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211 and policy 46.2 motion Amy second all in favor move the Beth Board of vacation approve the technical revisions to the falling policies as re as presented policy 5133 am second Caroline all in favor all right move to the Bethany Board of Education approve no revisions to the following policies as presented policy 6000 policy 6114 policy 6115 policy 6141 312 and policy 61 61.2 second second all in favor all right okay now to the fun portion of the project school calendar discre sure so um there was a a typo in the one that's in your packet so we put at your place uh two versions of the calendar so you've got two proposed calendars uh for your consideration uh version one Mark V1 is the version that I present last month um I'm aware of an email that had been sent to the board members by a parent on behalf of our community requesting that the Board of Ed add Ed and dewali as official holidays on the annual school calendar so for your consideration I have created an additional version of the calendar for you to take a look at um just keeping in mind that the original version that I presented to you last month did have two of the original Three requested holidays uh in the calendar version one calendar as presented in November shows that during the 25 26 school year Eid alatar falls on March 20th which you'll see is already a day off for students because it's a professional learning day for staff the Lunar New Year Falls during the proposed February break and dwali falls on Monday of the Fall conference week so when you look at version two of the calendar um all I did in reference to me in response to the email that had been shared I added a day to the calendar that represents a day off in October for dwali it does mean that during that particular week there would be no no school on Monday school on Tuesday half days Wednesday and Thursday and a full day um so that would be the potential impact to the calendar for next school year by adding the one additional day because the other two days were already accounted for in the calendar I don't know if you have any questions um I will share that I know AMD um had their board meeting on Monday and they tabled their calendar they did not take a vote on their 25 26 calendar for next year you had sense in the week you had detailed for us how it impacts you went further I went out five years right which was really helpful so I guess a question is this might be ridiculous question but I'll ask it nonetheless you know currently if we opted we voted to take it for the 25 26 school year it adds one day which isn't you know huge I say that but who knows with the snow convering and things of that nature but obviously down the road what you projected showed it's going to push us out even more if we opted to take this an obligation to do so every year or is this a discussion I mean this is something that once we commit to we commit to it's a discussion that the board can have every year it's the proview of the Board of Education to determine which holidays you honor or do not um honor each year um when you all decide the calendar so in some years as I said I projected this out for 5 years what it would look like to include all these holidays more often than not they fall during what we could make our March professional development typically we make our March PD day a Friday it just so happens that this year it also coincides with the particular holiday and the next two years it falls on a Wednesday there's nothing to say that we couldn't hold the professional development day on the Wednesday no different than we do when we have election day which is on a Tuesday so we have some of that flexibility um if in I think it's in three years might be in two um if the board decided that they also wanted to have the holiday that falls in October we could certainly have the October day and be a little bit more mindful of maybe when we have our conferences you know there's nothing that is set in stone as to when we have conferences and open house and those things we tend to set those Ates because we like we like to work around Board of Education meetings we like to make sure that we're in alignment with Amity so that way if we're having conferences here we're not doing them on the same night that they're having them at amid because we want to make sure parents have the opportunity to participate in both schools so we do have the flexibility um you have the purview as the board you have the ability to set a calendar every year and if next year you said you wanted to have Veterans Day Off K create us a calendar for our consideration that now gives us Veterans Day as a day off instead of a day on then that is what I would do but it's the purview of the board to make that decision and you're not locked in once you do it once doesn't mean you have to do it forever um but you you know would have to have I think a sound rational why you would make a change correct I guess my question would be what's the impact on our school Community if we don't do these celebrations so we've had and Tom and and I talked about this it's very difficult for us to know exactly how many students um or families in our school celebrate any of these given holidays we base it on the information that is like someone will email Tom and they'll say Hey you know we're celebrating this particular holiday our child will be out we say okay no problem do you want us to send home work you don't want work that's fine we'll catch your child up when they return so it's an excused absence for the students so there's no adverse impact on them and we have less than six anywhere between four and six families who during our time here have ever asked for support if it's a holiday where students have to fast they want to be in school but they're fasting so you know we don't make you know we don't send them to the cafeteria to sit there and watch other children eat like so we support the families in that way um but it's never been a large ask of us that's not to say that there aren't students who are absent on those days we just can't say for certain we can't you know look at someone's name and say oh you must be absent on this day because you're celebrating a particular holiday for all we know the child could actually be sick or like some of our other families on vacation so it's it's very hard to tell because we don't require you know that's not a box that they check on their registration for I celebrate this particular religion or these particular holidays and there's an interesting there's a couple of other interesting things that just just throw it out there you can give it some thought a number of parents have expressed in the last couple days the idea of getting rid of most of February vacation so you can pick up days there there's other and there's also a number of studies that indicate that the more you break up the schedule the learning process becomes different and Kay and I talked about this I think you said New London does a six week on two we off excuse me they have no holidays per se that's something we can look at what you mean by that I look sure so when we when Shannon and I attended the Cap Caps conference there was a um workshop on thinking outside of the box you know getting beyond the agricultural calendar for school and uh there's a school uh in New London and so what they did is they piloted a version of school where it's 6 weeks on two weeks off and so they were able to work with different Community agencies and I'm just a really really brief summation of it they work with different agencies to make sure that parents had child care but what it is is every six weeks they're like they go to school for six straight weeks no days off then they have a twoe break they go for six weeks then they have a twoe break and what they found is they found that there is um greater teacher satisfaction there's less absenteeism greater attend for teachers and students um and it didn't cost them financially any additional dollars because what they did and so you don't have to open contracts is they reworked the teachers work schedule so the teachers still work the same number of days and they're still paid the same amount of money as the teachers who work the standard calendar um so that's something that they've been piloting um dur in year two um in that particular district and one of the nice benefits that they hadn't thought of that worked out for staff is that any of those teachers or par Educators that usually work during that 62 model when they're on their two weeks if they decide that they don't want to go on vacation or be off they hire them to work as substitutes during those two weeks so the teachers actually make additional money and some of the par Educators and the teachers also during those two weeks work in the their park and wreck or whatever their um organization is that they partnered with to cover the child care for families so that way parents don't have to figure out a 62 work week uh work schedule for themselves they know that they already have the child care uh available to them at the school and then July and August would just continue in July and August it just continues the 62 and the way they they made sure that they all the children start at the same time but then the children who are in the 62 model again they go six weeks they're off for two weeks they go six weeks they're off for two weeks from a family side many of the families who are able ble to really appreciate being able to go to Disney on an offse instead of in February whenever else goes so they they've you know expressed lots of different benefits lot of work goes into it because you have to do compacting of curriculum so you've got to take that fifth grade curriculum that you're stretching you know for the trimesters and you've got to look at okay this is what we're going to cover in this six weeks then we have the two weeks off then we have the six weeks on and so it was a lot of work to do um but you know I've always been an advocate of the year round school in a longer school day but I know I'm in the minority but but because there's so many things that we're responsible for doing and there's just not enough time in what this is pointing out is the fact that now is is is we're starting to get more and more quote unquote diverse everybody wants a piece of this pie and so pretty soon you're going to be it's time off and you're going to school on days you know you're going to have the days that you're in school you know if you add three more days now it doesn't impact us as Cas said the next year or the next two years but it can and so you add three more days off into otherwise fractu and it really impacts that there are numerous studies I've only read two or i' I've read the synopsises on a number of studies but there's only you know so much time when you start to break up the school year the kids just you know you're in school for a day you're off for two you're in for two and and that does not promotee learning and that that's why we're just talking about this it's not something that I'm saying we should do but conversely it solves in some respects it solves a number of problems now when no no one group gets preference over well he's got seven days off a question that was risen we don't get Sink of the mail you know and my the joke with my daughter when she was in Middletown is they don't recognize any of the Jewish holidays you know so it's it's a matter of where and what but at some point there has to be some give because now it's starting to get very very fragmented and there are any number of Educators that want to see the February vacation I know my wife was one of them because it breaks up the cycle of sickness and gives the kids and the teachers a break when you know it's February is normally a um a nasty month for for kids being sick even though the couple of months haven't been all that great if anybody knows so it's just something to think about you know we're starting to get uh requests and we have to be cognizant of those requests so it's just something to think about could I ask is it you know you've got so it's not so choppy if you do this holiday can you move the the parent teacher conferences to the next week it would be possible to move the the parent teacher conferences we would just want to make sure you know that that we align with that we're not aligned with our boa counterparts so in some instances things on our calendar we don't want to be Lock Stock with our neighbors because it makes it difficult for our families they have to choose do I go you know support my child that's at BCS or do I go to the middle and high school and support those kids so that is that is a that is a potential consideration to to move the dates because if you if you do it I think it's too Chun you off you're on and it's a half and a half and you're on and you're off it's like you coming or going and and that that's what we're talking about is the fact that I agree you know the continuity is important I don't know I mean seems a little like we're kind of talking out of two sides here because we're talking about how we you to improve education but we just had a report about how awesome we finally got the formula and then we're talking about we have to but now you're adding three more about choppy well we are well well right now it's one but we're talking about the choppiness if you have a a you know one Monday off or Tuesday off of the week that's a little less choppy than every six weeks you get two weeks off to me that's just as choppy different CH levels of choppy but I agree it can get a little bit much if but now the question is like I think the impact of this is going to be a very dependent on February break is there going to be a February break or not and if that is something that's up for discussion then you know whatever action we were to take on this calendar you know I think it's got to be dependent on what's looking at that you know what is going to happen with that and what is the trend for that is this just it was away and it came back now we're talking about bringing it away is there some sort of what is the rationale for our community wanting to have it and then get rid of it and then have it again because we don't want to keep doing this that's to to me that's choppy wasn't the discussion to bring February break back because Amon and break and the internship well and then orang is only what three days match that correct So currently um based on this current Year's calendar three of the four boa districts have the full February break orange chose not to participate in having the full February break and in my initial conversations with the districts the first version of the calendar that I shared is the one that we all agreed upon the only exception where we weren't aligned is orange had the shortened Break um for February they weren't short whether or not they were going to propose it for this calendar because there has been some feedback that they've received about being the only District in the four that didn't you know support the full February break for the Ed situation so but I don't know Community let's just put it out there orange didn't have a February break of the elementary school which then impacts the students from Orange that are at the in The Amity District the my understanding the push back is the majority are the orange Board of Ed members from Amity that are saying they don't want the February break because which would make sense as it would align with the orange school district do we know at all from Orange what the rationale is for not having it is it we're just going to be different or is it the majority of families have said they didn't want it and they're answering to their families from what I recall from our initial conversation last year it was not supported by their board um and when we went kind of round and round we always have the conversation of what does it do for our families when our elementary school students are in school and Amity students are out it's not really a lot of impact for us because if F if families are using those Amity children as babysitters it it's not a problem right the elementary school kids are here The Amity children are home it's when it's the opposite that parents tend to say you know we don't really love this because we depend on older siblings or what have you so if they're in school and the or you know the younger children are out that makes it very difficult for families for child care so we had kind of remedied that situation um in this instance I it might be because with the orange children going to school The Amity children are out so it's not an impact to the to the families looking for child care through Amity students but my understanding was that the board didn't support a change in their schedule so what Wood Bridge in Orange think about these additional days so they haven't presented yes so they haven't presented um in our conversations that we've had since Friday evening um they were going to wait to see what happened at amid on Monday nothing happened at amid on Monday they decided to table it um AMD was putting together several different iterations of a calendar for their board to consider um most of them with the exception of I believe one version all still included a full February break so it's not something we have to act on tonight but it's just something to keep in mind that there's a lot of Swirls and Eddies here would it be it might be interesting I I was thinking about the number of families who you know reach out and say like you know my kid is fasting today or my kid's going to be home today because of the valley or you know whatever the case may be I wonder if it I think there are families who maybe would benefit from having the day but they might not reach out about it right um so I wonder if like the next time that we do some sort of a parent survey it might be interesting um and maybe we don't want to do it because we don't because we can't give people everything that they want but it would be interesting to know which are the holidays that are that people are celebrating if there's some sort of way to gather that in a in a way that we could for not for this year right I think it's too late in the process this year but it might be nice to do that in advance of yeah and and I would say say to to that we can certainly ask whatever the board would like us to get in terms of input moving forward um but just in having conversations there are people sayable there are several other Roman Catholic holidays that we would we would that we would like to have right like yes you have Christmas but I celebrate Easter Monday or I would like holy Thursday or you know some of those other Hol well there's several Church holidays and she do give excused absences yes yes it's always an excused absence if someone says you know I'm out because I'm celebrating this particular thing they're never penalized um for it but I guess just in terms of thinking about like you know we have a history of trying to to honor a you know a limited but diverse number of holidays it would be interesting to think about not just from the perspective of which you know people who have reached out on their own but like of the families that haven't talked to us what their interests are sure if we chose to table this again is there a what's our like quote unquote deadline that we need to make a decision or there is none I mean we're not going to T this till May no we usually try to have it we say by August we better have a calendar we usually try to have it done by January um so that we stay in alignment with what we have to report to the town clerk's office with regards to the board of ed dates so this evening also on the agenda is the um request for the approval of the Board of Education dates because those dates must be filed by a certain deadline and so what I would just say to that is regardless of what the board decides to do with regards to these holidays or anything else just you know you could still vote tonight on the board of ed meeting dates because that doesn't change I would recommend that we table the only reason I say table it for one is to find out what amon's going to do because in some respects I think we could say okay we're going to go with version one fine and then all of a sudden Amity comes back with something in which they've they've eliminated February break yeah or who knows and and without that knowledge we're kind of maybe making a decision and so since we don't have a a hard and fast uh wall up against not a Time wall yet I think you know punting wouldn't be a bad idea until we find out I mean if they come back in January and say we still haven't decided what we're doing then we have to act unilaterally and be done with it and then we live with the consequences but I I think is one day sufficient for these holidays I don't I don't know Ober for this year for this year for the one day per holiday yes so it it has potential for being multi days and we don't have to take it three holidays a day each for each of the holiday we we don't have to even accept it these holidays are not like you know I have to fast for three days for I'm just trying to the duration religious celebrations right I'm I'm not a keen expert on all of the aspects of it but what we have seen is it's been during the daytime it can be multiple days where they're fasting um but they fast from sun up to sun down kind of a thing which obviously impacts children when they're in school um okay but and aside from being respectful of people's religion which I certainly am you know there's a description here that burden for catching up on classes but they're only missing one day so has there been any experiences where you think the kids missing one day is going to be stressful not here catch up um and as I said the the other part of it is we have children that miss a day all the time you know whether it be for sickness or traveling or whatever when students miss the teachers you know take the time to say this is what you've missed they give them the work if they need extra help they get help it's stressing the kids out if they miss one day it's more so that you know we're trying to respectful everyone there's nothing that says we have to accept it if we can just accept the calendar as was present with it and I know the Jewish holidays are far more impactful with their sabbaths and their fasting than the one day that's included in our calendar excuse so my suggestion put off the voting on it until January but can we send out a survey both regarding holidays but more importantly the February break to see how how the February break is for families because I've heard the same thing I think it might be tough to get a read February break because the calendar year right now is the first time we've had we haven't had it long so they haven't had it yet yeah and that was the question that came up last month a lot of people are actually thrilled to have it exactly for one of the reasons that you pointed out that it's that break of illness lot of people end up taking the week because there's that long weekend before and after so they just oh just take the days anyway and you end up having a February break and missing and and just so what we learned last year when we were first proposing this is that we we found that there was a dip in the attendance the Wednesday Thursday Friday before because they would take the Wednesday Thursday Friday before have the Saturday Sunday and then the Monday Tuesday um and those are cheaper travel days than just traveling on that you know Friday to the following week um and I know that we had had a little bit of discussion about this before like what do people think of the February break can't tell you because we're not in February yet so I don't know that it would be meaningful I mean we certainly could put something into to the weekly or send something out to the families but I don't know that it'll be meaningful because people haven't had the opportunity to experience yet um I know the superintendent in Woodbridge um had you know done a little dipstick of a survey of of her folks to see and it was split you know I think it was like 56 you know to 40 something for the split on the February break and again I think it's probably because people don't know what they're going to well how they're going to feel about it they haven't had yet point from earlier to have it one year and then gone the like that I I think it feels to me like it makes more sense to be a little bit more consistent with it and then a CH to evaluate given the amount of work that you have to do between now and January I okay chotki um I I don't think a survey is like I said just table this for for for a month give it some thought there's nothing that says we have to take the day off there's nothing that says we you know don't have to it's just a matter of uh you know give it some thought and hopefully by next month AMD have arrived at something and if not then we go at ourselves it's it's that simple and I'm and I'm happy to create a version three of this calendar that represents all of the days off but with your suggestion of moving the conferences to to a different time frame I wouldn't move them sooner because we like to get kids in and settled and get some good data on them um just recognizing that if we moved the conferences by one week um we'd be looking at the Wednesday Thursday of Halloween I don't just let's let's happy to do it let's let's stick with what we've got for now okay like I said we're we're in the middle of budget we're we're we're not the middle of budget we're coming up on the end of budget this was just something it's starting to make the rounds the board should be aware of it personally I you know I I'm not willing to make a decision yet but I am going to be willing to make a decision next month so just give it some thought whether or not a we should consider it B let the calendar is presented go and we'll worry about it next year you know we'll kick the can down the road but I think we need to see hopefully some input from Amity um yeah and I won't wait until the next meeting if I learn anything or get any additional versions I will if am has a new version out that they're going to present I will make a comtable and I will share that you know I think not to try to add any more work and C not to rush it but I think that when we with this February vacation I I believe it's more of whether we want whether there wants to be time off or not I I think it's more of a myth about this holding off the sickness I remember it was a year or two ago where everyone got hit with it about two weeks before February break they all got it they were all healthy and then we went on break so it's we're literally just guessing and then we're sending kids off into all these other states on vacation to go get something and bring it back I don't know that that's a you know I I don't know that that's was The Helpful so I understand that but that wasn't our primary driver for correct I'm just for anybody intership piece yeah no but for anybody who's thinking that February break helps for illness I don't think so this February break coming up to look at absences and how you know how that balances out to see what those stats are yeah I mean and we can certainly do that it's just we still will have to figure out a way to tease out the people people who called their children in absent yeah sick because they're still on vacation right that's a thing it's okay I think we beat that we'll get some additional information we'll be ready I think we beat that horse up there so if if there was so you didn't actually make the motion that was in here correct no motion's been made it's just disc so we're going to table it you made the make a motion to table this for 30 days postpone it well table it it's same thing so who's who's making you're making the motion I'll make the motion to table this till the next meeting yeah that's all second Sean all in favor I that was my point that we need to make motion to do it you're T yeah you're tabling to the next meeting no big deal we do these things all the time okay now this is what K was talking about the Boe meeting dates for the town court those have to be published we have to act on them that's a state statute yes so what you have before you uh in your packet are the proposed dates that fall on um our typical second Wednesday of every month for the Board of Education meeting um that's in accordance with Section 1- 225 of the Connecticut General statutes a schedule of regular Bethany Board of Education meetings that have to be filed by the town for a period of no less than 13 months beginning January 2025 through January 2026 do we want to have an August meet well we we have it with the um so long as it's published then we can have it but we can always choose in July to not have it yes so we'll leave it in there but just understand that the August meeting is discretionary at our uh at our convenience many of your meetings are discretionary well but for the most part that's the one July or August yeah yeah we don't want to start you know February and March and say we're not going to bother having any um so okay so I'll move that the Board of Education approve the above schedule of regular Board of Education meeting dates for January 2025 through January 2026 person to can General statute section 1-22 the motion second all in favor I all right administrative reports superintendent sure it will be very brief um you've got your enrollment summaries in your packet uh as of November 30th 2024 we have increased our numbers by three students we now have 434 students enrolled um by way of a Personnel update Joseph Slowinski has filled our vacant full-time custodial position that um Mr McCoy left um and Regina kratus has filled our vacant lunch Aid position our our vacant RBT position has been filled internally by one of our par Educators who's gone forth and gotten the additional education and and uh certifications that she'll need to do that and uh that is Carla Roberts but Carla is going to remain in her current par educator position until we can fill that spot with educator uh the position has been posted and the team will be able to start interviewing once we have some viable candidates and that concludes my report so is that position for special education yes it's a special education position so we didn't want to remove that individual from working with the children she worked with we wanted to be able to provide a continuity programming for those those children um and she's more than amenable to that so once we have a replacement for her and then we can get them trained on you know working with the children that she currently Services then she'll be able to move into her new role uh do you want to give a brief update on the before school and after school programs Mr re has that in his report okay I turned I turned that over I handle it that's fine it's in someplace it's it's in Tom's report okay director of special service or anybody have any more questions for uh for K director of special services Cheryl you're on I just have a very brief report um great Forest had the opportunity to work with Robin Moore they working on strategies solving multi word problems as well as thinking classrooms so they're working fifth and sixth and now we've added in fourth grade this year so we have that continuity working that's it thank you Tom reach whale you're on all uh so just to give kind of a recap of things that were happening December we had our November community meeting uh and we moved that up to coincide with Rudy brid's uh walk to school day so we had our community meeting and then at the culmination of that uh students had made posters and signs uh kind of commemorating her first day of school uh and we walked out the back of the gym and around the school um and came into the school and ju position to the environment that she being clapped and welcomed and celebrated into the school so kind of honoring uh her challenges but also being grateful for our school and community and then we also talked about the obligation that we all had as a community to make sure that anybody who comes through our doors feels that same celebration door open so uh really a positive day was brought to by Brook hly as an idea and we ran with it um and uh Miss na and I are really excited to take a look at that is a successful start add to that in the coming years uh we had American Education week in the second week of November which was really positive uh picture retake day was on the 26th our snowlake shop as you heard uh from the PTO has been going and kids are ecstatic it's adorable uh I helped like seven kids today find Little Friends for their mom or their dad grandma uh it was really wonderful um we're working on our pause holiday donation toy drive so um what we've uh been able to do was Secure some dollars to be able to purchase some uh toys for the uh holiday toy drive so families are always donating things which we're really grateful for but it's tough for kids to participate in that they can't be like oh here let me take $20 and I will go get a toy right um but what they got do is they've got Paws in our whole syst so as they those Paws we collect those and then we as um per the number that they donate we go and take that money and purchase toys on their behalf so they are purchasing and participating they're an active participants in that um uh we conducted our second round of case reviews for students receiving additional support our intervention students so tier two and tier three uh students who receiving support in um either reading or math or both as well as um any support that they might need with uh social emotional learning or behavior challenges uh our Sayang for the senior lunch in uh this last Friday and then the tree lighting as well on Sunday it was really adorable over I was telling the staff this morning uh Mr Fortune Chad Fortune uh is our Music Teacher our choir director and he brought the kids over and they sang through their program and they got through it a little bit quick and they were like well can you sing a little bit more and he goes sure and so he said well can you just sing the whole thing he goes okay and so they did oncore their entire performance it was absolutely adorable um so there great um it's one of those things where like kid singing does it get any better the answer is no um in terms of an update for BCS kids it's been a really positive program uh as we started you know we had initial concerns about how what our capacity could be based on staff um and so really our limiting factor right now is that we have four full-time staff and we think people can do Monday Tuesday wednes Friday the reason that our teachers can't do Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Fridays because Wednesday is our staff meeting day so um any of our certified staff who need to be staff who needs have the availability on everything but Wednesday so we have four staff um who can be there all the way through so our Max is 40 I call 39 so we got the mess with that ratio um currently we have 24 students signed up um 17 who are you know full week Monday to Friday and then as we had reported uh previously we opened up some what we were calling Flex spots so if a student is doing BNN and they need say five six weeks go five six weeks and then when I not doing BNN they they would go Al BCS kids or somebody might say listen I know I have a staff meeting at work and I need to get into that early on say a day can I have just Wednesdays to the end of the year and so we've got seven students who have some version of flex a lot of it's you know one to three days a week um we have one student who's doing a short stint um we have another student um who's doing uh you know one day a week through the sem the spring semester um um and then we had a family who had requested just a really short bit um they just had some child care but they let us know ahead of time so it wasn't like a drop in um we planned out what that would be um and then got that set for them so we've been trying to be really responsible and flexible but making sure the families are planning with us we can't just have 10 kids show up on a Wednesday that could really mess with our our ability to cover Keep Kids Safe um yeah uh they love making bracelets so mus faits is um it's one of the things they keep running through in terms of supplies like that's our additional cost you know we have the supply cost the only thing they're going through is all the be for rais because the kids are having it red up so um been really positive uh as we look forward tomorrow we have a parent Academy focusing on coping skills so our our Behavior Support team is going to be doing that Parent Academy we've been able to secure um uh both uh dinner uh to be provide and child care so that we're making sure that that's an availability for anybody to be able to become cards go out on Friday um and Miss K Miss Na and myself have been working um we know we've gotten some feedback in terms of our handbooks we try to enhance the handbook so that when parents look at the um report card they can look at the handbook and say this is the state you know this is what I see is being reported out for my kid what is that go we've identified exact word and language for those standards for every single grade in a chart for each grade so we've got that available for it kind of connect those dots for so they can see you know what we're reporting out on and and be able to have a greater understanding um we have our holiday singalong on um on Thursday next week uh Miss na and I are still working on our kindness for the staff we're really excited about that uh our winter Benchmark uh for our Benchmark data is coming up in the middle of January and then our Winter concert is s for the 16th of January we're really excited so that's what we've had going on and what we will have going on Tom quick thought um when you when the report cards come out with all that information on there whatever feedback you get sort of put it in the bank for now because I know our ccul committee we've had those discussions about report cards it's going to come back up on our agenda again to sort of see where that is so that would be great data to have and and see what kind of feedback we get from parents on the changes that you've implemented sure and is that at the are you thinking like you're going to send out the link in the handbook again or just make sure people know to go with it yeah our goal is the report CS are going to go off we're going to have that updated for the handbook to go out so that you've got those in and we tried to make sure you know really kind of connected up because like I think about okay phological awareness let's specific we're really looking at it very specifically so if we are if feel like full transparency this is exactly what we're recording out on and and so that way parents can that's the whole point standart right you got a B is it a b because you were doing really well but your homework was lousy you were struggling but your homework was great you know like how did you get that be right but when we do the standards based report card it really allows us to be able to say this is the skill that we were working on for students parents to know what those were are people happy with that process with the report card um I I mean I don't know everybody's data I said for me looking through it with my kids and knowing you know a little bit about standards based grading and um I you can it can be difficult to follow sometimes and not just because of something that bethan is doing but in terms of Standards based craving in general so we had talked about trying to find ways to make it easier to read like an example was that your feeling Shannon and that's what we talked about yeah you know you you three guys have and Jo you guys got kids in the system I mean I'm used to it by now my daughter in sixth grade but yeah when my kids first started report cards were like like an example might be my child has a two on this math standard and then I'll read the teacher comments you're kids doing awesome in math and I'm so proud of them and all the work they're doing and they they've really hit all these standards right and I'm like how you just said they had a two so how did they hit all these standards right but then when you go and have that conversation it gets explained out a little bit more but the you know the question that kind of I brought up is well is there a way to explain that out before I have the Panic of why is this saying why is the teacher saying my kid's awesome but the standard saying they're not meeting it and something before I have to go in and have that conversation explain it the last two or three years seemed this the report card thing seemed to be a big bone of contention I have always found these this is nothing against the summit teachers I me the summit teachers are all amazing Kim um but I have found with my second now I sometimes feel like what you're getting in the the note section is almost like they're hit maybe they are I don't know I mean there's a lot of kids they're dealing with in the younger grades you're getting a more detailed one to one on your child but because some's got such a broad range of children it's a little more it's a general and that's fine and you get a lot when you go in for conferences and the teachers are available but I've come to grow used to it and being on the board of Ved I understand it but I know sometimes for some parents that could be a little bit well that's why I was asking because for years the last two or three years especially it seemed to be a not a bon and contingent but it seemed to be a concern and I was just curious that you know you four guys it was very different it was different and there was definitely a learning curve for it and like I said I think it was something that we could as a school district look to improve on because if I'm in education I was having trouble following some of it then someone who's not in education is trying to understand it is definitely going to have trouble following it and that's where we had brought that up and I think that they've been you know the school district's been responsive of trying to find ways to make it more accessible to parents and that's why I brought that up to save that data and see this is something they're trying to see to make it more accessible to parents let's see if it works if it doesn't let's have another conversation about it so yeah there's definitely been conversations about it and the district's been receptive to trying to find ways is it there yet maybe maybe not we'll see after some of this we'll see how much of that is it's kind of like the the assessment data that we just watch the presentation on you know for four or five years trying to figure out the right formula looks like we got I think you're probably looking for that right formula now for you know to really assess the standards and report it out in a meaningful way okay thank you good question all right superintendent uh chairman I've got nothing to report I just would like to say one thing though for nine years I've been asking why aren't our math scor is going up it's ridiculous and I'm finally happy to say thank you because now we're seeing them go up and nathman is nathman Tom Cheryl K teachers all the teachers thank you because we're now finally starting to see and I remember Sean and I having this discussion a while ago we're finally starting to see measurable positive results and as Angelo said earlier uh maybe we finally hit on the right formula so now we just have to build on but again uh kudos to all involved you guys did a good job and I think our parents are well served but that's my opinion hopefully it reflects the rest of the board but um correspondence nothing public comment oh okay see it pays to ask what's that you got three minutes all right I have to give my address this time um Melissa zaldo 191 Beacon Road um I just wanted to add my two cents to the whole calendar conversation as apparent um recognizing the fact that I do have an older child who these one or two day offs really don't impact me he can stay home I'm a work from home mom so he's fine on his video games um for a day it's just I feel too that this calendar is getting choppy especially coming out of Christmas break where I just counted it's eight days eight School eight calendar you know business days it's not including the weekends they're back for two weeks get an early dismissal Martin Luther for King day then they're out again for another week um it's a lot and as a working parent trying to arrange child and again I said having my kid home from one day here or there is fine but a week off trying to arrange for child care for Christmas break now my husband was able to do it this week this year now I have to come back and try and reach child care for another week off which I'm taking this February vacation off and then coming back and having it's very choppy and again all this success that the students are having is great but I feel that this I'm starting to feel that these kids are out of school more than they're in school so I am not in favor of the of the February break I might be the only one who's saying that I agree with Angelo I think that whole sickness thing might be a little especially coming out of the pandemic thing might be a little overblown and kids get sick like illness has went through the school what a couple weeks ago and they're going through the school now I just want to take I just wanted to from my opinion out there as a working mom that having an extra week off in February I think is too much and is a lot okay thank you y no I've got a lot of got a feedback there's some for and some against all right that uh includes the public comment policy of this program motion to adjourn make a motion so moved all in favor thank you one and all
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all right as soon as it hit 7:30 we are live so ready call at 7:30 United States of America for it stands one nation God indivisible withy and justice for all Mr Davis here Mrs Reed here Mrs helmo here Mrs Allen here R here Mr Golden Mr Golden I thought I said Mr Mr Juliano here Mr Jones here M Dente here I have a motion in a second to approve the Action meeting minutes from the November 21st 2024 meeting all those in favor I oppose orain right all right Mr Le yeah I'm on all right welcome everyone thank you so much for coming out on this much colder night than it was yesterday right how quickly this the season change in New Jersey uh we are going to start the meeting this evening as we always do with our students of the month and these are our students of the month for November so I'm going to start with our students from JFK and when I call your name I'm going to give you a certificate and ask that you stand up here with me so we can take a picture together deal deal deal all right all right our first student of the month for November is Juliana Andrew [Laughter] Z there you go I'm gonna read a little little blur up here uh Juliana demonstrates strong leadership skills she follows rules and classroom expectations she displays empathy and compassion for all the students in the classroom by helping them were providing support when they need it congratulations great job our next student for the month of November is Viviana seino job vivana consistently demonstrates leadership kindness and compassion in the classroom she has done so by motivating peers offering help leading by example and embracing the uniqueness of all her classmates great job our next student of the month is Gracie molski there you go Gracie is a pleasure to work with you guys can turn around what an audience Gracie is a pleasure to work with she is super sweet and kind she puts in 110% in everything that she does she will go out of her way to help a friend she is an awesome role model and everyone even adults can learn from her she makes me want to be a better person every day congratulations our next student is Tali Busby to leave helps others without hesitation or asking he does a Fant fantastic job switching between having fun and being serious when in class he is kind and friendly towards everyone so congratulations to to and our last student of the month for JFK is Liam heran Liam is a student who displays strong character he is very in tune to the needs of others he looks out for others especially those who struggle or need assistance Liam is also very mannerly each morning he makes sure to greet his teachers and Say Goodbye Liam has improved his impulse to be done first and works with much more care Liam is a responsible student and a pleasure to have in class so congratulations to Li all right kids come over here and get a picture with me over here turn your paper around honey turn around and hold your certificate up so everybody can see it with the writing all right big smiles conratulations all right moving on to our students of the month for Eisenhower our first student of the month for Eisenhower is Michael Adams Michael is an exceptional student who consistently demonstrates a a strong work ethic and a deep commitment to mastering the material in every class he approaches each each subject with determination and engages thoughtfully in class discussions offering insightful responses his peers frequently seek his assistance and he readily offers his support displaying a collaborative Spirit his dedication to learning and helping others makes him a valued member of the classroom so congratulations to Michael our next student for DDE is Wendy Allegria pooka there you go don't you go anywhere Wendy is a conscientious hardworking student she gives her best effort at all times and exemplifies the traits we would hope to find in all of our students respectful kind and honest Wendy is an asset to our school Community congratulations our next student is Giana Worthington congratulations there you go Gianna Worthington is a shining example of kindness hard work and dedication to her studies she consistently goes above and beyond always putting in her best effort in everything that she does and participates in several community activities when school is not in session for National Junior Honor Society her positive attitude and bright smile light up the classroom creating an uplifting environment for everyone around her she actively participates in class but she also takes the time to support and care for her classmates making sure no one feels left out uh her compassion and work ethic make her a true role model for others we are proud to recognize her as the seventh grade student of the month and last but not least from dve Anna Mason the eth grade team has chosen animason as student of the month because she consistently demonstrates exceptional qualities both inside and outside of the classroom Anna is a hardworking student who approaches every task with dedication and perseverance her intelligence shines through in her academic achievements and she always goes above and beyond in her assignments in addition to her academic Excellence Anna is incredibly kind and considerate towards her peers always offering support and encouragement her positive attitude and strong work ethic make her a role model for others congratulations all right Pi your time uh okay so you guys can certainly stay for the rest of the meeting but you don't have to stay for the rest of the meeting so you want to go home and get for the evening thank you so much for coming out [Music] [Laughter] Okay so so each year for the state um every school district has to do the hi self assessment which is basically where each one of the schools in your district has to assess um against a bunch of criteria how you did implementing um your programs and um how you did with with the law with following the law for harassment intimidation and coing um and every year um I am going to be coming and present the scores to you all so that you can see our self assessment scores you have a if everyone didn't see it you have a printed out copy in your folder so you don't have to try to bend your neck all the way around to see that screen all right so how we're assessed eight core elements uh rating C categories are exceeds requirements meets requirements partially meets requirements and then does not meet requirements there's a total of 78 points uh possible in the rating system Eisenhower scored a 74 which is which is very good it's it's about where I would expect them to be and uh JFK scored a 55 um and again this is for last uh school year just so we're the same page year uh core element number one is approaches and and programs other initiatives so annually establishes hip programs um implemented programs assessed programs so on and so forth out of the 15 possible points the Middle School um scored a 14 which again is right where I would expect a middle school to be um and JFK uh only scored six points so um dve exceeded expectations on on all but the um one thing they did not exceed expectations they didn't have a law enforcement officer on their committee um and so we've already rectified that and added the SRO to the committee JFK partially met requirements for the establishment um for that element uh did not meet requirements for the assessment um met all requirements for creating a schoolwide condition there's a school climate team but they only met once last year and they didn't meet to assess or identify any patterns of hit um so we know that last year was kind of a a funny year at JFK and so all those things have already been rectified in the fall of this year core element number two up Bo schools score to nine uh that's because we train all of our staff on the hit policy um prevention the the training included prevention on the basis of the protective categories and other distinguishing characteristics um and the staff discussed the hip policy with the students for core element number three which is other staff training out of 15 possible points uh dve received 13 JFK again received a little less which was 10 and again we rectified that um moving into the school year so that we're able to meet the letter of law um fully and make sure that we get all our points in the self assessment core element number four curriculum instruction on Hib and related information and skills which is ongoing age appropriate instruction on preventing Hib both schools to um spectacular job in in doing that last year um both schools observe the week of respect which is actually listed uh in the self assessment and so both schools receive six points core element number five um is about hi Personnel so principal appoints a school anti-bullying specialist which is the counselor at both of our schools um that person meets with the district anti-bullying coordinator at least two times per year um and they meet with the school climate team to address issues as well out of nine possible points dve had eight JFK uh had seven core element number six is um hit incident reporting procedures um so JFK only had four um because they didn't implement the reporting procedures the way that they were supposed to be reported um in all the cases that were brought to the attention of the administration last year so again something that's been rectified moving forward and if you remember I also brought in new um software to be able to manage the cases for H which you all see when you when you have the lists and uh element number seven the hi investigation uh procedure again DD 12 out of 12 points JFK 7 because of the shortcomings there last year um and it's things like completing the investigation within 10 school days um you know notifying parents there's there's a a statute you have to call parents right away you have to send letters again all those things are happening now they I cannot I cannot tell you that they were happening when they were supposed to be happening with school and finally core element number eight is procedure for ensuring staff number of reports include the required information for all incidents um and we had six possible points at both of our gos for any questions that heat is cooking in here M Megan it but it feels I didn't tou it I was free but I love it I love it I've been talking for 15 minutes she I did turn up I didn't turn it up I promise she did turn it up right I have people that come they like to know that I'm warm I'm sure Jody's listening it's hi Jody she always takes care of me um all right so did you you don't need to go over the mission statement or gos or anything like that okay and we are going to do um public comments we are going to do a motion in a second to open the meeting to the public for the discussion of agenda items only second all those in favor those are obain okay at this point we will uh close the meeting to the public can I have a motion in a second please motion second all those in favor oppos obain I think it's your turn back up again huh okay uh first uh items as always on my section of the agenda here Safety and Security drills both fire and safety drills were done uh last month at both schools uh item C is the monthly reports uploaded to the portal for your review item D is one report of a hi at JFK that was found not to be a violation of harassment intimidation bullying uh uh E1 is our the board's affirmation of the hi that we had um at last month we read a last month's meeting uh F1 is the approval for the self assessment report that I just gave to all of you that also can be found in your portal uh item F2 something new that I I added to the agenda uh for this meeting and then moving forward anytime we have fundraisers in either of our buildings we're going to um make sure it gets on the agenda some fundraisers use um facilities and they would be on the agenda because they're facilities but if they're not using the facilities and they're just fundraisers for whether it's peace or um you know one of our own staff then we're going to make sure it's on here for for a vote so that everyone knows about it uh item number three is the second reading for two policies related to pre school um admission and then also all all the rules for our preschool program uh item G very happy to say that we have pretty much gotten all of our field trips um on the agenda I think we're missing one which is second grade and we're just trying to come up with a date that works for that one so we're we're way ahead of the game for that uh item uh H1 is new hires so we've been busy in the short amount of time since you've last seen us we have a number of of new hires coming in H2 is uh leave of absence of requests for three separate employees and that's it can I have a motion and a second to approve the superintendent items XA through xh motion second any questions Mr Davis yes Mrs Allen yes Mr Jones Mrs R yes yes Mrs Reed yes Mrs helmo yes Mrs Juliana yes Mrs orente yes and Mr Golden yes right business and finance I don't have um the November um a through D approving that because of our meeting is so early this month so I didn't have time to get the treasure um everything's in there it's just a matter of getting the treasure and my reports to align and get them dropped off to her so they will be on uh for the January meeting so the first item we have is bills everybody had a chance to review and sign and double sign and all that item B is to approve the November 2024 listing for source for teachers the pay rates and Bill rates are listed for each position C is to approve the um cafeteria dispersements for the month of November in the amount of $49.25 D is to approve the care dispersements for the month of November in the amount of 95742 it is just to approve some from travel and professional development as well as their related costs and the description for some of our staff members may I have a motion and a second to approve business and finance items xia through xie motion second any questions Mr Davis yes Mrs Allen yes Mr Jones yes Mrs R yes Mrs Reed yes Mrs Helo yes Mrs Juliano yes orent yes and Mr Golden yes perfect I don't think we have any old business uh new business we don't have any updates for negotiations um we did have a finance committee meeting um no updates to our special out of District placements right now um the Assa was submitted um on December 6th when it was due our enrollment is down about 35 students but our um pre redu on population is um quite a bit higher than it's been uh not that that's going to account for the loss of enrollment but based on the the low income increase we may have some maybe not as large of a loss in state aid um I know that there was some talk on the county level as far as uh the impact of the covid loss and those funds so I don't know if the state is going to do anything to um with the school funding formula we have no idea at this point we're going into it with flat funding and we will um you know assess the situation once once we get there um special ed costs continue to drive our budget increases lots of support services in our schools um you know so we're we're bringing a lot of support services in to kind of train our teachers to kind of get um the kids to be able to be successful in the classroom and our goal is to hopefully eventually kind of phas some of those out um and allow the teachers to have the the right tools to be able to be successful with our kids um the preschool expansion grade budget worksheet will be do in the coming months and that will include that fifth uh classroom for preschool for next year um Grant reimbursements are submitted monthly we have a title one performance report due on December 20th uh as you saw we hired a bus driver that was to fill a vacancy um three drivers and myself conducted those interviews and uh we were very happy with the candidate we selected and then the annual ethics disclosures will be coming out sometime in January so you guys will get that via email and you'll all have to um take care of that and submit it and then let me know when it's there not speaking of bus drivers there's been a number of of sort of holes to fill for the last month and and Megan has done an amazing job of making sure that it's all still running the way that it's supposed to so wanted to make sure I got that on my right and kudos to my drivers for absolutely for implementing my plan on a daily basis absolutely and it's a daily basis um they've been great I'm super lucky to have them here um school boards Association uh I haven't seen anything for them uh ed services Michelle uh we had a meeting um there's really no updates and our next meeting is in February um Pine okay we had our meeting the other day um not basic stuff happened except that we did get a new board member we swore her in the other day because we had a vacancy um we also submitted the our superintendent's contract is coming was coming up so we voted to submit her new contract for five years um to the county superintendent the band concert is tonight and I believe the choir concert was the other day um last week I think it was um so that's all that really happened at the board meeting but then we had this happened before the last board meeting here but I wasn't able to attend was the site council did you fill them in at all Stacy since you were there or no no Stacey joining me at the site Council no no I'm sorry it's okay it's okay um I wasn't sure so I brought it um yeah we had Stacy was there another pin Hill Board member was there I recruited someone else from Berlin to go in there with us we had quite a few parents which was nice to see because we didn't we hadn't had them in a little bit um and we didn't have after Mr Lee left left last year we didn't have a site council meeting the rest of the year so it went well um we currently have there's 864 people that attend over Brook now so it's gone up quite a bit in the last like three or four years um they discussed Mrs fiser was there and she discussed the senior trip as I think most people are aware they're no longer doing Disney because they weren't getting enough people to sign up for it and so they had talked about doing um believe it was Williamsburg Virginia or wasn't that where that's where they went last year that's where they were supposed to go was Williamsburg but they only had 15 people sign up for it so they didn't have enough people they needed 40 in order to get like the the prices that they were being told so Mrs fiser did her best to um she's booking a trip to the Poconos at Pocono Valley Resort I believe where they can do everything there it's only a weekend trip it's Friday Saturday and Sunday but it only costs $300 so I think there's more kids that'll be able to afford if anything um and it all the food is included anything they do with the resort is included um the bus will take them there Friday after school is in session like all the schools have gone the it'll be an over Brook bus that takes them to the Pocono and then they'll pick them up on Sunday and bring them home um let's see they also started the new vice principal started these really cute things their um postcards that the teachers have to send out every month and they have to send out a certain number each month for students that are doing very well or that they want to like highlight something they've done I mean doesn't have to be a student that's getting straight a um and I actually said something about it because I gotten two for one of my boys so I was very excited I was like is this new this is so cool you know um and so they pointed that that was something that the new vice principal brought over from his last school and then um they're starting to see an uptick in referrals for cell phones um however the first few months was kind of like warnings so now they're getting referrals to the principal's office um let's see they're developing a wellness check-in for out of school suspension kids um not completely sure how that's going to work yet but they're starting to develop something to go with that um the seniors purchased their caps and gowns last month and um we wanted uh there was a few things on here I written down it's been almost two months since the meeting so forgive me um that they want to promote other sports to hopefully get either newer Sports in there or other kids to join um and also the fairness in sports especially we talked about the the JB Sports because like the coach some of the coaches are not fair they play their best players but that's really where they're supposed to develop their players so um that was gonna Mr K was going to talk to Mrs Smith about it and hopefully develop a plan for at least the JB coaches to want about that um they're also putting the new announcements on the website and everything should be pretty up to date so that's it that I can see here all my notes um school boards for Camy County I don't think there's much but um I did want to say thank you to Sarah for serving our board even though it was a brief time we hope you'll come back and jump back into it was a fun couple months good experience we appreciate your time and service and dedication to the to the board um anybody else anything for new business all right I'm going to open the public open the meeting to the public for discussion of non-agenda items can I have a motion in a second second all those in favor oppos to [Laughter] obain hearing none can I have a motion a second to close the meeting to the second all those in favor opposed or obain all right at this point we're going to have an executive session so I'm going to let Jacob know to cut our stream and then we can go ahead and make that motion to go um into executive you ladies are free to go have a wonderful night thank you the purpose of the residency yes I'm sorry yeah I was going to do that when we opened it I didn't open it yet I want to make sure we cut the stream me already there that's that's my thought yeah e e e [Music] all right we're back we are we're back we're back missed it all right so we are live so we do have um action to take after executive session I need a motion and a second to uphold the administration's recommendation of ineligibility of residents for children of RT um in the minutes I will actually have the Sid numbers of those children um can I have that motion in a second motion second all right I'm going to do a roll call um Mr Davis yes Mrs Reed yes Mrs helmo yes Mrs Allen yes Mrs row yes Mrs Juliano yes Mr Jones no Mrs oriente yes and Mr Golden yes right so motion carries um um eight yes one no motion um can I then have a motion a second to adjourn the meeting please motion second all those in favor opposed or obain have a wonderful holiday have a great Christmas Adam you need minutes for that assessment
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e e e [Music] all right good evening I'd like to welcome our Board of Education members our District administration I see Dr Gentile and Dr Bas are here let's give them a round of applause thank you welcome to family friends and special guests welcome to Parkway Elementary School's Winter concert we are delighted to have you join us tonight as our talented very very talented students and teachers showcas their hard work and creativity through both vocal and instrumental performances this evening's performance is especially exciting because it features a delightful production we've been eagerly anticipating the cookie production thank you to District administration and our board members for your steadfast support of our programs and for all that you do for celebrating our students musical Journey sit back relax enjoy the show as we celebrate the season through the gift of [Applause] music thank you Mrs Conway I'm going to add to that because tonight we have a very special guest with us um not I'm not sure many of you no but the New Jersey education Education Association is an association that promotes and supports School staff teachers and also your children once you decide to become a teacher you know that the priority is always the students you go to trainings you take classes so that you become a better educator and this very special person tonight is a veteran teacher and he is also the vice president of the New Jersey Education Association and the president elect for next year we're very happy to say when I was at at a conference trying to become a better educator I happened to be there with Mr Steve Bey who is the vice president he talked about in one of the sessions his love for music and playing the guitar and that was a way he relaxed so I went to him just by chance and I said you should come and play at one of our concerts I teach in Ying New Jersey would you come he immediately without hesitation because children are always first said I will be there I will do the best I can I followed up and he very gladly agreed to join us this evening for our performance so can we give Mr Steve Bey a round of applause [Music] tonight we're going to begin our program with four songs that celebrate the season the holiday season our first song is a favorite it is Carol of the Bells our second selection celebrates Hanukkah oh Hanukkah and the Festival of Lights our third selection is for the chilly days of winter for the winter and we will end with our holiday Quanza we hope you enjoy [Applause] [Music] spe for spee [Music] Christmas merry merry merry merry chist [Music] [Applause] [Music] Christmas merry merry merry merry Christmas [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] w [Music] let's have a party all the and around the table will give you a treat to play with and while [Music] we sh us [Music] table give you a to and while are playing the candles are burning [Music] one for each sh [Music] [Applause] [Music] spe [Music] Brees everywhere [Music] myind to the Tre and thear and I look inste to the and [Music] iight see bre in the fall as G to the [Music] win [Music] of as I say goodbye to the pain and [Music] the [Music] the and [Music] I for the win for the Winn [Music] for the winter [Music] [Applause] [Music] oh oh p p oh P oh p oh s days of cration 7 Days of C days of [Music] C days of [Music] cation oh [Music] oh [Music] oh days of C days of c s days of Celebration oh [Music] oh [Music] oh oh oh [Applause] up [Music] he [Music] well it's that time of the year again the days start to become shorter the air is chilly and cold and Tiny icicles start to appear icicles form when melting snow drips from a surface like a roof or tree bridge and the cold air causes the water to refreeze as it drips down over time as more water trickles down and freezes the wa the icicles grow longer and thicker creating sharp glistening spikes of ice our first piece High the beauty but also the sharpness of winter we hope you enjoy [Applause] icicles for [Music] n [Music] the [Music] [Applause] it's snowing it's snowing no car it's not snowing that's just the pizza of a towel pits snowing pits snowing what does pits mean pits is short for the tying word means to pluck the string when all the string and is pluck together it sounds like falling snow oh I get it now well I'm so excited to play pit snowing who knows maybe it'll convince the weather to give us a snow day [Applause] [Music] m [Music] w [Music] [Applause] [Music] yeah e [Music] you [Music] now that the snow has finally settled it is time for one of our favorite onter activities a slay ride join us as we take a care through the snow we might even hear some holiday favorites like Deck the Halls and jingle bells well I guess that's our cue here is first one to slay [Applause] ride for [Music] the [Music] he [Music] p a [Music] [Applause] guess what my family just baked my favorite Christmas cookies last night night well cookie gingerbread oh I love gingerbread last year I led up all my gingerbread men so they look like they marching across my kitchen table well if only they have real instruments there would be a real parade you know I think I know the perfect song for this parade we hope you enjoy ginger breadman on [Applause] [Music] I [Music] [Applause] [Music] every [Music] [Applause] [Music] going Co start to wake up and do what bers do [Applause] [Music] C [Music] [Applause] time to cookies cookies cookies time to make cookies time time they're almost almost done look the sun here they come one by one [Music] [Applause] come on everybody come follow me I'm the gingerbread boy as you can see I'm the Gingerbread I'm oh so sweet and I'm decorated from my head to my feet cookies your heart sauce with flter love me I'm peanut Buttle well if you look at me and you want to do some cacing that's cuz I'm all oatmeal racer [Applause] oatmeal we're so sweet to and kood especially we are s we're all cookies so give us a try you'll love me I'm W [Applause] [Music] pie everyone thinks I'm a little bit naughty but I'm not bad but I am B Scotty listen up everybody your future is clear he's a fortune cooking have no fear it may sound scary and it may sound strange but you're all headed to a cookie exchange a cookie exchange what's that that is what bers get together and each bring a bch of cookies then they meet up together and everybody take home a few of them sounds scary sounds fun seems to me like there's a catch you mean we all get separated from our batch making new friends or something I don't mind but I'd rather stick with my very [Music] own I heard of deer a swarm of bees we can live together like any of these PE a gagle before they even hatch that's what it means to be part of a batch a briide of lives a school of fish stay with my friends is all that I wish AES needy to catch that's why we stick together in the your back allik that's what we like wearn a l all what [Music] all we're just like a part of Wheels a pack of wols kids with Tails we should get like a con of bats One Big B around a tower giraffe a stand up amingo his best F that's where he go we stick together like chicks hat right at home in our own [Music] back what [Music] whats to be a of ACH that's what it needs to be a part of a match what it to be a of the [Applause] I don't know if I like this cooking exchange it all just seems a bit strange the whole thing seems quite scary to me I like my friends to stay close to me IDE seems like a TR I'd here the rest we lady fers don't want to be trouble with us but we rather be with cookies that are just like us oh aoy for something is approaching tell us forie what would be our Fortune someone is coming in a sure in a hurry they have four legs and look rather fur it's a little of puppies and their eyes have some fun they love cookies so to run [Music] I [Music] and I want [Music] R over s over [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] does puppy want a cookie what are you crazy or would you rather have a bone I ever I so I got my kiss from listen up everybody I have something to say why does he speak so slowly he's made of masses I think we should reconsider the cookie exchage if you give it a chance hey it might not be so strange I agree it might be time to try something new you might get to know others who aren't like you you mean a snowball cook you might get to know a dog biscuit you never know you never Isis it you mean a Russ and te Kake could be friends with a whoopy pie you never know unless you give it a try [Music] to hard to make all you have to do that you are and the new friends W be hard [Music] new friend all along the way [Music] new every all you have to do is you are true will be PR it's to your circle we got sweetest cookies I can ever actually that's true I'm learning that it's not so much on the outside of friends but it's in the middle that really really counts at the cookie stand I bet I find that we're not so different after [Music] all friend all along the way friends in every day all you have to do is show that you are true and the will be true to you true to you [Applause] cookie exchange will be here soon I hope I get to meet me nice macaroon I don't know why I was so frighten and scared friendship like cookies hard to be shared it's nice to meet others who are not just like you it's nice to make a brand new friend or two but wait I think the puppies are back they sure do love and on the sure friend be careful these are my friends and you just can't eat them these are my friends and you just can't beat them that's one tough cookie but I heard that there was bacon right over [Music] there nice work short bread that was the most rvest thing I've ever seen so that's way a cookie crumbles what a fun and delicious day we met a whole lot of friends along the way new friends come in all shapes and sizes and new friends may be full of surprises listen up everybody my fortune tells me you will have lots of fun let's start with cookies for everyone [Music] of day everybody clap your hands and cookies cookies on way here is going to without cookies chocolate chip gingery just a par [Music] the you're going to [Applause] [Music] treat EET we together we are see hoay it's a special kind of day every clap your hands and cookies cookies on your [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] cookie please be going [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] I hope we've sweed you up a bit that was adorable thank you so much for coming to our holiday concert on behalf of Miss wri and myself and all of the teach and do you see those adorable [Music] costumes those were made by the art Club here students at Parkway and supervised by our fantastic art teacher Mrs vento she did all the makeup she is the hardest working art teacher at Parkway No Ex extraordinary we could not have done this without her I'm so glad that we had the opportunity to share your children's talents right back to you I know you are very proud of them I promise them that if they did a good job they make it an extra gift so from you not me so thank you I'm going to turn the microphone over to Mr oy weren't they awesome let's give them one more round of applause staging our annual holiday musical is an incredibly huge undertaking that takes countless hours of rehearsal Miss vento I think spent every weekend for the last month creating those cookie costumes at home learning choreography so I'd like to thank the people who made tonight possible starting with Miss Laura Hall Carney our vocal music teacher Miss Marissa Wright our instrumental music [Music] [Applause] teacher our art teacher Miss Diana [Music] vento fourth grade teacher and drummer extraordinaire Mr Eric Thomas and our returning accompanist Miss McDonald on behalf of Mrs Conway and myself we wish you a safe happy and healthy holiday season parents as you're picking up your children tonight we ask you to wait in the gym we will Spring the children back into the gym and you will exits out of door four and five thank you so much for being here tonight [Applause]
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[Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] okay okay I call to order the special meeting for Bullhead do the budget first right yeah it's the hearing we have to do hearing oh we have to yes okay all right um I'm calling to I don't have to call this to order well I do have to call order I'm calling to order the public hearing for the fiscal year 2025 expenditure budget revision number one pursuant to AR ARS 1594 48 C and D 15905 15 95.1 159 62d and 1,13 C for review of the fiscal year 20125 expenditure budget roll call pres Melinda saski Charlene Diaz here Fred rushon here barer ziki here okay we're all here miss superintendent uh so Cass if you would put up the summary please so this is uh the summary of the budget revision um uh you can see reflected on line one uh the difference in the ADM so keep in mind that's a average daily membership uh it's not the number of students we actually have enrolled it's the average of how many are in seats every single day M okay and uh so you can see that's um down sum from last year uh you can also see the uh primary tax rate and um and then you can see uh the budget limit and what we're proposing uh for classroom site fund and I'm not quite sure I did not notice that it's indicates that we're over so h I will fix that for the next revision okay uh and then um uh it is establishing an unrestricted Capital outlay fund uh and I don't know why that budget limit is less than what I have over there and I'm not quite sure why it came up with different numbers than I had on the calculation pages so um we are allowed to have that because I moved some money from maintenance and operations over so um and then you can see the details down below uh for the various uh line items instruction and and those things and for instruction that includes uh salaries and benefits and uh any of the other expenditures like supplies um purchase Services anything that uh that we purchase or pay for for directly for instruction and so on Down the Line okay we did not cut salaries we did not cut benefits no so if you're wondering how how I managed to take 300 and something thousand out of the budget uh one of the things that I do is is based on the data we have put into the budget lines um uh for sure what we know we're going to expend so like with salaries when we set up that budget in July we maybe don't have everybody hired and so you know so I overestimate in that based on an average salary um and then calculate because benefits other than um insurance for full-time people average about almost 22% of the regular salaries so whatever is budgeted for salaries benefits are going to be roughly 22% beyond that plus whatever expenses we have for insurance so um that explains one line for you um and so I go through the whole budget and do that um uh and and a lot of things like uh fixed expenses like electricity and water and sewer and all of those things uh I pretty much base on the previous year and maybe add 5% to that when I get done I have some number and then um hopefully and it's always worked out this way that number is less than than what the um budget limit is so then whatever that amount of money is I go back and I put them in um uh I park them so I park some extra for salaries I park some extra for uh fixed expenses like utilities I park some extra for uh uh repairs and those kinds of things okay and that does a couple of things for me one is if I have budgeted I'll use an example if I've budgeted $5,000 for um maintenance supplies for each campus and that I'm just picking a number to make it easy to understand if I've budgeted 5,000 for each campus and 5,000 for district and then I've put an extra 5,000 in uh that holding account that holding line then if I need money if I need more than 5,000 one of those sites rather than having to take away from somebody else's I pull it from that holding account okay so I had a number of those holding accounts so those are the ones I went to first when I needed to cut money how can I cut these back okay um uh if we had for any site for instance um whatever the budget happened to be a million dollars for salaries and benefits um and uh we didn't fill a position then I could go back and pull that salary out okay so there might be $50,000 probably not there might be $40,000 okay so plus the 22% for benefit plus the 22% for benefits so maybe totally that would be around 50 so now I've got 50 of my 302,000 um and then literally as as tight as this budget is um I call it nickel and diming so I print out a copy of the budget I print out a copy of a copy of the budget it's actually the account summary that shows me here's what's budgeted here's what we've spent so far here's what's left and um and here's what's encumbered so that I know you know that I'm not eating into money that I'm going to need in March right so here's excuse me so here's what's not really budgeted and um this year there weren't big numbers in that column so sometimes it's literally nickel and diming sometimes it's going down and taking 1 th000 here 1,000 here 4,000 here 3,000 there whatever um and that's that's what you do until you get back to your number that you need okay so um uh my question is if suddenly Sunrise should double population okay you know this exactly all hypothetical would we be able to because of the ADM thing can we read we can do a we can do a budget revision anytime okay the the uh the one that's required is in May the one that this one is required for us because there was a significant drop yeah okay so November early November they sent me an email saying you know because it was after the 40th Day um you're you need to adjust your budget you need to have a revision in December we could literally have a revision every month if we needed to um uh thankfully we don't have to do that but but if we you know if we were in one of those years this is one of the advantages of this fluid uh the fluid budgeting process unlike in the past when you could only adjust after the 40th Day and only adjust after the 100th day for us because those numbers can change dramatically fortunately they don't but they could change dramatically from month to month um so you know it is possible that we could do a revision every month if we needed to um uh thankfully we don't have to but uh but we could if we needed to and we get that we get the report that helps me understand where this might be going after the 15th of every month and um and that shows me what what numbers might have changed um it's called the BSA 55-1 and it and it adjusts every month based on the abdm report and numbers that go in to the state um and uh uh that kind of thing so we could make the adjustments anytime we need to okay so for instance if those numbers so next week when I see the new BSA uh 55-1 that should include the data for our free and reduced lunch population which can CH could change our number by I don't know it depends on how they calculate it 25 to 35 kids well 25 to 35 kids times $5,000 you know would put some money back in this budget so I could potentially come back to the board in February or in January probably in February and ask for another you know another revision if if we find that we really need to be able to spend those dollars that's what I would do is that I would bring you another revision putting those dollars back in um so we'll you know we'll see how much of an impact it has okay any questions just for clarification on under classroom site fund for 2025 that yeah negative number is that incorrect well I'm thinking it probably is now that I looked at it and I will tell you I looked at these numbers so I don't know how they changed um um the classroom site fund number is what's on the page in the budget the summary these two pages of summary are in that whole budget document so I feel in the information over here and then it populates this automatically um and it would would have told me you're over by $126,000 on that page and I it didn't say that so I'm not quite sure why we have this so when we approve this if we approve this then we approve it with um the understanding that it's going to be corrected it will be corrected there will be changes we will have to have a revision I mean we always have to have the revision in May anyway um and so I I would say let's not panic about it because we can fix it um and I don't know what happened with that unrestricted Capital outlay fund either because uh the page that lets me do that said that I was under the UN unrestricted Capital outlay fund by three $400,000 wow by the the budget limit um so I'm I'm not quite sure okay why this is coming why this is reading across this way we will fix it okay I would just making sure we can still approve it I think even though those may not be correct yeah um uh I would say yes okay yeah oh we and they would just send me a note back with a caveat that they get changed right they corrected yeah and you can do that the other thing is that uh when we upload this um if uh there's system sees an eror that you know sees an error it pops right up it says it either says rejected and here's why or it says accepted but with these errors oh okay okay and um uh so there's always the opportunity to fix it okay and of course I want to fix it I don't want it to not match any other questions P would you scroll down please uh go to the page two if you would please there we go so um this is uh on down okay uh what happened to the uh okay what happened to the other things like food service oh there are the there are the special projects and stuff so you can see um um you can see the various other things so class areum site fund is there uh Federal projects and you can you can see that we're at $3 million in federal projects right now a year ago we were um probably double more than double that because we still had Esser funds and you know and things so um these numbers have dropped so unless you have other questions I need a motion then to adjourn the public hearing I make a motion we adjourn the public hearing I'll second that motion all those in favor I Melinda sabraski I Charlene Diaz I Fred rushon I Barb sersi I'm calling to order the special meeting for Bullhead City School District on Thursday December 12 at do I go by this one or do I 103 a.m.
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[Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] spe for [Music] [Applause] [Music] is for [Music] [Applause] [Music] video want [Music] oh [Music] [Applause] [Music] I [Music] back what's that e [Music] water s [Music] good evening and Welcome to our 2024 winter instrumental and coral performance music performance we want to thank you all for being here tonight as we close out this semester thank you for all of your support your encouragement and for always being here for the school for the students for the staff and for the entire Community we really love you all a lot we wish you all a happy holiday season we're very excited and proud of your students who've been working really hard and I know that you listen to them practice you help them practice you remind them what they're supposed to wear you help them find their books their binders their music sheets you drive all the way back home to get all that stuff for them when they say I forgot it so thank you so much for supporting them and for supporting our the Arts here at Continental we'd like to thank you and then if we can have a special message from Santa remember students your grades are coming up there's nothing more important while you're off during the Christmas vacation is to read read read read it's very important for your life skills hey Santa let's give him a big round of applause [Applause] thank you Santa all right next up we're going to welcome our Civics one of our Civic sponsors Mr Fox and Civics if you don't know it's our Civics club they're going to be doing such wonderful things for our community and they're also fundraising money to go to Washington DC there are eighth graders and we have Mrs Diana herck who's our PT part of our PTC so they'll be picking we want to thank you for supporting many of you bought raffle tickets and they'll be picking out the winner right now ready so here we have first prize which is valued at let me find the tag here uh $485 so let's see who our person's going to be and if you're here you can come and grab it if not we'll call you if you're watching the live stream azzia Teasdale I can't see so hopefully uh very blinding up here all right for second prize which is valued at $315 we have Rosa [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] sto and then third prize which is valued right now at $170 will be lordes Soo if lordes is here come and play your Le awesome um if you're not here I I honestly can't see a thing the stage lights are are very bright so if if you're here but didn't want to come down we'll have them outside um in the concession stand thank you very much [Applause] hello everyone my name is Cynthia bti I'm one of the music directors here at Continental coming up first we have our fifth grade Choir performing for us a fun fact about them and myself this is the first year I've ever done fifth grade choir so um they are having their big debut right now a little bit more about this group we meet during our music specials times and um we have about 50 minutes once a week to reverse and I am so proud of these students and impressed with the work that they've accomplished in that short amount of time and we will be singing two songs for you the rhythm of the rain and Carol of the Bells while they're still getting s situated um just a couple of things if you missed out on that Civics raffle we do have a music basket drawing that we're fundraising for and um we're fundraising for our Disney trip 2026 as well as our current aboda and jazz festivals that are coming up this year so if you missed out on that one feel free to go buy tickets at the snack bar or support us by buying some snacks today um without further Ado we're going to get started with our fifth grade choir Rhythm of the Ring spe [Music] to the Rain of the rain to the rym of the Falling Rain listen to the rhym of the rain [Music] [Applause] [Music] to the of the [Applause] r list to the r [Applause] [Music] of the r the of the r of the r [Applause] [Music] go down on the way e [Music] can we leave [Music] chist [Music] everywh [Music] [Applause] [Music] Sil [Music] [Applause] chist [Music] [Applause] W thank you our second Ensemble for you today is the Middle School choir this is my second year of having a Middle School choir and it is just a blast we are going to sing three songs for you first one is cherry blossom the second second one is Noel Noel and the last one is a Christmas medal Paul Here Comes Christmas we hope you enjoy [Music] [Applause] see the [Music] Cherry floting hereo there Cher P falling everywhere has you come along with the Cher [Music] is [Music] so to God we all [Music] so see the Cher BL [Applause] no no [Music] noing the Kings [Music] we King the GL all so thirsty we so thirsty thiry thirsty [Music] thirsty around [Music] [Applause] [Music] thirsty so thirsty it's so going to cry they're thirsty they're so thirsty HS are saging Tong are [Music] bring some water bring [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] this R off the red reindeer had a very shiny nose and if you ever saw it all [Music] ofgy Christ eve Santa came to R off with your nose so bright you my and [Music] R better C I'm telling you Santa Claus is coming [Music] out Santa CLA is [Music] coming Hees when you're sleeping he knows you're awake he knows you good [Music] good you better you better cry better not CL I'm telling you why Santa Claus is coming to town here Santa Claus Santa Claus Santa Claus [Music] L and your T dasing through [Music] the r is r s song ton oh jingle bells jingle bells jingle all the way oh what is R in the one hor this jingle bells jingle bells jingle all the way is jingle bells jingle bells jingle all the way what is ride open jingle B jingle B jingle all the way oh what fun is to ride in a one open one open SL [Applause] so up next we have our fifth grade Orchestra Jo joining us on stage as they come on stage and take their spots I'll give you some information about this group so just like the fifth grade choir um I meet with them during their specials times for music which is about once a week for 50 minutes and also like choir I'm really impressed with the progress that this group has made it is not easy picking up a new instrument for the first time learning how to hold it let alone Place some notes on it so today they actually prepared three pieces for you the three pieces that we're playing are hot Fross buns Mary hatle little lamb and Twinkle Twinkle Little Star let's give them a warm [Applause] welcome e [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] e [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] all [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] let's give them one more round of applause [Applause] so for I believe all of those students here on stage that is their very first instrumental concert so really impressed with their progress up next we have our beginning Orchestra directed by Mr Fox coming up so they're going to make their way on stage and I'll hand the mic over to Mr Fox for for for [Music] in [Music] than [Applause] [Music] to [Music] [Applause] [Music] l [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] Happ [Music] Happ [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] com yeah [Music] e for for [Music] all right so this is our intermediate Orchestra this year these students have been playing from or between one in four years most of them uh some of which started in fifth grade with me these are my fifth grade from when I first started um we will be playing for you menuette Lotus dance and first Christmas March [Music] Hal [Music] h [Music] the [Music] [Applause] [Music] h [Music] for for [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] so this last one that we have for you is first Christmas March I don't see our so some of our beginning students are supposed to be joining us on this go ahead beginning kids so start making your way onto stage if you're in beginning Orchestra joining us for first Christmas March so as they're joining us a little bit about the program the pro has pretty much tripled in size since 2021 so there are quite a few kids who are now joining the Arts like f like Orchestra and um and Jazz Band band choir and um we're really excited to see this growing program and as we grow we're trying to provide as many opportunities as possible for these students through aoda festivals like Arizona band and Orchestra Directors Association um festivals last year our Orchestra went and we placed with the excellent which is a very great rating for this group we also went last year with the jazz band and for the first time in Continentals history we placed with a superior with distinction with that group so that was really awesome to see them and to see them grow so you'll see them here in a few minutes after we um play with this group I'm going to help them [Music] e for the [Music] GL [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] the [Music] oh [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] Happ [Applause] all right so this next group so our next Group performing first is our chamber orchestra this is a group that meets for zero hour and um they consist of our most advanced string players there are still some that I'm trying to convince that are in intermediate to join um we have quite a few talented kids here at our school that are very capable of of being in the chamber orchestra um but a little bit about what they do so they meet every day at zero hour that means it's really early in the morning it's still dark out right now in the winter time and I'm so proud of them for having the motivation to get up and get out the door especially when chamber orchestra is not a graded class it's just because they have um the love and joy of playing music and they want to get better at their craft so without without further Ado I give you the chamber orchestra [Music] in for [Music] la [Music] I [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] the [Music] for [Music] d la [Music] h [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] the [Music] la [Music] [Applause] w [Music] for e [Music] so just like the other fifth grade groups this is our fifth grade band they meet once a week for 50 minutes and I am also very impressed with how much they've accomplished in such little time let's give them a warm welcome [Applause] [Music] oh [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] let's give them one more round of applause [Music] so just like the fifth grade orchestra that was their very first instrumental or or instrumental band concert up next we have our concert band directed by Miss hatch coming to join us on stage let's give them a warm welcome [Music] like Miss Fetti said this is the concert band they're made up of sixth seventh and eighth grade students some of them have been playing their instruments for a while some of them just started this year so we have a little bit of a mixed bag but they've been working really hard and we're excited to show you what we're going to do they're starting with a song called taking it all in then they'll play attack of the slide trombones with our soloist Harper poer [Music] a [Music] [Applause] [Music] a [Music] la [Music] [Applause] [Music] go yeah m [Music] a [Music] a [Music] la [Music] [Applause] our last song is going to be a little bit of Jingle Bells upside down in it you'll notice the melody of Jingle Bells sounds a little wrong that's because it's upside down we hope you enjoy for [Music] a [Music] la [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] oh e next coming on stage is our wonderful jazz band directed by Miss vti they have a little bit of stuff more stuff to set up so they're on their way [Music] h for hey [Applause] [Music] oh [Music] a [Music] la [Music] go [Music] oh [Music] la [Music] la [Music] [Applause] I [Music] that n [Music] [Applause] [Music] I n [Music] la [Music] of [Music] [Applause] before we close for you tonight I do want to recognize our two soloists that just played Micah cherry on the alto saxophone and a Adams on the tener sack this last tune we have for you is an arrangement of a Bassy classic it's called lose and hoses flat [Music] [Applause] [Music] he oh [Music] ch [Music] [Applause] h [Music] Happ [Music] [Applause] w [Applause] all right so that is our Continental jazz dance let's give them one more round of [Applause] applause before I forget that last soloist was Adeline Adams on the alra saxophone as they exit the stage just a few reminders if you're interested in supporting our music and Fine Arts here we do have some tax credit forms out in the LOB um if you're interested and then we also have that music drawing happening soon and we'll be pulling the winners tomorrow if you submit for it and you're not here tomorrow at our first grade musical the littlest Christmas tree um we will call you if you put your phone number there and let you know that you've won have a great night everyone thank you so much for being here last reminder lost and B please check the lost and B before you leave tonight thank you so much again for being here
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e Y no we just say we're coming out I'm just gonna sign out yeah I saw that on the yeah okay we are now entering a regular board meeting can I have a motion to adjourn no have future meetings I move that we adjourn the board meeting as soon as Mayorville reads what she's going to read all it was was future meetings uh next one is January 9th I move that we adjourn the board meeting I second all those in favor I I thank you
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e e e ready we all set you set good okay good evening can I call the meeting to order and have a roll call please Dr Lopez here miss mcris here Mr Holt here Mr Willard here Mr Carlson is absent can I have a motion to adopt the agenda I make a motion that we adopt the agenda as presented second all those in favor I I I can we please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance and a moment of silence IED Al to the flag of United States of America and to the rep for it stands one nation God indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you next item is item D recognitions Dr you guys want to join me some FR ch okay we have some uh we have some exciting recognitions tonight uh looking forward to uh to the next few minutes here uh to kick us off I would like to ask Mrs Nikki Tapia to join me up [Applause] front you don't know what you're clapping for yet so tonight we get to recognize Mrs Nikki Tapia one of our outstanding teachers at Coyote Trail Elementary School who was recognized as the 2024 annual science Teachers Association at the 2024 annual science Teachers Association conference back in November as a state level finalist for the presidential awards for excellence and Mathematics and Science teaching the award was established by Congress in 1983 and is among the highest honors bestowed by the United States government to K12 science technology engineering and Mathematics teachers from each of the 50 states each year through the presidential awards for excellence in Mathematics and Science teaching the president of the United States recognizes outstanding Educators from across the country who teach stem at either an elementary or secondary grade level uh grade level recipients of the presidential award represent the best of stem education demonstrating deep content knowledge of the subjects they teach and the ability to motivate and enable Student Success awardees reflect the expertise and dedication of the nation's teaching core and they demonstrate the positive impact of excellent teachers on student achievement the National Science Foundation administers the award on behalf of the White House Office of Science and Technology policy would you please join me tonight in congratulating Nikki [Applause] Tapia certificate there's more hold on hold on we have the plaque the official plaque so very cool certificate wow so now we squeeze congratulations these are the guys by the [Music] way okay so tonight we have two additional recognitions we're going to start uh these two with honoring Dr marabel Lopez governing board president for her service in unwe ing dedication to the Morana Unified School District Dr Lopez has been a dedicated member of the musd governing board since her election in 2005 that's 20 years people 20 years of service to this community after completing her first four-year term she was reelected in 2009 2013 2017 and 2021 over the course of her service Dr Lopez has demonstrated leadership by holding the position of board president for six years and vice president for three years Dr Lopez's heart has always been in education in her 30 years in education she has taught Spanish at Catalina Foothills and bilingual and regular education in Sunnyside School District she served in administrative roles in the Sahar School District Florence school district and and coolage school district and her commitment to educ and I remember this conversation that we had uh her commitment to education took her back to the classroom where we talked about her wanting to finish her career uh back in the classroom as a third grade teacher in the Sunnyside School District currently Dr Lopez has dedicated the past 20 years in addition to her day job advocating for the students parents and staff of the Morana Unified School District her work with school districts throughout Southern Arizona has given her a broad perspective on education and as an elected member she has participated in the Arizona school boards Association conferences and represented the district at Pima County uh Schoolboard meetings and attended National and state conferences these experiences have provided Dr Lopez with opportunities to stay informed on current issues and have prepared her for the difficult decisions that she as a part of a five member board has had to make in regards to the district's budget boundary changes policy changes school closures and of course the impact of the covid-19 pandemic during the challenges she continued to advocate for the community and she worked collaboratively with our other school board members and the District administration the staff and the parents to ensure that our students receive the best possible educational opportunities Dr Lopez has said that her boardsmy students to re Higher Goals I think we would all agree that her boardmy has delivered on those goals the Morana Unified School District will truly miss Dr Lopez's servant leadership her vision and her guidance on behalf of the governing board and the district I would like to present to Dr Lopez an engraved clock I'm making sure I drop this that's 25 years it's pretty cool and it's heavy so be careful so please join me in a round of applause and thanking Dr Lopez for her service hold on thank you thank you all right thank you all right also this evening we would like to take a moment to honor Mr David Willard governing board member for his service and commitment to the Morana Unified School District Mr Willard was appointed by Puma County school superintendent Dustin Williams to the Mirana Unified School District governing board Mr Willard was sworn into office and September of 2023 to fill the vacancy that was left by the unfortunate passing of Mr Dan Post when appointed to the governing board Mr Willard stated I am looking forward to serving families of the Mirana School District education is a vital part or is a v is a vital part of future success and I will do all I can to help teachers and AD and the administration inspired the students of Mirana to embrace learning at every level as a member of our local community I know our town is better when we all bring a spirit of cooperation and participation to the table and especially to the classroom let us all step forward together and continue the success of Education in Morana Mr Willard delivered on that statement during his time on the board in the 16 months since his appointment Mr Willard has remained steadfast in his commitment to serving our families our students and our staff Mr Willard has proven to be an exemplary member of the board his leadership his active participation his fiscal expertise have made an immediate and significant impact and although his time on the board was brief his strong advocacy for the musd community will leave a lasting impression and his guidance will be missed on behalf of the governing board in District I would like to present you with this smaller engraved clock [Applause] it is it's very congratul all right where do you need us Mark congratulations Mr Dr Lopez you guys are done you cannot go home okay I do have board comments so let me get my [Music] okay next item is item e board Communications president Lopez superintendent streer my fellow board members uh good evening everyone I want to start by sharing a few highlights of some recent activities that I've attended I had the pleasure of attending a School site visit with Dr Lopez at the Dub Mountain C stem K8 school where I saw firsthand the Innovative learning happening there I also participated in two strategic goal committee meetings which continue to provide valuable insights into our District's directions additionally I attended the Morana choir holiday concert with fellow board member Mr hold where uh the students showcased incredible talent and spirit it was a truly a joy to watch tonight I want to take a moment to recognize Dr marabel Lopez for her many years of dedicated service to our district and her invaluable mentorship ship Dr Lopez your contributions have left a lasting impact and I wish you all the best in your well-deserved retirement I also want to thank David Willard for his service and commitment to our schools Dave your dedication is deeply appreciated and I encourage you to consider running in two years as we approach the holiday season I want to wish everyone student staff families in our community a joyful and restful holiday thank you for all you do to make this District a great place for Learning and growth I just want to Echo the sentiment of Miss M cronis we had a wonderful time at the Maranda Middle School choir event it was fantastic uh I can admit honestly I am very musically toned deaf and it was a very pleasurable to listen to so great job to all the students and the director Chelsea AE uh we got to attend a strategic planning committee about the future of Marana district and I encourage every member of the community to join us as well at those events that are posted uh I wanted to Echo a little bit more of the sentiment of Dr Lopez uh dedication to the district and it's much appreciated as you embark on a new adventure uh David Willard same to you as well and I am sad that it has only been 16 months but I'm excited to see what you do in the future thank you I also um just want to thank Dr Lopez you been a great mentor and a friend and it's been a great experience H 10 used to be my favorite number um but I'm not so sure it's my favorite number anymore it's really been a great privilege and an honor to serve on the board I I it's been far more rewarding than I thought it was going to be and I really really enjoy getting to know the administration seeing the great work of our teachers seeing the Excellence of our students and our Athletics I mean I can just go on and on about what an amazing District we have and I'm just very very grateful that I've had this time to serve I'm certainly mulling over um I've had a lot of support and a lot of encouragement someone actually asked me to be like the Terminator and said I'll be back but I don't know if I'll do ask me in January it's been a little bit of a a strange season but uh great holiday season to everybody and um I'm not I'm GNA stay involved and I I realized um this is my last meeting that I can show up at every meeting for three minutes and say whatever I want so you might expect that thank you everybody very much I can't top that off um just once again thank you to everybody these 20 years have been absolutely amazing um you know being in education itself it's really helped me grow so I wish all of you the best of luck I look forward to visiting the new school and um new schools with an s um gosh thank you for my family for being here there's Levi he's Mr Dove Mountain so um yeah he's like my fake grandkid but um thanks you guys for coming and um you know I had the speech written out and I was thanking all the people that started 20 years ago with me and I can remember Betty tankersley um probably these names that you guys probably haven't heard because it's been a while but um it was a group of teachers that came up to me and said you got to do this and it was the best thing I did so thank you everybody and Kathy I wish you the best and I'm sure we'll see you so thank you I'd like to just add one more thing if I can um I also want to say Kathy and to Roy Alexander um you're going to do great just charge in and and be who you've been made to be and um Mr Holt miss m cronis you've been a great mentor as well I kind of get a little nervous because I didn't write it down but I just want to thank everybody and even Mr Carlson as well offered great support to me while I was here and Dr Sher thank you and your staff um all right next item is f remarks from the public R York yeah well I'm just here to join this big love test so so brace your yourselves uh good evening president Lopez members of the board senior staff and community members on behalf of the Morana Education Association I would like to take a moment to recognize and thank two incredible individuals who have dedicated themselves to serving our students staff and Community with unwavering commitment first to Dr Marbel Lopez your many years of service to this board and district is a testament to your enduring passion for education and your belief in the potential of every student your leadership has guided the district through times of change and growth always with a steadfast focus on what is best for our schools your legacy will continue to inspire Educators and families for years to come mea appreciates the positive relationship we forged through the years to best serve students and to elevate the profession of Educators enjoy your journey and enjoy your grandbaby thank you next to Mr Willard while your time on the board was born out of a difficult moment stepping into this role after the loss of Dan Post your contributions have been meaningful and impactful your dedication during this transitional period was been has was deeply appreciated and your presence has strengthened this community we look forward to continued collaboration with you as you've always worked to improve the lives of our community and I know that you'll continue to serve in many different Capac capacities um to both of you thank you thank you for your tireless service your advocacy and your commitment to the success of the Morana Unified School District you've left an indelible mark on this board and on the lives of the countless students and Educators we wish you all the best as you embark on the next chapers of your lives please know that your efforts will not be forgotten and I wish all of our community a happy holiday and restful break thank you r [Applause] next item is item G Dr streer Dr Lopez govering board members members of our audience uh I just want to start off I I hope that everybody had a a restful Thanksgiving holiday I know that this is that time of year that always lends itself to the opportunity for reflection and giving thanks and I want to take this opportunity to thank our staff thank our parents thank our students and thank our community uh really just thank you for your continued support collaboration and dedication to musd and Morana as a whole I also want to take this opportunity to thank Mr Willard and Dr Lopez for their service but more importantly uh just for the collaboration for our relationship uh your your impact on AMD and myself has has been immense and I am forever grateful uh for this time together as we get ready to head into the holiday break I also want to wish everybody happy holidays and I hope that you are able to enjoy some rest reflection and Rejuvenation in the coming weeks with that said I do want to piggyback off a couple of things that uh Miss marronis shared uh back on November 19th Dr Lopez Miss marronis and myself had the opportunity to spend the day at Dove Mountain for our superintendent board campus visit we had a great day filled with great conver great conversations uh great classroom visits uh and during our classroom visits we saw a variety activities taking place uh reading instruction collaborative math groups uh a really well put together Socratic seminar I think was was definitely one of the highlights uh for me uh I would say that uh another highlight is just the opportunity of meeting with employee groups and students throughout the day and the common theme that we heard during those meetings had to do with the incredibly strong team and support that's in place at Dove Mountain the students were equally excited uh about the opportunities that exist at Dove Mountain for them as well as the relationship that relationships that they felt that they had with their teachers so the team at do mountain should be incredibly proud certainly a dynamic Community oriented culture in place and I know that we all look forward to the great things that continue to come their way uh Mr Hol me mentioned uh strategic goal committee uh since our last governing board meeting we have held two uh strategic uh goal planning meetings and I want to thank the students the staff parents and community members who have been working with us to identify strategic goals as we look to the future of musd um our work to this point has really been centered around solidifying a portrait of a graduate and I'm looking forward to reconvening after the holidays as we will continue to move forward towards specific goals for the future in musd and I would like to conclude tonight uh just to share that on behalf of the governing board and the district that we are deeply saddened by the passing of our Town's mayor Mr Ed Hony we all know mayor Hony as a steadfast champion of the town of Morana but also as a true advocate for the Morana Unified School District his unwavering support and dedication to our community was evident in his presence at countless events and for musd this included his presence at the 2340 Foundation Gatherings at our musd community events and of course him welcoming new teachers not just to our district but to this community his visible leadership and commitment to fostering this vibrant and supportive Community have left an indelible mark his loss will be profoundly felt but his legacy of service and passion for Mirana will continue to inspire all of us to continue our work our condolences certainly go out to his family and friends and all who were touched by his leadership in his kindness and this concludes my report tonight thank you all right next item is item H consent agenda can I have a motion I move that the governing board approve the consent agenda as presented second any questions all in favor I I item I there is no unfinished business so we'll move on to item J this one's my favorite one Mr singer discussion approval of May mascot and colors of the new K8 School in gladen farms all right good evening uh president Lopez members of the board and the musd community congratulations Dr Lopez Mr Willard thank you for your service we've had a long relationship you and I you and I with Thor closure so glad we can start on end on a fun opening uh School component the purpose of this item is to provide the governing board with the recommendation the name for the name and colors of the new K8 School in the gladen Farms area after the governing board approved the attendance boundaries for the new school on October 10th 2024 an email group of families residing in the Northwest area of Morana specifically from the gladen Farms Elementary School Estus Elementary School and Miranda Middle School communities along with District staff was created an input form was sent to those stakeholders to collect feedback on ideas of the new school's name colors and mascot we we received over 685 responses with over 50 suggested school names color combinations and mascots we reviewed the stakeholder input at the November 21st uh board study session and the uh choices that came to the top uh for school name were Tangerine Farms K8 Desert Ridge K8 and Clark Farm K the top three school color combinations were blue and orange purple and silver and navy blue and Vegas gold based on the results of the stakeholder feedback our recommendation is the name of the new K8 School Tangerine Farms K8 and designate blue and orange as the school colors y look at my tie I move that the governing board approve Tangerine Farms K8 school as the name of the new school and designate the school colors as blue and orange second any questions I do Mr singer is this is this your recommendation as you will be the principal of the school it is my recommendation and what is your recommendation for mascot oh so um we had some options what felt a little bit awkward was picking a mascot when we didn't have a name and colors to go with it so at now um after tonight if you were to approve the vote we would send another survey with the name of it and the colors to the community and get their input do you do you have a personal favorite so far I have some that I do not particularly care for feels like a personal attack I try to get him on the record saying it but I couldn't I couldn't do it smart all right all those favor thank you thank you say sting r no that's a terrible name item J2 Mr B discussion approval of additional title and Staffing positions thank you good evening president Lopez vice president mik cronis members of the board Dr streer senior staff members of the audience I'm here to request additional Staffing uh for our Title One schools each year meoc and other public school districts are awarded carry forward funds via the Essa Consolidated entitlement Grant carry forward funds are dollars that are unspent during the previous school year and then redistributed by ad for the next school year this year we are requesting positions at each of our Title One schools these are year-end positions made possible Again by the previously mentioned carry forward funds I worked with each Title One principal on selecting positions that will provide just in time uh additional just in time academic and behavioral support uh for their respective School communities in the memo I have included a detailed list of the staffings uh the Staffing at each school that each school is requesting as well as the cost uh both salary and benefits per position uh that is being requested what questions can I answer for you well make I move that the governing board approve the addition of the following one FTE position one reading specialist at Butterfield Elementary School two title one par professional at De graia Elementary School one Title One PA professional at Estus Elementary School two Title One PA professionals at Picture Rocks Elementary School one intervention specialist at quell Run Elementary School and one reading specialist at Roadrunner Elementary School effective immediately second any questions yeah I do can you just explain for everybody what PA professional is specifically yes great question thank you so a PA is a support staff member um who is essentially like a classroom Aid uh at Title One schools we call them uh title one pair professionals uh there is uh an extra certification process that exists at Title One schools because we do receive federal funding um so they do have to be par Pro certified any additional questions all those faor thank you j3 Mr gagoski good evening Dr Lopez members of the board Dr streer senior staff and members of the audience uh I'm coming tonight to request uh additional uh permanent van special needs van driver uh we started the year with seven permanent van drivers those routes have expanded to 11 those additional four routes that we um needed to cover this year are currently being driven by properly trained bus attendants and we are looking to move one of those bus attendants into an eighth permanent position and that'll allow us to hire another bus attendant for that position I move that the governing board approve the addition of one special needs ban driver for the remainder of the 2425 school year effective December 13 second any questions I have just one question so this is obviously part of the need of just the complete growth of our special needs group and I mean are we going to need another in a month or two I think who knows right right we don't know so yeah because a couple of those routes are actually for students even on mckenny vento and so the we don't necessarily know when they're coming in need that service um but we do have backup bus attendants that are able to still provide service on our routes so those folks can still um drive so this this situation gives us the flexibility to staff our bus attendance but also provide B service we don't know but we're in pretty good shape right now what can you just van van specifically can you just is it van or is it a special is it can you just give a little more it's a van yeah so it's one of the seven New U mini vans it's a good question because we have seen a transformation in the van services that we are but these are the new Passenger not the van that we don't drive those anymore okay perfect all right all those in favor I I thank you thank you right Mr Bart thank you Dr Lopez members of the board superintendent streer and guests uh as we have in years past in Mar Unified School District when we are allocated prop 123 funding we do some accounting magic figure out how much that would be for all staff to receive um the allocation this year is $852,500 um the recommendation would be to spread that over two payments as we have in years past for $190 54 now one payment would be this month and another one would be this spring and it's based on the FTE so if you're a 1.0 you'll get the whole kitten Kaboodle if you have less than a 1.0 it'd be pro rated appropriately I move that the governing board determine that determine that sufficient funds from proposition 123 revenues are available to pay all employees $381 and 8 cents based on FTE and fiscal year 2024 2025 I further move that this amount be paid by way of two one-time stiping paid in December 2024 and may 2025 respectively second any questions all those in favor I I I thank you okay the next item is item J5 to conduct an executive session have a motion I move that the governing board conduct an executive session pursuant to ARS 38-43 1.03 A1 Personnel relating to the superintendent evaluation do have a second second all those in favor I all right thank you everyone for coming so e
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any Friday fund day takers this morning Friday fun day takers no anybody interested in Friday fun day Friday fund day this morning good morning Wildcats last Friday funay of the semester final exams are upon us you guys have been studying or starting to study it's time for us adults to learn from you as well no cap this is going to be a great episode all right wild cats I'm here with de what year in school are you a senior senior you excited for your second to last round of final exams next sweet yes sir have you started studying yet that's all right you got time you got time I'm starting to study I'm rushing up on my lingo here want to be able to converse with the students could you tell me a little bit about this one I hear every now and then very confused dulu dulu all right dulu dulu means when a person just acting out of normal they're just acting crazy out of mind they're just acting like they're acting dulu delusional they're acting crazy they're acting crazy delusional all right thanks Dei Wildcats I'm here with as Diego what you're in school are you freshman what you're in school are Diego senior I just heard that you guys are brother sister you given her a lot of good advice on how to be successful in high school uh somewhat yeah will you agree with that I don't think he said anything he hasn't said a word yall semester that's okay all right so it's final exams next week we're reviewing some terms you guys have hopefully have started studying maybe made flashcards I'm brushing up on some language here every now and then I hear some kids say sending me what does sending me mean to be honest I haven't even heard that at all thank you for being honest Diego can you help us out like makes you laugh I guess makes you laugh I guess so like sending me could you use in a sentence Oh that video sending me that video sending me okay you enjoyed the video it made you laugh okay thanks guys all right wild cats I'm here withd one word that I hear in the Halls every now and then is respectfully like it seems like a kid can say whatever they want as long as they end it with respectfully can you explain to me what that means uh it's like I don't want to hurt your feelings so but like I'm going to be truthful with you okay so like you are a horrible person respectfully yeah so you can say anything you want to anybody as long as you end it with respectful yeah okay all right wild cats I'm here with Mikey Mikey what year in school are you freshman freshman how's freshman year going it's going pretty good you excited for your first round of final exams next week yeah kind of nervous a little nervous hey you know study take your time break it up do a little bit each day that's what I'm doing making some flash cards so I'm learning some new words from you guys you kids these days uh I hear kids all the time say fire that's fire what's that mean it basically means that if something is like really cool or something you do something cool or something or you see something cool you'd say oh that's fire like oh that bench is fire right there wow I've never heard of bench called fire but I agree that's a great looking bench it's fire the heat you know the heat the heat the heat like a fire gives off heat Sure Fire is cool that bench is fire you're fire I'm fire we're all fire we're all fire all right got it all right well okay that's I'm here with Rachel Rachel what year in school are you Rachel I'm a freshman freshman how's your first semester of high school going it's going slowly slowly say it flies by for Rachel it's going slow you excited for final exams next week no okay so we're learning some new terms here checking in with our students to try and brush up our language every now and then I hear like a student say like period with with like a t could you explain to me what that means I would just say like period like there's nothing more than that nothing more than that but why is the tea on there just to add something I don't know just add a little little attitude so like period yeah like that yeah okay okay I got it period got it with a snap got it wild cats I'm here with Daniel Sheamus Dan we're learning some uh verbage for you guys today big yikes what does big yikes mean it means like you get scared you get shocked or something like that it means like like jump scared like jump scare got it big yikes all right wild cats I'm here with Gavin and Jordan you guys excited for final exams next week sure so you guys have been studying have you started studying yet nope yeah so we're studying as well as adults we're trying to sharpen up our uh lingo and our language hopefully you guys can help us out with some terms that you guys use out in the hallways I hear every now and then like a kid says like hey I got some tea I some tea what's that mean it's like gossip gossip okay what about eight like you did good at something like you ate I did good something at it like I ate yeah yeah I ate today yeah okay like I did good on that test I I ate that test yeah okay it's a Friday funay the this morning it's going to be a fun one guaranteed fun here on Friday fun day all right wild cats I'm here with Raya Joy ready for uh final exams next week I'm trying to be trying to be you got your big Stanley you got your double backpacks you're uh studying you're participating in school it's time for us to learn from you though we hear the lingo in the Halls every now and then I hear a kid just shout out like main character was that no no I know what it means but she said main character like I don't know what to say but no like Main charactera is like like me guys like me like you like you like you were in six you were the main character is that what I mean God yes that's what you mean somebody that just stands out in the crowd somebody that just walks past you but you can't like forget them somebody who's Unforgettable somebody who's just the attention grabber that's who I am the main character you are the main character okay I think I get it I get it what you say I'm a main character you're definitely a main character all right I get it now okay main character stands out Unforgettable people know who they are 100% 100% respectfully respectfully okay all right wild cats uh I'm here with herica Mindy Emily Emily Erica Mindy all seniors correct yes they definitely have some main character energy going right now so we're working on learning some new language we've taught you all semester now it's your turn to teach us a little bit could you tell me what slay means slay right now Mindy disagrees no I think she should just give like a definition not okay okay not me person but like that's I mean I can but you're talking about yeah it just means you look good a general person SLE like that K over there look SLE yes okay salty nobody says this next one so you're telling me I'm out of date okay this like preco time vernacular it's already out of style understood the assignment it's like you're picking up what somebody else is putting down you're picking up what I'm putting down you understand the assignment yes literally quite literally thank you last year I learned what lowkey meant from the students but now I'm starting to hear highkey you ever heard that one em like you use it as the opposite of lowkey so like I'm highkey not excited for finals or like something that's like really obvious I'm confused okay I thought you learned low key I low key am excited for today okay all right I think I got it low key is kind of like an unpopular opinion is lowkey but highkey is like something that's like like duh so you would just use high key instead of like really okay so it means really I'm like highkey excited for the weekend facts could I say I'm lowkey excited for the week no cuz that's stupid wild cats I'm here with DAR Luke us adults need to sharpen up our language skills we're going to learn a little bit from you guys today every now and then I hear the kids in the hallway say snack snack what's what's snack mean like in what context context does matter if it's on a friend's Instagram post you can say ooh you're like a snack which means they're like pretty but like snack and like regular probably just in school they're probably just hungry okay okay so snack like I know is like I'm just hungry like I want a bag of chips but if I see snack like on an Instagram post it can be like oh that person's kind of cute okay they're looking like a snack yeah did I use that right yeah you did I did okay I'm getting better thank you wild cat thanks for the help you got me feeling that main character energy next week might get a little hectic with finals but I know you're going to slam I'm highkey excited for you have a great weekend wild cats d
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all right good evening I have 5:30 I will uh roll call all board members and administrators are present like everyone to join me with Pledge of Allegiance right pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the repic for it stands one nation under God indivisible with liy and justice for all first the agenda is The Bu report aw well welcome to Ho super exciting to have you guys I'm call my helpers in because we have several so I wanted to um share a little bit tonight about our after school club program and so we have some of our after school club participants and their leaders coming in morning hi guys welcome all right so they're enjoying an extra long school day today so Hoover has a very large after school club program we have um about 200 students that stay after school every week um there's two hours of programming um every night Monday through Thursday with a huge variety of clubs we have Chef club we have choir sports clubs um we have our athletic teams throughout their Seasons um and all kinds of things so I have representatives from uh just a few of our clubs tonight who are going to tell you with their teachers a little bit about their club and what they like the best about their club and then they're going to play a little game with a board tonight to see if you are smarter than a fourth or fifth grader so um this is full board participation we'll go ahead and get started um Mrs Jones uh Mrs T Michael Jen hesler there are some of our after school club leaders so I'm going to let them take it away and tell you a little bit about their groups and who they have with them tonight so I'm Mrs Jones I do the trivia Club so we play blets we do um a thing called Bamboozled which is kind of a team they get on teams and they do different trivia games and so um we have a good time just being competitive and we do a variety of trivia they can pick the topics or all pick the topic we did holiday we've have done to who yeah so I've got three of my Representatives Ariana Jimenez Emma Jones Hannah Shadel and um they'll tell you tell them now or wait yeah they can Jo so you can tell them about what we do or what your favorite thing is my favorite thing about trivia Club is like the competition that we do in each of the um buets that we do my favorite thing about trivia Club at Hoover is that we get to be competitive to each other my think favorite thing about trivia is being able to share time with friends okay awesome did you want to go ahead with your do we want to do the game or do you want to talk first no you can go ahead and then we can go ahead and do the game pass out the paddles then and the tissues in the markers I'll I'll do take marker take one down pass it around tissue what then we'll give you oh I see a cleaner house make sure your marker Works they should be new but no problem made so you guys can stay on this side and you're going to write your aners another marker oh there we go now one I'll take it y okay here is your first question are you ready what felter word that becomes shorter when you add two letters to it what is a felter word that becomes shorter when you add two letters to it do I have to leave space for several answers or just one answer to a time just one one answer and then you can erase yes I didn't explain the directions very clearly to you I see the wanding eyes Dr Bo Jey be that's what I was told to do to monitor the the testing environment so since since we do have a limited time at this board meeting your time is up um uh go ahead and turn your paddles pleas this is actually your interview for your raise so yes your evaluation ah some of you got it the answer is short when you add e r it becomes shorter okay you might not be saying Li score um oh I've got it all right up here Monty don't you worry the Statue of Liberty was a gift from which country my marker's not working okay I'll take that one I throw it away want the cheaters see all right boards turned ah France good job does anybody know the size difference between the two between between the United well not like the countries the actual statue that we gave them oh theirs is only six feet tall what it yeah is statue that we gave them was it a Statue of Liberty yes it's in the middle of the sin in Paris yes wow okay that was not a trivia question um that was bonus how many planets are in our solar system this might show your EG anybody no talking Dr that don't you be looking at anybody just I guess depending on when you graduated high school you may have a different okay everyone turn your pedal count oh oh oh I'm sorry Pluto is no longer Pluto I know is the board president the correct answer was n yes I'm sorry you are all all wrong uh the smallest prime number is what what is the smallest prime number I love that you're going to go home and be so upset with yourself if you get any wrong turn your boards please oh oh got was one or three this is a pop culture one what does Sigma mean I have no idea cuz I knew it turn your boards in 3 two one if you are you are yeah that's technically that would be right okay which room has no windows which room has no windows I'll a little bit oh I think you're right I heard it already if you 15 seconds you know you know I don't like puns turn your boards please we had some mushroom okay two more only how many months have 28 days oh I know no Che she's going puns though I am very punny our Fe leader I'm really conc turn your boards I SC excellent all of them have 28 days and finally what is the state flower of Indiana Oh She little I have it in my backyard got say yeah I'd like to see I probably didn't spell this have another activity that's true all right turn your boards it is a pie very good e n y oh look at that yes I will take please make sure your cap is tightly on your marker oh never mind you need that yeah you did Hannah did okay you guys go that way and we'll make room for okay come on out I'm Tanya Michael um and I am the coach of the spell bow Team so at the beginning of the semester when they start their spell Club they are given a list of 750 words to study which during the competition any word from those 750 can be chosen um and then we go to competition in November we uh placed second at our competition site this year um I have April bether Naomi carer and will Hutcherson um will would you like to tell them what you like best about spub um I like the competition that most about I like the competition the competition is our school all right they always get very excited about the competition all right so we are going to do a little spell bow tonight um don't wor for these words you don't need to so I going to and these are actual words that were in our competition this year um I took these right from words that they were given at the competition so I'm going to protest we were never given the word these are common words but these are common words all right so the first word and I'm going to say the word and then I'll read a sentence uh you can start spelling as soon as I say the word if you'd like the first word is oh by the way can I have a couple people behind them to like check and make sure that the kids participa US versus the kids yes the kids are par so at the competition when they when they get the word right they raise their hand um say that again at the competition when they get a word right they raise their hand so you're um get it wrong let you [Applause] know we get a chance to tell you we're done all right first word is video conferencing is are you doing video conference video conferencing the college classes were offered via video conferencing [Music] all right is everybody done okay it's spelled v both of these we got right um no capital letter so that's wrong so at the competition they are very very strict if you capitalize something that you should not capitalized so if you capitalized it it's wrong tell us the rules after we start you can't we should have told you you have to take your Smartwatch Smart Watch sorry all right the next one quotient the quotient is the answer to a division problem I hope Dr Bart get this right all right spelled q o t i e n t did everybody get that right best ever all right too easy we need to get a little bit harder and remember these are actual words that they had the next one is Africans also pronounced Africans and the sentence is he writes in both Africans and English fruit is language [Music] I'm trying to figure out if there's you been studying your or so far I not correct has it spelled it's capital a f r i k a a NS very [Laughter] good we only have two more words was a SP all right matter of fact matter of fact he wrote he spoke of the contract in a matter of fact tone April go ahe turn around no you're doing great oh there's the comption wrong all right last really hard it's not modifying tone the phrasal adjectives aren't required I was going to say that dirty trick right the zeper made the curtain jly vow zeper we forgot to tell you you could request a definition oras right I'm sorry go ahead and it really got record right I'm done okay now we can go ahead and F my random knowledge need are we okay for time for a couple minutes yeah go ahead and was ready you guys know those are actually easier words we appreciate the I was there and I was like plus the G [Music] was Smartboard and just muffled okay so I do I'm Jen hler and I do um Power hour and I also do game club and um along with Mrs Michael we're also a couple of the after school coordinators um on different nights so I brought with me from Bo um well different anyway Jacob Phillips and Louis Sanchez Gonzalez and um ediberto Romero and and they're both Junior you don't want me to forget that okay so um they all so um Eddie's been with me in power hour and in power hour we do like sharpening um Ela and math skills just grade level stuff and then we also o do some games and activities to do that and then um all of them do game club with me and what I focused on this year is teaching them card games because that's something I feel like kids don't do very much anymore and that was something that I enjoyed doing when I was younger so um and I still enjoyed doing today so we've learned those so do you want to share what you like the best about what I like best about game club is the competition in the many variance of games and different varying games I like about about game club is the many different games we get to play I like about power hour meeting new people okay so they are each going to we're going to do in group of three so they know they're going to take two people um and we're going to teach you how to play the game Trash which is something that I think most everybody loves to play um so every week I teach a new card game and they could always go back to a card game that I had taught in a previous week after they had tried the new card game for 30 minutes so this is one that I think most people wanted to come back to quite a bit okay so Eddie right there and Raul right here Jacob okay and remember guys the they're already shuffled so we'll just do one round um if you've ever played Phase 10 it's maybe a little bit like well not really and interestingly this game was taught to me by a student so I several years ago check everybody does matter okay now you're going to arrange your 10 cards any way you want in front of you so I do two rows of but you do I look at my C no no so now the object of the game is to get these to be one through 10 okay by the end no one through 10 so one through 10 what is wild guys Jacks Are Wild what is trash trash is king and queen queen and that signifies the end of your round okay so if I start basic I it over you can put the check anywhere you okay so I keep going until [Music] Street you can pull off the you can take the seven or the seven is you know you all have a card oh but it's trash this is trash but you have a duplicate now oh so I can take that and use that as my next card yeah you have one open is exactly that the queen is [Music] better teachers than I am [Music] can we just play games the next round I go to you okay I couple so can you draw his because that's a duplicate or you have to dra only are you guys still at it a n so then on the next round he would go to n and guys stay attent okay so it becomes more difficult like as you win because you have fewer cards so more cards become dress dirty tissues your name okay so I hope you guys had fun playing games tonight at the board meeting our um after school club members have gift bags for each of you for supporting our school so if you guys want to give one to each board member and then boys and girls before you leave including brothers and sisters who are here because you guys did a lot of work sitting through this meeting so all over our Crawford SCH students if you come see me I'll give you a certificate for a free book thank you very much [Music] are she's got one more for you right in the middle thank you guys thank you all right well I really can't St that I need to motor through the agenda there's no beaten M all right first item on the agenda thank approve previous meeting minutes are there any additions or corrections I would entertain a motion to approve so move second all in favor I all right next time would be old business are being done we carry on with new business and the first is a art in richm Camp that sounds pretty exciting for the school Ellenberger hi if you guys could just pass these down thank you [Music] so I'm Mrs Ellenberger I teach art right now at Crawfordsville High School um so about a month ago Annie ster from W bash college she called me and said hey I know you've taught five or six Elementary art camps in the summer um and I've had a really huge turnout 20 30 40 50 kids sometimes want to sign up for these art enrichment camps that I've done previously so yeah said yeah I'm I'm on board um so I'm very excited about this to partner with W bash College um so I put together some just initial information we don't have every single detail yet um but right here are some of the objectives you know I'm us I want to get kids in there expose them enrich them with as many Medias as I can um expose them to some cultural diversity and I have a friend that wants to come in and showcase as a guest visiting artists and residents to work with these kids she's all on board too so excited to work with these kids so I'm just trying to give them some opportunities to you know excel in other areas that I think you know I think it's always a good thing there's some really really Creative Kids and um you know I have 20 22 years in Elementary art experience so I I'm so excited to teach the little ones a little bit too and just get back into that um so another wonderful thing I think is going to be with this um my high school students are very excited to come in and help these little ones too um that our Honor Society and Honor Society they both want to come in get service hours to partner with us serving these little kids so I'm thinking I want to do it this summer like I said we don't have the time down yet exactly but I'd like to do like a morning session and an afternoon session session about 20 kids per per uh group and it'd be offered uh about basically ages 6 to 12 that would be the target age level for this Camp okay um and then I also brought some example projects I'm just I'm exposing them to some things that they may not have been exposed to before you know some my my specialty area is metal smithing so and jewelry making so that's I teach a lot at the Crawfordsville High School so I want to incorporate some of that um you know just some clay and and plaster and just fun fun cultural things so so um all that is on the front page and then this is the proposed budget for it so you can take a look through that it's called the restoring hope Grant through through W bash college and if approved then all of it will be covered through W bash college grant so all that's there and then this last page if you want to read up a little bit more but this is more in depth about that particular Grant so you can take a look at that um but I'm excited I think this would be a great way to to serve our Community partnering with W bash and getting our students involved at the high school and uh do you have any initial questions are the student helpers just volunteers or are they a um the ones from the high school are going to be volunteers yes and there might be a couple kids that are written in that grant that come over from wall bash as well like interns my only comment would be with the art show at November me we've got a lot of talent yes and to me this is a real exciting opportunity to just explore and see what more do throughs yeah I I'm so excited it's just it's fun a way to give them a little bit of extra opportunity so all right anything else so you're requesting approval to apply for the grant yes once approved then Annie can process the grant through WT bash College all right any further discussion I move approval this is very exciting a second all in favor I thank you thank you all right the next item is consider sped ID yeah so uh Indiana Department of Education Grant here um that's offering a grant through the office of special education focused on Behavior Support for students with IEPs so we've been working with Dr Rene Staley with incompass education who um we had worked with before um on some prior projects this year and prior years um so always had good experiences through Dian McKinley for group so um so Dr Staley has completed A needs assessment of our special education program to assist in writing the Grant application um and focus on curriculum materi curriculum materials professional development training and also potential Staffing so um all those things are going to be considered for the grant so this Grant application does close December 31st um of 2024 so we are wrapping up final pieces still um of what that will look like but obviously there with the December 31st um submission there we would need to submit that by then so Angela Ram has done an outstanding job working with our special education staff and working with Dr St through the process and um so hopefully would provide maybe some potential Staffing and some potential uh training professional development and all good things that can that can help us support our students so happy to take any questions um but I would recommend the board approve our submission for the grant there's no local match it's just no local match um and there is no um in terms of the the rubric or any of that it is write it for what you want so there's no cap dollar amount y so um it is it is open so they may fund all of it they may fund parts of it um to depending and they haven't revealed like how much money they're working with and yeah it's pass up yeah all right any further discussion motion to approve the grant second all in favor all right next item consider policiy 12 employ reference checks yeah um so this is a first reading here on policy 30 3012 so this um covers a required policy to outline procedures for reference checks on applicants um it does outline our current practice um we do you utilize reflink right now to acquire document reference checks um which is a piece there in the policy and keeping those on file but again requireed here that just outlines procedures for reference checks on all of our applicants have you take any questions um but again first reading right any questions that vote for it next5 yeah um so homeless students enrollment rights and services U policy here um also first reading um again a required policy here uh that mainly addresses involment rights and services for homeless students that would be protected under the m v homeless assistance act so um this policy is just is uring homeless students of enrollment and school Services rights as well as Transportation so again have to take any questions but first reading here as well do we have any uh rules or guidelines about this currently just I mean the mckin vento um is what we would follow so this is not um is that new it is not it does come fromal and then state with so put it do origin from any other questions all right that uh next item is consider retiring and recoding policies to align with isba yeah so bear with me here as um we work through these but um Stephanie has been doing a lot of work um helping us work through our policies and getting them recoded over to those new isba um sections and code numbers so in your uh packet there that spread sheet um does outline the new section codes um that isba has and so we're working through those on current policies and ones that um are ready to to Beed over to those new numbers so um substantive changes to the policy just correct correct so no language changes to any of the policies that are listed in here so um policy 1100 Corporation organization would move to 1010 Corporation organization 11 one0 assessment of Corporation goals to 13 assessment of Corporation goals policy 2110 statement of philosophy to 10002 statement ofil philosophy um rename and rum uh policy 1130 conflict of interest to um 1203 board member conflict of interest rename and rumber 6160 federal funds to 6110 federal grants and boards Administration policy 6130 to Randy day fund to 6011 Randy day fund 6146 internal controls to 610 internal controls rename and R number 6320 purchase of supplies and materials 26210 small purchases under $50,000 6421 procedures for lunch meal accounts to 6421 R procedures for lunch meal accounts 2420 post secondary enrollment program 25120 post secondary enrollment program 5200 Title One services and parental involvement to 2261 Title One services and parental involvement and the last one there 8360 Internet safety educating minors cipa to 5320 Internet safety educating minor cipa so again that would be retiring the current codes there and renaming and reing to the new codes I would recommend the retiring so relevant nothing changes except code correct polies policies remain the same remember we had adopted um the isba's policy numbering so this is that long process that we're picking up and getting going I Mo of approval second all in favor I I all right next item is consider resolution for transfer yeah so this uh resolution will allow management to transfer the amount of 1.05 million from our rainy day fund into our operations fund um we do complete this transfer every year it does help to replenish that operations fund which is consistently low and negative at times just due to property tax caps and the rising cost to operate the school corporation so we would recommend that the board approve this resolution to complete this transfer from Randy day to operations second all favor all right next consider contract replacement yes so Dr Boart and I have been meeting with uh Bryce Barton our athletic director and representatives from the Moes group regarding the replacement of the field TF at the high school athletic complex um this field the field is at the end of its life and has started to have um a lower pass rate in terms of certain testing for safety so we will be looking at replacing that um we have a con they have a contract through their manufacturer sha Turf who is a member of sourcewell and sourcewell is a Cooperative purchasing group that we are a member of so we can take advantage of their contracts that they have in place to um not have to complete a procurement process ourselves of bidding it out it's already been done for us we're going to piggy back off of that contract um for this Turf replacement so I did you each have the quote in front of you um we have vetted that quote and made sure that it does follow all of the guidelines with the Cooperative contract and so their total base bid is it $579,500 that is an all-encompassing price and it also involves removal and um disposal of the current Turf um and any kind of removal of items within the turf infill all of that um so there are some additional Alternatives that we are going to take advantage of um but then we would recommend that the board approve this contract to be awarded to the Moes group for this replacement of the ter during your discussion with these folks are there any advances and and what we're getting over what we're replacing it is a slightly different product than what we have um and we did look at multiple vendors as well as different types um from this vendor and this is um that was all Bryce did all of those meetings and Dr Boart was in some of those as well it was still the the split um fiber tur that we currently have so the main piece is is the same um the base that's there of course um will will be will be used I mean hopefully we there's not a bunch underneath you know any surprises that that get found but but obviously that piece is already taken care of with the original Turf that was built in but it is that split um split fiber Turf that is there so so when that went down there there's a drain system so are we replacing all that or we repl just the they give you any warranty of the the lifespan of this there is an 8-year manufacturers warranty uh that comes with the purchase of the turf product and then um one of the alternates that we are purchasing in addition to that base BD is their service over the life that we have it so they'll come in and complete the testing and they'll look at it if there's things that need replace they'll be the ones to repair complete all of that and then that's all with the Moes group because they're the installer is the is the testing standardized across yes and how how does our current field does it fail is it close to failing I think it passes but it's border G so the gmax is the test and so the numbers that they want um they want to be between 140 and 160 we are currently at 180 when it's over two is then when we would be considered um so it would not be be passing so so we are still passing um and we have um members of the Moes group come out prior to the season um as well or fall Seasons um and can t the uh the testing then to prior to the season to see where our numbers were and in terms of the field itself uh they actually said it's h up very well which is good U with the U the colors and the fibers and um the scam so um and Moes group has done a very good job I know Mr Barton has been pleased with them whenever there has been an issue they've been write out uh so their responsiveness has been very good too I noticed that the uh the track resurfacing of the actual track is not selected is is that is that going to be addressed at some point in time yeah that'll be addressed um at a future time are there any I got excited when I saw boes and infield wasn't I thought it was infield um is there plan for looking at baseball and softball for turfing I think we have looked at it the price is pretty high up there um we are looking at Salvage capability of this Turf like four batting cages things like that you know cuz I mean right you do baseball you have to do softball you soft you got to do baseball and um the baseball field was significantly larger than a football field but and right you had it's the putting down the base so we were looking at one point 1.3 1.3 to to those field so um maybe in the future yes so getting our fund balances out there and I did make them get a quote to return to grass in the football field how did that one it was right around 600 500,000 um but then irrigation was an additional 100,000 on top of yeah this is good we get a lot of use out of this field and it allows us to do aot of things everybody great yeah we've been meeting almost a year since we started the initial conversation with the most group on this project so if it approved then how soon will the start I think they're scheduled for this summer they the yeah um so we would be looking at potentially the the back end of May but um most mostly um June so four to six weeks would be the process of installation all right any other discussion I entertain a motion to approve the tlement so second all in favor on Personnel yes some recommendations so this is good recommend um got Taylor bow for Huber special education Aid Pete Sims to be a CHS teachers assistant he's currently coaching for us um Christian cudle Wilson teacher assistant kler mcfar um for CMS teacher maternity leave and Erica M um for who fourth grade in attorney the board approve all approval all in favor all right Andrew yes so for your business manager report we just have a couple items um we did receive today our final approval for the common School Tech loan that we applied for for the fall round um the application that we completed ended up being $238,200 and that is a combination of upgrading some technology equipment um Chromebooks software and other needs that our tech department has um the business office did successfully process a retroactive pay on 126 for all employees we did have new contracts have been processed and handed out for all certified staff uh pay increases for all non CBA staff and then we do have administrator addendums uh to science n for you um the we are getting ready for our year end push and finishing up December getting into January um get all of our doe reporting that we need to get done I'm looking forward to that we have a pretty good team in place and getting that done and then we're also going to start the process of the rate shopping for Bank interest rates for the next year and then we'll have those results for you at the January Board of Finance meeting that is all I have all right thank you Dr Bart yeah so um administration building uh interior work is moving forward uh very well so much pain uh this complet with the exception of the boardroom they've been finishing uh some bhead work in there is all drywalled um and they will be turning to to P quickly uh in there as well though so tile and restrooms has been installed and looks sharp um the ceiling grid is installed a few the lights are even in um but we'll be able to start putting the tiles in the ceiling soon uh as well light fixtures and electrical devices are are going in so starting to see some some Outlets show up and um so the Masons recently finished their work so their equipment is now out so we are able to move forward with weing the pad for the units outside that need to be um and for permanent power uh next so that the big switch there so um that'll be coming soon so um exterior work that has slowed um a little bit though with the weather um so unfortunately Paving um out front the sidewalk is and that was Bor but unfortunately Paving is going to have to wait until spring so probably be the second week of April is kind of the current forecast thereof based up when asphalt plants open up or reopen and when it would be able to come in so we're working with Kettle Hut on a plan for occupancy knowing at the interior is still planed to be completed close to the original time plan at the end of February we early much so um but uh the inside is is looking very good the brick looks very good The Medallion is up in the back and looks very sharp so um weather just didn't quite cooperate uh long enough there to to get the pay the Finish Line PL surpris yeah yeah yeah and they were only open due to some Interstate work that that still needed to be done so um Greg Helms worked worked hard with with re and Riley and um just couldn't get them so um electric buses just kind of an update there Houston Electric has completed the up electrical work needed for our charger for those buses when they arrive so once the charger um is delivered then uh Houston be able to complete uh this install so that is U moving along as well and delivery of those buses is still slight hopefully for February so for those two electric uh buses from Li and electric uh State Fire Marshall conducted on-site building inspections in November overall inspections were all very good um few exit signs need repaired couple storage areas uh needed to be open just over time some of those get a little um little clogged and cluttered and uh need some walkways to to Breakers and and those sorts of things so um and then a couple fire doors at CHS that do need replaced so but overall um good reports from from those visits from the the State Fire Marshall uh Nicholson and Hoover Playground did take a look at those so we had a representative from Sinclair conduct on-site visits and assessments of those playgrounds so planning um is is moving forward for what we'll be able to do within our budget and um but looking at refreshing and updating those as the budget allows um and uh we'll see what is submitted for those draft site proposals for review uh very soon so uh curriculum instruction uh professional development world uh we have a teacher evaluation team that is currently meeting and uh working with a couple principles and teachers uh researching reviewing and developing a new teacher evaluation plan so we currently use um what is called The Rise um rubric and have for a long time um and the the goal would be to align with Marzano and our work with high high reliability schools and um think something um that's a little bit more teacher centered and teacher F teacher focused in what we're doing so we have an initial draft that was recently reviewed with building leadership teams for feedback um and next steps will be to make revisions based off that feedback and um come up with a final draft and then we will pilot that and practice within it a little bit with that team in the spring semester so that has been a um exciting um piece to to work through and U proud of the group um and the team that is working through that it is it's been very good and um a lot of very very good things that that are coming from that and excitement uh with that piece so uh kind of connecting to that our high reliability School certification is moving um along with buildings working through level two certification recent Focus has been on professional growth goals and principles and teachers have worked hard on those um working together and collaboratively um it's been exciting to hear those conversations that have um been occurring on continuous growth and practice as Educators so um the end result of supporting our students so um much kudos to to principles and teachers that's been very very good so um Elementary reading curriculum so starting to to work towards planning that piece for adopting K5 uh core reading curriculum for next year so schools are required to adopt an approved curriculum the line to the science of reading for implementation by 2526 some schools have adopted this year we are and and imple implementing this year um but it does need to be in place for the following school year so there's currently five approved vendors um you got a team that will be going to presentations in Lafayette by vendors hosted by Wes Valley Education Center we do have a visit set up at a school where our instructional coaches will see one of the programs in action and be able to talk to the teachers after that that one would be the ca uh program that they're going to see that a lot of schools have adopted so that'll that'll be good for some insight as well so that is your assistant superintendent report thank you Dr Dr rer all right first thank you Marcy and your staff and kids for providing a fun presentation so you way to go after it so I think principals are getting a little competitive of how to do things so I appreciate that um choir concert last night Alia had a solo it was outstanding so that was good to go um kind in the instructional leadership world the new diploma uh was passed yesterday by the state board education so um if if you're so if everybody's on the one where has current core 40 in that phase that comes along um right now we're in a core 40 world there's 40 credits that are required we are switching to the new Indiana diploma and you got to go down you'll find it so um it has now 42 credits some minor changes um that come along with it are math is when up a credit you can see they added in personal finance sorry I'll let her catch up you know I think the main thing I want to say is that you know we're able and ready to provide our students with the opportunities to meet the requirements of the new diploma in honor seals um I think it was up on go back a little bit I think we High uh go to 27 now slow go down it had like each row on a different page it was higher than that I'm sorry try 15 okay click on it okay does this actually work so uh you can see little things like personal finance you know that's been a conversation um quite a bit so that was added in um probably a good thing is they took out the requirement for Algebra 2 that was hard for a lot of our kids to get there so um in general they've actually added flexibility right I think they put out some real scary things at first but in there's a lot of good things here science goes up but it kind of adds computer science but then they add more flexibility by just saying two stem Focus um so those things are great right and I mean we have AP Chemistry AP Physics AP Bio AP environment Al science which those things will come along they reduce social studies um they don't require econ anymore we still offer it I think that it's pretty important um world they you can your more advanced classes in your language arts can count as your social studies no SC me PE they reduce now you only need one credit in PE um and health so we're looking at all these sort of things that come along so we've been having meetings as each thing comes but then yesterday there was some little changes so as we're looking at horse offerings we don't have to do this until 208 29 but the class that graduates 28 29 um Mr Strickland and his team is looking we do believe that we actually are in a place where we will be able to start offering the seals which I'll talk about in a second but what they really did is they really pushed into 12 electives instead of six and but that's where they're going to put the workforce and those type of opportunities so um at the end of the day this the 42 actually Fair easy will'll be able to do it um just instead of computer science being a choice now that has to come in in the English they require communication so back when I was teaching 10th grade had a semester of speech legislators took that out now they put it back in right kind of like Cy out in um this is where they're really kind of going to now is seals there's an honors seal then an honor seals plus they these are the extras so the first one is just one base diploma and then there's an enrollment seal an employment seal and an enlistment seal so there's some shift to some focus on employment and enlistment um they point out that the number of En col college enroles is going down and the percentage of kids graduating college is also coming down now we have a community and a population of parents and students who want a College Bound path so we are FOC focused and driven to make sure that we provide a College Bound path that not only meets the seals but actually prepares them to be successful in college so we're good so to get the enrollment seal you know you got to have World Language which we offer three um you got to have six social studies everybody's got that um the eight math we're good to go there we got everything lined up um the science again we are good we have everything we need and then on top of basically the base curriculum got to be a c or higher um and an overall C average of B but that's normal for a kid trying to apply for college um you need to have one of the following to get this seal right um You have to have four credits of AP or IB or Cambridge but so we have the AP not a lot of schools our SI offer that so we have a list of 19 te potential AP courses right now so you have to drive quite a ways to get a better offering than that so earn six college credits we have dual credit classes as well which will allow them to do that um or if you don't in just one of these score 1250 on sat with our honors program and stuff we have kids who are meeting that um and then the rest are complete two or more as we scroll up so the honors plus okay you have to earn a credential of value so an associates degree we're working on some of those things we have some of our science teachers who are working so we can get the dual credit um we we're missing like a science class to be able to do that but the thing is is that we do provide the opportunity for kids to be an AP scholar with distinction and to do that you have to pass Five AP courses and again that's a lot of schools don't have five you have to average um you have to score three on all your AP exams and you have to average a 3.5 so pretty impressive kids but we have kids each year who get AP distinction um so we if you want to get the honors seal and the honors plus seal you can do that through Crawford High School the um employment path you know again most of those things we have and we have a great you know Community or cooperative CTE program with North Montgomery South Montgomery Western Boon that meets these it is interesting and I understand why in the employment seals and in the enlistment seals we scroll down attendance is part of it so and again these things are there I think they were trying to rethink high school and it's I I think it is good to give a focus they talk about how enlistment numbers have plummeted and the other issue is a lot of like 41% of people who are trying to get into the military don't qualify so we want to make sure the kids are ready for that so those are the interesting things going on with it and I think we're in a good place that we will be ready to go so Dr will the with the we graduation change with this you know what I will tell you what we've had all sorts of conversations and that one has not come across the table yet change all that I I would assume yes but I cannot tell you do you have any idea what the rationale was for getting rid of economic like what in the world would we be telling they don't understand well it's y i i can I do not know I do not yes I T but it's important but also the personal finance it's very important right butra to for personal finance but you Noti that that actually social stat went down so yeah it took out we continue to offer Ecom yes yeah we offer yeah I I mean again I think they were trying if we're going to assume positive intent which is Mrs ganowski uh Norm that she always expresses so I'm using her term is that they were trying to get flexibility and there so um we will try to make sure kids understand the importance of it but no I there's some in here you're like okay um you know the like I think it is good for computer science and at what level does that come along um and some of those things other thoughts questions so there'll be discussions about you know what electives to offer and what you know but that's that's the details and then it you know some of these things right help and several you know we have kids taking algebra in the middle school so you know we there's already the conversations of how do we align minor um scope and sequence from middle school so it those things are they are good mentioned the do record before the meeting that this kind of really en lines with the vision and a mission of corporation that we set forth several years ago so I think kind of of the curve there had the opportunity to go with our Middle School some of our middle school high building teachers to National Association for gifted children conference in Seattle um Cammy Lane Seth Nan Rachel O'Neal Brenan rold and Lisa T went so they were very engaged and I think for every one of them that was their first chance to go um we also just Monday and Tuesday Sunday Monday Tuesday were in Indianapolis for the Indiana Association um for gifted education um and this year Kathy is on our high ability board that looked at when we did our evaluation we wanted to look at our counseling program for our high L kids so we did take three of the counselors Madison Smith Sheron and mallerie and then this was the year for elementary teachers to go so Christy Boer Shelley beer Alys M Anita Harris Lawson am H many of them have been to the state and National Conference so um and then at both the nagc and the iagc um I was really looking at early identification you know now that we kind of we have a pre iability preschool program and just looking at how things line up with that how got long now but uh thanks all right uh Personnel we will pay out the teacher appreciation Grant on the December 20th um pay um school counselors are not included in the teacher appreciation Grant but we will pay them a stien that puts them at their River level uh the teacher appreciation Grant there has to be a 25% difference between highly effective and effective I do not have those exact numbers with me tonight so um we in organizational management World we're discussing the 26 and 27 calendar we'll bring you that probably next month um Community we appreciate the mcgomery County Community Foundation they awarded $10,000 to our nursing program to support health and wellbeing of our students along with $9,500 for the Crawfordville adult resource Academy to help with testing materials and instructional technology um we did have a little bit of an email issue so I'm going to ask while you're here tonight to talk to Doug about setting up two Factor um identification for your email so we found that you know we we had some that we did not have on two-or and you would be a group I apologize to put you through that but that's of the norm it's kind of the norm so yes um there you go at all yes wish you happy holidays and please look at the Athenian Oracle for all the great things going on in our Corporation I'm Rex rker and I am an a all right thank you Dr reer any other business or member Communications just that I uh s in on the uh counselor ad Council I don't know what the official pick of the official term but Mary shidler at Crawfordville high school they're working towards um the certification or whatever it is but they they uh have an advisory Council uh with members of the community so I was attending that this earlier this week so that was interesting all right comments hearing that I would entertain a to adjourn so move second all in favor I printed out at
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Al to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for it stands one nation under God indivisible with liy and justice for want to thank everyone for joining us those that are in the room and also those that are streaming again we will remind everyone that we are streaming the board meeting this evening so we'll start by um uh bylaws yes asking for approval of a conflict of interest form that's um a second part for Premier Sports entertain a motion to approve so Move Motion by Travis do I have a second second second by Pat any discussion all those in favor seven next we'll entertain a motion to accept consent agenda items motion by Earl we have a second second second by Cheryl any discussion all those in favor 70 um so now um we'll come down um for Community non agenda items so I think we have a recognition we do starting the night with something very exciting so I'd like to recognize Jennifer Sanders she in the audience will you stand up I'll have you come up in a second but Jennifer has received a very rare and exciting honor so she was named as Indiana's rule educator of year for the entire State then she went to represent Indiana at the national rural educator level and she was actually named as a runner up nationally as Indiana teacher of year so I would like to recognize that amazing accomplishment this evening we have a lovely Christmas planter to present you if you'll come up and appreciation there's Holly and it's a little it is I don't know which're they are very thank you that's great you Jennifer ID don't we get emails from the state as school board members and I've seen your picture in a lot of those emails so it was very nice to feel that Jennings County was so well represented so again congratulations quite an accomplishment got another round of applause um next we have I think we have a presentation from we do we do Graham Creek Elementary is here tonight to present and this is our first of returning to spotlights for the year so we're all thrilled oh we get break the ice huh so uh okay kiddos come on up so let me start by um well first of all thank you guys for allowing us to do a Showcase tonight what you pause for a second so we can move so we can see from the front well having Face well yeah good ide video well oh now you guys are on camera okay okay so um again board I want to just thank you guys for allowing us to Showcase this this is um really it's just a small piece of I think uh I think a pretty successful puzzle that we've got going at Graham Creek and before I even start I just want you guys to know I there's no way that this presentation all of the work that we're going to talk about tonight could not have been done without Shirley Lucas and Angie money they just have been rocks did you find a picture by any chance I couldn't find it we looked for a picture of a little red head that used to go to Graham Creek that now has a doctor in front of her name but Nikki was in this same Club so yeah it was it was literally I still can make good poster board so what you all are going to see tonight let me I'm going to just indulge me just for a minute and 47 seconds I am just going to talk about the why so what happened we they W in our second year of the Sim certification you guys know of and through that whole process we found that we were really losing a lot of kids in their Club activities because of several things in conomy it may have been Co there for years but regardless we had to figure out how to expose kids to as many different uh clubs and opportunities as possible so through a lot of brainstorming I see Courtney back there this is really her brainstorm we came up with this whole club club Day idea we now each of our each kid in our building they they have 18 different opportunities that throughout the year during the school day we give them anything from construction to oh my gosh we do um robotics just a whole plethora of things one of them Shirley said why are we doing 4 well we you have to do a lot of steps so Shirley did all the leg work got us actually approved as a 4 Club through Grand Creek now with that being said we really didn't know how many we'd have honestly but this is here's our data we had 19 regular club members that's your third through sixth graders then we had 16 minis which are your first and second grade so we've got two of our minis one's now going to be a regular but those kiddos I want you guys to really listen closely to this they produced 138 projects for the county fair which to our knowledge we've got one fair I haven't been able to get a hold of is the largest input of pro projects from any club in the state [Applause] Li so with that being said I'm going to have them come up and we're going to kind of do an interview they're going to show some things surley and Angie will show their projects why I talk to them and you guys can kind of hear what they did and stuff so Pier or once you come up here introduce yourself buddy say real out my name is Pierce and I am in second grade and he's he was a mini so Pierce what did you um what was your project that you did I did a f about Indiana especially IND I lot exactly what's uh when you in 4 the kind of your most favorite thing that you did I was do the projects to see all the favor projects was exciting and had you ever done any 48 before was this your first time that you ever did it uh no no so so are you going to do it again this year yeah oh good and then how did your project lead or have something to do with with stem at GRE Creek I was able to learn about the by doing project I learn more details than I thought I would good for you bu okay introduce yourself my man said real loud and proud good evening members of the school board Johnny Brown I'm Johnny Browning and I'm in third grade at Living I love this so what was your project buddy I decided to do a poster Indiana Wildlife I love learning about our about our animals and my part of Indiana and what what was your favorite part throughout the whole club process my favorite part was meeting new people and learning to work together good job and what did yours uh your project have to do with our skem Step at Green free using technology to research animals and their habitat made science come alive for me [Applause] and he wanted to wear his suit very good touch okay young lady would you introduce yourself my name is B PA and I'm in fourth grade you're in fourth grade and what was your project about I did a poster on the importance of rescue dogs and the and I people on the benefits of um adopting a resc do just going off scpt or say which is your favorite animal if everybody chance um my favorite animal I have to say is probably the new new I haven't told you this but my grandfather was blind and he actually had a German Shepherd guy so what was your favorite part when we did all of the 48 St what was your favorite my favorite part was putting information and I sooud to see all the together I also going to for fa was one that did go she was one of eight that went to the 4 State club and she told me that someday she wants to be one of the counselors at the club so a goal this year is we want to try to get 12 of you guys together so with all of that said what did your had to do with stem my project had to do with stem by put all the information together Science and Technology very proud me [Applause] too okay would you like to introduce yourself dear Dallas in fifth grader so miss Dallas what did you do here that's a lot of babies and I see you have a blue ribbon here you see that too so when you were in for what was your favorite part best you did get proud of you and what did you learn through stem with all of this stuff learning of the body help science help make science real to you good [Applause] job and our Caboose is what I called her would you introduce yourself my dear hi my name is l m and I'm fifth grade and what you have lots of rib too what did your uh what was your project about my project was a creative writing paper on my horse field a paper was titled my lost and adventurous horse film I also got a champion at the James County Fair and a blue ribbon at the State Fair baby I'm going to say this one on we take our kindergarteners to be's Farm every year to learn about horses and and equin this girl she won't say it but she well I have Mom explain to where is kelse is she in there Kelsey tell her about the acrobatic what it's called when she does oh she does Tri writing she did um lessons for three years in Ohio with a trainer and heille are pretty good she like rides upside down and it's just great my grandaughter loves watching okay so what was your favorite part about the whole forage experience my favorite part was to see how everyone worked together to make sure we had great projects and I know this last part because you and I talked about but what did you get out of this for St um I got this out of stem by I want to become an Eco invest Someday by researching and studying about animals it will be try to reach my goal love that goal so again that is just a small sample of the how many total kids do we have was 39 was it 36 so we had 36 participants this year and we're we actually are going to have to cap it this year because we've just got too many well we did cap it we cap we still got too many can't say no 20 for regular but then we had some from mini last year so now we've got 24 mini I think it is and we've got 25 regular yes yes that keeps us hopping and with that being said too I just want to recognize just on the air if you will but Purdue Extension they they are they have been such a intrical part of our journey through this whole stem and dear we work so much with de Wagner she is just phenomenal and that's kind of just one of the like I said little things that we do try to make it special at Grand Creek so thank you guys for letting us I want to recognize Grand Creek because they really LED Innovation with having clubs during the day to make sure our kids could participate and that Transportation was not a barrier and um it was even called out by the state as a Statewide Innovation when they achieved certification and so we have since recreated it in every Elementary because it was so successful so we appreciate them leading the way first Sim certified we now have two schools certified two more that have applied be Sim certified this year and the other two elementaries will next year but Graham Creek was out in front leading way and has continued to share so generously so we really appreciate our wild cats can I get aou picture Okay Johnny you see right here Elena you go right here Dallas go on this side fa on this side Pierce right here camera might be we'll let her go first and then I'll go okay I'm taking quite a few okay moms and dads come up [Laughter] [Music] here if Mom ain't happy nobody happy and I I will share ours on our Facebook too for you are you the picture too got some great parents here yes come here Katie it was our turn to take the picture surprise I'm I need [Laughter] next all right one two three cheese thank you parents so [Applause] much how you been I'm thanks for doing everything you do really some good ones so how many times you [Music] get we're we're gonna give for the audience we're gonna give just a moment and then we'll keep going right down the agenda okay just want to again congratulate gra gra Creek Elementary all the kids that are involved in the 4 AG Club um at that school um the best practices that they're developing for other schools to be shared so I'm super excited um that's really what our especially our elementary schools do they get involved in stem and just really highlight the benefits of that and that you just saw tonight so super excited to have them present here this evening um so now I'll ask if anyone is present who would like to speak on any um topic that's on the agenda or any other topic right hearing none we'll move down to Old business I think we have some Neola policies we do asking for approval as the of these Neola policies as presented entertain a motion to approve those I have a motion by Mary Lynn do I have a second second by Travis discussion all those in favor seven of next under new business we believe we have some new Neola policies some new Neola policies for first reading um if you have any questions please reach out great um again under new business we'll go down under programs we had a science textbook adoption yes this year is time for us to do a science textbook review to adopt a new series for next year so we're following the same process we've been using for the last few years years the materials are in the buildings for the teachers to review and fill out a survey we are getting ready to send out information to community members and parents if they would like to come in and review the textbooks and fill out um a survey we would appreciate it and then our committee our curriculum committee will review all of those survey results and reviews on the textbooks and move forward in that process second semester so we'll be bringing back more information great so that item isn't inform again if community members are interested um inie the textbook um that's going to be that were proposed for adoption um and providing feedback survey feedback we ask that you come to those Cal office yes and information will be in the child School newsletter great perfect always appreciate that feedback um next we have a pre updates yes just a quick update so we have uh 50 students currently enrolled in our three sites or o spread out over our three sites uh we do have some open spots at Brush Creek Elementary if there's any families that are looking for um all day pre we do have some spots at Brush Creek uh we are in the middle of collecting our middle of the Year data so we will bring that information back to you after Christmas break um we are seeing lots of progress with our students and and they're learning quite a bit um but what we're doing now is we're planning for the 25 26 school year so I would like to send out an interest survey to all six of the elementary schools to see where we have interest in our prek program to start planning for next school year so we will be sending that out to families um probably next week and uh look to get that data back in January and that survey would include if we possibly add additional sites and locations so just important information that'll be included for parents to think about as they respond and I have to to brag on our programs we have recently been awarded uh level four pth to Quality um which is a very rigorous process to be um noticed and and Achieve that at the state level at past quality level four I believe there's just a handful in the area yep we are the only one in jinny County our three sites are the only ones in jinin county and we're uh three out of 12 in the surrounding areas so it's a real Testament to what a quality pre program we have thank you for that update that is an in form Todd we appreciate all the work I know you've put a lot of work um on making this available to our community members again I believe you shared Brush Creek Elementary um we have open spots if someone's interested in enrolling their child in prek at Brush Creek where should they call so they can either call Brush Creek Elementary School or they can call here U to the programs Department extension one um they can reach out to us great and then be looking for that survey for um information and questions about next year's pre pre thank you for that um next we'll go to under professional staff we have a recomend ation just one asking for approval please for Jason Carter to be um um approved as Jennings County High School assistant swimming and Diving coach we'll entertain a motion to approve so motion by Cheryl do we have a second second second by Pat any discussion all those in favor 70 um next we have permission to fill asking for permission to fill positions prior to the next board meeting we're coming up on the end of the semester so needed just make sure we're fully staffed for second semester a motion by Earl do I have a second second um by Chelsea any discussion all those in favor seven um next we'll move down under support staff recommendations yes please asking for approval please are the following recommendations Julie James S Creek Elementary part-time custodian Adam Lee Jennings County High School volunteer boys golf assistant coach and Autumn Temple as St Creek Elementary sped PA professional I a motion I have a motion by Mary Lynn do I have a second second by Travis any discussion all those in favor seven of um next we'll go down under donations Philip I think we'll take this in two STS yes uh yes thanks okay so the first uh group of donations I'd like I'm asking approval to accept would be the Jenny County Community Foundation $200 to Brush Creek for student snacks Coffee Creek Christian Church $250 to the Graham Creek student needs wagster crop insurance uh donation of a storage shed to the Hayden Elementary for the Hayden Ram Creek Elementary archery team equipment storage John T and Amy Kelly $100 to the high school Honor Society Jenny's Church of Christ to $0000 to the high school Panther Pantry earler Cardinal family fund $266 to the north Fon Elementary first grade Polar Express experience Hayden United Methodist Church food tissues wipes clothing donated to nve to help with student needs Jeff Garry's $200 donation to The Sand Creek uh for kindergarten class Jennings County Community Foundation $200 to S Creek for for the lunch program John pson $500 donation to the cpio elementary student meal accounts Max and Don Eon $200 to the cpio elementary student Christmas cpio United Methodist Church $100 to the cpio elementary for student needs and meal accounts and what God want Ministries $1,500 donation to cpio Elementary for student meal accounts entertain a motion to approve I have a motion by Pat do I have a second second by maryn any discussion all those in favor seven and then one more next donation Marilyn wickham1 thousand donation to The Hope food program entertain a motion to approve a motion by Chelsea do I have a second second second by Cheryl any discussion all those in favor six any abstain maryn one um next we'll move down to resolutions next resolution is a normal resolution with more than two weeks between board meetings the resolution authorizing the treasur deputy treasur the school corporation to make payments and claims without board prior action prior to the January 9th 2025 board meeting and allowed treasure Deputy treasur to make transfers of appropriation within the education Debt Service and operation funds in order to balance major account classifications entertain a motion to approve motion by Travis do have a second second by Mary Lyn any discussion all those in favor seven next we have resolution on buses this the next resolution is a typical year end Finance processing resolution resolution authorized in Treasure Deputy treasure to make temporary transfers from funds having a sufficient fund to a fund having a depleted balance for December 20 December 31st 2024 for cash flow purposes does that have anything to do with buses no okay I'm not sure where you got the bus from well it's says bus okay well yeah B us is the that's the title of the resolution last time I checked that's the way it was spelled did I miss something they've been that way all year Amy I don't man I was ready to do something about buses okay well we entertain a a motion to approve a motion by Earl have a second second by Pat any discussion all those in favor s0 sorry about that guys I we've got that on record oh it's on record I'm sure I'll hear all about it I'm sure at least that's how I labeled the previous 19 so sorry okay um next we're down under property yes just a short update on the roofing project um we had a pre-bid meeting to today we had at least 10 different uh companies here there were some subs there too so probably at least four plus major uh roofing contractors and just so you guys know the bids will be due on January 88th of 2025 which is one day before the board meeting and our hope is we can get the bid secured and be able to bring that back to you for approval on the 9th with all the paperwork done that they need to they trying to get that done in a 24-hour period after we open bids at noon on uh the 8th and that item is an in um so now we'll move down under um operations um looks like we have a master calendar yes asking for approval for the 2526 Master academic calendar um it has been um given three options were given to jcct and this was their favorite option similar to Prior years we keep our breaks the same as the career center to make sure that supports our kids first student day on the sixth last student Day on on May 21st entertain a motion to approve motion by Cheryl do I have a second second second by Travis any discussion all those in favor 70 um next we're down under relations yes asking for approval of the Jenny County Public Library Board of Trustees appointment for Bev Martin I have a motion by ver do I have a second second second by Pat any discussion all those in favor s we have anou yes asking for approval of anou with the southeast Indiana Workforce investment board and us for comprehensive career coaching and navigation framework this mou actually allows them they use they help us with Jag at the high school it allows them to help in our elementary schools and provide some um career opportunity presentations for our younger kids we'll entertain a motion to approve I have a motion by Chelsea do I have a second second by Marilyn any discussion all those in favor 7 of which it brings us to other I I don't have any other um hearing nothing else to come before the board we'll entertain a motion to adour motion by Pat Earl seconds all those in favor seven
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e e e right that was a beautiful audience members I love that all right 5.3 our closed session report the clerk of the Board of Trustees will report actions taken during close session 4.0 no reportable action taken regarding public employee performance evaluation superintendent that concludes the report hey moving on to our student speakers so at this time we have our student speakers go first and our first speaker is Connor Joseph Hol please come on up to the and if I um said your name wrong please correct me welcome welcome hello oh good evening my name is Connor Hy I'm a student at Western High School a jarge c Cadet and also a split ups for the US Army Reserves a quick explanation of split ups for those who don't know uh split UPS is a junior who is on track to graduate and meets the requirements can enlist in branches that allow such as the US Army and the US Navy uh I enlisted in early April and complet completed basic training this past summer and I'm here to speak on one of the concerns I have at my high school Western's JTC program is in route to being informally removed from Western starting next semester for most students uh in JTC this is an Abrupt uh change in schedule with the only notice being given by our instructor not admin and as a matter of fact our admin is still deciding if JTC will remain next semester when we will not have an instructor next semester JTC cannot function without an instructor and nearly everything in our current classroom will be returned to the Army leaving us with nothing but maybe chairs and tables Jared I was homeschooled for around 5 years ending with my freshman year and due to many reasons I chose to go to Western my sophomore year and in the second semester of that year I joined jrtc JTC helped me relearn how to socialize develop my character and eventually gave me the confidence knowledge and determination to enlist in the Army my junior year and so far I've carried that experience and the experiences through basic training with me now and hearing that other students will not be able to go through jrtc to develop their character especially given that Western is merging with uh orangey Middle School uh it strikes me as just crazy um I'm sorry my script ended there um I'm blinking on what I wanted to say however I definitely want to draw attention to this thank you very much Conor I I just wanted to let you know you still had a couple minute did you have anything else to say no okay thank you very much David Elias marz welcome can I begin hi good evening I am Cadet major David morass the executive officer of Western jrtc I am here at the board today to express our growing concern over the situation at our program here at Western we have been forced into a situation where we have been blinded by what is going on with our jrc program we have repeatedly and repeatedly ask our principal about the future of our program yet we have been denied access to the truth or any answers we've asked a very simple question to our principal will our program continue next year with the consolidation of Western High School and orange view Junior High yet it seems the school and the district has utterly failed to inform us the students and the district has blown the situation way out of proportion the school has a very Infamous motto that they plaster everywhere unlimited you yet it seems that all the district seems to be doing is limiting me and dozens of students of their potential jrc is a path of a is a p part of a career pathway something that the district always emphasizes that we follow when choosing our electives although jedc does not force you to join our armed services it can prepare those who wish to help who wish to and help them in their pursuit of a career in the military with its removal there will not be a pathway for military service they also preach the values of the five seats everywhere like it's the most important knowledge in the world yet they fail to follow one of their own values communication how can their priorities be so Twisted that they can't even follow their own rules that is hypocrisy at its definition what kind of example is a district and a school setting for our students we have also given our principal the chance to explain to us or give us answers on why there's been such such a mystery on a simple question yet she has ignored us we had requested a meeting with her before arriving here at the board yet she has ignored us can I continue okay we know not all decisions are up to the principal but how can I feel heard if every time I try to talk to an authority figure we are stood up an excuse my principal tried claiming was your instructor found another job nothing I can do he left my instru RoR has not left he shows up every day still knowing what's going to happen yet continues to teach for the students he has found another job opportunity just in case the program shuts down but he has not left yet he has not turned his res resignation resignation he is not an arrest to leave at all my principal has also stated that our number in a program is low that the Army requires 100 people news update the minimum is 50 now which we clearly have we also have several other people interested in joining yet their counselors always refuse to do so because it apparently interferes with their schedule we're always recruiting for zero period I don't understand how that interferes is that all I have thank you for your time can continue did you have more to say I had a couple more yeah it's all right board it's all right yeah uh thank you for your kindness so back to where I was talking about if you're wondering what I'm talking about about our new in uh decrease in Cadets we are now going from 100 Cadets needed in our program to 50 and this is in the new National Defense author authorization Act of 2025 it has not been signed yet but it will be signed in the next school year and with the consolidation of Western High School and orange view we will more than uh we will hit our quota by well we her quota is what I'm trying to say now moving on to my last statement we believe that they may have attempted to ignore us in this futile attempt to let this Blow by but we will not be silenced we have the support of our teachers students and the community we come here to the board in order to seek change support and justice for our program and to prove that after all we the students have a vote thank you for your time [Applause] we really appreciate you all coming here and bringing this to our attention um at this time did you want to clarify anything or could you clarify anything well at this time no decision has been made to our understanding from what the principal has shared the teacher is still there and there's no resignation so there's been no discussion to close the program at the semester uh now if the teacher leaves then obviously he has to be replaced uh and from what I understand with HR we don't have just general Subs to cover jrtc we'd have to work through the Armed Forces uh in this case I think it's the Army U to find a replacement and whether that can be done or not um I don't know that would I don't know what the the availability of Subs to to serve in that role would look like um so that's the decision we'd have to make if in fact the the instructor leaves if he doesn't leave then the programs I would assume is going to continue throughout the year in terms of next year no decision has been made in terms of next year at this time okay any questions clarifying okay okay uh moving on to our uh public comments Open Session items Tanya bovich welcome thank you um good evening to the board and to the guests my name is Tanya bogdanovich I am recently retired public school teacher a parent a grandparent and a concerned Community member after attending the last month's board meeting a few stud students a retired language arts teacher and two parents were asking for the book gender queer to remain on the shelves of the auhsd libraries this prompted my search which led me to the capital resource Institute investigative teams show that the auhsd as to having pornographic X-rated books depicting highly explicit content that includes detailed and graphic depictions of sexual acts nudity and disturbing and violent scenes Kink SNM sexting instructions orgies masturbation instructions sex shops and where to purchase sex toys language about mental and physical pain inflicted on toddlers Youth and miners by their own parents and other adults in the lives of abused children there are 37 different titles and 17 more to come gender quer shows Graphics of oral and anal sex quotes which I will share with you I C and then this is one quote it says I can't wait to have your C in my mouth and then it gives a website where to purchas the sex toys the book push which has been on the shelves for more than 10 years is the most disgusting that I have ever seen I'm going to give you one quote because I can't bear to tell you the rest it's on every page it uses the most graphic language of a young child from the age of four to teenage years being physically raped by her parents both mother and father one of the quotes is disgusting it's all over the place he slaps my face he calls me names he pumps my P SS Y in and out over and over this then the next book The Bluest Eye talks about a pedophile and how he's feeling and thinking when he gets little toddler girls and gives them ice cream to lick while he abuses them sexually how disgusting is that the list goes on and on as stated in the district guidelines of the selection adoption and use of material under 6.1 prohibited materials material labeled as having RX nr17 adults only or the equivalent of are not to be used in any District school or classroom so I have uh handouts for each and every one of you this is my challenge to the superintendent the assistant superintendent all board members um you are welcome to look at all of the books and all of the sites that I found this information on here are some excerpts I'm warning you it's very graphic as well as um the lovely photos as well that our children are looking at thank [Applause] you uh good night everybody uh this is about the colonist AB there's a bill ab3 3074 so I wrote a poem and it goes like this are you guys ready for it colonist you did not allow chos and mexicos Chas natives swim in your pools here on Sycamore and Harbor Boulevard colonist you kill Native Americans on Thanksgiving day after we fed you turkey Chi wot we taught you how to live and survive Colin us you enslaved us BC before the African slaves colonists you did not allow us in your segregated schools like the Mendes case and Westminister Orange County California calasan colonist you ran you ran the Anaheim City in the 20s 30s and 40s the Klux Clan colonist you founded the mascot in the name of William cook a founder of the KKK Dragon colonist must be removed and abolished colonist you did not allow us but you led us and fled us with lies Little People's Park Cho riots they call it in the BOS of anahim anahim a German word colonist you shot Us in Thanksgiving Day in Massachusetts Bay we're going to see it again and again it gets locked into your head in Massachusetts remember that Enslaved the Chinese went to war with the Vietnamese and killed Islander Filipino Pinoy people indigenous peoples B Filipino Pino colonized them and now the colonist is a police state with the badge on the dress and undercover with drobes colonist you now are the CEOs were suits and ties Diablos mer belana bahana Yori Yankee the OC Vibe we are the stolen lands the colonist We spelled it backwards colonist you fell on the Anaheim colonist the red white and blue colonist and every white star that you have raped and stolen in the states of the colonist and all Native American trees that have not been honored but now Biden has finally put up the light thank you my white Ally our white Ally colonist listen carefully we're not Hispanic you're not my brown skin our brown skin color of the mother earth chocolate cacao colonist we are not nnan Cortez we're not hispanos we are not Latinos we're not Christopher Columbus that So-Cal discover mesika we are the Mexican indigenous Cho people that speak na Spanish and English Seattle Atlantic Chipotle wak wiconsin Cincinnati Atlanta or nowat not English or Spanish all the way to cuscatlan colonist you have deal with us now not Disney Mickey Mouse is a small world after all but your word will come down colonist Cho CH Pride worldwide for all the human race for all colors that been colonized and white man you are indigenous in Europe you have your ancestry like I once told my friend in laga Beach I know you want to learn how to make anadas it's okay but please you have to also find your roots in Europa colonist colonist colonist that's my time's up thank you so much let all Castillo all right Castillo all right good evening everybody um just wanted to well every time I come here there's always something being said and these young men fighting for uh to have something that you know their passion uh I'm going to change my subject that I wanted to talk about because my brother he was two years older played football for Anaheim and uh 17 years old he was going to the fire department and then he decided I want to join the service and my parents signed him up and he went uh eight two terms eight years and he went to Somalia and um but it made him a better man to come back and you know have a good life um I helped a young man that was having troubles uh at school and I mentored him and he joined the Navy he did six terms now he's retired has a nice home and everything did really good so um but this the situation for me here in our neighborhoods is um the SS I'm going to stay on that project SS I go to the uh police review board I'm actually the one that with an organization leader created that back in the 90s because we needed to have it here and um I stood Faithfully every time and went all the time by myself if I had to be there I was there to hear what we can do to help um So based on that my concern is was the SS were mentioned there so no I I know anybody here ever goes there to see that or communicates with the review board they're important plus you have here the school board and then you have um the outside police that are not involved with the SS and the police review board to understand that our goal as what I heard the Sor stay here and I loved them when they talked to me and saying we're here to help everybody we're not here to put labels on and then Here Comes new neutral ground excellent somebody else is coming in and you had your ambassadors and almost that's like military to me we could get something like that going like a military um because here's my main thing our kids look what we're having the smash and grabs and all these other gangs are kind of out the door it's all of a sudden it's every kid and they and they're out in the streets and and again I came from Parks I was the kid I went through what they went through H I didn't let it get me to me to to do anything bad except good but we are like saying we are uh indigenous people here that have had to go through a lot I went to ball I went to Lera and boy back in my time if some people here have been back in those 70s um it was pretty bad it was uh unaccepted to be have be uh an immigrant and I have to put that in there because all immigrants a Asian and Arab and Mexican and African-American people were uh mistreated and um there's so much to say so I want to start coming to give some history we I've been here I used to come here 25 years to come and speak here and uh get involved in the community and we used to bring a lot of things here some of you remember the organizations that used to come here and uh we even had the atic dancers out here but we protested against teachers that had done some you know things that uh un awful to want to you talk about but you know we got to have accountability and that's all I'm looking for and I don't want to come off negative I want to come off positive you know and so my last thinging was too I ended up at Gilbert here because of that stuff uh and Gilbert actually sent me at 17 years old to go to work full-time because I worked at 13 for the Ceda program and when I did that I ended up having to leave my high school laera because of the discrimination and I came here the principal here told me to quit school and and go to work appreciate your comments this education that's what we need thank you all right moving on to our uh 20242 first interim budget report Dr nen well good evening Madame President members of the board superintendent massuda members of the public and those watching online so tonight I'll be presenting the 2425 first interim report so do wanted to thank some of my staff uh Kieran org and Jo Kona for um helping put this together thank you so I would like to first um give some of the um news as what we're hearing right now from the the state level as well as some of the other um different things as we're hearing so the lao's office the Legislative andna Office um just released a report back um um last month um and basically the report is saying that um they were able to address the 2420 um five budget as well as the 2526 budget which included $5.5 billion of temporary revenues as well as7 billion withdrawal from the state's riging fund you know we know it's raining so they're able to W with do that that was great um and revenues are currently um is actually running ahead of the broader economy in California so in October um the Revenue um received was $1.1 billion higher um than what was projected and they were mostly due to the personal income tax so we're kind of seeing that there's kind of maybe you know a little light right at the end of the tunnel um so for some of the um the the bounce back um with the uh personal income tax and so but the revenue is improving um but there's also the cost is actually uh going up so overall they're feeling like it's a balanced budget for the 25 26 currently that's what they're looking at um but overall you know being in the L's office they're very very uh conservative right that's their role right to advise the governor as well but they're very conservative so there's thinking that the revenues U unlikely to grow enough uh fast enough to catch up with the high spending um growth at this point so spendings projected to grow 5.8% um from 2025 uh 26 and then it's higher than what's anticipated uh in the out years which is about 3.5% in the reason outlooks so what they're saying is at this point there's no capacity for new commitments from uh from the state at this point so that's their analysis um you know but as we were um attended some of the conferences recently we're hearing the revenues is doing a little better so we're hoping that that will be helpful for for our budget um for next year um and then yesterday the UCLA School of Anderson that just released their uh forecast um and so the biggest thing that people are still talking about is inflation right as you all know um the biggest topic that that was discussed yesterday was the tariffs so we um the latest numbers we're hearing is that uh tariffs will continue to boost inflation um they're looking at about a 3% increase uh for next year so if you can can just remember the last big number we've seen remember it was June of 2022 99.1% inflation right so this is I mean in my opinion much better than what we have seen so I think it's coming down so is actually going to be helpful overall um and they're forecasting uh uh 2.8% um you know outgoing for 2026 and out that so which is I mean I think the inflation needs to come down and so this is going the right direction we do believe but there's a lot of other factors as we um I'm going to talk about um but the fed's target is actually at 2% inflation and so you know but um they they're saying right now don't rely on feds to continue to cut rates they believe there's going to be another cut coming but after that I think it's probably unlikely that any more Cuts uh because we're so used to seeing those low rates right everybody was refinancing and doing all these different things that rate they're saying that that's probably not going to come back right anytime soon so that's what they're forecasting at this point but because of the rates are still relatively High um it's actually impacting the um housing market at this point so uh California housing market continued to be tight as existing single family home sale were at alltime low since 2004 um while the home price index continued to increase so that's why one one of the things where I'm going to be sharing that's one of the reasons why we're declining a faster rate in this area than compared to the rest of the state right they are moving out from our area and moving out of the state as well uh in terms of unemployment rate uh projected in California uh to be about 5.3% currently uh is looking at to increase to 5.5% in 2025 and then come down a little bit to about 5% in 2026 overall in the in the US um projections for nixir is at 4.3% so this is still relatively low um and then the national average has come down to about 4% in 2026 so California has always been a little bit higher than the national average um but we're hoping that you know the unemployment rate will continue to decline that's our goal um there a lot of risk with u budget we have obviously moving forward um political risk from the deficit uh trade deportation deportation and other political factors so the biggest thing about tariffs is we're looking at the 25% on all Goods um coming from Mexico and Canada that's the so those are the assumptions going into this budget already that's what um they're ant anticipating and then uh 10% additional from China at this point so they're very um Co cautious at this point with the inflation because these numbers um it's possible that it could go higher depending on addition teras that's going to come through right so we just want to kind of make sure that we are aware of that I think we're all aware that there's a lot of different things that's going to happen probably with the next six months and so we'll continue to track those numbers want to share some key indicators um so I just found this data recently so this is a data of what is the California overall enrollment student enrollment in k12 and the Orange County enrollment as you can see in the blue um sorry in the green are that uh that's a California en rment so last year at 23 24 year 5.8 million students okay but you can see it's gradually declining right and um so projecting out 10 years to 23 uh 20 33 34 down to uh 5 point about 5.2 million uh students so that's a almost like a decrease of 600,000 students that's quite significant and so so um you can look at it's about a 10% increase at the state level so these are the projections that the state came out um that um that's available and and you look at the Orange County so they also do it by the county so you can see the um that's the uh yellow of the gold bar right there it's kind Orange um last year was at 437,000 students but as you can see each of the years going down um down to about 366,000 uh within 10 years so that's a drop of 7 70,000 students within Orange County so it's a 16% drop so just want to give us the the the Outlook because some of people are are we are we projecting continue to project the decline and so said let's we project usually five year five years out based on the numbers that we have right so we project that so this is the at the state level they're now these are the numbers that are released and I want to share that with the public so you can see what we're kind of facing with so this next slide here um the orange bar now is the Orange County and then the blue bar is um our numbers in our district and so we can see here last year we're at 27,1 195 um and moving 10 years right this is very very far away right 10 years um and the number will go down to about 20,000 students right now I wanted to emphasize the first fiveyear number those are the numbers we use um the um data that we we have a software we use called Frontline compare compare that we use that number we project out we have different models and we pick some you know in the moderate um category those are the numbers and the the next five years for those I use the uh Orange County declining rates because we our data doesn't go that far out so I use the Orange County just to be conservative to being line with Orange County I Ed those data and project them out for the the last five years so I want to make sure that you understand that so that the drop that we are projecting a further drop in the beginning and then uh maybe will'll flatten out as Orange County that way so I just want to kind of share this data something we haven't shown this way I think I've shown the Orange County but we have not gone out 10 years so this is just the first shot and obviously um we're just getting the cowp pass data coming back and so once we have those data then we'll update this with a certified data as well so but as you can see o Orange County overall as a county we're dropping much faster the entire state right and so I I think as we can see these numbers it was very um it's good to have these numbers at least ready so that we can prepare what's coming and these are the average da attendance um you know uh what we have um some of these are the actuals the ones in blue and then the one um red is our our number moving forward uh we are still right now at about n 90% or so at attendance room right and so that's something that we really need to uh really pay attention I know that a lot of different people are working on that but um one of the things I learned at this last conference attended was looking at going to deeper and looking at the different groups now and so you know we sharing that with the rest of the group and really going to down to for example looking at The Chronic absenteeism because if you look at our overall um rate our kids are missing about 18 days of school they're missing 18 I mean on average missing 18 days of school after 180 days of school on average and that's a lot already at this point and so that's something we really really need to Target because that drives what we get we get paid based on kids attending not on kids enrolled in our district so make sure yeah thank you um this is the unduplicated people count so as you can see here um we're actually um going up a little bit to about 80 uh% for a current year and then moving up to about 8 82% or so in the out years so uh that does mean that probably um maybe more kids are maybe needing even more services um on our side right they the percentage keep going out that means their students are are maybe needing more support from this point for as well this is our stirs and Pur uh contribution um so this is the projections based on the current figures we have from um that's been released so you can see um it is still going up and then depending on the market returns at those uh pension boards this could also change as well as you can see the uh Pur especially they're able to change the rate uh pretty quickly as well and this is the Health and Welfare um how much we projected and so as you can see here current year uh looking at almost a $62 million in our expenditures um and then um the out years um in 20 in four years 207 28 going up to about 81 million at that time and so we do project it about um a 10% increase for Health and Welfare as well so those are some of the key indicators I'm now going to our um first inm uh budget numbers and some of the assumptions that we have so you can see here this is our current um um projection so you haven't see our our lcff that's a local control funding formula the cost of living adjustment current year is at 1.07% uh the out years is at 2.93 um I have heard from um some of the other uh fiscal people that that number could come down a little bit and so once we kind of hear what the governor's number will be in January we'll up definitely update that but the number I'm hearing is actually lower than the um number right now up there so we'll kind of see what the under numbers will be um after that as well and so this is our enrollment projections um moving forward um so you can see this enrollment and then looking at where we're declining um so nure projected to decline by about 1274 students and then about a thousand students uh the year after and then another 844 so uh we are continuing to decline and as we all know we do have the um Western um orange view consolidation that we are um working on and so that will um merge in um basically the end of this school year beginning of next school year and so we're working hard on getting them the facilities ready for that as well so just want to make sure that we do know that so that that will be um some of the different things that we're doing to uh to mitigate this declining enrollment as well um and we do um project right there are going to be some staffing associated with this um you know and so we are looking at some of the up number of people retiring and things like that so once we know um how many people will be retiring then we will be bringing those number in um by the second inur report so we'll be doing the update to the board in March and that time our goal would uh we would know already how many um the the Staffing will be uh retiring then we can uh put those um up here so we're not going to realize the savings until we have those specific folks okay so I want to make sure that that the board understands that so nothing has been reflected in these numbers yet correct so we do know that BAS based on uh the numbers as you can see in the budget report that we put uh 39 FTE decline in 2526 31 in 2627 and 26 and 27 28 our goal is we usually have about an average about 34 retirements uh you know in that those category and we're hopeful that we get that and we don't um we we are budget we're carrying that right now and so but we would know by um I think hopefully by January I'm some with the with how many people that could be retiring and then for sure in March we'll bring those numbers in thank you for the question and there's also with the consolidation we also know that there could be some positions as well but right now we're going to be working through that we need to make sure that you know and we have committed we still people that that the commitment will be that you know we'll find places for people to be at so that's one of the things that we have made we have said um to to the folks um at both sides as well and so um once we we know what th savings could be then we'll project for that as well but I think it was a little too premature to put that assumptions in the budget at this point Dr Nan yes with all of the housing that's going up around the surrounding area that does not impact our enrollment well we really hope to but unfortunately um with some of these developments we are not getting those students so a lot of these new um homes um we perfect example there's one area um it's by the Angel Stadium brand new area um 200 plus units we have 10 students between us and Anaheim elementary so I don't know where I mean I know people are moving in but I don't know do they not have kids this age or you know because we're High School District or are they just not having kids in those units that are coming through um and the rents are very very expensive I mean even a um you know two-bedroom house I mean sorry apartment in in Anaheim I believe like $2,800 $3,000 or more it's very very expensive and as I you know we also have some meetings with the cities some people are not moving out so people they're not selling their homes and so this is the thing our our interest rate was so low everybody refinance everybody locking their rate people are not going to move out for from a 2% 3% interest rate home and to go to another place and so that's the issue that we're seeing right now the mar the housing market they're not moving and so um unless we people that move out and then maybe young families moving in um or people having more kids right as you can see people are also having less kids and I think right now for example this would the kids this age right now are the kids that are born um that's coming through the system now they were born maybe 201 2011 and that was the recession remember that time and people were delaying having kids and I mean I know a lot of people I had my second child that time there was nobody in the hospital I was like maternity was really really light where versus my first one it was like lot tons of people in the hospital so but I I think yeah it's just very very expensive um there's it's very expensive to rent it's also very expensive to buy and then there's no um there's no Market either there's not there's not that many I mean laama right like U Mr O'Neal you can attest that there was not many houses for sale in in for example c laama yeah in fact the hospital closed is U it's U it's maternity they closed their maternity War yeah a couple years ago because they did nobody's coming in really see so so for example yeah so that that gives us good indication thank you for that comment that gives us an indication to to know what's happening because laama data is very helpful for us to project theud enrollment in that area because we do we do pull the the the those demographics as well well history is Shan we've had thousands of units being constructed in Anaheim and in Cyprus and we've gotten a handful of students so the new construction is not giving us students okay so so I think these a lot of different factors but I think valid points but thank you for the information on the hospital that's that's kind of disturbing for us yeah yeah that's not helping us disturbing for me too okay just didn't like that idea right right so economics so you see here this is our um the combined general fund um on the revenue side so for 2425 we're looking at $555 million of Revenue that we're bringing as you can see majority of it is the uh local control funding format lcff it's about 75% there and then um this is the um combined expenditures including transfers out um $557 million um that we are um spending and so just just be mindful we also still have some of the um some of the dollar from the co funding this is our last batch um we have some of the HVAC that we're working on and so there's still going to be expenditures in here as well and then as you can see here this is the combined U mono projection um so you can see here um wanted to U make sure you see uh this is the combin so the right now we're looking at a uh deficit spending for current year at about $7.9 million uh next year is about 27 million and 41 million and then $62 million and so uh but I do want to make sure that we turn into the next page which is the unrestricted because as I I'm telling you we have some of the carryover dollars that we have from the co money for the Esser for example that's the last batch of it can you explain to the audience the difference between restricted and unrestricted restricted yes happy to do that so unrestricted are money that has no strings attached they just come and we can choose to spend on any programs we have for example restricted program there's a lot of rules to it you have for example um Title One these are only for certain specific kids that earn them and you have to you have to track them all separately in a separate category and for example each school have their own um have their own funding and then we track them by the exact code that goes with it so every single dollar is tracked in the system and so a lot of them they have they have um the special uh strings attached to them okay okay so let me go here so I want to F I want us to focus on the unrestricted so because this gives a better true picture this is the unrestricted fund the restricted program have a lot of different things attached to it so it's it's it's a good picture but it's not like the true picture of where we are in in deficit spending as you can see here this year we're actually okay you know we're actually $27 million you know good for unri next year we're still good 1.1 million above right so not that no deficit spending in the first two years which is really good but third year $36.6 million deficit spending and then 60.8 million in 2728 and that's the reason why we have the budget stabilization committee we've been working at it um since we formed the committee we met um believe four times now at this point uh we came up with a lot of different options and we're going to continue to meet because there are different things that we are going to be addressing they went through the budget I'm going to tell you this they went the budget line by line like I mean very very detailed we went through all the expenditures with them unrestricted restricted we went through everything to make sure that everyone on committee understands what the differences are and so they've seen these num I mean they've seen the last set of numbers and then I'll be showing them these set of numbers as well um and together we're going to come up with Solutions there a lot of different things that we um been looking into and really begin to see what are some of the things that we can do so we do I mean there's um some folks are here but um I do want to thank all the people who are are on the committee we have two representative from each of of the um bargaining groups and you know we met last week we met this week there's a lot of different things we like to do and so I just want to make sure that people understand um that we are addressing the problem and the goal will be to make a recommendation to the board or what we can do in the future you mention you mentioned earlier about attendance what is 1% better attendance give us approx um we can calculate that I think we did the number um before Karen do you remember what that number would be two to three million do okay that's just 1% just 1% okay thank you so the formula is a little different now as well remember before it was you know current year prior year now it's a threeyear averaging so it's it's not as a clear as like before so 1% um and then this is the restricted size you can see here um and we do have some commitments um for uh at this time for the first inim um as you can see uh total is $157 million but you can see here um majority of the commitments we have is going to go to the declining enrollment the last item you'll see decline en rollment um for for Staffing to set aside so any money that we have we're gonna have we're going to set it aside for our future deficit spending and that's our goal okay this is a new requirement um we need to have a fiscal solvy statement um that in preparing for the first in budget that the board acknowledges its F fiduciary responsibility to maintain fiscal solvency for current and the next two years and so as you have shown I've shown you all the um figures that we have for that and based on the 2425 state budget act uh that independ is the in increases the ongoing cost uh that we do anticipate um a need to uh reduce $ 36.6 million in a budget in 2627 so it's not current year next uh next year but in 2627 and then we're not required to do a fourth year but we do that as a um as a standard in our district and $6.8 million in 2728 to maintain our fiscal solvency and as I did discuss we have the budget uh stabilization committee currently and we'll be working to make a recommendation to the board as well or some of the recommendations and as you can see here we have some of the fiscal commitments and book of it it's going to be on the declining rment so we want to make sure we set aside those dollars for the declining rment as well and I do want to point it out as we all know so we passed our bond measure Cas so thank you everyone for that support and a lot of communi supported us for that so thank you so much we do have about $24.6 million um in the pre fund funded projects so those S of money that we set aside in a separate fund um to do some of these projects so now the bond pass um but we we still need to establish a separate account and we also need to sell the bond first before we can transfer out these expenses so uh when we do that so our goal is in uh spring so probably April because we would like to receive the money by uh June before we close the fiscal year so then when we do that we will then um remove um transfer the expenses of those uh projects into the bond fund at that point so I want to make sure that so the 20 um 4.6 million is still right now here but once we take that away then we'll update the budget to reflect that as well Dr nean can you explain to the uh public that Bond dollars cannot be used for our general funds yes so there are a lot of restrictions and that's one of the things as well so we will have an application out to to to solicit for the citizens Bond oversight committee so that will be coming so please make sure that um we we'll obviously make an announcement when we do that but we also want to make sure there are very very strict requirements how Bond dollar can be spent okay so it cannot be spend for example like on for example on my salary or on like the staff Sal that's not for that only people working on the bond for example it's be on the projects and then there are requirements of having a Citizens B committee to oversee how the money are spent and they annually come to the board and report to the board of how the money are spent all the bond dollars are also audited by our external Auditors as well so that's very very critical people need to understand and bulk of the um dollars are I mean they're all audited at that point so and so we would uh we would um probably I think in January February we would have the application out and we would encourage people to apply for to be on the committee I know like initially is very exciting but we need people for many years to be on the committee as well so thank you thank you thank great question um the timeline so tonight we are taking um the board's going to take action to adopt the first insur report with a positive certification to ocde meaning that we are able to meet our financial obligations for current year and the next two years um and then in January uh about January 10th Governor will release um his proposal at that point and we'll be taking the second inm to the uh boore uh I believe it's March 6 it's pretty early this year but about March 6 and then we'll kind of see if there's any changes in the May Revis and then our goal will be to uh bring the budget to the board uh in June and so that's our timeline um so what's going to come and there's going to be a lot of obviously shifting as we you know s bonds as we also kind of realize some of the um possible retirement savings as well so we'll be the second inter room will be a good indicator of where we're going to be going at that point and that concludes my presentation I'm happy to answer any uh questions that you may have before we move on that yes that deserves of Applause thank you thank you a lot of work thank you uh to the entire team the financial team uh since we're on the subject of the bonds can you explain why it's very important that we have a positive certification on how that affects our credit rating and when we go to uh sell the bonds right great question so um and I'm gonna I'm very proud that we've got um upgraded in two crat ratings since I've been here so I'm very proud of that um I think it's also because we are very fiscally solvent were able to present um to um Moody and let them know that where we're at and part of it is your governance of the board as well as well as the the leadership within the team they literally they interview they look at R figure they ask a lot of very detailed questions they ask declining ran what are you doing to address your problem and going to tell you we're one of the like few districts that are really tackling this problem a lot of districts they don't want to touch it they have schools that are like 200 kids I know and I'm like no we already have a plan and we have a full committee that we started this three years ago right this is almost three years at this point that we started this process with the with the consolidation and so it is very important because that helps our taxpayers the better credit rating that we have it is cheaper to borrow right this is like your fical score right like the better that's how they they do that and so we're going to be getting better competitive rates when we go to the market as well thank you thank you R well you talked about just right now about declining enrollment what are our plans to address the chronic absenteeism so I think that's you know we would be um working with you know student services with ed services um Dr free would you like to I know it's Dr Free's been on it that's his task well I know you say I've been on it but I actually want to give credit where credit is Du I ring Alice and Conrad up um she is overseeing a lot of the work that's happening at our sites and she's been doing a fantastic job um with regular data reports for our staff but I'm gonna have her talk about the great work she's doing with Dr Hernandez I know Miss Bean's not here but um around at Chronic aesm in in attendance so turn over to Allison hi good evening thanks for having me so essentially um we look at Chronic absenteeism and one of the biggest pieces we're finding is really addressing the fact that um informing our families in the community what that means so any student who misses 10% excused or unexcused so really the important value of understanding that any missed instruction that first time instruction with our Educators is so vitally important and so it's important that the parent calls us in and tells us but it's also vitally important that they understand that even excused absences count as chronic absenteeism so we lose the funding and that's also a data metric that's used against us in the dashboard component so something to really look at um when we're looking and ultimately it imps our students because when they miss that instruction they miss that opportunity um to have that connection with our school and to be able to stay on track for graduation status and be connected social emotionally with all of our contact there so what else we're doing is I run our data metrics for our administrators I run it every two weeks for them and we're constantly overriding the data to look at our students who are chronically absent and we're looking at where our students our home visit callers that are going out our home visit teams from the school the regular contact and we're also looking at other things that are in the works for how we'll be able to track that data and those metrics as we move forward to see what interventions are working that we should be taking to scale especially at our Junior highs and our lower level nth and 10th grade to try to make sure we can capture them to keep them and then the other piece is looking um at some of the other sides of things so there's just things in the works that aren't out there yet but we are looking at those pieces to see what we can do so what what we should take to scale and what maybe we've been doing for a while that we should abandon and move forward in a more so M are are adaa is affected even by excuse absences as well then absolutely so anytime a student misses I I don't know if the public knows that do you know what I mean because they they don't hit the chronic absenteeism rate but the like if they have a doctor's appointment and we would consider that excuse but that's work against us in our Ada then so anytime a student is absent an all day absence it takes away the students attendance percentage which essentially equates to funding so it takes away we do not get paid if they are not in the seat for the day at some point during that day so if they come in after a doctor's appointment we will receive an apportionment of that if they do not come at all we lose the entire day for them and then how do we make up absences on by Saturday Academy so what we do is we have Saturday academy one to two times a month and that is open to all students whether they've been absent at all um or not but any student who does have a recoverable absence whether it is excused or unexcused we're able to recover that financially for the district on the backside on the attendance note U we have an attendance task force is that cor we initially had an attendance task force in the very beginning a lot of the practic that were uncovered through that process now miss Conrad is overseeing so um she's the one who's providing the data on a regular basis to our sites um there's a couple things that she did mention and she said some things that are in the works I think is what she's referring to is you know we have our digital report card I think I don't know like 96% of our families access report cards via the digital um process now via the traditional mailed home one and as a result we're able to put messages on those report cards and we know that they're widely viewed uh so we're looking at putting messages connected to their specific students around their attendance data so they're getting that awareness right away in terms of how often their student is missing and the impact um to their students so that's some of the things that that Allison and our team are are working on as well um so a a lot of things I know she talked about the Saturday Academy um the other piece that we talked about is the short-term independent study so um that's a newer concept that we've been really beginning to implement where when students um know that they're going to be missing for school for a very small period of time could be up to a I think a day one day um because we're heavily engaged with EC Cadence students have a way to continue doing their work even though they're absent we get up to I think 15 days is it per year 15 days 15 days per year that we can recover if a student makes up the work on the day they're absent they've notified us ahead of time that they're going to be absent then we have a we have to do an agreement form with them but then we're way we have a way to recover that and the student is not penalized academically because of the way that we did it so it's a short-term study process that we're working on uh to really build systemically across our school so whether they're out sick or that student says hey I need to go to town for a funeral or for a wedding we we have a way to to make up the time that's missed in the classroom and that's where Cadence is really important so the student doesn't feel like they're missing the beat at all along with the families we were able to systemize a lot of that through e Cadence and through our electronic forms process um so it's a lot cleaner so it's actually um much simpler for administrators to follow through on that just a little bit more on um you're talking about um chronic abs eism and I know we have people going out and talking to the parents talking to the students um I know money is important to the district obviously but money is not important to them okay so when we're talking to them we shouldn't even be talking about well if you're not here we're going to be losing money take that off the table they're not interested in hearing that because they're going to be begin to believe that all we're interested in is money we're not interested in the students and it's the students are the foremost important item we have there our customer so when we're going out to the home or we're talking on the phone we should be trying to determine why the student is not coming to school are we not fulfilling their interest now maybe at their site that they're attending we're not offering what they're interested in so they just blow it off we have a whole bunch of other schools in the district correct we should be looking to find out Dig Down find out what their interest is and how can we fulfill that interest and I think if we start honing on some of those issues we're going to start to see reaping some benefits and we do do that so when we do the home visits and when we're communicating with families we do ask those questions and we actually have found and I work very closely obviously with dror Hernandez's office and our transfers to get our students to a place where maybe it meets their need more whether it is mental health need or whether it is an academic need or whether it is an interest need so that is a big part of what we do okay the other thing I think it's really important to mention that's beautifully aligned to what you just said is you may recall leadership advance and we mentioned a few times the community of practice around Street data so one of the things that we've been doing with our principles and their site teams is building capacity around Street data and our Focus has been on attendance so in Street data ENT essentially is taking the satellite data so if we know we have x% of students who are missing school um from as chronically absent the street data aspect humanizes that data so now it's drilling down to individual students where rather than speaking to every single student who misses we we get a sampling students who are missing and we really take the time to do these empathy interviews and focus interviews with them and their families to learn in terms of What Not Just why they're missing but what is it that might might be of interest that gets them back to school and so as the schools are engaged in this process they're learning a lot about the students and that is actually more powerful and informing a lot of the decisions that we make or the programs that we put into place because the students and families are telling us directly what will work to get me more in school or what what I need that's going to help me be more readily engaged in classrooms whether it's um specific programs or if it's instructional practices there's a lot of things that we're learning from our students and families as it relates to attendance that better informs our work as opposed to just looking at bigger data trends that tell us how many students are missing or not missing this actually tells us more why they're missing and how we can be better at addressing those needs I think those wi are more important and as we look at the data and the trends and we start to look at our percentages if we don't see that percentage start to in increase we need to step back and say why what are we not doing right we need to take another look at it different perspective so let's keep our our finger on the pulse absolutely I just also I just want to interject that this is not a Anaheim Union High School District problem this is a chronic problem across the state across the the nation and so um it's really um you know not to excuse you know us as we are doing the Deep dive and we are doing those things um uh I work uh with Anaheim elementary school district district and I uh used to go out and visit uh homes a lot of the issues are issues that you know we're trying to address in the school um you know we can't fix everything but we're doing a really great job to um you know with our social workers with our you know safe schools making sure that everyone feels good coming in with our drivers um you know we're not about you know a a number a test score you know we are really looking at our students as as human beings and how we want to help them learn and grow in a career that they so choose and so um I I think that um we're our district really again you know I say this all the time when we go out to conventions and we see what other districts are doing we're Far and Away doing um so much better thank you thank you further questions uh Nancy I just wanted to uh to reiterate on your um UCLA forecast uh those are not n Dr Nan's forecast no I did not go to UCLA so um I guess they called me the sister school I went to the sister School of UCLA oh that's what I heard but I love um watching their webinar it was just very you know I'm such a ner in that way I'm like a numbers ner but um it was just yeah so those are all the numbers from from that report that from the webinar I attended but I think they they really dig down into like the data within California and all that and I think it's very helpful to know what's kind of what what's coming right at least having the anticipation what's coming I think will help us as well so okay and as a delegate for uh the organization uh that's really what we talked about a lot about about all of us advocating for um you know doing away with the Ada uh and and uh basing it on enrollment so that's going to be uh again a a top of the ticket item that we're we're talking about with our uh legislators perfect I think that's a great yeah that's a great way because we staff based on enrollment not based on attendance and I think people really need to understand where we're coming from until that changes we need everybody here all right Dr nen I'd like to acknowledge you and your team and your hard work for getting this report together so I see a a couple of your members out there from your team Mr Carmona and miss or so thank you very much and speaking of acknowledgement we have Dr Leia Holstrom in the audience there from Roop let's give her a round of applause [Applause] thank you all right moving on to item nine resolution number 2024 sl25 db- 07 adjustments to income and expenditures general fund resolution number 2024-25 sl-25 db-8 adjustments to income expenditures various funds and the 20242 first interim report roll call vote vote action item no moved second moved in second Mr hosi I Mr O'Neal I miss Guero I and I vote I and uh advance planning future meeting dates uh the annual organization meeting of the Board of Trustees will be held next Thursday December 19th congratulations to Mr hosi and Mr O'Neal for your election and congratulations on winning the board I mean the bond um that deserves a round of applause any suggested um agenda items I don't have any uh suggestion for items but I just want to say before we leave is I was on in rodc when I was in high school and I don't did you attend the the military ball yes I was the one that got up and spoke oh oh oh yeah yeah yeah I was talking to my neighbor no that's okay um I I understand the importance of of DRC in the schools and so uh I will work trying to uh voice my opinion and in support of jrtc seeing how we can I don't like to use the word manipulate but manipulate the the numbers system whatever we can do to try to keep it in the school you know we if the if the students aren't there we can't support a small class uh but if the instructor's not there maybe we can do something in in Search and figure out some way to to rectify that so but just want to let you I know number of you left this evening but tell your your uh comrades there that that left that the board is in support of of the program and we do what we can okay yes third and uh before we adjourn I think it's appropriate that we adjourn this meeting um in honor of uh Dr John dalum people know who he is just want to mention uh go ahead Dr D uh former principal in the district uh he was a principal when my sons were in Kennedy High School but he he was a principal in other schools also uh he was a wonderful educator and everybody that uh worked with him and for him really loved him and he passed away what about three weeks ago and uh he was a a world traveler he he climbed I don't know how many highest peaks in the world all of them all all of them I I guess he hit all of them but he was you would never know it just by looking at him and talking to him but he was a real Adventure so I think if you go on Facebook there's a picture of him he was also a veteran of the Vietnam War High highly decorated yes and uh wrestling coach coach pardon me Hall of Fame Wrestling Hall of Fame wrestling coach he has a great following he will be greatly missed and uh what I was saying is I think there's he's on Mount Everest I think looking down if you look at Facebook it's just amazing individual yeah so may I have a motion so move second all in favor hi good night every everyone thank you
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the Anaheim Union High School District Board of Trustees meeting of December 12th 2024 is called to order at 5:01 p.m. the following members are pres Ron hosi Brian O'Neal uh Katherine H Smiths will join us in close session Jessica Guerrero and an Mary Randall tro staff has requested the following amendments to the agenda Exhibit C replace Pages 24 25 26 to reflect updated amounts may I have a motion to accept the amended agenda second okay all in favor I I I um seeing no public comments the Board of Trustees will now hold a Clos session to discuss item four on the agenda is now 502 and we will move to close session
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e e e calling the meeting to order roll call Maria oara I'm here Rick Ry here Gary Ary here Amanda Buchanan here Dennis Bender is out um Chief can you lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance IED aliance to the flag of United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice thank you so much Chief you never know who I'm going to grab cie do we have any public comments per turning to closed session we do not okay for closed session these are the items we are going to discuss superintendent evaluation people Personnel exposion case exposion number 62 2425 through exposion number 12242 5 admission case ad2 2425 and expungement of expulsion case expulsion number 13 2122 conference on litigation government code section 54956.9 A current litigation 11 cases cvds 201111 83 cvsb 303 2 22 0303 221 8676 231 171 241 2359 241 2687 23 21161 2 44404 and Civ vvs2 24 289 government code section 5495 4.5 subsection C and 54956.9 subsection D subsection D and subsection e and sub section I anticipated litigation one case 2020 2105 Public Employee discipline dis dismissal release reassignment transfer leave title certificated and classified employees number five public employe appointment resignation retirement reduction title certificated and classified employees number six conference with labor negotiator agency negotiator Jeremiah Harrison employee in the organization Appo valy unified Teachers Association number seven conference with labor negotiator agency negotiator Christine Dupri uh employee organization California School Employees Association number eight conference with real property negotiator government code 5495 6.8 negotiate negotiating uh parties Matthew schulenberg Apple Valley UniFi School District security matters government code 54957 consultation with Apple Valley UniFi School District chief of police and I ask for a motion to go into close session so D I'll second motion all in favor I any opposed we'll be back shortly e e e I like that calling the meeting to order roll call Maria okara I'm here Rick Ry here Gary iy here Amanda buenon here Dennis Bender is out Wyatt will you please lead us in the pledge of allegiance of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice Ro thank you so much Wyatt good evening everyone and thank you for being here before we get started I would like to say that the board appreciates and supports our educational Partners input at our meetings engagement by members of the public and Civ on Civic matters is a Cornerstone of our democracy everyone should have a chance to express their opinions within the guidelines the board has established for his meeting so that we are able to conduct the meeting effectively and efficiently during the meeting there will be time for the public to comment on matter not on the agenda in addition members of the public May comment May comment on specific agenda items after I as your board president ask for a public comment on an item until it is your turn to speak or if you are here just to observe the meeting please refrain from any behavior that prevents others from participating in the meeting or that disrupts the board's ability to conduct the business of the board once again thank you very much for taking your time to join us this evening and to be a participant in this duty of serving our students and our educational community at this time we're going to ask for student Representatives hi Des a premier Giana Perez all right I know I'm short but good evening good evening president okara esteemed board members superintendent Nelson executive cabinet and Apple Valley Unified staff students families and community members I hope everyone had a restful Thanksgiving break and our looking forward to the upcoming winter break we are all looking forward to the last week of semester 1 I know that many of our students including myself want to say thank you to miss Gutierrez and Miss Ortiz for always being there after school to help students with tutoring and showing these students that they can succeed finals our next week and the kids at hdpa are more than ready a big shout out to all the students graduating this month and those that are returning back to Apple and or Granite we will miss all of you many of our students have worked hard to meet their goals in order to go back to their home schools today the counselor from Apple Valley High School came to hdpa to help students who are turning second semester with their class choices thank you to them our history teacher Mr hog grief has been busy he wanted me to share that his big final is coming up he's not even there but um world history students will model the United Nations mock Paris peace conference students will represent the different countries after World War I and come to an agreement on recreating a hopefully a better Versa treaty good luck he also wanted to share that last month eight students represented hdpa at the annual mayor's youth leadership conference where they met up with the mayor and the Town Council and worked in groups with other schools to make proposals for real life issues that they have seen in the community this was some awesome experiences and encourage students to be more involved in Civic engagements this is something that I really wanted to be a part in but I'm a senior so I was not able to attend when we return back from break Golf Club will begin last year it was a hit and Mr Gonzalez is looking forward to starting it up again also in January our counselors will begin their anti- vaping and drug awareness presentations in each class real quick I just wanted to give a shout out to the board and thank you for all the things you have done for hcpa and the district we really appreciate your time and dedication to our community these last few years we hope you have an amazing break happy holidays and I look forward to seeing some of you next month thank you very much thank you gaan rny Hills High School Hana for [Music] good evening executive cabinet board members and attendees my name is Hannah for and I'm the ASB governing council president at Gran Hills High School to begin ASB is continuing to fundraise for both prom and gr we have another winga fundraiser next Monday the 16th from 4 to 8 all you have to do is show the flyer or mention the class of 2025 ASB is working hard to get formal this year's theme is meet me at midnight and it will take place on January 18th the class of 2027 is working very hard to plan this dance we also have a spirit week next week for finals week link crew is currently hosting C cram for our freshman today and tomorrow link crew leaders are available to tutor the freshman class in English Math Science and for languages to help them prepare for finals mock tril brought home a second win from round three and we had our final competition last night against team white if we won last night we have a chance of moving on to semifinals for the first time in Granite Hills history regardless of the overall results I'm extremely proud of the team we are currently second in the high desert and fifth in s Rino County theater began rehearsals for last Last Friday for the next production of lay Miz it's going to take a lot of hard work but we're all excited and I am in this one on Tuesday 65 Granite Hills High School and AV attended the Cal State University San brandino instant in midday at this event all students who attended tour and instant admission to University their hard work and dedication two sold out completely and did an incredible this week we have all of our holiday concerts this was Monday local guitar and tonight with live tomorrow campus all staff are encouraged to are encouraged and welcome to come and make a donation fine uh medor will be hosting a blood drive in partnership with live stream tomorrow on the gr Hills campus all staff are welcomed and encouraged to come and donate Granite Hills also hosted two mtcp competitions on Tuesday with our baking students competing in sweet genius and our ska students hackathon congratulations to Hayden rice who was on the winning team for the hackathon we were also approved for the every 15 every 15 minutes program Grant and are excited to put on that event again this year we also had our cycle wasque visit today and it went very well Granite was recognized for our work in supporting students withal and mental health as well as increasing achievement through the implementation of avid and Kagan strategies we appreciate the support from Mrs Nelson Mr slasher and all the board members the winter sports season is upon us and granite is excited to Showcase to the community all the hard work that both the student athletes and the coaches put on during the offseason our boys and girls soccer programs look to repeat as dfl Champions and have started off their Seasons very strong both our boys and girls best BB programs are full of youthful energy and both programs are improving each day as we approach Desert Sky leak boys and girls wrestling programs have been hard at work and the student athletes have had great success at individual tournaments and team DUS we are excited to see our girls water polo team back in the pool as they break the elements and they are what we consider the toughest kids we have on our campus it's been a great start to this winter season and we are excited to get League games starting in early January we thank you for your continued support of Granite Hills we hope everyone has a wonderful and restful holiday break as always marun and gray lead the [Applause] way thank you Hannah Appo Val High School Eden poolo good evening members of the board and attendees I'm unan Pio Abu valy High School's line president and today I will share with you what our students and staff have been accomplishing accomplishing lately and of course what we have been up to in December I hope everyone had a relaxing fall break because I know our athletes did before our break football played in the division 4 semi-finals against St Bon Aventure and it was very intense although we didn't get the outcome we wanted it was still a good game that reminded us of our sun devil Pride while the fall fall Sports have ended I would like to say that this year has been filled with many thrilling games where our athletes have excelled so much more than before and it was very pleasant and very exciting to watching all of them play we are so proud of our athletes and how hard they have worked to get to where they are I would also like to mention our senior athletes who have signed to the desired colleges like Cal Poly slow calai Fresno and many outstanding schools we can't wait to see them excel in college as well and can't also forget all the sports who are playing in season right now which is basketball soccer wrestling and even though their season just started they've been doing very well so far and we can't wait to see how far they go this year as for CTE programs they've always do amazing things Mast had 11 students who are newly certified nursing assistants we are so proud of these students who are taking the first step into their careers recently masked the senior medical explorers had an opportunity to Shadow some medical departments where they got to see um equipments used and to get a feel of what it's like to be in the medical environment as for EMR students they have participated in a mass casualty incident drill that got them to think and get a feel of how it is on the job now for our sundevil Actors Guild they have been working so hard on playing those roles very well last week our sunev sundevils Actors Guild students put on a Christmas carol show where they've been rehearsing for about 2 months now now which my opinion all that work paid off because sadly I didn't get to see one of their shows I did see their teasers which I enjoyed it was very wonderful to see how well the show is going and now if you weren't a able to attend the Christmas carol don't worry you still can attend our other shows from our sundevils our sun station is having a choir desert theater tomorrow at 6 PM Saturday at 2 pm 6: p.m.
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call um roll call President Melinda sabraski Charlene Diaz here Fred rushon here Barb ziki here would you please stand and say the Pledge with me Al to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic it stands one nation God indivisible with liy and justice for all okay we don't have any citizens present so I'm going to skip that part I need a motion to adopt the agenda please I'll make a motion to adopt the agenda as presented I'll second that motion all those in favor I Melinda saski I Charlene Diaz I Fred rushon I Bari um we just talked about the the budget revision number one are there any further questions or any further comments can I have a motion to approve it then I make a motion we approve the fiscal year 2025 expenditure budget revision number one I'll second the motion all those in favor I Melinda saski I Charlene Diaz I Fred rushon I Barb ziki okay we're going to move into executive session so I need I need a motion don't I okay a motion to move into executive session I'll make a motion to um you have to read that whole thing re we're going to convene into executive session pursuant to AR ARS 38 43103 A1 discussion for consideration of employment assignment appointment for motion to motion dismissal salaries disciplining or resignation of a public officer appointee or employee of a any public body except that with the exception of salary discussions an officer appointee or employee May demand that the discussion or consideration occur in a public meeting do I have a motion to go to Executive session I'll make a motion that we um go into a um executive session I'll second it all those in favor I Melinda saski I Charlene Diaz I Fred rushon I Bari we are now in executive session [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] e [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] he [Music] sh [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] I have 14 Grands and three greates wow I need a motion to reconvene into public session I make a motion reconvene into public session I'll second that motion all those in favor I Melinda sabraski I Charlene Diaz I Fred rushon I barbariki 5 item 5.2 establish the superintendent performance goals um Fred you said you were going to speak to this yes Madam president um based upon our discussion we established two goals for our superintendent for The Next Period of time one is to continue to work on the Strategic plan and uh it is turning out to becoming a a living thing rather than something that's going to be completed and done with so that is going to be an ongoing thing as as I believe we all see and our second goal that uh We've challenged our superintendent with is to uh increase somehow parent participation in uh particularly Schoolboard meetings and at public events for the their children did I forget anything no no no um my question is Caroline will these goals be made public too yes they must be okay so that anybody wants to walk in the front and say what are yes the goals Okie doie um and that's why we we'll have the formal document at the next meeting I mean you've given me the goals we'll we'll they'll be smart goals and they'll be you know you can reaffirm them and they will be public okay I need a motion need a second he made the motion Fred made a motion I'll second that okay I didn't hear Fred make the motion I think I need an audiologist is that the right word no he didn't really say I'm making a motion he said I'm recommending oh okay all right um all those in all those in favor I'm Linda saski hi Charlene Diaz hi Fred rushon hi bever ziki okay closing items 6.1 future topics um for special meetings I don't do you have any okay date and time for future meetings we're going to have one in January 9 at uh 5:30 we have the workshop and hopefully a presentation and our meeting begins approximately at 6:00 so we have that already set on our calendars um can you reiterate um when the the performances are for the schools there isn't there one coming Thursday tomorrow no today is the 12th today is Thursday oh to next Wednesday is it do oh next Wednesday is the uh I just thought you know did you do you know off hand so that we could remind the audience that there are performances going on for schools um when they let me know I share it um but there's one tonight I think there's the one tonight at Diamondback I I I think so oh I'm I caught you off balance I'm sorry no that's that's okay it's what came up the other night yeah on the um on the community calend understood I'm I pull the information when it's made available to me it's put on the district calendar some schools do some schools just keep it on their calendar send up I don't joke so I'm not always aware of every event that other schools is doing but I do my best he does his best but I will tell you that our sites are not wonderful at letting us know I appreciate sorry I put you on the spot that was inappropriate I just thought maybe you knew I knew that was one tonight CU I plan on going to it and next Wednesday's Desert Valley Valley remember when it was it's the 18th so that'll be next Wednesday so because I put that on my calendar yeah does that go on our Facebook or anything yes ma'am okay what I what I know about it okay and one of the things we're going to start doing if we haven't because I don't think we have been doing this piece of it uh one of the discussions today at uh Chamber of Commerce business and government affairs is U the chamber is sponsoring an an additional besides their own face uh their own Facebook page they're also uh sponsoring one that is uh Colorado River something which is really a touristy one and um and so um uh they're striving to kind of be the main community calendar and because anybody can put anything on there there's no no fee there's nothing and so I don't know that we've particularly put some of our events on there um but since you know since they're really promoting that idea that there's a calendar available to the public and let's face it lots of people when they want when outside of town when they're coming to town are not necessarily looking at the chamber Facebook page uh but they might look at one that just says you know col Colorado River events or Colorado River whatever um and um and so that gives us another place that we can we can uh promote our events yeah I don't know if this is called to order or not but we have a first and a second on the table that we need to vote on oh that's true you do on what we haven't voted on on the goals the goals yes we did we did yeah we did yes you did yeah we did did we yeah oh you said I it was it was a mental lapse I don't know well I need an audiologist but maybe you need um okay I I just think that if we kind of broadcast that a little bit start promoting all of our stuff more than we do promote us you know because that was excellent the other night and people need to go see that P yes they do okay I need to meet uh a a motion to adjourn the special meeting I make a motion we adjourn the special meeting all second the motion all those in favor I'm Melinda saski hi Charlene Diaz hi Fred Rushton I Barbara Zari we are now adjourned thank you for
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and at Sunday at 2 p.m. and lastly for ASB we were selling holiday GRS for our students during lunch this week we will be selling snowman grams for $5 and Candy grams for a dollar and this is a good way to spread the holiday cheer before finals week and we are ending the semester very soon which is very exciting because we are heading to a new year with many incredible achievements from our students it was very pleasing pleasing to see to the eye to watch our devil succeed academically athletically and just to see them get involved in our school environment by joining clubs or just going to games to support our teams no matter what each student does on campus we're very proud of them and how hard they have worked this semester we cannot wait to see all that they do will do in the upcoming year and there are so many exciting things happening at Apple Valley high school and I want to thank you all for continued support we couldn't give our students any of these incredible opportunities without you thank you for your time and I hope you have a wonderful and fulfilling holiday and if you get all the presents from Santa this [Music] year thank you thank you so much board comments Dennis Benda is not here Amanda banan all right thank you so good evening everyone um I'd like to begin by highlighting the many wonderful events and achievements across our district over the past month first I had had the pleasure of attending The Adams Family musical um at Granite with my daughters and we loved it like it was phenomenal um so congratulations to the cast The Crew the staff that made it happen um it was it was fantastic I also wanted to congratulate Apple Valley High School's football team for incredible season making it all the way to the CIF semifinals um and it was cold out there watching the caves I don't know what it was those nights were cold but they were fantastic um but what a remarkable accomplishment in Testament to the hard work of the players but also the coaching staff um another achievement was celebrating the 65 outstanding seniors from our district uh who received that guaranteed admission to Cal State sadino that's just fantastic because you know they already have an option and it's not even close to the end of the year and um it just really shows it exemplifies the Excellence that we're putting out there from Apple Valley I also attended the shock graduation where 11 students and parents uh well and parents because they're involved successfully completed that program and just witnessing the pride in those students faces as they overcame those challenges it was it was a testament to the power of perseverance and support of their families and staff um I wanted to recognize the Granite Hills choir for their phenomenal performance of the National Anthem at the Town council meeting earlier this week and their talent and professionalism are always outstanding um but they represented our district beautifully last week I had the priv uh privilege of attending cba's annual education conference with President oara our two newly elected trustees the superintendent and the cabinet it was a very valuable opportunity to learn share ideas and prepare for the work ahead as we continue to serve our students and Community one suggestion that was provided in a session regarding Charter Schools um was the recommendation of inviting a charter school that we authorized to come speak to a the board meeting to provide um their authorizers with any information regarding their school or progress towards areas of concern identified previously um so that might be something we want to consider discussing at some point uh I think it would be nice to just have a make an annual update and see um how they're progressing since we are there Charter authorizers uh looking forward I'm excited about the upcoming holiday performances across the district these events always showcase the creativity and talent of our students I love looking at my calendar and seeing all of the like different things but it's like you want to be at them all um and there's just so many so um I'm going to try to get to as many that my schedule will allow before I close I wanted to take a moment to express my heartfelt gratitude to our two trustees who are going to be leaving the board after this meeting so Mr RC um thank you for your dedication over the past two years and for bringing your valuable experience as a former teacher in our district to this role and then Mr Bender who could not join us tonight um has served on the board since 2008 and was also a teacher in our district his long-standing commitment to our students and Community has been extraordinary and frankly I will deeply miss his candid and colorful stories that brought so much laughter and camaraderie to all of our work together um both of you have L left a lasting impact on our district and we thank you for your service and dedication you will be greatly missed thank you and as always it's an honor to serve our students staff and community thank you thank you very much Mr Ary I just like to offer my congratulations to the students for their outstanding achievement and progress and success uh this semester I also want to wish our uh high school students the best of luck on your final exams this this coming week uh I know you're going to do fantastic and all of your uh studying and preparation and hard work is going to come through I know and lastly just want to uh offer um my um prayers and hopes for a very safe and a refreshing Christmas break for all the students and staff and pray that you come back in January refreshed and ready to go and ready to accomplish even more uh greater things uh this next semester when we come back in January thank you thank you very much Mr gy Mr Ry well I wanted to recognize somebody that most people might not recognize who she is but Zoe put you on the spot she um does a lot you can stand up and take a vow take a vow she has our uh Pio uh Department runs our Pio department and I'm not aware of any other District that has so many postings on social media of what's going on in the district every day I you know I'm not a Facebook junkie but I do look at it and it always pops up about some program somewhere either Rio or apple high or yum one of the schools and uh it really highlights it in a great way and um people just probably aren't aware of how it gets there but there she is so I just want to say h thanks Zoe for for the good work that you do and I know we're going to uh recognize uh outgoing president Maria opara um Mr Gary Ary and Mr Dennis Bender but since um they're both sitting two of them are sitting next to me I wanted to back talk to them about that now uh first with Gary um it was such a great honor to sit here with you for these last two years if some of you don't know Gary taught in the district for roughly 30 years plus and taught at Apple he is a geologist and uh you can get a job or land man looking for oil um but yes that's what you did for a while right yes okay so here we have our own our own personal land man but you did bring such wealth of knowledge to the to the board and I really appreciate your friendship and the honor that you brought here and Maria again ran these Flawless meetings as president it's not easy to keep order and to um be professional at all times but you did a very outstanding job with that and I want to thank you for that thank you and we've got a couple more years together so won't say goodbye yet so anyway with that I'll pass it on to you so thank you and everybody have uh God bless and have a great um holiday season we'll be here next week we'll be here next [Laughter] week well it comes to me um thank you so much for the opportunity to to serve the community um for as long as as I have as you all know I don't have children in this District anymore so your children are mine um and I and I served with the utmost Pride um and I make sure that they are happy at all times even if I have to be silly around them but before I I say my um my last comment um I have to also concur with Mr Raley about the incredible work that um Zoe does um for our district um sometimes I I see the post and I think I should have been there um but I I still like every one of those posts some of them I steal the pictures uh because they they give my heart Joy when I I steal them I put them in a place where I can go back and look um I have to say thank you to Gary and Mr RC um for a while there we sat next to each other and what most people didn't know uh was that before a restart board meeting we will pause to say a prayer and we ask God to guide our thoughts and guide our Behavior Uh here to better serve the kids so for that thank you uh in terms of Mr um Bender I don't know where to start because he's like my big brother my big friend my my U the person who teaches me the language um that I need to learn uh in order to be successful and I truly will miss him moving forward but I also want to take the time to thank the people that have uh worked hard to serve our kids in this District sometimes when you go outside you see beautiful flowers and you see trees that are well pruned you see the greenery and what you don't understand is that under those trees there's a route and that route are those people who clean our tables who feed our children who drive our children to school and back um who support our children in our schools um who are in the offices to greet us yeah even when we you know when we are so unhappy but they help us to calm down uh and then we have those uh administrators who come in day in and day out and knowing that they're going to put out some fires and they're going to play nurse they're going to play attorney they're going to play any of those things um but sometimes we don't remember to thank them and I want to take this opportunity before I step down next week because this is this I don't step down this week I wait till next week but before I step down next week I want to take the opportunity to say to each and every one of the students thank you you have made my day and for that it was well worth it Mrs Nelson Gian Hannah and Eden always a pleasure to hear what's going on from your perspective on your campuses and um it won't be any surprise that I repeat some of the things that have already been said here and here um but we all really enjoy the things that we get to see on your campuses um time has flown since our last board meeting and while it would take me all evening to share the phenomenal things our students and staff are doing I will have to just grab a few highlights our students participate in the mayor's youth Leadership Summit as you heard before it is an annual um program where our Juniors participate um they learn about the engagement of our town officials and um what the things they have to deal with budget um complaints concerns and they learn about all the different departments that take place in this town the mayor proem is currently volunteering his time to support a club at Apple Valley High School um the it's called the political illiteracy Club founded by abhs student Katrina picket and we really appreciate that um engagement as well it's it's twof fa they want to show the kids but they also come into the schools and support I too attended The Adams Family musical you heard at last board meeting I was taking Mr Nelson on a date um we loved everything about that um musical every student every cast member every crew member alongside their teacher Mrs gleon provided an amazing performance probably I'm going to say one of the best that I have seen so far and I always say that they are wonderful um however there was this moment when I looked over at my husband and I said it's one thing to sing and dance and they did it well it's quite another thing to play the role of Gomez and use an accent to speak and sing and if you didn't see it one of our students pulled that off and Benjamin just did an amazing job so want to call it out and um Bravo on such an amazing thing I look forward to seeing LZ um last week I participated alongside our board members at the California school boards association annual education conference every session was well planned and this year's keynote speakers seem to be above um par in any of the other past um General Sessions they focused on happiness and artificial intelligence Dr Lori Sanchez from Yale Yale Professor um shared fascinating research around happiness and productivity and she said that lots of people believe that if you're more productive you're happier and really it's the other way around if you're happy you're more productive and so she's given us access to a program that she offers adults and students for free and um we're g to take some time to review that and get that out to people because it's pretty um interesting and she filled a a lecture hall with 1,200 students since the first year she ran this course um both the AI presenters highlighted the importance of utilizing AI for efficiency as well as new ways to support our teachers and our students and so we look forward to not being afraid of AI but um embracing it and seeing how it can impact um our school district I also attended the Cal State cardino education Summit um they continue to be an outstanding partner for our school district both in producing prepared teachers and in supporting our students this past summer they launched the first um time something called the Coyote Blue program which was hosted here in Apple Valley right here on this property and they allowed our students and those in our neighboring District um access to college courses for credit it was overwhelmingly just amazing and the fact that they'd come and they'd meet with us and they the provos showed up showed up to do the celebration um that's something to be said recently they also toured our family from our African-American parent advisory um committee and while our school district Marana Torres happened to be walking with somebody and heard this statement that they mentioned a program that they were beginning for guaranteed admission for program um for our students or for students who qualify through the California College guidance initiative well those of you that know Miss Torres know that if there's anything thrown out that she can grab she's going to and so she said when can we come how can we do this we're in ccgi and we are maximizing this so we had 70 students that were invited 65 got to attend just for the day that it was um both from Apple Valley high school and Granite Hills High School Hannah happened to be there um they attended as what they thought was a tour and the Provost was there and called um a couple students up on stage to play a a game and they said whoever wins this game gets guaranteed admission well Hannah was the winner and Hannah got guaranteed [Applause] admission but while I wasn't there to see the um announcement they also called their counselors up on stage and they handed off the acceptance letter for all 65 students that were in attendance and yeah that's that's an amazing [Applause] thing I was there shortly after I took the stage I congratulated our seniors um and I shared with them that I was a proud CSUSB alumni and that they produced a superintendent and I expected to see a lot of them in um amazing positions in the future and so to not have to worry about whether you're going to get an acceptance letter or not these kids are ready and they know it and we aren't afraid to ask Miana was standing near me so I had a little bit I was a little Bolder I said is this a one-time thing or are we in for next year and they're they said oh no we're gonna keep doing this so it won't be quite so top secret we're going to have to figure out how to surprise these kids in the future but um really kind of fun we are only the second district that has participated um following San berardino City Unified School District so we're excited about the future and the possibilities um I know the only reason I would be late to such an event is because Hannah mentioned it as well the Mountain Desert career Pathways held their sweet genius baking competition in the hackathon I went to Granite Hills High School first went to both of the competitions just to see kids and then drove down the hill Mr slauer and I went down and um made it back up for awards for the sweet genius and I ate a lot of sweets um Miss Oar stopped by and I was having a sugar crash at about 4M because I ate it all um Barca took home the trophy but the really amazing thing is these kids are given a a task they're told what kinds of recipes they have to do and then they create but they're given two secret ingredients they they can either choose from peppermint this time or cucumber the Apple Valley High School students are the only students in the entire competition that made a recipe with the cucumber in it an entire cucumber put into an apple fil donnut and I'm gonna tell you it was delicious so I think they should have won just because of that um but the the cheesecake that Granite Hills provided me was pretty amazing too and um I ate it at all so congratulations to all Barstow did take the trophy for the second year in a row so we've got some competition ahead of us and we're going to cheer them on and they're going to cheer us on um the board did ask for a community schools update and we are working through that request we have agendized it for the January 6th board meeting that's a special board meeting so that all board members that are seated will be available for that and um just wanted to keep everybody posted on that thank you thank you um Union Representatives California School Employees Association CA Nicholas Garrett he's not here sure he's thinking about us Apple Val UniFi Teachers Association avut Karen Sabers it's good okay good evening super superintendent Nelson board members cabinet and audience I hope everyone is doing well this evening last Tuesday we had a great time handing out gloves for all ages in Play-Doh with cookie Christmas cookie cutters at the Apple Valley Christmas tree lighting it was nice to see our community schools table there as well Mr slasher Mr Conrad and Mr schulenberg all came by our table to show us support and we also visited their table to show them support it's always nice when we can support each other and since we're mentioning Tim this evening Tim was able to help them bring in their items and break down boxes so good job Tim um update on insurance so we had our high desert trust meeting on December 3D some takeaways um worth mentioning or not are that ER visits are up by 5% at 172 visits per th000 and mental health which is not surprising increased by 16% having a 100 or 1,59 visits per thousand our Kaiser usage is trending better than the industry usage which could result in better rates next year however our Etna usage is higher which does not look good for those rates rate renewals those rates will not be available until late January at this point with the trust we only have two options with are not which are not great staying with Etna or moving to the Paro self-funded model which comes with a risk they did go out to see if others would give us a quote and we were denied by Anthem Blue Shield or Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield Sigma HealthNet and UHC additionally we received the quotes we received the quotes from Biba and reap we are just waiting for the district to set the meeting with the bargaining units to review those quotes with that being said we are really in a time crunch due to the retirement incentive being offered there are many teachers that are excited about the possibility of the retirement incentive through cars however they are concerned because they need to choose a retirement plan by January 15th this is difficult to do when they have they do not have an idea of what their medical insurance will be costing next year it is very important that our insurance our health insurance for next year is finalized quickly AB budha feels that our best option at this point seems to be Cal Pur um the good thing that's come out of all of this is that um we've been able to work closer in relationship with CSEA so I'd like to acknowledge them um we appreciate the relationship that we have developed with them over the last year and this year and we work we look forward to continuing to work closely with them on the community schools and the insurance and we look forward to continuing to build that relationship between our two units um Auda would like to thank Gary RC and Dennis Bender for your service and dedication to the avus school board we appreciate your service Auda would also like to congratulate our newly elected board members Anita Tucker and Renee Longshore as they embark on this important journey of service and Leadership Anita and Renee your election is a reflection of the confidence and trust that our community has placed in you it is also a recognition of your passion dedication and commitment to making a meaningful difference in the lives of our students teachers classified staff and families serving on the board is no small task it requires Vision collaboration and an unwavering dedication to the success of our schools once again congratulations to Anita and Renee on this well-deserved achievement we look forward to the leadership insight and dedication you will bring to our schools together we will continue to build a brighter future for our for every student in Apple Valley Unified School District Welcome to our abusd family um and just in FYI one of our teachers John Brit and his wife have opened up the 21st amendment crey and Breaky across from the Apple Valley Post Office I'm not going to say how many times I've been there already but that their everything that they make is delicious um thank you all and have a wonderful winter break and solidarity Karen [Applause] the clerk will read out any action taken in close session for that green light there it goes okay in closed session uh the board made the following um decisions first one is on B4 Public Employee discipline dismissal on a motion by opar second by Buchanan the Board of Trustees approved the memorandum of agreement with the California School Employees Association CSA chapter 828 dated November 8th 2024 regarding the voluntary demotion of employee number 7967 and that was a unanimous vote number two on a motion by Ary second by Raley the Board of Trustees approved the following appoint Michael mcneel as executive assistant range 37 step three on the classified management salary schedule 256 base Duty days effective December 2nd 2024 vote was unanimous very welcome aboard um item three on a motion by ban and a second by okara the Board of Trustees approved the following appoint Abdul zini elbod as nutrition services Field Supervisor range 41 step one on the classified management salary schedule 256 base Duty days effective December 10th 2024 vote was unanimous thank you so you're from Sweden [Laughter] welcome good to have you on item four on a motion by wakar second by RC the Board of Trustees appointed the following appoint IET Fairfield as nutrition services Field Supervisor range 41 step one on the classified management salary schedule 256 base Duty days effective December 10th 2024 the vote was unanimous I do want to say that we released her from being here tonight because she's helping her husband who had surgery that's all I have Madam president thank you very much the board May approve the agenda as is or ADD and or pull items from the consent agenda for discussion and or action I need a motion I'll move the item all second all in favor I I any oppos okay recognition presentation took a deep breath for that Marana is making her way to the front she's gonna take over the screen there'll be some images or some data on the screen behind you um array for the board to see and I'll just kind of turn this over she's got some wonderful information to share perfect thank you good evening board members good evening Community good evening everyone I actually you know this has been an amazing week we started with a community schools Gathering we moved into Cal State San Bernardino um and today I get the pleasure of doing this dedication which has been many years in the making as as I was sitting over here talking to lesli right now we were like what year did we meet was it like 2010 or something like that when we were at granet together so it it is pretty cool that a chance encounter in ptso act led to a lot of the work uh also with Miss Hall and and with everyone that it you you never know the way that kind of life turns but tonight's presentation has really a lot to do with the work that we have been doing around our food pantry and I have some numbers up there and it's not for me to read to you as much as is for you when you look at that to realize that those are families those are not individuals those are families that we serve we started with 50 boxes and not knowing what we were doing and we have now come to our pretty much our fourth year we're we're in that right now in which we're serving 160 to 180 families every Friday that school is in session and we do so with nutritious fresh frood stable food that also are uh our workability students over at APPA valy High School come over here and make sure that we have 200 bags put together before what we get from Second Chance Harvest I put the information up there more than anything because you're going to see it all over the place but we want to make sure that if you know that there is someone in need we have this set up this works and we are putting a in a week about 200 hours of community work in order to make sure that we're ready from 1: to 300 p.m.
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to to to go ahead and serve our families in an efficient respectful dignified manner so it if if there's a Friday in which you know you're thinking to yourself you know there's there's there's not a lot of things to do um we have a great volunteer process that we can take you through and we will put you to work so you know I'm just saying for those people who might not be on the board anymore or anybody else that that um that that we can get to work but we will put them to work with that said um everybody should know Miss Hall who is at Granite Hills High School and has been at uh actually different sites throughout our district uh in 2014 um she she started this Harvest of giving idea and all the way from the beginning the Hayes family has been there um even before that I remember some of the things that we were doing shis to put some bags of food out there but the Harvest of giving sort of start was in 2014 when so much hard work went in and it started taking shape and it's one of those things that it fills your heart the kind of a way in which when you start it just keeps getting bigger and bigger and then you're not really quite sure how big it gets and then you go oh my goodness but people here in the district office volunteer people across the district supported we were able this year uh with the help of different community community agencies and with the hay family uh we purchased 200 turkeys we were able to put together 200 boxes and each box was filled with enough food food so that there would be at least four meals for four people inside and so for breakfast and lunch because we know that the kids go home for a week and we want to make sure that they have what they need so we we actually had a wait list but we were able to to meet a lot of needs and a lot of happy families and if you were here for that um the smiles were all over all over the place more than anything else in those 10 years now like they go by fast like you don't think about it you go okay we're going to do this and we're going to do it again next year 10 years have gone by and every step of the way BMA uh has been with us if you did not have the honor of meeting her um one of the things that I wanted to share was I work with the family because we want wanted to dedicate the food pantry to her in all the work and I need you to understand that even when she passed away this is the type of family all three generations have been here with us have been supporting Apple valy Unified School District food pantry and family centers and they turned around and said you know what um we have a lot of business friends we have a lot of different agencies do me a favor don't send us flowers don't send this belma would want to to make sure that kids and families are getting food and so since uh her passing 72,000 over $772,000 have been donated in her honor so that our families could have what they need and through feeding America and through second chance Harvest we're able to maximize that so that a 100% of that goes back to our families and that we're able to provide food for 19 cents a pound versus what's you're paying in the store so all of that to say it's it's it's really a blessing but it's it's a blessing that that the community is able to come together and take care of one another so um with their permission we put something together sh to sort of talk a a little bit so that people would have an idea of velma's um origin story if um we're hoping that we're going to actually put a mural with this origin or Legacy information to dedicate the food pantry to BMA belma's early life significantly influenced uh by her values and commitment to the Apple Valley Unified School District Food Pantry her experiences gave her a deep understanding of the struggles faced by those in need her driving her desire to help the community as one of 14 children she faced numerous hardships and challenges having experienced hungered herself belma was determined to ensure that families in our community would not face the same plight employees who work alongside belma felt like part of her extended family as she Foster a sense of belonging and community and took care of everyone that she could along the way it is our honor and privilege to carry on the work she passionately believed in and an honor uh to to be able to be part of this remarkable Legacy her story highlights the importance of compassion giving back and make and this makes her a vital part of our organization each family that's receiving food from our food pantry is a testament to Bel must enduring impact and inspires others to fight against hunger all of that to say is if you have a chance to to to come see the work participate in the work be able to to help or be able to direct anyone who needs that help I know that belma would be very happy to hear that if I could have Miss Trine Nelson come up and uh join me here so that she can um introduce I'd like the board to come to the dis and I would like to invite um Family gonna say Leslie no do bring them all everybody needs to come up we'd like to recognize you um publicly and continuously about this Legacy that your family has provided you guys dedicated when VMA pass so um we are honored that you chose Apple Valley Unified School District originally Granite Hills High School and I'm going to let our board president and if pass the um plaque as a starting place until we get to get it put on a building an act one and so we're going to have the board members line up right here and have everybody come along and shake hands and then Zoe's here to take pictures so that we can get it posted thank you [Applause] [Music] again don't go WECT right here set up [Applause] next am I okay to start Miss aara I would like that yes I I think Mr Raley said it when he was talking about miss okara that um he wasn't bidding her farewell no he's not you still have time to serve you're just not serving in the role of President Miss okara has been a presence in the in Apple Valley since 1985 when she also joined the Apple Valley Unified School District family as a teacher on this very property Apple Valley Junior High where she served students for 17 years as a special education teacher she also served in as an assistant principal principal and coordinator within within the district for six years we shared space in an old property um in an educational services department and she often would ask if there were things I couldn't get to and she'd just go and it didn't matter how far it was or what the topic was she'd just take the drive and bring back all the information for me her passion for the community and the students is still present in her work as our trustee and she supports new teachers as an adjunct faculty at several universities last year at this time she was honored at CSUSB as the teaching supervisor of the Year miss oara was elected to serve on the Apple Valley Unified Board of Trustees representing area 4 in 2018 and since becoming a member of the Board of Trustees she has served as president of the board in both 2021 and this past year 2024 Miss oar is a graduate of California school boards Association Masters in governance program equipping local education agencies with the Knowledge and Skills to build and support effective governance structures we appreciate her Services Board president this past year and her focus on the children of the Apple Valley Unified School District thank you [Applause] all right um if you were here last year uh we started a new tradition and we wanted to go ahead and honor our past board president with the gift this is from yeah sure absolutely and the two new board members come up for a picture as well Jo in go all together it's it's nice well you can put you're welcome to [Music] thank you so much um I wasn't expecting the the other gift I knew something was coming and um through the years I keep saying I gotta get that the Apple that is on the gateways going into Victorville so every year I keep hoping I'll get it but this year I didn't get it yet uh so I'm hoping at some point I'll get it but I wanted to take this opportunity to thank each and every one of you uh the principles who let me show up on campuses the children who let me be silly the um the cabinet that lets me play around with whatever it is that they're doing um and the learning curve that they send me through um I do believe that um knowledge um is like a thick forest you really can cover every inch of it so at every point in my life I'm constantly trying to figure out something new coming through um uh when I was a teacher I told my students uh that although I am their teacher they're also teaching me so I need to take this opportunity to thank each and every one of you and I'm truly truly humbled and thankful and grateful that Apple Valley has given me a space where they actually do see me uh where I come from um we don't tell people good morning we tell them I see you uh so Appo Val has actually seen me and I appreciate every one of you thank you very [Music] [Applause] much I'm gonna have to figure out how to get one of those apples I don't have one either if I can have the board join us back up here along with Mr Ry I've got a little history about Mr Ry here Mr Gary Ary was born in Fairbanks Alaska and raised in Southern California he's been a high desert resident for over 30 years and one of my neighbors he spent 35 years as a high school science teacher in 31 years at Apple Valley High School be before retiring in 2021 he also served as a high school soccer and swim coach he has over 20 years of experience as a geology instructor at UC Riverside Mr Ry received his Bachelor of Science degree from UCLA and a master's of Science degree from the University of Alaska he's talked to my husband about the fishing there and um it's piqued his interest Mr Ry was elected to the Apple Valley Unified School Board of Trustees in 2022 for a two-year term serving area one and was one of two board members who participated in our ethnic studies Community meetings facilitated by our count Office of Education we were fortunate to learn alongside our students parents and staff about the options and intent of the courses through building understanding of the options the committee came to consensus and currently teachers are working on the course curriculum which in the future will come back to the board after public review for adoption and we think you should come back and be part of that um audience when that happens because you were such a part of the um decision on what we were doing Mr Ary and his wife Brenda have modeled what a retirement should look like even though he's been a board member they are active in their Church community As Leaders as well as doing things they love like travel scuba diving and really anything that gets them Outdoors their love for each other their children and their grandson is always apparent I look forward to staying in touch and hearing about their incredible travel excursions and I understand I just heard Antarctica is next so we are so blessed to have gotten to have you on the board for two years Gary thank [Applause] you well the we have one more to do but he's watching on a stream so if you want to be seated and enjoy absolutely are you sure okay um I'm gonna ask the board if it's okay we Kylie I think he um Rett text me that they're good on online watching so I think we're good we were going to FaceTime we weren't sure our internet was going to hold up because we've had some intermittent issues um for the last few days um we have some public comment cards that I believe are specifically to address Mr Bender so if it's okay I would like to um do what I have and then let those people come up and everybody so that he has that time um to hear everybody at the same time instead of the normal agenda items yeah you're welcome to sit and if you want to come back up to speak you can either way you can stay here Rick I can I'll always take the okay Mr Bender was born in Needles during World War II the son of a Santa Fe railroad conductor which is why he originally worked for the railroad maybe I have to believe and a mom who kept the Bender Boys in line and based on the stories that was no easy task he played football and basket and baseball on all CIF championship teams in high school when he was a senior the Helms athletic Foundation named Bender as one of the top 33 football players in Los Angeles and San berardino counties that's a big deal he also earned a football scholarship to Northern Arizona University where his bachelor's and master's degree were were earned in five and a half years Mr Bender worked at Victor Valley High School for two years we don't hold that against him it was before we were a unified school district and many people got their start at Victor union he also coached football at vvhs and the team went to CIA finals in 1967 he was hired to teach and coach at the newly opened Apple Valley High School I wasn't yet born and I'm the oldest on cabinet so I was close to that but I have to say that's a that's quite an Endeavor that he's still sitting here on the board as um support Mr Bender taught at Apple Valley High School for 30 years before finishing out his teaching career at Granite Hills High School he spent 10 years after the school opened being part of the original staff for both high schools before retiring in 2008 and after serving as an educator in the district for 42 years that is incredible in total Mr Bender has dedicated 58 years to the Apple Valley Community and the Victor Valley to the families the students and everybody that he came in contact with you've heard me say before that if you're in public with Mr Bender everyone knows him and they don't just know him they have a story and those stories Define the man and I'll pause right there and say that we asked for stories Zoe posted and gathered information for from community members and past students and they're putting to this um book with the people's names and he will have that um we'll get that to him tomorrow or later tonight um I have to say there's a snake story that he talked about often and it's referenced a couple times in the in the different writings and there's actually a picture of the snake that the kids put in his desk so I'm pretty um amazed we give Zoe a lot of credit for discovering some things um but this book is a gem Mr Bender was elected to the Apple Valley Unified Board of Trustees in 2008 serving Area 3 he's been a presentent in a presence in all of our lives for decades and there are more stories to tell than are humanly possible he is proud of the service he has provided to our community for the past 58 years I'm sure that there is no count of number of shoes food things that he provided to students and never wanted them to know he's worked with many families and in most cases it's generational he taught the parent and he taught their child and I'm sure in some cases there's a grandparent that is also aligned in that group and while he is proud of all of the service that he has provided he is most proud of his children Denny Dion Donnie Rhett and Allison and I'm emotional because when you talk to the man that's his favorite topic well until the grandchildren came sorry guys he loves his children and their spouses but he adores the grandchildren there are random photos that get sent by text message just a picture and I have to have no comment because we know what it is it's his grandchildren variety of them pictures of fish that his grandsons have caught pictures of the new grandbaby named after his brother who passed Adrian just a variety of wonderful things that he sends in text messages his family is everything to him and over the years we have all become part of his heart and him ours we are sad cannot be here in person this evening but I know he's watching we will pause this celebration and he is watching I've got confirmation his son text me so they said the stream was working great but we are pausing this at the end and we will extend an invitation when he is ready to have a public meeting because he wants to see people face to face he wants to hear the stories he wants to tell the stories and he wants to hug people several months ago he gave me a copy of an envelope but it had two sticky notes on it so it's a copy and it's color copied and it's um something that his mother used to say and it's in her writing and so it lives on my bulletin board and I have it in my office as a reminder and these are the things it says Zoe don't cry Zoe's making Zoe come on come on be strong here um be grateful for today no one is ever promised tomorrow and the other one that I believe we should always use as our lens is that everyone in the world it has a burden it isn't the burden that is important it's how you carry it and so I hope that we all think of Mr bender and all the wonderful things he has done over the years and you're going to hear some other stories I think there's some other neat announcements that Mr Bender is not ready for didn't know there's some surprises tonight and this is his plaque that he will lovingly hold on to we know he's got all of the board president ones from over the years and we will make sure he has this and can enjoy it as well we love you Mr [Applause] Bender well um TR has really covered a lot of it but um I know that Dennis is an icon in the community when I went to high school in 1977 in Apple Valley he was teaching I think Anita you were there around the same time maybe a year after before and then I actually didn't have uh a Dennis as a teacher but I was really aware of about him and then in the 2000s my sons both my sons had him as a teacher as well and you know I can go on and on about stories about Dennis but he is very proud of his very successful children I mean this guy has his his sons and his daughters are very successful but what's going to be missed most about Dennis on this board is his humor we would be back in Clos session for hours and hours at a time and we're talking about something um you know not too exciting and Dennis would come up with a story all of a sudden about Needles California or uh shooting guns behind Alpa Valley High School in the 70s uh or uh Burning Down The tulies at the Colorado River and just where he got these stories from I don't know but it was really made being on this board a a great time and he's gonna be so missed and um I don't you know there's so so much to say about Dennis but um he um he is definitely an icon and I I got involved with politics in Apple Valley in the early 2000s and I remember going to a fundraiser for Dennis at Chris hits ranch or house up off a walloo when Dennis was first running for Schoolboard and I kid you not there was at least a thousand people at this fundraiser and this guy was so well known by everybody like TR said grandparents parents and this man could have run for any public office in the high desert and one hands down but he chose to stay in education which is very telling of what the man did and uh he's truly an honorable man so I'll leave it at that for tonight and we'll see him at the next [Applause] one all right um so that we don't Mi Miss anybody uh we're going to start by um hearing public comments Anita tur talker I I really want vender will you please remain there are people still having conversations about you we don't want him to disconnect from the oh okay I really want to take this opportunity to give a a great debt of gratitude and thanks to Mr Bender uh as Rick said I was at Apple Valley when he was there and there were many stories he taught Summer School uh history I took it during the year so I I never was fortunate enough to have Mr Bender but he was very beloved uh and he was an amazing history teacher and as a history teacher myself um I owe I owe so much to our history teachers that we had and for someone to dedicate 58 years of their life to the children community and School District that's amazing and um I have something for him and Mr RC also I want to say thank you you've dedicated over 30 years to this community and given so much to the students and community and thank you as [Applause] well thank you so much Renee longshaw um good evening Mr Bender um I really wish I could look you in the face um because I've heard so much about you um I just wanted to say a few words as a the person who's looking to occupy your seat next um you're a legend uh your heart for this community is evident you led with it as I canvased I heard stories retold with such admiration and concern they were not going to vote for me because they wanted you in that seat I'm sure you can imagine the heartache as I told them you were retiring My Hope Is that I can accomplish even just half of what you were able to do the lives of the people in our community district and Beyond or better because you were there thank [Applause] you Chris Nunes good evening ladies and gentlemen my name is Chris nans and is my great pleasure to be here this evening on behalf of the Victor Valley College Foundation tonight I am here for one reason and that is for Bender uh it is my great pleasure to make this announcement that on February 25th 2025 Dennis Bender will be recognized at the Alumni Hall of Fame and distinguished Service Awards and be honored with the distinguished service and education award for his countless his countless years of service he was nominated and supported by countless letters and and folks from uh the community that makes up of former students like myself community members countless mentees and friends and family so we want to thank you and hope you all will celebrate with us congratulations bender and we can't wait to celebrate with you and hope you all will join us thank [Applause] you Chris what's the date on that what's the date at the college yeah there we go all right yes this will take place February 22nd uh on 2025 at the brand new educational Event Center at Victor Valley College you can check out the BBC Foundation website to see tickets and uh see more honory uh videos for Dennis sper that we'll be putting together of his friends and family thank you thank you yes please how can we top that and E1 um first in room presentation by Mr schulenberg Dennis this is when you go you you shut off the the feed right right do you want to let all the kids go home to you and anybody that wants to leave yeah this is this is because I always clear a room you guys can go guys the kids can go now thank you very much for the students good night we'll see you next week they won't be here next week okay this is yeah this is exactly when Dennis will start saying they need to go we need to cut it off Mr schulenberg thank you Miss Oar I'm gonna take a moment to grab the screen if you don't mind I'm G to remain at my seat for this presentation um just to uh let the board know each of you do have a copy of the first inter interim presentation at your place there it's uh stapled together okay good okay I'll go ahead and go um as uh as Miss spoke par mentioned this is the first in room report um the slides are on the screen behind you if you're if you're in the audience again board you have a copy at your table uh this particular report certifies the financial condition of the district as of our first inter room it's for the current year and the two subsequent years so it's basically through June of 2027 keep in mind this is our financials as of October 31st so this is a look back a couple months uh couple two month and a half this is one of two required interim reports um and you'll see we have the multi-year projection that you'll see as part of the package reflects any adjustments based on closing last year's books which I presented back in September uh posting of any carryover revenue and expenditures and any other Revenue expenditure adjustments that we've um that we've encountered since adoption of our budget there are three certifications possible you'll see those there positive qualified negative I would like to point out you'll see the qualified and negative certifications from 23 to 24 did rise significantly across the state of California um and that's due to uh declining enrollment uh ending of federal Esser funds covid relief funds and and other factors throughout the state um we will be filing a positive certification so we are currently projecting that we will meet our financial obligations through june30 2027 and you'll see that in the multi-year projection there are some caveats to that that I will be sharing with you this even evening and we do use the state adopted budget the school Services dart board for Cola projections the uh San Marino County Superintendent of Schools common message and then the fiscal crisis management assistance team lcff calculator as do all the school districts across the state so here's some of our assumptions compared from uh adopted to First interim in terms of our Ada and I apologize the print small on this particular slide but I wanted to squeeze a lot of information on there if you look at the first two sections funded Ada and first interim adjustments we have made no adjustments to our Ada as of yet um through October 31st unfortunately our enrollment was declining but our Ada percentage meaning the number of students that were attending school on a daily basis was going up so they kind of counteracted a little bit we're we're seeing um a flat enrollment right now this year we've kind of been hovering U we still are a little bit lower than last year you see the trend down there on the bottom back in December of 2009 we had 13,741 kids enrolled in our district and that 94.6 basically means that 94.6 of those kids showed up on a daily basis um and we were always around 94 and a half 95 and then we had that horrible thing in 2020 I call it a glitch um we didn't get to measure some of our attendance percentages those two years so we came back in 22 and and I picked December just because we are in December just to compare months and you'll see our enrollment unfortunately did go down uh from the high in 2009 um and our Ada yield also went down and that did occur across the state of California um after after the glitch uh we brought it back up a little bit in December 23 along with our enrollment we recovered unfortunately this year we are seeing a decline in enrollment but an increase in our Ada as I mentioned just a couple slides ago uh the cola the cost of living adjustment um at adopted we adopt the budget based on the May revision dart board and you'll see those estimates or actually it's the actual for the current year the 1.07% for this year um 2526 was 2.93 and then a 3.08 you'll see we did make an adjustment at the first interim and this is not based on a dartboard because um we had the enacted budget dart board that still had next year's Cola at 2.9 three but unfortunately the data points are coming in for the cost of living adjustment for next year and they're coming in a little bit lower than 2.93 um and that's why I have this slide here we have some um I call it the Cola Wars It's we have some Waring factions we have the State Department of Finance we have the legislative analysts office we have vimt uh we have San berardino County Common message and they're making some assumptions based on the data points that have been in so far and the economy you look down on the bottom the one the one piece of good news we have as a school district is the tax revenues at the state are trending higher than budget estimates and that's a good thing but the cola is based on National Data points not California local data points so although that revenue is good for us as a state and locally it may not have a significant impact on what is called the statutory Cola but we are using 2% in our multi-year rejection for next year um and just to remind the board at budget adoption we assumed a 2.93% so that's almost a 1% reduction in the cost of living adjustment for next year as we move forward the assumptions for this year um of course on the revenue side the biggest is the Esser funding is all gone um on the expenditure side uh of course we accommodate for steepen column increases each year any negotiated agreements which we did have a salary uh agreement with our teachers union this year that was negotiated a few years a couple years ago and we also had a Health and Welfare enhancement and that's from our previous experience with our Dental Reserve in the high desert trust we did effectively cash out some of that reserve and we negotiated a one-year enhancement to the Health and Welfare benefit for all our employee employee groups that will go away as we move into 2526 of course we have to budget for stir and purs contribution rates on the employer side and we budget for our carryover expenses um and our deferred revenue and restricted ending balance programs for 2526 you'll see we're using that 2% that does give us a $3.1 million Revenue bump in the lcff calculator uh but again we're losing um one-time monies or some of our short-term Monies I call them and you'll see the expenditures there uh point out a couple things we do have no additional expenses for any negotiated agreements in 25 26 currently uh we do have an assumed certificated attrition um we do have an assumed increased contribution to our restricted programs and of course we do have some line item expense reductions in our multi-year projection currently totaling around 14 million um line item expense reductions lacking specificity right now but we're working through many details to see how we can reduce expenses moving forward in 2627 we're currently using the 3% Cola which Nets us an increase of about $6.5 Million Dollar on our lcff and I should stop there and I should remind everybody that the lcff has a lot of components to it it has the base Grant it has grade span adjustment funding it has supplemental and concentration grant funding it has a trans Transportation addon it has a transitional kindergarten addon and that 6.4 is inclusive of all those pieces some that come with strings some that don't so that's not all money that is free to use however we want um expenditures again we do have the step and column increases the projected stirs and Pur contributions uh and very consistent um assumptions um on the expenditure side relative to 252 six so this just compares the U Revenue side of our budget adopted to first interum uh you'll see our lcff um about a $700,000 change on $184 million so not significant but unfortunately down a little bit based on some revised assumptions our federal revenues went up that's basically a result of posting carryover in What's called the deferred revenue program um other state Revenue also an increase deferred revenue programs and then some local Revenue so our revenues did see an increase coming up from adopted to First interim unfortunately a lot of those revenues also come with expenses so you'll see an increase in expenditures to match some of those revenues in the deferred revenue programs um you'll see not a significant change in the first three categories um you'll hear some people call them the ones twos and threes that's all of our people that's our certificated salaries are classified salaries and our employee benefits um books and supplies you'll see we did increase our expenditures there we're currently running a analysis to uh break down where those expenditures where where all that occurred so we could explain that in some detail um and also in our service and operations you'll see an increase so we're going to break that down and explain that in detail that's not a part of this evening's presentation but that's some information that we are mining to share um with uh the board and our budget committee and our bargaining groups during our employee relation days again that just kind of that's another summary slide ver adopted versus first interim you'll see when we adopted the budget we were estima an ending fund balance of about 9.7 we're estimating an ending fund balance at about 10.2 um which does allow us to meet our 3% required Reserve in the current year and here is the first slide of our multi-year projection this is the unrestricted side of the budget uh primarily lcff funding but there is some State funding that falls into this category also you'll see our revenues the increase each year that's reflected of the lcf calculator in the increase each year that is due to the cola and also our Ada projections um our expenditures uh based on the best we can estimate you'll see the difference between 2425 and 2 526 165 to 152 that's reflective of those line item reductions mainly on the unrestricted side of the budget that I had mentioned early that we're working through to identify some details for those there are contributions there the net contributions 41.6 that is unrestricted funding that has contributed to the restricted side of the budget to support restricted programs um primarily that's supporting the programs that support our students with uh special needs and we also have our routine restricted maintenance program which we make a required contribution each year and you'll see the excess deficiency and of course the effect on the ending fund balance throughout the years but in 2627 using those current assumptions we're estimating that will be just under 10 million which does allow us to meet our 3% Reserve in 27 hence filing a positive certification this is the restricted side of the budget and you'll see there very high expenditure estimate this year that is the expensing of all the final one-time money that flowed it's it's all gone and you'll see our revenues and our expenditures on the restricted side normalize in the 25 26 26 27 school year and you'll see the U the contribution there it's black on this side because it's money flowing into the restricted side of the budget to to support those restricted programs and we are assuming as of October 31st that all of our restricted program funds will be spent during this year that's why you see in 2425 you see a deficiency of almost $18 million which gets us an ending fund balance of two I talked to my director of fiscal services and I said why two and she said it was a rounding issue so we fix it the next year and we round down two more um but that's just what we're assuming at this point will that actually happen most likely not we most likely will still have some restricted ending balance funds when we close the books which will move into the 25 26 year doesn't come with more Revenue but the expenses will post to spend down that ending fund balance in either the 25 26 or 267 or subsequent years so this slide merely takes those last two and throws them together so unrestricted restricted and this is the combined slide I'll just let you look at that for a minute let's just again combines the last two some highlights and concerns of course uh January is coming up and uh Governor Nome will uh propose the state budget for the 2526 school year again I mentioned earlier the state revenues are looking good right now they're they're trending higher than projections and we'll see what uh Governor Nome has in store for us how to use those funds um our continuing enrollment Ada Trend again we're monitoring that closely um enrollment unfortunately we're we're trending down but Ada is up we also did enlist the services of a demographer to assist us with some resident and enrollment projections moving forward so we can make some um accurate estimates of how many kids we're going to have at our schools in each one of our grades for Staffing and future years and the cola I'll just mention that again the estimates ranging from 1.8 to 2.4 um the Lao um and I I put the Lao on there that's the legislative analysts office they're a nonpartisan um office up in Sacramento they do not work for the governor like the Department of Finance folks and the Lao typically is known to be a little more conservative than the governor and the Department of Finance and the fact that they're estimating a 2.46 as the more conservative entity typically um gives us some hope although though hope is not a strategy it gives us some hope that the cola may come in a little bit higher or the state may choose to fund a cola a little bit higher than the statutory based on those increased revenues that are coming in but we will find out much more when we get into next month and these are just our budget Milestones coming up again um the January uh we do a second interim which are our financials as of January 31st so we'll update our assumption and I'll be presenting that to the board in March and then we'll wait for the Governor's May revision as we work towards closing our books or actually our estimated actuals in preparation for the 2526 budget year and then we adopt and then we adjust and then we close last year's books which then will bring us to this point 12 months from now any questions that I can address thank you thank you no you have question I do yes I thought you were thanking me for a question like you haven't heard the question okay um on our ending fund balance projected for 2627 was the number just under 10 million which gives us our positive rating because it's over 3% does that mean our board policy percentage no it does not our board policy percentage is five right I didn't do the math so it does not meet the 5% it does not meet the 5% the 5% we'd have to look at the expenditures and transfers out so I'm looking at about 238 million plus I'm going to round that to about 241 million so 5% of 241 million is I'm going to round it to about 12 million for a 5% ending fund balance so we do have a ways to get there to meet our board policy okay thank you thank you and and based on that question if if we stayed with that 3% how how long will 3% um hold up the hold this District in the event that there's no funds coming in is that three what is that 3% going to do for us about a week and a half of operating costs okay because that I think that's always important because every time you turn around you're hearing people saying you're you're putting away more than you need to put away and um and until we can actually put it in terms of what it really going to do with the 3% that the 3% will affect a lot of things to be able to run a districted size so we need to start thinking in terms of getting to a a place where we can at least keep the lights on and pay some of our our employees or all of our employees um for at a minimum one month until we can figure out what the government is going to do so that's very important that we keep the 5% in mind uh even though we know that the state requires that we do 3% and the board has said we need to do five um that when we have this type of reporting that we report that this is what the state says but we're not nowhere near the the district's uh requirement we're we have a ways to go to meet our board policy and there are many um individuals in the state um School services and fmat that do make recommendations to school districts about their ending fund balance and you will see out there in print that it is recommended to have approximately a 177% unrestricted ending fund balance because that typically equates to about two months worth worth of expenditures now we're not we're not worried at this point thank goodness that the money will not stop will stop flowing to Apple Valley and other school districts the state is making um making the cash payments to us but what the state has done in the past and may do in the future in recessions is they do what's called deferrals and that's more of a cash flow mechanism but one thing about having a a um a healthy ending fund balance of 5 10 or 17% as recommended it allows you to have that cash in the bank so when the state doesn't give us our cash that they're supposed to we can still make payroll and pay our bills until the state makes those payments to us thank you thank you do you happen to recall and I was trying to pull it up but approximately what our like the percentage I don't need the number um of our ending fund balance for 2324 I I do not recall I apologize and I do not not have our uned actuals with yes I apologize no I don't have that but I can certainly look at some prior your data and provide the board with a a history of our ending fund balance over the last few [Music] years thank you I'm two years in I feel like I'm starting to finally understand yeah okay so thank you thank you thank you Kylie do we have any public comments we have no additional comments yes no she no I got understand this English it's a little different uh board comments uh Amanda vellan Garett Ry Rick Ry no Maria n t I would like to propose to the board that are board meeting the 19th um that we don't that we post it as a beginning time of 6:00 p.m instead of 5: we have a shorter Clos session but we also have students attending um from our elementary schools to present harder to change the seven o'clock return time from closed um and if the board agrees I just need consensus that you're okay with that and we'll post it as a 6m and get every information out sounds good thank you sounds like a winner okay I need a motion to adjourn to a public meeting of the Appo valy UniFi uh District public facilities Corporation for a new business as deemed necessary our second all in favor I Mr RC public facilities Corporation um meeting begins uh roll call Gary Ry here Rick Ry here Maria opara here Amanda Buchan here action items number one approve res resolution number 24259 resolution of the board of directors of the Apple Valley Unified School District public facilities Corporation approving a lease purchase agreement and certain other documents with the Apple Valley Unified School District and Mr schulenberg I believe you have an an update regarding some of the attachments specifically related to item H1 that will also apply to 1.5 is that correct that is correct thank you Mr RC I wanted to bring to the board's attention and you do have a copy at your place you'll see it's two pages stapled together you'll see a small red line in section 5.4 on the bottom of the first page and and I just want to make sure everybody can locate that great um this is out of our lease purchase agreement one of the attachments that would be up that the board would give me direction to uh execute with our public facilities Corporation and the avusd Board of Trustees um but after the agenda was posted um we did uh discover a discrepancy in the Casualty Insurance section the original lease asked us to include uh extended coverage due to Riot aircraft and earthquake coverage but those three coverage are are specifically excluded in our memorandum of coverage with our casualty our prop property carrier so our bond Council uh with for this transaction was able to negotiate with the lender Webster bank and they agreed to remove those coverages hence you'll see the red line the second page of that stapled packet is just the black line version so um that is the lease purchase agreement that will be executed um if the board does uh approve the resolution this evening in this particular item and then and then again in item i5 as the regular Board of Trustees so I need a motion to uh accept a resolution number 2425 d09 can I get a motion I'll move it second second any discussion or questions yes I do have a question okay my question actually has um is to do with the entire packet yeah as I was reading it it has uh on Section 4.4 of the packet you gave us and it was the interest rate and as I was reading through the entire packet of 20 something Pages or more um I noticed that there was a lease option that has a blank percent per anom and and I was a little bit uncomfortable so I wanted to find out why we left that percentage um of the interest rate blank thank you that's a great question um that this particular transaction the interest rate is effective as of the date of close so the date of close has not reached here yet so we don't know the actual interest rate it's projected to be about 4.67% at this point but that was not available to put in the documents because we have not closed the transaction yet so the close of the transaction will be when the board approves it then we are ready to go the actual close of the transaction is currently scheduled to be December 19th the board of the public facilities Corporation um just approved the resolution um so that gives me the direction to uh execute this lease agreement with the Board of Trustees of the school district which the Board of Trustees of the school district will be considering the similar resolution under item H5 under discussion I'm sorry I5 under the discussion action and once that resolution is approved um myself um will be signing on behalf of the district and uh Mr Raley will be signing on on behalf of the public facilities Corporation and we'll execute the transaction thank you very much any other discussion or questions so we have a motion to to move it we have a second uh all in favor I I I I any opposed therefore since this vote is completed is recommended that the board of directors adjourn the meeting of the public facilities Corporation and reconvene the regular meeting of the Apple Valley Unified School District Board of Trustees time is now 8:58 thank you we hereby convene the regular meeting it is recommended that the Board of Trustees discuss and take action on the following items approve the certificated and classified Personnel actions as listed I need a motion so moved I'll second any discussion all in favor I I any opposed approve the recommendation for requested leaves as noted I need a motion so second any discussion all in favor I I I approv the agreement with carolan Behavioral Health and the California Department of Health Care Serv Services I need a motion so moved second any discussion all in favor I I approve the recommendation of administrative hearing chairperson effective immediately on exposion case number 6 so second any discussion all in favor I exposion case number seven I need a motion move it second any discussion exposion case all in favor I I exposion case uh number 8 2024 2025 I need a motion a second any discussion okay is there a change yes we have changes on nine so okay no not on this one but on yeah exposion case number nine 2024 yeah we didn't I need vote all in favor iOS that's an eight yeah then we go to nine exposion case number 9 2024 2025 I need a motion we have a we have a um Amendment so let me read that so on explosion case number nine um the amended hearing panel recommend recommends to the subject to be expelled to sanber new County Schools community school for one year from the date on board action the student is to complete terms and conditions at the rehabilitation plan by December 12th 2025 now Pat I noticed on there on your notes is January 6 so do we change is that's only for admit two for which one ad ad2 82 December 12 2025 will be the date for number 9 10 11 and 12 okay okay okay all right so need need any discussion motion I'll move it second any any discussion all in favor I okay going to the next one exposion case number 12 2020 number 10 why why do I have 10 it's 10 because it is 10 oh 10 okay so the panel uh recommends the hearing panel recommendations to read to be expelled to San berino County Schools community school for one year from the date at Board of board of board action the student is to complete the terms and conditions of the real Rehabilitation plan prior to December 12 2025 uh I'll move that item I'll second that any discussion all in favor I I any opposed exposion case number 11 okay we have a um a change on that as well um expel exposion number 11 2425 to be expelled to sanino County Schools Community Schools for one year from the date of board action the student is to complete the terms and conditions to the rehabilitation plan prior to December 12 2025 and I will also move that item I'll second it any discussion all in favor I I exposion case number 12 again we have a change to the recommendation the recommendation on exposion number 12 2425 to expel be expelled to San berino County Schools community school for one year from the date of board action the student is to complete the terms and conditions of The Rehabilitation plan prior to December 12 2025 and I'll move it I'll second it any discussion all in favor any opposed admission case ad number 2 2024 20 2025 okay we have a a change on that this will be the final final one here and on ad 22 2425 to be commed to the schools of Apple Valley District student will be placed at the High Desert Premier Academy for 2024 25 Spring semester effective on January 6 2025 motion I'll move that item as well all in favor I I um expon expostion case number 13 2020 2021 2022 I need a motion so Mo I'll second any discussion all in favor I number five approve resolution number 24258 resolution of the Board of Trustees of the Apple Valley Unified School District authorizing the execution and delivery of documents Rel relating to the sale and delivery of a lease purchase agreement and authorizing and directing certain actions in connection therewith Mr schenberg I understand you have an update to provide we've done this thank you madam president uh this is the same lease purchase agreement as discussed earlier I wanted to get it in the minutes that's it it's in both sections it was it was considered by the public facilities Corporation and approved earlier and this is the same amended lease agreement to be considered by the Board of Trustees in this particular item okay removing removing those coverages as I mentioned mentioned earlier okay I need a motion move it I'll second it any discussion all in favor I any opposed okay item J it is recommended that the Board of Trustees consider approving a number of agenda items as a consent list consent items are routine in nature and can be enacted in one motion without further discussion this procedure conser conserves meeting meeting time for a full disc discussion of this significant issues consent items to be approved in one motion uh 1 through 24 I'll move that we approve items on the consent 1 through 24 I'll second all in favor I I sounds like a bender there do we have any future items any member of the board have any future items I would like to agendas um in the future it doesn't have to be next meeting but maybe in the next month or two a a process for um how it's done in the past and how we do it in the future on the naming of the stadium that will be under construction at Granite Hills uh and I'd like to propose that we have a discussion regarding the charter school um update that we had that I mentioned during my uh public comments coming from the csba education conference and just a point on that you attended it um Mr Scher attended and I believe one of one of the new trustees yes has attended it um there was a group that was presenting that we can join as a um chartering District a district that Charters schools and has oversight and so we have joined that so that we can have their input as well so I just wanted to make sure you were aware that that has happened but we will get um information okay okay well next board meeting day is Thursday December 19th at 5 6: p.m.
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just noticed 6 p.m educational support center conference room a um I would like at this time to have I need terer and Renee longshaw to join me at the podium a pleasure your okay raise your right hand so that I can administer the O of office I state your name Anita teer Anita tecker do doly swear or at confirm that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States I do do solemnly swear or affirm that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States and the constitution of the State of California against all enemies against all enemies foreign or domestic foreign or or domestic that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the Constitution of the United States that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the Constitution of the United States and the constitution of the State of California and the constitution of the State of California I take this obligation freely without any mental reservation I take this obligation freely without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion or purpose of evasion and that I will well and faithfully and that I will well and Faithfully discharge the duties upon which I'm about to enter discharge the duties upon which I am about to enter [Applause] you wait going to take a picture with the full board you have I have che che will you please raise your hand so that I can administer the ult of office I state your name I Renee longshaw do solemnly swear or affirm do solemnly swear or affirm that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States and the constitution of the State of California and the con stitution of the State of California against all enemies foreign or domestic against all enemies foreign or domestic that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the Constitution of the United States that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the Constitution of the United States and the constitution of the State of California and the constitution of the State of California I take this obligation freely without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion I take this obligation freely without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion and that I will well and Faithfully discharge the duties upon which I'm about to enter and that I will well and Faithfully discharge the duties upon which I am about to enter indeed uh Mrs T tuer and Mrs Long's term uh and Service as a member of the Apple Valley Board of Trustees will begin on December 13 2024 upon the conclusion of their predecessors service there being no further business to come before the Board of Trustees it is recommended that the meeting to be adjourned I need a motion so moved second all in favor I meeting Jed now you guys going oh
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that will support our music program this is sponsored by our wonderful PTC Anthony is going to pull our first winner which gets the baking basket and it is Kesler um I believe this is a Middle School Parent so if you are here you can come on up and collect your basket at the end of the concert and if not we'll give you a phone call and let you know that you're our second winner will get a lovely hairy and daved basket with an assortment of like chocolates and cheeses go ahead Anthony and this one goes to Rafael Escobar so if you're here are you here no oh awesome so we'll just bring you your basket let's give them a round congratulations at this point I'll pass it on to Mr lean our director of student services welcome everybody we're really excited to have our first grade concert this evening your beautiful children have been working really really hard and we're really excited to share their talent um the play that they're doing today absolutely love um it's got a great message to it so I hope you guys enjoy um I'd also like to remind all of you um that your children have left most of their clothing here at school I don't know how that works but in the hallway lost and found is out there so please take the time today to go look for water bottles um lunch boxes as well as well over 300 sweatshirts so um please take those home because they will be going away uh next week so this is your opportunity to go through that um and with that we are going to introduce the first grade music concert [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] wo Sage [Applause] [Music] [Applause] here [Music] z z look at right here [Music] Robert [Music] Chistmas Chistmas [Music] [Applause] [Music] Merry Christmas mer chist [Music] mer Christmas all mer ch [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] only once we s her sleep only one we s CHR that's right and today the day Santa CLA will pick his very young christmase I just know he will pick me [Applause] [Music] I'm [Music] going at [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] going [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] look at me I am [Music] I yeah [Applause] [Music] iist you you got to be kidding What's wrong with me what's wrong with you you're pey that's what yeah you the tiniest Tre he ever had an eye on you could never be a good Christmas tree [Applause] [Music] [Applause] you can never be a christm tiny [Music] not even [Music] we [Applause] [Music] ho ho ho hello everyone we're here to pick out a Christmas tree for our house we have ready for [Music] it now line up so I can get a good look at you it's time for our March Ready Set March [Music] ch [Music] [Applause] [Music] this Santa I better look just perfect in your house Santa don't you think that's the perfect Tree Santa don't I have the most beautiful branches [Music] Santa I'm the [Applause] best stop stop I can't stand it anymore what happened these trees don't care about Christmas all they care about themselves what's wrong with that but AR the most important thing about Christmas is that what you think Christmas is all about this is terrible doesn't anyone know what Christmas is oh I do Santa [Music] Christmas Is Love Christmas is Christmas is to get sh Christmas is time for children to [Music] [Applause] [Music] Christmas is [Applause] this is my Christmas tree oh thank you Santa thank you little tree you reminded us all what Christmas is really all about I think it's time that ear Christmas tree [Music] Christmas our Christmas will decorate [Music] [Applause] [Music] Street they still look small but in your heart [Music] our Christmas tree our Christmas tree will decorate [Music] s our Christmas our Christmas [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] Happ [Music] We wish [Music] youas all [Music] wish you merry Christmas happy [Music] [Applause] love you let's give it up one more time for our first [Applause] grade students are going to exit the stage and greet you over here at this back wall students when you see your families make sure your teachers know that so that you can goe and you dismiss thank you again for being here it an excellent job [Applause] [Music] he
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he's not wearing his glasses five minutes find our coffee find our and we'll get going C so good morning everyone I will call the Regional School commit order at um I am I think just for quick review go around through the town also sah from committee Jennifer ammer Sarah wol Le do have any call I'll call the finance committee committe doesn't have a okay sh shoots fa um I'll call the select board you I'll call the have the select Bo we do not have a tricky Finance we do not have a quum okay all right well thank you all very much for coming Saturday morning um good morning everyone morning um it hopefully there's coffee there there's appleid of donuts there's water so if you need anything like I pick me up on that table um thank you for joining me on my team this morning for our budget version 2.0 presentation the last time we were here in September it was very early but we still want to get out ahead of this and show the progress that we're making and so this conversation today is we'll continue that convers be a continuation of that conversation um and with me is my interal Finance director Shannon we'll be going deeper into the financials today and we'll be working this presentation together um so setting the stage um I just want to set the stage in terms of a reflection our purpose for today and we come together as four towns United by our sh commitment education and the success of our children and to move forward we must approach this financial assessment with open minds a collective result knowing that our investment today shapes the future of our schools and our community of tomorrow so I just want to set the stage for the conversation I think that that's often very important and and just making sure we are all here for the same purpose so where did we let leave off and our key Insight since September 28th on be lastest the budget deficit is still severe in my eyes but it's moving in a right direction um weing our H County Retirement assessment which came in a lot lower than we expected and so we were able to balance those numbers we have been looking at a organizational consolidation and looking at staff attrition um looking at positions and seeing what do we keep versus how do we consolidate some of the the duties um what does that look like and how do we move forward and so that's been helping us in the region and you see that as CH goes into the numbers there are some unknowns that we still kind of up in the a outside of the four towns assessments um APA negotiations are going to have our contract settled between April and May um transportation at RFP is opening January 15 and we're holding at a 10% increase in our budget and then the projected healthare we're still waiting I think by end of January early February we projected at 13% which is relatively high but we were warned that it could go up to 15% my whole team and I have had our fingers crossed that it goes down I in give me 11% 10% 9% something other than that 13 um but that's where we are at the last time we're here because we were facing a very um High number in terms of about $2.3 million as our possible cut we were talking about the middle school high school building consolidation um late October after this after our meeting msba invited the district into the accelerated repair program for the Middle School Loop we have been having conversations we did have a meeting with msba to talk about the use of the building what does that look like what still needs to happen so it doesn't affect our conversation um our application process and what's happening and um we do have some things to work through with the committee as well as the msba and I think that it's going to move us in the right direction but it's still kind of an unknown and I so we're kind of pausing but still moving with two in two with two veins it that Mak sense we're moving in what would the region look like with a consolidation what would the region look like the way it is um ongoing discussion with desie to determine any negative impact on the district statement of interest and potential Grant Awards because there are some additional grants that were applied for um to help us with our fiscal situation however a lot of it was with specific language in terms of how the region is set up so where we left off I think at the last meeting everyone was faced with about six scenarios the conversation was focusing on scenario one and two which was the 6% base and what would that increase for this year look like the Surplus deficit would have been about 2.2 to $2.5 million and so what we're going to do today is faster a shared understanding we want to make sure that we're all clear and unified at least as a district on how we are moving forward um I've said this before and I say this again contractually we have until April to let any employees know if we are going to to let them go um especially within apaa for us what we are looking at and what we've been trying to do is look at Personnel versus operations any school budget educator 101 any school budget a 8 to 90% of our school budget is personal which leaves 10 to 20% of oper in what is the easiest cut everyone feels to make is to jump straight to the person and start cutting positions but then you start to impact programming and so what we've been doing as a team is going through our budgets and working with the team to see what are the programmatic changes that can be made that wouldn't be such a Personnel impact and so what we talk about that later on and we want to build a commitment we know we don't have uh everyone doesn't have a full quum here today but we still need to have some sense of a direction because these are lives not just of adults but also of children that we are impacting and in education speak as a superintendent come January I am already planning for school year 2526 I cannot wait until April at May to plan for what the schools are going to look like so we do need some semblance of a conversation and of a guide adequately plan for what the region is going to look like come August of 2025 and so I hand so have we heavily refined our budget projections from what we previously presented in uh September so we have gone line by line we have met with all of our departments and District leader um and and started that much more deeper analysis we have applied 850,000 of school choice to the FY 26 budget um funding for open Hello sorry my my voice can get really high pitched and so it's hard for me to talk very loud without sounding like an ass uh so as Dr Z mentioned we um are anticipating health insurance at 133% our Hampshire County um came in under for an actual which was great um and freed up some funds in the budget we have the transportation RFP where we um anticipate a a 10 10% increase the bid opening for that is January 15th um we've made assumptions for where we think the colas and steps will be for our biggest bargaining unit that is under negotiations right now um and like I said before we really uh went line by line and met with each department so the number I'm going to present on the next screen is going to be very different from what we saw in September um good thing you have the packet because this is a little small uh our total expenses uh were anticipating for FY 26 the 37 mil 541 375 um which is a 6.4% increase over 25 I have had conversations with other Regional School Districts to see where where they are at um in comparison to 25 to 26 um and there was a large consensus that most Regional districts were anywhere between a five to six and a half increase over f25 so we're not alone in this it's not um just the inner School District so that with that it I'm going to present what would be the the cost to each town if they were to fully fund our schools so this is the modified statutory method which is in our regional agreement and this is what we must default to to determine our assessments so at the top we have the operating budget then we have the Chapter 70 anticipated increase the various reimbursements are end support and then it brings us down to the town assessments as a base for this presentation we're using 6% from FY 25 and based on that and using the statutory method which accounts for the five-year rolling average of enrollment and minimum local contribution it would H Amhurst at a 7.68% increase pum at a 2624 lever at a 17.14 and G3 AT 11.5 and that would be is if our schools were fully F so with that um a couple years ago the method of adding the guard rails was introduced so we added that second blue column and the thought was um if the town's percentage was over 4% then they would hit the guard rail and that would be the max um so when the town's hit all of them hit the 4% because the prior percentages are higher it would leave us at a 1.2 6 million deficit um so with that the next slide that I want to talk about is I've heard I've been following the um Town meetings and um and listening to you all and and really trying to prepare for this meeting but in the hopes that it is successful and really useful use of our time so I I've heard that this when you take the guard rail method and apply 4% across um all four towns it ends up uh bypassing the statutory method that that follows the enrollment by Town um so with that I wanted to show uh a scenario if we were to calculate what the ratio or the percentage is of the town's piece of the pie at using the statutory method so on the top left hand corner you can see the percentages from the prior screen um for the satary meod on the right side is hitting the 4% guard rails so if you take Amherst and they're 20 million and divide it by 25 of the pie it's 79.9 and then if you do the same for pum and Leverett and shoots very that's their percentage based on the statory method when you go over to the guardrail side and you and you see the pot of the pie is split differently because it was flat percent increase so when that happens and can you enlarge that I can't I can't read what's on the printed but it's so small I can't to okay unfortunately we are not able to zoom in so I will okay we're I'm having an interpret um so actually I just want to I I didn't say this before um I I am not standing up here presenting this and saying I'm advocating for it to be done this way that I'm that I'm telling you on this screen but because I was asked the question of how we might be able to relate the gar method back to the sagittary method I wanted to show this um but I'm not advocating that we do this um so what I was saying before was the statutory method and the percentages of each town sharei then we look at the Gil method and and figure out Amhurst is at 19.5 uh pum at 1.1 and and we divide each of those numbers by the total assessment it shows you the percentage of that that each town is paying so uh as a one potential way if you wanted to look at it was the the school is going to vote for a 4% overall budget increase uh but the towns want it related to the statutory method maybe you don't I don't know I'm just speaking through the scenario um if you were to take the the assessments the total assessment of 4% increase and time multiply that number by the statutory methods the 7992 the 5.3 7.54 and 24 you would see that this how the pie is divided up is much different um and those numbers are likely unable for the towns um I did think through other ways that we could potentially have a hybrid model if that's something we wanted to go through I'm not going to present on that right now um because I I just wasn't sure if that was the direction we're going into but I've already started that work if that's something that we are moving towards U but no way am I advocating so with that uh moving away from the the assessment method I wanted to show you where the region could be at um over the next few years and this is very broad it's very difficult to to do this there are a lot of unknowns that won't come up until that year comes um and the assessment method if we don't know what the what the full assessment method and it's going to change year-over-year how do we project with that revenue is going to be so for this I did the 6% for 25 I did a 4% increase for 26 and for the remaining out years I just did a solid 3% across all not that we're going to do that but in in terms of presenting something to try to give you an outlook for the region um that's what I did here so as you can see it's still for 26 it's 1.2 million deficit for 25 27 we're projecting um 882 million deficit and for 28 goes down to 308 as a deficit and then 291 and 29 um and the these are all subject to change so don't hold me to it when we get to 27 um but it it was a deep analysis of where we could potentially be uh and some of the things that Dr and Dr Z and I have talked about are strategic decisions that you won't see the impact in just one year that they will take time over the course of few years to really see the impact of of the decision we make now operating and how we run the school so with that I'm going to turn it back over to Dr sorry I was trying to get [Music] financials all right so some of the Strategic efficiencies that we're talking about in terms of closing the budget Gap and we've already started is one Staffing optimization um I I want to be clear that the last time and I paid attention to the videos I saw what occurred and I I do agree with the fact that we are an educational system and the fact that we need Educators to educate our children and like I start off saying looking at any school's budget the first thing you look at is the largest area which is often Personnel the thought process though is that without the personnel there is really no system and so we have been looking at how do we optimize the staff that we have we've been having conversations around every role in the district from my role in and the central office role to the school base roles like how can we function what difference does it like what difference would it make in terms of the optimization or efficiency of the school system um and so we do have some positions that are still open one of the things that I told my staff was that we know that we are in a budet crunch we are any position that we are advertising we're advertising as interim for one year let me explain why because of the fact that we are facing a cut a deficit anyone that comes in at this time does not have seniority which means that they were more than likely be the first to go I am not it is not to me it is not the human thing to do to hire someone for a full-time position have them shift and change their lives thinking that they're coming here for a full-time job and then in April I receive and I turn around I hand them a letter saying that you do not have the seniority you have to go so I prefer to be transparent and a front and say this is a one-year position when they're hired if we have an opening that they can stay in at the end of everything then they do but if not I would rather them already know and make that not informed decision versus making an uninformed one so those are some of the things that we're faced with we're looking at our contracts um to see what we can bring in house that where do we have the talents in house versus Contracting out which is costly so that's what we're doing in terms of Staffing optimization we're looking at program review and redesign we've delved into all of our programs how are they funded where like how are we what are we doing in revolving funds what are we doing in in Appropriations how is this funded are we splitting task down to too many different people so that's what we're looking at we're also looking at our schedules our start times how does that affect our transp ation cost um how does it affect what it is that we need to do in terms of student access to instructional time um what is our data saying and our transportation cost as you can see because we're going into the RFP stage we are really trying to be cognizant and how we can reduce the number of empty buses that come into our schools especially at the region because there are many times that buses come in and there are less than 50% filled and so we are looking at what is that like how are we are able to shift those costs and that may be best impacted by Shifting the start times because of the routes that are run um and so we're looking at those conversations as well alternative R stream we need to look at how we deal with our facilities rental and our facilities management what are other grants that are out there that we need to apply for um I think I just approv a teacher diversity C Grant that would help us pay for professional development that is now a shift off of our operating costs so we're still at during this time trying to see how do we not really impact Personnel but we can still address this deficit where it might be something that we can Shi off of Appropriations and reduce the cut the cut by an alternative Revenue stream um procurement operations many times we're looking at we've tightened up in our procurement our purchase order process or approval process making sure that what someone puts in a requisition for Align of what they truly need and we don't have requisitions that are open and then we have at the end we're closing off half of it but we could have actually shifted that so we're actually over the year looking at our Trends in what we procure what what have we spent what have we not spent where are the areas that we have concerns and even loss and risk and then we talked about Facilities Management we have a lot of deferred maintenance and so Shannon is going to talk about Capital but um even this week I sent out a most parents at a ceiling tile fell in the H and you know there's issues in here as you're sit like so there's a lot of things that we actually have to address but what we're looking at is how much of our facilities issues came out of operating they're very minimum to like we actually deal with our Capital so there's a lot of things that we're looking at um but our custodial suppli come straight from our operating and so that's that that has incurred a cost and what is that cost again going back to loss and risk and how do we use that and the time and how it's appropriate so as a team we're delving into the programmatic and the operational how can we operate what's the fiscal impact of how we operate programs in the [Music] region so for Capital I will just say that um I am human and I I'm with the uh director of facility school but I do have notes for more specific details because this is a little bit out of my for of of exactly what um so the first one is pretty obvious uh for our species management and abatement we are looking to continue that work um we are looking for an infrared electrical system distribution analysis and repair which by code we're now obligated to regularly use infared scanning to identify potential failures in our electrical distribution system and when those failures are detected we would need funds to repair that so that's our second one uh our energy management system hbac upgrades um that's a combination of hardware and software um and updating some of the all some of our software is older um and we need to get onto a newer version and all of this work will potentially save on our energy cost um High School auditorium curtains and rigs that's U pretty self-explanatory um the rigs are been become born with age and there's some safety concerns around that the auditorium house lights uh they currently need to be replaced they are extremely dim um and they lack sufficient controls to managing the light for the performances um some parking lot repaving repairs not redoing the whole parking lot but rather patching and doing the small repairs that we can um a middle school walk-in cooler and freezer which would um be for the food services and also self-explanatory an upgrade to our fire system um which is really important to have as if you know anything about what happened with Parker Farm um so uh that's that the and then the middle school parking lot repairs which is similar to the high school and a new curtain uh for the Middle School theater so we would be asking for a total of 485 uh for these capital projects for 26 this I'm so sorry because you probably can't read it on um so this is the capital debt schedule uh right now where this would lead us for FY 26 would be uh for the total debt support would be 471 8.89 um the out years for this look Grim I'm pretty sure they always look Grim every time we present this um and it's just a work in process that we constantly Fess when the year comes up and figure out what projects are we doing what's going to be the life of um project Etc um so with that all right so moving forward together collaboration is key we're about to transition into so transition um I we need a level of flexibility a lot of this is new um again every time we come come in you know we put together in one number earlier we were able to refine and come down and now our goal is to continue to do that work but we also need a a Nord star we need a guiding Point as to where we're going to go because we have to adequately run the region we have to be able to put for educational system and there are a lot of questions up in the air but we're planning with two like I said in veins and making sure that we are able to put forth for our children and transparency and ongoing communication needs to remain within I know we've had various meetings with many of you um we continue to answer questions we're continuing to work the team works hard and we'll continue those meetings into January so that we can present an adequate budget um but I think the first key takeaway is collaboration and critical to addressing our issue and so with that I had all right so before we split up into our T are there any clarifying questions Sarah just be loud the $850,000 of school choice revenue is is that a onetime a one time um opportunity does that exhaust the fund or no it doesn't exhaust and we typically always use x now to support the budget so that's that's common and it does not exhaust their funds is that a typical I don't remember is that a typical yes we use the same amount last year that's all I'm gonna ask slide 10 the one that said guard ra one thank you so that I can get number [Music] yes I can do that very shortly are there any further clarifying [Music] questions John tricky from pum out of curiosity in the current budget proposal are there any one-time costs that are included to pay for bills such as all the CLE we had over the past couple years for lawyer fees settlement fees and so forth they're Incorporated in that budget or any other one time it could be separated out for separate appropriation as one time that the towns could use from their free cash versus raising taxes to pay for that's a really good question off the top of my head I can't really think of a one time thing that we budgeted in this budget um the like the attorney fees that's we're always going to me attorneys it might be higher in some years because of negotiations and things of that sort um but that's not really a one a one time thing I can certainly look into it but nothing's ringing a bell that that we did that thank you any further clarifying questions yeah okay [Music] so it's 9:40 you think 15 minutes good for our towns okay so 9:55 we shall Recon okay so 10 thank you all very much I one the hand outs come we'll bring them to you see what we're talking about [Music] good morning how are you to see good morning disc AR B e e e but I think I think you're that's a good thing to bring St thank you all very much um microphone person just be loud so thank you all very much so right now if we can come back together and talk about how we're feeling things and decide on some next steps um can go from there what inside Shak how's it going all right so um sh I think the the quick and easy stuff um I think on question what we um use for the y25 base we have a strong feeling that it ought to be 6% that's what we all funded last year and the idea that um one or more municipality may have used onetime funds to get there that sort of their you know decision to make that's each Town's decision to make and um but we don't think it should impact how we think about the base in the subsequent years so that's one thing um we don't think we should be considering any scenarios that produce a deficit larger than the 1.2 million that you have there um we feel stronger about both those issues on assessment method this is where you know we this is obviously a long ongoing problem that we've all tried to solve um our I think our main feedback is that this way in which we apply a uniform percentage increase to all four municipalities is fundamentally unfair and doesn't um you know it it completely throws out this modified statutory method that we've worked collectively hard on over a number of years to try to achieve some consensus over it's sort of like the fact that we there's some math involved in this process that does utilize that method um doesn't help us if we end up just throwing that math way and just saying well at the end of the day we have to uniformly increase everybody's assessment by a fixed percentage 4% so that we don't think that works could we look at slide 10 on the one where you have this alternative scenario okay so so then you know to our mind we've got two assessment method scenarios one is we do the same thing we did last year which is just applied this 4% increase to everybody on this budget scenario that has a $1.2 million defic so that's option one option two is what we do at the bottom of this slide which is you know you appli this proportional um effect of the modified statutory method to that budget number right so we think that that scenario long term is probably the fairest and most Equitable way to do this but we recognize that that's probably not going to be accomplishable in this year because of how it impacts two communities in particular so we have a concept that we wanted to suggest which is that if you look at the bottom of that slide if emmer was willing to increase their assessment to 4% for for this year okay and we took the additional funds that that would produce over this scenario I think it get gets us an additional $314,950 and use that number to distribute to the proportionally to the smaller towns so that we can get kind of um closer to to this um actually using utilizing the modified statutory method and if we did that with the understanding that this is we're moving in the direction of what you see at the bottom of this slide so maybe next year we can actually be in a position where we use the modified statutory method it's sort of we're thinking about it as a kind of way to phase into US utilizing that modified statutory method for real and not um just throwing it out by uniform so it's kind of a little bit of a hybrid um method it's sort of part modified statutory method but sort of part guard rail and what we think is it'll help two towns in particular um kind of get there this for this year with but again with the idea that we are moving we're committed as four communities to utilizing that statutory method in future what you're proposing any different from the one on the far right top because what it does is it it it puts ammer at 4% okay yeah and we just focus on what does that do for assessment so basically that would give us an additional $314,000 that could then be distributed to it could help pum get to their number it could help lever get to its number um the 4% what's that that's the 4% side because the 350 the only one that goes I think down combining he's saying on the bottom right bottom so the bottom instead of increasing by 2.3 yeah right that's where he's that's 4% but that's 4% which is the applying guard rails number because the only town that decreases between the de guard rails and the bottom one is ammer so if you increase ammer back up all of the others come back down everyone else stay with the percentages that are on the bottom correct use these percentages right not I said that shsb would still be 5.53 but pelum and Leverett would not be 19 and 11 they would be much lower still over you would pay a little bit more money but they would also pay a little bit more money just not um and also I I don't want to lose sight of the other point which is that we view this as a step towards fa phasing in that modified statutory method which we would actually commit to using inut years okay I can't can't believe myself asking this question but how do you rationalize how do you rationalize increasing amor and then yeah how do you rationalize increasing the number um it's I mean we've already talking about a scenario where amers would be increasing their assessment to 4% which is in that that on the slide I just wanted to say I did think about how we could do this hybrid model and if we know that is giving all departments across a 3% increase um I guess one does that would would the region still get that 3% if the statutory method is different and two if we still get the 3% then it would still have a some subsidy and I have the math not on a slide um for this of potentially phasing um that but it just so that sorry so that Sim similar idea but you're just increasing mr's assessment to 3% what you're saying we already did okay okay I just CL clarifying question yes so what AJ said we're raising $927,000 right in the top right right that's the amount we have to raise and we have in the bottom right it's 92,000 same number it's just how it's divided up so the one just says 4% for everybody right the other one says whatever the 2.23 blah blah blah mhm so it's the same it's just a divide so it is 4% what you're suggesting is on the board already I me might be um as spokesman for the town of leopard I can say that I don't have a quum no that's fine and um um I'm I'm inclined I'm not really particularly a numbers guy um I am inclined to go to 4% across the board um although I Tru I do understand I do understand now what it was you were trying to achieve and that also makes sense to me I guess I don't care respond either way but I will turn it over to Chairman of the finance commit uh uh we didn't really discuss the assessment method I'm more concerned about the 426 budet um I am confident that Le Count approve a 4% increase in our assessment I think uh would approve a larger increase in investment if they think it's needed and I think we need to know more information to know what's needed um last time when the deficit was more than 2 million uh you were talking about cut 12 teachers and multiple par professionals and administrative maintenance positions I think we need to know that kind of information now to know what what we're talking about here um but I think certainly Le would I certain that ltown meeting would approve a 4% increase this year I believe that we would increase a a larger we would approve a larger increase if that seems necessary when we see what cuts are with a 1.26 million do you believe Le would have proved the 11.32% increase that is based on the same 24119 assment and a complete modified statutory INE there would be there would have to be a lot of sales involved with with convincing the town that we are on a path to somewhere it's going to get us to to 4% or less than 4% to get them to agree to 11 whatever it is that would be very hard we've had a lot of discussion around um the assessment method how to get to the statutory method when we first agreed as as an organization to move to stat story The 4% of guard cents tell was paying the 4% when those were paying 2% 3% 2 and a half% and so we're moving toward that but since we've all reached the 4% we've not so we looked at various alternatives to say what can we do differently um and one was say Okay financially what do we think the town could afford and put that in and say we'll go up to this and you could redo the statuary the methods he was presented as are another thought is stick to the 4% but tell them might voluntarily add money to the base which could be used to decrease the deficit uh and instead of being 106,000 increase total it might have another 20 or 30,000 and I could voluntarily add that to our cost and uh would be used to be used in our base but to reduce the deficit as an alternative way and it'll be part of our move toward the statuary method for the following year now this goes back to something lever did uh back in the 2020 2011 somewhere in that area hel was hurting very badly region needed money so they offered an extra 50,000 that year and to cover that deficit we added to our base we paid for it the following year but would be would be in this case moving in good faith toward uh the other towns to uh help toward getting us to sat method with the caveat that next year our affordable housing will kick in and we'll have 34 loow income how people added to our base for household for eqv and that may offset what our C method will look like in future years when it gets added to it because that will be very very different income levels to what F been experiencing just to watch out all right first of all even though we have a quorum here today we're not voting we have not voted our financial guidelines we hope that uh those will come before the Council on Monday and be voted on there is a draft in our packet I'm GNA ask Bob hegner who is chair of our finance committee to repeat what is in the present draft of those finan those financial guidelines is what goes to our school committee to the region to the library and to the town second all we have some questions about the method as well okay and we want to take an opportunity to raise some of those but first of all let's go to the GU okay so what we've done in our guidelines is is what's currently in our guidelines is we don't have have the increase to 6% in the FY 25 base we have what we originally put as our base Which is 355,000 less than what's this number here and we in we added 3% to that which is what we've given to all of the four elements of our budget um at the time we've looking at the budget as of now it's inde deficit so we don't even know that we can make all of the commitments that are in our budget um if in fact we get more information and that we are running more of a we're running a surplus over what we have um we are willing to try to get to the 6% U base um in other words but add the 355 in plus 3% which is another 11% 11,000 something so so about 366 um but we're not we we there's nothing in our guidelines that talks about a 4% increase that's just because we have 3% we could get distribute to the the four elements of our town budget but it hasn't been voted on yet site and so we update our financial picture just like you all do our next big update is uh the end of January it's after the insurance amounts are announced and it's after the governor releases house one the next update after that is not until April which is when the house ways means Rees their budget going back to the assessment method in the past the assessment method has always shown ammer at what we said we could get so it would have been 3% and as much as we appreciate the desire for you all to have us put the money we put in extra last year to the base we were very clear it was not a given and I we're going to try to get there we think we can get there in fact if we look at the very bottom method we think we could do that what we can go from 2.23 all the way up to four is still question clarify yes I just want to talk actual numbers so our current guidelines have funding the regions an assessment of 19 million 037 385 which isn't any of the numbers on this side you'll not um but if we get the prioritize based on the guidelines as written which have not been adopted we can't say that they won't change we don't know that's Monday's meeting um the all that number would then rise about 366,000 to somewhere around1 19,400 th000 somewhere in that range um and so what Lynn was basically saying is we're confident we can get to the number that is on this sheet at the very bottom but we don't know we can get yeah I was gonna clarify similar to what man just said but I just wanted to repeat what she said which is so first of all what I heard in the ammer meeting is that what's in the guidelines now is a 3% increase on the smaller base which is about 19 million 19.0 million if things turn out better they might be able to do a 3% increase on the 6% base and that would be 19.4 so up here you've got a 4% at 19.5 you've got 2.3% 19.6 best case scenario it sounds like from what em saying is 19.4 yeah they can do 19.2 but also what I'm hearing is if all the quick Pieces come into play we could do 19.4 which is not this number this number andree that's what I'm that's correct thanks I just to talk about issue everybody conservatively and existing information will be changing at the end of January I still want to put it out there that having a surplus that's a large Surplus at the end of the year because between when we vote our budget and when the numbers come in at the end of the F year does not benefit our operating budget so you know I understand your constraints but our constraints are when do we vote our budget in March in March we need to know as much as possible so that we are and then in April the super inant needs to inform members of whether or not position next year so the timeline that I'm very sensitive to because it was different last year and and now that we have more understanding of the process I have more understanding of the process just want to tell you folks um big surpluses at the end of the year don't help don't see teacher positions so the finance committee has been addressing that that has been discussed also Council level and in the guidelines there is an attempt to address the is of not having as much Surplus at the as as of this coming year yeah but like what part of what month would we know about the impact of those Sidelines on the on our operating we do quarterly reconciliations against our budget so by April will'll have a 34 uh reconciliation against this year's budg okay that's the best point of which we know um no I wanted to add something that that ly Lyn didn't say that that we did mention in our own meeting which is ammer is at its tax levy cap we can't Levy any more taxes it is our understanding that the other three towns are not at their tax cap um and so I think that's a point that needs to be made that we are we can't raise any more money but we believe the other three towns have the ability to do so because they have not reached their level and what we add to that we also have our new Elementary School hitting our tax roles this year so as much as we we are saying we're not going out for an override in fact we did go out for de exclusion for brand new scho and people start seeing that in their [Music] tax forgive me because I'm very direct so I apologize if I offend anyone in advance and if I do I'm always here to apologize and to address any of your concerns as we are standing here sitting here we're discussing numbers think about the individuals who are supposed to take over the the seats that you are in in a few years which is what we're trying to do here I am here as an educator and a superintendent and a speak for the children and the teachers of the district that I was asked to leave we're here we're presenting what's needed I have been meeting monthly with desie and I'm going to tell you right now we are the only region that every year is submitting an amend one page one thing Amendment about our assessment method and what we're putting in and in 20 8 it was a final amendment was something that was agreed upon the statutory method and since then every year we are changing things we put gu guard rails in place so that you know hey we're going to hit the guard rails we're going to be able to move forward even hitting the guard rails we are still facing a deficit so sitting down and realistically saying that we are going because we're giving everyone else 3% we're going to give the schools 3% goes against what you agreed to which is to have a guard rail of 4% so Financial Planning and budgeting in my mind you should at least have some kind of contingency to hit that 4% that's one two I think that at some point we have to come together and have a real conversation around our assessment method because I don't for me as a professional I don't work halfhazard me and every year we are submitting and asking the commissioner and everyone to approve something when we have something already in place if it needs to tweak let's tweak it but this year what we need to submit is this is a this year plan and this is what we're going to do the years coming afterwards that's how we get to adequately build a system for children so I understand that the towns are strapped I understand that we are held harmless but it still doesn't benefit us we might need to Advocate we might need to speak louder and speak to the individuals that can do something at a different level to shift and and see the impact the other regions are speaking about the impact to them I think one region in the conversation Shannon and I had is facing up to $5 million from the time we presented in September till now we've now showed you $933,000 [Music] end of the day the person who everyone's going to come to outside of the Town meetings the parents are going to come yelling and screaming at me when I have to decide between a music educator art or a sports coach because we're required to educate our children and teach them how to read to write and to add and subtract about Sciences so these are tough conversations but for me what I see is the impact to children I wanted to and uh we don't need amorist to go all the way up to 4% down rails in order to decrease pum and lever to doable numbers so one idea and this is just numbers if and and again and P I apologize for putting numbers in your thing but so if if shoots stays at 5.3% 5.53% then it would be it would seem fair maybe that Leever and pelum would pitch in just a little over that because their percentages are much greater at 11 and 20% essentially right so but if if Leverett only went up to say 6% and pelum went up to 7% % and I don't need know if that's feasible but if they did then that would actually only require amers to put in 3.2% increase because of the vast you know larger base that they the larger overall percentage that they have their their money goes a lot further to offset costs of the smaller towns so if you thought about it that way that would still get us closer to the statutory distribution without over we stressing perhaps it still puts a lot of stress on the smaller towns to go up by 7% is is I understand a very large increase however it does get them a little bit closer to the statutory method and I think you know we do have to approach this as sort of like a gradual evening of the of the distributions because obviously we can't expect any one town to make up the entire difference in one year because that would just um blow up everybody's budget and so maybe you know looking at it that way and seeing like how much could tell them actually what what percentage increase is the maximum that they could do and then sort of figure out you know in a distribution that seems fair based on that what the other towns would need to do to make up for that um the first part of what I have to say sort of like I guess inside the house thing but we have these Financial guidelines that are going to come up on Monday at the fincom and Bob hner mentioned that w're in deficit but I've been listening to those meetings and in those meetings they're saying that the deficit that comes up is because we're estimating very very conservatively in some categories and that currently we this this past year with those conservative estimates we're getting like $1 million in in free cash which is supposed to like to some part serve a rainy day fund and I feel like from my view I can't imagine as an educator in the schools what's more of a rainy day these kids were in elementary school during Co the federal money to help for Co is gone so those pieces come to play and in those financial guidelines we have this question of a 5% Surplus that the is looking at per year on on top of a 10.5% capital fund which is really putting we saw in the last five years an Amor 40 go down from 52% of the overall budget to 47% because we're putting more into we got these big capital projects one is an elementary school so I get that there's some balancing there but there's sort of this internal question of like what about the regional schools and then to flip it to something I just wanted the whole region to be aware of Financial guidelines is that it says right in them that um that what they're thinking the past Monday would severely restrict Regional School Districts maintenance and capital needs so I I just want to like have an open conversation about where our priorities are because in the meetings a lot of times we all say that we value schools but then what does that mean when we're making the budgets and so just floating to big picture and thinking about those things will I was just going to say on the the numbers here that this 6% like we keep talking about 4% and then these percentages so this is what we really should be asking for because this is this is serving our kids to the best of the ability that we can which is the 6% so when you do the 6% that would be Amor increasing by 7.6 colum increasing by 26 Leverett increasing by 17 and shoot SP increasing by 11 they appli the guard rails and so everyone went over 4% right so everyone gets applied the guard rails now it's all 4% now we're at I think it was a $1.2 deficit based on here so when we're all talking about these numbers we're already talking about a $1.2 million cut and when when I'm I I own property I do I'm a taxpayer of ammer I live in pum so I'm a taxpayer in pum also I have an issue when ammer says they don't have to hit the guardrail because this is we're talking these numbers we're talking 7.68 for am we're talking 26 for p we're doing the guard RS because we know we can't afford this so applying this number to then come up with new percentages and Amber saying they can't go to the four they should be going to 7.6 hel should be going to 26 I know John would go there if he could and I I I hope that Amber would go there if they could I I have faith that we all do want to educate our kids but I do think that we need to look at this these percentages and not just these two issues first of all there is a serious misunderstanding of what the guard rails are the guard rails is a c it on so that you don't go above four but for anybody below the guard rails it was to stay at the number you were at that is the guard it's not taking everybody up to cour okay that's a misunderstanding that I think got further uh exacerbated if you will because of last year so that's one reason why the picture that would have been here if we were going with g would have been a 3% for am because that's what we said we have at this time and then it would have increased I'm looking at some of the long-termers in this group and saying did I get that right so the guard rail agreement is a these numbers level Services right it's a cap on the level Services it's not a cap Never it was so we were just told that four towns didn't agree to the guard rails in the second blue column we would default to the 100% statutory so if ammer says no to the guard rails and you default to the 100% statutory there are all four towns happy to pay 26% and 17% increases because we were just told that's where we default to if we don't agree all four on the applying guard rails and if that's the case the 100% statutory 25 million assessment is unrealistic for all of us if I've heard everyone correctly so that's not a spot you can start the conversation at if we can't if none of the towns are comfortable deposing to that so number so according to deathy that is our default right pass a budget down there if so this first number that is the desie method right that is what we sent to desie in 2008 that is our that is the our what we fall back on if we do not agree to some alternative assessment method that is already not our alternative assessment method right so the First Column is how it is if we don't agree to anything whatever the number is right the previous iterations of the budget were shown with whatever ammer said because that's what ammer said the guard rail was if you hit up against it then that money just came off the budget but that had the budgets were only ever presented with what ammer said it could do not that Amis wasn't part of the guard rails so if Amis was it could have been up to 4% as the guard rails it the guard rails did apply to all towns yes but when we first four years ago said okay to those guard rails we ourselves said but you cannot assume amoris will always be able to go to 4% and use Amis at 4% as a guard rail that was specifically stated by us when we started the agreement so to start saying oh we always agreed to an 12% is a misrepresentation of what when the former superintendent and former Finance director presented this guard rail concept what we actually agreed to but it ahead just there's two things at play here right one is what is the total budget amount the other is how do we divide that among the four towns so one is total budget and one is how do we assess it previously we set the total budget based on am's guidance of the percent increase that was affordable that was our Base number then we applied the assessment method to see what everybody would pay and then guard girls would come into play if necessary right so if Hammer said 3% of course they wouldn't hit the guard rail because that was setting the so I think the idea of the Guard Rael doesn't it's weird to talk about it in this way I think if we all agree to a base budget differently than Amber setting it then maybe it would so I agree like it it would come into play in certain situations but that is not how we've been approaching budgeting the region in the past the other thing I want to say public okay people keep talking about our excess this year our free cash it is because we earned interest that's happens to be thank you very much for your ni Market that was almost two million the rest is predominantly unfilled positions on the town side and there is a slight amount but not an amount we will consider in the future that is from unanticipated additional Revenue in other words we had new buildings they brought in more taxes that is the only thing in the pre cash that we we would are feeling we need to F no can we penalize our DPW because they can't find people no can we penalize the schools are having the same problem we somebody stand up in front of us in our council meeting and say my teacher my kid in second grade didn't have a third teacher in the group until this year is that a budget issue no I bet it it's a supply issue you had the money but you didn't have the supply so I want to make sure we understand that that money of our free cash this year was not all because we underestimated and I really apprciate you're I'm you're out yeah um I talking I know we're talking about all sorts of things um Mone and I think I've said it every four times meeting I'm say it again whatever path towns people students families were on preo we are on a different path and have a family member who teaches at the college level who says this is the year they don't know how to draft oh this is the year they don't know how to balance equations the social emotional needs of our students remain high we had a presentation at the ammer school committee meeting where our director of The Marine Fleming spoke to that that it's high and will remain high and that's at the elementary school level the needs of the kids they experienced trauma for a large part of their school years and their developmental years we as adults I don't know about your experience I have a better ability than my three children do to integrate that integrate that trauma and understand that experience I can't tell you what it's like have it dead sit in their bedroom in front of a Chromebook for physical education I can't tell you what it's like to have a kid bang on a metal um a plastic bucket with a drumstick I can't tell you what it's like to have a kid bring home art supplies some of which she never returned unfortunately and do art in her bedroom much less my children who were well supported academically at home my children who are well supported in terms of math fortunately in terms of a sence forun in terms of reading and in terms of social emotional health so when you go into these buildings on a daily basis and I haven't done it since serving on this committee but I used to go into these buildings on a daily basis our Educators every day deal with gaps learning gaps social emotional gaps mental health gaps and we're negotiating with these Educators to continue to do to continue to do this so again their small lives are in our hands and we are responsible for the whole child so I know these I know there's big plans and I can't begin to tell you how to do your part of it but we are saying as a school committee and as someone who partners with our superintendent to meet all the needs of our children they are high they will remain high this just doesn't go away it doesn't go away in a year it doesn't go away the year they they transitioned out of out of quarantine talk to any parent any parent will tell you that there's an impact another parent that I spoke with had a gathering at our house of college students and said yes I can see the impact I can see the impact of Co on my 11th grader on my junior in college and not to the same extent but on my 23y old so I will continue to say it but please please Co is not gone not in their lives not in our lives not in the country yeah I just want to remind the regional school committee that from the perspective of finance and we have to look out for the entire town we have to we have to respect the needs of the entire town and you're a part of it so as I look at the elementary school demands which are real and are going to have already been quote asked for half a percent down was it or it was up over the guidelines that we've had for years in place after adding to uh money from free cash to cover the operating cost of uh a charter school student because in essence it's a one-time event eventually going away so we didn't add it to the base but we're going to cover that separately that's on top of the amount of money being requested besides that we have the request and it looks like funing for a playground update upgrade to Ada so there's a $40,000 additional request there so we have a police department that we've had to increase wages because we can't hire anybody and we've done that and we still haven't filled the position yet so as you're asking for money for your pot of the the other areas are also feeling the pinch and I don't think any of the taxpayers have seen their incomes go up commensurate to the amount that the tax will have to go up last year or this year to cover the requests so it's a squeeze play from everybody needing their portion of it and add that to the requirements of the state adding to the health department other uh issues that need money also and we have a very limited number as an example our 2 and a half% increase on our base is about 150,000 for the town total so you've just we just offered almost half of that for the Regional School the elementary school is going to take a good chunk and there's not much left to divide up for the rest of the needs which have Co effects too so is it just you folks is lots of part that we have to uh figure out how to make it all fit together I look at it as a puzzle as the pieces of the budget puzzle come together where can we find money from different areas to fill in and do the best we can we can't meet everything all the time but we do our darnest to meet the spirit and needs of that which is BAS it which is required thank you comments commenting on on what you said and I fully agree from all sides I just want to reiterate that um last year when we were here we asked I think all the towns and asked as with are the big picture changes that we can make to reduce the budget for the region so that we don't have that continued uh pressure and I just want to acknowledge that the superintendent has presented significantly um significant ch change to address those concerns and as she said has already reduced the level Services budget by 900,000 compared to what presented in September so I just want to acknowledge that that work of trying to reduce the low level Services is ongoing and and probably will continue to some extent there are some uncertainties that will resolve and will continue doing that so I I just want to make it clear that we're not just sitting here and asking for the moon or even the level Services budget the school side has tried to reduce the costs and will continue to do so and so we're part of that solution towards finding out what that puzzle looks like in um we were I was worried and I asked questions we started these guards in f23 from my my calculations and when we started them I specifically asked to find director and the superintendent if every year the same towns are getting popped at a guard rail of 4% because their increasing 7% don't we get farther and farther away from the statutory method year after year and the superintendent and finance director said at that point oh it'll all work itself out I didn't believe it then and I think we're seeing here between that second blue column and the statutory here the result of that hope that it would all work itself out in the end and we'd all eventually come back closer to the sroy method two of the towns are getting farther and farther away from that satutory method every year and so while I appreciate Anna your attempt to do St like that amorist can't be seen as having to make up that that difference every year if we want to actually move to a 100% statutory method we need need the Two Towns or all three towns that are farther and farther away from it to put in a lot more money and potentially consider using more of their tax levy to do so we know that at least I think all three towns aren't at their Max tax levy to say we won't even consider it potentially and I don't know that's what you're saying I don't know so you you might be considering adding more you know asking more for taxes but if we if if the goal is to get us to the statutory method so that we don't have to have these crazy calculations every year Helen and Le kind of have to step up with even more than a six or a seven they used to when we started this in FY 23 the guard rail propellum went from 4.62 to four I think if my numbers are right and Leverett was it oh wait no that that's something you know wrong things they they went they they were much closer to the four % guardrail and now they're way far out of those guard rails on pretty much any number amoris can afford or can't afford they're still way out even worse amoris is the closest no matter what you pick basically um so I think we need the other towns to not just say ammer make it up and I guess that's the frustrating part I'm hearing from some of the other towns is well ammer just make it up and we'll stay farther away I do want to say John yes everything you said applies to ammer too um we have needs everywhere else it's not just the schools it's everyone else that's putting it on too and and we as a council have to just like their p and she L finance and so fors have to look at all of our Municipal operations not just thank you uh Andy and then Bob and then yeah I just want to add two things one just made was years this year um we in am also in position were in Ence we kind of a city that the other towns are organized around is is a real basis so when you come to things like U where the homeless population is and where um people are on the streets with severe mental health problems it's am and we're um therefore pressed with our Municipal services to do things things that um that are absolutely necessary they're really necessary for all of us um and uh so I as you look at um our problem you know we are very committed to schools and um we everything can want to do more but to understand that there are these other pressures on us the thing that I entirely different thing I really appreciate this discussion today I think when we come together [Music] feu will a [Music] lot we will know a lot more um and that's something that just happens every year we are caught in this um B um Contin L year after year and it's because of the way that the calendar works for um the state budget the development of the state budget and that part of our Revenue both for 70 and other education lines as well asri government Aid and U plus health insurance I time come together in February we will have a whole lot more information and some of the things that U we're talked about with the um plans for what finance committee is proposing as his budget policy for the coming year we will know what the real numbers um are more likely to be so um I'm really hopeful that February so first of all I I want to add my acknowledgement appreciation to the that dist school committee staff have done toce look at everything to come at us here ly if I understand things correctly up here even we're talking now about how to distribute amongst the four towns a number that still if I understand correctly is a deficit even though the amount of funding that is being requested is reduced from what we saw in September there is still a deficit if we come up with the $927,000 you know and we figure out how to divide that up so I want to just emphasize that we're still talking about a budget that's in deficit even as we argue if you will about how to divide up the number of 92763 the third thing that I think I'm heing um and I think I've four meetings over the years is you know we keep talking about and how do we continue in that way what is the way that we can this year FY 26 funded how can we do it in a way that will continue Us in that direction um and so obviously there are some numbers on the bottom of the screen that show what that might look like for the four towns right now and perhaps you know so I'm from pel and I see my our 20% increase here um so perhaps for some of us that this particular year looks daun and looks you know can can we really do this John has pointed out some of the challenges there so I think what we're looking for without coming up with getting I think what we're looking for is a way to continue the movement towards the statutory method um but to do it in FY 26 so that everybody can feel some degree of comfort um while continuing in that direction but I also want Tock knowledge and I I know that will'll have a lot more specificity and and Clarity I know that will be the case um and and maybe even in terms of what you all think about is the absolute need for the district will change as a result of what we do in in iations with the teachers and so on and the health insurance and the transportation so things will will come out um but I I'm just cognizant of the fact that that 92 927 is still a deficit and that when we talk about how to divide it up we need or whatever the number comes out to be 927 or some different number that we try to do it in a way that will nudge us all towards the statutory mate but try try to do it in a way that appreciates the challenges that all four towns are facing and so it may involve some towns doing a little more for example than what's shown up there now and some towns doing a little less um but let's keep moving in that direction so I have Emily Tom AJ and then we are overtime and we can pick this back up again when we have can in February on Emily I was just thinking back to I think it was last year um very tough year and you know I think all the towns where we made this big jump big increase can we ask for one more year to try and like find a longterm solution I remember the um plan director talking about U just basically the structural mismatch between how the regional budget um increases and what is typically affordable for the towns so I'm just wanting to see like I know when we talked in September there was like some structural changes proposed and I think we maybe away from that I don't know if that those are good you know that was a good way or not but I'm just I'm a little concerned that we're still going to be faced with the structural problem and I don't know that we are addressing the structural problem and I just want to bring that back to the core as we are diving back into a onee situation again right we hyper focused on how do we do this here but we do need to keep our eye on the longterm kind of sustainability I guess of the whole situation I was going to just continue what the sentiment that yeah that Bob brought up and that is that um 11.05% is a is a big number it's kind of Le but the uh actual actual number um 1.
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million I I haven't actually I haven't actually looked at that number and thought about the kind of impact that's going to have on the total Leever budget I look at that I took look at 11.05% I compare it to all the other percentages the three other towns are being asked to contribute and I think how as a select board member how is a Salesman am I going to sell that to town Town B and and the the the number itself is going to be a hell of a difficult cell but if it's but if it's a number and if it's a a if it's a amount of dollars that that can be sold in the context of a process where we're getting from point A to point B to point C uh which is eventually a point of of Greater Financial stability for all four Town that's something I can talk about and that's something I might be able to sell at now me 11.05 all by itself sorry I just wanted to point out this 11.05 I'm sorry [Laughter] 17 yeah I I I guess just in terms of kind of next steps on this I I hope I think there's maybe not consensus but I think there's a number of voices that have articulated that this way in which we're just uniformly increasing all four municipalities by fixed percentage is not a reasonable way to move forward so I I hope that there's been talk about sort of some hybrid approach and and so I'm hoping that kind of next time we have this conversation that we'll actually see you know some numbers attached to those and I'll just you know I just want to kind of make the point it's there's a little bit of an irony here because I think you know shuberry for years has advocated for the statutory method and got a fair amount of push back from from other communities including ammer I me I think um but we consistently support that methodology because we think it reflects the fairest balance of considering ability to pay inputs and um student count inputs and so however we move forward um I think we we're fully behind the concepts behind that method and I I hope that we move continue to move in that in that direction so I'd like to thank everyone and I want to P you back in the last um conversation one we did Shannon did start some preliminary work in terms of what it would look like and what a hybrid is and we just sat and discussed what we think that we'll do prior to the February meeting is come up with a suggested way in the next couple of years for us to get to where we need to be and send that out so that can start you know everyone can come to the meeting better prepared to have a discussion as to how do we transition there for us it's just about projecting out we're going to ask for what we need and what works best like I said everyone would need to at least hit the g will still be at a deficit this year um but we agree that what we'll do to help facilitate that conversation is kind of take some of what we've heard today take what Shannon has already drafted in terms of a hybrid statutory something other than even this and kind of present that out to the for town so that when we come in the discussion starts from that base this is how we're going to get there for us it's every year we've been submitting to desie for fy2 only this is what it is for FY 24 only and Mandy you're right it's not going to fall from the sky if we didn't have a plan then as to start there and get back here we're continuously moving further and further away from where it is that we need to be and we have significant needs and so for us that's our commitment we'll work on that um in all of our other planning and everything else that we're doing we'll work on that because at the end of the day that serves us in a place where we can adequately work to plan for our children that serves you and the town and I am not afraid to speak in front of anyone so if you need me to come and be that sales person next to you I I mean I'm I'm very direct a little bit persuasive but I'm going to come with the evidence in the fact and speak to what we need so I'm so invite me to those meetings I will come in I have no fear um sometimes it works for me and against me but it's it's me that's who I am but courage is is a first step into leadership and that's what you have to have and I I'm here to make sure that our children get what they need um this is a great first step Second Step version 2.0 conversation um we like I told Shannon I guess we're not sleeping in February and March because until then but we'll continue to pay attention to every Finance to the meeting we'll continue to attend whatever meetings we need to we will sit and speak to you um as you know you call us and we sit and we explain we answer questions but we're going to start sending information out so that you can start planning for the February conversation so we're focused we di in and we're ready to work for our so thank you thank you so you're all A J thank you all very much February 8 please put that down because I I saw meeting where everyone felt we didn't announce it the last time we announced it at December 14th February think
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