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um member Martini has joined while we were in executive session and our business manager Andy pette has joined as well our next item is um public comment [Music] good evening um so I have three quick oh Doug zelwin Greenfield um three quick points I hope um the first I had a question about the budgeting process the district budgeting process um I've asked a couple of different members of the school committee about you know what's happening with the budget and where things at and I got a universal we don't know which was troubling to me I mean I don't it seems to me that the school committee should somewhere be involved in the process and I remember from years ago that by the time the school committee members at the budget committee we sat in on a couple of meetings by the time they got budget numbers basically all the decisions had been made and so it was sort of a a rubber stamp kind of thing so that puzzled me a little and I just wanted to express my hope that there's more communication along the way than than what is visible to me and I don't know so I'm and given that this is not a dialogue it's just me saying things to you um I'll leave it at that but that that was one comment I had is that I hope I hope that's happening um my second category is I have a question about the three kindergarten classes that have have been raised and what the impact that has on uh the redistricting that's going to happen I mean if there three additional classrooms are there space allotted for those three classrooms my assumption is there aren't more kids suddenly but but but that the cl the kids are divided up differently but I don't know that I mean I'm I'm working in ignorance here so um but I just wondered how that was going to work and whether there was going to be conversation about how that all was going to happen and then my third point it has to do with uh ballot question two and I just wanted to say briefly um that there has been misinformation about it that has come the Boston Globe really is opposed to ballot question to and they've been putting out misinformation um have as have local um local uh TV and so I wanted to just correct a couple of things ballot question to the only thing that it does is it says that the mcast is not a graduation requirement the state standards are still in place that hasn't changed the children the kids the high school students still take the mcast that hasn't changed it's just not a barrier to them graduating they don't have to pass it to graduate as long as they have passed all of their classes which are aligned with the state standards um and the spreading of misinformation I think is unfortunate um it's the times we live in perhaps but I think all part of our responsibility is to call it out when it's happening so that's what I wanted to do thank you thank you is there any other public comment yeah got it Todd Dodge uh chief of police for Greenfield um I'm here tonight um in the wake of the horrible tragedies that are taking place continuously across the country um I'm hoping I don't know past dialogue between the police department and the school committee um but I'm really hoping that you guys would reent the concept of having our school resource officers in the schools I want to protect our kids there's no other motive behind that um if you look at the data that we're seeing here this was days of old this is today and it's not changing okay the only reason why the last line is so short is because we're only one month into September this is fatal shootings of children it's real it's here um I had talked about it previously in another meeting that in the wake of the school shooting in Georgia the next day the FBI was in Greenfield I don't know if any of you guys know that so it's here we're scared um we're not here to do anything with the children other than protect them so I know we've been viewed a certain way in the past um perhaps to plan changes these days I was speaking with the command staff today and maybe our our officer our student resource officer just maintains security checks doors throughout the day watches the videos make sure people are not coming on that property that are not supposed to be there historically I think they integrated Karen you could probably answer that more they did a lot with the kids um gym stuff I'm just looking to have someone there at the ready in case this happens again the FBI was here in Greenfield already it's it seems almost imminent as sad as that is to say as the chief of police I want to protect the kids that is my primary goal goal we have two student resource officers that are always trained up and ready they maintain their certifications I need you guys to help with this I really need you to help with this um we should be in schools I'm not looking to be in come in and look like Storm Troopers and try to scare everybody but we really need to be there so that we can act quickly in the event something happens I I don't know what else to say for that um I don't know what the again I don't know what the conversations were in the past um we're not we're not trying to do anything other than offer protection and we need to do that so I really hope you guys think about that and again the minute you say you're up to speed we will have someone there for you we have two ready so okay have a good night thank you thank you is there any other public comment okay not seeing anyone online move on to our report of student representatives to the committee Shane welcome back thank you um so we're going to begin as per usual with the student council who has already been very busy so far this year the executive board over the summer volunteered at the point 5K and the triathlon where we also had our eboard meeting um we've helped at the meet and greet made welcome back gifts for all staff and treated the newly hired staff to special gifts as well last weekend we held our first bonding where new members learned many of our school energizers and spent some time getting to know them uh getting to know other members we have Homecoming coming up at the end of the month and we are signing up students to help with the green R cleanup and we'll be holding elections for open class officer positions soon as well um new students are always welcome to join student council if they are interested they can reach out to the president who's myself or our adviser Angela Mass um Athletics are off to a busy start this fall season you can go to arbiterlive.com to get all the schedules um on September 20th our home field hockey game versus West Springfield will be dedicating the field hockey field to Donna Woodcock um Donna was a longtime educator and coach in the Greenfield Public Schools who passed from injury sustained in a car accident Donna meant the world to many people in athletics especially field hockey and this is the least that we could do for her NHS had their first meeting to begin planning for our events and projects for the year French Club welcomed new members to their first meeting this past Monday where they planned fun French themed activities for the school year and this year we look forward to social activities like movie nights and cooking classes and their annual events such as Coffee House and taste of world cultures drama club was excited to welcome new and former members to their first meeting on Tuesday September 17th after school anyone interested in acting stage crew lighting sound costumes makeup and or props is encouraged to join in the auditorium the trivia Club had their first meeting on September 6 to determine a studying week time per week um we're going to be sorry we're going to be creating a new team this this year with a couple of returning players we're going to be focused on strategy and memorization and are hoping for a higher score and hopefully a win this year and finally um the students of Color Group Club has been founded at ghs so students had their first meeting on September 5th with a mission to address School culture specifically around racialized language they're working with Administration to have educational inter and interactive presentations led by students in advisory as well as with faculty when possible the club is working closely with School administration and communities that care as an outside support um if anyone has any questions I would be happy to answer any questions for Shane what time please yeah what what time is that dedication um let's see I not sure if it is listed on here but um it's a field hockey game on September 20th and if you go to arbiterlive.com you can find that game thank you and um it's going to sometime in that schedule but I'm not positive exactly on when that's great thank you mayor it's at 3:30 and then the field hockey game begins at 4 um and I just want to thank Shane good to see you back um but I also wanted you to know that I heard from some of your clubs and if you have information that you want to get out on our new social media with Facebook or Instagram to please send it our way and we're happy to do that for your for the rest of the club so if you could share that back with your advisers that would be great I can absolutely do that thank you thank you we'll move on to reports of the administration and our business manager good evening everyone you have in your packet the budget report and revolving account as of the sixth of September um where the goal is now uh with the year starting as I've before we are doing our Personnel review uh to end up realigning where it is that people have the changes that have occurred over the summer you'll also notice on the last page that there is a line added that's called grants undistributed that's where some of those things are going to happen where technically you're not allowed to charge expenses to Grants until the grants has been grants have been written and approved so we charge things to that line uh when the grants get approved we'll end up moving those out that's a practice that's been done even when we haven't been here uh in Green Field it's a good practice um so yeah that's you know nothing really new to report uh I do have something that I'm going to be sharing in the next um update based on the meeting that we had um V and the business office has been running some different report scenarios and she and I think we found a very good report that would be both easier to read uh and in line with the the little workshop that we had the last time so we're going to send two reports out next time that are going to be formatted one this way that you're used to seeing and the other that we think will uh lend itself to some more uh uh I'd say educationally appropriate way to look at the budget as far as it it it it marries for lack of better phrase both uh the desie function codes and the organ objects that the city follows so that's just a sneak peek ahead I can answer any questions that you might have questions for our business manager not seeing or hearing any uh Andy I wanted to thank you very much for responding to the school committee's requests for uh some reports that tell the story in a clearer way for some of who aren't steeped in this all the time that's uh going to be important for us and I think will be a useful tool for the community as well so thank you I'll tell you without sounding like a geek I'm actually excited about it well we don't avoid look sounding like Geeks around here very well very often so uh thank you very much assistant superintendent your report thank you it's been good to get the school year kicked off um the real kickoff for us was our new teachers um new teacher orientation for Greenfield Public Schools took place on Wednesday August 21st and Thursday August 22nd at that time we welcome 14 new teachers to our community and over the two days these Educators were supported as they transitioned into their new roles meeting with with their assigned mentors and working and working with the IT department to gain access to the essential digital platforms they were also introduced to the district wellness policy our key instructional strategies and priority subgroups in additionally superintendent patod hosted a tour of Greenfield that received rave reviews um she led the bus and showed us all around I said I wish that happened on my first day so um it really was enlightening to see some of the places in the city and where our students are living and the bus rides that they're taking to and from school to help new teachers understand um you know what some of our students or families are are having to deal with every day on Monday August 26 and Tuesday August 27th we welcome back all teachers and instructional assistants to kick off the new school year the two days began with a with Convocation at Greenfield High School featuring inp inspiring performances by two student groups strings for kids and twice as smart it was great to have students involved I know teachers and the staff were excited to see students and um kudos to those students who got there for 7:30 the two days before school was starting for them um following the superintendent's message about rebuilding the Green Wave Nation staff returned to their respective buildings to reconnect and prepare for the return of students throughout the two days staff engaged in a variety of professional development sessions including honoring the student experience in illustrative math ongoing support for implementing our key instructional strategies which are checking for understanding scaffolding questioning techniques and think right pair share and training on using imagine math our interv our math intervention platform instructional assistants also rece receive training in strength based instruction and we look forward to seeing these efforts come to life in the coming weeks and months and to build upon this work during the professional development sessions throughout the school year all of these activities are planned with the intention of addressing objectives outlined in our strategic plan and these activities are most re most directly connected to the sections related to curriculum and instructional supports at the end of each session participants complete feedback forms and this information is then used to monitor our progress toward these objectives plan future professional development and inform the work outlined in the dist in our district prioritization plan developed in collaboration with the Statewide system of support team assigned to Greenfield by desie as school got kicked off we at the window for our beginning of the year benchmarks also opened uh last Tuesday September 3rd this initial assessment window provides a baseline for our students allowing us to measure their starting point for the school year the data gathered will serve as a foundation for tracking student progress and growth throughout the school year and will help us identify areas in need of targeted support based on this data we will identify individual students and groups who would benefit from immediate intervention allowing us to provide timely and effective support from the very start of the school year teachers and interventionists will collaborate closely with building leaders to identify gaps in learning and develop strategies to address these needs this process will be continually monitored and refined through the reg through regular collab collaboration time faculty meetings the student support process and other available resources by consistently assessing and responding to student needs we aim to ensure that all students are prepared to receive grade level instruction with the appropriate supports additionally we have posted for curriculum review team members in math and health and Ela and music were done in year one last year and this will keep us on track with the five-year curriculum review cycle outlined in the GPS strategic plan superintendent good evening um we're going to start by uh I'd like i' like to introduce my new superintendent induction program coach Kenny Saleem who's joining us this evening Kenny was a superintendent for nine years five in Cambridge and four in wayth Mass prior to that he was a district leader in Boston Public Schools where he oversaw new teacher support professional learning and served as the deputy to the chief academic officer he began his career teaching biology at Brighton High School in Boston and his Cur currently teaching educational policy and Leadership at forum's Graduate School of Education please welcome Kenny to our meeting tonight oh thanks uh great to to be here this evening and uh be here with the school committee uh so I'm pleased to join you this evening and as superintendent patot said my name is Kenny Saleem and um I am a executive coach for superintendent patot through the new superintendent induction program uh which is a collaboration of the uh Massachusetts Association of school superintendents uh the Massachusetts Association School committees as well as uh desie um nisip is uh the new superintendent induction program is sometimes called um has been a resource for new superintendent for 15 years um and uh superintendent patau is in cohort 15 and is one of 21 new superintendents across the Commonwealth um nisip is a three-year program uh that's designed to induct and support new superintendents who are either new to the role or new to the state and the content of the program focuses on instructional leadership uh Team Building supervision and professional learning um there's a strong focus on Equity uh which cuts across all the areas and new superintendents meet on a monthly basis in year one for a total of 48 Hours um in year two for 39 hours and in small Regional consultancy groups in their third year um superintendents also meet with their um executive coaches for six hours a month and year one um for four hours of coaching in year two and then in the regional consultancy groups um in the third year we found that superintendents who have participated in isip over many years have um value the content the coaching and the collegiality uh that the program brings and each coach works with their superintendent to establish um on-site coaching opportunities including providing feedback on leadership team meetings U providing feedback on Entry planning and findings and visiting classrooms and observing meetings with principles and earlier today uh had a chance to observe classrooms at the middle school um as well as one of the elementary schools earlier this afternoon um one thing to note is that the relationship between the niss coach and the superintendent is one of confidentiality by Design uh coaches provide feedback to the superintendent um only as part of its uh the the program um and it's really focused on on learning and to that end um superintendent produce an entry plan which uh you'll be hearing uh more about this evening as well as a report on Entry findings and strategy for district Improvement uh that'll be based on those findings so I'm happy to answer any questions um that any members have um about the new super new superintendent induction program and um with that I'll turn it back over to superintendent Pat note any questions so far okay oh mayor I think sounds great I'm I'm very happy for the superintendent I told her I wish there there was something like that for Mayors really it's wonderful um do most of the new superintendant are most of them take advantage of this they do it really is an expectation um for um really focusing on what it the the the Commonwealth believes both the superintendent Association the school committee Association as well as desie um is important around District leadership um in in the Commonwealth thank you any other questions or comments at this time okay superintendent great thank you so I'm going to start with um what Kenny was describing as the entry plan and um I have a PowerPoint here and I apologize I should have put the TV on the other side of the room this evening so if you want to move your um but one of the overviews of the entry plan is really uh focused on uh providing you with an introduction talking about the core values as the foundation giving you an outline of the phases the tasks and you know the next steps in that timeline and how I'll be reporting out the findings from the entry plan and even though I've been in District um this is my first superintendency role so I there is definitely learning curves and um it's really been eye openening for me to participate in the process of creating this plan um I'm not going to read my letter to you but um part of this is online and accessible to everyone but part of really um what I believe needs to be the foundation of any work that a superintendent does is to build and strengthen relationships and whether that's with students with staff with faculty with you with community members parents families and really just listen and continue to understand um all that's going on in the district and all of the things that are ever changing that we need to pay attention to and try to support and move forward so that our Student Success is valid and increasing every year so um you can read my letter at a later date um the core values and beliefs Bel though that I really hold true and are really the foundation of my entry plan are students first um they are the reason we all are employed in these roles they are the reason we get up every day the they are the reason that we make decisions to try to make their experiences better in our school system and with that is that shared Vision with stakeholders we all need to be working in the same direction and supporting the goals that we have as a district to move ourselves forward that definitely aligns with support and engagement though you have to offer the support but you also have to be engaged they you need to be seen you need to be um evident out in the community you need to be available you need to really Express that you are um in it and uh willing to do the hard work to make the change happen and lastly just that collaboration with families and how we need to be partners with them that they entrust us with their children and we entrust that they are working with us to have everything moving in a direction their success for their students will happen um so really having that bridge is so important and continuing trying to build that bridge with families is definitely one of the values I hold dear one of the things we've been talking about as a school committee though was this um strategic plan that was developed before many of you were actually school committee members and understanding how that Five-Year Plan really um is incorporated into everything that we do so you'll see in stephens's report tonight and in my report one of the asks was to try to align some of the things that we're reporting out on with the Strategic plan that's in place in year two so we're going to highlight those things as we provide information at these meetings but I also took those four buckets as I'll say that came out of the Strategic plan our overarching um focus points are Communications and Outreach instructional supports curriculum and instruction and operations and I feel like those definitely link in support and in conjunction with the core values of my entry plan and I also added our mission statement which came out of year one with the Strategic plan which is the Greenfield Public School District is a place where every child is supported on their path to success and I think we need to remember that that every child's experience is different and we want to make Equitable experiences for them so that ultimately their success is graduating and becoming good humans in the world doing wonderful things core value number one though students first so um I really think that of all the components this value is at the heart of everything we do and I think all of us need to remember that these are the people that we are serving and everything that we do needs to be in service of them I also think that um what they have here in Greenfield is special we have phenomenal staff in every one of our buildings and people that give their all every day for these kids and supporting them in that work is really pivotal to the the mission that I hold dear as a leader but one as an educator where we're constantly learning and trying to do the best for them and improving we're not going to get it right all the time but we definitely are trying our best to improve each and every day how do we do that though and what is it that we want those students first to get we want qualified Educators in front of them we want access to high quality instru instructional materials and having that grade level curriculum and we've done a lot of work in the past three years when I was assistant superintendent to make sure that that is accessible to students across the board we want their social and emotional needs met we want to support that because we know their emotional needs and their social needs are part of their learning environment and what makes them successful in our classrooms we want our schools to be safe and supportive and welcoming and we want want to be culturally responsive and always focusing on Equity some of the things that our tasks or um things that I can do along with our leadership team to make sure that we're always keeping those student for those students first is site visits to buildings and classrooms Stephen and I need to be boots on the ground seeing what's happening in our classrooms in our buildings and making sure that the work that we are giving to our leadership team is filtering down to the faculty is filtering down to the classrooms in each of our schools We are continuing our learning walkthroughs and this year we have a learning walkthrough with a focus on literacy and we will be doing six official learning walkthroughs as an administrative team along with our ssos partners along with the teaching lab again this year and we've adopted a new tool so that the results can really fine-tune our data on our students and what's going on and how we can move them forward we have professional development aligned with the district prioritization plan of the ssos team that we've submitted to desie and we're going to be reviewing district and state level data not just three times a year but constantly at our leadership team and then they're going to lead their buildings at collaboration with their teachers so that people know how our students are doing each and every day we have professional development with building leaders we have department head meetings to discuss building needs to make sure that our buildings meet the needs of our students we have a chronic absenteeism issue in green fields we have to be paying attention to attendance we cannot possibly move the needle for student Improvement if our students are not in front of us it has to be pivotal in the work that we're doing and then we need to be reviewing student support team reports at the building level and to where our students are struggling who's being referred and how we can support them so that they are successful core value to is that shared Vision with stakeholders um we have to be partners all of us together for our students we have wonderful people working hard from all Community um aspects to our pto's to some teachers here that I highlighted to our department heads to every Department that works for our buildings and some of the things that we've discussed as I've just just had some listening sessions with stakeholders were asking some of these questions so I wanted to share some of the answers that came out of these listening sessions and if you recall I started these listening sessions in the spring as assistant superintendent but one of the things um that I ask people is what do you want for the students of Greenfield Public Schools and the an some these are just some of the answers I got Equitable learning experiences for all of our students diverse opportunities to explore College and Career experiencing experiences and welcoming and supportive schools and then I asked what glows do stakeholders have about the Greenfield Public Schools what what is positive that you feel about our schools and really they know that the investment in the educational experience of all children is true they know it from the teachers their students have they know know it from their building principles they know it from the conversations they have with others in our buildings expanding access and communication venues with the district you know we have really tried to be more available and to communicate better and to expand access to building leaders District leaders in different venues and they definitely over and over and over I should have put this one in bill in big letters know that teachers care deeply about their kids and they know that administrators are supporting teachers in that work the last question I ask was where would you want us to grow where do you see us needing Improvement either in the next school year or in years to come because this isn't going to happen overnight the expanded opportunities and career exploration was really a highlight for our students um you see a lot of Workforce Development opportunities um budding out at GC see our local Community College you see a lot of um kids that don't want to go to a tour for your college but they want to have a livable wage and they want to take other career paths and how can we get them the opportunities to explore that they want to see Diversified clubs and extracurricular activities shaking it up a little so that there is more for more students to get involved in um we see as schools match wits that made a comeback at the high school I also saw an advertisement for a crochet Club so you know teachers are listening they want to expand those opportunities so that they have students who feel like they belong in a certain area or can enjoy some Afterschool activity with their peers and have some um fun and opportunities to do that and then um one of the highlights that I always hold dear is more opportunities for highlighting academic achievement of students not just that honor role in the newspaper course quarterly but how else can we highlight all of the good that they're doing all of the hard work that they're doing so that that is celebratory and rewarded um core value three is that support and engagement and I included um part of the work that I started with our admin team we are doing a book study on leading with dignity by donana Hicks um if you've never read the book I strongly recommend it it's not just for education leaders it's about leadership in general and how we treat people that we are in um collaboration with whether it's in the workplace or other um we did our first uh PD development at our e team this week where Stephen and I led the first two chapters of this but I really I took this quote and it really hit home with our e team and I really think it really shows um what we value and that dignity not only explains an aspect of what it means to be human but also is a Hallmark of our shared Humanity everyone wants to be treated in a way that shows they matter I started our convocation with the puzzle piece analogy and that we are all a puzzle piece in the green wve nation that need to come together and we are not whole without each other's peace and I think that is true at every level and our students are very important in that whole puzzle um really supporting the whole person we try to do it with our staff and our admin team the building principles are doing it with their teachers and with their students creating classrooms of trust collaboration and respect Community connections and Outreach um really just making sure that we are doing the best we can to try to connect with everyone who's a part of our student experience modeling and leading by example how do we want our leaders to lead how do I want my principles to lead in their buildings how do we want our teachers to lead in their classrooms and I really think that that's the culture that we're trying to create and then showing up for our students and staff they want to see us outside of the classroom they love when you go to an activity a band concert they see you at the football game um I I was shopping at Big Y and I get the huge shout out of Miss bat node they love to engage with us and they would love to see all of you join them in supporting and engaging with them as well I put this on here as a former High School principal you know our shared vision is that all students are successful and that they continue as lifelong Learners and they are active and engaged contributors to our society we want to get them to the finish line but we want them to go out and be good humans and give back to the world in which we live so we want the support and engagement along the way so that they know that that is possible for each and every one of them and then core value 4 is really that um ingrained collaboration with families and being out in the community and being accessible um we had quite the representation in the parade this year for any of you who saw us we were um a football field long is what a PTO mom said to me so I am very happy with the representation but I have done Saturday Library visits to try to meet famili I worked the Harvest supper we've done food truck supper nights we've done listening sessions and we will continue to be accessible throughout so that families can engage with us in whatever venue they feel comfortable in I think we need to continue to gather that feedback we did a survey in March of family Communications and we want to do another one before the uh winter break so we will be following up with that we want to respect and welcome all to their children's school we want people to feel comfortable coming to us we want to celebrate the successes of their students together and we want to make sure that they feel we are creating and we are actively Equitable access for every student and we want to plan and organize family engagement events to avoid conflicts one of the biggest pieces of feedback is they can't be somewhere if they have children in two schools and the event happens on the same night so we want to really take their feedback and make sure that we make the positive changes so they know we're listening listening and we know we care about what they what they expect of us um and I think that we have to keep in mind that we have to revisit and adapt as we go through the process this is only year two of our strategic plan we might have to you know pivot and make some changes but we are listening and we are paying attention the tasks and timeline just so you all have um some outline as to when all of this entry plan and entry findings are going to happen um we're I'm sharing the plan with you tonight at our school committee we're going to continue to provide listening session forums for stakeholders from now through December going to gather that information and data and then do site visits as well and take into account the information we get back from the site visits process all of that information I will keep you updated in my monthly superintendent uh reports to the school committee we'll be analyzing and synthesizing ing the information December and January and then our report of Entry findings um a draft will be shared with our admin team at that level in January and then the final will be presented to you in February one of the things though that I really want everyone to keep in mind is not only do we have the district prioritization plan with our ssos team but we have a district um desie site review scheduled for this year so we have been chosen to undertake that and that is quite an undertaking um I was listening on a webinar the other day to all of the things that we have to do so between those two um exercises in reviewing our district and seeing where we stand and analyzing data and reviewing and T giving feedback to building leaders and doing more walkthroughs and doing the cycle all over again we're going to have a pretty good um insight as to where we stand as a district come February March after all of this um if the dis desie District site review happens in October which was one of the dates they had proposed they did say that it would be about four to five months with the findings so we might have them in Spring if they don't come until later in the year we may not have their findings until the summer so I just wanted to keep you a breast of that and that is the end so I do have um if you want to save questions I do just have a uh update though as well to my superintendence report just to add a little more information that wasn't part of the entry oh thank you um so we opened school as you know August 26th we had convocation and um as I spoke about in this presentation we really were just trying to message that we are all valuable pieces to the Greenfield Public Schools and that we need to work together and collaborate in a respectful Manner and that way we can create positive learning experiences for our students I really do want to shout out and take this time to thank our maintenance and custodial staff the admin assistants the tech department our business office staff and building administrators for all of the work they did over the summer to get our schools ready and uh looking fabulous for opening and a big shout out to the F Food Service staff they supported all of our summer school extended year programs with meals and then did 60,000 meals the summer in our summer eats program and I just can't thank them enough um I have added additional photos of them uh from the parade they were left out of my s'more on Monday because I didn't have any so we've added many more to the s'more so if you have access to that link still please go back there's many more photos but I told them I would give them a shout out tonight because I felt sorry that I forgot them um I do want to just highlight though they have switched their point of sale system to school Cafe and fam should be getting that information not only in my parent updates but also in the school newsletters so if you haven't switched over to the new point of sale for your child in school lunch please follow the link to family schoolcafe.com um and I also added that this was part of the operations District strategic plan for Year too so Greta is doing a fabulous job as the food service director and making this happen and appreciate all of the tech support from our tech department um district-wide Staffing we obviously as you know are still looking to fill some positions we have instructional assistance at the elementary and middle school we have special education positions at middle and high some night custodian positions we have a kindergarten position in Federal Street and we're always looking for substitutes um one of the things I did want to also just say is there's been some conversations around the grade shifts that we had to make at our elementary schools to accommodate an additional K classroom at each Elementary School and the reason this happened was due there was a significant amount of registrations in late summer so I went and did some data collection with our registar today and between August 12th and August 28th the district had approximately 45 new registrations many of whom were those kindergarten families so we continue every day and I know for those of you that have been in Greenfield long enough you know they continue to move into district and register on an ongoing basis so those numbers really spiked in late summer the budget that we had approved for this year did not allocate funding support to support additional teaching positions the budget was developed last fall approved in the spring based on projections and information at the time and therefore we had to work on being budget neutral in each school and that required working with the Union adhering to collective bargaining agreements discussing with the school committee Vice chair Glenn was on vacation and Kate was in charge and her and I had a lengthy conversation and Kate is also the budget subcommittee chair um and then I had informational sessions with each building principal and all of the teachers that were affected by this so we met with all parties and made the necessary shifts to best meet the needs of our students and in order to support the difference in sections in other grades we looked to our Title One federally funded Grant so that we could um offer a share IIA for those classrooms and we are still looking for those IAS so if we have anyone out there that would like to come work with us we would welcome you um it is important to note though that each Elementary School houses a subpar special ed program and some of those class enrollments reflected in total grade level numbers are not reflective of day-to-day operations in classrooms um so I just wanted to clarify that and then my last bit of an update I think is so exciting because I know this is near and dear to the committee's heart is the music um we welcomed a new band director Hannah Cherry to the GPS staff and Rockstar we also welcomed Rachel Herz who is our Elementary fourth grade instrumental teacher Eli Litwin who is splitting his time between Federal Street in Newton and we have our returning music teacher Sarah pagee who splits her time between f Street in Discovery and for those of you that don't know strings for kids is uh hosting their program now Mondays and Fridays at our own Greenfield Middle School so that students in the program K to7 come together um and can practice together and learn from the older kids teaching the younger kids and I talked to Julie KW after Monday was their first day she said it went phenomenal so very excited to share all of that news along with the entry plan with all of you tonight well thank you very much both of you for your reports and um superintendent uh for your very thorough and um presentation of your induction um plan it's uh impressive uh questions and comments from the committee member ston yeah um thank you very much for laying your plan out and for mapping the uh strategic plan to the core values appreciate that um I had some questions about things that you did didn't mention that have been coming up just from the community that I wanted to follow up on um I know that there was a little bit of a busing snafu and a communication snafu during the first few days with some of our elementary schools students where their children were late uh by more than an hour and there was not communication from the schools to the parents about this has how are you planning to make sure that that doesn't happen at all again in the in the remainder of the school year um and then I'm I'm actually uh a little bit concerned that the public comment from Chief Dodge was the first time that I had heard that the FBI was at our school recently not at our school in the city okay in the city uh not at our school okay oh no I was that would be news to me too okay great um because there was a a separate comment that I had received from a from a parent or wondering um or believing that there had been an incident at our schools and uh so I just wanted to make sure um because I I don't want that to be the way that I find out I would love to hear those kinds of things from you when if if hopefully not when uh they happen um and I was also just curious about these the about the kindergarten class and if I could follow up on that is are these is the actual total number of kindergarteners that we have this year substantially more than the actual number of kindergarteners that we had last year okay and so these are totally new totally unanticipated we could definitely not have reasonably predicted these 45 reg later in 2023 we had 86 kindergarteners enrolled in 2024 as of September 9th we have okay those are all the things that I wanted to follow up on other questions M good one oh sorry I had um actually told member Martini Who's online that I'd recognize her next I forgot member Martini do you want to speak thanks Glen um I just wanted to um speak my thoughts about the um presentation of your entry plan um Karen because as you were going along I was just um noting all of the ways in which I have been seeing you put those um actions into practice over the last um couple of months and even you know whil still in this um planning phase and I appreciate how much you have uh put yourself out there to be available to the community and um participatory and um and and engaging with all different stakeholders and um in terms of the priority the first priority that you um identified putting students first um that's something that uh was definitely part of the um conversation that you and I had in regards to um what to do about the uh influx of kindergarteners and um how to go about identifying the most Equitable um uh the most Equitable action to take for our students um and to do that regardless of what um may be popular or uh what opinions might be out there so uh in any case I just wanted to say I can definitely see those values taking taking place right out there um in your actions over the past couple of months and I appreciate that so um you sharing your plan really helps me to um understand where things like that are coming from um and I appreciate the presentation of that and also I just wanted to give a a special um a special shout to miss heritz I'm so excited to have our um fourth grade Band program coming back like we planned um as part of our uh efforts to to improve our music program that have been going on over the past many months so um that is all thank you thank you member Goodwin I have two questions one does the middle school have a music teacher Hannah Cherry splits her time between the Middle School and the high school the high school has a band in the middle school I talked to Hannah this afternoon she has 31 fifth graders signed up for ban 12 sixth graders and nine 7eventh graders so um I think we see the investment in growing the middle school program and how that will feed into the high school and I also want to let you know that 69 Fourth Graders are interested in taking instrument lessons and that is 2third of our fourth grade signed up for that so um Rachel Herz is is going to be very busy thank you and so when the whole kindergarten information came out I went to the dec website and they had us having 125 kindergarten students last year so did we have 80 kindergarten students last year yes I shared the enrollment numbers with you from our Sims data right but the D the state has got wrong data that's weird okay well could be so you only budgeted for the 81 for kindergarten teachers so at the time when we were developing the budget Discovery School had 10 kindergarteners enrolled um if my memory serves me correctly I would go back to calling Christine for a definite answer on that but and uh historically Discovery School is is not a school that usually grows exponentially in numbers so uh with 10 at the time and I think that was maybe March when did you approve our budget Janny April so I I would say in March they had 10 so that was the reason that they went down to one in the spring and that's what was budgeted for but as we can see we can't predict the future so how many we do our best so how many are at each elementary school right right now kindergarten teachers too no Newton and Federal Street have three and Discovery has two okay because Newton's numbers and Federal Street numbers were just as high as the one in the two at the other schools so we added across the board okay for our youngest Learners great I do have an answer so as you know we have a new principal at Newton um and uh at 3:45 she called me because she was trying to get everyone on board and at 3:46 I sent the message out because I said have you told parents that they're this late and so we messaged as soon as I was aware but our followup was um Steven um as well as her Mentor who is Miss benamore from the Middle School spent the next five days down at Newton working on a dismissal plan and you can report but I think we're pretty good now um even with the change of strings for kids but um I think it was um a learning curve for a principal in realizing that we have to communicate better and um we sent a message out and did our best to apologize and understand people's frustration but um I don't know if Stephen wants to just he was boots on the ground in the dismissal yeah I I think superintendent Pat no said it well I think it was a challenge especially that first day and I think then on Friday we introduced kindergarteners but they got out on a half day Friday so we had a trial run with just kindergarten and then had to adjust the plan based on some other after school activities at YMCA learning null things like that that were coming that following week so it was bumpier than we would have hoped for the first couple days um but I would say by that t last Tuesday Wednesday it was up and running well and um the feedback that I got from a couple of parents that I had met the first couple of days was much more positive this the at the start of last week than it was um and rightfully so we recognize that and our conversations with those parents were we absolutely need to be better better communication um to make sure that they know and we know that their students are the most important things to them and um we recognized that that was on us and we had to make some shifts to be better and I think we got there quickly but unfortunately probably not quickly enough and the one addition that we did add on is um travel CUA has adopted a new system um which was also part of the snafu so now we meet with travel CUA every Friday to review all of our lists and our runs and just touch base because they're also undergoing a lot of changes in their company with the new system and just trying to figure out where every kid supposed to be on wh bus so we're trying to do open communication follow-ups and have boots on the ground so that we are better always trying to improve to follow up can you speak a little um to the the complications because I think a lot of us in our minds School transportation is you you're at school you get on the bus and you go home but I know it's more complex than that different students are going to different places can you speak a little bit to that sure um we are very thoughtful in allowing kids to take buses to um after care so Newton doesn't have after care so if they go to after care they get bused to Federal but they may not go to after care every day they may only go to the YMCA on Mondays they might go now to strings for kids on Mondays and Fridays so you might have a second grader who takes bus six on Monday bus eight on Tuesday and Wednesday takes bus four on Thursday and then on Friday and then you also might have that same student who um is going to go over a friend's house so it's this ever changing um especially at the elementary level just with with how young they are and how often um we get information from families during the day on changes to Transportation um I'm sure member Goodwin can remember that as an elementary principle and how it is always in flux in changing and um it's just always trying to keep them in line so one of the things we did do to try to address that is change the dismissal protocol and really um we had teachers practicing that dismissal protocol after that event and um we had the principal and Steph down there just going through the motion so that everyone had a better handle on that thank you other questions mayor first I wanted to just say I'm very impressed with your community engagement it's like practically on a daily basis and I thought was very reflected in the fact that you took all the new teachers and we're bringing them to show them all of Green Field and where everybody was and what was happening here I thought that's really you know showing them what our community is like also so thank you um so I have a couple of questions one um uh you and I we're both on the uh shelter call on Wednesdays and um if you're expecting a bigger you know a change in the elementary school numbers we heard so there's 45 families there and it sounded to me as if quite a few would be leaving now do do we know if they're going to be schooled in Sunderland do you have any idea of that so the information we're waiting to find out is if they're still technically considered unhoused in some underland and if so they can remain with us for the school year and even if they acquire a lease it is my understanding they can remain with us until the end of the school year so um I'm not sure after today's call we've got a list of some that have moved into Sunderland but are not confirmed as lease holders and how that affects their schooling for their kids so um we have been having as I indicated on this morning's call we had to have a separate call just to try to get a handle on the EB and flow of um the five new open rooms now we were informed five families are coming and they do have schoolage children so we don't have those registrations yet or grade levels so it's this constant influx and then trying to figure out what Transportation they go on as well so it's it's uh definitely um a lot right I just wanted everybody else to understand that as well um you were done a good job on those calls and um at at the very first I was there at the beginning and people were there getting everybody registered and then we knew that there were 45 families but I think that some of that was maybe upon the individuals themselves to get registered so that was a bit of a challenge and then to say also we will be filling up every room and um I'll be reaching out to the delegation for um you know as much funding as we can so I want to work together with you on that I don't know um it has a great impact on the schools and you know also on the community so uh they'll more changes in those numbers probably so I just wanted to to kind of ask about that and say that um I do want to add though we welcome every student with open arms and enjoy all of them in our community um even on day one we had five that weren't registered but we kept them and um loved them and fed them and um and had them in our classrooms until we could get them properly registered so um we we do what we can because students first thank you that is something that they keep highlighting at all the the calls that this is a community that is one of the most welcoming embracing and a lot of that starts right there so thank you other questions or comments thank you both very much let's see we're moving on to item six action item amendments to Title 9 policies I'd like to start by just kind of giving a um little update or overview of a kind of a um orientation to our policy review process we used to um talk about uh passing passing things on first reading and then passing things on second reading but we um have recently um updated our policy adoption policy um and so the um phases that a policy goes to on its way to becoming adopted by the committee is one it's an information item it's distributed with the with an agenda then and ideally there's a discussion item where we get a chance to talk about it um and then it can be um sent to the policy subcommittee or come back for um come back at the next meeting um and then there's uh when it is an action item when it is discussed um and adopted or rejected at times we do need to move items directly from information item in other words distributed to you with your agenda immediately to action item that's happening tonight with the amendments to Title Nine policies U before we get to the substance of that I just want to um check in any questions about our policy adoption process it's kind of new for us okay great um superintendent could you Orient us to these uh policy changes sure um August first the title nine uh laws and regs change so attorney roach who you met this evening um has uh Incorporated the changes to Title 9 into policy ACA and acab for us um for adoption under the new regs and laws thank you uh so I'd like to start with a motion to adopt policy ACA non-discrimination on the basis of sex or gender identity so moved a motion from the mayor is there a second second second for member child's uh discussion hearing none we'll move to a vote because member Martini is attending by um by Zoom we will do the um vote by roll call um uh member Goodwin yes member Childs yes member Saxton yes I'm a yes mayor motion passes unanimously thanks everybody oh Kate I'm sorry take my vote is yes okay Kate also V yes so it is unanimous um okay we'll move on to policy acab sexual harassment may I have a motion to adopt um the uh revised policy acab as presented so moved motion by member Childs a second second second by member Goodwin any discussion hearing none vote by roll call member Martini yes okay member Goodwin yes member Childs yes member ston yes I'm a yes mayor disorder yes yes passes unanimously thank you everybody next we will move on to acceptance and enrollment of foreign students superintendent will you give us uh the setup sure um gep the Greenville Public School registar received information regarding two students who are staying with host families in Greenfield one is from Spain and one is from Germany um in looking at our current school committee policy we do not have a policy on allowing foreign students to enroll in the district as part of any Exchange program so upon review with District Council um there was a direct dirve that the acceptance of the two students would be required by a vote by school committee tonight and then the policy subcommittee could take this matter under advisement moving forward after that but if the vote was in favor of that we could um support these students and I do just want to add they are under a J1 visa and under that Visa uh desie does not provide any Financial Funding to the schools for that and the students do not acquire any um High School school credits they simply would get um if they enroll a seniors a certificate of attendance if they chose to walk at graduation um it's really about the experience our students would have by um having them integrated into the school Community okay we'll start with the motion and then we can discuss is there a motion to accept and enroll the the uh foreign students who are applying for uh acceptance and enrollment I move that we accept the foreign student exchange um students into Greenfield Public Schools okay is there a second second okay uh [Music] discussion are they both seniors when they return home they'll probably do it's it's considered like their Gap year they come here for that um they're not technically SE but we would do that so that they could engage in all of the activities um that are part of that experience um you you mentioned that we're obviously we're not gonna get any additional monies from Desi but are you confident that we can we can support these two students reasonably yeah the high school senior numbers are pretty low um relative to past classes so I think it would not be an issue I have a um comment or question from Member Martini go ahead member [Music] Martini first I just um had a hard time hearing exactly what the motion was could you repeat it h remember Susan Farber can you Susan Farber is coming up we're coming to a mic the motion is to accept and enroll the for foreign students in the Greenfield Public Schools did you hear that remember Mari I yes I did thank you and I just want to say I'm really excited about the prospect of having students from Germany and Spain joining our uh our students here in Greenville I think that there are so many mutual benefits um for our kids and um and these visiting students and I'm very excited thank you any other comments Okay no Okay um I'll I'll say I also think it's one really wonderful and uh can really I know from my own experience of forming friendships with people from other countries it's really helpful um in expanding my own Horizons and getting out of my us or bubble um um and uh I hope it will be enriching for them but I I think it will also be enriching for our own students great so we will do the vote um member [Music] Martini yes member Goodwin yes member Childs yes member seon yes I'm a yes mayor yes motion passes unanimously welcome to the Greenfield Public Schools uh let's see yeah okay let's see we can so um the consent agenda um as you know this any member can remove an item from the consent agenda if they want to consider it separately we need to remove the um item a because um those are not the the um minutes of the school committee they were um they were draft notes um so there's more formal minutes that we will take up um another day um so are there any other items um B through I on the consent agenda yes um member Goodwin I'd like to remove the vote to withdraw from neas okay we will discuss the um withdrawal from nask separately anything else that anyone would like to remove all right um I'd like to hear a motion to approve the consent agenda as presented with the exception of items A and E so moved motion from the mayor second second second from Member child's um any discussion let's m seon assum uming that it passes I just want to preemptively thank green and Greenfield for Their donation great wonderful thank you so much um any other discussion hearing none um we'll vote um member Martini yes um is that a yes yeah okay great um member Goodwin yes member child's yes member ston yes I'm a yes mayor yes the consent agenda um passes with those exceptions um we can now move uh let's see we're at we're 757 we're going to keep going um let's discuss um so I guess I would like to hear uh separately a motion to withdraw from NEOS um maybe we need a little more um orientation to that superintendent can you give us a little overview of that sure um my letter to the school committee for the proposals included in your packet but um Nas has often been uh years ago as the member organization that is overseeing accountability with um high schools and it's a 10-year accreditation visit and it's a lengthy process that um um follows and tracks seven standards and how our high schools compared to other high schools in um not only Massachusetts but in the country um it was really uh the only accountability system at one point which is why everyone was engaged in it for many many years um we were involved in the process when I was at the high school and went through it and um then they give you two and fiveyear plans after that that you you have to account for and uh work on but it is a lot of time and energy on the staff to be part of all of the seven standard subgroups and you need a steering committee and um all of that takes time away from the time that we need for other initiatives that we have moving fast forward 10 years later we are in the 10e cycle they delayed us a bit because of covid but um um I had a superintendent's call the other day and just kind of asked around what everyone locally has been doing and many if not all of the surrounding high schools have removed themselves from nask it is um to me an unnecessary process for Greenfield considering we are in ssos turnaround we are also having a desie district site review this year so to then add a third accountability um engagement process with the high school staff along with everything else that we're working on seems to be a bit overwhelming I did um do a survey of the high school staff um and had um the majority of them also reply and agree that it is not a process that they felt they could undertake at this time it is also quite expensive so you have to invest in um a lot along the way but then when the site visit comes Upon Us you're putting up the site visit committee members at hotels they're spending four days here you're um spending your time with them and really uh it is not something that we need a deep dive on we have a lot of oversight already on our school system including the high school which is now in turnaround um I listed some other areas where we are monitored and audited over the course of just my uh few years in District leadership uh we like I said we've been chosen for the desie district site review and that's going to focus on a lot of areas of districtwide improvement we have the ssos targeted assistance overview we've recently undergone a Essa title one 12a and four six-year monitoring audit we have also undergone a tiered Focus monitoring of our L program we've undergone a tiered Focus monitoring review of our special ed programs and um it just is one more ask from an accreditation system of accountability that um I don't think at this time Greenfield High School needs or um Can undertake so um I did also get the question though like what does that do for our students colleges and univers ities and how is that measured and I talk to UMass I talk to GCC I talk to Westfield State and I believe I included let me just see um the colleges and universities all replied they do a holistic review of applications for all of their applicants admittance an applicant from an accredited High School is not automatically guaranteed admission neither is an applicant from a non-accredited school automat ically denied and in talking to the local universities they said they don't even pay attention to accreditation anymore on college applications so um at this point it just with our building Administration with all of the other oversight and items we have on our plate um I think it is not something we want to engage in and it is timely because neas is also off you know asking us for our fee to engage in the process and to um have them come soon to the high school which is why it's on the agenda at any time in the future if we change our mind um we certainly can rejoin and go back into the nas accreditation cycle um I do know I think I listed on here the local schools that have removed themselves but um it is you know Frontier is no longer involved Pioneers no longer involved uh Gil monq has removed themselves from it as well as well as you know Hampshire I think Granby removed themselves um so there is this um I don't know want to say need because we do have oversight and accountability but we didn't need one more aspect of that thank you for that thorough introduction so is there now a motion to um vote to to withdraw uh the Greenfield Public Schools from nas so moved oh okay um let's see why don't we do member childes for the motion and member Martini for the second okay um discussion member Goodwin so where are we in the 10e cycle right now are we if we withdraw are we accredited this year how does that work so we are in the I think 202 is the planning year so I think for this year is our 10th year it's really our 12th because of covid and they extended our plan so the process would then start and then um 26 and 27 would be an enormous amount of undertaking and then you would have the site visit and um I don't know 2028 I would think but I can find more information out if you want and we would also have to consider where we are budgeting for this because this is not a budgeted item any questions or comments other items all right let's move to a vote oh sorry member Martini please uh well my question is related to what superintendent Pat just said what do they charge what is the cost to the district for participating in this let's see it's in our packets $55,500 wait the total cost for the 10year cycle okay yeah total cost for the 10year cycle is $55,500 annual membership fee is$ 3555 anything else member Martini no that was all okay are we ready to vote okay um member Martini yes member Goodwin yes member Childs yes member Saxton yes I'm yes mayor yes um motion passes unanimously thanks everybody it's now 8:06 the school committee um gets to take a f minute break after 8:00 pm um going to give you whatever the rounding up the minute so you get to we will reconvene at 812 [Music] n [Music] a [Music] n [Music] a [Music] n [Music] a [Music] a [Music] n [Music] second [Music] now i' just like to say these chairs really get better and better as the night goes on every everything gets better and better as the night goes on you're ready when we are okay we're not ready yet oh now we are okay uh we're reconvening um and so we have before us um resolution for the Greenfield school committee about ballot question two I'd like to hear a motion that the committee adopt the resolution as presented so moved motion from the mayor is there a second seconded second for member Childs um uh this was brought to us by Doug SN Doug do you want to say anything else about it you spoke about it during public comment but if there's anything else you want to add I don't think so I think it's pretty clear I'm happy to you know answer questions but it seems to me that it it's pretty self-explanatory any discussion okay um well I guess we're just all I'll I'll just say I appreciate you very much for bringing this to us I appreciate you for your um mcast advocacy and um I'm very much myself in support of this I especially like um your emphasis that um it doesn't change the fact that people may be taking the mcast but they can graduate on the basis of passing their courses not on the basis of a standardized test and I think that um there's a lot of a lot of um value that and data that we get sometimes from standardized tests and it also when it's when it's tied to certain things and when it's used as the only rubric Etc um that can be really damaging for education and so I think this is one step towards reforming that system thank you for bringing it to us um so let's take a vote member Childs yes oh I said M I'm getting tired member Goodwin yes uh we'll go around the the other way mayor yes okay I'mma yes uh and member ston yes member Martini are you back with us member Martini I'll take that as an exstension from Member Martini so that the uh motion passes thank you very much I appreciate it thank you um and Doug just let us know how we can work with you to get the word out about having adopted it or whatever the next EP our signatures and the like whatever you need among other things part of the resolution is letting um both communicating with the governor and our local legislators I mean that's that's built into the legisl the the resolution so that would be one step and of course there's a lot of canvasing and and activity going on um to let people know about about the fact fact that there is this ballot question so um maybe we can talk together about how to how to work together on it I'd love that thank you thank you okay all right um remember Martini I'm sorry I've been putting my phone face down and probably makes it hard to hear okay um on um we're moving on to appointments um I had uh presented to you I think last time um draft um or or the uh subcommittee functions and duties and just wanted to open up the discussion for any questions or comments about the um about the subcommittee functions and Doc subcommittee functions and duties document member ston I have two questions one about a specific subcommittee and one in general um I'll start with the more general question uh a few months ago I honestly can't remember how many months but earlier at the end of last Academic Year we had voted as a part of this uh initial discussion to eliminate a committee that did exist that was specifically naming as student Equity um and in part of that discussion what emerged is the idea that Equity is part of all of the things that we do which I believe is true but I also believe that Equity when it's not explicit is often not enacted and so as as part of the prior discussion we I I had urged or asked that um these committee descriptions and in and their functions duties roles and responsibilities included some specific element of how they were working to address an equity issue or working toward more Equitable outcomes for our students and I am just not seeing that reflected in many of these descriptions and I would love if that is occurring at the specific subcommittee level I would encourage all of those chairs to revisit that question um and name something or if you're waiting on something in particular to communicate that what you're waiting for um but I just don't want us to forget that the second thing was specifically to do with the districting subcommittee and why it it appears that like y'all don't think that that committee can be judicious in its choosing of its own meetings and why that one needs requires a vote of the full committee or the superintendent gets to decide when those meetings happen as opposed to the chair of that subcommittee um well I I guess I can speak to that um the the all of our all of our um standing committees and um subcommittees are to take on work that has been charged to them by the full committee um and currently there is no work assigned to that committee um the I think I heard a lot of um interest from that Committee in when we were discussing cuz it it is an ad hoc committee which means that at some point it does come to an end um it does sunset um and um in that discussion I heard one of the major reasonings that people wanted to kind of keep the uh ad hoc committee up and running in spite of the fact that we did establish our our policy and our plan for redistricting was was that something could come up for the superintendent and wanting to be able to have that committee there to be helpful to her um so oh youing oh please yeah I think with um some of the shifts and moves um we should have a committee meeting so I don't recall Stacy who else is on that committee with you Ann and Jenny um just because we were we are going to have to make some budget decisions earlier rather than later this year with regards to those shifts and um I'm happy to have a committee meeting with you to get some input on some of that so if that's something you are um I just wanted before we got into a lengthy conversation just to to put that out there so that we could schedule something if that's okay of course yeah yeah um great and yes I would love to schedule something my I believe that one of the roles of this committee is that it doesn't only serve as an instrument of hearing from the superintendent but also from the community um on on their questions and what they still have lingering about the redistricting process or the policy itself as well so that's another reason why I wanted to be able to call my own meetings if I needed to because it's it's not a responding only to one entity I'm not only responding to you I am responding to you but I'm not only responding to you I'm also responding to the members of our community our parents who still have questions and I want to be able to call a meeting without necessarily needing a full vote of everybody else who's not part of that Committee in order to make that happen if needed so can you can you talk a little bit more about the scenario you're imagining like sure I've received many questions actually about when the eighth grade moves out of the high school what happens to the space what are we considering putting there um and what are the options that we have for utilizing that that space that will become vacant once those students are moved back into the middle school so that's one example of a question that's come up so you're saying there are members of the community who have questions about how the policy is going to be implemented and the implications on that on the operations of the school not only that yes yes and they want a place to weigh in and I don't see any other venue for the away in on that type of question I mean there's here but not everyone comes here so it sounds a little bit like you would like to be able to um have the subcommittee um function as almost like a place where people could come and um talk and share their questions and concerns about the way that the um our policy is being implemented yes yeah I think that but then that see this kind of goes back to Liz Leon's uh conversation with us last time that once it changes from a policy that we're instituting to something that the superintendent is implementing then it it kind of enters that realm that is out really outside of our scope as a school committee I would like like to refer to policy AE and just let you know um we don't necessarily need but implementation is necessarily part of policy and policy is necessarily part of implementation and this is there is not a clear and hard boundary on this particular issue and so I I will fight for this the existence of this committee and my ability to call a meeting when I need to AE commitment to accomplishment the school committee accepts ultimate responsibility for all facets of school operations because it is accountable to residents of the district the school committee will maintain a program of accountability consisting of the following elements clear statements of expectations and purpose as these relate to operations programs departments and positions Provisions for the staff resources and support necessary to achieve stated expectations and purposes subject to financial support by residents of the district evaluation of operations and instructional and staff development programs to determine how well expectations and purposes are being met specific performance objectives to enable individuals to direct their own efforts to the goals and objectives of the district evaluation of the efforts of employees in line with stated objectives with the first purpose of evaluation being to help each individual make a maximum contribution to the goals of the district every effort will be made by the school committee superintendent and staff to fulfill the responsibilities inherent in the concept of [Music] accountability I'm I mean I guess the way I guess we we see things differently um I see I don't see this acceptance of ultimate responsibility as um being a directive for us to get involved in the ongoing operations of the district I think that it's clear in other places that our role is really different our role is confined to budget policy goals and super uh and evaluation of the superintendent so I don't see it as our role to convene um to have have subcommittees whose goal is to listen to the community members concerns about the way that our policies are being implemented by the superintendent I see it as the superintendent's role to um be in communication with the community and to be listening to their needs and concerns and I think our superintendent has demonstrated a lot of willingness to listen and uh does get a lot of phone calls with a lot of feedback about a lot of the the um a lot of our policies and how they're being implemented so um I I guess so you know our our policy about um about about uh the way our sub subcommittees get organized is basically that people will be provided with a list of functions and duties and as of now I not inclined to change the functions and duties that I'm providing to the committee but I appreciate your sharing your um um your concern and your disagreement any other um comments or questions member Goodwin when we moved the fourth grade back to the elementary schools there was a committee called the star committee and they met every Thursday afternoon and I was on that committee along with parents from every Elementary School and it was led by school committee members the superintendent attended when she could but it was a good platform for parents just to express questions which nobody ever thought about before um and so I think you know parents are trying to we have a history of putting grades in different places closing schools opening schools in Greenfield that parents are just looking for an outlet so the star committee um gave them an outlet for those questions and they were you know everybody was allowed to speak like a public comment um so that there was a way to get an outlet thank you other comments or mayor so I have a question and maybe I wasn't paying attention to this when it came up before um this new thing this is new the subcommittee functions and duties who who wrote this I did oh okay so did we have something I didn't mean that in a bad way I just I was like oh where did that come from yeah fair enough fair question so uh did we have anything before about what all the subcommittees did we did not so um our we have a policy that had not been being implemented that um school committee members would be presented with a with a list of their functions and duties for each of the um standing Andor um ad hoc subcommittees that they serve on and so this is a a new um and that I think is is part of um what's creating a little bit of this discrepancy is that you know we uh when we created that ad hoc committee there wasn't no functions and duties that was created as kind of sort of the chartering process for creating the um for creating the the subcommittee follow up if I may yes please so on so I'm just looking at like the budget and finance subcommittee the duties at the very beginning if if the school committee has oversight is supposed to have budgetary oversight the way this is worded analyze superintendent budget proposals and ensure alignment with District priorities and goals well the the way our budget process works is the first you know the budget that is originally developed is the superintendent budget with um school committee input and then after it goes to the city council and then comes back then we vote on the individual line items or changes um based on the um new number that we get from that process so if if we didn't vote to support this then what happens you mean if if you didn't vote to to support what um the def these def these new definitions I guess was that what we call them definitions of the job descriptions of the duties of functions and duties um the way our policy is written they are just to be presented to you so I'm sharing them with you as a review but I'm not seeing them as something that requires a school committee vote okay thank you any other discussion okay um next um and we have listed here as communication subcommittee but I I think I was also thinking of it as a community engagement subcommittee uh this is an idea I had that I wanted to to put forward to us that we uh establish a um subcommittee um to um to look at Community engagement and Communications um not not basically school committee uh Community engagement and Communications in other words what are our own Communications what's our own engagement with the community um and so um it's one of the I guess I can talk more about it but I guess first I would um like to oh I'm on Echo oh somehow I'm on Echo in Kate's world I think let me see what's happening with our Zoom sorry folks Kate I'm sorry I didn't see your hand have you have you had your hand up for a while while oh now you're quiet can you try again Kate okay um Kate if you come back just speak up um so I'd like to hear um a motion that we uh create a um Community engagement subcommittee so moved so a second i' second that okay [Music] um let's see yeah so discussion yes I can hear you now before I was hearing an echo of my own voice I think the reason you have the echo is because you are sorry about that okay you can turn off YouTube I unmuted myself and I apologize for my technical glitch I think that resolve it i y I had a couple I have a question and then and then a suggestion with a little bit of History um so because because you were muted at first yes there there is a motion to create a uh Communications I mean a community engagement subcommittee and it would be a standing subcommittee I guess I didn't that should maybe be um included in the motion so who made the motion would you accept that as a friendly am amendment to make it a standing committee yes uh and this person who seconded yes okay so um amended to be a standing um Community engagement subcommittee okay and is that motion to create a standing committee or is it's just to add the U Community the standing uh Community engagement so the the ad hoc committee would stand yep okay I see thank you well in that case my my comment about history perhaps irrelevant but I just wanted to share information based on SE comments and I also appreciate the historical information from as well my experience I facp to reasonably our fac but in any members talk Excell to our fac not but especially withs to long range that this committe has talked about so many times andersh C if if we're considering the purp future of it doesn't sound I'm not really clear how the discussion wandered over to that but that would be my feedback on the discussion so far that I thank you um any other discussion about the um Community engagement standing committee member Goodwin how do you see this being different from what Karen is already doing for Community engagement this would be focused on school committee engagement I mean so how are we getting out into the community how are we talking and relating to people how are we um showing up at community events not focused on um the superintendent's work but our own work as school committee members other discussion all right um then let's move to a vote um member Martini yes member Goodwin yes member child's yes member Sexton yes I'm a yes mayor dorer I'm G to abstain abstain the motion carries uh we will have a community Community engagement standing committee um I'd like to move immediately to um appointments to the subcommittee I'd like to um I'm I'm put forward a um um I guess my my appointments would be um if approved um uh member Sexton as chair member Goodwin and um member Den is there um a motion to approve that um assignment a motion from Member Martini is there a second I'll second it okay second for member seon discussion have those listed members all agreed to participate um I haven't had a chance to talk to all but um I I would definitely welcome to hear from people if if they don't want to be if they don't want to serve we can certainly um discuss that and amend the motion yeah I'm just thinking because one of the mentioned members is not present y y I think she'd be willing to serve um and uh any other discussion all right let's move to a vote member Martini oh remember Martini I see your hand raised sorry I keep forgetting to look at the laptop feel free to just speak up I don't know the perspective of those particular members on taking on this responsibility but I just wanted to voice my support um I think that but um I always appreciate member zon for your leadership um capabilities and uh and your interpersonal communication um with people so I I would strongly support that and M Goodwin I know has relationships already with lots of people in the district and it would really be invaluable to have a person with those relationships on a Communications committee and members Den is um I I always admire for her technological Savvy and knowledge when it comes to Modern communication with people which is not my strong so she would definitely be better than I for this particular subte so that's that's how I those individuals being good fit for a committee like that and whether they want to take it on or not that's that's I would support them if they want to okay Al righty uh member ston I would be willing to take on the chair of that subcommittee I want to be clear to the other people in the room I am in favor of having a Comm like that um I did I will just share that I did speak with Cher Johnson mad about about the opportunity and I want to be also very clear that it's not a figurehead position that I actually do want to be out there doing stuff possibly in coordination and collaboration with you superintendent Pat node but you know in you know other things also um and I I welcome creating another dedicated venue for engaging with the public and for getting their feedback and for being out amongst them talking about what matters to them thank you any other discussion remember child's I I just need a little bit more reassurance that I I'm not doing something terrible to member denie while she's not here to say no to more work I talk she said yes she said yes okay thank you thank you no subcommittees without consent um any other discussion all right let's vote member [Music] Martini yes member Goodwin yes member child's yes member ston yes I'm a yes mayor I'm going to abstain stain okay um thank you everybody I'm really excited about that I think that's going to be a a really strengthen us as a as a committee and strengthen the community and help to um ensure the success of every child um we're moving on to uh school committee reports report of the chair um I'd like to make some exciting share some exciting and good news I can find it um lost my tab um but our uh illustrious uh Elizabeth Den who has been serving as our um our rep to um R uh mask division five uh has been recognized uh by mask as the oh thank you superintendent um The Masks division five all state school committee 2024 Award winner um so these are awards that are given um each well they're given each year uh if a district feels that there's someone um who is worthy of receiving it so it's not just something that is offered every year they have to have someone that they feel is really deserving and I think we've all seen um the wonderful advocacy and relationship that um member Den has um made with mask um and also the wonderful um resources she's brought to Greenfield in terms of trainings and encouragement to go to trainings in other places sharing resources gathered at those trainings with us and it's been a huge um gift to the committee that she's been um doing that and I only wish she was here and not feeling sick to uh be able to receive our um our um Applause for her wonderful success um yeah wonderful news we'll move on to reports um remember Martini the budget and finance subcommittee can I first say that I'm shaking my pom poms for that award she definitely deserves it yes wonderful I I have appreciated the organization and um training that she has brought to the committee and uh the uh coalescing of our um our own participation with within masc and with regard to um legislative advocacy so much of that is down to her so um she's devoted a lot of personal time above and beyond um her obligations to the committee and Greenfield then I just appreciate that so much so I'm very glad to hear that uh on to budget and finance I am um delighted to share with everyone the budget development calendar for FY 26 that is in your materials um this as you'll recall is something that the committee has discussed over the past several months um it is not something that we have had before and it is something that um is a practice in many other school districts and uh we wanted to take it on because uh in the past we've had um some difficulties when it comes to uh confusion uh for people about how exactly the uh School Department's budget is is formulated and where their opportunities are for input in that and uh so this the goal of this calendar is to um help us overcome those issues and it's just a first step this is not a magic wand and it's not going to solve all of our uh challenges with regard to that but uh but I think it will be a good step a good first step so as you'll see there is a cover page there uh for our our calendar and you'll notice that all over it are our students and and I I want to just explain that that is there because it's there as a reminder that that is who we do all of this for um and so that we will keep our students front and center um when we are discussing and deliberating on and considering issues related to our budget so uh they are the face of our budget development calendar so that we are always uh reminded that we put students first uh which is part of our values and also part of school committee policy um which you'll see a little bit later in this document now the second page is the calendar itself you'll see that it is uh colorcoded in to several different categories so that uh we can elucidate for people the uh parts of this budget development process that come from the city that are done by the school committee itself actions that are taken by the school administration and then uh events that happen at the state level that impact us so um we couldn't you couldn't possibly put every single step that all of those entities take into one calendar and have it end up on one page okay so this is curated to the most important um events that take place throughout the year and um hopefully hopefully this is will make sense to people I realize there are some acronyms on there and the reason for that is U just space uh it's not if I were have to have spelled out those acronyms every time then um it wouldn't have been possible to make this format work um on the page so what I tried to do was um spell Out full names for those things the first instance and the acronym in parentheses and then thereafter you'll see U things like CIP stand for Capital Improvement program um and so on and so forth so um I am putting this forward to the committee with uh one small adjustment that will need to be made because I missed one of those first instances of an acronym which was B andf which stands for budget and finance sub committee uh and uh then down on the third page this is the last page of the document um that goes to um offer people some um good solid basic uh information about how what the school committee policy is on public engagement uh which you can read for yourself there uh and then how all the different ways in which currently um a member of the public can share their input and and participate in this process so I try to um link things directly for people in there so that it would be really easy to just hop over to whatever it is you're interested in there whether it's the school committee policy manual sness or uh specific email addresses and things like that uh and this is meant to just be um like a FAQ for people about how they can join in and participate in the uh budget development process which is part of our um our policy and it's spelled out for you there um that I do have I have more to say of about what's next for the budget and finance um subcommittee in terms of implementing our policy there uh about public engagement in this process but first I would just like to uh move that the school committee adopt this as our uh annual budget calendar budget development calendar pardon me for FY 26 uh with one cleric change to spell out the first instance of on page two thank you anyone like I just want to make sure Susan got the um motion uh the acronym that b and F budget and finance is that um okay great is there a second I should also just add for the budget and finance committee itself uh we did meet uh very recently and approved this as as our final draft and um we vote from our subcommittee's unanimous in support of approving this as our fy2 by Development Council thank you so much member martini so you made the motion is there a second second second for member child's discussion uh mayor I just wanted to to thank member Martini she was dogged in her pursuit of the information um making sure every date she was coming to me asking to meet with the mayor asking to walk with the mayor to make sure she got all the dates down she she put a lot of effort into that I just hope you can hear that Kate um thank you you did a great job M xon yeah I just wanted to second that and say that this is a beautiful tool that our newly created Community engagement committee can utilize to help ensure that everyone knows when and where and who to bother about their their budget concerns other comments or questions well I'll just say Kate I'm not sure that you were here but we actually had a public comment from someone who was saying you know in the past the school committee hasn't been engaged until it was kind of too late and how are you going to address that and there's members on the committee who don't have answers to basic questions about the budget and uh I I knew that this was coming but I'm really pleased and um uh thanks to every everybody on the budget subcommittee for your hard work on this and you in particular for spearheading the effort Kate um it's it's really wonderful I'm so excited uh about it remember ston sorry I did actually just I could probably find it myself up here but noting that in the on page to under November the dates are not there so if there are dates they can be written in times when there are dates on the committee that aren't aren't there on purpose Kate yes so you're probably noticing that in the late spring I didn't mention our regular school committee meetings and the reason for that is because we don't usually discuss very much with regards to the budget at in those particular months and the reason why is because immediately before that we have approved the uh School Department's budget request and then it's up to the mayor and the city council then to uh take that forward for the next few months until we do in fact have a uh a city budget in place so there the school committee itself discusses the budget in all of the months prior to that uh we do a lot of work that leads up to it and then we have to um sort of let it take its wings and fly with the city and wait for um wait for the mayor and the city council to get through their parts of it um so you'll see that uh for example the school committee's discussions about um Capital Improvement need to take place in the fall um because then the capital the committee needs to uh do what they do and then the mayor needs time to come up with her Capital Improvement program which then goes to city council and uh and what have you so we as the school committee discuss those things up front and then we and then after that we are um there's not much for us to do uh and the same thing with the operating budget once we finish our um our deliberations and approval of that which usually takes place at either around the very end of February the beginning of March um then there's not much for us to do until um until after the mayor and city council including Ways and Means and what have you get through all of their business which uh would not take be until about the end of May so we probably wouldn't take up another budget topic other than our monthly updates until June so that's why and then just reading looking at the format there are some for for example in November you have three items there but there isn't a particular date that's unintentional right there are times when you you won't know the dates or it's not something that's tied to a particular date yeah that's right um certain things within the budget process take place over a period of time rather than on a particular day uh so like for example when the when the um superintendent is looking for her department heads to create their individual uh budget requests that's something that doesn't take place on one particular day it takes time for those department heads to put together their requests um and so that's not you know that would go without a date on the calendar because it takes place across multiple dates um but I put those in the the months or the part of the year in which that thing would take place um I hope that makes sense yeah it makes sense to me other questions or comments about the about the uh calendar right uh anything else from you member Mar Martini before we vote no all right uh we'll start with you member Martini yes yes okay member Goodwin yes member child's yes member SE Tex in yes I'm a yes mayor disor yes yes passes unanimously thank you so much big achievement really appreciate it I'm so excited thank you so much this is definitely a little labor of love but I also just want to let you know make sure folks remember this is a you know changeable amendable document if something comes up or or you see a need to make a change we can always uh you know go back to this to the drawing board with it and and amend it if we need to but I'm so glad to have this framework in place so now we can we can get going on what comes next which brings me to the other piece of my report so uh the next piece as you'll see in the calendar there is for uh budget and finance to meet uh to discuss the implementation of our school committee policy dbd which is all written out for you there on page three uh basically the school committee's policy is that the needs of our students always come first when it comes to the development of the budget and the school committee is very interested in um having input from our community so there are already a number of ways in which members of the community can have input into the budget development process and people can uh come to our meetings and make public comment they can write email to individual committee members or all of the committee uh through our website and um we have had um you know we have individual members such as myself who have regular office hours that people are welcome to come and speak to us at directly so um I could go on but so we have a number of ways in which we already do this however um I'm really inspired by superintendent patau's level of Engagement with the public over the last couple of months um since she took on her new position and um that's something that I myself would like to uh carry on and and um integrate into our work as a committee so that we're also doing our part especially when it comes to the development of the budget and now I know that I care about this maybe more because I happen to be chairing that subcommittee uh but I would like to um I would like to have a discussion about whether the committee would like to um and how and when do more to implement this policy so I plan to we will be having a a subsequent meeting our next meeting of this subcommittee will take place in a couple of weeks and uh that will be one of the topics that we will discuss so I wanted to ask the members of the committee right now um if uh they have ideas that they would like budget and finance to discuss in terms of um doing anything new or additional uh in terms of public engagement on the budget development process um so I would I would open that question for discussion great responses feedback I mean we just created another committee to engage the public and so I think that there's opportunities for joint committee operations if you will so that we could work together to think of some things great great thought others was that M SE talking because it was very hard for me to hear oh yes member ston was saying that uh with the uh creation of the new community engagement subcommittee there might be opportunities for collaboration um about U Community engagement about the budget exactly what I was thinking yes um I also wanted to just add for members I know I you might have ideas later that you're not able to think of on the spot right now and that's okay um and I I welcome um individual input from Members if they have suggestions that they would like to make I just want to remind members that um if you're communicating something like this it needs to be one onone directly to me because um no one should be deliberating on anything um or doing anything that could be seen as deliberation on a school committee um topic or anything under the school committee perview um in between open meetings so u i welcome individual um Communications so that I can I can um evaluate those suggestions properly with the subcommittee and then bring it back to everyone thank you all right anything else on your report no that's it I'm excited okay great um policy and program subcommittee that's me uh as chair and we did not meet we had a meeting and got canceled uh one person wasn't able to be there there was an item where it seemed useful to have the full committee available um so we will um convene again next month there was also not an executive subcommittee meeting um since the last meeting um um I don't think there was redistricting and re organizing uh school committee handb handbook ad hoc committee um the chair isn't here to report on that is there a member who would be willing to to report M ston we haven't not met since the last update that was given uh but I will I would like to remind folks to when you get a chance review the draft that we sent to folks um again not with a not with an editorial eye this is not your chance to play New York Times editor but it is your opportunity to provide broad brush Strokes feedback about big areas that are either missing that you'd like to see or ways that we presented something that you would like maybe presented differently um and I know we have another meeting on the calendar and if you give me 30 seconds I can tell you when it is it is the 23rd of September at 6 pm and I'm not sure if we have a location set for that yet but we usually try to meet in person okay great um I guess I would just encourage you all to consider just cleaning up the version that was presented to us last time and bringing it for a vote I I think it's ready for with with the you know there's places where it's saying we need this information or whatever but um I think it's really ready for the full committee to discuss and vote on and then could be something that could get added to but even what you have there would be such an improvement over not having anything at all and I really appreciate the work everybody's been doing on it any other questions or thoughts for handbook committee okay um collaborative for Educational Services rep remember a good one um very excited that the collaborative is celebrating their 50th year as a collaborative on September 18th um they're having a big shindig in Worcester um if you're interested in participating in the shind let me know um and I will send you the link thank you um City Planning and construction rep we have not met okay um legislative rep is member Den she's also our division five rep uh District Wellness committee our first meeting will be on October 7th um and I believe it will be virtual great that is uh committee reports um next we have um our new business um would say given the hour if anyone would like to move to table any of these items if they don't they don't want to discuss them tonight I'm I'm very open to those types of motions but our next item is the music program uh which I believe member Goodwin asked to be put on through the agenda I believe superintendent patod brought us celebration on the music program tonight yes okay excellent item handled uh petition on changing the school funding formula um so um let's see I in your packets I believe is a um petition that um that I mean I think the intent actually was to have a resolution ready for us which would be different from just the um petition um Jesus is here repres presenting that and has said that other districts will be voting on resolutions next month so it is an item that could be tabled uh alternatively I could accept a motion to um to uh approve the um to sign on as a school committee to the um petition as presented so it's kind of we could go either way we could do a resolution next month or we could have a motion to sign on to the petition as presented presented and discuss it now any any preferences anyone all right I guess what I'm gonna say given the hour why don't we do this in October if that's okay it sounds like it was okay I don't have my glasses on so I can't read okay um great uh we will table that oh why don't I take a a motion to um um take up a resolution on changing the school funding formula in October so just a motion basically to take this up next month is there someone who'd make that motion motion all right uh okay got a motion for member Saxton and a second for member Martini um any discussion uh member Martini vote Yes member Goodwin yes member Childs yes member ston yes I'm a yes mayor yes yes okay motion carries unanimously we will discuss that at our um October meeting lpac and CPAC updates um superintendent oh sorry oh oh I didn't realize we were actually getting an update that's great I thought that I was making a motion to because oh the intent of why I brought it up was so that we would actually have representatives from those bodies come and give us updates is my that was the intent that I brought that forward from but I would be happy to hear the updates that you have for us tonight I I'll just say I asked the superintendent to gather some information about us so so she can share the information she's gathered and then the committee can decide what our next steps are thank you superintendent sure um the director of people service is Dave messing um overseas both of those and um the CPAC is set to meet next Wednesday um September 18th at 6 o'clock they meet in the Greenfield Middle School library they also offer child's care um for any members that want to come they are working on getting um officers elected and and approving their bylaws that they started last year because we finally have some parents um um on the advisory committee that joined us last year and are continuing the the hard work so they're moving and shaking um the bylaws um I looked into this because I wasn't quite 100% certain but the bylaws actually dictate how they report to the school committee so once their bylaws are approved we'll see what's in the bylaws and then if they don't actually have that in their bylaws Mr messing said he's happy to send reports either that I can share with you or he can come to a meeting um our lpac has been a little slower getting off the ground but that meeting is on Thursday September 26th 6 o'clock Greenfield Middle School library these um things will all be in my parent updates and reminding folks where and when and that we do offer child care so folks who want to come and don't have that they can bring their children um but they are just starting out they did not have any um solid representation last year so they're really looking for people to join that and that's the English language parent advisory committee so um if um you know anyone that wants to join please contact Dave messing and we will get you where you need to be for those groups so I'll keep you posted as they meet and as the bylaws get adopted any discussion or all right um then I don't think there's any other AC for us right now if that's all right this time okay um item D we have the school resource officer in schools um the mayor asked me to put this on to the agenda and we heard during public comment uh the chief uh uh imploring us to please uh reinstate the school resource officer in the schools uh I think what I would like to do on this is basic basically have a vote about whether this school committee um wants to um deliberate and um and uh vote on having us basically whether we want to take this up because um we did um not too long ago um you know make a choice as a school committee about which direction we were going in with school resource officers which was not to have one um so I do feel like it would require our committee choosing together about whether we want to um initiate I guess the way I would put it is um I would hear a motion that the school committee initiate a comprehensive study and deliberation process to evaluate the potential addition of a school resource officer to our school district so is there a motion to that effect um a motion from the mayor and is there a second second for member Goodwin okay um discussion I just wanted to um say one thing without and I don't want to say too much but um this actually came up after um we had a meeting we had a department head meeting and the the FBI was not at the school but was at the home of of um a a student um and there was was a threat to the school is my understanding um no so if you can correct me if I'm wrong I I actually it was concerning to me enough to to bring it up and I didn't go into all of the details but I did I don't know all of the details but I know that they were in touch with you and so maybe you'd like to Enlighten us a little bit yeah we don't talk about Lex security issues public for yeah okay uh there other discussions remember Goodwin so oh sorry okay so I would just say this at when I heard that I had a concern about public about safety so I put it so I asked that it would be on the agenda for a discussion and I wanted you to know where that came from that there was something behind that okay thank you thank you mayor member Goodwin I think the world is a very scary place and unfortunately things are happening everywhere and that everybody likes to think not where they live um and I'm sorry we need as much help as we can get to keep our schools safe um and we've had a good relationship for a long time um with our local police they would show up at our schools when there was a problem um and some of our schools are more isolated from downtown than others location matters so I would say to you um Sr um are a necessity for today's world our doors are not always people can just walk in doors um our new security system hopefully will help with that but there is always somebody who's going to leave a door open in our schools um I think it's a um something that's necessary and every time there's a shooting you know you sit there and you go you just hold your breath and I do not want us to be sitting here in tears because children or teachers died because we didn't have um people in our schools to help and there was a school committee meeting I can still remember remember years ago where they talked about um arming our custodians and I can remember that school committee as clear as day and sitting there going you've got to be kidding um but people react every time there's a shooting um and every time something happens and then it fades away and today of all days um it is 91 and I have not forgotten that day I would say to you that the more security you have the better off you are before I hear other comments I just want to emphasize again to the committee um the reason why we have uh an executive session I item um that we we actually happen to have met for this reason today to discuss the deployment of security Personnel or devices or strategies with respect there too so we do get to have an open discussion about whether have a school resource officer but we need to be extremely sensitive about what information we're disclosing or not disclosing um in that discussion so please be thoughtful thank you member Childs can you speak a little more about what the comprehensive study would entail and what the time frame on that would be because the the movement was about that I think if the committee took it up then we would have that discussion and determine that um I don't have that I mean with this item was uh submitted a few days ago so I I certainly don't have a draft plan and plus the committee hasn't decided to take it up so member ston you mentioned in opening this discussion that it was quite recently actually that the committee took up this question and and decided to not no longer have SRO in our schools and I would like to think that they went through a deliberative process and addressed many of the same concerns and questions that we would be facing with this comprehensive review I would not be in favor of reopening that if there if we can go back and look to their deliberations and see how they chose to respond and the measures that they put in place to address the concerns about safety it is my understanding that even without SRO we do still have police officers who respond to incidents at our schools is this true they're still there um yes we can connect with dispatch or anytime we need something dispatch will send someone if asked for absolutely um I'll just say my computer went to sleep so member Martini if you're wanting to speak please uh just unmute and say something so I know you want to talk cuz I don't have my password handy and all that um okay problem I am so I I understand if newer members um want to discuss this topic um I however was on the committee when we did discuss this um issue quite extensively uh not that long ago and I remember so clearly the um input from lots of community members about this and the ones that are uh the most at the Forefront for me are the ones from our students um and and they are the most important when it comes to um any decision we make and uh I I will not forget from our discussions on that um the opposition expressed by many of our students um and the poignant description of why certain students would not feel fa having police in our school um and uh I worry just as much as as anyone else about uh our security which is why I appreciate the um Regular communication that the committee has received from the school administration in uh our executive sessions owing to the need to keep our security um procedures and um capabilities uh within um within our own knowled order to uphold the Integrity of those things um and then in terms I understand why this issue comes up um when a tragedy occurs and I spend a lot of time um reading as much as I can about each one um so it's not lost on me that um having an SRO did not prevent a tragedy in Parkland having uh having two officers responding right away um did not prevent people from losing their lives in the most recent one and a school having its own entire police department did not prevent uh one of the worst tragedies in our nation's history in U Val so um I myself am not interested in revisiting this topic I think it would be um a better use of our to to focus on other things but um if other members uh as a majority of the committee want to go through a process of studying this again then I'm here for it thank you other uh comments um I'll speak to this I also am not in favor of the school committee taking this up um I also was on the committee when when we discussed it it did come up uh in the wake of uh George Floyd's killing and the um the rise in Consciousness and um voice about the role of the police in our community about how um I mean at the time I don't think the school resource officer has been brought to us before with the idea that that having a single school resource officer at a school would increase the safety of our students in terms of um protection from um mass shooting events for example it was always presented to us as something that um was needed in order to build a good relationship between the students and the police department and is something um that would contribute to that uh the challenge for um students of color particular um Black and Hispanic students um is that the role of the police in these communities has not um always been um what it should be in terms of protecting uh people and so it can be uh triggering and inhibiting of learning to uh have a police presence in the schools on an ongoing basis certainly we do have uh events and invitations to the police to come and bring Comfort dogs and so on that does occur but uh I I uh agree that um with member Martini that um the idea of having a um a single um school resource officer in the school is really not going to contribute to the safety of our children um unfortunately from those mass shooting events um and yeah the exact same examples uh there m Martini I think chose the perfect examples of of where that has not been effective so I am really um not interested in um red deliberating about this and I will uh vote against the committee taking it up uh on an ongoing basis any other discussion or questions all right let's have a vote um member Martini no member Goodwin yes member Childs yes member seon no uh I am and no um mayor disor yes okay we are tied uh 5050 uh Roberts Rules of Order kind of calls for us to keep deliberating and keep discuss discussing um another option would be for us to uh table lay this on the table until our October meeting um when there will hopefully be a an odd number of us present for the vote um any I'd just accept informal feedback from people if you have a preference one way or the other if you think that you could be your vote could be changed by more discussion I would be open to talking about it more tonight I move to table move to table by the mayor is there a second second a second from Member seon discussion oh no it's not no discussion item yep thank you okay so we will vote um member Mar Martini motion to table okay that's a yes member Goodwin yes member Childs yes member Sexton yes I'm a yes mayor yes all right motion passes unanimously we will um consider the motion to um study and deliberate on this topic at our um October meeting and with that uh are there any requests for future uh agenda items hearing none I'd take a motion to adjourn so moved motion from the mayor is there a second second second from Member ston any discussion let's vote member Martini yes member Goodwin yes member child yes member Sexton yes I'm a yes mayor yes motion passes unanimously we are adjourned at 9:30 pm thank you thank you everybody [Music] n [Music] n [Music]

from Mary York 340 Falls Road Bethany Connecticut um and her comment reads as follows we have been again let down by our leadership Our Town leadership due to the inaction of the town to move anything forward the interim director of parks and wreck before and after school resigned we all knew he did not have the support he needed families had two days to figure out plans for their children and jobs it seems there are few in the town willing to help and the Boe has a history of stepping in and doing just that as evidenced by trying to put together a program in mere weeks before school started can the Boe possibly help parents who are left in the Lurch for before and after care working parents shouldn't have to pay for the crimes of a pedophile families in this town need to support need support now more than ever and it seems we continue to get kicked while we're down help us please and to be U upfront that will be discussed in the superintendent's report um Jen capaso did a brief discussion of it last night at the selectman's meeting at the special selectman's meeting and uh we'll cover that in Greater detail so if there's anybody else for public comment uh come on down please state your name and address for the record and write it down there so we have a speak slowly and clearly um I'm Johanna Fernandez 108 mon Ro um I'm here just to make the comment that I do want I want to know the the steps of the school regarding the after CARE program I understand that yesterday the Elman and the board of Finance approv something for the pars and rec family there are families that didn't sign up for pars and rec because they didn't trust the stability of the program they didn't trust the current processes and there's still families that want to know what is going to be the future some of us make arrangements temporary Arrangements but we want to know what is going to be the next steps uh and if BC is actually going to have eventually an after CARE program that's all thank you and just to answer that question K we'll answer that in the superintendent's report no other contestants thank you um committee reports curriculum approval minutes oh excuse me approval of minutes I make the motion to approve the minutes second any discussion errors omissions comments all in favor all oppos obain DJ now we go to committee reports fire the law 9132 curriculum uh so curriculum met um one week ago and we had U an update on the curriculum of professional learning um this Cas reported on the professional development the teachers and parent Educators did through that first week of school thing um kicked off with the students all the all the activities that our teachers were involved in and parents were involved in um there was topics included math and introduction to our new resource for the science of reading as well as training on the new Child Protection unit um they received positive feedback from the staff in spite of the connectivity issues because' been aware of the connectivity issues we've been having here um Mr will reported on the implementation of the additional resource for the science of reading from uh amplifi and the teachers will continue to receive training this resource in the coming months um Mrs Bradford had U inquired about the data for the kindergarten students for the curricular resources and was curious to know if students continue to perform well in the magnetic reading um and we also uh Mrs Bradford being the chair of the policy committee noticed that there were some policies around um curriculum and what that's the attention of the curriculum committee and wanted to see if it was things that we should review we talked about bringing those things those policies that were specific BR to the curricul committee to review um and then we talked about some future topics which would include U updates on science social studies curriculum we had had discussion and uh about report cards before and get an update on where um report card stood and we talked about how cohort data would and the student presentation data for all of our wonderful sback testing would be coming up in the near future any else I anybody who have any questions Rulo going once so Mo Finance Amy you're around okay bear with me we have three months to go over so quite a lot you want me John Paul to go over each month and then approval or just yeah do one at the time that's okay all right so in your packet you will see the operating budget for the 20224 school year uh with the month ending June 2024 um on there you will see under general education that the salaries ended with a surplus of 14,410 which is mostly due to the reallocation of ESS sub cost and ESS is the company that the district uses subs and Staffing benefits ended with a surplus of 59,500 34 this is due to the ESS sub costs that were reallocated to Educational Services which is the deficit of 191 and 88 on the BSF BCS Services line supplies and other bu lines ended with deficits of 41326 respectively mainly due to increases and software renewals and the purchase of Technology wish list items so you'll see that the overall general education ended with the year with a deficit of $6 69,6 181 under special education salaries ended with a surplus of 9,623 which is slightly higher than the previous month due to sub cost coming in less than we had expected benefits ended with a surplus of 22875 that is slightly higher than May due to final billing and adjustment to estimated taxes services ended with a surplus of 93,9 due to an extra prek bus that was budgeted for but not needed and the use of the excess costs to offset the cost of outside Services thank you I was like what is this coming at me thank you Miss WL supplies ended with a deficit of 26334 due to the purchase of wishless instructional supplies special education ends the year with a surplus of $1,599 still on June under operations and overhead salaries ended with a surplus of $ 37,5 44 this is a little higher than last month or the previous month due to final salaries being paid out and adjustments to hourly custodial and part-time employees benefits ended with an increased surplus of 94882 due to final billing estimated taxes and the final release of the insurance cushion the services Line is now showing a deficit of 22,277 due to final billing and the purchase of wishlist items and supplies ended with a surplus of 3, 432 still under operations and overhead you'll see utilities ended with a deficit of 2861 as final billing came in a little higher than anticipated facilities and maintenance is now showing a decreased deficit of 85,681 se2 as memberships and du's fees came in higher than expected operations and overhead ended the month with a surplus of $ 28,730 the 2324 school year ended with a surplus of 9,648 and that is 75% of the total appropriated budget we had for the fiscal year at the bottom you will see that as of June 30th the prek account balance is $84,999 50 and the 10 248a account shows a balance of $30,380 any questions on June okay I'm done with June anybody's got any questions just to to the servers at the school were impacted and they're still not uh 100% correct so um Mt Brer has been working on this diligently and that's where a good chunk of that 59,000 it's going to disappear to um I don't know if every remembers last month the phone lines were down and there were all kinds of interrupted so all right then I anybody want to make a motion to accept the operating budget uh as of June 2024 as presented by Amy Joe Caroline second second all those in favor I I oppos now on to the July okay July is a little bit quicker okay so next page is the operating budget for the new school year 2425 summary as of July 2024 um pretty status quo as you can see all accounts for the month of July remain status quo with the budget projections that were made during the budget process in the 2023 2024 school year we will make adjustments to salaries and benefits as those numbers become more definitive in the next few months taking into consideration new hires and benefits coverage changes we will also make adjust as needed to current projections for special education programs grant funding professional development and student needs done no so easy any questions okay motion to accept the uh budget summaries of July 2024 okay sh second I'll second all in favor all right okay next page is the 2425 operating budget summary for August of 2024 you will see under general education salaries is showing a surplus of 14,15 due to adjustments made for new certified staff all other general education lines remain status quo at this time general education ends the month with a surplus of 14,16 you go down you will see under special education salaries have been adjusted to reflect savings and esy coverage all other special education lines remain status quo at this time special education ends the month with a surplus of $1,419 under operations and overhead you'll see all line Lings remain status quo at this time at this time overall we're showing a surplus of $1 15,576 which reflect savings and salaries Mrs Miss richardi will continue to make the necessary adjustments as the settles into the new school year and as John Paul had mentioned our backup server took a hit from the lightning strike in June and failed a couple times and now needs to be replaced so there is the equipment uh and installation for that in addition to monthly storage fees with the quote coming in at approximately $27,000 plus two servers have also been having issues since the storm we are looking at quotes to repl th replace those as well Mrs Spargo has contacted kerma our insurance provider to look into following a claim our deductible is $4,000 so we are looking to pursuing that would you like to have us approve that and then I'll finish off what we sure okay anybody have any questions motion to approve the uh August 20124 operating budget as present motion Joe second Shannon all in favor all right then to finish off uh at the meeting uh M richardi reported on few other items to inform us that the EFS report which is a required state report has been completed and certified by the September first deadline once the Auditors have reviewed the schedules and backup documentation it will be reopened for final certification once the final certification is complete the Auditors will formally submit their findings to the state and the deadline for this has now been changed to January 31st of 2025 as far as the audit goes we have new Auditors this this year U Mahoney Sable and Company they were in at the end of July to do their initial testing Miss richardi sat with them to review all of our cash re receipts excuse me and dispersement processes that occur both in the Boe office and here at the school and they expect to be back sometime in January to complete the audit and submit the final certified EFS report to the state finally because even though the school year just started it's budget season already so the budget 2526 school year Miss richardi and Mrs bird will be meeting within the next week or so and to begin formulating the timeline to meet with departments to review expectations for the 2526 budget planning process I'm finally done can I I just wanted to piggy back up with that I've been going to the cave um cave is doing a series of seminars on budget and finance and um it's been really helpful and they've recorded the ones they've already done if so people haven't had a chance to go their interest I think there's two more coming um but they've been really helpful in getting up to okay that takes care of Finance since Sean is not here I will him facilities with K's backup uh's last night um in attendance was Shan as chairman K myself Amy Kevin uh um and what we did was we U we walked around and we talked about some of the things that have to be done should be done and will be done um as you know we hired an an architect to uh come up with some plans to fix the north ramp and stairs uh after some discussion it was decided amongst the committee people that were there uh that item number two or scheme number two was probably uh the best compromise it's a fairly long ramp that starts below the white pole at the North End of This of the of the of the uh sidewalk swings around the front of the building and um and ties into the middle of the uh school there is also a set of stairs to replace the stairs that are presently there now the benefit of that uh is that it's a very shallow uh grade on the ramp and it doesn't require any railings the only railings that would be there uh are on the stairs itself and we talked about that briefly because you had mentioned Sue had mentioned last meeting about railings on the ramps and something to hold on to and insurance companies like that what's that insurance companies like like that well I understand that but it also um one of the problems that railings caused is the fact that over the course of 10 or 15 or 20 years they start to deteriorate as they rust they expand they split the concrete and you have a whole series of problems and you can see that very well evidenced in the ramps in front and everything and that's why we're doing this so it was the consensus of the people that were there last night uh that we should try to go with number two the other consensus was that uh the railings on the North stair because of timing if we can't get this done by November we do not want to be doing this over the winter so we will do in the spring so rather than put ourselves in or back ourselves into a uh a corner the uh game plan is to have Kevin handle replacing the railings on the North stair and the railings uh the three railings at the entrance of the school one of them's gone and the corner of concrete is chipped the other two are in very tough shape so those can be handled administratively so to speak by Kevin then the intent is to have assuming that the um the board is acceptable to this I mean this is all it's a committee of nine people so you know everybody's got to say um assuming that the board goes along with our choice or doesn't have any comments to make or whatever K will be instructed to contact silver pest s tomorrow to start working drawings on that scheme in addition we talked about this ramp they came up with a scheme that comes out of the uh the door at the end and comes down across the front of the school and empties next to the stairs it was the walk through we looked at that and we think it should go the other way and wrap back and we think that might be cheaper it might be easier and it might be cleaner again we can do it with no railings uh repair these stairs and a new ramp so K is also going to bridge that assuming the board is in agreement she will bridge that with silver petrell to come up with a new scheme for that then icing on the cake we have a number of capital Improvement that are going to have to be addressed sooner rather than later the HVAC HVAC units Up on the Roof are um approaching the end of their useful life and have to be replaced uh the cost is somewhere around 800,000 the uh exterior of the steer of the school has a number of issues with it doors are rusted and rotted um facade is starting to fall the the built brick needs to be cleaned the brick needs to be parged there are a number of areas where the mortar is being worn out of the joints and uh there's a ramp down in front of the school that we want to take a look at sidewalk over here wants to be replaced so the intent is probably to do all this stuff as part of a capital Improvement in the tanks what's it oh in the tanks tanks the the there's there's a oil tanks located to the left of the entrance of the school those tanks are fiberglass and in theory fiberglass tanks should last forever however de requires a monitoring integral monitoring system why I have no clue but neither did there um and those tanks would probably be included in part of a capital budget because we don't want to do any alterations in the front of the school if we're going to just pay over the top of the tanks and then have rip them out later so even though the lifespan of those tanks is probably pretty good because they are not wired currently to Deep's standards it would probably behoove us as Sean pointed out they make prefabricated oil tanks if anybody's seen them uh there's two different types there's steel with a pan around it you're supposed to provide 115% containment or there are concrete tanks and these things are pre-fabricated and they they're guaranteed to last an awful long time um and we would be able to put those in the back of the school and rewire or rep plummet so and that's something to look at so what we would do is we would hire somebody like silver Petrelli to put together a program for placing the um HVAC units on the roof which requires a HVAC engineer and a structural engineer to determine the adequacy they would also have to test the uh current uh heating system so that's one thing then silver petrell is already working on the perimeter of the school and what we need for that we would also have silver pet while they're doing it take a look at the tanks have their P guy uh take a look at the tanks and the sidewalk and all the other so we're talking probably a 3 or 4 million dollar Capital Improvement project but again you know we're in an aging plant where a lot of this stuff which we thought was being handled wasn't being handled and now that chicken come home to roost so there's basically um we would like to try to get this stuff ready for the some of the stuff ready for the spring um it may or may not but assuming people here are in agreement with that approach then we would then dur a k to contact silver Petrelli get started on working drawings for that North ramp and stare and look at this design through this over here question shoot so outside stuff fine I'm curious about the the oil tanks and the HVAC unit is there any potential benefit at looking at if we're talking about replacing HVAC units and oil tanks looking at an alternative Source like is there something that might be instead of putting new tanks in there and maybe having to dig them up again maybe going to gas or I don't know is there well one of the one of the things that you want to keep in mind is that the generators are diesel they all feed tanks also so that's one thing because that's I immedately thought of gas but the generators have just been refurbished um and they're diesel so you would have to have a uh 1,000 1500 2,000 gallon tank just for diesel for the generators I will make that I will make that question because um natural gas has benefits um you no longer have a pollution problem see oil tanks are a source of pollution the insurance companies hate it natural gas is not a pollutant you can bury a 20,000 gallon tank in the ground and LP or natural gas is not considered blue you going bury 20 ft from the water so there is some benefit and the efficiency of these units is is always changing but understand our boilers run on diesel you're now talking you would have to rip out the boilers you'd have to figure out what to do with the there's there's I understand what you're saying and I will ask that question but I don't think from a practical standpoint there's going to be a benefit to switching over from um Diesel from from from oil to natural gas when soar anything what's the life span on our boilers right now where are we in terms of don't got 20 years on them we got Five Years on them we can get that that's that's a question we that might be if if it literally comes down to just the generators then maybe a temporary tank or something like that just to run through the life of the generators might not be a bad idea if it's everything else is tied into it then yeah WR your side makes sense that's a questioners are two years out three years out looking like they're they just did major Ren they just did they just did major renovations to those boilers and to my knowledge those boilers are good for another you know 10 15 20 years but we will get the question answered Kevin had a couple of questions last night that he couldn't answer that he uh you know how much diesel do we use yeah uh you know how much how much oil do we use how much heating oil do we use uh day week one so there are other questions and but I would ask that question anyways of a design professional is there any benefit to uh switching over to an alternative Source that's a it's a valid question and you're right you're 100% correct you're 100% correct John Paul shoot I I know the electricity Market's pretty volatile but I believe there's a ton of money floating around for like air to air heat pumps especially when it comes to air conditioning systems and I know the Connecticut green bank and energise CT offer some really attractive if not 0% financing for municipalities so I mean obviously it's not a fuel-based you know what I mean but it's just something to consider it's something it's something to be ask of the MEP when we retain somebody to take a look at the air handling units are there Alternatives and I would expect that discussion to at least be uh breached sure that you know is there any uh advantage to doing heat pumps is there any advantage to doing some of that stuff or subsidies what's that or subsidies going along with some well you got to you're making the Assumption the subsidies will be there 10 years down the road um you know you have to I I I mean the the old joke that there's nothing as permanent as a government program is valid to a point but at some point we're going to run out of other people's money but there is a follow on question I you know worth posing um the age of our school building at this at this stage is well was built what I worked on this as a 16-year-old so that's uh 1970 1971 my family my R companies on the pth on the plan so we've hit the 50e mark and that's kind of the municipal life life building our building is in very good shape we're very fortunate um the layout works there are things wrong we have a couple of leaks in uh the um the end building team Wing roof s yeah what's that yeah the far Corner the far corner but we've taken care of the rest of it we just re-roofed the main building 5 years ago the the building itself is in very good shape and I don't think the uh town of Bethany is going to want to see a $78 million school project the enrollment if you've noticed um peaked at 604 and when I started on the board event we were down to the low 350s we're now back up to 430 down from 450 last year so we're we're not bursting at the seams um if God forbid we need additional space the new portable classrooms that you can purchase for a relatively modest amount are Head and Shoulders above anything that we've had they come wired they come pre-wired for for for internet and Wi-Fi air conditioned plumbed for bathrooms all kinds of there's all kinds of of of of uh options you know we use these as off trailers all the time on on four and five year projects and there some of them are pretty palacial so it would be if we needed space it would be a very relatively simple matter of parking one or two trailers at a very attractive price rather than trying to build an own new Wing or own new school well I mean that's my really my question you know when we're talking you know multi-million dollar you know obviously launer financing project $3 and $4 million a far high from $78 million one one would probably fall exclusive ly on the taxpayers of Bethany a $7 million school probably goes through the state yeah but our our reimbursement don't forget the reimbursement ratios are based upon your economic demographics New Haven gets 95% right bridg park gets 95% when when when uh when uh I want to say Woodbridge went and looked at replacing their school I think their reimbursement rate was 3 % I get it so it's again it's it's a dollars and cents um calculation I don't think we're ready nothing in in 10 years on this board has led me to believe that the school is in bad enough shape that needs to be replaced I would agree but talking about millions and millions you know I just well we're talking 3 to four million and that may be high that may be low but we've we've squeezed I mean Kevin's been sh stringing that heating unit together and it's tougher to get parts they just uh uh Wi-Fi all the uh thermostats and everything else the all controls what's that the alleron controls the Aller system yeah and you have to forgive me I'm deficit T um so the school is being upgraded the boilers were worked on we had um I think the town guys I think that's what was said last night and if I remember right they completely went over the diesel generators cuz I asked about that because if we're going to replace the diesel tanks why don't we propane propane is so much more efficient as a generator fuel it's less problems for a number of reasons but it was just completely regun and those generators are strong uh there was a leak in the water line so we may be having you know minor issues like that but I think when you balance it out 3 or4 million I think is a lot more palatable than and the reason I say $78 million is because I haven't done to school in the last 10 years it was under million I mean West hav High School was $130 million and and believe it or not the guy who runs the program is a friend of mine the architect who runs the program and thinks everybody's fat sh excuse me fat they're crazy right he said the numbers are just the numbers are just unsustainable but because New Haven gets 100% or 95% they don't do maintenance they have a 25e life cycle and they replace their schools I can truly say that my family company built or renovated every school in the City of New Haven and every one of those schools is gone and has been replaced because they discovered it was cheaper to rip them down than to maintain them they didn't need a 45 person maintenance staff we have a very good maintenance staff Kevin's really working um to get good people he's got three people now sta what's that he's fully staffed yeah he's fully staffed and he's working to get his people trained so that we were talking about last night you know washing the face of the building know get somebody over here to wash the face of the building he's got a train to do that but we're working on it and so I think we're we're very fortunate and and we finally got somebody on board who really is is taking this uh to heart and I think the taxpayers at the town of Bethany are getting their money's worth I wasn't advocating for no I understand that but but I'm just explaining what the issue is the issue is $4 million is 78 million and plus where do we put another school can I ask a a followup question sure is this something that in thinking about okay like it sounds like we're in a good spot right now in terms of doing maintenance rather than a replacement um but at some point is this part of the strategic planning to think about big picture long term you know likely we'll need a new school in say 25 years so that we can right put together a maintenance schedule so that we're not 20 years from now replacing oil tanks for a school that'll have to you know that kind of thing so that'll we'll do that as part of strategic planning okay yeah yeah that's see one of the things we have to we haven't even talked about is parking lot the access road all the sidewalks you know this is all part of a 5year plan that we have to start again in the spring in the spring I'm a little busy right now we could put it off I I think Kay's got a little bit on her plate right now but well and I and all make sense to me I just think that like we're I you know I don't we don't want to get into a spot right where we're like oh well we just put 2 million into it and now we've got to replace it and so having a sense of the expected time span and being able to project that out I think will make make these decisions you know not for us but for the board in 10 years a lot easier because they'll know that's Jade de yeah that's the idea so could could I ask are you know the the legislature got really involved in the HVAC systems in the schools so they did a and I'm sure the The Architects and the engineer will be familiar with that but I think there are grants that there's not going to be another ground of another round of hbac Grants there not no oh we missed it as of right now there's there's no there's no round three oh oh well and the reason we went with silver Petrelli is because they specialize in schools they know what's available what's out there they can make recommendations and they probably designed I don't know 10 or 10 10 or 15% of the schools going up in the state right now well I I'm not questioning their their qualifications talk they would know the state's making mandates on the schools to meet certain requirements and they were providing grants to help the schools do that but I guess they're not anymore so we're hopeful that that will be refunded moving forward um and they've shifted timelines and requirements and been a little fluid in that area on some levels something that bring up to our state legislators so well right now what's sucking the money out of the state is transportation seriously that's that's where the lot of a lot of a lot of the federal money went the Endra River Bridge The 69191 Interchange uh you know there's a billion and a half a billion and a quarter right there uh Hartford they're talking about doing Harford Underground here's a billion dollars plus so that's where a lot of the money that would have gone into a program or funded a grant program is getting channeled right now is in transportation it was there it was there two years ago it's not there now darn it well he kept it the problem we're having with the H the H units is you can't get parts he's cannibalizing and at some point get it I I get it but that's what I'm saying is it's old equipment and you can't repair it anymore because people don't things anymore yeah that's right I think I beat that horse so anyways with your wise ass excuse me I'm having a bad night I apologize I apologize that's true three and I leave the um so with your uh with your approval we'll go with item uh with door number two with the uh with the ramp and K will call Silver Petra tomorrow morning and get this started and Family's got comments what's here you know it's a committee of 90 everybody's got a voice I know would rather see railings no no no I would just say but you no you I'm Leary of the insurance companies forgive me but but you had a valid point because I'm thinking the same thing that you were and that you got something to grab as you walk up the stair as you walk up the ramp I agreed with you but it also takes away and they're also a source of Maintenance they're a problem well this is replacing that that that northst and that the ramp that's in front that big blocky concrete thing it looks like the jail thing yes okay with that's coming out it does it looks like jail bars I you know you could do railings that don't look like that but I'll leave that alone yes okay I just that's what we're replacing the that zigzag thing with the switch back ramp heavy railings okay and we're just putting in a sloping sidewalk instead it meet ADA requirements okay it's simple enough yeah and I think it makes the front of the school a lot nicer oh yeah looks like hell that thing it's one Pursuit so do we need a motion to get kada um I don't think we need a motion to to to but is everybody on board or does somebody have uh comments they want to go someplace you know they want to take a different direction or what use clean language if you're make a comment it wasn't vul language it was just a little wasn't really bored like what wasn't really bored like sometimes you know Paton was right sometimes you got to you know you're you're you're polite and calm and everybody ignores you I I can I just ask I I haven't been on the board before for this kind of process so like at this point we think this is a good idea we're going to go to the architect is this because of the amount of money we're talking here like at what point it'll go to bit it'll have to go it'll have to go so what we're what we're saying today is we're going to move this is the option that we want to go out to this and the architect will like create all the I don't know the drawings and the documents the drawing specifications he'll advertise for bids okay and we don't need a construction manager for this so you have the architect you pay him an extra 6% and he handles everything he handles the the uh inspections he handles everything okay but we're but in terms of actually spending the money that that'll go out to bid it has to go out to bid process okay because one of the things we want to do is an add altern it and maybe get this done as that would be um that would be a bid item a and then add alternate if there's extra money involved or something would be this R you see what I'm saying and and just to clarify the process so that's a capital project so do we have to submit that to the no not going to this we depending on what the number looks like we'll get a we'll get a projected estimate of cost when he starts the working drawings depending on what that number looks like we may be able to do that using the uh reny day fund if it comes in crazy then we have to go back to the town but that's why I said the other thing the other side of this is we have to go to the town the HVAC units the exterior of the school sidewalk the other ramps you know those have to go to a um a c bonding project that would cover all that stuff but the intent is to do all that stuff at one time not to do it unless the numbers come back cuckoo yeah and that's an improved use of those funds right like so the C looks at that as like yeah we that's we talked about this that's how we're doing the the the um the servers you know we have 59,000 left over rather than giving it back to the town the server trashed so we have to replace the servers so there's you know $40 or $50,000 worth of electronics how long do we have to encumber that m before we have to return it is there a time is there a timeline no okay is there a cap like because I mean I think typically there's expenditures over a certain amount we would need to go to the town since we have 360,000 in the rainy day is that up to us to decide how much of that money before okay y yeah there's a recommended percentage right what was when we started this it was what 5% 5% operating V yeah and if to handle stuff exactly like this like the railings service unexpected expenses and we don't have to if you know something's coming up you you have a little extra then put it in there cuz you know it's coming up you know if we had $100,000 we're talking about giving back half of that to the town but it doesn't make sense to give it back to the town and I'll come back and say okay we need $55,000 for our service and that's if insurance doesn't cover or did we already expend that we're going to we just filed the claim okay y insurance cover is part of the service will we have a 4,000 to okay that's facilities and I apologize if I offended anybody okay uh Transportation um this will be shorter um the transportation committee met today um and and talked with our trans coordinator we reviewed what the processes are for any bus changes um they've been you know making sure that they're working with families who have questions or concerns looking at bus routes to make sure they're not too long um we did come up with one potential uh policy change that would be great for the policy committee to to uh consider at some point which is typically what we say what we've been saying to families is that if you have a kid in fourth fifth or sixth grade um then they can get off the bus on their own but that's actually not written in policy anyway it's been just sort of How It's been what's happening but it's not written in policy anywhere so we thought it would be helpful um to look at relevant policies and see if it made sense to codify it so that we've got something more specific um uh and make sure that we're we've got a good system in place to do that so that's something we can talk about maybe at the next policy commity sure if you have some some suggestions just pull the policy and and make a yeah I think you know we have sort of we know how it's acting right now so um and we can look and see what other districts have in writing too to see if there's a good model for check in Council see if but I think one of the things we talk about is just that it you know we want to make sure that parents know in advance what the options are and that it's being applied consistently and so thinking about it at the policy level is a good first step to that any questions anybody any questions for Shane all right unfinished business we got uh policies excuse me yeah approved for first reading at the Vie regular meeting on August 14th 2024 the following policies you want to read them all or just read them read them I'll assume read you want me to read them all well just there's the there's 29 there the motion you're you're the chair of the policy committee okay well you know do you want to give us a brief report yeah I'll just follow up on I said the same thing last month but there's 29 policies the for second reading uh this pile of policies closes out all the revisions prepared by Sue Carpenter under the former committee agenda and legislative changes in 2023 there's uh one mandated policy thre are recommended 10 technical Corrections and 15 with no changes uh the mandated policy is a result of 2023 legislation requiring exit surveys with specific criteria for teachers who leave employment voluntarily and a requirement that this data be reported annually to the State Department of Education the existing BCS policy is voluntary and uh so it was modified to reflect the mandat requirements and is broaden broadened to include all employees uh I have some legal opinions if anybody's interested in looking at them about these policies uh or this particular policy being mandated um so the uh three recommended changes or language clarifications to Aid in the general management of the school the 10 technical revisions are General language clarification updates and Corrections and the 15 other policies are have no revision at all so two questions for you the the exit interview question is is there certification like are they bound to to participate in the survey Now by legislation no we're bound to ask them to do it which we've always done and if they choose to fill it out they do if they don't there's really nothing we can do to make them reason for them toide from just Improvement for our department as I was thinking I think the wording has to be change just slightly because it says it shall be completed by all they're not mandated to complete it then that's the language that that we're given so we can I direct it to M Brad but that's what it says that say it shall be done but there really is no way to force them to do it like you can't hold someone's paycheck and say until you so it shall be offered to all certified Personnel to make more sense because shall be completed means the mo they they box you into it though okay because you got a report on it okay so you have to have the survey and you have to report on the results of the survey but they didn't go to the teachers and say you got to do it they just boxed the Board of Ed I this this is like the absences you guys have to try to make sure all the kids are in school the state pressures you to make sure all the kids are in school but then the state says the kids can have all these excused absences for a variety of nonsensical reasons more L got it so they do it without telling the teach they have to they just box box the teachers in by doing it to the board my second question was when you say you have Legal Information yeah this is from the uh office of legislative research do you want me to read it would you like to look it over before we vote on it I we're just voting on a reading right we're not voting to accept today this is a oh this is second um I guess that was more just for my own person supp you give I think it's going to I don't think it's going to influence my curious what what it was yeah we okay well that's the office of legislative research that's from okay supposed to be impartial and uh this is another from Office of legislative research and should been a good one gotcha if it's a language we're required to use there's no not much we can do right kind of that Angelo did you want please I I'm not going to question ship in a good one if there if our attorney say you have to use this then they've got the degree I don't so I just it seems like it would be different language but if the state's requiring it then what it is you can even see the public ACC say shall be shall be completed doesn't say a penalty for a non-completion is you w get out the in the chain yeah much to that all the teacher turnover that's happening right now the state's trying to track where people are going why they're leaving each of districts trying to figure out what it is I think it's a great in ende in theory great Theory but they fill it out they have to fill it out they have to be honest when they fill it out see the things that a voluntary you hope that I going to read the policy numbers or just would you like me to okay yeah just read the policy numbers recommended under unfinished business recommended motions move at the Bethy Board of Education approve the revisions to the following policies as presented okay policy 411 17.5 is the exit interview policy 3250 materials Services fees charges policy 3510 operation and maintenance of property policy 3560 Capital Improvements policy 3000 concept en roles in business and non- instructural operations policy 3280 gifts grants and requests policy 3313 relations with vendors policy 3324 ordering goods and services contracts policy 3514 equipment policy 35 24.1 pesticide application on school property policy 3533 employee officer bonds policy 35412 3 Transportation contractor policy 5113 student attendance treny and chronic absentee ising and bylaw 9110 number of members terms of office oath of office so those are all the ones with revisions so we'll hit that one first you know motion to uh a motion to uh approve those policies second and any further discussion all in favor I I all oppos abstain motion carries now move the to Beth Board of Education approve no revisions to the following policies as presented policy 3110 fiscal year policy 3221 individuals with disabilities Education Act fiscal compliance policy 331 13.1 local purchasing policy 33 26.1 payroll procedures and authorized signatures policy 3434 periodic audits policy 3435 fraud prevention and investigation policy 3440 inventories policy 3450 monies in school buildings policy IC 351 13.1 energy conservation policy 353.tv and recycling policy 35163 accident prevention and Reporting policy 3532 property insurance policy 311 holds on the destruction of electronic information and paper records policy 41136 slash 42136 remote work and lastly policy 41471 4247 point1 bloodborne pathogens so move second move gions and EJ so move second second Joe any discussion all in favor I no opposed no abstain water okay new business bylaw 9300 there is none and now administrative reports policy 2500 the superintendent K you're on all right so as far as an enrollment update we talked about it a little bit further but in your package you're going to find the summaries for 2122 22 23 and the 23 24 summaries as they will compare to what we have for this year as John Paul mentioned we ended the school year with 450 students uh on June 11th and as of September 1 we have 430 students so we're down just a few uh Personnel update the following people have joined our team uh since our last meeting uh Julie Ryan joined us as a third grade teacher and Karin as the fifth grade science teacher Spanish teacher is Patricia D'Or and we've hired uh the three pair professionals to fill out those positions Eddie Hernandez Kayla Grant and Susan Simon uh we are currently only looking for a registered Behavior technician uh and then we would be fully staffed also under Personnel I'm going to kind of lump in uh my BCS kids uh after school before and after school program uh I wanted to provide that update uh over the past few days I've been working with Jen cavaso from the town to find a viable solution for our before and after school program unfortunately we here at BCS have not been able to secure enough staff to do both before and or after school portions of the program um but Jen has been working really tirelessly to secure programming and has found an after school programming option uh with the JCC that I believe was shared with the community last evening but it doesn't include a morning program however based on the staff that I did have interested in working in our uh BCS program they all want to work in the morning um so it works out very well that we'll be able to um offer before school care here at BCS um I'm working with Jen right now to share this opportunity with the families that are that were currently enrolled or were enrolled in the park and wreck morning program and we're going to conduct a soft launch is what I'm calling it of our before school program starting with this particular group of students on September 23rd I'm I have a staff meeting with the interested teachers we're going to do an orientation staff meeting even though they're internal you know no one's really run you know a before school program so we'll have a meeting with the staff on Wednesday the 18th um to do some planning set up the groups and all of those kinds of things if more staff members Express an interest in working in the morning program um we'll we hope to be able to expand the number of slots to include additional students from the community that uh as we heard in the public comment we know that there are other families who may not be reflected in the current for you know the current most recent Park and wreck numbers for whatever their reasons were so we want to be mindful of that and do our best to still try to meet the needs um of those families um also kind of pleased to announce that the cost of the morning program will be less than the projected cost that we shared with families back in August when we sent out the initial interest survey uh we're looking at $30 a week um for the families um that utilize that service I do want to thank everyone for their patience and their understanding as we work through this transition to provide you know much needed care for our students and the support for our families and I will certainly keep you a breast of any additional information that comes my way if anyone has any questions they can always feel free to give me a call send me an email that's what I can update you on I have a question sure is there a minimum number of students that you are looking for I know have a certain ratio of student to teacher so I don't how many staff members you have interested in the program so is there a minimum that you're looking for to make this worthwhile so right now even though uh the last uh conversation I had with with uh Jen she sent me over the the numbers and I have just haven't had a chance to kind of plug those we're looking at doing nothing more than a 1 to 10 ratio so we'll take all of those families and then based on also the scheduling because we're offering the flexible scheduling to our internal staff because working you know the additional time whether it be before or after is an extended day for them um so I do have at least four of our staff um folks that are willing to work all five days so that would mean we could take at least 40 students um to make it you know run efficiently if I have additional interest and I did do an additional push to the staff this morning at our faculty meeting um if there's anyone else who's interested certified teachers can only work Monday Tuesday Thursday and Friday because contractually they're required to be here for our faculty meetings at 7:30 in the morning on Wednesdays so they can't do a Wednesday so that's why I have to make sure I have enough staff like through PA professionals Etc and I and I do still have um the posting out there for the general public there were four applicants two of which I would not put in front of our children and the other two just came in so I have to sift through those and vet those to see if they would be qualified to participate um and to see maybe we're starting to see some afternoon but everyone honestly that has said that they wanted to come and work have asked for morning hours because it's a little easier to come in do a part-time job in the morning and then go off maybe like CU they're college students then go do their coursework and then kind of go on about their day that that time frame of 3:30 to 6:00 is really tricky it's really tricky question for speaking of time frame what is the morning drop off time frame that you're looking at we're looking at 7:30 um for the drop off I may if I get additional teachers I may be able to bump the hours so that the teachers could come in at 7:15 um but 7:30 is really what we're we're aiming for 7:30 to 8:30 and then a second question I have for you is you're looking at a soft opening you're looking at doing for the students that already people already enrolled in park and w y do you have any kind of projection on I'm thinking about how Park W runs and they don't really it was just you paid for your care you didn't pay extra for before care it was everybody got that option so you don't know necessarily how many people were using it unless you had those numbers from them of how many people were using it plus we obviously don't necessarily know yet how many of that group would also now want to do it do you have any kind of projections yet right now the number is around 20 uh is what she last sent me but she did send me another communication I just didn't get a chance to look at it before this meeting so she and I met today you're look at around two staff members to start and if was a one to 10 right but you know we would try to keep those groups a little bit smaller and again the goal is to try to provide you know one staff member with a small group that that he or she is going to be responsible for and kind of move as I had explained the afternoon program so that let's say you know am is a teacher in my program and she's going to have the first grade group so if Amy wants to have her first grade group she's going to be you know under the you know our support going to be responsible for making sure that those kids are safe and engaged for that hour if she wants to go into her classroom and do special activities with them they can do their special activities in the classroom versus trying to do something in the gym or the cafeteria you know some of those larger spaces the only way we we would really consider having kids in smaller groups and going into teacher classrooms um is if the teachers were the actual staff people because our teachers are great they come in early and we don't want to you know prevent them from working in their classrooms so that would be a final question I kind of answered it but I just want to make it clear sure so staff members would be the expectation is the staff members are engaged with the kids during that time more so than they're just watching them all just hang out and play together right so but if they if they want to go outside and play a game with their with their students they can go outside they can they can do those things if a student comes in and they maybe they didn't do their homework the night before because they might have gone to the yard gos game um it's a thing um they can come in they can you know the teacher is there or the parent professional is there parent educator is there and they can have them sit down and do whatever their homework is if they want to do board games what we're planning to do is create um very similar kind of um piggybacking off of the idea of what U PTO did for the classrooms like having each of the staff members tell me what are the things that you're going to be interested in and want to work with if you have the kids that are the first grade grp group and putting together these like little rolling carts that they can kind of check out that'll have like the putties and the different board games and all those different supplies because if they're going to be doing the program even though they are still all of our kids I don't want a teacher to use their own classroom supplies for that um so we've allocated you know the funding to be able to provide resources so that they have their little before school kit and it can be filled with art supplies and markers and games and things that they can do um with the students but it's definitely not going to be out you come in we're going to slap you know Bluey on the TV and you're going to watch Bluey for an hour before before school so the expectation is that they I know F so it's very nice to see this yeah no the expectation is that they're still going to you know one keep the kids safe to engage with them and engagement is going to look different for every grade level so you know if they want to do some sort of stem activity at the older grades great do your stem thing if you want to go outside and play a game with your students cuz maybe you have the youngers in there really as early in the morning morning um take them outside play with them that's okay but you can't just say all right you guys go over there and no the expectation is you're going to engage with kids so I have a couple questions um one is if you have a sense of so presuming that you would do the soft open on the 23rd If you have a sense of when we might be able to tell the rest of the school Community if there will be an option available yeah my goal would be with within 2 weeks right because the goal would be U I'm going to again I'm working with Jen this week to make sure that we get the form stack link out to the families um share with them the draft of our little handbook um for that so parents know what to expect in the program and then let's get those folks in let's get them settled see how the dust shakes out some people may come and maybe our before school program isn't their cup of tea it might be a little too structured maybe they do want you know a different version um but that's not what they're going to get here right so maybe they like it maybe they don't but if you give us two weeks to kind of make sure it's up and running as we expect it to run then we can say Okay I I do have some additional staff you know even though I have the four staff now I have a couple of teachers that are interested in coming and so that gives me six so in theory it could be I could take 60 kids but I don't necessarily love the idea of groups of 10 like making it a little more manageable a little more you know personalized for the kids that are coming to the program So within two weeks we should have a sense of do we have more staff that want to come and join us or are the side staff worthy of coming to us and then we go from there okay and then could you talk a little bit about the um the funding like the financial side so you mentioned funding for supplies which makes sense obviously paying for teachers so the the price tag that you came up with the $30 a week covers all of that it'll cover the Staffing and then we um had some Grant funds that had to be utilized for the after school program they were funds that we had set aside um in a grant that Cheryl had previously for kids that were going to go to the summer program at park and wck as one of those um specific grants that she had written those funds weren't utilized because those families chose not to go um so we were able to kind of rework it to get some of those supplies so it's not a hit to our operational budget and it's not going to be something that we have to pass on as an additional cost to families so that's how we came at that price we're able to lower it down so okay given you know the the reason that we find ourselves in this position position is there a way to share with both the families that are entering into the program but also the community at large just a synopsis of the safeguards I mean I think there's probably a ton of legislation that requires you as a school and employees of the school to do the background checks and do like mandatory trainings and stuff like that but just a brief reiteration of those things I think would probably go a long way to um showing people that we're we really inv in in the kids safety you know like some of those policies might might be worth sharing outwardly you know certainly with the parents that are incoming you know or the parents that are inquiring but I I think probably the people in town would like to know like hey what what are you doing different maybe you know what what are you doing in addition to maybe you're even taking some extra steps which I I I would presume you are given given you know why we find ourselves in the situation in the first place so sure if if you'd like I can make so I'm actually in the process of getting ready to write my Bethany bullton article because we have to write our articles for the month before so if you'd like that to be the focus I can make what we're offering to families I can make the community aware that way otherwise I don't really have a mechanism beyond what I put in the bulletin to to blast that out I can go certainly on our web page but I can make the the the program offering the focus of my article that the town would then receive in October I think that be sure and then could it maybe be one of those the the those annoying things the pop-ups on the website sure don't show again I don't it's and then you click the bottom that says do not show again yeah I get it I do the same thing long that actually works they do not not everybody watches the board of Med meetings unfortunately or attends that but I remember you specifically in August so this is a huge benefit that by being able to utilize a professionals and staff there are already people that are mandated training they're around the students so we know that they are up to Snuff so there is one huge advantage and knowing that you're vetting people under that same criteria is exactly what the community needs but to EJ's point you know we hear that we know that people sitting here know that or are watching us know that but because this has become such a situation that the community is interested in then I think EJ's suggestion is a very good one to get it out there otherwise I do you way yeah Beyond families we don't really have an Outreach so I'll make my bulletin article for October all about what we're going to offer for before care for the Community sure um can I ask one another logistical question what's the plan for um days that there's a delay so days that there there's a delay it would match the delay so if we're going to open up two hours later for school we'll open up two hours later for that and that's simply because and I know I've had this conversation and I know things may have been done differently on the town side as the superintendent you know one I love a good snow day but if I call a snow day I'm not going to have a program open on a day where I think it's too dangerous for kids to come to school if I call a delay I'm not going to expect people to be here before I think it's safe for kids to come to school so it's got to match in terms of time shifting what we're going to do for school opening and in the whatever documentation that the families that utilize the program have will that be black and white spelled out it's in the book I have a little handbook ready to go it's in there thank you any other questions thank you for the work on that and being able to come into the and it's not solo I have have a great team but I mean you guys you know you did a lot of work trying to put something together and now we the community finds itself in a situation where I know Jen did a lot of work to help sh up the afternoon but the morning was an issue so knowing that as the public comment know the district seems to come in sometimes and be proactive I know many people appreciate that so thank you to all of you so everybody understands they've been working on this since the week after this thing blew up Summer it's been all summer you know and and Kudos de K Tom Cheryl and everybody else it's it's been a it's been an all hands on deck but it's actually started the week after this thing blew up this hasn't been something that we just put together in two weeks this this took it this this took a inordinate amount of time and one of the things that people don't realize is that when Park and wreck blew up on Friday K spent the weekend with staff trying to figure out bus schedules that was really Mr Reed's Wales well regardless it's people don't realize that how that trick there is there there is a what for every action there's a a reaction and the reaction for Park and the action for park and rec closing is now you have 40 or 50 kids or whatever number all of a sudden you're scrambling for bus coverage and you got to spend the weekend so Tom spent the weekend you know trying to figure out how to make this thing work so the kids aren't screwed up on Monday morning you know nobody else gives that a thought this is something that came from us nobody else and everybody just thinks it just happens magically these people gave I I think the town owes K and her staff a very large debt of gratitude we're still not done yet you know there's still a long way to go on this but I think in the long long term this could have some extremely beneficial uh programs to a school system as as Kay said this is not just babysitting 101 so I think this is a is a positive out of a negative yes that's my report thank you any other questions Cheryl on director of special services gck Inland instruction this is the world's fastest report Mr did such a great job my report angel said all the things thanks for the notes you guys passing notes to each other on the table so I don't leave anything I'm I'm the note taker at the at the subcommittee meeting he say he's my chair I let him know what I'm going to write before it gets to Don be posted so you've done Cheryl you weren't kidding she wasn't kid she was you weren't kidding all right Tom you're up all right so uh just to go over a couple of things uh since last we met uh as you heard we had our orientation for kindergarteners on the 22nd we actually shifted it to the afternoon um and we're trying to We're just trying to think of different ways to make it more available to families um we had seen before that it was tough in the morning and um for our staff coming in they're already here for 4 days on that week before um before school starts we were trying to be able to alleviate a little bit of their week too so they had you know some time to breathe um so that went really positive uh the kids had a ton of fun they get to do their little ride on the bus around they had an awesome time um and it's a great chance for them just to get in get some stuff in get acclimated meet the teacher you know name and face and all of that uh first day of school the was the 26th um we've continued to do the first two days as uh as an early dis Missle um and that's been really positive for us to be able to just kind of as a staff debrief uh give everybody a little bit of a a slow opening um and we've been able to utilize it for some different professional learning in the afternoon um so all around that's been a win a win-win we had our first fire drill uh evacuation drill on the 9th that went really well um you know we've we've been really looking at just making sure that we're monitoring those practices we got another uh couple of those scheduled in the next couple of weeks uh huge thank thanks uh to the PTO and army lives on its stomach uh and it was just great to have that um for the food on that Monday uh especially since Jackie and I were kind of you know we were all kind of scrambling to get a bunch of things going not having to worry about getting all the lunch that was really uh wonderful uh and though I don't want to dive down the rabbit hole I can't um leave without sharing a couple of things we have our report for uh smarter Mounds the family reports are going on on the 13th so that's this Friday um so uh now officially and publicly uh the data for smarter balance and NGS is out there uh so 77% of our students met or exceeded in ela 74% of our students met or exceeded in math 81% of our students met or exceeded in science all three of those are the highest levels of performance that we've seen um to date for each of those uh those uh spaces um you'll hear me say it all the time it's not the only measure um but it is a good way for us to be able to take a look longitudinally um could you say that again yeah 77% of our students met or exceeded in ela 74% of our students met were exceeded in math and 81% of our students met were exceeded in science um to put it in context against the state we were in the 95th percentile for math um and Ela um and did quite well comparative to our boa counterparts which I'll tell you more about in in a more full uh report I also um and I can't share out because of confidentiality I can't share out for our students um who don't qualify for Smarter Balance they take the um they take the uh Connecticut alternative assessment um but a huge shout out to uh Jamie bow her students did really well we had several students who took that and confidentiality wise I can't share their results um but they did exceptionally well and we're super proud of them as well uh so things that are coming up we have our first coffee hour on Friday we're just going to go over some things for open house which is coming up on Tuesday uh so we're just we're changing that a little bit in terms of the timing so we're going to have our uh our sort of community uh our community get together and our overall School presentation starting the evening um so we've got a bunch of Partners Chartwells uh BMB Lions Club PTO a couple others we're still working on getting in um so we're going to do that to start and then we're going to have two classroom sessions that um that follow that uh Mr Fortune Chad Fortune is all fired up he is ready to go with choir and band so we're just getting all the documents and the things set for um all the sign up for choir and band and we're getting that going um so we should have some news on that front really quickly um fourth grades working to connect with Amity High School for infinite possibilities uh and they're setting some dates for that our September community meeting is going to be on the 27th National Coffee Day is on the 30th and Miss nathman is all fired up with some plans for that um we're excited custodians day is uh coming on the second so we're going to honor our staff um we got a bunch of new folks in there and they've been working um just night and day just grinding out um really hitting the ground running uh especially a bunch of them coming in kind of Midsummer so they really just kind of they had trial by fire and they the whole crew has been unbelievable uh the Lions Club is coming in for their annual third grade dictionary event which is awesome so they're coming in on the 4th uh after school volleyball is starting in two weeks uh picture day as you heard is on the 8th and then fire prevention is going to our fire prevention day is going to be on the 9th so the Bethany volunteer fire department um the guys are coming in uh our whole crew there has been really great so um and they've really done some they did some neat things last year we had over on the uh Pavilion black top over there so we're excited to see kind of how we'll go you know we had some Junior Firefighters coming being you know officially approved so that that was fun that's what we got going currently can I ask you a question about house ask what I don't I know this is sort of short notice if the JCC is not already one of the Community Partners that's participating it might be great to ask them if they would like to opportunity for yeah for sure so could you I didn't get a copy of the parent newsletter lately so I'm sort of in the dark could you tell me about the open house yeah so for our open house so it's a parent event um so we um so uh what we do is we have in the gym so we'll have a bunch of Community Partners and uh non-classroom staff kind of set up around the gym uh and a chance for people to kind of meet you know special ed staff related Services uh they can meet like our our school psychologists the social workers The Specialist teachers all of that um and then we also invite in like Chartwells if people want to just kind of learn a little bit more about lunch and all of that um and then we're also um Miss nathman and I are just working on on an overall presentation just kind of getting people up to speed on some of the stuff that we got going for the school year um so we're going to do that to start that's going to be right at 5:00 and then um at 5:30 we're going to have a classroom session so people are going to disperse out to classrooms um and it's a chance for you to meet the teacher kind of learn about the curriculum learn about you know communication lines all of that um and because we have a bunch of families that have multiple students we don't want to just have one of those sessions cuz then you're kind of missing out you you go to one but you can't make the other you have to split out as a family so we have two of those sessions so we're going to have one at 5:30 and then one at 6 okay so this is basically to to involve the parents and and just the regular activities of the schools so everybody acclimates okay exactly yep yeah and a chance and a chance for them to be able to ask in person you know and connect with the teachers and and just you know get a sense of anything that they might be wondering you know especially as we have folks who are coming up in the summit they might want to know like how does this really operate you know it's a chance for them to be able to meet the teachers and kind of learn about them okay thanks got that's what I got anybody have any more questions for Mr Reed whale thank you Tom uh Chairman's report now most of the stuff has been covered already but there is a couple of things one of which is um we talked about it last spring and we did our open Forum it's coming up uh and the last time we did it we kind of hybridized it and that we had a truncated Board of Ed meeting then we meandered over to the uh School offices and had the open Forum there I would like to recommend that I think that works very well because one of the complaints we've gotten in the past is only one or two board members show up and if we do it this way then the entire board is there uh there's really nothing other than probably going to be a report on the soft opening and the stat of the uh before school program and after school program of any great shakes I think that's probably going to be the topic of conversation so I would like to make a recommendation that we do the open Forum at the next Board of Ed meeting regularly scheduled we have a truncated meeting and then we Meander over to the superintendent's office and have our open form does anybody have a problem with that anybody make a suggestion something different so then I'm trying to remember I think did we give people the option of like for community members coming in person or doing it via Zoom yeah it's it's a hybrid meeting that's why I said it's a hybrid meeting uh you have the option of coming in person or doing it via Zoom but the zoom uh capabilities at the superintendent's office are a little bit better than they are here so who we're working on didn't do hybrid when we went over to your office though right because we did we had we had four people in the room that was actually offered as hybrid I just thought they were yep it was offered as a hybrid option they came and then everyone else was online what was the feedback from the spring what was the feedback from the parents did they did they like it I think they appreciated see well they appreciated seeing so many more board members present um in terms of the conversation um it wasn't anything you that's always been our biggest problem was really just the participation yeah they appreciate think it worked I think it worked out well because we were all there and we could have open conversation amongst ourselves as well so it's not that awkward waiting for Zoom to finish and like get you on camera so right thought it was a good fit I think it's cleaner and I think it works nicer and I think it hopefully will attract more people I think everything everything is good the only issue we could have last time if then if it was only four people that came in we were good okay so it could be a little tight last night at the special Board of Select meeting they didn't have it in the gym they put it in the regular meeting room and there was people in the hallway around the corner because more showed up than anticipated I don't think we have that problem we don't usually have that problem we have like 200% more people in the audience now we do and we appreciate but still it's very good significant increase if if we suspect that there is going to be a large amount that show up we might consider that just yeah so Mr BR and I are still working on how we can outfit this room um with the owls and some of the other things and if we can't do it in here maybe it is that we find a way to do it in the gym um it's a pricey piece of equipment in terms of having to prioritize we I really need to prioritize getting our servers up and running for the stable connectivity um but Matt is also working on that for me to get another owl because it's the owl that you utilize to have the larger you know to put in the larger our meting has figured out need microphones to hear so we''re already one step above so right but that's that's the other piece of it so we we just need to make sure that the tech that we put somewhere else can match so ideally we'd move to the larger space or have the option to be flexible in our space that would be our ultimate goal um but like these microphones right here are connected to you know the BNN and then we have a different set of microphones that's connected to what works out over in um the gym area so trying to be mindful of not being you know spending money we don't need to spend yeah you know what's the best way to some great classroom utility to that device you know as far as like maybe being in two classrooms that are really dis sprit you know maybe one of our you know different country for instance in Spanish class or something like that just be able to get a whole rooming us well in the classroom it's a little bit easier because of the tech like they have the smart technology on the TV um and so once you plug in the camera you can just kind of you know work with the cameras that you have available to you on your computer but when you're talking about a large enough space and being able to hear what is actually being said that's what we want to be mindful of sure and that's why the board of vet office Works nice because the Acoustics are pretty good in there and even with like as Angelo just pointed out the Acoustics everybody have their own mic are much better but in the big spaces the Acoustics start to fall apart real quick if you don't have the microphone the speakers to connect to it if you don't have the the and as K points out we have other things to spend money on right now could we is it would it be possible to ask the town use like the commission or something they they Acoustics in there terrible I mean I could hear okay with the I mean said like that for the special board ofman meeting like it wasn't big enough for that crowd but it's bigger than the conference I think we're okay for now I mean in the gym I can't hear anything in the yeah so so what I'm hoping to be able to do is we have if you remember like when you first walk into the Board of Ed conference room we have the big table in the middle but then we have tables along the side to move those tables and then we can put more people in yeah the last time we didn't the tables were still in there so we'd be able to fit all of our lovely guests that we have here today if they wish to come and be in person um so we we we'll be able to fit more people in the room yeah I think until if we were getting 60 or 80 people in a board of ed meeting that'd be one thing but as you pointed out you know tonight 200% increase great so we'll set that up but it's something to look into and I think that's the only thing of any great shakes that I have for a Chairman's report I thought that that covered everything we covered everything during the course of the meeting so that's next month yes okay this next month we would have a truncated um uh Board of Education meeting then we would break and walk over to the superintendent's office and have a open form so October so you probably want I don't know how everybody finds out about it but hopefully there's enough time to inform the people who would attend the open Forum that we're having one I'm sorry say that one more time she wants to know how the people will know oh I'll put it in my I'll add that to the Bott in my bulletin and the bul article yeah and we can add it to the family weekly as well would we'll tag that right in and and so people will get it three or four times by the time good okay and then I think in the past right there was a separate push out like in thek 12 swiftk12 we said that East yeah yeah and it's the popup that you don't on the website all right anything else Chairman's report's over correspondents we already read the uh letter from uh Mrs York M York so we're uh back to uh public comment policy 1120 and bylaw 9325 anybody's got anything they want to say come on down please state your name address speak slowly and clearly so my name is Jess pagones I'm at 348 SP Road um first jump Paul I heard you say that that Kai and team have been working all summer since the issue broke out about options for child care and I've been at every Board of selected meeting I've been at every special meeting I've been at every meeting now possible and this is the first that I'm hearing of it so if there were other child care options in the mix and I know that the board of selectman and the town parks and wreck their child care is obviously separate from what the school is able to put together um but that comment just kind of C guard um throughout the whole situation and then I wanted to reiterate johanna's comments that I didn't send my daughter into parks and W because I wasn't comfortable with the level of support and stability um and I didn't have much confidence in the program as it stands um I understand that Nick was given kind of and dealt a hard dec of cards um but I didn't feel that he had the necessary resources so I didn't put my daughter into program what I would say is that there's still so many parents that need child care options and we were really looking to the school to be able to provide that so I know that you've done a great job getting together the before school but i' still hope that we're considering other options for the after school and I understand the contract with the JCC means that it's for the entire year through June and that 46 p and the minimum of 25 and making sure that that is fully staffed but I bet if you continue to that survey that that 46 cap you're going to find a lot more kids out there that need after school care um and parents that would appreciate it so thank you very much anybody else going once going twice sold the mirror um motion to adjourn the meeting second all in favor [Applause]

on the date of the meeting if you would like to address the board your email will be read by a staff member at the meeting up to 3 minutes in length there will be no board discussion and no action will be taken unless listed on a subsequent agenda the public may also submit a request to address the board on each of the remaining items on the agenda as those items are taken up by specifying the agenda item on the public comment request form unless otherwise determined by the board each is limited to 3 minutes the turn around okay we have um one person Nancy Harlin and she wishes to address US regarding Patriots Day thank you Michelle forting 911 Julie I'm sorry okay thank you foring St and 911 and that moment of silence and my question to the board to teacher a little please can hear oh wow my question was was there an observance of patriots day any of the know stay in the formo around that to two classs that doing that I know that to not those than okay but on Constitution Day it's supposed to all the schools are supposed to recognize and thirdly i' like to let you know that I've been praying for all of you all for wisdom and health and strength and patience and everything that you need have that you all thank you for letting me talk um number uh nine act 98 action item um one are are we not supposed to hear the email came in I was unaware of an email can you hear me yeah are you referring to the one that we discussed earlier are you referring to the one that was discussed earlier um yeah I thought that was s in as something to be read at the that's a closed session item okay very good 9A um Madera County Superintendent of Schools elcap clarification is there a motion I make a motion make a motion that we approve the Madera County Superintendent of school second discussion beat that up yeah I think the attachment with the memo was clear of what the cations were and those were added we should be good roll call vote hi I I I I motion carries nine B public hearing resolution 255 statement of assurance for the fiscal year 2425 regarding State instructional materials grades kindergarten through 8th grade motion we approve theing with open the hearing and then um close the hearing um the hearing is now open uh regarding instructional materials for grades kindergarten through eth grade so this is just showing that um all of our students have access to all materials um textbooks Chromebooks and the like and um they're align to the state standards is there any any public comment questions I think my only comment would just be that it's good to see all the curriculum listed so people are wondering what the curriculum is it's used in the class rooms that approve culum then here it all is on one document anything else I someone in the public you noticed that there's no foreign language list on we're using textbooks and is this thank you is this for last year or this upcoming year is this is it is the 2425 am I on the wrong again the M says 2324 and at the bottom it says date September 11 two on your on the attachment the sufficiency of instructional materials am I on the wrong place yeah I'm on the attachment oh the date at the bottom is uh on the attachment is incorrect but up at the top it does talk about the um right right before or where the I and it says have that noted right above where we mark the yes yeah the DAT are sorry I didn't know it's that before but I I thank you sorry no that's okay I was thinking maybe it was for last year was sometimes things are you made a note of the clle um updates langage [Music] um well the foreign language elective it's an elective and so this is more for like the core instruction so I need to look in to see if that's something that we need to add to this or not but it is also good information for us to have that those material so so I'm history books 20 years old 15 years old the Spanish that we use the current freshman level Spanish curriculum that's us bys that's class it's supposed to be mirroring right because they get credit for that they credit for that if they certain GP GPA and then instructor um approval and they can go right too okay um decision the high schol so it's it's the same par one that they're using up there so that would have to be obviously a discussion with them as well yeah get credit for the high school they they'll I'm sorry I misspoke they get the ability to move into sorry correct but the curriculum that you're using is the same as wasuma no different okay so it's 20 okay that's we okay thank you we need to get that it has history Changed History look at look at the history textbooks yes but have we done we've done an adoption right since money aside in the restricted Lottery sorry there is money set aside for text adoptions and restricted so we would there's a whole plan involved that we would have to you know research that and find in the budget what are we do for a curriculum adoption it's been here seven years I don't recall anything changing since I've been here so I don't know I would say we're do we're doe okay great look great hearing this is thank you for that that's good thank you are there any other comments okay you guys good okay I'm going to close the hearing okay so is there a motion we just have the hearing there it's an action item but what are we approving the resoltion the resolution the resolution of assurance of of assurance that the this curriculum has been provided to every students okay and and okay that makes sense okay um is there a motion to approve the resolution I'll make a motion to approve the resolution I'll second any discussion roll call vote i i i i i motion carries item 9 C public hearing of resolution 2506 the Gan limit calculations I'll open the hearing Tarra could you tell us about the G limit calculations please yes this is something we must complete annually to identify how much state aid counts towards the Lo local agency's Gan limit and there's a resolution that goes with it that we provide to the county saying that we went through that process I put an article there from the Lao which is the legislative analyst office they do a lot of um articles and things about different legislation for tools so if you want to learn more about the Gan limit it's something that's been around for many decades and our state software automatically calculates it and says we're complient we just have to have the resolution that goes with that there any comments from the public how about the board okay I'll close the hearing is there a motion to approve resolution 2506 the Gan limit calculation I'll make motion a second any discussion roll call vote i i i i i motion carries item nine D un audited actuals okay is there a motion to approve the United action RS I move approval sir thank you and discussion Tara please um proceed with your presentation and we will hold all our questions until you're done so you'll see on the packet there I have the presentation as well as the summary of general fund 01 where I highlighted the revenues and expenses as well as the beginning and ending fund balance but I'm going to cover all that in my presentation I just gave you that if you wanted a snapshot and then there's also the full 2324 UA which is UN audited actuals acend the full scan and then the trcs are the technical review checks so once everything loow into the state software it has to pass um several levels of checks so I included that full packet with all the forms and that was all posted on our website on Friday so I'm going to go through this um and then I will give you a chance for questions so here I put the original budget versus where we ended the year with so you can see the variances in terms of the revenues and expenses this is typical to every year where um different revenues come in and then expenses are added to the budget um and um I'm going to go through that and some of the following slides but it affects what our ending fund balance is and the biggest change was our beginning balance you see there at the top and the uned act that went up because of the accounts that rolled over and then our ending balance we're still just leing our Reserve just just the 4% that's not much extra uh here you can see uh my chart of the revenues the majority of our funding is the lcff which is the local control funding formula which is our property taxes that comes in based on the formula with the Ada with our student attendance so that's the majority of our funding and then the rest is um Federal is things like Title One and other Federal programs and also Co funds and then State funding the biggest chunk of that is elop which is the Extended Learning opportunities program and then prop 28 and some other onetime funds in the full unaudited acual packet it has the restricted fund breakdown and then it has all the different Revenue mons here's our actual expenditures and if you look our salaries and benefits really um are majority of that it's around 80% of our budget um and then the remaining uh items are Services uer expenditure so that's like our utilities fuel supplies pretty much everything keep the schools going um as well as services like if we had last year we had a virtual speech pathologist we had legal fees all that kind of falls under services and then books and supplies um that again could be plasting supplies um as well as the the biggest Chunk in that because you're thinking wow that's a lot of supplies well remember we purchased the computers with the one time Co funds and that was around 400,000 so half of that amount is the computers that we purchase that have the fiveyear warranty so they'll have service all five years for um for the student and um we were able to update those devices using the remainder of the co fund so that's not a typical number but you saw the variance there on that first side that's that's the big part of that is um from that and then capital outlay is any kind of capital projects improvements to s for large equipment so here's our enrollment in AB history and this is really what drives that big part of the those revenues when you saw the lcff funding um and when I started here over seven years we had 891 students in roll after Co we had gotten down um to lower amounts and then um currently I updated this just the other day um we had 796 students and then I updated the enrollment report right before the board meeting that was and we were at 794 and then the Ada is the blue line and so we're funded at average attendance and we've talked about that before how the funding model is really um it doesn't make sense because you might have you know 100 more students than what you're being funded for but that's how it is in the state they have put forth legislation to change that and have schools other states they are funded on M but our state has always been set up towards the average attendance and so that projection uh the last few years our Ada has been coming in about 70 to 80 lower than our enrollment so that's where I came up with 7:30 I didn't want to make it too low but if the attendance rates improve um that could be closer together if you look back to um 2019 our enrollment was 891 and our Ada was 846 there was only you variance at 4550 so that's with getting the attendance rates back up but as you know from other reports and the lcap you know how chronic Vin is has been an issue and we're inding Sy for that so that is something we're working on with all Sites um because that uh difference could be 3/4 of a million dollars funding less by having not being funded for all your students and then this slide within my uh I did in July attended a a school Finance conference U virtually and this slide was in their presentation so I wanted to use it it's really powerful because if you look at that over the last 24 years how much it's not just our district it's Statewide where they're facing such a big decline in enrollment people are leaving the state um and and you can see it's gone down I you know what about million million students so it's crazy so other we're not the only ones in this boat with the lower enrollment and um in then the intendance issues but I just wanted to show that that that's something that they're seeing Statewide at all all schools and um you know the cost of living in California had there's so many factors have gone up so much a lot of families you know it's cost inhibitive so they leave to go to other stes with different tax and areas such so but it is definitely affecting all the schools in California so this slide is one you're familiar with that I do during other presentations when we started the year we had budgeted um routine restricted maintenance you're required to do 3% of your expenses and so as your expenses increase you have to contribute a little bit more that's just to do maintenance on all the sites it's just a annual budget you set aside it's like your own funds that you set aside just to take care of those repairs maintenance um and actually you can see if you've seen the district process we had healing paint and Robert and his team have worked really hard they've at the office we got a new wheelchair ramp we got some new signage and Landscaping so things like that we uh our mot team has phases each year that okay we're going to work on these projects they have to use that little budget to kind of prioritize what needs to be updated each year so that only had a small change and then special education as you know we're uh we're really um struggling with that one with the cost because a lot of student needs have gone up more students have come to our district especially if they said the state average about 12% of your students is special ed your district and we're sitting right around what 20 22% so um that's the change there I mean that's the majority of that 262,000 you see on the bottom corner so I just show this because um those are programs that were not being um for special ed we're we're given around 300,000 from the federal government and the state and this is one that I get on my Soap Box about every year but and then we're making up the difference for the rest of that and they say every year we're going to add to it I mean it's gone up maybe a few um so if you see we're spending um you know 1.5 million the contribution that's what's coming out of our own general fund and then that doesn't include the 300,000 that we get but our cost is 1.8 million for just our special ed program alone and you can see even with current openings we've had to post some new openings and we can't even really admin positions but if a student has an IP that requires a one one8 we really our hands are tied we have to add position so the ending fund balance this I covered a little bit on the beginning slide but um it always varies by the year end and that's mainly because when we do the budget adoption we haven't rolled over the accounts yet so when we started last year um then when things are rolled over um there's a little bit more ums that carry over over it's do the beginning balance most of that 2.2 million of the ending fund balance is restricted and that's listed in the attachment but that's all the different programs like I mentioned about the restricted lottery for curriculum um the propop 28 the onetime learning uh recovery block grant Co funds all those restricted money they're not funds you're supposed to use you know for um ongoing things so when you look at our ending balance we just meet this 666 209 um or 661 is what our our required Reserve is and where we don't have that much extra U our month in your reserve is supposed to cover payroll and other expenses right now our expenses our payroll is 700,000 and then accounts payable is uh 200,000 so our Reserve isn't really covering that so we're really getting um down to the unrestricted balance um without the funding model changing in the state and then also our enrollment now being under 800 and we're at 794 students we ended the school year last year with 833 so that's a big difference that we're going to see this year in the funding right now luy they are allowing a threeyear average of your adaa to kind of give you some Grace um but it's still going to be catching up with us in future years and you do want to have a higher ending fund balance than what was projected um because you um you are if your deficit spending you need to have that money set aside and and um you would want to know until we get our tax allotment in January you would want to have money there that's able to pay your so for CA we have another item on the agenda for the ca waiver where I'm going to go over that more in detail on that board item action item so I just wanted to give you these slides that have some background info from my school Finance Workshop so forms the E know I present on this in previous years it's a legal requirement I think they said it's from 1929 um so it is an Antiquated requir um Ed code was taed in 1929 for this formula and um you're supposed to have 60% of your salaries and benefits in your general fund being for teachers and classroom uh a so they weigh that against your total expenditures and a lot of districts um are having trouble meeting that which I'll will cover on that agenda item but here's a slide um from that conference where they're talking about districts who are not needing it and you can see just over the last five years um how it's gone up almost 20% and I will again I'm going to go over this but it's mainly because of the co funds because if you take all your instructional expenses that you have in the top number and then your denominator is any other projects Co funds are due process expenses speech uh the virtual speech all those things in place in syomin those are not normal PL that you have so it makes it impossible to meet that but I just wanted to show this because it's really um challenging that um so if anyone has any questions the Auditors will visit in October Hallelujah and then we'll we'll have we'll finish the audit they've already uploaded around 90 items for me to give them I've given them around 60 so we're working through the audit and then they will come to the December meeting and um present or no I think it's January where they present the audit report but we're working with them uh through October to get all the financial statements audited and then in the first interim we report on in December and does anyone have any questions thank you ter any questions thank you thank you he we U have a motion and a second discussion vote i i i i i motion carries okay item n e adoption of board policy and administrative Reg e e for

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alance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God with liberty liy and justice for all I move on to item 1D adoption of the agenda some moved second L we have a motion to Second caram Lopez I adary no i t hi Patty coute hi Robert Downey I so moved we may move on to item two superintendent report Dr lman thank you president Downey with recent concerns about school threats and safety we invite parents and families to join us for an open dialogue with District administration and the Maricopa Police Department this is an opportunity to collaborate on safe safety strategies share concerns and work together on proactive Solutions we're all in this together and your involvement is key so we invite parents to join us on Wednesday September 18th from 5:30 to 6:30 right here in the district uh right here in the musd boardroom um for a town hall discussion uh questions and input are welcome as we work together to keep our students and staff safe we're proud to report that musd business department has been awarded the government Finance Officers Association certificate of excellence in finance financial reporting for the fiscal year 2023 this recognition reflects the district's ongoing dedication to maintaining transparency and upholding the highest standards in financial reporting their work continues to ensure the responsible stewardship of our resources benefiting every student and every staff member across the district at Desert Wind Middle School the Brilliance of our students was on full display during during the fourth annual toy expo 140 students from the Blended learning program applied engineering the engineering design process to design and prototype their own toys complete with custom packaging the Expo is a testament to their creativity teamwork and problem solving skills qualities that will serve them well into the future as we Mark Suicide Prevention month we are reminded of the vital role each of us play in supporting suppor in the mental well-being of our students parents and Guardians often recognize the early signs that something may not be right and it's important to act on those instincts we invite every parent to join our virtual event what parents need to know about suicide prevention on September 25th at 6:30 p.m.

8 to 10 m and then finally I will be at the big desert Sunrise High School homecoming this weekend so the game is on Friday and I look forward to seeing our Golden Hawks play football and all the fun homecoming festivities that's all I have thank you member Anderson thank you president dowy so just on um to piggyback on what Dr lman said this is suicide prevention month and for those of you that don't know that there is a toll-free number there is a 247 crisis line you can call um and talk to a person you can text um for Hope and reach out but please talk to somebody and then the national hotline number is 988 so there's a way to at least have a conversation to kind of talk you off the ledge as we uh it's pretty common to be on the on the edge sometimes but um ask for help because you're important to us so just make sure that uh you get the information and then this morning's um you know Colonel kiry and the uh Air Force Roc always does a phenomenal job I mean it's been a long time many years that I've been attending those with him and I'm always proud of the way that the cadets conduct themselves and they show such pride and honor in um when they're putting up that flag and it's it's just it brings pride and I'm just proud to be an American and where I live and enjoy the freedoms um so but it was a great opportunity to be able to have our students showcase that and I will say that the AC capella national anthem this morning I wanted to it was a breathtaking like it was the best I have ever heard the National Anthem being sung like that it was phenomenal so if you ever get a chance to listen to this group sing they're amazing I mean it's it's it's I can't believe they're high school kids um so anyway but it was it was a great opportunity to be able to share um kind of those feelings and remember what happened like 23 years ago which is crazy um because I remember driving to work to school to teach listening to the radio it was very it was very bizarre so um so let's remember thank you thank you vice president coutre thank you thank you um I too was able to attend this morning's ceremony and uh agree and and can't add any more than what uh my fellow board members and Dr lman have said about it um as a reminder um you know we do have the homecoming uh as member nor uh for Desert Sunrise um in two weeks MHS has their Homecoming on 927 and 28 um so if you're out driving please be mindful these are kids driving um and sometimes they don't make the best choices um so we just want to make sure that everybody has um a great homecoming and a safe one as well uh just a reminder kids day uh Maricopa is going to be held on the 21st from 10: to 4: at Maricopa Wells Middle School and that is a free event for all kids um and so we encourage the entire Community to come out this is I believe is their 17th year of doing this so that's really kind of cool I wanted to give a huge shout out and thank you to the musd staff and MPD um they worked really really hard to make sure that all staff and students were safe and that the communication was going out to the parents on Monday and I'm glad to see that we have a town hall so that we can gather and share input um and work together together as a community this could happen at any school anywhere it's not the school that causes this this is a human choice so it's kind of up to us to see how we can make a change in that in the environment itself and lastly I was scrolling on Facebook and I got a memory that popped up and I wanted to share it because some of you may not know but on September 11th 2015 at the Diamondback game our governing board was honored um as the recipient of the luel en Klein's uh excellent in governance so we were pretty much like the board of the governing board of the year and they recognized us at that game so we all got to stand out on the field prior to that game so I just kind of wanted to remind and we're very fortunate there's three of us that are still on the board from uh from that board so um just kind of a kind of a fun memory so Church yes the church lady yes yes yes that's all I have Mr Dow thank you um I attended the Arizona esis Consortium seminar um it was on trauma informed care understanding stress and building resilience um this particular one they do a lot about just building care and Fa within this the academic world this particular one was focused on caring for car givers and I'll say specifically those that are standing in for parent that maybe has an addiction or is in prison and just can't be there with their child um very informative um an interesting fact that came out of that was that looking nationally and looking at um State Educators Arizona suicides in state Educators is 8% higher than any other state in the nation so our teachers in particular um are under a lot of stress and it's it's we need to recognize that and help our teachers um this one here is a little bit um personal and close to me um yesterday I did a a seminar attended a a webinar actually a webinar on suicide prevention in schools um with Dr Amy CR so as I say this is important to me um 11 years ago or sorry 20 years ago I lost my 11-year-old Gods son to suicide and 10 years ago I lost my first wife with 37 years to Suicide so this is important to me um it was open honest realistic informative um great presentation if I have the link to it's like a 30 minute webinar 40-minute webinar extremely informative focusing on students but also quite honestly could it it most of it could deal with anybody adults as well as children um I want to take the opportunity to say to teachers and counselors administrators parents and courage givers our losses are very visible our cves your CES are not but keep being that curring adult for our students lives one curring Ault to make a big difference in the students life so thank you for doing that and keep doing it okay we'll move on to um item four informative um 4 a specifically classroom Spotlight miracal Academy principal MIT Mitchell well good evening president Downey members of the governor board and Dr lman I'm excited to be here to um showcase and highlight MBA and some of the things that we're doing around student engagement this specifically ties to our strategic plan on goal one gold standard signature program which I believe we're definitely on our way to becoming um and then go two um gold standard within technology and how we utilize that this also ties to our portrait of a graduate specifically innovator and critical thinker and now I'm going to go over a little bit about the program um but before I do that um I definitely wanted to take time to thank the board so this is for our fourth year with MBA um and for you guys recognizing that certain students need alternate Pathways to graduation um a lot of the parents are super grateful for Dr lman musd for allowing their students to participate in an alternate setting because you know not every kid learns the same and so the overwhelming um comments that I get from parents is just very thankful and appreciative that we have a program that we can you know highlight those students and make sure that they're successful as well um so MBA um is again online learning opportunity and for personalized Student Success and we'll talk about what that personalized looks like when Dr Duffin goes in her classroom Spotlight um we serve as grades 6 through 12 um we have a graduation rate of 97.6 seven so that's pretty awesome um we also offer synchronous and asynchronous learning and so what that means as synchronous just means live actually with teachers and then asynchronous is just the videos and the other things in the platform that they can utilize which is not common for a lot of online schools so that's something that we definitely take pride in being able to offer both of those and we also offer extension within the online learning platform and again handing out compliments thanks to to the board what's we'll talk about it again is that we offer near pod and that's a program that we use that again because of our vision budget that we were able to purchase so that our students can have those enrichment opportunities so again thank the board for allowing us to have our vision budget because it definitely um came in clutch for us to be able to purchase that so now we want to talk a little about why engagement matters so again it increases motivation and participation we know that when kids are engaged they're more like to learn and they're you know engaging with their teachers and their staff and this picture is just Mr Able actually in the learning lab working with students and that's part of that extension as well so not only do we offer um tutoring we offer every teacher has office hours we also have in-person learning lab for students who still need additional support to come in in Mar coule High School in the library Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursdays for May 12 to get that additional level of support so we constantly figure out ways to continue to motivate engage students and we facilitate Active Learning so again kids can't just kind of sit online and not really engage um kids have to participate the way that the system works everybody has to answer so we make sure that every kid is actually participating and actively learning so we support diverse learning styles again so not only do we do auditory we do iners they do visual so we incorporate all the domains of learning with what we do online and then we utilize data to increase student achievement so what that is not only do we use you know the um a AA and the state standard stuff within the program it allows us to get real time data so that way the teachers can make those real-time adjustments um again I'll narrate after she does it but it allows us to see which questions students are getting right or wrong and then based off that we can add them to different groups they can come in person so we do a lot of that stuff with that real time data um to make sure that we're making sure every kid is on grade level and getting the instruction they need so with that um I'm going to call up Dr Duffin um she's our amazing Ela teacher with grade 6 through 12 to do a little modeled lesson in nearpod with actual students so Dr D good evening tonight our students will model how we use nearpod to provide additional support and engagement for our online students as a team we look at the fastbridge data and place students into small groups to provide refinement or enrichment in targeted areas during the small group instruction we utilize a study sync blast article from the district curriculum based on reading levels to determine if there are other opportunities for small group or individual instruction these results led us to focus on a reading standard in which the students can determine a theme or central idea of a text and analyze its development throughout the text including its relationship the characters setting and plot the lesson would take place within a 30 minute small group The near pod lesson tonight consists of six questions specifically on setting which is given after the student has completed the small group instruction the students will complete this assessment at their own pace once the students have completed the lesson I will be able to review their responses to this formative assessment which allows us to determine if student has mastered the standard or needs additional support this is just a snapshot of a portion of understanding the central idea of a story Miss Delgato our math teacher will now lead our students in a nearpod lesson e for e so I know that all you can see is just the numbers and what that looks like and so what happens from the student view is when they log in um this is kind of how we keep them engag so it's a game that they're playing and they're actually climbing a mountain so every time their score goes up from the student view you see them racing to the top of their mountain and So within that so I only do we award points for like first second or third we can also put them in groups to say which group got the Higher One individually when they're in their small groups so we as a teacher when we talk about real- time data she has access to which questions kids are getting right which question kids are getting wrong they're typing in the chat like hey we can privately message one individual kid like hey take your time make sure you read this or make sure you do that so we're seeing it from the teachers side and not necessarily what the students are seeing so on theirs there's music there's a game they're jumping up and down they have to pick a character and all that stuff so I didn't want it to just be quiet and us look at numbers so yeah they're actually engaging in the platform a lot differently than what we're just seeing so from the teacher yeah we just see which questions they get right or wrong and what their score is so that we see who what place students are actually in within the the setting of this game so that's it with within their game again it's a lot more exciting from the students side as opposed to what we see um for us so definitely thank you to our students and Dr Duffin for highlighting a SN a snippet of what that lesson actually looks like sorry about that that's what online looks like a lot of figuring things out some kids computers move a lot slow some things are happening um so now I want to talk a little bit about like what the next steps are so when we talk about enhanced interactive content that's something that I coordinate with Christine and her amazing team as well as Dr Scott and academic service because there's always new things that are coming out and different learning opportuni and different platforms so we definitely always stay in communication with one is it appropriate for what we want within our program and is it something that from a technology point we can keep kids safe and make sure that you know we're monitoring what they're actually doing so um when we talk about that just staying up to date with all the new things and never staying stagnant and thinking hey we figured it all out so we want to increase work-based opportunities so that's with us you know continue to build those Partnerships within the community to have our students go in and get volunteer hours hour or work based learning and just continue to be out in the community because I want to highlight all their skills and everything that we're doing then also Foster communication and collaboration so new this year we're having an open mic with Mr Mitchell so once a month we I invite parents and students just to come in and come talk to me do Google meet and answer any questions that they have or suggestions because there's always something that's happening and so we want to make sure that we're streamlining that communication and making sure that you know I'm always available to listen to our families and parents and then lastly do you have any questions for me thank you I have a question how many students do you have enrolled currently in MBA 45 145 um and then I would just like to say thank you because I know that I have uh referred um a couple of parents to you because they didn't know where to go and they and their student needed to finish high school and they have said nothing but glowing reviews on how much you've helped them and their student get the the resources and the education that they needed to graduate so thank you okay so first of all I find this absolutely mind-blowing that we're teaching in a virtual World um I find it exciting I think it's wonderful that we are able to offer this and thank you for showing us what we have invested in um you know we had this thought as a board and this we knew that there was a population out there that would Thrive um not being in a classroom a traditional classroom and so to see it come about and to see it actually be successful in my opinion um I find it very rewarding so thank you um I also know from a personal note that my granddaughter who is a senior um thank you for she she was in Cavit and so but I didn't want her driving back and forth right from you know she's a brand new driver so being enrolled in MVA she's able to finish her schooling which she loves online but she's also able to take advantage of our transportation to to take her cavat classes and I you know I I I don't know if parents realize that you know students who attend musd schools we provide transportation to Cavit so by the time they graduate high school they can have their Associates or they can have their trade school um certificates and I just you know I wish more parents would take advantage of that because it's such an opportunity for our students and for our community because we've got future community members um but thank you because she Raves she loves it she's happy um and so I hear firsthand so don't be messing up no kidding so thank you I it's been a great experience and I and I kind of get the feeling that most of the kids the students have the same positive experience so thank you member Anderson is the person that likes to educate the community at large do you want to speak a little bit about what cavat is because a lot of people may not understand oh sure cavat you can say you can talk about it right you want IE me people I mean c cavat is through um CAC it's it's in it's the panel County kind of evit like what the East Valley has uh panal County's version is Cavit and so it's it's conducted over in kulage is where the classes are we do have um there's a few classes that are um conducted or held at the CAC campus here in Maricopa but not many uh depends on what the trade is or what it is you're studying as to which campus you're going to go to so it's it's uh the transportation obviously if you're a new driver can be a while but cavat is uh a great opportunity and it it doesn't cost you anything as a as a panel County resident and as an musd student um it's free so your child can graduate with you know their Auto or their their big equipment or their vettech or dentist or uh dentist hair stylist uh yeah fire science so there I mean I mean there's you really should go to their Catalog online and kind of figure it out or talk to the counselors at the high schools um because it's they've got so many different opportunities um for students to be successful so uh that's what cavat is sorry I didn't mean to throw it out there without okay because you actually I was going to talk and ask a question about how the students particularly the high school le students right get to do these things these courses that actually require equipment and facilities and yes C is a way that we do it facility what do you want to speak just want to add there is an application process for just each individual program that for Cav it it's kind of like a vocational so kids take their core classes core meeting Math Science History Ela at their home school and then Cav will count as elective credits and so some programs are two-year programs some programs are one year um but yes if you're interested please go to the cavat website kind of look at all the ones that are available and then start that application process early because they're going to start I believe in December for next school year yeah it fills up fast because they can only have so many slots per program so I would say apply early and apply often how's that you like it it's kind of like a car loan right yes early and mortgage on your house anyway thank you thank you principal Mitchell thank you okay we now move on to item five work study specifically 5A in information discussion on penel County cting Services Mr Harmon great good evening president Downey members of the board and Dr lman the purpose of this presentation is to share information about panau County accounting services and structure including an update regarding the Cyber attack and data loss event that occurred last year let me first briefly explain our relationship with p County we have two main Services the accounting services which are represented in the red arrows and uh and services related to the hosting support and storage of the data related to our accounting software and those are represented in with by the green arrows on the accounting side we have the standard relationship with the county school superintendent's office and the county treasurer's office all districts are required to partner with the County Treasurer for duties which include receiving recording safeguarding investing and dispersing cash districts have the ability to B to bypass the county school superintendent's office with the proper application and approval by the County Treasurer state auditor general and Arizona Department of Education the county school superintendent office includes uh several accountants that Aid districts to verify revenues and expenditures as well as monthly and annual reconciliations on District funds and state and federal grants they also print and distribute District expense and payroll checks data processing is not part of the required services with the County Treasurer or County school office it's an add-on service provided by panal County to support school districts I'll talk about other alternatives for hosting and software support but first let me review the Cyber attack on the data processing servers last year the attack was discovered on Monday September 25th 2023 and affected half of the servers the attack likely came through an email their initial response was to restore the servers in time for the upcoming payroll deadline impacting all the school districts in panal County they were able to rebuild and bring the software back online by Wednesday they immediately involved federal agencies working with Homeland Security and the FBI as well as hiring an outside cyber security firm to investigate the attack even though most of the services were back online by Wednesday um some issues persisted forcing the treasurer's office to print paper checks late Friday which resulted in a check distribution for musd Friday evening and Saturday morning during the recovery process panal County data processing discovered that half of the County's District's data had not been backed up for six six weeks due to their misconfiguration in the backup schedule we were one of the districts impacted by the data data loss Bal county has made a number of changes as a result of the attack and data loss to improve their systems and supports and to prevent similar events in the future so before the attack the data processing it operations were completely separate from the panal county it Department it operated with a one with one network sorry with one network administrator after the attack panal County moved the entire operation under the county it Department um providing better security and redundancy the county it department now handles the network backups and cyber security with more comprehensive resources compared to the previous Onan setup some new security measures for panal County include the addition of multiactor authentica authentication they use Duo which is the same system we recently brought on to improve our Securities server upgrades um the operation move again to the county it Data Center not only do we have a much larger team of support we also have a dedicated infrastructure manager um that we met we met with to discuss our questions and concerns to determine if we were comfortable with the security measures FAL County made to safeguard our data they have in they have crowd strike installed on all their servers to combat um cyber attacks we were very interested in the changes to data storage and backup they have the proper on-site and off-site storage and they have a system that monitors the daily data backup and notifies the team if a backup were to fail we have been added to the notification list so that we would know if there was an issue with our backups so in review of uh our options um if we consider leaving the county school superintendent um sorry we have options to leave the county school superintendent's office and become an accountability District it would look something like this while there are pros and cons to this model model um we receive a number of services and supports from the county school superintendent's office our annual cost for the services we see we receive by them are about uh just under $28,000 a year if we were to remove sorry if we were to move these services to the district we would likely need to add additional staff members to take over services and support the county school super the county school office offers um one in it and potentially one in Business Services the costs of the necessary positions would far outweigh the annual savings also that shift fails to address the data processing issues that we were that we're investigating due to the Cyber attack okay so districts are not required to use the county hosting services so we researched options and spoke to several districs around the state the only other viable option to is to host directly with Tyler Technologies the parent company of our software Infinite Visions on the cost comparison Tyler Technologies is $50,000 more per year there's also a $72,000 onetime um setup cost on the support comparison we spoke to several districts hosted with Tyler Technologies and the customer service is less supportive and responsive than our experience with panal County data processing our issues um with with panal County are supported quickly I don't think we we've ever had to wait more than 24 hours for a response um and and our support is on average handled within an hour the Tyler districts Express frustration on long wait times for support they often experience wait times of several days with the average being several hours for support both options have the appropriate levels of security measures based on these factors we are happy with our current services with panal County and comfortable with the changes and security measures they they have in place our alternative option is not only more expensive but also less supportive I know that was a lot of information um I tried to put it in a in a in a way that was understandable the county services are often confusing um as far as the relationship with the school district I'm happy to answer any questions you may have so thank you I know I was had a lot of issues with penel County and so I I you know I was one of them that asked find out what are our options so while I'm glad you found our options it doesn't sound like they're any better than what we've got except it would cost us more without the support So if you're I mean it sounds like you thoroughly have vetted panel County now that they've made quite a few changes I hope um since since it looks like you've truly investigated this with them and you said you're comfortable with that um then I'm comfortable with that because we don't have many options um the data processing part is what is what would be the cost it would be very very costly to do it ourselves so I understand that um so thank you for looking into it um hopefully you know fingers crossed panel County will continue to make these improvements um and invest the money it's supposed to be so um I don't really have any questions I just I mean you were it was very clear uh what we need to do for in my opinion we just stay where we're at as long as panel County keeps their end of the deal that's that's how I feel thank you M Anderson Mr Herman I I do have a question and it's sort of technical I was honey Will's um director of it audit and compliance it was the punishment for three years that I I had to suffer but one of the things that comes to mind is um yes sure they put in they've improved things but have you found out if they have a an ongoing audit process because that's that's what my team did my team visit Honeywell Aerospace and defense sites around the world and actually did an audit to make sure things like they were backing up properly but also they could do recoveries in a timely manner and successful um have you been able to find out if um panal County have probably purchased cuz typic an outside service for small companies it's my understanding that they do an annual audit um they're also engaged as as many of us are in this world of Cy cyber security and are making Investments uh and and doing you know all the checks around you know fishing and other cyber measures so we sat down with their uh with our main contact with our it team to talk thoroughly about um the changes um their system and feel very comfortable with with the changes that they've made because obviously they they'll impact us significantly and we weren't comfortable coming to the to the governing board if we hadn't uh done a thorough check and felt comfortable ourselves okay thank you Mr Herman thank you I move on to item 5B superintendent's gold Dr lman thank you president Downey uh members of the board I've attached my um yearly goals for review um this is a work study I based on your feedback I would like to um you know present each one of these goals and um then make changes and modifications as you uh as you see fit and then um with that feedback I would be able to add an action item at for our next governing board meeting so this is just an opportunity for Board review the first first goal um is a a broad goal demonstrating Visionary leadership in accordance with musd vision mission and strategic plan and then there's performance indicators beneath that inform um action steps and and other uh administrators goals as well so you'll see um you know you can see what those are there um a lot of that has to do with a lot of the ways that we communicate and um respond to staff students and community so that's goal one that should look familiar goal two goal two three four and five will look familiar to everyone because those are really a version of our district goals goal two is uh oversee the implementation of educational services to ensure that every student student graduates prepared to create innovate lead and succeed and um that one performance indicator is massive and so that really informs all of the work in in the academic Services Department um as well as the work that is done at the school level but I've neatly confined it for my purposes under one performance indicator goal three is our uh access an equity goal uh that would be um prioritize 100% access and access to and equity in excellent Educational Services resources and programs and then this is where we make sure every teacher has um a working computer every teacher has updated um materials and resources this is it's through this goal that we refresh our curriculum and do our textbook adoptions this is how we make sure um every teacher is trained and it isn't the luck of the draw um for our students we want every child to have a teacher is who is equipped to um provide an a first class uh lesson every day all day then goal four is our organizational culture Implement systems that prioritize people over programs and invest in the support of students and staff uh this is um obviously you can see um where we address um The Human Side of our organization certainly lots of Human Resources performance indicators here um things that are tangible and Technical um but things that are also um kind of make a house a home um so this is where our all of our administrators uh contribute beautifully to this this goal and this is what contributes to um our good outcomes in retention that is the essence of that goal goal five is our community community Pride goal um uh Community Pride in musd through excellent customer service Sound business practices open and effective communication and safe and attractive facil facilities this is another all-encompassing goal um but it's where we again um articulate efforts around those items like communication but it's also what makes us a great neighbor um what makes uh what makes um our community rally around us and and support us um every day so that is goal five goal six is a new goal so I'll spend some time on goal six um which addresses uh the improvements in the delivery of special education services with an emphasis on compliance quality and customer service that contributes to the overall sense of confidence in the district's efforts to meet the special needs of all students and results in an increase in the number of students with special needs demonstrating Mastery of grade level standards it's also it's the newest and the longest so in conjunction with district and School administration um this first bullet point uh contains the metrics on our risk analysis um a per kind of a performance plan that we engage with um through the Arizona Department of Education every year we want to achieve and we and maintain self-monitoring status when you achieve and maintain self-monitoring status on these metrics um you you're you're con you've you've established credibility and sustainability in your delivery on these these items and the metrics are included there um you can see it it pretty much um encompasses everything that the other four goals about you know the the other four District goals address uh so we have a lot of systems in place already and work effort in place already to um maintain that self-monitoring status we are we are in self-monitoring status um with with a little bit of help from ad they we're we are in self-monitoring um but but they they keep a close eye on us uh then you can see we've got uh an an effort towards uh monitoring compliance with state and federal regulations and District policy so we've increased our communication from the district office and and schools on those compliance pieces so that we can triangulate the innumerable data points there are there's so much data and information um and it we've streamlined some of some of that transmission of the data and we've really been able to find um inconsistencies and holes in in in some of our um reporting and management and that's already we're already seeing um improvements there then ensuring that students with special needs have access to tier one instruction and grade level curriculum in the least restrictive environment with certified content strong staff that's in direct alignment with the idea Federal Regulations we want to Prior prioritize making sure everyone has access to grade level curriculum um which requires us to leverage that next bullet point the multi-tiered system of support to ensure access to effective intervention with certified content strong staff and then um formal channels of stakeholder feedback and collaboration and applying that feedback for continuous Improvement and then finally um exemplary communication and customer service so again I think think you see um or I have tried to uh illustrate alignment between the other goals and the special education goal um to ensure that our efforts are supported in everything we do this isn't something extra it is something with a brighter light shined on it um and extra uh attention um towards the outcome of more of our special needs students um achieving Mastery of grade level standards and I'm I'm I'm open to your feedback Dr lman I really like the what you've added to goal six um I know that that's an area that most districts struggle in um and we are not exempt from that uh so I really like that one of the the things I wanted to point out for people that may not know is that these goals um as a board we can only hold Dr lman accountable for these so we don't we're not this is we don't get to judge the other staff so it's just about what Dr Lan achieves so this is her these are the goals of the district but the only one we can hold accountable is Dr lman and for years since she's come on board she has moved the needle on our district um and achieving our strategic plan goals and I'm glad that she's added this one on she's not afraid to take on a challenge and this is a challenge area that we have so I appreciate this thank you Miss gay I do have a clarification question sure so on goal six so one through five is great I mean it's good um um I I'm always overwhelmed because it's like that's a lot and you're one person so I mean I know we have I know but still I I get overwhelmed um but I know you can do it uh but on goal six the bullet that says um evaluation timeline one of my concerns that I see in the special education exceptional student services department is the um the expediency or less than expediency in getting IEPs done and being able to make them um applicable to the student like there's a lot of gray areas um I know that it's hard to write IEPs you know my son had one it's it's frustrating it's hard it's you know how do you how do you identify what you want in this IEP so I know it takes a lot of time but I guess what I'm asking not with all that preface um what I'm asking is where it says evaluation timeline is that do we need to put within so many days or so many weeks um see what I'm saying it's like I just um I I know you leave it up to staff but at the same time I think that IEP should be done sooner rather than later and so I just would like to see a little bit more specific direction to staff I guess that's just I mean that was one something and then to make them um to make the IEPs applicable sometimes I see IEPs and it's like what the heck like what you know what is this going to do for the student in the long run so I just I guess I just want more explanation on evaluation timeline is what does that mean what does that look like to you what does that look like to the family what does that look like to the to the student um and then obviously to staff so I guess I love the I love the question um because it gives us gives us a chance to um provide a little more information this these These are summarized to a certain extent from the information from the risk analysis we don't create the timelines we don't say get these done as soon as possible um there is uh there are specific statutes and policies that dictate when these when these IEPs are uh due the time frame from uh a noticing a concern or or communicating a concern or noticing a difference to the timeline that uh an evaluation begins and is complete so the compliance piece has already been defined for us and um a lot of the communication between our program Specialists and our um uh folks in academic services and special ed department and our administrators has been around these timelines and compliance and there's you know there there's processes associated with them nothing is done overnight correct but we've kind of approached this through the lens of if the state came back today to look at where we are on these in these processes this one would be out of compliance this one would be in compliance this one would be overdue this one would be expired even though there is things don't happen overnight even though there is a process associated with it that's part of the timing part of the monitoring part of the uh the communication that we want to support our administrators with so that they can you know so that they can be proactive through this uh compliance piece of it okay I mean I I know there's federal and state compliance rules y i just um I've seen some discrepancies as that I've seen some I've seen some interpretations um on staff side um for whatever whatever reason and so I just would like to and I know that's part of our conversation would like to clean that up that if this is the compliance then this needs to be done so and I guess I just want to see more of that when we have a conversation in a few months is to what are we doing to train staff um and I wanted to add that so now we go back to I think it's goal three which is access and Equity where we make sure every teacher is trained correct um so they're trained in the compliance pieces our administrators are trained in compliance pieces the the principles and I are kind of up to our eyeballs with our arms linked on this as well with our other district office administration on on working through um not only the compliance but you you mentioned the quality our ESS teachers spent some time prior to the school year starting with some in some training with IEPs last year we sat with administr with administrators um in you know kind of more quality IEP training working with the administrators and listening to them they have developed their own systems of monitoring at their schools as well um and you know we're certainly supporting principles in any ways that we can um but they also are they also have uh not everybody has the same types of programs at their school so we don't have one blanket uh system that I'm requiring them to implement other than the compliance piece they have to be compliant but they're coming up with their own systems to develop and support the quality and getting to that uh getting to the to the expectation that kids have access to grade level curriculum in the least restrictive environment as much as possible when you know when that's possible when when it makes sense so um I mean I I've always wanted our exceptional student services special ed students to be given the same goals and opportunities as our gened and our you know our gifted students and so it always seems to that's an area that is kind of set on the Shelf it's kind of the stepchild and so I just would like I'm glad it's a goal and that we're actually going to highlight that now and make that a priority because again like goal three every student deserves to have an equitable and quality education so I think this is the next important step that we need to take as a as a as a district so my question my next question to you is what do you need from us as a board to support staff because I know that there is going to be I mean it's a big job you know special education is a tough it's exhausting um and so what do you need from the board to support staff in that you know I I I'm so appreciative of that uh question um one of the things that I think is wonderful that you do is you support um that we pay teachers for training after school okay um we recognize that it it it can't all be done during the school day or you support substitute teachers uh when they do need to attend training during the school day um you've never said no about valuing their time and the value of training um you've also uh you know certainly set high standards uh for performance and I think that Clarity helps all of us um you know I think the things that that you support for our organizational culture makes it possible for makes it possible for us to achieve these outcomes um and and that's what we appreciate the most we've also you know we're watching this enrollment you very very very carefully and you're supporting the positions that we add in uh par professionals um the the efforts that we make towards certification because we have great people they just aren't all certified and that creates another layer of pro you know of complications and and workload for other people so supporting those processes whether it's grow your own you know the reimbursement for um University classes so so teachers can become certified um that's also been incred you know incredibly uh valuable um to our our system but um you know the fact that we can that we can continue to you you you recognize that we're working closely with our administrative staff and and they with their teachers on what we can do in a teacher shortage to um address Staffing concerns as quickly as possible thank you thank you for taking this on it's a big job so but our students are worth it we got a whole bunch of people okay ready just kidding just kidding um yeah first than you thank you so much for like Miss krae said in beginning that yes this is your goal but it is a district goal emphasis yes um I need a couple things cleared up um and and just kind of going on what Miss Anderson said a minute ago and maybe I can I'm going to try and help clarify something as well but ask you the question at the same time when we talk about evaluation timeline and some of those opinions from the staff taking the email requesting services or requesting testing but because the email came in and it wasn't written with the signature and handed to district office getting rid of that gray area of if a parent tells us I need my child looked at that we are going to conform to what the law says we need to do from the moment we find out or get that request regardless of how the request comes in right is that what you mean by timelines and that is what I mean yeah um I'm really excited I'm really excited I think this is a good start and you have to start somewhere right and what I'm really excited to see is in the next six months to year where we are from now to that point and where what we've found right because the list is too long and if you look at it you can be I get overwhelmed by all of it because it's it's a huge thing to take on um so for now good job thank you thank you for putting this in there I will specifically be looking for data I need data yeah I need data I need IEPs I need to know that we have trained our Personnel to go in and do a a thorough create a thorough living document that you could hand to any person and they would know not knowing that child exactly where that child's at what their need is and what the plan is so I'm excited um the only question that I have as a critique is your last sentence ESS is students who need extra help right in many areas um and so I would ask that maybe you look at that a little bit more because Mastery of grade level standards could be putting the cart before the horse and are is it what is that defined as is that for their IEP is that if you have a senior that's in ESS do you expect them to read at a senior level level like what what does that mean to demonstrate Mastery of grade level standards right to Define where they're right do whether it's their working level or whether it's the Arizona standards right okay I'll Define that I will be I can make that more articulate and I've just been thinking of a couple more things too while I'm sitting here yeah I just when I read that how I read it is that students result in an increase what does it say District's efforts to meet the special needs of all students and results in an increase in the number of students with special needs demonstrating Mastery of grade level standards so I read that as if I have a fifth grader who is in ESS that you're going to measure your success if they are at fifth grade Mastery standards but that may not be the case if you're in ESS right so but that's but that's one of the metrics that the state holds us to okay grade level proficiency on those State assessments I wonder does the state have a number personally I have met I could count them on maybe oneand students who have met or mastered their grade level and still was in ESS so they have they actually have that percentage on our risk analysis I want to say the the state average is like 20% okay um so you want to be exceeding that state average so um but but why not you know so and and and if it's not if it's not necessarily in reading right now maybe it's in math right now right because kids come with different strengths and um needs in different ways right I just don't want us to if a kid starts in in Kinder and they are in first or second grade math and they end up not progressing for a while and then they do progress right and they get to be in a junior in high school and they have accomplished all this stuff I don't want us as a district to Discount all that work everything that that child has done to get to the point that they're at even if it's not necessarily their grade level Mastery am I yeah I understand what I I do understand what you're saying like I want to give credit for GR credit is deserved grow yes growth sure so there that's all and the there isn't a metric for growth um on this this particular it's it's proficiency there there are other metrics for growth in other in other areas on the letter grade system there's a metric for growth and we celebrate the the heck out of that we absolutely do but but when it comes to the risk analysis it's the it's the percentage of students who are who are showing proficiency so um you know we'll we will con I can work on this okay it's it's only you know it's it's it's I want I love goals I I can't wait to get back to the drawing board and I do want to call AD yeah I think well you've seen the risk analysis report right there are other ways that growth is captured in many ways and we benefit from that we our our system benefits from that it's it's accounted for in many ways and I don't want to minimize it I will find a way to account for it in the in the way we've articulated this goal thank you because I that's what I don't want to do I don't want to discredit you in the end when if we have a a ton of kids who have gone and progressed and obtained all their goals right and now they're they just may not be here because if they were here they wouldn't be in ESS so I don't want to discredit the work that is being done that's all my pleasure good feedback thank you great discussion um I'm just going to make a comment that um I want to thank Dr lopman for the willingness to have this conversation in public on the Das I think it reflects the attitude of the board to be be open and honest to discuss these things as been said I think by two members um we basically har and far Dr lopman Who very accountable she does the rest of the organization but these goals trigger down throughout the organization and it's important that she first of all communicates we provide the tools and policies for her to be successful and make those happen but also that Dr lman is superintendent propagates that all throughout the organization holds the organizational quable so thank you Dr lman for um accommodating this open discussion um to the community my pleasure thank you thank you okay with that we'll now move on to item six call to the public and I do have two cards so I need to read this um members of the board may not discuss items that are not specifically identified on the agenda therefore pursuant to ARS 38 43111 one action taken as a result of public comment will be limited to directing staff to study the matter responding to any criticism or scheduling the matter for further a future agenda the board requests that all comments be limited to three minutes or less and that the public refrain from using speech or language that is offensive or inappropriate pursuant to board policy 3-23 please state your name for the record um first one I have is ismeralda sorry I'm short hi I'm Esmeralda aala um my son was attending Saddleback Elementary uh preschool special education I withdrew him from school because he had a substitute teacher that grabbed my son in public grabbed his arm and shook it um this was my first interaction with Miss Galvin um I kept my composure and um just walked away I had a mother address me and just told me to report it I've emailed you guys details about my incident and my son has feing for school I've done my research trying to find something that will give him the right structure and compassion and under everything that you guys have discussed today suicide parent every your your number three law or goal that you're working on every teacher should be certified to teach our precious children whether they're special need whether they're foster children whether they're just home school needs to be safety and last year he completed preschool he learned how to talk better he wasn't pushing she was compassionate the teachers also need the right tools because just like you guys need her to have the support the parents are hungry the parents are drowning at home it's hard my son is so beautiful and so kind and I'm going to fight to get him back in Saddle bath but how can I do that and make sure his safety is there how can I do do that and Trust the school because I haven't got any updates this year I have not received any kind of projects any kind of artwork any any kind of communication other than miss or excuse me another teacher who was like Hey I'm taking over because we don't you know like we need to communicate is these substitute teachers reading the children's IEPs are are are they trained to understand that they they have a lot of sensories like my son was not pushing at the end of the school and if a teacher is screaming the way she came at us she was screaming and I had more details but like I said I emailed you guys I just wanted to show my face and let you know there's parents out there that are drowning and I also want to support if I have to be a volunteer at Saddleback I will do it I stopped working because I am dedicated that my son will be someone in this world that will lead other special need children and if we need to hold seminars in schools to educate the children how do we interact with special needs then let's do this thank you thank you Dr L assume you follow up as you to take a notes thank you um next and last we have Jaden good evening Maricopa Unified School District governing board members and good evening board meeting attendees my name is Jaden C Franklin and I am a Maricopa Unified School District student attending Maricopa high school as a senior I am currently the incumbent Maricopa High School class of 2025 valadi dictorian and an active participatory student and campus Affairs and activities best of all I am a US citizen I'm a student drive leader working with the 501 seat 3 nonpartisan unbiased organization named new voters new voters was founded in our great home state of Arizona at Hamilton High School and its Mission and work has spread across the nation registering 70,000 plus untapped young voters the overt mission of the program is to engage the eligible students to register to vote as well as activate the ladder their families to do the a even prospective voters for proposition 488 I brought my proposal of the drive to the attention of site administrators at marob high school I was brought in for a brief meeting with our site principal Miss mnam to go over the drive and questions surrounding it in the end the answer I met with was a generalized no reasons being it was outside of the school's duties to endorse and allow voter registration drives on campus the delivery and conduct of this meeting was respectful and kind and part of Miss mnam but it begged deeper inquiries regarding the mission of our community's educational institutions we live in the greatest country on the planet to which many of us can attest and this great nation is built on the founding principles of democracy how is it that it is not the duty of the school as well as the presiding School District to create diligent and active American citizens and young adults our communities are constantly plagued with stereotypes of inactivity and idleness we often re-evaluate and vocalize new efforts of support for our students and attempts to better our community but to no Veil they seem to fall flat these boundaries can seem overwhelming in the face of progression and Innovation not pushing the boundaries and changing the Status Quo hinders us how will we meet our number one District goal that every student graduates prepared to create innov lead and succeed if they're unaware of the Priceless Civic privileges our founding fathers have set up for us as a student of the as a student of four years of the district sometimes these boundaries make you remain quiet and passive instead of exciting and executing our Civic and Community duties to push for better this comes as no degradation to any person in this room but it challenges us all to not just be better community members but citizens I ask that this initial decision to not allow the drive to run on campus be repealed and reevaluated so students can feel the Patriotic sentiment of civic participation without the right to vote and entice voting none of you would be sitting before me I leave you all with this one message this room should all strive to Aid people in finding life in carrying out Liberty and in pursuing happiness let's be the Unified School District we need to be and let's support the district goals that have been cemented thank you for my time and may you all have a blessed evening thank you jayen I move on to item seven consent agenda motion to approve second Lisa we have motion a second Carolyn Lopez hi Emory no I Tori Anderson I py coute hi Robert Downey I so moved we I move on to item eight action items specifically 8 a discussion and possible approval of the Personnel schedule Mr baket thank you president Downey you have the Personnel schedule in front of you appreciate any questions you have anything that I can clarify I'll go first right Mr Becket um number 14 is a new position however it says that it's a stipend so I'm a little confused stiens usually just go on the stien schedule new positions are new hires so I don't understand although I appreciate having a job description for everybody that's on stiens and I know that we do have quite a few job descriptions especially when it came to coaches so that they would be evaluated to receive their stiens but I don't understand why we've got this as a new position when it should be updated on our stien schedule if it's a stipend thank you member C I appreciate that we felt there was a need to have a very clear description of the duties that are associated with this particular stpe and that's the reason why we created the job description it has extreme importance for our summer school program in terms of planning supervision oversight and we felt it was we've had instances in the past where people who have committed to this particular Internship have not come through with the responsibilities that they have in the summer just felt this was the best thing to do for clarity uh for those people that are applying for this position that they know exactly what the expectations going to be for their work but you're correct this is simply not something we do for our normally first statements because we have job descriptions and accountability for other positions that are stiffened correct yes I I just this to me doesn't because when I see new position I see it's going to go on Talent Ed people are going to apply for it um that's a new position because this is we want to have someone who's already employed with us to take on this stien it's not a new position it's a stien position so I I think it should just be included we just need to up dat our stien schedule to include this and I think this is great documentation and this would obviously be an internal HR issue that they would have to make sure that they were qualified and followed these qualif these uh uh responsibilities and duties thank you member I'm happy to put this on the revised salary schedule for or stifen schedule for next year okay um I yeah so I don't have a problem with that um I just I wouldn't approve it as it is I I don't have a problem taking that one off and have you bring it back on a stien schedule um very good a revised stien schedule the other question I have Sor can I just uh interrupt Mr back just from my understanding does it make any fundamental difference whether it's under new position or stien is there fundamentally any difference it would it be respectful of the position or want from my understanding I wanted to understand it was different or something different technically the board approved the stien schedule and so if this is not listed under the stip in schedule that we approved then I I think it has to because it's a board approval document so we'd have to have this position listed under whatever the the the level is happy to bring it back okay okay um and just a a real quick question because I appreciate everything that our teachers do but I don't want to overburden them number 37 and 39 um that's a lot of extra dut overload and a mentor um is that are we asking too much of one that's the same individual member K again we've talked specifically with both of these employees they both committed to this uh this work no one's forcing them to do it again we believe that they are able to do this we've had past employees do similar type of assignments both mentoring and also handing overs okay that's the reason why the pay I know but we we just had a whole big discussion about how um a lot of our our teachers can be overwhelmed I just don't want us to add to it um if but if that's something that they want to do I just want to make sure that teachers are asked no one is forced to do this this is an opportunity for them to help the district again there's no coercion involved here I have a question Mr sure um back to number 14 yes so when I was looking at the job description technically it doesn't say it needs to be an employee it could be somebody outside of the district that applies for this so maybe it shouldn't be a stien maybe it should just be a job see what I'm saying I mean it doesn't say that in the job description that you need to be an employee it just says what the job description is I'm just ask I'm just getting clarification yeah great question again member u in the past we had the aspiring administrator program right the program that you're looking at right now is a lead forward just a re kind of rebranding of that program so anyone within that program would be able to be able to fill one of these intern roles so in order for them to actually be an intern they have to be enrolled in this program as well so we we wanted to make sure that we're utilizing the talent we're already working with for these summer school assignments so again I I understand okay whatever no that makes sense but can you put that in the job description or the qualifications because it doesn't say it doesn't say that they're enroll that they have to be already a part of this program the aspiring administrators program which I think is phenomenal I think that's a great idea but I I think it needs to be in the position description and in the general statement of does that make sense it does happy to do it yeah and then and then it's if it's a stip in then eventually like you say next year it would be on the stien schedule but we have to approve it here first no we would just bring it back on it on we would revise the stien schedule correct and I can bring it back as a new stien for next time and then we're can just include it in the revision next this isn't a time sensitive thing it does not have to be done tonight correct no once again summer school is the primary duties that are involved in okay um are there any other questions no if there's no questions I'd make a motion to approve taking number 14 off I will second that Carolyn Lopez I adary no I Tory Anderson I Patty coute I Robert Downey I so moved thank you Mr beet I move on to item 8 B discussion of possible approval of revised policy 3-41 safety and Emergency Management M pastor good evening president Downey Dr lman members of the board and guests so the proposed revised policy 3401 and the accompanying procedure reflect recent changes in legislation specifically House Bill 2174 the statute requires that sex offenders upon registration submit information regarding the individual's legal legal custody of a child and the enrollment in the child's School provisions of the criminal code title 13 have been amended to require require the registered sex offender to notify the local sheriff or authority of the students enrollment status change and so with that uh open up for any questions I don't have any questions so make a motion to approve second Lisa we have a motion to Second Carolyn Lopez hi adary no hi Tory Anderson I Patty crae I Robert Downey I so moved thank you can I move on item it C discussion possible approval re Revis policy 4-101 board authority to employ and procure Mr Becket thank you president down members of the Govern boed Dr lman you have that policy Revision in front of you tonight highlighted portions one of the key elements is the administration of contracts for certified staff this is a significant change for us as a district it's been put us in an interesting situation and highly respect well the legislator's desire to have this but it is going to shorten our opportunity to be able to recruit and know exactly who's coming back but again we are going to abide by this 15th of March happens to fall right in the middle of our spring break as well which makes it another challenge as well but again this is statutory so we're asking obviously for the board to support this the last highlighted portion there has to do with background checks and fingerprint clearance cars these are things we do already right I have one um thing I have a question to okay I I just think because I'm sure most people watch these amazing board meetings here on Wednesday nights but for those who can't um and they have other obligations uh is the district going to send something out to our staff saying hey just FYI the legislature changed the law the board just had to adopt this policy so don't expect your contract before this date so that they're not like in February going why don't we have our contracts what's going on you know what's HR doing do we have jobs you know because you know how rumors start but can't we or issue because when I worked for another District they issued letters of um commitment I I can't remember what the name of it anyway but it was it it was issued in January and I had to sign it for the next school year we typically thank you member Anderson appreciate it as well we typically ask our actually ask those questions we have a form that we send out to all of our certified staff it's a non-binding right right letter which ask them to commit for next school year so it does help us somewhat in our planning especially if somebody's deciding not to come back then then they can ask for a resignation letter so we could start our our recruitment for that that opening but again statutorily we we typically see quite a few people who wait till the last minute don't sign the contract and all of a sudden we don't have an opening that opening is going to be in the middle of April wow this year instead of February so challenges I like the idea of maybe doing that letter of intent because it's non-binding and then we know uh my question um Mr Becka is if I understand this correctly we have to do the fingerprinting and the background check prior to employment and is that including new teachers coming into any with any new staff coming into the district there is there actually thank you member K there's actually a window of time in which we have uh to complete that background check and that that fingerprint clearance so or four National teachers obviously come to us late late in the process so they they sometimes aren't able to get their fingerprint start until they get here so we are again working through the the actual statute make sure that they were compli with this so my question would be if I'm a new teacher coming to the district for the first time and before I can get a signed contract I have to go under my own expense and get a fingerprint clearance card that's correct on the hopes that you'll give me a contract it's part of the requirement in order to get a certificate and a cont so the district so we are not in a position where we can reimburse those fingerprints once they get cleared and we sign them on statute actually says that the only people that we can pay for are volunteers whenever we ask a volunteer to get a fingerprint C's Park the district's on the to make sure they pay for that other that employees need to pay for the RO legally but we can is we can hire them they just have so many days they because I remember I had like I think I had like Oh I thought I thought I read this that they couldn't prior that they couldn't be receive a contract until their fingerprint clearance card you have 120 days okay okay all right just wanted to make sure great questions the procedure also that's attached to this all a these are just things that we are doing one of the key elements that I want to talk about is the aone Department of Education information system any employee certified or non-certified now if there's a nonprofessional act and they're under investigation they will go into this system and one of our obligations is to check that system to make sure that new employee coming in is not in that system well we do fingerprints and backgrounds check on every employee any correct correct okay if there's no other questions I'll motion to approve I'll second B we have a motion to Second Carn Lopez I adamary no I T Anderson I Patty kraay hi Robert Downey I so moved I move on to item it D discussion and possible approval of revised policy three D 107 fiscal accounting and financial reporting Dr Scott good evening president Downey members of the board Dr Lan the administration recommends that the governing board take appr approve board policy 3-17 fiscal accounting and financial reporting uh as it is stated within the um document presented which adds the statement for the equivalent requisite number of instructional minutes as this can um help us for the future as we look at more of our Competency Based courses that we can approve for our students including some of the work-based pieces so if I understand this correctly fundamentally we used to work on number days a student needs to be cheeks on seats for a number of days Absol um for example for school districts that have four day week um it's not even changed or it's been augmented with our number of cheeks on seat days or minutes in education for the specific minutes as required by the state and it's labeled for us clearly for one through sixth grade for middle school and for high school and and it's and even for aoi with Mr Mitchell it's very defined by the state within th what those instructional minutes would look like as an equivalent Dr Scott is this something like um the districts that have 4 day so they have this is the definition that they put in to their policy yes they can utilize that for that but also in talking with some of the other districts as they're looking for the future of some of that Competency Based and providing our students with um credit for that Competency Based this could be utilized for the future for that also okay no other questions I'd like to motion that we approve I'll second Lisa will have a motion to Second Carolyn Lopez I Amry no I Tory Anderson I paty krae I Robert Downey I so moved thank you thank you very much now move on to item it e discussion of possible approval of policy 5107 support for military families Miss Pastor I think it's actually me I think I saw my name didn't I not okay great because I was making it up on thank you you can team on it so a few of you mentioned you were at the 911 event today so it's kind of a patriotic um nod to be able to bring this to the board to uh consider so this is new a new statute allows districts that choose to adopt this policy um to support schools that want to apply for this Pur purple star designation with purple star designation you are recognized through ad as a school that understands the unique obstacles that military families encounter when transitioning into schools um and there are requirements regarding training for staff having a point of contact for military families um that sort of thing any questions do we we I don't need an answer right now but do we know how many military families we have in our district or students can you get back to us or do you already know I love that question I don't but I love the question so yes I'm just curious but I think it's a great program when I read up about it I did too if there's you have a question so I just want to take this opportunity to to recognize and thank those that do serve but in the theme of this particular thing also the families that support those that serve and are left after unfortunate things happen to those that have served for this country so just take that opportunity good thank you if there's no other questions I would like to make a motion to approve I will second leis we have a motion to Second Karen Lopez hi Amry no hi Tory Anderson hi Patty Kray hi Robert Downey I so moved we now move on to item nine adjourn so moved second Lisa we have a motion to Second Carolyn Lopez I emry no I Tory Anderson hi Patty coute hi Robert Downey I I so moved thank you everyone

[Music] good evening and welcome to the Greenfield Public School school committee meeting it's Wednesday September 11th 2024 at 6 p.m at the John on community Center um the uh secretary is not here so I'll take the liberty of calling the role um member Goodwin here member Childs here member seon here and I Glenn Johnson mad am here we have a quorum just barely Jenny is uh the mayor's on her way in um we um needed to schedule an executive session at this time um so we will be returning obviously and then doing public comment uh we don't think our conversation will take too long but we don't know exactly how long it will take um so I'd like to hear a motion to enter into executive session pursuant to um oh I should say first this meeting is being recorded by gctv if any other person's Pres are also recording you must notify the chairperson at this time not seeing any um I'd like to hear a motion to enter into executive session pursuant to Mass General Law chapter 3A section 21 A3 to discuss strategy with respect to collective bargaining or litigation if an open meeting may have a detrimental effect on the bargaining or litigating position of the public body and the chair so declares also pursuant to Mass General Law chapter 3A section 21 A4 to discuss the deployment of security Personnel or devices or strategies with respect there to Is there a motion so moved motion from member seon is there a second second second from Member Goodwin any discussion all in favor say I I I I and um we have an i for the mayor too the mayor arrived and 602 welcome um so we will now adjourn into executive session and we'll be returning um hopefully not too long from now [Music] a [Music] n [Music] n [Music] he [Music] a [Music] m [Music] n [Music] he [Music] o [Music] n [Music] n [Music] n [Music] n [Music] a [Music] w [Music] he [Music] n a [Music] a [Music] a [Music] oh a [Music] n [Music] a [Music] a [Music] e [Music] in [Music] a [Music] a [Music] a [Music] n [Music] n [Music] n [Music] n [Music] manager has joined as well um so I guess let's see um mayor do we need to vote to come back to the meeting okay okay um Sydney are you ready okay um we're reconvening it's 6:42 pm.

e e e all right 6:30 um beic Bo of Education regular meeting we'll come to order we'll start with the pl of illusions [Music] thank you all for coming uh before we start no many people don't that's a Kim question yeah anyways let's start with the PTR report here go I believe you what we talk that perfect time right right on the nose right there okay he's right there out the window with the leaf lower hello everyone uh my name is Alissa Salo I am the current BCS PTO president in my second year um all right so since last time we met already little louder we've already been busy it's only been 3 weeks to school already had a couple of events going on uh the P provided lunch for the staff on their first day back for their um professional professional development days uh before students return so thank you to sah for organizing that um and then on the day of kindergarten orientation we hosted a play dat over in the playground uh for the incoming kindergarteners and their families Refreshments um kids are all playing on the playgrounds and parents have opportunity to meet each other and then they headed down here for uh kinderart orientation where we had a um welcome table we handed out gift goodie bags had t-shirt some of goodies in it uh as well as we handed out um informational folders to the parents regarding all our PTO activities U so I want to thank um getting that all set up and for I know mentioned this past weekend the school weekly letter from the school um I want to give a huge shout out to AG from C she worked over the summer to paint I my team is um a bunch of new um games on the pavement um all sensory walk so she spearheaded that and it looks fantastic so thank you to Agnes for doing that um we are looking for volunteers right now our room pairing we guys starting our room pair program if the link is not AC yet it will be like by this evening by this afternoon um so anyone who's interested in becoming a room parent you can sign up on PT board to do that um we're asking that anybody who's interested sending out an informational fire a little bit later this evening take a look at that make sure it's something you can do um we're asking and if everybody sign up by the 18th of September that way we can get room parents up and running get their class out to them and get going with that the other thing we're looking for volunteers for is open house which is um September 17th we're going to be having a table over in the gym we're going to have some BCS merchandise for sale we're going to be offering samples for um L pies today and um we're going to have some information um about ski club and some other PTO events are going on I'm looking forward um our first PTO meeting for the year we're alternating between inperson and zoom our first meeting is going to be here in a week uh on the 18th and 6:30 it's going to be in person our meeting will be on Zoom um September 23rd is the start of our PI sale that sales help um the funding for teacher appreciation student appreciation and field trips so um I know Ria has the information that so she's going to be getting that out to the school to the distributed students within the next couple of days so keep an eye out for on your children's holder make sure you get that information um and then going forward in October um October 6 is going to be picture day I know SAR is working on getting the information out for that as well um retakes going to be November 27 um the line in P sale will end the the day of October 14th distribution will be sometime before Thanksgiving don't have exact October 6 is a Sunday it's October 8th okay thank you thank you I was about to send that out it's October um I got that confused last time it's October 8 uh the week of October 2st is is Scholastic Book Fair um so I'm going to get going with that and then at theob B and the anybody any questions from elist thank you very very much do you first you want to public com public comment it's in my report you want you want to do after no my report it's all part of my superintendent report okay um okay we come to the public comment policy number uh 1120 and bylaw 9325 uh anybody who wishes to speak come on up to the podium state your name and address uh we try to allocate approximately 3 minutes uh 15 minutes to a topic but there's not a lot of people so if we go over a little bit it's not a big deal so our first contestant please so we do have one that was submitted online um it was submitted on September 8th 2024 at 6:34 p.m.

e e e good evening everyone before we begin tonight's meeting I would like to take a moment to acknowledge the significance of today's September 11 on M day 23 years ago our nation experienced an unprecedented tragedy that forever changed us the events of 9911 claimed the lives of nearly 3,000 people and left an indelible mark on the hearts of countless families and communities across the country We Remember The Bravery of First Responders the resilience of survivors and the unity that followed those terrible events we also reflect on the strength of the human Spirit and the importance of coming together in times of hardship As We Gather here in service of our community let us take a moment of silence to honor those we lost those who served and those who continue to work towards healing and peace thank you okay I would like to call this Open Session to order um and Report out that no action was taken during closed session please stand for [Music] the ready begin I alance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which item number four consent agenda is there a motion of approval of the consent agenda I second any discussion just a little bit turn my um under page the approval approving the disposition of surplus items I I was curious about the uh 20 Verizon hotspots are are those disc connected or taken down where did oh there over there tonight so uh we had 40 purchased with a Grant during Co and it ran out cop and we were not giving out nearly that many so I do have they been like upgraded or no just um taken down say again out of service they're that weren't being used we don't need them anymore yeah we were paying a bill every yeah does anyone buy those things or are they any uh have any value once they're you'd have to redo the subscription on your under you know your own syar yeah [Music] maybe older people looking for the 5 ones now any other questions seeing none roll call vote hi hi hi I I motion carries um item number five uh approve the memorandum of understanding between the Bass Lake joint Union Elementary School District and Cal State teach program I move for approv a motion is there a second any question this is the memor me randum of understanding that allows us to have interns on campus and have a mentor teacher yes y any other questions roll call vote good to me I I I I I motion carries item number six um 6A monthly approval of warrants approval of rewards is there a second a second any discussion I had a question that I asked Tara and it was about on page six says Aries education and there were five uh entries for $524 so I asked you why there were four charges if that also included the FR PL no it's because we have some license U licens through areas that we use for our websites for the district office so we split it out to the site budget and then we have a portion that's coded to the district than any other questions this looks like someone made a lot of trips to the hardware store ping any other questions or comments roll call vote i i i i i well she carries 6B the quarterly reports on investments this isn't this is information yeah okay mine seven yours is ours is 6 6 are you l in I don't know oh that's funny I'll go back andr I thought that was anyway um that's just an information item we report on the Investments quarterly and um you can see there information about the County Treasury and the investment fund was there 60 yeah no there's just six I don't know anyways um the return on the County Treasury fund was 2.69% it's down slightly from the last time last quarter we reported on and then our total investment that's our retire liability is up slightly from March should be March com any questions thank you Tara item 6C the education protection act expenses okay now I'm not seeing a 6 C do you have a c it's 7 c oners 7 I don't even I just have a0 oh my whole thing just changed hold [Music] up I did I updated today when I was here oh yeah no you guys are right okay myad the financials are a six you should like refresh your page because it should be seven it should be seven so you need to refresh are you logged in okay she's good oh [Music] I back on board um 7 C education Pro protection act expenses so this is information only it was reported on at the June meeting and it just once a year report on spending that fund and us it for 1.2 teacher F and so what we6 so you're just required to do a final okay um item number eight hearing persons wishing to address the board sorry [Music] um the public May address the board on any matter pertaining to the school district that is not on the agenda members of the public May sign up requesting to address the board by filling out a request form and turning it into the board president prior to the start of the meeting unless otherwise determined by the board each person is limited to three minutes and 20 minutes per topic if multiple people speak you may also email El Porter basslake sd.org prior to 12:00 p.m.

legal council anticipated litigation government code section 54956.9 um section c uh subsection one sub sorry section D subsection one sub subsection two and conference with real property negotiators government code section 54956 student discipline or other confidential student matters at code section sections 48918 489 9 48912 section B and and 20 USC section 1232g we have conference with labor negotiators government code section 54957.6 we have Public Employee discipline dismissal release complaint government code section 54957 we have public employee performance evaluation government code section 54957 are there any comments on uh public comments on close session items M all right um since there are no public comments we will now adjourn to close session e e e all right welcome everybody uh the ban School Board um Regular meeting of the Board of Trustees will excuse me reconvene to open session now all right we'll start with the U flag salute and trusty himz can you lead us in the flag do today everybody please stand face the flag ready again I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America unto the Republic for stands one nation under God indivisible with liy and Justice and I would request all of you to keep standing uh for just a minute um uh today we pause to remember and honor the lives lost and the heroes emerged from the tragedy of the um that unfolded on this day 23 years ago U sorry it's still makes me a little emotional um today we stand together acknowledging the past while looking forward with hope committed to cherishing each moment and supporting one another in the pursuit of a more compassionate world uh let's observe a moment of silence uh for the victims of 911 thank you thank you so much trusty sorry trusty H can you help us with the district mission statement today of course beresa Union School District provides all students the skills to become lifelong learners and successful 21st century Global Citizens thank you for that and truste Newan can you help us with the Norms of the Board of Trustees yes the bar Union School District partip thank you for that uh I think the mic was off good all right uh disclosure of action taken in closed session Dr FES please a closed session has not been completed we be reconvening after public session all right thank you for the reminder adoption of the agenda may I have a motion to adopt the agenda I move to adopt the agenda is that a second second it's been moved and seconded all those in favor say I hi hi agenda is adopted as presented uh we don't have anything on recognition ceremonial uh public comments and consent calendar agenda items we don't have any uh any questions on consent calendar or if not may I have a motion consent calendar I move to adopt the consent calendar second been moved and seconded all those in favor say I I I consent C is adopted thank you so much there are be here all right all right now we go on to comments from public on nonon non-agenda items all right all right okay uh do we need to rewind this yeah that's good what do we need to yeah you can read yeah so the Pol remind the the public of the policy so at this time members of the public May address the board on any issue within the subject matter jurisdiction of the board that is not listed on this agenda members of the public may also address the board on an agenda item before or during vot's consideration of the item no action can be taken on an item not on not on the agenda at this time but may be referred to the administration or put on future agenda each speaker will be given 3 minutes to address the board and 5 minutes per organization and a maximum of 20 minutes per topic um seeing how we have 11 speakers today um that'll put us over the 20 minute uh limit but um so we will reduce the number of minutes for each speaker to two minutes today uh to um to be respectful of everybody's time uh thank you for your cooperation before I I call the uh first Speaker up I want to read the speaker conduct for today uh for all those who wish to address the board during public comment periods speakers are requested to state your name and your affiliation for the record each speaker will be given three minutes 2 minutes today to address the board 5 minutes per organization and a maximum of 20 minutes per topic speakers are reminded to communicate with respect fairness and courteousness to each other and to all present you are reminded not to use the name of any District employee in your comments the board welcomes orderly communication from the public thank you with that we will first call harran up to the podium please now have to press button to turn on the mic go there hello my name is ha Tran I'm a concerned parent citizen with two kids in Barry ASA Union School District this District I've never been to a school board meeting in this District because usually the school boards here make very good decision so I don't have to be here so this is my first time here I heard from a concerned parent that there is a possibility that two of the best school camon middle school and Ruskin Elementary School at B USD are closing performance should be a heavy weighted factor in determining which school should be closed both of my kids went to sierant middle school i' like to be fair with all schools camont middle school has the best cast test scored standard met and exceeded 60% for Math and 68.7% for English compared to the other two Middle School in our district Ruskin Elementary School is first place in Casper math test scored standard meet met and exceeded 76.5% and second place in Casper English test scor standard met and exceeded 74.8% out of the 10 School in our district first and second place Ruskin Sarah Mon and Ruskin are two high performing School in our district why not choose other schools that have been underperformed in B USD I saw your criteria and it doesn't make sense why diversity is one of the criter ceria all students should be treated equally all ethnicity are welcome to come to any of the school as long as they live in our district we want our school to perform well and produce successful students T please St thank you two minutes thank you so much [Applause] all right next stop uh Miss G is there any way to change that to two minutes or does it ring it two minutes the timer okay next up is gju um up to the podium please thank you uh uh good afternoon dear board members and and thank you so much for your efforts and your time and all your service so my name is jetto uh I am a parent of two students in your District I don't have any other affiliation with conflict interest so first of all I would like to say uh I believe that the whole procedure of this um consolidation evaluation um lacks transparency and actually makes me feel uh discriminated all the communications was conveyed mainly in English put putting the minorities like us as disadvantage I mean even today I'm here to speak English it's not so you know I'm not so fluent English speaker and I know that uh translation was provided but the all the emails were entitled in English and uh the first several paragraphs are all also all in English many no english- speaking families will get lost and does not read until the end of the email to realize that there was a translation service provided so I believe that the previous communication uh really like Anyway at least for my personal experience it Mak me feel like discriminated in this country for the first time and I believe like many other uh know English speaking like using English as the second language families they probably some of them probably do not even know the whole procedure so I I feel like it's um it's it's you know it's it's not not a very good practice and uh secondly to achieve long-term funding syst stability I think we cannot just solely focus on cost-saving measures but should also focus on attracting more families to our district so according to the National Center for um education statistics academic achievement and curriculum Focus rank among the top four factors parents consider when they choosing between schools alongside safety and staff quality so by closing our academically top performing schools we are losing our compet Competitive Edge in attracting Future Families thank you thank you for your [Applause] comment thank you appreciate keeping it at two minutes really appreciate your efforts sir um next um is sharat badage is that correct good evening board members thank you so much for taking the time to hear us today we really appreciate it I have lived in this district for the longest time my daughter goes to uh pedmont high after graduating from Ruskin and Sierra mon I'm a concerned parent who's joining the other parents in support of uh not closing the schools that is Raskin and sieron those are wonderful schools uh my daughter has wonderful uh memories and is um just thriving in the high school only because she went to these two schools uh I am totally unable to understand first of all we were I heard it from another parent there was not much uh information floating around to even understand this came as a big shock to us and then uh one of the reasons given was the budget uh my question to everyone here and the board is uh normally these things when budgets are um you know monies are declining it's over a period of time so there's got to be a heads up like five years down the line these schools will close because we are cutting down on budgets it's never like three months and here the schools are going to close down that's just ironical and speaks volumes in terms of planning in terms of foreing the future uh so with that being said uh I hope that whoever is the decision maker would take these uh things into consideration thank you thank you for your [Applause] comment next up we have gatri pandam good evening members of the board I'm Raskin and Sion parent thank you for your efforts for keeping parents informed through this consolidation process I stand here not just on behalf of the Sierra Mon and druskin parents but on behalf of all the parents from Bud we are united in our efforts to preserve our schools for all the students and Safeguard the educational environment for our children that said we have serious concerns about how data is being used in this process some criteria such as school performance are being underweighted while other factors like reduced enrollment are being overemphasized for example Trum transfers to camont have been denied for the past few years and yet low low enrollment is being used as a rational for potential closure additionally discrepancies in infrastructure in investment across schools skew the data against these schools that have been underfunded for example we've invested $10 million in one school alone in the last year versus in the past 10 years we've invested about 3 to 4 million in a school lexier amount it's the same uh School across our district two different middle schools so this obviously is going to paint certain schools that have been underfunded as at a at a disadvantage and we want to address that um we're being told that no decisions have been made yet while this may be true the data tells a different story the board shows nine out of 10 recommended criteria for evaluation with no clear explanation as to how they have been chosen of these nine criteria Ford paint zont as the lead least attractive School although Raskin and Siara mon haven't been explicitly named the data strongly points towards these schools as targets for closure just as the board has guided us to interpret it we are open to making decisions but we are urging for more transparent process that involves deeper engagement with all the stakeholders before any decisions are made we've detailed our concerns further in a white paper that we circulating today uh we as the parents remain open and hopeful for a more transparent process and engagement with the board thank you thank you for your [Music] comments next up we have Justin [Applause] shaen I hope I said the name correctly it's ch hi my name is Justin shidan thank you all here um for letting me speak um I am also a concern parent of um one current Ruskin student and one soon to be hopefully Ruskin student that's going to stay within bu USD a lot of our other speakers already hit some of the points I want to hit so I want to tell a story right myself my sister my wife and her brother all went to B bu USD schools we're all very successful all graduate students with graduate degrees my wife is a doctor we've all been academically successful successful in our endeavors I myself am a retired Army Captain an aviator a pilot and I came out and I served Civil Service I worked like you guys I worked for the city of San Jose right and I hold that to a very high standard for doing the right thing taking care of our people and taking care of the constituents here that we see here today right and I want my kids to be able to experience I came back here after being in the military I came back to this area to baresa specifically to be able to attend these great schools that we have and give my kids an for them the kind of upbringing I got right and to hear now that that could be impacted that could be taken away from us um to to me is just unfathomable um you know I know there are very tough decisions to make um and and those decisions none of them are going to be easy um I would I would say that as a concerned parent I would not want any of our schools to close I feel like that should be that should be an option almost not even on the table right and um you know we we went through stuff like that stuff like this at the city we I know how this feels and it doesn't it's not a good feeling it's not a good feeling for us either to see our kids going through that our kids are telling us they're scared when we have to tell them what's going on they say don't don't close my school that makes me sad right and you know coming in I see that BD um says it's Pathway to the Future well we we want that pathway to be a brightly lit pathway we want that to be a good pathway um not a pathway where our students have to say I had to switch schools my school got closed thank you thank [Applause] you thank you for your for your comments and more importantly thank you for your service to the country um next up we have um Jessica buus [Applause] hi uh thank you my name is Jessica buos uh thank you for allowing me the opportunity to speak I'm speaking to you today not only as rusin PTA president but also a very concerned parent and Community member I have children in both sierant and Ruskin this is a great impact to us any school consolidation discussion has a profound effect on on us all our children their education and especially their well-being we have longstanding roots in this community my husband just like the gentleman before before me he said we have strong roots in this community my husband his siblings um these are not just schools this is family this is more than just we go to school and go home uh we were Beyond proud we came back as he did we were Beyond proud to have our small children go and attend and have the same opportunities uh also parents will bear the brunt of these decisions as school closures disrupt fam's routines and create Lo logistical challenges I fear what emotional repercussions this will bring to our children we implore that you take careful consideration and look at all aspects at a closer level while we trust that the the board's intentions we believe parents should have more of a say so in the process as no one understands the needs of our children better than we do we owe this to our children and their right for a good education here at berasa Union School District thank you thank you for your comments next up we have uh we have PR I don't have a last name for you sorry hi uh hi good evening all uh thank you for giving me this opportunity to talk to you and uh share our concerns and before I start with the concerns I would like to thank all of you for your service and what you do and we all understand that you have our kids best interest at our heart and you wouldn't take anything that would disrupt their education or their future so with that being said um I am also going to there there have been a lot of points that have already been said and one point that I would like to address is that we as uh few we few parents started a survey in the community to understand how many of us are actually going to be impacted and uh the question that we asked the parents was in case Raskin and Sierra M are proposed and or recommended for closure what would you do and the answer that we got from the community is about more than close to 300 families said that they they would prefer to send their children to a private school and U I'm going to be open here and one of that is me I would prefer to send my kids to a private school because I moved into this uh District I moved into a house which has Raskin camont and pedmont because of the fact that they are very close to each other and it actually gives the children a feeling of K to 12 not K to8 that you see outside that's common but it gives a feeling of K to 12 and when I am late to pick my uh kid who is in Raskin she uh I I ask my older kid who is in Sion to walk there and be uh I mean you know take care of my younger one or right now she is a graduate and she is now moved on to pedmont Hills I still do the same thing I ask her to go when she has an early dismission goes wait for her until I can come and pick up where would you get this please do not close our schools it is it is not it is not fair on the children because it it's it is it's a community it's a family you see the support that we have thank you for the opportunity thank you for your comments next up is rajes [Applause] rajes respected board thank you for this opportunity um and I thank you for for your Relentless effort for our kids let me start with the uh I I know we've gone through the mission of the board it states that the board wants all students to impart necessary skills to reach high levels of academic achievement respect self and others and becoming lifelong Learners unfortunately the consolidation committee whatever data points that they have taken whatever weighted weightage that they given it's contradicting this Mission so how come a consolidation committee which is contradicting the mission of the board be able to articulate the right decision and and I know data doesn't prove wrong data can be used for making decisions but if the data is unbiased if the data is not skewed if the data is fair and correct and complete only then good decisions can be made the current the consolidation committee's data has lot of pitfalls I'm not questioning on the validity of the data I'm questioning on the weightage for the data some of the schools it appears that schools were targeted and the criterias where the schools are excelling they weren't considered or they were downgraded with lower weightage right so as regard to um uh the request I would put forth to the respected board is that decisions should not be ba based on such biased and skewed dat data the as regard to transparency as a parent I am aware of the consolidation activity but I'm when I walk through the neighborhood there are a lot of future parents who are completely unaware of it these are public schools and everybody in berasa has rights to know their schools what is happening into their schools but unfortunately the consolidation committee is not being transparent and involving any any every member of the basa community so people are surprised shocked to know about it a small statistics that we took in the last okay thanks thanks thank you thank you for your thank you for your comments uh there the next up we have um K Yan I hope I said your name right perfect okay uh thank you for giving me this opportunity to express my concern uh other parents uh and my name is k cayen a parent of rasing and S amount students and other um parents has already emphasized so uh the consequence of closing uh top top performing schools so it's unpredictable right we may end up losing money instead of saving money and I think uh too much efor effort uh put into closing a school but little effort has been put to increase the enrollment and if you pay close attention to those data right if you compare 2022 2023 data the enrollment actually increased a little bit so I think we should put more effort on how to increase enrollment there are some very simple policy change could make it uh I propose we could we have excellent schools in our district are very desirable to parents I friends they told me if I can go to your school I won't spend money on private school so I would suggest we open enrollment for those desirable schools I'm sure we can attract more people back to Public Schools right I um I also recommended to do another districtwide survey and to say uh parents preference right we we I I know we did a survey before but that was done before all the members here um have didn't fully understand what was going on here right that was done a week ago but most of us know about the detail during this week so we can do another schoolwide DEC uh survey and add the option of open enrollment which school you prefer um so uh we can make a better decision when consider if we have to right if we have to close school we can make a better decision which school to be closed okay uh of course focusing on uh the quality of Education canot that's sorry thank you so much for your thank you for your comments next is next is yenen is it Yen Yen [Music] when did they leave or okay just put that aside for now all right next one is B new one [Applause] um hello um my name is benting win and thank you for giving me the opportunity to stand here and speak to um all of you today and uh to be honest a lot of the points have been um you know voiced by previous parents I just wanted to um address that you know I was not really fully uh understood like you know the possibility of closing seeing Sion and Ruskin until very recently um a lot of the communications sometimes being sent um multiple times or you know or being overlooked but you know I didn't really quite understand like fully you know understood why the decision was being made against like Sion and Ruskin and uh to my knowledge I both of my kids have attended Ruskin and Sion and they are wonderful schools so I'm just standing here and just um really have the hold you know wishing that um the board the members can you know take like more careful considerations and you know this is like the pathway for children's future and closing schools I don't believe is the way to go so thank you thank you for your comments the final speaker for tonight is um Anita Chen [Music] good evening I'd first like to thank the board members for your commitment and dedication to this community I listened to your mission statement as it was read and your commitment to these students and in particular the words to act in the best interests of students at all times stood out to me I've served as an educator in this area for the last decade and hundreds of students that I've personally taught came from the beresta Union School District and they tell me that they are proud to be a part of Ruskin they are proud to be a part of sermont the band the science lab but last year was the first time that I heard in my students voice fear worry and despair when he spoke about how camont was closing why I asked him budget cuts his face fell and I could see the sorrow in his face and I see that same sorrow reflected in so many of the parents students and community members here today I know that budget cuts are a financial reality that sacrifices need to be made but in acting in the best interests of students at all times perhaps as already recommended today the school's close should not be the best performing schools but that rather we should invite others to join in the academic Excellence of seront and Ruskin especially when the survey has already demonstrated that a closure of these two schools would further decrease student enrollment worsening the problem I'd like to use the rest of my time for you to take a snapshot of the faces that are represented here students parents community members alumni students that are hopeful to be ruscin and cod students these are the faces of those you represent you are their voice so I hope that you would hear their concerns today represent them well and uphold your duty and commitment to act in their best interests thank you thank you for your comments one last call for Yen Yen when in case she's still there you Yen oh okay sorry maybe I didn't say your name correctly I apologize oh so um my name is Yen so I just heard the news that the my daughter school is getting closed um like in a couple months and U I have two kids went to uh seron my second one just transferred from rkin to seron she keep coming home and like you know what they she she cannot focus doing homework what she do is you know what Mom wears the petition so I can send it to like everyone I know that they can sign a petition to to save the school and it make her very worryed but I'm seeing like Ruskin I have my friends in a different location they bought a h in that location just for their kids to go RK in camon and pitmon and I don't know why that uh the decision they make like close and do um school so my wish is like hopefully that you um I know that you got present for us and then take care of our kids so hopefully that you can make the right decision and safe School make our kids to be more successful um and less warri it and focus more on the education thank you thank you for those [Music] comments those are all the public comments uh for tonight thank you thank you for all of your cooperation uh we'll resume our regular um you turn off the I think there's a feedback come that thank you K thank you so much Miss GES um all right uh next item on the agenda under Section 10 item a 2024 summer school programs report Dr ftis please this evening the Education Services team will present and answer any questions from the board regarding the 2024 summer school programs um introduce assistant superintendent Dr uh Joseph mccre to share um we have some a special summer co-principals that did some hard work this Summer that are going to share a little bit about what was offered to our students all right thank you tonight we have Corey Hernandez and Jessica Middleton they'll be uh representing the Summer School principles and they'll be presenting our PowerPoint tonight we also have Marissa Ry as a third administrator and she's unable to join us tonight but we'll also thank her for all of her hard work too so I'm going to go ahead and hand it off to miss Corey and Miss Middleton thank you board this up a little bit okay see so this is the report for our summer school um from bu USD summer school for 2024 and this year we had three principles in it and we had Jessica Middleton was at Lan View Elementary um m so and Mora she changed her last name she was at Morel middle and then myself was at uh Northwood Elementary and we also had in addition a seal coach at uh Sarah thisaway and she was at Northwood with us I'm gonna hand it over to Jessica youres yeah sure so for the oh I guess I should stay I'm using project my teacher voice just talking without a microphone um at uh esy summer school was at um l this year and the curriculum that we used was V math and Voyager passport for language arts um this year we had 156 students that were served um esy students that were served at Lane view there were 15 teachers that includes the elementary school and the um Morel middle school so elementary and middle there was 36 Paras and the students were provided with speech adaptive PE and occupational therapy services and just a picture of one of our assemblies that we had um this is just a picture of the kids using the curriculum that we had um as you can see they seem to be having a pretty good time there um you know I love to cut with scissors and all that fun stuff so they enjoyed uh doing the activities with the curriculum um this was a mark Corpus field day it was our second annual Mark Corpus field day uh at l view we had he was a longtime District employee um he was the librarian at pedmont middle when I was a student there in the late 80s early '90s so um I remember him you know from those days and he was really he was at my site Majestic for many years and um he really served the students of our community and his family came to the field day and they really appreciated us remembering him and all he's done for the students in our district so it was really great to have them come out and have the students um celebrate him in that way um this was one of my favorite days at school um our little friend Francis here in the in the bus driver's seat he loved the school buses to degree that I mean I you know that childhood wonder that kids have um and I felt bad for him because his parents dropped him off and picked him up every day so he didn't even get to ride the school bus but every morning he would run out there and greet the bus drivers and wave at them and um one of the bus drivers who was retiring like one of the days she said she arranged with his teacher that she would interview Francis for the new bus driver position and she let him get on like every day when they would drive away he'd be like remember to honk the horn you know beep beep and remember to do the wipers so she let him get on the bus and honk the horn and do the wipers and they made that little suit for him like it was just so cute like his smile and he was so happy um that day and then his class came out and they all got to sit on the bus and he got to order them around so he just he was on cloud n with that whole scenario so I just thought it was pretty amazing that um that bus driver took time out of her day to come and just make him so happy um that was really amazing to see and with that said also um I have never done the special education principal job before this my first year um and I was really amazed just at how supportive and just talented people that work with the special education department um the Paris the teachers the school secretaries every was so welcoming and super helpful and the kids were great it was just something lovely for me to see step out of my agenda backgrounded to step into this world was very eye openening and I really enjoyed it so thank you for that think that's all I have okay so now I'll move on to the um eel Summer School portion and this was done in conjunction with um we had several programs going on at one time we had U English language development at Northwood and Morel and then we also had Elevate math which was with the Silicon Valley Ed foundation and we did the summerbridge to seal uh summerbridge program at Northwood as well but we also had a partnership with YMCA and that was I have to say that was one of the better Partnerships that we had uh we've had um it was not only helpful for the students but as well for the teachers the teachers had teacher aids in their classrooms and the good part too was those same AIDS were with those students in the after school program so there was a connection built and so it was very very good even at um Morel we used the advid El program and Elevate math was there as well uh CSI and they also had esy at Morel too and YMCA did provide teacher aids to the uh four Morel uh teachers that were there for English language development so this year we made a different uh change to our program instead of it being four weeks we had three weeks this year and um we did the summerbridge program predominantly at Northwood and this was I have to say we have to give um appreciation to Jennifer D who was also very instrumental in the establishing of the summer school summer bridge program and so she provided the professional developments for them and was very instrumental as we built the programs together so they had three themes that the students worked under and one was from tkk and it was insects and then for our middle uh first in first through 2 they had ocean and then for our older grades we had paleontology so this was some very interesting uh handson because we wanted the them was learning is fun that was their main objective so here's our TK first I'm sorry and in the classrooms we like you said learning is fun that was the main objective we show uh Sarah Sarah this way and doing a read aloud and she is demonstrating modeling how we provide engagement for our students so she's not just reading a story doing a readal out she's part of the story she is a ladybug and and the story she was reading was the um I think the I don't know if that was I can't remember what story she was reading but that was the stor of the students you can see they're very engaged and then we have them doing a narrative retail on the bottom there and this is after the student story has been read with them gone over with them then the students are able to do it demonstrate that understanding of that story on their own and then Hands-On learning with manipulatives and we have a bug hunt going on there so in our second to third this was ocean and first this was like I said learning is fun and uh learning was handson so we had uh they were talking about the ocean so we had to talk about crabs in octopus and so I went and got them an octopus and you they were very very engaged in it and they some were you know like this but it's nice you know they were but it was cute and they were able to take the information that they learned from their drawn labels and all the breedings that they did and actually see an actual octopus in in real life same with the crabs they learned about the coconut crab and again we we couldn't find the coconut crab for them but we provided three different types of crabs and those we could not let them touch though because they were actually alive the octopus was not alive so but they had so much fun and actually every grade level came through to see both of those demonstrations so it was really good then our third through fourth they did paleontology and this was for older uh kids our older Elementary and these pictures don't do justice to the amount of collaboration that was going on in those classrooms um they were in it um they were paleontologists they had they were doing their digging for fossils and they were doing their um they talked about the three eras and they had to make the three errors on the for the ground so the question was I'm if I'm not mistaken it was how does learning about uh fossils help us learn about where we are now and so they went through that whole thing and one of the things they did too was the barrier games which you can see on the side there and then we also had a gallery walk which the parents came in and were able to see the students and the students were able to teach the parents what they had learned so it was very engaging and parents were just like you did that and they're like yes and they can tell they can go over the drawn label and tell them exactly what they learned about this period of time oh I'm pushing the wrong button sorry I think I might have turned it off okay then at Morel I said we had the El and we used AVID for this one this was the first year we used AVID for an El program and the teachers were very engrossed with that it was a different learning platform for them for we've used Abid but not as the E portion and so we had that throughout and the teacher doing that the four El teachers that we had there and so they were very much into it it was actually a very Hands-On as well it wasn't a reading from a book they were engaged and learning practicing that academic language right there in the classroom and then for um Northwood and Lane view we had our zoom zoom assembly which we kind of tried to put in there and that's just the day of the kids with it's with a watershed and they come in and he comes out and he's saying and they do involvement the kids are involved because they they get to get up they dance there's movement and they enjoy it very much so so that was a good experience for both uh sites Anna said with the Silicon Valley Ed Foundation they had Elevate math and we had the Elevate math and the CSI program at Morel and both both programs were successful in both areas and so we end with about 181 math and CSI students and total of eight teachers there so that was good so what does it all say in a nutshell we're getting better so last year we served 901 students and this year we were able to serve about 1,200 students and so that's a big Improvement and we also um we provided breakfast and lunch for students as well as well as um those students as well as the community at Lan I'm sorry at Northwood and like I said the YMCA provided that in-class support and the after care report support so thank you very good very good thank you for that presentation any comments uh comments uh from questions from the board on this topic no questions I don't have any questions but thank you for all of this it's wonderful I wonderful are the students how are the students selected to uh how are the students uh that attend uh private school how are they invited oh so we send out uh we take all of our uh English language Learners that we have in our district and we go through and we send out an invite to all of those students and it's just depends on if they respond to the invite or not and it is done through email I will have to say that um one of our uh success Scholars that we have uh she attended summer school this summer and I didn't get to record her because I was just blown away with what she was doing but she went from being in the class and when you ask her something she would just point and then but when she was in summerbridge she was asking questions she was telling you things she was reading she was doing all kinds of things so it's just that environment promoting the environment for them so that works so yeah we just and I really worked with her to get her into uh summer school because you know summer school you know the kids don't want to go you know but we saying this is but we see the benefits of it so yeah thank you very good you want to go ahead and sit I just uh ladies before you go I just we're not done with our comments yet for you I just wanted to um just personally thank them and the whole team you know that supported you also in this process um but definitely just like observing your presentation there was a lot of added Hands-On engaged learning for students that we saw this summer um different from the past and I appreciate your feedback in all of the programs and sharing how um uh engaged the kids were but also the collaboration amongst the staff to be able to support all of those learning because I know you know the Hands-On activities are definitely much more exciting for the children but it's also more work and preparation for the staff to be able to create that learning environment for them and so and to knock it out in three weeks you know the full units and everything and and bring the parents in to get to observe you know what the students were able to learn new during that time frame so I just really want to extend you know our thanks and also trusty hean is going back to your question um this uh the expansion of our summer school that we've been able to do each year has been um part of the expanded learning opportunities program um that the state has provided as targeted support for identified students that have you know High needs for for these experiences during summer school so we're really glad to be able to utilize those resources so thank you can I speak to that sure thing um one of the things also under the summer bridge program that allows the teachers to co- te so there's more involvement and when you say the collaboration is going on so teachers are able to um practice their skills while you know while they're teaching and so that's a very encouraging environment for them and we've had uh non sale teachers say that they you know it was the best year of teaching that they have done in summer school so I was really pleased with that too that's that's a good point I mean that kind of reminded me of uh something um you said earlier uh I I missed that with the bus right with the kid in the bus I mean so I spoke about I don't remember in which event one of the events is the collaboration between all of our part ERS not just classroom teachers but you know all of our support staff mot and everybody you know everybody uh has a responsibility in teaching some way or some some form or it doesn't have the English or math or history or anything like that life skills anything like that so that that was brilliant that was just amazing I'm really impressed and you know uh really want to thank the uh the person to for making it happen for because it might be very insignificant very small but it's it's matters to that kid and you know so it is I I would imagine me I jealous kind of jealous I never got a chance but no it's it's h it's so so it goes back to you know being collaborative you know everybody U must be involved in the success of our students so this is a great example of that and thank you for all the efforts for sure thank you thank you wonderful all right uh next on the report and presentations we have 2024 mot summer activities report Dr fentis yes um at this time I'd like to introduce uh Dan Norris our director of MOT uh as you talked about the collaboration and all the efforts that happen over the summer uh he'll be sharing uh how all the different things his team did and how they worked together to be able to get us ready for the launch of the new school year and joining him is also Marla our assistant director well good evening everybody um every September I get the pleasure of kind of showcasing what theot department has done over the summer this year as Dr fantes has stated that we are bringing Marla saata our assistant director of MOT up so she can kind of report out on a couple of the Departments that she overseas um so and also with the summer U project report as you can see I kind of summered it up a little bit uh so here's our mot family I I thought it would be cool this year to have everybody take a selfie let me tell you this was no easy task okay I got modeling pictures I got unbelievable pictures but that's our mot family we all put them together I'm actually in there somewhere find Waldo if you can um but that's that's our family and I would say that 99% of the people are actually smiling in those pictures as well so maintenance one of our big projects that we completed this year um over the summer and mind you that summer has gotten shorter so Vincy Park our Vincy Park siding rehab project it was very necessary we have some time between the bond Department was going to kick in and do a whole project where we're going to replace the siding and and uh the stuckle so our one of our Carpenters Keith is sitting there right there um kind of just like wow he's overwhelmed um but the end the end goal the end project that it came out amazing um it almost looks brand new as as good for for lack of better words Paul DET if you could but uh that was one of the big projects that we had over this summer um another thing different I wanted to kind of show you and and and showcase is a couple of the trades that don't get quite the recognition that they they deserve so here's Mr Ralph Heria he's our locksmith and it says it right there these all lock sets the district give or take 1378 door locks that's in our district so not only that not only that you can see the door locks there but all the keys through throughout the district so there are hundreds hundreds of different key schedules so each Ridge on your key has a number and every door is different so he is The Mastermind behind that um and during the summertime he goes through and services does do does some um um maintenance preventative maintenance is the I'm spit out there to make sure that they're they the locks are working um for the year to come another trade that doesn't get a lot of recognition is our our plumbering trade and this is Mr Santos Perez and he does an amazing job of keeping our sewer systems flowing so here is a picture of him over at Majestic Way um he had to go pretty deep there was a pretty big clog over there and uh as you could see he had to pull the toilet Off the Wall um a lot of times we get some crazy clogs in our sewers we've pulled out a couple years ago was a it was a full hoodie and the lines are only you know three inches so how that happened Beyond me yeah he loves what he does so another thing we concentrated over the summertime was Safety and Security of course so this year um working with uh IC for schools we are starting the reunification training part of our safety drills where if we have a a major catastrophe to have parents come to pick up their children it's as easy as communication between uh teachers and and office staff saying okay children are able to be picked up at a certain gate number so all of our gates have been labeled inside and out um throughout the whole District now so and that's for egress entry and egress um also boundary lines so boundary lines kind of came up when in Middle Schools when kids started undering where other because typically sixth grade is lunch is different from Seventh and eth so we wanted to prevent those sixth graders or seventh and eighth graders from kind of going in spots where they're still teaching and kind of interferes with the the teaching process so um this is actually an elementary school with the red line and and Maya that's Brook tree Maya could tell you that during certain times you can't cross that line going to the playground or you can't enter re-enter the um the uh lunch table area with that said here's our grounds team um this is also at Vincy park there was a lot of lot of work at viny Park this summer um but to highlight the ground teams in action um we have uh our irrigation Tech up at the top right hand corner he's about to dig a sprinkler up to replace the head uh Mr Rios is is weed whacking around a fence and then the rest of the gentlemen are either trimming Hedges or loading the dump truck so with that said our grounds team I have to throw a big uh out of boy to all of them because this year I was able to take a vacation and uh our grounds Team without any any supervision went through our district and just kick butt um and it was even Kevin Franklin even mentioned that it looked very good compared to Prior prior years so a big out aoy to our grounds team next slide is our mower operator I hope this works it should work and there we go so we got him in action this is Mr Connor Wilson he absolutely loves his job he's making this corner right here he'll the thumbs up he's making his turn he's running all over this but that's okay uh but uh yeah we're getting that our uh cut next slide is our transportation department Mar to take over for that okay good even um I want to talk about our transportation department I really want to commend um our team that we have uh we've gone through a lot of transitions you know we had um our dispatcher that retired and um trainer that left they were both uh tenear um transportation you know department members and you know there was um a lot of you know different movement and they really adapted and adjusted to um to the routes and they also assisted with custodial and one of our custodial team members um I'm sorry one of our bus drivers liked working with our custodial team so much she applied for uh custodial um SL buus driver um and we serviced during the summer about we had six routes and we transported 72 students during the summer next slide and this is our custodial team in action um my gosh our team I'm s I'm really proud of them we did something different this year we usually have a schedule for them uh but we took a different approach and we talked to them and asked them what they wanted to how they wanted the schedule to um to look like and what their needs were for the site and it definitely showed a lot of leadership um we had custodians that got training from tenard custodians as well on equipment so it was just great seeing them work together and um another thing that I do want to say this is our third year with Team Cleaning and we were able to finish all of the sites what was it two weeks ahead of time two weeks ahead of time yeah so I'll say that I thought I set that bar pretty high year Mara again for the second row has exceeded that expectation and this is our team that we had clean our district office they wanted to take this picture because they felt really proud um to be here and to clean the new district office so this is them and and Dan actually took the picture yeah you could see the smiles on their face they were they were like excited they they felt that they were picked just to clean this district office and that made them very proud so I'll take this one so board members and Dr Joe this year for you the guys that didn't show up to our barbecue you really missed out I mean it has gone from mediocre to world famous um every year we put on a a thank you to our our guys and girls um as a just a thank you for all the hard work that they do over the summer and throughout the year we do a couple barbecues a year I enjoy it I take pride in it I do all the cooking I can tell you that this year I did brisket for the first time I got special briskets and it was an all night I smoked the briskets it was an all night cook um and it it just makes me feel better feel good about the whole thing um and this year we wiped out three briskets I think there was one piece left so next year we'll do four um and I heard for a few days after how did you cook that what was the recipe did you I it was great and I eat that stuff up because I love it right so Mara will take the last one or we both will so we thank all of our our teamsters and and uh they work hard for us and and this last slide kind of significat a lot of a lot of things so we have good friends we have husband and wife we have father and son and not only that we have the Filipino Mafia okay they that crew up there on the right hand side they they like to go by the Filipino Mafia and that's what drives them over this over the summer they they they get together they love working together and they attack those V VCT flooring floors like no nobody's business um but again we have grounds crew and and more custodians so all getting along thank you any questions very well done any questions comments from the board at this time thank you so much for that all right thanks for the presentation uh next up we have Casp Casp State Testing update Dr FES yes at this time I'd like to invite Dr mccre um for Educational Services will present the 232 California assessment student performance and progress the cast assessments for our students in grades 3 through 8 all right so here we have our agenda for um tonight's presentation we'll go over the esack timeline we'll review the English language arts results and then we'll have some time to take uh the math results if you have any comments questions uh wonderings and then we'll wrap it up with some next steps so um as Dr fentz mentioned uh our third through e8th graders take the S back in April and May um there's two parts for the majority of our students and that's the English language arts and the math uh sections all of our third through e8th grade students participate in those uh testing Windows uh for our fifth and eighth graders they also take a science component so they take three sections of uh espc testing and of course Corey talked about our English language Learners we do have newcomers who have arrived uh in California less than 12 months they do not take the S back so we do have a handful of students that do not participate so overall and um we heard from some of our visitors tonight that they looked up our overall test scores and specifically for English language arts you can see this is uh part of our uh dashboard that we revieww on a yearly basis and so you can see that 2,441 students took the um esac Ela section of the tests and 64% of our students scored either at or above meeting standards so it's broken up into four um components so you have the level four the level three which are at Matt excuse me or met or achieving standards and then we have the level level one level two is approaching standard and level one is below standard and you can see specifically standard not met excuse me you can see that 35% of our students scored a level four about 30% scored at a level three 177% at level two and 19% at level one and you can see also in the middle between the 64% and the 36% there's a little descriptor that's called the average distance from level three so that basically tells us from um the whole school district that them um if you look at all of our students they score 28 points above level three when you average all the numbers together um I then breaks it down by schools and you can see the English language arts performance and number of students tested the average um distance from standard and then how what our percentages are for each school meeting standard or not meeting standard and then the breakdown of the four different levels and um this also includes the middle schools that are mixed in there as well you can see that they're just ranked alphabetically and then once again there are schools that are performing above standards so you'll see for example Majestic Way 43 points above standard Northwood 47 um points above standard um 61 for rusin Sierra mon 45 above and then some schools that do need a little more support and that's a lane View Elementary uh two below standard and Toyon Elementary Street excuse me toon Elementary School at 44 points below standard and then we break it up into student subgroups and look specifically at our students are doing uh based on their um ethnicity and so you can see here the levels for our um student subgroups for example African-American students uh the number underneath the 23 24 school year says how many students are in that student group so you'll see for example 50 students in the African-American student group and their level with English language arses of two um next door to that you'll see our American Indian alas Nat there's only five students so that actually count subgroup when we're looking at overall data um our highest number students is our Asian population uh with almost uh with over 1,969 students performing at a level 3.2 and if we go all the way to the my right you'll see it's also broken up by socioeconomically disadvantaged students so those are students who qualify for free and reduced lunch our English Learners and then also our students with disabilities so you'll see those um student groups are definitely uh underperforming um when um you're looking at our Asian students our white students in two or more races this also reviews the levels of each of our student subgroups so you'll see um actually this really gives you an opportunity to look at how many of our students are at the blue which is the highest level and the red which is the lowest level and this is where um our principles and our um ed services uh staff really focus in on how can we close the gap for those students that are in that uh red category and how we we can move them along into um the other categories within uh the student subgroups and you'll also see here um specifically our Hispanic and Latino students that red bar is pretty high at 41% next door to that is our native Hawaiian Pacific Islander Group which is at 57% and then all the way to the right as well our socioeconomically disadvantaged students 45% English Learners 54 students with disability 64% so once again um this is kind of like our Focus area how do we support those students that are performing far below and also how do we potentially meet um the needs of the students that are at standard nearly met so some of those students that are really on the cusp of making standard and really focusing in on supporting some of those students during the school day and having them be our success Scholars and how can we support them moving forward and then overall we look at our data from the previous year and compare it to this past school year and overall data we are maintaining the same percentages um 64% uh standard Mets or above and 36% standard not Mets and you can see the percentages there as well all right and we're going to go ahead and move on to our math performance where you'll see 55% of our students are at or above and 45% of our students are below average standard nearly meants and once again um here the average distance from standard level three is only seven points above standard and the number of students who took this test is 300 excuse me 3,876 students uh same information here specifically for math how it's broken up by uh the number of students tested and then the different levels and the distance level the average distance from standard and then the percentages so once again um there's some Focus area of schools and this is specifically with math so there's definitely uh more Focus this upcoming school year or this current school year to support our math instruction because that's definitely an area of focus as you can see by the test scores um then we have some schools that do really well in math and once again how we um can learn from each other as far as collaboration between schools okay once again this is also giving you the big picture of how our students are doing with um within our subgroups and once again our Asian students are doing really well with math our Hispanic Latino students our native Hawaiian African-American students are also in needs of some support and once again uh the off to the right hand side you have the socioeconomically dis Advantage students English Learners and students with disability which are also Focus areas for this current school year and broken up also here you'll see in my opinion even more students in the red and um a big Focus like I just mentioned is just really understanding our student assessments for this upcoming school year and then what to do and how to support the students during the school year and during the school day specifically with math and our overall comparison once again exactly the same 55% and 45% and even the average distance level from level three is plus seven so almost exactly the same scores from two years in a row so once again our next steps here our principles are reviewing the espc data with staff members at some of our initial staff meetings um we just adopted some new assessments for English language arts and math to help support our teachers on tracking their progress and then also giving them some uh assessments to look at along the way uh this past week our principls participated in our first um professional development training with Silicon Valley math initiative and then today was our first uh focused professional development with all of our Middle School Math teachers getting training and how to support our students specifically with our math curriculum but also understanding the new math framework and how that works and how they can potentially um use some of those ideas to support some of our students that need that extra help um all of these new assessments are aligned under the big umbrella that we purchased um through Renaissance so all of the data that we're going to be uh assessing the students with um INF or filters in through our uh new platform which is called um which is within our Renaissance platform edge of climber and so all of the data specifically are at the teachers and the principal's fingertips uh we have a professional development day a week from today and a big portion of that day is training all of our teachers on these new assessments and once again um Miss Corey talked about it we have a lot of great Partnerships with our Ela and math folks svef being one of them and a lot of interventions are being held at the schools probably not yet but I would say within the next couple of weeks those would start getting um started and so that's kind of like our big overview of our espc scores um and our next steps any questions any questions comments on the board on this presentation quick comment and question thank you so much for the presentation it's always good to look at how our kiddos are doing and I also always appreciate you know the targeted approach that we have for our students who may be falling behind and so I always appreciate that I just want to quickly ask um just for folks who are unaware like why isn't the Asian category disaggregated among different ethnicities it's just Asian so this is all um when students register in our system so they have to mark specifically their um ethnicity and so this just one category it's not broken up into the multiple categories and you'll also notice and we notice all the time some parents Mark the wrong category um and that also happens too so it's up to really our clerks and our school secretaries to make sure that the parents are understanding what they're marking because another portion of marking that registration when they first enroll is marking if they're English language Learners or not and so some of our parents are not understanding that they'll get extra support if they Mark that their students are English Learners and just like Miss coret said they get invited for summer school and other opportunities so it's really important to really understand the um different ethnicities within our enrollment process and that's how that is we don't really have control over that any other questions from the board so for thank you for the presentation quick question with the for the students with the with disability U are those um disability like special needs or yes so those are students that have IEPs could be for speech it could be for um specific learning disabilities and uh some of the other um opportunities that they have is within the testing platform they have speech to text so there's different modifications that the students can have specifically um based on their disability and they can have it at a in a smaller group because usually they have it with their classmates so they could be pulled out in a smaller group with their RSP teacher and maybe you know two or three kids are being tested at a time instead of all 30 so specifically it's written into their IEP the different supports they may have during testing so is there I did notice the um I mean our school with the highest number of um students in with with special needs um is slightly lower on the on the performance charge so so uh are we are we missing any kind of support system from the county or the state or is there something that we can so you'll see at some of the school sites specifically Lane view brooktree morill those are our three schools that I can name right at the top that have the majority of our programs we have Noble we have rusin has a a small group too so so even based on that information you'll see that their scores potentially are a little lower because those tests also have to be given to the students with disabilities however there's a different test depending on their level of um uh disability so it might not be the C well the C was the big umbrella ASAC is for our general ed students and students who have minor learning disabilities there's also the C it's a more one-on-one test for some of our students who have uh more severe disabilities and so those are given to the students who are in our moderate severe classes and potentially our autism classes and those are um specifically given one-on-one from the teacher with the teacher and the student sitting down and doing those tests so we have to make sure that we have to follow exactly what's in their IEP and all the different specific things that they are outlined there and that also helps support or what kind of tests they're given okay thank you for that any other questions or comments all right thank you for the presentation Dr mcui um moving along where was I yes um item D is everyday counts in BD Dr fenus yes thank you um this presentation is at the request of the board for follow-up information regarding our um attendance and so I'd like to introduce uh Mr Tom Carroll our coordinator for student services good evening and thank you for having me um as Dr Fuentes stated there was a request for some information about what we're doing to address attendance in our district and so that's the purpose for the presentation this evening so we'll be going over the importance of daily attendance the financial impacts of daily attendance what we're doing as a district to address absenteeism also just um inform you about what our treny process looks like our kind of reinvigorated uh partnership with the district attorney and then how our families can also support attendance within our schools so just at first uh a couple facts you know to for everyone to know and that's attendance habits start early um within our district our earliest grades are the grade like basically K1 and two is where we see the highest rates of absenteeism and so it's important for everyone to know that starting you know in kindergarten preschool TK that's where those habits are being formed and when students are not coming to school regularly in those grade levels it does create or it does present um a chance for them to fall behind and not graduate high school so students who are chronically absent um um are students who Miss 10% or more of the school year um by missing that much school also it makes it harder for them to stay up to date with their homework just and uh they could potentially fall behind even if students just miss a couple days a week or or a couple days a month it can impact how the students are performing within their subjects and one other thing too is being late to school each day can also start the development of what becomes chronic absenteeism so this chart here just kind of shows what the overall impact um of just missing even a handful of days each year can do and it's really interesting when we're having our our star meetings how many times the parent will say well my child doesn't miss that often and we look and well they've missed 20 days a year but as a parent it doesn't seem like they've missed that much because it's spread out so sporadically but those days really do add up um you know student who does Miss 20 days a year basically will end up by the time they're getting to their senior year in high school will have missed almost a year and a half of school um and then the more that they miss just the rates go up from there all right and then Josh is going to update us on the financial impacts of daily attendance good evening good evening so attendance is extremely important academically um but it's also important financially and for our students in the 2024 25 school year um they one student who misses zero school would generate a little under $112,000 that equates to about $66 per day so you can imagine if a student misses five days we're missing out on $329 if they are out 10 days we're missing out on $660 that they're generating um it's important to note that in 2000 um pre pre pandemic 2019 um we had an ADA average about 97.2% um currently in 20324 we had uh Ada percentage of 94.4% so if we did a recalculation of the 2023 24 school year at a 97% average daily attendance we would have gained $ 1.9 million so you can see that it really adds up at the end of the day um also as far as intend this concerned excused and unexcused absences are all treated exactly the same so if you do not attend school and I know some parents think that oh if it's excused we still receive funding so that's incorrect we receive no funding for them coming however I know on the previous slide they said that tardiness can lead to Chronic absenteeism as long as a student comes to school at any time throughout the day we receive a full day of funding so they don't break up saying oh you only came for an hour you get a certain percentage that's the makeup of how um we're missing out I guess on actual funding so with that I want to provide you with what it is that we're doing in our district to address attendance um many of these things are relatively new um because of what we're facing with our overall attendance rates but the first one is our community Liaisons so about halfway through last year we started hiring Community lisons all of our lisons work some other type of position within the district whether it be an LMT a clerk um Health Clerk and then they'll take on one hour a day as a community lays on and the purpose is for them to build positive contacts between the home and school really targeting our students who are missing the most amount of days building relationships and strengthening trust with those families and and the students directly as I've mentioned in a previous update also we're um full steam ahead with implementing PBIS within our schools 10 of our school sites have gone through tier one training and are currently implementing PBIS uh three schools are going to start their tier one training this year um and that's really just to build systems and structures around creating safe and inclusive schools making sure that expectations are known but when our students are feeling good and safe at school they're more likely to attend so and thanks to Dr Fuentes she shared an idea about um creating positive postcards and so we we created these little postcards that basically said you know we miss you we want to see you come back we've handed them out to all the school sites and that you know either the principal or the classmates the teacher can just write a little note to the family or to the student and send it home um just has another layer of of support and actually I was at seront the other yesterday and their Community lays on said hey um these two kids they've missed seven days of school but on Friday I sent them one of the postcards and they've been here every day this week and I was like oh all right you know and so thought that was pretty neat but and then the other thing is positive uh School messaging so we have a beginning of the year letter that our principls kind of tweak to fit you know their school letter head and their population but just again welcoming everyone back reminding everyone of the importance of attendance um and then School newsletters and then actually it's been great I get all the updates from parents Square now that we're using it so every time a school sends it out I can see that they they've sent it I say every school so far has included some bit about attendance within their their schoolwide newsletters as well as the district newsletters and social media postings some of the other things that we're doing are we have incentives within the school sites so whether it be tickets class challenges various prizes um you know positive recognition the schools are providing incentives in fact Miss Nunes from Vincy Park um sent me a picture of her big attendance uh challenge that she's doing with her students and the grade level that has the best attendance for the wins like I think it's extra time at lunch or a pizza party or something and I believe last month it was their fifth graders yeah fifth graders that got it so um home visits is something else that we're we're focusing on and it's not your traditional home visit where you just show up and knock on the door and you know surprise the family with your visit all of our clerks I'm sorry our school social workers Community lisons School psychologists and side administrators have been trained on positive home visits and we did this to the Santa Clara uh County Office of Education and really it focuses on really calling the family setting up a time for us to go to the home and try to um just posibly engage with the families in in a setting that they're comfortable in um and I'd say that I think every School site has done at least one home visit this year already so we also we do have our school social workers we've got each middle school has one full-time School social worker or elementaries all split a school social worker they really are um play a tremendous role in encouraging attendance um I'll talk about our School attendance review teams here I think on the next slide but they all are a part of that truy process trying to make those meetings less punitive and more restorative and and encouraging this the students and families to come up with strategies on how they can get to school we have a school Link services coordinator so she's actually an an additional School social worker um who we are able to fund her through a grant that we got through sanant Clair County Behavioral Health and she's based out of pedmont middle school but does support the entire district and her main function is contact uh I'm sorry connecting students and families with the various outside agencies that we have available so anytime we have students that come up across the district who might need additional resources that we can't get they'll come contact Maggie Maggie can get them connected with one of the various um Community Based resources that we have in the district and then lastly we have care Solace referrals still too so oftentimes when we have our attendance meetings with families things will come up like my child's anxious um you know my child has you know various mental health concerns and so we are still Contracting with kosis to put in those referrals when necessary so we've updated our treny process so I I'll get to the DA partnership here in a few minutes but um in speaking with the da she was stating that if we do want to take families to the district attorney um because they are chronically Trent and despite our efforts we don't see improvements one of the things that they need to see in order to take on a case is they need to see that we've really put forth all the different interventions in between the three levels of the truancy process so after a student is unexcused absent for three days it doesn't have to be three days in a row but three days within the year U it will trigger the first letter of treny which basically is a warning letter it tells the parents your child's Trent you know Please be aware if you need support let us know it used to be that the second letter would trigger after four days but we've changed that to six days so and that gives us time to provide interventions to support those families in improving before we take them to what's called a school attendance review team that's a site-based meeting that's held regarding attendance typically it's just like I said School social worker um middle schools might be a counselor as well and a side administrator who again come together with the family to try to come up with a a solution on addressing the the concern if the student continues to be unexcused after the ninth unexcused absence that triggers a school attendance review board meeting and so that meeting is where I reach out to the families they need to come meet with me here at the district office the school administrator social worker also present in those meetings the contract is very similar to the start contract but it does have a little bit more more uh teeth in the game I guess you could say um because if the student at this point now continues to be Trent we would then if we followed this process authentically and we've documented all of our interventions we would then be able to refer the student to the district attorney um at the district we haven't been referring students for many years and so that's one of my goals this year is that if and when it's needed we'll be able to to have that partnership with them um when a students referred to the district attorney oftentimes they'll require parents to take parenting classes um they'll have somebody who follows up with the student uh and checking their attendance and then if the student continues to be chronically absent then I believe one step they could take is potentially garnishing uh a parent wages so there is one other letter because as I stated with the First with those three letters of truancy those are all for unexcused absences we do also have just an an excessive absence letter so for students who are excused but missing a lot of days there's also a letter letter that we send them to try to um figure out a way to support them in getting back to school because as Josh mentioned whether students unexcused or excused um it it affects our funding the same way so I met with the district attorney a few times over the summer um and one of the things that we'd be able to do is a DA mediate uh mediation and that is where if we have a lot of students who are needing to be referred to sarb rather than having individual meetings we can invite the da to come here one evening we invite all those families and the da kind of goes through um what the expectations are um that would be in basically replace the actual SAR meeting um again after the SAR meeting or after Da mediation things don't improve then that's where we could take the students to rise court and it's basically attendance Court where families are referred um when our interventions have not been successful the DA has offered to provide workshops and presentations for our schools and our families and so actually uh she is going to attend Brook tre's back to school night um and she'll be doing a quick little presentation for the families uh with with Miss dong and then also we have actually contracted with the parent project as well so another layer that we can offer parent project is the parenting classes that the da can refer to but we actually now have a contract with parent project where um we can offer that class to families throughout our process so if at the S meeting or the SAR meeting we feel that a family might benefit or parents might benefit from the parenting classes we can offer that to them and we would just it's a basically a 10 a 10- week series um to help them with their parenting so some of the ways that families can help help us address attendance is is to set a regular bedtime in a morning routine get everything ready the night before uh so that you're not rushing to get things ready in the morning as a parent I know that struggle um you know develop backup plans for coming to school if something comes up try to schedule medical appointments and trips when school's not in session or if you're going to have a medical appointment um still bring your kid to school you know if you're if you have a 10 o'clock appointment you can bring them in the morning and pick them up bring them back after um if your child is anxious about coming to school talk to your teacher your principal we've got a lot of people again Community lays on school social workers counselors a lot of Staff who are there to support and make school a safe place for for our students and then if your child does need to stay home due to an illness be sure to talk to the teacher for resources for makeup work um so that you're not falling too far behind too quickly all right any questions I I have a question but um the lons that you had mentioned by the way I like their restorative approach so it's um it's wonderful but I was just curious about the the lons and they are lons for one hour is are the leoson in every school yes we actually um this year we have all all 13 schools with the L on okay so they are layons for one hour and how often do they visit when a student is either truant or absent so every day for that hour they're basically spending their time either reaching out to so right now we have well our community lasons are funded through our C program so the one thing that I've had them focused on right now is the success Scholars who were chronically absent last year having them early on reach out um make sure that the the students are coming to school if they're not coming to school contacting families to see what kind of resources that they need um but some of them have also used that hour to do a home visit during the day yeah um that's what I meant but yeah so you know there one hour is hard because there's so much to do um but I will say that they're I think already off to a good start in terms of making those contacts and building those relationships so if if they are to visit a student at home and they have that one hour how many students do they visit one or two or one family two families yeah typically it would be one family in that one hour yeah because by the time you drive to the home go into the home yeah you have the conversation you know it's at least a probably a 25 30 minute visit get back to the school site there's not too much time left in that hour is there um is there a program where students who are improving especially now especially when they're they're truant and then all then they've improved their attendance is there a program where you can gather all of these wonderful students who have improved and invite the parents and feed them and educate them and welcome them in school I'm just saying all that stuff I did hear that I know Vincy park has that yeah so does every school have it well so I think every school in some way shape or form is doing some type of attendance campaign or encouraging the attendance in terms of a specific program to recognize those families right um I I don't think that we have a formal program but I do think most of the schools are positively kind of what I said uh the positive recognition is positively recognizing those students who are making improvements um one thing about the treny process in general is that it is a discretionary process so if a student does get to like their second letter truancy and they miss you know maybe they don't miss for three if a student's missing all the time they don't miss for three weeks you know and then they miss another day then they don't miss for four weeks and they miss another day don't miss for five weeks and then they trigger the third letter if that principal sees that there is significant improvement taking place they don't necessarily have to refer the student to SARP I see I was just wondering um if there was some kind of a district of process where they can be all gathered together inviting all the parents and talking to them yeah I I think those are great ideas and definitely something to take note of uh this is our first year of really making concerted efforts and working with the site administrators to come up with their school specific plans because the other thing I think going back to some of the strategies um and the importance of those home visits and the phone calls is um we know that for the children you know it's really a family issue because sometimes they're not in control of whether they get to school on time or whether they come to school every day and that's why those personal relationships are so important to be able to understand first what are um those family dynamics that might be some barriers of getting the children to school um if they're you know personal family issues or if there are health issues with the student or others then we want to make sure that we utilize other resource supports that we have to be able to help them make those improvements um because uh as much as we love to do um uh any kind of like uh physical momentto type of of recognition to um acknowledge improvements we also want to keep in mind we want to do that in Balance because there's going to be children who don't have um the means to be able to to get there and so our time and effort is spent first in really trying to get to know the families and what their situations are so we can guide them along the right path with the most appropriate resources but I think you know having said that um we want to make it really a collective effort at school sites you know um we're going to be much more um diligent in letting the principles know here's where your overall School percentage is you know let's make this a collective campaign for your whole school community on how you contribute and kind of build up that culture so I know you just mentioned there are several reasons why students are absent but uh what What's the primary reason the largest reason for why we have a chronic AB absenteeism and um what how are we addressing it in ways that you haven't discussed already and then my second question is uh uh I would imagine one of those reasons is Transportation uh how do we address a a family's inability to transport their student because of either financial means or they just don't have a vehicle or they're just don't have the ability to because they're working yeah well so a couple things um in terms of Transportation um for students who are mckin vento who are basically homeless or Foster youth we are able to provide bus passes for them um and so we do have quite a few uh homeless Bost you students within our district uh who will provide those bus passes to um in terms of the main reason for students being out honestly it's day-to-day illness um and chronic absenteeism and frency are actually two different things so you can have students who are chronically absent but not Trent and you can have students who are Trent but not chronically absent so if a student misses 18 days of school but they've called in every day saying or the parents have called saying that you know my child's sick it'll be marked as excused which will in turn then not trigger any of the um truy letters um and so yeah I'd say the majority of the reason why our absenteeism is the way it is is because of excused absences um it's primarily at our lower grades all right thank you for the question so I was going to ask actually ask ask the same uh Transportation related a question I was wondering and might be a radical idea out there but uh is there any way to leverage our bus services um I don't think they're going full right now is there any way to leverage our bus services um to capture some of those kids and help them you know come back in years past we've actually used some of our uh bus services to pick up some of our students who couldn't get to the school on time so once again going back to some of that ations about elop we were actually able to like I know off the top of my hand at least two or three families with three or four students each and they had to pick them up and drop them off at several schools and that is also part of our elop program is that that we do have those additional resources that did help support purchasing some of the buses and so that is specific to help support those students yeah is that happening now or the students are being picked up not yet not yet well we do it is a case-by case basis in fact right now we are in the process of getting um it's not one of our district buses but it's a program called ever driven that is I I guess the best comparison would be like an Uber for kids um and we do have three students who are currently transferring from one school to another the par the mother cannot get them to school in the morning one of the students is an SDC student who does qualify for transportation services but because they're mckin vento a homeless and live outside of our district our District busing can't pick them up so we've contracted with ever driven to get all three of the students arrive so there there are ways to do it but um it really is a case-by case basis in addition to that and perhaps Uh Kevin can share a little bit more if you're if you were asking in terms of an open bus transportation program for all students uh you can keep in mind I'm not sure how many years ago but that bus transportation funding was eliminated from the state so unfortunately we do not have resources um for that but we do have some new opportunities for families that are in really challenged situations to be able to work with them in different ways yeah yeah so currently there is not funding for that so right now the our transportation plan calls for our SDC students to have the first priority and then subsequent to that it's our unduplicated count students home homeless and Foster use students and all of that is based on the capacity of our buses and as uh Marlo Zapata alluded to earlier we were having some um challenges with uh Staffing in the transportation department uh at this time so we currently I believe have four openings in transportation two bus driver positions uh the bus dispatcher position and the bus driver trainer position uh we're working diligently to fill those positions but those are all vacant right now and those are all positions that currently Drive routes um the dispatcher position being the one that does not drive a daily route but fills in as needed and so right now we're um we're extremely short in Staffing and so that's providing a lot of challenges for transportation at the moment let's hope that Staffing does you know come back to the to the level that acceptable but I mean it's this is it is important we know that Eis attendance is important for more reasons than one uh you know Financial as well as uh personal uh for the student of you know there should [Music] be if this is identified as as an issue for uh student achievement and you know with um with you know Financial impact to school districts um then I would say the county should step up the state should Step Up say identify these uh challenges and provide those I this seems like a very simple solution to get a larger bus and capture those kids that are unable to uh to you know get to school by themselves and it's it's a it seems like a very simple solution the buses are already out there just get in and go to school um so and um yeah let's hope the Staffing levels come back and uh we can try to find um collaborate with some of our um uh County and State uh Partners to see if uh if they could provide some kind of grants or something like that to help capture those um those students but otherwise thank you for the presentation excellent thank you really appreciate that you're welcome thank you for engagement uh board members really appreciate it all right no problem all right uh next up we have measure L and measure U construction Bond program update Dr F thank you with that we invite Tony kesab our director of bond facilities and modernization to provide you with his monthly report good evening everybody again this will be actually the first report which is actually just measure U since we actually completed all of measure L um again the picture here is actually of the new not new but the um used to be the warehouse area but is now the peont basketball courts we transformed that over the summer okay we'll go through the updates for each project and the schedule I again first thing we want to talk about is the projects we completed which is the PA project at Morel which is actually public address project um the fire alarm replacement we completed Noble and actually in the past two weeks we completed Brook tree and Summerdale and then again the basketball court renovation at Pont again projects that we have um we had out to bid this quarter or this past month is the rebid of the interior doors at excuse me three elementary schools which was actually approved as part of the consent calendar and projects we're bidding right now are the PA projects for brooktree and rusin uh next slide is of course we have the electrical site electrical for the portals at Pima we're still waiting for actually all the parts to come in before we can actually bid that project again we're hoping that comes in this month again on one day they start the project the PA project at pedmont again we think that's going to take about six weeks to complete they'll do that at night um yeah although we are lucky because we have Wednesday as a a days off of school So the plan is to actually start installing things and then actually get everything going on Wednesday make sure it works so we can start doing everything at night after that um again fire alarm the only one we have left of the three is Majestic Way and that's going to be tested in two weeks um security alarm we're going to um meet next week and then that'll start in about two weeks and again that project will also happen at night um hvc at the old district office um right now we're just waiting for the mechanical units we expect those to come in in January sometime and then install them by February um and then the P pedmont window replacement project that actually in shop trins we expect to get windows by the end of the year and start installing on the February break and again then we have the exhaust fan project that's going to actually start up during the break in October and they'll work on all the bathrooms and exhaust fans and the buildings themselves that I think it's Cherrywood um Lane view Toyon and one other school I can't think of right now and then again we have the school Monument signs those are going up right now and then things that are in design we have the uh Warehouse project that actually went to DSA last Friday Friday excuse me Friday for approval and that'll take about two months um again once we get this the other two projects that I just mentioned out the bid then we'll start bidding other projects for the PA because we're trying to do them to at a time basically and then the fire alarm projects at Toyon V Park Northwood those actually go to DSA the beginning in October we hope to bid those in December and then start those next summer and then again security alarm projects once we are pretty much well into getting the other three done we'll start on the next set of schools and then the comprehensive and I have to look at this to make sure I say this right the comprehensive infrastructure renewal and utility assessment projects again so again we're doing a lot of lighting Replacements at I think toan's getting all the classrooms done cherrywoods getting all their lightings replaced rusin and Lane View and then we're doing mostly exterior lightings at all the other schools because a lot of the other lights that we replaced were done during prop 39 about six excuse me about six years ago uh mechanical projects they'll have um some of the projects that are smaller units those are going to start hopefully in November as long as we get the units in and then the bigger projects which our Majestic Way Summerdale and brooktree and toyan those will actually happen during the summer and then last but not least is the Solar projects again those will happen during the summer because again the last two those projects all have to go to the state architect for approval and those will take three to four months to happen and then our last project we're going to start is the designing of the new fences at Cherrywood Morel Toyon Vincy Park again this is the picture of the starting of the renovation of the playground at pedmont and this is more of the existing course that we had and this is kind of what it looks like after we're done um again this is kind of just another view again this is one before we actually striped and I think we have a picture of it striped because these are all the existing ones we didn't touch we basically just seal coded as which which Mak basically makes it like we painted it black so it was nice and then um again this is the warehouse where used to be the warehouse and now that's where all the storage containers are those used to be on the playground which we ended up moving to the slab of the warehouse and then this is the schedules of how we're going to complete each of the projects and again that's the existing courts that we re we resealed and restriped are there any questions great thank you for the presentation questions from the board on this I do have a question I have a question couple of questions so for the comprehensive infrastructure renewal and utility assessment uh is there the um was uh where the um Char Char charging station is that part of the Sol oh it's part of the solar I think we're doing that atot Cherrywood Morel and seon I think those are the the schools were adding them Cherrywood hardly any space there now pardon there's hardly any space parking space well the solar is going to go actually on the other side I see where the sidewalk is oh on on um so yeah we have like the north side has where the solar panels out they're going to go on the south side of the parking lot oh interesting okay that's that's good to know and and the um the um signs I'm sorry I think I'm hungry I'm losing my the apologize for that but um the uh uh the signage the front of the schools the monument sign um so is that you're just doing that one project right I mean surrounding is there any plan for the um purification of the surrounding area or is that that we actually have another project we're talking about doing some other things for the frontage of the school so right now we're just trying to replace what's there so again if there's lawn we're replacing the lawn some of the schools if it's about some of them we put in about two or three feet from the sidewalk we're going to try to make that kind of um decompose Granite so that we don't have to mow the Lawns yeah right so things like that okay yeah those are the questions I had um thank you thank you for the presentation thank you appreciate it all right next up we have superintendent report Dr FAS please thank you I'm just monitoring time so I'm gon to make my my report very brief just a a few things to remind everyone of some import some important updates uh this week we launch our back to school nights at our schools so uh this Thursday we have our um three middle schools hosting their welcome back evenings and then next week on September 19th our elementary schools will do the same so our community and families can check in with their local school for times around that also uh next week uh there will be no school for students on uh September uh 18th uh that is our um staff professional development day so want to make sure our parents are aware of that and just uh two uh positive recognitions I know Dr mcccu went through all of our student data and our student performance specifically talking about the different student populations that we serve and how we work towards bringing them up for success and Summerdale was recently recognized as an Erp honor rooll school just for that specific type of work so really want to give them a shout out for that and then also um when you heard our presentation on summer programs uh we talked about a lot of different Partnerships that we have that came in and provided that uh programming support for our students and we just learned recently that we're going to be recognized as a Silicon Valley Ed Foundation District partner of the year and so there's going to be a special um award recognition for that on Saturday October 5th so we'll make sure you get that information but I do want to thank Dr mccre and his ed services team there are direct liaison and working with with svef and bringing in as many programs under their umbrella like Elevate math CSI you know all of those good things um the you know some of a lot of our math professional development opportunities uh coaching support to our principles uh they're they've been a great resource to our district over the years and so we're really excited uh to be able to be recognized for this longtime partnership with them so thank you thank you for those uh thank you for your report Dr ftis on there uh next we have comments and announcements from the board any comments from the board trusty H I have a quick one as well I just wanted to also congratulate Dr Fuentes for being um going to be honored September 23rd for Latino heritage month from a member Alex Lee's office and so I'm really excited you know she's been able to help us throughout this entire you know School Year and merry many years in the district and welld deserved award and I hope that all of can join and I will be there as well to celebrate thank you and uh in reciprocity trusty how congratulations to you for uh being honored with the emerging emerging leader award is that correct correct yes and also Dr P so congratul congratulations to both of you uh we're very proud of you um next up we don't have anything on review discussion we have public hearings we have public hearing for resolution 24-6 Gan Appropriations limit calculation summary Dr FAS it is recommended the board conduct a public hearing to receive comments from the public regarding resolution 2406 Gan Appropriations limit calculations summary thank you for that I'll open it the public hearing see no comments I've closed the public hearing next public hearing is for resolution 24-2 sufficiency of textbooks for instructional materials Dr FES it is recommended the board conduct a public hearing to receive comments from the public regarding resolution 242 sufficiency of textbooks for instructional materials I open the public hearing for resolution 242 see no public comments I'll close the public hearing we'll go to review and action and uh item a under business service we have the resolution 24-6 Gan Appropriations limit calculations summary Dr FES it is recommended the board adopt resolution number 2406 Gan Appropriations limit calculation summary to establish a revised Gan limit for the 2023 24 fiscal year and a projected Gan limit for the 2425 fiscal year is there a presentation for this not not for this one not for this one okay thank you um uh is is there a motion to adopt this resolution I'll move to do resolution 24-6 thank you is there a second I'll second it's moved and seconded um the resolution we'll go with a roll call vote Miss Gomez president shasan I trusty boak hi trusty himz hi trusty H hi Trustin wi I thank you for that the resolution um is adopted unanimously next item on the business services is 2023 24 un audited actuals and fund balance fund balance Dr Fus it has recommended the board approve the 2324 un audited actuals and fund balance and for this item we do have a presentation for the board and I welcome Josh our director fiscal Services uh good evening again uh today we'll be going over the 20232 24 unaudited actuals uh pretty much what it is is we Clos the books and we're going to see financially how we ended the year in 2023 24 uh currently we're in this we're in September um of the budget cycle in any one time in the budget cycle we're probably working in two fiscal years so we just completed last year and we're currently working in this year as well so the UN audited actual process or the closing of the books is governed by the governmental Accounting Standards Board and they pretty much provide us with the standards on how to close the books the reason why this is important is there's two specific um items that actually get entered into the financial statements but that doesn't necessarily mean more revenue or more expenses so technically we can either overstate or understate our actual Revenue expenses uh the first one is a gasby 31 in which we have to recognize unreal gains and losses of our investment pool so basically what that means is our cash is held at the County Treasury and they invest those funds and as those funds increase or decrease through Investments we have to recognize those on our financial statements the second one is the gasby um it's called the stirs on behalf contribution and we as a district so the state makes a contribution to um calsters we have to recognize our portion of it on our financial statements both the expenses and the revenue it doesn't give us more money it doesn't give us less money but we have to recognize it on our financial statements okay so basically um this gives you a breakdown of our revenues for the 2023 24 school year um our estimated actuals versus our un audited actuals estimated actual actuals were done during the 20242 adopted budget time and our unaudited actuals is actually the closing of the books so our revenues increased um by about $941,000 however the breakdown is as follows so we increased by $463,000 related to a special education account reclassification um and so the SLE which provides us with our funding um gave us an additional amount um for under the lcff all right okay um so our federal funding which is like Title One and title two funds um are reimbursement based and BAS basically we only recognize Revenue as expenses come in so um we initially budgeted for $500,000 um however we did spend all that funding so we still have that funding to be able to be spent in 2425 however we can only recognize up to how much we actually spent in the current year or the 23 24 year uh State revenues increased by um a little over $500,000 this is related to increases in our annual average daily attendance so I know that earlier we did a presentation on our Ada and its relation to the lcff um the reason why we did the lcff is it because it makes up about 80% of our total funding however we do receive funding based off of ADA for other items um so one of them is the unrestricted and the restricted Lottery with both are actually done under the annual Ada right so lcff is done on the P2 and it's on average um uh Lottery unrestricted and restricted Lottery is based off of the annual Ada in that current year and so we increased that amount so we did get additional funding in the unrestricted side about $370,000 and the restricted side of $366,000 um local Revenue what's included in there is interest so as our cash is in the county office we receive an additional interest interest rates are pretty high right now so we're actually receiving a little bit more funding from that um we also do have 200,000 related to the medical reimbursements so this was not included in our estimated actuals because we really didn't know how much we were going to get these are audits that were done in the prior year so it goes back to I believe 2010 and 11 in which the state did a audit and reviewed and found out they owed us more money and we received that funding in that current year and then also in that amount is a $420,000 that's related to that unrealized gain in that Investments that I was talking about earlier right so the gazb 31 we had to recognize $420,000 which isn't actual real cash to us but it's recognized on the actual financial statements uh this okay um and lastly I wanted to kind of review the specialed education general fund contribution um in the current year it's about or 2023 24 it was about 13.2 million in 2223 it was 11.4 million so this can be contributed to the increases in salaries so we did have the 6.5 6.5% increase in salaries and we also had a lot of one-time funding in special education that we spent in 2223 that we no longer received in 23 24 so we hadn't moveed those expenses over so this is a picture if we were to take out the stirs on behalf payment which is I don't want to say a phantom entry but it's an entry that we're recognizing due to the state's gby um um suggestion and so once you take those out the Act and the actual uh what was it the uh the pulled Investments or the unrealized gains the total increase in revenue is about $684,000 and this is mostly attributed to um the lottery increase so as this is a view of the estimated actuals versus the UN audited actuals as on the expense side of things so $275,000 can be attributed to increases from us recognizing summer school in this current year rather than recognizing a portion in this current year and a portion in next year same thing with the classified salaries as well uh implying benefits decreased by about $300,000 this is because of that stur contribution we didn't have to recognize as much um in closing the books as we did during the estimated actuals um books and supplies and services and other expenses um you can see is $217,000 and $745,000 this could be attributed to us not fully utilizing those title $1 I was talking about in that current year as well as some decreases um of the sped contracts so we do have special education contracts that um we didn't fully utilize so those go back into the general fund um we didn't spend as much money as we thought we were in the elout programs and we did move some of the maintenance expenses to fund 40 and fund 14 which is um specifically lose only for maintenance all right um so in taking out the stirs on behalf payments you can see that um the employee benefits actually amount difference is a little different um but the other items pretty much stay the same so once again the stairs on behalf payment is that payment that gby requires us to enter and recognize the St on behalf payments okay so what did this actually do to the begin balance so for the estimated actuals um our begining balance is the same um total revenues increased by $941,000 um total expenses decreased by $673,000 which actually increased um our total our total ending balance by $1.6 million so it's a good thing we we actually ended up with more money than we initially projected um all right so this is the components of the ending balance so for the uned actual side of things we set aside $1.1 million for the reserve for economic uncertainties um portions of the ending balance goes to um required assignment assignments for CA staff development and CA career ladders program so at the end of the day our unrestricted dollar amounts um or ending balance I'm sorry for the UN audited actuals is $8.9 million so what does this mean for our multi-year projections so bring the multi-year projections during the 20242 adopted budget and because our un audited actuals our ending balance increased by about um increased from $600,000 to about $1.5 million um basically our total available Reserve require available for Reserve is $4.3 million in the current year which is about 4.8% Reserve our requirement is about 3% um and that kind of flows through the budget year as well as the 2025 26 and 2026 27 year so in 2026 27 three years out from now you still have about a 4.8% reserve however the multi-year still does include um all the transfers in from fund 20 which is related to our other post- employment benefits and it also includes all reductions that we have discussed in any school consolidations or any other reductions um that we discussed in the 2425 um budget presentation any questions so sorry can you repeat the last one so the um the uh Reserve includes assumptions um of you know School consolidation correct closures when we brought the 2425 budget and the multi-year projections um in order for us to meet our 3% Reserve we had to um embed the reductions in school consolidations and any other reductions that were discussed um and so this just gives us an update of the ending fund balance basically because we ended this C the 2324 school year with a probably about 5 $1,000 more than what we initially thought we were going to it pretty much flows through that full year so we're in a little better financial position but we still need to Contin continue to make all those reductions in the 25 26 and then 26 27 school years well and just to show the historical connection to that through the board action it began in 2021 with the $6 million resolution that was the first action that the board took the second action was after the commencement of the budget stabilization committee and they brought forth to the board their recommendations on how to meet that $6 million reduction and upon approval from the board of those recommendations then uh we have the ability to provide those um cost savings into our budget to be able to meet our 3% reserve and show balance if we did not do that we would not be meeting our our balance over the multi- three-year period that we're required to do so and that's why um as we continue to submit our budget to our Santa Clara County Office of Education every uh letter response to us is a reminder of those steps that the board has taken and uh the the necess um steps needed moving forward to ensure our District's fiscal solvency and so just for our public if they're not um aware of those four recommendations that our board stabilization committee made um the first one was to review our district property and to consider property for sale or lease and we've been actively engaged with rfps in doing that um the second one was to uh look at our staffing and to do reduction of Staffing which we've been working through that and that's part of some of the savings too that you've seen in today's budget with red reduction of contracts and and rethinking you know our Personnel Support Services then the third recommendation was school consolidation which we commenced upon the board's approval of those four recommendations and then the last one was for the board to continually review any opportunity for early retire early retirement incentive plans for our employees to be cost savings knowing that a significant portion of our budget 90% or so Josh is accounting for staff salaries and benefits so just a quick synopsis for uh Clarity for our community no I appreciate that that's that's a a good reminder you know always have uh how we came to this um to this point um any other questions from uh my Bo colleagues just one quick thing on the cay uh program we about spending about 213,000 or so right that's what do is that is a decrease okay so that so no so like the the CC program we are required to make a contribution from the federal funds that we receive for special ed so for example if we were to receive a million dollars from our federal special ed program we need to contribute 15% of that so 15% of that million dollars gets set aside specifically for the CCS program and and Sor that funds the commun commun right and all the other various strategies that are in place in that plan to support um reducing uh you know the lack of success they've been having based under the current program good that sounds good those are all the questions I had uh thank you would like to just mention one more thing is whereas our ending balance we're required to have a 3% Reserve um a 4% Reserve is good I would say that um most in districts would like to have at least a thre Monon operating budget in reserve and where we our current payroll every month is about $5 million right so kind of gives you an idea where we probably should be as far as ring balance is concerned sure that clarification thank you for the presentation is there we need to boy it's not showing okay there you go so this needs to be approved so we need a motion to approve the uh 20 23 24 unaudited actuals and fund balance I move for approval second I has been moved and seconded all those in favor say I I I motion carries 5 to zero thank you um next item under Human Resources we have we have um resolution 24-3 Calpers electing to seize health C southcare seab Dr FES yes um for the next three resolutions I'm going to ask assistant superintendent of Human Resources uh Ricardo Caba to explain um the uh the rationale Behind these three resolutions because it is a shift in our district yes um the district is wishing to um break away from Cal Pur and go over to CIS for health benefits and as a requirement uh Calpers needs resolutions adopted by the board in order for us to quote unquote break away and the reason we have three resolutions is because the way Calpers has the district listed is by those three groups that are that are there there there's ctab CCA and Teamsters so we need three resolutions in order to break away thank you Mr CA and so to commence with resolution one it is recommended the board adopt resolution 243 Kel Pur electing to cease health care for our Education Association which is C is there a motion on this resolution move to approve moved in second at a quick question before I go with the roll callers um do we do have some individuals that are not part of uh any of these three bargaining units how are they covered that is correct the way um the distri went into stirs is that um it has them listed by those three groups I think in 20 1999 it was one of the agencies and then 2000 another one in 2001 the three agencies and the way calers has them listed that's the way we have to provide the resolutions so cpers are the ones that gave us those resolutions and that'll um that's the way we're going to break away also so the question is those that aren't in affiliated with those bargaining groups do we does Kel Pur assume that they are all Incorporated 100% thank you even retirees so everybody goes that's that's always good to know all right so we have a motion on a second on resolution 24-3 we'll go go with a roll call vot Mr Gomez yes president shason Hi trusty boak trusty Jimenez hi trusty H hi trusty n hi thank you uh resolution is adopted unanimously um we uh maybe have I have a motion for I can go with the motion right you already explained all three correct so may I have a motion to adopt resolution 24-4 Cal calper electing to CIS right healthc care for CA vve to approve right been moved and seconded um we'll go with the roll call vote on this one as well miss Gomez president shason I trusty boak trusty Jimenez hi trusty H trusty Nan I thank you the resolution is adopted unanimously um next is the motion to adop resolution 24-5 cers electing to say healthcare for teamsters uh is that a motion move to approve second you have a pick up two all right we go with the roll call what Miss gz president shason Hi justy boak justy Jimenez Hi justy H hi justy n hi thank you resolution is adopted unanimously thank you so much uh next item under ed services we have resolution 24-02 20 20 2425 sufficiency of textbooks for instructional materials Dr it is recommended the board adopt resolution 242 sufficiency of textbooks for instructional materials for the 2425 school year thank you is there a motion to adopt this resolution approve second is it moved and seconded uh we'll go with a roll call on this one miss Gomez president sh Aon hi trusty boak trusty Jimenez hi trusty H trusty no hi thank you for that the motion is the resolution is adopted unanimously uh next up under Bond program we have escon builders Inc change order number one for the restroom addition project at Toyon Elementary School Dr f it is recommended the board approved change order number one with escon Builder Inc for the restroom Edition project at Toyon School bid b04 2023 24 this is a credit back to the district for $40,000 $ 4,119 perfect we'll take that money um is there a motion to approve this change order move to approve movement for clarification for Miss Gomez who will be taking the second what was the loudest trusty H thank you for that second it's been moved in seconded all those in favor say I I I motion passes unanimously um and at this time we will reconvene to close session e e e e e e I will reconvene to open uh session and uh we'll go with disclosure of action taken in close session Dr FES thank you um for uh with respect to agenda item 2B conference with legal councel anticipated litigation TM versus beresa Union School District the board rejected the claim uh with a motion by uh truste NN a second by by trusty boak with a vote of 5 in addition uh to close session item uh 2G public employee performance evaluation the board completed the superintendent evaluation for the 2023 24 school year thank you for that um you'll have other there any request for staff followup or items future agendas at this time if not I'll entertain a mo for adjournment move to adjourn on second it's been moved in second it all those in favor say I I I meeting adjourned at 11:44 [Laughter] p.m.

to learn how to support the students in your lives and our broader Community this morning's flag raising ceremony at Maricopa high school was a moving tribute to the memory of September 11th 2001 led by our Air Force Junior Roc Cadets from both Maricopa and desert Sunrise high schools the ceremony brought together students veterans city leaders board members and members of our community to reflect on the values that unite us a performance of the national anthem by deisi added emphasis to this event similar ceremonies like the one held at Santa Rosa elementary school yesterday reaffirm the spirit of respect and unity that defines our district these moments highlight the strength of our community and the dedication of our students parents and staff into creating an environment where everyone can flourish Mr Downey that's my report thank you now move on to item three governing board members report member Lopez thank you Mr Downey um I attended the toy expo which was was absolutely a blast um they were all great they were all creative they were all I wanted to play with all of them um I will say that my favorite was a game it was like ski ball which is my favorite thing to do and they did it with beans and cans and I just yeah it it was it was great I loved it um and then I also attended uh today's 911 ceremony and that was a sobering and I would say wonderful moment to see our community and our kids come together so that's it thank you member no thank you president Downey uh it's been a busy couple of weeks I feel like we were just here time's flying by it's almost fall break but uh I was able to attend the 347 facts.com meeting last week and so if you haven't signed up on 347 facts.com I highly encourage it um it's a very important uh forum for the citizens of Maricopa to have your voices heard on the improvements to 347 and to ensure that we secure the funding necessary to improve both the intersections and the overpass at Rigs as well as the widening and uh the more they hear from us the better um if you sign up on 347a facts.com you will get up dates um about how you can help and that's really important as we move forward here um it's a great group of volunteers a Grassroots effort um that's come together really to support the community and our transportation needs so I highly encourage checking that out uh the Maricopa Fire Department in honor of car seat safety week is doing car seat checks for free on Saturday this Saturday uh at the Maricopa fire admin building um and so you can find that information out um on the city's website and on Facebook um but it's from 8: to 10: this Saturday at the fire admin building and um that's really important to have those car seats checked to make sure that the most precious cargo is safe um EDI what 8 to 10: a.m.

at Mountain View High School thank you superintendent comments Dr streer Vice President marronis governing board members members of the audience uh it's been a a busy month a couple of uh big events that we've been engaged in uh I'll start with just a a quick update on our board retreat that uh took place just a few Saturdays ago we were able to uh come together for our summer board retreat which really provided an opportunity for staff and the board to come together and take a deep dive into some of the pertinent topics around musd uh really what this included was a review of the 2023 2024 school year as well as some goal setting for this upcoming uh school year additionally we were able to dive into some updates and discussions that centered around our student achievement scores and and letter grades some Bond project updates uh an update and timeline on the new K8 uh as well as an update and timeline on the project over at Silverbell we had some budget I guess they're budget highlights maybe we'll just call them budget updates and challenges maybe uh prop uh proposition 411 update uh and of course all this uh has us looking uh head to our governing board Summit which will take place on October 4th I do want to thank the board and the staff for their participation in this event as well as mea president R York for her attendance at this event also on August 30th we had our PD day uh I want to uh take a moment just to thank all of our certified and support staff members for their attendance and hard work uh during the day on uh August 30th really the commitment to growth and learning continues to be evident across our district our leadership team did a fantastic uh job of putting together uh just a a day filled with valuable insights and applicable strategies that will help us continue to improve our practice I really can't say enough about the dedication to our students and our community that we continue to see and and together we continue to move forward and do great things for our kids the last thing and I'm I'm actually surprised a couple of you didn't mention the law conference um I'm guessing you're you were counting on me to bring this up um but last week I had the opportunity to attend the annual asba so the Arizona school boards Association law conference uh this was with members of our senior staff as well as Dr Lopez and misss micronus uh traditionally this is one of the better conferences that we attend uh throughout the year as the information is typically uh timely as it's focused on updates to legislation uh that's impacting the district I think I can safely speak for all of us that there was certainly a variety of relevant topics that were covered through the few days and this concludes my report for tonight thank you Dr Sher uh the consent agenda I make a motion that we approve the consent agenda minus um h18 second all those in favor I [Music] I so we will pull HJ unfinished business none new business uh Dr streer number one want to go back to age 18 let's go back and cover H item h18 from the consent agenda which would be Kristen Rey can present the topic y okay item h18 is a request to renew an intergovermental agreement between the morand Unified School District and the University of Arizona's Center for Recruitment and Retention of mathematics teachers and so this organization was created in August of 2001 to address the shortage of qualified Math teachers and has continued to expand to support uh mathematics students high school students in particular as well as provide additional resources for schools in order to support mathematics instruction the renewal of this agreement includes two new partnership opportunities between the crr and the district when when the crr has funds available through americore through grants we would we would have the option of placing a community-based intern a certified teacher that would be available at school site that could serve as a potential um a substitute so uh a permanent substitute on the campus as well as serve as an intervention teacher for half the cost of a full-time employee if we chose to use that particular uh that particular feature of the agreement in addition there is a re-engaging aspirational Learners uh intervention curriculum that we would also have access to given that funds are available I make a motion that we um approve item h18 second all those in favor no we have to have questions okay does anybody have any questions yes okay okay so for the audience the reason I wanted to sing pulled is because everything Miss REI said was not in the packet so or very very little of it it was oh um um so so okay so so the questions I have okay so we're being we're going to be asked to to I guess have an annual membership fee of $6,600 when the center is not able to cover it and so for the past three years we have not had to pay and today ad passed and approved that the next two years the $6,600 annual cost for the partnership would be waved they will cover it for us okay um and then so are we still then going to pay $600 per teacher just for the new teachers but I will say that $600 per teacher that's what it says for the new teacher induction program yes that is and then for Teacher teams we also would pay so over the past three years we've only provided 28 120 we've actually retained Math teachers so we have only paid the $600 a few times over the past few years because we've been able to have a high retention rate for Math teachers so over the past three fiscal years we've paid 2850 to the crr 2850 yes sir okay and then then we have to pay so then they're asking for $750 per site so that's per per campus for only the participating sites and that 2850 is also includes the sites we only had one site participate each of the last three years oh okay and then 275 per teacher that's the teacher salary that is and no that's only if senior staff and the governing board would have to approve the other half of that salary before that intern could actually work in our district okay okay so then the the history of success of the of the program it's actually been fairly remarkable um we're very we're very blessed to have the CR as a partner so when you look over the fiscal year 22 23 and 24 we have had in 22 we had um 53 teachers participate in crr activities for five for 492 hours and we went back and looked at the list because CR does a great job with data they give us an impact report and list every single teacher that participated we went back and looked and 89% of those teachers are still employed in musd and then when you look in fiscal year 30 three um 23 we had 39 teachers with 350 hours and a 90% retention rate and then for FIS school year 24 an 85% retention rate with 33 part teachers participating in 330 hours so um we love the crr because when you add all of that up and they do relentlessly advocate for the waiver of the partnership fee we actually I I think it's a Ganga deal because it's only 41 cents per hour of support that they provide our district so okay thank you I have a quick question yeah um what how does this apply to like eth grade G uh go like or do we use them in eth grade advanced classes as well for math that stify any of the teachers who particip Any teacher of mathematics so that's every elementary teacher as well as every middle or high school teacher is able to utilize the services of the crr and so when we do get new Math teachers we provide we connect them very quickly and early on with the crr so they also so they have an instructional coach with us as well as an instructional coach with the crr perfect thank you and and what's the site that participates currently yeah Torita Middle School to okay thanks any other questions all those in favor I I thank you so now we'll go to unfinished business none new business number one Dr streer vice president mcris governing board members members of the audience uh this item is in reference to the acceptance of fiscal years 22 and 23 audit reports and compliant questionnaires AR ars1 15- 914 requires that school districts that have an adopted m&o budget limit in excess of $2 million annually contract for an annual financial statement audit and completion of the uniform system of financial records the Arizona auditor general uses the usfr compliance questionnaire to determine whether a district has attained an acceptable degree of compliance with requirements in the usfr at our last study session we went through both years of that um by Statute we are required to have the board accept those reports tonight through a roll call vote can I get a motion I move the governing board accept the fiscal year 22 and fiscal year 23 audit reports and uniform system of financial records compliance question ER second Gloria can we get a roll call vote please M mcris yes Mr Carlson yes Mr halt yes Mr Willard yes yes thank you okay number two Mr good evening vice president M cronis members of the governing board Dr streer senior staff and members of our audience the Pima County flood control district is planning to start construction of the Santa Cruz River Wildlife ramp and the Santa Cruz River cortero narrow training structures on October 1st 2024 we are seeking approval of an IGA with the county at as musd owns the property adjacent to the construction site the Santa Cruz River and the I 10 Frontage Road the Puma County flood control district is requesting access and use of our property for construction staging for three years the musd parcel is also currently protected from the Santa Cruz River flood plane by a FEMA accredited Levy however the parcel elevation is below the 100-year and 500-year flood elevation in exchange for access to our property the Puma County flood control district has agreed to use excess material from the grading to create an elevated pad on our property creating a safer environment for future development I have shared in your packet details on how the construction of the Santa Cruz River Wildlife ramp will provide CommunityWide benefits that include Improvement of wildlife connectivity between the Tucson and Torita mountains as part of the wildlife corridor planning within the soran desert conservation plan and a pedestrian bridge which will connect our property to the Huckleberry Loop I've also shared how the construction of the Santa Cruz River cortero Nero's training structures will provide CommunityWide benefits that include a reduction of flood and erosion risks Improvement Bank protection performance enhanced water recharge removal of invasive species restoration ation of habitat to support increased native plant and animal diversity and improve fire access I have invited Janice Hughes an engineer with the Puma County Regional Flood Control District engineering and Landscape architecture division to join us this evening and between the two of us we can answer any questions you may have thank you can I get a motion I find it it's on page two yeah I move the governing board excuse me approve the intergovermental agreement between the morifi school district and the Puma County Flood Control District second any questions I have a question I have a question okay Mr Mark or or this nice lady over here uh do we have any idea how much overburden will result like how much the pad might built up because it you know gives us 6 in 8 in a foot 20 ft that makes a difference I'm just curious yeah that's current estimates of the excess material from the ctera neros project is about 60,000 cubic yards of material so are you going to spread that I guess we're making a pad do we have a concept of like a enough for a garage enough for a building about 10 acres okay and the 10 acres with that much cubic footage is how much elevation uh about four feet four feet on four and a half it depends on where you are on the pad so in some places it might be four and a half some places it might be four but we also have to take into account um we can't impact drainage on the adjacent properties and we also need to look at how we're going to tie into Frontage Road elevations and then we need to talk to you about what do you want to do with that parcel so where on it's a 15 acre roughly parcel so where on that 10 acres or 15 acres do you want that material to be can I have some in my backyard okay that's really help so Mar I guess you're going to think about that um do we want to do four feet on 10 acres or 8 feet on five acres you know let's I guess we don't need to decide that today the IG stipulates that we will coordinate with you on what you want it to look like very since we're going to construction October 1st we're trying to get an agreement with you that's a little bit open that gives us gets us permission to be on there and use some time to decide what you want and how long is the project three years oh that's right that's right and the the majority of the earth work that moving will happen in year three we have lots of time we have time okay thank you so so is the the uh the the dirt that you're talking about so we got this picture here that shows just like a big I don't know Bridge almost a hole Yeah Big ditch the the wild through that yeah the wildlife ramp picture that's the view from the river looking up towards the PAC County parcel and the levy we have to maintain the levy elevation because it's protecting flood protection behind it so what we're doing is we're cutting a notch in the flood in the flood Levy and laying that slope back so that the animals have a more gentle slope to come up and over and down into the river instead of the nearly vertical the one to one slope that's on the currently there so you we maintain the flood protection but lay that slope back to allow access underneath I 10 there's an abandoned um rail spur covert so the the idea is in the future our office of sustainability and conservation is working on plans for a connect connectivity through that and maybe someday actually over I 10 and the railroad but that they have to find money to do that would that be like the thing up there on Oracle yes that bridge okay yeah a big Wildlife Bridge yeah um that would connect to our ramp and then our ramp is sort of across the river from the ELO preserve so trying to create that Corridor and and um enhance the wildlife connectivity thanks I have one final question so the the the overburden is it going to be compacted or just going to be piled up because that would cost us money in the future if they're just going to make piles of dirt so my contractor has told me that depending on how far along you are with your planning um if he compacts it and then later you decide you don't want it there that costs you more money if then if I just leave it on the site and give you options what you want to do with so that's part of what we need to talk about is do you know enough about what you want that this becomes an actual compacted pad or do we leave the material as a stock give flexibility was said let's go to study session on that eventually for sure um I just have a quick question too so once once this is done um who it's the County's um responsibility to maintain everything else right is that in the agreement so the um in the river the flood control district has Main's responsibilities um the on the P County parcel the wildlife ramp again P County will have m's responsibilities we have an IG with Morana parks and W that you guys maintain the loop so we'll have the the pedestrian bridge that's going to go over the wildlife ramp opening that will be part of the maintenance responsibility for Mirana Parks perfect okay thank you thank you I have a question Mr gki so how did we come by this piece of land I don't know I don't know how long where's Dan Post Dan yeah Dan Post or Dan we buy this for a yard a busard so this this is a this is a piece of property that the district has owned for for some time um one of the challenges with this piece of property currently is just the lack of infrastructure that serves this property so while it's a nice asset to have um we're kind of waiting for some infrastructure to grow up around us and then for us to be able to make a decision how we would use rights for water access on this about a year ago sewer yeah okay so starting to create some of that but this is not an immed this is not a piece of property that's in any immediate plan for for the district all right all those in favor I I motion carries thank you okay j3 Mr gigowski so we are requesting uh approval for the adoption of the Affidavit of intent to homeschool form that can be completed by parents of homeschool students who have elected to collect an empowerment scholarship account or Esa H school students who receive an Esa and complete the affidavit would then be eligible for participation in inter Scholastic Athletics at our middle and high schools the affidavit can only be completed in applied to families who have elected to provide instruction at home not at Charter Schools online Charter Schools or schools outside their attendance Zone okay can I get a motion I move the governing board approve the adoption of the Affidavit of intent to homeschool second all those in FA oh excuse me any questions so I just want to say you know for everybody out there there's a lot of like you know legal Le and edges speak right there um but with this is about so we talked about this at the last study session so um kids who are homeschooled can uh can go down to the county superintendent's office get a piece of paper that says that they're homeschooled then they can go play sports on musd teams or you know ire or whoever so now that we have these empowerment scholarship accounts available so kids who are doing homeschool taking advantage of the esas for some reason the county superintendent will not issue them the piece of paper that says that they're doing homeschool so um this affects small number of parents families in the district so um MD stood up and acted very very quickly on this so that we could allow um several students to play uh to TI up for sports like the next day after the um study session meeting last month so thank you guys for acting so quickly on and that it happen right the next day those girls Happ next day yeah volleyball so excellent yeah so now we're formalizing this that's what this is about any other questions okay all those in favor I I motion carries um j4 Chris Mrs Miss Rey vice president miss marronis members of the board members of senior staff and our members of our in-person and virtual audience this evening this item is uh a request to have the board approve a data sharing agreement as well as a statement of work between the district and the Arizona Board of Regents Arizona State University's Arizona um helos decision Center for educational Excellence um to approve a personalized admissions project so this is a very unique project that flips the college admissions process on its head is the way that it's heralded by the ASU um Helios decision Center so typically a student as they're progressing through their High School career would look into college admissions and apply for college or university um a lot of students go down that route some of our students for a lot of different reasons don't go down that route and one of the reasons why is because there is not an individual belief that they have the ability Andor the skills in order to be successful at the at at in college postgraduation and so what the decision Center has done is they have created a project where they look at student data profiles and they see how students have done on standardized assessments as well as ACT SAT and students who have met or exceeded that criteria are informed as Juniors as well as seniors if they have already met the criteria for admission to instate universities and they provide families with a letter saying that your son or daughter has met or exceeded the requirements for instate uh for admission to an instate University and then uh students would have a personalized link where they could then go in and complete the remainder of the application process alongside their parents as well as uh with the support of our College andc ready teams including their counselors at our schools and so what's nice about this is that parents would be getting this information and students would be getting this information and then they could make a decision if this is the right path for them at this time and uh we're excited and we're hoping that we will be able to partner with these groups to do this if this agreement is approved we're putting together a College and Career ready communication for all of our High School Junior and senior parents that would have the different programs we have in place to support parents with fasta completion this project would be a part of this as well as opportunities for students to take a practice act all of these opportunities that families can opt into if they so choose if there is a family that would prefer not to be a part of this project they would simply let us know and we would remove them remove their child for consideration before we send the data um for consideration thank you can I get a motion I'm not going to motion this that's fine I move that the governing board approved the data sharing agreement and statement of work s so number two for personalized College admission project with the Arizona Boards of regions AB the Arizona State University AR ASU Helios decision Center for Education Excellence decision Center and we're in Unified School District can I get a second second anybody have any questions yeah I do but you want to go Tom first okay um so you kept saying instate schools uh does that include GCU Pima Mesa Community College all of them or is it just yeah it's a great question so currently the three instate universities that have signed on are na U OFA and as ASU is the original College of University I was at the I was at an advisory council meeting the plls GCU advisory council meeting yesterday morning and they actually indicated that they are working with the Helios Center so that they too can be included yeah I remember I remember something about that when I went to CH so okay uh second question um for so do they so is it like U will send their decision ASV will send their decision then any was decision is it just like one letter that says you're going to meet the requirements for all three it's a great question all and they would all have separate letters okay because they would have personalized information for the families in order to consider whether or not that's the right I have more breakdown questions I'll just email you though okay so it's really just hey you're approved so if you want to go to college you can just skip the application process so that's done but they still would have to it's they skip the approval process but they still would have to go in and complete the application in order to be fully considered in order to make sure that they have completed all of the processes to enroll so on one hand it's pretty good that students who don't think they could go to college suddenly are getting an acceptance letter to one of the universities and that's really the point I guess right that's actually why the project was even developed in the first place is if you look at Hattie's list of interventions a students belief in their own ability to be successful is the number one on that list and I think that the the Helio's decision center created this project so they could share with students that you already have demonstrated the competencies and skills so it's just giving them an option it's just an option just an option and so again how and how our career preparation at the high school level would help them understand that faps I me it's College is very expensive right so we just make sure that people don't jump in without having full knowledge that hey this is one of the nice things um so this has been going on for the past couple of few years uh one of the reasons why I'm actually glad that we're holding off until now in order to be a part of this project is they've since also added Juniors so then we're going to be starting having conversations with families at the junior year not just when they're a senior like hey you may not have considered but now jump in for this very considerable step U postsecondary it's just challenging some students to think maybe earlier about their future yes sir so okay so my issue with this I have numerous issues um says right here you know students who meet the requirements or or almost meet the requirements for admission so here's the way I look at it um first off the the process of applying to college is it's pretty simple and um I don't think that's a a real barrier to somebody who wants to go to college I think that that um too many kids end up going to college and then flunking out um because so many kids are not equipped or they don't have the interest or the aptitude or you know whatever it is and they and they flunk out I mean few years after I got out of the UA that they opened up that that Center down there and there's probably some successes out of that but you still got a whole bunch of freshmen and sophomore who are who are not completing the the uh course of study and in my mind that's that's pretty traumatic for for a student to to um get a letter like this goes hey you know I'm a be student or or I don't know they don't get into what the details are about the you know almost meet the requirements but but if you know I think you're giving a kid false hope because if they can't meet the already fairly low admission standards and even with those low admission standards you get a sizable number of of kids who don't complete the degree and so now you're adding more into that mix um and I I just think that's a disservice to students and families I think also that it's that it's cutting out the the function of our counselors and staff and administrators um to advise kids on appropriate uh you know courses of action post post high school so that's why I don't that's why I'm not in favor of this so can we just ask Mr then what does almost meet the requirements mean is it because if they're Junior and they're not a senior yet or if they don't have the credit what does that mean so in the communication if students are you know a in a performance classification you can have meets the criteria or almost meets the criteria and so if the students are close but they would need to actually get a certain score on the ACT in order to then meet the requirements for admission it would indicate that on the letter now right yeah and so really these letters actually would serve as entry points for our College and Career ready lead College and Career ready teams to work with students so if a student did receive a letter and is interested and maybe was not interested most of the students who receive the letters are going to be students that have already expressed an interest to go to college if a student receives a letter that uh their family and or that student had not considered this now is an entry point for our College and Career teams to then work with those students to consider all of the factors as they go through the application and financial aid application process there are a lot of steps that happen between letter receipt and actually attending the post-secondary institutions that are partnering with this group and so it's just instead of our it may be for some folks that instead of work it may be for some students instead of working with our College and Career ready teams before they receive the letter our College and Career ready teams so just work with the students after if they hadn't considered college to be an option prior to receiving the letter so it sounds like it's just giving people free will to do what they want after they receive this letter right like there's no there is no obligation at all to do anything with another opportunity m is providing for college level success if if approved this would provide an opportunity for students to get information from the two groups to indicate whether or from those instate universities about whether or not would be uh eligible for admission thank you okay so so once again everything you said is not in here because the way this thing is written it's it's we're giving data to ASU they're going to go crunch that data and then they're going to send out admission letters that's what that's the way this thing is that's the way this thing reads that is what the agreement is for for that what the agreement does not include is what happens after the students receive the letter because that wasn't a part of the agreement I they don't I don't have the letter that they would receive so in the letter it would have the what you need to do now if you're interested in taking advantage of this point it's good if we had had that Downstream information here's an opportunity then here's what we'll do with these students once they get this opportunity would have made that a little bit more understandable for us is yeah yeah okay did you explain that really well did you did you you Dr should met that right what you and Dr shoter met though right I did yeah okay just was curious and I asked these questions and you don't have to patronize me so I was generally curious yes these questions were asked they were not answered okay that's what I want to know now they are they ask good questions yeah you so that's what I was asking I said know if you asked them and we didn't know that's what I wanted to knowed I always ask questions I know that okay so we're going to go ahead and vote I've got a motion in a second so all those in favor I I all those opposed the motion carries J5 miss all right my next item for you is a request to approve an agreement that would establish a partnership between West Ed and the Moran Unified School District to evaluate foundations a language arts curriculum developed by Wilson language training now a couple years back I came to you and we approved fundations as a core part of our Elementary uh our Ela Elementary Ela literacy adoption and so since then we have implemented foundations in grades K through two and this year we are implementing it in grades three in grade three so foundations is a partner with West Ed wested is an independent research organization and what they have done is they have come to us saying we would like to we would like to evaluate the impact of the foundations curriculum in your District they want to use administrative data on on how our kids are doing uh with regard to reading proficiency levels and then um also have uh some survey data done with teachers who would be willing to participate and so we got really excited about this because this is at no cost to the district it's completely voluntary and it will help us know whether or not the considerable purchase that we made to purchase and Implement foundations in K through three classrooms is making an academic impact and so this agreement establishes an an partnership between our district and wested to engage in such a study thank you can I get a motion I move the governing board approve the memorandum of understanding between West head and the Miranda Unified School District second is there any questions I have a quick question so when will we get some data like how long is that going to take because it that I don't have the answer to um I'm not quite sure but the study would be done over the course of this year I anticipate in the summer or early fall of 25 thank you either way it's great information that we want to know so that we can take appropriate next steps and there's no cost right no there's no cost in fact West Ed is um footing the complete Bill to incentivize teacher participation with Amazon gift cards and um and the like so I think our teachers will be very happy um with uh participating giving us their true and honest feedback from this outside group or to this outside group any other questions all those in favor I I motion carries uh J six Miss Benjamin uh good evening governing board senior staff guests in the audience as well as online this is a request to reclassify the digital Communications manager position including updating the job description and salary to accurately reflect the current job duties if approved the reclassification ification would be affected July 1st 2025 the digital Communications manager position has existed in the Office of Public Relation since 2015 the position's job duties have evolved over the last decade due to significant shifts in technology um including new social media plat platforms Enterprise accounts associated with Google metab Business suite and others as well as evolving business needs of a growing K12 school district as a result the job description is severely inaccurate this request merits further review as the position is expected to be vacant for the 2425 school year I apologize for the 2526 school year and the role will need to be advertised accurately in order to recruit a successful candidate uh the role is a critical position in the three-person office with oversight of the district's 22 plus websites account management training and support of 250 plus staff members on social media and website accounts district and school presence on Google Google search Ada copyright Graphics SL program branding and more um I've included the outdated job descriptions and the new job descriptions based on the proposed job description research of salaries and other information and of other current of other it positions the HR office places this position at a level 24 on our hiring schedule salary range of 70,000 626 to 7723 uh currently the position is placed at a level 18 um I've included the reclassification cost in the document uh between $18,000 and $199,000 a portion of this salary will be covered by the $6,000 in savings the department gained from reclassifying the communications and social media coordinator position last July I'm happy to answer any questions about this okay can I get a motion I move the governing board approved the reclassification of the digital Communications manager positioned to a level 24 effective July 1st 2025 second any questions yes Mr Bogart we got money for this okay ongoing okay thanks um yeah the the the description the job descriptions are night and day difference it's a completely different job position right it really it really is sorely needed I think well it's it's a critical role there's no overlap in the roles that each of us have in our office it's very distinct and it's a really important one as far as managing program and school Brands as well as the communication that we manage with families and through school newsletters and all these different you know social media and website it's um you know we we' see its importance and significance and and there requires a level of expertise intelligence Common Sense uh knowledge of the district um a lot of other areas that require a really smart and Savvy person do you have um is there a person currently in the district who who meets the requirements here or you go to the outside yes there is currently a there is currently um the role is currently filled okay with with that level 18 salary uh correct that is that is where she's at yes okay so she's already been doing all this stuff she has already been doing all this stuff well we can just keep paying her I'm getting she she's so she's really done a tremendous job over the years and she's she's a huge advocate and can't say got it thank you any other questions okay all those in favor I I motion carries uh j7 Miss Lin Salada kind of feels like we're back in school doesn't it a lot on this agenda good evening tonight I bring before you a request to add some special education AIDS we have started the school school year with 48 more special education students than we ended last year with typically we start the school year Miss Clem tells me about a 100 down so this is really a net increase of almost 150 to start the year off so this increase in students requires additional Staffing to meet all of our students needs tonight I'm requesting four special education AIDS and two program interventionists for project able or program able and the second secondary program U Miss CLM is here we're happy to answer any questions you might have right I move the governing board approve the addition of one special education Aid at gladen Farms Elementary Mountain View High School Coyote Trail Elementary and Quail Run Elementary and two intervention specialists at the secondary able program effective immediately second are there any questions okay all those in favor I I motion carries uh j8 Miss Lada thanks the next item I have for you is the approval of the 2425 performance-based pay plan there were some minor changes made to the Performance Based pay plan including updating our district Focus areas and removing one one com one piece in component two and some additions and removals in component three uh ARS 15977 requires that at least 70% of teachers vote to approve the plan and these revisions were presented to teachers on August 14th to this date 78% of teachers have voted to approve and less than 1% have voted not to approve the remaining teachers have not voted and happy to answer any questions for you can I get a motion I move the governing board approve the 2425 performance-based pay plan as presented second are there any questions all those in favor I I motion carries j9 Miss Lin Salada okay next I have a few policy revisions for you policy gck has one minor revision when I brought this to you in June there were two pieces in the policy where we missed changing three years to two years in the transfer policy and we wanted to correct that and clarify in policy GD QC retirement of support staff members there's a minor change changing the advanced notice of retirement to 120 days because we have support staff on different contracts 9 month 10 month 11 month 12 month we don't typically use the standard January 15th date like we do for teachers that's the reason for that change and finally policy jfb open enrollment asba or actually AR15 346 gives districts the ability to give enrollment preference to Children of a member of the Armed Forces of the United States who's either on active duty or was killed in the line of duty so we would be adding that and the regulation for open enrollment adds that there should be an equitable process in place such as a randomized lottery for applicant selection I'm happy to answer any questions for you okay can I get a motion I move the governing board approve the revision to policy gck professional staff assignments and transfers policy GD QC retirement of support staff members and policy jfb open enrollment as presented second any questions just a comment I think that last policy is great that we do that okay all those in favor I I motion carries thank you now we go to J1 Miss Rey all right my next item for you all this evening is a request to revise a host of policies that come under several different categorical representations and all of them are being res revised or the request is being to have them revised as a result of shifts at multiple levels of legislative governance um and recent legislative sessions as well as some clarity on District processes all have been recommended by the Arizona School boards Association and all have been reviewed and approved by our legal council so the first Suite of policies that I'm asking to be revised are all around the umbrella of sexual harassment and these are really minor terminology changes that will not shift our practices but just clarify some of the processes that we were required to implement on August 1 the second Suite of policies is under basic instructional program and graduation requirements this is from our last legislative session uh during that session students excuse me um there was a requirement that students in common schools are grades K through 8 and in high schools are provided a total of one year of instruction in state and federal constitutions American institutions and ideals and the history of Arizona including the history of Native Americans in Arizona and so this policy change would update our policies to align with that requirement also there was very specific statutory language in this last legislative session about the length of time and the number of days we are required at the secondary level to teach information regarding the Holocaust and other genocides and so we are well within compliance but this would just update our policy language to ensure that our policy is aligned with the updated State Statute the next Suite is really a bunch of ter just terminology updates I think one of them has plan like lesson planning books and they're just saying lesson plans now so asba has just recommended some updates to some language around teaching methods student interrogations searches and arrests and public concerns and complaints about instructional resources and so all of that was it's really just some language very minor revisions language cleanup as you saw in the board packet the last policy policy in NJ DB use of Technology resources and education this policy includes a um an inclusion of um a paragraph regarding the includ including the use of generative artificial intelligence AI programs and our Platforms in the classroom so AI has become a part of our world and so this paragraph provides uh some stance language and some guidance regarding that our technology solution team is currently in the process of educating every staff member at every school about Ai and talking about some of the parameters of it this policy recommendation uh the inclusion of this language just kind of provides some guidance and direction to that group about what we would like to share and how we would like to incorporate incorporate AI into the conversation about how adults can utilize it but then the students at levels that it would be appropriate how we would possibly utilize that in the future thank you can I get a motion I move the governing board approve the revisions to policy ACA a sexual harassment policy AAA Title 9 sex discrimination policy gbk staff grievances policy ji student concerns complaints and grievances policy I basic instructional program policy ikf graduation requirements policy IMA uh teaching methods policy jih student interrogation searches and arrests policy ke public concerns complaints about instructional resources and policy inj DB use of Technology resources and education as presented second are there any questions I have a kind of a basic question or overarching so um the with with any of these that are tied to statutes you know federal or state whe whether we adopt these changes or not um doesn't have anything to do with with um implementing those those statutes here in the district right yeah because we already why because we already talked about this didn't we so yeah no it's it's a good question I with these I think the question is does this change our practice right and none of these change are practice it's really just terminology cleanup consistent with some of those regulations but the practice none of our practices are impacted by this yeah so like if we didn't agree with a statue then adopting or not adopting one of these policies has no impact on that these policies would not have any impact yeah absolutely correct yeah uh Miss REI I wasn't listening can you repeat that let me start again I'm just kidding any other questions yeah I have a quick question um there's a phrase that's being added into it says decision makers must not have any bias or conflict of interest a decision maker may be uh the title nine cordinator or investigator as long as there's no bias or conflict of interest I don't see what lists what bias and conflict of interest is in the policy can we have a policy brought back that lists specifically what that what that entails I can certainly ask our legal council to provide a definition of that yeah that'd be right sure thank you okay any further questions okay all those in favor I I motion carries J1 Mr gigowski yeah have it we are seeking approval on a minor revision to policy JJ that has also been recommended by the Arizona school boards Association the revision provides clarification on the approval of fundraising activities by students on school premises or elsewhere the governing board may still choose to approve the activities and create a list of pre-approved fundraising activities that the superintendent May approved upon written request our practice will um will not change um as the governing board and the superintendent can and continue to defer to school's principles or their designity to approve the fundraising request from clubs and organizations on their campuses all groups requesting approval will still complete the Student Activities fundraising form can I get a motion I move that the governing board approve policy JJ student fundraising activities as presented second are there any questions mark just a clarification that so basically the principal per School per event they know their students they know their clubs okay that's how it is now it is perfect any other questions okay all those in favor I motion carries J12 Dr streer Vice President mcris governing board members members of the audience this is a another policy revision um this policy is being revised as a result of the Arizona School boards Association policy advisory as well as change to the Arizona revised Statute policy bbba is board member qualification uh and this policy is a result of Senate Bill 1280 that amended ars1 15-32 and ars1 15- 421 by adding that a convicted sex offender is ineligible for membership on a school district governing board can I get a motion I move the governing board approve the revisions to policy bbba board member qualifications as presented second are there any questions a big huge no questions do you happen to know if there if somebody happened in the country somewhere happen the past it's terrifying I I don't know the history behind the state legislature's motivation on this I don't thanks all right any other questions all those in favor I yes okay well motion carries uh k b does any board member have a item for future agendas okay and our next meetings are October 10th is our next regular meeting and then November 14th and then December 12th all at 6 pm here at this location I want to thank everybody for attending can I get a motion to adjourn mov we adjourn second all those in favor I I I we are adjourned thank you for attending great job

is overrated AA we're collecting student hot takes this morning do you have a first hour class um I do okay you are very late do you have a hot take for us this morning though my hot take I feel like canes is overrated kanes is overrated what's overrated about I mean it's good but like the fries are always soggy the chicken sometimes is gross the only thing good about it is the toast so everybody loves that Texas toast yeah but really I mean it's chicken fingers right you can get them anywhere can's overrated I'm with you on that all right wild cats thanks for sharing your hot takes with us today keep having opinions we value them have a great weekend enjoy the nice weather we'll see you in 2 weeks a [Music]