Reader

at school 2 and that concludes this month's superintendent report thank you Mr jenero next up we have an overview of state and local assessments and District highlights by our assistant superintendent of curriculum Miss kusich good evening Commissioners ladies and gentlemen once again it is a pleasure to be here this evening to present to you data my least favorite part of these data presentations are the state mandatory reports but this one's a little more fun because we get to talk about our local data as well and that's where I really think that the proof in the pudding of what we're able to do in our one Clifton Community for our students lies this evening's presentation will have an overview of the mandatory reporting of State njsla student learning assessment the dlm which is the alternative assessment for our uh very small percentage of of our special needs students it is not for all of them our local assessment data and our district actions the njsla assessment is an assessment of language arts and math language arts grades 3-9 and math in grades 3 through 10 as well as end of course assessments for Algebra 1 geometry and Algebra 2 this assessment is measured on five levels from level one not yet meeting grade level expectations to level five exceeding grade level expectations this assessment called njsla was formerly known as the park assessment and then adjusted very slightly and renamed as the New Jersey student learning assessment as we can see here across all of our grade levels the vast majority of our students fall into levels 3 through five for language arts in mathematics the vast majority of our students also fall into levels 3 through 5 in Geometry it's 50/50 between level two and level four and we have our science scores where our students are spread across the levels the njsla assessment ments Encompass all students meaning students new to the country or special needs students in some of our more severe classes are represented in those total averages we are not allowed to remove those students to present you data without those students included so that is everyone we do have the dlm for only 1% of our special needs students the DM or dynamic learning map is a more Hands-On assessment administered to some of our most severe non-verbal classrooms and even if students do well on this assessment they only 1% can count can be counted towards proficiency under how the esa act measures school districts in 40 different areas in DM we again see our students at all grade levels from 3 through 8 and grade 11 how they perform but this is again a snapshot of 1% of our most severely uh needy special education students now we'll be moving on to our local assessment data starting in kindergarten which is the foundation of everything and that Foundation starts with foundations what we see here is our foundations program is a multi-sensory phonemic awareness and systematic multisensory phonemic awareness instruction program it is part of the Wilson Reading Intervention which many of our families ask for for students who have dyslexia we utilize foundations as the foundational core for teaching reading in grades K through three and we can see here on the right on the left hand side of the page that our students in grade K in foundations have gone from 40% proficiency to 82% by the end of the year thanks to our teachers diligently implementing this program with Fidelity it is a short 30 minute block every day of the week providing systematic phonemic instruction to develop reading skills we do modify it slightly for our English language learners but this goes across the board for all of our students we then give double doses for students in basic skills on occasion and double doses on a regular basis for many of our special needs students to support their reading and literacy development on the right hand side of the page we see the growth of our students in other major markers of literacy which include high frequency trick wordss rhyming words and letter naming fluency now we have the same data for first grade looking at our first grade literacy card as well as the foundations data and what we see is that based on our basic literacy skills which include phonemic awareness phonics vocabulary reading fluency and comprehension our students show growth from the beginning to end of the year and we look at their guided reading levels where our most of our students average out around the level of B at the beginning of the year increasing to level F by the end of the school year and once again on the right hand side we see the growth in from foundations from 55% proficiency at grade level to 82% by the end of the year and in second and third grade we see the same growth through the use of Foundations which is that Wilson based intervention very similar to Orton Gillingham our star reading summary shows growth typical growth from year to year this is now comparing students in 2223 to students in 23 24 but we see that they're maintaining a high level with a slight increase year-to-year and we see that same unified score increase in Star reading which is our online measurement of student reading proficiency from grades three through five from the light purple to to the dark purple that steady line of growth across and in grades 6 through 8 a similar visual display of that data as relevant to sixth through e8th graders in literacy we try to balance paper and pencil literacy with technology in ker 2 our students use Raz kids to read books online and improve their fluency in grades 2 to 8 we have Mayan reader and Accelerated Reader as well as the full AR 360 platform this year students in 22 23 to 24 school year arcade 8 students read 46,7 194 books that was a 37,1 75 book increase from the previous year these are paper books online books It's a combination of all books but one of the things that really pushed this initiative was our book vending machines thanks to grant funding and support from the board we've been able to put book vending machines into every Elementary School including the Calas and those vending machines are used as an incentive to get paper books into children's hands and the number of paper books that that children go after in those book vending machines is just astounding so I've just reviewed our major data literacy highlights our literacy highlights in technology and then we have our teacher supports to help our teachers be most successful and efficient with their use of time the day is short and there's so much to accomplish particularly in the area of literacy so we have our language arts supervisor working with a team of literacy coaches going around providing support to help teachers cut away the things that might not be quite as effective and really hone in their strategies to support our students and maximize the learning time that we do have this is our book circulation in our media centers in Middle um both high school and middle school there was an increase in book circulation now you just heard about that huge increase in Reading both online as well as in those books that kids were setting goals to win from the book vending machines we did have a decrease in our media center circulation in the elementary schools so the media uh media Specialists are going to be using um various techniques to get more books in hands that are borrowed but the exciting part is that our overall amount of reading has increased because kids were getting those books to take home with them and keep out of the the vending machines at the high school level we measure our growth primarily focused on the writing standard and from year to year in English one students went from n 91% of our students passed with a 7day or higher in the following school year our writing quarterly average was 87% of our students um passing with a65 or higher in 10th Grade we went from 90% of our students passing with a 70 or higher to 92% passing with a 65 or higher this is reflective of the shift in our grading policy so comparing our prev the year where 70 was the minimum passing grade to the 65 being a minimum passing grade is not exactly an apples to oranges comparison it's a little off because our grading scale changed and in 11th grade we see the same 90% passing with the 70 or higher in their writing areas um in 2223 to 97% with a 65 or higher in 12th grade 98% to 97% and our major highlight is that we exceeded the state average both on the NJ SLA and NJ GPA in English language arts and here we just have an illustration of those um um writing quarterly scores that we just discussed on the previous slides language arts takes up the largest amount of our curriculum but then we have math the other cor Corner pillar of our instruction what we see here are kindergarten through fifth grade local assessment data from the light green to the yellow that is our district placement to our district post test these are local assessments developed by teams of teachers which then get loaded into the linkit platform these are assessments based on what we are teaching in our schools the placement test challenges them to see where they are in what we're going to be learning and the post Test shows where they got um and then we at some grade levels we also have the endof year test but the growth that we're looking at is from the light green to the yellow and across the board our students showed growth our main focus this past year was also honing in instruction onto teacher-led small groups and small group stations for students to practice their learning here we have a multi-year growth and even with multi-year grade by grade where we're comparing different students each year we have seen growth from 2021 through 2324 before but again on our local data and now we're looking at the quarterlies for grade 6 through 8 here we have the same thing with our district placement test in the light green our students in 6 through 8 all have significant growth up through the marking period four quarterly which is the blue so here we're comparing the light green to the dark blue and you can see the growth trajectory for grade six grade six resource room and then grade seven and eight accelerated our biggest highlight in math was that thanks to Esser funding which unfortunately has expired we were able to add the touch math multisensory math program to most of our self-contained llds lldm and er special education classes um we were able to do some expansions um not just of Imagine math but also utilizing roboy in grades 2 through eight which is a handson robotics program that our students really enjoy and in math we also have our math coaches who go around helping to support our teachers math is a challenging one not all of us come out of school as strong mathematicians I am one of them and having our coaches work with our teachers teachers we have some amazing mathematical genius teachers and they're growing some really great mathematician students our main highlights in K to8 are in number recognition the basic two digit functions of adding subtracting multiplying dividing proportional relationships finding Solutions the more challenging areas that we're still focusing on are multi-step word problems performance four operations with fractions I think we all hate fractions multi- select and multi-response questions those are a challenge and that is one of the core pieces of the njsla because students have to learn to deal with that ambiguity at the high school we had um 54% of our students pass the algebra 1 quarterly um in marking period one growing to 60 um to 6 3% in marking period 3 in Geometry we went from 69% down to 43% geometry is um showing itself to be a challenge and we are going to be putting in uh to place multiple different um initiatives in order to address geometry in Algebra 2 we do we're back to our usual growth 75% passing in marking period 1 to 88% passing in marking period 3 and here we have a visual with the showing that growth from the green I'm sorry from the Navy to the Green in Algebra 1 and in Algebra 2 with that dip that was just mentioned for geometry again we had an eser based highlight that was supporting our students that unfortunately has now come to an end and that was the um almost unlimited free after school in-person and online tutoring that was available 5 days a week for our students in math from Algebra 1 through calculus um we have eliminated our tutor.com online program which was being funded through Esser we are still maintaining the Afterschool tutoring but we have gone down from 5 days a week to three um our AP students 78.9% of them scored a three or a higher on the computer science AP and 42% 42.9 score to three or higher on the computer science a in calculus 42.5 score to three or higher on the calculus ABB test and our njsla scores did exceed the state growth and now we're looking at imagine math imagine math is our online adaptive program that does correlate with our um state test scores and provides student growth and and support online it's adaptive it's gamified so unlike older worksheet based online programs this one does engage our students a little more but it can sometimes lead to frustration because we look at multiple different Pathways there are the pathways that can get assigned to a student that follow what they're doing in their um pacing guide in their classroom but there are also challenge Pathways and Remediation pathways and sometimes students are selecting Pathways where they really need to work with their teacher to identify the correct Pathway to work in so that they are getting the most um support without too much frustration overall our students grew from each Benchmark across the year with our highest growth in grade five um and I'm sorry with our kindergarten being the highest growth with 254 points of growth but we see this growth trajectory on that bottom line with the navy blue showing growth through grade8 Algebra 1 and geometry is a bit lower because students are T kind of tired of the program by high school we are replacing imagine math in grades 10 in um algebra and geometry this year we're piloting a new program um for those high school students in terms of online lessons and our students K through 12 completed 32,8 75 imagine math lessons completing 12 m941 22 problems our students in grades 3 through 12 utilized the online tutor who's a live teacher that they can access when they're in Imagine math they can help them with an imagine question or a homework question 4,200 23 times and our students utilizing the gamified mode earned over half a million tokens in grade K through 2 and in grades three plus they earned 2,466 th000 points um we were a leader in donating to charity because those points can be donate can be converted either to gamify their Avatar and buy bling for their avatar on screen or donate to charity well Clifton kids chose to donate those points to charity Now we move to science in biology we're looking at our high school scores um our marking period 1 went from 72 to marking period 3 77% proficiency um and for biology honors 71 to 76% Proficiency in chemistry we went from 76 7 to 70% and 82 to 81 in chemistry honors and in physics 67 to 69% and 94 to 97% for physics honors our science highlights were that our mechanical Mustangs finished third at the first midatlantic district Championship they qualified for and attended the World Championship where they did make it to the quarterfinals 15 out of 20 of our um students who took the biology AP scored a three or better um that is we exceed the global average um for AP performance in a three or better and six out of 10 score to three are better in AP environmental science once again exceeding both the New Jersey and the global average and our advanced placement physics students um this is an ad this is an add-on this year this is our first year this 2425 school year where we'll be taking the AP Physics Exam so sit tight for those exciting results next year now we move in to world history in world history from marking period 1 to marking period 3 we went from 85% test score average to a 71% test score average in American history 1 we we went from a 69% average to 73% and American History 2 from 66% to 82% our social studies highlights are that our Clifton mock trial team won the state championship that's really amazing that's something really good in football as Mr jaro would say but I am not quite sure I guess the something top of top the top of the top okay there we go this is our we hit we hit that state championship n um National History Day at National History Day at monor University three of our students presented very compelling topics on civil rights um and the uh two different Civil War topics they really need deserve recognition although we were not um top scorers the depth and breadth of what our students did was just beyond students um Andy chapello Anthony Rosario um received accolades from the New Jersey Civil War Round Table um and our team hosted the third annual CHS History Fair in terms of AP once again here AP US History results 93.5 of% of our students scored three or higher exceeded the New Jersey and Global averages in AP psychology 71.7% of our students scored a three or higher also exceeding the New Jersey and Global averages and an AP US Government and politics 100% of our students score to three or higher also exceeding the New Jersey and Global averages so what are we doing to support and improve instruction in those areas where we may need to grow and to maintain the areas where we are the strongest we utilize all of the data that you just saw to drive classroom instruction what we see in our data impacts our pacing every year which then impacts our local assessments we provide before and after school programs and summer school using various forms of St um State funding Federal funding and an after school Pro homework that is provided by the district unfortunately thanks to the expiration of Esser there will be fewer of these programs this this year and this coming summer but we're trying to maximize them by holding them on the most popular days ensuring that we're targeting the groups that need them the most um we have been up till now providing both inperson and online tutoring we do still have the online tutoring feature within our imagine math program um and we do provide some virtual tutoring for our students who cannot attend things like our elll tutoring up at the high school um as well as we're running out the end of the um high-intensity tutoring Grant where we have about 200 students receiving 3 days a week of online tutoring um through the month of January um and then that Grant will ran out that was also an Sesser funded Grant it was a separate Grant from eser that we received uh we're focusing on writing to maintain student progress and we're really prioritizing hands-ons and small group learning leveraging our Google classrooms and really the key piece is supporting mental health um this year we have fully integrated taken the first steps to fully integrate our PBIS and inrs programs into a full multi-tiered system of support so that we can be really addressing our students behavioral academic and social emotional needs we continue to prioritize um student mental health our students are still experiencing the co challenges will probably never fully go away but the bigger issue is that all of the screen time that our students have has made changes in their brains we have severe increases in student disregulation so it's really important for our teachers our counselors our support staff to help teachers learn to manage their emotions manage frustration and really focus on their social emotional well-being um we did thanks to this board's foresite U be able to keep the additional math and reading instructional supports as well as the additional counseling supports that we were able to add through Esser we were able to incorporate that into the current budget to keep that grow going um we continue to extend our specialized programs such as our IMPACT Program um for our 18 to 21 year olds um and we are looking at expanding our Twilight Alternative Program um as well as our Aspire Alternative Program which is our daytime Alternative Program we're going to be adding a small component of general education students to that after school Twilight program as well this year so we continue to do good things and it's really thanks to this board's support um and the careful um and Target budgeting so thank you very much for all of that um and that is all oh nope I'm so sorry um our counseling Focus forgive me I I didn't mean to skip over that but I think I covered the majority of that all of the counseling supports that we were able to do including the external Services as well as internal Services we continue to do because our students just need it so much um the virtual caling room is still out there there but one of the other pieces that we were able to do together with counseling and academics was um put calming Corners in every single preschool through third grade classroom as well as every single self-contained special ed classroom and um adaptive Furniture which is alternative seating bean bags CS other ways that children can express their movement and still be able to stay focused on what's going on in class and we've done that in every classroom in grades three through five um so that counseling social emotional and academics go hand inand for our Student Success thank you ladies and gentlemen thank you Miss kusich for that very comprehensive overview uh open up to the board for any questions of commissioner Suarez thank you president Paris thank you so much uh Janina I so appreciate um this important information and I just um to reiterate that to reiterate the highlights of growth uh especially in literacy uh for so many grades and um so thank you and to the Educators who are making that happen I have a question I'm just curious if you can provide some insight about the um njsla science cuz I noticed that the majority of students were in levels um one and two for grades 58 and 11 um if you can perhaps provide some insight as to why that is um so let the community know please yeah over the last two years the test has completely changed and at the same time we have added a completely different SC Hands-On science program that we're rolling out the first year of that program was kind of fraught with supply chain issues um and we only last year started with a science coach to help to go around and really help teachers incorporate and Implement that Hands-On program um our day is also very full the science um standards and the Hands-On Science assessment shifted as the hand the Science assessment shifted to more conceptual Concepts um and a lot of our science and social studies especially at the primary grades is really Incorporated in literacy which stemmed from the Common Core which then became the New Jersey student student learning standards and with a focus on the language of Science of so of social studies of technical subjects so it's more of a non-fiction literacy approach and we need to be shifting and finding time to add more of that Hands-On conceptual approach we do have the kits and the trainers and we're slowly rolling that out um but that's one that's going to be a challenge because for for many many many years when that assessment was more literacy bed based we were at the top that was always our highest scoring area so this is a shift in in the testing system thank you so much that's really helpful um and and please I'm only asking questions about the gaps that I see because I also want to highlight because you you shared so many great things um when I was looking at the nth grade English and language arts um and I understand that there was a minimum of 70 or higher for 2022 22 to 23 um whereas 65 are higher for passing for 23 24 yet there was a decrease in passing um what were if you can also provide some insight around so again we changed as I mentioned um in the presentation we did change the grading scale so changing a grading scale doesn't just mean that now whatever was a 6 whatever was a 70 now becomes a 65 it means that teachers have to rethink how they're um what they're scoring and how they're scoring it it's not just drop ing that level so that change in grading scale you really can't compare those two years we're doing that because it's the only data we have um but the comparison is something that you know this year you'll be comparing the same baseline from the beginning of the from last year to this year and from the beginning of this year to the end of this year thank you that's all I have back to Danny um so thank you Janina for that really comprehensive um data analys analysis and I did want to say that um that is a challenge um for a few districts that I know in speaking to some supervisors that when they do change the testing that is true because you're specifically focusing to try to work on certain skills I mean I hate to sort of say teaching to the test but in some ways it is and you're focusing on those skills because of course you're looking at the data and so you're looking at the standards so you are focusing to those standards and then I do know that when they change that it does really throw a lot of things off so um I understand that and again thank you for your um real comprehensive data review as you always do thank you and I have to say it's really important to focus more on the instruction and literacy is that Cornerstone in elementary school we will rise to the challenge of the new assessments but our teachers our elementary school teachers work so hard all of our teachers do all of our staff does but our elementary teachers in particular have to really master all the content areas manage the entire day and we've been changing our schedule um a couple of times over the last few years plus they had Co to deal with so there really our Focus has been on maintaining those literacy math and social emotional needs um while learning about the science and social studies um you know as an assistant superintendent of curricula I should be in instruction I should be talking about how great test scores are I don't think that standardized tests are the only measure and too many people look at that one day that one point in time as the defining statement about what our students are capable of doing as the defining measure of a school district and that's absolutely not true those those St those tests come from federal um laws and federal agendas not from a place of true pedagogy instruction and what's best for kids [Music] commiss Bas thank you thank you very much for a very comprehensive report uh what role can the parents and the Guardians play in helping their students improve in their performance on these assessments read read read read to your children read to your children with your children have your children read to you make reading and literacy more important in your household than that little rectangular screen and it's okay if you're reading the Kindle app on that little screen but it should be reading reading reading take your kids to do fun things talk to your children listen to their answers respond to their answers respond to those thousands of questions and try to provide them a little Nook a corner a special chair a place where they can do their homework maybe it's a little tent that you just put a drape your apartment is small you drape over your kitchen table and now they have their little learning tent underneath but make a corner a spot someplace that's their special Learning Place it might be in their bed with a special learning pillow that they just put their books down upon but we want to have our children have a specific place where they can sit and do their homework as calmly as possible and we do minimize our homework but the read read read read should be a daily thing thank you uh commissioner Brak thank you Mr President geometry is is that mandatory is that mandatory to graduate from high school you need to have um the three maths to graduate from high school it doesn't necessarily have to be passing the geometry um but you do need to take an assessment all the way through 10th grade and it can be Algebra 1 Algebra 2 or geometry the disparity is pretty significant so even with a 65 or better it's saying 43% in mp 3 is that right 43% In Mp3 so I I was just concerned but again looking at you remember we did have that shift in our grading scale at the same time um our Focus has been on algebra algebra is the one you absolutely positively have to have to graduate from high school your second your other maths can be any other math geometry needs to become a focus um as much as algebra but non-mandatory thank you very much any other yes commissioner me here so I love how we did bring that up because I recently had a professional development where we talked about the shifting of grading P um policies and passing grades can you briefly explain to the general public what the positives and benefits are of our shifting from 70 to 65 um so over the years we have had this conversation um the most recent I think was when Mr HDA really worked um the high school principal worked with his staff um the majority of the districts in the state of New Jersey have a 60 or a 65 as their minimum passing grade Clifton has had a 70 as the minimum passing grade for and we're only one of a handful of the 600 districts in the state it's maybe a dozen that had that 70 what that did is it gave it put our students on an uneven playing field because a student would come from another District come here they'd be passing at a 65 but now all of a sudden they're failing because our is a 70 it was an undue burden on our students because that grade you still have a bell curve of performance and most colleges also fall in that 60 to 70 range so the 70 was giving an undue burden on our students this helps our students feel that they can succeed it gives them the opportunity to be kids and still pass a course and it helps overall with just our passing rates as a district it's not to pass kids on it's to help kids show what they can do in a way that everyone else around them is doing it instead of making them feel that they are failures because they may have experienced a few more challenges thank you very much and I believe if I'm not mistaken um there there are also impacts in their ability to get scholarships and that colleges do adjust for what your minimum passing grade is so this is this all by lowering that passing grade that also put our students in a better competitive line with um attaining certain College scholarships that's beautiful thank you so much anyone else oh commissioner kova um you mentioned the the tutoring in grades 9 to 12 was going to be available because we were sunting some sort of funding um do we have anything available for K to8 so every school has some small amount of an after school homework program um we only have our own pool of teachers to tap for that um so in the schools you know every school has at least a few people after school available for tutoring um from Tuesdays through Thursdays you're going to actually see names showing up on the agenda now this is something that we're without in the absence of the eser funding we do need to um you know reduce the number of days and reduce the number of weeks so we're starting you're seeing names showing up now and the tutoring will go on after school through um April or May depending on how many students are taking advantage of it how many teachers are doing it at each school um in most cases K to2 that's too long to stay after school it's not necessarily going to help that primary grade child it's already a long day and then staying after for another hour is not necessarily going to reap gains 3 through five you'll have a little better um for certain students a few times a week 6 through 12 is where you really will would see the most bang for your book because they're just their stamina their attention is just a little greater than those primary grades um and I saw the recommended areas are Focus now is that something that gets attacked this year or is that something we put into the R into the curc so this was the data from last year we're looking at last year's data because we're also looking at last year's njsla scores so that local data was already looked at by our curriculum teams this summer so when they made adjustments for pacing for this year for September they made adjustments for the areas of need and the areas of strength um in both pacing minor changes in pacing as well as um in our benchmark assessments particularly for language arts and for Math and in language arts our teachers learn about that especially at the elementary level and the Middle School level and what they what it's called the teacher read first memos um and the content supervisors give these memorandum to our teachers to read at the beginning of the year hey we got rid of this don't do this anymore but add more of this this is our Focus you know really dive in we know your day is full so these are your non-negotiables for example in a primary grade classroom your non-negotiables every single day are foundations your math program and something that we called Second Step which helps teach students how to regulate their emotions those are the non-negotiables in the curriculum that comes from our data and those adjustments are made over the summer on those long lists of curriculum people working in the summer and throughout the school year that you see on the agenda now you also mentioned that um the students are doing very very well with programs where there's gamification um I'm assuming because that's where they use it they play games all the time um but has there been any thought giving into integrating that into the teaching method methodology and structure in class and somehow gamify the classroom for those desired so a lot of our teachers do things like jeopardy games and all kinds of classroom incentives at the same time we're trying to balance both online and Screen learning with paper pencil speaking back and forth lecturing style learning small group centers and so forth centers appear like a game um so we do some of that but we also need to be training our students to be able to function in a world that where not everything is a game so it's it's a it's a difficult balance um and sometimes we do better at it than other [Music] times okay thank you okay um thank you very much uh Miss kusich for again very comprehensive report and uh some great plans for our future thank you for your time and hard work putting that together for us and thank you for your support of the whole curriculum Team all of our supervisors teachers Paras everybody from in the entire District we can't do it without you it takes all of us to do this thank you [Applause] I'm unless there's some disagreement from my colleagues I'm going to do a little change in the agenda because it's getting late and we do like to try to get the public recognition part at least done by 8 o'clock or so so unless there's any great opposition I'd like to move um uh to uh public rec recognition to our next slot over and we'll do board committee reports after that then so can we start with online there's no one in the virtual waiting room motion to close second there's no one you said no one okay uh so motion by commissioner Brak second by commissioner canol well commission M I'm sorry um now we like to open up to the public that's here does anyone like to speak please uh approach the podium oh I do have something to say I'm sorry I forgot a very important thing um this portion of the meeting is open to the residents and non-residents of Clifton for the purpose of addressing any subject matter pertinent to and or directly related to the operation of the Clifton Public School District residents and non-residents are requested to sign the register provided for this purpose and to State their names addresses and subject matter comments are limited to five minutes per person issues raised by members of the public may or may not be responded to by the board all comments will be considered and response will be forthcoming if and when appropriate the board ask that members of the public be courteous and mindful the rights of other individuals when speaking specifically comments regarding students and employees of the board board are discouraged and will not be responded to by the board students and employees have specific legal rights supported by the laws of New Jersey the board Bears no responsibility nor will it be liable for any comments made by members of the public members of the public should consider their comments in light of the legal rights of those affected who are identified in their comments and may be aware and be aware that they are legally responsible and liable for their comments would anyone like to approach the podium this evening good evening board board president Paris board members and the one Clifton Community my name is Ed Hernandez from Wayne New Jersey at 7 Bonita Terrace Wayne New Jersey 07470 and I would like to take this opportunity to speak about someone I'm proud to call it a friend and a colleague Judith B bassford who is running for re-election for the uh fifth time here in Clifton as the owner of a compliance organization I first C crossed paths with the Judith several years ago and became clear that we share a common passion helping people improve their lives Judith was instrumental in assisting me with the school related issue involving my son and from that moment our friendship blossom in fact I was so impressed by her dedication and integrity that I let her I later hired her to work with my com at my company since then I've closely followed Judith's involvement with the Clifton Board of Education and what stands out the most about her is that she never takes an easy path her commitment to what she believes in is unwavering even if it's something sometimes means being being misunderstood judah's passion combined with her Decades of experience in education governance and Community advocacy makes her an ex exceptional leader she has not only served the Clifton Board of Education but also the pay County School boards Association giving her a deep understanding of the challenges faced by public schools her dedication to special needs advocacy and public education is demonstrated through her long-standing service and the numerous Awards She's received including the highly respected njsba School Board member of the Year congratulations with Judith's extensive background in administration leadership and compliance she is well prepared to tackle the most pressing issues in our schools her ability to support and Mentor others coupled with her strong ties to the Clifton Community make makes her the ideal candidate to Foster unity and create and create positive change a vote for Judith bassford is a vote for someone who will always prioritize the needs of students families and the community thank you thank you just to quickly add really quick she stepped up to the plate when I needed someone my son was actually bullied in my own County she didn't have to do that she stepped in and I I will always thank you for that because we just moved into the area we didn't know anyone and she just went in all the way so my son is performing at a very high level his confidence is up and he actually playing football at this time he's doing things that I would never think he was going to do so thank you Judith for stepping in so thank you board thank you president thank you thank you sir anyone else wish to approach the podium this evening forgive me I'm going over five minutes Zane jaim hackbury Place Clifton but tonight I claiming my residence as school too Mr jgo thank you for your heartfelt words to say it's been a rough start to the school year at school 2 is an understatement October 7th 2024 will forever be a sad and painful day to remember we are all still grieving in different ways and at different times of the day every event at school this year we will be feeling the void left by the passing of our princip Jen Lucas we would be remiss if we didn't first thank Central Administration for their intentions and support for us during this time we recognize that this has never happened in the clipon district no acting president has P principal sorry has passed away during a school year school leaders were making decisions on the Fly and we know that but it made it a little bit confusing on that Monday when chewy Teddy and Cody Kobe came to visit us that same day the children did not know what was going on and they were thrilled to see not one not two but three dogs in the school and yes we've got to pet them bringing a brief smile to our faces but the students had no idea why they were visiting and when the dogs left we were left with the task of reigning in a bunch of very excited students not something we could handle that day I think it's S Fair to say that elementary teachers use different teaching styles than middle and high school teachers we are their second parents we Comfort we nurture and we speak to students differently last Monday after we were told the devastating news and it was a gut punch because we did not know the severity of Jen's health so it truly came as a shock we were only given until 9:00 a.m.

and with that we're going to call the regular session in order it is also 7:02 p.m. and make sure nobody snuck out in the last 10 seconds roll call please here yes yes here here here Perfect all right another chance to make public comments you two want to say anything we're all here for the same thing a perfect perfect give you the chance though all right any correspondents not seeing correspondents we have to worry about that all right we'll move right on to our business which we're start off with our consent agenda Mr gr if you yeah you've got your minutes in your finances um you'll note that there is an activity fund reports that they finally got done that will be July August and September activity funds we'll go back to them just once a month but um link finally got the reports set for us on that so it's a huge step forward still a few more steps forward we need but um you now have all the financials that we had prior to our financial conversion so that's a good thing um we got an a resignation abriel Mueller our transportation secretary we're sad to see her go uh however we understand and we believe that she'll stay on as a substitute driver as needed so um she's just going another way and Madison strob is who we are hiring for first grade teacher we had a teacher that was on maternity leave come back and then decide that they needed to be with their family um with that we posted the position and Madison strob would have liked to have been here tonight to meet you all however she is meeting families at Eagle Vi at parent teacher conferences and we felt that was a lot more important yes um so really all we've got is a a vacancy we would like to post for a transportation office um as a director we're looking for a transport ation director with that um Administration recommends the board approve the consent agenda as presented okay any questions from the board comments suggestions hearing none may may like to make a motion to approve the consent agenda is presented I'll make the motion thank you Tyson do I second I'll second thank you Kelly roll call please and yes Mo yeser yes Mr yes yes yes perfect all right move on to our Communications reports and presentations and I think we have a presentations from Mr schmel thank you welcome that would be me would you push those time you get seven they longer to go thank you for the opportunity to be here we're here to present the audit of the financial statements of the school district for the year end of June 30 2024 they're in draft form subject only to our delivery to the board and so there's nothing unusual about the fact that you're getting a draft uh I'm just going to walk through a couple of items I do do however have to make two quick comments one is that first meeting you had was a flat two minutes I got to tell you I go to a lot of boards I don't see many two-minute meetings so Kudos on the efficiency U the other is U I heard the comment that they were only here for one thing I'm assuming that's the audit thank you thank you thank you that's it with in between them and seeing their children and you can see how many chose this but that's okay and it was great to see an old friend as well so you have before you the audit we have performed the audit uh we've done so in accordance with General accepted auditing standards and governmental auditing standards as well as the specific requirements of the Illinois U education department because these are regulatory statements issued in compliance with the Illinois Department of Education and their requirements for audited financial statements to school districts in common Parliament that makes them effectively cash based statements as opposed to acral based statements because ultimately the department of education's view is that you have fiduciary responsibility over receipts and dispersements and that's really what this audit encompasses we had uh the complete cooperation of your staff we had no difficulties there were no disputes over accounting issues no disagreements over over access to accounting records for auditing purposes no disputes or disagreements over the financial statement presentation or conclusions we reached in all ways the audit was performed in a very much textbook fashion which course it should be done in the textbook fashion for school district so that seems especially appropriate um as a result of our audit work you will receive a you have are receiving a what's called a clean opinion now it is a clean opinion on the regulatory basis so if you really got into the weeds and read the report you would see that it's not a clean opinion under a generally accepted Accounting Standards Gap basis Financial for cruel but in terms of the regulatory basis it is absolutely a clean a pinion um I'm going to touch on a few items U with regard to your first your state of assets liabilities and and fund Equity the biggest single item for you all the biggest single item for you all was the bond activity for this year if you look at your cash balances for the year ended June 30 2024 versus 23 you would see that your cash is up some $8.8 million that was the first thing that certainly smack PR us into face as Auditors and we audited that obviously but it's specifically as a result of the bond issue and the activities around that so let's talk about your bond issues and and Gro already alluded to some of that but you had three bonds issues outstanding beginning the year ended June 30 2024 you had the 2014 Bond the 20177 bond and the 2020 Bond those three Bond issues you made your payments as scheduled those payments amounted to $3,390 th000 as required by the bond issues as well as a relatively insignificant 60,000 or so 61,000 interest expense that was the cost Associated cash cost associated with your Bonds in 2024 now you also issued Bonds in 20 24 to the tune of 9,995,000 uh why you couldn't get all the way up to 10 million and making our life a little easier I don't know but 9,995,000 was the bond issue and so you had an interest payment no principal payments but an interest payment in 24 for that as well and that was another uh 223,000 that was paid in interest in 2024 on that outstanding any bond there was no principal paid on that bond in 2024 now as was alluded to a minute ago the 2014 2017 and 2020 bonds will all be paid off final payments will be made this year so you will have $2,120 th000 of principal payments to completely satisfy those Bonds in fiscal year 25 and they'll be off the books entirely you will then start principal pay payments on the 2023 bond that first principal payment is due in 2025 that first principal payment will be in in the amount of uh 1,115 th000 there's another 200,000 interest so you'll see about a million3 paid out in 24 for that Bond the requirements in 25 for the then existing bond indebtedness will be dramatically less for cash flow basis although as the meeting covered earlier there'll be additional bonds issued so you won't enjoy that holiday for long the the only other thing to mention which of course I'm sure you all know that 2014 bonds had interest rates that ranged from 1 to 2.8% to 2017 bonds had interest rates that were all in the twos 2.1 the 2.6 the 2020 bonds you actually got a 1.01% interest rate somebody wanted that extra basis point apparently so 1.1 as opposed to the current bond issue for 2020 the one issued in 2024 which is a 2023 Bond of 4.04% so clearly your cost of borrowings has gone up dramatically with the rest of the market now the flip side of that is we will see some additional interest income that you'll recognize this year in particular so you are getting some of that back but net net you're going to have significantly higher bond interest going forward now with that 9,995,000 you then embarked on the beginnings of a substantial Capital improvement process and so these audited financial statements reflect that as well these audited financial statements reflect the fact that you spent $350,000 on a parking lot that was capitalized in 2024 that you spent some almost $60,000 on a bathroom privacy installation or set of installations for 2024 you spent another 2 almost $90,000 on the roof you had uh firewall expenditures which you know when I started this AO a long time ago firewall meant something different but uh this year you spent no gr $98,000 on the firewall which is protection on an IT basis uh the other expenditure was you have almost a million5 that was spent on the high school renovation process project so that's ongoing so you had Capital expenditures other than those that were expensed because some of your items that were spent were expensed rather than capitalized total capitalized items $2,293 th000 so you're well along the way of spending those bond issue monies that you got so that is your statement of assets um if there's any questions I'll pause otherwise I'm going to launch into the uh statement of revenues and expenses just for a bit and I'm only going to touch on the high points because the reality is this is a 69 page report um and culating a minute and a half a page we'll be out of here in an hour and a half easy so on the revenues and expenses if you look at it on a fund basis this year for the first time that we've seen in several years you had a an excess of dispersements over receipts in your education fund you actually had an excess of dispersements and over receipts of some $680,000 now that sounds like a lot however your budget because this was all planned for your budget provided for a deficit in the education fund of some $590,000 so you were about 85 sorry actually $95,000 off of your budget in the education fund importantly all of that was on the revenue side your Revenue news came in under budget by about by $134,000 in the education fund and I mention that specifically because you were a little worse than budget in total by 95,000 but you were under budget for expenditures the expenditures which is that item that you have the most control over were significantly less than budget and it was the $134,000 shortfall in revenues that caused you to be a little different than what you thought you would be most of that was in Title One low income dollars that just didn't come in as you might have otherwise thought um overall overall revenues and again I'm just going to gloss on a couple of high points overall revenues from local sources for the school district in this school year year were [Music] 2,960 sorry yes last year they were 21 mil5 so you're up a million4 roughly in revenues from local sources and that came principally from two places the first place it came from is real estate taxes your real estate taxes that you collected this year of 17.9 million were up substantially over what they had been in the previous year at 167 so that additional amount flowed into your local Source Revenue the other big increase is the flip side of what we talked about with the bonds your interest earnings this year were in excess of $900,000 last year they were around $600,000 so your your investment of monies was diligent and generated an additional 300,000 what you had last year now some of that is rate some of that is the immediate investment of the bond proceeds that you received to generate interest from that so now I'm going to touch on just a couple other items and then I'm happy to take any questions um I'm going to make you though turn to page 58 the good news is I'm skipping all the other 57 Pages you don't need to talk about I said 58 is that not right 56 I apologize 56 56 is your imrf responsibilities which is to say your pension obligations for your teachers and I'm just going to talk about this for a minute because it doesn't appropriately doesn't appear on your statement of assets and liabilities but it is in point of fact nevertheless a real liability of the district so on page 56 about 2/3 of the way down in the far left colum you will see a number of $534,000 that $534,000 represents the excess of obligations you have on a Actuarial basis over the amount of investment assets that you have to apply to that so right now you are underfunded by $534,000 now on the one hand old school $534,000 is a lot of money on the other hand that leaves you literally better than 96% funded overall and now I want to take just a minute to walk you through the historical set of perspective so you feel better about about that half millionar of underfunded if you go all the way over to 2014 which is the far right column you see that you were underfunded at that point by $533,000 if you go along four years later in 2017 you were actually overfunded and the way this report Works state of elar produces it negative numbers means you're overfunded because they never think anybody's going to be overfunded so that negative number of 117,000 says in 2017 you were overfunded 2018 you then had a liability of a milon 387 well what happened what happened is if you run your your eye up those numbers you see about Midway through that column A $600,000 6976 the market fell out of bed in 2018 and as a consequence the baked in Investments that the actuary Actuarial Table say you should earn fell short and so because you lost 600,000 your share of the market loss for the state that took you from an overfunded basis of 177 to underfunded of a million 387 you then proceeded to chip away at it and you can see by 2020 you were overfunded by 525,000 and the next year you were overfunded by a million 578 so you're in really good shape and what that means practically is year in and year out you have to send less money up to the state to meet your Actuarial requ requirements for imrf So being overfunded simply saves you budgetary dollars for the next several years as you have to send up L and then you see in 2022 you're back to being underfunded by a million 170 if you're feeling a little whiplashed um and you're underfunded because again if you run your eye up in 2022 the market cratered and you see that you had a loss of a, 900,000 in your share of the Investment Portfolio which drove you to be underfunded by a million 170 this year you're underfunded by $534,000 the market being positive as it has been I'm not in the the business of crystal balls but I would expect that next year when we come back we should see a small overfunded or a tiny little underfunded balance because your imrf fund is really in good shape so that was a long way around to tell you that you're okay in this fund but I wanted you to understand that even though you're currently underfunded you're well on the way to being overfunded and from a budgetary perspective that should be positive now I have just one more thing to cover and that is as a part of our audit we're required not only to audit the assets liabilities revenues and expenses of the school district but also to specifically audit the federal monies that you receive the receipt of those Federal monies and the dispersement of those Federal monies in accordance with the provisions of the specific grants that those monies are tied to and we're required to report that and this document does report that by individual program and by program cluster group but what I want to to your attention to is Page 66 because 66 is the financial statement findings that we're required to report to the federal government as a result of our audit efforts and you will see that that almost entirely blank page says None So that is a happy thing and if you turn to page 68 which is federal award findings and questioned costs which is if we found anything within the specific provisions of the grants both in terms of the overall operation of the district and in terms of the receipt and expenditure of those monies appropriately and you will see again that that says None So in this case none is a good thing um and other than mentioning that nuns were always a good thing when I was in grade school uh these nuns are better because I'm an auditor and I really have nothing else for this board unless you have any questions than me on 65 material weakness identified and that's still yes and it looks like that's still steming from our theft issue we had a few years ago but you're saying that there's no there's no Financial loss and but are we still we still don't have the financial controls I thought we did so to be and thank you for for mentioning that I I was going to not dwell on it we are required to treat you as a high-risk audit because there was a material weakness in the previous year regarding that incident and so that's what that is it's just leftover and that's why I focused on this year if you look at page 67 67 is a discussion of that whole situation uh uh which Andrea did a nice job helping us uh ultimately craft but you will see in status the first line of the status says this finding is considered resolved at June 30 2024 so that's as clean a bill of health as we can give but we're required to put it in as this happened and is it cleaned up or not because there have been cases where we have to report we had it last year it's still an issue and so we have to repeat the finding but that's not the case here okay so you're you're saying we do have the accounting controls in place currently to prevent this from occurring in the future I'm saying that to you and this report is saying it to the world okay anyone else perfect thank you very much for all your time [Music] enjoy you come back I have other meetings I'll get I need all the help I can get I'm sure you're probably not used to getting Applause so that's that's a good I'm not used to Applause thank you Mr commercial thank you very much you thank you appreciate it right we'll move right along to our communication reports and presentations and next is the enrollment report which is in your packet and we'll go on to our building reports got goer here today goer welcome all right [Music] ask you ask what are you going to ask them you want coffee muffins did we bring them coffee or hot chocolate you want hot chocolate or muffins okay so coffee crew wanted to come show you guys what they do here you want to take your card around this way sorry the wheels don't work well Mom here you want to do muffins no you want to go to Mom he like a that's a thank you so much all right so coffee crew delivers in my classroom we deliver every Friday morning to the teachers mu I would love a hot chocolate you want to pass out muffins so very much go ask them so as they're passing that out bumer classroom teacher who does an amazing job with our students thank you so she features this on Friday says highlight of and the district office we make sure we're so what they do is every Friday they take uh orders on Thursday and on Friday morning the kiddos get it all ready to go and they deliver it um we also do this at uh the middle school so it's also featured there the teachers love it they actually do it daily at the middle school cuz those teachers really need that at the middle school right the teachers want it too but you know thank you so miss fmer can you share you know it's obviously it's great for teachers and it's great for the staff and all of that but can you share what it does for our students so year to it kind of teach we started punch card so the students just work on I have some Lally just do the motor punch the holes in the cards um they get to have conversations with um just staff adults in the building um what all do we do they you been following directions like filling our orders we some years it's colorcoded some years it's you know I use as simple as just shapes I have some strong readers this year so they get to help with the orders that way lots of different skills um they they started doing um baking last year to I got a text from Miss bumer I think I was at CCO and there was an oven that we needed so she said we need an oven so they started making so that adds to that you know following recipes that life skills thank you it to our audience too well we ran out of muffins um but we wanted to just feature and again we have students who um are non so they'll use their AC devices we have students who um maybe physically can't do some things our speech and language staff have provided ways that if you want to put some pictures of I think we have it um pictures that have provided ways to we can hook up to the the curig maker and that student can use a button that will turn on the CU maker so they're a part of the class so it's everyone very inclusive um and I think also M Palmer added another touch to this you guys hear about in inclusion right where we uh our students will go into the gened classroom well she's bringing the gened classro to her and to them and so they help with the students so there's inclusion within a classroom that they feel comfortable in because sometimes it's intimidating to go into a gene class um a lot more students and it's uncomfortable they don't they don't that's not their classroom on a regular basis so she's brought in Jed students to help so they develop those relationships um with the the students that they don't get to see all the time so there's just so many communication social academic things going on just with this oh yeah hour less an hour lesson they do you know a day yeah we day we did measuring just working on following the directions um even as simple as like kitchen safety like with the oven like they know yes M told me every step tonight when we were making the hot chocolate like be careful it's hot like just stuff like that just getting them involved um sister syvia was our PTA person last year I did the coffee crew for PTA so jened students got to come in and participate you were a star with us weren't you I want stay in here you want to stay do you guys have any questions for Miss Balmer but first of all let's give our guys your um you had these made last year didn't you yes they helped I brought in my Cricket the one day they did your show them your apron your Aon he's like I'm done with my job I'm out of here you show them what's on your over turn around turn around and show them they want to see what's the picture so cute there a lot on there show them your coffee cup here right there yeah we have our coffee cup kind of their logo yeah coffee c a lot of our stuff is donated like cups donated um here in town for Moto so usually we'll just print a sticker or something but we do lots of different things they love it and the money that's generated just kind of funds itself um we also have funds available through what they call the step Grant which is actually the money's generated from the high school work Co-op program but as long as we use it for anything with um Independent Living all of those sort of things it goes right back in So when she says I need okay we got it you know cuz it just helps we're starting it at such a young age that they just it'll just continue as they go on to high school because you as you probably have seen our high schoolers do a ton of things too they're selling at the football games they're making t-shirts making apparel all of those sort of things so she's getting the ground work started and it just keeps on goinging so it's very fluid for our kids so again thank you so much I also wanted to highlight while we're here car have to go way to go you guys got to go he's the manager yes awesome it doesn't steer well I installed the wheels back and then another highlight just real quick doing what it wants [Laughter] yeah and since Halloween is coming up I also wanted to feature something else that our speech and language um Miss bahek and Mrs misner put together about four years ago um Halloween can be very uh scary for some of our students right um going up to houses looking at wearing their own Halloween costumes can be very uncomfortable um and seeing other Halloween costumes can be very scary um and knowing what to do when you go up to a door so they have decided that they are going to teach our students how they practice so we I think on the 31st it actually falls on uh we're going to do it and um we set up we'll have a table district office our principal set up and we have a bunch of tables and they go through and they practice how to say trick or treat or as you can see up in the right hand corner some of our students are non-verbal so those are um core uh core uh pictures that they can use that has trick-or treat on them and things like that so it gets everyone involved um but again it's just a a great way that our our staff looks beyond the school walls and says what can we help with outside of school so kudos to our speech uh staff who just continually look at innovative ways to to help our kids so anyway that's it I appreciate you guys coming you know I I just want I just I have to say this that I am feel so blessed that Alex is in the Columbia School District because he he has benefited more than when he was born than we all ever thought he and I just I see a brighter I see a nice a nice future for him thanks to what you all are doing well most of you all are doing story so for most of you so I just really that thank you thank you thank you any questions thanks for letting me share you us I know the hot chocolate hot chocolate isot [Laughter] after definitely and next time you see Mr all right move on to our administrative reports and unfortunately somebody has to follow that I know choose to fill but I'm ready if you guys um so we're going to start with our district shoutouts um this month I went directly to the principales and I said give me some some amazing things your staff members are doing and so I have some comments to share from our building principles um our first one is from Mrs Vinnie from Eagle View she shares Mrs KY our kindergarten teacher she's an excellent collaborator and outstanding with children with a wide variety of needs and she's always willing to help out and go the extra mile to support our school she recently took the lead on creating a calming room for students and staff in our building so a big way to go to Mrs KY Mr Dugan uh shares and shouts out his RTI teacher Mrs King that would be his choice Mrs King makes connections with all of her students and creates excitement for students going for extra reading support she's also a role model and checks in with the students that are struggling with behaviors as she tries to motivate them to make good choices Mrs King also helps with making our building look nice Mr Dugan is very big on making the building look nice she is our green thumb and she makes sure our flowers and plants stay watered Mrs King brings a positive energy that you just can't teach Mrs Miller from the Middle School uh shares and shouts out Mrs forky her RTI teacher she went above and beyond when helping the teachers admin and students with map Benchmark testing this last month she helped test students and organize makeups for those that were absent she also entered scores printed out results for all students to take home we really appreciated her and then Mr Reeves from the high school shares uh that his shout out is Mr gagan Mr gagan is a multitasker he shares he's a wonderful medical assistant I'm assuming helping in different different areas of the school a great mentor to new teachers extremely supportive and encouraging in all classroom management discussions so a big shout out to our amazing staff and our principles that took the time to to give them shout outs that's important um some things that I would like to share I was able to attend the superintendent conference at the end of September I was amazing to reconnect with with other superintendents and kind of see um where the vision is for Illinois the big thing we learned is that they are working on their Vision 2030 which they're going to share at the school board member conference in November um number one on their list was school safety um with everything going on in the world that has been for the past two years a huge focus with uh the state and education teacher retention um that's also how are we going to help our teachers want to stay and maintain in the school buildings and and keep them wanting to come back Colombia is amazing and truly um top-notch when it comes to that so we definitely are doing good things here um the state also wants to continue to improve post-sec secondary transitions so when they graduate high school how are we prepping them for vocational areas how are we prepping them for um college or university work if that's their chosen path um and the last thing which has definitely been with all of our work on school Improvement plans something we've been talking about student achievement State Testing all of those things um the state really wants to start relooking at this and seeing how we're sharing the accountability for student achievement um our Illinois report card that is going to be coming out probably probably in the next two weeks um so I will be sharing and presenting on the school report card next month with where we are with summative designations and test scores um that were taken last year um I'm super excited this kind of goes with what Mrs goer was doing with her students we have some student involvement with our a program we are extremely excited I've been working with Mr Burch um as I pointed out Mr Dugan does Love The Green Thumb um and he's pointed out that he loves some Landscaping help so Mr B um is teaching a landscaping unit with some high school students they are going to be designing um some different um blueprints per se for our Landscaping projects they will be submitted um to Administration to which then we will select um a plan for the front of the district office and the front of Park View um and those students will be coming and help manage take care of plant we're super excited um in fact I even went to a pancake breakfast with Mr bur just the other uh week and that was an amazing thing as well they're doing great things um we also are going to be planting some trees hopefully there have been some businesses that are working with Mr Birch the area right behind the Middle School um four to five trees is kind of his goal to plant um a year to help fill up some of that green space it is not going to uh mess up anything that is already there it's just going to add to the to the back and grow and into different things and opportunities for the students Mr Grody and I have talked um a couple of times on the retaining wall that is behind the middle school that's a conversation it's a little challenging when you're mowing because there's parts of of green in that wall so I have talked to Mr birch as well to see if he had any ideas um I also was very clear because I've been part of these a projects before and I said these have to be feasible and we have to be able to maintain them um with the people that we have on staff so all of that has been discussed and we're really excited about what's to come um curriculum as I mentioned last month we are working K8 Ela just to make sure that our new program rooted in Reading is working for all classrooms and we're going to continue to have these discussions middle school has reached out and they need some support with the ELA program um so we're going to start having some committee meetings and looking at different resources really excited to um partner with Waterloo I have um a lunch with a curriculum coordinator in waterl in two weeks they're kind of implementing Ela not kind of if they are and so some of their pilots and what we're looking at we're going to co- collaborate and see what we can come up with and how we can maybe navigate that together um social studies is also on the docket I'm going to start having committee meetings on the 29th and 30th to start navigating that with teachers as some of you know parent teacher conferences started today um and then they will also be next week on Wednesday and I saved what I I say the best is for last but it's all been pretty awesome right we're having a job fa um we are wanting to get some substitutes and I'm really excited to try this normally a district would do this in the summer um it would be easier but we are in need of substitutes um I'm hearing my principes I'm hearing my teachers say we need some additional support um other districts have done this so I with the support of some technology individuals in this District are going to be promoting this um Marlo Rose from the city is meeting with me next week and we're going to um work on some PR within the community and then I'm als I also reached out to the Republic times um to see if they can maybe help with getting that in the newspaper um as far as the substitute opportunities it's endless um it can be for transportation cafeteria classroom we're looking for it all um we're going to have an Roe representative here to do on on the spot license question answers and then we'll have department heads so special ed will be here to answer questions for parir of professionals kitchen will be here to answer um any questions on substitutes for the cafeteria um I think it'll be a a great a great day um I'm excited to see it and our motto is become an eagle today we're excited excited to see what happens that's all I have any questions Dr K you're welcome and welome to our superintendent report all right um October is a principal month actually the third week of October is the school administrator week and October 25th is um principal day declared by the governor and so when you see your administrators give them a shout out for that uh thinking about the leadership of schools and whatnot when you see the children today giving us our coffee and doing you know real service you know exchanging the money the the ordering the making and it to us when you talk about our a program looking at doing landscape design and installations when you look at real life problems that are are are able to be solved in our educational organization I I don't know if there's anything that's better than that um but there is then everything else I guess so I just want to say to the principles that October 25th is their day and we've got some great schools it really is uh nice I've got two audits reports to give you real quickly mine will be much shorter but uh the Roe comes in for their yearly audit and they check all of our Personnel files and everything and there was just a handful of small little tiny issues that we always will have because there's so many eyes to not so many te's to cross they come in they check things and then we get them fixed next year they'll come back and they'll check things again uh imrf also came in and did the audit I believe their last time they were here doing an audit was in 17 or 18 18 it was around that time but they came in and did another audit and there were only a few small issues the imrf audit was very well timed because as we did the financial software conversion our payroll people and uh accounts payables got a deep dive into some of the rules and rs on what it takes to be a retired person what it takes to get the the pensions and all of the details there again there were only a a small handful of issues and it was a great learning experience for all involved you know because audits are kind of like going to the doctor you you find out what is ailing you you fix it and then you move on better and healthier than you were before um special meeting we've got a bond meeting on the 28th at 6: p.m.

the event is free to the whole Community speaking of free events for the community CHS will be giving back to the community through its annual community Leaf raking event for senior citizens it will be held on November 9th and CHS students will volunteer to rake leaves at 25 senior C citizens properties clearly CHS students are proud to contribute to the chure community so proud in fact that we just had to share it with students from across the world over the last two weeks CHS has been hosting several French exchange students who have accompanied their host students through the day throughout the day to learn more about American High School culture and last but certainly certainly not least is an update about CHS drama they probably as we speak are preparing for the fall play of Midsummer Night stream they will be perform they will be performing from November 21st to November 23rd so as October starts to wind down and we ease into November you can be sure that there will be always exciting always be something exciting happening at CHS that's all we have that's all we have so yeah thank you uh can I just ask how do you define senior for the uh senior riking that is want to double check those who can't do it on their own okay well you might get a call that's all anybody have questions willing to Dr harrion hi thank you both um for giving your report we always enjoy hearing from the students themselves is my mic on yeah um I'm wondering and you may not be able to answer this question and don't feel bad if you can't but if you can um are the students in chesher public schools involved in um the chesher food drive in any way yes and can you say anything about that I mean I'm not personally but it's uh there are lots of little food drives throughout the year um I know that NHS has one coming up I believe it's towards the end of November so you'll probably hear that in our November report but um at least for NHS students are given uh bags and then they drop them off at their neighbors houses and then the neighbors fill the bags with whatever um donations they have and then the students um either get service uh hours or what we call Project points which is basically like spe NHS specific service hours and um so they're both incentivized to get um the food drive because of those service hours and also because it's a it's a charity great thank you very much for that yes of course we also have a districtwide dress down on October 30th any other board members Mr White thank you thank you very much for the update um one point that you had mentioned about the PSAT day so I I may be misunderstood it but kind of what I heard you say is uh if you're a senior it's a Readiness day for going to visit colleges and stuff and I think that's great but I also just want to point out that I'm not convinced that college is right for every kid who's graduating from high school this year and so um I just want to highlight that and if kids are not going to college I'm sure there's plenty of other things that they could take advantage of with that day um I just don't I don't want anyone to think that success is exclusively equivalent to college and I don't think that's what you meant at all but I'm just highlighting it for anybody who might be listening that's all thank you thank you yeah of course it's completely V any other board members well thank you both welcome um I'm looking forward to hearing all the other highlights you know throughout the year as well too and you guys you know your perspective is really invaluable so thank you very much and you're welcome to stay for the whole meeting please but I know you have to prep for the PSAT so you know go home not this year yeah you're done but aren't you tutoring don't you guys have like a tutor thingy do but the other stuff you yeah right right thank you both thank you all right thank you see see you all next month absolutely um our next uh business item are presentations and the first one I would ask if Miss cullinan to present this school partnership award for Highland School good evening I'm honored this evening to talk about the recipient of the school partnership award for Highland School we will be recognizing them tonight Lauren grineer and Beth Rock have been the coaches for The Girls on the Run program at Highland Elementary School since 2022 Girls on the Run inspires participants of all abilities to recognize their individual strengths while building a sense of connection in a team setting Beth and Lauren worked closely with the girls on the run organization to get certified and prepare for their first group of girls in 2022 since they introduced the program to Highland they have coached approximately 15 to 20 grade three to six girls each of the past three years Lauren and Beth motivate the girls to do their best as they run two times per week for 10 weeks preparing for the annual 5K Mitten run in addition Lauren and Beth inspired the girls to select and plan a community impact project last year they conducted a b sale for St Jude's where they raised $1,000 Lauren and Beth Inspire the girls to always do their very best and recognize their individual strengths through lessons that blend physical activity with life skill development to enable all participants to adapt to whatever comes their way congratulations gives we're thanking you [Applause] all right and our next item of Celebration I think oh miss Robin an Cary if you will thank you good evening I'm honored to recognize this next group at tonight's meeting we will recognize ditt school for being named an outstanding chapter by the best buddies International the doitt program is led by Christina veu and Bri mangerini mangina sorry Matthews this past summer they were recognized at the annual leadership conference in Indiana in a letter to do little principal Amy O'Brien bestbuddies.org wrote each year the best buddies International board of directors takes on the difficult task of selecting outstanding chapters to be recognized with this prestigious honor award winners were chosing based on quality of onetoone friendships group outings chapter involvement Community awareness and chapter communication the ditt elementary school chapter went above and be Beyond in each of these areas truly living the mission of best buddies and when I say above and beyond they told me when I entered tonight and was speaking with them that they've had anywhere from 80 to over a 100 students participate in their best buddies program that's above and beyond if you ask me congratulations ladies Del [Applause] our do little principal Miss O'Brien wanted me to pass along how much she appreciates everything that our team does for best buddies and uh unfortunately she couldn't be here tonight because she's under the weather but uh is again very U grateful for everything that you do to support our school community so thank you thank you um next item would be audience um if there are any members of the public that would like to address the Boe you may approach the podium also when you go up there you have to state your name and ask address for the record just in case okay well we can move on then um committee reports first up Finance heading off to Mr M oh you're gonna just I was just waiting for the introduction thank you good evening good evening ladies and gentlemen the uh Finance report I think is pretty easy tonight out the board members do have the finance report through September 30th our budget this year is 89,500 so it's pretty smooth sailing right now and we hope that that continues the remainder of the Year I'll just jump right over to medical benefits and then I will answer questions if there are any the um report through September 30th for medical benefits is also in the board members package um this month our claims were 1.21 million so just a little above the 1.88 million that is expected each month this year um the good news is the the claims are trending in the right direction you know July was really high at 1.5 million then August was about 1.3 million September about 1.2 million for the month because we received about $150,000 in prescription rebates from sna uh which our ordinary course of business and expected our Reserve balance actually increased this month by 126,595 S million um about 1.64 months worth of claims certainly you know we hope that the trend continues you know downward with our claims back to the expected level of 1.88 million so you know right now we're holding um steady with the reserve Reserve balance and that's the medical and finance report for this evening thank you for that Mr masana I have a question about the the prescription drug rebates do those come like I know the stoploss comes more towards the end of the fiscal year but do the um do these reimbursements come throughout the they do they they're on a quarterly basis um this is um part of the program that we have with siga there's actually a guarantee every year for these prescription rebates last year believe it or not we we received about 600,000 in total prescription rebates which was a little bit below the guarantee so part of what's in this 150,000 is the estimate for what we'll receive based on that guarantee which is 30 about 35,000 total for the town and board of V and we've received about 2third of that so yes they are expected and and regular unlike stop loss which occurs as the gear progresses great thank you anyone else hi Vin um so the uh 1.21 in claims is that net of the rebate of the rebates no that's actual that's actual gross claims yeah and I we want to report it that way because we're looking at where are we against the 1.18 million expected in claims okay that's why we break it out on the report these are the claims and then up at the Top If we have rebates or stoploss payments that increases the balance but claims are full gross claims thank you yeah um so with regard to the discretionary uh being limited to 50% right now if I recall correctly part of the reason for doing that relates to write to read and not to get into a big discussion about that right now but I'm just curious do we have are we at this moment in time expecting costs associated with right to read coming down the pike and say the next 12 months or it's totally uncertain I'm just there is the potential um okay you know we had a productive meeting with SD uh continue to maintain dialogue there and um we hope that they'll favorably review uh the information that we have there won't be a an additional cost beyond what we've already incurred so we're just working with them still but hopefully to be resolved obviously before January and the budget season starts so for the for the time being at least we're just holding it at 50% at least in part due to right to read and the uncertainty associated with that not necessarily due to that that is a potential um impact but at this time of year we would probably be holding it 50% anyway yeah uh given the variability that can occur particularly over the winter season so I I wouldn't uh attribute the 50% to right to read but it is certainly a consideration that we have in the process okay all right thank you the board MERS Ben can I just ask a clarifying question um on the bottom here it reads that we're paying for natural gas at market price versus locked in what's the you would think locked in would be a bit more attractive because isn't it a particular amount of time that you buying in bulk so to speak I guess so the way that all these Commodities are priced are based on what the market is in the future and we have a consultant that we use to help us with the decision making right so natural gas the forward Market the prices don't look attractive enough to lock in we've been running um at market price for the last four maybe five years right and it has not hurt us by doing so so same way we look at electricity if it makes sense to lock we do based on the forward price ing natural gas has just not been there for us so you know I know again that's always a risk yeah but it's worked in our favor the last few years the price of natural gas doesn't fluctuate quite as much as fuel oil or you know diesel for the buses heating oil Etc is there a potential in case something does happen that we can jump into a locked in price pretty quickly and not have to wait for any window to open so to speak no we could lock in at any time yeah we we would just there's a bid process that we use a consultant to to give us pricing gotcha thank you you're welcome I think our next um committee was Personnel um we actually had a very small um not even a quorum so we did discuss um initially some of the superintendent contract items and actually this evening we're going to defer to um the executive session to further with those discussions so um not much to really um report out on that we just had preliminary um review of Dr Sol's proposal for his contract and then I mve to policy Mr eki if you can give us some synopsis on each of these policies that you guys had a meeting on okay so we spoke uh on October 7th uh we had a first reading of couple of policies and regulations uh 4.1 42001 51 4544 sexual harassment and title line these um are updates as well as 5114 suspension and expulsion to keep us in line with state law and we don't have a lot of input on those the lawyers have written those and we are going to just push those along those were the uh those were given to us we also uh are bringing forth third reading of Transportation um that Luther and Vin and put a lot of time into and we are going to put that forward tonight any question a motion do we have qu questions on any of those all right so I yeah we do need to call for a motion and did you have a question Mr I just wanted to comment before we oh absolutely um on uh Title 9 that's been revised various times and so for those who follow along this is probably the what the fifth Revision in five years or whatever it is and yeah it um where we in what did they call it this time a final rule final Ru course regulations are never really final but anyhow yeah so we're we're definitely uh that this was uh reviewed and approved by our attorneys um so this is pretty much a final final as far as it goes right now um and it's cleaned up since the last time which is good um and the suspension expulsion we went through that in pretty good detail um was um a lot of process in there which wasn't there before um and I as Dr Solen uh expressed that the most of it is pretty good except for there were some aspirational parts that we're going to review um next time because I think Dr s you and your staff's going to look at it I suppose um and yeah that's all I have thank you in one brief addition um we are still reviewing a Dei policy that we were uh working on language on that we are when we put it together we'll bring It Forward great so the first um I I'm just clarifying that the first the first policy you spoke about sexual harassment title9 and suspension we don't need to have any action because because it's the first read and then this one pertaining to transportation we do need a motion so Dr herin if you like to call with that motion third and final reading to policy 3541 transportation and direct the superintendent to put said poity policy into immediate effect there a second Mr grippo any discussion on the motion Miss cullin discussion on the motion no go ahead Dr I just I just want to say the amount of time that Luther and Vin put into um really efficiently pairing down that um policy I just want to thank you for that all that work that went into it and um I feel really good about voting in favor of a policy that that was so carefully gone through so thank you thank you appreciate that Mr White did you have a comment yeah no I'm just wondering did anybody I'm just looking at the list of the five items that I mean I'm aware of it but did anybody read that if I missed it just so people who are watching know what we're talking about with sorry am I jumping ahead we didn't make a motion yet did we I apologize we did it's on the floor yeah okay so I'm trans just a transportation one so has anybody read these bullet points just so people are aware of what's changing rather than just saying it's Transportation policy yeah yeah yeah no but you're welcome to if you like I'll do it quickly just yeah thank you uh so the items just some bullet points here with regard to this Transportation policy change the items are clarifying ages for eligibility for school transportation updating walking distance so it is consistent one mile for all elementary students deleting language regarding hazardous walking areas the was not clear for parents it was too broad updating bus route notification no longer mailing out postcards and clarifying available use of seat positions so a student cannot be assigned to both a bus and a daycare at the same time that's it so I I support this um I just wanted to make it clear for people what we were talking about and it just um because we're no longer sending postcards everything's either going to be me emailed or posted somewhere on our sites and so forth and it's available to parents on power school as well they can see their students assigned stop in time no save postage thank you any other comments on the five items awesome so is there any other audience um no so um I am going to call for a vote all those in favor of the motion that is on the table it is unanimous thank you motion passes uh next item is there board members who wish to report on any other standing committees no M go oh yeah just uh the possibility of holding a legislative committee or Board of Ed meeting with the legislators do we have a tentative date Dr s or we do not uh that was going to be my report uh to talk about that but that's you know that's something that there's an election so it's almost difficult to schedule till you know but I I understand that completely we're going to do that right after the election um because it is good to have as we've done in the past connection to our representatives in Hartford um so we'll we'll try and schedule it for right after the election but uh hopefully we could get on the book sooner rather than later yeah I I guess in my mind I'm thinking about whoever gets elected right exactly whether it's all incumbents or new people coming in that's really the target market exactly from my perspective the people who will actually be there yeah thank you we'll send invites after great thank you any other no okay next item would be the approval of minutes from the business meeting held on September 19th as well as the Boe joint meeting with ngbc and that was held on September 26th then we had another joint meeting U with Boe and Town Council on September 30th um and then the open Forum meeting last week on October 10th so if I can please have a motion to approve Mr White please moved at the chesher Board of Education approve the minutes from meetings held on September 19th 2024 September 26th 2024 September 30th 2024 and October 10th 2024 is there a second Mr grippo are there any additions or Corrections that you may need to make Dr heran yeah U I was just reading over um which one the meeting uh The Joint meeting with the Town Council on September 30th MH um there was some discussion from the board of EDS side um about putting together committee and um for naming the new school or possibly schools and I'm just wondering if have we made any formal moves in that direction and how is that going to be done oh we haven't made any formal moves in that direction um I've had some conversations with uh Town manager Kimble about that process but we don't have anything scheduled yet to do that through I don't know if we'd prefer a planning committee um meeting to to do that or if I recall correctly that was the discussion in the joint meeting one of the follow-up questions I had for Mr Kimble was when we would have a subsequent meeting with the council because I don't know that you know it's not necessarily our purview to name buildings and to create a process so we wouldn't be able to unilaterally decide that so anything that we came up with as a proposal would still need to be approved by the council anyway so um he and I have had those conversations uh hopefully to have that finalized soon thank you for that because I'm I'm just really in interested in involving the community and especially the school communities in um some of this decision because really I I think the community has more at stake and I just would like to see people get excited about naming a school and um and even having the students be excited about naming the school so um I'm interested in that process really uh taking off but I understand that we have to go through the channels so thank you for that I did I did provide Dr s um a suggestion um right after the meeting and we talked about it during the meeting as to what the composition of that the committee members should look like um and also Mr talba is well aware of it so I'm hoping that you know hopefully it can make a couple phone calls and maybe we can kind of expedite at least the establishment of the committee whether it's when our purview or not I would like us to have the voice as well too at the table thank you thank you Mr Right did you have a comment well yeah just to point out if I recall correctly the time frame we're looking at is 18 months so it's definitely move it along but although V emphatically said we technically don't have 18 months thought it was 24 he knock it down to 18 months we need six months to make up a sign and put it on the building so you have a year so we got to get going Emme yeah I just I've have have a question um we had some discussion on the parking lot for the school remember we was what $400,000 so the right now I know you were going to check out some other ways that yeah it's funny because um Tom manager Kimble is at a meeting downstairs with the council texting me about a follow-up conversation around that um so as as it's projected in this moment um given the timing of when we're going to open the school and then demo the existing Norton this um Miss cullin is talking about the Norton school we would need to put up a temporary parking lot to accommodate everybody at Norton uh till we can do an asphalt parking lot where the existing Norton is now um so there are different strategies that are being considered uh St Becket across the street is um likely to be sold uh Mr masana Mr Kimble myself met with uh father Romans to tour the building um to look at you know would it necessar could it be a potential use for the town Andor District um and so that's what Sean was texting me about now is a potential meeting with the Council next Tuesday uh so we'll talk more about that because that lot would certainly accommodate um but I don't know that we could spend you know probably a million plus to just get a parking lot for a temporary basis another um accommodation we were exploring is there's like an auxiliary parking lot near the football field at chesher high school and running a shuttle um for people on that temporary basis until the lot is established uh it's one consideration probably not super popular but a consideration then of course the $400,000 temporary lot which is a lot of money to spend on the temporary parking lot so we're trying to explore I mean that money is built into the budget of the school um but we're trying to explore the most economical and efficient way to get this squared away thank you Mr W did you have another comment yeah just one thought on that that crossed my mind um in terms of St Thomas Becket having a parking lot the town I don't know if Sean's considered it but the town could probably start using that next week because my understanding is early voting is going to happen here and it cross my mind that's probably a disaster in terms of parking I could easily see people getting really annoyed if there's not sufficient parking and if something could even happen in relation to that there could be a benefit there just a thought yeah the you know father Rens has been pretty gracious about allowing us to access that lot um and you know you'll see any every day pretty much during dismissal there'll be plenty of cars queued up in that lot waiting for students and stuff so um they've been really gracious about it so hopefully that'll continue There is a motion still on the table um can you just read that one more time U Mr White yes okay that's the one you read not sure how we moved anyway uh moved that the chesher Board of Education approv the minutes from meetings held on September 19th 2024 September 26 2024 September 30th 2024 and October 10th 2024 and then I have Mr gripple you seconded the motion thank you no other comments um all those in favor of the motion that is on the table unanimous thank you uh Mr secretary are there any correspondents I have none thank you thank you sir we move on to Dr Solen superintendent report thank you so much Madam chair um there are a lot of items on the agenda for me tonight there's always a lot going on in our school system and I just wanted to apprise you of a variety of highlights chesher high school I know this um we've heard you know throughout last year a number of uh conversations about vandalism in bathrooms and um we are trying to clear that up uh the high school is now piloting What's called the securely digital Hall Pass system um other high schools use this in the area Amity Southington and hamon to name a few basically students sign out preferably uh through their Chromebook we're trying to dedicate a Chromebook in the classroom they sign out and they're assigned to the closest bathroom which the system knows how many other students are already assigned to that bathroom who they are you know if we know that you're not supposed to be in the bathroom with another student who is aign there it delays your um your trip or um it notifies Hall monitors that who's out and going to each restroom we're trying this in a um small number of classrooms at the time this year we've dramatically limited cell phone use and students aren't permitted to bring their cell phone to the bathroom um in part the hygienic issue and then you know in part um it's really cut back on a lot of meetups uh in time out of class uh all of which has been beneficial so it it's something that we're trying um hopefully to get more feedback from students and uh staff about how that process is working but I'll keep you posted on that one uh just a um effort to improve uh the experience for all of our kids at tresure high school keep our bathrooms all open I wanted to pass along some a nice uh email I received from Mr Talbot um Our Town Council chair who was coordinating the class of 1974 reunion at chesher high school and uh he said that I just wanted to thank you and your staff uh who made this such a memorable event this uh uh Friday we had a group of over 20 classmates were greeted at the entrance by Dr Gad and taken Chester High School Tour by Coach Lee and a group of CHS student leaders my class M had a wonderful time seeing the changes uh what hadn't CH and what hadn't changed swapping stories and catching up from there we went down to the football field where athletic director parisino had provided us commander of tickets and a coupon for food at the concession stand Dan Le and uh former ad Steve trone helped herd the cats and got us on the field for recognition before kickoff from the public address announcer John also arranged our Tri captains Paul Bowman Joe Hardy and Jim laber to be honorary captains for the game and participate in the coin toss truly special night and I praise uh and the praise I heard about the staff and students was glowing uh several people were commenting on what a great time they had Friday at our Sunday event thank you for kicking off no pun intended our reunion weekend in such a special way um he went on to acknowledge our students um on behalf of his classmates as well as uh recognizing assistant principal Kristen pels for orchestrating a lot of this so seem sounds like a a really cool event that they had they had a really nice time I wanted to share that uh earlier today you know Timmy mentioned the trades before uh we've established a relationship with Han Aerospace whose North American uh headquarters are right here in chesher over the last year or so uh this past summer we had students who had had an interest in engineering and Manufacturing uh we had about 20 students tour at Hana so today was really cool um our visiting teachers U from Republic of Korea Mr Yang and uh his counterpart Miss Young they uh came and joined us in some expats uh exp Patriots from um uh hanoa and that are from South Korea is part of that that work uh that they're doing there and we had lunch together uh which was really great to connect people uh from the other side of the world with each other but also uh Marlene and I took the opportunity to talk to uh Jamie Rochford who's a treasure High School grad and their HR Director about uh continuing to have more opportunities to visit um we talked about specifically our maybe a middle school trip uh to expose students to the opportunities that exist here in our community and hopefully um Enlighten them about those opportunities before for their selecting classes for high school so that was really exciting today um on October 4th um Mr maiana joined our food service director Erica bietti uh to provide a presentation on our composting efforts uh you may recall that Chapman school was engaging in a pilot CH composting program last spring well midwinter to to the end of the school year all schools are required to have composting by July 1 26 and um there is a cost to composting um but thankfully the Town Council and sustainability committee have helped uh fund that it's uh $21,000 for us to engage in this composting program but it's been wildly successful last spring and this year we are also doing it at ditt school and so uh they gave a pretty comprehensive presentation uh I have the Powerpoints here if you want to take a look at them and I'll send out a copy of the PowerPoint um to you via email uh Vin anything you want to add about the presentation or just that it was made to the school business officials at our Workshop meeting and the goal was to give them a sense of um what it costs what they need to be prepared for in July of 2026 because all school districts are required to comply if they generate 26 tons or more of compostable material so you know we got good reviews the really the highlight of the presentation has to be the fact that and the reason that the state is doing this is we have a tremendous garbage problem in the state of Connecticut we um have only two incinerators left in the state the others have been shut down and so every day we are hauling garbage from Connecticut down to Ohio to dispose of it at5 $586 cents a ton I I believe so the person from Quantum biodiesel where we're sending out compostables he spoke at length about the issue and and what they do it's it's pretty amazing so the the PowerPoint presentation is kind of self-explanatory about what we're doing and and the benefit it does have you know for the environment thank you uh you you want wrate on the compos thing or you want to keep on the compost okay the 21,000 is that per school as we move forward or is that a total so it's for Chapman and doitt this year the bulk of that cost is the ongoing cost of hauling we use blue wart to come and pick up the compostables and deliver them um also included in the 21,000 for doitt is a one-time expense to purchase all the containers that we need and we purchase I believe we're purchasing um seven sets of containers for dittle because the key is not to slow the students down when they're ready to leave and we don't want to cut into their lunchtime so efficiency of process becomes really important from a food service perspective but the costs are broken down in that PowerPoint I I like the part where you and I would like to emphasize the part where yeah it costs us money but we are um saving money on the other end where if we're not making as much garbage to haul off then there is some offset there there is thank you thank you yeah just for some context on that You' mentioned it's probably $5 a ton to dispose in Ohio do you happen to know what the costs are is is one of the two incinerators ours in Wallingford when I say RS there's like a multi- toown Consortium I I think that one's closed oh that one's done okay and yeah do you happen to do you happen to know what we're paying per ton right now for either of those incinerators here in Connecticut I what I do know Sean Kimbell told me we um cost us about $100 per ton yeah for the trash portion plus we use AJ waste I think everybody knows that we also pay at the schools for each of the pickups that occurs at the school but the that cost is $100 per ton that's what I that's our Offset you know so the alternative cost that we would be paying yeah no and I appreciate that because I hear this about composting and I'm like that sounds great for the environment but it sounds really expensive the alternative is also expensive I'm not sure if it's more expensive or less expensive but those prices will continue to increase I'm sure in relation to the incinerators just getting closed um fuel rates can go up and down but we're also talking about Labor driving what 8 hours at least probably one way out to Ohio eight hours coming back the costs are the costs are real and they're significant um but yeah that's what I was guessing it was probably about 100 bucks a ton and I think the town probably about 10,000 tons I'm not sure probably at least 10,000 tons a year um but yeah no I mean I I like I like exploring this because the alternative costs are also really significant thank you it's in the PowerPoint but um at Chapman for um a half a year it was almost eight tons of I of um waste stream that went to composting instead of the trash so and that's a school with 380 students so dual little is over 500 so there'll be more the what we will do is continue to report out the cost the amount of waste it's about a half a pound per student per day is what we saw at Chapman we did have free breakfast last year so it'll be interesting to see how those Dynamics change this year and you know that that trekking is really important blue earth does that for us they're the hauler so the items that were going into trash are now going into composting and the the trash cost if we know that's $100 I mean there's a saving inherent well that it's about four times more expensive to compost right now but the bulk of that is hauling so if there's we can figure out a way how to get the hauling cost down right right we still won't be comparable but you know it is it is a better outcome the quantum what they do with our compostable materials and they service a lot more than our school obviously servicing a lot of the universities companies BJs they have a whole list but um of the compostable materials about 80% of the compostables are used to generate electricity through the methane composting it's kind of fascinating it's happening right in Southington and the remaining 20% is actually compostables that they sell to Scots so if you buy any kind of compostable materials or fertilizer from Scots it could be coming from Quantum and they also they provide some of it for our Greenhouse right now but they do sell the compostables so it's kind of a fascinating you know way to deal with with garbage yeah I'll send you some pictures it's really pretty cool uh the kids know uh there are different color bins that the kids bring their trash and compostable food to they've been educated as to what goes in the composting bin what doesn't and um so they really self sort like we have some good pictures of that we could share with you well that concludes our composting intermission um I just want to make a note compost pictures make sure I don't forget to send you that so um this it feels a lot like uh Republic of Korea weak here at at the board but um we are excited at the high school that our science team if you recall last year they came here uh we have a number of groups of students who are engaged in science projects collaboratively with high schools in uh South Korea and um only suu will know if I pronounce any of these things wrong but uh we're they have a cool t-shirt um that they have this year it's the US Korea science partnership and it's uh with chesher high school anonia high school New Town High School hung Science High School Honan Science High School and deu Science High School thanks for not laughing it's got a thumbs up got thumbs up for thumbs up all right I'm in the neighborhood but uh they're really uh thrilled they're EXC we're excited for them uh they meet regularly virtually uh with their counterparts from uh the Republic of Korea and it's been a a great you know cultural learning experience and as I mentioned earlier you know the world is is shrinking uh there are a number of folks from Korea who work right here in chesher and uh our kids might be working with them someday so that's kind of cool um I want to remind everybody that we have a community conversation around the anxious generation uh coming up on October 29th uh from 7 to 8:30 at Thorp auditorium at Cheshire High School among the panelists are Dr Allison Bell a pediatrician Dr Penny Ling a q Professor Clinical Psychology uh Kristen Shanley and anmarie winberg to uh chesher Public Schools teachers of the year uh Doug Levens the executive director at the cheser Y and I'll be facilitating that uh there's been a lot of interest in this New York Times bestseller um so we're getting perspective from some professionals in our community about that I hope people can make it on the 29th um last but certainly not least I am proud to announce to the Board of Education that we are once again C board uh recognition award recipients uh for this past school year uh so congratulations to everybody on their um the work that they've done as a board of educ to earn that acknowledgement that concludes my report do you have new schools um I could say you know just very quickly with respect to new schools unfortunately we're still waiting on Department of administrative services to uh issue what's called a bid approval letter so uh once as far as I know they have everything that they need um we're just waiting on that was the last text I had with Rich synik the other day um waiting that for that to be issued because we'd like to host actually we have a tentatively planned pre-bid walkth through uh at the North End for construction bidding um so that'll be here before we know it and we're about two weeks away uh then from the Norton pre-bid walkth through uh but we're still waiting on those letters from the Department of administrative Services any com comments questions for Dr Solen Mr gripple and then Mr thank you um yeah I mostly just have a comment um so it turns out that people do watch our meetings um their correspondence no um specifically the September 5th meeting uh where I asked Dr Solen a question and apparently he had the audacity to answer it um um I won't go into much further detail except that it caused a bit of uh excitement in the community and with others and um so uh and Dr suen you don't have to respond to anything I'm saying but I'm glad that you answered the question so that's all I have to say about it thank you any other comment yes thank you um questions probably for Vin uh energia potentially getting a looking at a performance contract getting some work done on our non new schools just any update on that yes um on Wednesday I think it was Wednesday we issued the RFP for the energy performance contract 2.0 as I call it y the um and so far we've gotten three firms that have resp responded that they're looking forward to um we have a meeting on October 23rd with all the interested proposers the three firms are ameresco ESG and Johnson Controls and there may be others that um are going to be interested so the RFP is just massive it's online the amount of detail that eneria which is is driving this portion uh the amount of um detail that is being requested by the firms is mindboggling it is available online at our it's actually not on our website it's at the town's website so I was pleased to see that you know three firms responded pretty quickly hopefully there's few more than that amorisco is the firm that did the last energy performance contract for us about 10 years ago so we finally did get the ball rolling on that one I know it's taken a long time but we're going no thank you I appreci proposal should be back the due date is in December I forget the exact date okay and just for people who are watching in TV Land the idea is um with a performance contract there's no cash outlay and correct me if I'm wrong on any of this but there's no cash outlay and the basic idea is they give us a light bulb for free and instead of us um paying the electric bill we end up paying them for the light bulb and you take the these measures these energy conservation measures across everything to consider that has an impact on energy which could be light bulbs it could be Windows it could be uh solar panels it could be just about anything the proposals come in and we could have thousands tens of thousands of items that are up for discussion about whether it would get incorporated into it and what would make sense but the idea is one of the key Parts is we basically don't have to put money out spend spend money they do it without that um and just to be clear on it the town is the town's on board they basically put their 200,000 square fet into it and said tell us what you tell us what you offer us it's all Town buildings and all school buildings except for the three buildings that are coming offline will be included as part of the study okay uh and obviously one of the components that is spelled out in the RFP is that any con School Construction Grants or any other grants any funding opportunities from ever source as incentives and also any uh opportunities from the IRA the um inflation reduction act those would all be considered as part of the overall financing package thank you any other questions or comments for Dr San okay we're going to move on U there aren't any old business do you have old business can I bring up something that has we've used uh this platform in the past to take a minute to just remind people of the chesher food drive coming up can I just do that um reminder for the food drive the 51st annual chesher food drive is the weekend of November 2nd and 3D uh from 9 to 3 on the First Congregational Church green everybody knows where that is everybody knows we have this food drive and uh I just want to encourage everyone to parchas ipate in this townwide event by donating food for the pantry money for the food voucher program or time spent on the green over the weekend helping to organize donations any questions go to www.

each night the association is proud to have committed so much time to such a worthy measure after passage AA would like to be part of the bond oversight committee to make sure that member voices are part of the discussion negotiations are beginning next week on Tuesday uh we're looking forward to discussing the articles that we have sunshin and our hope is that we'll wrap um this settlement up quickly um before the um winter break so thank you very much thank you James I like that you said when it passes all right and Jennifer sesai good evening Madame President Randall tro Board of Trustees executive cabinet students parents and school Community joining us in person and online I am honored to share with you the exciting developments happening across our district showcasing our commitment to student growth Civic engagement and cultural exchange we recently celebrated a milestone with the ribbon cutting of the Mac Freight Farm a unique project that embodies Innovation and sustainability this initiative not only provides our students with hands-on experience in sustainable farming in ways that prepares them for future careers in a green economy the freight Farm allows students to engage in real world problem solving using modern technology to address food production and food desert challenges we are proud to lead in this Forward Thinking Endeavor Civic engagement remains a Cornerstone of our District's Mission through coordinated voter registration efforts at our high school we Empower students to participate in the Democratic process ensuring that they are informed registered and ready to vote when the time comes additionally our social science departments have taken the initiative to organize mock elections giving students practical understanding of the Electoral processes and the importance of civic duty these activities instill the values and of citizenship to help shape responsible future voters our schools have enthusiastically embraced latinx heritage month with a range of activities identity lessons and cultural events that c celebrate the rich contributions of the Latin X Community our teachers and staff recently participated in site based Ed Summits where professional learning took Center Stage these Summits are developed as part of our ongoing efforts to support staff development with a focus on Innovation teaching strategies equity in education and improving student outcomes to collaborative nature of these Summits ensure that our educators are continuously growing and refin in their practices to meet the evolving need of our students our ahsd College and Career Fair at the Anaheim Convention Center provided students with critical exposure to postsecondary Opportunities this event connects students with colleges universities trade shows and potential employers offering them a wealth of information to guide their decisions after graduation by empowering our students with options we help them Envision their future paths and make informed decisions about the career our district is also a hub for Global exchange enriching our schools with International perspectives currently we have 26 students from countries such as Germany Italy Australia and more enrolled at six of our campuses Oxford and Western have welcomed students from China Japan and France while Savannah has had its own opportunity to host teachers from China for professional development looking ahead we anticipate nearly 20 additional visits before the end of the school year schools including Cypress Kennedy Western Savannah Oxford catella Walker and Lexington are scheduled to host students from Japan Mexico France China and Thailand in fact Savannah will soon welcome 14 principles from China for one-day professional development these experiences Foster global citizenship and deepen our students and Educators understanding of the world lastly our junior high schools have wrapped up the first quarter Sports season Cong congratulations to the following undefeated seasons for eighth grade flag football from Sycamore and Walker eighth grade girls volleyball from Lexington and Sycamore Boys Tennis from Oxford and Dale seventh grade football team flag football teams from Sycamore and Walker and seventh grade girls volleyball team from Walker in closing our district continues to shine as a leader in fostering academic excellent civic responsibility cultural inclusivity and Global engagement these initiatives reflect our unw ing commitment to providing students with opportunities that shape their future and better world thank you so much thank you Dr [Applause] sasai uh were there any other uh folks from uh associations that I didn't see if if you were here MMA or asme all right thank you all we appreciate your uh reports um Laura Allen here or anyone from PTA all right all right moving on to our fiscal service internal controls presentation and um deferring to Dr Yen well good evening um m madame president members of the board members of the public uh it was requested that we give an overview of some of our internal um processes how we run the business office um but before um I do give the overview um want to give um the board and the public a little bit of our background and I'm going to be asking uh Ken as well as Joe to kind of give um you know the board some of our experiences I know you guys know us but I just want to make sure that some of you guys know uh what the other things we have done prior of getting here so I'm in my 24th year uh in the school business Arena I started at as a budget manager I'm managing um special budgets and I became a director of budgeting and accounting and then I'm in my 18th year now as the CBL for school district so um 24th year at this point so I have a lot of accounting and uh budgeting background in some of the internal controls so I just want to share that piece so to give you guys some background of what we do part of getting inv to here so as you know uh maybe you may not know I have eight directors that work directly for me so um why we have the fiscal piece which is Karen is our um fiscal uh the executive director of fiscal Services Joe Cara is our controller then we have the facilities piece which you can see is uh Patty neilly who is the executive director for facilities oper Main and operation and Quinton RS is our director for Main and operation we also have uh lyanna who is the risk management and insurance director uh she is also the interim director for purchasing as we are um have an interim there right now uh Orlando um is our director for food services and Scott sren overse um the transportation department so we cover variety of operations so what I tell people is anything other than HR and education it is ours so that's kind of good way to kind of distinguish what we do and what other people do and really um our division serves three main functions first the financial management we overseeing the budgeting accounting and the financial reporting for the district second is compliance ensure that we adher to the education codes board policies state and federal laws and the third um Services is to manage a day-to-day Financial operations including long-term fiscal planning for the district so things like payroll purchase order things like that and so we're going to go into a little bit detail about that uh in a couple slides so in terms of the oversight there are three fold first we have the regulatory framework we operate under um a complex network of Regulation including educational code for policy state and federal laws the second um will be the governing bodies we have we are government by gasby that is the government accounting standard board so they give us different um numbers of what things we have to do and it's pretty extensive and we get updates on that constantly from our auditor what are being required from the district second will be something called cesam the California school accounting manual which is about 600 pages and so we do go through and see what how are things coded what's required there's all these accounting strings that we have to follow and this is part of the accounting structure as having the background of the budget as what as well as accounting site there's a lot of things that we have to ader to how we set up our budgets as well then the guide for annual audits of K12 local educational agencies and next one here is more on the facilities division of State architect any of our projects because they're on a school district property has to go to the division State architect and we hear that a a lot called DSA and so any projects um can be small or big they all have to go through the division of State architect next one um is Food Services is the national school lunch act so we have to follow that and then uh the code of federal regulations as well as the California public contract code are just some like the rules that we have to follow so there's a lot of different things we do have toer to for this um then the last would be the diverse compliance areas so the regulations will cover accounting auditing facilities nutrition procur ment to um ensure that we have comprehensive oversight of all these areas so I'm going to talk about the annual audit process so EO 41020 mandates annual audits for school districts um are required um annually to ensure Financial transparency they are due um by December 15th each year and presented to the Board of Education usually by January so as you remember our auditor the partner do come in January after the report is submitted to the state by December 15th we do have additional audits the main one I'm going to bring up this a separate audit is for the prop 39 which we talk about the bond fund that is SE a separate audit that the Auditors perform on that and that would ensure the proper use of resources and was laid out in the resolution and how the bond was um passed and I'm proud to say that we have have clean record the district has maintained a clean audit record with no Financial auding uh Financial um findings since 2013 because we have the last two Auditors that's been the partner with us we went back and we make sure and we talk to them and say let us know is there anything that we have uh done we want to make sure that we go back and see what are some of the things that we have and so there are some minor I would say some of the um the school side that kind of processes and then we do correct them um but in terms of financial audits we have not had any since 2013 so very proud of our team and all the work that we have done so far and I do want to talk about the prop 39 uh Bond audit since that is a separate audit than what our annual financials or annual financials audit the general fund for example so all the things we take into the board any of the Food Services funding any type of the any fund from the state as for the matching fund for example for facilities any of those funds will be under the um General audit then we have a separate audit a separate contract with the auditor that audits the prop 39 funding and this was passed a prop that was passed back in November 2000 and basically it established requirements what's required in the audit so you have two types it's called the annual Financial audit which is um the board reviews The Independent Financial audit required by prop 39 and the second thing is called the annual performance audit and uh the performance audit basically to ensure the funds have been uh expended only for specific project that was listed when the resolution was taken and then when the bond was passed out that point there is also the requirement which was us talked to about the citizens Bond oversight committee so the citizens Bond oversight committee is a requirement as part prop 39 funding and uh it import it form the committee informs the public on the bond expenditures of the bond revenues to ensure um that they were only expended for the purposes that's described in the California Constitution and so it is very um important that uh we have that committee and if measure um you know K okay right passes then we would have to have a separate um citizens SP committee for that purpose we currently still have the uh measure H um committee that is still at this place at this point and then that will come off us once um the funds are uh are done and so there's still um the committee that would exist until like every single dollar that's been audited as well so it's one thing once you spend that dollar but you also have to have the audit then the committee will exist when there's still any type of auditing that goes on so I want to make sure that the public um is aware of that as well and so as part of the um the um prop 39 we um were also had the opportunity to do some of the ref financials um for some of the prior bonds and just wanted to uh recap for the board um some of the things that has happened this past year in April of 2024 um The District's credit rating from Moody was upgraded to a positive outlook for in dble A2 this reflected the district's good governance strong financials and prudent practices and in July of 2024 the district I was able to get an upgrade from fit from a double A minus to a double a uh back in July and it highlighted that the district have strong operating performances as well as fiscal responsibility and I was always told that it's very difficult to get an upgrade and I have proved them wrong that we're able to get upgrade even in this kind of environment so very um thankful the staff and all the work that uh everyone has done as part of the staff and due to due to the uh credit rating Improvement we were able to do the re uh refinance um for um the uh some of the prior bonds saving taxpayers $4.2 million so all the things we are doing is our internal controls that we do it all reflected when we go to the credit ratings and things like and so I will now turn over to our controller Joe Kona he's going to talk about some of the internal controls thank you thank you good evening board and cabinet so uh I I know that we have many visitors here tonight uh who maybe did not plan to stay through a presentation about internal controls so I will not be offended if you get up and leave now um so uh don't feel the need to stay longer than after you've been recognized just want to give you that opportunity uh as Dr Nan said uh I have been a staff member in the district for over 20 years uh I was a social science teacher in another school district and I started out as a site uh assistant principal a principal uh I became a district level director uh working with state and federal programs um I had the great opportunity to help uh overseen Implement um about $200 million in pandemic funding that came to the district obviously those were very challenging times uh for our communities and our staff uh but it also gave um significant financial resources to the district that we implemented in a number of very impactful ways and for the last three years I have served in the role as controller overseen our accounting and payroll department so uh just understanding that this term internal control uh so this is defined as our policies and procedures uh that we use to ensure reliable financial reporting we Implement these policies and procedures for several reasons one is for efficiency to ensure that we have procedures and processes that allow the district to operate in an efficient manner we also Implement these to comply with applicable laws and regulations so as Dr Nan stated we are uh beholden to a number of different laws education codes uh different Professional Standards that we have to meet uh in order to adequately perform our roles as a school district and lastly to um mitigate risk uh internal controls help identify these risks and reduce the risks um it's important to note here that there is always some kind of risk um in any activity that we undertake right we took a risk walking in from the parking lot right we could have tripped we could have fallen right so um we mitigate those risks by having lights right by having clearly uh maintained uh asphalt right so um risk will never be eliminated right there will never be a time when there was no risk right these internal controls are to mitigate and to reduce that risk as much as possible so uh the districts approach in implementing internal controls uh again this is to ensure our financial integrity and there's several areas that I'll talk about and we'll give a few examples okay so some exam um areas of internal control are separation of Duties restricted access to security controls right so certain people have access to only certain areas of our financial systems um the annual audit um as Dr nen discussed already accounting procedures and reconciliations uh cash dispersements review cash flow and budget monitoring so I'm going to go through a few examples I just want to touch on budget uh monitoring here for uh a moment budget monitoring uh happens at a variety of levels right there are required updates to the budget that are shared publicly with the board right so that happens on a regular basis uh additionally uh myself along with Karen and the rest of our budget staff meet regularly with our district directors and sight level principles right to help them understand their budget work through um how can they use it effectively uh and answer any questions that that they may have right uh and then the third uh item here is um approval workflows and Karen will talk a little bit more about that later but that um these have multiple levels of approval one person cannot authorize an action from start to end right so so that's a very important um component to our internal controls so um separation of Duties so just again a quick definition here uh that as I said this prevents a single person from controlling an entire process or activity right uh the reason to do this is really to prevent fraud right um and and theft within an organization right so if I can uh say I'm going to pay something and determine how much is paid and then issue that payment and I control that all myself that is an opportunity for fraud right and so that is why we have a separation of duties for for those um different tasks it's also to help reduce and catch errors right errors are a natural part of any process right there is no such thing as being error free right so just like we we describe the learning process with our students right we expect them to make errors we actually the airs help us become better teachers right so airs actually help us become better within our processes as well right we can identify the weaknesses in the system improve them or eliminate them to the extent possible right and then finally separation of Duties also AIDS in protecting sensitive in information from misuse or unauthorized access um one of our student speakers talked about right potential misuse of of information right so uh that is why separation of Duties is is so important so an example so this example that I'm going to share there are five steps involved uh which will include four different staff members this is to deposit one payment to the district right so the initial recording of that payment comes to the district office an accounting technician right so we call that staff member a records the check or payment in a log right and that begins the process the second step is a separate accounting staff member call staff B enters the check as a receipt in the general ledger right and also what we call the general fund right so that right so the payment comes in it gets recorded on the log it gets put into the general ledger the third step a senior account technician right staff C prepares the check for deposit adding that additional layer of oversight the fourth step is those cash cash receipts or deposits are balanced against the deposited checks so we take all the checks so I'll use five checks they totaled $5,000 we look in the general ledger we look at the receipts for that day does it total $5,000 does it total more than that less right so those have to reconcile right that is done by a fourth staff member right staff D and then all of that is sent down to the Orange County Department of Education who actually records and deposits those funds right completing the multi-step secure process right so we have again the five steps four different staff members here who are responsible for that and then it also goes down to the county who actually completes that deposit so this is just one example right of a separation of Duties within the um accounting department my second example uh that I'm going to share is an example within payroll right so um you may wonder why would we need to talk about payroll how we want people to get paid right um but payroll is a very significant portion of our budget and Karen will touch on that a little bit more as well uh and so we want to make sure that people are paid accurately right people are not reporting uh things that they should not be paid for uh and so again we're talking about uh here you have four steps three different people involved including the county right so a human resources technician uh in puts the employees data and initiat the payroll process right so Human Resources says Joe Carmona gets paid this amount right that all goes into the system right so then that is sent over to the pay technician the payroll technician processes that payroll and generates the reports right so the payroll technician says okay I see Joe Carmona is here he's been issued this amount they verify oh where is that in uh the board approval where is that in the contract where is that on the salary schedule right oh wait a second this doesn't match the salary schedule this can't be the right pay assignment for this person right so there's that process that goes back and forth the payroll supervisor reviews and approves all of the payroll before submission and then payroll is actually issued Again by the Orange County Department of Education we do not write the payroll checks here at the district right the county performs that function they review our information and sometimes say hey we have a question about what was submitted right and so they provide the final authorization and issue the payroll dispersement right so again that's just paying one person right right so three different staff including uh the Orange County Department of Ed right uh those separation of Duties and so with that I am going to turn it over to Karen who will finish out our presentation thank you good evening board and cabinet I'm going to present to you um two different workflows that are critical for internal controls our first workflow is regarding how how do we make a payment our purchasing workflow um we are online with the Orange County Department of Education with a purchasing system which provides uh several different layers of um approvals at um various levels and um it provides like Joe touch on there is no single person that was responsible from beginning to end there are five steps in this approval level first you have the senior admin who will enter the what we call the purchase request the pr and that's at the school side or a or District level senior admin from that point the principal approves the purchase wreck or a um distri distri administrator and then accounting uh verifies the account code on it and also um the budget from there it goes to our purchasing department where they create the PO once the PO is created it's sent over to accounting for payment now accounting cannot Pro that P process that PO until they have a signed approved invoice and the board approval and the signed contract or agreement once they have all that information they put it in the system goes down to Orange County Department of Education they send a list to the accounting department every day that um that where they audit they pick items to audit so that is and then once they approve that they issue a warrant to the vendor our next uh workflow oops our next work workflow is our position control this is a system ensuring um fiscal responsibility and procedures it also provides and creates an accurate debate databas database for all positions in the district and this is critical because Approximately 80% of our expenditures are related to staff so the workflow for position control is there's three departments that are responsible in business um they we create the position in the datab database and reconcile what we call FTE full-time equivalent to the allocations this is important because you want to know how many you're allocating like 30 staff to a school site but you have 32 people well you might have two part-time positions so two part-time positions if they're 5050 would be one FTE so this is important to to reconcile those the Staffing Human Resources is responsible for hiring the employee and entering all the employee information in the HR screen along with the pay rates they are the only ones that can enter the pay rate I can't enter them Joe can't enter them they're they're the only Department next it goes to the payroll department where they verify the information that HR entered and they also then pay the employees once they are board approved I have to back up because I forgot to tell you a little bit about my background so okay so before I'm finished so um I've been with the district for 22 years I started at um Dale Junior High working and working there and then I became came to the district and I was a senior accountant technician I was then promoted to the budget manager then to the controller and in my current position as executive director of fiscal Services I oversee the budget um the attendance and accounting and payroll so thank you very much and Dr Nan will come back up and answer any questions well thank you so much um Karen and Joe for uh the in-depth process and we are here to um answer any questions that you may have so we just want to make sure that this is only a portion of what we what we do we want to just kind of make it easy so you understand but you can see every process there's multiple people that are doing the work and so we we are thankful that we have um we're a big enough District we have enough staff that we're able to have a lot of the separations or duties but we are now happy to answer any questions that the board may have thank you thank you Nancy Karen and Joe that was a amazing presentation any questions yeah you talked about the citizens Bond oversight committee like how big is that committee and who how are people chosen for that so there's perfect great question so um in that there usually um minimum of seven and so you have um in different categories for example so you may have um a parent that's that's so you have like a parent you also have somebody who is h a senior citizen so that's different categories like four different separate categories you have um a um person who's on the um more on the um the taxpayer Association and also um just a general public community members and so usually uh it's a minimum of seven people and um and then you can go up from there but there is a minimum and so um in that process what we do we will have an application out and that's how all the other um um uh members were selected and so then you would apply to which category that you belong to so you have to say well I belong to this category I belong to list and you can always you know Mark different ones if you belong to multiple categories and then there is the uh interview processes you know and we would love for the public to um to be involved you know most of the time it's hard to actually um find people who want to and so we're very grateful to um the the members that we currently have they do take out their time um usually they meet uh afternoons on like a 3:00 we try to make sure that that um they can get a tour of some of the latest project and so they do we do meet with them most of the time at the school side so they can see what are some of the different um things and present to them um all the financials and then the auditor does come out and meet with the group to let them know what the what the other report was about and then they come to the board meeting usually March or April to present um their their annual report to the board so I think it's a very very exciting um opportunity I myself was um a chair for um a bond oversight Committee in the community that I lived in I was uh the chair for about three years and is um really good to to know what is happening and to get the kind of first SE of a lot of the projects and we do take them as the projects are ongoing we don't just take them when it's completed take them throughout the process so they can see and they mean about I would say what at least you know three to four times a year minim yeah and we've been doing at least quite a bit and any type of when we have any ribbon cutting or any kind of thing they Al also invited to attend with us as well so we do lot need volunteers um for that um uh for that committee as well thank you any other questions yes oh sorry go Ahad I'm assuming that this system applies to all school districts yes then when last year when we read about what happened in a local school district a huge amount of money if this oversight explain that how did that happen oh well I think part of it is we have a very very tight internal control in our district and we did speak to our auditor you know this is something that um um that we all take take it extremely seriously you know and it's it's it's unfortunate that inent that happened um and you know you can read the entire report I think the reports are very very long report but um a lot of us did read it because that's something that we're very you know passionate about it's just the way I think you you need to make sure that you have the process in place and that for example um when we close the books for example and how we check to see uh we look at multiple years of records for example when um when we're closing books you know Joe would do one set of stuff and then after and then Karen as well and then I actually do the final check I will go through and I'll check and I'll balance the books and I'll look and say hm does this make sense is all the crw is done there's a lot of different steps but as you can see we are we are a big enough School District we have enough Personnel that we're able to have a much tighter internal control compared to other smaller districts and I think that would be the difference that that we have a lot of I mean it if you can see it took five different people just for something to go through so it touches that many hands and I'm going to tell you we have extremely tight system and I know even getting a reimbursement um you know I know if our staff can tell you we ask for a lot of documentation a lot of documentation and I right right I know Laura is like yes and we we have very strict rules and so we're like um no we need the actual receipt we need this and we need this and we need this and I know that um is maybe burdensome for a lot the the for people to even reimbursing some people some principles like you know what I I'm not even going to submit because it takes all this documentation but the reason why we do that is because we want to make sure that we are tight with our um with our process because we do get audited for that too and if we get audited for that then if something um it's not right then we get we we get a we get a finding and our job really is to make sure that we minimize all the risk for the district and so yes we are very very tight I'm sorry to all the principles and all the staff when we submit anything we go through line by line we check every single item and it goes to multiple people right I mean um even a lot of people they anybody subit anything I mean I sign a lot of the reimbursements and I even I go through the stuff and say okay is this line end them and I rejected a lot of stuff too so I'm sorry but we that's just we have processes in place there are requirements that we have to to meet um and so I think because we have enough Staffing that we're able to have separation duties we're in maybe a smaller uh District they may not have enough staff and I came from smaller district is where you know you could have maybe the process instead of Five People You only have two people and maybe even even smaller districts I wonder may they could maybe only have like one person right and then somebody does work and the the director would would uh basically signed off and then approve all the stuff but we have multiple layers it takes a lot of more hands um to go through the process in our district we appreciate that reassuring thank you yes thank you uh to you and your team for the presentation highlighting the different guard wheels that we have um I did have a question on the bond audit can you explain a little bit um the difference between the performance audit and the financial audit oh okay definitely so the the financial audit would be um the same thing they would go through and check all the expenditures and double check for example um and I and I um and I'm pretty sure about this I think for for example the last audit for um for the um for the bond funds about 65% to almost 80% right depending yeah almost 80% this last year those items audit because for example you have um a contract and some of our the construction cost as you know you know it's is quite high right and so they would literally take the the um the contract and go through line by line and they would double check and say okay does this for example like for for the for the bond they would make sure how it was processed like how if you were to to bid out the project and how and how will we bid out so the entire contract right and as well as all the uh all the invoices all the all the uh POS that were associated with that and any your contract and so they would go through line by line and and basically random it's not that random Rand a random sample because they basically um added almost every single contract I would say almost 80% of the contract um for the facilities uh for that Bond Fund for for that purpose and they will go through and make sure that all the expenditures are proper expenditures so that's a fiscal side the uh performance a is really if that project was listed as part of the resolution that when went to the board and when it went was voted on what are those items were they part of that program so if you say that um there's let's say uh I don't know I'm I'm going to give I mean this be a good example but let's say the parking lot at the school most of the time parking lots included but let's say the fire hydrant or something like that and if that wasn't part of your description inside your resolution then that item is actually not something that you can code inside uh you can spend as part of that so that's a performance audit right so it's a little different is one thing to spend the money properly but another thing are those items as part of your um program that you were supposed to and that's also the job of the uh citizens Bond oversight committee as well their job is really to revew all the expenditures and so we want to make sure because sometimes you like oh what about like do I get to pick a project well that's like the board's direction is different than than that and and obviously you know having been on the myself been on the um the CBC committee it's I have to make sure I I have to um you know focus on just the expenditure and that's part of the job as being on the onth citizen B oversight committee right thank you you're welcome all right um Karen on the approval workflows um did I hear you right even on purchasing items that ocde um audits that so and and you said did I hear you correctly like on a daily basis yes every every day um when accounting processes uh an invoice for payment they send a list of uh vendors um and they want they want the backup they want the invoice po con contract it uh agreements board approval wow wow I didn't know that so that was that was really eye openening yes so we're um guard as you said guard rails in every area um so we know you work hard and as a board member I have gotten complaints about how long it takes to get reimbursed so but this is why and so um we really appreciate um the three of you uh bringing us this presentation and we really appreciate the hard work and um thank you so much uh I think now this really uh highlights um how efficient we are and how um secure we are and so I hope this lays to rest any uh further questions in that area um and this is great because uh you don't have to do this presentation again we can just uh take this and and give it to other folks to to to to look at so thank you for your dedication and your hard work and the whole department so thank you perfect thank you so much okay I also have to say uh a apologize for the popping tonight um our system is old and uh this kind of um gives reason to uh why we need an board a bond measure because you know we don't we we don't have funding for our uh district office microphone system so um you know I know a lot of other districts have R uh Reven what's the word I'm looking for Reven renovat renov thank you they their District's offices and you know I think we're still in uh 196 something uh with this office we love it we appreciate it but uh we could use some renovation here do um so moving on to item 8.2 uh Science Education for Equitable just sustainable future and I'm deferring to Dr freed well it is my honor to bring up Jessica yet she's our outstanding curriculum specialist for science um she has a team with her tonight and just as as they get ready to share I don't want to be a spoiler um but I would invite you to think about our core values the education must work for students not the around and also I'm thinking about how we deliver our core values primarily through instruction um you're going to see tonight I think in the in the presentation just a snapshot of the great work happening in our schools and our classrooms being done by our amazing teachers and our partners I would also um encourage you to think about too our community school approach and our community school movement knowing that we're a leader really not just in the state but in the country the way that we approach Community Schools you're going see tonight just how we bring um local issues concerns into the classroom in this case specifically science classroom is to make impact so with that I'm going turn over to to Jessica thank you so much uh board uh cabinet in ahsd community um we are very appreciative for this opportunity to share with you the work that our teachers and our students have been doing over the past two years so as they mentioned science or CEST is Science Education for an equitable just and sustainable future and this is a unique research practice partnership with uci's school of education part of what made this uh partnership so unique was how incredibly aligned it was with our District's drivers um and the program was thoughtfully designed to support our teachers in empowering our students uh to become those change agents in um using science to improve their communities and create a positive impact so my name is Jessica yet I am the science curriculum specialist and I am proud to present or to represent our cust team here this evening we have Dr hos Kang Nelly Sai and Dr Sabina gamus also on the screen you'll see um our past Year's team of teachers uh over the two years we have represented over 25 teachers uh from 11 School sites including education Specialists and representing all five of our core science courses in this research practice partnership we asked how could we support our teachers to cultivate student voice and agency through Civic action in the context of climate change within an ngss unit of study part of the educational re research would included selecting some focused teachers and our Magnolia chem team was part of the focus teachers So today we're excited to share a glimpse of the impact of this work through their Reflections now I invite any of you who have taken high school chemistry to try and think back to your experience learning chemical equilibrium the CJ just chem teachers designed a unit around the topic of equilibrium and The Guiding question how can we produce enough food to meet demand while reducing environmental impact during this unit the students learned about the hab process the production of synthetic fertilizers as well well as regenerative farming practices including composting to learn a little bit more I invite Alex to share his Reflections good evening it's been a year since I first stepped into chemistry my name is Alex win a junior from Magnolia High School I took this course with Miss Reagan last year and during this unit of study I explored soil analysis understanding how potassium phosphorus and nitrogen create ideal conditions for growth using the Mac as a living laboratory so after learning about Cal health I was able to create a Civic Action project that connected my knowledge to the real world you see this Civic project was a presentation where I demonstrated that creating the right Cal environment is crucial for human health inspired by this I brought my knowledge home and applied what I learned by recycling vegetable scraps to nourish the soil in my backyard using rren regenerative practices such as diversity planting and cupo cropping to grow strawberries and spinach in my own backyard these Hands-On practices have strengthened my passion for improving lives it shaped the way I chose to a career in medicine it fed the way I want to continue advocating for Healthy Living and making a positive impact on my community it's been in pleasure thank you [Applause] hello my name is Nicholas I a senior at Magnolia High School and during the 2223 school year I was a student in Miss veran chemistry class in this class we studied the harmful effects of the hab process used on traditional American Farms as a student I was tasked with finding a more sustainable way to meet food demands of our community we created a cstone project which suggested policy changes we wanted to see in American agriculture as a group we decided we wanted to see Farms incentivized to implement less use of pesticides diversity cropping instead of monocropping and decreasing the amount of the amount and depth of tilling on our soil all of these practices create a healthier soil not only to grow food for a changing climate and a growing population but also for a healthier ecology and promotes biodiversity after this unit I was inspired to apply to the max Summit internship in order to further my understand understanding of sustainable agricultural practices during my time in this internship my cohort worked on finding a way to inform the ahsd community about where their food comes from because of this internship I gained valuable work and Leadership skills and found the confidence to run for and become president of the Mac Club at my school in closing my experience in Miss Reagan science class was different from traditional science classes because it empowered us to critically engage with real world issues think about food equity in our community and consider policy solutions that can have an impact on our food systems thank [Applause] you my name is Mrs waran I'm a chemistry teacher at Magnolia High School in my journey of involving students in Civic engagement I had two roadblocks and the CJ program helped me tremendously I was seeking bringing science and chemistry into the unit without restricting the power of students free choices and the other roadblock was I anticipated I really wanted to see genuine concerns and honesty about going into action um projects um Dr hang introduced a so-called living map and flipping it in my classes it translated into groups of students working together on a matrix in particularly on a map when uh they mapped vegetables fruit produce he comes from the farm through different stages to the dinner table we visited this map throughout the six weeks of this unit and then the time came when we had to flip the entire map meaning we explored the human aspect of it centering people was a game changer eliciting genuine interest and care for Science and we were able to make stronger action plans so I am very thankful for S and Dr Kang hello my name is Emily pack and I another chemistry teacher at Magnolia High School uh first of all I really want to thank um the board and the UCI team for the opportunity that we've had the past two years to really engage in the process um Civic action or engaging my students in Civic action like um Miss Reagan talked about was um in a meaningful way was really a challenge for me um but with this program um it really allowed me to think how I teach chemistry not just in this unit but as a whole and to make that storyline um like something that students could really visualize um they were able to take students a were able to take all that they had learned throughout the whole school year um to really affect change um on an issue or bothering we called it that they they felt really strongly about that they kind of gathered from this unit um so again I'm really thankful to have had this opportunity thank hello my name is Daniel Lou and I was a science teacher at Magnolia High School I had the opportunity to serve as a teacher researcher and I took off my evaluative teacher hat and put on a learning from students hat I learned from our students and learned how they approach Civic engagement who were they interacting with and how were they interacting so we developed a Civic action Matrix to help visualize Civic engagement in the classrooms for who they were interacting with we noticed that they were interacting on either an individual level or a systemic level so large scale interaction or we also noticed how they interacting whether they were just spreading awareness or actually doing an action project most of our students we were seeing were individual awareness so we hope that visualizing it on a Civic action Matrix can help teachers scaffold and support students but also for students to reflect on the action that they're taking so that we can diversify Civic engagement to look not like the current model but the reimagine model thank you hello everyone I am hosan Kang associate professor in the school of education at UC urbine it is my great pleasure to be part of this amazing team and learned from students and amazing teachers over the last two years we have a lot of hard time to select the story that you like to share here we can we have a lot more stories actually uh we if You' like to learn more about the outcome of our work together and more want you to see more example of student work we printed out the newsletter from the second year and also please feel free to come to our project website cj.com so you can see more we'd like to expand our deep gratitude to the board and cabinet for your support for about this Ino ongoing professional development and partnership thank you so as you can see there's a lot of gratitude in this room um for this very powerful work in working with the UCI school of education uh UCI researchers and really further deepening the network of teachers working with their students um in community um we have a call to action to continue this Collective work in empowering our teachers to empower our students as change agents um to go beyond learning about climate issues and go beyond learning about Community issues to taking that informed action so part of our next steps is that we hope to continue this work but through a transdisciplinary approach and what we mean by that is we would like to have science teachers working alongside other content Area Teachers in addressing climate issues and uh working with their students to take action so at this time thank you so much for your time thank you oh my goodness um Alex and Nicholas I am extremely proud of you um for all the work I know you have done so much work and so much research and you've put your heart and soul into um your own education and I'm very envious of you because if I would have had this type of education I think that um I might have gone into the science area but uh thank you for demonstrating um how powerful uh you are um and uh I'm really really looking forward to uh what you're going to be doing in the future and please let us know let your teachers know in the future what you plan to do and stay in touch with them and teachers just so grateful for all the work that you've done this is uh this is innovative this is new this is uh um hasn't been done before and we really appreciate all the dedication and the long nights and the you know the hours and thank you for our partnership with UCI uh did anyone have have any questions of our panel or anything else to say I just wanted to highlight I glanced over the newsletter I know it impacted over 3,000 students uh 20 science teachers and across 10 middle and high schools I think that's incredible work so thank you all for um showcasing this work tonight Jessica do you have a a waiting list now so we're hoping to continue this work there there is a grant that's being submitted and uh we are working with some teachers uh to kind collaborate in the meantime um to see how we can keep this momentum going um so we have a few teachers we're working with um and we'll see how our little little I guess you could say pilot of of collaboration across uh content areas works this year fantastic and we'll see about the waiting listo [Music] [Applause] I know well I think it's time to buy a new Patty needes out there maybe Patty all right uh please please don't be timid but our public comments are up next Katrina Aros are you here Katrina Aros Janelle freeze Janelle left Janelle left okay Dr La hello board uh community members uh first of all I uh I really appreciate it I'm not Dr Lara I am Mr Lara I just want to say that is out of respect for those who have done a lot of work and earn that doctor title a few of them are back there so I just want to First clear that but I just want to say thank you to the board for continuing to support gilber high school and supporting our students each one of you have come to our campus um shown Amazing Grace and just really supporting our students today I'm here to talk about the licensing agreement it's a contract for curriculum um and I want to thank Nancy and Joe Harmona and Karen or for their for their um for their presentation as well um Dr nin I should say because uh we've been trying to get this through all the checks and balances on this board agenda for a while now and it's finally here and my teachers have been waiting for this curriculum in order to be able to implement it so um there all those checks and balances are in place and they're for a reason and even though this is coming out of grant money sometimes my teachers get really frustrated by all the different layers that have to go through approval to make sure that funding is um there and available but I'm finally glad it's here on the agenda it's a fiveyear um uh curriculum a five-year contract for a curriculum that's going to be able to implement social emotional learning for our students students and you see the passion and you see the types of students that we receive at Gilbert that come from throughout the district um we're doing phenomenal things and this is going to help us really achieve to the next level so muchim gracias thank you very much for your continued support of Gilbert have a great night thank [Applause] you okay moving on to item number 10 items of business Educational Services 10.1 School sponsored student organizations this is an action item so moved second moved and seconded and you get to vote on this item eron um I uh had a question um on one of the items and I just wanted to point out a couple of things um uh I just really want to give a shout out to um uh the uh the students and staff who really gave us a um a a thorough application um we really appreciate it as a board to know exactly what um these uh clubs are going to or student organizations are going to do um on a daily weekly uh monthly basis it helps us to make a decision on these we don't just uh you know blanket and go through and approve all of these um student organizations we really want them to be meaningful yes we want you to also have some fun too uh but we also want to know uh what you're going to be doing so I appreciate that there's a couple and just uh you know if you if you hear from from um our assistant superintendent about your application we just really want to um uh you know to to extend um you know um again we just really want to know what the purpose of your organization is and I I think I can speak as a board we get these and we just really want um to know that you know what you're doing in this um we don't want students just um saying I want to start a club because it looks good on their you know college application I'll just be honest so um we really want to hear um what you're doing and uh one sentence really doesn't do it for us we're going to go ahead and approve I'm sure uh the board wants to approve all of these but a couple of them really doesn't extend to the um intent of the um group so I'm just making that statement out there all right um any other comments or questions on these okay all right just concur with your comments okay thank you all right all in favor resolutions 10.2 resolution number 2024 sl25 d-09 Great American smokeout Escape The Vape day 202 24 so moved second okay moved in second any questions or comments I know that there's going to be a report out about the activities that they're going to be doing at the schools because this is a elementary through high school thing and I I really want to see what's happening in the Anaheim Union High School District at our junior high schools and our high schools and the activities um that we're going to be offering our kids uh when we come up with some good ideas sometimes they be replicated at schools and make meaningful differences for our students so absolutely that's why I'm requesting that everyone works really hard on this event so this is an action item and a roll call vote Mr hosi h i Mr O'Neal I miss Smith I Miss Guerrero I and I vote I 10.3 resolution number 2024-25 sl25 5-b t-01 compensation for board meeting seconded uh this is a roll call vote Mr hosi hi Mr O'Neal Miss Smith hi Miss Guerrero I will abstain and I vote I okay Business Services 104 agreement dietetic internship Keith and associat dis Associates distance dietetic internship action item second any questions or comments okay seeing none all in favor hi 10.5 agreement city of Anaheim Brooker Community Center action item ah so move second you're ready to vote any questions or comments on this um I was asking who are the district job coaches and it I was answered there was an answer that they they are adult transition instructional AIDS so I just wanted to make that clarification right thank you for your question okay all in favor I 106 community service agreement all of Crest action item slow moved second okay moved and seconded uh any questions or comments yes I just had uh one question um how would this be uh promoted in our site or sites that are participating Olive Crest so it'll well it's targeting certain um profile student students with certain um maybe um challenges with with their behavior whatnot so uh I know as the schools work with um the our staff whether it be psychologists social workers counselors um case carriers um I'm assuming there's going to be an onboarding in terms of the program I know Carlos can speak more to it but they'll be aware of the of the program and who it's going to serve so that way those students in their families can be given the opportunity I know it's going to be piloted at Sycamore this year so we're starting very local to one school and then from that experience the goal the aspiration is to open up for all of our schools to be able to act our families at all of our schools who could benefit from the service that this is providing um in terms of promotion though that was what I was going to share no that's it syamore was going to Pilot learn from them how did they do part marketing what did the family say how did it go you know strengths from that process and then expanding across the district thank you thank you okay all in favor I 107 agreement uh rodri lumba action item second move to Second any questions or comments on this all right uh all in favor I 108 Grant award middle college and early college grant action item so moved second okay any questions or comments on this item um the new counselors are hired in place yeah so we're excited about that M all right all in favor I 109 Grant award College and Career access pathway Grant action item second any questions or comments on this item seeing none all in favor I 1010 agreement California Department of Health Care Services Children and Youth Behavioral Health init initiative action item so moved second questions or comments okay seeing none all in favor I 101 sub award agreement heluna Health action item so moved second okay move to Second any questions or comments all right we're happy for this okay all in favor I 1012 agreement California Department of healthc care access and information certified wellness coach CWC action item so moved second moved and seconded any questions or comments yes I just had uh one question can you clarify where the 20 Wellness coaches will be located yes so they'll be at the at the isc's and it's high school that it's connected with so they're going to share a wellness coach and then all the other schools that don't have an ilc they'll share with their feeder Junior High the high school high okay thank you I know we're going to have a presentation I think in November on this too I don't know but I'm just ecstatic that we have these Wellness coaches at our sites I don't are we I don't think read something but okay I may be mistaken so we'll look into that I'm excited about this so thank you for the people who worked on this maybe after sry all right all in favor I 1013 licensing agreement School connect LLC seal curriculum action item so move second okay moved in seconded uh any questions or comments all right all in favor I 104 data use agreement corelon Behavioral Health Inc action item so moved second questions or comments is this the sameon as prescription drug that we use 1014 yes is yes I just hope we have a better implementation than with this than we have had with the prescription plan Dr Nan we'll be closely monitoring that right OB a very different service yes Caroline's Caroline Caroline all right thank you uh for your comments all right um all in favor I I I think I 1015 agreement California emerging tech technology oh my God technology fund thank you action item second any uh questions or comments hey seeing none all in favor I 1016 memorandum of understanding Pacific Symphony action item so moved second okay move the second questions or comments Mr hosi well our students get to work with professionals from the Pacific Symphony yes I mean wow what a great experience absolutely absolutely all right uh all in favor I I 10117 membership accrediting commission for schools Association of schools and and colleges was action item so moved second moved and seconded and we have two schools that are coming up 2025 I just had a question on this mhm um I know that CVA has L certification but why aren't they on this list seems like all the other schools are on it yeah CVA is accredited and their next accreditation I believe is in uh self-study in April of 2025 it's a self study I think they're credited through June 30th 2025 with that self study so probably should be on that list they are they are being accredited okay okay so April might want to check on it yeah the say yes the say yes what that information is correct that you're insane okay do they need to be added to this list okay want to see if there's an exhibit um yeah we can check if there is we'll bring it back with the the amendment bring it back you can't to amend it all right good catch all right um all in favor I I 1018 revised by board policy 6306 substitute teacher salary schedule first and final reading action item so move second moved and seconded any questions or comments okay all in favor I okay 109 Board of Trustees announcement of appointment SL reappointment candidate of personnel commission member this is an action item move I will second and I would like to recommend that we continue with Paul Andre Okay I would second that um as well he has served as well and uh done a really great job yes any questions or comments all right all in favor I okay 1020 initial contract proposal ahsd to Anaheim secondary Teachers Association information item uh 1021 public hearing initial contract proposal auhsd to Anaheim secondary Teachers Association anyone wishing to speak on this item okay seeing none moving on uh initial contract proposal Anaheim secondary Teachers Association to ahsd information item 1023 opening a public hearing initial contract proposal Anaheim secondary Teachers Association uh to ahsd anyone wishing to speak on this item okay seeing on none moving on closing the public hearing I close the public hearing on the other one too 1024 memorandum of understanding with president can we take 1024 through 1028 all at once I don't know can we all right I recommend that so memor memorandum of understanding with AA with apga cssea afme and mm a yes action item so moved second moved and seconded questions or comments no all right all in favor just glad to hear it's on the agenda yes we are happy it's on the I from everyone all right uh 1029 revised board policy 62031 conflict of interest first reading any questions or additions to this okay none moving on uh consent calendar any act items to pull uh 1110 and 1111 move the balance second anyone else okay um all in favor I I for the balance all right thank you um 1110 1111 so moved second okay second um all in favor I oh no I'm not back off my eye abstention I all right moving on to okay superintendent and staff report item 12 so I have a have a few reports to to share so first um I think as the board knows but just so the public knows too superintendent is not here tonight because he's in Minnesota um there's a convenient in Minnesota for with Grant makers and these are where some of the largest foundations in the country convene and meet to talk about some of the social justice projects and things that they want to fund to be able to move the country in a more positive healthy direction and so the district has been the beneficiary of many grants over the years where our superintendent has been instrumental in helping to bring some of those grants to our district I know we have the EP Grant which is gearup which is over $2 million we have our Chan Zuckerberg Institute Grant that's the one that we're doing with in partnership with UC Irvine and E Cadence the way that we're looking at the way that we measure and look at the five C's right in the way that we measure student voice we have um a Stuart Foundation grant that we've received the Carnegie Foundation grant that we've received so I know that we're positioned potentially to receive another huet Foundation Grant uh huet as you may recall was the grant that we received that funded the visioning work that we did at 17 of our schools initially um so we're in talks with them to potential to receive more f funding to support our work which it doesn't just support the work it can also support some staffing potentially which helps with jobs especially during difficult times so that's where he is tonight so U so he's not playing hookie or on vacation he's he's actually working but in Minnesota um the other thing I want to share is I just want to take a moment to thank our team I know I see Allison here I know Charles isn't here but we had our College and Career Fair uh this week which again is the largest in the world Galaxy um uh the the I can't thank them enough but our Ed staff uh I know our business HR team plays a role I'm looking at Scott and Rob and transportation just a tremendous Collective effort on all three of our departments to really put this amazing massive event on um also can't stop without thanking the staff at the school sites the both the teachers the counselors the admin who play a big role and preparing our students for this event there's Le week long lessons that our students interact with in PR preparing them so it's a meaningful experience when they come to the fair so again just a a schoolwide districtwide effort uh in making the event meaningful so I just want to give that big shout out out um also want to take a moment to recognize the work of our family and Community engagement team I know Carlos the work that you ell and Kenny are doing uh we on Friday had our family um Summit at our annual family Summit at foron College it's one of three that we do every year the second being at Cal State forth and the third being in the early summer at UC Irvine where our families have an opportunity to spend the night in a res hall or a dorm to get the experience uh that many of our families unfortunately don't always get um so super cool uh this Friday Friday was the first of those experiences and great turnout great great um sessions for our families and want to share that with all of you and then lastly uh this month is National principal month it's also the week of the school administrator so you miss if I didn't take a moment to just thank our amazing administrators uh at both the site level and the district club for the amazing work that they do I know that it's a an endless sometimes thankless job uh but they do an amazing uh put amazing efforts into the great work that they do and supporting our students our families and our community so thank you thank you for your report apprciate it and let's give a round of applause to everyone that was an amazing feat the other night my goodness well said yes um so I want to take this time to acknowledge um C of um laama council member uh nitish patal he hosted Magnolia about 30 Magnolia High School independent students at the um laama City Hall which um our trustee um O'Neal was there uh with me as well um he fed the students they gave the tour of the city hall and the um police station as well and the city manager conell mamura as well as the a brand new uh police chief of Joe Guerrero were present to to um talk to the student about how how the city operates and then the biggest thing is um um council member uh donated over 30 pairs of brand new uh Van shoes to every student that was present at that event so you know that he does um hope for hope school as well but this is something new um and it's just so nice that another city uh hosting um our student uh in that process and they did a a great presentation to the student talk about some of their their stories how where how they came and a lot of them um are very interesting stories so you should uh kind of check those out um but just want to U be um make sure that we acknowledge um his commitment to our students within our district and not just only not only students within laama so really want to take that time to thank him and everybody on on the staff there um and then we did attend our quite a bit of city of Cypress events this week so I want to thank uh Mayor Scott menus at city of Cypress for always um being inclusive of always inviting us to all the different events within the city of Cyprus and we were there along with um Mr hosi and as well as um Mr O'Neal as well at the various events as well on those and so I think it's uh important that we um go to this events and I'm very grateful that for the partnership we have with these cities as well thank you thank you Dr Nan Carl okay good evening everyone so I know we heard a lot of examples um and from our students and and folks that came up to the podium around um our approach to whole child education um you heard student agency voice and agency we we heard a lot about the importance ofal in our in our classrooms and Trauma inform practice for not just for our students for our parents as well and staff um and so you know W with that we also keep um as a district we continue to uh build our our resources and pedagogy around culturally uh relevant um resources in literature and pedagogy within the classroom putting that into the hands of our staff our students and our families um so um a big part of that is celebrating our cultures and not all cultures and and on the heels of national principles month we also have um National Latin latinx and Hispanic Heritage Month in the month of October and so as we continue this work um we have um something that was highlighted in one of our social social media posts I believe John and his and his team um put this on one of our social media posts and it reads um during uh National latinx Hispanic uh her heritage month we recognize and celebrate the inspiring accomplishments and achievements of Hispanic and latinx individuals in the history of the United States today we honor Elizabeth aavo a poet and author and then we have one of our students who responded to that um Mia Renee she's a 10th grader at an High so here is her um um her response um I love her book her books and she's talking about Elizabeth aavo especially poet X because I relate to it a lot I believe kids in high school should read more books like hers because they open our eyes to the fact that we're not the only ones struggling her writings show us that we can find places where we feel heard and not alone po X changed my perspective and made me more grateful for my life and family so again just the you know from a testimony we call the street data from our students in terms of what they want um in classrooms um in the libraries and and as as uh um in the spaces that they are so so just kudos to to the work that's being done by our district around um our whole child approach to education thank you Erin did you have anything else to report no thank all right we appreciate you being here staying all are you ready for me wow um this has been a busy month um we started out um I think one of the first things I did get to go to samanah high schools uh back to school night and then we got on a plane uh Miss lingam from Ro I see Mr Hernandez and Mrs Bean back there along with dedicated orange View and Western teachers um we went on a visitation to um San Mato High School to gather information about the redesign of the orange view in Western school so we got so many great ideas from that that um visitation I was at the Cypress RSVP Summit number one and great job Aaron um and went to the Kennedy choir show and uh Mr bsky was there too and uh had to go two nights because they had two different sets of soloists so I wanted to see all their talented students um let's see um uh trusty Guerrero and I went to the Boys and Girls Club um casino night at the ranch um we went also all of us were at the ribbon cunning ceremony for Cypress high school and uh like Dr nen said we were also not only for the city of Cypress but we went to bua park um state of the city luncheon and we one of our o OA students represented um our district and saying the national anthem um Anaheim collaborative family Summit AT Fullerton College was a great opportunity for uh I think parents to see all the great things that our district is doing and more so the opportunities with dual um enrollment and also the pledge uh for them to get that um information I know someone's going to probably talk more about the Mac Farm um but we are all there um enjoying that delicious dinner and looking at the the crate Farm um Oxford Academy Advanced instrumental concert um you know the program has grown so big they had higher second teacher so we have a second full-time teacher um at Oxford and then I got to go back to um visit um actually orange View and Western about their redesign on the staff development day and stayed there the entire day to see um the presentations from the people that went to um Hillsdale and just to share with the entire staffs um and I just really want to applaud um the work of principals um Moreno and Miss uh Crawford Bindy Crawford uh coffee with the principal at Cypress High School I was impressed and I think everybody needs to see these presentations Tyler Sherman did a phenomenal job on um EC Cadence and I think we should record it because uh we could be doing our own Con Academy with this cuz the information I was very I was enlightened so much and um can really just speak now about what I know about EC Cadence and also um uh Orlando grigo and Tiffany boss um they did a whole thing on the nutrition of our District Food Services that we provide and we got samples so there was a highlight of that too I was telling people it's this was way better than Costco so you know and the portions were bigger too um and consolidation meeting update uh with parents at Western High School we did that and then I got to go to the you guys uh to the ethics training so that I don't know if you've all done that but the board members have to do that Cypress High School homecoming was a big success um and I also too want to give a shout out to Allison and I know Charles coup is watching at home so Charles I want to just say thank you for your hard work for the College and Career Fair you guys did a phenomenal job bringing everybody together it definitely takes a team and then like Nancy said we were at the state of the city and then the prayer mayor's prayer breakfast I want to end with a quote from Walt Disney you can design and create and build the most wonderful place in the world but it takes people to make the dream a reality you know what I look around this room and the people that make the dream of reality are in this room but I really want to pay attention to our principles as we celebrate principles month like Dr freed said I want to give a special shout out to our amazing principles some I see here tonight um um not not only do they guide our schools during instru during the instructional day ensuring everything runs smoothly but they also take time to plan impactful events like ribbon cutting uh Ceremonies for newfields and Innovative crate Farms despite the busy season of homecoming celebrations uh providing info tables at the college and career fair I thought they were having a competition who who could have the best design table because if you went to our College and Career Fair you'll see uh man it looked like someone was going to get a prize uh for who decorated their table the best but I was so impressed with all the information that you guys were providing but their dedication and hard work enrich our school communities in countless ways and we are truly grateful for their unwavering commitment so on behalf of the Board of Trustees I want to thank um all of our 21 principles thank you so much I [Applause] did thank you well I'll pick up right where Ron left off and just did what he said about the principles so thankful for the fantastic job that you do day in and day out year in year out it's I know sometimes it is a thankless job but uh it's for the kids and we see the difference in the the the students that are graduating and moving on so thank you so much um I finished up the last three back to school nights at Gilbert uh Gilbert was one of them and the spider lab which is being uh hasn't been fully assembled yet but what I'm really looking forward to the opportunities that that lab is going to offer to the students there it's U phenomenal the equipment they have in there and so hopefully by another 6 months and it will be up and running and and anybody that hasn't been there another six months stop by and see the spider lab asked for the spider lab um I attended the JFK Civics Award of Excellence event with the um Chief Justice from uh California Supreme Court there at uh uh honor us uh which was exciting I went to the uh Western High School varsity talks in the morning had breakfast there and and alumni came back and and talked about their experiences so that was really great to hear uh their stories uh the H Cypress High School RI field ribbon cutting event um along with uh Anaheim high school now we have two schools that have that uh beautiful Fields looking forward to more in the in the district and another ribbon cutting coming up pretty soon uh at Western uh I attended the buo park state of the city luncheon uh they have a lot on the drawing board that they're going to be bringing forth in the next few years a lot of construction new construction in the way of housing uh but uh if if past for tells what's going to happen with those homes they're not going to bring us many students it's just I think it's the affordability index that we just won't get many students out of that but still it's going to make the city a nicer place to live um had the opportunity to attend the Mac Freight Farm uh trailer ribbon cutting event and that was uh well attended delicious food uh well done by by our our students who uh they served the meals they prepared the meals and it's a great learning experience for them because they haven't had that experience in life so it it was a real uh real at least the the girl that um served our table um she thanked us for the opportunity I attended the uh Kennedy uh homecoming game after the Mac event and they uh they did very well that night in cleaning the clock of their opponent um I attended a meure k rally which was uh pretty well attended uh and during that that um that walk where um this was on a Saturday so it was off the clock so to speak um I ran into a a u a resident that had a question about uh our bond that we're that we're touting that we want that's on the uh that we're going to be voting for and what he was asking about was exactly what was presented tonight which was the control and how do we make sure the funds are being properly um spent so we had a discussion with about that um College and Career Fair what a fantastic um event I think it gets better every year there were so many people there um and and as Miss toi said the competition it seemed like uh between the schools who could who could be uh uh doing better you just kept going around and they just were very excited uh the schools were excited the kids were excited throughout the whole area um Cypress mayor uh prayer breakfast uh was attended by a few of us and um it was always inspirational and also the Cypress state of the city event the where they presented what their was on their plan um for uh building the city making it better sort of like Bueno Park um I was very surprised uh when I heard that they have uh three times their operating budget as a reserve now can you imagine if we had that kind of Reserve we we' be in the billions of dollars in in our Reserve uh so that that's not that's not very common because I was on on a city council we had I think about onee Reserve and we and we were concerned about the Optics of would people be thinking we had that so much money in the reserve why weren't we spending it well that came to haunt later on uh Oxford Family Center ribbon cutting yesterday exciting that uh Oxford now has a a room dedicated to families where parents can go and and uh learn about their kids education and their future and being able able to be guided in that respect um uh PT then after that walked across the campus and and attended the PTSA reflection uh Gallery showcase uh really neat to see the artwork from the Lexington students and from the Oxford students um I took a couple pictures so I take them home and and show my wife and she was just blown away at the um uh what the students were doing and I think that's about it that's enough so I as as Dr Nan said about uh Nesh Patel council member uh Patel uh he has been so um uh so giving in our district starting B basically with hope school he's he's helped uh boys and girls club and now he's helping uh Gilbert Magnolia excuse me Magnolia yes Magnolia and uh helping the students um hopefully give them a better Insight in life and helping them move move along the the path of of their their uh future and walking better because they all have new shoes so we need to thank Mr Patel for that so that's it thank you Miss Smith well this mine is much a replication of what has already been said but another example of the greatness of this country is the town hall that was uh um presented to the U Community um regarding Western and orange View and over the past decades I don't say this with any Joy I've had the experience of traveling to many communist countries that were deep in communism and you did not see people smile and the other day when I was on other campuses I yesterday in particular at Oxford the kids smile and that to me is such a blessing to be able to see smiles on people's faces I say that with tears in my eyes because we sometimes can't appreciate how very fortunate we are and the town hall that was presented uh at Western uh the group that put that on was outstanding and Patty Neely also went into how the construction is going to change where the bathrooms are going to be and I thought it was a beautiful overview for the community to be able to see firsthand because this is such an unusual thing for us so I want to thank you for being part of that Patty and um the Mac Dinner the imagination that is put into that meal is remarkable the soup was served does anybody want to guess how the soup was served anybody know they took Pumpkins this size and hollowed them out and the ladle went in and brought the soup out and put it into individual bowls and it was delicious the whole meal was wonderful the service presented by these youth I thought to myself they will go through their lives never forgetting this night and as you get older you realize what an important part of your memory bank brings this into who you are and how you were created and I just want to say thank you to the team and um I attended the Cypress High School ribbon cutting and they have a mascot there does anybody know what the mascot looks like unimaginable and whoever created if it was one person or more than one I don't know how it was ever he's huge and quite a remarkable just to watch him walk around I wanted to go tweak his nose because he was toes so tall I couldn't even reach it if I tried but it was a lovely event and a happy one and um the Savannah back to school night uh one of the um ambassadors greeted me and took my husband and me to all of her classes that she prizes her history class her math class um she took us to a uh Roop class she's learning to uh um be an assistant to in the hospital or to a doctor and her um her teacher gave a great example of what they are teaching the students in that class and they had a full example of a body um cadav but not fully clothed it was the bones what am I trying to say skeleton pardon skeleton a skeleton thank you I couldn't come up with the word and I thought that was just so informational because for years I've known about folks that go into this line of work but I haven't ever seen firsthand how they learn it so that was a joy and um the Oxford uh family center opening last night was just lovely and I can tell you that when uh Dr Jen Billings and I um initiated the start of that school my idea is that that school would start Bare Bones we'd have a school that was clean and it would be under five lines of what it would be directed under entrance by test professional attire by for staff academic attire for students and maintain a certain GPA and family involvement and to see it grow to see this family center last night you can just see where the bones of it have grown and grown over the years we had no Athletics when it started and my idea was let it come from the students and from the families and it's such a prize today and to go back and see it this many years later I think it's 26 years that uh we started it but anyway this was uh material that was at the um Family Center and that was well done I thought I'd share it and pass it on thank you one and all for your patience and your time and just being here thank you Patty thank you Miss Smith Miss Guerrero yes thank you um I know was I was absent last month do to a family emergency so just wanted thank everyone for their kind thoughts and patience uh during that time and just want to share a few few of my activities from here to there um I was able to attend the girls flag football Bell game uh Anaheim High School versus Western High School and uh when is history as the girls flag football team won the bell game uh for the girls for the very first time and then that same night I attended the boys flag football with Dr nen uh as well um Western High School did uh maintain the bell for another year so congratul ations to them very excited for them um I had the opportunity to attend Kennedy High School Civics awards ceremony um along with the Chief Justice Guerrero and our state superintendent Tony Thurman um I attended the anim High School RSVP their first summit and um just want to give kudos to the Anaheim High School Ambassador for leading that and her team um also attended along with my colleagues the Cypress High School track and field ribbon cutting the Magnolia High School Freight f ribben cutting and Farm to Table dinner which was delicious and just want to thank all of our partners that are part of that and um a special thank you to Vice chairman Doug chaffy for his sponsorship of the Fright Farm um I was able to attend hope school's PTA um Student Art night their PTA PTA relatively new but they are strong and it was a very well thought out night and it was great to see all the families and children come family and students come together um I attended the insurance Committee in August um and then want to thank trusty hosi for uh stepping in for me in September um I was glad to see um that all of our unions and we were able to come together um so thank you for all of that collaboration um I attended the boys in Girls Club event with trusty hosi um I also completed my ethics training um I also attended the measure K rally along with my colleagues and then this past Saturday um I was able to participate in a congressman Korea's um panel for his young Congressional leaders program and there was a lot of our ahsc students there asking questions and just engaging in how engagement work so I want to thank him for putting that panel together and then I was also able to attend the Miss Anaheim beautiful scholarship program and it was a great night for ahsd I want to congratulate anahim high school student Sophia hall for being named the Miss Anaheim beautiful 2024 2025 and Savannah high school student uh Sophia prudencio for being a named Miss Anaheim beautiful teen ambassador 2024 20125 um and then along with my colleagues also attended the ahc College and Career Fair which uh was beautifully done uh kudos to everyone that helped out with that and everyone that participated um at the event and then I was able to join Girls Inc of Orange County along with council member rubacava for their uh networking breakfast when they shared about Girls Inc and their programs at our schools and I want to thank uh Tanya Garcia from n high school for sharing uh the impact of Girls Inc at our sites and then also along with my colleagues attended last night's ribbon cutting of Oxford Academy's Family Center and then and this morning I was able to participate in supervisor Sero state of the second district so thank you for him for hosting that event and then just want to give a quick shout out to Anaheim high school tonight they had a football game um and it is a dedication ceremony for the Anaheim High School coach um Mr Lanny Boer who dedicated over three decades to anah Anaheim high school as their head football coach um he's also an alumni of anim High School class of 1981 um I just want to thank him for his leadership passion and commitment to student athletes and have and his incredible Mark that he's left on our community um he's had been a head coach from 2004 to 2003 um has had achieved incredible Milestones including 100 career wins three orange League titles and 11 playoff appear appearances um so I just want to thank him for his legacy um to our football program and our Athletics at and I'm am high school and um also happy principal month to all our principles can I clarify something it's 2004 to 2023 20 yes DEC and he stepped away cuz he has twin boys that are now in High School playing football as well so yes so he's still with us but not uh in his capacity as a head football coach yes and then just curious who won the flag football game the first flag football game between Anaheim and Western Anaheim high school and it just wow Robert thank you for that question I just want to hear that again just want hear that again thank you other score so um in the interest of time um I attended uh a lot of the events uh with my colleagues um I just wanted to um again uh you know give a shout out to um all the folks that um attended the rally uh for our bond um and when it passes we will celebrate and a special shout out to you Nancy we know that you've been working a day and night and I don't know how you sleep and where you getting any rest but we really appreciate it we know how much you care about our district and you're going above and beyond the extra mile and uh all the folks that um attended the the rally and and got the um the walk together especially ASA and um our employees that um were there to do that um and I also wanted to give a shout out because they're still here Roop uh family members that were part has participated in our College and Career and you're always uh you know right beside us with um initiatives and uh we appreciate your your partnership um I've always said that uh that Roop is our right arm or left arm what whichever one you choose but we thank you for being there and making our uh College and Career um a wonderful success um and boy um when I walked in I literally walked um from where I live to uh the the um the convention center and um I could see all of the students and families leaving with all their little Trinkets and goodies and just the smiles on their faces and the joy um that that event um brought to everyone um really appreciate um I saw every age there um from Little to big and so I think we're inspiring um uh generations to come and uh really appreciate because every year board gives us suggestions and so this where this one I noticed that um the the whole area the front area was cleared so you can actually walk in and kind of get a panoramic view of what you're going to see and and experience and get an excitement for it um last year was a little crowded in that area and so I don't know how long you stayed Ron but um I know you were there until uh after and so um I think it was a really enjoyable event and um um so many hours and and uh days and nights of planning that so um for all that of of you involved um really appreciate it and again um John you and your team are phenomenal um those uh spotlights I can't wait every Saturday to get that little ding in my uh my phone to uh to see what um your your your your staff has um uh captured um I wish they could be everywhere but uh when they do capture uh the events they really do an amazing job to highlight um all the work that uh that uh um event would hold and so uh kudos to them um congratulations to all of our um ribbon cutting um events and um I attended the Simon scholar uh banquet as well um and um and just a quick little story about um Anaheim High School Ambassador uh she had sent me an email and um I was just thinking oh how am I going to fit this one more thing in my schedule so I work during the day and um I try not to take too many days off but she found me at the Simon Scholars banquet and stood there patiently waiting after I had talked to so many students and she just looked at me and she said I sent you an email and can you come to our RSVP event and I couldn't say no so uh it was she's persistent um and she's she's going places but um the RSVP Summit was phenomenal and it was I was really glad to see uh the students um empowering um each other and how that all um works and again um our site principles I'm in education I've worked for many principles and I think our principles in our district are phenomenal and among the best um and a little birdie um told me that um you know that was one of the hardest jobs uh ever to hold and you do get the brunt of everything um and so we do really really appreciate you and uh Happy Halloween and we're going to be um celebrating next month uh when we all gather together um for our next meeting yeah all right um future meeting date on November 14 6: p.m.

e e e good evening all to those who have not yet had the pleasure of meeting my name is Mark tarany and I am the student representative to the board of education but without further Ado I'd like to get along with the report for this month they say no news is good news and there isn't too much for me to go over this week and as such I just wanted to touch base regarding the recent events and happenings of CHS first and foremost today was the first interest meeting for class representatives class representatives will be a group of students about five each grade that will help monitor what happens at CHS and take in the different views and different opinions of students across the school and report them back to myself so that I may more uh I may better represent them to the Board of Education we had a decent turnout with about 50 students repres uh signing up for the form and around 20 students coming to the actual meeting we will hold another meeting next week before the board meeting and I will bring up any points that were brought up there uh furthermore Mr jenero um and the superintendent ambassadors team met on the 9th of October and I can happily conclude that the meeting was a success in many ways the group had inducted multiple new members including myself for this year and were successful in facilitating discussion about the school allowing for students to voice their opinion on certain matters such as homecoming and School events events we at CHS have also been very successful in recent events such as our open house or homecoming dance our open house especially numerous clubs and activities reported High interest numbers the open house um was attended by eighth grade students from woodro CCMS and other charter schools and uh we can report that we had a fairly decent decent turnout this year school spirit has also been a large focus of the student council and recent and with the recently successful Spirit Week we've seen a rise in school spirit uh but we are still working harder than ever to maintain our Clifton community and to cap this meeting off I would just like to touch base regarding some future events um that are happening in this upcoming month of October such as the two last two football games of the Season both away games at pcti and East Orange as well as um the Halloween extravagance that will be hosted at CHS on October 23rd for young children uh to come trick or treat and have an enjoyable Halloween evening that is all for this week and thank you so much have a a great evening thank you so much Mark Mr jagaro superintendent report I think exciting and devastating at all at the same time so to share a quote life is like a roller coaster it has its ups and downs but it's your choice to scream or to enjoy the ride and this quote serves as a metaphor that encapsulates the unpredictable nature of life the importance of personal and professional perspective and resilience it's a reminder that life is full of highs and lows victories and defeats Joys and sorrows and acknowledges the inevitability of facing both positive and negative experiences so tonight I'm going to take us through Clifton's roller coaster ride over this past month so at this time the long line and waight is over we've taken our seats our harnesses are securely fastened and the conductor starts the ride and we begin with an update on Dr roosi over the course of the past several months we ended each update on Danny stating that we're all eager for his return just last week during a phone conversation with Dr roozi I jokingly expressed that there if there was a most excited for his return award I would be the recipient and it's with great pleasure and excitement to report that Dr roozi also known as The Wolverine has made a remarkable recovery and will offici returned to work on Monday November 4th uh as this will be my final meeting serving in the capacity of Acting Superintendent I did want to take this opportunity to express my gratitude to Dany for recommending me and to the board of education for approving me as the Acting Superintendent in his absence again I'd like to extend a heartfelt thanks to the entire one Clifton Learning Community for their trust support and confidence in me it truly has been an honor serving this capacity I do however look forward to returning to the best seat in the house now next week right there in the back row uh for the next part of our roller coaster ride we begin the ascent on What's called the LIF Hill and that's the initial climb of any roller coaster and it's with an update of the proposed expansion of the I learn Pake Arts and Sciences Charter over the course of this past week there's been a lot of chatter and social media platforms and even within our community specific to this proposed expansion of the iearn charter school that would serve as a 400 student High school to be located here in Clifton on Hazel Street last week at the final zoning board uh hearing for this topic I took the opportunity to speak and advocate for our district this courtroom was packed with supporters from the charter schools it included members of their Board of Trustees parents and even school-aged children that were literally bust to City Hall to show their support many of which held held and raised signs and imployed in unison as my statements or object did time and time again but my primary focus of being there was not only to address and provide some clarity to the misrepresentations that were included in testimony previous meetings but also to demonstrate that this supposed need to expand this Charter is unfounded and will be a detriment to our community I spoke about the perceived lack of transparency that existed throughout this process because neither the Board of Education Commissioners or any Community stakeholder who did not live within a 200t r radius of this property that's less than the length of a football field in all directions were informed of this proposed expansion until it was later reported in the news already well into the process sure the posting and notifications were listed in the newspaper uh which is an outdated and inadequate method of communication and while it was compliant with law this approach does little more than meet the bare minimum in informing our community about this expansion demonstrating the lack of trans transparency additionally this particular Charter has previously demonstrated unclear and misleading communication regarding their intentions while leasing three former uh buildings in Clifton from the dicese of Patterson with the most recent uh deceptions being post on social media that this will be another Clifton High School and even as far as they will be sponsoring a Clifton tricker tree event uh I further explain that the most significant impact on the community primarily stems from the funds allocated to Charter Schools Charter Schools divert crucial funds from public schools potentially causing budget shortfalls that could diminish the quality of education for our students uh with a proposed enrollment of 400 students at a 90% per pupil cost of $199,000 this could result in a substantial Financial impact of $6.8 million that's equivalent to five tax points on our local budget this would further reduce the revenue available to support the Clifton public schools on top of the over $25 million that we already contribute to Charter Schools and pcti tuitions so in simple terms expanding Charter Schools strains Public School budgets can potentially lead to the the need to raise local taxes but it reduces our public resources ultimately the zoning board justly denied the Charter's request to expand based on several criteria and in upcoming meetings we'll be providing our community with a comprehensive rview on how detrimental a charter expansion in our city would be to our one Clifton Learning Community the students the staff next on our roller coaster ride we reach what's called The Summit the top of the LIF Hill it's the highest point of a roller coaster and it's really the most exciting part because it's with anticipation for what the Thrills you're about to experience this is the typical time where the uh the daring ones raise their hands just to add to the experience and it's last month our Summit comes from an update on a therapy dog initiative on Saturday October 5th our favorite four-legged furry friend and the face of Team Chewy was invited as a guest to appear live on NBC's Today Show after a successful and impactful video was aired on NBC Kids a few weeks prior so at this time I'd like to take the opportunity to share this clip that continues to put Clifton and the amazing things that we are doing on the map at the national level Sam where's the sound you got no sound hold on a sec there we go sorry but this is uh hold on a minute I don't know why we're not getting sound let me try the other video that I have queued up as well okay well there we go we in the clion public school district in New Jersey I'll start it over take long for for students and also for this four-legged friend me Chewy the therapy dog chewy is a one-year-old golden dle he's our District's first ever therapy animal first introduced last year in the Clifton Public School District in New Jersey it didn't take long for chewy to make the grade he already has some 300 classroom and other school event visits under his belt or paw shall we say he makes everyone feel like more calm and a little less anxious and he releves a lot of stress that I'll have like before a big test or something and now the hypoallergenic Pooch is back for a second year our kids would say he is the OG he is a legend within the community anybody excited to be back in school he just up my day make it feel L acting school superintendent Mark jenero is Chewy's Handler he says the therapy dog underwent training and is used for a variety of reasons when it comes to students emotional wellbeing and mental health anything that to think of that will help motivate Inspire our students to reach academic behavioral success and he has been our secret weapon to achieving those goals might get kisses I'm sorry about that he is nice to people he likes to come give people Comfort when they're upset and no matter where he goes I really like petting him if everybody's having like a bad day then like Tre pops up the ches a calming presence one of the tools the school district and others across the country are using to help kids cope research shows the use of trained therapy dogs in school settings can help improve things like a child's confidence attendance and more you just see the difference that chy makes dayto day when he comes to with us I've worked with a few students now some students who uh may not be performing as well academically or struggling socially even behaviorally and having Chewy be a part of their lives offers them an opportunity a positive connection with the school he's got some friends there making a difference one wag at a [Music] time and we are so happy to have chewy and his Handler assistant superintendent of the Clifton School District Mark Ando here you saw him in the Peace Mark thank you for bringing this joy into our lives this morning all thank you for having us he's so calm you're just give him a bone he's been lying here so quietly the whole time he's going to show star a few tricks yeah exactly talk about the impact right it's not just this one school district now it's spreading uh well it's spreading just within our school district at this time uh we went through an army of one which is going to evolve right now immediately to an army of three uh with unanimous support of our Board of Education most importantly our superintend of schools uh with the end goal to have one therapy dog in every one of our 24 buildings and it's actually improving attendance right so you don't have to worry about attrition and kids you know having a hard time and they can from attendance look at this sweet boy human name attendance anxiety depression uh we work with him for social groups social skills things of that nature uh last year alone chy has visited over 300 classrooms events including football games cheer events he can come back anytime thank you so much for being here and thank you to chewy we'll be right back that's always a [Music] thank you very much Sam and again I'd have to give a shout out to uh Sam the rose for joining me on the adventure to New York City uh but last month I did reference the naysayers within our community some even within our own staff who do not necessarily support this initiative and suggest that this investment of the program is a waste of our resources I hope just based on that video and the Testaments from our students that they see how the positive impacts that this has on our students and our community as a whole I would be remiss if I did not take the moment to once again thank and recognize the Board of Education Commissioners Dr roboy and the vast majority of our one Clifton staff and community members for their unwavering support of this initiative we have done so much already with the best still yet to come uh but unfortunately specific to the analogy of Clifton's wild ride this past month uh there cannot be UPS on a roller coaster ride unless there are Downs just two days after being on top of the world after being having an appearance on the Today Show on Monday October 7th our district was Gravely impacted by the tragic news of two untimely passings Joel Martinez a CHS student and Jennifer Lucas one of the if not the most beloved principal this district has ever had to say that this was a low on our roller coaster ride it was devastating it would just be an understatement Joel Martinez was a beloved Son brother Uncle cousin and a friend who began his education in Clifton at school 17 continued at Christopher Columbus Middle School and most recently attended Clifton High School as a freshman tragically his time there was cut short as he was diagnosed with stage four cancer last December and after bravely battling the illness for nearly a year jel passed away on Sunday night October 6 at just 15 years old and despite the unfairness of his shortened life Joelle remained full of humor resilience never once allowing the cancer to break his Spirit he fought courageously always driven by his love for his friends and family uh losing a student at such a young age is something that one could never truly be prepared for and Jen this one's for you as a sports fan the loss of Jen on both a personal and professional level to me is compared to the loss of Tom Brady to the Patriots Derek Jeter to the Yankees and Michael Jordan to the Bulls she was our captain she was our MVP and while the Pats the Yanks and the Bulls have all moved on after losing their star player have even achieved some success these teams will just never be the same just as our one Clifton team will never be the same same without Jen over the past week There's been an outpouring of condolences newspaper articles social media posts and heartfelt stories from those who are closest to Jen and as the Acting Superintendent I had the unfortunate responsibility of sharing the news with our administrative team as well as the entire community and tonight I just wanted to share with our community the story that I shared with our team a story that I feel truly captures and reflects the caring loving person Jen was and how shall be be remembered I had the opportunity to speak with Jen just days prior to her passing enduring what would be our last phone call our conversation carried on with the usual warmth and familiarity despite her having labored breathing and shortness of breath and sometimes difficulties finishing sentences she never lost that sense of humor she laughed at every one of my poor dad jokes and even made some of her own we spoke about her health she gave me up updates on her treatments and daily procedures and was most thankful of the care that was provided to her on a daily basis by loved ones we spoke about the district most specifically how much she misses her students and her staff her colleagues we've talked about some of the changes that we wanted to do to the DC safety patrol trip and how she planned to continue to fight that good fight because she wanted nothing more than to come back we spoke about our personal lives our families our friends chewy even updates in Star Wars universe but what I remember most about that conversation is even in her current state of health she said to me Mark I'm worried about you I know that balancing two positions has been stressful and challenging are you okay and even with her end being only a few days away she continued to care and worry for others prioritizing their well-being over her own that's exactly who Jen Lucas was and should be remembered she was the embodiment of what it meant to be an educator in every sense of the word devoted compassionate and committed to inspiring others she didn't just teach from textbooks she imported life lessons that reach well beyond the classroom walls and in her passing I truly believe that she has left us with one final profound lesson and that's that life is too short so choose kindness cherish those around you and never take a single moment for granted because we never know when someone's time will come to an end and it is in that uncertainty that we are reminded of the importance of living fully appreciating each moment and treating others with love and compassion Jen's Legacy will live on not only in the minds of those she taught but in the hearts of everyone whose lives she touched the loss of Joelle and Jen represent the lowest and the scariest point of this clipton roller coaster ride it's that part where you want to get off the ride and just scream but however even in the lowest and most challenging point on the roller coaster ride we must recognize and embrace that the next climb is inevitable and that the highs become even more exhilarating After experiencing the lows referring back to the original quote life is like a roller coaster it has its ups and downs but it's your choice to scream or to enjoy the ride and this quote highlights the value of perspective resilience and positive attitude in facing life's uncertainties it shows that we have the power to choose how we respond to find Joy even in these challenges and hard times what we learn from the setbacks and in the Heartbreak and appreciate the lessons hidden within difficulties by maintaining a positive attitude individuals can navigate life's roller coaster with Grace and determination this quote reminds of that a uh us that life its unpredictability is a natural part of the human experience to appreciate the journeys that happens and encourages embracing both ups and downs and that's exactly what the students and the staff at both CHS and school to have done as I mentioned before losing a student and staff member is something you can never fully prepare for yet our students and staff chose to show and demonstrate incredible resilience continuing to move forward in the face of heartbreaking losses of Joelle and Jen because moving forward with with resilience is exactly what they would have wanted that's exactly what the students and staff at CHS and school 2 as well as the entire One Clip and learning community has done while always knowing deep down despite all of the Heartbreak our Clifton roller coaster ride will bring more UPS again in the future so on behalf of the entire one clipton learning community we extend our deepest condolences to the friends and families of Joel and Jen our hearts and thoughts are with everyone affected by their lost during this incredible difficult time May the Cherished Memories you hold bring you comfort and may you find strength in the love and support that surround you please know that we are here for you and there's anything we can do to provide support or assistance please do not re hesitate to reach out and finally I'd like to share that the staff at school 2 as well as members of the school Tu bur Community will be hosting a memorial vigil in honor of Jen on Wednesday October 30th at 6:30 p.m.

to stay in the teachers room to process and pull ourselves together then we had to put our game faces on and return to our classrooms with the children at that moment it would have been best to send in as many Subs supervisors andary staff to cover us for the classroom in the rush to provide the much needed emotional support an opportunity was missed to balance the faculty's needs with those of the students who were still unaware on that day ironically 10 years ago today Peter salano stood in our teachers room to console The Faculty at school 2 over the passing of our colleague Diane Gala again we were given a brief time and then told to gather our students and return back to work I don't wish this scenario on any school or anyone and we know that every situation will be different but please keep this in mind and have some foresight God forbid if this ever happens again the next day October 8th after the parents were notified and the News was shared with their children the dogs were a welcome sight to the students they along with the counselors who roamed around doing check-ins offered support and tried to comfort Us in dealing with our new reality again it was difficult to express our true emotions with the counselors in front of a class of young minds waiting for us to finish our conversations and also listening in on our conversations that day our death was present for the students we were focused and we were dealing with the emotions of those children while we still were trying to cope with the loss of one of our own the internal pain continued yet we handled those hard questions and we suppressed the grief we knew that the counselors were there after hours and available for us but by the end of the day everyone was so drained we just wanted to go home ganina we want to thank you for coming to school on Wednesday and addressing the staff Jen always respected you thank you for sitting in the faculty room with us looking Us in the eye and just listening to us thank you for explaining that you too were not aware of the severity of Jen's health and that you only found out the news after us while the grief within our school community felt overwhelming so too has the outpouring of support from all over the district we would like to thank the other elementary schools that reached out to us to Erin zamura and Helen uh Heather Rolo who came in and walked into our classrooms and said how are you to the maintenance department that visited us and went into Jen's office and had a moment of silence the sympathy cards from the patrols from other elementary schools you touched our hearts it's a true Testament to what a wonderful person Jen was and how she touched so many lives we need a couple of personal shoutouts first and foremost to our nurse Dawn and our school counselor Lisa heiner as trusted friends to Jen they truly absorbed the emotional shock firsthand Jen's wishes were to keep her health quiet and she did not want to be the father of gossip as difficult as it was they honored her wishes and we pestered them we were all over them looking for pieces of information although in reality it I think it was just pieces of hope that we were looking for how they held it together is beyond me they were true friends to the end and thank you da and Lisa for being there for Jen Lisa Hiner thank you for being being our personal grief counselor you were there for us you had resources available for us and you had two loving arms to hug us to Janet colano what can I say about this woman on Monday when she heard the news she paused her day and drove straight over to school too she came out of retirement to help us out and to support us We Are Forever grateful for her presence and could never reciprocate the kindness that she has displayed to us humbly all she has said is just be kind to each other and support each other and that is what we're trying to do but our unsung hero in all of this has been our assistant principal magar rotillo the other night when I was trying to find some comfort in my memories I scrolled through all of my text messes mesages with Jen they were kind of long but they brought both they brought both smiles and tears we always texted each other during board meetings as I was scrolling I came across the text last year on the night that Maggie was appointed and it was simple yet meaningful I'm so glad Maggie is joining us the courage that Maggie summoned to face all of us in the faculty room is to be acknowledged her leadership her Poise her professionalism and her compassion was clearly demonstrated to anyone who entered the building although she was personally grieving through all of this she demonstrated strength as she dealt with every phone call from administrators the parents Jen's family and US teachers as people in the district were finding out the news some were coming over to express their condolences Maggie greeted all of them on top of everything else let's run a school shall we we have told her privately that she is doing an amazing job but we wanted to say it publicly as well I've heard her say to other teachers what can I do for you what do you need overnight she secretly went into all the rooms and placed extra boxes of tissues on all of her her desks just keep doing what you're doing Maggie is what we are saying to her she has also said I'm not Jen and I could never be Jen no one could ever be Jen Lucas she was one in a million I'm sorry but how fortunate for Maggie that she has had the opportunity to work and learn from Jen and who better to carry on Jen's work at school to and continue her Legacy i' like to finish with this Jen had repeated Expressions she would say listen it's for the kids it is what it is we do great things here be kind to each other and lately it was give each other Grace you may not know what someone else is going through she did just that for us we are asking the same from you this year please give us Grace as we navigate through this year without our beloved Miss Lucas but with Mrs W at the helm thank you for your time I'm sorry I went over thank you good evening everybody first of all I'd also like to give my deepest condolences to the families and friends of those impacted by the loss members of our community it's a true tragedy and true loss to the district this is the last Board of Education meeting before the upcoming general election so I'll take this time to Showcase my candidacy to those watching and to the citizens at home who will hopefully I hope vote on November 5th my name is Elias ragdale I'm number four on the ballot this November and I'm running to be a part of this Clifton Board of Education for the past three years I've served as Clifton student Union's president and in that role I worked with the administration and this board on numerous issues and initiatives um a little bit more about myself I'm involved with the town I'm on the civil rights committee up I'm a part of Clifton against substance abuse I am a lifelong member and volunteer with the Clifton Boys and Girls Club um and I'm ready to take this step up to serve my community I started at Clifton School number five and ended in June actually at Clifton High School I'm running for the Board of Education because of a deep genuine love for this city I believe that any Community is built on the foundation of its school system and the school system of today will determine the future of Clifton I want to work to keep schools number one in Clifton and I think that the Board of Education could use new ideas Young Voices new voices forward initiative thinking and my unique perspective that's one of also of the reasons I'm running for the Board of Education because being so recently from the high school I think I can bring that unique valuable experience to this board of education being so young but experienced I have actually been a part of many of the programs and initiatives this board has taken recently I have a genuine passion to serve at this high level and I hope that the community will help me to do that on November 5th you have three votes for the board of education do not forget that there will be early voting at the main library and of course on November 5th polls are open between 6:00 a.m.

e e e all right call the meeting to order please it is 7 p.m. no no they meting order people all right we're going to start off with uh I just called the order start with the our B hearing and we're going to do a roll call please isight ad here Andrey herey here Greger here Lisa Sher here Tyson here all right if you all stand with me we'll do the Pledge of Allegiance please I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the repic for it stands one nation God indivisible with liberty Justice for perfect thank you like to welcome our two visitors here thank you for joining us tonight we thought we were going to get uh skunk tonight but we appreciate you guys showing up all right um and then we're going to go right into our public hearing concerning the intent of the board to issue up to $15 million worth of Public Funding bonds yeah um these funds are going to be used to construct the high school we're doing them in up to $15 million increments because that allows us to take advantage of Arbitrage um we sold 10 million previously this will be a 15 million and we'll be doing this again next year and the year following um the key here is that we're doing this to with the cash flow of the construction project and to keep the bond and interest Levy flat uh no increase in the taxes there so um we'll be ready for another large scale project like the high school in 20 years so at this point in time it's just to hear any public comments on the sale of these bonds perfect do we hear any public comments ladies all right no one calling in other public comments all right any comments or questions from the board all right that concludes our public binding hearing would anybody like to make a motion to adjourn I'll make the motion Thank you Lisa second I'll second Andrew second roll call please Adam hon yes Andre Cory yes Kelly yes yes yes yes perfect our me adjourned at 7:02 pm.

uh that will be our special meeting it's a Monday I believe Monday and uh after this session today we'll have Clos session we will have one action item after closed session but that's my superintendent report thank you very much all right move on to our items for Action the first one is approval of the 2024 teacher and administrative salary and benefit report yeah we're going to do that next month um this month we got our activity fund reports from link finally after 3 months and uh we will but next month have the teacher and administrative salary and benefits report so that got tabled table that all right and next is the approval of the 2024 annual Finance report as presented it was a clean bill of health administration recommends the board approved the 2024 annual financial report also known as the AFR as presented any questions comments concerns hearing none would anybody like to make a motion to approve the annual financial report as presented everybody at wants I'll make the motion Thank you Lisa do I a second I'll second I think Andrew beat you out sorry Andrew seconds roll call please yes yes yes pleas issue marer yes Tyson search yes next item is the approval bid to purchase a 2025 chevet a Silverado 2500 double custom four-wheel drive is that the DBL double custom I just wrote down what they provided for us um if a custom's good I drive a Kia Soul so it's yeah um we we uh had in our budget a uh uh truck purchase for our maintenance department we posted a a bid and we had nobody respond so I went back to the bid changed the dates and I hand delivered the the bid paper to the three dealers here in town we got one response uh Administration recommends that the board approved the standard cab bid of 52557 for the purchase of a 2025 Chevrolet Silverado um double custom four-wheel drive truck as presented this one does not have a flex capacitor it's probably a good thing just for clarification it's not as standard it's a double cab right it is not a crew cab there is not four doors it is a a two-o there he provided two bids he provided a bid for a two-door truck and a four-door truck the four-door truck was $2,000 more than this bid price and so I I the only advantage to having the four-door truck would be that our football team would but they ride in the bus anyway so this would be the twoo did the paper get in there cuz there were two bids on the no they they provided for all these are double cab as far bids theid M which means there's four doors can you have a double cab with just two doors yeah can't put the seat no the double cab actually it's with the GM models okay I don't know I'm just asking it it does say absolutely because there's double cab and there screw cab they're both four doors it's just the double cab is shorter this one's a double cab we are going the crew cab was $2,000 more 2,000 and some more and so there really wasn't a need to go with the crew cap in my opinion so this is the the double cap okay I mean I just yeah you said regular capab it's not it's it is a four-door it's just the smaller of the four-doors I don't see that as a problem because anytime people are doing maintenance it's not uncommon to have more than two people Andor you need gear that doesn't go in the back of the truck it's really you know there is there is a benefit and it's not much more expensive so okay I just wanted to clarify because it's you said regular cab and this is we're approving a double cab well that's where you got the double I will bring the I will bring the the bid that they gave us to them and with the purchase order we will purchase it if you approve okay any discussion would anybody like to make a motion to buy a pickup truck I'll make the motion thank you Adam second second Kelly second all right roll call please Andy yes KY yes yes yes yes yes thank you sorry and I will comment they did give us a really good price even though we didn't have a whole lot of competition on the bid I I was pleased with the amount of the bid I think they was high they did really good job on that so purchased them this year so I could get for this price yeah they so thank you Weber Chevrolet for tax breakes so well there's more than tax breaks there's just customer discounts that aren't available it's okay it's good it's a very fair price yeah definitely I was pleased with that so anyway all right cool we bought a pickup truck so next item is approval of our second reading for board policies price ISU 116 I think we have some well there was the um Adam had mentioned at the last that the the Title Nine grievance procedure needs to be looked at because the there's parental rights that was a concern um as I read through them I found those more in the uniform grievance procedure which was policy 2260 where it they're striking out the sentence that says that we will notify parents should someone be a complaintant and so I I figured that was what the the issue was um I talked talked to our lawyers and they indicated that with bullying complaints which this could kind of be construed as we do contact our parents and so he they saw no issues with making that modification on that one sentence of that Adam I'll let you talk more about the your concerns yeah if I mean that kind of speaks to the to the Crux of it is the policy recommendation from the state for IB or whoever it is was that basically the languages this as that the school school district will notify the parents they remove that part from the verbiage and that's what I was you know had concern with I was like why would you why would you intentionally remove the you know notification of parents um so and it's because they're not requiring the administration to do that anymore and so by keeping that sentence in we would be expected to do that right but that would be your decision not the state's decision because the state would say that you don't have to we don't have to notify the parents so and I mean in the current process is that we notify the parents so this will be removing that notification requirement and I think it's best that we do notify parents if I agree people are bullying or filing complaints or other things of that nature so so with that one sentence being um not moved Administration would make the recommendation that you approve the policies with that modification um during the discussion as presented okay any other discussion regarding your press policies right would any like to make a motion to approve the second reading of the board policy press issue 116 with the exception of the parent rental notification I you Adam second I'll second Tyson a roll call please Greer yes yes tyon search yes yes Andy yes yes perfect thank you all so much that concludes our items for Action in our regular session here next item is our discussion items we'll start with our facility study I've got one thing I just want to bring up and see if the board would be interested we have an opportunity um regarding a scoreboard in the new gymnasium we're looking at scoreboards it so happens that there is a gentleman that has moved to town and he's moving his company here uh digital scoreboards and we've been in communication with them at one of our football games he brought out a sample digital scoreboard um because he's moving his company here he's looking at giving us a quite a nice price we would end up being a showcase for him when he would bring customers in um if if we are looking at going in that direction what I like about his product is is it's not just the scoreboard but it's the technology that goes along with it he's got a curriculum that you can create a class that would learn how to operate said scoreboard um in that class of operating said scoreboard there are colleges that give scholarships to people that can operate scoreboards and things of that nature but it also is for making video um commercials and then they would be able to go out and sell the commercials it's kind of a business class um the idea behind having a scoreboard I I know that we've got a lot of projects going on and people say why would you spend money on a scoreboard you have a scoreboard the scoreboard with the ad sales and with the curriculum that goes with it provides a nice opportunity where you buy the scoreboard and it pays itself off through the ad revenues um this is something that I would be interested in in bringing back to the board for your consideration should you um direct me to do so thoughts considerations opinions is this just for the football field is it for the auditorium is it for the new gym what is it for what this would be right now would be because the new Gym's not there yet it would be for the football field the multi-purpose field sorry and for the uh gymnasium because then the ads that are created would be able to play both inside and outside and so if you get an ad with the district it would be at the multi-purpose field which would include the track the soccer the football and then it would also be during volleyball and basketball um then the next decision would need to be made when you build when we build the new gym do we move the scoreboards that are in the current gym into the new gym and then replace the old scoreboards back or do we get new scoreboards for the new gym as well and have new scoreboards there but that's a question that could be thought of down the line with respect to curriculum uh he's this this business in town is offering to provide curriculum to teach students how to run scoreboards that they could then go on to college and perhaps get a job at College doing that um uh who would teach the class yeah that's going to be something we're going to need to figure out so right now what would happen is the company would do a lot of that work and they would um assist us in the selling of the ads and then there'd be a split of the revenue on that until we have the class made up but uh you know I've already started talking to the Roe as far as would that be a business class or would that be a graphics class what would that be what would the certification be um It's relatively new in the state and so um as far as the class is concerned and Illinois having its Oddities around their certification processes and whatnot um those would be issues we'd have to figure out I believe it St marketing and media how they categorized it so that would fall under their business yeah my experience is and I hate to say this but when you find the right person for the class then you start arguing what you need the certification for because you want what the class is and what the person can be certified for to to meet and so there's I mean I agree it is a marketing class but if I get somebody that might be more artistically inclined or have the credit hours I could get that certification then yeah there's wiggle rooms as far as turning that credit into this or that um is there a ballpark range on cost or there is I don't have that offand but I if you guys are interested with that we can bring it back to the next board meeting and get a more thorough discussion of this but it is about the time where they're starting to ask what kind of scoreboard are we looking at for the new gym because they've got a structure and space out and do the wirings and whatnot well we definitely have to look at the numbers it has to make sense for us to do it okay I'm certainly interested in supporting somebody local want to give us a discount and I love the idea of the curriculum for the kids so I'm 100% would be I will have that on the agenda for next month perfect it seems like a win on all all different fronts so again depend on the numbers I guess perfect anything else regarding um we construction had our meeting today uh we actually took some time after the meeting today and walked the looked at the foundations that they're putting up um it seems like it's going in excruciatingly slow and I I I feel your pain uh I I keep I've turned to now saying it's we we will be walking through those front doors in August so yes they're moving slow and they'll move a lot faster later but and today they did say yeah no we will be walking through those doors in August so so I would like to clarify they're not moving slow it's just you don't see the progress I got say I I was I'm very happy with the progress I think they're moving at a great pace and they're doing a really good job they our compaction rates are way above where they should be all our test results are coming back they're doing a great job um and you know we were kind of talking about the scoreboard a minute ago and this is something new to Illinois when we started this project we did a new kind of a deal also where we we hired this owner's rep to look out for our interest and then we also have our construction manager at risk so we limit our liability to the to the district that model is working out so well I mean and you can comment on it also but I I I'm just amazed how well this is working out for something that really has not been done before in the school environment that we're in we're we're catching mistakes we're we're ahead of everything we're doing a schedule I mean we're down to the day this is coming in this day this is coming in that day and uh you know it was it was very nice to see we got footings already in place we have peers that are going the rebar is done they were digging I mean we're taking the fill out we're putting it on the hill so when we do the gym we can bring it back down and use that instead of getting rid of the fill buying fill we're storing excess products and I mean it's just it just going really really well so sorry to brag on this but but uh I'm I am very impressed with with the work that these folks are doing so yeah and on top of that even having discussions about items with long lead times we're talking about stuff that's being you know scheduled to be delivered in April and it's staying on you know on the discussion list even you know still today so that it's not being lost on anyone of future potential delays and how we prevent those and what you know where they fit into the schedule and how it all slides together so having you know having those discussions continually and not just waiting for them to overrun or to run late or be like oh you know we told you back in you know six months ago that this was a long lead time and we said then it was going to be April but now it's going to be May or June you know that's pretty normal for how that usually happens but that's you know the like Greg said the communication is is going really well having the owner owner rep that's you know part-time helps us tremendously with that staying on top of the you know avoiding potent avoiding delays or helping to interpret you know the construction lingo to those of us that aren't construction professionals um you know so that we're understand discussion about the doors was interesting you should see me in those meetings when when the you know when they contract The Architects and the engineers and you know the actual Constructors are talking about the project they talk in their language and then you know those of us that are in attendance you know having that liaison if you will to help bridge that Gap is is proving to be very helpful so yeah it's while the public doesn't see a whole lot of physical progress it I can assure you it is happening well in how work me this is the slow part so this is the underground work this is the dirt work this is the votings and Foundations and that sort of thing and this goes slow and then all a sudden you're going to see this thing just fly up probably late January early February you're going to see a lot of progress very quickly you're going to say okay it's almost done and then after it gets closed in it's going to slow right back down again because you're not going to see that progress and so just kind of the Natural Evolution of construction but yeah nobody nobody sees electricians and plumbers and stuff doing subgrade work you know burying pipe and doing all the planning and prep for everything to run underneath the building you don't see that but that's what's happening right now so you know it it is a lot of work you just don't see tangible difference so any questions or right cool all right our next discussion items is the isba resolutions first reading you've got your packet here um please read through it between now and next month you'll see on the very last page there is a cheat sheet for Mr search as we have our discussions we are going to go through all of these um items there's what 12 six 14 items that you're going to say yes or no on and then one um parliamentary practice procedure so there be some decisions that you'll make next month but if you read through it um questions concerns give me a call but uh we'll have the discussion next month on those any questions in the meantime all right move on to individual board member comments anybody have anything for this evening I have something I'd like to comment on talk about it's a Scholastic Book Fair in just regards to parental control over what kids are able to view and buy when they go through and I don't know when the last time anybody went to a book fair um with their kids but I do know that like we just had the Middle School Book Fair and fifth through eighth grade can shop those books and some books that I might deem appropriate for my child to read might not be something that somebody else deems appropriate but at any time kids can walk through and look at whatever they want so what I would like to talk about is how we can give parents control over what their kids are able to view and buy and what they're spending their money on because if you know this if you buy something from the book fair you can't return it so if your kid brings something home that you don't approve of you're stuck with it um so I don't know if we can discuss how we can make that possible for parents to have full control over what they're kids are being exposed to or buying or whatever yeah we could probably do that best by maybe having the subcommittee Dr gainy and I had kind of discussed this before because there's that fine line between we want to make sure people have the rights to be able to see what they want to be able to see but then the parents also saying no and whatnot um we're not talking about banning books we're not talking about anything like that we're just Shifting the Monkey back on to the parents right um I know that there was this year we because we had the transition in our our library we did not get on the Scholastic Book Fair calendar and so it was not done as it normally is with reading night correct in conjunction which is usually when parents can go in with their kids and do that and so there's a lot of things that we can do to try and tweak this and make it better and so um maybe we'll start a subcommittee you'll be on it sure love committees I think it's a great idea all right and and it's I think it's a very delicate balance I you know when a me as a parent like Kelly said we all have different tolerances or you know what what you think is appropriate and inappropriate and you know there's a delicate balance between exposing the kids to these books and that sort of thing and also spend the parents harder money on what they don't want to spend so it's a balance and I think I think anytime we have a chance to get parents more involved in education I think we should do it but uh again I I don't want to discourage reading either so I think a committee is a great idea we can kind of sit down and okay get some ideas and all right resol thank you for bringing it up anyone else where pregant BR I have nothing else for this evening and with that we do have any EXE itive session we doing all these or just oh we are doing A and B A and B all right and we're going to go into executive session for the purposes of appointment employment compensation discipline performance or dismissal of a specific employee of the public body or legal counsel for the public body including hearing testimony for a complaint lodged against the public body of the public body or against the legal counsel for the public body to determine its validity pursuant to 5 IL cs20 2c1 or also student dis disciplinary cases pursuant to 5Cs 1202 C9 that would a may like to make a motion to adjourn into executive session I'll make the motion thank you Kelly second second seconds roll call please Kelly yes yes Lisa Sher yes Tyson search yes Adam hkin yes Andre court right it's 8:10 pm.

please here here here thank you can you please join us for the Pledge of Allegiance flag the United States ofer to the stands one nation under God indivisible liberty and justice for all great so our first order of business is from our student reps but I do see a new face that we did not see last time so Dr Solen if you can just give the introductions for us please sure as you know um excuse me I'm a little under the weather but I uh I know that last time uh we were able to introduce Lydia and Malachi was tied up and so I'm proud to give the introduction that Dr Gad would have given last week um Malachi is the epitome of a hardworking thoughtful and deeply caring student he exhibits High ethical standards and profound work ethic a dedicated student and leader maintaining an impressive 4.86 grade point average he is also a semi finalist for the National Merit Scholarship Malachi is often one of the first to arrive at school and among the last to leave he is president of our student Senate the National Honor H society and he is a co-editor and chief of the CHS newspaper Rampage from annual fundraisers to committee participation to be one day you can be sure that Malachi is in some way part of the planning and implementation of whatever is going on at CHS everything he does has a positive impact on our CHS Community his teachers comment that through his efforts High School events become more memorable experiences for his fellow classmates and he is a role model to his class classes if you ask Malachi he will share that he has grown so much as a student and person through his years at CHS and he wants the same for students following him Malachi plans to study aerospace engineering and he would love to work for NASA and one day actually go up to space I have no doubt given his history of hard work and fierce determination that Malachi will succeed his message to the younger students coming up the pike is to always go for it because why not we could not be more proud than to introduce Malachi baa welcome Malachi welcome welcome hello everyone all right thank you Dr Solen for the kind words and uh please extend my thanks to Dr Gad um so yeah good evening everyone I am Mal IA um all right so starting off with an update about our amazing sports teams the CHS athletic department was honored as one of 28 schools to receive the Michaels achievement cup for sportsmanship on October 7th this honor is based on athletes and coaches conduct on the field fans conduct in the stands and team's community service on that same high note our cross country teams had a very successful day yesterday for the SEC championships at East Shore Park our boys team play six and our girls team finished as Runners up yet the end of our fall season is uh quickly approaching the postseason has started for some for some sports and will continue through the last week of October looking ahead cheser High has several very exciting events happening in the coming weeks for example we will be hosting our first homecoming dance in over 10 years tomorrow night the theme is city of stars and it will be held in the CHS cafeterias and if that isn't thrilling enough for students they'll still have the PSAT exam to look forward to next Wednesday October 23rd the exam will only be administered to students in grades 9 through 11 seniors are expected to use the day as future Readiness day giving them time to visit colleges or to work on college applications the Halloween spirit is definitely alive and well us the the student Senate will be sponsoring their annual Halloween costume parade where students teams and staff will compete for best costumes in various categories along with this Halloween event is the affectionately called Trunk or Treat the CHS best buddies Club is hosting their annual spectacular trick-or treat drive-thru at the high school on October 27th at 6 p.m.

cheser Food drive.org thank you and that's usually facilitated by former board member um Marina Soo right thank you Marina wherever you are great um again no old business I do just have a couple comments in the chair's report um first I do just kind of want to piggyback off of what Mr gripple said about the the Genesis of why we had the meeting um with the joint meeting with the Town Council and I I just want to say I did appreciate your questioning and appreciate your response Dr Solen I think we were in a position of there was some miscommunication out there or misinformation and we were left to not have some sort of response to the public and and obviously that meeting I personally learned you know the appropriate way to ask certain questions um and I learned a few things like there's actually a stairwell over here somewhere so um again I I understand where you're coming from I had the same question um so I think we've clarified enough at this point how do we move forward if we had those particular types of misunderstandings or questions so I I think the town counc and the chief and everybody that was present um to provide us with the information um the other item I just want to and he's not here and I wish he was but we had a quite a celebration for Mr Jeff right if you can kind of give us a quick what happened seemed pretty awesome yeah well uh Mr Jeffrey the principal at Highland School is the Connecticut public schools uh principal of the year and he was uh recognized in Washington DC this past weekend um if you follow my Instagram account which where's the membership up to is it super chesher chesher super something um sorry um and that's something I've it always mix it up because the Twitter one is reversed that I don't use anymore but anyway um there are pictures there of him in DC he was talking to our admin team about it yesterday that you know he had to give a just a quick speech to the group on how exciting it was and black tii event and it was really cool down in Washington um and he deserves all of that recognition now next Thursday we have a special dinner in his honor hosted by the Connecticut Association of schools along with uh other administrators being acknowledged for their work across the state uh so we're looking forward to celebrating him there I think we have a pretty large contingent I think it's 31 people going um supporting him so it'll be fun um certainly he's earned that acknowledgement we're we're excited for him thank you Dr son I just want to say congratulations for the record to him he's not here I would not be attending that so um again definitely welld deserved and you know his dedication and Leadership have obviously truly made a difference in the school and just in our community as a whole um the other uh I I want to also officially congratulate uh Emily welcome aboard thank you for being here being our one of two audience members for us so welcome um any any comment for your first couple weeks not yet not yet the honeymoon is still in effect that's a good sign good job man so just want to say welcome that's all um and then lastly we have some meeting dates coming up but I do want to our next meeting is until after election day so I just want to say to the public please please vote um don't forget I think early voting starts next week on the 21st October 21st yeah so if you can't do early voting please definitely show up to the traditional site um and call the town to figure out where your um where your voting sites are um because election is just your opportunity to make a difference so so definitely um come and cast your ballot for sure and then our upcoming meetings are um Monday October 21st which is also early voting day we will have a curriculum committee meeting um at humiston boardroom and then Monday November 4th we have a policy meeting both of those are at 7 o'clock actually all of these um up until our business meetings are at 7: November 7th we have a high school showcase at chesher high school and then November 11th is another curriculum meeting at homon boardroom and then our um Boe business meeting is on November 21st here at Town council chambers couple dates for the public schools in general November 5th is professional development um because it is election day so no school for the kiddos though um and then November 19th is the superintendence awards dinner and November 28th to 29th is Thanksgiving break and then we move to December 23rd to January 1st 2025 will be our winter break and then January 20th um Martin Luther King Jr day um I believe that is all for meeting dates and um I just want to say to Tim um I feel as though you know behind the scenes I want to thank marleene because a couple weeks ago I actually bumped into her at a manufacturing Summit and I know that she's working hard just the administration's working hard to find alternative Pathways for our kiddos so outside of college you know there are other careers and I know we're we're working to add those into our um package of offerings so thank you Marlene and I was excited so I know you had yeah it was it was awesome day and I learned a lot of how much was made in Connecticut so we're we're working towards you know building more opportunities so thank you all of you um and with that we are um I need a motion to adjourn into executive session to discuss the superintendent's evaluation as well as the EAC contract Please Mr gripple um motion uh make motion to go into executive session to discuss superintendent evaluation and EAC contract to include Dr Solen and anyone else Mr maiana and that's it okay is there a second Mr eki second um is there any action to follow no action to follow thank you for the clarification all those in favor for adjourning into executive session unanimous we are adjourned thank you

e e e till they get these going welcome thank you uh for coming to our regular uh Board of Trustees meeting on October 17th 2024 we are resuming um our meeting and we will now stand for our Pledge of Allegiance LED uh and a moment of silence afterwards led by our student representative to the Board of Trustees Aaron Beck right over your heart ready begin I pledge aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all Sometimes in Life Unexpected tragedies can occur like uncr natural diss that can impct on so many lives at this time please join me in the moment of silence to honor the families and individuals affected by Hurricane M who lost many lives heads and were forced to evacuate from their homes thank you thank you Aon moving on to our Clos session report there we are item 5.3 thank you this on testing okay um uh uh 4.1 no report of action taken regarding public employee performance evaluation superintendent 4.2 the no reportable action regarding existing litigation 4.3 no reportable action taken regarding negotiations and 4.4 no report of action taken regarding Personnel thank you thank you try Guerrero um I'd like to uh welcome everyone here again to our uh Board of Trustees meeting um there are a few uh distinguished guests that we'd like to acknowledge um we'll begin with James Gan the vice president of AA I saw you earlier Heather hutner a president of csca and Britney Bowa is the apga co-president back there in the red Jennifer Cai our ala [Applause] president and in the middle there is Dr Leia Holstrom administrator of instructional programs for Roop welcome and also we have a representative from Sharon Quirk Silva's um office Lily Jimenez [Applause] welcome all right and item 6.1 a California distinguished schools and uh assembly woman ch C Silva's uh office is going to be presenting oh she's she is coming absolutely absolutely we will wait for her all right moving on to item 6.2 all right this is an exciting item the boys state and girl State delegates so the girl State and boy state are leadership programs through the American Legion and the American Legion auxiliary designed to increase awareness and knowledge of governmental processes while learning about the duties privileges rights and responsibilities of citizenship the student student nominees went through a rigorous application and interview process after being nominated for their leadership qualities academic potential and character each delegate spend a week at Sacramento State University this summer participating in mock government conferences and sessions with other young leaders from from throughout the state and below are this year's State delegates the first one on the list actually cannot be here tonight but they are going to present his certificate on the field at Western he's a football player and so uh his name is James Flores so let's give her a round of applause from Western and they will be giving him his his certificate on our behalf Claire Jang from Oxford Academy here uh paa Loza from Savannah High School COA win from Western High School and Tiffany win from Western High School and analin Rallo from catella high [Applause] school e the inspiration and the job the they decided to enter into because it's pretty amazing PA hello everybody um I really got INSP to govern and politics and want to be Senator and hopefully governor of California [Applause] [Music] [Applause] hello everyone my name is from Wern high school and I was really INSP the as well i' love to be a diplom in [Applause] and so the prog really me my name isan from W school but then I'm not really pursuing career it's more of like sence [Applause] away [Applause] good evening everybody I am assembly member Sharon cork Silva and I've had the pleasure of serving as your State Assembly member for now five terms and uh with that some of you may know that I was an educator myself for almost 30 years in the Fullerton Elementary School District so education is a uh core value that uh I not only believe in as I'm the first in my family to graduate and uh have seen it firsthand in my own family with all four of my uh adult I was going to say children but you can't be an adult child but uh now having attained higher ed degrees and I think that's directly related to uh me going to school myself but with that I've had the opportunity to be on all of the campus sites I believe only one I'm not sure Lexington that I've been to but we won make a point to get there but I've certainly been to uh Cyprus Lexington uh Kennedy Magnolia and Oxford over my time um as an assembly member and we know that the California distinguished schools award is one of the state's most important ways to celebrate exceptional schools District's teachers and classified employees for their Innovation talent and success in supporting students so we are thrilled uh it's a little tardy in the sense that I know these achievements were last year and you're probably working tirelessly for uh this year uh but we wanted to celebrate you with a California Assembly resolution so I think if it's okay we'll just invite each school one up at a time and just present the resolution I won't read it all but I'll I'll show you all first we'll have Cy [Applause] and kenned [Applause] and [Applause] and then Magnolia I just chance to be [Applause] I want to go work there when I'm [Applause] by Anaheim and Leadership know [Applause] youbody [Applause] good yes [Applause] awesome another round of applause for all of our schools okay item 6.1 all right we're up you're up next 7.1 our student representative to report Aon Beck okay starting off with Anaheim women's FL football won the bell game against Western for the first game ever starting a new bell game tradition of women's and men's football additionally during the first RSVP Summit the major concerns of students were bathrooms and food options specifically the removal of the Z shake and mirrors that Anaheim is now working on to improve next moving on to CVA CVA has started to highlight the stories and adversities of a student who is asked whether they would like to it's a good opportunity for the students and staff to learn about the student but also showing the network between the students and CVA now for Cyprus there were many exciting events that displayed what makes the Cypress Community so great to begin they had senior Lu out on September 4th which displayed the culture of many different people and had great food with the dance in addition they had the evening of the Arts on September 19th presenting many talents among all Cypress students in the theater Cypress also had their first summit and the school has gained a lot of information to help the school improve and one of the biggest highlight was homecoming week from October 7th to 12th Cyprus ASB has been working hard to put up most of these events and help all around the school this month was action-packed and they can't wait to see what is coming in the future next moving on to catella catella had their first RSVP Summit on October 11th it went great and cheer principal Hernandez vice presidents from RSVP and student ambassador Evelyn Ramos greeted students at the Wagner gate catella thanks all students that participated in the summit and their next step is to make changes on their campus to make sure the student body is heard moving on to Kennedy Kennedy had the Civic learning award ceremony on SE nber 23rd additionally Kennedy singers had their first choir show this year which was their main highlights now moving on to Laura Laura at Laura a new relaxation space has been established where students can unwind and take a break from their stress from their homework this recently created space is available before school in the mornings and during lunch with a maximum stay of 10 minutes per student the Luna leaders collaborated in designing the features of the space while the name was chosen by students during a lunchtime activity next for Magnolia California state assemblywoman Sharon Quirk Sila visited Magnolia High School on October 15th to tour their beloved Mac and their brand new Innovations building it was an absolute Delight for Magnolia to have her tour their two biggest sources of innovation and opportunities for their Sentinels next with Oxford Oxford had Unity day on October 16th where ASB decorated the quad with orange themed goldfish with lunch time activities such as bracelet making posting a note on their decorated wall and getting a rose to give to someone students were allowed to wear orange to help their grade earn points for their spirit week next with Savannah Savannah's first RSVP Summit of this school year went really well students who participated in the Summits as facilitators had an amazing time and gathered numerous input for RSVP to go over Savannah students had the opportunity to be involved in a discussion about what changes they would like to make regarding the three topics social facility and community in partnership with Serve the People Savannah provided students the opportunity to get their sports physicals checked for our student athletes it is required to have a sports physical in order to play a sport at school held on campus students were able to get their physicals done for free lastly with Western they won their annual rivalry football game against Anaheim the bell game for the 13th year in a row which is most definitely a highlight Western also finished their first summit RSVP trained and led nearly 100 facilitators and they got into every class at once RSVP and Western is excited to start work on their data thank you fantastic H we appreciate this colorful report and uh very thorough um this is amazing um trusty Guerrero and I were able to attend uh one of the RSV uh Summits um and please tell um the ambassadors congratulations to it's a it's an enormous undertaking and for them to get that um already off the ground this early in the year is a is a feat so thank you thank you yeah Bravo and uh I want to honor one of our students that um has come in from Oxford acad uh Claire Jang [Applause] Round of Applause for okay student speakers and we have a number all right uh Brielle drunkers please come on up welcome hello all my name is belel droners and I'm a junior at johnf Kennedy High School and I'm I'm I'm in my first year of the international Balor program I'm here to speak to you today regarding the student cyber safety a topic that is increasingly becoming an issue with the development of AI in the technological world according to ahsd board policy section 8707 labeled safe and secure learning environment States a safe and secure learning environment and working environment has been has remained a major goal for organization priority of the Board of Trustees to clarify the statement the ahsd Board of Trustees believes that a safe learning environment has a large impact on education also in section 14400 a statement of educational educational philosophy states that with the regard of school setting the Board of Trustees accepts as its primary responsibility education welfare of every child with both of these statements in mind the board policy clearly stat that they prioritize our safety I do not doubt doubt that our mental and physical safety is at stake however I believe cyber security should take a new priority nothing in state or federal law prevents a student ID from being used as an email address this could be however this could be considered a security Hazard a student ID is considered a PPI a PPI stands for a personal identif information this could be information such as your full name financial and medical records and even your social security number a pii should never be used in an email address as this can as this could lead to increase in identity theft there is there is proof of this in the real world today as allegations as allegation and student information were leaked in the past year in 2023 in the Minneapolis public schools because of a District's misuse of IDs in student emails while while student IDs are efficient for the school district there needs to be a fix to secure the students cyber safety thank you Bravo thank you it's amazing all right uh Claudia Elena Mitchell [Applause] welcome thank you hello my name is Claudia Lena Michelle and I'm a student at Gilbert High School back in my home school I wasn't the best student there I would always have EVS because I couldn't focus or teachers weren't the best at explaining things I never asked for help because I would get scared or nervous for them to say or I wasn't paying attention when I got to Gilbert High School I changed by a lot for example last quarter I had all and was proud of myself for going to school every day I joined the rainbow Gladiators rooted a music class and even a business class on back to school night I made four dozens of muffins for the rainbow Gladiators to support the class and the school in my rooted class I've realized that they've helped me a lot to be more social helping me find the job and even supporting me another thing I did on back to school night was saying a speech for my music class and even helping out in the drum circle when I heard that they were having a business class I knew I had to join immediately I have a business for music for my muffins and fraternal roses every day when I walk into school I always get a hey how are you or how's your business going or even a fist bump with a smile and that always makes my day Gilbert High School has always been a supporting school and just wants to help their students to graduate on time one thing I noticed is that Gilbert gives out a lot of love and support but doesn't get it back I feel like they need to remodel the school to make it look cleaner and safer with your support and love we will appreciate anything for our cus thank you thank you uh Harrison McDon [Applause] um my name is Harrison McDon I'm a senior at Cyprus high school I was raised by my mom Janelle who's a longtime teacher in this District uh my mom has been teaching at Gilbert High School for nearly 30 years and I know for a fact that her workspace has never been renovated or upgraded once that goes beyond before I was born uh during her career my mom has dedicated her heart and soul to her students and she loves being part of the Gilbert family but Gilbert high school's facilities are in dire need of improvement and they deserve your attention today since my mom has taught at Gilbert she's been a teacher of the year and Gilbert has earned the distinctions of Community School democracy School model continuation school and the highest honor Civic learning Award of Excellence yet I'm so concerned for my mom's safety and her wellbeing there gber High School needs measure K funding to keep my mom and her colleagues and her students safe your support would help keep everyone safe and promote a better learning experience for everyone there I hope you honor that thank [Applause] you Natalie via welcome [Applause] good evening everyone my name is Natalie VI and I'm a senior at gilber high school I'm here today to represent our school's Friday Night Live family I'm also here to tell you why our school deserves funding we've noticed that other schools in the district have been receiving attention and facility improvements using Bond money we applaud these efforts and we believe that our school Gilbert High School deserves consideration one particular concern is the lack of security fencing around our campus we would like to ensure our school is safe and secure security fencing would help provide that just like all the other schools have this is especially important given the safety concerns that some of our students face which can sometimes prevent them from attending school it is important to remember that Gilbert High School is more than just a place of learning it's a save Haven for many students including young children in our oncampus daycare we believe that fencing would significantly improve the safety and overall well-being of our school Community another need another need that we have is the construction of a wellness center and counseling offices for our school we as students feel that mental health is crucial and a Wellness Center will give us a safe space to be mindful calm and have someone to talk to when needed we know that measure K is on the ballot in November this may mean that some that that residents may have to pay more in taxes and no one wants that however this will be for the future of our children in our community and schools like Gilbert who really deserve the support and a safe space to call home in conclusion despite the challenges we Face Gilbert High School is a place of hope and opportunity our dedicated teachers and staff are committed to helping our students succeed no matter their background we need your support to ensure that our school is that our school's exterior reflects the positive and supportive environment we Foster within our walls please support our school thank [Applause] you Natalie did you also want to talk about the Friday Night Lights a little bit you gave us a couple did you want to I'm in Friday Night Live it is um something that Miss Rush is the is like the leader of um we work with things outside of school and in school like Red Ribbon Week and activities for the school it is very it's very good it was a very good opportunity that Miss Rush let me be in be in it I'm very grateful and I've never been at a school like Gilbert so thank you thank you so much [Applause] Hennessy would you mind um pronouncing your last name when you get up there thank you um hello my name is H Sanchez I am a student at Gilbert High School um I want to talk about why our school needs more funding first we really need safety fencing as Natalie said our students feel unsafe because our school isn't securely fenced um a good fence would help everyone feel safer and focus better on school cuz it's hard to focus when you are worried about your safety um next is the bathrooms the bathrooms can be pretty filthy and I feel like clean bathrooms are important for all students when we have nice clean places to use it helps us feel more comfortable at school and everyone deserves to like have good like good bathroom facilities um improving these things isn't just about making our school better it's about creating a place where we feel safe and cared for when we feel good about our school we can do better in our classes don't forget about Gilbert High School by like um with getting the funding we need we can make our school safer and a more welcoming place for everyone thank you thank [Applause] you would you all like to just announce your names up there so we know who you are we appreciate you you being here hi my name is Audrey Moralis and I also a student at gobert high school thank you my name is Katherine hi and I'm uh Gilbert High School hi my name is Mara Mazza and I'm also a student at Gilbert High School hi my name is Kelsey Estrada and I'm also a Gilbert High School student Bravo thank you for being [Applause] here is it Cathy [Applause] hello everyone my name is Kathy lung and I'm a student of Gilbert High um I'll be representing the students and what they think they need um we did a Sur a student survey last week um 53 students replied the top three would be the bathrooms uh they think we need more bathrooms open along with it being more clean food uh is the second one and it would be uh for more nutritious and more options of food and then parking and traffic um in the mornings we have trouble some students get to school uh class late because the cars are all blacked up um there are other needs such as uh vending ma machines for snacks and water uh to be energized throughout the day um indoor gymis so that like during the summer or if it's raining that we can have somewhere inside to be uh to exercise along with a secure gate that like everyone has been talking about um and then also culinary classroom I've noticed some students have not been able to go to class on time because they've missed the bus to go to The Culinary room thank you for your time all right thank [Applause] you Haley soell good evening members of the board first and before I start I would like to give an Applause to all the students who came up speaking about facilities and cyber safety that takes a lot of courage to stand and be here so thank you my name is haly my name is Haley Soo and I am a student at Savannah high school first I would like to thank you all for the opportunity to be here and speak last month I spoke about Civic engagement and Civic engagement in high schools last month that's been a high school I had the opportunity to run a voter registration Booth where we registered over 30 students to register and pre-register to vote I was also very glad to see that other schools were also doing this and getting to see the outcome now I would like to move on to the topic of class sizes smaller class sizes improve student learning now I can't just make a claim like that without evidence I am a critical thinker now according to the National Institute of Health student achievement is directly correlated with class size a direct quote from this article even States the student teach teacher achievement ratio star study reported significant benefits from size reductions on students achievements certain students need more certain students need smaller classes and one-on-one attention personally I pride myself on being able to say that I'm a part of this district and have the capacity to learn in different environments but how can we ensure that students who need smaller class sizes are going to be able to have the fair opportunity to achieve in our education system thank you thank you Haley were there was there another student that didn't get a sheet up here that would like to come up and speak all right well um on behalf of the board and if the board would like to say anything you're you're free to do so but we really appreciate you all coming up here and it is a little intimidating and scary sometimes I'm scared up here too um but we really appreciate you being so brave and uh we did make notes and we really heard everything that you had to say um and Dr Laura you should Lura you should be very proud of your students coming up here yes thank you very much students we're going you another round of applause I add something to that absolutely I think this is one of the examples of why this country is so great that you feel the freedom to come up here and speak what you want to speak about and it it makes you great but you are part of the greatness of this country and from the bottom of my heart I want to thank you and your principal we we listen thank you [Applause] okay moving on to our report of the associations uh let's have our cssea representative Heather hutner go first [Applause] welcome you must have heard mine was really short today okay um before I start I'd also like to thank the kids and say you guys all did a great job and I'd also like to throw in for you guys carpet in a health office is really gross so that should also get taken care of um president Randall tro Board of Trustees super superintendent mitsuda who's not here so clearly I wrote this ahead of time uh executive cabinet staff parents students and community members thank you for the opportunity to address you on behalf of classified CSA members this has been a busy month for CSAA members across the district uh members appreciated Mr matsuda and Dr F taking the time to come to one of our meetings and answering their questions the bilingual biliterate work group composed of cssea bilingual staff district and site administrators have been working to develop a formula that they can recommend to the board um that can help ensure that our sites will be adequately staffed to help our staff our families and our students um get the help that they need we've been very happy with the progress that our professional development commit has made and I'd like to recognize Brandon te and Melanie Thomasson for the work that they've done to revamp the forms that will help make it easier for our members to access this program and continue their educations while we haven't really seen any progress on the employee development program the CPR program or the lead stip in being implemented from last year's contract I am hopeful that we will be able to report on success in those programs very soon as a member of the insurance committee it was really heartening to see the unions all work together with a spirit of support and compromise to reach an agreement and I hope that this signals the beginning of healing from the rift of self-interest and impact on labor solidarity of last year together we can do great things support our students and community and I look forward to the fure true thank you heather just a clarification did you say CPR or CPI CPR CPR okay yeah we're not doing much thank you and um rest assured uh Mike is listening to the meeting he is um out of town but uh he is listening to the meeting so all right um Britney Bowa hi good evening esteemed Board of Trustees um counselors are currently in the middle of fouryear college application season working diligently to assist seniors with their applications ensuring they have tools and resources needed for success in addition to college applications our counselors just completed a series of financial literacy lessons with senior classes in preparation for FAFSA and kada applications which we're hopeful will open on December 1st um this initiative is essential as we strongly believe that all of our students have the potential to pursue higher education whether that be through a college degree or certification program preparing them early for financial planning is key to making post-secondary education accessible and achievable we are also excited to welcome five new dual enrollment counselors to our team these counselors will play a pivotal role in driving one of our goals which is ensuring that every student completes at least one dual ment course before graduation this will not only provide them with valuable college credits but also Foster a deeper understanding of what it means to succeed in higher education we are proud to project that over 1,000 nth grade students will have completed at least one dual enrollment course by the end of this school year by integrating counseling 140 into our CFT classes we've created an inclusive opportunity for all students to engage in dual enrollment the Strategic effort particularly focuses uring that all underrepresented student populations can fully benefit from this valuable experience positioning them for greater academic success in the future we look forward to continuing our efforts to ensure that every student is equipped for Success After High School thank you for your ongoing support thank you Brittney James Gan um good evening board member superintendent metsa and cabinet I'd like to start by uh thanking the school board the district and all the associations who worked hard over the past year to come to consensus on an agreement on Health and Welfare ASA members are grateful knowing that the 2025 plan will be a continuation of our exemplary health benefits ASA is currently working hard to support measure K many teachers showed up for the kick off and went into the community urging families to support our students ASA leadership has driven around the district and put up dozens of large measure case signs in prominent locations not me I've been teaching at Gilbert High School the AA office is in the middle of Hosting nine nights of phone banking which runs from 4: to 8:00 p.m.

uh any suggested agenda items okay seeing none I will take a motion for adjournment so move second okay motion and second all in favor I I all right good night

at school 2 and that concludes this month's superintendent report thank you Mr jenero next up we have an overview of state and local assessments and District highlights by our assistant superintendent of curriculum Miss kusich good evening Commissioners ladies and gentlemen once again it is a pleasure to be here this evening to present to you data my least favorite part of these data presentations are the state mandatory reports but this one's a little more fun because we get to talk about our local data as well and that's where I really think that the proof in the pudding of what we're able to do in our one Clifton Community for our students lies this evening's presentation will have an overview of the mandatory reporting of State njsla student learning assessment the dlm which is the alternative assessment for our uh very small percentage of of our special needs students it is not for all of them our local assessment data and our district actions the njsla assessment is an assessment of language arts and math language arts grades 3-9 and math in grades 3 through 10 as well as end of course assessments for Algebra 1 geometry and Algebra 2 this assessment is measured on five levels from level one not yet meeting grade level expectations to level five exceeding grade level expectations this assessment called njsla was formerly known as the park assessment and then adjusted very slightly and renamed as the New Jersey student learning assessment as we can see here across all of our grade levels the vast majority of our students fall into levels 3 through five for language arts in mathematics the vast majority of our students also fall into levels 3 through 5 in Geometry it's 50/50 between level two and level four and we have our science scores where our students are spread across the levels the njsla assessment ments Encompass all students meaning students new to the country or special needs students in some of our more severe classes are represented in those total averages we are not allowed to remove those students to present you data without those students included so that is everyone we do have the dlm for only 1% of our special needs students the DM or dynamic learning map is a more Hands-On assessment administered to some of our most severe non-verbal classrooms and even if students do well on this assessment they only 1% can count can be counted towards proficiency under how the esa act measures school districts in 40 different areas in DM we again see our students at all grade levels from 3 through 8 and grade 11 how they perform but this is again a snapshot of 1% of our most severely uh needy special education students now we'll be moving on to our local assessment data starting in kindergarten which is the foundation of everything and that Foundation starts with foundations what we see here is our foundations program is a multi-sensory phonemic awareness and systematic multisensory phonemic awareness instruction program it is part of the Wilson Reading Intervention which many of our families ask for for students who have dyslexia we utilize foundations as the foundational core for teaching reading in grades K through three and we can see here on the right on the left hand side of the page that our students in grade K in foundations have gone from 40% proficiency to 82% by the end of the year thanks to our teachers diligently implementing this program with Fidelity it is a short 30 minute block every day of the week providing systematic phonemic instruction to develop reading skills we do modify it slightly for our English language learners but this goes across the board for all of our students we then give double doses for students in basic skills on occasion and double doses on a regular basis for many of our special needs students to support their reading and literacy development on the right hand side of the page we see the growth of our students in other major markers of literacy which include high frequency trick wordss rhyming words and letter naming fluency now we have the same data for first grade looking at our first grade literacy card as well as the foundations data and what we see is that based on our basic literacy skills which include phonemic awareness phonics vocabulary reading fluency and comprehension our students show growth from the beginning to end of the year and we look at their guided reading levels where our most of our students average out around the level of B at the beginning of the year increasing to level F by the end of the school year and once again on the right hand side we see the growth in from foundations from 55% proficiency at grade level to 82% by the end of the year and in second and third grade we see the same growth through the use of Foundations which is that Wilson based intervention very similar to Orton Gillingham our star reading summary shows growth typical growth from year to year this is now comparing students in 2223 to students in 23 24 but we see that they're maintaining a high level with a slight increase year-to-year and we see that same unified score increase in Star reading which is our online measurement of student reading proficiency from grades three through five from the light purple to to the dark purple that steady line of growth across and in grades 6 through 8 a similar visual display of that data as relevant to sixth through e8th graders in literacy we try to balance paper and pencil literacy with technology in ker 2 our students use Raz kids to read books online and improve their fluency in grades 2 to 8 we have Mayan reader and Accelerated Reader as well as the full AR 360 platform this year students in 22 23 to 24 school year arcade 8 students read 46,7 194 books that was a 37,1 75 book increase from the previous year these are paper books online books It's a combination of all books but one of the things that really pushed this initiative was our book vending machines thanks to grant funding and support from the board we've been able to put book vending machines into every Elementary School including the Calas and those vending machines are used as an incentive to get paper books into children's hands and the number of paper books that that children go after in those book vending machines is just astounding so I've just reviewed our major data literacy highlights our literacy highlights in technology and then we have our teacher supports to help our teachers be most successful and efficient with their use of time the day is short and there's so much to accomplish particularly in the area of literacy so we have our language arts supervisor working with a team of literacy coaches going around providing support to help teachers cut away the things that might not be quite as effective and really hone in their strategies to support our students and maximize the learning time that we do have this is our book circulation in our media centers in Middle um both high school and middle school there was an increase in book circulation now you just heard about that huge increase in Reading both online as well as in those books that kids were setting goals to win from the book vending machines we did have a decrease in our media center circulation in the elementary schools so the media uh media Specialists are going to be using um various techniques to get more books in hands that are borrowed but the exciting part is that our overall amount of reading has increased because kids were getting those books to take home with them and keep out of the the vending machines at the high school level we measure our growth primarily focused on the writing standard and from year to year in English one students went from n 91% of our students passed with a 7day or higher in the following school year our writing quarterly average was 87% of our students um passing with a65 or higher in 10th Grade we went from 90% of our students passing with a 70 or higher to 92% passing with a 65 or higher this is reflective of the shift in our grading policy so comparing our prev the year where 70 was the minimum passing grade to the 65 being a minimum passing grade is not exactly an apples to oranges comparison it's a little off because our grading scale changed and in 11th grade we see the same 90% passing with the 70 or higher in their writing areas um in 2223 to 97% with a 65 or higher in 12th grade 98% to 97% and our major highlight is that we exceeded the state average both on the NJ SLA and NJ GPA in English language arts and here we just have an illustration of those um um writing quarterly scores that we just discussed on the previous slides language arts takes up the largest amount of our curriculum but then we have math the other cor Corner pillar of our instruction what we see here are kindergarten through fifth grade local assessment data from the light green to the yellow that is our district placement to our district post test these are local assessments developed by teams of teachers which then get loaded into the linkit platform these are assessments based on what we are teaching in our schools the placement test challenges them to see where they are in what we're going to be learning and the post Test shows where they got um and then we at some grade levels we also have the endof year test but the growth that we're looking at is from the light green to the yellow and across the board our students showed growth our main focus this past year was also honing in instruction onto teacher-led small groups and small group stations for students to practice their learning here we have a multi-year growth and even with multi-year grade by grade where we're comparing different students each year we have seen growth from 2021 through 2324 before but again on our local data and now we're looking at the quarterlies for grade 6 through 8 here we have the same thing with our district placement test in the light green our students in 6 through 8 all have significant growth up through the marking period four quarterly which is the blue so here we're comparing the light green to the dark blue and you can see the growth trajectory for grade six grade six resource room and then grade seven and eight accelerated our biggest highlight in math was that thanks to Esser funding which unfortunately has expired we were able to add the touch math multisensory math program to most of our self-contained llds lldm and er special education classes um we were able to do some expansions um not just of Imagine math but also utilizing roboy in grades 2 through eight which is a handson robotics program that our students really enjoy and in math we also have our math coaches who go around helping to support our teachers math is a challenging one not all of us come out of school as strong mathematicians I am one of them and having our coaches work with our teachers teachers we have some amazing mathematical genius teachers and they're growing some really great mathematician students our main highlights in K to8 are in number recognition the basic two digit functions of adding subtracting multiplying dividing proportional relationships finding Solutions the more challenging areas that we're still focusing on are multi-step word problems performance four operations with fractions I think we all hate fractions multi- select and multi-response questions those are a challenge and that is one of the core pieces of the njsla because students have to learn to deal with that ambiguity at the high school we had um 54% of our students pass the algebra 1 quarterly um in marking period one growing to 60 um to 6 3% in marking period 3 in Geometry we went from 69% down to 43% geometry is um showing itself to be a challenge and we are going to be putting in uh to place multiple different um initiatives in order to address geometry in Algebra 2 we do we're back to our usual growth 75% passing in marking period 1 to 88% passing in marking period 3 and here we have a visual with the showing that growth from the green I'm sorry from the Navy to the Green in Algebra 1 and in Algebra 2 with that dip that was just mentioned for geometry again we had an eser based highlight that was supporting our students that unfortunately has now come to an end and that was the um almost unlimited free after school in-person and online tutoring that was available 5 days a week for our students in math from Algebra 1 through calculus um we have eliminated our tutor.com online program which was being funded through Esser we are still maintaining the Afterschool tutoring but we have gone down from 5 days a week to three um our AP students 78.9% of them scored a three or a higher on the computer science AP and 42% 42.9 score to three or higher on the computer science a in calculus 42.5 score to three or higher on the calculus ABB test and our njsla scores did exceed the state growth and now we're looking at imagine math imagine math is our online adaptive program that does correlate with our um state test scores and provides student growth and and support online it's adaptive it's gamified so unlike older worksheet based online programs this one does engage our students a little more but it can sometimes lead to frustration because we look at multiple different Pathways there are the pathways that can get assigned to a student that follow what they're doing in their um pacing guide in their classroom but there are also challenge Pathways and Remediation pathways and sometimes students are selecting Pathways where they really need to work with their teacher to identify the correct Pathway to work in so that they are getting the most um support without too much frustration overall our students grew from each Benchmark across the year with our highest growth in grade five um and I'm sorry with our kindergarten being the highest growth with 254 points of growth but we see this growth trajectory on that bottom line with the navy blue showing growth through grade8 Algebra 1 and geometry is a bit lower because students are T kind of tired of the program by high school we are replacing imagine math in grades 10 in um algebra and geometry this year we're piloting a new program um for those high school students in terms of online lessons and our students K through 12 completed 32,8 75 imagine math lessons completing 12 m941 22 problems our students in grades 3 through 12 utilized the online tutor who's a live teacher that they can access when they're in Imagine math they can help them with an imagine question or a homework question 4,200 23 times and our students utilizing the gamified mode earned over half a million tokens in grade K through 2 and in grades three plus they earned 2,466 th000 points um we were a leader in donating to charity because those points can be donate can be converted either to gamify their Avatar and buy bling for their avatar on screen or donate to charity well Clifton kids chose to donate those points to charity Now we move to science in biology we're looking at our high school scores um our marking period 1 went from 72 to marking period 3 77% proficiency um and for biology honors 71 to 76% Proficiency in chemistry we went from 76 7 to 70% and 82 to 81 in chemistry honors and in physics 67 to 69% and 94 to 97% for physics honors our science highlights were that our mechanical Mustangs finished third at the first midatlantic district Championship they qualified for and attended the World Championship where they did make it to the quarterfinals 15 out of 20 of our um students who took the biology AP scored a three or better um that is we exceed the global average um for AP performance in a three or better and six out of 10 score to three are better in AP environmental science once again exceeding both the New Jersey and the global average and our advanced placement physics students um this is an ad this is an add-on this year this is our first year this 2425 school year where we'll be taking the AP Physics Exam so sit tight for those exciting results next year now we move in to world history in world history from marking period 1 to marking period 3 we went from 85% test score average to a 71% test score average in American history 1 we we went from a 69% average to 73% and American History 2 from 66% to 82% our social studies highlights are that our Clifton mock trial team won the state championship that's really amazing that's something really good in football as Mr jaro would say but I am not quite sure I guess the something top of top the top of the top okay there we go this is our we hit we hit that state championship n um National History Day at National History Day at monor University three of our students presented very compelling topics on civil rights um and the uh two different Civil War topics they really need deserve recognition although we were not um top scorers the depth and breadth of what our students did was just beyond students um Andy chapello Anthony Rosario um received accolades from the New Jersey Civil War Round Table um and our team hosted the third annual CHS History Fair in terms of AP once again here AP US History results 93.5 of% of our students scored three or higher exceeded the New Jersey and Global averages in AP psychology 71.7% of our students scored a three or higher also exceeding the New Jersey and Global averages and an AP US Government and politics 100% of our students score to three or higher also exceeding the New Jersey and Global averages so what are we doing to support and improve instruction in those areas where we may need to grow and to maintain the areas where we are the strongest we utilize all of the data that you just saw to drive classroom instruction what we see in our data impacts our pacing every year which then impacts our local assessments we provide before and after school programs and summer school using various forms of St um State funding Federal funding and an after school Pro homework that is provided by the district unfortunately thanks to the expiration of Esser there will be fewer of these programs this this year and this coming summer but we're trying to maximize them by holding them on the most popular days ensuring that we're targeting the groups that need them the most um we have been up till now providing both inperson and online tutoring we do still have the online tutoring feature within our imagine math program um and we do provide some virtual tutoring for our students who cannot attend things like our elll tutoring up at the high school um as well as we're running out the end of the um high-intensity tutoring Grant where we have about 200 students receiving 3 days a week of online tutoring um through the month of January um and then that Grant will ran out that was also an Sesser funded Grant it was a separate Grant from eser that we received uh we're focusing on writing to maintain student progress and we're really prioritizing hands-ons and small group learning leveraging our Google classrooms and really the key piece is supporting mental health um this year we have fully integrated taken the first steps to fully integrate our PBIS and inrs programs into a full multi-tiered system of support so that we can be really addressing our students behavioral academic and social emotional needs we continue to prioritize um student mental health our students are still experiencing the co challenges will probably never fully go away but the bigger issue is that all of the screen time that our students have has made changes in their brains we have severe increases in student disregulation so it's really important for our teachers our counselors our support staff to help teachers learn to manage their emotions manage frustration and really focus on their social emotional well-being um we did thanks to this board's foresite U be able to keep the additional math and reading instructional supports as well as the additional counseling supports that we were able to add through Esser we were able to incorporate that into the current budget to keep that grow going um we continue to extend our specialized programs such as our IMPACT Program um for our 18 to 21 year olds um and we are looking at expanding our Twilight Alternative Program um as well as our Aspire Alternative Program which is our daytime Alternative Program we're going to be adding a small component of general education students to that after school Twilight program as well this year so we continue to do good things and it's really thanks to this board's support um and the careful um and Target budgeting so thank you very much for all of that um and that is all oh nope I'm so sorry um our counseling Focus forgive me I I didn't mean to skip over that but I think I covered the majority of that all of the counseling supports that we were able to do including the external Services as well as internal Services we continue to do because our students just need it so much um the virtual caling room is still out there there but one of the other pieces that we were able to do together with counseling and academics was um put calming Corners in every single preschool through third grade classroom as well as every single self-contained special ed classroom and um adaptive Furniture which is alternative seating bean bags CS other ways that children can express their movement and still be able to stay focused on what's going on in class and we've done that in every classroom in grades three through five um so that counseling social emotional and academics go hand inand for our Student Success thank you ladies and gentlemen thank you Miss kusich for that very comprehensive overview uh open up to the board for any questions of commissioner Suarez thank you president Paris thank you so much uh Janina I so appreciate um this important information and I just um to reiterate that to reiterate the highlights of growth uh especially in literacy uh for so many grades and um so thank you and to the Educators who are making that happen I have a question I'm just curious if you can provide some insight about the um njsla science cuz I noticed that the majority of students were in levels um one and two for grades 58 and 11 um if you can perhaps provide some insight as to why that is um so let the community know please yeah over the last two years the test has completely changed and at the same time we have added a completely different SC Hands-On science program that we're rolling out the first year of that program was kind of fraught with supply chain issues um and we only last year started with a science coach to help to go around and really help teachers incorporate and Implement that Hands-On program um our day is also very full the science um standards and the Hands-On Science assessment shifted as the hand the Science assessment shifted to more conceptual Concepts um and a lot of our science and social studies especially at the primary grades is really Incorporated in literacy which stemmed from the Common Core which then became the New Jersey student student learning standards and with a focus on the language of Science of so of social studies of technical subjects so it's more of a non-fiction literacy approach and we need to be shifting and finding time to add more of that Hands-On conceptual approach we do have the kits and the trainers and we're slowly rolling that out um but that's one that's going to be a challenge because for for many many many years when that assessment was more literacy bed based we were at the top that was always our highest scoring area so this is a shift in in the testing system thank you so much that's really helpful um and and please I'm only asking questions about the gaps that I see because I also want to highlight because you you shared so many great things um when I was looking at the nth grade English and language arts um and I understand that there was a minimum of 70 or higher for 2022 22 to 23 um whereas 65 are higher for passing for 23 24 yet there was a decrease in passing um what were if you can also provide some insight around so again we changed as I mentioned um in the presentation we did change the grading scale so changing a grading scale doesn't just mean that now whatever was a 6 whatever was a 70 now becomes a 65 it means that teachers have to rethink how they're um what they're scoring and how they're scoring it it's not just drop ing that level so that change in grading scale you really can't compare those two years we're doing that because it's the only data we have um but the comparison is something that you know this year you'll be comparing the same baseline from the beginning of the from last year to this year and from the beginning of this year to the end of this year thank you that's all I have back to Danny um so thank you Janina for that really comprehensive um data analys analysis and I did want to say that um that is a challenge um for a few districts that I know in speaking to some supervisors that when they do change the testing that is true because you're specifically focusing to try to work on certain skills I mean I hate to sort of say teaching to the test but in some ways it is and you're focusing on those skills because of course you're looking at the data and so you're looking at the standards so you are focusing to those standards and then I do know that when they change that it does really throw a lot of things off so um I understand that and again thank you for your um real comprehensive data review as you always do thank you and I have to say it's really important to focus more on the instruction and literacy is that Cornerstone in elementary school we will rise to the challenge of the new assessments but our teachers our elementary school teachers work so hard all of our teachers do all of our staff does but our elementary teachers in particular have to really master all the content areas manage the entire day and we've been changing our schedule um a couple of times over the last few years plus they had Co to deal with so there really our Focus has been on maintaining those literacy math and social emotional needs um while learning about the science and social studies um you know as an assistant superintendent of curricula I should be in instruction I should be talking about how great test scores are I don't think that standardized tests are the only measure and too many people look at that one day that one point in time as the defining statement about what our students are capable of doing as the defining measure of a school district and that's absolutely not true those those St those tests come from federal um laws and federal agendas not from a place of true pedagogy instruction and what's best for kids [Music] commiss Bas thank you thank you very much for a very comprehensive report uh what role can the parents and the Guardians play in helping their students improve in their performance on these assessments read read read read to your children read to your children with your children have your children read to you make reading and literacy more important in your household than that little rectangular screen and it's okay if you're reading the Kindle app on that little screen but it should be reading reading reading take your kids to do fun things talk to your children listen to their answers respond to their answers respond to those thousands of questions and try to provide them a little Nook a corner a special chair a place where they can do their homework maybe it's a little tent that you just put a drape your apartment is small you drape over your kitchen table and now they have their little learning tent underneath but make a corner a spot someplace that's their special Learning Place it might be in their bed with a special learning pillow that they just put their books down upon but we want to have our children have a specific place where they can sit and do their homework as calmly as possible and we do minimize our homework but the read read read read should be a daily thing thank you uh commissioner Brak thank you Mr President geometry is is that mandatory is that mandatory to graduate from high school you need to have um the three maths to graduate from high school it doesn't necessarily have to be passing the geometry um but you do need to take an assessment all the way through 10th grade and it can be Algebra 1 Algebra 2 or geometry the disparity is pretty significant so even with a 65 or better it's saying 43% in mp 3 is that right 43% In Mp3 so I I was just concerned but again looking at you remember we did have that shift in our grading scale at the same time um our Focus has been on algebra algebra is the one you absolutely positively have to have to graduate from high school your second your other maths can be any other math geometry needs to become a focus um as much as algebra but non-mandatory thank you very much any other yes commissioner me here so I love how we did bring that up because I recently had a professional development where we talked about the shifting of grading P um policies and passing grades can you briefly explain to the general public what the positives and benefits are of our shifting from 70 to 65 um so over the years we have had this conversation um the most recent I think was when Mr HDA really worked um the high school principal worked with his staff um the majority of the districts in the state of New Jersey have a 60 or a 65 as their minimum passing grade Clifton has had a 70 as the minimum passing grade for and we're only one of a handful of the 600 districts in the state it's maybe a dozen that had that 70 what that did is it gave it put our students on an uneven playing field because a student would come from another District come here they'd be passing at a 65 but now all of a sudden they're failing because our is a 70 it was an undue burden on our students because that grade you still have a bell curve of performance and most colleges also fall in that 60 to 70 range so the 70 was giving an undue burden on our students this helps our students feel that they can succeed it gives them the opportunity to be kids and still pass a course and it helps overall with just our passing rates as a district it's not to pass kids on it's to help kids show what they can do in a way that everyone else around them is doing it instead of making them feel that they are failures because they may have experienced a few more challenges thank you very much and I believe if I'm not mistaken um there there are also impacts in their ability to get scholarships and that colleges do adjust for what your minimum passing grade is so this is this all by lowering that passing grade that also put our students in a better competitive line with um attaining certain College scholarships that's beautiful thank you so much anyone else oh commissioner kova um you mentioned the the tutoring in grades 9 to 12 was going to be available because we were sunting some sort of funding um do we have anything available for K to8 so every school has some small amount of an after school homework program um we only have our own pool of teachers to tap for that um so in the schools you know every school has at least a few people after school available for tutoring um from Tuesdays through Thursdays you're going to actually see names showing up on the agenda now this is something that we're without in the absence of the eser funding we do need to um you know reduce the number of days and reduce the number of weeks so we're starting you're seeing names showing up now and the tutoring will go on after school through um April or May depending on how many students are taking advantage of it how many teachers are doing it at each school um in most cases K to2 that's too long to stay after school it's not necessarily going to help that primary grade child it's already a long day and then staying after for another hour is not necessarily going to reap gains 3 through five you'll have a little better um for certain students a few times a week 6 through 12 is where you really will would see the most bang for your book because they're just their stamina their attention is just a little greater than those primary grades um and I saw the recommended areas are Focus now is that something that gets attacked this year or is that something we put into the R into the curc so this was the data from last year we're looking at last year's data because we're also looking at last year's njsla scores so that local data was already looked at by our curriculum teams this summer so when they made adjustments for pacing for this year for September they made adjustments for the areas of need and the areas of strength um in both pacing minor changes in pacing as well as um in our benchmark assessments particularly for language arts and for Math and in language arts our teachers learn about that especially at the elementary level and the Middle School level and what they what it's called the teacher read first memos um and the content supervisors give these memorandum to our teachers to read at the beginning of the year hey we got rid of this don't do this anymore but add more of this this is our Focus you know really dive in we know your day is full so these are your non-negotiables for example in a primary grade classroom your non-negotiables every single day are foundations your math program and something that we called Second Step which helps teach students how to regulate their emotions those are the non-negotiables in the curriculum that comes from our data and those adjustments are made over the summer on those long lists of curriculum people working in the summer and throughout the school year that you see on the agenda now you also mentioned that um the students are doing very very well with programs where there's gamification um I'm assuming because that's where they use it they play games all the time um but has there been any thought giving into integrating that into the teaching method methodology and structure in class and somehow gamify the classroom for those desired so a lot of our teachers do things like jeopardy games and all kinds of classroom incentives at the same time we're trying to balance both online and Screen learning with paper pencil speaking back and forth lecturing style learning small group centers and so forth centers appear like a game um so we do some of that but we also need to be training our students to be able to function in a world that where not everything is a game so it's it's a it's a difficult balance um and sometimes we do better at it than other [Music] times okay thank you okay um thank you very much uh Miss kusich for again very comprehensive report and uh some great plans for our future thank you for your time and hard work putting that together for us and thank you for your support of the whole curriculum Team all of our supervisors teachers Paras everybody from in the entire District we can't do it without you it takes all of us to do this thank you [Applause] I'm unless there's some disagreement from my colleagues I'm going to do a little change in the agenda because it's getting late and we do like to try to get the public recognition part at least done by 8 o'clock or so so unless there's any great opposition I'd like to move um uh to uh public rec recognition to our next slot over and we'll do board committee reports after that then so can we start with online there's no one in the virtual waiting room motion to close second there's no one you said no one okay uh so motion by commissioner Brak second by commissioner canol well commission M I'm sorry um now we like to open up to the public that's here does anyone like to speak please uh approach the podium oh I do have something to say I'm sorry I forgot a very important thing um this portion of the meeting is open to the residents and non-residents of Clifton for the purpose of addressing any subject matter pertinent to and or directly related to the operation of the Clifton Public School District residents and non-residents are requested to sign the register provided for this purpose and to State their names addresses and subject matter comments are limited to five minutes per person issues raised by members of the public may or may not be responded to by the board all comments will be considered and response will be forthcoming if and when appropriate the board ask that members of the public be courteous and mindful the rights of other individuals when speaking specifically comments regarding students and employees of the board board are discouraged and will not be responded to by the board students and employees have specific legal rights supported by the laws of New Jersey the board Bears no responsibility nor will it be liable for any comments made by members of the public members of the public should consider their comments in light of the legal rights of those affected who are identified in their comments and may be aware and be aware that they are legally responsible and liable for their comments would anyone like to approach the podium this evening good evening board board president Paris board members and the one Clifton Community my name is Ed Hernandez from Wayne New Jersey at 7 Bonita Terrace Wayne New Jersey 07470 and I would like to take this opportunity to speak about someone I'm proud to call it a friend and a colleague Judith B bassford who is running for re-election for the uh fifth time here in Clifton as the owner of a compliance organization I first C crossed paths with the Judith several years ago and became clear that we share a common passion helping people improve their lives Judith was instrumental in assisting me with the school related issue involving my son and from that moment our friendship blossom in fact I was so impressed by her dedication and integrity that I let her I later hired her to work with my com at my company since then I've closely followed Judith's involvement with the Clifton Board of Education and what stands out the most about her is that she never takes an easy path her commitment to what she believes in is unwavering even if it's something sometimes means being being misunderstood judah's passion combined with her Decades of experience in education governance and Community advocacy makes her an ex exceptional leader she has not only served the Clifton Board of Education but also the pay County School boards Association giving her a deep understanding of the challenges faced by public schools her dedication to special needs advocacy and public education is demonstrated through her long-standing service and the numerous Awards She's received including the highly respected njsba School Board member of the Year congratulations with Judith's extensive background in administration leadership and compliance she is well prepared to tackle the most pressing issues in our schools her ability to support and Mentor others coupled with her strong ties to the Clifton Community make makes her the ideal candidate to Foster unity and create and create positive change a vote for Judith bassford is a vote for someone who will always prioritize the needs of students families and the community thank you thank you just to quickly add really quick she stepped up to the plate when I needed someone my son was actually bullied in my own County she didn't have to do that she stepped in and I I will always thank you for that because we just moved into the area we didn't know anyone and she just went in all the way so my son is performing at a very high level his confidence is up and he actually playing football at this time he's doing things that I would never think he was going to do so thank you Judith for stepping in so thank you board thank you president thank you thank you sir anyone else wish to approach the podium this evening forgive me I'm going over five minutes Zane jaim hackbury Place Clifton but tonight I claiming my residence as school too Mr jgo thank you for your heartfelt words to say it's been a rough start to the school year at school 2 is an understatement October 7th 2024 will forever be a sad and painful day to remember we are all still grieving in different ways and at different times of the day every event at school this year we will be feeling the void left by the passing of our princip Jen Lucas we would be remiss if we didn't first thank Central Administration for their intentions and support for us during this time we recognize that this has never happened in the clipon district no acting president has P principal sorry has passed away during a school year school leaders were making decisions on the Fly and we know that but it made it a little bit confusing on that Monday when chewy Teddy and Cody Kobe came to visit us that same day the children did not know what was going on and they were thrilled to see not one not two but three dogs in the school and yes we've got to pet them bringing a brief smile to our faces but the students had no idea why they were visiting and when the dogs left we were left with the task of reigning in a bunch of very excited students not something we could handle that day I think it's S Fair to say that elementary teachers use different teaching styles than middle and high school teachers we are their second parents we Comfort we nurture and we speak to students differently last Monday after we were told the devastating news and it was a gut punch because we did not know the severity of Jen's health so it truly came as a shock we were only given until 9:00 a.m.

and 8:00 p.m. once again I'm motivated and I believe that the school systems of today determine the Clifton of tomorrow and I hope that the community will trust me to be a part of this positive mission to keep our schools number one my name is Elias Raga once again I'm number four on the ballot you can reach me on social media at simply my name and I'd be happy to speak with anyone thank you so much thank you li thank you see uh first off my condolences uh on behalf of myself and those on my side of the avenue on your terrible losses that uh it's clearly the Imp Miss Lucas had and um just sorry um I'm Chris tomato I'm an actor writer podcaster with 15 years experience in media and communication and for the past eight months it's been the privilege of my life to serve Clifton as a city council member for those who may be watching unfamiliar with me I ran for Council in 22 and uh I was unanimously appointed by our current Council to fill councilwoman Lauren Murphy's seat after her tragic passing earlier this year and I'm currently running in this upcoming election on November 5th to keep the seat for the next 2 years and to finish out the term to the parents out there watching I'm proud to join in your ranks I am a new parent myself this past June my incredible wife Lily and I became firsttime parents to a healthy vibrant and beautiful baby boy named s and becoming parents to little baby s was the single best thing that's ever happened to Lily and I it's made our lives better in every conceivable respect with the exception of our sleep it was difficult to make the decision to run for office because I knew the baby would change everything those precious moments playing on the floor with him holding him reading to him teaching him about his toys and the rooms in our house feeling the warmth of his first smile and uh absorbing that magical moment a few weeks into his life when he looked up at me with his big beautiful blue eyes I could tell for the first time that he wasn't seeing a shapeless blur but he saw me his dad looking at back at him with love and he knew in his little growing brain that I was his dad and he was my son all those precious moments and so many more what kind of deranged psychopath would want to run for office when I could have more time to spend with this beautiful boy if I simply stepped aside I'm here because I'm the only candidate in this year's race who will have a child going through this school system in the not too distant future school is a critical piece of our intricate Municipal tapestry for every child in Clifton it's why all of this exists it's why all of you are up here but for the other two-thirds of a child's life outside of the classroom is spent at home that home is in the city of Clifton the great words of the playwright Arthur Miller who has so much wisdom to share with us in uh the play All My Sons a character tells his mother there's a universe of people out there and you're responsible to it I'm not a career politician I'm not looking to climb the ranks to a county seat or the state legislature I'm a Clifton guy through and through I chose Clifton to plant roots buy our home raise my family my being on Counsel is a privilege one I cannot take lightly or for granted and I started asking myself what kind of city do I want s to grow up in to go to school in when s isn't in school should he be afraid his house is going to flood do I want him scared living in a place where home invasions are on the rise do I demand the absolute best from my city and School District in terms of proactive communication so that we know what's happening we know when roads are closed we know when there's an emergency doesn't every family deserve the comfort and dignity of knowing they're able to raise their family in a place that is safe vibrant and proactive if you don't know me you still have time to get to learn what I'm about before November 5th you can reach me at Chris for Clifton gmail.com or call or text at 201448 7963 but even if I haven't yet earned the benefit of your trust I ask you to trust in a father's undying love that is my North Star and it is driving me to make Clifton a great place to raise my family and for you to raise yours to the students and children watching tonight you deserve the best from your leaders and you haven't been getting it you deserve individuals who lead by example treat their colleagues and constituents with respect and who will listen to you even if you're too young to vote thoron Wilder once said deep down there's something Eternal about every human being that something Eternal is your voice all the unique and special qualities that have combined within you that make you who you are you and your families are vital and important pieces of our diverse City Fabric and your voice matters if there's one thing I've learned in my short Journey on Council so far it's that every decision you make in life will make your community better or worse so don't ever tell yourself that you don't matter we are one Clifton all connected Bound by Community respect and love and I hope everyone out there will consider giving me a shot at a full term to finish the work I've started I look forward to getting to know more of you regardless of how the election pans out because I'm very proud and excited for my son s to be a Mustang God bless you and your families don't ever hesitate to reach out Chris tomato number four on the ballot thank thank you good evening it's nice to be back here at the mic so I've been a teacher for 41 years so I'm also a union leader but I'm concerned and I really want to thank Mark for standing up uh against the high school by I learn because they're a very notorious charter school so the other concern that I have is Project 2025 it proposes significant changes to public education I am extremely concerned project 2025 supports policies to expand school choice options such as private school vouchers and charter school funding this approach will divert funds away from traditional Public Schools like the great School here in Clifton this this will exacerbate resources and disparities here resources may be redirected from public schools which serve as a diverse student population potentially exacerbating inequities in the education system we have already spent $25 million out of our budget for charter schools here in Clifton and if that other high school that we're fighting against 6.3 million that's going to be 10% of our budget who's going to lose our students here it'll also be the end of the Department of Education which will limit the federal government government's influence over local schools and lead to inconsistencies in educational standards across the states project 2025 includes recommendations for revamping curriculum standards by limiting certain topics such as diversity Equity inclusion this could limit discussions around important social issues and somewh it may exclude essential parts of our American history or contemporary issues potential uh politics of education project 2025 outlines policies that increase political influence over education let's remember Betsy DeVos with proposals to reshape curriculum and teaching materials this might shift the focus from student centered learning evidence-based instruction to more ideologically driven content potentially limiting academic free Freedom limitations on the teacher autonomy it includes suggestions for increased oversight on what and how teachers can teach along with potential for stricter regulations on classroom discussions this raises concerns that teachers professional judgment could be compromised hindering their ability to create inclusive and responsive learning environments what's also troubling is that vouchers undermine accountability to parents and taxpayers as you know private and for-profit schools that receive taxpayer funding also um the teachers have no autonomy on how they operate they can pick and choose which students they want which students they'll turn away excuse me these schools don't have to follow academic standards their teachers don't have to be certified they don't have to hire qualified teachers and they don't have to disclose financial decisions to the public protecting public education in the United States is essential to ensure equal access to Quality learning opportunities for all of our students regardless of background or socioeconomic status public schools are a Cornerstone of our democracy cultivating informed engaged citizens who contribute to our society they help bridge economic and social divides by offering a free education that provides Foundation skills and knowledge to all public education also promotes diversity inclusion and Equity preparing students to thrive in a multicultural World finally it empowers communities driving Economic Development and supporting social stability by creating an educated Workforce we need to stand together to not have any more Charter Schools we can't afford it it's going to ruin Clifton Public Schools giving all that money out and it's not fair to the great public education we have in Clifton thank you thank you anyone else wish to speak seeing none motion to close motion second motion by commissioner bassford seconded by commissioner brunc we'll move on to board committee reports commissioner brenc could you do both the facilities and finance please as chair thank you Mr President facilities committee um commenced on October 1st start time was 3:30 p.m.

and with that we're going to call the regular session in order it is also 7:02 p.m. and make sure nobody snuck out in the last 10 seconds roll call please here yes yes here here here Perfect all right another chance to make public comments you two want to say anything we're all here for the same thing a perfect perfect give you the chance though all right any correspondents not seeing correspondents we have to worry about that all right we'll move right on to our business which we're start off with our consent agenda Mr gr if you yeah you've got your minutes in your finances um you'll note that there is an activity fund reports that they finally got done that will be July August and September activity funds we'll go back to them just once a month but um link finally got the reports set for us on that so it's a huge step forward still a few more steps forward we need but um you now have all the financials that we had prior to our financial conversion so that's a good thing um we got an a resignation abriel Mueller our transportation secretary we're sad to see her go uh however we understand and we believe that she'll stay on as a substitute driver as needed so um she's just going another way and Madison strob is who we are hiring for first grade teacher we had a teacher that was on maternity leave come back and then decide that they needed to be with their family um with that we posted the position and Madison strob would have liked to have been here tonight to meet you all however she is meeting families at Eagle Vi at parent teacher conferences and we felt that was a lot more important yes um so really all we've got is a a vacancy we would like to post for a transportation office um as a director we're looking for a transport ation director with that um Administration recommends the board approve the consent agenda as presented okay any questions from the board comments suggestions hearing none may may like to make a motion to approve the consent agenda is presented I'll make the motion thank you Tyson do I second I'll second thank you Kelly roll call please and yes Mo yeser yes Mr yes yes yes perfect all right move on to our Communications reports and presentations and I think we have a presentations from Mr schmel thank you welcome that would be me would you push those time you get seven they longer to go thank you for the opportunity to be here we're here to present the audit of the financial statements of the school district for the year end of June 30 2024 they're in draft form subject only to our delivery to the board and so there's nothing unusual about the fact that you're getting a draft uh I'm just going to walk through a couple of items I do do however have to make two quick comments one is that first meeting you had was a flat two minutes I got to tell you I go to a lot of boards I don't see many two-minute meetings so Kudos on the efficiency U the other is U I heard the comment that they were only here for one thing I'm assuming that's the audit thank you thank you thank you that's it with in between them and seeing their children and you can see how many chose this but that's okay and it was great to see an old friend as well so you have before you the audit we have performed the audit uh we've done so in accordance with General accepted auditing standards and governmental auditing standards as well as the specific requirements of the Illinois U education department because these are regulatory statements issued in compliance with the Illinois Department of Education and their requirements for audited financial statements to school districts in common Parliament that makes them effectively cash based statements as opposed to acral based statements because ultimately the department of education's view is that you have fiduciary responsibility over receipts and dispersements and that's really what this audit encompasses we had uh the complete cooperation of your staff we had no difficulties there were no disputes over accounting issues no disagreements over over access to accounting records for auditing purposes no disputes or disagreements over the financial statement presentation or conclusions we reached in all ways the audit was performed in a very much textbook fashion which course it should be done in the textbook fashion for school district so that seems especially appropriate um as a result of our audit work you will receive a you have are receiving a what's called a clean opinion now it is a clean opinion on the regulatory basis so if you really got into the weeds and read the report you would see that it's not a clean opinion under a generally accepted Accounting Standards Gap basis Financial for cruel but in terms of the regulatory basis it is absolutely a clean a pinion um I'm going to touch on a few items U with regard to your first your state of assets liabilities and and fund Equity the biggest single item for you all the biggest single item for you all was the bond activity for this year if you look at your cash balances for the year ended June 30 2024 versus 23 you would see that your cash is up some $8.8 million that was the first thing that certainly smack PR us into face as Auditors and we audited that obviously but it's specifically as a result of the bond issue and the activities around that so let's talk about your bond issues and and Gro already alluded to some of that but you had three bonds issues outstanding beginning the year ended June 30 2024 you had the 2014 Bond the 20177 bond and the 2020 Bond those three Bond issues you made your payments as scheduled those payments amounted to $3,390 th000 as required by the bond issues as well as a relatively insignificant 60,000 or so 61,000 interest expense that was the cost Associated cash cost associated with your Bonds in 2024 now you also issued Bonds in 20 24 to the tune of 9,995,000 uh why you couldn't get all the way up to 10 million and making our life a little easier I don't know but 9,995,000 was the bond issue and so you had an interest payment no principal payments but an interest payment in 24 for that as well and that was another uh 223,000 that was paid in interest in 2024 on that outstanding any bond there was no principal paid on that bond in 2024 now as was alluded to a minute ago the 2014 2017 and 2020 bonds will all be paid off final payments will be made this year so you will have $2,120 th000 of principal payments to completely satisfy those Bonds in fiscal year 25 and they'll be off the books entirely you will then start principal pay payments on the 2023 bond that first principal payment is due in 2025 that first principal payment will be in in the amount of uh 1,115 th000 there's another 200,000 interest so you'll see about a million3 paid out in 24 for that Bond the requirements in 25 for the then existing bond indebtedness will be dramatically less for cash flow basis although as the meeting covered earlier there'll be additional bonds issued so you won't enjoy that holiday for long the the only other thing to mention which of course I'm sure you all know that 2014 bonds had interest rates that ranged from 1 to 2.8% to 2017 bonds had interest rates that were all in the twos 2.1 the 2.6 the 2020 bonds you actually got a 1.01% interest rate somebody wanted that extra basis point apparently so 1.1 as opposed to the current bond issue for 2020 the one issued in 2024 which is a 2023 Bond of 4.04% so clearly your cost of borrowings has gone up dramatically with the rest of the market now the flip side of that is we will see some additional interest income that you'll recognize this year in particular so you are getting some of that back but net net you're going to have significantly higher bond interest going forward now with that 9,995,000 you then embarked on the beginnings of a substantial Capital improvement process and so these audited financial statements reflect that as well these audited financial statements reflect the fact that you spent $350,000 on a parking lot that was capitalized in 2024 that you spent some almost $60,000 on a bathroom privacy installation or set of installations for 2024 you spent another 2 almost $90,000 on the roof you had uh firewall expenditures which you know when I started this AO a long time ago firewall meant something different but uh this year you spent no gr $98,000 on the firewall which is protection on an IT basis uh the other expenditure was you have almost a million5 that was spent on the high school renovation process project so that's ongoing so you had Capital expenditures other than those that were expensed because some of your items that were spent were expensed rather than capitalized total capitalized items $2,293 th000 so you're well along the way of spending those bond issue monies that you got so that is your statement of assets um if there's any questions I'll pause otherwise I'm going to launch into the uh statement of revenues and expenses just for a bit and I'm only going to touch on the high points because the reality is this is a 69 page report um and culating a minute and a half a page we'll be out of here in an hour and a half easy so on the revenues and expenses if you look at it on a fund basis this year for the first time that we've seen in several years you had a an excess of dispersements over receipts in your education fund you actually had an excess of dispersements and over receipts of some $680,000 now that sounds like a lot however your budget because this was all planned for your budget provided for a deficit in the education fund of some $590,000 so you were about 85 sorry actually $95,000 off of your budget in the education fund importantly all of that was on the revenue side your Revenue news came in under budget by about by $134,000 in the education fund and I mention that specifically because you were a little worse than budget in total by 95,000 but you were under budget for expenditures the expenditures which is that item that you have the most control over were significantly less than budget and it was the $134,000 shortfall in revenues that caused you to be a little different than what you thought you would be most of that was in Title One low income dollars that just didn't come in as you might have otherwise thought um overall overall revenues and again I'm just going to gloss on a couple of high points overall revenues from local sources for the school district in this school year year were [Music] 2,960 sorry yes last year they were 21 mil5 so you're up a million4 roughly in revenues from local sources and that came principally from two places the first place it came from is real estate taxes your real estate taxes that you collected this year of 17.9 million were up substantially over what they had been in the previous year at 167 so that additional amount flowed into your local Source Revenue the other big increase is the flip side of what we talked about with the bonds your interest earnings this year were in excess of $900,000 last year they were around $600,000 so your your investment of monies was diligent and generated an additional 300,000 what you had last year now some of that is rate some of that is the immediate investment of the bond proceeds that you received to generate interest from that so now I'm going to touch on just a couple other items and then I'm happy to take any questions um I'm going to make you though turn to page 58 the good news is I'm skipping all the other 57 Pages you don't need to talk about I said 58 is that not right 56 I apologize 56 56 is your imrf responsibilities which is to say your pension obligations for your teachers and I'm just going to talk about this for a minute because it doesn't appropriately doesn't appear on your statement of assets and liabilities but it is in point of fact nevertheless a real liability of the district so on page 56 about 2/3 of the way down in the far left colum you will see a number of $534,000 that $534,000 represents the excess of obligations you have on a Actuarial basis over the amount of investment assets that you have to apply to that so right now you are underfunded by $534,000 now on the one hand old school $534,000 is a lot of money on the other hand that leaves you literally better than 96% funded overall and now I want to take just a minute to walk you through the historical set of perspective so you feel better about about that half millionar of underfunded if you go all the way over to 2014 which is the far right column you see that you were underfunded at that point by $533,000 if you go along four years later in 2017 you were actually overfunded and the way this report Works state of elar produces it negative numbers means you're overfunded because they never think anybody's going to be overfunded so that negative number of 117,000 says in 2017 you were overfunded 2018 you then had a liability of a milon 387 well what happened what happened is if you run your your eye up those numbers you see about Midway through that column A $600,000 6976 the market fell out of bed in 2018 and as a consequence the baked in Investments that the actuary Actuarial Table say you should earn fell short and so because you lost 600,000 your share of the market loss for the state that took you from an overfunded basis of 177 to underfunded of a million 387 you then proceeded to chip away at it and you can see by 2020 you were overfunded by 525,000 and the next year you were overfunded by a million 578 so you're in really good shape and what that means practically is year in and year out you have to send less money up to the state to meet your Actuarial requ requirements for imrf So being overfunded simply saves you budgetary dollars for the next several years as you have to send up L and then you see in 2022 you're back to being underfunded by a million 170 if you're feeling a little whiplashed um and you're underfunded because again if you run your eye up in 2022 the market cratered and you see that you had a loss of a, 900,000 in your share of the Investment Portfolio which drove you to be underfunded by a million 170 this year you're underfunded by $534,000 the market being positive as it has been I'm not in the the business of crystal balls but I would expect that next year when we come back we should see a small overfunded or a tiny little underfunded balance because your imrf fund is really in good shape so that was a long way around to tell you that you're okay in this fund but I wanted you to understand that even though you're currently underfunded you're well on the way to being overfunded and from a budgetary perspective that should be positive now I have just one more thing to cover and that is as a part of our audit we're required not only to audit the assets liabilities revenues and expenses of the school district but also to specifically audit the federal monies that you receive the receipt of those Federal monies and the dispersement of those Federal monies in accordance with the provisions of the specific grants that those monies are tied to and we're required to report that and this document does report that by individual program and by program cluster group but what I want to to your attention to is Page 66 because 66 is the financial statement findings that we're required to report to the federal government as a result of our audit efforts and you will see that that almost entirely blank page says None So that is a happy thing and if you turn to page 68 which is federal award findings and questioned costs which is if we found anything within the specific provisions of the grants both in terms of the overall operation of the district and in terms of the receipt and expenditure of those monies appropriately and you will see again that that says None So in this case none is a good thing um and other than mentioning that nuns were always a good thing when I was in grade school uh these nuns are better because I'm an auditor and I really have nothing else for this board unless you have any questions than me on 65 material weakness identified and that's still yes and it looks like that's still steming from our theft issue we had a few years ago but you're saying that there's no there's no Financial loss and but are we still we still don't have the financial controls I thought we did so to be and thank you for for mentioning that I I was going to not dwell on it we are required to treat you as a high-risk audit because there was a material weakness in the previous year regarding that incident and so that's what that is it's just leftover and that's why I focused on this year if you look at page 67 67 is a discussion of that whole situation uh uh which Andrea did a nice job helping us uh ultimately craft but you will see in status the first line of the status says this finding is considered resolved at June 30 2024 so that's as clean a bill of health as we can give but we're required to put it in as this happened and is it cleaned up or not because there have been cases where we have to report we had it last year it's still an issue and so we have to repeat the finding but that's not the case here okay so you're you're saying we do have the accounting controls in place currently to prevent this from occurring in the future I'm saying that to you and this report is saying it to the world okay anyone else perfect thank you very much for all your time [Music] enjoy you come back I have other meetings I'll get I need all the help I can get I'm sure you're probably not used to getting Applause so that's that's a good I'm not used to Applause thank you Mr commercial thank you very much you thank you appreciate it right we'll move right along to our communication reports and presentations and next is the enrollment report which is in your packet and we'll go on to our building reports got goer here today goer welcome all right [Music] ask you ask what are you going to ask them you want coffee muffins did we bring them coffee or hot chocolate you want hot chocolate or muffins okay so coffee crew wanted to come show you guys what they do here you want to take your card around this way sorry the wheels don't work well Mom here you want to do muffins no you want to go to Mom he like a that's a thank you so much all right so coffee crew delivers in my classroom we deliver every Friday morning to the teachers mu I would love a hot chocolate you want to pass out muffins so very much go ask them so as they're passing that out bumer classroom teacher who does an amazing job with our students thank you so she features this on Friday says highlight of and the district office we make sure we're so what they do is every Friday they take uh orders on Thursday and on Friday morning the kiddos get it all ready to go and they deliver it um we also do this at uh the middle school so it's also featured there the teachers love it they actually do it daily at the middle school cuz those teachers really need that at the middle school right the teachers want it too but you know thank you so miss fmer can you share you know it's obviously it's great for teachers and it's great for the staff and all of that but can you share what it does for our students so year to it kind of teach we started punch card so the students just work on I have some Lally just do the motor punch the holes in the cards um they get to have conversations with um just staff adults in the building um what all do we do they you been following directions like filling our orders we some years it's colorcoded some years it's you know I use as simple as just shapes I have some strong readers this year so they get to help with the orders that way lots of different skills um they they started doing um baking last year to I got a text from Miss bumer I think I was at CCO and there was an oven that we needed so she said we need an oven so they started making so that adds to that you know following recipes that life skills thank you it to our audience too well we ran out of muffins um but we wanted to just feature and again we have students who um are non so they'll use their AC devices we have students who um maybe physically can't do some things our speech and language staff have provided ways that if you want to put some pictures of I think we have it um pictures that have provided ways to we can hook up to the the curig maker and that student can use a button that will turn on the CU maker so they're a part of the class so it's everyone very inclusive um and I think also M Palmer added another touch to this you guys hear about in inclusion right where we uh our students will go into the gened classroom well she's bringing the gened classro to her and to them and so they help with the students so there's inclusion within a classroom that they feel comfortable in because sometimes it's intimidating to go into a gene class um a lot more students and it's uncomfortable they don't they don't that's not their classroom on a regular basis so she's brought in Jed students to help so they develop those relationships um with the the students that they don't get to see all the time so there's just so many communication social academic things going on just with this oh yeah hour less an hour lesson they do you know a day yeah we day we did measuring just working on following the directions um even as simple as like kitchen safety like with the oven like they know yes M told me every step tonight when we were making the hot chocolate like be careful it's hot like just stuff like that just getting them involved um sister syvia was our PTA person last year I did the coffee crew for PTA so jened students got to come in and participate you were a star with us weren't you I want stay in here you want to stay do you guys have any questions for Miss Balmer but first of all let's give our guys your um you had these made last year didn't you yes they helped I brought in my Cricket the one day they did your show them your apron your Aon he's like I'm done with my job I'm out of here you show them what's on your over turn around turn around and show them they want to see what's the picture so cute there a lot on there show them your coffee cup here right there yeah we have our coffee cup kind of their logo yeah coffee c a lot of our stuff is donated like cups donated um here in town for Moto so usually we'll just print a sticker or something but we do lots of different things they love it and the money that's generated just kind of funds itself um we also have funds available through what they call the step Grant which is actually the money's generated from the high school work Co-op program but as long as we use it for anything with um Independent Living all of those sort of things it goes right back in So when she says I need okay we got it you know cuz it just helps we're starting it at such a young age that they just it'll just continue as they go on to high school because you as you probably have seen our high schoolers do a ton of things too they're selling at the football games they're making t-shirts making apparel all of those sort of things so she's getting the ground work started and it just keeps on goinging so it's very fluid for our kids so again thank you so much I also wanted to highlight while we're here car have to go way to go you guys got to go he's the manager yes awesome it doesn't steer well I installed the wheels back and then another highlight just real quick doing what it wants [Laughter] yeah and since Halloween is coming up I also wanted to feature something else that our speech and language um Miss bahek and Mrs misner put together about four years ago um Halloween can be very uh scary for some of our students right um going up to houses looking at wearing their own Halloween costumes can be very uncomfortable um and seeing other Halloween costumes can be very scary um and knowing what to do when you go up to a door so they have decided that they are going to teach our students how they practice so we I think on the 31st it actually falls on uh we're going to do it and um we set up we'll have a table district office our principal set up and we have a bunch of tables and they go through and they practice how to say trick or treat or as you can see up in the right hand corner some of our students are non-verbal so those are um core uh core uh pictures that they can use that has trick-or treat on them and things like that so it gets everyone involved um but again it's just a a great way that our our staff looks beyond the school walls and says what can we help with outside of school so kudos to our speech uh staff who just continually look at innovative ways to to help our kids so anyway that's it I appreciate you guys coming you know I I just want I just I have to say this that I am feel so blessed that Alex is in the Columbia School District because he he has benefited more than when he was born than we all ever thought he and I just I see a brighter I see a nice a nice future for him thanks to what you all are doing well most of you all are doing story so for most of you so I just really that thank you thank you thank you any questions thanks for letting me share you us I know the hot chocolate hot chocolate isot [Laughter] after definitely and next time you see Mr all right move on to our administrative reports and unfortunately somebody has to follow that I know choose to fill but I'm ready if you guys um so we're going to start with our district shoutouts um this month I went directly to the principales and I said give me some some amazing things your staff members are doing and so I have some comments to share from our building principles um our first one is from Mrs Vinnie from Eagle View she shares Mrs KY our kindergarten teacher she's an excellent collaborator and outstanding with children with a wide variety of needs and she's always willing to help out and go the extra mile to support our school she recently took the lead on creating a calming room for students and staff in our building so a big way to go to Mrs KY Mr Dugan uh shares and shouts out his RTI teacher Mrs King that would be his choice Mrs King makes connections with all of her students and creates excitement for students going for extra reading support she's also a role model and checks in with the students that are struggling with behaviors as she tries to motivate them to make good choices Mrs King also helps with making our building look nice Mr Dugan is very big on making the building look nice she is our green thumb and she makes sure our flowers and plants stay watered Mrs King brings a positive energy that you just can't teach Mrs Miller from the Middle School uh shares and shouts out Mrs forky her RTI teacher she went above and beyond when helping the teachers admin and students with map Benchmark testing this last month she helped test students and organize makeups for those that were absent she also entered scores printed out results for all students to take home we really appreciated her and then Mr Reeves from the high school shares uh that his shout out is Mr gagan Mr gagan is a multitasker he shares he's a wonderful medical assistant I'm assuming helping in different different areas of the school a great mentor to new teachers extremely supportive and encouraging in all classroom management discussions so a big shout out to our amazing staff and our principles that took the time to to give them shout outs that's important um some things that I would like to share I was able to attend the superintendent conference at the end of September I was amazing to reconnect with with other superintendents and kind of see um where the vision is for Illinois the big thing we learned is that they are working on their Vision 2030 which they're going to share at the school board member conference in November um number one on their list was school safety um with everything going on in the world that has been for the past two years a huge focus with uh the state and education teacher retention um that's also how are we going to help our teachers want to stay and maintain in the school buildings and and keep them wanting to come back Colombia is amazing and truly um top-notch when it comes to that so we definitely are doing good things here um the state also wants to continue to improve post-sec secondary transitions so when they graduate high school how are we prepping them for vocational areas how are we prepping them for um college or university work if that's their chosen path um and the last thing which has definitely been with all of our work on school Improvement plans something we've been talking about student achievement State Testing all of those things um the state really wants to start relooking at this and seeing how we're sharing the accountability for student achievement um our Illinois report card that is going to be coming out probably probably in the next two weeks um so I will be sharing and presenting on the school report card next month with where we are with summative designations and test scores um that were taken last year um I'm super excited this kind of goes with what Mrs goer was doing with her students we have some student involvement with our a program we are extremely excited I've been working with Mr Burch um as I pointed out Mr Dugan does Love The Green Thumb um and he's pointed out that he loves some Landscaping help so Mr B um is teaching a landscaping unit with some high school students they are going to be designing um some different um blueprints per se for our Landscaping projects they will be submitted um to Administration to which then we will select um a plan for the front of the district office and the front of Park View um and those students will be coming and help manage take care of plant we're super excited um in fact I even went to a pancake breakfast with Mr bur just the other uh week and that was an amazing thing as well they're doing great things um we also are going to be planting some trees hopefully there have been some businesses that are working with Mr Birch the area right behind the Middle School um four to five trees is kind of his goal to plant um a year to help fill up some of that green space it is not going to uh mess up anything that is already there it's just going to add to the to the back and grow and into different things and opportunities for the students Mr Grody and I have talked um a couple of times on the retaining wall that is behind the middle school that's a conversation it's a little challenging when you're mowing because there's parts of of green in that wall so I have talked to Mr birch as well to see if he had any ideas um I also was very clear because I've been part of these a projects before and I said these have to be feasible and we have to be able to maintain them um with the people that we have on staff so all of that has been discussed and we're really excited about what's to come um curriculum as I mentioned last month we are working K8 Ela just to make sure that our new program rooted in Reading is working for all classrooms and we're going to continue to have these discussions middle school has reached out and they need some support with the ELA program um so we're going to start having some committee meetings and looking at different resources really excited to um partner with Waterloo I have um a lunch with a curriculum coordinator in waterl in two weeks they're kind of implementing Ela not kind of if they are and so some of their pilots and what we're looking at we're going to co- collaborate and see what we can come up with and how we can maybe navigate that together um social studies is also on the docket I'm going to start having committee meetings on the 29th and 30th to start navigating that with teachers as some of you know parent teacher conferences started today um and then they will also be next week on Wednesday and I saved what I I say the best is for last but it's all been pretty awesome right we're having a job fa um we are wanting to get some substitutes and I'm really excited to try this normally a district would do this in the summer um it would be easier but we are in need of substitutes um I'm hearing my principes I'm hearing my teachers say we need some additional support um other districts have done this so I with the support of some technology individuals in this District are going to be promoting this um Marlo Rose from the city is meeting with me next week and we're going to um work on some PR within the community and then I'm als I also reached out to the Republic times um to see if they can maybe help with getting that in the newspaper um as far as the substitute opportunities it's endless um it can be for transportation cafeteria classroom we're looking for it all um we're going to have an Roe representative here to do on on the spot license question answers and then we'll have department heads so special ed will be here to answer questions for parir of professionals kitchen will be here to answer um any questions on substitutes for the cafeteria um I think it'll be a a great a great day um I'm excited to see it and our motto is become an eagle today we're excited excited to see what happens that's all I have any questions Dr K you're welcome and welome to our superintendent report all right um October is a principal month actually the third week of October is the school administrator week and October 25th is um principal day declared by the governor and so when you see your administrators give them a shout out for that uh thinking about the leadership of schools and whatnot when you see the children today giving us our coffee and doing you know real service you know exchanging the money the the ordering the making and it to us when you talk about our a program looking at doing landscape design and installations when you look at real life problems that are are are able to be solved in our educational organization I I don't know if there's anything that's better than that um but there is then everything else I guess so I just want to say to the principles that October 25th is their day and we've got some great schools it really is uh nice I've got two audits reports to give you real quickly mine will be much shorter but uh the Roe comes in for their yearly audit and they check all of our Personnel files and everything and there was just a handful of small little tiny issues that we always will have because there's so many eyes to not so many te's to cross they come in they check things and then we get them fixed next year they'll come back and they'll check things again uh imrf also came in and did the audit I believe their last time they were here doing an audit was in 17 or 18 18 it was around that time but they came in and did another audit and there were only a few small issues the imrf audit was very well timed because as we did the financial software conversion our payroll people and uh accounts payables got a deep dive into some of the rules and rs on what it takes to be a retired person what it takes to get the the pensions and all of the details there again there were only a a small handful of issues and it was a great learning experience for all involved you know because audits are kind of like going to the doctor you you find out what is ailing you you fix it and then you move on better and healthier than you were before um special meeting we've got a bond meeting on the 28th at 6: p.m.

we're going to Jour to Executive session we do have one item action as result of our executive session if you guys want to rejoin us afterwards you're more than welcome to e e e we just concluded our executive session as a result we do have one action item and it is um least would you like to make a motion I move that this board clarify student number 20242 expulsion to end on December 22nd 2024 instead of the end of the first semester of 2024 2025 school year do I have a second I'll second Andra roll call please Andre Cory yes Kelly Moyer yes Greg Meyer yes L schacher yes Tyson searge yes Adam Henkin yes all right motion carries last item is a motion to adjourn would any be like to make a motion to adjourn I'll make a motion to thank you Andrew second I'll second second all in favor I any oppos all right concludes our meeting it's 8:26 p.m.

the event is free to the whole Community speaking of free events for the community CHS will be giving back to the community through its annual community Leaf raking event for senior citizens it will be held on November 9th and CHS students will volunteer to rake leaves at 25 senior C citizens properties clearly CHS students are proud to contribute to the chure community so proud in fact that we just had to share it with students from across the world over the last two weeks CHS has been hosting several French exchange students who have accompanied their host students through the day throughout the day to learn more about American High School culture and last but certainly certainly not least is an update about CHS drama they probably as we speak are preparing for the fall play of Midsummer Night stream they will be perform they will be performing from November 21st to November 23rd so as October starts to wind down and we ease into November you can be sure that there will be always exciting always be something exciting happening at CHS that's all we have that's all we have so yeah thank you uh can I just ask how do you define senior for the uh senior riking that is want to double check those who can't do it on their own okay well you might get a call that's all anybody have questions willing to Dr harrion hi thank you both um for giving your report we always enjoy hearing from the students themselves is my mic on yeah um I'm wondering and you may not be able to answer this question and don't feel bad if you can't but if you can um are the students in chesher public schools involved in um the chesher food drive in any way yes and can you say anything about that I mean I'm not personally but it's uh there are lots of little food drives throughout the year um I know that NHS has one coming up I believe it's towards the end of November so you'll probably hear that in our November report but um at least for NHS students are given uh bags and then they drop them off at their neighbors houses and then the neighbors fill the bags with whatever um donations they have and then the students um either get service uh hours or what we call Project points which is basically like spe NHS specific service hours and um so they're both incentivized to get um the food drive because of those service hours and also because it's a it's a charity great thank you very much for that yes of course we also have a districtwide dress down on October 30th any other board members Mr White thank you thank you very much for the update um one point that you had mentioned about the PSAT day so I I may be misunderstood it but kind of what I heard you say is uh if you're a senior it's a Readiness day for going to visit colleges and stuff and I think that's great but I also just want to point out that I'm not convinced that college is right for every kid who's graduating from high school this year and so um I just want to highlight that and if kids are not going to college I'm sure there's plenty of other things that they could take advantage of with that day um I just don't I don't want anyone to think that success is exclusively equivalent to college and I don't think that's what you meant at all but I'm just highlighting it for anybody who might be listening that's all thank you thank you yeah of course it's completely V any other board members well thank you both welcome um I'm looking forward to hearing all the other highlights you know throughout the year as well too and you guys you know your perspective is really invaluable so thank you very much and you're welcome to stay for the whole meeting please but I know you have to prep for the PSAT so you know go home not this year yeah you're done but aren't you tutoring don't you guys have like a tutor thingy do but the other stuff you yeah right right thank you both thank you all right thank you see see you all next month absolutely um our next uh business item are presentations and the first one I would ask if Miss cullinan to present this school partnership award for Highland School good evening I'm honored this evening to talk about the recipient of the school partnership award for Highland School we will be recognizing them tonight Lauren grineer and Beth Rock have been the coaches for The Girls on the Run program at Highland Elementary School since 2022 Girls on the Run inspires participants of all abilities to recognize their individual strengths while building a sense of connection in a team setting Beth and Lauren worked closely with the girls on the run organization to get certified and prepare for their first group of girls in 2022 since they introduced the program to Highland they have coached approximately 15 to 20 grade three to six girls each of the past three years Lauren and Beth motivate the girls to do their best as they run two times per week for 10 weeks preparing for the annual 5K Mitten run in addition Lauren and Beth inspired the girls to select and plan a community impact project last year they conducted a b sale for St Jude's where they raised $1,000 Lauren and Beth Inspire the girls to always do their very best and recognize their individual strengths through lessons that blend physical activity with life skill development to enable all participants to adapt to whatever comes their way congratulations gives we're thanking you [Applause] all right and our next item of Celebration I think oh miss Robin an Cary if you will thank you good evening I'm honored to recognize this next group at tonight's meeting we will recognize ditt school for being named an outstanding chapter by the best buddies International the doitt program is led by Christina veu and Bri mangerini mangina sorry Matthews this past summer they were recognized at the annual leadership conference in Indiana in a letter to do little principal Amy O'Brien bestbuddies.org wrote each year the best buddies International board of directors takes on the difficult task of selecting outstanding chapters to be recognized with this prestigious honor award winners were chosing based on quality of onetoone friendships group outings chapter involvement Community awareness and chapter communication the ditt elementary school chapter went above and be Beyond in each of these areas truly living the mission of best buddies and when I say above and beyond they told me when I entered tonight and was speaking with them that they've had anywhere from 80 to over a 100 students participate in their best buddies program that's above and beyond if you ask me congratulations ladies Del [Applause] our do little principal Miss O'Brien wanted me to pass along how much she appreciates everything that our team does for best buddies and uh unfortunately she couldn't be here tonight because she's under the weather but uh is again very U grateful for everything that you do to support our school community so thank you thank you um next item would be audience um if there are any members of the public that would like to address the Boe you may approach the podium also when you go up there you have to state your name and ask address for the record just in case okay well we can move on then um committee reports first up Finance heading off to Mr M oh you're gonna just I was just waiting for the introduction thank you good evening good evening ladies and gentlemen the uh Finance report I think is pretty easy tonight out the board members do have the finance report through September 30th our budget this year is 89,500 so it's pretty smooth sailing right now and we hope that that continues the remainder of the Year I'll just jump right over to medical benefits and then I will answer questions if there are any the um report through September 30th for medical benefits is also in the board members package um this month our claims were 1.21 million so just a little above the 1.88 million that is expected each month this year um the good news is the the claims are trending in the right direction you know July was really high at 1.5 million then August was about 1.3 million September about 1.2 million for the month because we received about $150,000 in prescription rebates from sna uh which our ordinary course of business and expected our Reserve balance actually increased this month by 126,595 S million um about 1.64 months worth of claims certainly you know we hope that the trend continues you know downward with our claims back to the expected level of 1.88 million so you know right now we're holding um steady with the reserve Reserve balance and that's the medical and finance report for this evening thank you for that Mr masana I have a question about the the prescription drug rebates do those come like I know the stoploss comes more towards the end of the fiscal year but do the um do these reimbursements come throughout the they do they they're on a quarterly basis um this is um part of the program that we have with siga there's actually a guarantee every year for these prescription rebates last year believe it or not we we received about 600,000 in total prescription rebates which was a little bit below the guarantee so part of what's in this 150,000 is the estimate for what we'll receive based on that guarantee which is 30 about 35,000 total for the town and board of V and we've received about 2third of that so yes they are expected and and regular unlike stop loss which occurs as the gear progresses great thank you anyone else hi Vin um so the uh 1.21 in claims is that net of the rebate of the rebates no that's actual that's actual gross claims yeah and I we want to report it that way because we're looking at where are we against the 1.18 million expected in claims okay that's why we break it out on the report these are the claims and then up at the Top If we have rebates or stoploss payments that increases the balance but claims are full gross claims thank you yeah um so with regard to the discretionary uh being limited to 50% right now if I recall correctly part of the reason for doing that relates to write to read and not to get into a big discussion about that right now but I'm just curious do we have are we at this moment in time expecting costs associated with right to read coming down the pike and say the next 12 months or it's totally uncertain I'm just there is the potential um okay you know we had a productive meeting with SD uh continue to maintain dialogue there and um we hope that they'll favorably review uh the information that we have there won't be a an additional cost beyond what we've already incurred so we're just working with them still but hopefully to be resolved obviously before January and the budget season starts so for the for the time being at least we're just holding it at 50% at least in part due to right to read and the uncertainty associated with that not necessarily due to that that is a potential um impact but at this time of year we would probably be holding it 50% anyway yeah uh given the variability that can occur particularly over the winter season so I I wouldn't uh attribute the 50% to right to read but it is certainly a consideration that we have in the process okay all right thank you the board MERS Ben can I just ask a clarifying question um on the bottom here it reads that we're paying for natural gas at market price versus locked in what's the you would think locked in would be a bit more attractive because isn't it a particular amount of time that you buying in bulk so to speak I guess so the way that all these Commodities are priced are based on what the market is in the future and we have a consultant that we use to help us with the decision making right so natural gas the forward Market the prices don't look attractive enough to lock in we've been running um at market price for the last four maybe five years right and it has not hurt us by doing so so same way we look at electricity if it makes sense to lock we do based on the forward price ing natural gas has just not been there for us so you know I know again that's always a risk yeah but it's worked in our favor the last few years the price of natural gas doesn't fluctuate quite as much as fuel oil or you know diesel for the buses heating oil Etc is there a potential in case something does happen that we can jump into a locked in price pretty quickly and not have to wait for any window to open so to speak no we could lock in at any time yeah we we would just there's a bid process that we use a consultant to to give us pricing gotcha thank you you're welcome I think our next um committee was Personnel um we actually had a very small um not even a quorum so we did discuss um initially some of the superintendent contract items and actually this evening we're going to defer to um the executive session to further with those discussions so um not much to really um report out on that we just had preliminary um review of Dr Sol's proposal for his contract and then I mve to policy Mr eki if you can give us some synopsis on each of these policies that you guys had a meeting on okay so we spoke uh on October 7th uh we had a first reading of couple of policies and regulations uh 4.1 42001 51 4544 sexual harassment and title line these um are updates as well as 5114 suspension and expulsion to keep us in line with state law and we don't have a lot of input on those the lawyers have written those and we are going to just push those along those were the uh those were given to us we also uh are bringing forth third reading of Transportation um that Luther and Vin and put a lot of time into and we are going to put that forward tonight any question a motion do we have qu questions on any of those all right so I yeah we do need to call for a motion and did you have a question Mr I just wanted to comment before we oh absolutely um on uh Title 9 that's been revised various times and so for those who follow along this is probably the what the fifth Revision in five years or whatever it is and yeah it um where we in what did they call it this time a final rule final Ru course regulations are never really final but anyhow yeah so we're we're definitely uh that this was uh reviewed and approved by our attorneys um so this is pretty much a final final as far as it goes right now um and it's cleaned up since the last time which is good um and the suspension expulsion we went through that in pretty good detail um was um a lot of process in there which wasn't there before um and I as Dr Solen uh expressed that the most of it is pretty good except for there were some aspirational parts that we're going to review um next time because I think Dr s you and your staff's going to look at it I suppose um and yeah that's all I have thank you in one brief addition um we are still reviewing a Dei policy that we were uh working on language on that we are when we put it together we'll bring It Forward great so the first um I I'm just clarifying that the first the first policy you spoke about sexual harassment title9 and suspension we don't need to have any action because because it's the first read and then this one pertaining to transportation we do need a motion so Dr herin if you like to call with that motion third and final reading to policy 3541 transportation and direct the superintendent to put said poity policy into immediate effect there a second Mr grippo any discussion on the motion Miss cullin discussion on the motion no go ahead Dr I just I just want to say the amount of time that Luther and Vin put into um really efficiently pairing down that um policy I just want to thank you for that all that work that went into it and um I feel really good about voting in favor of a policy that that was so carefully gone through so thank you thank you appreciate that Mr White did you have a comment yeah no I'm just wondering did anybody I'm just looking at the list of the five items that I mean I'm aware of it but did anybody read that if I missed it just so people who are watching know what we're talking about with sorry am I jumping ahead we didn't make a motion yet did we I apologize we did it's on the floor yeah okay so I'm trans just a transportation one so has anybody read these bullet points just so people are aware of what's changing rather than just saying it's Transportation policy yeah yeah yeah no but you're welcome to if you like I'll do it quickly just yeah thank you uh so the items just some bullet points here with regard to this Transportation policy change the items are clarifying ages for eligibility for school transportation updating walking distance so it is consistent one mile for all elementary students deleting language regarding hazardous walking areas the was not clear for parents it was too broad updating bus route notification no longer mailing out postcards and clarifying available use of seat positions so a student cannot be assigned to both a bus and a daycare at the same time that's it so I I support this um I just wanted to make it clear for people what we were talking about and it just um because we're no longer sending postcards everything's either going to be me emailed or posted somewhere on our sites and so forth and it's available to parents on power school as well they can see their students assigned stop in time no save postage thank you any other comments on the five items awesome so is there any other audience um no so um I am going to call for a vote all those in favor of the motion that is on the table it is unanimous thank you motion passes uh next item is there board members who wish to report on any other standing committees no M go oh yeah just uh the possibility of holding a legislative committee or Board of Ed meeting with the legislators do we have a tentative date Dr s or we do not uh that was going to be my report uh to talk about that but that's you know that's something that there's an election so it's almost difficult to schedule till you know but I I understand that completely we're going to do that right after the election um because it is good to have as we've done in the past connection to our representatives in Hartford um so we'll we'll try and schedule it for right after the election but uh hopefully we could get on the book sooner rather than later yeah I I guess in my mind I'm thinking about whoever gets elected right exactly whether it's all incumbents or new people coming in that's really the target market exactly from my perspective the people who will actually be there yeah thank you we'll send invites after great thank you any other no okay next item would be the approval of minutes from the business meeting held on September 19th as well as the Boe joint meeting with ngbc and that was held on September 26th then we had another joint meeting U with Boe and Town Council on September 30th um and then the open Forum meeting last week on October 10th so if I can please have a motion to approve Mr White please moved at the chesher Board of Education approve the minutes from meetings held on September 19th 2024 September 26th 2024 September 30th 2024 and October 10th 2024 is there a second Mr grippo are there any additions or Corrections that you may need to make Dr heran yeah U I was just reading over um which one the meeting uh The Joint meeting with the Town Council on September 30th MH um there was some discussion from the board of EDS side um about putting together committee and um for naming the new school or possibly schools and I'm just wondering if have we made any formal moves in that direction and how is that going to be done oh we haven't made any formal moves in that direction um I've had some conversations with uh Town manager Kimble about that process but we don't have anything scheduled yet to do that through I don't know if we'd prefer a planning committee um meeting to to do that or if I recall correctly that was the discussion in the joint meeting one of the follow-up questions I had for Mr Kimble was when we would have a subsequent meeting with the council because I don't know that you know it's not necessarily our purview to name buildings and to create a process so we wouldn't be able to unilaterally decide that so anything that we came up with as a proposal would still need to be approved by the council anyway so um he and I have had those conversations uh hopefully to have that finalized soon thank you for that because I'm I'm just really in interested in involving the community and especially the school communities in um some of this decision because really I I think the community has more at stake and I just would like to see people get excited about naming a school and um and even having the students be excited about naming the school so um I'm interested in that process really uh taking off but I understand that we have to go through the channels so thank you for that I did I did provide Dr s um a suggestion um right after the meeting and we talked about it during the meeting as to what the composition of that the committee members should look like um and also Mr talba is well aware of it so I'm hoping that you know hopefully it can make a couple phone calls and maybe we can kind of expedite at least the establishment of the committee whether it's when our purview or not I would like us to have the voice as well too at the table thank you thank you Mr Right did you have a comment well yeah just to point out if I recall correctly the time frame we're looking at is 18 months so it's definitely move it along but although V emphatically said we technically don't have 18 months thought it was 24 he knock it down to 18 months we need six months to make up a sign and put it on the building so you have a year so we got to get going Emme yeah I just I've have have a question um we had some discussion on the parking lot for the school remember we was what $400,000 so the right now I know you were going to check out some other ways that yeah it's funny because um Tom manager Kimble is at a meeting downstairs with the council texting me about a follow-up conversation around that um so as as it's projected in this moment um given the timing of when we're going to open the school and then demo the existing Norton this um Miss cullin is talking about the Norton school we would need to put up a temporary parking lot to accommodate everybody at Norton uh till we can do an asphalt parking lot where the existing Norton is now um so there are different strategies that are being considered uh St Becket across the street is um likely to be sold uh Mr masana Mr Kimble myself met with uh father Romans to tour the building um to look at you know would it necessar could it be a potential use for the town Andor District um and so that's what Sean was texting me about now is a potential meeting with the Council next Tuesday uh so we'll talk more about that because that lot would certainly accommodate um but I don't know that we could spend you know probably a million plus to just get a parking lot for a temporary basis another um accommodation we were exploring is there's like an auxiliary parking lot near the football field at chesher high school and running a shuttle um for people on that temporary basis until the lot is established uh it's one consideration probably not super popular but a consideration then of course the $400,000 temporary lot which is a lot of money to spend on the temporary parking lot so we're trying to explore I mean that money is built into the budget of the school um but we're trying to explore the most economical and efficient way to get this squared away thank you Mr W did you have another comment yeah just one thought on that that crossed my mind um in terms of St Thomas Becket having a parking lot the town I don't know if Sean's considered it but the town could probably start using that next week because my understanding is early voting is going to happen here and it cross my mind that's probably a disaster in terms of parking I could easily see people getting really annoyed if there's not sufficient parking and if something could even happen in relation to that there could be a benefit there just a thought yeah the you know father Rens has been pretty gracious about allowing us to access that lot um and you know you'll see any every day pretty much during dismissal there'll be plenty of cars queued up in that lot waiting for students and stuff so um they've been really gracious about it so hopefully that'll continue There is a motion still on the table um can you just read that one more time U Mr White yes okay that's the one you read not sure how we moved anyway uh moved that the chesher Board of Education approv the minutes from meetings held on September 19th 2024 September 26 2024 September 30th 2024 and October 10th 2024 and then I have Mr gripple you seconded the motion thank you no other comments um all those in favor of the motion that is on the table unanimous thank you uh Mr secretary are there any correspondents I have none thank you thank you sir we move on to Dr Solen superintendent report thank you so much Madam chair um there are a lot of items on the agenda for me tonight there's always a lot going on in our school system and I just wanted to apprise you of a variety of highlights chesher high school I know this um we've heard you know throughout last year a number of uh conversations about vandalism in bathrooms and um we are trying to clear that up uh the high school is now piloting What's called the securely digital Hall Pass system um other high schools use this in the area Amity Southington and hamon to name a few basically students sign out preferably uh through their Chromebook we're trying to dedicate a Chromebook in the classroom they sign out and they're assigned to the closest bathroom which the system knows how many other students are already assigned to that bathroom who they are you know if we know that you're not supposed to be in the bathroom with another student who is aign there it delays your um your trip or um it notifies Hall monitors that who's out and going to each restroom we're trying this in a um small number of classrooms at the time this year we've dramatically limited cell phone use and students aren't permitted to bring their cell phone to the bathroom um in part the hygienic issue and then you know in part um it's really cut back on a lot of meetups uh in time out of class uh all of which has been beneficial so it it's something that we're trying um hopefully to get more feedback from students and uh staff about how that process is working but I'll keep you posted on that one uh just a um effort to improve uh the experience for all of our kids at tresure high school keep our bathrooms all open I wanted to pass along some a nice uh email I received from Mr Talbot um Our Town Council chair who was coordinating the class of 1974 reunion at chesher high school and uh he said that I just wanted to thank you and your staff uh who made this such a memorable event this uh uh Friday we had a group of over 20 classmates were greeted at the entrance by Dr Gad and taken Chester High School Tour by Coach Lee and a group of CHS student leaders my class M had a wonderful time seeing the changes uh what hadn't CH and what hadn't changed swapping stories and catching up from there we went down to the football field where athletic director parisino had provided us commander of tickets and a coupon for food at the concession stand Dan Le and uh former ad Steve trone helped herd the cats and got us on the field for recognition before kickoff from the public address announcer John also arranged our Tri captains Paul Bowman Joe Hardy and Jim laber to be honorary captains for the game and participate in the coin toss truly special night and I praise uh and the praise I heard about the staff and students was glowing uh several people were commenting on what a great time they had Friday at our Sunday event thank you for kicking off no pun intended our reunion weekend in such a special way um he went on to acknowledge our students um on behalf of his classmates as well as uh recognizing assistant principal Kristen pels for orchestrating a lot of this so seem sounds like a a really cool event that they had they had a really nice time I wanted to share that uh earlier today you know Timmy mentioned the trades before uh we've established a relationship with Han Aerospace whose North American uh headquarters are right here in chesher over the last year or so uh this past summer we had students who had had an interest in engineering and Manufacturing uh we had about 20 students tour at Hana so today was really cool um our visiting teachers U from Republic of Korea Mr Yang and uh his counterpart Miss Young they uh came and joined us in some expats uh exp Patriots from um uh hanoa and that are from South Korea is part of that that work uh that they're doing there and we had lunch together uh which was really great to connect people uh from the other side of the world with each other but also uh Marlene and I took the opportunity to talk to uh Jamie Rochford who's a treasure High School grad and their HR Director about uh continuing to have more opportunities to visit um we talked about specifically our maybe a middle school trip uh to expose students to the opportunities that exist here in our community and hopefully um Enlighten them about those opportunities before for their selecting classes for high school so that was really exciting today um on October 4th um Mr maiana joined our food service director Erica bietti uh to provide a presentation on our composting efforts uh you may recall that Chapman school was engaging in a pilot CH composting program last spring well midwinter to to the end of the school year all schools are required to have composting by July 1 26 and um there is a cost to composting um but thankfully the Town Council and sustainability committee have helped uh fund that it's uh $21,000 for us to engage in this composting program but it's been wildly successful last spring and this year we are also doing it at ditt school and so uh they gave a pretty comprehensive presentation uh I have the Powerpoints here if you want to take a look at them and I'll send out a copy of the PowerPoint um to you via email uh Vin anything you want to add about the presentation or just that it was made to the school business officials at our Workshop meeting and the goal was to give them a sense of um what it costs what they need to be prepared for in July of 2026 because all school districts are required to comply if they generate 26 tons or more of compostable material so you know we got good reviews the really the highlight of the presentation has to be the fact that and the reason that the state is doing this is we have a tremendous garbage problem in the state of Connecticut we um have only two incinerators left in the state the others have been shut down and so every day we are hauling garbage from Connecticut down to Ohio to dispose of it at5 $586 cents a ton I I believe so the person from Quantum biodiesel where we're sending out compostables he spoke at length about the issue and and what they do it's it's pretty amazing so the the PowerPoint presentation is kind of self-explanatory about what we're doing and and the benefit it does have you know for the environment thank you uh you you want wrate on the compos thing or you want to keep on the compost okay the 21,000 is that per school as we move forward or is that a total so it's for Chapman and doitt this year the bulk of that cost is the ongoing cost of hauling we use blue wart to come and pick up the compostables and deliver them um also included in the 21,000 for doitt is a one-time expense to purchase all the containers that we need and we purchase I believe we're purchasing um seven sets of containers for dittle because the key is not to slow the students down when they're ready to leave and we don't want to cut into their lunchtime so efficiency of process becomes really important from a food service perspective but the costs are broken down in that PowerPoint I I like the part where you and I would like to emphasize the part where yeah it costs us money but we are um saving money on the other end where if we're not making as much garbage to haul off then there is some offset there there is thank you thank you yeah just for some context on that You' mentioned it's probably $5 a ton to dispose in Ohio do you happen to know what the costs are is is one of the two incinerators ours in Wallingford when I say RS there's like a multi- toown Consortium I I think that one's closed oh that one's done okay and yeah do you happen to do you happen to know what we're paying per ton right now for either of those incinerators here in Connecticut I what I do know Sean Kimbell told me we um cost us about $100 per ton yeah for the trash portion plus we use AJ waste I think everybody knows that we also pay at the schools for each of the pickups that occurs at the school but the that cost is $100 per ton that's what I that's our Offset you know so the alternative cost that we would be paying yeah no and I appreciate that because I hear this about composting and I'm like that sounds great for the environment but it sounds really expensive the alternative is also expensive I'm not sure if it's more expensive or less expensive but those prices will continue to increase I'm sure in relation to the incinerators just getting closed um fuel rates can go up and down but we're also talking about Labor driving what 8 hours at least probably one way out to Ohio eight hours coming back the costs are the costs are real and they're significant um but yeah that's what I was guessing it was probably about 100 bucks a ton and I think the town probably about 10,000 tons I'm not sure probably at least 10,000 tons a year um but yeah no I mean I I like I like exploring this because the alternative costs are also really significant thank you it's in the PowerPoint but um at Chapman for um a half a year it was almost eight tons of I of um waste stream that went to composting instead of the trash so and that's a school with 380 students so dual little is over 500 so there'll be more the what we will do is continue to report out the cost the amount of waste it's about a half a pound per student per day is what we saw at Chapman we did have free breakfast last year so it'll be interesting to see how those Dynamics change this year and you know that that trekking is really important blue earth does that for us they're the hauler so the items that were going into trash are now going into composting and the the trash cost if we know that's $100 I mean there's a saving inherent well that it's about four times more expensive to compost right now but the bulk of that is hauling so if there's we can figure out a way how to get the hauling cost down right right we still won't be comparable but you know it is it is a better outcome the quantum what they do with our compostable materials and they service a lot more than our school obviously servicing a lot of the universities companies BJs they have a whole list but um of the compostable materials about 80% of the compostables are used to generate electricity through the methane composting it's kind of fascinating it's happening right in Southington and the remaining 20% is actually compostables that they sell to Scots so if you buy any kind of compostable materials or fertilizer from Scots it could be coming from Quantum and they also they provide some of it for our Greenhouse right now but they do sell the compostables so it's kind of a fascinating you know way to deal with with garbage yeah I'll send you some pictures it's really pretty cool uh the kids know uh there are different color bins that the kids bring their trash and compostable food to they've been educated as to what goes in the composting bin what doesn't and um so they really self sort like we have some good pictures of that we could share with you well that concludes our composting intermission um I just want to make a note compost pictures make sure I don't forget to send you that so um this it feels a lot like uh Republic of Korea weak here at at the board but um we are excited at the high school that our science team if you recall last year they came here uh we have a number of groups of students who are engaged in science projects collaboratively with high schools in uh South Korea and um only suu will know if I pronounce any of these things wrong but uh we're they have a cool t-shirt um that they have this year it's the US Korea science partnership and it's uh with chesher high school anonia high school New Town High School hung Science High School Honan Science High School and deu Science High School thanks for not laughing it's got a thumbs up got thumbs up for thumbs up all right I'm in the neighborhood but uh they're really uh thrilled they're EXC we're excited for them uh they meet regularly virtually uh with their counterparts from uh the Republic of Korea and it's been a a great you know cultural learning experience and as I mentioned earlier you know the world is is shrinking uh there are a number of folks from Korea who work right here in chesher and uh our kids might be working with them someday so that's kind of cool um I want to remind everybody that we have a community conversation around the anxious generation uh coming up on October 29th uh from 7 to 8:30 at Thorp auditorium at Cheshire High School among the panelists are Dr Allison Bell a pediatrician Dr Penny Ling a q Professor Clinical Psychology uh Kristen Shanley and anmarie winberg to uh chesher Public Schools teachers of the year uh Doug Levens the executive director at the cheser Y and I'll be facilitating that uh there's been a lot of interest in this New York Times bestseller um so we're getting perspective from some professionals in our community about that I hope people can make it on the 29th um last but certainly not least I am proud to announce to the Board of Education that we are once again C board uh recognition award recipients uh for this past school year uh so congratulations to everybody on their um the work that they've done as a board of educ to earn that acknowledgement that concludes my report do you have new schools um I could say you know just very quickly with respect to new schools unfortunately we're still waiting on Department of administrative services to uh issue what's called a bid approval letter so uh once as far as I know they have everything that they need um we're just waiting on that was the last text I had with Rich synik the other day um waiting that for that to be issued because we'd like to host actually we have a tentatively planned pre-bid walkth through uh at the North End for construction bidding um so that'll be here before we know it and we're about two weeks away uh then from the Norton pre-bid walkth through uh but we're still waiting on those letters from the Department of administrative Services any com comments questions for Dr Solen Mr gripple and then Mr thank you um yeah I mostly just have a comment um so it turns out that people do watch our meetings um their correspondence no um specifically the September 5th meeting uh where I asked Dr Solen a question and apparently he had the audacity to answer it um um I won't go into much further detail except that it caused a bit of uh excitement in the community and with others and um so uh and Dr suen you don't have to respond to anything I'm saying but I'm glad that you answered the question so that's all I have to say about it thank you any other comment yes thank you um questions probably for Vin uh energia potentially getting a looking at a performance contract getting some work done on our non new schools just any update on that yes um on Wednesday I think it was Wednesday we issued the RFP for the energy performance contract 2.0 as I call it y the um and so far we've gotten three firms that have resp responded that they're looking forward to um we have a meeting on October 23rd with all the interested proposers the three firms are ameresco ESG and Johnson Controls and there may be others that um are going to be interested so the RFP is just massive it's online the amount of detail that eneria which is is driving this portion uh the amount of um detail that is being requested by the firms is mindboggling it is available online at our it's actually not on our website it's at the town's website so I was pleased to see that you know three firms responded pretty quickly hopefully there's few more than that amorisco is the firm that did the last energy performance contract for us about 10 years ago so we finally did get the ball rolling on that one I know it's taken a long time but we're going no thank you I appreci proposal should be back the due date is in December I forget the exact date okay and just for people who are watching in TV Land the idea is um with a performance contract there's no cash outlay and correct me if I'm wrong on any of this but there's no cash outlay and the basic idea is they give us a light bulb for free and instead of us um paying the electric bill we end up paying them for the light bulb and you take the these measures these energy conservation measures across everything to consider that has an impact on energy which could be light bulbs it could be Windows it could be uh solar panels it could be just about anything the proposals come in and we could have thousands tens of thousands of items that are up for discussion about whether it would get incorporated into it and what would make sense but the idea is one of the key Parts is we basically don't have to put money out spend spend money they do it without that um and just to be clear on it the town is the town's on board they basically put their 200,000 square fet into it and said tell us what you tell us what you offer us it's all Town buildings and all school buildings except for the three buildings that are coming offline will be included as part of the study okay uh and obviously one of the components that is spelled out in the RFP is that any con School Construction Grants or any other grants any funding opportunities from ever source as incentives and also any uh opportunities from the IRA the um inflation reduction act those would all be considered as part of the overall financing package thank you any other questions or comments for Dr San okay we're going to move on U there aren't any old business do you have old business can I bring up something that has we've used uh this platform in the past to take a minute to just remind people of the chesher food drive coming up can I just do that um reminder for the food drive the 51st annual chesher food drive is the weekend of November 2nd and 3D uh from 9 to 3 on the First Congregational Church green everybody knows where that is everybody knows we have this food drive and uh I just want to encourage everyone to parchas ipate in this townwide event by donating food for the pantry money for the food voucher program or time spent on the green over the weekend helping to organize donations any questions go to www.

each night the association is proud to have committed so much time to such a worthy measure after passage AA would like to be part of the bond oversight committee to make sure that member voices are part of the discussion negotiations are beginning next week on Tuesday uh we're looking forward to discussing the articles that we have sunshin and our hope is that we'll wrap um this settlement up quickly um before the um winter break so thank you very much thank you James I like that you said when it passes all right and Jennifer sesai good evening Madame President Randall tro Board of Trustees executive cabinet students parents and school Community joining us in person and online I am honored to share with you the exciting developments happening across our district showcasing our commitment to student growth Civic engagement and cultural exchange we recently celebrated a milestone with the ribbon cutting of the Mac Freight Farm a unique project that embodies Innovation and sustainability this initiative not only provides our students with hands-on experience in sustainable farming in ways that prepares them for future careers in a green economy the freight Farm allows students to engage in real world problem solving using modern technology to address food production and food desert challenges we are proud to lead in this Forward Thinking Endeavor Civic engagement remains a Cornerstone of our District's Mission through coordinated voter registration efforts at our high school we Empower students to participate in the Democratic process ensuring that they are informed registered and ready to vote when the time comes additionally our social science departments have taken the initiative to organize mock elections giving students practical understanding of the Electoral processes and the importance of civic duty these activities instill the values and of citizenship to help shape responsible future voters our schools have enthusiastically embraced latinx heritage month with a range of activities identity lessons and cultural events that c celebrate the rich contributions of the Latin X Community our teachers and staff recently participated in site based Ed Summits where professional learning took Center Stage these Summits are developed as part of our ongoing efforts to support staff development with a focus on Innovation teaching strategies equity in education and improving student outcomes to collaborative nature of these Summits ensure that our educators are continuously growing and refin in their practices to meet the evolving need of our students our ahsd College and Career Fair at the Anaheim Convention Center provided students with critical exposure to postsecondary Opportunities this event connects students with colleges universities trade shows and potential employers offering them a wealth of information to guide their decisions after graduation by empowering our students with options we help them Envision their future paths and make informed decisions about the career our district is also a hub for Global exchange enriching our schools with International perspectives currently we have 26 students from countries such as Germany Italy Australia and more enrolled at six of our campuses Oxford and Western have welcomed students from China Japan and France while Savannah has had its own opportunity to host teachers from China for professional development looking ahead we anticipate nearly 20 additional visits before the end of the school year schools including Cypress Kennedy Western Savannah Oxford catella Walker and Lexington are scheduled to host students from Japan Mexico France China and Thailand in fact Savannah will soon welcome 14 principles from China for one-day professional development these experiences Foster global citizenship and deepen our students and Educators understanding of the world lastly our junior high schools have wrapped up the first quarter Sports season Cong congratulations to the following undefeated seasons for eighth grade flag football from Sycamore and Walker eighth grade girls volleyball from Lexington and Sycamore Boys Tennis from Oxford and Dale seventh grade football team flag football teams from Sycamore and Walker and seventh grade girls volleyball team from Walker in closing our district continues to shine as a leader in fostering academic excellent civic responsibility cultural inclusivity and Global engagement these initiatives reflect our unw ing commitment to providing students with opportunities that shape their future and better world thank you so much thank you Dr [Applause] sasai uh were there any other uh folks from uh associations that I didn't see if if you were here MMA or asme all right thank you all we appreciate your uh reports um Laura Allen here or anyone from PTA all right all right moving on to our fiscal service internal controls presentation and um deferring to Dr Yen well good evening um m madame president members of the board members of the public uh it was requested that we give an overview of some of our internal um processes how we run the business office um but before um I do give the overview um want to give um the board and the public a little bit of our background and I'm going to be asking uh Ken as well as Joe to kind of give um you know the board some of our experiences I know you guys know us but I just want to make sure that some of you guys know uh what the other things we have done prior of getting here so I'm in my 24th year uh in the school business Arena I started at as a budget manager I'm managing um special budgets and I became a director of budgeting and accounting and then I'm in my 18th year now as the CBL for school district so um 24th year at this point so I have a lot of accounting and uh budgeting background in some of the internal controls so I just want to share that piece so to give you guys some background of what we do part of getting inv to here so as you know uh maybe you may not know I have eight directors that work directly for me so um why we have the fiscal piece which is Karen is our um fiscal uh the executive director of fiscal Services Joe Cara is our controller then we have the facilities piece which you can see is uh Patty neilly who is the executive director for facilities oper Main and operation and Quinton RS is our director for Main and operation we also have uh lyanna who is the risk management and insurance director uh she is also the interim director for purchasing as we are um have an interim there right now uh Orlando um is our director for food services and Scott sren overse um the transportation department so we cover variety of operations so what I tell people is anything other than HR and education it is ours so that's kind of good way to kind of distinguish what we do and what other people do and really um our division serves three main functions first the financial management we overseeing the budgeting accounting and the financial reporting for the district second is compliance ensure that we adher to the education codes board policies state and federal laws and the third um Services is to manage a day-to-day Financial operations including long-term fiscal planning for the district so things like payroll purchase order things like that and so we're going to go into a little bit detail about that uh in a couple slides so in terms of the oversight there are three fold first we have the regulatory framework we operate under um a complex network of Regulation including educational code for policy state and federal laws the second um will be the governing bodies we have we are government by gasby that is the government accounting standard board so they give us different um numbers of what things we have to do and it's pretty extensive and we get updates on that constantly from our auditor what are being required from the district second will be something called cesam the California school accounting manual which is about 600 pages and so we do go through and see what how are things coded what's required there's all these accounting strings that we have to follow and this is part of the accounting structure as having the background of the budget as what as well as accounting site there's a lot of things that we have to ader to how we set up our budgets as well then the guide for annual audits of K12 local educational agencies and next one here is more on the facilities division of State architect any of our projects because they're on a school district property has to go to the division State architect and we hear that a a lot called DSA and so any projects um can be small or big they all have to go through the division of State architect next one um is Food Services is the national school lunch act so we have to follow that and then uh the code of federal regulations as well as the California public contract code are just some like the rules that we have to follow so there's a lot of different things we do have toer to for this um then the last would be the diverse compliance areas so the regulations will cover accounting auditing facilities nutrition procur ment to um ensure that we have comprehensive oversight of all these areas so I'm going to talk about the annual audit process so EO 41020 mandates annual audits for school districts um are required um annually to ensure Financial transparency they are due um by December 15th each year and presented to the Board of Education usually by January so as you remember our auditor the partner do come in January after the report is submitted to the state by December 15th we do have additional audits the main one I'm going to bring up this a separate audit is for the prop 39 which we talk about the bond fund that is SE a separate audit that the Auditors perform on that and that would ensure the proper use of resources and was laid out in the resolution and how the bond was um passed and I'm proud to say that we have have clean record the district has maintained a clean audit record with no Financial auding uh Financial um findings since 2013 because we have the last two Auditors that's been the partner with us we went back and we make sure and we talk to them and say let us know is there anything that we have uh done we want to make sure that we go back and see what are some of the things that we have and so there are some minor I would say some of the um the school side that kind of processes and then we do correct them um but in terms of financial audits we have not had any since 2013 so very proud of our team and all the work that we have done so far and I do want to talk about the prop 39 uh Bond audit since that is a separate audit than what our annual financials or annual financials audit the general fund for example so all the things we take into the board any of the Food Services funding any type of the any fund from the state as for the matching fund for example for facilities any of those funds will be under the um General audit then we have a separate audit a separate contract with the auditor that audits the prop 39 funding and this was passed a prop that was passed back in November 2000 and basically it established requirements what's required in the audit so you have two types it's called the annual Financial audit which is um the board reviews The Independent Financial audit required by prop 39 and the second thing is called the annual performance audit and uh the performance audit basically to ensure the funds have been uh expended only for specific project that was listed when the resolution was taken and then when the bond was passed out that point there is also the requirement which was us talked to about the citizens Bond oversight committee so the citizens Bond oversight committee is a requirement as part prop 39 funding and uh it import it form the committee informs the public on the bond expenditures of the bond revenues to ensure um that they were only expended for the purposes that's described in the California Constitution and so it is very um important that uh we have that committee and if measure um you know K okay right passes then we would have to have a separate um citizens SP committee for that purpose we currently still have the uh measure H um committee that is still at this place at this point and then that will come off us once um the funds are uh are done and so there's still um the committee that would exist until like every single dollar that's been audited as well so it's one thing once you spend that dollar but you also have to have the audit then the committee will exist when there's still any type of auditing that goes on so I want to make sure that the public um is aware of that as well and so as part of the um the um prop 39 we um were also had the opportunity to do some of the ref financials um for some of the prior bonds and just wanted to uh recap for the board um some of the things that has happened this past year in April of 2024 um The District's credit rating from Moody was upgraded to a positive outlook for in dble A2 this reflected the district's good governance strong financials and prudent practices and in July of 2024 the district I was able to get an upgrade from fit from a double A minus to a double a uh back in July and it highlighted that the district have strong operating performances as well as fiscal responsibility and I was always told that it's very difficult to get an upgrade and I have proved them wrong that we're able to get upgrade even in this kind of environment so very um thankful the staff and all the work that uh everyone has done as part of the staff and due to due to the uh credit rating Improvement we were able to do the re uh refinance um for um the uh some of the prior bonds saving taxpayers $4.2 million so all the things we are doing is our internal controls that we do it all reflected when we go to the credit ratings and things like and so I will now turn over to our controller Joe Kona he's going to talk about some of the internal controls thank you thank you good evening board and cabinet so uh I I know that we have many visitors here tonight uh who maybe did not plan to stay through a presentation about internal controls so I will not be offended if you get up and leave now um so uh don't feel the need to stay longer than after you've been recognized just want to give you that opportunity uh as Dr Nan said uh I have been a staff member in the district for over 20 years uh I was a social science teacher in another school district and I started out as a site uh assistant principal a principal uh I became a district level director uh working with state and federal programs um I had the great opportunity to help uh overseen Implement um about $200 million in pandemic funding that came to the district obviously those were very challenging times uh for our communities and our staff uh but it also gave um significant financial resources to the district that we implemented in a number of very impactful ways and for the last three years I have served in the role as controller overseen our accounting and payroll department so uh just understanding that this term internal control uh so this is defined as our policies and procedures uh that we use to ensure reliable financial reporting we Implement these policies and procedures for several reasons one is for efficiency to ensure that we have procedures and processes that allow the district to operate in an efficient manner we also Implement these to comply with applicable laws and regulations so as Dr Nan stated we are uh beholden to a number of different laws education codes uh different Professional Standards that we have to meet uh in order to adequately perform our roles as a school district and lastly to um mitigate risk uh internal controls help identify these risks and reduce the risks um it's important to note here that there is always some kind of risk um in any activity that we undertake right we took a risk walking in from the parking lot right we could have tripped we could have fallen right so um we mitigate those risks by having lights right by having clearly uh maintained uh asphalt right so um risk will never be eliminated right there will never be a time when there was no risk right these internal controls are to mitigate and to reduce that risk as much as possible so uh the districts approach in implementing internal controls uh again this is to ensure our financial integrity and there's several areas that I'll talk about and we'll give a few examples okay so some exam um areas of internal control are separation of Duties restricted access to security controls right so certain people have access to only certain areas of our financial systems um the annual audit um as Dr nen discussed already accounting procedures and reconciliations uh cash dispersements review cash flow and budget monitoring so I'm going to go through a few examples I just want to touch on budget uh monitoring here for uh a moment budget monitoring uh happens at a variety of levels right there are required updates to the budget that are shared publicly with the board right so that happens on a regular basis uh additionally uh myself along with Karen and the rest of our budget staff meet regularly with our district directors and sight level principles right to help them understand their budget work through um how can they use it effectively uh and answer any questions that that they may have right uh and then the third uh item here is um approval workflows and Karen will talk a little bit more about that later but that um these have multiple levels of approval one person cannot authorize an action from start to end right so so that's a very important um component to our internal controls so um separation of Duties so just again a quick definition here uh that as I said this prevents a single person from controlling an entire process or activity right uh the reason to do this is really to prevent fraud right um and and theft within an organization right so if I can uh say I'm going to pay something and determine how much is paid and then issue that payment and I control that all myself that is an opportunity for fraud right and so that is why we have a separation of duties for for those um different tasks it's also to help reduce and catch errors right errors are a natural part of any process right there is no such thing as being error free right so just like we we describe the learning process with our students right we expect them to make errors we actually the airs help us become better teachers right so airs actually help us become better within our processes as well right we can identify the weaknesses in the system improve them or eliminate them to the extent possible right and then finally separation of Duties also AIDS in protecting sensitive in information from misuse or unauthorized access um one of our student speakers talked about right potential misuse of of information right so uh that is why separation of Duties is is so important so an example so this example that I'm going to share there are five steps involved uh which will include four different staff members this is to deposit one payment to the district right so the initial recording of that payment comes to the district office an accounting technician right so we call that staff member a records the check or payment in a log right and that begins the process the second step is a separate accounting staff member call staff B enters the check as a receipt in the general ledger right and also what we call the general fund right so that right so the payment comes in it gets recorded on the log it gets put into the general ledger the third step a senior account technician right staff C prepares the check for deposit adding that additional layer of oversight the fourth step is those cash cash receipts or deposits are balanced against the deposited checks so we take all the checks so I'll use five checks they totaled $5,000 we look in the general ledger we look at the receipts for that day does it total $5,000 does it total more than that less right so those have to reconcile right that is done by a fourth staff member right staff D and then all of that is sent down to the Orange County Department of Education who actually records and deposits those funds right completing the multi-step secure process right so we have again the five steps four different staff members here who are responsible for that and then it also goes down to the county who actually completes that deposit so this is just one example right of a separation of Duties within the um accounting department my second example uh that I'm going to share is an example within payroll right so um you may wonder why would we need to talk about payroll how we want people to get paid right um but payroll is a very significant portion of our budget and Karen will touch on that a little bit more as well uh and so we want to make sure that people are paid accurately right people are not reporting uh things that they should not be paid for uh and so again we're talking about uh here you have four steps three different people involved including the county right so a human resources technician uh in puts the employees data and initiat the payroll process right so Human Resources says Joe Carmona gets paid this amount right that all goes into the system right so then that is sent over to the pay technician the payroll technician processes that payroll and generates the reports right so the payroll technician says okay I see Joe Carmona is here he's been issued this amount they verify oh where is that in uh the board approval where is that in the contract where is that on the salary schedule right oh wait a second this doesn't match the salary schedule this can't be the right pay assignment for this person right so there's that process that goes back and forth the payroll supervisor reviews and approves all of the payroll before submission and then payroll is actually issued Again by the Orange County Department of Education we do not write the payroll checks here at the district right the county performs that function they review our information and sometimes say hey we have a question about what was submitted right and so they provide the final authorization and issue the payroll dispersement right so again that's just paying one person right right so three different staff including uh the Orange County Department of Ed right uh those separation of Duties and so with that I am going to turn it over to Karen who will finish out our presentation thank you good evening board and cabinet I'm going to present to you um two different workflows that are critical for internal controls our first workflow is regarding how how do we make a payment our purchasing workflow um we are online with the Orange County Department of Education with a purchasing system which provides uh several different layers of um approvals at um various levels and um it provides like Joe touch on there is no single person that was responsible from beginning to end there are five steps in this approval level first you have the senior admin who will enter the what we call the purchase request the pr and that's at the school side or a or District level senior admin from that point the principal approves the purchase wreck or a um distri distri administrator and then accounting uh verifies the account code on it and also um the budget from there it goes to our purchasing department where they create the PO once the PO is created it's sent over to accounting for payment now accounting cannot Pro that P process that PO until they have a signed approved invoice and the board approval and the signed contract or agreement once they have all that information they put it in the system goes down to Orange County Department of Education they send a list to the accounting department every day that um that where they audit they pick items to audit so that is and then once they approve that they issue a warrant to the vendor our next uh workflow oops our next work workflow is our position control this is a system ensuring um fiscal responsibility and procedures it also provides and creates an accurate debate databas database for all positions in the district and this is critical because Approximately 80% of our expenditures are related to staff so the workflow for position control is there's three departments that are responsible in business um they we create the position in the datab database and reconcile what we call FTE full-time equivalent to the allocations this is important because you want to know how many you're allocating like 30 staff to a school site but you have 32 people well you might have two part-time positions so two part-time positions if they're 5050 would be one FTE so this is important to to reconcile those the Staffing Human Resources is responsible for hiring the employee and entering all the employee information in the HR screen along with the pay rates they are the only ones that can enter the pay rate I can't enter them Joe can't enter them they're they're the only Department next it goes to the payroll department where they verify the information that HR entered and they also then pay the employees once they are board approved I have to back up because I forgot to tell you a little bit about my background so okay so before I'm finished so um I've been with the district for 22 years I started at um Dale Junior High working and working there and then I became came to the district and I was a senior accountant technician I was then promoted to the budget manager then to the controller and in my current position as executive director of fiscal Services I oversee the budget um the attendance and accounting and payroll so thank you very much and Dr Nan will come back up and answer any questions well thank you so much um Karen and Joe for uh the in-depth process and we are here to um answer any questions that you may have so we just want to make sure that this is only a portion of what we what we do we want to just kind of make it easy so you understand but you can see every process there's multiple people that are doing the work and so we we are thankful that we have um we're a big enough District we have enough staff that we're able to have a lot of the separations or duties but we are now happy to answer any questions that the board may have thank you thank you Nancy Karen and Joe that was a amazing presentation any questions yeah you talked about the citizens Bond oversight committee like how big is that committee and who how are people chosen for that so there's perfect great question so um in that there usually um minimum of seven and so you have um in different categories for example so you may have um a parent that's that's so you have like a parent you also have somebody who is h a senior citizen so that's different categories like four different separate categories you have um a um person who's on the um more on the um the taxpayer Association and also um just a general public community members and so usually uh it's a minimum of seven people and um and then you can go up from there but there is a minimum and so um in that process what we do we will have an application out and that's how all the other um um uh members were selected and so then you would apply to which category that you belong to so you have to say well I belong to this category I belong to list and you can always you know Mark different ones if you belong to multiple categories and then there is the uh interview processes you know and we would love for the public to um to be involved you know most of the time it's hard to actually um find people who want to and so we're very grateful to um the the members that we currently have they do take out their time um usually they meet uh afternoons on like a 3:00 we try to make sure that that um they can get a tour of some of the latest project and so they do we do meet with them most of the time at the school side so they can see what are some of the different um things and present to them um all the financials and then the auditor does come out and meet with the group to let them know what the what the other report was about and then they come to the board meeting usually March or April to present um their their annual report to the board so I think it's a very very exciting um opportunity I myself was um a chair for um a bond oversight Committee in the community that I lived in I was uh the chair for about three years and is um really good to to know what is happening and to get the kind of first SE of a lot of the projects and we do take them as the projects are ongoing we don't just take them when it's completed take them throughout the process so they can see and they mean about I would say what at least you know three to four times a year minim yeah and we've been doing at least quite a bit and any type of when we have any ribbon cutting or any kind of thing they Al also invited to attend with us as well so we do lot need volunteers um for that um uh for that committee as well thank you any other questions yes oh sorry go Ahad I'm assuming that this system applies to all school districts yes then when last year when we read about what happened in a local school district a huge amount of money if this oversight explain that how did that happen oh well I think part of it is we have a very very tight internal control in our district and we did speak to our auditor you know this is something that um um that we all take take it extremely seriously you know and it's it's it's unfortunate that inent that happened um and you know you can read the entire report I think the reports are very very long report but um a lot of us did read it because that's something that we're very you know passionate about it's just the way I think you you need to make sure that you have the process in place and that for example um when we close the books for example and how we check to see uh we look at multiple years of records for example when um when we're closing books you know Joe would do one set of stuff and then after and then Karen as well and then I actually do the final check I will go through and I'll check and I'll balance the books and I'll look and say hm does this make sense is all the crw is done there's a lot of different steps but as you can see we are we are a big enough School District we have enough Personnel that we're able to have a much tighter internal control compared to other smaller districts and I think that would be the difference that that we have a lot of I mean it if you can see it took five different people just for something to go through so it touches that many hands and I'm going to tell you we have extremely tight system and I know even getting a reimbursement um you know I know if our staff can tell you we ask for a lot of documentation a lot of documentation and I right right I know Laura is like yes and we we have very strict rules and so we're like um no we need the actual receipt we need this and we need this and we need this and I know that um is maybe burdensome for a lot the the for people to even reimbursing some people some principles like you know what I I'm not even going to submit because it takes all this documentation but the reason why we do that is because we want to make sure that we are tight with our um with our process because we do get audited for that too and if we get audited for that then if something um it's not right then we get we we get a we get a finding and our job really is to make sure that we minimize all the risk for the district and so yes we are very very tight I'm sorry to all the principles and all the staff when we submit anything we go through line by line we check every single item and it goes to multiple people right I mean um even a lot of people they anybody subit anything I mean I sign a lot of the reimbursements and I even I go through the stuff and say okay is this line end them and I rejected a lot of stuff too so I'm sorry but we that's just we have processes in place there are requirements that we have to to meet um and so I think because we have enough Staffing that we're able to have separation duties we're in maybe a smaller uh District they may not have enough staff and I came from smaller district is where you know you could have maybe the process instead of Five People You only have two people and maybe even even smaller districts I wonder may they could maybe only have like one person right and then somebody does work and the the director would would uh basically signed off and then approve all the stuff but we have multiple layers it takes a lot of more hands um to go through the process in our district we appreciate that reassuring thank you yes thank you uh to you and your team for the presentation highlighting the different guard wheels that we have um I did have a question on the bond audit can you explain a little bit um the difference between the performance audit and the financial audit oh okay definitely so the the financial audit would be um the same thing they would go through and check all the expenditures and double check for example um and I and I um and I'm pretty sure about this I think for for example the last audit for um for the um for the bond funds about 65% to almost 80% right depending yeah almost 80% this last year those items audit because for example you have um a contract and some of our the construction cost as you know you know it's is quite high right and so they would literally take the the um the contract and go through line by line and they would double check and say okay does this for example like for for the for the bond they would make sure how it was processed like how if you were to to bid out the project and how and how will we bid out so the entire contract right and as well as all the uh all the invoices all the all the uh POS that were associated with that and any your contract and so they would go through line by line and and basically random it's not that random Rand a random sample because they basically um added almost every single contract I would say almost 80% of the contract um for the facilities uh for that Bond Fund for for that purpose and they will go through and make sure that all the expenditures are proper expenditures so that's a fiscal side the uh performance a is really if that project was listed as part of the resolution that when went to the board and when it went was voted on what are those items were they part of that program so if you say that um there's let's say uh I don't know I'm I'm going to give I mean this be a good example but let's say the parking lot at the school most of the time parking lots included but let's say the fire hydrant or something like that and if that wasn't part of your description inside your resolution then that item is actually not something that you can code inside uh you can spend as part of that so that's a performance audit right so it's a little different is one thing to spend the money properly but another thing are those items as part of your um program that you were supposed to and that's also the job of the uh citizens Bond oversight committee as well their job is really to revew all the expenditures and so we want to make sure because sometimes you like oh what about like do I get to pick a project well that's like the board's direction is different than than that and and obviously you know having been on the myself been on the um the CBC committee it's I have to make sure I I have to um you know focus on just the expenditure and that's part of the job as being on the onth citizen B oversight committee right thank you you're welcome all right um Karen on the approval workflows um did I hear you right even on purchasing items that ocde um audits that so and and you said did I hear you correctly like on a daily basis yes every every day um when accounting processes uh an invoice for payment they send a list of uh vendors um and they want they want the backup they want the invoice po con contract it uh agreements board approval wow wow I didn't know that so that was that was really eye openening yes so we're um guard as you said guard rails in every area um so we know you work hard and as a board member I have gotten complaints about how long it takes to get reimbursed so but this is why and so um we really appreciate um the three of you uh bringing us this presentation and we really appreciate the hard work and um thank you so much uh I think now this really uh highlights um how efficient we are and how um secure we are and so I hope this lays to rest any uh further questions in that area um and this is great because uh you don't have to do this presentation again we can just uh take this and and give it to other folks to to to to look at so thank you for your dedication and your hard work and the whole department so thank you perfect thank you so much okay I also have to say uh a apologize for the popping tonight um our system is old and uh this kind of um gives reason to uh why we need an board a bond measure because you know we don't we we don't have funding for our uh district office microphone system so um you know I know a lot of other districts have R uh Reven what's the word I'm looking for Reven renovat renov thank you they their District's offices and you know I think we're still in uh 196 something uh with this office we love it we appreciate it but uh we could use some renovation here do um so moving on to item 8.2 uh Science Education for Equitable just sustainable future and I'm deferring to Dr freed well it is my honor to bring up Jessica yet she's our outstanding curriculum specialist for science um she has a team with her tonight and just as as they get ready to share I don't want to be a spoiler um but I would invite you to think about our core values the education must work for students not the around and also I'm thinking about how we deliver our core values primarily through instruction um you're going to see tonight I think in the in the presentation just a snapshot of the great work happening in our schools and our classrooms being done by our amazing teachers and our partners I would also um encourage you to think about too our community school approach and our community school movement knowing that we're a leader really not just in the state but in the country the way that we approach Community Schools you're going see tonight just how we bring um local issues concerns into the classroom in this case specifically science classroom is to make impact so with that I'm going turn over to to Jessica thank you so much uh board uh cabinet in ahsd community um we are very appreciative for this opportunity to share with you the work that our teachers and our students have been doing over the past two years so as they mentioned science or CEST is Science Education for an equitable just and sustainable future and this is a unique research practice partnership with uci's school of education part of what made this uh partnership so unique was how incredibly aligned it was with our District's drivers um and the program was thoughtfully designed to support our teachers in empowering our students uh to become those change agents in um using science to improve their communities and create a positive impact so my name is Jessica yet I am the science curriculum specialist and I am proud to present or to represent our cust team here this evening we have Dr hos Kang Nelly Sai and Dr Sabina gamus also on the screen you'll see um our past Year's team of teachers uh over the two years we have represented over 25 teachers uh from 11 School sites including education Specialists and representing all five of our core science courses in this research practice partnership we asked how could we support our teachers to cultivate student voice and agency through Civic action in the context of climate change within an ngss unit of study part of the educational re research would included selecting some focused teachers and our Magnolia chem team was part of the focus teachers So today we're excited to share a glimpse of the impact of this work through their Reflections now I invite any of you who have taken high school chemistry to try and think back to your experience learning chemical equilibrium the CJ just chem teachers designed a unit around the topic of equilibrium and The Guiding question how can we produce enough food to meet demand while reducing environmental impact during this unit the students learned about the hab process the production of synthetic fertilizers as well well as regenerative farming practices including composting to learn a little bit more I invite Alex to share his Reflections good evening it's been a year since I first stepped into chemistry my name is Alex win a junior from Magnolia High School I took this course with Miss Reagan last year and during this unit of study I explored soil analysis understanding how potassium phosphorus and nitrogen create ideal conditions for growth using the Mac as a living laboratory so after learning about Cal health I was able to create a Civic Action project that connected my knowledge to the real world you see this Civic project was a presentation where I demonstrated that creating the right Cal environment is crucial for human health inspired by this I brought my knowledge home and applied what I learned by recycling vegetable scraps to nourish the soil in my backyard using rren regenerative practices such as diversity planting and cupo cropping to grow strawberries and spinach in my own backyard these Hands-On practices have strengthened my passion for improving lives it shaped the way I chose to a career in medicine it fed the way I want to continue advocating for Healthy Living and making a positive impact on my community it's been in pleasure thank you [Applause] hello my name is Nicholas I a senior at Magnolia High School and during the 2223 school year I was a student in Miss veran chemistry class in this class we studied the harmful effects of the hab process used on traditional American Farms as a student I was tasked with finding a more sustainable way to meet food demands of our community we created a cstone project which suggested policy changes we wanted to see in American agriculture as a group we decided we wanted to see Farms incentivized to implement less use of pesticides diversity cropping instead of monocropping and decreasing the amount of the amount and depth of tilling on our soil all of these practices create a healthier soil not only to grow food for a changing climate and a growing population but also for a healthier ecology and promotes biodiversity after this unit I was inspired to apply to the max Summit internship in order to further my understand understanding of sustainable agricultural practices during my time in this internship my cohort worked on finding a way to inform the ahsd community about where their food comes from because of this internship I gained valuable work and Leadership skills and found the confidence to run for and become president of the Mac Club at my school in closing my experience in Miss Reagan science class was different from traditional science classes because it empowered us to critically engage with real world issues think about food equity in our community and consider policy solutions that can have an impact on our food systems thank [Applause] you my name is Mrs waran I'm a chemistry teacher at Magnolia High School in my journey of involving students in Civic engagement I had two roadblocks and the CJ program helped me tremendously I was seeking bringing science and chemistry into the unit without restricting the power of students free choices and the other roadblock was I anticipated I really wanted to see genuine concerns and honesty about going into action um projects um Dr hang introduced a so-called living map and flipping it in my classes it translated into groups of students working together on a matrix in particularly on a map when uh they mapped vegetables fruit produce he comes from the farm through different stages to the dinner table we visited this map throughout the six weeks of this unit and then the time came when we had to flip the entire map meaning we explored the human aspect of it centering people was a game changer eliciting genuine interest and care for Science and we were able to make stronger action plans so I am very thankful for S and Dr Kang hello my name is Emily pack and I another chemistry teacher at Magnolia High School uh first of all I really want to thank um the board and the UCI team for the opportunity that we've had the past two years to really engage in the process um Civic action or engaging my students in Civic action like um Miss Reagan talked about was um in a meaningful way was really a challenge for me um but with this program um it really allowed me to think how I teach chemistry not just in this unit but as a whole and to make that storyline um like something that students could really visualize um they were able to take students a were able to take all that they had learned throughout the whole school year um to really affect change um on an issue or bothering we called it that they they felt really strongly about that they kind of gathered from this unit um so again I'm really thankful to have had this opportunity thank hello my name is Daniel Lou and I was a science teacher at Magnolia High School I had the opportunity to serve as a teacher researcher and I took off my evaluative teacher hat and put on a learning from students hat I learned from our students and learned how they approach Civic engagement who were they interacting with and how were they interacting so we developed a Civic action Matrix to help visualize Civic engagement in the classrooms for who they were interacting with we noticed that they were interacting on either an individual level or a systemic level so large scale interaction or we also noticed how they interacting whether they were just spreading awareness or actually doing an action project most of our students we were seeing were individual awareness so we hope that visualizing it on a Civic action Matrix can help teachers scaffold and support students but also for students to reflect on the action that they're taking so that we can diversify Civic engagement to look not like the current model but the reimagine model thank you hello everyone I am hosan Kang associate professor in the school of education at UC urbine it is my great pleasure to be part of this amazing team and learned from students and amazing teachers over the last two years we have a lot of hard time to select the story that you like to share here we can we have a lot more stories actually uh we if You' like to learn more about the outcome of our work together and more want you to see more example of student work we printed out the newsletter from the second year and also please feel free to come to our project website cj.com so you can see more we'd like to expand our deep gratitude to the board and cabinet for your support for about this Ino ongoing professional development and partnership thank you so as you can see there's a lot of gratitude in this room um for this very powerful work in working with the UCI school of education uh UCI researchers and really further deepening the network of teachers working with their students um in community um we have a call to action to continue this Collective work in empowering our teachers to empower our students as change agents um to go beyond learning about climate issues and go beyond learning about Community issues to taking that informed action so part of our next steps is that we hope to continue this work but through a transdisciplinary approach and what we mean by that is we would like to have science teachers working alongside other content Area Teachers in addressing climate issues and uh working with their students to take action so at this time thank you so much for your time thank you oh my goodness um Alex and Nicholas I am extremely proud of you um for all the work I know you have done so much work and so much research and you've put your heart and soul into um your own education and I'm very envious of you because if I would have had this type of education I think that um I might have gone into the science area but uh thank you for demonstrating um how powerful uh you are um and uh I'm really really looking forward to uh what you're going to be doing in the future and please let us know let your teachers know in the future what you plan to do and stay in touch with them and teachers just so grateful for all the work that you've done this is uh this is innovative this is new this is uh um hasn't been done before and we really appreciate all the dedication and the long nights and the you know the hours and thank you for our partnership with UCI uh did anyone have have any questions of our panel or anything else to say I just wanted to highlight I glanced over the newsletter I know it impacted over 3,000 students uh 20 science teachers and across 10 middle and high schools I think that's incredible work so thank you all for um showcasing this work tonight Jessica do you have a a waiting list now so we're hoping to continue this work there there is a grant that's being submitted and uh we are working with some teachers uh to kind collaborate in the meantime um to see how we can keep this momentum going um so we have a few teachers we're working with um and we'll see how our little little I guess you could say pilot of of collaboration across uh content areas works this year fantastic and we'll see about the waiting listo [Music] [Applause] I know well I think it's time to buy a new Patty needes out there maybe Patty all right uh please please don't be timid but our public comments are up next Katrina Aros are you here Katrina Aros Janelle freeze Janelle left Janelle left okay Dr La hello board uh community members uh first of all I uh I really appreciate it I'm not Dr Lara I am Mr Lara I just want to say that is out of respect for those who have done a lot of work and earn that doctor title a few of them are back there so I just want to First clear that but I just want to say thank you to the board for continuing to support gilber high school and supporting our students each one of you have come to our campus um shown Amazing Grace and just really supporting our students today I'm here to talk about the licensing agreement it's a contract for curriculum um and I want to thank Nancy and Joe Harmona and Karen or for their for their um for their presentation as well um Dr nin I should say because uh we've been trying to get this through all the checks and balances on this board agenda for a while now and it's finally here and my teachers have been waiting for this curriculum in order to be able to implement it so um there all those checks and balances are in place and they're for a reason and even though this is coming out of grant money sometimes my teachers get really frustrated by all the different layers that have to go through approval to make sure that funding is um there and available but I'm finally glad it's here on the agenda it's a fiveyear um uh curriculum a five-year contract for a curriculum that's going to be able to implement social emotional learning for our students students and you see the passion and you see the types of students that we receive at Gilbert that come from throughout the district um we're doing phenomenal things and this is going to help us really achieve to the next level so muchim gracias thank you very much for your continued support of Gilbert have a great night thank [Applause] you okay moving on to item number 10 items of business Educational Services 10.1 School sponsored student organizations this is an action item so moved second moved and seconded and you get to vote on this item eron um I uh had a question um on one of the items and I just wanted to point out a couple of things um uh I just really want to give a shout out to um uh the uh the students and staff who really gave us a um a a thorough application um we really appreciate it as a board to know exactly what um these uh clubs are going to or student organizations are going to do um on a daily weekly uh monthly basis it helps us to make a decision on these we don't just uh you know blanket and go through and approve all of these um student organizations we really want them to be meaningful yes we want you to also have some fun too uh but we also want to know uh what you're going to be doing so I appreciate that there's a couple and just uh you know if you if you hear from from um our assistant superintendent about your application we just really want to um uh you know to to extend um you know um again we just really want to know what the purpose of your organization is and I I think I can speak as a board we get these and we just really want um to know that you know what you're doing in this um we don't want students just um saying I want to start a club because it looks good on their you know college application I'll just be honest so um we really want to hear um what you're doing and uh one sentence really doesn't do it for us we're going to go ahead and approve I'm sure uh the board wants to approve all of these but a couple of them really doesn't extend to the um intent of the um group so I'm just making that statement out there all right um any other comments or questions on these okay all right just concur with your comments okay thank you all right all in favor resolutions 10.2 resolution number 2024 sl25 d-09 Great American smokeout Escape The Vape day 202 24 so moved second okay moved in second any questions or comments I know that there's going to be a report out about the activities that they're going to be doing at the schools because this is a elementary through high school thing and I I really want to see what's happening in the Anaheim Union High School District at our junior high schools and our high schools and the activities um that we're going to be offering our kids uh when we come up with some good ideas sometimes they be replicated at schools and make meaningful differences for our students so absolutely that's why I'm requesting that everyone works really hard on this event so this is an action item and a roll call vote Mr hosi h i Mr O'Neal I miss Smith I Miss Guerrero I and I vote I 10.3 resolution number 2024-25 sl25 5-b t-01 compensation for board meeting seconded uh this is a roll call vote Mr hosi hi Mr O'Neal Miss Smith hi Miss Guerrero I will abstain and I vote I okay Business Services 104 agreement dietetic internship Keith and associat dis Associates distance dietetic internship action item second any questions or comments okay seeing none all in favor hi 10.5 agreement city of Anaheim Brooker Community Center action item ah so move second you're ready to vote any questions or comments on this um I was asking who are the district job coaches and it I was answered there was an answer that they they are adult transition instructional AIDS so I just wanted to make that clarification right thank you for your question okay all in favor I 106 community service agreement all of Crest action item slow moved second okay moved and seconded uh any questions or comments yes I just had uh one question um how would this be uh promoted in our site or sites that are participating Olive Crest so it'll well it's targeting certain um profile student students with certain um maybe um challenges with with their behavior whatnot so uh I know as the schools work with um the our staff whether it be psychologists social workers counselors um case carriers um I'm assuming there's going to be an onboarding in terms of the program I know Carlos can speak more to it but they'll be aware of the of the program and who it's going to serve so that way those students in their families can be given the opportunity I know it's going to be piloted at Sycamore this year so we're starting very local to one school and then from that experience the goal the aspiration is to open up for all of our schools to be able to act our families at all of our schools who could benefit from the service that this is providing um in terms of promotion though that was what I was going to share no that's it syamore was going to Pilot learn from them how did they do part marketing what did the family say how did it go you know strengths from that process and then expanding across the district thank you thank you okay all in favor I 107 agreement uh rodri lumba action item second move to Second any questions or comments on this all right uh all in favor I 108 Grant award middle college and early college grant action item so moved second okay any questions or comments on this item um the new counselors are hired in place yeah so we're excited about that M all right all in favor I 109 Grant award College and Career access pathway Grant action item second any questions or comments on this item seeing none all in favor I 1010 agreement California Department of Health Care Services Children and Youth Behavioral Health init initiative action item so moved second questions or comments okay seeing none all in favor I 101 sub award agreement heluna Health action item so moved second okay move to Second any questions or comments all right we're happy for this okay all in favor I 1012 agreement California Department of healthc care access and information certified wellness coach CWC action item so moved second moved and seconded any questions or comments yes I just had uh one question can you clarify where the 20 Wellness coaches will be located yes so they'll be at the at the isc's and it's high school that it's connected with so they're going to share a wellness coach and then all the other schools that don't have an ilc they'll share with their feeder Junior High the high school high okay thank you I know we're going to have a presentation I think in November on this too I don't know but I'm just ecstatic that we have these Wellness coaches at our sites I don't are we I don't think read something but okay I may be mistaken so we'll look into that I'm excited about this so thank you for the people who worked on this maybe after sry all right all in favor I 1013 licensing agreement School connect LLC seal curriculum action item so move second okay moved in seconded uh any questions or comments all right all in favor I 104 data use agreement corelon Behavioral Health Inc action item so moved second questions or comments is this the sameon as prescription drug that we use 1014 yes is yes I just hope we have a better implementation than with this than we have had with the prescription plan Dr Nan we'll be closely monitoring that right OB a very different service yes Caroline's Caroline Caroline all right thank you uh for your comments all right um all in favor I I I think I 1015 agreement California emerging tech technology oh my God technology fund thank you action item second any uh questions or comments hey seeing none all in favor I 1016 memorandum of understanding Pacific Symphony action item so moved second okay move the second questions or comments Mr hosi well our students get to work with professionals from the Pacific Symphony yes I mean wow what a great experience absolutely absolutely all right uh all in favor I I 10117 membership accrediting commission for schools Association of schools and and colleges was action item so moved second moved and seconded and we have two schools that are coming up 2025 I just had a question on this mhm um I know that CVA has L certification but why aren't they on this list seems like all the other schools are on it yeah CVA is accredited and their next accreditation I believe is in uh self-study in April of 2025 it's a self study I think they're credited through June 30th 2025 with that self study so probably should be on that list they are they are being accredited okay okay so April might want to check on it yeah the say yes the say yes what that information is correct that you're insane okay do they need to be added to this list okay want to see if there's an exhibit um yeah we can check if there is we'll bring it back with the the amendment bring it back you can't to amend it all right good catch all right um all in favor I I 1018 revised by board policy 6306 substitute teacher salary schedule first and final reading action item so move second moved and seconded any questions or comments okay all in favor I okay 109 Board of Trustees announcement of appointment SL reappointment candidate of personnel commission member this is an action item move I will second and I would like to recommend that we continue with Paul Andre Okay I would second that um as well he has served as well and uh done a really great job yes any questions or comments all right all in favor I okay 1020 initial contract proposal ahsd to Anaheim secondary Teachers Association information item uh 1021 public hearing initial contract proposal auhsd to Anaheim secondary Teachers Association anyone wishing to speak on this item okay seeing none moving on uh initial contract proposal Anaheim secondary Teachers Association to ahsd information item 1023 opening a public hearing initial contract proposal Anaheim secondary Teachers Association uh to ahsd anyone wishing to speak on this item okay seeing on none moving on closing the public hearing I close the public hearing on the other one too 1024 memorandum of understanding with president can we take 1024 through 1028 all at once I don't know can we all right I recommend that so memor memorandum of understanding with AA with apga cssea afme and mm a yes action item so moved second moved and seconded questions or comments no all right all in favor just glad to hear it's on the agenda yes we are happy it's on the I from everyone all right uh 1029 revised board policy 62031 conflict of interest first reading any questions or additions to this okay none moving on uh consent calendar any act items to pull uh 1110 and 1111 move the balance second anyone else okay um all in favor I I for the balance all right thank you um 1110 1111 so moved second okay second um all in favor I oh no I'm not back off my eye abstention I all right moving on to okay superintendent and staff report item 12 so I have a have a few reports to to share so first um I think as the board knows but just so the public knows too superintendent is not here tonight because he's in Minnesota um there's a convenient in Minnesota for with Grant makers and these are where some of the largest foundations in the country convene and meet to talk about some of the social justice projects and things that they want to fund to be able to move the country in a more positive healthy direction and so the district has been the beneficiary of many grants over the years where our superintendent has been instrumental in helping to bring some of those grants to our district I know we have the EP Grant which is gearup which is over $2 million we have our Chan Zuckerberg Institute Grant that's the one that we're doing with in partnership with UC Irvine and E Cadence the way that we're looking at the way that we measure and look at the five C's right in the way that we measure student voice we have um a Stuart Foundation grant that we've received the Carnegie Foundation grant that we've received so I know that we're positioned potentially to receive another huet Foundation Grant uh huet as you may recall was the grant that we received that funded the visioning work that we did at 17 of our schools initially um so we're in talks with them to potential to receive more f funding to support our work which it doesn't just support the work it can also support some staffing potentially which helps with jobs especially during difficult times so that's where he is tonight so U so he's not playing hookie or on vacation he's he's actually working but in Minnesota um the other thing I want to share is I just want to take a moment to thank our team I know I see Allison here I know Charles isn't here but we had our College and Career Fair uh this week which again is the largest in the world Galaxy um uh the the I can't thank them enough but our Ed staff uh I know our business HR team plays a role I'm looking at Scott and Rob and transportation just a tremendous Collective effort on all three of our departments to really put this amazing massive event on um also can't stop without thanking the staff at the school sites the both the teachers the counselors the admin who play a big role and preparing our students for this event there's Le week long lessons that our students interact with in PR preparing them so it's a meaningful experience when they come to the fair so again just a a schoolwide districtwide effort uh in making the event meaningful so I just want to give that big shout out out um also want to take a moment to recognize the work of our family and Community engagement team I know Carlos the work that you ell and Kenny are doing uh we on Friday had our family um Summit at our annual family Summit at foron College it's one of three that we do every year the second being at Cal State forth and the third being in the early summer at UC Irvine where our families have an opportunity to spend the night in a res hall or a dorm to get the experience uh that many of our families unfortunately don't always get um so super cool uh this Friday Friday was the first of those experiences and great turnout great great um sessions for our families and want to share that with all of you and then lastly uh this month is National principal month it's also the week of the school administrator so you miss if I didn't take a moment to just thank our amazing administrators uh at both the site level and the district club for the amazing work that they do I know that it's a an endless sometimes thankless job uh but they do an amazing uh put amazing efforts into the great work that they do and supporting our students our families and our community so thank you thank you for your report apprciate it and let's give a round of applause to everyone that was an amazing feat the other night my goodness well said yes um so I want to take this time to acknowledge um C of um laama council member uh nitish patal he hosted Magnolia about 30 Magnolia High School independent students at the um laama City Hall which um our trustee um O'Neal was there uh with me as well um he fed the students they gave the tour of the city hall and the um police station as well and the city manager conell mamura as well as the a brand new uh police chief of Joe Guerrero were present to to um talk to the student about how how the city operates and then the biggest thing is um um council member uh donated over 30 pairs of brand new uh Van shoes to every student that was present at that event so you know that he does um hope for hope school as well but this is something new um and it's just so nice that another city uh hosting um our student uh in that process and they did a a great presentation to the student talk about some of their their stories how where how they came and a lot of them um are very interesting stories so you should uh kind of check those out um but just want to U be um make sure that we acknowledge um his commitment to our students within our district and not just only not only students within laama so really want to take that time to thank him and everybody on on the staff there um and then we did attend our quite a bit of city of Cypress events this week so I want to thank uh Mayor Scott menus at city of Cypress for always um being inclusive of always inviting us to all the different events within the city of Cyprus and we were there along with um Mr hosi and as well as um Mr O'Neal as well at the various events as well on those and so I think it's uh important that we um go to this events and I'm very grateful that for the partnership we have with these cities as well thank you thank you Dr Nan Carl okay good evening everyone so I know we heard a lot of examples um and from our students and and folks that came up to the podium around um our approach to whole child education um you heard student agency voice and agency we we heard a lot about the importance ofal in our in our classrooms and Trauma inform practice for not just for our students for our parents as well and staff um and so you know W with that we also keep um as a district we continue to uh build our our resources and pedagogy around culturally uh relevant um resources in literature and pedagogy within the classroom putting that into the hands of our staff our students and our families um so um a big part of that is celebrating our cultures and not all cultures and and on the heels of national principles month we also have um National Latin latinx and Hispanic Heritage Month in the month of October and so as we continue this work um we have um something that was highlighted in one of our social social media posts I believe John and his and his team um put this on one of our social media posts and it reads um during uh National latinx Hispanic uh her heritage month we recognize and celebrate the inspiring accomplishments and achievements of Hispanic and latinx individuals in the history of the United States today we honor Elizabeth aavo a poet and author and then we have one of our students who responded to that um Mia Renee she's a 10th grader at an High so here is her um um her response um I love her book her books and she's talking about Elizabeth aavo especially poet X because I relate to it a lot I believe kids in high school should read more books like hers because they open our eyes to the fact that we're not the only ones struggling her writings show us that we can find places where we feel heard and not alone po X changed my perspective and made me more grateful for my life and family so again just the you know from a testimony we call the street data from our students in terms of what they want um in classrooms um in the libraries and and as as uh um in the spaces that they are so so just kudos to to the work that's being done by our district around um our whole child approach to education thank you Erin did you have anything else to report no thank all right we appreciate you being here staying all are you ready for me wow um this has been a busy month um we started out um I think one of the first things I did get to go to samanah high schools uh back to school night and then we got on a plane uh Miss lingam from Ro I see Mr Hernandez and Mrs Bean back there along with dedicated orange View and Western teachers um we went on a visitation to um San Mato High School to gather information about the redesign of the orange view in Western school so we got so many great ideas from that that um visitation I was at the Cypress RSVP Summit number one and great job Aaron um and went to the Kennedy choir show and uh Mr bsky was there too and uh had to go two nights because they had two different sets of soloists so I wanted to see all their talented students um let's see um uh trusty Guerrero and I went to the Boys and Girls Club um casino night at the ranch um we went also all of us were at the ribbon cunning ceremony for Cypress high school and uh like Dr nen said we were also not only for the city of Cypress but we went to bua park um state of the city luncheon and we one of our o OA students represented um our district and saying the national anthem um Anaheim collaborative family Summit AT Fullerton College was a great opportunity for uh I think parents to see all the great things that our district is doing and more so the opportunities with dual um enrollment and also the pledge uh for them to get that um information I know someone's going to probably talk more about the Mac Farm um but we are all there um enjoying that delicious dinner and looking at the the crate Farm um Oxford Academy Advanced instrumental concert um you know the program has grown so big they had higher second teacher so we have a second full-time teacher um at Oxford and then I got to go back to um visit um actually orange View and Western about their redesign on the staff development day and stayed there the entire day to see um the presentations from the people that went to um Hillsdale and just to share with the entire staffs um and I just really want to applaud um the work of principals um Moreno and Miss uh Crawford Bindy Crawford uh coffee with the principal at Cypress High School I was impressed and I think everybody needs to see these presentations Tyler Sherman did a phenomenal job on um EC Cadence and I think we should record it because uh we could be doing our own Con Academy with this cuz the information I was very I was enlightened so much and um can really just speak now about what I know about EC Cadence and also um uh Orlando grigo and Tiffany boss um they did a whole thing on the nutrition of our District Food Services that we provide and we got samples so there was a highlight of that too I was telling people it's this was way better than Costco so you know and the portions were bigger too um and consolidation meeting update uh with parents at Western High School we did that and then I got to go to the you guys uh to the ethics training so that I don't know if you've all done that but the board members have to do that Cypress High School homecoming was a big success um and I also too want to give a shout out to Allison and I know Charles coup is watching at home so Charles I want to just say thank you for your hard work for the College and Career Fair you guys did a phenomenal job bringing everybody together it definitely takes a team and then like Nancy said we were at the state of the city and then the prayer mayor's prayer breakfast I want to end with a quote from Walt Disney you can design and create and build the most wonderful place in the world but it takes people to make the dream a reality you know what I look around this room and the people that make the dream of reality are in this room but I really want to pay attention to our principles as we celebrate principles month like Dr freed said I want to give a special shout out to our amazing principles some I see here tonight um um not not only do they guide our schools during instru during the instructional day ensuring everything runs smoothly but they also take time to plan impactful events like ribbon cutting uh Ceremonies for newfields and Innovative crate Farms despite the busy season of homecoming celebrations uh providing info tables at the college and career fair I thought they were having a competition who who could have the best design table because if you went to our College and Career Fair you'll see uh man it looked like someone was going to get a prize uh for who decorated their table the best but I was so impressed with all the information that you guys were providing but their dedication and hard work enrich our school communities in countless ways and we are truly grateful for their unwavering commitment so on behalf of the Board of Trustees I want to thank um all of our 21 principles thank you so much I [Applause] did thank you well I'll pick up right where Ron left off and just did what he said about the principles so thankful for the fantastic job that you do day in and day out year in year out it's I know sometimes it is a thankless job but uh it's for the kids and we see the difference in the the the students that are graduating and moving on so thank you so much um I finished up the last three back to school nights at Gilbert uh Gilbert was one of them and the spider lab which is being uh hasn't been fully assembled yet but what I'm really looking forward to the opportunities that that lab is going to offer to the students there it's U phenomenal the equipment they have in there and so hopefully by another 6 months and it will be up and running and and anybody that hasn't been there another six months stop by and see the spider lab asked for the spider lab um I attended the JFK Civics Award of Excellence event with the um Chief Justice from uh California Supreme Court there at uh uh honor us uh which was exciting I went to the uh Western High School varsity talks in the morning had breakfast there and and alumni came back and and talked about their experiences so that was really great to hear uh their stories uh the H Cypress High School RI field ribbon cutting event um along with uh Anaheim high school now we have two schools that have that uh beautiful Fields looking forward to more in the in the district and another ribbon cutting coming up pretty soon uh at Western uh I attended the buo park state of the city luncheon uh they have a lot on the drawing board that they're going to be bringing forth in the next few years a lot of construction new construction in the way of housing uh but uh if if past for tells what's going to happen with those homes they're not going to bring us many students it's just I think it's the affordability index that we just won't get many students out of that but still it's going to make the city a nicer place to live um had the opportunity to attend the Mac Freight Farm uh trailer ribbon cutting event and that was uh well attended delicious food uh well done by by our our students who uh they served the meals they prepared the meals and it's a great learning experience for them because they haven't had that experience in life so it it was a real uh real at least the the girl that um served our table um she thanked us for the opportunity I attended the uh Kennedy uh homecoming game after the Mac event and they uh they did very well that night in cleaning the clock of their opponent um I attended a meure k rally which was uh pretty well attended uh and during that that um that walk where um this was on a Saturday so it was off the clock so to speak um I ran into a a u a resident that had a question about uh our bond that we're that we're touting that we want that's on the uh that we're going to be voting for and what he was asking about was exactly what was presented tonight which was the control and how do we make sure the funds are being properly um spent so we had a discussion with about that um College and Career Fair what a fantastic um event I think it gets better every year there were so many people there um and and as Miss toi said the competition it seemed like uh between the schools who could who could be uh uh doing better you just kept going around and they just were very excited uh the schools were excited the kids were excited throughout the whole area um Cypress mayor uh prayer breakfast uh was attended by a few of us and um it was always inspirational and also the Cypress state of the city event the where they presented what their was on their plan um for uh building the city making it better sort of like Bueno Park um I was very surprised uh when I heard that they have uh three times their operating budget as a reserve now can you imagine if we had that kind of Reserve we we' be in the billions of dollars in in our Reserve uh so that that's not that's not very common because I was on on a city council we had I think about onee Reserve and we and we were concerned about the Optics of would people be thinking we had that so much money in the reserve why weren't we spending it well that came to haunt later on uh Oxford Family Center ribbon cutting yesterday exciting that uh Oxford now has a a room dedicated to families where parents can go and and uh learn about their kids education and their future and being able able to be guided in that respect um uh PT then after that walked across the campus and and attended the PTSA reflection uh Gallery showcase uh really neat to see the artwork from the Lexington students and from the Oxford students um I took a couple pictures so I take them home and and show my wife and she was just blown away at the um uh what the students were doing and I think that's about it that's enough so I as as Dr Nan said about uh Nesh Patel council member uh Patel uh he has been so um uh so giving in our district starting B basically with hope school he's he's helped uh boys and girls club and now he's helping uh Gilbert Magnolia excuse me Magnolia yes Magnolia and uh helping the students um hopefully give them a better Insight in life and helping them move move along the the path of of their their uh future and walking better because they all have new shoes so we need to thank Mr Patel for that so that's it thank you Miss Smith well this mine is much a replication of what has already been said but another example of the greatness of this country is the town hall that was uh um presented to the U Community um regarding Western and orange View and over the past decades I don't say this with any Joy I've had the experience of traveling to many communist countries that were deep in communism and you did not see people smile and the other day when I was on other campuses I yesterday in particular at Oxford the kids smile and that to me is such a blessing to be able to see smiles on people's faces I say that with tears in my eyes because we sometimes can't appreciate how very fortunate we are and the town hall that was presented uh at Western uh the group that put that on was outstanding and Patty Neely also went into how the construction is going to change where the bathrooms are going to be and I thought it was a beautiful overview for the community to be able to see firsthand because this is such an unusual thing for us so I want to thank you for being part of that Patty and um the Mac Dinner the imagination that is put into that meal is remarkable the soup was served does anybody want to guess how the soup was served anybody know they took Pumpkins this size and hollowed them out and the ladle went in and brought the soup out and put it into individual bowls and it was delicious the whole meal was wonderful the service presented by these youth I thought to myself they will go through their lives never forgetting this night and as you get older you realize what an important part of your memory bank brings this into who you are and how you were created and I just want to say thank you to the team and um I attended the Cypress High School ribbon cutting and they have a mascot there does anybody know what the mascot looks like unimaginable and whoever created if it was one person or more than one I don't know how it was ever he's huge and quite a remarkable just to watch him walk around I wanted to go tweak his nose because he was toes so tall I couldn't even reach it if I tried but it was a lovely event and a happy one and um the Savannah back to school night uh one of the um ambassadors greeted me and took my husband and me to all of her classes that she prizes her history class her math class um she took us to a uh Roop class she's learning to uh um be an assistant to in the hospital or to a doctor and her um her teacher gave a great example of what they are teaching the students in that class and they had a full example of a body um cadav but not fully clothed it was the bones what am I trying to say skeleton pardon skeleton a skeleton thank you I couldn't come up with the word and I thought that was just so informational because for years I've known about folks that go into this line of work but I haven't ever seen firsthand how they learn it so that was a joy and um the Oxford uh family center opening last night was just lovely and I can tell you that when uh Dr Jen Billings and I um initiated the start of that school my idea is that that school would start Bare Bones we'd have a school that was clean and it would be under five lines of what it would be directed under entrance by test professional attire by for staff academic attire for students and maintain a certain GPA and family involvement and to see it grow to see this family center last night you can just see where the bones of it have grown and grown over the years we had no Athletics when it started and my idea was let it come from the students and from the families and it's such a prize today and to go back and see it this many years later I think it's 26 years that uh we started it but anyway this was uh material that was at the um Family Center and that was well done I thought I'd share it and pass it on thank you one and all for your patience and your time and just being here thank you Patty thank you Miss Smith Miss Guerrero yes thank you um I know was I was absent last month do to a family emergency so just wanted thank everyone for their kind thoughts and patience uh during that time and just want to share a few few of my activities from here to there um I was able to attend the girls flag football Bell game uh Anaheim High School versus Western High School and uh when is history as the girls flag football team won the bell game uh for the girls for the very first time and then that same night I attended the boys flag football with Dr nen uh as well um Western High School did uh maintain the bell for another year so congratul ations to them very excited for them um I had the opportunity to attend Kennedy High School Civics awards ceremony um along with the Chief Justice Guerrero and our state superintendent Tony Thurman um I attended the anim High School RSVP their first summit and um just want to give kudos to the Anaheim High School Ambassador for leading that and her team um also attended along with my colleagues the Cypress High School track and field ribbon cutting the Magnolia High School Freight f ribben cutting and Farm to Table dinner which was delicious and just want to thank all of our partners that are part of that and um a special thank you to Vice chairman Doug chaffy for his sponsorship of the Fright Farm um I was able to attend hope school's PTA um Student Art night their PTA PTA relatively new but they are strong and it was a very well thought out night and it was great to see all the families and children come family and students come together um I attended the insurance Committee in August um and then want to thank trusty hosi for uh stepping in for me in September um I was glad to see um that all of our unions and we were able to come together um so thank you for all of that collaboration um I attended the boys in Girls Club event with trusty hosi um I also completed my ethics training um I also attended the measure K rally along with my colleagues and then this past Saturday um I was able to participate in a congressman Korea's um panel for his young Congressional leaders program and there was a lot of our ahsc students there asking questions and just engaging in how engagement work so I want to thank him for putting that panel together and then I was also able to attend the Miss Anaheim beautiful scholarship program and it was a great night for ahsd I want to congratulate anahim high school student Sophia hall for being named the Miss Anaheim beautiful 2024 2025 and Savannah high school student uh Sophia prudencio for being a named Miss Anaheim beautiful teen ambassador 2024 20125 um and then along with my colleagues also attended the ahc College and Career Fair which uh was beautifully done uh kudos to everyone that helped out with that and everyone that participated um at the event and then I was able to join Girls Inc of Orange County along with council member rubacava for their uh networking breakfast when they shared about Girls Inc and their programs at our schools and I want to thank uh Tanya Garcia from n high school for sharing uh the impact of Girls Inc at our sites and then also along with my colleagues attended last night's ribbon cutting of Oxford Academy's Family Center and then and this morning I was able to participate in supervisor Sero state of the second district so thank you for him for hosting that event and then just want to give a quick shout out to Anaheim high school tonight they had a football game um and it is a dedication ceremony for the Anaheim High School coach um Mr Lanny Boer who dedicated over three decades to anah Anaheim high school as their head football coach um he's also an alumni of anim High School class of 1981 um I just want to thank him for his leadership passion and commitment to student athletes and have and his incredible Mark that he's left on our community um he's had been a head coach from 2004 to 2003 um has had achieved incredible Milestones including 100 career wins three orange League titles and 11 playoff appear appearances um so I just want to thank him for his legacy um to our football program and our Athletics at and I'm am high school and um also happy principal month to all our principles can I clarify something it's 2004 to 2023 20 yes DEC and he stepped away cuz he has twin boys that are now in High School playing football as well so yes so he's still with us but not uh in his capacity as a head football coach yes and then just curious who won the flag football game the first flag football game between Anaheim and Western Anaheim high school and it just wow Robert thank you for that question I just want to hear that again just want hear that again thank you other score so um in the interest of time um I attended uh a lot of the events uh with my colleagues um I just wanted to um again uh you know give a shout out to um all the folks that um attended the rally uh for our bond um and when it passes we will celebrate and a special shout out to you Nancy we know that you've been working a day and night and I don't know how you sleep and where you getting any rest but we really appreciate it we know how much you care about our district and you're going above and beyond the extra mile and uh all the folks that um attended the the rally and and got the um the walk together especially ASA and um our employees that um were there to do that um and I also wanted to give a shout out because they're still here Roop uh family members that were part has participated in our College and Career and you're always uh you know right beside us with um initiatives and uh we appreciate your your partnership um I've always said that uh that Roop is our right arm or left arm what whichever one you choose but we thank you for being there and making our uh College and Career um a wonderful success um and boy um when I walked in I literally walked um from where I live to uh the the um the convention center and um I could see all of the students and families leaving with all their little Trinkets and goodies and just the smiles on their faces and the joy um that that event um brought to everyone um really appreciate um I saw every age there um from Little to big and so I think we're inspiring um uh generations to come and uh really appreciate because every year board gives us suggestions and so this where this one I noticed that um the the whole area the front area was cleared so you can actually walk in and kind of get a panoramic view of what you're going to see and and experience and get an excitement for it um last year was a little crowded in that area and so I don't know how long you stayed Ron but um I know you were there until uh after and so um I think it was a really enjoyable event and um um so many hours and and uh days and nights of planning that so um for all that of of you involved um really appreciate it and again um John you and your team are phenomenal um those uh spotlights I can't wait every Saturday to get that little ding in my uh my phone to uh to see what um your your your your staff has um uh captured um I wish they could be everywhere but uh when they do capture uh the events they really do an amazing job to highlight um all the work that uh that uh um event would hold and so uh kudos to them um congratulations to all of our um ribbon cutting um events and um I attended the Simon scholar uh banquet as well um and um and just a quick little story about um Anaheim High School Ambassador uh she had sent me an email and um I was just thinking oh how am I going to fit this one more thing in my schedule so I work during the day and um I try not to take too many days off but she found me at the Simon Scholars banquet and stood there patiently waiting after I had talked to so many students and she just looked at me and she said I sent you an email and can you come to our RSVP event and I couldn't say no so uh it was she's persistent um and she's she's going places but um the RSVP Summit was phenomenal and it was I was really glad to see uh the students um empowering um each other and how that all um works and again um our site principles I'm in education I've worked for many principles and I think our principles in our district are phenomenal and among the best um and a little birdie um told me that um you know that was one of the hardest jobs uh ever to hold and you do get the brunt of everything um and so we do really really appreciate you and uh Happy Halloween and we're going to be um celebrating next month uh when we all gather together um for our next meeting yeah all right um future meeting date on November 14 6: p.m.