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e e for all right uh we will now call to order the uh April 3rd 2024 special Board of Education meeting and workshop for Cho Unified School District uh thanks everybody for being here this evening uh at this time I will ask you all to please stand for the flag salute all right we uh have student reports first up we have a lot of student reports tonight and U we are going to start start with mcmanis so I'd like to invite Chris Weaver up he's going to tell us what we're going to hear yes all right okay everybody hear me good evening board members superintendent daily Chico Unified staff and guests thanks for being here got to put my glasses on here so schools School construction is progressing each day at mcmanis and I'm so proud of our community including our students families and staff um a true sense of togetherness has come from this experience and watching the stages throughout this school year has been pretty impressive considering all that goes into it tonight for our um student report I want to invite the mcmanis news team up so I can introduce them as they're going to be presenting a video so if you're on the mcmanis news team come on up please okay so representing our news crew here we have fourth grader news anchor annia Nelson next to her we have fourth grader news crew Lincoln lore and also uh fifth grader Evan Medina tanoko and behind the scenes at mcmanis um doing some of the work some of the kiddos that aren't here we have Sarai Barona who's currently in fourth grade as well she does some voiceover work we also have Annabelle Lopes who assists on production and then our weatherman Jameson Coleman joining our incredible students and our dedicated our dedicated teacher including Mr Wakefield Miss Clemens and Mr Canales all right just a little bit of history about the mcmanis news it's been around since 2015 um it was started by Mr Canalis and um Aur witch CH wit church and Paige Bush um and it's been going on for the last you know since 2015 um and it's been a great vehicle to share our PBIS shared values so really grateful to have um students and staff collaborating together so without further Ado here's our [Music] [Applause] video good I know like it's the mcm's news starring an and Mr Wakefield good morning my I'm here with Mr wfi to give you a special edition of the MCM news we've seen the construction Crews working hard day in and day out and many of you have asked what's going on behind the scenes with all this construction surrounding us well look no further Beau have news are so excited to bring you an updated look of the hard work that has been going on this year so the students have responded incredibly well um I think at the beginning of the school year in August and September the noise and some of the some of the things that have been moving um were noticeable but as the year has progressed I think we've all become used to it more tolerant of it and also I think as we see the school building it really just gives everybody hope knowing that this is our new school and so we kind of switch from yeah it's a little bit noisy to hey we have a new school so we're super excited [Music] as we begin our behind the scenes tour our guide in construction Forman Dan told us to Walk This Way Walk This Way he said it was a reference from an old movie but we're only 10 Dan none of us have ever heard of it but we shared a good laugh and we headed in to check out the new fourth and fifth grade class [Music] classroom the rooms were empty and looked so [Music] huge we got to check out the cool built-in storage which I know the teachers are going to love and we even managed to give Mr Weaver a little scar when I came to mcmanis this year we had a lot of different holes in the ground and one Foundation that was getting poured at the beginning of the year now all foundations are fored and structures are really starting to take place just yesterday I noticed that we have brand new windows in the new Administrative building and I'm so excited to see walls going up and too much excitement it would freeze there [Music] getting foot on and I just can't wait to start moving people into new buildings next year as we Ro around with Julie Kissle who's the director of facilities construction and Maria campost the facilities planner and construction supervisor we got to ask so many questions like what's with this pink stuff on the walls much sure disappointment that said it wasn't C candy and that it would make us itchy and not feel so great so we kept our distance check out the new office we know our front office stuff is going to love it lots of new windows it should be very welcome into our mcm's [Music] G naturally I had to S Mr reer to the principal's office luckily he didn't seem to my one B check out the excitement on his [Music] face as a fifth grader I'm really bum that we can't experence this experience this but I'm really excited that we got a new knew everything once we were done checking out the office we were able to take a walk over to the new kindergarten complex let me Sumit up in w wow this place was not only new and exciting but the rooms are huge we and mcmanis are so excited about our new school every day the students and the teachers get to see the new buildings and how things are coming along I was so excited you know I had to ask about their new playground oh it's going to be really awesome there's going to be slides and merry go rounds matter of fact there's going to be merry go rounds that wheelchairs can roll right on to lots of inclusive play W that's so cool maybe I'll look something like this that would be great for kids of all ages and abilities to be able to play together one thing I'm looking forward to the most when this project is complete is our brand new parking lot and I'm so great grateful for our parents who have been incredibly patient with really limited parking and people have gotten really creative about pickups and drop offs so I can't wait for parents to have that when it's all dead the construction crew is hard at work and the new Peter so we couldn't stay for too long but it was cool to be able to walk through and visualize what it's going to look like when it's all said and done my impression of this whole school I love everything about it I'm super sad that our old school was leaving but it's it's amazing so I'm very excited for all my friends experien this and here to New Beginnings you know what we were all through with the tour I had to ask Mr what was his favorite part I absolutely love our new school I'm super excited specifically for students at MCM like yourself who get to enter into new beautiful classrooms have a brand new beautiful playground and experience a school to be well the for now there's nothing left to do but kick back have a seat and wait for them to be [Music] [Applause] done so again thanks to the MC mantis news crew appreciate you all so much um also noticed in the back that we have That's all folks Dan Thompson where's Dan Dan please stand up Julie Kissle please stand up and Maria Campos is she not here today have a chance okay yeah so um I was talking to eile before the board meeting started and honest ly this experience has been great um having Maria Julie and Dan has been great because I mean I don't know much of anything about this construction and they never make me feel like you know I'm less than um they're incredibly responsive um and just through the whole process um we're having a good time um Dan's got a great sense of humor Maria and Julie are you know I can call them in a heartbeat and they they really do help so um it's been a great process so again thank you and thank you to the mcmanis news C I appreciate you all right um so at this moment in time I'd like to call up uh Mr Canales for a second come on up sir yes someone give me a big heart first all all right all right got a few pages here so yeah all right so at mcmanis celebrating Student Success is my favorite part of being a principal and by honoring Mr Canalis we celebrate Student Success as our very own dieh hard dodger blue fan understands the value of building meaningful relationships with students not only in his classroom but throughout the entire School community in his 12 plus years at mcmanis Andy is known for having a big heart along with a quick observational sense of humor always reflective Andy has a deep understanding of who he is and how he impacts lives daily I want to share a memory from last year because I think it is really at the core what makes Andy so special so last year toward the end of the school year um during a student lcap meeting at mcmanis Mr Sullivan was talking to students and he posed a question about what students liked about their teachers and students shared many delightful things about teachers at our site but one comment caught the attention of both Mr solvent and myself in fact I remember Ted looking at me and saying write that one down at the time Jacqueline Wilcox a fourth grader in Mr C's class said what makes my teacher great is that he makes our interests his interests with intentionality Andy gathers information about students at mcmanis again this is not limited to the students in his classroom he is the modern-day Community teacher it is his sole mission to connect with as many students as he possibly can it is not uncommon for Mr SE to visit primary classrooms to read a story throughout the year when he reads a story it is quite entertaining he d Dives in head first and often times can be heard across the hall taking on character voices with great inflection and intonation because of this he builds immediate connections with future students so upon walking into his fourth grade classroom you will find students happy engaged in Hands-On learning and thriving Andy creates a safe learning environment by weaving in social emotional and academics simultaneously his teaching pedagogy is dynamic energetic as well as culturally responsive and inclusive to each student in his class it is important to note that once you are a student of Mr C's you have him for life from elementary school through college this guy is regularly invited to Keras graduation ceremonies and weddings even when students come back to visit MC Menace they always ask is Mr C here Andy's dedication and commitment to mcmanis is not limited to the school day he wears many hats at mcmanis as teacher in charge Andy assumes responsibility for our Learning Community when Melinda and I are off campus and truth be told he is always looking out for student safety as the creator of the mcmanis news in 2015 each year Andy leads a team of students and staff to create and produce monthly episodes that highlight our shared PB values as a valuable member of mcmanus' school Equity team Andy helps promote students success by collaboratively analyzing data identifying problems of practice and uh looking for Solutions and then prior to construction Andy was a key contributor on the site committee offering insight and input in school design and our new school design it continues sorry he is also directly involved with student council and our School site Council as a cooperating teacher for students in the credential program Andy is an influential mentor to Future teachers as well Andy is the most thoughtful and caring person he reads student Expressions better than anyone I know he is the first person to Pat a kiddo on the back and celebrate a win on the flip side Andy is a go-to for students who are experiencing truly tough times his authenticity is present in all settings I want to thank Andy's wife Lindsay his mom and his sister for being here tonight to help celebrate him uh Mr C you're one in a million brother and I appreciate you yes thank you thank you got now you got to get your picture taken sorry okay conat thank you so back to you madam president did we just move through superintendent's report too oh thanks back on track um that was great I um had a thought during the presentation that it's starting to feel for um our CH unified administrators that uh School site construction is a right of passage so good job um all right well we'll move right along to uh consent calendar um is there anybody that would like to pull consent a consent item for further discussion it's a very short consent calendar this time and I'm going to let those people that came from mcmanis if you want to go ahead and go feel free you are always welcome to stay but um I do know it's a busy time of the year thanks for sharing Al righty so since we um have no um items that need to be pulled I will ask for a motion I'll move adoption of the consent calendar I'll second that motion all right we have a motion and a second uh any further discussion all right we'll do a voice vot since our first vote for the evening we'll start with Mr tennis tennis ey conid ey Dolby ey Lando ey Robinson I all righty it's unanimous we'll move along to our board uh Workshop topic tonight it is informational Career Technical education CTE Pathways and arts program come on down sorry introduce so tonight uh want to introduce Tiffany heringer and uh she put a lot of work into this presentation and the coordination of all our teachers and students that are here tonight so I just want to say thank you tour her hi good evening where do I point this right there it's not on that would help okay all right hello welcome tonight um we are talking about Career Technical education and the Arts programs in cusd um I'm going to start with a a quick overview of our programs um and then we're going to look at program highlights we have some teachers and students here to talk about their specific uh programs we'll talk about our student organizations uh some CTE data and then our grants and future projects in CTE so starting off a little overview um all of CTE programs um fall into specific Industries um within the state of California we have 15 industries that are recognized at Chico Unified we cover eight of those 15 um Industries with a little crossover and a couple other other of the industries so we hit a wide variety of the industries within the state of California currently these are our Pathways um at Chico and PV um I won't go through the whole list because um I'll be talking about them a little bit more later in total we have 23 Pathways between our two Comprehensive High Schools um with the addition of two more Pathways next year bringing us to 25 Pathways total um between the two high schools uh future plans so the two new Pathways we're adding at PV um are ceramic arts and digital photography um and those are really um a branch of the two art Pathways that they already have um and making those more specific um to have a more specific pathway for students so they'll have four um art CTE Pathways at PV and then we're going to be looking at establishing Pathways at Fair viiew as well starting with a residential construction pathway they currently have a wood shop and we're looking at um adding um different other skills into that to make it more holistic in the construction industry and then we're working on junior high career exploration classes as well so sprinkled throughout this presentation are student responses so we survey students at the end of every school year all of our CTE completers that are um seniors and then we do a six-month graduate followup um and these are direct responses from our students so um these are all kind of sprinkled throughout um so this first one says it was a wonderful experience sorry the question I always ask is if the is there anything you would like to share about your experience so this student said it was a wonderful experience especially if you're going into the field for early college or jobs I'm glad that I got the opportunity um because I got to learn to be part of the community so you're going to see these um kind of spread out um and it's just nice to have that feedback from students all right so we're going to move on to our program highlights um the first person I'd like to come up is Matt Joiner and his student groups he took over the engineering and architecture program this year um and he's really done amazing things with it so you go click through it that okay thank you Tiffany good evening so I brought with me tonight three of our students in architecture and engineering this is London Tessa and Chris Bell uh the first they're going to talk a little bit about this first slide was um another group of some of our students here a couple of weeks ago in conjunction with bcoe for an 8th grader day at Silver Dollar Fair introducing students to exactly this the pathways available at just specifically py but but chicoi VI college and some other communities so uh moving on to this one I'm going to ask Tessa to come up and speak about this because she's part of this project in architecture so for architecture 2 we um we've made a shed it took us around a month and it's for a woman in Paradise who lost her home and she loves gardening so we made her this garden shed that we worked with proframe and they taught us step by step how to measure cut even though we weren't allowed to cut and Hammer in Nails into certain angles and places and basically they taught us a lot about how long it takes to build something especially since this shed was so small and there was all of us working on it and it also taught us how there's so many different types of jobs and people who come together to make one building because there's different Roofing Framing and a lot of this um painting as well and I think this experience was really valuable for us because we're able to use the measurements from this shed and actually seeing it while we're um sketching it in a design SketchUp so not only are we like imagining what the Shadle look like we actually see what it looks like thank you Tessa yes this is a design build project and for many years our Pathways have done a great job with design but with the addition of the new facility where now able to to complement the design and do design build some of the Hands-On portion that goes along with the CAD drafting so pretty exciting um on that topic too we'd also like to thank uh vce Valley contractors exchange uh for becoming a new community partner of ours who coordinated this project with as Tessa mentioned proframe construction who led our our construction end of it with with the students so very cool there so Chris Bell in London and there's a I'm sorry and there's a picture of the shed almost complete we still have paint and Roofing to put onto it uh Chris Bell and London have a little bit different aspect of the program to talk about and that's what we're all wearing these black skills USA jackets for not anything new to Pleasant Valley High School we've been participating and competing in skills USA in many contests for many years we've had a lot of Student Success in welding and related um technical programs there these Brave students are our first ones moving forward with some of the technical design and intro drafting contests so so brave kids for for kind of doing some groundbreaking work this year um Chris Bell we talked just a little bit about your contest and maybe what time we're leaving tomorrow morning for that contest yes so I'm GNA be competing in the technical design category uh we're heading out tomorrow at 700 a.m.

Uh let's see. Members, we only have one measure on the agenda. So we're going to hear all the testimonies and then open up to questions. So the first item being House Bill 2577, House draft 1, authorizes Department of Health to require the Department of Education to report coronus disease 2019 potential outbreaks or other public health emergencies and related information in a manner most appropriate to public health and safety. as determined by the Department of Health repeals the requirement to publish the report on the Department of Education's website. And starting out with our first testifier is Keith Yashi. Aloh Vice Chair Kim, members of the committee. Keith Aayashi, superintendent, testifying on behalf of the Department of Education. The department stands on its written testimony in support of this measure. Thank you for the opportunity to testify. Thank you. Department of Health in support Kim, members of the committee.

to 6:00 p.m. with a break for the regular school day we are licensed by the Arizona Department of Health Services in accordance to our license each employee is required to obtain 18 hours of training a year which we exceed here at Higley each of our locations follows a ratio of one employee to 20 students and a ratio of 1 to 12 for our prek students when school is not in session we also provide kids club camps for our families which includes fall winter and and spr spring break and throughout our summer during these camps we utilize 15 to 20 rooms at our hosting elementary schools each Camp has a different theme and each room has a purpose aligned with the theme these students do not repeat activities during the camp our incredible staff puts a lot of work into designing these handon engaging activities related to the themes of the camp so for for example Our Last Summer Camp was hosted at chapparel elementary and the theme was summer at the movies we rolled out the red carpet and we transformed our parent drop off pickup room into a box office students played minute to win a games they reenacted Scooby-Doo they also reenacted scenes from their favorite movies such as I'm still standing from sing and much much more our fall Camp was hosted at Cortina and the theme for this was fun at the farm at this Camp students took a field trip to Mother Nature's Farm in Mesa roosters Cog burs and we even had some on-site animal visitors students participated in various science experience experiments made paper bag owls and had some more fun engaging activities our camper celebrated winter around the world at our camp at Bridges Elementary students made passports and traveled on our own Higley Airlines to different countries around the world we made cookies from various countries and we learned some important facts about those countries with some more of our Hands-On activities we also celebrated the holiday season through field trips at the Majestics theater to see elf and the Grinch finally just a couple of weeks ago over at HTA we hosted our spring break Camp the theme for this year was career Quest where students learned about various jobs and career so for example our fourth and fifth grade ERS went to Peter Piper Pizza and we got a behind the scenes Tour on how to make their own pizza and what it really is like to run a business on site students practice sewing skills and design their own patent Stitch we owe a big thank you to our Gilbert Fire Department for showing the campers and sharing about their jobs and how the fir Truck Works we got to learn some more important work of our own husd maintenance team and to see what they do to keep our schools operational safe and looking amazing finally our students learned some more important careers at the airport through our field trip to the Mesa Gateway Airport the pre even prepared for this trip with a little bit of their security training each grade attended this field trip for the behind the-scenes tour of what happens to our luggage visiting in a hanger and those important safety protocols that actually happened on the tarmac in addition to Kids Club Community Education also offers after school enrichment clubs in courses for Elementary and secondary students these site specific opportunities are led by District employees mostly our teachers who want to extend those educational opportunities outside the regular school day throughout the year our fabulous husd staff provides enrichment courses and camps showcased here are Mrs Leatherby's Mandarin Thrive class over the summer exploring the Wall of China through 3D virtual Quest and her Mandarin summer fund students Mrs paa over at Power Ranch provides a creative Club she also leads a slime club for the students after school as well also highlighted on this slide is Miss Schmidt from cornado elementary and her wooo Club performing at the husd Chinese New Year our higgle Youth Sports league is a Recreational Sports League that offers basketball soccer volleyball flag football baseball and cheer our focus of hysl includes player develop ment skill building teamwork and fun Power Ranch Elementary is our current site that hosts hysl on Saturdays we also have Monday evening basketball our cheer season for K through six practices from October to march with a showcase to wrap up the season hysl coaches include District staff and many amazing parent volunteers to whom we are incredibly grateful so we're always looking for coaches so let me put a little plug in to our community we do need you so reach out if you are interested in coaching sports for next year for hysl as I mentioned hysl Al also offer also offers an inclusive chair program at each of our elementary schools from K through six we had our largest turnout this season with 416 cheerleaders our showcase was hosted at the end of the year at Higley High School on February 28th in addition to our cheer leaders and their families our awesome coaches we wanted to recognize the higgle High varsity cheer team the JV palm and our Higley instrumental Association for participating in this event speaking of a good turnout as you can see our registration in community ed education program has increased over the last three years the mission of husd Community Education is to provide quality affordable academic recreational and enrichment programs to all and we challenge to inspire all me members of our growing and diverse Community we continue to work hard into to achieve that mission we also had some fun organizing our own little District employee in chural League which supports a healthy Higley initiative so far we have hosted softball volleyball and we're getting ready to kick off our husd Olympics this quarter we've got ideas to bring some employee yoga and Hiking soon so stay tuned to learn more as we continue to expand those opportunities for our employees Community Education believes investing back into our schools we have act we have actively pursued grants to help fund some major projects over the last year $600,000 of grant money was utilized to upgrade playgrounds at various elementary schools shown here are the upgrades of the rubberized chips on Coronado's playground the obstacle course that we helped fund at chapparel repairs to a climbing structure at Bridges Elementary and swings interactive panels rubberized mulch to the Kinder and the first through six play areas at Cortina as we speak the HTA kinderg ground playground is getting a much needed makeover as well so finally I want to highlight our staff since 2021 we have also grown from 74 employees to 160 many of these employees include husd student workers from Higley High and williamsfield we provide a learning experience for these students as they imply interview and on board within Community Education for many this is their first job so we want to help them learn grow and be their very best for our husd students and families that we serve I invited two of them to briefly highlight their experiences so at this time I'd like to introduce to our kids club and hysl staff Mr Jared and Mr [Applause] Rigden good evening my name is Jared Gunnell and I've been working here since October 2021 I started out just doing kids club and at the beginning of this school year I started coaching for hysl sports leagues um I love kids club but coaching really is the most rewarding part of the what I do seeing these kids over come little stuff like shooting a basketball from a certain spot or seeing them progress through the season learning different ways to improve themselves and build up their teammates while being a good sport the whole way our program has brought students together who otherwise wouldn't have got an opportunity to meet each other become friends and uh one of the most touching things I've seen being a part of community ed was a student who really struggled um with his confidence in shooting the ball um one of our most recent games he it was the first possession of the game he just pulled up from the three-point line drained it over like the biggest Defender it was it was awesome um it was really great to see how how his demeanor changed and and how his teammates like rallied behind him and and uh it's really inspiring to see uh this job has open my eyes to education in general and has inspired me to further myself and pursue teaching um thank you for the opportunity to speak about my experience this evening and being a part of Community Ed hi my name is ricken Owens I'm 18 and I'm a senior at hickley uh on June 17th of this year it'll be my official second year working for kids club uh in these two years I have hands down transitioned into a way better person uh I walked into this District terrified uh not even able to hold myself up uh and I just not even knowing how to talk to an adult uh this job has forced me to embrace the things I never wanted to do like public speaking uh major leadership roles and relationship building with kids club being my only ever job I've ever had I've had so much work experience here over our summer at the movies uh Camp my job was to be an usher I greeted families uh helped kids get to where they needed to be with the fun themes of Camp we've also had themed job titles to match it during fall camp we had fun at the farm I was a farmand and held set up in the morning field trip organizing and just anything that was needed this job has taught me many things going into real life besides those very real resume building things I have also learned valuable lessons whether that is how to hold an adult conversation CPR teamwork and lastly to understand how important jobs with kids truly are this job has truly shown me that we workers make a difference in these kids' lives sometimes we are only their we're their only examples and that is truly terrifying but while that is terrifying it's also amazing to know that I have a purpose and create an impact lastly I want to say thanks to Kim and bell for creating a program that not only allows these kids to have fun and learn but that allow for workers to flourish and learn thank you and we also have a little guest speaker from chaperel come on up Miss Ken would like to share some words as well thank you hi my name is Ken banon and I'm in second grade at chaperel elementary I've been in kids club since kindergarten it is a fun way to make new friends learn new things and go on fun field trips during Camp all the teachers are so nice all the kids are learning while having fun I've even learned how to sew and crochet I brought a few examples of some projects I've did during camp and school first this is my I learned how to sew and crochet a button and uh do a cross stitch with that and I also brought one that I did from school which was um a rainbow coming out of a pot for St Patrick's Day that I finished at home because I didn't have enough time at kids club and my teachers are Miss Martha and Miss Debbie who taught me how to sew Miss NAA Mr Jared M Lisa Miss syia Miss Maddie Miss Cheyenne who just had her baby they all make kids club great I have known Miss Bon's kindergarten and she makes everything about kids club amazing and fun kids club helps me have fun till my mom gets off of work thank you so much for letting me share What I Love About Kids [Applause] Club so as we look forward to summer in the 2024 and 2025 school year we wanted to remind our community that summer C camp registration is open our theme for this summer is cruising through the decades and that includes a celebration of American pop culture we want to share that kids club rates and fees will remain the same for the 2024 2025 school year and that being said as a part of our ongoing commitment to providing high quality programming we will be researching some rates at our neighboring districts in May propose a rate increase to the board for 2025 2026 school year so I'd like to close by thanking our community for your continued support in a role that Community Education plays in our district and I happy to answer any questions if you have some thank [Applause] you phenomenal work thank you for sharing all that with us um Jared and Rigden the is correct well done and and welcome to working through your fears and working with kids you grew up a lot I do want to say you are appreciated more than you could probably ever know because just as you have the butterflies in your stomach each day probably at least at the beginning so do the parents um my kiddos went be before school or after school and in the summer um it's a life-changing experience and you guys and all that you work with really do help these children to feel comfortable being away during the summer and missing their parents and helping the parents to just keep on and know that they're in great hands so thank you thank you everyone thank you okay um moving on to information item 6.2 Mrs Johnson you have information about benefits tonight president president Anderson members of the board um I'd like to invite um both my benefits manager Miss Isabelle and um Miss Jennifer Sherman up to the podium they're going to help me with this presentation tonight and I can't top that I just there's no way oh wow what work they're what great work they're doing with our kids this is awesome and our new employees right up and coming so tonight we're going to talk about a benefit update and and this is the schedule of benefits for our employees that they will have choices three different choices and you can see the costs are there as well and the monthly cost in uh is across the board so this year we experienced an average of 6% increase to the employee benefits the district husd will be covering that cost uh for the employee the only group if an employee chooses to stay on the choice 500 they will see an increase of approximately $593 per month for their own health care so a very minimal cost to our employees this year and there are no increases to the dependent or the uh the dependent coverage for this coming year next I'm clicking I got it got it so we have next is the uh on celery uh the voluntary benefits that people can select or employees can select you will see that there are some increases to both the Delta Dental and the total Dental administrators at a rate of three and 4% respectively the one new thing that we were able to negotiate this year if you look under the metti um this is our uh short-term disability policy in the past an employee had to exhaust all of their General leave before they could tap into this benefit even if they had purchased it and everything and paid the premiums now that will no longer happen they are eligible at the time of when the short-term disability kicks in so they will be able to use their General leave to offset um uh their missing work and then also they would get their short-term disability payment as well so that was thanks to kyus this year we negotiated that with them and they went to metti for us and said hey we want this and this is a great change for our employees who choose short-term disability next I am going to let Jennifer talk about this new addition of the nurse Navigator program okay uh kyos had instituted a program called nurse Navigator program um I think it's going on four years ago now and have had um incredible experience great opportunity for savings but more importantly also improve improved outcomes for members um some of the areas in which the nurses get involved with the membership include on the page that you see in front of you helping to find in network providers we know um as the industry faces Financial struggles those provider networks are shrinking so our nurses are available to help people find the right doctor at the right time um help with prior authorizations we know sometimes people struggle to get the paperwork and the steps push through the system for those prior offs so the nurses help push that along um post discharge Outreach reach from a hospitalization the nurses oftentimes May reach out to the members to make sure they understand their um treatment plan and have access to their um Pharmaceuticals that they need and um all other things to help them get better care coordination is another way that they get involved just general how can we help you manage your Care Mental Health support a year ago we actually realized um and invested in a mental health focused nurse so our team is made up of five nurses today we're looking to hire another nurse one of those nurses does have a mental health focus and she is specific Ally in place today to help members find access to counselors which again we've seen postco has been a struggle for people to find um they help with coordination of EAP again um assistance with mental health support they do claims review and monitoring so oftentimes members will um have say a hospitalization and they receive a myriad of bills and statements and they're you know concerned about what do I pay what do I not pay what's my responsib ility we immediately get them in touch with the nurses and often times we find that sometimes there's double billing or something of the sort and we work with the healthcare providers to fix those processes and refund the money to the members um resolution of questions and concerns again there really isn't an option for the nurses to say no they're there to provide a service and to support our membership so very service oriented they're there to help in many ways even going as far as helping people find um access to food banks if they can't afford groceries versus prescription drugs we're going to try and eliminate all of those barriers to care and finally prescription support um for anybody that's had a new prescription medication you know sometimes it's challenging to understand why the costs are so high how much do you have to pay before you can pick up your medication those nurses have helped many members apply for prescription assistance funds and the like so they're available for that level of support additionally um within the Navigator program one of the ways that they help with Administration is they are doing claims data review so say for example we'll see high cost claimants and we do meet with Higley on a regular basis and review those claims sometimes we'll see a claim that comes through and it does seem egregious in the amount that it's being built and those nurses are diving in to find out why is that cost so high for a procedure when we can see benchmarked it shouldn't be that high of a cost identification of lower cost service options so they are firsts in pulling data out of a claim system and being able to say well it looks like if you go to this place of care you would experience maybe this type of payment option for a service versus going to that type of care one of the biggest resources that we found is helping to move people out of the hospital system when possible for services like labs and x-rays and advanced scans if we can send you to a freestanding facility we know it'll help save money for the member and for the plan monitoring of high cost in RX and Medical Treatments we we talked about that already monitoring for claims inconsistencies I kind of stole my own Thunder there and finally worksman workman's comp is another area that we have found a lot of success oftentimes members when they have a workman's comp claim they may not even just talk to the HR people or follow the right processes and they go to their doctor and give their insurance card well we are able to look at those claims and realize that might be a workers's comp injury and reverse those claims out of the health plan budget and push it over to workers comp it should be placed um new this year to chyos we're very excited and we think we're going to have tremendous um support for our membership is a program called Kum Health Kum is something referred to as a center of excellence Kum actually works with providers Nationwide whoops to find the best type of provider for certain types of procedures and you can see on that page um the procedures include cardiovascular care major Orthopedic procedures and some Cancer Care but if we do find somebody that qualifies for those types of procedures we're able to connect them with Kum and Kum is able to connect them to centers of excellence or the top quality providers in the area and sometimes not even in the area maybe in another state to receive that care if they if the members choose to work with a car and provider we know that those costs are a bundled charge and they're much less to the Higley Health Plan um their managed costs and the member actually has access to that care if they're on a PO plan they pay zero for that care if you think about average cost for a hip replacement a knee replacement or worse cancer treatment um to be able to provide those provide those services at zero cost is really a powerful thing for our membership we're very excited to be able to provide that solution um if a member was on a high deductible health plan because of IRS regulations they will have to meet their portion of the deductible which in this case the IRS requires $1,600 but once they meet that then zero cost for the remainder of that care this is a voluntary program as I mentioned before it's available to anybody that is enrolled in the plan that includes active participants as well as Cobra enroles take a moment to brag a little bit because last year Isabelle our benefits manager put together an awesome program to go out and service every employee at the sites one onone and her and her one other person Valerie are going to head out and do it again and so that open enrollment for our district begins April 22nd and through May 10th there it will be a passive enrollment but yet there will still be available to everyone one-on-one support if they need it they can sign up we have a EGU and a guide book that between those two women up there have put together and we'll work with our employees to make a selection over that time frame I'm really excited about um the service that we provide and hoping that our employees will make some great selections for their health care and the next one is questions for myself or for our guests president Schultz I'm sorry president Anderson um I just wanted to know if there's any uh risks associated with being self-insured yes ma'am anytime um an employer is building a Health Plan there's risk associated so risk if you're fully insured or self-funded um this is not a one um easy conversation to make those decisions um as we started talking with Higley and the team we did go through a thorough analysis of Financial claims and also provider Network benefits and we're able to determine in making that move that not only were we able to provide a comparable if not better solution and service options but also were able to save the district approximately $1 million in the first year embedded in the self-insurance product if you will we have a a solution called stop-loss protection so that just means that any high cost claimants that hit the plan there is a threshold at which those claims go up to a certain level and then the stop-loss or the reinsurance carrier picks up that additional risk so we do feel confident and we do have evidence after the first um year and change with Higley that we have demonstrated that that stoploss has actually been effective and the plan has still been able to save money over that fully insured platform I hope that answers thank you so much yeah no other questions all right thank you very thorough and I appreciate the information that you shared tonight thank you um next we have item 6.3 um well several items that we'll hear from Mr Walker good evening president Anderson members of the board um 6.3 first read for EBC emergencies um we're bringing forward a recommendation that miror language from ars1 15- 341 that just includes language that emergency response plans uh includes how to communicate and provide assistance to students with disabilities there any questions or comments any additions okay thank you Mr would you like to take us into 6.4 on the JKD student suspension I'd love to 6.4 and 6.5 um they both have the same statutory requirement update um that's um revised the K4 suspension um stipulation uh that was passed two years ago in legislation it's been since updated um it provides some language that the suspension for students in grades K through four um cannot exceed uh two consecutive days or an aggregate total of 10 days throughout the school year um prior to that there was a Prohibition on suspend ion in grades K through 4 um and then students under the age of seven there was a complete prohibition without any circumstances other than a firearm and so the firearm uh expulsion requirement has just been added to this policy um it's already existed elsewhere but it's just been included in uh both JKD and jke so you'll see the same language updated in both policies JKD is student suspension and jke is student expulsion no comments or questions thank you uh do you want to roll through 6.5 as well or do we feel like we covered both without a doubt I'd be happy to do that so 6.6 uh jlh jlh is policy missing students um the title is a bit misleading what that policy in regards to is the administrative uh window for School requirements uh it stems from HB 2060 that Chang as a result of ars1 15-8 28 it increases the window of time from 5 days to 10 days to request um records from students coming from a different school or school district and that was borne out of uh the request through legislation to reduce the administrative burden and give more time to process the documentation so again statutory language just mirroring what's in the statute thank you all right item 6.7 review of the fiscal year 2023 classroom SP Report with Mr Moore please good evening president Anderson uh members of the board tonight I'm bringing forth the uh FY 23 classroom spending report uh this is a request from the board to review and so I'm presenting that tonight so if we go to the next slide uh very short presentation but I'm actually going to take you to the link but I wanted to provide a little background on on how this report came about and uh why the auditor general does it so annually the auditor general takes our annual Financial report and puts it um and compiles it into a classroom spending report and that's what we'll go through in a second um this was introduced um in statute um and started back in 2001 so this practice has been going on for about 23 years um and so uh again the auditor general is completely independent of the district they take our financials and then U provide an analysis um and this link uh that we're going to go to right now is public link that any uh Community member board member or um uh staff can can go to and so uh this is what our uh higly unified classroom spending report looks like again this is based off our fiscal year 2023 annual financial report so that was uh the year encompassing july1 2022 through June 30 2023 and so I have a few highlights I'm not going to go line by line in this report um but a few highlights uh on how we fared across um our peer groups as well as as our district so first and foremost um I think the big uh thing that that comes across right the big piece of the pie is instruction um we uh across the board um have one of the highest levels of uh expenditures in instruction and I do want to clarify this is all expenditures this isn't just m or one sort of bucket this is all expenditures um compiled into this report and so when you take all our expenditures um 60.7% of those fall into that instructional category um that is 7.6% above our peer groups and about 10.8% above our lowest member in our peer group uh and you can see how uh we've kind of fared on the bottom there across prior year we've actually increased over La over fiscal year 2022 from 59% to 60.7 moving down the page keep going a little bit farther the auditor general right here the auditor general also analyzes um percentage Point spending by area as well as per student spending by area um each one of these areas kind of uh again resembles all expenditures but um you can see from uh year to year um our expenditures in in instruction have increased as well as student support and instructional support and just to remind the board what those categories kind of entail uh instructional support instruction is pretty obvious that's our teachers our classroom supplies um everything that is involved in providing instruction to our to our students instructional support is our Librarians teacher training curriculum development um special education media Specialists and instructional related technology um and you can see that was up over last year um or excuse me to student that's student sport um student support is up over last year I got this wrong student support is up 1.4% that includes counselors speech pathologists nurses social workers and attendance services our instructional support is about level or flat um our Administration is down over last year over fy22 excuse me plant operations are down food services slightly down and trans transportation is relatively flat um looking on the right graph you'll see again comparison per student spending by area um pretty much increases across the board um a lot of that is derived from our our budgetary um numbers and our again our total expenditures increasing from fiscal 22 to 23 the one area again I want to point out food services down uh the the main reason that is down is because Co relief funding um in 22 co uh meals were free the federal government issued a a memorandum that had meals be free and so in 23 that expired and so you'll see that expenditures not every student was now eligible for meals so we spent a lot less money um in that food service category if we scroll down the page please we'll look at operational efficiency measures um again this graphic um takes our operation categories measures them against um the state average our peer average and then you can see our district average and so um across the board I think we farare very well um amongst our peer averages so Administration um just for example the state average uh per student is $127 um our peer average again that's peer districts who have similar ADM or or student uh size is is $1,116 per student and whereas higgle is under $1,000 and again I've I've I think I've mentioned this to the board but we operate very lean in our Administration and it's resembled in this independent report you'll see student per administrative position uh Higley is 81 um 81 uh per student so whereas our peer average is 65 and so it just tells you how many more students our administrators are are basically handling on a case-by casee basis and so that's where you get the spending relative to peer group average on very low um some of the other highlights um kind of again with food service um some of the reasons we track very low uh a lot of this kind of depicts on our our demographics um we are not a high freeing reduced population and so um coincidentally we don't have a lot of those High meal costs because we're not providing a lot of free meals and so um being you know some of this is demographic based and you can kind of um grasp some of that information off of this page um when you look against some of our peer districts who have very vastly different demographics um they'll have a lot of high spending in food service and transportation where maybe those families don't have the means to provide or send their student with a a meal from home or the transportation to drop their student off they utilize the school bus uh or the the Food Service meals that the district provides and so that's where you see kind of Transportation Food Service trending very low in our district some of that's demographic based if we scroll down the page keep going right here so we'll look at scroll back up just slightly there we go so this is average teacher salary um this has been an emphasis by the auditor general ever since the uh 20 X20 plan and to really track and um highlight some of the efforts that districts are doing across um teacher pay um you'll see our teacher pay our average teacher salary is 66,000 um and they actually break out the exact amount from classroom site fund again that's averaged um across all our teachers so when when you see our amounts on our um salary schedules um you have to take keep in mind when you average that across pro-rated teachers who who work part-time and full-time teachers a lot a lot of times that number will be lower than what is listed on the our salary schedule because it's averaged over a mean of of all our teachers so some of the highlights um I think we're $3,800 above the state average um on a on a average teacher pay um just three years ago you'll see a graphing at set we were below the state average so um kud so the govering board and the district for for making uh vast strides and getting to a competitive Point um in terms of teacher pay our average years of teacher experience is 10 years um next year we'll actually um um have a a TI teacher experience index um uh boost on our on our budget very small but we have now kind of creeped up into the area of U meeting um kind of the average or just above the average teacher experience uh amongst districts and so that means we have a a larger experienced teacher staff um and so we're not we're not the young higgle anymore we are we are uh we are growing up to some extent um and so it's represent here you'll see our average years of teacher experience 10 years so um they do they did a new comparison this year with um first year teachers within their three years and then teachers four years or later um you I could have told you how that would that would have paired out you know younger teachers generally have less experience um whereas teachers you know four years or greater have more experience which is why their pay is is is slightly different in that sense um if you move down the page this is a graphic here that where I was um alluding to where we were below the state average in 2020 and so if you look at the line um that's that's going across the page that's the state average for teacher salary the pink amount is the amount from other funds so for the most part that's M um and the gray amount is the amount from classroom site fund monies um that supports that teacher pay amount so um you can see as of 2021 uh we exceeded that that state um average teacher salary and now we are well above that that Mark um and and regarded as one of the the higher paying districts for teacher pay um amongst not only our peers but um nk12 education Arizona so again um I do want to highlight though that gray amount within that that bar graph um you can see a large majority is coming from that classroom site fund and so that six cent sales tax um does play important role in and again um not only supporting the level of teacher pay that we're at now but also increasing it and so um a lot of factors go into that number and and it's it's the illustration I couldn't created a better graph so this is why we're we're looking at the uh AUD jour's website because I think it's Illustrated well here if we scroll down um keep going down the the two years ago um they added um if you scroll up just a little bit so we can just scroll up a little more there we go okay they added a student achievement section um and again I think it's no secret that higgle is an overall um High achieving District um and again it's represented here not only um so you can see our district represented in the gold and our peer groups represented in in dark blue and then Statewide represented in light blue and so um you know it's not just me telling you we're High achieving that the data in auditor general is is um showing the the data that that this district is Contin continually achieving above not only state average but our peer groups um and several of the categories such as math English Ela and Science and so um with that I'll be happy to take any questions but again this report is on the audit journal's website it is a public report um and anybody has access to go view it and do a deep dive into the data president Anderson Mr Moore I just want to go back to the portion where it shows the student per teacher and that we are averaging about 17 18 students per teacher yeah I mean the footnote there right right below it um that is divided by the total number of certified teachers um and that includes specials Arts music physical Ed um so when you take in a lot of those classes when you go to a high school PE class that you're going to see very high but when you look at some of our specials they Trend below um 20 kids for student so um again it's averages it's hard to depict that as um you know general education you also have special education in there which are are a lot lower than 17 um so just keep that in mind thank you thank you um if we can scroll back up to where you were at the beginning talking about the percentage Point change in spending area um when you went over it we were on the fiveyear comparison so I just want to show that we can toggle that to the one-year comparison oh I'm sorry that's okay just look a little different that's all and then again Open Access so anybody can sit there and toggle between the years and and look got it but this um this has changed over the years too it's definitely more detailed and have more data which is so nice to see and then you can look at other districts sneak into theirs and um it's just not limited to everybody there any questions or comments okay thank you Mr Moore um next we're going to move on to information item 6.8 the citizens committee recommendation oh Mr MO is back on yes uh good evening president andon members of the board T I'm going do my best to uh present a summary of the citizens committee process um I want to I'll get into it a second but um so again I just want to remind the board about the citizens committee um again it was uh an item brought forward from myself to the board to um kind of change the process and how we've called for elections um in the past and so um there is several community members as as well as um uh individuals in our district um that wanted a more uh involved process and so this was my um recommendation to try to um achieve that result and so again we um brought forth uh this this um notion um all meetings um were open to the public information from each meeting and the minutes are all available on our website um or thanks to our PR team been uh doing a great job of keeping that updated as the meetings have uh transpired as well as uh any of the minutes being approved so um if I don't do a good job of summar of this you can go and do a deep dive into each one of those meetings just to highlight the the timeline so again I brought forth this recommendation on November 15th uh the governing board approved that recommendation the district received about 80 applications for this um and as a reminder um each governing board member got to nominate an individual as well as well as the District administration um Pick 10 at large from those um 80 applicants so um the series of five citizens committee meetings occurred between January and March um there was five meetings um I tried to stick within an hour but there was a lot of questions there was a lot of good questions um there's a lot of information to cover and so I think cumulative we spent about 10 probably 10 to 11 hours and I don't know what individual time each member spent but um between these five meetings tonight I'm presenting um the committee's recommendation um again doing my best to summarize that process um I do want to highlight though tonight's recommend is just to the approval of this on a later agenda item is just to give me direction to bring forth a formal resolution so those who've been through the election process Miss Reese understand that the this is not a a resolution to call for an election this is a recommendation from the committee I will still need to bring back a resolution um drafted by an attorney um that officially calls for the election and so that will take place on the May 8th meeting pending um the board's decision tonight so um just want to highlight the citizens committee um I know a few are in the audence and maybe they can stand up um I appreciate you know all their time that they spent um maybe we can give them a round request um I I appreciate all the time they spent in in not only just willingly coming to to learn about this um but but being deeply involved in it um asking a lot of questions um and again I feel like the recommendation tonight um is expression of the committee as a whole um I do want to note Jennifer Newton has missed the first meeting and then at the second meeting she did um indicate that she would not want to be involved in the meeting and so the committee voted to just not fill that position so ultimately we went forward with 14 members uh not 15 so all right so let's get a highlight of the committee meeting process so meeting number one um I presented the the same school Finance 101 uh presentation that I've done to the governing board um that present that presentation covered a high level um uh information about school funding formula and how H HC calculates its budget also at the meeting uh we discussed the M override history this is a snippet of the of the history um it just represents the snapshot of the last three years but the full timeline is actually on our website um that timeline dates back to 2003 when Higley first passed an M override and at that time that was a 10% override but I do want to highlight so this graph shows currently we are fully funded in through fiscal 25 I've mentioned that in my budget presentations um in 26 and 27 uh there's a phase down while it's a seven-year authorization there's only five years of fully funding and so again if um again pending the board's decision to move forward with an election um and that it passes on a ballot we would proceed into that 26 um phase down period that' be phase one and that' be a reduction of 33% of that override and then again pending any uh uh further elections um in 27 that' be a phase two down phase two and that would be 66% reduction and then if we get to 28 with no uh ballot initiative passed to continue this override that would be completely phased down and just for note that was $13.1 Million on our last budget um adopted Budget on meeting number two um we had applied economics uh in and do a updated demographic and enrollment analysis report um again the committee also recommended of High Ground Consulting conduct a registered voter survey uh I'll cover that in uh meeting number four when the survey results um when I actually have the survey of results in here but just to um give some preference on the applied economics demographic report uh semiannually the district does a deeper dive into our demographics um by way of third party Dem graphic report so applied economics is one of the the state's best demographers or demographers um and this data in this report represents um what they presented snippit from what they presented to the committee and so looking at the first graph on the screen this shows history back um from 40th Day headcount back to 20201 um on the uh on the blurb to the right you can actually see that enrollment Skyrocket from f th000 students uh in 200201 to nearly 10,000 students in 2010 to 2011 uh that was the period in which Higley went through a hyper growth phase um that represented a compounding annual growth of 30% um even despite the Great Recession and so during that phase a lot of our schools our elementaries were built in that time and funded by sfb because of that growth number now uh looking at the current year you can see our growth has kind of leveled off um and we'll jump to the next slide where I've uh looking at the detail by grade and so looking at grades K2 represented in red 35 represented in purple and 68 representing green as well as 912 represent in blue um as I've highlighted to the board of my budget presentations we've seen um at most recent the last couple years a decline in elementary education or education enrollment and that is representing that the red graph as well as the purple graph where you can see over the last couple years ever since Co we've seen a steady steady decline in those numbers on the flip side you can see cohorts in grade 68 912 as I've mentioned have seen an increase um and with 912 Contin Contin continuing to see a steady increase ever since uh 2016 2017 now I don't expect you to read this um verbatim but I'm going highlight the bottom kind of cell that I have highlighted there in the in the light blue um this is a deeper dive into the numbers um but I think it provides some context and some important um information to the board so uh the First Column reading left to right so the First Column uh represents our fiscal year pretty self-explanatory there the second column is our total households within the district boundaries so it's 30 1 133 and so you'll see that number continually increasing over the course of that timeline um as we've been as our 24 square miles that continues to be built out right we still we continue to see housing developments um but that land is starting to level off like we're starting to see some of those not as much vacant land within our district and so we'll uh anticipate seeing that level off on the third column is the total number of school age students within our boundaries and so that is represented at 23,24 the fifth column represents the percentage of households that have school age population students which is 74% so that means three out of four houses have a school age population student in them on average which is very high that is that is extremely high um looking at our enrollment uh column six uh that is our 40th Day head count again 12,920 you take the enrollment number divided by the total number of households and that gives you column s the percentage of households that have Higley students so again that's the percentage of households that have Higley students that's 41.5% column h8 shows the net difference of higgle enrollment versus a total school age population at 10,327 which would be a capture rate of 55.6% however you have to back out column 9 which is the out of District enrollment which represents [Music] 1839 and that determines our true capture rate which we take column 10 the district enrollment of 11,81 divided by the total school age population to get again a true capture rate of 47.7% so we in our 24 square miles out of the total eligible uh school age population of students we capture 47% choose Higley um and again that shows really our our competition right we we know that we have Charters across the street we have um Gilbert Christian right we have a lot of competition within 24 square miles and so that's it's um showcased in this in this number right here moving to number committee uh meeting number three um at this meeting we reviewed the current M override uh and the capital needs of the district um the M override was briefly discussed at the committee as I think the majority of the committee understood what it was already supporting um and so there's limited discussion on the override but I did provide the bullet points again as a reminder for the the governing board the majority of the time was spent on the capital needs and the proposed projects of the district um these were presented the committee and the complete detail can again be found on our website to summarize the 12.8 million for safety security and Technology Improvement represents a continued investment into security cameras classroom technology including display panels student devices and network infrastructure to support these devices the 25 million in essential maintenance projects represents the ongoing maintenance needs of the district for the next five years the committee reviewed the district's 5-year Capital plan which indicated replacement cost for life cycle items across the district including Roofing flooring weatherization HV in playgrounds on the next slide I'll cover the let me go back on the next slide there's the next slide but I'll cover the 40.3 million campus improvements but on the the 5 million allocated for buses the current a average age of our Fleet is 12.4 years um we have 27 buses over 15 years and two over 20 years and so um that number indicates a level that uh about three buses three to four buses per year uh to help us keep up with the Aging Fleet uh of our transportation so like I said the 40.3 million in campus improvements was spread across the two High School District or two high schools uh first looking at Higley High School the campus uh front lobby um does not have a necessary feature to Total secure the lobby which include um restrooms there's no public restroom so if it uh guest is visiting they have to be let into the campus uh whereas all our elementaries and our middle schools have restrooms uh where guests do not need to enter our campus to be to use a restroom number two and number three um well I want say the rest of this list um the main theme for the next six items relates to the school outgrowing its original design um higle high was built in 2001 which makes the school 23 years old uh with drastically different enrollment numbers from when the school was originally built and so again these these next six items reflect a lot of The Growing Pains that has occurred um during the course of that time so number two and number three would be relocating the ten courts to make room for additional parking to support not only the student population um but also the htpa as well as various events at the the Higley High host number four is addressing the Fieldhouse which was built in 2010 when the rollment was half of what it is now the plan would be to expand the Fieldhouse not replace it um at that time that uh the district Higley High was in a 3A um uh category in terms of AAA Sports which is we are now 6A uh again doubling in size in terms of our participation in athletic sports um creating some safety concerns with the the Fieldhouse and the capacity in which it can house students safely um as well as staff number five is addressing the practice fields um these these high school campuses are used almost 247 um as practice fields are not lit um so by lighting them it would allow for greater use for not only our um uh sports teams um but also for rentals um number six again addressing capacity issues would be expanding the bleachers to allow more occupants for events um our bleachers do not cannot even hold the entire capacity of our student body um is Mr field still yeah he is but um he has to multiple sessions when doing um any sort of um districtwide or Stu or schoolwide um student body presentations Etc as well as our games if you've ever been to a football game or any sort of event um those fill up rather quickly number seven is a carryover from the previous bond proposal but again addresses the lack of capacity within the gym facility and it looks to expand that uh gym again was built in 2001 to allow additional op options for the campus so again allowing for potential to host a stu a whole entire student body um events um allowing for the potential to host AIA events um we have outgrown that facility on the flip side looking at williamfield you'll see a lot of the same um themes um again our high schools have outgrown um the current um footprint of where they when they're originally built um the first the number one item is moving the transportation facility um you can see on the bottom of the screen Transportation facility takes up a majority of the that williamsfield high school campus um approximately eight Acres the district does have a vacant piece of land um behind Target and which um currently we do have the intention of building a new school um is perfectly uh zoned essentially for industrial um and so utilizing that vacant piece of land by moving the the transportation facility will open um Williams Field's campus up for additional options um which include number two U much like we did at Higley High School William fill the Z and capacity and there a need for a classroom addition um so that would be number two number three again Williamsville has the same issues Higgly high in regards to the front lobby um there's no no public restroom in that front lobby so when again guests or parents or anybody visiting that campus um needs to use the restroom they need to be let into the campus which prevent which opens up a safety concern number four includes moving the tennis courts and S volleyball courts to make space for number five which is an additional practice field if you look at uh williamsfield versus Higley um Higley has some additional options for practice field space um williamsfield does not that main field gets used 247 that is lit and so by moving those two u 10 scor and St volleyball courts to potentially where the transportation facility was um it does open that campus up to provide additional practice space for the sports that take place um and have to share space currently between football band soccer um Etc so uh gives that campus a little more flexibility and um allows them to bre a little number six again addressing capacity issues is again the bleacher expansion um again these were original bleachers that were built when the school was adopted and so um looking at our enrollment numbers we've greatly um outgrown that original capacity and again number seven much like Higley focused on renovating that gym to provide a space um to um allow additional capacity for various events not only their their sports teams now um but also hosting events um and then utilizing um that gym space in a a more effective manner again to host maybe student body um uh pep rallies Etc so that summarized meeting number three meeting number four the committee toured Higley Traditional Academy I want to thank I know she's not here but Miss Bacon uh she provided that to her um along with u Miss day um and gave us a quick tour of Higley Traditional Academy as one of our oldest schools in the district we have some buildings on that facility from the 1980s um in addition High Ground Consulting reviewed the registered voter survey results which I'll cover in a second and then the district presented the capital funding calculation showing the deficit in capital funding to maintain the current capital needs this was at request of the committee and so uh you'll see the the capital funding deficit calculation below what this shows is are major maintenance totals um across from fiscal year 25 which would be next year to 29 um this is based on life cycle replacement timelines so for example um within that 8 million there'd be several weatherization and flooring projects because at year 15 that is the general timeline in which you you replace flooring HVAC units are General um chillers are big um chillers and and cooling towers those are on a 20e cycle so those would be we we track that as a district and those would be we have a we have a realist or we have a should say realist we have an optimistic time in which we should replace those and then often times um we are kicking that can down the down the street because of budget constraints which is represented in the line number two uh approximately 16% of our capital budget is for maintenance needs and later on the agenda you'll see our capital budget there there's not a lot of Wiggle room um in terms of adding additional budget capacity to that um and so if you take that our annual maintenance capital budget that is provided by the state of 850,000 and we maintain that 16% um you'll see the deficit that we continue to track um year over-ear U by not replacing those items on the time in which uh they should be replace based on their useful life um so then we get instances where um for example High we went well beyond its weatherization exterior painting and so you know that that campus looked horrible and so we have flooring that has duct tape on it we have several instances where items are being stretched pel use for life and so um in a perfect world we would be able to replace those at the time in which those expired um but realistically we have been unable to keep up with those needs and um right now we are realizing all those needs at once because of of that hyper growth in 2006 and 2007 so all right jumping into the survey results again I mentioned in meeting to that the committee chose to move forward with a a survey of our registered voters um High Ground conducted the survey among amongst 400 likely voters from February 5th through February 12th the margin of error um according to high ground for a survey like this is plus or minus 5% um and so so what in his experience you can take these results uh to the November election and be within Plus or plus or minus 5% and so um I've snipped a few of the survey questions that I felt reflected the the results but again on our website you can find the complete results of the survey um to start off the survey asked some general questions about K12 education in our local community and you can see it represented here um that in general the question was in general would you say that your local community is heading in the right direction or wrong direction um generally um 53.8% say that our local communityi is heading in the right direction 33% said totally wrong and then we had 13% that did not know or refus the answer you can see the demographics on the the bottom half of the slide um age demographics also with kids or without kids the survey also asked um some questions regarding K12 education on a national level um and so the question was in general would you say that K12 education new community is heading in the right direction or wrong direction and so you can see how the trend um on the national level is vastly different than our local um question so 37% said um totally right whereas 45.8% said totally wrong and so um the theme uh and what I garnered out of this was on the national the national narrative is is is a lot different than what's happening in our local community um amongst our registered voters again this is our registered voters again same demographics on the bottom again kids no kids and so getting into um some of the the tests against ouro override and a potential Bond um The High Ground um utilized one thing I want to point out they utilized the actual language that will have to be in the ballot and so I think that's important to note because um this language is is tough to read um it is not read well if you're not um familiar with school Finance or school overrides um but they did test that exact language that the district would have to use in a ballot and so uh the question asked shall the governing board if higly Unified School District adopt a general maintenance and operations budget that means override uh which includes an amount that exceeds the revenue control limits spec specified by Statute by 15% for fcal 25 26 and for six subse additional years um again knowing just what you know now would you vote yes or no on this budget continuation and so again this was considered the pre-test I'll explain the post test in a second but um with that question being asked you can see um across our registered voters and who was surveyed 47.8% said yes 41.2% said no um after the series of questions the survey participants were provided a few additional statements regarding possible reasons someone might support the override such as Higley unified as an a-rated and district and excels academically and the budget continuation is not a tax increase in addition the survey partici participants were also provided statements regarding possible reasons someone might not support the override such as schools in our uh country are out of control and deserve don't deserve another Penny of our taxpayer dollars and even discussing that Higley has had its fair share problems and shouldn't renew this funding until the district gets its act together so looking at the post test so again after the survey members were provided that information um and asked the same question again would you support the override um I'm not going to read it for btim but you can see after that information the the uh results fared a lot better in in the favor of the district so 61.1% said yes 30.9% said no and so um looking at the net changes of that you can see across all demographics with providing some of the additional context into what this is for um a little bit about Higley um it to the one to the individual surveyed um it had them um change their vote and change their mind into which way they were voting um the one interesting to me is the biggest change it was the 65 plus over 20% so again we did the same thing on the bond and again the bond question was shall hegle Unified District be authorized to issue and sell General obligation bonds of the school district in the form of classb General obligation Bonds in the principal amount not to 75 million at the time the committee had not finalized the recommendation so that was the number that was used um but for the purpose of raising monies for school safety renovation and repairs and monitorization other General Capital expenses so again knowing just what you know now would you vote yes or no on the bond looking at those results um surprisingly it fared um above 50% 58.3% said yes whereas 32.7% said no and we had about 9% that said don't know or refuse and again um the uh post test well here I'll show again um this was asked preest um in addition we also asked the survey individuals about several of the items that might be in the bond um and asked um regarding how would you vote on the general obligation Bond and pulled various categories such as these again we weren't finalized with the citizens committee recommendation yet so these categories um may not all be reflected in the final proposal but um I think it provides some interesting context for the board um again the scale was one from one to five uh one being not important at all two being not very important three being neutral four being somewhat important five being very important and so um School Safety and Security improvements um as well as hbac and air conditioning and security cameras all fared um extremely high in this um in this poll um you'll see as we make our way down the list um some of the things that did not farewell or were just above mean uh flooring transportation and maintenance facility as well as williamsfield monitorization and energy efficient lighting so interesting information um from our surveyed voters um again they were provided a a post test um they were also again provided statements uh that you might might hear as as reasons to support the bond and statements that you might hear as reasons to oppose uh the bond the bond proposal and so you can see this fared drastically different um than the override in terms of pre and post um this actually the post- tested um this fared worse on the post test once they knew once they were asked both of those um statements um supporting the bond and opposing the bond um looking at the the comparison the net changes um across the board prettyy much um well I wouldn't say across the board so interesting under 29 it actually increased um 30 to 39 it decreased and then 40 49 it increased but then the rest either remained flat or decreased in terms of that post once they receive that information again um whether those statements regarding support or oppose the bond so with that the final question um again was asked if both budget and continuation and bond issues were put on the ballot which of these opinions come close to your closest to your own and so they asked um I would likely vote Yes on both um that was 44.3% I would likely vote only for the budget continuation I would likely vote only for the bond and I would likely vote vote no on both and don't know refuse and so the continuation if you add likely vote Yes on both as well as the vote only for the budget continuation you can see has 63 63% support the bond is the total of the likely vot both on yes as well as the 7% and that is at 51.3% um yeah all right the last meeting um we met at Higley High School in the new um building Edition um I know several members got to tour that facility and I think Higgly tradition was fresh on their memory um and so I know um that was a drastic change in facility um uh space but the committee received a presentation from steel reviewing the potential tax implications of the proposed emo override and continuation as well as the bond proposal in addition the committee took a roll call vote at the end of the meeting um and voted to bring a proposal at and present kight to be brought forth to the board um a couple of the slides I want to highlight from the steel presentation and include um this this snippet of the graphic below um our statutory bonding capacity continues to increase um that part the main reason is our net full cash full cash assess valuation so our property values um continue to increase and I think it's no it's no secret if you get your your tax bill you'll see your your tax taxable amount on your residential home um is increasing um as well as the market rate is increasing um but it's important to note that um uh assess valuation um net full cast is used for bonding capacity um and then um there's a limited assess valuation which is used for your tax rate but the the main point on this um we have approximately um going into next year an estimate them at $328 million in bonding capacity you'll see the recommendation doesn't even come close to that um we have approximately as of 9124 61 million and outstanding Class B Bond debt so that is Bond debt that has been issued that we're still paying down um I'm not going to have you guys read through this slide but this is a example of a debt schedule that would be potentially approved or put into a a voter pamphlet um the main things I want to highlight um are on this next slide which include um some of the estimated tax impact for the current proposed 83.1 million um a residential property um you can see the reflection of the first um the first graph or chart $287,450 is the is our Gilbert um right now um average uh assessed value residential home so on the on the average um residential homeowner for for Gilbert for this bond proposal it would be an estimated average monthly cost of $761 an estimated average annual cost of $913 um for a estimated um uh total cost over the course of the the 20-year Bond of $2,110 48 that's on the notes to the right um I'm not going to go over commercial residential but they're they're assessed on a different tax basis and you can see their tax impact being higher than a residential family I'm Sorry Miss Reese okay so the recommendation um from the from the committee again I I mentioned earlier overwhelmingly I think the continuation that emo override um was was holistically uh a no-brainer for the committee I think everybody was in support of the M override and so um when I presented this U proposal to vote on for the board um this was indicated as item number one um because again this was um unanimous in terms of the committee's opinion to to continue um demino override um where we had a discussion and where the votes came in um different were on the bond recommendation and so um we brought forth three recommendations represented on the top graph was the full bond package that I presented tonight 2A that totals 83.1 million um 2B was also presented um this was a a conversation that we had to remove um some of those short um those items that have a short useful life such as technology um transportation buses so um those were removed um and that represents just essential maintenance and campus improvements or excuse me um campus improvements and Safety and Security I said that wrong they removed the central maintenance and left in safety security and campus improvements option 2C uh was no bond and just focus on the m&o override um for this upcoming election and so on the right there you can see how the votes um hand out so seven votes came in for option 2 a zero votes for 2B three votes for 2C um one emailed a vote for 2A I did not get to share that with the committee in time um but I didn't want to note that I did want to note that and three did not vote um or were not present at the time we took the vote and so um with that I do want to I do have a couple committee members that um I invited um who who asked to speak um and wanted to provide um their experience on the committee so I don't know who wants to go first Vanessa or Eric but if you want to hi good evening my name is Eric Brown I um I have three students in the district uh one in elementary one in middle school and one in high school uh one's in special ed one is in the gifted program and one attend EV it too so we have had all of the benefits of the public education in our family um in my day job I'm a assistant Public Works director for the town of gilber and I have a deep understanding of the disconnect between local government and the public and so I wanted to use my experience for the benefit of our students um by serving on this committee um as I'm responsible for utility services in Gilbert I have to find ways to pay for the increased cost to deliver those Services um to our community and I know that our professional staff can get Tunnel Vision on the needs to provide the service and they can forget that we have to inform our governing bodies of those needs and the public that ultimately has to pay for those so my job is to connect all those dots and so I wanted to do that here because I suspected that Higley might have that same problem based on the results of the last override and bond elections so I knew going into this process that there were funding needs in the district but my eyes were opened to how many um the team did a great job Tyler Gustavo did a great job um detailing how funding is allocated by the state and how the district uses the funds and you just saw all that today um and then they just showed us the budget shortfalls that are just um fundamentally built into the state formulas and I was really surprised by that um even though I thought I had a pretty decent understanding before I was on this committee um now there will always be a chorus of people that believe that the district the schools and the teachers can be more efficient and can do better with what they have and although I do believe in that call for efficiency I also know that a ream of paper can be a valuable commodity to a teacher I learned that higgle is doing a great job with the resources that they do have but that the structural funding problem cannot be solved by efficiency the override is funding is critical to sustaining the success of our students as an infrastructure nerd I looked very carefully at the capital projects that were proposed by the staff to make sure that they were needs and not wants the safety improvements the large facility maintenance improvements and the transportation proposal are all needs that will improve the educational environment for our students um so without these the experience will degrade for them and that is what convinced me that we should recommend the bond package as it was presented today even though I was initially skeptical um and lastly I just want to state that um we have a responsibility to convey to the voters what will happen with these additional funds but just as importantly what will not happen with them and what will be cut um because that course of efficiency will say that you can do it without them and that and a silent response will make their view the default that the voters have to be moved off of in order to support these proposals now I know that the district cannot Lobby on behalf of any of these things but you have to put out the straightforward message of what will happen and what will have to be cut in an educational way not in a lobbying way just so that the voters can be informed and have an educational decision before them with facts and not conjecture and not opinions by others I had a great time um I I will say Tyler needs a um a little bit of time management an hourong meeting turned into two and a half hour we all but it was because we dove into these into these issues um we even lamented the state funding and and um spent a few moments um wishing we could fix our state but then we had to focus back on continuing for Higley and I feel like we got there as a committee it was a great experience and thank you for for having this committee and for the suggestion that Tyler put out there and for for going forward with it so thank [Applause] you good evening I'm Vanessa Shephard I'm a wife I'm a Mom I'm a friend I can sometimes be somebody you might not like when I'm coming around doing inventory but I am privileged to be able to say that I live in this community I work in this community with the finance department and I'm the property control specialist I see things I'm underfoot and people don't even see me I hear conversations and I get to feel it's not just about the job I get to feel the people I get to go into the classrooms and see the students we volunteer for breakfast and lunch duty I think everyone here at Higley is dedicated to the real main root of why we're here is our students and just like we run our homes just like we run our businesses we we can't run them with love and just air it doesn't work like that so my role involves maintaining accurate records standing compliance performing moderate to complex clerical and Technical accounting functions related to property management and inventory control of the district's valuable assets but one thing I learned about community and the reason I joined the citizens committee was because I grew up in a community that work together we if you didn't have milk your neighbor had milk and you had corn you swapped it out that th those are old school values that never die and my parents actively participated in our community my father owned his own construction company where he helped design and build homes schools and fire departments my mother was employed by the Richland County School District for over 20 plus years and retired as the Director of parent education so choosing to get involved felt natural being on the committee has afforded me an opportunity to learn more about school funding and land use it's afforded me an opportunity to have a voice in decision making it shown me where to lend my talents and expertise with the children and to serve this community speaking honestly My overall experience with the committee and the group left me with many emotions sometimes I went home sad because we seem to be losing sight of our mission many of us were looking in the rearview mirror instead of using that big windshield in front of us to guide us to the bright and promising future ahead I was so ignorant and unaware to what an override was what a bond was prior to becoming part of the group PRI prior to coming to this committee and coming to the school district attending the asbo and and the the continuing education workshops and all of the things we have at our fingertips that give us a better Insight on why we do what we do I took advantage of everything I sometimes paid for my own classes just so I can understand something and you can't go into something not knowing what it is so I did my research on what a bond was what an override was and I did I thought I knew what it meant to have a budget or a school budget but I quickly got a love tap of Revelation that is not as simple as we think I did I'm going to be brave and say I did vote for both the override and the bond because I feel that if you're going to take a risk and you want to ask for something don't ask for a little bit ask for everything because you might end up getting it so I have seen for myself what a difference it makes to be involved have dedicated employees that champion each other and have a sound financial plan and program with a guru like Tyler Moore at the hand him I am not just saying this because I work with him I say this because I trust him I trust you I trust the people in this room I trust the people in the classroom and yeah there was a lot of opposition and sometimes you walked out of those meetings and you're like boy I don't know if I want to sit next to this person in the restaurant we might not like each other anymore but then it made me really think that we got big brains we're not a lot of power we got a lot of smart people and just because we don't agree don't mean we can't come to a unified decision that supports the the thing that is the best and when I say Tyler is a guru and as y'all can see we had 25 pages of data okay I saw some shifting legs I saw some but an overall presentation like this takes a smart person it takes a person who loves numbers and that gentleman over there he loves some numbers okay and to break it down on a layman's term I got all the statistics we got all the yay and nays you know we got everybody up in an uproar about why this or that but when it comes down and and what it all boils down to is that Tyler he's an expert at Finance he's real respected by his peers and his colleagues I've seen this for myself and I also believe that his moral compass is navigating this District in a direction in which we can Leverage The District Finance to give our students the best and that's why I'm here I like being the best I got a feeling everybody in this room likes being the best and higgle is the best before my family and I moved here we've seen Arizona I'm from South Carolina I've traveled a good little piece of this Us in my career with Bank of America over 20 years I spent a lot of time on the road I've seen a lot of states and I've seen what people do but I love being the best so that's why I chose you I'm glad I'm here I'm glad we disagree because that lends to an opportunity so that we can agree so I encourage us to unify to support husd so that our children can see what it looks like to be the best and what it takes to be the best and sometimes being the best means that we don't always agree but we're unified in the effort to make things better and the best all the time so thank you for allowing me to be in this community thank you for allowing me to speak this evening and thank you the board for making the decision that I know that you all are going to make cuz it's always going to be in the best interest of higgling thank [Applause] you next time I'm going to review Her speech before um with that I be happy to answer any questions from the boardy president Anderson Mr Moore now we have seven schools that are below 60% capacity what are the chances of doing redistricting in order to provide more space for for instance like HTA which is close to H close to williamsfield to be able to do some sort of redistricting and be able to provide HTA space for our williamsfield students I mean that uh president Anderson Vice President Van Hook that is not something we have entertained um just because I I don't think the sheer capacity moving the entire School of hga across our elementaries that are not in that neighborhood uh are appropriate for our families who utilize the school as a neighbor neighborhood school so but that that is not something we have researched but we can certainly look into yeah I'm just I'm concerned because the fact that we have seven schools below six 60% or below capacity physical capacity we need to consider what our options are when it comes to being able to redistrict financially I mean that that's got to be something that we we do consider um we've got I mean the space the the funding for um water power like everything that we're paying for these facilities is it a possibility that we can consolidate um another I just lost my train of thought sorry go I I completely lost my train of thought go ahead if you have other questions president Anderson um along those same lines Mr Moore um you know looking and seeing that we're capturing just under 50% of our own students obviously that talks about our competition um that families are are getting needs met elsewhere um is there still ongoing conversation about um specializing certain areas to increase capture rates and looking at um perhaps some magnet schools kind of along the lines that Miss Van Hook was talking about without leaving an empty building the maintenance on an empty building becomes horrible um it it really actually becomes very expensive to maintain an empty building um and I don't think any of our neighborhoods want empty buildings but is is that ongoing conversation of looking at some type of magnet schools to increase um to increase our capture rate yes and president Anderson uh bo re um I know I've been with um discussion with Miss Lindsay um and looking at some of our elementary schools um in terms of other magnet programs I know we've done Miss Lindsay has done tours um and some of our elementary principles have done tours um and so uh those are initiatives that we are researching and still looking into um they require a lot of man hours um if you look around there's we're down individual in our in our admin team and that being a superintendent M Sher Richard has been doing a great job but we have been um spread thin this year and so um but that is something that we've been um ongoingly um researching and looking at potential options um to implement in the upcoming fiscal years well and some of these items that you touched on I mean they are bleachers sound like nothing but if you've been to the schools during events there's huge safety risks um that they're overcrowded they scare me actually um and so these are our needs um for some safety for our students for our visitors um and in addition we are in competition with our neighboring districts so um while it may not seem like a need to one it is a need to another it is interest um I'm just if anyone's been out there and has seen Hamilton's gym I mean I I get we're not as big as them but wow they have like I think there's three courts back to back inside you'll get lost I'm not asking for that I'm asking for us to be able to house our student body so um um and then have the opportunity to create Revenue I know some of our schools cannot hold certain competitions that are fundraising um because we're not big enough so um that eliminates certain activities from that as well so um I just as long as we're still having the ongoing conversation on how to utilize space I know that's important um and understanding demographics there's EB and flows and so we may we everywhere has seen a decrease in uh K3 education since covid and it's going to come back up and so most neighborhoods turn over every seven years and so you'll be capturing more kids and so we it's there I think we need to there is some things we can look at to continue to to better capture our own students but I think the potential is there yeah and I just want to point out president member re that I think the representation of this proposal reflects the the current um kind of needs in in of our district right we understand there's competition but we myself and Gustavo our director of facilities and mainten it's um really looked at what our needs were we try to internalize um what are we we understand we holistically understand there's competition but um you I don't know how you know obviously that can be decided on that could be influencing somebody's individual perception but I think we looked holistically at what our needs were in terms of our high schools being outgrown of the current facilities and that's where a lot of the project proposals stem from well and I think too it's also you have to understand some of the history like you said we went through hyper growth a lot of our schools were buop by sfb which were bare minimum they their items are coming if not past their lifespan um and like you said we've kind of band-aided them but at the same time that these were aging schools that would have needed those maintenance and repairs is one when sfb quit funding anything and two when we started losing um the state started taking money back from the district they started taking capital and I'm the way they phrased it is that they were they were only going to the reduction was only going to be 90% or um things like that so the time we had we would have been ideal and proactive in taking care of of some of these things that funding wasn't available we found ways to bandaid it other things have have come up and these things need attention so um understanding that when they would have or should have gotten attention we weren't getting the funding for that so um we had to find ways to try and get through Mr M I have a quick question about the the committee three people didn't vote did they attend all of the meetings and then just at the end chose not to vote or yeah president Anderson member Schultz I think this the the note to my time management skills um we you know several meetings went past six to you know and and so I think individuals had obligations um at the last meeting U we had to you know I think that attended the meeting then had to leave and before the vote can take place and so that's what those three um represent one did miss the final meeting but two one was online didn't stay on until the vote and one I think left early and so thank clarify I got some work to do on my time management I'm sure there was a lot of things to manage during that time president Anderson Mr Moore who's mistake was it to put the bleachers on the wrong side whoever build the school I miss ree has may you have more history than me it was the builder so why didn't we go back to them and have them fix it um has the time lapsed to where we can force them to fix it I think president Anderson Vice President Van Hook I think you know after the district signed off on those invoices that we you know somebody took ownership to to obligate that you know to authorize building them in that place and so I we don't have really any authority to go back and and hold that Builder accountable for something the district approved and signed off on so unfortunately I don't think we have any options in regards to holding the Builder accountable to change those so at the time of approving the district knew that the bleachers were on the wrong side and still approved it or we just didn't catch it I I have no context of of that time in which those were approved and who approved those so I don't I don't know who vice president I can look into that to try to figure yeah I mean I I wish that we I mean now it's it's too late obviously but it would um and and do you know when it was done well when williamsfield was built it that's how it was built oh so so I I mean it was that they were after it it right it those are the originals and so um and perhaps at the time whoever signed off on it that school wasn't nearly as big as it is now and so they could have looked at it and said hey I mean this it's backwards but the school's got to open and we're ready to go and we don't have enough students to fill it now in anyway so and I'm just saying I I wasn't there but that that's a potential because the school has grown tremendously since then thank you also uh president Anderson Mr Mo correct me if I'm wrong even if it were placed in the appropriate location as far as the away being on the opposite side we would still need the larger beachers for what we currently have as far as capacity right like I mean because they would have been the same size they just would have been on the opposite sides of the field right that's correct the president and member way that it the proposal addresses two things moving the bleachers to the correct side but also increasing the capacity of the bleachers to hold the student body and the current needs in the the school I I just want to make a comment that I I really um like what Mr Brown said um and he was very straightforward and and also in what he said about um having a straightforward message and how important that is um should we decide to vote to move forward with this of what will happen and what won't happen and I appreciate that and appreciate um your Insight as well no you thank you president Anderson uh um some things that I am I'm grateful for with respect to your presentation as well as the individuals from the community uh the committee that spoke out today um some things that I know to be true uh is it's very difficult uh to understand the way Finance is set up for education in the state and I recognize both as you know a member of this board a former teacher who taught in this District but as a parent and taxpayer um that it often feels frustrating that we have to make these types of requests um the way that the state structured it and its reasonings um are designed so they don't have to have the responsibility um and I can understand why they would like to do that because these are not easy conversations to have but it puts a pretty big burden uh on us to do so and that's that's a very difficult space to be in so I appreciate how we you know hope to go forward and and maintain the ability to try to educate individuals on what that means and why this is a necessity because if you are angry at this mere existence then get angry and and tell our state legislatures of these types of things um we've made me several mentions of the fact that we are losing enrollment which is true and competition uh and some of that enrollment loss from covid um there are other things that are at play there with respect to vouchers um some things that are new that I think are also important to understand because a lot of our facilities focus is on high school later years uh I think it's very easy for individuals to homeschool if you don't have a background in education at an elementary level but then as your kids get older and the needs of that those subjects and everything else that's part of the reason why they come back in middle and high school and why those numbers continue to increase because there's a lot of things that are there not only sports clubs academics and I recognize that home school kids still have the option to do those things but there are subjects that you just you're not an expert in everything and that's really hard to do and provide and so I think things to keep in mind that are important is as all of these things are true and we have all of these new builds and more new builds that are coming one of the things that people do is shop for and the look of things the offerings that we have is what makes people come here we have great academics and we have routinely had them and that's part of the reason that people come here but not everybody is academic centered I was a former AP teacher and I'm not academic centered I think there are other things that public education can provide and do for the community and for those individuals who also don't have students and struggle sometimes to see the benefits our property values increase and it makes it easier for us to be able to do these things so it's yes a benefit to the students and ultimately that is the responsibility of us here on the board here as a district is to be here for our students and do what is right for them and in their best interest but for those individuals who may feel as if they don't see the benefit of this I I challenge you to take a step back and look at some of the things that not only the schools provide for the community but how that reflects on your neighborhood your home value and the desire for individuals to be here because that all plays a part into why these offerings which I'm very grateful to the committee for for doing and I recognize that it is a risk but I again you miss the shots that you don't take kind of deal and so I think it is important to keep that in mind as we go forward so thank you for that President Anderson Mr Moore um I you talked about uh or relocating the tennis courts at uh Higley does that mean um we would then have to stop paying um the church at that point too for parking for parking and I can't remember the amounts for the church parking no you're relocating the tennis courts at we're relocating the tennis courts oh yeah yeah okay then never mind ignore me but I thought didn't we all do we all we use the church okay I was like yes sorry thank you I thought I was right they just tried all night we just recently we just recently adopted an agreement with um the church across from williamsfield but uh moving Transportation would then open up more parking spaces um to allow for students then yeah to sever that agreement and then um move those individuals on the campus the church parking lot at uh over here across from Higley um that the church I think in in kind um lets us use that lot so um we do not pay for that so okay but they would have to stop crossing the street so that's safety right yeah you get them all on the one yeah okay thank you I just had a question just for clarification uh regarding the workout area um for the football what it called there it is um is equipment going to be included with that or is it strictly just building currently at this time it's just uh Person in Just building space we just need additional space for um locker room capacity um uh to help assist with supervision having students have their own space um and giving a space for each one of our programs currently there's a lot of shared locker room space um and so um expanding that to open up um to meet the capacity needs of of of those programs who have greatly increased since that was built in 2010 um yeah thank you and for the bleachers I just want to clarify it's new bleachers not expanding upon the bleachers that are already in place is that correct or has that even been decided I would new bleachers at this time that off top of my head yeah we can look into the opportunity of expanding to potentially save some money um but I know the age of those bleachers um we've had to do warranty work on those especially especially at higgle High um so I would have to I can't answer that off top of my head but we would look at options to save money obviously um but in my opinion I think they would be replaced due to the age of them I was just wondering what what you were talking about one or the other are there any other questions or comments regarding this okay thank you thank you for those that came and spoke tonight um and thank you for the committee members that that went and and gave um apparently more than an hour um each time to learn and participate and give input we really appreciate it um all right so that concludes our information items we're going to head over to the action items and action item 7.1 we're going to uh vote to approve uh the citizen committee's recommendation are there any questions or comments before we make a vote and and if if that's I don't know if that slide is going back up can that was the 15% for the override and then a bond for 83 million yeah president Anderson that the recommendation from the committee was to um put on the ballot a renewal a continuation of the 15% M override and um option 2A which was the 83.1 million bond proposal and again uh as I mentioned this is just to accept the recommendation the community to give me direction to discuss with the attorneys um to bring forth a resolution to officially approve it so tonight again you're not putting anything on the ballot you're just giving this is giving me some direction to bring forth a an official resolution to then vote on to put that on the ballot so there any discussion okay um I motion that the governing board approve the citizens committee recommendation as presented in option 2 a second all those in favor I I I all those oppose I'd like to explain my vote please um attending the committee meeting was enlightening but it also brought light to some troubling issues it's disheartening to see certain members push for a bond regardless of the recommendation by high ground or dissenting opinions many of the committee members showed up to push for a bond No Matter What was presented a member at the last board meeting said that the top priority for the bond was teacher pay and that is false the top priority for the community was Safety and Security she also told the committee at one of the meetings that if you aren't working uh if you aren't willing to work on the messaging then you shouldn't be a part of it I'm not sure what messaging that is the disrespectful treatment of M Bender from some committee members was appalling at the last meeting from one's Outburst to another's dismissive gestures and at one point Marty president Anderson and I thought one member was going to hit Marty another member had to use her hand as a gavel to stop the Outburst it's clear that the Civility and respect was severely lacking why would any Community member want to take part in such a committee in the future when this behavior is tolerated Marty merely presented the survey data and his recommendations based on that data meanwhile no attempt was made to correct misinformation being spread by other members instead the only person using the data provided was gaset the tactics by High Ground including deceptive survey questions were concerning as well I actually got the survey call and we'll tell you that based on the wording used for those questions were me were very deceptive if these questions were asked a different way they would have gotten different results their survey showed 45.8% think that K2 through 12 education in our community is heading in the wrong direction High Ground claimed that this dissatisfaction stems solely on national news which undermines the issues within our state in our district including ideological conflicts and many other issues affecting our students and families directly one member claimed that parents are pulling their C kids out due to Aesthetics parents are not pulling their kids out um due to superficial reasons such as Aesthetics but because of fundamental disagreements with the direction of education and I know this because I've spoken to many parents who are on waiting lists for Charters and private schools blindly approving proposals without considering long-term consequences jeopardizes Financial stability and public trust we've all seen the news regarding the superintendent that we have hired that should be a warning to all of us as to what could happen when board members rubber stamp everything that is printed presented to them instead of asking tough questions we have a board we have a board member wored about $8 business cards but not the millions that are rubber stamped by this board without question I said at the last board meeting that we can't make decisions based on the hopes that a bond and override passes and was told that if Mr Moore didn't feel confident that he wouldn't present those that option but at the same time say that if it doesn't pass Cuts will have to be made for me cutting programs for children is not an option that's that's why kids are here and I've said this before transparency in spending and prioritizing needs over wants is a must I've always discussed that we need to look at budget reductions because we have to go back to functioning without Sr funds the district has made permanent Staffing decisions with temporary funds we need to look at that as well we are to pay approximately $150,000 for the election to date we have paid 15,000 for the survey it will cost a uh $750 per question on the ballot 13,600 to applied economics and I'm not sure how much we'll be paying for stifle so not counting stifle we have already paid out $330,000 before we even consider a bond the true implications of a bond and override must be communicated honestly to the community while Ed that an override is not a tax increase in reality it is a prolonged tax burden we must uphold honesty integrity and accountability in all of our actions and with that my vote is no okay motion carries four to one all right moving on to action item 7.2 tentative approval of the fiscal year 2025 capital outlay budget any questions comments discussions okay um I noticed that equipment was listed on here twice uh Furniture fixtures and equipment so ones under Educational Services and one ones under under schools do we know why that is yeah president Anish member Van Hook um the highlighted section represents the department in which that budget is under so the educational service department has a instructional Aid Furniture fixture and Equipment budget as well as each one of our um under our school budgets each one of our schools has a Furniture fixture and Equipment budget so um the reason it's listed twice is because it's under two different departments each department has a budget for that purpose okay and um the instructional Aid um what would fall into under that category yeah so uh president Anderson Vice President Van Hook um that is utilized by the educational service department to to provide supplemental resources for our DLI programs um our traditional programs Etc um those um uh resources are annual obligations that the educational service department has to procure um annually and so um those are supplemental resources to support those programmatic schools and and this is based on funding we have currently correct yeah these are budget numbers based on the estimated budget um capital budget um for next fiscal year great thank you so sorry thank you any any other comments or questions no okay I motion that the governing board ten tentatively approve the fiscal year 2025 capital outlay budget all those in favor I I did I hear your name oh oh okay all uh so five eyes motion carries five to zero um I I'd actually like a motion uh to make a motion to table this item um and if I can explain um why that is um are you talking about 7.3 yes um I another statement written um so given my experience in the health Freedom world I've been deeply involved in advocating for protecting our citizens from potential health risks one of those risks is posed by electromagnetic fields emitted by Source sources like cell towers these concerns are critical to address especially when considering placing such Towers on school grounds there's significant data indicating that exposure to electromagnetic fields from cell towers can lead to various symptoms including headaches fatigue sleep dis dist disturbances additionally um there are well-founded concerns regarding the potential long-term effects of radio frequency radiation on health with some studies suggesting possible links to increased cancer risk notably brain cancer furthermore research has indicated potential neurological impacts such as alterations in brain activity and cognitive functions as well as effects on uh reproductive Health it's especially considering uh concerning considering the vulnerability of children whose developing bodies may be more susceptible to the effects of RF radiation Beyond health concerns residents nearby May view the tower as undesirable potentially leading to decrease in property values in the area moreover the risk of electromagnetic interference with the electronic devices within the schools such as technology communication systems and medical equipment a couple weeks ago two two residents in Washington won a right to intervene on a lawsuit against AT&T in federal court regarding a 65 ft cell tower going back near the um going up near their home the claimant is 100% reliant on a pacemaker and his exposure to radio frequency ra radiation can interfere with his pacemaker in 2022 When AT&T and Verizon rolled out 5G they were instructed by the White House to hold off on the roll out within 2 miles of all airports due to the possibility of dangers on PL um to planes given these risks and concerns the safety and health of our school Community must remain a top priority and the potential risk associated with cell towers on school grounds outway any Financial gains I can provide further research to anyone that would like to see it there are over a thousand studies related to health risks from these towers this is not communicated this was not communicated ated to our community no public input was considered snuck into consent agenda not necessarily stuck that you guys did it on purpose but it was in the consent agenda just to get a 5 and0 vote and and move along and then incoming emails today from 8:00 a.m.

at the ashin high school auditorium uh we will have more information about the warrant and all the articles that are going to be um on the warrant at town meeting uh that will be up online on our website and then also through our social media pages and um yeah we look forward to seeing you there that's uh just a reminder for everybody town meeting is our legislative body and it's where a lot of very very important uh decisions get made and so we really really need your input and really need your participation as residents to uh make sure that this town goes in the direction that uh that you would like it to go in So speaking of directions we're going to talk about a comprehensive plan here with Stacy Stacy and rerry um and I'll just uh I'll just ask you the question question what is the comprehensive plan and get into why it's important for for our listeners well that's a big question um I'll I'll take a stab at it first um hi listeners I'm Stacy Grant Lewis uh the comprehensive plan uh that we've named The Envision Ashlin plan is your opportunity as Community uh residents participants to take the next steps to what Ashlin will look like over the next 10 years so this plan runs from 2025 through 2035 and Beyond um we've hired a consultant a very Adept consultant to help lead us and guide us through this process on your committee sits 29 very very passionate community members me being one of them um we spend our evenings uh once a month uh working through structural Transportation community recreation open space sustainability all of the things that we think that we know are important to Ashen based on your commentary so um yeah that's a start rry hi I'm rajashri um and thank you for inviting me to this podcast of course um so with the comprehensive plan um I look at it as a forward thinking um document a forward thinking process where we're looking at a shared commitment where all of us are engaged in a shared vision of what we want this town to be um and we are acting together through this steering committee finding commonalities finding the differences I think that most of us they're you know we we're different uh but that's important so that diverse voices are seen um they're audible they're credible and that we all make this plan what it is great great and so you know both of you mentioned the comprehensive plan steering committee Stacy you mentioned the fact that it's 29 people right um so what is that committee composed of who who is it composed of so we have um representatives from all the Committees and councils town councils uh we have representatives from five precincts me being one of them I'm from Precinct 5 um there is the the select board members two of the select board members two of the planning board members and several others and you're there too yeah and for disclosure I'm I'm part of the committee too but nobody wants to hear me talk anymore and Peter Peter M Meek also is part of the yeah Peter Our Town planner Peter who actually has experience in comprehensive plans um sure he's the planner so he he obviously does exactly Peter I believe has been through two himself uh in previous community so uh it's great to get his experience and his expertise uh as part of the committee and um yeah you know I think just to give a little insight uh into how you know the comprehensive plan committee that makeup was uh how that Constitution was um was arrived at was a very long process between the planning board and the select board and myself and Peter and really you know we it's a big committee which has its own challenges U which we can talk about a little bit later but uh it was very very important to get as many diverse perspectives as part of this plan right as possible and I think that's why it's it's got so much representation on it like you said R I think we got six precincts now we used to have five now we got six um and then you know the rest are made up of uh different boards and committees like the like you said the select board the planning board but the cultural Council I represent the cultural Council yeah yes and like you said rri you're representing Precinct Five Stacy uh is part of the cultural Council U you're representing uh the cultur Council on the on the committee yeah may I add that those of us who are representing precincts each one of us went through a rigorous selection process um because we were not part of any Town Council we were not representing any committee as such so that process was long worse than a job interview oh gosh and somebody even checked my job you know the other professional space you know who you are so so it was a rigorous process did I tell I put you through a full background investigation before we did I wouldn't be surprised I wouldn't be surprised we we made sure we couldn't uh couldn't have any Riff Raff on the Comm no and I hid well you did well yes hid hid um for sure um so you know we talked a little bit about what the comprehensive plan is and you know why it it's so important but you know one of the things that that we talked about that's an important component of this is is public engagement yes and not just getting the opinions of the 29 members on the steering committee but uh representatives of voices from all different parts of the town and so what are some of the ways is you know the comprehensive planed steering committee what are some of the ways that uh we are utilizing to uh to get that input well we're in a really exciting phase right now phase two um there are four phases to the yes yes and uh we're in phase two public engagement and uh which will this part of the phase will wrap up on April 26 but that includes we're doing these focus groups with M which Michael will go through a little bit more in detail called meeting in a box and when we're meeting with small groups two to eight people at a time going through seven important questions asking for their feedback um for those of you who are a little shy and not able to attend a meeting in a box we also have a Community survey I will say this community survey takes about 10 to 20 minutes depending on your internet connection so just be aware um we have a crowd map which is kind of fun to use um it's where you can actually pin um areas of opportunity for yourself so for example if you wanted a sidewalk on Cedar Street you could actually go onto the crowd map and pin that there and say that's something that you want yeah so um these are tools that were provided to us by our consultant um JM goson and their team um so each of these tools you know all the steering members are aware of these and they will be reaching out in the next few weeks until April 26 um and talk to you about how you can be involved and so please look out for them um engage with us in whatever way you feel comfortable um you know there are people who are writing to us at the comprehensive plan um steering email address I want to be in a meeting in a box and so it's it's very resident Le um and so um you know your voice needs to be counted um you know you have an idea about the future of the town about the present uh conditions for instance you know we did an a meeting in a box with seniors um there is a lot of excitement with the construction going on in town but then there are other voices who are not so excited I usually hear from those voices both I heard both sides and it's important to have both sides because that's what is our Consolidated uh response system that goes into the data processing which the Goon will handle but it's important to give that input and and lend that voice sure and so both of you have been involved in several of these focus groups that we're calling meetings in a box and um you know I know i' I've had my own experiences with them and and my own takeaways but um for both of you what has been the biggest surprise that has come out of these these focus groups I just want to add on to what rri said there's so much that we don't know about our beautiful Town um there's so much history here um there are people have that have lived here their entire lives and people who are still considered new even though they've been here for 30 40 years so I think that unearthing that kind of information has been really exciting and then there's like the natural tension between that and people who have moved here more recently and who want to see progress in a different kind of way so I think kind of just surfacing that kind of information has been really enlightening exciting there is tension there and I just want everybody to know experiencing tension is not necessarily a bad thing we just need to hear from all parties involved right right so that's been really exciting yeah for me um you know I was exposed to um this group of people who have lived in Ashland for a decade or so but were completely unaware of Town's offerings um they are a cultural group and they now want to be involved with what whatever is going on in town they did the survey they did the meeting in a box and they want to take it forward so that has been exciting for me that I uh I was able to reach them but it also makes me wonder how many other groups are there that have not been reached and they really need to be front and center in this comprehens of planning process um and then there are other groups that are that have been vocal through and through um but they also realize that there is a certain set of questions and that kind of brings them in a certain at a certain Focus um and streamline their responses according to that so it's not a Haywire kind of a process when we when we are asking questions we do want the response that will help the town plan better right right and just to kind of ech what both of you said um one of the most interesting Parts uh and surprising parts of this uh whole process is for me I I should say is with the steering committee itself and I take for the granted the fact that I know all of you but a lot of you didn't know each other as you started this process and I think for me one of the most exciting things or fun things to watch is to watch steering committee members like build those relationships and um have you know get to know each other's perspectives uh Stacy I know like at the at the very early stages uh you had a a good conversation with Carl hackinson who is one of those uh gentlemen who who have been here his family has been here for generations and you come at it with uh varing uh perspectives about things um can you just talk a little bit about your approach you know how do you how do you approach those conversations and um you know making sure that you get your points across by but also being open-minded right um well I agree with you that the steering committee is kind of a microcosm of Ashland it's everyone who's passionate and willing to devote their time to this project that's on that steering committee so I want to Echo that sentiment I think open-mindedness is how I approach this process I'm a newbie uh in in the sense that I've only been here for 6 years um I'm also I still think of Anie to the state I've only been here for 9 years I moved here from New York where I was a hardcore New Yorker for a very long time and I moved to this beautiful Town Ashland where it's just gorgeous open space very friendly neighbors very friendly and approachable Town management uh all the things that make you want to put down Roots so having an opportunity to even talk to Carl in on a one-on-one you know uh basis was really new to me and really enlightening really eye openening because Carl had a wealth of information to share and just a different perspective and I just kept thinking wow other people should know this you move here and you get kind of you know set in your ways with your kids and your neighbors and the church or the synagogue that you go to and that's your world but there was a world here before we moved here and there are people who are moving here now to this new world that is here now and so I just think that there are ways to connect those points and that's what really blew my mind like okay there's something to be really offered here for everyone yeah and and rry how how about you what can you tell me one of those conversations that really kind of opened your eyes and enlightened you to a perspective maybe you didn't have before well there was many such occasions but um you know I Echo um Stacy's sentiments um I came to this country as a trailing spouse um and um which means if you do ever do a segment in on immigration MH that'll be a big one um uh but spouses who are wives are not allowed to to work for pay um but they're free to travel and do education so there were years when I spent not being counted um I did not have a Social Security I was given a tax ID because I was expected to pay taxes out of what I don't know um but not being able to stand up for myself um that was the hardest few years and around the same time is when we decided to move to ashin okay we thought okay let's make a change because this is not helping us um I was volunteering in different places I was uh working with um a women's studies program at bu um and I would take the tea and I said what's the next town that we can afford a house in uh where there's the tea option um and that was Ashland it was affordable and we just drove around we said oh we like it so so with that you know I I started to look at different opportunities where I could use my talent I could use my background um and I found that people in Ashland were welcoming to that um they could have easily said no it's okay you're the trailing spouse U but that didn't happen and as with the immigration process it was a slow um process but when I first came into um when I first came into the situation where everything was regulated for me and I I knew how to work my way through um the immigration process um I realized that there was so much more that I could do in town um and so when I have conversations with members of the steering about okay there's a health issue somebody is uh going on with um there's somebody who's passed on there's a personal aspect to each of these members on the steering that I connect with um and it's important for us as a as a community of steering members um to lean on each other because there are so many moments um that we feel like maybe we failed ourselves in this job um um but I've I've seen how people support each other um through arguments through um discontent um and through communication barriers but the fact that everybody comes together because they have the good in themselves and they're looking at how Ashlin can be a better place no matter which direction they come from that has been really um enriching for me oh great great wow that was ratory for me I didn't know that about you so I've known you for years rry and I you never asked I never asked yeah um but uh F that's one one of the reasons I love these conversations is you find out new things about people all the time and uh both of you have talked about you know some of the great opportunities that uh the conference of plan steering committee has has provided uh for you as individuals but um I just want to turn and pivot a little bit and and what do you think's been the biggest challenge uh well I think people are uncomfortable with tension I'm going to say that t- word again um I am a project manager by trade that's what I've done for a living for some time and uh in project management I can say that tension is a good trait but not everybody agrees that it is right so they're uncomfortable about how to navigate if they disagree or um if they are not aligned with the overall project there's like you know this tendency to think it's got to be black or it's got to be white when there's a lot of gray area in between so I think that's a human tendency and working through that that kind of discomfort can be a challenge with a group that large right so there are people who may feel like okay I just won't say anything or people who overcompensate and say too much um I think it's just navigating that kind of personal attention what about you Rog yeah so um I've worked with Community engagement for a very long time even in my professional space so I was dying to get into this public engagement phase because this is what is the Crux of the matter um but what I found challenging uh has been um that all voices are not loud enough in the committee and that I couldn't hear from a few people that was gwing at me um that you know there are some members who are able to vocalize what they're feeling or what they're um intending to say but the others were not and they were holding back for a variety of reasons it's maybe their personality maybe what they heard wasn't yelling with them but individual connections helped in this manner so I would go up to each person and talk about what really works for them what really attracts them to be part of this um and I think now they're they're blooming in their roles um you know in the recently in the in the volunteers breakfast that you missed but Stacy and I were there I was doing a meeting in the box so but it was it was great because there were so many of the comprehensive plan members steering members who were there and each one of them got up um to talk about you know they were publicizing the plan um on their own you know and so it just made me feel really proud for them except for Chuck Lids who forgot he was on on the comprehensive plan he's on multiple other he's on multiple other groups and he talked at length about that but I I told him we're going to give you a hard time so this is the hard time oh okay I think Chuck's been a little under the weather so we can give him a pass on that Chuck Chuck who's a member of the sustainability committee and represents the sustainability committee on the comprehensive plan steering committee uh does a lot of great work yes he does um we can pull his leg though even though he's had surgery about to say the one that not the shoulder but the leg yes um yeah I think probably the biggest challenge from my perspective is just the size of the grw yeah and um well you put it together so you deal I know nobody nobody to blame but me so um but uh yeah it was something I I I will say I underestimated a little bit is you know how big of a challenge it is to make sure that you've got you've got that big a group making sure that there's equal access and opportunities to make comments and I think you're right I I think some of the more vocal people myself included um are used to like speaking you know in front of groups or as part of committees and I think it's easy to take for granted that not everybody has that experience right right um but over time I feel like the trust is has just just bloomed like you said over time I think those people who are less comfortable uh are able to come up to both of us indid and they're taking on responsibilities can I do this can I do that and everything is so important and um it makes a significant change um to the planning process and and I will say just you two are are co-chairs and I think uh both of you have done a really good job of kind of laying that foundation and making sure that there is that opportunity for people to uh to get engaged but um I think you know speaking of co-chairs what what made you both decide to kind of enter your throw your names in the in the Hat throw our names you know what that's a good that's a good point not as chairs but I threw my name as for a member I wanted to be a member right yeah that's right you were kind of volunteered we volunte we were volunteered as somebody somebody recruited us Steve Steve recruited me gotcha and he said you know what she can do it and then you were recruited by by Steve yeah so Steve it's all your fault Steve we're going to we're going to blame you on this one so Steve's used to getting blamed for things so he can take it he can take it can take it I think we both uh there there was a vacancy um in in leading the plan initially and we we had said that you know we would do it temporarily until the group made a decision and the group made a decision and here we are still yeah uh leading so that's how that happened so I got to I got to ask you um you know these focus groups or when we've talked about the survey and and we get updates from Goldson about our community engagement and public engagement and how we're doing on that but um I have noticed in the different focus groups that I've been a part of uh very common themes come out and and I'm wondering if you two have had the same experience and if you have like what are some of those common themes that you've heard um so um they all love the open space and the green spaces here um some of them uh have talked about the roots they take from downtown area to mil Pond and then trolley Brook and Stony and stone stone park and you know so uh that has been really one of the common themes that I see um the other thing is um many of the groups are talking about places to gather um you know this is a social Town yes um and they're looking for spaces uh sometimes they talk about restaurants that are available but it it's not like what it used to be there were opportunities earlier apparently um way before I was here so um they want a replacement of something called news news Ash the ash news as news yeah so it's like Drop in have a coffee chat with people and leave um so that kind of opportunity and then the other opportunity for Gathering ing for cultural groups where do they perform there's no Auditorium um so that they're talking about you know is the Valentine's property available for that U so there are these questions um one of the young students uh who I interviewed um from Ashen High School talked about the fact that older kids have no place to gather because younger kids will go to the swing set older kids will be mocked you the swing is not for you so they were talking about why not the Dairy Queen be changed into an arcade kind of a mall so you know they can be indoor outdoor spaces um so there are different populations who talk about different things it depends on their needs um but overall there are many positives about the present but there are also positive uh aspirations that I see um among the groups that I interviewed for sure and and Stacy what about you I don't think it's a coincidence that I've heard the same exact um listen should know that those three populations that you just described are the on that are the larg in town so we have a big teen population 19 and younger um we have older folks and we have those people who are under 50 and raising families here who want you know to have a place to go so I think people are excited about the possibility the potential of ashin being a more ambulatory place where you can walk around downtown and enjoy outside activities but yes they are looking for indoor spaces um to gather and I didn't know about the News Corp until I had my meeting in a box EXA and how much people missed it and the bakery that was there um and so that brings me to another area of tension is history somehow having history integrated into the town so that people know where we came from and where we're going right I think um so I've heard very similar things especially when you talk about Gathering spaces indoor Gathering spaces yes you know we have uh we have the farmers market we have The Corner Spot Great Outdoor spaces but they're Outdoors they're limited um and so there's definitely been a desire expressed by a lot of people to have indoor spaces that we can utilize in some of the um less warmer months um the other thing that I've heard and Stacy you alluded to this uh is sidewalks yes um now I was hearing that before we even started doing the comprehensive plan but it's just amazing how consistent that theme is uh throughout the different groups that that we talk to and uh open space being another one as well preserving open space um I can tell you I'm surprised just because I I heard from I hear from a lot of people all the time um that's just that's part of my my job and it's actually one of the favorite parts of my job um but you know one of the things that I I kept on hearing from people was expansion of playing fields and but I'm not hearing that in the conference of playing process right I haven't heard that but also you know I think we need to uh interview the younger crowd more um maybe we'll hear it from them and in in those cases they might have that need but we haven't heard it as yet right right so um just kind of pivoting to to to yourselves personally um you talked a little bit about how long you've been in town and What attracted you to Ashlin um talked a little bit about your your professional backgrounds a bit um but what do you like to do in your free time oh I like I like eating like eating okay a lot a lot eating and cooking and traveling when time permits um yeah okay yeah what about you Stacy I am a fitness nut self-proclaimed I work out quite a bit I love being outside with my dog you'll see me walking around town uh with my big white dog you can say hello please um I love nature I love being in Ashen State Park in the Town Forest um and I love traveling as well I I'll be out of town a lot as rich as she knows as the weather gets nicer uh but yeah yeah reading eating traveling and walking and then you know the other thing that uh strikes me when when I look at the comprehensive plan and and all that we're doing you know in the past in in my professional space I have critiqued Master plans critiqued and it's very easy to criticize it's very easy to do it now I'm in the thick of the process um and I'm I'm part of this whole big team and you know we're we're going ahead with it it feels like how much I didn't know um and how much there is to learn um I'm I'm connecting different policies both International and National you know they talk about 15 minute city um oh yeah you know and I think about the ashon town in that respect and yes in 15 minutes I could reach many places from um from downtown if I start walking I could reach many places I could hike I could go to restaurants um when the farmers's market is on I could go there I could go to the library um I could go into the town hall for anything that I need so you know we are approximating that even though we're not a city and we're not an international in that sense um but the fact that so many of those realities are right here doable and thinkable too um that it's been amazing awesome awesome so I I got to ask you you know what do you think we can do to increase engagement in the comprehensive plan process this been one of our our final questions but um well really important I think people need to understand that for the focus groups you're encouraged to host these yourselves at home in your neighborhood um all you need are two other people um you'll be the person that enters the data onto the sheet we can you can drop the sheet off at Town Hall if you don't want to submit it electronically um but you're welcome to do that and share the the survey with your network as well we encourage that um I think people need to know that there's a tendency and I think it's human to just kind of say okay that's not for me um I won't be listened to anyway nothing's going to be done it's just that's the human tendency right so you kind of have to if you want to see change or if you want to be recognized step outside of your comfort zone and realize that that may not be true uh that we do want to hear from you we're taking the steps to hear from you and invite your participation I have never met a town management that's more accessible than the one we have right I would agree it's not multi-layered in the sense that you're going to get caught up in hierarchy yeah so just you know come out let your voice be heard yeah you know it's a really good point that you bring out Stacy that um people sometimes feel like you know even if they say something that they're not heard and you know it surprises me because you know one of I mean if you look at all the stuff that we're doing in town right right I mean a downtown project 126 project you working on the Valentine estate you know some of the new buildings that we've built uh Mendes and the public safety building you know all of those have were born out of community dialogue right and a community desire I mean a lot of people say it's like my vision or whatever and it's really not I mean like whatever Vision I do have it's it's really an amalgamation of you know the different people that I hear from and and listen to so like your voices are heard I mean some of the things that you know you're seeing happening are a direct result of your feedback as as residents and right I think that also that people need to realize that um although we are the steering and it sounds so lofty um each one of us is also a resident um we are resident first before we take on any responsibility to do anything else um and so as fellow residents I think this is a collective um task to talk about what we want to see in this town um we have a shared Vision about how this town should look like it's a it's a commitment that we we give to the next Generations you know how many more years are we going to do this um it's the Next Generation that we have to be uh thoughtful about and what are we leaving behind um so everybody has a say and everybody um it's a public Le event it's not a town government um they may have put it together but it will not progress if the residents do not feel comfortable being part of it and so we are making every effort to open the doors um every steering member can be reached um and and uh I think all the all the councils have to step up and start doing the meeting in our boxes to make it more accessible to people I greated and I think that's a that's a that's a good one to end on uh Stacy and rry thank you so much for being a part of uh part of the show I had to hit the button you know I found the whole uh whole podcast without hitting the button so I had to hit that um and just to remind everybody um you know there's different ways to participate there's the crowd mapping there's the surve there's the meeting in the Box um if you want to get to the website um I what I found is the easiest way to do to do is to basically type in Envision Ashland into the Google machine and it that's the first link that comes up and that gives you access to to all of those they can also go on the town website and it has a blue Rider right on top correct um and that'll lead them to to the website and our meetings are public come to one the next one is on the 18th of APR 18th of April um yes they are public you can show up in person or you can show up via Zoom because we do uh them hybrid but um again thank you so much for being a part of today's thank you for having us thank you for having us this has been fun and um again everybody uh make sure your voice is heard get involved uh Envision Ashland our comprehensive plan process let us know what you would like to see for Ashland in the next 10 years and um so oh but before I forget uh if you have any um comments or if you have any questions you want us to answer on air uh we have an email address set up for um for this podcast it's clocktown Chronicles Ashland mass.com I'm looking over at Melissa Hayes at communications coordinator she's giv me the nod that says yes Michael you did get the correct address so keep it kind keep it kind yeah kindness matters folks um all right uh everybody again thank you for being here thank you for listening and uh this is episode number two uh episode number three I haven't decided what we're going to do but uh it will no doubt be interesting and probably deal with some planning related aspects not comprehensive planning but some more acute planning uh things that we're we're going through today so uh anyway again my my name is Michael Herbert your town manager your host for [Music] uh clock toown Chronicles and I'll see you on the next [Music] episode

to Ontario for the state conference um and my competition technical design focuses on using AutoCAD programs to um develop a product uh yes I am also going on this trip it's a great experience for me I'd love to I I love that I get to go on this but basically yeah we're going to Ontario California and I'm doing a competition where I'm drafting on a CAD program that I'm using AutoCAD for this one of course and full circle back to our first slide London is also uh was a participant in that group so he worked with our eighth graders coming into the program next year so I'd like to uh congratulate these three kids in advance and the other five that are going with us tomorrow we have a total of eight competing at state conference this year as well as all the ctsos here this year that have either competed or are competing coming up so do you have any questions for these folks thank you guys thank you thank you Matt um what he presented is a great example of what I was talking about that crossover of Industries so they're getting that that hands-on experience in construction so they're they're doing the computer version but also seeing visualizing what it looks like in real life so it's it's really a great program I do have a question I knew I had one sorry what um they mentioned that they weren't allowed to make Cuts but did they get to use some of the tools for building the shed that's where our partner proframe came in they they actually supplied many of the tools the power tools and since this is more of an architectural plan and less of a program and less of but Hands-On they don't have these students don't have that specific uh training in some of those those tools yet um perhaps in time we can do that they they did obtain some OSHA 10 certifications in construction earlier this year which is a step of progression towards being able to do more Hands-On they use primarily hand tools as students for our student safety aspect we'll get into skill saws and such later good question but they did get to use some some tools I didn't mean necessarily okay yeah thanks thank you another one of our quotes um from our students um it really felt like CTE pathway was helpful for me for what I wanted to do with my life it helped me decide if teaching was well I wanted to do with my life or not I believe if you feel strongly about a specific job or CTE pathway it's a great way to go our next group I'm going to ask up is Britney Brown and Lauren from PB is going to join her as well they collaborate so well together that they are collaborating on their presentations and they're back toback in the presentation so it makes it work out well thank you guys so much for having us my name is Lauren Barrera green and I'm going to give you a little bit of a different Spiel than what you heard just previously um a little background information about me um I started teaching about 16 years ago at River Valley High School and I started in the traditional Arts so it was uh it felt a little different than what we're doing now in CTE um I did transition over into taking over the CTE digital photography program there so when I was lucky enough to get hired here CTE wasn't really new for me but I do want to say that what is new or I would say what is different for me in my experience between the two is the amount of support that we have here and I'm not just blowing smoke we have so much support um Tiffany and Tina Keane are phenomenal when we ask for something it's almost like we are not going to get told no and I don't want to say that and and feel like I'm not being grateful about that um so what I would like to talk to you guys about first is I want to give you an overview of our vision and our rationale for our programs because they are a little bit new to what Chico Unified is doing as far as CTE and the reason that I'm going to go a little bit at a different angle is because I feel that the Arts typically don't fit the bill for what we think of when we think of CTE and like the traditional old like Roop program so I want to give you a a little bit of a a different perspective and maybe you'll have um a better understanding of what Britney and I are really trying to do at both sites so we all know um and this is like stating the obvious this is a great slide for this we all know that the Arts provide um intrinsic value for our students as far as education going empowering students and fostering self-worth we understand that students need a creative outlet and that it's awesome for authentic expression building confidence making them connected to their education you guys already know this and we know this too but what's really um exciting for me and I know for Britney I'm speaking for her as well as well as the other CTE teachers all of art art teachers at PV are now CTE um is that CTE provides us with a uni unique opportunity to educate our students within a changing landscape of our economy and so the old idea of being an artist it we know that doesn't necessarily fly and what's interesting about our our abilities within CTE is that we're able to prepare students for things that we don't even yet know are going to happen like Ai and so um the internet Tech social media and now we know AI are changing the landscape of what we're preparing our students for daily and we almost can't plan for it um and before I go even into that I pulled some data for you guys just because it's super exciting to hear data so I won't you know bore you too much but according to the American Association of colleges and un universities I love this one that was I don't know why that's a highlight but okay 93% of employers prioritize critical thinking problem solving skills and creativity and that's a stat so there's some data uh the world economic Forum believes that by the year 2025 so next year creativity will be one of the top three skills sought by employers I have more recent Adobe survey found that 73% of employers prioritize candidates with creativity skills over technical skills and then lastly and I know this sounds maybe a bit daunting for me to even wrap my head around and this is a couple years old but in 2022 the Arts and creative and cultural sector contributed over 1.1 trillion dollars to our US economy and I have all of where I got those data from so if anybody's like wanting to pick it that I can give it to you but so with this um EV evolving landscape Britney and I are always talking like how are we going to adapt our traditional arts program and move it into this evolving modern world that we are trying to prepare our students for and so with AI um we worry that um some of these jobs like let's just say graphic design that field could just go poof and goes away and that now with AI anybody can just automate that and while that is true um on a recent field trip that I took some students to BU College I spoke with Daniel Donnelly who's the uh chair of the art Department out there and he's also just like a a guru he's on our board um and he spoke to that and he said that while Automation and automated jobs are going to be easily replaced for example and that the role of a graphic designer might look drastically different um the importance of human creativity and creative innovators and people who can uniquely problem solve will be in higher demand and are going to hold higher value and so even though we might not know exactly what our landscape is going to look like in the design industry in the design sector what our goal is to cultivate creative thinking within our classes and that on the Forefront we might say oh yeah we're art teachers and if somebody asks me like well what do you do I say oh I teach art at PV but that feels so minuscule to what we're really doing because I really think what we're preparing our students for is the ability to problem solve creatively and to think differently than the next person so um where we're going with this and what's changed within the traditional programs at PV and also Chico high is we are centering our efforts towards real world work experience um there's a heavy emphasis in both of our programs on Community Arts engagement and we're calling it art Service Learning which was actually uh taken from my predecessor Rita rickmer had whole program of art Service Learning within her studio art class which is now one of our Capstone classes so I've kind of brought that back and then we're putting it on steroids without sounding too cliche um I have students right now that are placed um in interns at Chico art center mka and maraw photography these students are archiving collections they're doing data entry they're doing graphic design work and professional photo editing um and I know Britney is going to be talking about how she's integrating that into her program and what's been really exciting um and I'm going to just speak for myself is Britney and I um have known each other for some years and we're friends and we probably talk daily and so it's been really awesome to be able to collaborate back and forth between the two schools and really support each other in what we're doing within our classes I don't know if we need to goes get back to M okay all right hello everybody thank you so much for having us um so following what Lauren said um chohigh and py have been collaborating regularly it feels really wonderful to be able to support one another to bounce ideas off of one another but also to tie Community connections together and be able to find similar opportunities for students because that's what it really is all about is finding these shared interests for students that align with both of our curriculums and opportunities for them as well um um something that's exciting for our program at Chico high and for PV as well as we will be dual enrolling our classes with bu College next year so as of next year photo one photo 2 and Digital Arts will all be dual enrolled um and as far as our ctso so while we are not competing with skills USA like the other programs are I have been working we've both been working to develop our ctsos um within our programs and I began a chapter of the National Art Honor Society Cho high this year and I found that it's been a really exceptional way to create opportunities for leadership with students and to give them some real world experience along with giving the ability to collaborate across mediums because I oversee photography and also Digital Arts and so we're all in the same classroom but um obviously taking the classes at different times but we have similar skill sets using Adobe products but different um ways of getting there so photography students are focused more on Photoshop and cameras obviously whereas the Digital Arts students have Photoshop experience but also Adobe Illustrator and so there are lots of different ways that they can work together to collaborate to create a product for either themselves or for somebody in the community so that's been a really great way to develop um our ctso I guess just exploring that and learning how to um make it grow and thrive so one of the things that we are trying to do Lauren and I together are really get our students out into the community more and um expand the walls of our classroom out into the community of Chico so that they can apply the experiences that they're learning in the class out into the community and see the purpose behind it so part of our ctso and this art service learning that Lauren was talking about there are a couple of different options for them sure you keep mentioning ctso what did what did this initials stand for so this is the student organization that um is it's for the what is that Career Technical student organization that's what I thought um sorry about that so that is where we are fostering these um leadership skills and giving them the opportunity to show their work and for instance with the National Art Honor Society they are linked with the um National Art Education Association and so they're able to uh display or contribute work to potential magazine Publications and so that's a really great way for them to share their work and see their work published um so going back to our community involvement there are four different sections of our um art Service Learning requirements and so there's lending a hand which is asking students to lend a hand either to a choh high staff member or to a community organization using their artistic skills that can be look like something such as taking pictures for somebody for their um homework or school classroom resources taking pictures for a club or a sport designing a logo or a flyer for school events so on and so forth um examples of current lending a hand opportunities that we've had the opportunity to um execute have been designing the buttons for John Andrews robotics Club the but built Bots photographing the welding team for their new trailer designing large signs for the cross country team designing the prom Flyers we were asked by a teacher to help design out what to do when you're done poster for their classroom which was inspired by Grace dearborn's talk at our um districtwide staff development last week along with um being asked and hired by the national charity League to photograph one of their events and one of my students is currently shadowing and assisting a local wedding photographer um the other components of that choice board include um Community Arts appreciation so students are asked to go out into the community and attend an art gallery or a performance and do a write up about it and tell us their experience um along with Real World Knowledge using a program called path full explore where they have the opportunity to learn how to write a resume the importance of a cover letter and also um contribute to a collaborative project between the phot photography students and the digital art students together so they are working on a large project that they're currently developing throughout their leadership roles um at the end of the semester um we are also with CTE we're given the opportunity to go on a lot of really great field trips and I've taken kids out to BU College in Chico State as has Lauren and we got to tour the photography facilities and the maker space at bu College as is shown here we also went to the digital media lab at Chico State and got to participate in Hands-On demonstrations of working in the actual photo lab and having pictures that they got to take home with them and they got to create stopmotion animations in a state-of-the-art uh Lab at Chico State which was really wonderful um and then we're actually going to have some upcoming projects that are similar to what they got to do when they were working Hands-On at the University so they can really see how what we are doing in the classroom lines up with what you're able to do outside of high school and as Lauren was also mentioning CTE has really just allowed us to become Visionaries for our students it's been a really wonderful experience and to have the support um of Tiffany and Tina and of each other honestly it's been um it's been phenomenal being able to H come up with an idea and see something that could be an amazing opportunity for our students and be able to research that and provide that for them them um having the ability to use equipment that students see industry professionals use is a huge motivator and confidence booster whether they are working on a personal project or working on their lend of hand as they are working with a Community member with a teacher there any questions thank you and thank you oh my goodness um I have a question question I I if you have a a a specialed student that wants to enroll in your program what kind of supports are available to help them initially you know to be successful in the pathway 100% um we they're just like one of the rest there's no difference and I feel like the Arts have always been the place for all students um we have I'll just give you an example my well I could actually go even bigger than that so um I think every sing single art class at PV is now in a pathway so we've really adopted it like to like wholeheartedly one of and I will just say he's not here but one of my colleagues Steven tramber has an art one class um with I want to say 51% students that have IEPs and if you looked back on the slideshow or maybe I have to go forward oh I went too far oh I did not I'm so sorry I don't know where I'm going um he just recently finished this mask making project um this is that class and there you would walk into that classroom and every single person would be busy there was nobody on their cell phone I know everybody gets up on the cell phones massive problem solving going on um every single kid was you know engaged um I don't see there being a better place for students than in our classes so and I I think that most I'm going to speak for us and the arts and I'll speak for my other two colleagues uh we feel very strongly about that that there's really no no difference thank you any other questions for us thank you guys so much for having us it was very nice [Applause] to right thank you um what I love about the two of them and they other colleagues is that they we've always had art in school um but they're showing the industry relevance um and that just how that can connect to jobs outside of high school um and I'm really very proud of what they have done um in their programs with that one of the quotes we got was specific to Arts it said that it was challenging but it was it helped them improve their artistic skills so our students are feeling challenged but in a good way so it's a good good problem to have all right our next speaker we have is Ronnie cochrell he's coming to speak about the a welding program at Chico high that okay hello everybody um Ronnie cochrell this is Brett Maguire she's going to be uh speaking on behalf of the student side of this uh last year we had the opportunity to not just compete in a welding competition but actually a fabrication which there is a difference when we used to go to the welding competitions you would weld six inches and get judged on that particular but then last year we got a chance to go to ks high school and Yos High School which is down south and they just started this fabrication competition which is a team of four that compete to actually build a specific thing and the kids have six hours in order to do do this so it's very similar to if you're familiar with Cake Wars or any of those reality shows that they have a a lotted set of time this is no different and these kids don't get a lunch break they eat when they are not working so it's very similar to Real World Experience so with that I'm going to turn it over to Brett and let her kind of explain her side of it because she is on our team hi I'm Brett McGuire I'm a sophomore at Chico High School our school SCH welding program recently started doing competitions about two years or last year was the first year I've been on a welding team for two years now we've gone to competitions in Gridley Marysville carethers and we also put on our own competition these competitions are very important for many reasons they give us the opportunity to come together as team as a team and we get to design and function uh develop the functions of our projects we've designed and built a bench a welding table and a rocket stove so far this year they also provide opportunities to enhance our skills in Custom Fabrication the competitions also encourage us to use or to meet and build relationships with people who are already working in the industry none of these opportunities wouldn't have happened for me or other kids on the welding team if it wasn't for Mr cochrell I've always known since I was an elementary school that I wanted to go to Chico high for the welding program i' participated in the bcoe summer Welding camps when I was in Middle School and I was a youth leader for the summer camps last summer these summer camps helped me um fall in love with the industry and I knew that I wanted to be a welder but with Mr cooch's guidance I discovered that I wanted to continue in the manufacturing industry post High School I my um sorry I have an ultimate goal of becoming a custom fabricator thank you for your time and letting me present to you about how important the chico High welding program is for the future of the trades [Applause] Community questions I I do can we talk a little bit more about the summer camps can you give me a little more background on what those are and who sponsors them and and so forth of course so they're through but County Office of Education which is bcoe and it's funded by card I believe and they happen three weeks out of the summer and you can pick like which week works best for you and um there's an instruct instructor there that will help you learn all the different processes of welding like Mig or TIG or any other thing that is there and that'll just help you through it and how old do you have to be to do that I believe it's 12 to 15 maybe no 11 to 15 somewhere between there and then you can start being a youth leader if you love it so much and you've actually staffed these you've actually been an instructor and so yes I staffed last year or like this last summer and then I was a participant in the camp for two years and they're located here in Chico yep at the what facility do they use the but County Office of Education facility here in Chico great thanks I wanted to hear just a little bit more about the fabrication competition and sort of how that went and what did you make and I want to hear more about it yeah so like cockell said we have six hours to build and fabricate uh different things we've done a bench which how to incorporate wood so we would create a metal frame with a wood seat or incorporate wood any way that you can we've done a Welding Table where you would build the Welding Table and then you would um it would be like judged by peoples and then you would be ranked like that and then we've done a rocket stove where we design the rocket stove whichever way we want we have creative um freedom for anything there are certain requir requirements for different things but we can build it however we want is there a highlight or favorite thing that has has happened in in that space for me it's watching my team come from just a couple of people that love to weld to becoming a team and working together as one and making our projects P progressively more and more better I'm going going to tell on your teacher when I worked at Pleasant Valley High School Mr cochrell was a student at Pleasant Valley High School I was the attendance Clerk and we got to know each other really well that's normally not good and followup is you it's not uncommon for teachers to have been one of the harder [Laughter] students true I was going to comment um on your question um Eileen when you asked about like support for special ed um or kids with IEPs I've had the privilege of having two of my boys um in the welding program at Chico High um our oldest who's graduated now he's in at but College taking PRX for Welding which he's very excited about but I um personally was um over the top amazed with just how supportive um Chico high was um for him he has an IEP and when he needed the support like for safety reasons um they were there and they provided that support and then when he proved that that wasn't necessary that was um lifted and he felt like that was a huge write of Passage so anyway I'm forever grateful for um the welding Pro program at Chico high and I'm just excited because it's really um given my oldest particularly something he's excited about in pursuing his future career so anyway um just overwhelmed with appreciation and just the amount of support that um they've provided um with him with his disabilities so thank you guys um is there a similar Community engagement aspect to your program kind of like we heard about with arts and with engineering and architecture where you know are there opportunities that you look for to partner or collaborate with or or even do projects for um you know other entities in the community yeah we are constantly helping out um local industry that comes to us you know for certain things um with a lot of the um Grant dollars that we get and we spend on our shops we basically are mini manufacturing shops for these industry partners that we have and there's there are times they come to us with hey we we don't have time to get this done is it is there any chance we can have your kiddos you know do this for us and they were big in instrumental in helping us purchase this trailer and the sponsorship on the side of the trailer with their stickers that we we tried to show because if it if it wasn't for the industry Partners a lot of these CTE programs just would have a would struggle to be funded and with them we we're constantly partnering with them them and actually next Friday you all invited we're hosting our own competition out at Cal custom which is just um off of the Durham Dayton exit if you're heading out of town south take the Durham exit turn right like you're going to Durham and then on the right hand side you'll see where all the houseboats are that's where we're going to be hosting our own competition um that we have about eight schools showing up from all over the you know the valley that are going to be here and um our particular one is uh they're going to be building a fire pit and so that fire pit has to be done by scratch and the kids have to design everything and that's very similar to what Brett was talking about with the rocket stove we get a set of plans from that particular school and they have very specific requirements that they have to meet so they can have their own creativity in what they how they want to build it but they have to meet the requirements or they get disqualified so if it's too tall too wide too short and the judges will go right and with the community support and the industry they are also our judges so they come and they get to see the kids firsthand because it's their future Workforce so they they really like to invest in coming to show their faces and introduce themselves and actually see the kids that are there cool thank you thank you so much you have the you have the trailer right outside correct yeah so if there's a bathroom break or something people can check it out all right better better be quick CU I'm leaving thank you we'll go back so that's the the trailer it is like Kelly said right outside um and it was um it's not yeah you can't miss it um we were able to put a um custom wrap on it too with um our grant funds um because it's considered advertising and recruitment of our um um you know younger students to get him involved so it was pretty cool um and that trailer was donated from the community um for his program and I will have I have to say that Ronnie is is a kid magnet first of all like kids flock to him um he's at school at 6:45 in the morning opening the shop letting them come in um and that passion really shows and everything that he does so thank you Ronnie one of our last quotes through these CTE programs and classes offered I have found some of my passions and it and a pathway that I would like to pursue further in University so you see repetitively how these classes impact our students our last group we have come to come up is Priscilla Burns and Nick valard they are representing our food service and Hospitality program just a small program just an itty bitty program um I am Gob stopped still every day when I walk into that facility um we are so proud of it on a daily basis and our students are so proud of that if you haven't had a chance to see the facility or the facility in action I really recommend that you come over a lot of times we serve on Fridays at lunch and it's really worth your time to come take a look um we we um start our pathway with life management and nutrition science uh continuing on in culinary 1 culinary 2 baking and pastry um our program has threefold uh since um 2020 when we open the new building um students want to be there we have to kick them out uh all the time um and so they're it's it's a place where we're applying Real World skills with academic rigor um we do community service we're wall to--all uh our career in technical student organization which is called FCCLA uh we do internships uh externships we have kids on job site placement and we have Career Development from 9th grade through 12th grade with portfolios um this year has been sort of exhausting in travel and we can talk about that a little bit um we have hosted both a a regional fall and a spring meeting I think we've catered over 30 events this year um and the students are working uh costing ordering having fun um this year we have a slate of local chapter officers six we have six Regional officers and we have one state officer um we're also having a student run for State office next month and uh one student that's going to run for a national office uh this summer so we're really excited exced about all the events um we took a group of students last month what no two months ago to Long Beach and I'm going to let Ava talk about um our proar team for a moment hi um I've been with Miss Burns for about three years now and she has pushed me this whole time to just keep moving and moving and trying to do absolutely everything and I'm thank her so much for it um and so she pushed me to do our Pro start team which we started working on as soon as the the year pretty much started and we started forming a team um and the competition is a team of four to five and we create uh three dishes that are to be made in 1 hour and we get two burners which is pretty pretty much to like stoves kind of but they're not as hot so it takes a little longer um and we create three dishes so as you can see we have an octopus dish that I made by myself and um it is a pressure cooked and seared octopus with some potatoes asparagus blistered tomatoes and on top of it it has a like a kind of acidic balsamic like not balsamic um basil like um dressing just to kind of get the acidic to get you hungry and then it'll move you on to the next dish which is a pistachio encrusted lamb that has quinoa carrots and um beets and which is so delicious I had it for I I we practiced at um like 6:30 7 o'clock in the morning for two weeks straight and I had octopus lamb and everything for two weeks straight it was it was good but it got tiring and then um the last dish which was my personal favorite it is a cheesecake with a um blueberry compost that has sugared blueberries kiwi and then um Starnes on top dusted on top of the cheesecake it's a nobaked cheesecake and then um um she does this like sugar work on top of it which is just amazing to see it's it it took us months to create these recipes and perfect them but all in all we were very proud of them so we competed down in Long Beach and we got ninth in the competition and um it was just such a an amazing experience and it just um kind of formed and shaped what I want to do for my future which is um not culinary but nutrition and so with the food costing and everything it just kind of puts you into like a restaurant esque situation and just prepares you for almost anything that will come your way when it comes to culinary so thank you for that opportunity sorry I'm gonna not let you leave the microphone CH she's hungry now uh I I am curious about what constraints you're given going into that competition are you given like a budget constraint uh ingredient number constraint besides the one hour of cooking time obviously we're given it's around like an $80 limit um and there's like a lot of you just we have to think more practical like we can't it's it's hard because you don't you want to be able to impress them with this budget so it it kind of puts everyone in the same like situation which is nice so these schools that aren't like very very financed like they are able to compete at the same level as everyone else so it's just how you use your money that's how um you're able to get further so we were very sparing and so like with like an octopus and like a lamb it's just how much you use of it that's where it all comes in so the it was like an $80 limit per cover per cover so like yeah um so all three courses had to equal up to $80 and then last question from me I promise uh um did you learn something watching the other team's um presentations or the dishes you know the ones that you know scored a little higher were the things you took away from that that you would maybe change differently and make you know do different next time um so with the two burners um you had to get really creative with how you wanted to show off and like there was um it's just all like technique so um and just what we weren't able to think outside the box for like there was one group of people who made ice cream and so we I was just flabbergasted on like how they were able to make ice cream I was just sitting there like just in awe and cuz they di they brought like dry ice and were just sitting there and just there's one girl just going at it and I was like um and then there was another group who got um who brought like a hand held blender and I I was like why didn't I think of that the whole time um CU I had a mortal imp pestle for my sauce and so I was sitting there just like hammering at this thing where when I could have just been hand cranking this but um definitely a lot of things that I wish I could have done but I'm still happy with everything it was all just technique and how far you can think outside the box just got you further those the competitions for everybody are really fun because you do get to see other you know people's approaches you don't get when you're just with your group at school you know you get you get all all kinds of different ideas you're with people who great idea exchange think the same way as you it's such a it was such a cool place to I'm excited for you so who did do that Sugar work it's really it's amazing her name is um JC Ashcraft she is a phenomenal um cook she's right there that's her doing it gotcha okay she is a such a creative mind and I just look up to her every single day just being next to these people was just phenomenal and that's Sam too he was our manager and so he was there yelling at us telling us the time and just providing us support while I was just having a breakdown but you know ja's phenomenal and it was Diego Ian um the two on the left I'm in the middle and then there's Sam and ji that was us after just feeling tired but yeah thank you thank you while while Ava was on one of our Premier teams our Advanced teams we also had um 35 students compete in our regional competition that included job interview prepared speech um leadership development and I'm going to have um shant trol talk about her competition hi everybody my name is Shantal I am the FCA region president and I had the opportunity need of um doing a competition this year I was doing wedding cake designs so I basically make a fake wedding cake with real with real um supplies um it was very very eye openening to all the things you can do in atcl it was a very very fun experience I have the opportunity of going to State um and competing on the state level unfortunately mine's only a California Star Event so I can't go to Nationals for this competition but doing this competition taught me a lot about time management and just the techniques it takes to get to a farther level and I'm really thankful to Burns and Mr V because their class really opened up a lot of opportunities for me before I joined their class my sophomore year I was thinking doing something totally different um for college but now I want to go to a culinary school and do um culinary as a chef for a living thank you guys um we have one student that's running for a national office uh this next summer and she's our one of our current state officers hello everyone my name is Miley Bryant and I am currently the California FCCLA State vice president so with being vice president I also had to run for region and chapter I kind of hit the ground running my freshman year I started and jumped in right into region and was elected region president and then uh the year after which this prior year I was elected the state vice president and throughout this experiences I've um gotten the opportunity to go to a multitude of conferences and not only network with my peers from across the country but also I've gotten to network with other teachers and I've learned how to make the school environment better and I've learned how to be an active member within the Community I'm also in Miss Burns's culinary 2 class and I was in Mr vard's culinary 1 class um they both helped me realize what I wanted to do and I've actually also competed at the region State and National level for professional presentation and career exploration or exploration um but uh through this experience I've also realized that I want to further my journey in FCCLA andun run for Nationals as she said um this next summer so I will hopefully be elected um to the 10 National officers this summer yep that's it yes what does that mean what do you do what's your responsibilities currently or what both like yeah so what what is what does your role look like um at this level and then if you were to be elected at the national level what is it that you're going to be doing so currently um as the vice president I look over all star competitions with is students taking action with recognition so student or like seant tall with um her wedding cake and then with me with my professional presentation I look over um all of these events and I go to Star chairperson meetings with um fellow teachers and chairpersons uh to like devise plans to better these star events um in the beginning of the year and then near the end of the year uh during our state leadership conference April 27th through the 30th I believe um I will help run elections for the next incoming state officers I also attend um weekly if not bi-weekly Zoom meetings with my state officer team um and occasionally the board of directors for FC the California FCCLA Federation and then um occas or monthly I go to national network meetings with all of the national officers and um all of the state officers from around the country and nationally I'm hoping to run for either first vice president or vice president of competitive events which I will really um for first vice president I will be acting as kind of a secretary so I will be taking notes and I will be also meeting with the board of directors and sitting as a chairperson on that board and then with uh vice president of competitive events I will um be helping them Implement and like create new competitive events for the following Years thank you I just want to say whether it's for a short-term inspiration or a long-term passion um we want to see students succeed at all levels so Nick so I mean uh if you think about the things that the kids have done it's kind of an amazing thing um here's us catering I think this was earlier in the year where we're going to be catering some more next week even for the Arts for the orc people so um but when it all comes down to it I mean I also want to shout out some recognition for Priscilla Burns um who this program wouldn't exist without her um I started my culinary uh teaching in a small little classroom that used to be an art classroom that had no burners um and I came in saw the facility that she helped build um and coordinated and I jumped ship from where I was and came here immediately so um yeah the the fact that we have 700 students in our pathway um and we are winning National competitions or at least competing Winning State competitions um and it's it's all comes down to her I'm I'm still learning I mean I get to be the one of the spearheads for next year after Priscilla retires this year um so I just wanted to give a little special shout out to Priscilla thank [Applause] you questions yes um Miss burs you your group catered a retired Pleasant Valley High School group and served cheesecake for a dessert if you could get me that recipe oh my gosh it was actually it was the best I've ever had thank you tomorrow morning you will get that recipe thank you thank you thank you [Applause] guys thank you guys and I too would like to give a shout out to Priscilla um before I was in this position she was the CTE coordinator um and really all that you see in CTE um comes down to the hard work she put in for many years um to to build to what we have so she's been instrumental in that so thank you [Applause] yeah all right so we um moving on that was our program highlights if any of our teachers would like to go home and have an early evening you're free to do do that you can stay as long as you like thank you all so they they talked um to answer Eileen's question about student organizations the ctso um they talked a lot about them I thought I would go through a little overview of who does what um in the CTE world so they talked about FCCLA stands for family career and communities leaders of America um our food service hospitality education and Child Development Pathways affiliate with that um so if you're wondering who does which organization this will hopefully help you um have some clarity in that FCCLA um covers a couple of different industry sectors um also within FCCLA is fashion design we don't offer it in Chico Unified the next one is FFA Future Farmers of America that is all of our agriculture programs FFA is very specifically just for agriculture um so all of our agriculture Pathways including a mechanics ornamental horiculture floral design and sustainable a Sciences affiliate with the FFA um and the the reason we have these student organizations really comes down to within CTE there are extra requirements of our teachers um we call these the 12 elements of a highquality CT program one of those elements is leadership is building leadership skills within the students um and so these organizations help to build those leaderships so if you hear all these competitions and why do they do this it's one of our requirements in CTE um set by Perkins so Perkins is our Federal grant um for CTE our next one we have is hosta or health occupations students of America and that is our patient care Pathways at both schools in our Public Safety pathway skills Osa is kind of an overall overall encompassing organization so any of our Pathways could affiliate with c u skills USA um specifically who Affiliates within Cho is architecture and engineering programs our computer programs including information supports and services software and system developments those are your Robotics and um drone classes and then our media production which is Our House of Blues um and you they came to to the um board earlier in this year and talked about their experience in that as c um skills U skills USA is it analogous to uh FC what's the sports one yeah is it kind of very similar sort of thing I don't know anything about sports so CIF runs you know uh competitive Sports you know for schools yeah same hierarchy same school structure um separated out by similar divisions like you would with with Athletics with enrollment so very similar thank you and then our last one like um the two um art teachers talked about the National Art Honor Society um is new to Chico and PB um as of this year um they found that all of the the traditional ctsos didn't really fit their students so that they sought an alternative um which is um acceptable in Perkins um and so they're kind of spearheading this um at the state level they recognize that there is a hole in that for th those Industries um that are in the Arts so they recognize that in their ctsos that they're missing something for art students so our teachers went and found their own so last of our quotes super it was a super great experience that I will definitely be taking with me into my next stages of life and you heard that over over and over again tonight any questions before we get into the real fun the student data all right so I wanted to share some some data on our programs um this first chart shows us um real just basic numbers of enrollment for the past three school years um prior to this um as the First Column is the number of students eligible so that's our our general populations at the high schools all of the students that could take CTE the second column is um all of the the number of unduplicated students that are in CTE um that could um it means they they could have multiple CTE classes but they are only counted once um and as you can see see from that jump from 2020 to last school year we had almost a a a double we doubled our enrollment um from 992 to 1,800 students taking our percentage of students last school year um to close to 50% that means nearly 50% of our high school students are getting exposure to CTE classes um and that jump is really um due to the fact that we had the block schedule that is allowed the ability to um for these students to have the room and they're schedule to take these classes the next column looks at our CTE completers so we're seeing that number increasing as well over the Year we're hoping um I'm hoping the data this year is really going to show that because this will be the second year PBS had a block schedule um as well and so we're going to see that um increase um because you have two years now that block schedule the other columns um to the right there is um our completion rate that is calculated based on the senior cohort not all of our completers so it's just looking at our senior class who was a CTE completer last year we jumped to 21% so 21.8% of our senior class last year had completed a CTE pathway and that means so that's a sequence of courses that's not just taking one class that's completing an entire pathway which Mo most of our pathways are to sequence courses so we are seeing um that steadily increase as well um with again our blog schedule where we have some holes is in our disaggregated data um within our um special populations of our English Learners our homeless students and our foster students we're seeing that they are not having the same amount of completion rates um and what we have done is um hired a partial position a point4 person to um to really specify and work with um doing Outreach to those populations and so she started working with our homeless and Foster students doing one-on-one mentoring with them to get them to um see the potential in their completion of CTE classes you a question a little bit um so would I read this right if I were to say um uh for 2223 under student with disabilities 14.8% of the students with disabilities that were P that were of total completed the CTE pathway or that were in the Pro like I'm a little lost in the numbers here so that that 14.8% is saying that of that senior class of 2023 um 14.8% of the students with po students with disabilities completed a pathway data is a little bit tricky so again where we see holes um and the the problem with some of this data is it's based on maybe a small population so that 2.2% and our English Learners is based on one student so it's it does make it seem a little bit off in some of those categories um but we are still seeing that as a place where we can improve and increase those populations so do you know um is this just that students aren't uh in these subcategories aren't entering into CTE programs or they are starting them and not finishing them kind of a combination so if we look at the data there are um more students that take um or start Pathways than finish but that's kind of overall our for our whole population of students a lot of students start Pathways and don't finish them so our goal one of our main goals is to help get students all students and all subr group students to finish um but certain populations are so our students with disabilities is one of those where they tend to kind of jump around between Pathways which is there's nothing wrong with that because they're getting a feel for what they want to do but what we would like to see them do is find something that they can finish so so it's not uncommon for them to jump around and see what they're interested in so I think it would also be interesting just to know you know I feel like I'm missing a column for each of those um subcategories of the um percent of those students in CTE so like the percent of students with disabilities that are in CTE like that does that's not reflected up there that I'm right okay not misreading anything no and I can work on pulling that data that's in our calpads data so we can pull that pretty easy so yeah the other thing we're working on um a goal that we've had is working on translation of documents um spe specifically targeting the e um and that's you know targeting the parents of English Learners is we're trying to get the documents that we have translated into other native languages so that they have um all the information as well um so it's just been a process of Google translat so we've Googled translated things and now we have to have a real person that can you know check for accuracy to make sure everything is um saying the right things that they're supposed to so those will hopefully be up um on our website soon some other data which is positive data this attracts our graduation rate of our CTE completers um for the past two years we've had nearly 100% um graduation rate what that means is that if a student took a CTE pathway that they were also a high school graduate so um this year we're at 99.4% of graduation rate of our CTE completers so a correlation that's why we are pushing for our students to be completers um because they're more goal oriented and we're seeing the data correlation with higher graduation rates as well um can you clarify for me a little bit um with Fairview is there not a CTE pathway program there yet but then it's on it's on Deck to be implemented okay so they don't have a CTE program because it comes down to credentialing um you'd have to have a CTE designated credential in order to offer those um classes there so that's really what it comes down to is the credentialing aspect yeah seems like it would be pretty powerful to have a more robust CT program up for you we're we're working with Pete Donahue to be our start so we working with him to get that started and hopefully expand out from there thank you yeah um other positive data that we're seeing is that overall um our students that are CTE completers um are scoring higher in academic Proficiency in our state testing so if you look at the blue line that is the um the state targets and the red line is our overall all of our CTE um completers we above the state Target in each one of those tests again we have some holes in our specific populations which is why we're doing specific mentoring um with those students Foster is not on there that goes down to the the spec the population is low like the population might be one student and if they didn't score proficient in their tests they're not going to show up there yeah a low a low end got it so this shows our data of um just how we've grown as well so the First Column is our number of classes or sections that we offer um in 2019 2020 we had 80 sections of CTE compared to last year 131 sections um we're up to 25 teachers um 11 sections of dual enrollment um that is set next year to be somewhere in the 27 classes dual enrolled which is just I it's hard to Fathom that we have that many classes that are going to be dual enrolled next year you're talking about dual enrollment with but college is that where um the dual enrollment for our Automotive uh program is is that going to be part of that exchange that is up to some other people in this room to decide so that is above my level of approval so that's they they're talking about the auto program being offered yeah so that's that's well this board member is very interested in that just in case anybody cares okay um to clarify I don't know if anybody has any questions on what that is no I think that would be a huge facility board member Robinson and I know that our Focus has been on those Pathways and then the next Bond coming up we'll have an opportunity to take a look at those elementary schools so it doesn't mean it can't be on the list but we know that list is already pretty long so what bu college has offered is they're doing a class at their facility that they're going allow our students to come and dual enroll with yeah yeah so that's an opportunity for our students as well um and then the other thing is our industry certifications we've seen that balloon as well um those are things like CPR and first aid um our our Safe Serve um our food handler cards um any sort of certification that they can use in the industry we've seen that increase exponentially last part of this presentation is about how do we do all this stuff we do all this stuff because of the grant funding that we um apply to so there there's three grants that we apply to annually um strong Workforce is the first one so these are all of our active grants right now um it's a lot to keep track of so I'm very grateful for our accounting departments Christy Leo and Sharice Bromley are amazing they keep us all on track with making sure we spend all the money um our C TIG is the other one that stands for CTE incentive Grant we apply for that annually and then Perkins is another annually um another grant that we we apply for annually we've had a couple other grants this past couple of years that we've applied to as well on top of that that has helped fund um our programs so it's a lot of a lot of grant writing to help um get these things and and our our equipment and Facilities up to Industry standards our Focus this on our strong Workforce project this year was was on alternative Ed so at our industry um advisory committee last spring um overwhelmingly the industry the community said that that we needed more at Fair viiew um and so that's where we started looking at what can what can we do with what we have right now um and so we started working with Pete Don who to try to see if we can expand what he is doing in the space that he has um so that's one of our focuses for that and then establishing Junior High um career exploration classes and programs um currently we have bcoe that comes in and does a program but we would like to do more within that as well and there so we have some grant funding specifically for that as well another grant that we just got done a writing um we wrote three grants for the Golden State Pathways projects um this was a one-time Grant from the state um with no match requirement meaning that we don't have to provide any sort of financial match match they're just going to give us money if we're awarded this we do those are great grants we applied for three grants totaling around $3.5 million um to help um upgrade our facilities for the most part upgrade facilities um the purpose of this grant was to establish or expand Pathways with within High wage and high demand Industries the state had specific industries that they targeted as priorities and those are the ones that we honed in on at each of the high schools are you going to sh what they were yeah sorry at CHS like tell me more yeah so at at Chico high school we wrote two grants for them um just because kind of the way it it rolled out it it rolled better we had page limits we were limited to 11 pages to write double space pages to be able to write everything in so we wrote them in two different applications that focused on stem um education Medical Careers environmental science and horiculture and computer science and with this grant it's a little bit different because it's a a cross between CTE and academics so one of the focuses of this is um a through G completion um some dual enrollment so they have to have the opportunity for post-secondary credits um they also have to have the opportunity for work experience so this was a kind of holistic kind of approach to education um big Focus again was on facilities so we wrote to upgrade the science classrooms at Chico so we're hoping to get those to do a little bit of a um modernization inside of those classrooms and then also to add a um medical um lab so medical Patient Care lab at Chico high that is um hopefully similar to the one that's at PB yeah so we're hoping to get those at PV we wrote One Grant focused on computer science and then plant environmental science um again a big F Focus was to upgrade facilities um and to purchase some other things um like a vehicle so we will find out hopefully by March 9th that's the projected day to find out if we awarded those applications April 9th yeah thank you we wrote these these were due March 19th so it's a very fast turnaround so that is my presentation what questions can I answer yeah um you've mentioned Junior High a couple of times tonight and so I guess my question for you is um what uh gaps are there that we're seeing coming from the Middle School to high school and getting kids launched into those Pathways and and do you think that if there was a a way to make it even more robust at the element at the middle school level that we might see some of those um targeted groups groups maybe come up a little bit exactly um so the we need to um we're focused on making things more aligned to what we what the high schools are doing the pathways that are offered um so not not just kind of a random elective but making the elective actually correspond to a pathway that is at the high school we're also looking and we're going to be try probably piloting it at Marsh doing a wheel type of class where they get exploration and exposure in multiple Industries um so that they have that exposure at that level and then they are more informed when they get to high school about what they have and part of that is to address the constraint that many students don't even have an elective class or maybe have one elective class because they only get six class periods at the middle school level it would be amazing if we could figure out how to fund like a seven period hybrid block schedule I'll be able to add an extra class in the in the in the day for our Middle School classes huh oh that's beyond my but level wouldn't it yeah yeah okay thank you any other questions I would just like to um state state that was stated earlier in the presentation one we have amazing teachers in the CT programs which is proving to what our students are doing in all the different competitions and how many more kids that we have in these CTE Pathways but what was stated earlier is the work that U When Tiffany came on as our coordinator of CT is really Blossom and taken off and she keeps everybody focused on what needs to be done and in the the industry and legal in all the industry but I also want to um thank um Tina with Tina Keane and her work with with Tiffany and also who Michelle Bunch who's not here tonight writing those grants and working with Tiffany because Tiffany writes those grants with Michelle the two of them the hard work that they've done to make sure these dollars continue to come in it's just amazing so I just wanted to thank all three of them for their work on the CT Pathways AB thank you want to just piggy back off that and say that um our schools you know from TK on up are amazing and I'm so excited that my kiddos is starting next year and CH get unified as a TK um but when I think about high schools high school options for her um and you know there's lots of options in the region really and what gets me the most excited about thinking about my kiddo going to one of our high schools is RCT program um there's so many different opportunities like I know she's going to get the academic she's going to get it from me anyway but the the opportunities to explore such a variety of interests is um it's really remarkable and just the work that you guys do is amazing and thank you so much for all of that yeah I similarly my son is in kindergarten this year so it's this I have the same kind of lens that I can see through is what is the future going to look like for my kids so it's nice to to have that lens to see yeah all right thank you thank [Applause] you all right well we're going to we're going to roll right through unless there's any objections bre some crusted lamb and octopus I think I will stay away from the Optimus yeah okay um hearing no objections to moving right along um we'll go into our uh discussion action calendar uh 6.1.1 is informational it's the first reading of revised updated new board policies um superintendent saley do you want to just brief us yes we have uh one new one that will come back and that came out of a compliance review with nutrition services they updated their policies so it's a minor change there and we'll bring it back uh for approval at our next board meeting okay we ready to move on Bo and and uh there's no public comment all right so this is informational only um no action is needed and it will come back um at a future board meeting for board approval um my computer is loading right now so we're just going to move right along with my smells like plastic all right um we'll move on to 6.1.2 a discussion action item for approval of revised updated new board policies um which were on our last agenda for first read yes we are uh bringing these forward now we've seen them at the last board meeting they've been posted with this time and we are ready for either questions on any of these if there's any you want to pull and change or we can move forward and approve them it's slowly yeah The Internet's been really slow right now so we're looking for the specifics I think yeah I'm not getting my board policies to update so our Internet's not load take a break hey look there it is it's right up there at least somebody got the good internet over there yeah superintendent Staley when I tried to get the closed session language to open I I couldn't get into it is there a reason for that for closed if you look at 9321 I'm not getting any of mine to come up right now so I had you're you're a step ahead of me I have little bubbles yeah I had tried it before and I I couldn't get it to although it says that it's page three of three it's still did anybody have any that they wanted to pull that's what I was going to ask if uh all the board members had sufficient time to review the policies and didn't have any changes they wanted to bring forward I think we can you know go ahead and move forward with the item um and there's no public comment on this as well I don't think that is correct there was no public comment okay um board would you like to move forward even though we don't have internet access right are we prepared to call for a motion I reviewed them last after the last meeting um okay I'll call for a motion then I move approval of the uh second reading of the um board policies the updated board policies second okay we have a motion and a second um we haven't voted in a while uh let's just go ahead and do a roll call vote we'll start with um with you Rebecca Ken I Doby ey Lando I Robinson I very unenthusiastic eye all right it passes unanimous unanimously thank you board and mine finally just loaded I'm still waiting it's okay um all righty uh item seven is board member request to agendize and uh we did not have any uh requests submitted this this round and um with that uh we will be moving into closed session um and if we could be there let's uh give ourselves a 10-minute break but be there at 52 that'd be great okay um we have to set up a zoom once we're done with close session if there's anything to report on I'll return um and gabble us out um hopefully by 7:30 e e for

Aloha. My name is Todd Wilson. I'm the school health adviser here for Dr. Sarah Campbell and uh Dr. Nathan Tan. Uh we stand on our written testimony and we are available for questions. Great. Appreciate that. Thank you very much. And we have Annucci, the Attorney General. Good afternoon, Vice Chair Kim, members and Herici, Department of the Attorney General. Um, as we set forth in our testimony under the bill, there's a theoretical potential for the DOE to be asked to provide personally identifiable information as defined under FURPA. Pursuant to Furpa, the DOE must first determine whether there's a health or safety emergency that warrants the release of personally identifiable information before it can provide such information. To avoid any potential furer violations, we provided um suggested uh revision to the bill in our testimony. I'll be available for questions. Thank you. Thank you very much. Anyone else wishing to testify?

at least until 4:30 p.m. were blocked from community members and we were not able to see any of those emails that were coming in I would encourage that we have um I would encourage that we have a town hall and listen to our community and hear the evidence that is out there on the harmful effects it has our community deserves to voice their concerns and and be able to communicate to us whether they want this or not the people that live around the school should be able to voice their concerns if they want those near near their home when want it near their home I'm shocked to learn that we already have two towers at two other schools which I'm sure was passed and consent by previous boards without any question or public input this isn't being transparent why do these companies Target schools one might question because districts typically will put money before lives and we need to consider the health impact that this has on our students our teachers our families that live around these schools so I beg you I urge you to allow us to table this let's have a town hall allow the public to come in and speak and share their concerns I even worked HB 2636 and 22 to get this legislation passed that if it's cell tower is going to go anywhere near residential area that 80% of residents had to vote on it and unfortunately it did not move further um due to random reasons but um I I just I would just ask that I'm I'm not asking you to vote Yes I'm not asking you to vote no but Le let's allow a voice from our community Mr Moore If This Were to be tabled would would there be implications on anything as far as building or contract purposes uh president Anderson no we have not nothing has started in terms of construction or um the process to move forward um I do want to note though just a couple things the all the emails that we received um today I we do yeah some were blocked due to the the email that was coming from but all of those emails were not um community members or parents of our district in addition Queen Creek recognizes the district as a political entity under a law and Queen Creek does not require a zoning permit um I I think the legislation that you were working on would would have required that but currently um does not require a zoning permit if the site of the cell tower set back more than 300 ft from a resident which this proposal is um but at the same token Miss andon it would not impact um we can continue to delay this as you can see the original agreement in which I found was not board approved in which I'm bringing tonight was in 2020 the amendment that I've been working on which I thought was off the original agreement um is what I was asking for tonight to proceed with um the cell tower but we can continue to push that off um at the board's request so president Anderson um Mr Moore um I do know there was community members that whose emails did not come through and even the the few emails that did come through even if they're not immediate community members these are state taxpayers whose money goes into the state funds who and and that money is put out to all the districts within the state so whether they live here the information that they were providing is valuable and is necessary for everybody to be able to see um so so the excuse that they're not community members is I mean I don't know I it's it's it shouldn't be looked at that way um we should value every email that comes in um with information and the fact that after 8:00 a.m.

Angela. Aloha. um committee Angela Melody Young testifying on behalf of CARES. Um so this um proposal is a request for DO and DOE to initiate to work together on reporting public health emergencies such as CO 19 and other similar emergencies. And I agree with AG's comments that under this bill there's um theoretical potential to provide personally identifiable information. And my major concern with the bill is privacy laws as per HIPPA act which is a federal act to set standards and is not legislated here in this bill to protect minors. The HIPPO privacy rule creates national standards to protect medical records and it does set a limit and conditions on the uses and disclosures that may be made of such information without authorization. Um and the privacy rule is located in chapter 45 code of federal regulations part 160 and subp parts A and E of part 164.

these emails were blocked is extremely concerning um um and I don't know I don't know what the reasoning was the last email was received at 7:45 and then it just completely stopped we were getting other emails but nothing related to to the cell tower um and and I did have people calling me going it's my emails are getting kicked back I can't and they literally one guy tried from you know 7:30 up until 4:30 um as as I pulled up he was calling he goes I still can't send it so um based on that alone I think that we need to um allow for public comment and um and and I urge you to be able to allow that because we're here for our community and we need to be able to hear their voice president Anderson uh board member van hook I think um a couple things I would like to to address as far as your statements overall I received emails all day um so I do recognize that these types of things happen but I think it's important at least publicly to express that that some of these issues may be in certain specific instances depending on all kinds of things I mean emails routinely go down we get we get emails about the fact that email was down or something to that effect um and notific Etc um so I I receiv received them all day um from all different types of individuals I also um struggle with the statement that because these individuals are not part of our um constituency that they have the same Merit especially when your concerns which I I hear and are valid and I'm not saying that we can't table it or that I wouldn't support a table um but you're also talking about it the importance of hearing from our community members on on how they feel about it somebody who lives in Tucson or Prescot is irrelevant to that specific conversation and a good portion of the emails I got today were not even in Maricopa County um that matters in terms of how you're feeling or how you're talking about things I also think it's important for us as we progress and if we continue to talk about this get more information none of us are scientists and so when it comes to looking at studies to determine whether or not certain studies are valid or the validity of some of these things or when you look at some of the studies that were sent to us didn't have their data a lot of the stuff that was sent to us is these are the things that I fear here is the the evidence but there there was no explanation on where they got this data how many people they got it from especially when you're looking at things like cancers I mean going outside and taking a deep breath in our state is not great we have massive amounts of smog leads to beautiful sunsets but there are reasons that we have high rates of asthma and those types of things so yes I do believe that it matters and I'm to have these conversations and getting that information but I think it's important to keep some of those things in mind as we progress I also don't think it's uh fair or Genuine to say that our district is putting Finance over the safety of our students um I just don't looking at the things that we have done the decisions that we have made I I don't see that to be a true statement um and so from my perspective and the things that I'm doing and the things that I see routinely I feel strongly that Higley routinely makes decisions that that are for the safety and well-being of our students and that is something that we always keep at the Forefront uh that matters I also think when you look at finances we just talked about proposing a board or a bond um you know if those types of things pass then we don't have to look for other avenues to look at ways in which we can get some funds to offset certain things so again I'm I'm willing to have some of these conversations as we progress or look forward but I I think it's important to be reflect Ive of how we paint a picture or what we see personally and how we feel about that versus making statements uh on behalf of others or without the full scope of information president Anderson Anderson I'm sorry go ahead it's okay um Vice President Van Hook president Anderson I did received the concern that they weren't some of them weren't going through so we have it looking into that because I personally got a whole bunch but then I saw some say when I would forward it it's suspicious so they're looking into it and if we have information to report we'll put it into um status this week so sometimes it's just somebody's address or whatever but anyway I wanted to follow up and tell you they are looking into it but I got a whole bunch I think also a lot of them had websites or videos which is also part of the reason that they get filtered out to avoid fishing and those types of things yeah yeah if it just says look at a link then they Avid those out I mean we routinely get emails that say this is on hold or do you want to accept the spam that sometimes don't come in that day but tonight you might have that that you can approve it because they're not sent right away and I did get a ton of emails myself I even asked a qu several questions the speaker referred to me as Trisha but um I did ask questions of them to get more information and receive the reply as well and I think we all did um president Anderson um yes I I did get that one and then all the ones um you forwarded I had already received those those were during the day um but to say we shouldn't consider um to board member um Wade's response to say we shouldn't consider people that are not within our immediate constituency um I find it interesting that when we were proposing the bond committee um that there was a request to allow people that didn't live in our district to be able to be Bond part of the bond Committee just because their kids come here but they don't they live in panel County um and we had received that email specifically from one individual um wanting to be a part of it so um we can't have one way and not the other um and the information that was being provided today um is important information and there was emails from professionals who deal with this on a daily basis that um are Physicians um that deal with it and I didn't say our district puts money before children I said districts um I know two weeks ago um there was same thing happened in Tucson um and a neurologist spoke um and explained how he is seeing an increase in brain cancer in children um and so that is something serious that we should consider um I would hate to um have something awful happen to any one of our children or staff um so to be able to take in that input um from the community is important to me and um for $244,000 a year um yeah I mean it's nice to get you know money but uh at the detriment of our community um no that's it's not worth it um for me if it was a million bucks it wouldn't be worth it um at the the damage that it can cause um so for right now I am only asking that we table it we allow a town hall and allow our community um to voice their concerns um and then we can make a decision um after that President Anderson um well I think and you just even said it too we were getting emails some were kicked out but it's not like all the emails regarding the situation we're blocked so it's not like people couldn't get information to us which was how it initially sounded but um I I do have issues receiving emails from people in presc Prescot Valley Tucson um where actually I I don't know that I saw any from any of our community members like that are actually local that are in that area that not even in our district um clearly there was a call to action regarding this item because our very first email regarding this item came in at 50:3 last night and our board packet doesn't go live until 5 o'clock so our board packet went live at 5: p.m yesterday and by 5:03 I was already receiving emails so people knew it was on our board packet there was already a call to action for us to get inundated with emails um from people who aren't even in our area so obviously it it was sent to groups political groups regular groups anyway there whoever there was clearly a call to action with this being on our our board packet um and if people are reaching out you reaching out to you directly saying I'm trying to send you an email um then it just I got a Wonder but um clearly there was a call to action with our board packet hitting at 5:00 five3 having an email um about it I'm not saying I I wouldn't agree to table it but um I can't put the Merit into emails I'm receiving from all over the state on a call to action um request versus people who it's going to impact so I uh like I said I'm not saying I disagree with tabling it I'm not saying that that we can't decide something else but um but there there is a clear reason we were receiving these emails president Anderson board member Reese um I made a call to a friend to to get information and that friend obviously put out a call to action and these are people that care about the health of children that it doesn't matter what school it is that they will reach out provide information in order to save and protect the health of children so I'm sorry that that bothers you but the fact that these people careful for the health of children should speak volumes and the information that they provide is also valuable so it's not that I put out a call to actions like I said there's no reason for you to wonder I made a phone call to a friend who then realized what was on our agenda and then put out a call to action to anybody that is involved in protecting Children's Health so um so yeah I I know that there's you know several individuals that were trying to email and their emails weren't coming through at at one point somebody mentioned like 22 emails so um I maybe received I don't know maybe five six yeah so it it it wasn't coming through for me um the initial one this this gentleman I know the initial one it was you Sherry and um oh my gosh I just went blank Tiffany um whose whose emails were kick kicked back and then after that everybody started being kicked back um but put it possible my name was spelled wrong it is constant that my name is spelled wrong and so so I don't know but I I I just hope that we can at least table this for right now and let's let's hear our community let's hear what they want and what they think and um and then we can vote on it another day the next meeting but in the meantime allow the ability to do some sort of a town hall and hear hear them out um can I ask just a couple thinkk you can I ask a couple questions Mr Moore um did we reach out to them or did they reach out to us for this cell tower since I wasn't around for the origination of this agreement um there was other Administration that signed this um I do not how know how the connection got okay um I appreciate the map um I don't understand the map where exactly where exactly is this Tower going to be president Anderson if you're familiar with San um I guess if familiar with San or cool either like for like um there's a concession stand that resides kind of um specifically in s in the middle of the campus um in between the two Fields um there's a small little concession stand so there's a light pole there those fields are lit U this would be placed 80 ft um up on that light light pole um much like our other cell towers that are Gateway and williamsfield High School okay um I I'm okay also with the table of this my um my husband um has a master's degree in radio frequency um electrical engineering he's rfic and um over almost 30 years working with it and in his building in his labs they have protocols in place um there there power levels there's frequencies with and fre within frequencies and it has sparked Communication in our household and and I want more information he he of course has you know started a little bit to research himself um as far as the the emails I hate to bring that back up but I will say um I if it you know if it's a push for something you know no I'm not I don't really respect it but if it's truly people cell towers are everywhere in fact that's what I spent my afternoon looking was you can Google and get to a website that'll show you all the cell towers and antennas by City And I could see um we have one just right here across the street uh on Recker and posos and then plenty more within our district so if it's something that people are experiencing outside our district and wanting to share and bring awareness I I absolutely um appreciate that um so I'm not going to go in the back and forth about the emails but I just wanted to make that statement if it truly is something concerned because cell towers are everywhere um and communication is now space to ground um let's let's hear it and I'm okay with tabling it and getting some more information and hearing truly from our community if they would like to provide import if they would like to become more knowledgeable in this manner as well as long as again and you say that this shouldn't hurt contracts or or bring anything that we need to no president no we can um push the I mean it's not until the board approves I cannot sign off on this and so um yeah we'll work with legal to push the the date back um if the board so chooses so it it's been three years so I think we're F or four years four years I'm sorry it's 2024 so I think we're okay for a slightly longer time president Anderson um I just want to say that when we did receive the email starting at 503 as Mrs Reese um pointed out that I did think oh I'm missing something you know cell phone towers are everywhere I did become worried of course I don't want to put Children at Risk um I did do some research one of the things was that this causes more fires I asked fire officials um and they said that is not true um I several fire officials not just the one that lives in my house um but um you know of course we want to keep our children safe and if it means you know doing a little extra then that's great uh or that I'm happy to do that and I'm happy to table it as well um I just also wonder you know we do use cell phones on a daily basis if these people that you know are concerned about this are also not letting their children use cell phones because I'm guessing that that's also a big factor I don't know because I'm not a scientist or a doctor um that if that's contributing to the brain cancers that you mentioned as well um but again happy to table this um to see if our community parents um um you know are concerned about this especially those at saan as well and and teachers and staff president Anderson could your could you share your husband's stuff with us that'd be great thank you no um I second the motion or I'll make them um I'm or I thought I did I so I I second the motion to table I think she did she'd like to make a motion I'll do it again I'd like to make a motion to table this second whatever what number is it 7.3 7.3 all those in favor I I ition motion carries 5 to zero I just want to say thank you so much for considering to table it all right thank you let's moving move on to um 8.1 future agenda items do we have any requests to add to our list I I don't have a future agenda items but just um one of the speakers uh well I guess I can say this right now just one of the speakers that talked about um the teacher times the professional development at williamsfield if that's something that we can get more information on and see if that's something that our teachers are concerned about how we are able to provide better professional de development for them um board president Anderson Miss Schultz yes we're already working on that some because Miss Miller's been working with the calendar task team and it's been coming up so I think we can come back and provide some more information or we can provide it in status and so maybe initially we'll provide you an update in status and then because some individuals are requesting that it get changed for next school year so and that calendar is already established but I think there's been a lot of conversation with Mr lots and Hauser and of course this task team with Miss Miller so we want to do the right thing for the kids and the teachers so uh Team where Mr lotson haer's gone but Miss Miller could we provide a brief summary of the feedback you've been receiving in status um I'll be coming to you president Anderson members of the board a l um at a later date with a detailed presentation that really gives you what the calendar um task team has been doing and how we came to the recommendation that we will be bringing forth to you to approve at a later date but in the process we did send out a survey that talked about that late start at the high school and and what everyone felt would be best moving forward predominantly on that survey the majority of the people that responded said that they would like to discontinue the late start Wednesdays at the high school um we've spent a lot of time discussing the professional development opportunities at the high school level and again we'll have some recommendations for you and additional information on what we're bringing forward on that at a later date um the question then was if the if the majority of the people are not wanting to move forward with the late start um would it be possible to discontinue that next year instead of waiting until the new calendars take effect in the 2526 school year um and I think that that was probably why the speaker this evening came and and kind of put that on the table because that is something that's been talked about not just in the calendar task team but also when those individuals on that team are going back to their campuses at the high school level And discussing this with some of their um colleagues and peers that that is a a common Trend that they're getting is that they'd like to see that discontinued sooner than later is uh sorry Miss Miller is it possible and I'm assuming you would probably already do this um when you give some of that info if we can look at like how staff feels about that as well I mean because I worked at williamsfield when we did this this was so we didn't have meetings after school um because you have like games and those types of things that other people had clubs stuff like that so I'm assuming that's in there I just was meaning like whatever is proposed in that like where does that shift to um president Anderson board member Wade I am intending to share all of the survey results with you in a graph form so you'll be able to see for that specific question because the buses run on a normal schedule um the group that we did survey for the late start was the staff so I do have that result for you I'm sorry president Anderson I think I cut you off I just didn't want the conversation to go into too much detail since it's not AG gendi so I just want to make sure we thank you thank you anyone else thank you for the recommendation um I just wanted to just kidding I move that we I move that we adjourn second all those in favor I mo i motion carries 5 to zero some

Um and it provides comprehensive federal protection um privacy laws. Um so the concern is practical because epidemiology information is used to guide public policy. Um so from the Hawaii vice statute chapter 321 the do shall maintain data repositories, charts, patient information, data submission and epidemiology information for all emergency medical services statewide. So you can um or not you but I wanted to say that with my interpret interpretation of this is that the epidemiological information um needs to be protected. Thank you Angela. Okay. Thank you. Anyone else wishing to testify on this measure?

Any questions? Yeah. Senator. So, so at this time are you guys putting up on the website or giving um private or personal information to anyone saying to any kind of health and health risk to the public of the community? Currently, thank you senator. Uh currently for our COVID reporting uh we are reporting just the number of cases per school. I think the concern is that uh when the cases are numbers are low I believe currently from March October to March averaging uh six cases a day statewide um that could um potentially uh because the case load is small it could be be interpreted and possibly identify those students who may be out. I think that's a concern. So that's the reason why um you guys don't want to report the amount of kids that might be infected due to um their names might be figured out that that's why they're not in school.

That might be one possibility. I think the main reason for us for the request uh to resin um the the uh for the our support of this measure is that um from when the measure was the law was first enacted to now the number of co COVID cases has dramatically decreased. Uh yet the um requirement is still that uh schools report uh their cases. So they have been doing that. Um but where we are now in terms of the total number of COVID cases um statewide has dramatically decreased. Hence we're asking for this uh to be repealed. I mean, I understand um the need of keeping the individuals um information quiet, but I mean, are you guys having a difficult time manage this uh site to letting how much cases of the community has? Um it uh it is an additional requirement for our schools to uh input the data, right?

um when the the situation currently from when it when it was first enacted the number of co COVID cases had dramatically decreased. Uh we we do though uh should um this this measure pass uh definitely will continue our partnership with the department of health and if there is any other requirements that uh the department of health uh would require of us in moving forward in this or any other case uh we definitely committed to supporting and working together with them. So just the um putting the information of schools that having infection on the website is probably we're not going to have that but you guys still yet reporting to the department of health of each school that has an outbreak whether it's one or two you guys report any cases or any kind of health cases to the department of health because what I'm reading this to is not just with corona virus but any kind of health uh issue similar to the outbreak of corona virus.

Yes. If if there are um uh department of health uh so designates that we uh need to require um reporting to them in any kind of an an outbreak uh potentially then we would definitely do that. Um as I shared uh whatever they would require of us we would work together with them to determine what the best um move forward would be. All right. Thank you, chair. Thank you. Is there any further questions? Yes, thank you. Um, so superintendent, as I see, this is almost a little bit of a housekeeping deal kind of moving forward and then Department of Health, if you come up a second. Um, I think what Senator Favlla is getting to, and I agree with him, that we still have the reporting in place because Department of Health, you'll be tracking statistics if you see a spike of something. Correct. This um uh the reporting would actually conclude.

So the um system that we're talking about is called the case reporting tool was set up between department of health and department of education during COVID and it was a great collaboration and it's been really helpful. Um at this point the um we would with the ending of this legislation we would conclude that system. So that would not be we would not continue to to gather that daily or weekly totals from the department of education. Okay. But you could you could require something on we have a we actually in this partnership um you know we've actually created the outbreak reporting tool which gathers uh other diseases and that's something we've got readily available and we'd like to kind of move forward and have um the department of education uh kind of move online. It's a secure system. It's a SharePoint system and so we're in u conversation right now about onboarding all of the DOE schools to that system.

So we would have a mechanism in place for disease reporting that would be a secure system similar to what we have now with COVID but it would be more extensive for other diseases. So yeah, go ahead. No, go ahead. No, I just because I think the intention is to be able to track because if you see a spike of something as Department of Health that takes care of the community, we know something's coming at us. And I think that's what our concern is. Well, we're uh we're no longer uh I mean the the testing that you know the system you originally supported was at the school sites so we could confirm those tests being positive. we knew they were um you know well uh proctored and the the information was the data was clean so to speak. Now um the tests are at home tests.

We don't we we can't really guarantee that even the tests that they're reporting a parent may call in and say that their a child's COVID positive but that's a home test and as we know the home tests have you know a varying rate of of accuracy right so the system as it stands now is is not a reliable source for spikes we're using a lot of different mechanisms wastewater uh we're we're using you know hospital um you know kind of data and longare uh you know other facilities to to really kind of have sentinel or or advanced warning mechanisms. Okay. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you, chair. So, as far as DOE is concerned, so if you folks see anything like of concern because a lot of times the kids get it first, right? Um then you will report it your process in place to report.

If we do see inordinate amount of uh cases, whatever that may be, be measles or something, right? Definitely we'll be connecting up with the department of health. Okay. So, you have a process in place. has a process in place for the teachers or the school to report that that would rise to the level of the principal. Principal would walk to talk with the complex area superintendent and we'd be a notified we'll be contacting department right away. Okay. So you we do have a process know you have a process you know what to follow. Yes. Okay. And so finally do we need this language then that the AG put in if we're actually repealing this sort of I would I would defer to the department of the attorney general. Okay. Ag. Thank you. So your language that you're recommending is it is it needed or you're not going to be reporting anymore?

I think it is needed because it's amend the bill will amend act four from that um special session of 2021. So there is still a mechanism in place and so we want to make sure that going forward that it's clear in statute that do cannot um require the dissemination of any kind of personally identifiable information unless the DOE first makes a determination that there's a health or safety emergency that requires a dissemination of that type of information. Okay. Thank you members. Any other questions? If not, um I guess we'll just go into decision making and then take up the the next question of the GMs separately. Um so I am going to recommend that we do pass this measure with amendments uh change the effective date to upon approval and also to add in the AG's AG's language that and to uh add in the language recommended by the attorney general.

Any other uh thoughts about this discussion? If not, um, thank you. The chair votes I to amend House Bill 2577 to SG1. Thank you. Uh, chair votes I. Uh, Senator Hashimoto. I vote I and Senator Favlla. I, Cherry, you have four in favor. Motion is adopted. Thank you. And we'll go to our next agenda. Since we didn't adjurnn, I don't think I have to go back in again. So with that, we are taking up four advising consent members. The first one being GM 589 submitting for consideration and confirmation to the early learning board uh gubinatorial nominee Soma Gandhi for a term to expire 6:30 2027. And let's see testifying is Yuku Aricawa Cross, executive director of the Office of Early Learning. I stand on our written testimony in support. Thank you, Yuko. Um, anyone else here wishing to testify on this nomination?