that are essential to having a good project you know unless the contractor self performs it but most contractors don't perform all the traits you know some of them they're going to have to sub out to different people so if you know that the people that they're planning to do are are um reliable they have a good reputation in the community those are some of the things that can go toward success I know Linda had a question that I have okay sorry um so I remember like with the earthquake in LA years ago that they had um written in their contracts if they take so long you know it's GNA you're going to get a bonus of this if you shorten the time yeah and if you take go over that time that they also penalize them do you see that much in contracts to give them an incentive to hurry up and finish because if you don't do it right you're going to be penalized um money wise okay so Public Work contracts generally there always is a penalty we call it liquidated damages I put it in almost every single concession contract that I can um I had it taken out once by a client and that project ended up being super late and I was like that wasn't my decision but you know I mean generally we always should have a penalty for being late how much it is we have to put it up front because there is a law that says that if we don't liquidate delay damages up front we can't ask for so it is something we normally include now whether or not you get a bonus or finishing early I know this happens a lot in private Works um I haven't really ever done it in any one of my contracts because I feel sort of it's like a gift of public funds because we school distri just want it to be done on time you know what I mean having it be early you know I mean I know this is a little different because we' be collecting rent for things like this but really all to me it's about getting done on time and then we're also very careful too that when you get a contractor in place sometimes they try to accelerate the project and you say like I need this done by um let's just say July 1st because that's in a time for all the teachers to um or other staff people to to move in and be ready for the next school year right so I I need you to be done by July so if they get it done in March and nobody's going to move in March that doesn't help us right so I mean again it kind of comes down to that time you know about what want I mean that's sort of where my position is on it now I don't I I don't know that there's a case that says it's a GI public funds to give people a bonus or finishing early but in design build to me it's built in that um if they like there's a certain amount of call General conditions cost and that's like the fencing the trailer um like the sort of like their um other materials they keep on site um they and they incorporate that into the price if they finish early they get to pocket difference of it because they don't return that to us so to me that's their bonus are finishing early but I tend to be very um conservative about stuff like that I mean there's a difference between like hey we've done this can we fix this and how would you want to S out I tend to be kind of conservative of the money in that sense um but you know if if somebody would really wanted i' research it and see what we could do I guess what I'm saying is because you know you're going to rent it out and um it's not going to actually cost you more but in in a way it does cost you if there's more delay because you're not going to get that rental income yeah but the thing is I guess but to offer that is what I'm saying what you would be losing on that off that rental income have you ever seen that done about paying early about then getting the job done because that therefore these people can move in sooner you're going to be acquiring that income for the district soon okay I've have never seen anybody finish a project significantly early enough that it made a huge difference because you need to adverti get people to move in too it's not just okay we're done today people move in tomorrow yeah you know so there's a certain amount of planning involved with that too and finishing enough so that people can move in versus finishing finishing there's always that problem as well um like I said I'm I'm generally as as an attorney in doing these sear and contracts have not really done bonuses for early finish and you got to be careful because if you change it to the early finish date then if they're late on the early finish date you need to make sure they don't start um charging you for you delaying their project so it's a very care it's a careful line that we follow because we want to make sure it's schedule that they don't try to jump our date and then if they don't make their date which was maybe unrealistic they charging this extra money I see trusty but I'm gonna ask mine and then we go ear U you know I think regardless I know we still have another one after this one regardless of the one that we go with um is it obviously none of us here have the experience to ask the questions that you're coming up with okay so will you is it safe to say that they will be with us along the bidding along the um requests for um when we review to ask and then even help us formulate questions when we get to that point yes yes okay we've helped the Shi before and putting together the questionnaires and we ask you guys to what's important to you and we can tell you what we use in other situations and discussions so I mean n plus two like you'll have a a Workforce housing consultant at that time and they'll share with you for their things what happens you know and they might have inut for that too but to do the actual construction yeah we've helped that I'm just saying you know there's a lot of things you're mentioning right now the things that we should look at the items to be conservative and things like that but to make sure we don't miss any of that and then trusty fam and then I know that you have two other or this one and the other one well I just wanted to State you know I I I get trustee Chavez's desire to incentivize an early early completion but you know there are two things uh this is this is a hugely public facing project so H I would you know I I want to say that I don't want to have an incentive out there for the contractor to cut cost right I want to you know if we want to do this we build it right you know you know I I I work at a college campus I up uh the more than my fair share of the L in construction and so um I would you know I'm for keeping cost to you know to them to you know with in the amount of bond but it's like you know let's not get into that um even possibly as you know as you mention get the public fund but also let's not give the appearance or a signal of incentivizing contractors of doing the wrong thing as well yeah I mean I do believe that contractors are always going to try to keep their cost down no matter what I mean that's how that's their business right I mean no right I'm not trying to F any moral issue with them trying to save money anything that what they do if they're good and efficient you know they'll make more money um but I understand say I don't and again I get asked a question a lot your question is not uncommon about whether or not you can give an incentive to somebody finishing early yeah I wasn't saying cutting cost that's yeah that went off the rail but that my thing is is that they're like with the big terms like um de and um and all those other humongous companies they do those incentives and again for even if it's a large company they you're asking questions that they're a good contractor and reputable I think really what you do want is you want to make sure they they've done this kind of housing before because it is different you know in that sense I'm I'm sorry I'm just going to recommend that we go through and then save our questions for the end and CLS because we're on page three and I see where we have 15 Pages 7 oh no oh I'm sorry I went back but we already hour in we're halfway through unless I mean unless like I have to ask now I'd rather be more conservative in this it must to be more conservative than you I more conservative IED to there okay so so we talked about some of this before but you know about planning the project and when cost is determined the cost is really determined when it's bid so it's bid later in in a then designed bill in this situation and we have to wait until the plans are completed before we can build and we talked about escalation of how that can work um and I also talked about that actual cost um can't really be Computing until after the whole project done you see all the change ERS too and even for the other project delivery methods change orders are possible especially if you guys SM the um the go right I want four buildings instead of three buildings build things are change orders okay last one is le le back and uh so if you notice it's it's very similar to design Big Bill in the structure of who's contracted with whom right the architect is separate from the Builder uh the Builder has subcontractors and the construction manager is separate so again if there's a problem in the change order you still have the no the architect's fault no the build so in le le back the Builder selected using the request for proposals based on a number of factors including qualifications in price and they call it Best Value in the statute um it requires pre-qualified ification of the Builder itself and the me subcontractors me SS from mechanical electrical Plumbing sorry it could be like you know um low voltage you know the regular electrician just any is a quick way of referring to all of them there's also a skilled and trained Workforce requirement which is also I might to skip through that in the design build so skill and trained Workforce requirement it's a little complicated to explain but basically if there is if there is um a trade like a union for it um not not just us a union but if there's a trade you have to hire apprentices and journey when or Journey persons to do that work you can't just give it to people who aren't part of that now it seems 90% of the apprentic programs are with unions but there are nonunion apprentic programs so I'm trying to say like be careful to say it's not only a thing but um what the the rule is is that apprentices aside if it's Public Works you got to hire apprentices the the skill to chain Workforce requirement difference is that for certain types of Trades 60% of either the journey persons or the hours that they work have to be somebody who graduated from an apprenticeship program so in times where there's a there's a lot of um people needing contractors sometimes if you work for 20 years they give you a journey pres card because you know what you need need to know to be a journey person but there's a difference between going through the apprenti ship program taking the classes and doing all that sort of stuff so they're saying like you can still use journey persons who did it um gradually but only 40% and you know sometimes it can be a pain because um availability I mean the unions have even admitted they can't graduate enough people fast enough to necessarily 60% of the lot is started out with like 20 and you know over a 5e period of time it it to 60 um so sometimes but you guys are in the Bay Area and there's a lot more contractors if you were in a rural area like a really rural area I be more concerned for you because you don't have a lot of options you know not everybody they not you know just people available but because you're in a more L Ral area there's more options so it's less of a chance of be slowing down your project yes I was going to kind of ask that on the previous one but because this district has entered into a pla agreement that's probably on all three deliveries right very thing that you're yeah talking about so it's not just in this one it's in the other two types of delivery methods as well because of our project our um uh laor agreement labor agreement okay so actually what you having a project labor agreement um what helps it actually helps skill mat train Workforce requirement because if you have a pla it means that you don't have to do a monthly report the subs and the contractor don't have to do a monthly report that says they meet the 60% quota some of them are zero some of them are 30 but a lot of them are 60% because if you don't meet the Cota we have to withhold payment we can't pay you if if you don't need the Cota and you can have a plan to try to get this all done but if you have a pla you don't have to turn in the monthly report I'm not saying that they don't have to comply and actually do the 60% just no one's going to necessarily catch it unless somebody reports that they have their own person checking somebody paid how do you make sure how do we make sure that they're following him um how do you make sure a person remember we to come she checks everything she's a compliance person basically yeah the compliance person is for usually for the certified payroll to make sure they're paying them pering wage it's not to check on whether or not your journey persons are are graduated from a program you know how how do you track it if there's no pla that you get nothing reports but if you have a pla to be honest with you the is like if they're part of the pla though supposedly they're self performing it you know I mean that's the idea but no nobody nobody outside of the the companies unless it's a complaint yeah unless it's a complaint yeah there's no board or anything like that that they have to uh make sure that there's 40% Journeymen wow I thought that there was more regulations well again it's self reporting right because if if you didn't have a pla they would have to tell you themselves whether or not they were doing it of course we can always ask them if they're doing it but because even if they tell us themselves who knows and and the thing is side that's having some sort of not in our best interest to ask all the time because if they're not it's so on your project I depending on where you're coming from you right yeah but I want to make sure that you know we he those of us that supported the pla because if you find out they aren comping you have to report it to the dir and they will do an investigation and they had to comply to get out of it and I am in agreement with that they're not calling through Le do were you gonna add something so the good news is uh this next week we'll be coming to the board with a uh an organization that we are hoping to contract with to manage our pla and to ensure labor compliance that covering our bases on that hpac project that we've got going and then as well as maybe a master agreement that Co and I are having preliminary discussions for all future large scale projects that we up that yeah so the company's the SAS group that will be coming forward with so yeah we wanted to cover that base techical so is it what they what they require a monthly rep something that came to a monthly report yes there'll be obtaining uh reports and U and as DED said payroll documents uring that have the correct number of apprentices for the various types of Trades and and that we're meeting by the way we've already been reached out by the um Santa Clara San Bonito Building Trades Council to come and meet with us to talk about our uh Bond projects and what have so I'm sure that's going to be part of that discussion well they did already come kind of knocking on the door yeah thank you okay sorry it is kind of hard to explain to g chain Workforce that was helpful okay um these contracts are open to negotiation too so it's not one of those things that just because you selected somebody we're going to go into contract right away I often um warn districts wait until you finish negotiating a contract before you tell everybody who you selected because they're not the best value if you can't on a contract we usually tell you guys to conclude the contract with RFP and you tell them can you can you agree to this contract because if you can't agree to this contract they should stop it here because we're just wasting your time and most people will say yes or they give you things that they want to change and again I just as a rule of th I temp would give me at least a month I'm pretty fast but you know I mean it can take anywhere from you know three weeks to to like a couple months maybe depending on many things we have toate how how much character stuck that they're not going to move off position because I can negotiate it really fast if the contract you Chang I mean it it just kind I don't control it it's sort of them that you know about what they'll agree to because I told them what I want so um that's kind of how it want to um so I'm not really going do I have it here okay so this one you have an architect that goes all the way through like you do with design go no construction came started without building department approving the plans um and then in this case so what happens is that so remember I was telling you before about design build for the alternative and how it's a Cost Plus situation currently when we do these Le back all of it is because cost bu too so you hire the Builder or and you say um Builder going to do preconstruction review of the plans before it goes to uh to the building department to put in their input they're going to do that for $10,000 or 20,000 or 40,000 depending on the size of the project and then when it goes to the um building department and it comes back they bid out to the subcontractors so the subcontract is not necessar it could be lowest price but it could be best value they bid it out and you have margins that you read upon up front where you say you can only mark their stuff up by 5% or you can mark it up by 15% or whatever it is and um whatever you get to look at all the bids to see who did what and that's generally how we put into the contract that is an open book so you can kind of see more about the subcontractors before who they're choosing to use and there's more transparency in their cost when it's open book um it's not necessarily the cheapest but there's more transparency and again you know know mean I'm not blasting anything about the cheapest because theoretically they're all supposed to be the same but you know some people are have more people and they're more flexible they get more people on site that might be important to getting your project done on time so I mean in in the view of things cost is not always so determin I me sometimes there's other things involved with a contractor that you want to consider um I think I covered that so after the subcon contractors um are bit we they usually give us what we call the guaranteed maximum price now I know it says guaranteed maximum price but you can still have team ters after that but they turn in a guaranteed maximum price and us see the district and they will haggle over the price to say like hey you know um maybe change the contractor or the subcontractor or you have too much in your general conditions that doesn't look right and then we'll come to agreement about what the general I the guantee maximum price is and we come back to you guys and say okay now we have the full price um we we do an amendment to contract to do the full price so for design build and for Le stock those are kind of part of the things is that you're going to start out with a smaller amount and some people try to say that it's a change order but it's not a change order because you never have the full price of PR you only have to price before plans and after plans and again with Lee lease back um for districts who first started using it and you don't have a history of using it you yet to educate your community that they're not going to because you awarded the contract today you're probably not going to see building for a while now for le le back you actually can um start building right away but then it depends if you already have approved plants and to me you're losing part of the benefit of using a project delivery method where the Builder can be involved early and cut down change orders by doing that but there's still rule saying that you can't start out what plans already and when we're talking about planning ahead of time Le back and design build you can hold off and because um on the decision um about whether or not you want to do V back or design build to layer because the AR it's with the architect for a certain amount of time but if you're going to do design build you need to make a decision before you get an architect of record in place because the architect of record comes together as an enemy so sometimes when people come to me and say like hey I don't know what I want to do but here's my architect I'm like okay if you already have an architect unless they're going to change to be a criteria rigging architect then it's already too late you're already too far so that's part of the timing of when you make the decision is Le leave back one of the criticism it's a way of getting around rules and things of that sort so the criticism is a way to get around most and it's not getting around it it's it's actually after that Davis versus resno case which was oh my God 10 years ago it seems like it was yesterday some I was that was my first year here yeah we heard about that and oh my gosh yeah so the thing is they changed these things back so that before it was sort of the Wild Wild West there's no rules for how you pick anybody in fact the Davis case part of the problem is they didn't there wasn't any competition at all they just always went to the same contractor over and over because they like them they had a good relationship with them they got their nice buildings you know they felt happy with their work so they didn't have any competition for the work um and the rules didn't require it but since that I think in 2017 they changed the rules that the r P you have to advertise it not just in the newspaper but in the trades you have to um do Best Value order it it's up to you about how you do it but there's more rules you have to do an evaluation based in price technical experience and safety those are the three required ones um you have to publish your um criteria or that there's a criteria to follow you have to adopt a board policy on or either policy or resolution about how le le prce to be done in your RFP you have to include the criteria in RFP that you Obed by I mean before none of these things were the rules so to me the idea that you're getting around low is good again come to me at the end of the project right because if if I did thec back from the beginning where I had a contractor come in I might have avoided a lot of the chors so at the end of the project I have less even know the project might be the same you know some people tell me I'm not look I do both you know mean I do all it doesn't matter if it's design build if it's EAS back or design B build we can help you with that there's pros and cons for everything like design B build works really well if you're making boxes and things that are very rot and there's not like a lot of um you're not making like a you know around cafeteria or you know you're not yeah ex do making ax so you know I mean again if you're not doing something that's highly creative in that sense that you know design go could there are there are good aspects to it right but um and again too like keeping control of not changing the go post after you started you bid it out that will also help with price there are several things you can do to help but you know we can't control everything um yeah I think uh did I answer that that the question yeah yeah thank okay okay so phasing of the project and when cost is determined um so there's a preconstruction period where they can do construct ability review and Bing sometimes you bring them in early the statute was changed so that you can bring in the consultant early and it not be accomplished of Interest so um and then there's a guaranteed maximum price repaired after the plans are completed and the subcontract bids are I think we talked about that a little bit um let's see and again here's you know you can do this and increments too I've done increments for design build but I got to say the contract that I wrote for it was so complicated and you have to have somebody like on it all the time or else you could get taken to the cleaners on it um I think I you know I follow up with the people sometimes and I understand that the projects that they did in design Builders increments work out well but that guy had like total iron control over everything and he was telling everybody he wasn't using the turnkey thing he was telling everybody what to do so unless you have somebody who's always watching it that required negotiation part time um I wouldn't necessarily use design build if you're going to do increments I think that's it I'm sorry it was super complicated I try to give most of the handout that has a comparison I mean because I've done this before and some sometimes people look at me like I'm so confused kind of hard and but the chart was sorted to do it like a comparison at certain aspects yeah Linda and then so um can you kind of sum it up if it was your project your money what would you advise and how would you do it you know I gotta say that because kis talking about this on the way down on the B it depends on how you get your money you know like I think because it depends like if you developer or the person you know who's building it is going to finance it there to me there could be some benefits in doing leas lease back and that you know um but I've done it I've worked with some somebody who's chosen to do design bill before you know it worked out okay for them I think ultimately they were satisfied by the the product um and it also depends too about how much control you want to have I mean in a lot of ways because this is sort of more of a residential thing uh you might want to lean on the um the experience of the design built team because you know we build schools we don't really build you know residential that much and but you'll have other Consultants to help you with that I don't know I mean nowadays I don't know who necessarily likes doing design if you want some guarantees design bit gos hard that's sort of a little bit of throwing caution to the Wi on it but yeah again you're not going to build around cafeteria so maybe you know there are some benefits to but it depends on how you finance you what you tell your architect that you want or you got to control the architect and tell them I don't want any round caeras so so just so that you know we're going to be using bonds okay so we're not seeking financing outside okay so to me then there would be less NE less of it just so let you know yeah yeah so less of a need for like if you have less of that need for financing that LE back may not have you know all the things that you're looking for I mean the thing that I like about Ley St is that you can see that the cost is more transparent you can get some of that transparency and cost and design it depends on what you ask of the that's what's hard about hard bit is that I'm not sure how it all come they could be hiding it someplace and hiding it makes it sound like it's Sinister it's just their business right yeah we don't know we don't get to control that so this is what I heard uh so to me what I understand is that you're saying the least least back will show more transparent on all of the costs yeah and depending on the money situation um that's what you would go with not least these fact I guess I do that's why miss the first one though okay just so that's why IED it in the way that did is because generally I think you're going to finance it yourself what other people have done is design build okay um mayly because you don't have to worry about the financing event you will have skilled and trained Workforce you can have more transparency in the cost understand though it's not the cheapest thing up FR it's not going to be the cheapest thing up FR f um you might be able to have better control over the timing you know with design build but again it depends on whether or not you let the Builder do it or if you're going to make them do other stuff it may take longer so um yeah this is a city of San Jose project too and they're going to require the the dis to enter into a development agreement with them for this project and it's going to have some conditions in there about timy and things like that that will help you in terms of getting your project delivered on time um and started even within a certain amount of time because they're going to interview those permits and approvals space new starting within one year or two years following that that approval so I think that will be also helpful um I also think that the partnership aspect of it for this kind of development might be helpful here because you are building housing and you're building housing for your employees and you want to be sure that what's being built is quality um is well made this isn't you know what you do every day this isn't you know did you said we build schools and school related facilities and not residential so that partnership piece of it to me seems like a better route for for house and just to add to what CL saying about that I mean you want them to want to move in so I mean you want to have a nice you know clean spot you know I mean sure it doesn't have to have all the bells and whistles but there are certain things you need to have in order to have people come in because I mean talk to the people who did like Santa Clara did one like forever ago and part of the thing is that they wanted to make sure it was a place that people wanted to live cuz if nobody wants to live there then it's going to be vacant right then you're not making any oh yes could you explain what leas lease back means are we relasing the land or we relasing yeah okay so what Le these back is is that you own the land right and then what you do is you give a site Le to a developer or building and you tell them do T improvements on it so build my building and then when they're done with the building they lease back the building to you until you pay off the financing and then you know I mean because I was thinking about a couple different ways that it could happen like nowadays we don't have the Bild their Finance 100% when Le SE back first came out it was for M school districts who don't have money to do buildings so what they would do is they would get financing maybe 100% from the Builder and pay them back over time um and a few years ago at Cash they had this thing where the finance people came out and tell people hey here's your 30-year mortgage and everyone's like what 30 or Warriors what are you talking about oh my God now mostly we pay like anywhere from 9 to 95% in progress payment so we do we do other regular construction contracts we just finance a portion because the thing is when you finance it and if you pay it over time then you pay interest right just like any other Lo right and in this case it's not necessary because we have question but so you know because we set aside a specific amount in the box right 70 million to uh preliminary say okay this is the amount yeah right but 70 million in 2024 and that's with the contingency plan correct because the idea the the initial amount the more or less amount was 50 million am I saying that correctly and so it's it's just because I don't like the all that's just me right but um so I'm thinking about the time the timeline right because with the entitlement and all of that you if you we're not breaking ground until let's say 2026 yeah to be realistic right even with the fast forward uh uh law that we want to use and all of that right um the cost you know of building yeah might not be that yeah sometimes for lease lease back part of the thing that the only time that I've really had people use the lease back portion of it is when like we you sell the bonds in trenches or you don't if you have you know you don't sell all one time sell time right and if the completion kind of occurs in a time where you're in between sales and you're not sure if you're going to have all the money available at that time then sometimes people have used these back to just do that in between thing I got to say there's no guarantee but when I try to negotiate the leas Le back contracts and if you have Bond money and you can pay right away I try to negotiate like a early purchase sort of thing that if we pay you with an x amount of time you're not going to charge it the TR but that depends on the developer and it's you know thus far it's been fairly successful with people in order to do that but some people or some contractors still want to get paid at least a couple of um rent payments because then it then it shows us the true um Le and there's less chance of the courts trying to turn it I got to see that I mean I know people were very because of the the people were oh pleas fact is risky I got say that statue I mean it's much harder to attack it if you I if you don't follow the statue then of course it's easy for them to say you didn't do it right but if you follow the statute I we had one where somebody did it like within the first year after the statute came out and they ended up having to withdraw their their claim because they weren't going to win on it um you know we got it dismissed fairly early um and we used to do validation actions all the time which is a way for be le back to shorten the time for someone to challenge the contract after the statute I know at first organizations that cash oh you should do validation and I'm like I don't I don't know I think without the the validation action it people weren't challenging it the same way unless of course they some thank you um the the traditional design bid build is I guess a lump sum yeah um is the one that makes it look a little more attractive because you makes it seem as if you you're you're you're handing over a big chunk of money in upfront that in turn should realize you savings you're saying that they can go around that and just few change orders wind up savings and I don't yeah and I don't want to say are we protected by the 10% cap on change orders yes you are well the 10% cap just means that they could do mean that you can have more 10% change it means that go over the 10% you have that's what the limitation say it doesn't mean that you can't have change orders only 10% you'd have to bid and yeah sorry so there's absolutely so we go through this they on the back end try to yeah not everybody is a Cher or artist I mean you know sometimes not everybody that I that depending on references I part of we do a request qualifications talk to other districts who work with the people and tell them you know ask them what they think of it that's part of what you know you're saying like you know how would we help you with putting those things together you know go see other um I show you guys have visit other projects where they're working on it see if you like what happened there and you know you can kind of follow some of the things um that they were working on the closest one in terms of of you know s CLA unified which which they did that so long ago yeah right is a different mechanism and right now we were Jefferson will be probably the closest yeah did or S College District t one about 10 or 11 years out um so it's right above that point where all the def so you know there's a 10 year window to find the defects and then after 10 years after that you can't sue the contractor anymore for for def that you find so if you're G to find them find them within the first 10 you know 10 years well the good thing is that right now where you are your your process for work for housing we can select any of the options um if you're going to do design build though we'd have to talk about when to bring the design build team on board because right now um the [Music] educator um is doing the enement with the city there is they do have an architect that is on their team right that's doing some level of PL it's not it's not all full PL schematic design right and so I don't know if that would what they get out of that final entitlement process would be enough kind of a bridgy thing to set the performance for the design fi in the the next you know phase so it maybe go through that process first and you k the design IND board at that time that might be the time to do that yeah because you know I mean couple of the attorneys and I were like looking at the statute again recently and I always thought that you need to have a BRI architect or somebody to prepare some kind of performance best if you're not doing performance best you don't actually to have a design professional do it but if somebody has schematics for you that's great it just means that if you're using that though they can't be the architect record for the project but if they're with the city maybe it doesn't matter right you need to have some design to figure out how much it's going to cost for what you're going to build right you got to have some kind of estimate um sometimes it's hard because you know like I have another client who wants to go into their project early so they can get the cost you can figure out cost through also through construction professionals and estimators you know because there's a certain amount that you're going to pay per square foot and it's not the best estimate but if you know how big you're going to build and how much how much it cost per square foot you can get a very very rough order of magnitude from that you know to figure out what you need to do but again to finish the application for the for for the estimate for I'm sorry for the funding I mean you need more the clu about how detailed that needs to be in order to get it but you know again it is true that you probably want to get somebody involved really early and have a SE amount of stuff but doesn't necessarily mean you have to have your design build team before you have the funding part workk done well this will be the entitlements from the city that allow project to move forward and once they get those entit they have to go in to for the more specific like plans and specifications with the city to get the actual building permits so there's a whole another phase that'll happen after the entire are secur and we made that point clear with e HP that it was only going to be for this aspect and after that you know the board would be direction as to how we're going to go with which method delivery method right so we were very specific in that we want we don't want to get too far we're now we're we're committed right and so we made that very clear to ehp that and it's leg legally we we can't uh truste thanks yeah I just um I'm kind of been noting all the different agreements that I'm hearing about right you had the these spokes for if we just were to look at design build the first one right there's a construction manager which is dayto day and then you have potentially the bridging uh architect and then you've got the design build team but then I also heard we have a development agreement with s then we have I heard consultant potentially and then so I guess what I I'm looking to Dr B and your team in terms of so who's managing on those contracts or is that that you Mark or are and we're GNA hire a separate project manager for all this or are you the project manager I like I'm just trying to understand that Rel our relationship with all these uh contracts and the oversight for that well as the director B that would ultimately be that kind of umbrella but obviously the whole Administration Co Dr Bower we would all have that but I would probably be that that project manager of the district representation so this box and then or is that somebody El no under the district that would be somebody else so you're this box yeah we would be the district okay but but am I correctly hearing like and there's the dwk contract and there's the developer agreement and there's a so what's the you mentioned consultant well okay so if you were to do design B build and you wanted to do a constructibility review sooner you'd have to hire a separate consultant to do that so that's only really the design yeah and and the thing is like there are a lot of other contracts that it didn't have because basically if you do these things back with designed build the big contract you're going to have is architect and contractor if you design builds AR second contractor come together but you're still I mean there might be other people like you know you have the pla consultant you know who was going to work on and they do the compliance meeting before the work starts make sure that everybody agrees to be subject to the pla um you're going to have um other people like if you want to hire your own inspector to go and do it we don't have a VSA project inspector but we have our own projector to make sure that they they're building it correctly or you know or as C said we could have a a separate construction manager do that so construction manager is really it's a um it's an option it's not a requir and they're just to help Mark be there I mean because Mark has a lot of projects to take care of they're the ones be focus on the one project well and I was hearing also clar say you're talking about like oversight guard dog you know um but in design build we so I had a note no inspection of record is designed bid build but in design build we would have an we still need the guard do we still need the guard dog the eyes on quality perform okay and I don't know this is too much of a detail but sometimes through the bridging architect to the the the criteria architect B basically when they give you the performance specs for the RFP their job could be done but some districts might keep them on to say like was this part of the original intent of what we design or what we intended for this project you know there's there's just so many variables about what you want to do they might help as a guard do that generally design professionals do not inspect they observe right I mean and are do this long enough they always correct you I don't inspect I observe so they're not there to catch everything and I think having an inspector I mean it helps but it's not a I mean if they were if they were 100% I would have different places to work on yeah and it sounds like in design Bill there would be less involvement from the district so I mean as far as timing uh versus if we go to the design bill then we might as a district might have a little bit more involvement and time yes for sure involvement yeah I think for design build and even Le prce we talk about partnership we're also talking about selecting people people on their qualifications as well as price so if you get to choose somebody who's a lot more qualified than just on their price hopefully you don't have to hold their hand as much they're not learning on your DME they know these things and and they're um and because they were part of the process to put the plans together hopefully the idea being is that they're not trying to just go after the change orders because especially for design build how are you going to say that it was missing from the plans we're responsible for the I'm pay for that you know same thing likeability why would ability that's to me the the qualifications selection criteria is important here just because of the housing right we we get to evaluate whether these developers or contractors are folks who have the kind of you know footprint in this particular region that we need to see feel confident about in terms of right you're going to do this once right and then you're going to get back to buing school so you want it to be done well by well qualified team so I like the idea one of those two options because I think you you more say and who was selected to do and even if you pre-qualify and design B build you still got to pick the lowest bidder that's where it gets a little tricky right there's that that it's not the same team they're not on the same team always the architect in the construction right and sometimes you made a term on it um about Job change orders right yeah um there's a little bit of a game that goes on on the construction s oh you missed this and to the architect and there's that change order right and it gets to be a bit of a problem and for us in the middle the district we're playing mediator and trying to figure it out usually that means us writing a check right to get it is you run a b bu is Str to be a more adversarial kind of situation with the architect and with the builder the other two are more collaborative not to say that we're the ones who having to be up front oh yeah they're everybody but the whereas on this one everybody's locked in at the price me for design they're not locked in because if we didn't hold our in and give them the plant they to come to us and say you need pay for the because I didn't did the project this is not what I did the project right so we have to be on top of the Architects the and an architect will anybody who was architect they will always tell you 100% like everybody get around everything first one I mean not for sure but it just seems like a little bit more stable um and you know I'm one five but this is helpful to understand the options and to see by next week you know when we make that decision exactly yeah so thank you so much I mean I know we probably still have questions well so is the administration bringing us a recommendation of the three are we just going to be like H hashing it out for this like I'm always for administration recommendations but I don't know no we the the item is written for the board to have a dialogue and for the board to select one question and that's why we're having this so the concerns have been raised about that lowest price you said that lowest responsive price correct they can't you're not just going to go off of Joe's freaking construction here yeah Char five bucks and he's going to make it all up on change order it's going to be properly written by a law firm that's that's going to be reviewed and you got to put in all the right elements in place to make sure that somebody's not not going to come in and screw us over okay so the law form of what we do is we do the actual contract stuffff but the holes are not in our stuff usually it's in the plan The Architects in a hard situation the holes are usually in the plans I try to write my legal documents to make sure that you're protected if you find holes in the plans and to the change orders that are necessary in order to complete the project but then again like I said there there will always be some kind of thing that dark protect this so then in design build is the one that allows it allows for you to tell them if there's a problem with design you pay for it not us uh are you done for so would you recommend to get a second um set of eyes another architect when the first architect has completed it because that's where your starting point is that's where you're most likely if the first architect Mi missed it then the second one will pick it up I think depends on what we well I mean what you're talking about if it's a separate architect it's a peer review and um and that's different from a constructibility view so constructibility riew is not about the design it's just about whether or not they can build it the way they they design it a perer riew is to say like hey did they use the proper um you know uh it's more of a like a I don't know intangible like did they use the right decisions when you could choose a or b and either is wrong but one might be better than the other other that's kind of more it's it's much more a um uh subjective and it could be something that's much smaller of a of a thing it's like clearly it's not about whether or not um they they violated the building pood right I mean a perview can catch that but then it's more of a it's more of a spec uh specific thing that way and I don't know if everybody necessarily spends the money in having the peer review um to me there are other things you can spend the money on like doing more soils testing you know because the underground stuff is where you catch a lot of the the chain goers so you know I mean again even if you have the world's best plants if something is under the ground that you didn't know is there like a dead tree or something that's going to cost you asra money to take care of that it's what you can't see and you can't test for all of it can't that be put into the RFP I'm saying hey we need to whoever's going to go for this is going to have to um factor in peer review so that we can avoid those things so the peer review is of the architect and the contractor doesn't pay for a peer review the district would P for a peer review to be getting a second opinion if the first opinion was way off base might be a cheaper route instead of going down that rabbit hole am I understanding correctly that if we go with the design bid Bill and there was an error right because we didn't do a peer review we're responsible for it however we go with this design build if there's any there's if there's any errors then they yeah cover it unless we didn't give them something like so knew that there a big hole here so for me it just makes like for me I'm looking at this and there's less opportunity for error in the first one still you know might have some errors here and there but less opportunity than any and the peer review won't catch everything there still be things that the peerie doesn't catch and understand that person is doing the P you you're still going to have to have the architect of record is still ultimately responsible for the design so prview might be helpful and you know my test is it probably will delay the you know progression of the plans too but you know again what is that measure measure twice cut once kind of I mean there is some thought to that but I mean just doing a per you isn't always what everybody's um solution is I mean there's nothing wrong with it do it there's just other consequences that come and and also sorry timing on on number one yeah there's more opportunity to delay on this second one am I right am I understanding because so if we find a change order and something that was Miss in the architect plan that requires us to go back to the building department we have to wait for the building department to Fig out like if you can kind of s out some of this stuff early because the builders involved in it you can save time that's what I was going to say I mean ultimately these are Stamped Out Plans by the city in San Jose so changes to those plans have to go back to just like if we were to change plans doing reg which might be a little bit more expensive but worth it given all the recent experience withs like Des build feeling that's what I'm feeling the dice yeah there is control and on next week we'll be voting on that so is the city acting more favorable right now to the we or to the other sometimes the same for any okay well like we'll be making our decision next week we'll be voting um we didn't meet today to vote so but you know as we take the information back and have conversations maybe with staff this next week to make sure um we have a final vote that day unless anybody has any other questions or comments thank you so I was just oh good I just wanted to let the board know together that this was designed for you to kind of ask the questions being informed but I'm hoping that you guys can join us next Thursday because there might be other questions between now and Thursday you might have you know something that you didn't know and this is one of those areas that I'm not going to be a lot of help during a one feel like you're a unicorn YouTu so complicated I guess I do have one more question you know how you said that a lot of them don't like uh that you Le back right away so have you encountered like redeeming mortgage and a prepayment penalty maybe if you do it that way or I write the financial terms so I there's no penalty unless you're doing something that you're borrowing so much money that the financial party becomes a party to the contract I try to write the contract so that there's not enough money in it for like a bank to become part of it because if you think like one month negotiating time sounds like a lot I've done it where it's taking like six months because the financing party was part of the the contract negotiation because you never know what costs are going to be you know like two three years because they have yeah because you're planning on using Bond money for this you have much more control or you can make those progress payments instead I'm saying to keep the financing part down because if the developer or the yelder is the one who's financing it then they won't go to a bank because then they got to pay the bank's R to go and take you know and finance it you should try to make I try to make it small enough so that and the payoff period be a year the courts now said it needs to be a recent year but Ive had very few districts who've ever exercised the the year they usually try to pay it off because they don't want to pay the extra interest and and all this is very helpful just trustees you know and and where we're at um so I really appreciate it even though we might not go that way because we might not have to but just to understand that concept for when and if we ever need to you know and just for the interest of clarity when you talk about L some you're talking about the amount not the payment they're usually progress payments throughout it's not like when we say lump sum that's a lump sum but we don't pay at the end it's it's progressively as different phases that are negotiated yeah uh at what benchmarks we would make uh partial payments yeah so there's a price for the contract for the whole project right and usually no matter what version we do we will talk with the the other side and say we call it a schedule of values we say like if we do the Milestones if Reach This milestone in know cost like when you do the foundation that'll be $1,000 when you do the windows which I that's $1,000 and depending on the percentage that you get done for each that's how we calculate how we pay them so pay everything or or all at the end well thank you so much we appreciate it and hopefully we see one or both of you next week um at this time I'll go ahead and adjourn the meeting at 8:17 p.m.

going to get the meic meeting to order roll call um Rick Ry I'm here garcy here Buchanan I'm here Mr Benda is absent and Maria is here Mr Ry will you please lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance surely please join me in the pledge St our flag I pledge aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for it stands one nation under God indivisible and Justice thank you Kylie do we have any public comments pertaining to Clos session we do not okay close session we need to go into close session to discuss the following people Personnel expulsion case expulsion number 6 2324 and expulsion case expulsion number 72324 admissions case ad number three 2324 revocation of expulsion case stipulation number 1 2324 annual review um 92324 annual review 10232 24 expungement case exp um 122122 conference on litigation government code section 54956.9 subsection a current litigation 10 cases cvds 190719 72 cvid ds20 1111 983 C Civ DS 2022 956 CVI Civ SB cvsb civb 221 civb 20 22 2723 C ivsb 856 8 865 civb 23473 Civ vsb 171 government section government code section 5495 4.5 subsection C and 54956.9 subsection d d subsection 2 and subsection e and subsection one anticipated litigation one case 2020 2105 government code section 549 54.5 subsection D and 54956.9 95 anticipated litigation for cases claimant wanisa Insurance ASO bizardi Briana clay Dana Lisa Clayman Cabrera Victor Clay Johnson lvet for Davis young Jeremiah Public Employee discipline dism dismissal release reassignment transfer leave title certificated and classified employees number four Public Employee appointment resignation retirement reduction title certificated and classified employees number five conference with labor negotiator agency negotiator Dustin Conrad employee organization Appo valy unified Teachers Association number six conference with labor negotiator agency negotiator Dustin Conrad employee organization California School Employees Association number seven conference with real property negotiator government code 54956.9 negotiating parties Matthew schulenberg Appo Valley UniFi school security matters government codes section 54957 consultation with Apple Valley Unified School District Chief of Police superintendence evalu ation number 10 I ask for a motion to go into close all in favor any opposed okay we'll see you in two hours for call the meeting to order niik will you please lead us for to for the Pledge of Allegiance Al 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 roll call Rick Ry I'm here Gary Ary here Amanda Buchanan here Dennis Bender is out today and I'm Maria oara uh good evening everyone thank you for being here to watch us do the work that is relating to the students uh the board appreciates your support and input of our educational Partners at our meeting engagement by members of the public in Civic matters is a Cornerstone of our democracy the board will listen attentively to comments and presentations once again thank you for being here student reports cting bow Academy Nik zamon Andrew soles Lindsay Flores Penelope rudock Eva gvin Avery jov janovitz Lillian and Andrew Jones Lilian Wilcox and Andrew [Applause] Jones [Music] am I tall enough oh there we go perfect thank you thank you so much thank you all right hi good evening everyone um I'm Nico and I'd like to start by thanking all of you on behalf of our school for giving us the opportunity to come in and share with you all today so if you don't mind I'm going to start by reading off all of our student officers is me your eighth grade President Andrew stoes your eighth grade vice president Penelope ruct your eighth grade Treasurer Lindsay Flores your eighth grade secretary Eva gusin your seventh grade president Avery genox your seventh grade vice president lilan Wilcox your seventh grade Treasurer and Andrew Jones your seventh grade secretary uh our seventh grade students just handed you gift bags that I will cover in just a minute so starting at the beginning of our year we have our theme of the year which is building our future and we started our web where everyone belongs program which is a student inclusion program that focuses mainly on seventh grade students to help them feel a part of our community web students go out at their lunchtimes and just kind of help them do activities with them talk with them and just make them really feel a part of our community and know that they have someone to talk to we had our family stem night and every single week every Friday we have our spirit wear bear days where we um wear red and black or our spirit shirts to show for our school this year we added our college career and Military Days which uh students will wear on the last Friday of every single month they'll wear a college career sweater t-shirt or like sweatshirt to show spirit for their Futures and speaking of spirit for our futures this year we added a bunch of new electives um cosmetology family and consumer science minauto graphic design and social and emotional learning all of these were picked out for our students especially using information from the youth truth survey she's not hurt that's special effects I promise you that is special effects done by our uh cosmetology students this year right there you see that we have like our graphic design students they did this really cute photo frame that was like an Instagram inspired thing um and if you guys want to look inside of your gift bags there is a Coco mix made by our family and consumer science class a cocoa stir stick that melts in hot chocolate and a coaster that says built with love that was made by a graphic design class so think of that as a gift from our entire school coming together to thank you and then we have our elop after school and before school um our elop after school and before school activities we have math and science breakfast club before school our yearbook Club crochet Club Esports all of our after school enrichments arts and crafts basketball board games cultures and geography archery cooking a bunch of other ones you can see our coding classes and our math and science classes right there and for the next slides I'll be handing it off to Soliz our vice president go ahead this side that way okay hello my name is ang Le and I'm the sitting B vice president for eth grade so this September we did a summer's end dance which was led by ASB and there was a total I think of 150 students in attendance and we also had a character drama play that are drama put on for the young ages they really enjoyed it and this October we also had our School's First dress up day for uh Halloween we also had a p sixth grade field trip for leadership cooperation and teamwork this year in October we also had a r Red Ribbon Week and we had ribbon tying which a bunch of students grabbed ribbons and they tied around the fence at the front of the school we also had our BMX shows which they helped uh give a speech about not not doing drugs and we also we also did a spear day which is wearing red for no drugs and overall the spirit was very good also I'm going to be handing off to Lindy Flores our secretary hi my name is Lindsay Flores um Ford okay um in the first trimester there were 446 students in seventh and eth grade on honoral which is 50% of seventh and eth grade students compared to the 37% of students last year in the picture there are all of the students who have a 3.0 GPA to a 4.0 GPA in 8th grade to reward them in November we had a Renaissance rally where there was students versus adults basketball game for eighth grade and for the seventh graders there was a students versus students dodgeball game the adults won the students versus adults basketball game not surprisingly after the game the eighth graders went to the bounty houses which were located in the field outs side the seventh graders went to the bounty houses before their dodgeball game the bounty houses were also a reward for the younger grades meeting their AR reading goals to reward the Renaissance students further for all their hard work the students who got a 4.0 GPA got to attend an all Cafe the all Cafe was hosted in the cafeteria during advisory period the students got a doughnut and a bottle of water there was also games such as giant connects 4 and nine square there were 108 kids who got a 4.0 GPA in November there was also a can food drive and a turkey feather donation where for every dollar donated you wrote your name on a feather um on paper not an actual bird feather we raised over $20 um wait we raised over $1,200 in donations all the money raised was spent on food baskets with a whole turkey that went to families in need okay for December there was pajama day which every student always looks forward to on the same day there was also the Winter Dance at the Winter Dance there were games such as volleyball Nine Square giant Connect 4 the dance also had a snack bar which raised funds for the school there were lots of variety in the snacks such as cotton candy Sour Patch Kids sour punch Coca-Cola Dr Peppers Takis Cheetos Etc the students who got to go to the dance had fun and eat things I that they don't usually get to eat in school events such as these encourage good grades and good behavior so that they are allowed to attend in the month of de December there was also the most famous and most celebrated holiday in the world which is Christmas lots of people especially the younger ones want to get something for their for the people they care for but since they are so young it's difficult to choose and keep secrets our school had to offer a holiday Boutique where you could buy surprise gifts for the people they love and care for there was all there were lots of variety of the items um such as hats coloring books mugs cups socks bath bombs wallets Etc this was asb's largest fundraiser to date this was ALS this month also had the steam Fair where students got to enter the projects in in science technology engineering and math which is what steam stands for 15 of our students will be representing us at the county steam Fair now to hand it off to Penelope to discuss our future events forward and back thank you hi I am penel Ruck and I am the treasurer so in wait okay in the oh wait wait which forward oh thanks it's a giant arrow I should understand this in January we are having our cross age activity which they're basically just having our lower campus and our upper campus join together and become one getting to do an activity which normally don't mix the classes that much but I feel like the little kids need that sense of like to have an older person to look up to so it's really good for them and also us and ASB we get to go to Disneyland we get to learn some leadership things at Disneyland because there's gonna yeah leadership you wouldn't put those two together um and um so we're really excited about that and in so in February we're going to have our steam Gardner Hal fil trip for our um it's our stem electives and they get to go learn about animatronics and some pretty cool stuff and our broadcast gets to go to Universal Studios and learn about some how do you say this they get to learn about their sorry I'm like freezing up here let me just move on to the next thing hosting the dist and we're hosting the District spelling B which last year our ASB um not our ASB sorry I'm freezing up um our sbaa got to go we one of our students got made it all the way to um the county level which was really really good for us and it really shows how hard our students work and so continuing with the broadcasting they get to go and learn about um they get to go explore the like the movie sets so they get to learn more about like that kind of stuff sorry Mart and in March the the kindergarteners get to have their hat parade which will be really adorable and um our cross country and our basketball star which definitely will be one of our best Years yet because I've seen these kids and they're just amazing and we also get to do our Calico fil the first graders G to go to Calico which if you've ever been to Calico they're gonna have so much fun in April we're oh I didn't see the April slide so I'm gonna have to Wing this in April we have anything but a backpack day so basically you bring anything but a backpack you can bring a shopping cart you can bring an ice chest you can bring a stroller for a baby and just put your stuff in it and bring it around all day who knows even bring your little brother like see my little my little brother over there he definitely would carry around my stuff um our goals for this year is you can get more we're trying to get more student feedback to involve to involve all of our students and really just lift up our students and we're trying to encourage more students to achieve the 4.0 Renaissance because we got a lot this like this trimester but we're trying to get lot more we're just trying to encourage all of our students to get that and to make our we're also trying to make our school more welcoming we want to make sure everyone feels like they're welcomed in our school and our next thing is we just want to continue building up each other and make sure that each other are just we just feel love in our community and that is the end of our sitting bow presentation so thank [Applause] you thank you very much no I wasn't gonna say I wasn't gonna say anything I just thought I was supposed to say something go on thank you so much that was really Pleasant information um High Desert Premier Academy is [Applause] Solis can I move this back a little bit yeah oh oh yeah I'm sorry yeah Dam where's Mr Bender man I wanted to say something sorry he's probably watching and loving this right now I just wanted to say something I just want to be like I just wanted to say what's up to him all right sorry good evening president oakar board members superintendent Nelson and executive cabinet I wanted to start with saying congratulations to missar for getting the president and everything sorry my mind went blank uh I hope that you all had a restful and fun winter break with your friends and family I'm thankful that the district is able to provide support for the students to get a job thank you Mr kilan he's over there what's up guy it's been a while since I seen him but uh I was able to get my family and my girlfriend a couple of gifts and since I'm working and I'm proud of myself uh it was nice to be able to give during the holiday season we have a we have had a very successful quarter there have been many students who have met their High School requirements our school's goal is to have at least 100 graduates by the end of the year and I'm glad to say that we are well on our way to meeting that goal I have to give a shout out to Mr baitman our CTE teacher this is the first quarter that we participated in the CTE video production Precision exams we had 16 students pass this quarter this class has grown significantly in the last 3 years way to go Mr bman every month our Wellness Center puts out a newsletter to staff and families because this month is mental health awareness month the newsletter will review the seven Dimensions of Wellness which include self-care it also has a section that brings awareness about sorry if I messed up on this word I feel this sick sometimes uh epilepsy and seizure preparedness all right I said it right thank you all right next week superintendent Nelson and executive cabinet will be joining us for our second student advisory meeting we're excited to have you on our campus and continue our conversations about improving our school I'm G see you there Miss Nelson I hope I'd see you and talk about some good things about our school hopefully improve it and yeah uh oh yeah I finally got to see my big brother his name is Antonio I don't know if any of you guys know him but uh he's been deployed for in the Marines for about two years and he only stayed for two days which is okay I mean I got to see him and I made some fun memories I mean I was chasing him down the street a little bit but it's okay uh my brother graduated from high desert Premiere uh Mr Smith remembers him and he wanted to see him but he just wanted to chillax for those two days which which is fine I me he's been put to work for like two years straight so but uh he's he's going to come back though I mean like this month he's going to be there for a month so I don't know maybe I could bring him I don't know we'll see but uh my brother used to always say how he was going to join the Marines and he finally did so I'm proud of my big brother I hope to be just successful as him if not maybe more and then I could probably Flex on him a little bit but I hope you all had a great winter break and you are having and we are wait what and are having a great start to your new year see you next month thank you so much is graner Hills High School Hannah [Applause] forier good evening executive cabinet board members and attendees my name is Hannah for the junior class president at gret I hope you all had a very wonderful Christmas and a very happy New Year also happy Schoolboard recognition month to all of our wonderful board members we appreciate you and all of your service to ABD in our community we wouldn't be where we are without you I'm very excited to be back tonight to speak to you on what's happening at Granite before a break our Linker help Coco and cram to our freshman study for finals week we had teachers and our leaders there to help our students study for subjects which is French Spanish English Math Science and a lot more Linker also had a leader potluck and a secret Santa which was lots of fun for both the leaders and the teacher and staff who runs Ling crew theater has been very busy getting ready for the upcoming play Julia season and as a theater student I personally invite all of you to come immerse yourself into the Timeless tale of power and Betrayal on January 26th 7 p.m.

million was 1.3 million lower than November 2022 revenue of 4.3 million the major difference is the decrease in receipts of the institution voucher the October and November institutional voucher payments were both received in December the increase in the federal and state grants is due to an increase in the Medicaid reimbursements since they've improved their system from going to EFT payments the decrease in other operating revenue is mostly due to a decrease in receipts from the classroom site fund and this is partially based on the student count information the budget fiscal year 2023 obligated expenditures of 27.6 million were 53,000 higher than budget fiscal year 2022 obligated expenditures of 27.6 million salaries are slightly higher than last budget fiscal year however employer related expenditures are lower due to a reduction in the agency cost cost of medical insurance premiums contractual Food Services were moved from the professional and outside Services line to better track those costs professional and outside Services increas is mostly from the price increase for the contracted transportation services travel has increased with the increased professional development opportunities for the staff and out out of state competitions for students if there are no questions this concludes my report but I am available for questions any questions all right thank you thank you moving on to um agenda item 6.03 approval of superintendent rikan's performance evaluation this is Linda do we need to go into executive session okay I would welcome a motion to do that okay this is Linda B I move that we go into executive session I'll second all those in favor say I I I opposed okay we need to bre the pursuant to ar ar 38-43 1.03 A1 the board may v vote to go into executive session which will not be open to the public for the purposes of discussion and consideration of employment matters as it relates to this agenda item so we will um adjourn for a few minutes to move into executive session e testing can just want to let you know we're going to take a 10-minute break before we resume the meeting thank you minutes I was just giving you the heads up two minute War I hate those I feel like the one up in the booth is like right in my eyes so wanted me to write more I wasn't quite descriptive on the apparently it wasn't was cho cho big right do you need to count us down I'm thinking right at the 55 if we could media are you ready okay we'll start in 10 seconds 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 thank you we are um resuming at 5:55 after executive session and we are on 6.03 the approval of superintendent rikan's performance evaluation do I have a motion I'll make a motion to I heard Colette um I have a move a motion by Colette do I have a second I'll second all those in favor say I I I opposed hearing none seeing none moving on to 7.01 Ombudsman report Donna Williams Esquire I can lift it up a little bit good evening president gel members of the board superintendent reichman assistant superintendent Cooper and katoff and the asdb community I present to you the office of the umut person semiannual report covering the reporting period July 2023 through December 2023 um is there a slide we doing the slides if not no worries oh there we are next slide again super so um since I've had this position which was July of 2022 I've really been working to facilitate positive relationships among asdb staff students and the public by collaborating with the staff and the community to ensure Fair processes that are equitably and reasonably resolving their concerns whether it be staff students parents and community members and really the activities I've been engaged in in furtherance of this overarching goal has been everything from just simply providing information um to conducting mediations um and just as an overall um statement I think based on the feedback thus far users have been satisfied with the assistance that they have received um from the office next slide please just as a reminder in terms of the availability of services through the office that is the menu of items ranging as you can see from providing information the very simplest form of engaging the office to mediation probably the most complicated and then everything in between and I think in this reporting period um just about every aspect of the Continuum was engaged um and that was true of the previous reporting periods as well so on to the aggregate user data next slide please um users are generally directed to fill out a request form when seeking the assistance from the udsp person office the form then captures um data like name title contact information and then details about the concern and then I'm alerted by email that there's been a request form and then I can engage users um um after that point so some users have been utilizing the form um I think many others have been reaching out both by phone and by email and certainly my experience has been that repeat users don't fill out the form anymore unless they have been directed to do so by me they just simply pick up the phone um or email me um and I would also know note that several users have used both the um busperson email address and the Donna Williams email address so at this point you know everything is all mixed up and that's fine um as long as users are using um so from July 2023 to December 2023 um eight users submitted the actual um buds person request form and of those eight requests six were from staff and two were from Administration one of the administration users was actually from an agency outside of asdb um um just for note so of of those eight users the breakdown in terms of uh subject matter would be um two for interpersonal conflict two regarding a formal complaint request two regarding a procedural concern one a policy concern and then um one would be in other category which is kind of a catch-all category um I would say that the concerns raised um were resolved probably at the level of about 60 65% with the assistance of the UDS person um 37 of those uh 37% of those are probably ongoing and working towards resolution sometimes my engagement with users requires multiple contacts um sometimes homework on their part sometimes homework on my part um so those things are um are in progress I did utilize interpreters um this past reporting period for at least one of those interactions and I also responded to over 90 email during that same time again divided between both the um busperson email account and my personal account and then there were about a dozen calls um it should also be noted that my phone rings consistently throughout the day most of which have nothing to do with um buds person services so I think the number is on some list people are trying to sell me things etc etc so that happens as well um one um of the users questions when they're researched and answered so once I've engaged the user we've met or talked um and I've done the research and really have gotten back to them to answer whatever concerns they had or at least directed them to the appropriate resource I then consider the matter resolved so when I'm talking about things being resolved it doesn't necessarily mean that their situation is fixed it means my role in terms of helping them navigate whatever that concern was um has been resolved um next slide please again and one more so um during the last reporting period which was in July um I talked about the results of the focus groups um and just to recap very briefly there were four main themes that emerged from the responses that were collected during that process um the first was U the need to establish a comprehensive uh communication strategy the second was meaningful opportunities for staff to provide feedback the third was greater information about and access to the board and then four greater visibility and engagement with internal and external stakeholders from the superintendent and an assistant superintendant since that time um I have been working with the superintendent and the assistant superintendent and the leadership team to help develop this uh comprehensive communication strategy um next slide please in August the steering committee met to discuss the focus group results um and really lay the groundwork for for the communication plan establish a timeline and then a process for agency roll out and then implementation of the plan um we also um had an education executive team meeting in October to discuss the communication plan in Greater detail and really its relationship to building trust and Collective efficacy which will serve as the foundation for the plan so the steering committee also met in October and that was to prioritize list of suggested communication commitments established during that um August meeting so of those priority commitments the udsp person will be directly involved with ongoing efforts to conduct focus groups so really this um ongoing process of getting feedback from staff on how we're doing um what more is needed um and anything that would involve that and surveying questionnaires Etc designed to get a pulse on how we're doing over the next several weeks the priorities identified from the October steering committee will form the basis of the internal communication plan which um will be presented in February the steering committee and meeting for review and discussion I recently met with a superintendent and the assistant superintendent to really figure out what direction we wanted to go in with the next round of focus groups so I'm in the process of drafting some additional questions that will bring in the original group of folks that participated in the first round to find out of all the things that we've implemented what is working what's not working and kind of where we need to go from here so those efforts will begin um over the next couple of months hopefully concluding in March or April um one of next slide please one of the um one of the things that struck me at least over the last year and a half is the community's awareness or not awareness of my presence here and you know it's it's it's good one way or the other but I think it's important to at least make sure that the community knows that I'm here how they can utilize me so that if there is a need um they know that I'm here so I think that I'm kind of underutilized by the community and if that's something that the agency um in terms of a resource wants to make available to the community then my suggestion with that we create some visibility around the role and maybe how um I can interface with the community so we have parent Square announcements things of that nature social media of course um I'm open to doing a video short um with ASL and then just any kind of marketing that might help with visibility so you know ensuring that the community has efficient information about the services um and how to access those services will certainly bring greater awareness and that's the goal so next slide in [Music] conclusion um I logged over about 150 hours during this reporting period that's really on par with previous reporting periods and so again I think the general volume and tenor of work is suitable for um um someone in a part-time capacity of course as soon as we open the floodgates right I say that today um uh with great conviction um but you know certainly should that change um over the coming months I will share that as well um but I think that also going forward and developing the internal communication plan will also um decrease kind of the inter interpersonal um issues that um seem to come my way on a regular basis but the next report for this office will cover the reporting period January 2024 to July 20 excuse me till June 2024 and that concludes my report happy to answer any questions any questions can I make a possible suggestion and maybe have her come to do an information session um at one of the board meetings like we have had other information sessions so that it would be also on the live stream for the public to see about utilization how to utilize the utsman position well I'm kind of looking at Annette and you both of you um as as a possible um idea just kind of throwing out there okay if no other questions thank you very much thank you okay moving on to 7.04 discussion and possible action item approval of suggested changes to ARS title 15204 and title 41 chapter 27 Article 2 Maria Murphy director of policy and government relations good evening Madame President members of the board Madam superintendent assistant superintendents and members of the asdb community for the record my name is Maria Murphy I Am the director of policy and government relations members of the board you have before for you the abstract and the template language uh that was presented to um representative David Cook to see if he would be interested in possibly running a bill uh regarding special education vouchers this would be um running the bill that was run last year again by representative cook we would be asking him to rerun this bill and we are hopeful that we may be able ble to get some motion on it um as you are all probably aware the uh regular session began on Monday uh thus far 749 bills have been introduced 598 of them were introduced this week 277 of them were introduced today so I've been pretty busy um as as of today I am tracking approximately 55 different bills um 19 of them are strike everything bills that will probably not come into play until later on in the session 17 of them are actually continuation bills and three of them are on what's called my hot list the ones that I have to keep um an extra eye on uh I find myself in the unusual position of coming here um asking you for permission to drop a bill but also to ask you for forgiveness because uh representative cook dropped the bill already he dropped it last Friday so it's already been introduced so uh I'm hopeful that you will give asdb permission to actually run the bill it is um House Bill 2144 um again if you do not feel that you want to go ahead and run the special education voucher bill then please by all means instruct me to um ask representative cook to withdraw the bill and with that I'd like to make myself available for any any questions thank you Maria do I have a motion for to Grant Maria permission to go ahead and drop this bill it is the same bill um that we attempted last year and um it would provide some additional funding for transportation I believe and then just cost of services in general yes with the institutional voucher yes okay um so I will entertain a a motion I'll make a motion Mrs britne uh to Sor oh sorry to um Grant Maria the permission to allow representative C to continue this bill one one quick question Maria what number is it a 2144 sir okay thank you this Linda seconding I have a motion in a second um all those in favor I I can't hear the folks on the phone are we still there this is I'm going to abstain okay um any opposition hearing none it motion carries thank you Maria okay um discussion and possible action item for possible work study sessions there are a couple of things I think um that will be coming up that I think we will need more information on what I would like to suggest is a motion from the board to have um letia or staff um do a doodle and get some dates on the calendar between our board meetings so I'm going to go ahead and move that we have staff do that do I have a second this ising second all those in favor say I I I any opposition hearing none motion carries we're moving on to 8.01 call to the public for non-agenda items um um our first public comment was submitted by email um it's online and it can be read there um I actually I should ask is Kimberly I'm gonna buter this um Akin present okay her comment is posted online it can be read there the second request to address the board I have is Megan Packard are you here here she comes okay hello superintendent um rikman board president kifil assistant superintendent and board members my name is Megan Packard I'm a public interpreter here at asdb this is my daughter Artemis she is waking up a little bit so hopefully she doesn't start crying the reason that I here today is because I wanted to discuss the topic of Parental leave and donated the donated leave policy while I was pregnant Governor Hobbs established a paid leave program uh that is a pilot program and it is for 12 weeks of paid leave for state employees I was thrilled when I learned of this policy however it states that it is for eligible state employees and universities and ASB are not eligible so that was very disappointing and worrying for me regardless I created a plan for my maternity leave I used my acred sick and personal time and my wonderful colleagues my fellow interpreters offered to donate some of their leave to me to help me take advantage of my full 12 weeks uh of leave well paid as time went forward we got to the end of November and I submitted my application for donated leave just yesterday I was informed by HR that I am not eligible to receive donated leave reason being the policy states that it is for non-job related serious incapacitating and ongoing illness or injury I did plan plan to be off for 12 weeks um starting back on February 1st but I will actually be starting again tomorrow as a result of this and I am very fortunate that my job has the flexibility so I can work remotely from home this month um and slowly transition back but not all staff here at asdb have that flexibility and I think it's important that we support our new parents and respectfully if um there is no paid uh leave here then I recommend that we change that donated leave policy at the very least in order to provide that additional support to staff thank you for your time and consideration thank you um our second request to address the board is paully Garcia hello members of the board and superintend reikan I'm so honored to be here tonight I didn't expect to be able to speak today I am still doing my research on asdb history and I plan to provide a summary in March I hope that you will be open to that I'm not here to point fingers I just want to share the information so that the board is able to make the right informed decisions I hope I find a ride to Phoenix for March thank you for letting me speak tonight I appreciate it and happy New Year uh that concludes all the requests on non-agenda items all right moving on to 8.02 discussion item agenda items for the next regular board meeting scheduled for March 7th 2024 in Phoenix um one of the things I would definitely like to have added to um the agenda if not for March then the followup is the uh what's the word I want um renewal of the superintendent's contract I know that we are coming to the end of that and so we will need to have that um and I don't know if we want to do um have pully do an information session prior to the board meeting or have her on the agenda either way I'm open to that can you repeat that please s in regards to having um Polly come in and talk about the history I don't know if we want to do that as an information session um or if we want it as an actual you know on the agenda item I'm or we can talk about it it being the next work study I'm open to either any Paulie and I are scheduling a meeting uh next next week so we've already set up a meeting and I plan on asking um you know for some more information as as far as what she would like to share with the board and it could be done either way we can add that to the agenda to give her some time to present to the board uh her new found information about the history of ASB or we can also do a work study session I don't have enough information to know which would be best and I will leave that to your very capable hands to make that decision and I thank you okay does anybody else have anything they want to add otherwise you can always contact myself or Anette to add things to the agenda if not moving on to 9.01 do I have a motion for adjournment I hear you Lynn I have a motion do I have a second second this is Linda all those in favor say I I the meeting now is adjourned at 6:21 p.m.