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here here thank you please stand for the pledge of allegiance alance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you um next portion of the agenda um is an audience portion if anybody would like to go to the microphone and speak please do so by stating your name and address hearing and seeing no one we're going to actually move on however I do need to ask for a motion to amend the agenda um because we would like to insert a correspondence item for the secretary to share so if I can get a motion to amend the agenda please I move that we amend the agenda to uh include correspondence related to the budget um at at the beginning of the finance discussion second on that Mr gripple all in favor of the motion that is on the floor unanimous thank you so therefore the next item would be correspondence and I will move this over to Mr G trip Le um good evening uh let's see name is not has been xed out I guess um but uh we'll read anyhow hello unfortunately I cannot attend the meeting in person but I wanted to raise an issue with the board as a parent of children with special needs and IEPs I was concerned with what I saw in an employment ad for the public schools and a recent issue of the chesher herald with a shortage of par Educators in the district and more broadly in other districts and even Nationwide par Educators were paid less than the other positions offered in the ad further exploration of the district employment opportunity website reveals that there are 16 positions open between par Educators and ABA DTI uh parent Educators even more alarming was what positions offered for pay depending on posting par Educators were offered less than 30 hours a week 28.75 and varying wages of 1584 per hour to 1635 per hour and the ABA DTI per Educators were were being offered uh 30 hours at 258 an hour uh in my opinion these wages do not properly compensate a position that is difficult stressful takes special skills special skills and is essential to some of the most uh needing of support students in our district I employ you to reconsider what we pay our current staff of par Educators and to change it uh to a good cost of living wage in Connecticut base paay starting at $50,000 a year Based on data from living wage.

call for cor Mr eki here miss Rosenberg here you Mr White Mr iy you do have a quum thank you stand for pledge ALG to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with li the audience is not quite uh packing them in tonight so unless Mike has any questions we will move on all right so you're in charge tonight I well we're doing a co- facilitation model so I'm the first half and then yes there we go so tonight we're going to be talking about first the capital budget which we'll probably eat up most of our time and then uh Vin will give us an update on energia and the energy performance contract so jumping right into our capital budget proposal for the next five years so that's 25 uh 26 through 2930 uh what we want to do tonight is walk you it first through some year one proposals we have and potentially get the year one funding um approved and then if we have time go through the entire Five-Year Plan so you have a couple of materials in front of you you have obviously the agenda um there's another sheet behind the agenda and there are two big sheets one the first one is the entire 5-year Capital plan uh with every project we have planned uh for the next 5 years but what we're going to focus on first is this smaller packet which says prioritized projects only and this is going to be for the first year of the funding so what you should know is we are requesting uh 62 milon $625,000 over the next 5 years and we for the year one we're proposing potentially three different models uh one being I would say more aggressive at 7.7 million in the first year and then a less aggressive um more conservative model at 4.5 and then a middle of the road at 7.4 but that's pretty close to the aggressive model so uh what we have here is the projects are prioritized with the help of our wonderful director of facilities Rich uh and you can see we have some high high priority items low priority and medium the first page of the document is most of the high priority items and there's only actually two low priority items in the first things that were categorized low priority items and then the second page is all of those medium priority items and if you're wondering what's High versus medium versus low high would represent like there's an immediate need or there's potentially a life safety risk uh medium things are these got to get done but maybe we can push this off to year two or year three and then low priority is we could probably push this off to year four or year five and the other thing before we kind of jump into each uh item is you can see on that first page we have the $62 million at the top left corner and then the aggressive the moderate and the conservative options with the aggressive being doing all your high medium and low items and then the year-over-year uh overlay the moderate being just doing the high and the medium items and the conservative model just being do the high priority items overall we're still requesting the $ 62.6 million over 5 years it's just how we're spreading that money out over the first year um and then subsequent years so if you look in the year one that's what we're going to focus on and that's the focus of these two pages before we jump into the specific items uh Vin what did I forget oh You' forgotten nothing you know the goal here yeah no I I think you've covered everything you know and I know that you know Mark and Sam you've you've seen this process before and the reason we gave you three scenarios for year one and and that's because you know there's a always a reluctance to uh approve a lot in year one by the Town Council in particular and you know that year one is the only year that funding gets approved for right through two through five are planning years uh and what I'll say is although we propos the aggressive moderate and conservative the moderate option is really not that s much significantly cheaper than the aggressive model with all because we only have two low priority items in that first year the other thing that we'll talk about or vin will talk about later is the energy performance contract and anything that we think can be covered in the energy performance contract is like circled and green so those are just things to consider um so we're going to jump in to our items I'm going to lean into Rich for part of this as we go through if you have questions just about what the uh the projects are but if we look at row 10 the first high priority item we have is for chesher high school the maintenance garage um which is some site modification demo um just doing some some reconfiguration of the maintenance garage which we have over um all priorities $250,000 in the first first year now add that the board did include this in year one uh for the the current capital budget year in but when we went to the Town Council they asked us to push that out so the need is still there rich I know that we've been carrying this for a number of years if you just want to give a high level overview of you know you know the facts around the maintenance Gage and what we haven't done yeah I mean right right now we've been expanding our uh capabilities specific Al um for summer and winter uh activities currently the guys are we have a salt pile that's hidden underneath a tarp right uh while it's snowing and are precipitating guys are outside trying to load Sanders things of that nature so we need you know we need to get a a good system put in place so you know they could be more effective um not to mention the protective product that you know washes out in rain every time we have a storm um we do need uh some uh additional office space uh because we plan on increasing our administrative capability so the more that we try to accomplish uh inhouse the more we have to facilitate um the garage in order to be able to keep up with that demand I think the last uh I don't even think I can't even remember when the last renovation was probably 2005 I mean I've I've been here since 2010 the only thing we've done is put the roof on I think 2005 converted one of the garage bins into our current offices today so um we do need to modernize that eventually okay and we could just keep ripping through these yep great the $800,000 south parking lot reconfiguration that's this has been on the list for a number of years it's the same thing what it's the same thing over and over yeah everything keeps moving to the right so this is designed we we do have a design in hand um and this is primarily to renovate I mean for the high school I think that's probably the the biggest eyesore that we have right now the loading dock is currently um reinforced which that's not going to last for too many more years um the area U adjacent to the boys locker room uh that whole area um you know the pavings failing that we need storm water you know a better storm water plan there so this would include um replacing the dock reconfiguring that whole area plus repaving uh a good portion of that parking lot to hopefully add parking which we do need and to uh better uh handle storm water issues that we currently deal with so that's just right next door to the school not the South not the main lotre that's that's correct okay yeah and the 800,000 represents the entire ask over the five years and there was already $50,000 for design work that was completed for this project so we have that that part done uh next one is the fire alarm control system 1.1 million for the high school Rich you want to give us just a little that's currently in design we were allocated uh monies last year for uh the high school in dittle um so right now that you know ultimately when the design is completed we'll have a uh a formal uh construction estimate but in speaking with design um professional uh 1.1 million is about the right what we wethink that number is going to end up um we did uh dish building last year right yeah last year we commissioned the fire alarm system um this past summer and that was just south of 500,000 so figure the high schools double double in size maybe a little bit bigger so we think 1.1 million hopefully we'll see some cost reductions of material over that time but and that also represents the entire 5year total in year one it's a 1.1 and then it's that's yeah that would be expended during construction yeah all right uh the next high priority item is the window replacement at CH chesher high school for $500,000 that was another one the Town Council moved to the right on us so we have 750,000 currently in the bank um for 3/4 of a million minus design cost it wasn't worth you know going to the plate for $700,000 worth of window there's just no economy in it so we're hoping this year we can get that additional 500,000 that gives us at least you know a Million Dollar Plus Nest Egg to be able to go and have a significant impact to window replacement and this would cover the north west and the West west side of the high school no not not both would we finish probably just the west elevation would okay that not that and I I that's being optimistic yeah windows are expensive yeah yeah and the total scope is 1.9 there the 500 in the first year the next one moving away from chesher high school to our districtwide projects is a m masonry restoration for $150,000 in the first year Rich ass sure yeah I mean that's a continuing effort uh that we've been doing for the past six or seven years um if you ever have the opportunity to go downtown New Haven during the summertime y university has a lot of masonry buildings and you constantly see that downtown area in scaffolding that's because we live in New England and masonry requires that level of Maintenance um which you know we've uh we've been proactive and trying to get done to make sure that our building facades don't tumble in the parking lot uh the next one is the elementary school playground equipment replacement uh so one thing I'll share is there's in the back of your packet there's just a little more information at least about uh a potential Highland project um Highland was one of the schools that lost when we in installed the mod mod lost some of their playground equipment and so they only have the equipment equipment on the North side is that right am I saying yes greats um and a little bit they have a swing set and a traditional play structure and a climbing wall um where we're proposing a potential expansion and there's also some work that needs to be done do little as well and the Highland PTA know is willing to fund some improvements um that's project um one6 yeah so 250,000 14 okay so historically you know um we haven't been really proactive on capitalizing playground equipment and have been relying on our PT and donations and things of that nature but over time we don't get enough funding from that Source in order to keep up with the equipment um people don't realize that all the equipment that we have on the properties are required to be inspected annually and certified annually and that is a risk mitigation for us if a kid gets injured on a piece of plround equipment you know the board of Ved is responsible or could be responsible um ultimately keeping it up you know keeping it up to to a good working condition is difficult when you have a piece of equipment that's been outside or outdoor doors for 30 years plastic degrades wood degrades rope degrades nylon degrades so you know a lot of these pieces of equipment are fortunately in good shape we've been replacing pieces of equipment over time uh one piece of equipment a web crawler we replaced that doitt $25,000 just for one piece so playground equipment can get expensive uh we're losing a bunch at uh at Norton as well um I Tred to recover or see if we could recover or salvage some of that equipment the unfortunate part is we can't get anybody to recertify them so that in itself pres pres you know presents a liability for us so we unfortunately have to scrap them but this is something that you know going forward you know I think parents feel pretty strongly about making sure we have decent playground um facilities and they get utilized uh during the summertime you can go to Darcy you can go to Norton the parking lot's always filled with cars so it is an important piece of uh the facilities um plan that we have to try to keep up with the next project is flooring replacement for $200,000 in the first year and I would lump flooring repaving and lav improvements you know which are the next two items following the flooring those are all items that are you know continual maintenance items that we we do fund we will make decisions on a worst first basis as we do flooring uh replacement and repaving and even the lab improvements and in the in the comments section you'll see that we've prioritized at least for this discussion tonight flooring replacement at the high school DOD and do little um repaving the CH High south parking lot and to do little upper and lower playgrounds and the labs looks like ches high school and DOD Rich right those are the priorities there so I I would look at these as our routine um you know maintenance items and we've skipped a year on these items so we want to keep that work moving along what's the 115 Vin that's that was previously approved so that was um bathrooms at Norton that were completed in 2018 yeah and in 2021 so if we got right so we've got some money available from prior appropriation yeah so the 285 would add to that and enable us to do some more I mean ideally you know if we could get $3 million and do all the lab upgrades we would do that but you know we've been trying we've been doing a peace meal because of you know funding constraints and to try try and be fiscally responsible MH Hammer uh the next one is the uh this is this is 19 yep the fire sprinklers so rich you want to share any any highlights from this one yeah this is I mean this is a result of just age our systems um currently we have a doitt for one uh I think DOD is is number two but all of these schools have fire fire stands or have uh fire Mains that are old enough where they're Antiquated so if we have a component failure there are no replacement parts D dittle is probably the worst because if that fir man ever tripped we would never be able to recharge the system and we would be probably have to hire a firm to do a firat while the school is occupied which would be pretty expensive ensive but uh We've identified roughly 300,000 in uh in in components that have failed or are Antiquated um and we're working through the priority right now uh with the fire Marshall's office uh so that's why we're requesting that Capital so again it's a life safety system so it has to take the the highest priority yeah and we're working with a firm that um helps with the identification of what needs to be replaced or upgraded and that can't be combined when they're looking at the fire alarm to also two separate systems yeah okay fire sprinkler and then what you know all your smoke heads your Heats and all that is a separate system but no one company can do all the work um to kind of bundle yeah those are kind of like two separate traits one's more on the electrical control side and then sprinkler is Plumbing so there I'm sure there's somebody out there that could combine the two but would have to we'd have to search them out yeah okay uh when we look at lines 20 and 21 you can kind of look at these together these are the first of the the items that could potentially be covered in the energy performance contract but these Al also represent some peac meal uh hbac items at DOD so you can see the first one is the general HVAC replacement of the rooftop units they're 30 plus years old um this is uh 200,000 in year 1 the next project is the stage cafetorium AC where we are sitting right now uh I'll let rich rich speak to this but there's a another option that is not a year one option that's comprehensive and fixes all of this but it's a $5.8 million comprehensive project that will take care of kind of all of the Middle School items at DD Rich correct me share more yeah I mean it was it's a a what you're referring to our engineering studies that we did at D little and DOD uh few years ago now I think so that was a rough order magnitude estimate um of what it would cost to completely renovate uh each building um on the HVAC side so that's you know that covers the whole gam heating ventilation air conditioning um and the engineering firm that we hired you know did that uh cost estimate for us so that's where that $6 million comes from and I think D little was I think this school was seven and and do little was around six but again that you know it's already 2 years old it's based on a lot of assumptions um The Next Step would be to hire an a real architectural firm or engineering firm to actually physically design the system and then you would know what your real end cost was so uh the one-offs um that we're talking about in the green are if they were Standalone projects that we were awarded the money obviously there's economy if you combine a few of them uh and again if the energy uh performance project comes to fruition they might be able to absorb some of that and that uh first project uh line 20 there was a previous approval of 150,000 in 2025 so there is some money allocated towards that already is the Highland one intentionally left I mean it's also an H so Highland is the only building we have um in the district that's almost 100% climate control so we can't combine the highlands since it's not well the highlands the highlands so Highlands are are a little different so those 50,000 you're talking about line uh 22 and 232 like 20 21 and 22 since they all deal with HVAC so those are those are those are we're asking for design money okay so these are these are design uh we're asking for uh design funds to um try to bring the current system to a more efficient State some of it includes uh um you know upto-date building controls there's some balancing issues that at Highland we want to investigate and address um so that's just really designed seed money to try to take care of The Kinks that we have in our armor over there just uh for all intent and purpose you know replacing the whole the hvc system U across the entire building we do have some units that we have currently in design we have the three rooftop units that are currently in design for replacement most of those are the main office um the library uh rooftop unit is also aged and then uh we would like to try to incorporate air conditioning into the gymnasium that's the only area that doesn't have air conditioning in that building so so that's where those uh those funds are fund requests are coming from uh so we just talked about 22 if we look at 23 our second project at Highland for year one is for the electrical distribution uh Rich can you talk more about that one so for 1970s building they didn't incorporate too many wall plugs or convenience Outlets especially in today's day and age where every square foot of building has some kind of electronic device especially with a Smartboard things of that nature so that's that's money um that we're looking again for design to try to see what we can do to upgrade um you know the electrical distribution throughout the building so it's a little bit friendlier especially on the technology side uh we're trying to avoid using uh extension cords which usually the Fire Marshall and OSHA despise so that's where that money comes from the next one for electrical service is an ad um we had designed a uh for the inst installation of an emergency generator at Highland and in the design and in the due diligence we discovered that the switch gear also needs to be replaced so money was allocated for the for the generator replacement but you can't do one without the other so this 200,000 pads that project and then hopefully we' be able to go move ahead and order the generator and get that that g one but that was delayed because of budget shortfall and that's the original switch gear from when the building was is the original switch gear another lovely piece of equipment that has no it's Antiquated so if it fails yeah it's going to be difficult to try to get that up and running again uh and then the last high priority item also at Highland is the window replacement which includes some design money 75k in the first that is design money for the replacement of the windows but we won't know the actual replacement cost until until yeah um the only the only benefit to that is uh we've been pretty diligent we've been trying to do um at least two window panels a year and I think we've been doing that for the last when I got here 10 years yeah Dam R yeah so we've been we've been you know peac mealing it so I'm hopeful that today we have a a group of windows that are less than 10 years old so there might be some economy there but I mean ultimately the entire building envelope needs to be designed whether we replace all the windows or not that's you know that's to be determined but at least to have a design in place that encompasses the entire building so at least we have that cost estimate in play but yeah you're correct we wouldn't we don't have a a rough order of magnitude estimate on how much that would cost in total I mean we already have the chure windows chure High School yeah yeah we can't again token estimate yeah these are token dollar amounts uh no and they're not the same windows I don't think either from high school yeah well yeah we've been replacing them as we go yeah the high school has some windows that are probably 40 years old I you know I would guess yeah it's by the time the way at the way we're doing it right now is by the time you go all the way around the building it's time to start all over again it never ends it's a never ending cycle you'll never have a building that has a completely um you know efficient building envelope because your windows are in different stages of you know different ages per se but like the brand new addition in the front of the high school those windows are quarter of a century old and they're due to be replaced so it never it never ends well you know with single pane windows if the window wasn't broken it still worked with the you know with these you know double pane lowy glass insulated windows they're going to go I 20 25 years typically 20 years typically 20 years is the right if you replace them in your home they usually warranty them for 20 years but you know there is a there is a significant Energy savings uh when you do that both on the heating and air conditioning side so it's uh it's it's not it's not uh it's a good uh good use of uh Capital dollars and then you know the kids and staff are comfortable yeah that makes my job easier then are these referendum items ultimately well I'm going to try and go quickly and tell you which ones are I starting from the top the $800,000 and the 1.1 million those are referendum items the 500,000 for the high school window replacement is a referendum item um those next few are not the 285 for lav uh improvements it maybe depending on whether or not they bundle it with prior window Appropriations but this one may not be because we're moving you know into um the high school mhm cuz the last last projects we've done were Norton and then D so that one's on the fence okay and all of the rest of those would not be referendum items that all be single line items on the referendum right yeah okay so all right so that completes the high that's our high that's 16 projects and the value of that those projects is the $454 million okay to just do the high high priority items the next two and closing out the pages we've only marked two as low priority the reason that there's so few low is because if it was low priority it was probably showing up in years two through five anyways so these were pushed and they represent $225,000 total the first project at line I uh Road 26 is the Chester High School weight room renovation Rich anything you want to share there yeah I mean that I mean that's another area that's not climate controlled and if you've ever if you've ever gone in there the kids usually come out with the Terri rusted hands you know from lifting weights and it's better than it used to be we've made some improvements and we've improve some finishes and actually purchased new equipment but it needs to be climate control at least you know from uh AC and humidity standpoint so that's what that money is uh that money is allocated for I mean I get that usage rate is low now because of it I just wonder if because the kids go to either the y or you know the gym afterwards like once we renovate to their specifications how much of a usage will increase you know yeah it's pretty it's it's pretty well used right now they yeah the coaches utilize that that room pretty well the only problem is when you know weather extremes occur so during the winter it's not so much of an issue from the heating standpoint because you got a lot of calories being burnt in there but like you know end of the school year beginning of the school year when it's hot he mid summertime it's it's it's tough yeah yeah and then that is that is used 12 months a year yeah well for the most part yeah and the 175 represents the fiveyear total so that's yeah that's an ask all in one year and then the other low priority is the Highland Courtyard restoration the $50,000 in the first year design work design Y and then the total scope of that project is 300,000 and that's bear bones Courtyard renovation at 2000 right is a metal well it's no it's uh when they built that building um over time everything settles and sinks yeah so that entire Courtyard is actually sink so um it creates a storm water problem it creates a problem you know cuz they utilize that courtyard quite a bit with the students especially when the weather's nice and if it's filled with water or mud or mck or Moss it's not a very accommodating or inviting place so ultimately we would either need to demo you know an engineering firm would have to come and give us some options on what would be the best plan but ultimately all the all the flat uh concrete work would have to be done all reported you know elevated reported it'd be it's not going to be an insignificant project but sooner or later we're going to have to address it or build a new elementary school without a courtyard that would be that would be fantastic well I don't know you made that point and our two new elementaries will not have an enclosed fully enclosed Courtyard yeah that's awesome no but I think you know all joking aside we know we're keeping Highland and we know we're keeping D little yeah you know and so we've we've we're trying to address those needs um and just get them you know to a better place yeah and a lot of it is you know to I utilize this you know as a radar these are things that we need to think about you know although we may not act act on them immediately these are things in the future we're going to have to consider so it's a good tool for that and Emily just made this like even better so it's got a lot more detail and information so that works all good well I can't memorize it as well as you rich so I have this as my my guide but uh if we look at the second page I'll say the there's a bunch of projects that are HVAC related so I'm going to jump to line 29 first and then we can go over the HVAC items but if you look at uh row 29 roof replacement at chesher high school and we're asking for $50,000 in the first year for design work uh Rich yeah I mean that's uh that's a continuous uh dealing with roofs are a continuous issue though they age we have we're in relatively good shape of districtwide but we do have uh issues with the standing seam metal roof portion of it which is the one of the newer portions um some of it were initial design issues but you know the climate has changed from the from 25 years ago we don't get rains at quarter of an quarter of an inch at a time now it's three and four inches at a time so we deal with a lot of storm water issues the roofs leak when we have certain rains with winds from a certain direction so um over time you know we have to take a look at the roof and see what we can do to to improve that because we want to protect the environment of the school and the overall value of this project is a little north of $1 million and this is not a new request but the design money is kind of our the new request for the $50,000 so if you go up one line You'll see that there are a bunch of projects that are highlighted in green because they could be considered as part of the energy performance contract they are all HVAC related um there's a lot of requests for design work but I would say that they're all peacemeal projects and that's why they're separated um Rich what do you want to share about these individual they are uh they are um at least listed as separate projects you know if we were fortunate and were able to get a significant amount of funding you could combine a lot of these and then get some economy um you know from that but for now for the purpose of of this document we treat them as one-offs again if the if the energy performance contract yields some benefits they might be able to absorb a few of these projects yeah yeah and I say the scope of these different projects is pretty variable and that's why they're also listed separately because we have one that might be $850,000 but another one at1 1885 so we wanted to make sure to parse that out any HVAC questions for yeah a lot of these a lot of these prices are designed are for design so none of none of them really include construction costs yep but the energy performance contract could swallow some yeah depends that how that goes yeah yeah and these are things to think about as you know Vin goes into energy performance because they all gave kind of different proposals and so there might be one that speaks to this more than than other providers did uh if we jump down to row 35 the utility tunnel renovation asking for $75,000 for design work in year one rich yeah those are the mechanical tunnels underneath the high school which are a constant state of degradation but we need to install um new Plumbing you know sanitary lines are the age of the age of the high school domestic water heating lines electrical circuits I mean it just it's never ending uh we also have to keep our uh monitoring system updated so we try to um incorporate um temperature and humidity monitors we incorporate Leak Detection things of that nature so that all of that needs to be upgraded so that's what the those funds are for the overall 5year value of that project is $575,000 then next for chesher high school is the uh mlar Athletic Complex valued at $500,000 there is an alternative option to this it's also included in kind of your packet to see some design options we have for the field but I'll say that there's the I'm going to pull this out just to see cuz we provided in the actual 5year plan a couple different options uh including this one this is a project in the prioritized plan valued at about 1.7 million the alternative that we've proposed is a $10.1 million renovation so a bit more comprehensive Rich want to share more about kind of why we're prioritizing the 1 Point seven and there was also naming there was 50k of design work approved from 2324 and that was completed by S SLP yeah SLR completed that um last year so there is an option one option two that 500,000 is pretty much a placeholder um because both options I don't you said 1.75 1.75 yeah I think that's numberers not right I think it's more like 7 million option one an option to one we had we had a third one but we oh did we yeah so we did a 1.7 and then we did the 10.1 but yes there was another option that might be in this packet yeah it's probably in a rough order magnitude estimate for the two options does this expand the field out to the unused field it's update it so depending which option both options include a complete renovation of The Stadium Field which would be new track new artificial field New bleachers new new everything so it would be it would be a full off renovation I just I thought we had the artificial we just got that though that artificial field was 12 years old already what's the Lifey of the turf 12 years 12 years yeah well I mean it's really probably if with good maintenance it's probably you you're going to get 15 out of it you know and you just got a new scoreboard well the score well yeah we don't have to buy a new scoreboard good good call thanks to the tornado yeah um but the the turf field we do have it in the capital plan but it's not till next year right in the 26 27 year which means that we would have used and you won't actually do the field until 20 the summer of the 27 so yeah it's going to be close we'll have played on that field for you know 14 full seasons and yeah that's that's the life expectancy there are no fields that are lasting 14 years yeah and uh option one included uh adding an additional artificial Playfield yeah and then renovating uh the remaining grass fields and the baseball diamond for the boys baseball diamond option two is the full monty that's what the athletic direct director would love so virtually everything artificial you know artificial turf I love this one the best of everything are you looking at concept oh look at concept two and one of them concept two is yeah this is like yeah I mean the prices are crazy the academy has a yeah you have to Academy has some good donors though too and what we have in this prioritized plan is for the 1.7 is just getting some Code Compliance things fixed it's not the turf field so it's just some ADA compliance so if we're looking for the turf field and some of the the nice things we see in this packet it's the 7.5 or the 10.1 the bleachers and the Press Box are like yeah those are those are just way beyond their intended life cycle and need to be replaced so that's what that's all about I kind of like concept one better though actually yeah I think one is because it separates one is better than none I say that's what I to the athletic director uh to mention I don't think we have the available parking to accommodate yeah the use utilization of those fields I can't even the Y utilization for the just the artificial field is excellent it's through the roof and hopefully that'll be relieved by the bartand park field as well but you know you're going to that's it's going to be a lot of traffic through that area it's utilized you know pretty heavily in my opinion bet well L fun project but moving on to line 37 and our first of our districtwide projects in the medium category is the interior and exterior exterior door Replacements and we have $100,000 proposed in year one that has been proposed before but ultimately did not get approved uh Rich anything you want to share about these no those are that's like a standard maintenance item we we're trying to repl replace doors as they fail especially the you know in all the schools the doors are utilized heavily so they don't last very long we want to make sure that we maintain a good uh secure uh you know building envelope same with roof repair roof repair you know repairs that we do that you know this Capital Money helps Offset you know our our operating budget which we also do a significant amount of uh roof repairs through our operating budget so that helps offset some of that acoustical ceiling tile next one same thing uh similar to floors we keep going yeah keep going roof ladder replacement that is uh in addition to the 125,000 we already have in place um so this summer we're shooting for uh this building to replace uh roof ladders per uh ocean requirement that came out a year and a half ago um gymnasium equipment replacement again this is supplement our budget um everything from wall pads to climbing Road to climbing Nets to basketball hoops and backboards U that's where all that eventually they all need to be replace interior bleachers at the high school and this school are always a pricey uh item to maintain and repair uh uh uh districtwide um replace dematic controls with DDC out of everything on this list that's probably the one that's most likely to get absorbed so that's so that that's like I'm like doesn't this have to do with HVAC I'm sorry I was going to say it has to do with h yeah it is an HV it s uh then we just put a line item uh replace common area student lockers I mean every school they're they aged the high school is probably well I don't know if the high school is the worst the high school has some sections that are worse than others but those are those are usually costly items to replace uh but at least that's on the radar uh DOD Middle School another um that's uh the gymnasium next door to add air conditioning that's what that that number is 35,000 for design in order to to do that that's not likely to get absorbed in the energy performance contract and then the rest of it is uh yeah Green Box so those are those are potentials we need a green box around that DDC one though yeah got it and then the roof replacement for Highland too yeah that's that's uh we have 50,000 U available for design and actually I'm going to be working on an RFP to get that out for this summer okay that 750,000 is uh just a placeholder okay for the full five years yeah it's really if we did the entire roof yeah 3 million you going to say yeah and then I mean just related to that I wouldn't put a green box around it but you know we did get some of the high level recommendations to add solar on the roof at Highland with a roof replacement wouldn't do the Solar without a roof replacement yeah would be Highland I thought D was little was another one and the high school I think someone post it but the caveat is they would only replace the roof in the areas where they would install solar panels so it wouldn't really tap into the roof areas that well really yeah you'd have to you'd have to weigh that you'd have to weigh until they get right now their proposals are General once we get down into the specifics then we can make a better determination on on what's real and what's not worth so we've just talked about about I think 38 of the 60 projects that are represented in the entire fiveyear plan so 3 38 of those have been designated projects that will start in year one um so again you can see in the the first page we are requesting the $ 62.6 million spread over five years it's just how we're spreading it with the most aggressive with being all the projects featured on these two pages being at the 7.7 million the moderate being not much less at the 7.49 and then if we just did the high priority items being the 4 .54 million then there's no HVAC grants to tap into this time around there's they haven't announced any new HVAC grants um we know that there was money available but they haven't announced a new grant grant round yet apparently a lot of the money that even was funded in the first two hvic grants some of which we received hasn't been spent so the last time I spoke to um Ella I don't remember her last name from the state she said they you know there were some projects that we had on our list that you can't apply for a grant unless the Project's been designed and money's appropriated so she said well just we're not going to approve those there's potential offset but we expect to announce a new HVAC Grant in the future and that was probably about six or eight months ago so so if these move these high priorities move we could see a potential offset yes from and even if we do that work within an energy performance contract we could still get grant money to you could apply for it fund that as well so I mean moving the HVAC projects and leaving them as as medium and moving them out to a future year that's that's not a bad way to go you know given that we have some more work to do and we'll have an energy performance contract proposal um but I think the bigger question is you know is the planning committee comfortable with at least the high priority ones you know and is you know is that the direction you want to go do you want to be more aggressive and go after the mediums as part of this year's capital budget request I'm I'm a big proponent of that Athletic Complex getting some tender loving care because it's just been a long time so if need be that would be one thing I would add up to the high list yeah for sure um that's 500,000 that was your playground for quite some time too so and the question is so that hasn't changed MH are you saying with the just the Code Compliance the 1.7 or are you more interested in that project that would deter I mean for now you have it at 500,000 which just covers well you have it at 1.75 total yeah I mean that Press Box needs to be and the Ada requirement has always been a you know but if you do the 500,000 as a starting point yeah starting and we move that to year one that'll take you one to a little over 5 million as a request yeah I I would probably move that for sure okay and then I think I mean is there I mean Jeff's not here but I don't know if there's a potential that we can kind of ask our friends at CF for possibly some of the low or medium to low um to supplement some of the cost you know I don't know they right they were generous last time yeah with giving us some funds so I know nobody's listening from there but just in case somebody's watching in case somebody's paying attention but yeah I mean that's I don't know is there any other movement I'm comfortable with the high listed the items that listed on high and then Pro the uh Athletics in there as well yeah because there's that potential of moving the green highlighted to you know so that's why I'm just adding the figures from the highlighted green and the high and then sliding the athletic field in there okay so bringing that to 5.0 yeah it evens it out a little bit um I what was the rationale last time that at least our first two items didn't get from the time cut I don't remember what they what the Town Council you know in a nutshell wanted to do last year is get the capital budget request down as low as possible so they approved 1.49 million and we're going to be asking for $5 million potentially yeah so that's more consistent with past asks though the one point or that with pass approval so they the Town Council approved 1.9 million last year but it was 3.8 the year before and 2.5 so it's it's higher but 1.9 was lower than they had approved previously I just I feel like the first three items are dire you know the fire alarm especially yeah well I mean we don't want to wait till the fire alarm fails I mean and that's you know that's the risk when the systems get as old as they they do you know yep and I think I at our one of our last meetings I explained that Highland you know that the whole you know motherboard the main the main circuit failed fortunately we were able to you know our guys and and our vendor were able to put it back together and keep that running yeah and I mean things of that nature I mean like the high school we don't have 100% C coverage so we're not you know although we're grandfathered we're not covered under you know NFPA yeah to have every area covered to make sure bathrooms are you know that have that they have all the appropriate uh alarms you know and whistles that you need in in today's code requirements so a lot of that would be added so just a off the cuff number if there's you know 350 devices in the high school today after this design there would be a 000 yeah you know just to just to meet code so you're you're maintaining Code Compliance I mean safety period well yeah it's life sa combine that with the sprinkler right so I would almost move that up to number four if anything in that sequence of you know yeah that's it for me all right so we're going to go option three plus the five correct um so the high priority items move the Athletic Complex for the half million doll into that so it's 54 million4 right those those numbers work y I took the 500 out of year too right yeah so our new numbers would be the 5.04 and year one and that shifts year two would then be 12 .2 million and then years three four and five would remain the same right which will come back to it would still be the 62.6 million but every year we'd come back to the conversation of Shifting some of this anyways okay y yeah I mean I'm comfortable with 5.04 for sure so you know planning committee can make a motion um you know we we have the three drafts but you can make the motion to move it to the board of education for consideration which we could do at the February board meeting if you're comfortable doing it that way and that's will be the whole fiveyear plan yes yeah and then you know for the full board meeting we'll have all the materials updated what the numbers in the appropriate places I just would feel better if you kind of shift I look at this in sequence right like really high priority that's the first thing that needs to get done if are you're talking about if we were forced to do a reduction yeah so creating another put that things that you think are the most important yeah urgent we we sort this I mean those those top three items yeah those to and we would probably put the fire alarm y as number one and then and the parking lot reconfigurations okay yeah and the South lot Park the first three that show up on here the ones we're saying are the Urgent category and then we'll work through and just like even color Cod it red we'll organize all of these from you know one to 16 whatever that number wasse okay I think it's just a better visual for when we do propose this to the Town Council cuz I feel like all these numbers don't mean much unless it's like the degree of you know good point Y okay so who's all you your motion with unless there's any comments from the audience peanut gallery Lone Ranger Mr Peanut Gallery do you have any comments he's not even listening thanks for being a great audience member talking about emotions and then you lost them all right so do I need to list your each year the you you want to just tell us the total and then the breakdown year by year yes okay all right move the planning committee recommends to the Board of Education the approval of five-year capital expenditure plan and budget for improvements in two current buildings in the total amount of 62,6 25,000 with a 5.04 million to be funded in year one in all allocations as follows year one 54 million year two $12.2 million year three 16.

one of their standout wrestlers freshman girl wrestler Briana senal has been the champion of three different tournaments and runner up the fourth with her record Being 141 so far so congrats to her track and field has had several medalists and School record holders from their field events this past season including School record holder John Archer with 20 feet 5.25 in in the long jum School record vo Dawson Jean Baptist with 43t 4 in in the triple jump medalist Dylan Jean Baptist in the long jump and School record holder over mik and P with their next meet being this Sunday at P for the Somerset County championships in their first uh competitive winter season in years our bound BR cheer team has placed first in both of their competitions so far which are rocksbury Rumble and the impact cheer competitions intermediate division so congrats to them and uh our bound midd school basketball team won the won their finals right I Lea um against Warren Hills in school news our robotics team team 56 have started their season with the reveal of The Season's game reefscape with competition starting next month uh the professional development day for student Representatives is scheduled for tomorrow in the high school as the first of hopefully many in the years to come many of our seniors are hearing back from colleges through early action decisions with acceptances a full rise from mff Ruckers SE Hall TCNJ Rogan pen State and more and this past month B high school has start concluded both step testing and access testing which measures both the proficiency of an additional language and the English proficiency of ESL student respectively now it is my honor to introduce our new student representative Harrison mus so I'll be reading off with a little bi sorry our new student representative Harrison mus is a junior at Bound Brook serving in all corners of our school Community from junior class president and student council to seven different arm societies to tracking field Captain hair shows that there's always time to spare he is competitive hardworking and and is excited to see how we can change the school community and its climate during his term for the next coming year in his words you want I'm super excited to be a part of the Board of Education as I love to see positive change in the world I personally believe that there is no better person for the job and hope PE can eclipse what I have done in the position over the past two years with the help from Mr Smith the admins of um high school and the guidance team although my time has come to an end I will still be working with Harrison behind the scenes for whatever he needs I would like to thank Miss Jordan Mr Smith and the board of education for helping welcome me along the way and I'm excited to see what the future holds even as I walked walk across the graduation stage in June as the class of VOR great report and you've certainly set a really high bar we're really excited to have you with us now Harrison and like Emanuel said we expect big things don't let us down any questions on theud board member report I just want to highlight maybe one of the things that you said in there um and throw some Kudos out because uh one of the things that you mentioned was that there will be training for student board members hosted at B Brook I would just want tobr to make sure everybody understands that's actually Somerset countywide and was based on an initiative that you the administration took to really seek out your so by having that you know taking that initiative really doing something well beyond the school of what we would expect from student board member and Beyond just the walls of high school so I think it's really amazing and great the work that you guys are doing and just keep it up in here and Beyond that's the type of approach that's really going to um you know me to you being very successful so congratulations on thank you again thank [Applause] you all right we are up to item number 4.1 our education committee report Mr dosson the floor is yours uh thank you Mr President uh we always have a a great committee meeting every month this one was especially exciting uh the district administrators as well as the high school administrators have been taking a really deep look at how do we provide the best foundation for our students and our staff members and in doing that we have to set up the right structures for them um so we were really excited to review uh our proposed schedule for the upcoming school year which uh we are really excited it's a rotating drop schedule and we think it'll give teachers a really great opportunity to dive deep into their lessons and at the same time keep kids engaged in their learning we're also excited that um it will provide a little bit of variety in what a teacher's typical day looks like and what a student's typical day looks like so the the schedule will give us the foundation to provide kids with a lot of opportunities support keep them engaged keep uh the experience of coming to school 180 days fresh um and we're excited to um be able to share that with our staff members in the upcoming faculty meeting uh the administrators between the district and the school I've worked very hard to really think about all the nuances of this schedule and how it will be good for kids and the next step is to um share that information with sa members and see what questions and feedback they can offer so we can all get ready for uh September but the nice thing is from the board level to the district level to the school level um it seems everyone is on the same page everyone's excited about the opportunities for the kids the opportunities to to grow the instruction of the high school um and to see what we can do with the new schedule that will be the foundation for a lot of the work that's upcoming and that was how we spent our time excellent thank you Mr Dawson any questions for the education committee all right hearing none Mr B the floor is yours for the governance committee update okay our Comm committee report is a little bit shorter this month than usual uh first uh our first thing came from Miss melson um in her words our high school currently has a library but no librarian the county has Librarians but no library is there some opportunity to partner in some meaningful way that could benefit both parties um I know I read online that the about the The Librarians the county Librarians that used to call down home have been reassigned to other branches but but we're still hoping that maybe there's some way we can reach out to them and partner with them so we're hoping that our the district can reach out um second not much to say on this one we were required to release the settlement agreement um from last month to a member of the public and he took it upon himself to blog it and post it to Facebook um you may have seen it we just wanted to let you know that the district has no comment on um we oh and then the last thing we did we looked at a bunch a lot of policy most of them were mandated so there's no decisions for us to make but there were a few highlights that I wanted to point out and that the committee is going to have to meet with uh meet about and make decisions on um one was about they're requiring districts to now have an AI plan decide how we want to use AI or if we want to use AI so we are first going to have to have a plan and then we're also going to have to have an AI coordinator so we to decide who that person would be um another one so these are all kind of things you may have heard in the news another one um t uh teachers who live out of district there is a policy that is a possibility for us to adopt do we allow their children to attend our schools um there are several different options on who is allowed to attend which staff members would it be teaching staff would it be non-teaching staff what's the tuition there are many options that we have to sit down and and discuss as a committee and then bring forth to the full board another one and I'm sure you've heard about this one and all the parents of children above the age of 10 can relate was about cell phone use in school and the potential limitation there are options that go as far as no cell phones allowed in the building and there are others that allow them at passing time and at lunch and other times so that's another one that we have to discuss that is not something that we can take lightly we know that there are a lot of strong opinions on that on both sides uh from all the stakeholders involved so that's something we definitely have to discuss a lot more before we adopt any of those options um there's also one about academic Integrity having an academic Integrity policy and the options on that one were to either allow each school to deal with it in their own way in other words allow principles to adopt their own policy or to have a districtwide policy uh we thought as a committee that districtwide policy makes a lot more sense at this time so we would recommend that um it would of course either way require a review of The District's disci discipline policy because with that academic integrity and any breaches thereof there would be discipline involved and the last one maybe my favorite as someone who attends a lot of athletic events there is a uh a policy about spectator code of conduct this policy would allow board the board to suspend fans from subsequent games from Sports M conduct and goes as far as to say if it's the last game of the season you can't attend the first game of the next season it it reads it the way I read it it reads to be Sports specific so if you are let's say use the word ejected from a football game and suspended from the next game it's football only so you could still go to a soccer game but you wouldn't be allowed to attend the next football game per se so I found that one to be really interesting um because I think if you're on any kind of social media you've seen videos of fans at youth events and and high school events that get really out of control so they're trying to uh drill that back in a little bit and that there were like I said there were other policies that we did look at but they were all mandated so there's nothing we can vote on um they are going to be put into place and they'll all they're all going to be you know on our agendas coming and that's all I have thank you Mr B any questions for government one question um for Banning Spectators how how are they going to be recognized exactly is it people that are going to be selling the tickets that are going to monitor that that is a great question I know that we do have I we call security officer on site I don't know if it would fall under their I don't know yes we we've actually uh banned person I guess two years ago we banned something for inappropriate behavior so the security was in charge but the police department was also made aware that person tried to enter the ground aths great questions any others all right hearing done thank you Mr B for the report and we move on to item 4.3 Human Resources committee with Miss so um the thing can you hear me maybe a little okay so um the first thing we always start off with with in Human Resources is just the spreadsheet of positions that need to be filled Etc and just happy to announce at this last meeting few and 10 positions that needed to be filled a number of these are on the agenda tonight and you'll you'll see specific hires um this is something you know it's the living document it's you know ever changing but it's like we're we're in a good place right now um one of the positions up there's a secretarial position at the high school we have um internal candidates as well as um out of District candidates so that's nice and we have a number of them so the interest in Coman is good is strong um this time of year is when administrators are looking at um what's going to happen for the rest of the year and the upcoming years so they're looking at renewals and non-renewals and they will meet separately with teachers just to explain all the aspects of what is going on um the other another thing on the agenda is looking at the strength and conditioning coach and that's right up that's on the agenda so you can take a look at that um also in the HR department is just um extend the accommodations with a reduced schedule until June 30th of 2025 and then that will be reviewed and I'm sure that Dr Freeman has mentioned that um sadly one of our teachers at small high school has passed away and counselors were available for children and for staff you know for anybody who needed to just sit talk and that really is my report thank you Mrs hi any question questions on human resources all right hearing none we are up to item 4.4 for operations uh Roger unfortunately is not with us tonight so if you'll indulge me I will just read off a few notes um we talked about two of our larger Capital Improvement related projects uh the first one is the expansion at lont school um and as you've seen in the weekend reports there's some work that's been done to move that forward um including ground penetrating radar test to understand what the S of structure looks like so that we understand kind of what Foundation needs to be done and any site freeor that needs to be done there um so that item is on the agenda for us to review and approve this evening the second um Capital Improvement related item has to do with the basement at Lafayette school on the addition that was Rec finished um the committee agreed and recommended proceeding with the um Engineers recommendation to uh add shoting to the affected area to test whether or not that would actually slow or stop uh the leaks that are there to better analyze what the group cause otherwise is so we're recommending that that work proceed as well uh we spent a significant amount of time talking about the midyear budget update um and Mr Gorski I'm not sure if you want to add or embellish anything but I think at this point all of the uh information and feedback is in from the building level administrators the budget is starting to come together for next year um and really the items that are of concerned at this point are the um tuition reimbursement uh that we should expect and plan for from South pound for the upcoming year as well as the potential for disruption to any state or federal funding that we were otherwise uh expecting to receive and on the expense side as in Prior years we're continuing to be mindful of uh insurance premiums particularly health insurance premiums um and that's likely going to require some homework from our business office to make sure that we don't end up with uh significant increases there Mr Gorski I'll take a breath and see if you want to add or to anything I mentioned don't take too long of a breath that was a perfect report I don't have anything else there very good all right uh any questions on operations committee from the members all right for the Somerset County Educational Services Commission I will just note that in the month of January they've only had their reorganization meeting so no business has been conducted but hopefully at our February meeting Miss will have an update for us on what's happening with SCC so if everybody will intelligence we're going to dial back to governance for just one more update from Mr B I forgot to mention I just wanted to remind everyone um February 3rd at 6 o' we do have our training on student achievement with Miss ree just I forgot to mentioned that that also should put us over the finish line for uh Master board certification as [Music] well that is an important one so please make every effort to attend if you can't though please let Mr course keep us six six to7 um and the last item in our committee reports is item 4.6 for our southbound BR board member report uh we do not have a report this evening we're not going to put it com but hope to hear from him in February with updates from it's good report and that concludes the committee reports uh any final comments or questions from the members all right at this point we move to item 5.1 which is open to the public for agenda items only if there's anybody in the room that would like to come and make a comment in accordance with District policy Z 67 uh members of the public can come down to theing sign in provide their name address and group affiliation applicable when addressing the board please state your name address and limit comments at this time to agenda items only anybody in the RO all right move on to item 6.1 being resolved at the bound Board of Education on recommendation the superintendent approves the minutes for the following meetings regular and executive meeting minutes for December 18th 2024 can I have a motion thank you Mr D a second second thank you Mr B any discussion hearing none Mr Gorski give me a please certainly um voting on 6.1 Mr B yes Mr Dawson yes Mr in calca m m yes ma'am thank you Miss H yes Mr bulmer yes and Mr for presid yes motion yes thank you item 7.1 be it resolved that the superintendent recommends for approval of the resolutions as outlined in District Personnel resolutions this is 7.2 through 7.42 I have a motion thank you m seconds no I screwed up Mr B raised a point of order just letting me know that we had skipped item 6.2 so Mr Gori I apologize but we're going to go back and approve that one as well if that's okay sir you want to do a separate roll call just for 6.2 yes please so uh I'll read the recommended action we will second move and second that and then do a roll call so being resolve that bort of Education on recommendation of the superintendent approves the minutes for the following meetings this is now regular and executive meeting minutes for January 2nd 2025 can I have a motion motion thank second second thank you Mr Inc any discussion right hearing none Mr gski roll call please Mr B yes Mr Dawson yes Mr inalca obain thank you miss m St thank you Miss H yes Mr pulmer yes and Mr Januzzi yes thank you motion 6.2 passes thank you Mr gy and Mr B for making sure that we didn't make an unfortunate error there so now we're up to item I apologize so we moved 7.1 with a motion in a second we need a second so we need a second for item 7.1 thank you Mrs High any discussion okay hearing n have a call please certain Mr B yes Mr Dawson yes Mr Cain thank you miss m yes Miss Hy yes Mr bmer yes and Mr Bo president yes motion passes thank you too many pages I need to use two hands up to item 8.1 we it resolved that the non Board of Education approves the resolutions as outlined in District education resolutions this is 8.2 through 8.17 I have a motion motion thank you Mr D second second miss new got him first okay any discussion I yes I do I I just wanted to say it was uh 8.4 with star program first of all I love that star program and just to see that really going around the town and being so involved in the community I think is fabulous so whoever is you know setting and we know but um it just is so nice to see and it really touches my heart that well any other comments or questions hearing then can we have a roll call please Mr B yes Mr dson yes Mr Miss yes Miss High yes Mr bmer yes and Mr Jan yes motion pass thank 9.1 we resolve that the board education approves the resolutions as outlined board action resolutions this is 9229 have a motion motion thank you Mr B second second thank you Mr CH any discussion right one more yes again it goes you know um just the fundraisers because that's you know the kids they love that and it just helps in so many different ways and um a lot of them just look like fun so thank you to the kids and thank you that's it um for my part I will just acknowledge our technology office I think the new technology that we have to put the board meeting is working really really well it's a step in the right direction so appreciate the work that you guys have done and excited to see that that's how we continue on with the cafeteria as well as the reports that we've seen about the middle school so the upgrades are I think really really well met and you guys are doing a great job in addition to that I just want to acknowledge the donations that we're going to be accepting for Mr again for the O tree out in front of the high school as well as for the vision exams and glasses vouchers um from America's best it's fantastic as you mentioned to see the community taking care of each other whether students interacting with local businesses or vice versa so thank you and if there are not any other comments or questions Mr corsky we will move on to aoll call certainly action items Mr B yes Mr Dawson yes Mr incal thank you miss m uh yes 9.9 so not thank you miss high yes Mr bmer yes and Mr J yes motion pass thank you we are up to other matters to come for the new buiness so if there's any business that was not added to the agenda but a board member would like to raise now please feel free I'm not sure this would be new um I in speaking with the um B Alumni Association scholarship time and the scholarships are coming out and we really want to press that you know what get the kids involved I'd be happy to come and speak to the kids you know last year the a lot of the money was from that from the Alumni Association more than half of the scholarship M came from C alumni last year so we really want to stress to get kids involved in this and you know what go for apply for as many scholarships as you can you know because you have nothing to lose and you have everything to gain but I will reach out to Dr Freeman and Mr Smith and see what we can get going here okay thank you a greator thanks Mrs any other new business all right we're up to item 12.1 now open to the public for discussion I will save everybody reading the policy again it does not look like we have any comments from the room so we will move on to item 13.1 be resolved the rep of Education ENT executive session as Allowed by njsa 10 for the purpose of one and eight thank you very much may have a motion motion a second second thank you Mrs High all in favor to [Music] exec e e e finds this stuff it's kind of crazy all right everybody we ready to go we are back in session to item 14.1 he resoled that the B Board of Education approves the resolutions as outlin in approval of HIV cases for the high school this is2 have motion motion thank you Mr F and a second from Mrs roll call please Mr B yes Mr Dawson yes Mr incal ter abstain miss m yes Miss h yes Mr vmer yes and Mr board president yes motion passes thank you item 15.1 resolved at the bound board ucation approves the resolutions as outlined in approval of HIV cases under middle and elementary schools just item 15.2 have a motion motion thank you Mr B second second thank you Mr d a r Please Mr Bell yes Mr Daw yes Mr in calca miss m yes Miss H yes Mr bumer yes and Mr J yes motion passes thank you item 16.1 I will now entertain a motion to motion second for Mr teror all in favor we areed see you all Monday Monday learn St what

now therefore be it resolved that the Board of Education will go into closed session for the following reasons as outlined in njsa 10412 items 2.3 to 2.4 do we have a motion motion by Mr Brown seconded by Mr Thompson Mr Yates roll call please roll call on Executive session Mr Brown yes Miss buter MTZ yes Mr Mars Mr dear Pardon Me Miss Fox yes Mr Thompson yes Mr peelman Mr Bach yes Mr Compton yes the motion carries thank you Mr Yates we'll see you all back at approximately 7:30 p.m.

m.edu so that they do not have to work multiple jobs and or have uh Financial stress at home it is vital that these very important and often underrepresented members of our community are rested and able to give their best for our children teachers and staff I also request that you consider offering the same Connecticut living wage of $50,000 a year for the open PA of support jobs maybe become a catalyst for change that helps other districts to better compensate their own Paris I will not engage in devaluing other devaluing other budget priorities or projects that I deem wasteful or less urgent but instead appeal uh to your sense of wanting to do better for our special education staff and through them our students my family has been waiting for months for an ABA DTI PA and outside of school and outside of school have struggled to get support from a private bcba and ABA Specialists weight lists in this state are weight lists in the state are generally a year to two years these services are essential for helping our son and other children in the district and the general consensus is the earlier these services are introduced the greater chance for positive impact thank you for reading what I had to say sincerely blacked out thank you Mr greppo um I do want to hand this over to Dr Solen who may have a response to the correspondence yeah sure I thank you first of all um I appreciate anybody sending us correspondant um and I would reiterate um a lot of what the author said about the value of our par Educators we have a tremendous um group that provides incredible support to our students staff and Families and you know we engage them in terms of um pay uh you know actually next week we start contract negotiations for their next contract with them um in a way that you know is is commensurate to a lot of towns I think when you look at our int intro rate uh wages excuse me relative to some towns um it might be a little bit different and that um we provide a pathway for advancement um based on roles experiences Etc that a lot of other communities don't provide um and you know I appreciate um the thought of moving par Educators to $50,000 a year based on the living wage but I I also think that's based off of a 40-hour work week 52 weeks a year um which is most of our um par Educators work less than 30 hours uh a week uh over the course of the 40 weeks of the school year um but again you know we will uh engage with our par Educators Union next week actually uh to initiate the cont contract process and I think they know how much we value their service and professionalism but I I'd be remiss if I didn't ask you know Robin if she wanted to add anything on this point well I do you mind stepping to the mic thank you um you know I I also support our par Educators in being paid they are very very valuable to us and I think that's part of the reason why we perform at the way we do um but the other thing that we run into is that um you know as I said when I did my presentation that the pool out there is very small and even our districts that pay more than we pay are having difficulty finding paraeducators and staff um to support our students um so I think there's a variety of reasons why we have difficulty filling those positions not just the pay thank you um Mr masana anything that you would want want to add there thank you Dr Solen only to correct um one technicality in the in the email that we received the it indicates that the wages are 1584 an hour to 1635 an hour and I believe that is what's listed in the contract for the par Educators which is available on our website I just want to you know clarify that the minimum wage in Connecticut was increased to $16.35 per hour January 1 and we are compliant with that so we are paying wages actually above what's in the negotiated contract because um the Connecticut you know wage law was changed during the term of this contract and so we did increase uh our employees pay above that level and in fact took um employees that were at the $635 per hour and raise them further just to try and keep a reasonable wage difference between first and second year par Educators that's it thank you a quick question Vin um because the author of this correspondence mentioned the ABA certification um those par Educators correct me if I'm wrong there is a higher level of pay for that certification is that true yes we pay a much higher level those ABA DTI certified employees their uh wage is $25 per hour or higher depending on how long how long they've been in the job here uh and that's what Dr Solen was referring to that we do have a career path you know within our par educator jobs here in chesher where if they become ABA DTI um trained and certified and they apply and receive one of those positions they will make more money it's clearly a much more demanding job but that is a career path that other districts don't offer the same way we do thank you Mr White thank you yeah just to follow up on that point if I recall the uh the letter mentioned making $50,000 a year of livable wage by some definition and I don't mean to say that that's a lot of money by any means that's that's not my point but just to point out that if it's $25 an hour times a standard 2,000 hour year that'd be $50,000 for the $25 an hour rate I have um I appreciate the letter and I I'm sure that it's a a good letter A truthful honest letter I am curious though because it's Anonymous does anybody know the name of the person person I'm not asking yeah it's it's actually not Anonymous the the letter wasn't Anonymous but because they talked about the special education needs of their own child I decided to redact the name okay so I totally understand that and I was just going to make a point that in in general I don't know if we have rules on this but in general I don't really think we should normally be talking about like Anonymous comments if it involves kids I totally get at kids in the school system that makes sense that's it thank you sure any other comments from members of the board thank you Dr senen um if you could so um I know we don't necessarily get too involved in the um negotiations of par contracts if you can kind of keep up a breast of any comparative documents and so forth too sure thank you next item is a finance um I'm going to hand it over to Dr herrian Who will lead the discussion thank you chair Rosenberg um last week last Thursday just a week ago uh the finance committee in Workshop uh came to a conclusion on a budget to put forth to the town uh to the town manager um so that they can take into consideration what they need to over the next couple months to um prepare their budget which happens later in the the spring um Dr Solen did you want to go over anything any of the budget sure I I could kind of give a a quick cursory overview that would be great thank you my initial budget presentation in early January made a request for a 2526 budget of 95 m89 to, 631 that was a $6,350 th22 increase over the 2425 budget this year or 7.09% um I appreciate the board's attention and energy to go through the uh process of um reviewing all of our lines and uh adjustments within the budget uh I was asked to share you know potential uh reductions and the implications of those reductions at which point um as you mentioned Dr herrian the finance committee moved to the full board a budget of 957 56450 which was an increase of 6,238 41 or6 6.94% over this year's budget uh so that's kind of where we are I know Vin marleene and I um any of our administrators will be happy to answer any questions but that's that's uh kind of where we are at this point Thank you so we've had um lots of discussion in previous budget workshops I'm going to make a motion and uh hopefully I'll get a second and then uh we'll put it open for any further questions from the board um so I move that the chesher Board of Education submit to the town manager a budget for the 20252 26 fiscal year totaling 95 m756 450 which represents an increase of 6.94% or 6, 23841 over the 2024 2025 budget you have a second one of the other I'll take Mr II because he's on the finance committee only for that reason okay so it's open to uh comments and questions Mr grippo um I would like to uh make an amendment to the motion yeah um uh move that the uh do you have the budget the question just right um move that the Board of Education submit to the town manager a budget for the uh 2526 fiscal year totaling okay uh 95 million uh $2,269 for a uh increase of 6.32% 6.23% 32 32 which is 6.32 which is a uh much of an increase over uh a proposed increase of 5,6 65766 it's an increase isn't that what you asked for yes that's right for yeah an increase of f yeah 5,6 65700 660 oh I I'm sorry I concur it's an increase it's an increase over less increased from last year yeah over this year over current budget okay I'm sorry five million what uh 5,657 660 that's the part I agree with the thank you do I have a second to that oh wait is it finance committee or no so Tim second let's discuss on the amended motion 10 so discussion on the amended motion Mr gripple why don't you start us off with sure um uh your reasoning yeah sure uh so you know I went back through um the budget detail um I went through um even the uh the historical increases uh that we've all seen uh and it it seemed to me that um even this proposed amendment is in my opinion still too high but I I can only devote so much time to it um uh in order to to find additional reductions I would have to go through each line item meticulously uh which I was not really worth my time this evening so I did a a general uh a general um reduction um and and my reasoning was firstly that uh we this board has not passed a plus 6% uh increase since the year 2000 so that's 25 years since we've done that um now I would expect that our increases uh for this year um might might have had had to have done with with uh you know preparing for our new schools and and uh getting our staff ready for that but there isn't a lot of that in here there's there's some uh additional uh staff um and there's uh but it's it's primarily contractually uh contractual obligations that are in here so the the the reductions that that I have considered protect all of obviously all of those Contra contractual uh increases um it uh accounts for the reductions that are already that were already um put in place from the last uh uh motion um and then I I added a few things that weren't accounted for uh so firstly uh normally we account for retirements um that retirement calculation had uh been reduced I think since last year due to the competitiveness of the market um so I I did account for um average of eight retirements per year at 15,000 per uh so that had been you know a reduction of 200 um 120,000 um and then uh secondly um you know I tried to to find the minutes for the meeting that we had in November because you know one of the reasons why we had the meeting in November is to prepare for any uh large asks and I cannot remember the ask for the stem coordinator being on the agenda or even being discussed in November it was a bit of a surprise to me when I saw it and Marlene did a great presentation um but I don't remember being prepared for it or or knowing that it was coming um so and and looking at uh the needs of the high school and our our performances you know I've I've talked and other boards have talked in the past that you know when you get to that 95% 95 percentile on performance it's really difficult to get to that last 5% and I understand the the the want to be able to want to get to that last 5% and to have our children Excel even more uh at the high school but I view the stem coordinator as a as a uh a a want and not a need um and so I I propose to uh not fund that position this year um I recalling years past where we had requested a security coordinator at $80,000 per uh for $80,000 uh we asked year after year and that position had never been filled luckily Vin and we've had volunteers from the community uh who um had sort of filled that role which is great um and I I'm still not completely sold at to have a you know a really pricey uh position like that to be added to the to the high school staff um so I so I've added that to my proposal for for reduction well not reduction well reduction of an increase um and lastly um and I I had asked uh Robin an uh about this uh last was that last week or uh two weeks ago about the tuition out placement I I thought it was unusual to to have projected students needs for next year uh in years past where we've had large um uh NE uh the large uh surprises for for tuition outplacement we've been able to um uh fill that shortfall through other line items in the budget and um and so I wanted to prove that to myself um and that's why I went through uh the 33 pages of of line items uh that are that that make up our six plus million dollar increase um and um so and I felt that if um Robin's uh projections are correct or needs are correct that we can make up um some of that shortfall through some of the other line items that needed so I added a um what what what uh I calculated to be 2third of one student the needs of two-thirds of one student for outplacement so an additional $100,000 uh reduction uh and so that would be my total uh reduction of 5561 $181 um and so that's the reasoning for um uh for proposing this motion um because I think that we can do better than just um you know out of a six what was a $6.2 million ask to reduce it to just get under 7% uh so I tried to do a little better I mean I probably could do better give more time but uh uh that's my uh proposal so Mr grippo thank you for um looking so carefully at our budget and um bringing forth these things I'm going to ask uh Dr Solen to answer a couple questions for me um in terms of retirements I believe that there's just so much more knowledge on that come April when the Town Council is working their budget discussions and then when they try to fit Us in and they come back to us at that point after taking retirements into consideration so I'm perfectly comfortable not um not making you know not making the crystal ball um prediction on that retirements um but I would like to ask about the stem position because I've been hearing about it for a long time and I thought that it was in the initial but maybe it wasn't can you address that I was fairly certain it was in the November presentation um there was a lot going on that evening I do not I'm so I'm trying to pull up that that um overview also could you uh address whether that's a central office position isn't it it is it's not a it's not a CHS administrative position the minutes it was in the minutes okay thank you and I I would just add that we've been talking about beefing up central office for years now and um this seems like to me this seems like a good time to do it but that's just what I'm saying anyone else wanna Tim thank you thank you Adam thank you for pulling that together I appreciate it it generally I agree with uh your remarks um I think the stem coordinator is a want not a need I think we could include the the retirements based on history what we could probably expect so I am going to uh support your motion thank you for doing it for pulling it together any other comments to the amendment see go ahead Tim actually just one other point that I want to make which is Adam mentioned the contractual not touching the contractual agreements if if I recall correctly uh Mr Solen how many at classroom teachers are you adding this year is it one or yeah it's one net okaying in one building and adding to is that elementary school yes yeah so just the simple point that I want to make which is the town is growing I think most people who take any time driving around town see it that's adding kids to the school system um and having it only go up one this year uh I think is nice from a taxpayer perspective I also am concerned because I do expect the kids will keep coming and hiring what's your what's your lag time on a hiring bringing in a classroom teacher at this point just generally speaking not like a high school science chemistry teacher or something but just generally across the board what's your how long do it take you to bring in in teacher at this point in the middle of the school year it could take upwards of 45 days um if the person is currently employed in another District because there's a 30-day period before they you know can be released from their current contract um in a best case scenario there aren't I mean in the environment we're in there aren't a lot of teachers of any sort of quality who are just sitting around waiting for an opening um so that that's the most likely scenario is 45 days but um it could be faster I guess I guess let me reframe it if you're hiring 20 teachers yeah in the summer sure what's the the shortest is might be like a week or two but do you fill all 20 positions by September 1st oh yeah you typically you do okay you we typically have all of our positions filled before the start of the school year um sometimes anomalies happen like somebody gets another job in in September or something or August ande moves spouse moves things like that yeah those things happen anyway by all accounts I've heard not just from you but in the media right uh that the hiring of teachers is it's a there's a bit of a bottleneck there in finding people and we are growing as a school system um we're only adding one classroom teacher this year uh so I think you're doing a good job on trying to um minimize that within the school system while still you know keeping up with the reality of our projected enrollment growth anyway like I said I do want to make every effort to minimize spending as much as possible or I'm saying it now and as I said I'll be supporting Adam's motion thank you I I just wanna address that one point Tim that um you know our Elementary classroom average uh in 2425 is 18.8 um next year it's 18.8 students um that includes you know lower enrollment in kindergarten things like that uh higher enrollment as you get to sixth grade but um that's one place where we're not going to compromise to try and save money we always try and um maintain our historical averages there I know that's a priority for our teachers for our administrators for our families um for the board um so you know in terms of like maintaining um uh a fiscal balance that's the last place we're going to look to try and do that I think as a a community um and it just the net one increase is entirely reflective of enrollment um and that's you know just an enrollment increase thank you sure um can you Dr Sol can I just ask can you comment on the savings that might come with retirements is it is it safe to um factor in that 15,000 savings when you have a retirement and you're bringing on a younger we used to budget a higher number actually in retirement savings um unfortunately over the last five years postco it's become exceedingly more challenging to there just aren't people coming out of college um with certification and because we hire people based on your years of experience uh they that's where they fall on the pay scale for our collective bargaining agreement um and the legitimacy of actually recruiting people to work here that's what we do um we work really aggressively in the very late winter early spring to recruit and try and hire uh particularly Elementary classro positions um if we know of retirements um and those you might get some savings there other positions you're probably bringing in people who already have years of experience and that's why you know the most recent teacher contract we negotiated we even include um half price tuition for a teacher who lives out of town who wants their child to enroll here because we project into the future that it's getting harder to hire people out of school we're going to have to attract people from other places um and that's you don't get the savings there um that we used to and can you confirm um when when do we usually know when teachers are retired or when they're leaving I you said late winter early spring yeah I I mean that's um like I know we had two in the middle of the during the course of this year so like those people we know we'll start now posting for anticipated openings um to try and attract the best of the kids that are coming out of school um and usually we're pretty successful in that respect um but we really don't know until like May sometimes teachers they don't want to be acknowledged at the board meeting they just want to uh slip off into the sunset so they'll retire after that board meeting or um in June um it's it's kind of hard we asked teachers to notify us earlier in the year but you know it's really a personal decision thank you um anybody else have questions Mr grippo thank you um I just wanted to comment uh before we vote on the motion um that uh firstly uh apologies that I was unable to look locate the minutes so I guess I made my uh no worries my comment in ignorance I apologize for that um secondly um I missed the planning meeting tonight and I don't know if you talked about it but I know I think we're on like year 11 or 12 of the turf at the football field are we like planning for that is that part of the capital budget or um GL you brought that up oh okay that's great so before you answer that Finn because this question be to you in uh my um my fun reading tonight in the uh of the uh the budget detail uh I came across an account um EPC utility Reserve could you tell me what that is just so I know for future reference is that the $600,000 that's the energy performance contract oh is that what that is yeah that's the payment that we make lots of weird abbreviations in there so yeah was uh so that's the performance contract correct so we have six more payments like that okay on the current contract gotcha thank you and the answer to the question we have the we have $600,000 in the second year of this capital budget that we're discussing this evening so for 2627 it is included there for replacement or was it reur it was replac you replace the turf carpet so you take out the infill you strip off the old Green Turf and you replace it with new so that are are you saying that's in our operating budget no no it's capital budget that's what I thought okay thank you so 20 you said 26 27 26 27 okay so the request is not to fund it this year right because the only funding would be for the 25 26 first year of that capital budget does that make sense yes thank you any other inquiries I just have a comment yeah Emory comment um I just felt that as a board of education last year when we were um looking at the budget we all agreed or we agreed on uh supporting the um extension of stem in our elementary schools and I see this year's um new position as a continuation of our own feelings and our District's feeling of the import importance for our children to have that education and stem you know I'm not going to go through everything that's going on in the world and how important it is to build that science and math those science and math skills in our kids but um I do believe on the secondary level we do need um to push this forward and to me it seems like it's a continuation of our belief and our support from last year's budget over into this one thank you Miss cullan and M Rosenberg yeah I just want to CU you know success loves preparation right and I appreciate the superintendent and the administrators and everybody involved again with this process and coming to the realization that we need to prepare for future success um and just today I believe the nape scores came out which is the nation's report card and we're at a 42% proficiency for mathematics now I understand that it's Fourth and e8th grade however what we're doing is we're not preparing our kids enough to move forward and so they move from Mr Handlin to eighth grade the next person has to be able to support whatever deficiencies that come up into or go up into the high school so this position I feel is critical in trying to catch our kids early uh before they apply for college or whatever it is postsecondary that they so choose um and I and I agree it may appear to be that it's U nice to have if you will but it's also part of preparing ourselves for statistics that come out like this so Connecticut is at 42% which is abysmo in my eyes um granted we're a successful District but that comes because we have you know individuals in the room and within the district that are cognizant of what we need to do to ensure that we are at the top and not at the 50% or below Mark as well um so again I I thank everybody that's part of this process going back to the retirement like Dr Solen said it's a variable that we just keep playing with because we never know who's going to make that decision um tomorrow right and we just had a a really quick retirement in at Christmas break that I don't think you were aware of at all so those are just things that just we can't always anticipate and I think every member on this board is well aware of how that works as well so April can't come soon enough and hopefully it's a it's a positive but those are just things I would not bet on at all um and and I am a staunch believer that we also need to ensure with that nape report our struggling students scored the worst so it goes back to what do we support again just like amarie said we committed to this last year so like to continue our commitment to the children of treasure thank you thank you m Rosenberg uh Mr Grio um and just to sort of Piggyback in those comments um that I I think that if if there's one thing that this school system has proven is that uh we are very effective with the money that we're given um and I would challenge this board and the staff here that if um this uh stem coordinator is needed then that we find we should find a way to pay for it uh by not additionally uh uh raising the taxes on the citizens here in chesher um if as it stands right now $6 million uh even in my proposal uh which was uh just under $6 million is uh I believe two Mills I'm not sure what the final calculation is uh two Mills on the on uh everyone's tax bill in this town uh before we even get to the rest of the town's budget um uh uh you know I'll speak for myself but uh uh things continue to tighten uh in my home budget and I'm sure it is in the rest of the town and uh if uh and I also find that uh you know if we're truly in the 42nd percentile then that is unacceptable uh but we uh do have some of the best staff al already here um and uh we've always found a way to continue to improve um and again if we need this coordinator I I still think that even though I've identified it as a um an elimination um as we all know all of these numbers uh this you know what was it $556,000 uh out of a $95 million budget I think that we could still find a way to pay for it if it's truly needed thank you Mr grippo any other comments Mr White thank you to an Marie thank you and to Sam thank you for the comments I I agree the I think it's I think the stem is incredibly valuable but I'm gonna also just piggy back on Adam's comments one difference that I see this year is that last year if I recall correctly was basically we had a budgetary offset right and so that's a that is a slight difference that I see um and I'm not making any recommendations tonight for that uh but that's just where I come from and yeah that's it thank you Mr D white I I feel like there's so many variables out there that are uncertain right now and and thankfully you know we're working to um encourage the legislators to support us and thank you amarie for showing up at the um Legislative Office the other day it's it's just a lot of uncertainty and I I feel that we can't you know add to that anxiety right now I think we it's an appropriate move for .94 if the Town Council wants to challenge it I'm more than willing to again you know bring that challenge you know forward it's it's just not appropriate for us to not consider maintaining sustaining the success that we have and also again preparing for what could potentially be a bigger problem thank you uh M Rosenberg and I would just add to your comment that the when the Town Council is having their discuss discussions they will know some of these unknowns that we don't know right now and they're more uh they'll be better equipped to take that into consideration Mr White yeah just piggyback on what you were saying a second ago about the uncertainty so president Trump he's doing all sorts of stuff in the past week including announcing that grants were all getting defunded or something along those lines I mean and then I heard they weren't I truthly don't know what the what what's happening right now but do we have I know I'd mentioned it I don't recall do we know how much Federal funding we get on an annual basis is it a million dollars for idea you had mentioned $2 million you want to break that down for us there I'm guessing you I'm guessing you sort of paid attention to that number this week yeah that's in our um um state and federal grants section of the the program here yeah um so Title One money is um 37 well these are estimated figures for next year um 137,000 I'll just give you round numbers yeah um roughly 1.1 million for uh idea special education services um an additional 36,000 for preschool special uh special education services um Perkins grant money is vocational that's 37 or 38,000 um title two intervention 56,000 uh title three uh English language learner acquisition 177,000 um so it is it like one and a half million total just general it's yeah it's a little less than that okay yeah no there's there is definitely a lot of uncertainty uh right now has has he or has the administration said anything about idea the single biggest one there yeah um they initially Froze all federal payments which would and grants which would include Ida um and then rescinded that I guess I'm just wondering was there anything specific to it like mentioned about idea or he doesn't want woke stuff or di I get that but I don't I'm not sure if he said anything specifically about not that I'm aware of okay okay so it isn't like being specifically targeted by him as okay anyway yeah there there is a ton of uncertainty because that is a uh I don't believe that would be then the end of the world for the ches public schools by any means but it would be a significant midyear cut this year right now anyway uh yeah thank you you just got me you just I just got reminded about that by your comments about the uncertainty thank you one more oh Mr Mas just a point of clarification in addition to the grants we Reed the uh national school lunch program is funded federally which is round numbers 7 to $800,000 per year that we received through that Federal program haven't heard any specifics either way just as we're discussing about that program but that is a federal program over $2 million then yeah so we are charged with moving along and putting out a budget recommendation with the best knowledge that we have and with all the information that we've been looking over for the past uh several weeks now so I'm going to read the amended motion first and take a vote on it um Adam moved that the chesher Board of Education submit to the town manager a budget for the 2025 202 fiscal year totaling 95,200 269 which represents an increase of 6.32 which is 5,657 650 over the 2024 2025 budget um all in favor all those opposed the mo motion for the amended um budget motion fails and we're going back to the original motion which was to move that the chesher Board of Education submit to the town manager a budget for the 2025 2026 fiscal year totaling 95 m756 450 which represents an increase of 6.94 or 6,213 841 over the 2024 2025 budget and I had a second for that already right okay so I will call for the vote did you want discussion um so we were having discussion is there more discussion on that motion go thank you Mr White yeah yeah thank you I uh I will support this motion um I prefer stuff generally to be bipartisan I also just view budgets as there is as we were saying a few minutes ago there is a great deal of uncertainty in any of these things we have no idea what the snow pling budget will be next year it could be way higher than what's budgeted it could be zero way lower than what's budgeted and there so much that goes into a budget is like that it's sort of a fungible number my general preference I am a Republican and my general preference is to have a lower number um but I also uh want everything to move along and so I will be supporting this motion thank you thank thank you um other comments or questions okay I'm going to call for the vote then all in favor and opposed Mr grippo the motion passes so I would just like to thank the finance committee and every the full board everybody who started this process for us from the schools to the administration and onwards and upwards um thank you to the entire team for um all the work and diligence and looking at numbers and um deciding what's best for our school and I'm um fully supporting sending this budget to the to the town manager thank you toj with that is there a motion to adjourn Mr White second miss Colin in all those in favor adjournment unanimous we are adjourn thank you everybody

895,000 year four $ 13, $115,000 year five $1,375,000 second all in favor motion is approved thank you thank you thank you thank you a good job Dr yep and now we give it completely so I'm going to give you a highlevel um explanation of where we are with the energy performance contract we um had issued a request for proposals there were five five different firms that responded came through walkthroughs three firms submitted proposals the goal of this energy performance contract like we did uh about nine years ago was to make infrastructure improvements that would reduce our energy costs and the energy costs would be sufficient enough to pay for the infrastructure improvements over a 15 to 20 year period of time um and so the good news is that we did receive three proposals one from Honeywell one from ameresco one from Johnson Controls and they all have infrastructure improvements that are you know from $4 million to a uh you know very large project of over $16 million that would work the next step in the process is to um interview these firms select one firm and then that one firm has a has to do a much deeper what they call investment grade audit where they will put together a fin recommendation they work work with us through this process and ultimately have a project that if we and I'm going to give you an example from our first energy performance contract we had 10.2 Million worth of infrastructure improvements across school and town buildings those the Energy savings from those projects paid for itself over 15 years were're in the 10th year of repayment so we were able to add LED lighting to all our classrooms and our hallways and all our buildings we took Highland School from electric heat to natural gas fired heat and added air conditioning throughout that building the back of chesher high school on the west side that was all electric heat that was replaced with natural gas so if we do a similar project we will be able to do $10 million worth of very much needed infrastructure upgrades and the Energy savings pay for the infrastructure improvements the what I handed out that I'm going to just run through quickly is a summary that eneria who was hired as our owner's rep provided to us actually just a couple of days ago um and if you just flip to page three the title of the page is base proposals and you'll see the three firms listed amesco Honeywell and jci stands for Johnson Controls so the annual savings is the annual Energy savings that each of those firms would have 291,000 amesco 443,000 Honeywell and 43,000 jci the self-funding cost that is the total amount of infrastructure improvements we would get so 8 million 8.7 million 6.6 million and 6.9 Million by Johnson Control so these are substantial infrastructure projects that we would do if you flip to the next page and again I'm giving you really high level detail these are the alternate proposals which are much bigger project sizes if you look at that self-funding cost the project size for amesco would be 16.6 million Honeywell 10.5 and and Johnson Controls has a $22 million project scope if you look at the next page these are the types of projects that could be be done and actually turn to the page that says alternate options because there's no dollars and cents here I I you know I know we we're short in time but the types of projects that would be done include um air handling unit refurbishment and the yes under Honeywell means that's the firm that's rep uh that's representing they could do air handling unit rein re refurbishment battery storage as part of the solution boiler upgrades all three companies would do boiler upgrades two of the three companies would do domestic hot water replacement EMS upgrades those are energy management system upgrades they would all do that those have high value and quick paybacks so those projects um would all three firms would do one firm Johnson Controls is recommending a fuel cell heat pump unit ventilators LED lighting roof replacement rooftop unit replacement solar all three companies are recommending various types of solar some rooftop some groundbased solar and also window replacements there's going to be a long list of projects that can potentially be done these three firms have done a high level review and have projects that they believe make sense but until we go through the details of interviewing those firms we won't know which is the company that will be awarded to go to the next step so again the good news here is that these are three very reputable firms they have a lot of experience doing this type of work and when we get to the next step and select one of these firms there'll be a lot of detail a lot of work that needs to be done for them to make a final proposal what the final proposal will do that's important to mention is they call it an energy performance contract because it comes with a guarantee so if for example we were to select ameresco who did our first project yeah and they're going to do a $10 million project and they say that we'll be saving $800,000 per year in energy saving savings and that will pay for the 15-year lease on the infrastructure improvements if we fall short of that $800,000 they guarantee that they'll make up the difference between what we actually saved and that $800,000 the other Advantage you know that I'll I'll mention is if we hire one of these firms to do the work it's TurnKey so if they're going to replace roofs add solar on the the roofs if they're going to replace boilers if they're going to replace rooftop units they are essentially serving as the contractor they do all the bidding they have the contractors that come in and do the work it doesn't require our involvement you know we don't have the expertise to do all this work in house but they do and that's how they that's what they get paid to do as part of this energy performance contract what's the oversight though Vin if they we're handing over kind of what's what what's the oversight on them well it is just like we're hiring OMG to build the new schools they have full responsibility to complete the work so we have a committee kind of intercepting some of the yeah I mean we'll have the normal level of oversight if they're working in any of our buildings but you know you know I could tell you from the first contract that we did you know it's in this company's best interest to hire good contractors and so when we did the you know the electric heat replacement at Highland as an example you know the contractors respected if they were working you know during the school year they respected work times they made sure their workers were screened and background check they have their proper insurance so it be no different than us hiring a reputable contractor but we're handing it to them to do it also this project does not require a referendum approval because the Town Council has the authority to enter into a a lease agreement that's essentially what this is I was going to ask that question yeah I was going to say is that how they are squeezing the police item in here too well this is a joint project with town and um Board of Ed buildings but because we have so much more of the square footage most of the projects will be school okay um and we are working with um with the town Sean Kimbo and and Dan bombero who's their director of Public Works well I'm not against it I'm just saying then if that's the case then look at all of our facilities within the town they did look at districtwide they did the whole to all the to buildings including the schools oh okay gotcha yeah and I I didn't give you the full deck just because I know we're short on time I just wanted to give you some high level but I will some of the projects that we asked as priorities for example we know we have to replace the roof at doitt yeah so one of the recommendations is a roof replacement with adding solar um and also windows windows at dittle so once the detailed work is done from the selected firm there's going to be a lot of back and forth and input on what our priorities are what we'd like to get done you know we would work with the town on what their priorities are and just mix and match the different energy conservation measures to have a a plan that works um the one thing that I also wanted to ask the the recommendation that I made to um Sean Kimbell and Jeff Solen is to follow the same approach we did last time when we had a hire firm and when we looked at the energy conservation me uh measures we had a committee from the Board of Ed Town Council uh and the energy commission you know as as well as our internal team that have been involved um so you know I I would ask uh chairman Rosenberg that the Board of Ed select a person to serve as our representative for the interviews and the additional work that needs to get done what was the makeup of that committee back then been in regards to sizewise you know it was and I call it a committee it was really a working group task force and it was probably about a dozen people that attended the meetings yeah sign though there were members from the board of AD Town Council and energy commission so at minimum we're looking at 12 members unless we decide to add more I think the the appointment would be one from the board one from the council one from the energy commission and then individual members of the board or the council or other energy commission members can attend there'll be public meeting things and the decision there's technically no decision making it's just more for I'm hoping that we do it by consensus okay like we did last time but the vote to go forward and and hire The Firm that that's the town council's Authority uh and the same thing to approve a contract ultimately that's up to the Town Council so the purpose of this working group will be to make a recommendation on the firm selection and I will um add that eneria who's serving as our owners rep they will take the lead in uh the interview process in asking and answering you know questions you know from us and they will likely as those interviews are concluded make a recommendation also to the working group okay so I don't need anything on that no just thinking of like if there's a need to have an additional representation on the committee is that something that we have to basically discuss with the council like as opposed to one member I'd like to have two from the board you know Peter Talbert um is aware of the request so so we just have conversation with him yeah we're trying to um have the council you know appoint that group on at their meeting February 11th that's the goal just to try and keep this moving along we'd like to do the interviews the week of February 24th if we can okay so next upep is we'll have to touch base to have consensus on the number of individuals within the committee and then set the meeting date for the 24th yeah or sometime then does this group need to meet again before our next general business meeting I don't think so February no okay no we just need to email they have the motion so at the business meeting we will go through the details of the the fiveyear plan good to motion to adjourn second all in favor you're adjourned planning is adjourned

[Music] e e for e [Music] he sh for [Music] for [Music] n [Music] sh for [Music] e [Music] for e [Music] would all those who are able please rise for the pledge iedge Al thank you today's mission statement will be read by Mr Brown the mission of Eve sham Township School District is to promote excellence in an environment that engages students in meaningful learning experiences in partnership with students dedicated staff families Community the district provides a strong Educational Foundation that will Empower our students to achieve their unique potential Embrace self directed lifelong learning develop the skills necessary for appropriate risk taking and responsible decision- making respect themselves and others problem solve individually and collaboratively become contributing members of a diverse Global Society thank you Mr Brown uh moving on we'll move into our recognitions for this evening e for [Applause] where's Miss gorley come on down congrats Kendall this is you that here and I see Mr h man here if you if you'd like to come up okay well actually congrats Kendall [Applause] gift cards so don't want to forget those so thank you and and I want to say just this is like uh a streak I want probably was the hour back Celtics that won 10 straight championships I think but I think MMS might have 10 straight Cooper levenson holiday card winners which is an amazing feat um a dynasty a dynasty we will now move into our preliminary budget presentation floor is yours Dr Smith for [Music] okay so preliminary budget presentation 2025 26 it's January 30th so it's significantly earlier then we normally present budget information this year's budget is particularly painful and we wanted to get the information out um as soon as possible it is a lot to take in and there will be a a lot to talk about over the months ahead the uh in the past few years we have communicated um budget impacts first through meetings with staff those were individual meetings in the schools typically in early March um that's that route just isn't possible this year given the number of changes that we're going to be talking about our mission which we read at the beginning of every board meeting is what guides all we do including the budget development always focusing to maintain as much as we can for as long as we can for as many as we can and that has been Our Fate as a district that has lost state aid seven years straight this is my fifth spring presenting budget and every one of those has been talking about Cuts context to the state aid so we've lost over 7 million since 2018 that's over half of our state aid total couple that with the rising costs of goods and services which people experience in their personal lives but certainly districts have been experiencing across the state and Country special ed in transportation are particularly um increasing areas for costs salaries and benefits continue to go up all of this outpaces the local 2% tax levy cap for the state of New Jersey so every District loses ground um you know the cost of operating exceeds the revenue through the local tax levy and we generally are looking at around $3 million gap each year between uh revenue and Appropriations this year that's a bigger Gap because we used some one-time Revenue sources last year to Stave off additional cuts and again in the effort to preserve as much as possible for as long as possible we went with um more conservative um uh projections in our budget last year which um with the increasing expenditures led to um less Surplus actually no Surplus um as we found out recently which is creating another $3 million gap put that into the larger context of where we are and have been um we are the fourth leanest so we spend the fourth least per pupil of all 76 k8s in the state that is not enviable no one wants to be there it means we spend $3,566 less per student in the state average for a K8 which you might think oh okay 3,00 566 doesn't sound too bad but that's per student so times that by about 4500 which is our enrollment over $16 million missing from our budget and I recently talked about this at the state public comment hearing on the new school funding law it's absolutely egregious and wrong that any District could be 16 million short of an average budget when you translate that into positions at 880,000 roughly for step one salary and benefits that's over 200 teachers short that our district is 25 per School short to be average so when if you look at a district that is average and it's making Cuts they have $16 Million worth of cuts available to them that we have already used up there are no easy cuts anymore for us it's very upsetting and we are trying to chart the best path the least horrible path in a horrendous situation the data source and description of indicators is on the slide just show that in a visual so you can see the Gap widening each year this is just looking back over the last three years we're blue the state's orange the Gap getting wider that will continue if you extrapolate that out into next year and beyond that should continue to widen because our 2% local tax levy cap is being compounded on a budget that is smaller so that's less of an increase every year if you're compounding a state average budget that's going to be a higher increase each year so we're going to lose ground each year if things stay as they are there were other SL I shared all these slides in um several etsd updates recently if anyone wants to go take a look I didn't include them all here but I just picked out the one as a kind of an example it's the area where we are absolutely leanest um out of the 76 k8s in the largest enrollment bracket we rank leanest number one leanest in total administrative costs per pupil we also rank number one leanest in administrative salaries in benefits per pupil we rank second highest in the ratio of students to administrative personnel and fourth highest in the ratio of Faculty to administrative Personnel no one wants to be at the top of that graph we're there in many categories how do we get here I'm going to hand it over to Mr yats to talk a little bit about that all right welcome back everybody if it feels like we were just here it's because only six months ago we were finalizing our budget discussions and here we are so Dr Smith talked a lot about our state funding reductions um so how do we get here what is S2 S2 we commonly refer to hey we're an S2 District um in order to understand that we have to go back to 2008 under then Governor Cor resign who enacted the school funding Reform Act that act adjusted how school districts in New Jersey were going to receive state aid eam was one of the districts at the time it was calculated to receive less Aid the state's response to that which was a quick response was they were going to provide what's called adjustment Aid it was meant to be temporary relief but it lasted for over a decade that Aid was provided to districts to reset them uh if they were a district who was calculated to receive less under the new sfra Formula E sham was one of those districts who received the adjustment Aid then in 2018 S2 was enacted which again reformed the school funding Reform Act and how uh the state aid formula was calculated for school districts like ours it was meant to rebalance Aid to school districts basically prevent overfunded districts from receiving more money than they were supposed to as under the new calculation um they had a seven-year phase out from 2018 to 2025 so the current budget Year we're in is when they phased out our adjustment aid but they also adjusted um how we receive Aid with an enrollment based formula so it's not based on one for one enrollment it's based on a weighted fiveyear average of your enrollment and then it's put through a a factor us typically less than one um so it doesn't exactly follow enrollment that's really important to understand and then they also applied a local fair share a district wealth calculation they basically looked at certain school districts and said what is that District's ability to generate tax levy so what is your ability to generate revenues locally if you were considered a wealthy District they shifted the burden to those wealthy districts and said you can generate more than what you're doing right now and they reduce state aid and they put the burden on the taxpayer the um two graphs at the bottom just highlight where we were with state aid in 2018 to 20125 you can see in 2018 we were to receive $1 13.9 million in 20125 we received uh just under $6.8 million so total reduction was 7,1 149,000 80 or a total loss of over 51% of our state aid look at our enrollment M on the right side our enrollment only reduced by 50% of 1% during that same time period so we haven't seen a decline in enrollment but we've seen a over 51% reduction in our state funding the state has shifted the burden the state says esam's wealthy under the new calculation e sham residents can afford to pay more the state's going to pay less Shifting the burden even further when we look at the uh graph here our tax levy is represented by the red area and our state aid is represented by the blue area you can see those two arrows are continuing to widen the Gap is widening for us they're asking the residents to assume more of the burden of our total budget while the state pays less so at the top right we're going to look at tax levy as a percentage of our total budget tax levy is going to be the red line and you can see in 2017 tax levy accounted for 79% of our total budget fast forward to 2025 tax levy accounts for 86% of our total budget now when you account for the withdrawals that we used from capital and maintenance Reserve we use those withdrawals to balance our budget this year when you factor those in tax levy accounts for over 88% of our total budget look at state aid as a percentage of total budget on the left 2017 state aid was 18% of our total budget 2025 it's less than 8% Dr Smith had mentioned and I also that we lost 7,149 th80 you can see that number in the bottom right all the way to the bottom right um that's our total reduction from what we received in 2018 to what we receive now but if I go back to 2018 in that first year remember it was a seven-year schedule where they were going to reduce our adjustment Aid in that first year they reduced Us by over $815,000 in year two 201920 they took away an additional $925,000 when you factor in that they never gave me back the $815,000 that year we have to continue to assume those losses so each year that they don't give us that money back we will continue to assume those losses we're now in year eight in 2526 at the bottom we've been told by the county and the state to expect our state aid to be flat or less and so we don't know what that number is going to be but if it is if it's flat we will assume an additional $7 million1 149,000 loss so our total cumulative State funding loss that we've assumed as a district is just under 39 million doar all right so I put this in here as a hypothetical um couple important things to understand the only Revenue number that our district can control is our tax levy we can increase our tax levy by 2% from the prior year and that's our cap so there's a few exceptions to that we won't get into tonight but the only number that we can increase is our tax levy at 2% our salaries and benefits increase typically north of 3% every year that's about the average that we experience as a district so in a hypothetical world if our salaries or if our tax levy was equal to our salaries and benefit which it's not our salaries and benefits account for about $5 million more than our total tax levy but even if they were equal within one year we'd have a structural budgetary deficit of $1.4 Million by year four we'd be at $4.5 million in a structural budgetary deficit because we can only increase our tax levy by 2% other um budgetary pressures that our district faces so we don't just face face budgetary pressures of rising costs for salaries and benefits we experience it across the board this is going to impact everybody in this room by the way we experience Rising utility costs so pjm is an ISO so they are responsible for securing or procuring um all the electricity that is put onto our electric grid they procure that for Pennsylvania Jersey Maryland and parts of other states they deliver it to 21 different utilities when you secure from your utility your utility secured from PJ pjm in July of this past summer announced that capacity the cost of capacity is going to increase from 29 megawatts a day to 270 megawatts a day why well previously we used to collect all of our uh we used to procure most of our electric was supplied by fossil fuels or coal powered plants and nuclear powered plants well those plants were old and they had uh they had uh rapid plant closure there's no immediate replacements for them because it takes a long time to build them so we've had a decrease in the supply of electricity to the grid we've had massive increases to uh Demand on the grid think about when you save things on your Google drive or save things on your iPhone or you save things on your Microsoft One drive those things don't just get saved on the internet that gets stored in data centers on servers those data centers are huge and they have a a massive pull on the electric grid AI has a massive pull on the electric grid so things like artificial intelligence so we've seen a significant increase in demand a significant decrease in Supply and you might say well what about renewable generation renewable generation has po uh poor operating characteristics wind and solar wind can only operate when the wind's blowing and solar can only operate when the sun's out so it's very inconsistent to supply into the electric grid they measure or electricity on capacity factors over a given time period the capacity Factor would be how much ener or electricity is produced in that given time period solar has a capacity factor of 25 to 30% um wind has a capacity factor of 35 to 45% coal and nuclear had a capacity factor of 70 to 90% that means it's going to take three times the megawatt production from solar and wind to replace one megawatt production from coal and nuclear so what does this mean for you it means that your electric rates are going to increase by approximately 20 to 30% on your July 25 Bill the difference between you and our district is our utility rates we pay millions of dollars every month in utility spend excuse me millions of dollars every year in utility spend versus what you're spending but this will impact all of us other budgetary pressures so we don't just see 3% in salaries we see double digit increases in health benefit premiums every year we talked about our salary increases north of 3% each year we have aging infrastructure drive around our district many of you in this room have your red shirts on your teachers you know how old our facilities are and you know the state of our facilities we simply don't have the money available or the funds available in our en fund budget to make the massive improvements or the Capital Improvements that our district needs and where they need to be today so we have aging infrastructure the dollars you can assign to that would be something like a roof leak in the middle of a year maybe a boiler goes down in the middle of a year we have a blower motor fan go down on some piece of util or hbac equipment that I don't fully understand but our maintenance staff does and it costs us thousands of dollars in time and material across the board this doesn't just affect Eve sham it affects every District but across the board in every category of position we've seen a decrease in the candidate pool this has led to an increase in competition amongst districts and now we're having candidates who are coming in and being hired at rates higher than step one which used to be the standard let me go back changing student demographics has led to an increase in students with mandated education operational demand so we are seeing increased costs in this area of our uh operations and then this last one is njsa 6a 231 18.3 A2 so that's the New Jersey uh Administrative Code that allows approved private schools for students with disabilities to increase their tuition rates by up to 10% in the middle of a year when I see an increase in cost I don't get to go to the taxpayers and go hey I need 10% more money but our approved private schools for students with disabilities when they get audited like us we get audited every year and when their audit comes back and says your costs were more than anticipated they passed that cost on to public school districts by Jack or raising their rates by 10% in the in the given year and now we have to pay it either this year or in the subsequent year um not all do it but many this year did it so these are just some of the budgetary pressures that our district is under to summarize all of this our district continually faces significant budgetary pressures from external factors right you have inflation the rising cost of salaries and benefits The increased cost associated with out of District placements Transportation challenges and unfunded mandates from the state of New Jersey when we're in a situation where we have a 2% cap on our tax levy increases and reduced State funding our AB ability to meet those uh CH growing demands becomes increasingly difficult for us thank you thanks Mr E before we move on to uh the steps I just want to say that we are charting the least horrible path through a horrendous situation and the best way to walk that path is trying to walk together with standing and with a recognition of the difficult balancing of needs that goes on across the district leading to very difficult decisions and we'll have plenty of time to talk about these which is why we're sharing them now February March April heading towards final budget approval so the total deficit is $7 million the first step is outsourcing the transportation department we estimate at least $800,000 in savings that would not include we would look to uh lease buses and the transportation yard for additional savings we would Outsource all positions except uh the coordinator and assistant coordinator someone needs to be the lead on between our district and the private companies and maintaining a few drivers with the most seniority and we are looking at that this is a very difficult step all these steps are very difficult there's not an easy step in tonight's presentation uh been at the transportation department many times many times um with with our drivers and AIDS our mechanics the we're only looking at this because it can save us money right now about two-thirds of our routes are already outsourced so we have about 30 drivers that covers about a third of our routes but we would Outsource those remaining routes I will be at the transportation department tomorrow morning to meet with drivers and AIDS and anyone from that department who voluntarily wants to come meet we can talk more about it then and there's an email that went out from Miss brco about that we'll look to reduce the transportation burden step two it's 100,000 in savings estimated we've looked at increasing walking each year you know you that is is not unilateral work we work together with the township on that it's gradual work um this would we will also look to consolidate bus routes bus stops the elimination of all L buses I put that on this Slide the cost Savings of that step is not included in that 100,000 we're still calculating um the savings from that but these Transportation steps include eliminating all the buses the next two steps represent a savings of $1.8 million which is the largest Savings of any step we've taken throughout the seven years of S2 we talked about this last year we staved it off for a year by using some one-time Revenue sources it is having our core content Middle School teachers grade six seven and eight teach a sixth class instead of Team time so essentially it's an efficiency savings six teachers teaching five sections each becomes five teachers teaching six sections each I would add elementary teachers teach the equivalent of six sections as well as some of our Middle School teachers related arts teachers this is a painful step um it does make the next step possible which is an increase in middle school class size Middle School class size we've increased Elementary class size every year for the past five years Middle School class size we have been really unable to increase because of that model of having the team time without that we can increase class size in Middle not because we want to but we're trying to save programs as much as possible the math of it is instead of 10 teachers teaching sections of 24 for 240 students now we have eight sections of 30 students each on average another 10 teaching positions we're looking at schedule options for this that maximize teachers working with the same groups of kids to be able to maintain um kind of consistency among teachers working with kids for a modified teams approach now the impact from those two steps the main impact is on teachers right if you look back at this for a second so if you're if you're a middle school core content teacher by which I mean science social studies Reading Writing math right and you're current you've been teaching five sections of 24 that's 120 kids if you've got six sections of 30 you could be looking at kids okay which is a big a big step it's a lot um we wish we could incrementalization the big deficit of 7 million student day they keep the same daily schedule same length of periods the same periods Reading Writing social science math related arts PE Health Tech lunch what will change for them they'll have PE Health Tech 5 days a week instead of four there won't be that one period per week of independent study they'll walk more for the core content classes they already do leave their hall for different things and they'll be in class with students from both Halls which can have admittedly some positives um that word Halls remains to be seen if that word how much value that word will still have that's I think is a discussion among the schools about the use value of that for other purposes um we still remain the only District in the county that has two identical middle schools we still remain the only District in the county where students only combine totally with all the students from their grade in ninth grade so we still maintain the two buckets of a six through eight Middle School on one side of town and a six to eight Middle School on the other side of town it's not the halls but it is two smaller ponds before the kids get to Cherokee The Next Step Elementary class size increases and this is something we've looked at every year and it's something again we're doing only out of necessity because it doesn't touch programs the increases are highlighted in yellow they go up two students per grade except for kindergarten kindergarten we passed a separate proposal last year for that was built around a class size of 20 so we maintain a class size of 20 for kindergarten those numbers as Max sizes doesn't mean those classes are that size 100 kids in a grade is four sections of 25 it depends on how many kids are in the grade that'll drive the the distribution spread out that efficiency increase extrapolated across the six elementaries an estimated Savings of eight positions $640,000 step six and we've talked about this going back back to fall of 2020 there's a lot of Scar Tissue on this topic we don't want to be here again the reason now is the same as then which is it's we're always trying to preserve programs we have 220 PA Professionals in the district 40 are eligible for health benefits 30 before you use them we anticipate phasing out benefits for about 30 PA professionals at 25,000 it's about $25,000 average for benefits for a staff member so that would be a savings of $750,000 and just as we did four years ago we will look at the seniority list and determine a number of the most senior pairs for whom the benefits would be maintained step seven eliminate all elementary extracurriculars I remember this is all these are painful there's a district near us and I don't want to name districts specifically but there's a district near us that doesn't have Elementary extracurriculars and hasn't for a long long time and I remember thinking I mean we have wonderful Elementary extracurriculars we have wonderful middle school extracurriculars that wonderfulness has meant we have a $350,000 Gap in total for all our extracurriculars between what we spend on them to run them and what we take in in revenue from the activity fee and yes extracurriculars have a connection to the school day they're beyond the school day and they affect the school day but they're not programs and again our guiding True North in budget decisions has been to try to preserve school day programs as long as possible thus step seven eliminate all elementary extracurriculars with additional savings from the elimination of late buses step eight use the rest of the what's called shift dividend we Ed some of it last year as a way to saave off additional Cuts all those one-time uses of Revenue last year and in previous years each of those creates a fiscal cliff of some size small medium large same in this step here but again we have this money we're going to use it use it up and um we still have 40,000 of that as well that thanks to the efforts of the eim Education Foundation last year we had an agreement with them to split the cost of a tier three position that was going to be cut last year so 40,000 of this dividend will continue to be allocated towards half of that position to maintain it for next year grand total of all these steps 4.3 million which gets us more than half towards that deficit but not all the way 2.7 million more in savings needed there's some asterisks on there that speak to some other factors involved in this seeking the additional revenue from leases of the bus in the transportation yard savings from the elimination of all lay buses and our district will seek Revenue by leasing Middle School space there will be middle there will be empty classrooms next year due to the positional reductions in Middle School everything we have is a resource and we're going to look to again take advantage of it to save programs for kids additional steps because you see that 2.7 how are we going to get through that here's some more each of these very painful we talked last year about a music reduction it is back we talked last year about a tier three reduction it is back we have two tier three positions one is saved through the agreement with the EF and their help the other though is listed for a reduction Elementary Spanish two positions reading recovery intervention the equivalent of three positions librarian one position counselor one position related arts one position that certificated staff 860,000 non-certificated a Building Technology position and four teaching assistant positions that brings us to a little less than 1.1 million 15 positions and this slide really shows how hard it is to eek out a million dollars what that means tremendous things it means those two columns the fewer positions and the retire vacant those are very different right now they may become more more similar as the months move along any District would love if those numbers are the same whenever possible we try to eliminate a position using a retirement or a vacancy we don't have that luxury at this juncture but we are we are hoping that those two numbers um grow closer together so that leaves us with a gap of 1.6 million still it's January 30th public information about the budget a district is only required to do one Public Presentation about a budget a lot of districts just do one and it's late April or early May January 30th right now there's work ahead of us how are we going to remedy that Gap well here's a couple things we're going to look at those positional reduction estimates that I were in the slides so those are estimates the person Personnel department is working hard on identifying and again this is this is patient work because it requires looking at seniority lists and certifications to figure out the salaries and benefits that correspond to those eliminated positions and it we we went in the direction of conservative with the savings estimates in the hopes that as we identify that go through that work the savings will increase also again some still to be determined items eliminating the late buses and leasing the Middle School space and leasing buses now some of that for example the leasing of the buses may not be able to be determined until after the final budget approval because they're not buses to lease until the Outsourcing of the transportation department has approved we will still need whether that whether money from leasing comes whenever it comes we will need it because this situation that we're in doesn't have an end in sight and I and we have to be cleare eyed about the reality it's a tunnel with no end at this point the state aid formula for the last seven years has been wrong we've lost over half our Aid meanwhile enrollment has dropped from its peak like if if anybody wanted to argue well what was the peak of it so it was around 2008 since then it's dropped 17% so how does our a drop 51% in our enrollment from its peak preo 177% I asked that question once of the commissioner of Education in person no answer not the current commissioner that's why I think I can say that but no answer there is no answer and there's no answer moving forward there's no current viable information about what state aid will look like for etsd or the other 599 districts in the state and we're all working on a budget for next year right now so you're like building a bridge Into Thin Air because you have no idea what that Aid's going to be and I'm not confident that it will make any more sense than it has in the past the only thing worse than bad news is not knowing this is about knowing breakage that's that's often something we can use to balance a budget not So Much Anymore and this is true whatever District you talk talk to um I read a stat earlier today there used to be three provisional certificates issued for every retirement among the teaching staff in New Jersey now they're down to one there's one provisional certificate issued for every retirement that's losing ground people leave their profession for other reasons in retirement the supply is dwindling right so breakage isn't what it was and then last variable of course is State funding and what that'll do these last couple slides just sort of recap some related some topics that are related to budget you know we always look to reduce through non- Staffing ways we continue but those have been used up but we continue to look grants SRO shares Services agreement which we've been thankful for the last three years with the township that expires at the end of this year we'll be looking to renew that hopeful that that can be successful advocacy with the state um they recently had the uh that's that hearing on um what what the new school funding law should look like and my main message was it needs to be fair for all districts and if it's not then it needs to be redone and no District can end up after year one or year three or year seven asking why their aid is falling 51% when their enrollment has only fallen 177% from its peak and if that does happen there needs to be an answer for that District not silence which is all we've gotten School Bus advertising $4,000 shout out to McKenna realtors that just um approved advertising for them on our buses thank you Mr McKenna facility use increases we'll look at that as well that doesn't generate a lot but every little bit helps we are exploring increasing revenue from Evans that would mean so we've had um higher interest from private providers for preschool and given our so uh preschool is funding from the state it is allocated in a fund 20 so not the same as our general fund uh you're talking about the preschool expansion Aid yeah so I feel like part of the conversation back when we were going through that was you know we get certain amount of money and it costs x amount per pupil and maybe salaries can be deferred and I understand it's the first year for that and there's a lot that has to happen but is there any like is that can salaries be offset is that being played into the budget calculation when it comes to Staffing yes it is yeah so certain salaries of any individuals who might either be uh part of that program or just have a kind of um a a role in the program their salaries have been offset and a portion of the salary all of their salary depending on who they are has been moved into the funding itself uh for this year we anticipate that um because those preschool teachers who are now paa teachers were previously budgeted in the general fund um those salaries will then U that'll free up that money in the general fund however we do owe a portion for every um specialed child us in a pea classroom so we the district owes does owe a portion towards the funding for that but I do anticipate that there'll be Surplus from it that would hopefully uh this year end up as Surplus thank you um Dr Smith can you talk about um AG advocacy efforts uh with the state and also future planning you know with organizing parents and everything to help out with that advocacy going forward this year yeah sure um so most recently so we had the uh the state organized four public hearings on basically looking for Community input any stakeholder we're all stakeholders in this right on what the new State School funding law should look like um I went to the one in Blackwood and spoke there were districts um some districts there not as many as I expected honestly but that's um I speak every year provide testimony at the Senate budget committee hearings um which is sobering by the way if you ever um participate in that some are in person and some are virtual but um what's so bring about it is to see how many entities across the state rely on state aid you know my imagination was too limited to imagine all of the different types of agencies and groups that are in line with us for monies right and actually school districts we there each time but um sometimes we've been the only District actually uh speaking at those um I would welcome working with any parent group to try to increase advocacy I I think in this case of the uh I remember um sending an email once to it was an email thread with all the basically like 160 districts that were S2 districts asking if anyone had an existing um Fair funding group and if so uh you know would they be willing to share um any insights and I got one reply 160 and uh the district was asked uh we'd love to learn and uh but they didn't have one um that District by the way I just read um is eliminating all courtesy busing period um and uh possibly closing a school the uh so advocacy would welcome any group that wants to work on advocacy together um it is challenging and I again just trying to be clear about the reality I was at a meeting last spring in Jackson with superintendents from other S2 districts not really Burlington County so much but there are districts that have been even harder hit than us in Ocean County in particular and um these are distri that had organized buses if you remember right um there were some large districts that organized buses of kids to go to Trenton um and uh we were sitting there essentially that last spring was the spring of year six of S2 and uh nothing nothing had changed nothing had changed you know advocacy is great advocacy could potentially bring change there is no evidence from among the S2 districts that were in that room or that I'm aware of that it made any difference that said it has made a difference for me to go to those because it's something we can do and right now it feels pretty darn powerless right so anyone who is okay with just raising our voices but knowing it may not make a difference let's do it all right reach out to me um I just need to feel like I need to you know have expectations be based on the data of those other districts if that makes sense um any other questions hey I had a couple um for the for what you just said about the advocacy efforts um would you be willing to reach out to some of those other folks again the 160 uh other districts that you had talked to before my understanding was at least Cherry Hill has a pretty robust um collaboration collaborative effort between the administrative the administration and parent groups in their district and if that's something that we could understand kind of the path that they're walking and use some of their lessons learned to help guide us and how we can set up something similar going forward yeah and that's that that's that's a good example so they're a fair funding committee so they have a and this again things may have changed from when I was there but um back a few years ago and again just different District different resources but they had a they have a public relations person who would be the representative from the district who would attend those meetings and it was basically Community run a Community Committee Community organized um Community Voices which and again it existed for about 20 years uh when I was there so had gotten started that means back in like around 2000 maybe even a little before um and uh just to years ago like if you look at um they're they're not an S2 District they lost like Millions last year in Aid um they were at the that public hearing on the school state funding law um I will say that um the most powerful voices and this is why I think a group like that is is is great the most powerful voices are not the voice of a superintendent we're the most expected voice a board member is an expected voice voices of people who aren't in a role where they would naturally be raising their voices those are the voices that catch ears more you know so a parent voice for example a Community member voice um and uh we could certainly try to connect with with that you know connect with people who are involved in that group and and see what we can learn I think I know where are they now I think that's uh that would certainly be worth looking into you know if there are people from our community who were willing to uh be part of that yeah great um and then my only other well the only other question I'm going to ask right now was regarding for the elimination of Team time that was a huge thing last year for um whether or not the middle school team time was going to stay or go and there was a lot of conversation in the community and in this room about the social and emotional needs of the kids and all of the steps that team time took that the teachers were able to take during those meetings and during those parts of their day and their week and able to discuss students and able to understand them to do all of those things is there are there any plans or thoughts going forward for how those can still still be met with the changes that might need to happen to the schedule due to the budget yeah yeah good question because that did come up last year um so I'll say first um we are talking about it I I would put it in the frame of um the idea of you know when a when there's a step that is Savings in this case the the that tandem step of um six class in place of Team time and I want to couple it with the class size increase because that's also important you know the the best social socio emotional support that kids get is from a classroom teacher in class and this is just you know spoken from my experience so other people may think differently but I'm just saying the classroom teacher has more FaceTime more contact time with the kids than anyone else in the school and every time class size goes up that contact time is distributed differently right over over more kids so there there is loss in in all these steps right 1.8 million in loss with that it won't look it won't be the same whatever we develop won't be the same and so for ex I'll give you an example the 25 26 school year calendar that's on the agenda tonight for first reading approval has three scheduled delayed openings so we removed those from the calendar a few years ago we're putting them back in for next year that in no way and that's just one pixel in the larger portrait but in no way does that come close to sixth class in place a team time but the reason it's there is just it's an intentional decision to create opportunity for team time also the way we're trying to build the schedule to create as much consistency as possible among teachers and students to enable when teachers meet about kids that they have as many kids in common as possible which is what was the team time model was based on um the schools the school administration and School staff will have to work out what the rest of that looks like and we'll be involved in that a central Administration it won't it'll have to happen in an environment where teachers are teaching six classes instead of five and have more students than they do now and that's that's the for me like when I look at those steps I and again having taught at times 180 kids in a year versus 110 let's say the difference of just managing like because every teacher is trying to lean in and figure out how to reach a student and it's like that combination it's almost like turning a dial and listening for the clicks to open that student up and have them share their light and how what what can I do you know for it's it's different for each one and that's the the magic and the science of teaching it's what gets us out of bed in the morning that piece is impacted by any step we take including those steps there but when we come back to and this is a question for everyone to consider it's the thought bubble that hovers above all of us it's the it's the if not that what you know for any of these steps whatever we say the question needs to follow is if no to that then yes to what because because that and that's that's the Dilemma so you know I so I can give you the a couple little one concrete thing the schedule delay openings which is minor and then say conversations will continue there's not going to be a comprehensive solution like the team time itself that makes sense no it does and I appreciate your honesty about it thank you yeah so when I see this um one of the number one things that comes to mind um obviously is the fact that we don't even know the full picture yet especially with State funding right and if I was to go off the last five years I wouldn't exactly be hopeful um nonetheless we don't know because S2 obviously has expired so it's a large question mark but to me the remaining factor is now preventing the situation from getting worse um so to that point can you just shed light on what at least some of that testimony that that you attended um or you know some of the different factors of specific aspects to the funding formula that maybe the state was receptive to hearing from our district from districts outside of our community um as far as what specifically they might change to hopefully bring dollars into E Yeah so so good question just because it um points to uh cross-sectional data across districts right so so the districts that were there and I'm not going to name them because we try to stay away from naming individual districts it's hard to sometimes but districts locally I mean there were four hearings they were spaced around the state this was the southern one so was it was Southern districts except for uh two there was a parent who drove all the way down from middle sex County by the way at the meeting which I was really impressed with he was all by himself um we had a parent there Evan Scott um Community member really appreciated his comments um the [Music] uh themes that emerged so and this is in no particular order it's just as I'm remembering them standing here um the urgency to have a multi-year plan right so uh right now we're months away from the the the tentative budgets are due to the county office by March 19th which is like six weeks from now and we don't even know our state aid numbers right so like it's it seems logical to ask for a multi-year plan right now I'm just hoping how about just a one-year plan just tell us what for next year you know um it's almost like I if I a teacher giving an assignment but not providing the information right like the deadline for the research paper is March 19th and we don't even know what what their parameters are um sorry so bux but the uh so multi-year which enables planing the only the caveat I would put on that is because it's a double-edged right so you asked for multi-year S2 was multi-year S2 was seven years I didn't like that multi-year none of us like that multi-year so I would have you know if it's if it's a bad plan let's just make it one year a phrase I like is new recipe small batch well this state funding law is a new recipe it better be a new recipe it certainly can't be the old recipe because that made really bad brownies for us right but new recipe small batch so let's try if we're going to try something new let's try it for a year let's identify how to improve it make sure no districts being left behind and then maybe go for the multiyear that's that's that's personal I think could be useful but multi-year was one another one was special education and transportation costs this was a theme across all districts crushing districts right um heard that a lot barness heard that a lot a transparent and publicly available formula that can be replicated and calculated at the local level that came up that's what I that's what I asked for I basically that's the the core of my question of why does a district lose 51% of its Aid when its enrollment drops so much less right we should be able to figure that out on our own here do that horrible math here but we can't and the state's been sued to release that formula and they have fought it in court which tells us something about that formula's quality um so those are themes if that if that helps your question no and it does but it seems like kind of the root cause of of some of it is kind of what you alluded to as far as special education and and transportation right which I mean from my understanding from this budget is our or they're the two single argest percentage increases in expenses correct for our budget so it's basically reflecting that we need more of the state to reflect those percentages correct yeah I mean it shouldn't be it it shouldn't it it should not be these costs are required costs and um do not depend on the school district like where people move should not determine the budgetary situation of a district if that makes sense and that's and right now um and I don't want I almost the challenge is is is like um we're 4,500 students in our district and we want to serve all of them as best we can that makes sense we we always want to do all we can for for all of them and so I just want to make that really clear when we're talking about costs being up in certain areas um I I I would say the the need for improvement is in the way the state funds special education and funds school districts right so that we can take care of kids in the way we need to yeah thank you Dr Smith yeah any other questions I have a question last year when we were having these discussions you had talked about maintaining the team time house system for the sixth raid I don't see that in this presentation is that something that you would consider putting back in I think it's important for the um you know children at that age 11 years old it's like not to be in a junior high setting yeah um so I'll just say like all things are considerable you know all things are open to consideration it's January 30th um we do need need to start working on tentative budget uh because that again that um deadline of March 19th um a district wants to try to make change gradual when it can and incremental when it can um so like last year's conversation about grade seven and eight if that had happened let's just say then talking about grade six we would we would have some data we would have it you know we would have had a year under our belt of that new schedule to be able to see taking steps instead of leaps if that makes sense you know um all districts prefer that all organizations probably too um so is that something that you're willing to take a look at to see if we can move that back in we can take we can certainly take a look at we can certainly take a look at the and I just the it'll essentially at best it would reduce the savings by a third for both steps right class size and um the team time the six class in place a team time so if we're talking 1.8 million reduced by a third that would be 600,000 right so we have to find CU coming back to that thought bubble question that's above our heads at all times that we need to keep it there as we walk through this because we don't even know how to get to the 7 million yet there's still the 1.6 million gap right so we still got that 1.6 million hanging out there that we might be able to resolve by the the plan to remedy which was in that slide and the different steps there but we don't know yet and then we would be adding the 600,000 on to that which again we we want to walk 360 around all these items right together but then where would that 600,000 come from and then that's an open question and and we need to get figured out as well um the uh you're absolutely right the reason that we had we were going to preserve it for sixth last year and not for seventh and eth is because it helps with that transition you know and that rationale was true then and it's still true now so yeah okay and another thing I would like to add and you may not be able to speak about this but you have things in here other things we're looking at to come to mind SRO money mhm we have a the agreement is going to be expiring so there's a chance to somehow renegotiate and also the sale of the private I'm sorry the property we own you may not be able to say anything about that but can you at least just say that you have a plan to open communication with the township oh well 100% right it's it's um and and we may and again I don't want we may have even started that communication you know what I mean I don't want you to say anything and spoil anything but I this is very I mean the SRO piece is time bound we need to get that figured out the properties I know you know that that's been an ongoing topic since uh really like 2021 but um but the SRO has a Time component we want to get that worked out um you know because we appreciate that very much that and then there's the property which we've been working on for years negotiating that propert and you know things might be looking different at the township since the New Year I'm not sure but maybe there's some you know yeah well people there I mean we there's so many different ways that you know it's the same town right same families we all try to support same community so there's so many different touch points of teamwork with the township and um like just give you a couple examples yesterday we had two lead graduations you know beer and Jag right fantastic events got another one tomorrow um we that's a Township program we so you know through the sh police we so appreciate that it's fantastic the list is long you know and and but properties SRO agreement Sr agreement being the more timely of the two um could be and we we'll continue working on that yeah any anything but yeah there's a time um limit to this so we need to be aware of that and then the leasing of space in middle school that you mentioned is there a space in I don't know if you you said it in the slides what schools and um to whom yeah uh what are you thinking like teddy bear Academy what's going on with that yeah well teddy bear um we're planning on opening up preschool classrooms in teddy bear in September so that's part of year two of the preschool expansion and it's it's actually we uh Marlton preschool Center all right Marl MPC Marlton preschool Center so that'll be classrooms for preschool as we continue moving forward with that um but there will be space in the middle schools because of the positional reductions and we have to try to turn any commodity into resources for kids so you know that space sitting idle isn't doing something for kids but if it can be leased then it's doing something for kids we have we lease space at Evans maybe there's an arrangement we can make to Le space um in a middle school in a way that's like you know its own space and in a in a in a way that is agreeable to all of us if that makes sense so good those are all the questions I have thank you yeah thank you all right thank you all thanks Dr Smith seeing no more question from the board this meeting will now be open to the public referencing agenda items only however if your questions or comments pertain to litigation student or Personnel items or negotiations we would ask that you see the superintendent after the meeting since we do not discuss these matters in public please limit your comments to three minutes per person and state your name and address at the beginning of your testimony would anyone like to make a public comment about the agenda [Music] morning cougar uh Foxwood Lane last year was a struggle to get through watching all the challenges and changes that our district faced I was hopeful that we would be able to have real change in the 2425 school year as so many people showed up and spoke up about the transparency and we need to have some type of town hall Gathering we don't get a Q&A session in these meetings so it's very frustrating to ask concerned questions and get no answers it's like all of our worries just fall on deaf ears no one person or board can do this alone especially with the financial deficit we're in but we're here again it's like a story on repeat the school calendar year started in September and now we're here the very end of January and there wasn't one change in those requests that have been done the only constant in that was the direction from Dr Smith in our in our district you want our buyin and our understanding of the positions our district is in but it doesn't matter how much we ask it's not reciprocated we want to work with you we want the best for our kids we want a superintendent that is there with us in the trenches and not one where we feel like we're constantly working against for the betterment of our kids the Board needs to hold you accountable and we need to hold the board accountable as we voted them in so let me ask all of you a few questions for a few for you to think about because I'll never receive the answers why wasn't there any prior discussions with the community you met with a few groups last year so it doesn't so it's not like you don't know who they are how can you cut not cut one administrator but cut 20 teachers how many increasing how are you increasing class sizes when room capacity doesn't hold that many and why discuss the removing of the team structure again when you know from so many from last year why it works and what why it's so greatly needed for our kids and teachers it's considered the main artery within the school structure so why would you mess with the heart of the district my name is Ain sapio I live on Fair Hill Court this is an echo of what Miss B asked earlier tonight but it's important enough to ask again in May and June I and other parents spoke at board meetings and sent emails asking the superintendent to pause on the pursuit of the preschool expansion program because of concerns of a financial drain causing a reduction in services to the middle school kids we were assured that the preschool expansion Grant would bring in excessive money to our district that would help support the general budget this extra income was not explained in tonight's presentation and we're wondering if details of both expenditures and income from the preschool expansion program can be made public additionally and I didn't think about this until it was just said earlier in the presentation it was mentioned that Vue might come from leasing the teddy bear Academy Hall but then it was said that the teddy bear Academy Hall is going to be used for the preschool expansion program so what other space in the middle school is going to be leased out and would that then mean that the current students that are in the building and enrollment has not reduced as you mentioned at a significant rate how is that going to collapse the student space in both hallways and in the locker Banks where they're already very tightly packed in so if we lease out a hall here where are they going to go so I think some of that is very concerning to Middle School parents Jaclyn RC 5 kirkbridge Court in Marlton good evening members of the board thank you for the opportunity to speak tonight I come to you not only as a concerned parent but also as someone that's very deeply invested in the academic success of all children I want to address address an urgent issue that has far-reaching implications for the future of our students the lack of explicit research-based phonics instruction and a clear appropriate scope and sequence in our reading curriculum Reading Readiness in the early grades as a critical foundation for long-term academic success yet many of our students are struggling to acquire these fundamental skills without systematic explicit instruction in bonics we are leaving far too many children behind when students encounter difficulties they face very limited intervention options to name a few lli or reading recovery while both of these programs may offer some benefits they do not explicitly teach phonics they do not use a scope in sequence nor do they adequately address decoding phonemic awareness or the step-by-step progression of skills that are essential for fluent reading while these inter interventions fail to close the gaps and they often do we're left with only one option a CST evil at that point how many of these students are being classified for special ed when they may simply need effective research-based instruction the lack of appropriate research-driven interventions is creating a cycle where students are not only failing to thrive but they're being mislabeled which comes with its own challenges and stigma I urge the board to consider the following how many children could be spared from unnecessary evaluations and classifications if they received the right instruction from the start how many students are we unintentionally failing by not equipping them with the tools that they need to succeed the science of reading is clear our children deserve better the parents of Eve sham deserve better to our fellow board members we need your help with this we we need you to advocate for our children on the lack of phonics instruction with our literacy program thank you for your time and consideration hi my name is Jessica Driscoll I live on Country Square Lan in wlson um are you aware of the silent e or the magic e rule when ma'am what agenda item are you referencing in your comment the literacy program is that an agenda item all right thank you uh it shows up when a vowel is followed by a consonant which is Then followed by an e the E gives all its power to the preceding vow making it use its long sound or say its name examples are home or bake or cube I learned this rule two years ago from my children for the record I'm 37 I was a student of Cherry Hill public schools for 18 years and rather than being taught phonics we were taught in experimental program from the 80s and 90s called whole language to this day I have to put in quite a bit of effort to spell or pronounce words that I don't know by heart because I was never taught the fundamental rules and exceptions of the English language I want to be clear that my kids did not learn this or any phonics rules from our Eve sham curriculum our family has paid thousands of dollars and invested countless hours on tutors and impal learning only after we identified and diagnosed the deficiency my daughter went through the reading recovery program which frankly made me feel like a failure as parent it took several years for me to realize that while there were probably more I could have done to help her earlier the root cause is the outdated and scientifically disproven reading curriculum implemented at our elementary schools fostering love of reading is not enough telling our kids to look at pictures to understand a story is not enough we need comprehensive language instruction that includes extensive phonics instruction to our KS up for a lifetime of success by the way Cherry Hill updated their literacy program last year and we should do the same thank you hi my name is Alysa Hayes I'm from Brierwood I'm the parent of a first grader I moved to Marlton um when he was nine months old for the excellent schools the same Excellence has been reflected in his spelling tests where he has received excellent grades 17 out of 17 on his last one but I am not excited or proud of this Excellence because I am aware of what we all know about giving a man to fish versus teaching a man to fish my son was given 17 fish and yes he caught them all he has been reviewing a tiny unconnected list of words repeatedly since kindergarten and now he's up to approximately 50 50 words when his first grade year is more than halfway over he can spell the word I'm but he can't spell the word can't as then I can't fathom why you would teach the word I'm without teaching words like apostrophe or contraction these are just random words that the kids are taught to memorize without explanation he read a sentence from an assigned book last week called the dogs of Hurricane Katrina he read the dogs were happy to be rescued and by E sham standard that rely on queuing he was correct it matched the picture it fit the story the first and even the second letter matched so it had to be correct except it wasn't correct the word was reunited the dogs were happy to be reunited it's a long word but it follows predictable rules and patterns that we see in many other words but my son has not been given any tools to try to decode a word such as reunited let alone spell it only the expectation that I would correct him and the word reunited would magically be stored in his brain forever it wasn't even stored in his brain by the end of the book when I checked I am here at my first board meeting to ask why you have continued to willfully dismiss comprehensive research that includes brain Imaging studies as part of a fad even when numerous States including New Jersey are moving toward adopting laws against the very literacy programs Eve sham is using in Massachusetts a group of parents is suing the creators of these whole language programs and the creators of the programs themselves have acknowledged flaws in the curriculums they sold to schools and made Millions off of why are we moving so slowly and such taking such small steps towards progress that we are allowing hundreds of students each year to be denied a proper reading curriculum why do we continue to refuse to expand professional development beyond the eam echo chamber of these Antiquated practices how do we expect eam students to learn how to read and spell in a time when they can so easily use EI to write and when young people are choosing to get their information from 10-second reels yes we are facing Cuts including the deeply flawed tier 2 reading recovery program mentioned earlier which only amplifies the need for improved tier one we will save money by reducing the need for CST to support students who just haven't been given a fair education when kids can read with ease they can learn they are confident and proud students and they behave better our community will Thrive if we take meaningful steps towards our updating our literacy curriculum thank you my name is Lisa fzone I'm on enl place in Marlton um I was wondering can you tell us how you exactly are going to phase out the power benefits um the health benefits coming up so we'll we'll we'll add that question into our we're going to talk about budget at each meeting so certainly for the February meeting we'll have updates on things so we'll make sure we we include that right so no plan right now just by seniority at this point there's more but I at this point this is what we shared tonight is what we want to share and we'll share more in February and we'll include your question thank you hello Rosemary Bernardi 10 Health XC cour East um I just want to thank you I know um you said you you're not obligated to give the Pres budget presentation until later in the year so thank you guys for actually doing this ahead of time I think um after last year's challenge I think um because we have so much work to do uh it's great that you alerted the community I'm not happy with what you said but um at least it's out there I I just have a general question I guess I must have missed something why are we having to come up with $7 million so and I we'll answer but I I public comment it's it's a not public Q&A but but it's okay just I just regarding the budget presentation yeah I just but I just wanted to remind it's it is public so each year we typically see a gap between expenditures and revenue that totals around 3 million for us each year we have about a $3 million surplus last year in order to Stave off Cuts we kind of like deflated our projections in order to try to not make more Cuts last year so those projections plus the rising costs came in pretty much Bullseye and resulted in no Surplus where we normally have about a $3 million surplus and in addition to that we used onetime Revenue sources last year that added up to the total of $7 million in Mr stre it's if I let me I mean please feel free to add if that that's good okay so it's a combination of surplus plus the usual um inflation for the budget in general is that what you're saying inflation also that it's the uh the yearly gap between the cost of operating and the 2% tax lby yeah it's just larger than I've ever seen um in the past in discussions and I've been around a long time so $7 million is a lot um I guess as a taxpayer I'm coming to the table here and I'm like thinking about what what came out last year in 2024 the tax uh the taxpayers came up with the $1.9 million for kindergarten so that was in 2024 June of 2024 you got went out with a 3.9% increase in the budget I don't know how much exactly that equated to to the taxpayers but that was a lot of money that was added to your budget so you have 1.9 a 3.9% that was added to tax levy last year then in uh January you guys have now $3.2 million for preschool in addition the EF has um agreed to it does the yearly fundraising and they're in the 40th year fundraising but you know they made the commitment for the $40,000 raise for to save one of the positions last year so that's a lot of money that came within the last year so that's concerning that you know we're at a$7 million loss when we have 1.9 plus the 3.9% plus the $3.2 million that's a lot of money so that's concerning for me Mr Bernardo you're at three minutes if you could wrap up please I have so much um so anyway uh one thing about the Outsourcing I think the Outsourcing and transportation office I just want everyone to know many years ago we as I was on the board we asked to work with the transportation office because that was one of the things that you guys did um you know the transportation office worked great they actually came up with their own cost savings and they actually saved their positions I'm concerned about the Outsourcing because there's not a lot of vendors so that is concerning that you're not going to have vendors to actually bid for this so I'm concerned about transportation and um there's a lot of things so thank you for your time Tracy Brown Vice pres second vice president for ETA sorry my voice is very scratchy as you've heard me coughing the whole time I usually get up here each time and I feel like an anger inside and right now I just feel sadness because that was the most depressing thing I've sat through in all of my years here um I'm just really sad and I know everybody my members that are here are expecting me to say some eloquent words and I really can't wrap my brain around the number of losses because normally I can stand up here and I could say let's fight not to close Evans or let's fight not to close purple hall or let's what what else have we fall for let's fight to not privatize the transportation department like benefits for Paris I mean every time there's been like a thing and now there's $7 million worth of things so I mean I'm just looking at the slides and obviously the number one thing I worry about as a union representative is protecting my people my people in their position and it's a lot of people that are going to be leaving this district and that's what makes this District a special place but besides the people it's the trickle down effect of all of the children that are really losing out I'm thinking about the my eyesight all of the um kids who need the counselors so desperately right now losing just even one counselor reading recovery Spanish tier three program the kids with lessons I mean we had Parents show up we we've never had so much P so many parents show up on our side last year for all of these issues and here they are again and the Outsourcing of a transportation department some of those drivers have been here with us for many many years um some of their children have come through it's just it's very sad to see our people go and not know what's going to come in to replace that Elementary School God bless Elementary School teachers I mean I really mean that because every day when I hear the things that they go through I know how tough it it is and I know that one more kid in their class or two more kids is crazy I mean I know some of those sizes are up to 28 I have 28 29 in a science classroom and it's it's a lot of kids it's a lot of kids so we talk about averages and we end up at the middle school because that is where I am a little more knowledgeable on the cuts you know we talk about some classes are an average of 24 that is because there are smaller resource rooms in things science and social teachers do not have resource rooms we have everyone we are already yes I do have a couple small classes this year probably one of my smallest ones ever is about a 24 but I do have a 29 28 and it's a lot of kids and then with six classes they're going to be up at probably class sizes of 30 to 35 let's be real 30 to 35 if I'm already at 28 and then we're going to have 180 children just think about that and I know you you you like to say that the elementary school like they're already teaching this many minutes or whatever 180 children that's a lot of kids I know my time is up and I don't want to focus all on Middle School it's just the one that I know most about but the team time is essential and I'm sad for everybody every Department the powers we've been fighting for those benefits for years and some of them are so close to retiring like we're tearing this District apart and then the morale it just it just stinks for the kids and the parents are paying so much in taxes so we do want to work with you but we asked like I was not at the meeting but two weeks ago at liaison like what's your preliminary budget meeting like what's your timeline and I'm being told you were like ah we don't really know yet and then this magically appeared on the agenda like 12 hours ago which is why we don't have a great presence so that's disappointing because we're we appreciate you telling us early because the rumors stink but like I don't know why it just showed up like on an agenda 12 hours in advance that was disappointing just for clar it was posted on Monday I believe but I I I do I I appreciate everything you you you're saying we feel that way too this is not these are horrible we're trying to find it's it there's no no there's no path that isn't horrible we're trying to find the least horrible path and that will be up to interpretation depending on people's role and where they are in the community and we understand that we we totally understand that um so thank you hi uh my name is Mana siski I'm an eighth grade teacher at maralon Middle School um like Tracy trying to just wrap my head around everything um it's honestly just deafening in a way to watch it all up here in front of you um um I am sitting in this room with the person that welcomed me into their room for student teaching the first person to extend their hand to me at morals and middle um somebody who shared their room with me for almost a decade it is insane to see this but I'm going to speak to the special education piece of this as it relates to team time and independent study um you talked about right the price to send kids out of District you want to talk about cost savings and keeping kids in District and things like that we need time with them right independent study is time it's when I meet with my kids it's when I help them study for tests make sure they're caught up on homework organize their binders right it's when I collaborate with my counterart the other special education teacher on my team all of that gets done during independent study it's when I get individualized time to meet with my kids outside of an inclusion classroom and a little bit of time outside of a general education setting where they might feel comfortable in situations where they otherwise might not team time again time right I get to talk to teachers who sometimes see and hear things who I don't who share information with me let me know things this year it's where I learned why a student wasn't turning in work to me and understood more about them and now they're turning in work to me and their grades have gone up it's why I learn Why students are behaving in ways that they're behaving that I might not see these things help our students it increases their productivity in the classroom these things are time and again you might not see it but it relates to your ever important cost saving that's not what I think it's about I stood here last year and I spoke to this same piece of information and those of you who were on the board talked about that social emotional piece that was brought up this evening again by some of you so again time that's what we need time with our students and it happens a lot of it during team time and independent study thank you really Henson um mother to two students at beer I had to rewrite this a few times to hold my anger I am concerned when we requested last year to put together a stakeholder committee including parents and teachers that would work together throughout the year to help with things like this to gather ideas with getting information out to families with advocate with campaigning and we were blown off I fully understand when the money is not there it's not there however you are the one who is paid to figure out what you need and how to make it happen passing the responsibility and telling us now that all ideas are welcome when the effort has not been made to meet with the people who begged to help last year is incredibly disturbing these cuts are Beyond devastating as each of them are guaranteed to result in a significant decline in the education of our kids our teachers should have been given this presentation before tonight it is unconscionable for them to find out this plan tonight with the public I am also disappointed in our board for not pushing Dr Smith to be more transparent and including the stakeholders we begged you as well last year to hold him accountable to our requests I myself emailed many times last year all I got were three canned responses and only one that even proved my email was read our students and the people who voted you in deserve better would anyone else like to make a public comment around items from the agenda seeing none we'll move into the approval of the minutes we need a motion to approve item 6.1 through point three do we have a motion motion by Mr Brown seconded by Mr Thompson any questions or comments from the board seeing none Mr Yates roll call please roll call on the approval of minutes Mr Brown yes Miss Bo MZ uh abstain from 6.1 and yes to 6.2 and 6.3 your abstention is noted Mr demarcy yes Miss Fox yes Mrs is n yes to 6.1 and abstain on 6.2 your abstention is noted Mr Thompson yes on 61 stem from 62 yes to 63 your exstension is noted Mr peelman abstained to 61 yes to 62 and 63 your abstention noted Mr Bach yes Mr conon yes and motion carries thank you Mr Yates we'll now move into superintendent report and administrative items we need a motion to approve items 7.1 through 7.8 do we have a motion motion by Miss Fox seconded by Mr Thompson and the floor over to Dr Smith before we vote yeah thank you Mr canthon I'll keep my comment short due to the budget presentation do want to shout out our schools for participating in great kindness week this week which is a national campaign the uh the passion the dedication creativity in helping our kids learn and show kindness is moving and um just want to thank again the schools for all the things that they're doing um those um elements that help make kindness part of etsd every day this is uh School Board recognition month in New Jersey and I want to recognize our school board for their tireless work it is a lot of hours especially for district going through the budget cuts that we are um so I want to thank you the board for making the commitment to be here to help us Path U plan the best path forward for our kids and then lastly tomorrow night is the eam Education Foundation annual Gala fundraiser double down for eam education at the mansion in bhe starting at 7:00 p.m.

all proceeds benefiting em students anyone interested there are still tickets available at eam education foundation.org hope to see you there thank you Mr K thank you Dr Smith any questions for comments from the board seeing none Mr Yates roll call please on administrative items Mr Brown yes Mr buter MTZ yes Mr de Morrison yes Fox yes Mrs null yes Mr Thompson yes Mr peelman yes Mr Bach yes Mr conon yes the motion carries thank you Mr Yates moving to item 8 curriculum and instruction we need a motion to approve items 8.1 through 8.4 do we have a motion motion by Mr peelman seconded by Mr dear any questions or comments from the board seeing none Mr Yates roll call please on curriculum and instruction Mr Brown yes Mr M yes Mr Demars yes M fox yes Mrs N yes Mr Thompson yes Mr peelman yes Mr boach yes Mr con yes the motion carries thank you Mr Yates moving to item nine finance and operations we need a motion to approve items 9.1 through 9.14 do we have a motion motion by Mr Thompson seconded by Mr Brown any questions or comments from the board this N I have a question on I don't know what number it is but it's related to the Marlton middle toilet um yeah 9.11 renovation that's 911 so there's two right 911 and then 912 is the actual ual plumber there's probably other cost related to um like the design of it or the overall engineering I don't know what the total cost of this toilet renovation I'm assuming it's teddy bear Academy and is that right yes ma'am okay teddy bear Academy toilet renovation what the total cost is you might not be able to tell me now but also on this one it says the board will not be seeking State funding for this project I'm not quite sure why you have that in there where is the money coming from the money's coming from our capital reserve so it's money that's available in our capital reserve this year from uh projects that came in under budget okay so we have that money available to then renovate the toilet rooms and the TBA so that we can then have uh preschool expansion there next year okay so this was not approved last year for this year it was not so this budget it was not it was not approved as part of the budget submission process it's approved it's being approved tonight as a withdrawal C I was just trying to keep it straight so it was not something that was in the budget last year no last year we didn't have preschool expansion we didn't anticipate this but I thought any Capital cost for preschool was not coming out of our budget I thought that the capital cost for any Renovations was going to be in from the preschool money um so did I dream that up and what I don't know what the total cost is and then again I'll reiterate I was under the impression that any Capital costs would be um from the preschool money was that not what we talked about anyone there's no Capital funding in the in the preschool expansion Aid okay we were not allowed to get any money for any Capital Improvements that's what we had discussed there's lines for uh required maintenance in the preschool expansion aid but there's no lines for Capital Improvements there's Capital Equipment you can purchase in the preschool expansion okay yeah okay so there was no line item for that for the capital project so we're doing that in teddy bear Academy okay I don't know what the total cost is for this uh if you could provide that to me separately sure just so I know and what is the um time frame for this when is this work going to be completed this will be completed uh probably sometime in the mid spring yes ma'am okay uh yeah I think that's all I have thank you except for I do want to say very big thank you to on a positive note McKenna Realtors their graphic for our buses is so nice I don't know if any of the other board members took a look at it it looks great and I just want to give a thank you to the McKenna family for doing that thank you can I ask a question I'm so I'm I'm new here so I want to play that card for as long as I can um so just so I'm clear retrofitting any of our current infrastructure for preschool is coming out of our current budget is that fair to say not out of preschool money that we're getting separately can you ask your question again so if we're retrofitting Evans let's just say or teddy bear Academy for the purposes of preschool that money is coming out of their budget as it stands now not out of money that's coming from the preschool expansion Grant so this particular project is coming out of capital reserve capital reserve is in our general fund but it is a reserve account set aside for Capital Improvements on the district this is considered a minor renovation to our long range facilities plan so it has to come out of our Capital reserves we're funding it from savings we saw in this current Year's projects that were slated so we have the money available right and we're expanding preschool into the teddy bear Academy or what will be called the Marlton preschool Center preschool Center um and in order to do that we have to um change entrance ways into the bathrooms and add a bathroom uh in a small closet a it okay so but the same could theoretically happen if we're retrofitting Evans in a year or two where would that money come from um it's a good question I don't I don't think I have the answer to that right now but yeah any other questions or comments from the board um y this box um piggybacking on that if there are let's say a preschool bathroom has an issue or where is that money coming from because like like that would come out of required maintenance within the preschool fund itself but if we have to make any more adjustments to comply with the preschool Grant those are going to come out of our regular budget in terms of it depends on what they are um so like without knowing the specific projects it's really hard to answer that question I would say uh Capital Improvements would come from our capital reserve if we have the money available which we did this year for this um if it was something like uh you know maybe we had to to have some minor plumbing and fixtures and equipment installed that could come from the funding itself thank you Mr pman I just wanted to say I I believe that um one of the speakers earlier asked for information specifically about how the preschool expansion grant funding is going to to be reflected in the budget and how that's being used I think I would like to see that also um especially in regards to things like this for how that's going to be offset this is $132,000 that's being pulled from capital reserve for the bathrooms at least that's just for the one part of it and I think you said that there's several other parts that need to happen with it so there be several other bills that come with this no this is this is for the entire project the 132 is for the whole project yeah okay so regardless $132,000 for the project um that's a lot of money given what we're talking about that's teachers positions that's a lot of things I need to understand how that what the what money we are saving or gaining through the preschool program in order to offset the loss of the $132,000 yeah so I I certainly wouldn't call it a loss right it's $32,000 that isure is yeah it's available within the current Year's budget in capital reserve that money can only be used for Capital Improvements it's that's not money that we can take to use to offset salaries or expenses anywhere else in the budget the only thing it can be used for is Capital Improvements on the district this project quite literally qualifies as a capital Improvement on the district so it is a reasonable and an appropriate expense for the money right the money's already budgeted for this year we had Savings in some of the projects that this board approved last year for the current year that's what that money is being used for so if it it's definitely not a loss it's money that's going to be used to educate three and four year old children Eve sham children in what is going to be called the Marlton preschool Center sure sure I don't want to go down that rabbit hole right now I just want to say that I understand there may be IES of this that I don't yet understand and acknowledge that but it is this money is available this year because of money that we saved last year and therefore we're able to last year so last year at this time you approved this year's budget and we approved last year at this time the 132k for this or this no that's tonight that's tonight's approval we're in the current year last year at this time we approved the current Year's budget okay s savings from the current year in capital reserve money that's already allocated in our budget so I can't we can't just take money out of capital reserve midy year without certain approvals this money is already appropriated and then we're going to then use it towards this project correct my I guess my question is if we did not use it towards this project and our capital reserve uh plan for the year ended up being less so we had Savings in capital reserve going into next year would we be able to not not allocate as much money in our budget for capital reserve for next year and use that money elsewhere in the general budget meaning could this 132,000 be applied to other Capital expenditures yes but next year if we didn't apply approve this tonight yes it could it would go back into capital reserve and if we have Capital Improvements that we're looking to uh do next year this money would be part of that capital reserve balance yes okay thank you yeah any other questions for the board seeing none Mr y's roll call please on finance and operations Mr Brown yes M buter Ms so no to 9.11 and yes to the rest of it I need to understand more about how this works Mr demarcy yes M fox yes Mrs null yes Mr Thompson yes Mr peelman no to 911 and 912 yes to the rest Mr Bach yes Mr conon yes the motion carries thank you Mr Yates moving to Personnel item 10 we need a motion to approve items 10.1 through 10.10 do we have a motion motion by Miss Fox seconded by Mr Brown any questions or comments from the board as it pertains to Personnel seeing none Mr Yates roll call please on Personnel Mr Brown yes M moitz yes Mr dearon abstain to 10.9 yes to the rest your abstention is not to miss Fox yes Mrs null yes Mr Thompson yes Mr peelman yes Mr Vach yes Mr conon yes motion carries thank you Mr Yates moving to policy item 11 we have no policy moving to item 12 committee reports are there any committee chairs who would like to share a report seeing none we will move to Old business of which we have none moving to item 14 new new business item 14.1 we're looking for a motion to approve the settlement agreement that was discussed in executive session do we have a motion motion by Mr Brown seconded by Mr Thompson any questions or comments from the board seeing none Mr Yates roll call please roll call new business item Mr Brown yes Mr MZ yes Mr dearcy yes M fox yes Mrs null yes Mr Thompson yes Mr peelman yes Mr Bach yes Mr KH yes motion carries cool thank you Mr Yates moving to item 15 open public comment this meeting will now be open to the public referencing any items of Interest however if your questions or comments pertain to litigation student or Personnel items or negotiations we would ask that you see the superintendent after the meeting since we do not discuss these matters in public please limit your comments to three minutes per person and state your name and address at the beginning of your comments hi rosem Berardi 10 Helifax Court East um I just want uh two things uh preschool uh that motion regarding the bathrooms that's concerning because um the bill of goods that was sold you know we did Kindergarten we'll save programs then we can get preschool and preschool should be free or actually not free but the grant money should pay for everything and we should get a little extra because we be able to allocate uh building expenses salaries Etc but yet we're spending money this year for this new expansion for year two which really should come out of the grant money in my opinion but that means that you're taking the capital monies that could be used for something else for our Ka District I I I I worry I actually have been concerned a lot regarding that we're losing the focus on the K8 you know we now have Kindergarten now we have preschool but what about our Ka kids I mean our like the the wi R the regular kids uh the regular District um I'm just concerned that kids kids and our programs the Middle School the middle school is just a beacon everyone I I travel around the state and I talk to other school board members other people in the state about their school district people talk about our Middle School House concept I mean it's just people are so like jealous that we still have it and we're able to protect it for so long and I think all the parents and the teachers and the even the students last year when they articulated the reasons why it works why it works for our youngsters why it works for our teachers um it just you know there's so many issues now with the kids and um the environment I just really think that that should be and I guess I I feel it's like sacn like I just I don't have kids in the district and I'm here talking about the middle school program because I feel it's just really a great program that we should really protect so anyway that's my middle school program um and preschool uh the one thing I want to talk about you talked about advocacy I actually was in the state house today I saw a in there um you know there there were there was a senate education Committee hearing uh there was a bill up today uh Senator goal talked about you know changes to the education funding uh there's another B uh Andre Catz has Center um assembly woman Catz has a 5186 it's also addressing some of the tweaks that we need for the uh funding situation um I just wanted to thank you know all the parents and teachers are here tonight um and all the parents and teachers who wrote letters uh last year we actually were successful you know there's some parents here Ean fiscal allies we told parents to write letters they wrote letters we were successful in getting changes in the transportation it wasn't what we really wanted which was to have um uh I'm sorry if you could wrap up your comments please bothering me but anyway we were successful in two things so there's additional things that we're going to ask for uh isan fiscal allow follow us on Facebook we have uh we want to work we on the dates regarding your budget submission you have to submit it in by March 19th we would like to extend that so you guys have more time the second questions um we were able to last year we were able to get uh the additional tax levy raised um that we could do that we have transportation costs and deadlines so there'll be more information coming but um thank you all for actually listening and coming tonight hello again Ain sapio Fair Hill Court um I just want to emphasize um the deep sadness and disappointment that many of us feel that we were let us stray um we definitely were upset last year about the kindergarten and what we expected in return um but I remember the conversation about capital reserve last year when it was approved for the budget and the specific question came up is this money going to be used for preschool and that question was generally evaded here at the meeting because this is not a Q&A at this point but in small group discussions it was said no those monies will not be used for preschool preschool will come from the the grant money because we even talked about the fact that classrooms have to be fitted a certain way certain desks certain size um toys materials all of those things are part of the preschool expansion it was explained that all that was going to come from the grant um now I know this makes me sound like a person who does not like preschool children of course I love them of course I think that that they deserve um experiences but we as a public school district have a compensatory education law to to educate a certain age group and those kids are now going to be losing because monies are going toward preschool and in addition to I understand how the capital reserve works but we have been getting revenue from Evans that we won't be able to get because it's going to be used where the revenue from teddy bear Academy when that was closed could have been used to lease out so if there is an opportunity to roll back on that decision um I would ask that that be considered would anyone else like to speak on any items of Interest seeing none we are looking for a motion to adjourn motion by Mr peelman seconded by Mr Brown all those in favor thank you for

good afternoon thank you for joining us for the committee of Education today is Friday January 31st it's 3:00 p.m. and we are in room 229 thank you for joining us and I would like to welcome students from kahill high school Milani High School kyua high school and McKinley High School please stand okay you each have to do your Alma are you ready no that's okay because farrington's not here yeah we have the best Alum model me too thank you for joining us we'll start with uh Senate Bill 1391 relating to education it appropriates funds to the Department of Education for Teacher requested classroom supplies for fiscal year 25 2025 and 2026 as well as 2026 and 2027 I need the testifiers list do we have a list of testif sorry okay so first to testify superintendent Keith Hayashi hello chair kadani Vice chair Kim Keith Hayashi superintendent testifying on behalf of the Department of Education the department stands on our testim testimony in support of this measure thank you for the opportunity to tesy thank you superintendent we have um osatou Jr is he here Aloha chair kadani and vice chair Kim my name is Sarah Milan Laughin on behalf of HSA for oui um really excited about this bill um because and we're in strong support as a teacher I've used donor chw since 2006 to get supplies from my classroom getting about $100,000 in supplies I'm really excited to see the department using this resource because the cool thing about this website is that teachers can request the supplies they want instead of having to price to the cheapest Supply so if I like Tao pencils I can get the pencils that my students use um my classroom could not run without the supplies that I've got from donor's Sho so I'm really excited to see this moving forward we've gotten everything from 3D printer to a TV to pencil sharpeners to food for students who need it um so really really important resource and please support thank you do you have anyone else here who wishes to testify on this measure come forward please good afternoon chair kadani Vice chair Kim and members of the committee Aloha my name is McKenzie Brammer and I'm currently a senior at Kalo High School I strongly support SB 1391 relating to education as a public school student I've witnessed many instances in which teachers have trouble buying supplies for their students by the middle of the year they have trouble keeping up with the constant purchase of basic supplies such as pencils and asking teachers to buy their own supplies not only becomes a burden on their own personal finances but also on the students they're teaching it is completely unfair for a students's quality of Education to be determined by how much money the teacher has to buy supplies passing this bill would encourage equity in our classroom Statewide providing all students with the supplies necessary to learn because of this I ask your support of SB 1391 thank you for your time thank you McKenzie anyone else here who wishes to testify please come forward good afternoon chair Vice chair and members of this committee I'm Felicia sry a senior this year I support Senate Bill 1391 as a student who attends a public school many of my teachers have to spend money they don't necessarily have in order to provide supplies for student students many teachers at my school don't have the funds to purchase simple office supplies such as manila folders for their classrooms teachers who have low salaries as it is shouldn't have to spend money out of pocket on supplies for their classroom and students supplies for classrooms and students are needed in order to help students learn in the best possible environment I ask you to support Senate Bill 1391 thank you for your time thank you Felicia is there anyone else here who wish to testify come forward please good afternoon chair Vice chair and members of this committee I'm Kate Reynolds and I'm a junior at col High School I support Senate Bill 1391 because teachers shouldn't have to spend their personal money on school supplies for their classrooms teachers already have a low salary and work hard to educate our current and upcoming Generations teachers should have the resources available to them at no cost to ensure students have a well-rounded education I hope you're I hope you support this bill to better our education thank you thank you Kate anyone else who wishes to testify on this matter thank you if there are no other testifiers is there anyone online okay no other testifiers on this matter let's move on to Senate Bill 1300 relating to school meals appropriates funds to the Department of Education for meal subsidies for students whose families are classified as asset limited income constrainted employed Alice household so for Senate Bill 1300 is there anyone here to testify on this measure superintendent oh oh I'm sorry it's okay sorry good afternoon chair kidani Vice chair Kim L Deputy superintendent of operations testifying on behalf of Department of Education the department stands in his written testimony in support of this measure thank you for the opportunity to testify thank you Dean Ed no executive director Charter School Commission in support osatou hi Sarah toiki on behalf of the ho Teachers Association and ouille I'd like to testify in support of this bill we know that students do better in school when they've had a full meal and while we can always say that well there's opportunities for applying for free and reduced lunch there's opportunities for them to go get a second job what we really want students to do is focus on being able to learn and being able to be fed well is really important for them to be able to learn well and here in Hawaii with the High Cost of Living we have a large gap of students that really cannot afford school lunch and so then they are eating that bag of chips or the the extra snacks that the teacher sneaks over to them that they requested on donor's choose when really they could be going straight to the cafeteria getting a full meal knowing without ever having to worry about being hungry that they are going to be fed at school and one less burden for every single student to have to worry about will mean everybody in Hawaii will have a better future because if they're not well educated then we don't have an educated Workforce so even though it might seem like it's just a one meal that we might be doing things that that could be I don't know almost giving away free bees it is setting up our future for our state thank you sir Daniela SP good afternoon chair Vice chair thank you so much for not just introducing this bill but for hearing it um Hawai apple seed wholeheartedly supports any measure that would expand access to free School meals and this bill would get us one step closer to that goal so thank you uh we would like to respectfully suggest some amendments which are itemized in are written testimony that we think will make the bill stronger um in addition to these technical amendments we'd like to strongly encourage that the committee reconsider limiting this essential benefit to only stud students qualified as Alice and this is for a few reasons as you may be aware Alice is a designation that takes into consideration not just household size and income but also household composition and expenditures so determining which students qualify using this complex methodology will require a tedious level of information gathering from the doe and it could feel invasive for families second income threshold isn't the only barrier to participation in the free meal program there's other challenges things like language barriers difficulty providing paperwork or fear of disclosing information to a government agency that result in a lot of children that are actually eligible for the free program not participating so we um again thank you so much for the opportunity to testify um and um support this bill wholeheartedly and thank you for considering our comments and amendments need deliberation of this Bill thank you for your testimony Judith Clark not present on Zoom chair thank you Lauren zerbo not here an huchi or Randall oh hi sorry I'm Alexis Chapman for for hfia in place of Floren zable I'm sorry what's your name Alexis Chapman for hfia Hawaii food industry Association please proceed uh good afternoon chair and vice chair thank you for hearing this measure um hfia is in support of School meals for all kakei the benefits of School meals are well documented and Monumental for our students and for our society as a whole and we would also support expansion of this bill um in any way to include more students for all students um and I'm happy to answer any questions thank you thank you Alexis Attorney General's office good afternoon chair kadani Vice chair Kim um and huchi from the Department as we noted in our testimony we're suggesting um an amendment to the bill either one um having the legislature expressly established by Statute a program for providing meal subsidies to students from Alice households um and that this provide for adequate standards provided by law as required by the state constitution and also providing the doe with the authority to adopt any necessary um administrative rules to administer the program alternatively we do note that the doe has administrative rules regarding um their lunch program perhaps it could be um the bill could be amended to state that the doe shall adopt rules or modify existing rules to provide the the meal subsidy to Alice households thank you for the opportunity I'll be available for questions thank you Nicole woo children's Action Network speaks not here beus dgo Democratic party of Havi not here Amy Miller president CEO for food bank not here Isa pson from Mai Food Bank not here Susan Emory green party of Hawaii David leak anyone here wishing to testify on this measure come forward please law chair Vice chair Nate Hicks with Hawaii Public Health Institute in support of this measure and also asking for amendments uh School meals are an incredibly important part of the day uh we make sure that public education is free for all because it's very important and so should the school meals and so we ask that uh we support not only just our Alice students but all students uh because similarly the paperwork required uh might miss many students who are dependent upon subsidies like these uh this is a very popular uh idea over 80% of Voters support free School meals for all students here in Hawaii and so uh you have the backing of the rest of the state to make this change as well uh eight states have already adopted free School meals for all and have had much success so we can follow their lead I appreciate the time Mahalo thank you is there anyone else here wishing to testify in this measure members questions so right now uh reduced lunch free lunch shes or what what percentage average I know I have some of the highest schools with pre much but um the free is about 36% right now reduces about 8% and we projecting that the Alice group would be another 8% 8% of that so it would be like 52% total so in schools like mine where I have like 80% 90% reducing free lunch so Alice would be a very minute number for the rest of the school probably might be the rest of the school might be the rest of the school we just don't have a measurement for so we just extrapolating from data it's kind of our best guess at this point okay and you know it's not so much giving free lunch but of the lunches we already give and already people even when they pay for it how much of that go into the rubbish can uh quick question um that's part of what I think we're going to try and look at going forward is to collect data about they have waste but it's more like from the kitchen side I think what we're interested also is you know what are the kids actually eating what are the students eating and if you know one day the the amount of waste is high then we know that they didn't like that dish right if it's low then we know that they like that dish so we're not collecting that data right now but I think that's something we're by now you guys don't know that we've talked about this last session we talked about the expensive software that you folks went and bought for I don't know what $80,000 a year to be able to get a survey of what the kids like or dislike and we talked about having teachers just you know hand count how many of you like this but stuff that are being thrown away milk fruits apples oranges stuff like that I mean basic basic things that um so it's it's hard when we say we want to give everybody free lunch but if half of that lunches are going into the garbage can um um you know we have to do something about that because you know students just because you give them free lunch don't mean they going to eat it and they're going to be able to work in the classroom I agree right and if they're not going to eat it then we're defeating the purpose and if they run out and go to McDonald's or wherever else again we're defeating the whole purpose right of this whole free lunch so I hope people will focus in on the fact that you know just providing the free lunch is not necessarily going to mean they're going to eat it be nutritious and they're going to be able to to learn um totally agree how do we do that how do we get to how do we get there we're looking at improving the menu too um there's a whole effort going on to try and improve everything but if they don't like basic fruits if they don't like milk they don't want you know what I'm saying then what is it that we're going to have to what serve pizza and hamburgers every day and french fries I mean what is it that we can serve that the kids or let Jack in the Box R run your Resturant no I'm just kidding um so in the past I know that at the end of the cafeteria line you could put back things you didn't want like food that were apples oranges or milk but um what about other Foods I mean like are they served in the tray or are they served in containers now so if they don't want it they can I think it's depending what the dish is some are contained some they put in the plate and and have the has the department learn from the types of foods that are mostly given back that you change up the menu um if I mean Senor when we look at the uh the types of foods that um for example fruits I know when we went to uh on the continent we visited some schools uh they did have um table where you know they could put fruit back those fruit though have to be not sliced so for example if we slice oranges or we slice apples those aren't able to be put back on on onto the table for other students to to take um can I ask you a question then so for you to have the cafeteria workers buy the fruit slice the fruit is it better just to give the whole fruit uh it it depends I think what kind of fruit uh for example oranges um they don't like to peel it the peeling yes the peeling is difficult for for especially for the younger students so we slice so they can you know they can peel it this way and eat it um we are looking at the different types of foods we are also um I think Senator Kim had alluded to the survey we did do a survey in Leu Milan complex area uh to get data and feedback on what students um what's what kind of foods they like uh what they currently serve as well as perhaps what we don't serve what kinds of foods might might they be interested in and so we are taking that data we're working with um with our partners to um uh adjust our look at adjusting our menu I think what we've learned also is that's really important is as we're able to um work with our menu and also at the same time though meeting the requirements of U Federal compliance with USDA so that we ensure that our meals are reimbursable that that's really important so that's the balance I think that we're working on um healthy meals at locally sourced as much as possible we want what we want to move to but also meeting the um the uh the standards for USDA so that those meals are reimbursable thank you kind of follow off so the software that you folks put in how much does it cost us each year 60,000 80,000 I I can is that the um I I can get you the cost on the survey um I am familiar with the no it's a software that last we talked about this last year you folks do a serve you have you bought this it's yearly 80,000 60,000 can't remember it's around that amount just to survey and then they said oh it's other things but if that's costing us that much for you to the survey at three high schools I mean I think this money can go better used to actually going directly to the schools or directly to the to the menus or to the students again you know these kinds of we rely too much on on computers to give us an idea we can look in the in the garbage can to see what they're throwing away yes I I believe Senator when I um alluded to the survey that um we did with the the complex area in Central District um it might not be the same um software system that you're alluding to no but that software was to be able to survey so if you're even using something else than that then I have have even bigger question I believe the survey that you might be um alluding to is our nutral system but I can get back to you I want to be sure I get you the right answer so we'll get back to you on that yeah because you know there's a lot of cost that that folks employ that can go back into the schools and um that's very troubling uh also when we went on on these trips um to look others other jurisdictions they also had packaging where they would package the fruit they would package certain things into that the kids can then take with them if they don't want to eat it right then and there they can take it home or take it and eat it later on in the day so you know how are we being flexible because when you serve it when you played it then necessarily could take care with them so you bring up a definitely a good point um we want to be sure that as we as we do the visits and we work with and we see the different things happening on on the continent um we want to be sure that uh when we Implement in Hawaii that uh we're we are confident that we're following USDA guidelines so that um those meals are reimbursable so we are we are looking to explore some of the things that we've seen uh but again we want to just be sure that they follow the stringent law yeah us are following it and they are getting reimbursed on the mainland and it doesn't I don't think it takes rocket science for us to to look at what the is the USDA expects and you know what you put into a a bag to for the kids you know to eat so I hope that's not going to get another software another study that's we will we will follow up on that and get back to you Senator definitely thank you so superintendent the 11.7 million that the department is asking for is that for both breakfast and lunch yeah for the allice students yes but if the allice students is only Point what did you say what percent 8% 8% it's going to cost us 11.7 million for it no I think that's to um that's the reduced to take care of reduced and the group cuz they reduce they still pay so we're going to make it LSN below everybody doesn't have to pay I see so the reduces what is the reduced amount 20 cents right now how 20 cents 20 cents that they the student pay out of pocket so 20 cents for reduce bring us to 11.7 million plus the 8% 30 cents for breakfast 40 cents for lunch sorry I stand corrected okay well students you guys are watching this is so important that we know how much what we're spending where the money's going where your parents tax dollars are going and why sometimes we can't give you guys what you want because the expenditures are being spent for other things that may may not be needed thank you thank you CH go ahead this might be unrelated but I figure I'd ask now uh parents in my community are um concerned that in the elementary school they're not able to sit with their child um as example first grader who has a hard time opening her melt carton uh they were told that they're not able to sit with their child because there's Federal funding um with this lunches or with the breakfast does that I can get back to you on that Senator um specifically to the federal funding question I do know that um uh as a former Elementary principal sometimes you know we uh to be able to track who's on campus you know if there's many parents that want to uh come on to campus we want to just be sure that that you know everyone's accounted for um the other thing is that we do have very hardworking um cafeteria folks that you know AIDs that are in the cafeteria and lunch supervisors and uh they do help especially the younger children um opening their milk containers and such so yeah we we we appreciate the parents who want to support their children but we there we just need to be sure that we also take care of other issues that you know might arise thank you thank you I think it's also important that the uh principal and vice princip principles know who's on campus so yes thank you thank you um any other questions thank you is anyone from charter schools here no testimony from Charter Schools okay moving on Senate Bill 440 relating to education sorry this establishes the future Career and Technical education teacher scholarship program to be administered by the Department of Education to facilitate the Recruitment and Retention of Career and Technical teachers in Havi public schools and also appropriates funds to testify superintendent [Music] or good afternoon chair Vice chair and members of the committee I'm Tammy Chun Deputy superintendent testifying um in support of this bill and we're standing on a written testimony thank you Tammy James toyoko was that I'm sorry was that Doe testimony yes I'm reading your testimony it says you need to do more analysis to determine how this would be carried out and stuff so is it correct that you're in support or is that a different testimony um we support the intent of the bill we need more um in terms we probably we need additional resources to implement so we're still analyzing give a full yeah because you just say you support the support to what's here in your testimony thank you sure hello good afternoon Vice chair I mean chair gani Vice chair Kim and members of the committee my name is Thomas chock I'm with the Department of Business Economic Development and Tourism on behalf of director James toyoka uh we uh inid stand on our testimony as submitted with comments and I'm available for questions M just your testimony in support or just comments tell us what your comments are yeah sure uh let's see there are a handful of things that we feel like could strengthen the the the bill um we definitely are in support of the intention of the bill uh we do feel like um in our efforts uh with Workforce Development especially uh the the front end of the PIP line is the CTE programs in the doe right and uh what we see is uh opportunity to add uh elements to the bill such as um in uh section 302 a-a um perhaps including um uh externships for the participants of this program so uh where Educators can uh get opportunities of it's a work-based learning approach where the teachers get actual um work experience in the area that they're they're getting their CTE training on um similar to that uh in the same section we uh felt like uh it would be helpful to have mentorship or professional development um spelled out more clearly in the in the bill um we also felt like in uh in the same section 302 A- a um expanding the eligibility for the participants to beyond the University of Hawaii um uh those who are pursuing an education degree at the University of Hawaii um perhaps to other um local colleges such as hpu um shamad BYU Hawaii um and then also to include uh you know locals who leave the leave Hawaii to uh pursue their education degree elsewhere um it would be uh beneficial for us if we could tap we we could expand the eligibility uh to those people as well um see oh uh reporting in section 302 a-b we felt like if there was some aspect of a reporting mechanism that was mentioned uh in the bill uh so reporting on things like how many recipients uh uh received well that's the definition of recipient right how many recipients retention rates after the 5-year commitment and then uh what was the placement rates and high need uh CTE Fields uh so some kind of tracking mechanism uh just to to be able to track data and then uh lastly um dbed has uh prioritized uh five uh uh five uh I guess industries that align with the CTE Pathways um those five uh that dbet has identified include Advanced manufacturing Healthcare uh clean energy or energy and the creative Industries in agriculture and so uh we feel like it'll be helpful to prioritize uh those CTE pathway teachers um if if can to um to be able to align more with uh debed strategy for economic development and economic diversification good points but have you met with the to discuss all these no we haven't well it doesn't need to take a bill for you guys to do correct thank you questions thank you yeah anyone else here wishing to testify on this measure um I will be sure that we send it to the committee after the hearing have oh you have it okay um I apologize uh chair Vice chair member and huchi from the Department of the Attorney General um on 440 um it states that the scholarship recipients must teach Career and Technical education in the Hawaii public school system for at least 5 years immediately following the completion of the state approved teacher education program um what we are suggesting is that there be a requirement that the scholarship recipient also um obtain a teaching license in order to teach in the public school system we've provided suggested um a suggested amendment in our testimony thank you I'll be available for question questions thank you I do questions superintendent questions um yeah is is um budget and finance here anybody from budget and finance okay superintendent then I guess okay I certainly agree with uh technical education for a teacher scholarship but this also talks about a special fund and if you look at what BNF says As a matter of General policy um this fund does not meet the requirements in section 37- 52-3 HRS so special fund should serve a need is demonstrated by purpose scope and explanation of why the program cannot be implemented successfully under the general fund appropriation process reflect a clear Nexus between the benefits sought and charges made upon the users of beneficiaries or a clear link between the programs and sources provides appropriate means of financing for the activity and right now it's only General funds or appropriation from the legislature demonstrate the capacity to be financially self- sustaining so I don't think this meets that requirement right I mean that's the whole Crux of this bill is to have this fund to be able to pay for the scholarships right so how do how do this fund become self- sustaining Senator just we appreciate the opportunity for scholarship funds for to build up our special to build up our Career and Technical education teacher Workforce but um the mechanisms by which but this was not a bill from a Department of Education bill but you are in support of it so if you want come in support of it then you got to help us because again it's not worth only the money but how are you going to be self- sustained because special funds you have to have specific requirements by law and if it's not then we're just going to have another fund sitting there then then we're going to sweep at some point because it's not going to be usable it's not going to have enough funding once the state funding runs out right thank you Senator um we do support the intent of the bill that to support our uh CTE teachers uh we definitely will reach out to budget and finance and um talk with them to see what the next steps are special funds we've just had too many special funds out there that is not does not report to these things and that's why we've done away with many of them but then we keep getting new requests for new special funds and no way to keep funding it so I just hoping folks look at that as you look at these bills going forward we'll reach out to BNF thank you um superintendent also um does the de have in mind any certain CTE programs um I specific programs that you are wanting to I I believe the CT programs we're looking at in general um supporting teachers in Beth I think depending on the level of funding if uh we would prioritize some Pathways based on economic development um plans of the State uh if the funding was limited okay thank you the uh attorney general is also commenting that we should insert in the bill to obtain uh htsb license as a requirement in addition to teaching five years you guys have comments on that after receiving the scholarship um I I believe currently um all of our teachers work towards um lure I I I do know that um uh in in some instances uh we we um in individuals that come from industry and um may may have some difficulty in in pursuing that but we'll work with the standards Bo 200 on okay and you might want to reach out to the AG to yes definitely thank you thank you [Music] Senators okay we are on Senate Bill 531 relating to education Pro Prov establishes Provisions for the storage and maintenance of a stock supply of Bron Bronco dilators at schools this is a Senate Bill 531 for asthma Administration superintendent comments comments good afternoon Cher hedani um Vice chair Kim and members of the committee I'm Heidi Armstrong Department of Education and we stand on our written testimony and our comments are in our testimony in support or we we support the bill with the um changes that we've included um in our testimony so I guess for the audience at home listening I think um maybe if you could um answer some questions like is this supposed to will this help your absentee ISM rate yes so so currently um we don't have a supply of the Bronco dilators on our school campuses and we know that asthma um whether it's diagnosed or not is very prevalent among our children and so this would equip all of the schools to have that Supply on their campus um and in the event there was an incident that warranted the distribution of that medication there um would be um there could be the opportunity for staff on Camp campus to be able to administer that medication it also allows the school um the bill would allow the school to receive that medication to stock um through a prescription from a physician and the physician would then prescribe the medicine to the school so the school could have that on hand thank you and I'm not sure if you're able to answer this question or if this is a Department of Health question but is there um um uh shelf life for these medications there is and to tell you the shelf life um Ben um Ben kolinsky is from our school health section um and he can answer the health questions chair Vice chair and members of the committee Ben Linsky with the student support uh Branch um the range I can't speak exactly to but generally there's a a few years is is typical for most medications and the uh when we're talking about Bronco diors we're generally speaking about inhalers uh and alol orol srate which is mentioned as an example within in the bill so that's also clarified that's the most common uh type of pharmaceutical that we're talking about and so those generally have uh you know several years of uh of use and and the amount of doses in an inhaler is generally 200 there are some that have less but most of the time it's 200 doses so that's plenty uh for the the type of use as we wouldn't expect a school to exhaust that uh within those few years um so whose responsibility would would it be to make sure that um it's not expired and then I guess the um the responsibility of of the doe or the school as far as not having you know the supply on hand and something happens to a child right and we do have in the bill um let me read it I could I could maybe answer just in in the general sense that there is an existence of this issue uh for schools currently uh because we do accept medication prescribe to individual students that have the appropriate uh paperwork and uh diagnosis uh provider that provides that prescription and those medications have expirations that we have to monitor as well things like the nxone um for opioid overdose that's kept in schools also has an expiration um and so there are uh routines for managing that's that the nature of that there's also Provisions in the the bill that talk about how those guidelines are put together correct and then for the the protection um for the school we have added um on page four or no I'm sorry page seven line two um to we we're suggesting to add the administrator of stock Bronco dilator by authorized employees or agents pursuant to this section shall not require or imply any diagnosis or be interpreted as the practice of medicine nursing or other licensed professional um activity but what happens if a child you it cuz you said something about that they had a prescription or they weren't diagnos having asthma that you think they're having an episode you give them a one of these inhalers and something happens to them and so is the liability on the school through through the training for the um volunteer who volunteers to administer this this medication so volunteers to give the medication certified person correct that worries me and right now if a child has an asthma attack on on the school grounds the own and does not have an inhaler um if they've been diagnosed or if they have an asthma attack and they don't H they don't have any medication the school has nothing um on hand to help support the child until 911 comes so do you how many of these of the medication would you have to have on hand be sure that you're equipped for the Bronco dilator specifically uh the schools would with this bill have the option to carry a Bronco dilator an inhaler and that would provide the school with that medication there's not a restriction on how many a larger campus May for example under this have you know option for one use medication um spacers used uh between the device the spray device that is the inhaler and um the recipient the child and that's a single use but the inhaler itself can be used uh up to 100 to 200 doses depending on the product so you would only let the child use it for that time and you would take back the the actual medication portion yeah reused perhaps to clarify the uh use of the medication is in the uh event of a a serious episode that is also requiring um additional supports and services so there is a generally calls to Emergency Medical Services during a respiratory emergency that's a serious um approval or from the parents to do this could answer that and so again this overall this this bill has uh many layers and so there's you know coverage in in sort of addressing liability issues and uh for the um interest of uh notifying parents providing the uh protocol to the public and notifying the community um the school Community where that's held and that it would be uh used in a potential respiratory emergency is a annual notification requirement and many of these ideas do exist in other I guess my question really is are the parents supposed to notify the schools that the child has this issue and they approve will be intervening when the child is or you take it upon yourself to see a child in distress and do the medication well the the parents are notified that the school does have these in on hand um for a child who's already diagnosed we do have an additional process and create a um action plan for that child specific to his Med his or her medical need and the um School Shaw and other school personal have that on file so for the students who are already diagnosed and um we we have um student support team meetings with the parent and come up with the plan um to address the child's need should an attack um occur on campus but you say you notify the parents that you have it but do they have to respond that it's okay for you to use it on your child or you use it if appropriate right I would I would just say based on what the bill says uh that would be uh a implied consent of a a person experiencing a life-threatening emergency and that's the you know rationale I understand for uh Good Samaritan visions and measures like this and epinephrine in in public settings in general they're all structured in similar ways so that helps to to answer your question directly on page three line 16 of the bill um number four it does say the the wording is inform parents or Guardians about the potential use of a Bronco dilator in a respiratory emergency okay questions yeah um how how many types of attacks or emergencies type illnesses are there that students have could you clarify that the the symptoms or the um definition of attack what kind of Health emergencies could occur that you are not you don't have the medication or don't have stuff for because right now it's the bronchitis inhalers um I know we did op but what else is out there that okay what I'm driving at is you know schools are become and trust me I'm not trying to sound like I am I'm not um compassionate to all of this stuff going on but at some point you cannot cover every single possible and if you don't at some point we're going to be liable because well why didn't you you you provided inhalers but you didn't provide I don't know eye drops to to my child or you didn't provide this the school didn't provide that and then you're using volunteers and then there's a thing of liability so I'm just wondering at what point do you know and then parents then will then de well I don't need I forget the the bronchitis or I forget whatever the school has this you know it's okay but at what point where where does it where does it end this this bill supports um would support a child having an attack um who doesn't have medication prior to 911 coming and there few and far between they're they're few and far between um it's not a common occurrence um but it does happen yeah so how much how many of these inhalers you have to have how long is it going to yeah I'm saying there's a lot of issues who's going to give it and then if doesn't happen then somebody becomes viable and then what is the next what is the next bill for the we've got to cover that we didn't cover like epilepsy I me I don't know I don't know all the different childhood type of things that could happen and certainly I mean can we cover them all can you can you get medication to have them all and Stu do we have examples of currently what the schools have in supply for medical needs of students current for any prescription medicine right now it all comes from the child's family the the parent would notify the CH the school that my child needs insulin my child has Caesar medication and provide it to you folks and so we have we have an action plan um for the child and that plan describes what medication to give and when and by whom okay so so in this case then the parents would Supply have a supply on hand to give you in case it happens to their child right that requires them to have um good access to healthare timely access to health care and insurance coverage for medications that also takes into account that a school may need a different you're saying the school is now going to be into providing health care and medication for those who don't have it is that what you're saying because um medical emergencies can occur for children and then providing Health Care on a regular basis I mean we have to decide what what it is we're going to provide because you don't have unlimited funds and you don't have unlimited liability so understood protections so has I didn't read the AG's opinion but is the AG here CH before you leave I think uh what Vice chair I just want to tag team off of that with regards to is there actual and how many cases of children that experience maybe an asthma attack that necessarily have um the inhaler or medication on hand so is this it's not a common occurrence but it does occur and the current procedure when that happens is the school will call 911 and when 911 arrives um the paramedics will address the situation so do you have a comment on this request because it's it's um involving just one type of illness or medication that's being required and I mean are we setting a precedent I think it's possible it could be I would say focusing on the testimony that we submitted on this bill um our concern was that the bill is very expansive in terms of its definition of school it refers to it defines a school as any daycare center Child Care Facility Head Start program preschool kindergarten or Elementary or secondary school public or private including any special school for children in the state many of those are um entities over which the Department of Education doesn't have any jurisdiction and so our um concern because the bill on page one at lines 9 through 11 stat that the Department of Education in collaboration with the Department of Health shall develop a protocol regarding the storage and usage of a stock of Supply excuse me stock supply of bronco dilators and sets forth various parameters but it would be difficult for the doe to be able to develop and Implement a protocol for and applicable to entities over which they don't have any jurisdiction that was um what our testimony commented on but um I do see the concerns that are raised in the discussion that you just had with the Department thank you for the question okay are there further testimony on this item there's several of us please come forward Hello chani by Shar Kim uh members of the committee he president and also watching uh I'm Pedro har executive director of the American Lung Association uh you have my written testimony we're in full support I just wanted to point out that there's 24 states that have passed similar legislation um already so we have a opportunity to be able to apply those models for here in Hawaii there are cases where states did not adopt these policies where children have died waiting for emergency services uh when uh that has uh it would have been easily resolved uh by the administration of this medication that that uh according to many of the medical um industry associations um should be an over-the-counter medication at this point because it its efficacy has been proven so safe um we also wanted to uh point out that the so the way that this policy is built in order to be able to to allow the flexibility for Department of Education is that it's not a mandate to to create but it allows uh the entities to be able to create this if they if they so choose to right now they don't have the ability to do that um as it currently is but it is not a mandate um this is also part developing these type of policies are part of the Centers for Disease Control and prevention asthma friendly policies that they recommend that all school districts adopt um at the point I see my time is up so I'll be available for questions thank you so much thank you for the clarification Laura reart good afternoon chair Vice chair uh members of the committee my name is Laura rikar I'm here representing Hawaii State Center for Nursing and I'm also here representing the uh Hawaii uh School of Nursing uh is as it relates to the Hawaii state Center for Nursing we uh stand in our written testimony um in support of this measure and I welcome any comments and if I may as it relates to the School of Nursing and uh dental hygiene of which the center is within but um for the School of Nursing they are um one of the collaborators along with the doe for the hoi Kiki program um and they have been embedded within schools this Hawaii K has been embedded within schools for the past 10 years but there currently is not a school nurse for every school and so when there are emergency emergencies like this whereas there is safe and effective treatment that's available that is you know parents can give this medication to children so it's available for Lay people um it's safe and appropriate uh it was seen as a safe and appropriate response that would lower the risk and increase the safety of children of school who just have normal health events but sometimes are at school and not with their parents thank you questions thank you next to testify Ean not here testifying for Hawaii Association for justice and hori oh okay anyone else wishing to testify we have some mbers on Zoom go ahead K Vice Kim and members of the committee I am Gloria Fernandez with Department of Health I'm sorry didn't hear your name Gloria Fernandez with the Department of Health forgive me I my throat is really dry um and offering um comments on this on this bill I'm with the communicable disease and public health nursing Division and we're providing the following testimony on on behalf of the department um so this bill will allow for students that do not have access to a Bronco dilator during the school day through an emergency action plan or approval to sorry um approval that allows them to self carry their medications to be able to receive the medication when an emergency arises other updates in this measure will Aid in the ability for students to safely en family receive prescribed and approved medications improving their overall health and ability to remain in school the department of health will work collabora with the ha Department of Education for these protocols should the schools um want to be able to offer this and we will also work with any of the Community Partners to implement once and if enacted thank you for this opportunity to testify any questions questions by thank you we also have Jeremy crore not present on Doom chair thank you that's all the testimony that members questions otherwise moving on um Senate Bill 533 relating to education appropriate funds to Department of Education to evaluate School needs to mitigate the impact of the planned Public Safety power shut off program this chair Vice chair members of the committee Tammy Chun Deputy superintendent for the Department of Education the Department of Education supports this bill this is a bill regarding uh Power safety Public Safety power shut off it's the hawani electric response to preemptively shut off the power in certain cases there are currently 15 schools on the PSPs list and the the experience in California in terms of implementing a SPS indicates the average shutdown is 48 hours and so for schools we have come up with a plan to keep schools open as um during the power safety shut off when the power is out as long as conditions are otherwise safe uh we are asking for this appropriation to be able to do um actions to prepare schools to be able to continue to be open while um while the power is out and the two main things schools need uh assistance with are one would be power particularly for the cafeteria to be able to continue to serve meals and provide a place where students who need electricity or power for their assisted devices such as our medically fragile students would be able to to um congregate and then second would be for shelf stap meals so students could eat dur the power shut off I'm happy to answer questions thank you thank you on Zoom not present on Zoom chair anyone else who are wishing to testify this measure Angela Aloha Angela Melody young testifying on behalf of Roar cares in strong support um Ro cares Rescue of animal right Community advocacy research Education Services a Grassroots movement heard it's a small team from our church so um I'm in strong support without assuming is it a locally owned business because infrastructure utilities for water and sewer is controlled by the County's office but it does say in the introduction a local investor owned Electric utilities um company uh planned a public safety power shut off program so I'm in strong support uh especially the with the underlying issues of Maui Wildfire recovery events highlighting the need for emergency procedures strategies and routines for imple implementation during emergency response to set a new standard of operation for schools um because 15 department of education schools and a charter school were identified as vulnerable to plan Public Safety um routines um and I think it's critically important to have a back up Solutions um so in strong support thank you memb questions ahead good afternoon chair Vice chair members of the committee my name is James Abraham I'm testifying on behalf of Hawaii Electric in support of this bill uh we'll stand on our written testimony that we submitted to the committee and I'm available for any questions what was your name again uh James Abraham thank you members [Music] questions thank you any further testimony thank you recess resuming the committee we are on this is the last just did so the next one will be 747 747 okay so Senate Bill 747 relating to the Board of Education this establishes an audit office with within the Board of Education to audit operations and expenditures of the Department of Education exempts positions within the audit office from Civil Service Law requires annual reports to the legislature establishes six full-time equivalent positions within the audit office and appropriate funds to testify on this measure ucation board Board of Education happy Aloha Friday chair kidani Vice chair Kim and Senator I know we're uh at the end of calendar so I'll try and keep it brief uh capson poy executive director of the board uh and I did want to convey uh the regrets of our legislative ad hoc committee who would usually be here with you today some of them are ill or away uh and just very briefly the board does stand on its written testimony supporting the intent of the measure uh and we do recognize of course the value of accountability and transparency what what is it that you have concerns about uh well Senator I do think we need to figure out um some of the cost uh breakdowns and how we would figure out the staff and I think uh maybe you know trying to maybe work with some of the other auditing functions uh or auditing offices including Office of the auditor uh on how they go about doing that I I do want to make sure I say auditing is a highly specialized skill far beyond the current capacity of the boards pretty small staff else anyone else here wishing to testify on this measure so in reading this measure it talks about putting an audit that operate independently which I certainly support but who who actually would really guide them as to what things they're going to audit for who oversees this I um board and audit office I I'll just say that that would likely be the board uh and the board would perhaps establish a committee but I also would say that um that's probably for either the board uh the ad hoc Committee of the board uh to decide or the board through board action to decide how they want to structure that relationship with the auditor and it is yes very clear in the bill that it's meant to be very independent and I think the way we read that is is as reporting directly to the board without much interference from others okay um I question this certainly I'm for all for as you know um for transparency and accountability but I know that we put in an audit committee for the border of regions and it's the board of regions that decides what gets audited and if they don't want something audited it doesn't go to the committee and so there's a push and pull and a pullback so it's like okay operate independently but if they're still part of the board then is it really going to be independent and so I mean I'm not sure how it's going to work because it certainly hasn't work with the the board of regions yes I I I understand your concern and acknowledge that I I would say that I really wouldn't want to venture to guess how that would all work we'd probably have to figure out how we would set it up and uh do it in the best way and trying to uh alleviate some of those concerns and the cost to do this yes and the cost to do it so right now does a does the board have the ability to audit not currently within the board staff there uh right but you folks can can't order audits right yes the I I actually can't remember when the last time that was but I but I would say as far as a very specialized audit um I can actually get back to you on the the um specifics on that there there in lies the reason why this is probably surfacing because if the board is not exercising its ability to hold accountable and to look at certain things and then and then have audits done and yes it's going to cost money this is going to cost money then this is why you know when you folks see these bills is why it's happening because perhaps you're not doing what you're supposed to be doing right thank thank you for that feedback Senator I did just want to clarify I don't want you to think that no audits are being done there are a lot of annual audits for example that are done outside of the annual a that's what this ising because this is more about performance and management audits other than the perun audits that you have to perform each year but this goes beyond that any other questions okay I don't have reconvening the committee on education the committee members have conferred and we are looking at passing out with amendments Senate Bill 1331 with Technical and nonsubstance 1391 1391 pass with amendments with Technical and non-substantive amendments blanket out the appropriation amount and we will note in the committee report that 3 million is requested by the Department of Education and defecting the date to July 1st 2015 okay recommendation is to pass with Amendment chair kadani I Vice chair side Senator Hashimoto hi Senator p is excused Senator de I Four Eyes one excuse recommendations adopted thank you next item Senate Bill 1300 relating to school meals recommendation of the chair is to pass with amendments and the okay so Senate Bill 1300 uh we're going to include the we're going to pass with amendments which would include the testimony of the Attorney General's office to insert a section that requires the Department of Education to adopt administrative rules to effectuate the purpose of this bill we will blank out appropriation amounts and note in the committee report that 11.7 million is requested in the department of education's testimony and defecting the date to July 1 2015 Senate Bill four I'm sorry okay recommendation is to amend Senate Bill 1300 chair V Vice chair V Senator Hashimoto Senator K's excuse Senator I Four Eyes one excuse recommendations adopted thank you Senate Bill 440 relating to education recommendation of the chair is to pass with amendments will include the Attorney General's testimony which requires um ho teacher Standards Board license as a requirement Technical and non-substantive amendments blank out appropriation amount and note in the committee report that 600,000 is requested by the Department of Education and also defecting the date to July 1st members questions recation is to pass with am pass am any members voting with reservation any members voting no if not four members present voting I one excuse Madam chair thank you moving on to Senate Bill 531 recommendation of the chairs to defer this measure indefinitely Senate bill 533 appropriates funds to doe to evaluate School needs to mitigate impact of planned Public Safety power shut off program recommendation of the chairs pass with amendments blank out the appropriation amount and note in the committee report that 1 million is requested by the Department of Education and defect the date to July 1st 2050 questions members recommendations to pass with amendments let it Bill 533 any members voting no any members voting with reservations if not four members in affirmative one member excused recommendations adopted thank you and a final bill Senate Bill 747 relating to the Board of Education establishes an audit office within the Board of Education to audit operations and expenditures of the Department of Education exempts positions within the audit office from Civil Service Law requires annual reports recommendation of the chair is to pass with amendments including Technical and non-substantive amendments blank out the appropriation amount and note in the committee report that 575,000 is requested by the Department of Education and defect the date to July 1st 20150 chairman I okay recommendation uh to amend Senate Bill 747 any member voting no any M vo reservations hearing none four members president will never excuse recommendations thank you and that concludes the meeting [Applause]

hello uh everybody Welcome to a new uh podcast series uh that we're going to uh start the podcast is uh called stump my conversations the conversations are going to be fun Panthers uh informative and uh hopefully uh we'll Propel the game uh uh locally at least for the game of cricket so welcome to uh cricket podcast uh stump mic conversations I am your host V Hassen and I have a helper my name is shaves and I am R Vish uh as I said I am VI Hassan I am founder of uh uh HOA social and sports club we have uh uh three uh cricket teams in uh local League called Mass state cricket league which has got over 60 teams right now across six divisions where around thousand uh I would say athletes are semi-pros are uh uh nobody's like me end up playing in uh uh the league uh every weekend uh throughout the spring through fall uh and then we have another League uh in the area for heart tennis ball called any CA it is uh called as NECA and HOA has got one team one team in that that is also across five different divisions uh uh over 50 plus teams in that uh in that league so Mass has got pretty big presence of uh presence of cricket in there uh to start up the conversations um I would like to ask uh shha uh who is your favorite cricketer and why well my favorite cricketer is omuk Chand and the reason I have for it is recently I read a book book about him and he had such an inspiring story his story showed persistence and him improving himself throughout this story it was really really um what it was really uh inspiring inspiring for me yeah okay so I felt as if he was good both in cricket and also teaching like life lessons and stuff like that awesome so that's a that's a great one uh back home too uh like uh like over here or anywhere right uh Sports person or athletes teach us so many lessons and so many of them are role models for uh young people and even as adults when we look at them we learn a lot of lessons from them thank you shha Rahul who is your favorite cricketer and why um my f favorite cricketer in fact is um shiv Narayan Chandra Paul okay um he is probably to me the best West Indies batter if you see his formation and how he play it is a is very beautiful to watch and I watch his Clips over and over again so that's one of the reasons why he is my favorite cricketer another reason is he's actually one of the people who got me inspired to play cricket yeah so watching him it made me feel like I can reach to this level or better so I felt like I should join this Sport and I should try my best to play the great uh great memories there I know both of you guys had an opportunity to meet unmukt and shivar chandrapal who are legends of the game with their in their own uh right uh now just uh we spoke a little bit about uh uh about local Cricket where we talked about Mass state cricket league which has got a huge presence that's why you don't get to be with me most of the weekends but uh uh but you are there on the ground some of the games but these games are played across Mass Chets whether uh in Boston uh in Franklin fields or you take in suburbs like Hopkinton YMCA grounds or right up there in the North in Groveland so uh the game is played across the state and also uh we do have uh quite a bit of presence in Rhode Island and Connecticut Rahul you have traveled to Connecticut to play youth games and Connecticut teams have come and played with you guys over here uh for for uh uh youth games so what has been your experience in last couple of years uh playing the game and uh being around your team um my experience with playing the game is I really enjoy it because you have strategy you have to learn how to cooperate with other people and at the same time at the toughest moments you need to learn how to cooperate with your own self-being and you need to learn okay I'm struggling in this area so I need to push myself so that I don't let down a team there's a certain discipline that comes to you when you're playing cricket and there is at least there are at least multiple challenges for you while you're in the pitch it is it is a very it it is a very difficult game but I feel like it's not difficult when you have your team supporting you it feels like a easy game yeah you must be having a lot of fun playing it though you're making it sound as if it is too hard and too difficult right but you must be having a lot of fun playing with your friends uh when you're playing those games yeah it is a it is actually a pretty fun game cuz there is a it is like you're scoring points for your team it's it's sort of like baseball but not quite similar okay um I noticed that you were speaking as if you like have like the um journey of how umok Chan went with his team it sounded very similar so I like that yeah long way to go long way to go though but glad to see that you are enjoying the game enjoying with your teammates working with your teammates that's one of the things that U uh like any other team sport take it football take it basketball um uh take it Cricket right uh when you when you work with the team of uh folks to get to a certain vision in this case winning a game like you said uh everybody has to be part of the plan everybody has to work together so it teaches a lot of uh uh a lot of things for the for the Youth when they pick up the game they travel so uh where we coach in the academy uh we do travel to National games Across the Nation uh pretty much every long weekend either we are in Atlanta Houston California we play across the across the country uh with traveling teams for under 13 under 11 under 15 and the 19 so when we do that we are staying away from the family we are staying as a team together in the hotel we are traveling to the ground playing the games over there in Alien conditions so just like you said you hold each other's hand one day one person is performing the other day the other one picks up so it's a beautiful thing which transpires on the ground where the friendships uh go beyond the ground and uh I have lifelong friends who I call Brothers right now who I met through Cricket so A beautiful game that gives us a lot on and off the field for sure yeah I think what you said was we are staying away from family when we're traveling to Atlanta Houston or California I feel like we're not just staying away from family we're creating a new one with a bunch of Brothers beautiful yeah that was that was profound thank you shredda so you started following Cricket a little bit late I would say compared to most of the most of the uh kids in the subcontinent household who come from subcontinent household but uh uh cricket was running in the house all the time you would see that and everything and you started watching the game uh till now what is that one beautiful move M that you cannot forget either watching a game or being on the ground what is that one Unforgettable moment for you in cricket so that one Unforgettable moment was when USA defeated Pakistan mhm and i' I've never seen a team like USA rise like this like I haven't seen USA play in fact mhm so when I saw this I thought oh my nation is beating another team I can do that one day too and it was like so amazing for me I just love that moment so that would be my moment actually I think uh and I've seen that on the ground I think that particular moment when that super over happened s netra b that beautiful over to uh get USA across that boundary and get that Victory a lot of kids lot of kids woke up and uh embraced the game after that we have seen a lot of Youth coming intoy uh a lot of parents believing that the game is uh uh thriving in the nation now there is a hope for the uh growth of the game in the uh in the nation so absolutely that was a very I would say a decade or two decades later when everybody talks about the evolution of uh evolution of cricket in us that will be marked uh in Golden words that that changed how Cricket is perceived uh uh as a as a as a team at the international level that's that's great great to great to hear uh talking about it uh Rahul not just on the field you have had an opportunity multiple times to be behind the mic you have called the games you have been the commentator for couple of games and I've heard people Rave about uh how you have called the games uh uh with your uh teammate uh Vivan and and others like we see in the picture it was in hsl two years back in Houston you want to talk about that experience well it was a very thrilling experience to be behind the mic but also it was a very you have to be very cautious what you say it it's thrilling but you have to be little bit careful because you don't want to say the wrong thing but at the same time you want to say the right thing but the wrong thing could sound as similar as the right thing yeah so you had a you had a fun time uh sitting there and doing commentary with the veterans of the game if I could say so yeah me and my a partner um vivon we had a blast commentating we would absolute love the shots that were being played we love the wickets that would be taken it was a beautiful experience to to sit behind the mic awesome um going or continuing to talk about youth Cricket as such uh I think USA is in such a good spot right now uh USA under 19 boys team just won a championship in South Africa playing against very capable team showing that they are not the Minos that they were considered uh while back uh and also women's team or the girls team under 19 girls team as we speak are playing in uh under 19 World Cup uh that is happening uh right now yesterday they defeated New Zealand which is one of the Power House of the of the game so uh definitely the game is uh being picked up by the youth like we can see the interest is there they understand the game really well and uh they do have a sense of uh a sense of achievement and also sense of belonging when they when they are playing this game we do have inspiring athletes out of the game now just like shha mentioned she saw s bull that over and then uh she got hooked onto Cricket actually she seriously started practicing uh cricket right after that game I still remember you started coaching uh uh right after that uh game here in ashy uh so continuing with that Rahul you want to speak about some of the Local Heroes that we have uh who play uh the game over here we have AR who is a local arav sangi who is local to Ashland we have arush n who lives in Hopkinton which is a neighboring town you want to talk about some of their successes and then I can add down to that yeah so um we'll start with um arish he was one of the he was the first person in the Ashland Academy to be able to play with USA cricket and I think that is achievement for the academy and the coaches just a bit of a correction he played the Nationals for a Eastern Conference uh EAS Conference team but you're right he played USA Cricket Nationals representing eone eone team which is a huge huge achievement for this uh uh for this area go ahead please um I and also we'll talk about arov too um he has been MVP in multiple games for n for Nationals yeah and even even locally yeah when he is playing the bowlers are no match for him even for such a age Gap he can play against veterans without breaking a sweat which shows what a proed he he is and how much talent he holds so just to expand on the audience who are not that much uh uh that much aware of the game uh just like Rahul mentioned uh uh we have a batter we have a bowler and we have fielders right mainly uh them and then the officials who we call as ampir now batter you can uh if you have to draw parallels you can uh uh say similar to the batter in baseball yeah yeah you can say that right and if you talk about bowler uh the similarity lies in comparing him to a pitcher but uh the the thing about Cricket is it is played on 22 yards uh so the batter is at one end of the 22 yard and the bowler balls we say a bow which is similar to pitching uh bows from the other end of the 22 yards uh the difference between baseball and Cricket is the bowler pitches the ball on the ground and the ball bounces and the batsman has to has to negotiate uh the ball coming in from the from the pitch so sort of a rookie explanation of what Cricket is and then there are many other rules Associated to that similar to the catches on the Outfield we have fielders on the boundary uh similar to the catcher behind the batsman we have a catcher behind the batsman in cricket called Wicket keeper um and we have officials two official in the game who are called umpire so like Rahul was explaining none of the pitchers or Bowlers in the area match up to the talent of Arab sangi who is an Ashland resident and who has been training for at least what last 7 to 8 years from what I know uh and kudos to the parents uh I know PE does a lot with the kid outside of the academy and coaching to and dedicate a lot of time uh uh with him to hor his hor his skills that reminds me my dad's name is nages so when I was growing up uh my dad uh used to work like two or three different uh uh things he used to work from 5 in the morning till 8: I used to call him Sunday Papa so he would make sure every Sunday he would play cricket with me it is such a cultural thing and it is such a uh uh such a thing back home that uh uh everybody loves the game it is like a religion back home is what we say and uh similarly when I coach Rahul or when I am with Rahul I get the same feeling of uh What uh probably dad has felt uh so like we say here in America playing catch uh with the dad in the backyard that is the same feeling that is there in uh Cricket too so uh one day we will start doing the same with SH even though she's a little bit scared of catching the ball right now but I'm pretty sure she's going to get hold of that right sh yeah so uh sha I know there are a lot more boys in the game of cricket compared to girls at least in the coaching point of view right now so uh what do you think uh is your goal or what are you looking up to when you when you go to coaching uh every every Friday here in Ashland at this point what do you what do you look forward to so I honestly look forward to the part where I get to see what I've improved on because every class I look at myself and I say oh I've improved on this and then I'll go back home and improve on this and then I get to see what I've improved on which I really love because it means that I'm working on something mhm and I'm going to achieve the goal when these skill sets are going to be done and it looks very beautiful great so you're basically working on your your skills your improvement from uh uh session after session yeah so so Rahul you have played uh now you have trained back home in India uh both of you actually have trained quite little bit I wouldn't say extensively for how much like a month month and a half when you were in India yeah yeah I guess so almost about two months but not nearly there and uh here you have been at least Rahul you have been training for last six six seven years over here yeah uh what are some of the some of the uh things that uh uh that you took away in that short period with a little bit of training you had what are the some of the takeaways that you brought here which you are trying to implement uh in daily routines for your uh for your game at this point um the system is a little bit more it is a little harsh but at sometimes it it comes in play it it works so they put a little they're a little bit more strict and they put and that puts a little bit more discipline mhm so when I'm working on my batting when I see my stance I think about what have they said what what they want to see and especially the coaches in Ashland they also want to see the same thing I want them to see that when I come back to coaching or whether it's in the game so I will practice extensively on the batting the The Stance mhm um the grip whether it be something that you would learn at a lower level you still have to make sure you perfect it so you can play the game properly awesome so sh you did the same too uh you went for coaching over there now you have come back you have continued to coach even though you are right now at level one you're trying to improve your skills like you said uh what are some of the things positives that you took back from uh uh coaching and you brought over here and is helping you uh uh helping you improve on and off the field so like I was say seeing that no matter what you are going to improve improve unless you practice mhm you always shouldn't be hard on yourself even though I'm hard on myself some of the times most of the times most but you should never be hard on yourself that's just going to bring you down MH and not lift you up so the mindset you should have is okay this time I didn't get it to this week I will practice it come back and then if that is still not okay and if there's only a little to work on practice it and come back awesome great um to talk a little bit about the season or uh like for example uh it is the winter is when uh basketball happens and then uh you have got your baseball happening throughout spring summer and then football kicks off in August September so similar to that locally at least U mate cricket league has got its season which starts in end of April and it goes all the way through through October um and uh across across uh uh across the across the region what we do uh is we find ways to we find way is to go ahead and keep the game alive in Winters in uh uh in uh New England area because we cannot go out and play so predominantly uh cricket is a game which is played on the ground on the 22 yard pitch is what I was explaining earlier but we try to make the most of it by practicing indoors um we are going to have a beautiful uh facility that's going to come up in Franklin uh which is going to be uh cricket specific facility right now all of us have been uh practicing and running our uh practices in uh baseball facilities now the whole New England area it is going to be the first Cricket specific indoor location that's going to be coming up in uh Franklin but even with that uh over the winters it will be hard for us to go out and play in on in the snow although that is another form of cricket we can discuss one full podcast about um so what we do is uh we go to places like Houston we go to places like California and uh play the games uh uh during during summer but coming back to the season uh H at least our club had a great run uh last year we had three championships hoping to see more uh in the in the upcoming upcoming Championship um so we are almost coming to uh the end of the end of our podcast uh so first of all uh I would like to start with thanking shda and Rahul to come and uh contribute their thoughts and uh uh their experiences of cricket uh in uh in US uh it is definitely a up and coming game I would say but like shda mentioned there has been games which has created history already uh and talking about history do you both know where was the first ever first ever international cricket game played England wrong I'm going to go in with the US you're right oh my God right here in New New York was the first ever Cricket G Cricket International game that was played uh it was against uh USA and Canada in 1800s I don't remember the actual year at this point of time but uh uh that is how much uh uh USA is connected with Cricket or Cricket uh as a game it has got its uh roots in uh in US uh asset so history wise first ever International game was played in USA how does that make you guys feel I'm surprisingly shocked how about you R um I'm very shocked but at the same time I very proud of it because I can think of my country as the first place where Cricket has been played internationally and people has watched that game internationally sh what is one thing very quickly what is one thing you you are looking forward to in cricket I'm looking forward to play a t tournament and like see the experiences everybody has and create my own experience very nice very nice Rahul quickly one one thing you're looking forward to in cricket I'm looking forward to building new relationships making new brothers and see how I progress through this world of cricket awesome and me as a dad and as a coach and uh seeing you guys uh play that game gives a lot of fun so have fun with the game have fun with uh uh with the learnings that the game is going to give you be kind to each other and more so like you said be kind to yourself yourself which is which is very important uh and with uh with that uh we can learn a lot of things uh from cricket and uh progress forward there is a there is a huge potential and a and a a great great uh future for uh uh youth Cricket to grow and the cricket in general to grow uh in this country uh us as we know is a place where uh All Good Things Thrive and and uh uh it is a it is a sports Centric country I would say uh lot of sports Thrive over here uh so Cricket has got its own future in there so that's it uh thank you shredda and Rahul for accompanying uh for our first ever episode of uh stump mic conversations hope to have you guys back again in this and have more uh insightful conversations um before we end this podcast cast I just want to say I am shocked how much we've grown throughout the years first it was just like this small facility where there's like three coaches and I can't believe now we're doing a full podcast thank you sh that that is very insightful and very encouraging uh and hope we uh grow 10 folds 20 folds and uh uh get everybody together and build a community together who is uh good to each other thank you guys thank you so much and thank you everyone for tuning in um hopefully the goal is we're going to bring uh more of these podcast more informations with respect to Cricket and uh someday probably we will talk some things uh Beyond Cricket too so till then we're going to uh meet you guys uh back again thank you

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USD 264 staff student parents stakeholders and anyone with uh watching us on YouTube today I appreciate the opportunity to come to you with our first superintendent update of 2025 I can't believe it's already February 1st uh we've had a what felt like a really long January with extended breaks uh hiccups with weather and just an enormous amount of sickness that was going through the district uh during that time but we appreciate everybody's patience appreciate everybody's understanding of all the decisions we have to make and we're looking forward to finishing off this second semeer uh strong so just like we do every month we start off with really just kind of looking at our strategic plan and the four goals that we have there and then understanding kind of hopefully that we can communicate why are we doing what we do what are we actually going to do and then how are we actually going to achieve this so um this month we're really going to focus on updating uh some of the information that the board decided um and made decisions on in December in regards to our non-resident student enrollment and uh how that plays a role into our upcoming future uh nonacademic or non-resident uh enrollment status um so the what first off in December the board had to uh update their policy if they were going to make any changes and they didn't make any uh changes to their policy and then start working on updating their capacity limits for the 2526 school year um since the board decided they wanted to go with an unlimited capacity uh we are we are not going to have to wait until May to determine that capacity so we went ahead and posted that information and also Reed our student good stand Standing policy which focuses on grades attendance and behavior um so in doing that we had to make the decision about the policy in December the board went ahead and made the policy about the capacity so that we could begin uh the process of accepting out of District enrollments um some of the reasons the board went from a conservative approach last year uh to this year was just a lot of the unknowns about how the law was going to happen what all uh was going to take place and as we found out there was only about 5% of students across the state of Kansas that actually um were a part of this open enrollment plan that there was not much movement or much change also as part of this as we've looked in having unlimited capacity but using the student good standing uh policy to help um understand if if we can accept students or not it really took us back to what the USD 264 policy on open enrollment was prior to the start of this law so it really just took us back to where USD 264 felt comfortable and where we've always been is that we've accepted all students from out of District as long as they a student in good standing so how are we going to do this so if if you know someone or you're talking to someone and they are wanting to apply and go to school at USD 264 next year have them go to the school website and go to the required uh uh required postings under the district information Tab and then they'll see non-resident student application linked there uh they need to print that off fill it out give all the information as accurate as possible and then uh mail that in or scan it email it to the central office and then they can go on and pre-register Via Power School pre-registration is not enrollment pre-registration just gathers a lot of that demographic information so when in time for enrollment happens um they are able to already have a lot of that data set up so it's it'll be a quicker and easier process from there uh we still have left to review the student records and score to the rubric and then notice notify the students of their acceptance so that's the practice um that we will go through to get non-resident students the timeline of that is when this will all happen so starting January 1st that application is now live and we have to start accepting applications from January 1st to June 15th for all non-residents and this is again only students that are currently not living in USD 264 and currently not going to school in USD 264 so if you're a student or a parent that is going to school in USD 264 currently but live out of District you're in that uh you're already enrolled for next year and part of our count uh unless it's evaluated that you're no longer a student in good standing and then we'll not ify that by May 1 After we receive those applications we have the um timeline through July 15th to review all of those student records and the applications then notify the parents after July 15th um of those acceptance which could happened before doesn't mean uh we have to wait till then it's just by the time we get all the information back uh we have to start notifying then then those students will enroll and then each year we will review those students who are in good standing uh or not whether they can maintain staying enrolled at USD 264 um so that is a little bit of an update real quickly on our current um non-resident student policy also our non-resident student application process again we're always wondering about how we can just be one degree more how can we get better 1% better each day uh so that at the end of the year we're 365 per better than we were a year ago and having some of that compounded effects to be as great as we can be to help out all students and all staff again if you have any questions here's my contact information or if you'd like to schedule a visit to come in and visit about this or any other topic that you like please reach out and set up a time we're always looking forward to engaging with our community and with our stakeholders if not have a great day and we're looking forward to catching back up with you at the beginning of March

I keep my voice um we welcome everybody here tonight to our school board meeting we're going to start out with a prayer or start with Pledge of Allegiance followed by a prayer I pledge Al to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liy and justice for all Our Father in heaven we are grateful for uh this opportunity we have to come together here as school board members administrators here this in this school district we're grateful that we were able to travel here safely grateful that all the the kids and the buses and everyone was able to travel back to their homes safely here this evening in this weather we're grateful for for uh the opportunity we have to to be here to meet tonight to reorganize to have our board meeting and to make decisions that will benefit this school district in this and this community we're ask that we may be directed and guided in those decisions that we may do those things which will be pleasing unto the we ask to bless those and protect those especially our students as they travel here the next week or so that the weather's cold or or winry that they may be protected and we say and ask this in the name of Jesus Christ amen am all right well we're gonna open out we're going to start an organizational meeting uh got to call that to order okay I don't think there's any revisions to the agenda so we're going to go right to uh the oath of office for our new school school board members and reelected so we don't have any new school board but we got reelected so going turn that over to Josh thanks we can we can do all three of you at the same time oh go ahead and stand raise your right hand and repeat after me I state your name swear or affirm that I will support the Constitution support constition of the United States of America of the United States of America the constitution of the state of Indiana constitution of the state of Indiana and the laws of the United States States and the laws of the United States and the state of Indiana and the state of Indiana I will Faithfully execute the duties of my office will Faithfully theice as a member of this governing body as a m of this body so help me God so help me go and then I'll just need each of you to sign that I'll notarize it and get it on file with count [Music] all right under new business we need to reorganize the board of education for uh 2025 and guess we'll start out with the election of our president is there any motion second I nominate Scott president second we got a motion to elect Scott Hopper as the president all those in favor say I any oppos all right motion passes nomination for vice president I nominate Christian second that got a motion second to elect Christian Ros as our vice president all those in favor say I any oppos all right motion passes and we have a motion to elect our secretary nominations second got a motion a second to elect Kevin rman as our secretary all those in favor say I opposed passes legisla Delegate for isba annual convention nom second got a motion second to [Music] ECT Jeff Porter as our isba anual convention delegate all in favor say I I he opposed and representative to the har gon or Board of managers [Music] second motion second to nominate Matt bll board managers all those in favor say I oppos all right motion passes okay all right we'll move on to the recommendation to appoint the corporation attorney and so I recommend we approve the law office of downs tany and pentu PC as attorneys at the rate of $220 per hour I make the motion to approve that second okay got motion a second to uh retain our attorneys that we've had for $220 an hour all those in favor say iOS okay the appointment of Corporation Treasurer and Deputy Treasures so I recommend the appointment of Dr Chris as corporate treasur and also recommend Laura be as deputy treasur and at the current Bond of 200,000 be continued for each Elementary bookkeepers 10,000 and high school bookkeepers 20,000 as per indana a code D16 so second motion second to approve our corporate treasur and our Deputy treasur all those in favor say I I any oppos next for the salary of board members all right the current salary of board members is $2,000 per year with a per DM of $100 per attended regular school board meeting the Harker and career center representative will receive an additional per them of $25 per meeting attended not to exceed 12 meetings the maximum salary cannot exceed $2,000 and so I make that recommendations again for this year a motion a second to establish the salary of our board members as stated all those in favor say I oppose right mileage rate um as per in our actual teacher contract I recommend the mileage rate for all School Employees be the same as the amount of the current teacher Master contract at 49 cents per mile so moved second motion second to establish the mile mileage reimbursement rate for the school district all those in favor say I I any oppos right last and really appreciate uh the board scholarship so this tradition was started in 1994 each board member contributes $0000 annually towards two $500 scholarships one each norfield and Southwood the board selects recipients from the application submitted each spring so I would recommend that you guys would do that again if you so choose second motion is second to establish our board keep our board scholarship $500 for each school all those in favor say I iose next we have the appointment of local Education Agency officer and I recommend that the board appoint the superintendent of M wers County as the Lea um or local education officer for the insurance ensuing year with authority to file applications for federal funds on behalf of the school corporation so [Music] a motion to second to point Mike T fav as our Lea officer all those in favor say iOS and so we have to um by law required to place legal advertisements in our County newspaper so I by law we required to do this so I recommend that you officially approve the Indiana plane dealer which is the new name for the previous wach plane dealer serving wach honey in in Miami County is that new yes I mean it's new as of I don't know how long ago probably we are still proud subcribers at my home so a motion to accept the a motion second to select the Indiana plane dealer as our legal advertisement all those in favor say I I opposed all right and now for our other entities that we work with I recommend our continued participation with WAP and Harland C Center to facilitate better accountability with the State Board of accounts and the Department of Education and a lot of other things so got a motion second to approve that we continue to participate with WAP and Heartland cve center all those favor say I I and finally unless we have any others that you want to add to this I recommend to approve the school board appointment of a non voting member to the county Redevelopment commission current member is Kevin Bowman recommend that Mr Bowman be in that position second all right we got a moot second to approve Kevin Bowman as our school board appointment for the non voting memb of County Redevelopment commission all those in favor say I I all right passes anything else guys have this all right we'll journ all right next on our agenda we're going to have a board of Finance meeting going to call to order um the we're guess yes declare a board of education as a whole can constitute the board of Finance we need to elect the president of board of Finance nominations recommendations for that I move use the same officers for president secretary this all um got a motion second to elect scottt hoer as the president of the board of finance and Kevin Bowman as secretary Board of Finance all those in favor say I I the opposed motion passes um oh this is Chris yes so as uh part of our Board of Finance meeting we have to review any investment uh policy or strategies that we have we do not have a a formal investment policy uh because the only thing that we uh gain interest off are monies that are in our accounts our bank accounts we don't invest them into other um areas uh to gain interest at this time um and if we ever choose to do so we'd want to come up with a more formal investment policy or strategy um before doing that so this just outlines what I'll have you for a second we're since we were doing something a little newe this this [Music] meeting no I got set to open work [Music] all right sorry thank you all right help get so all this does is outline what interest we earned uh in 2024 uh through our our uh cash balances um with our first Farmers Bank account and so overall it was a very good year when it came to interest amounts um probably the highest in recorded history for MSD of w bash count at um just over $1.5 million on interest and that rate of interest varied throughout the year from 4.48% to 5.35% at its highest any questions on that Chris okay moving on to that as part of our Board of Finance meeting we also have to review um our uh fiscal indicators uh with the doab uh and so I'll kind of go through and highlight some things beyond that we usually kind of do that at the end uh but if we start at the beginning Mike oh that's what I was looking at that earlier that's what was scrolling you can scroll up or down or you scroll sideways and so I looked at this earlier and that's why I was down all the way on the goals I was finished with this whole presentation okay here we go well it should once you start it it should yeah no I could swap well there well now Mike Chris here those fingers [Music] up this is the first time we've done it this way and so um we're using Google Drive and it will work very very well we just have to work out the keys or your screens are easier to read plus I can zoom it too to see so you can really see it right that okay good okay so um this slide just outlines what our actual expenditures were for 2024 in uh those budgeted funds um that we approved um back in the fall so that was what we actually spent in the First Column the second column reflects what our budget was uh set at in in the fall for 2025 and that third column shows what our budget was approved for by the dgf for 2025 which would also include 2025 tax levy rates and amounts which is reflected in the operations fund and R and Debt Service along with that potential tax cap impact uh which was an estim estimated amount that we uh reflected in our budget for 2025 so that First Column just kind of gives you a comparison of what we actually spent to what our budget is going to look like in that third column um for 2025 so if you move continue to move down you see that in a graph of how that is broken down uh so that is our actual breakdown for our total budget for those funds that doesn't include all the miscellaneous funds that we also deal with but these are the ones that we have to get approved through the DTF so that's a breakdown of that um and then there's a breakdown of the actual or excuse me the estimate that that we used for the education fund compared to what that actual amount was at so there's not much change or difference in that so any questions about the education fund okay you go to this next slide not going to go over this but if you click on the link it'll take you to a u a Google sheet that has a breakdown of our his history from tax rates to levies and some other information that we've seen before as part of our budget process um and again this spreadsheet or this uh document will be on our website so anybody will have access to it to be able to go back and look at it um here's a uh then we move into our property tax assess valuation you can see that 2025 we had an increase in our our assess valuation as a district and you can see that as well in the next slide which is the graph of that increase um and so we have the actual amounts compared to what we had gotten as an estimated amount when we did some of our studies through policy analytics uh when we were going through the referendum so leads us to our certified tax rate um of where we're at leading up to 2024 um and so that shows our historical total tax rate moving to where we kind of fit into as a district compared to the state so just above the median um where that's concerned and then uh compared to our surrounding districts uh the next slide I usually leave on we don't really need to talk about it a whole lot again we've been borrowing uh and we look at uh we just did another borrowing uh for a 2024 Bond so that just can kind of shows how those Bond rates have fluctuated over the years which leads us into those those bonds and other tax rates uh have an impact on how we operate our operation fund and so there was the estimate that we did in the fall breakdown compared to what that new actual breakdown is for the 2025 U operation fund so again not much difference there's no change in the actual amounts but you might see some slight changes in the breakdown of where those are allocated for but not big differences uh in those which then leads us to the real portion of the presentation which is the fiscal indicators so we're required to review those fiscal indicators remember that these fiscal indicators are actually a year behind so they do not reflect the end of 2024 they actually reflect the end of 2023 so when they release them they for the in 2023 because they don't have the 2024 data yet collected so the first slide is just a basic information related to fall student counts net assess values and and District population that first chart is related to ADM so it shows you fall and spring AMS in a bar graph I like to look at it in a line graph uh and so here I've shown it in a line graph for the fall ADM count so you can see where we've been over the past 15 years or so which then leads us to our fund balances so on this website you can go to the doab website and you can play around with any school corporation but our school corporation as well you can look at specific funds you can look at it overall I just took a picture of the whole thing uh and so this represents all those funds there Capital funds debt funds education funds federal funds Etc so it shows what those fund balances are at the end of each of those years so you can see which ones have grown and then I just highlighted the ones that I pay special attention to uh through some of our cash flow projections and that would be things related to uh our education fund operations fund food service and so forth and so that's related there in the fund balances uh and then this next slide represents our our uh deficit Surplus so revenues and expenses and it takes in all of our revenues takes in all of our expenses uh and it shown in that chart and so when you have more revenues and when you do expenditures then you have a surplus and so that's what's represented there in the yellow I like to I use this graph because it Compares it to our ADM uh and our basic tuition support uh which is driven by our ADM so the basic Grant which is the blue that's driven by our ADM so I like to make sure that our basic Grant dollar dollars are in line with our expenditures and then anything above that Revenue would be hopefully a benefit to our our balance our our fund balance and so I always try to make sure that the blue line and the red line are somewhat relatively close together because that is the that is specifically the dollars related to what we receive in ADM and then the green would represent not only that any additional Revenue that we may get for other things um fund balance has a percentage of expenditure so this represents U that over time so our fund balances have increased over time um and so they've increased at a a rate maybe even higher than what our expenditures have been which is a good thing so fund balances are in a healthy spot this next slide represents revenues and how those have shaken out uh based off of different types of revenues whether it's state revenue whether it's local Revenue whether it's federal revenue Etc um and that chart lines out there over the years and then the last chart that it mentions is operating referendums which we do not have an operating referendum so that shows a zero at that so those are the do have fiscal indicators that they observe and monitor for all school districts uh and if they feel like there are things that aren't being met to represent maybe a healthy District then they usually reach out and step in or contact UM the school district to see how they can help so next is our SWAT analysis um we've not reviewed this in in a while because there have been some changes over the past um but this is kind of where we left it and I highlighted the things that we've really been piding special attention to here as of lately uh you know we had retiring debt but to help update our facilities and the ages of our buildings and do some things with bringing certain grade levels over to uh certain buildings we've had to borrow Monies to do those things and so uh that has been uh something that we've focused on as a strength with losing that debt we've been able to take the opportunity which is kind of down the next one to better develop a debt management plan uh and create more of a long range plan uh for uh those facilities filies last is our goals we've had three goals we continue to maintain those goals our first goal is to have U an education fund balance that is better than 3 months of Education fund expenses uh and so that shows over the last three years where that monthly average is that three-month average is and where that fund balance has been over that time so we had that goal for Education fund we had a similar goal for operations fund and then a third goal uh just having a safety net through our rainy day fund uh 10% of our education operation fund budget and so that shows that for 2025 our fund budget for those two funds was just over 28 million at 10% that's 2.8 million our current balance on a rainy day is 2.3 point so we're getting closer to meeting that goal uh but it's been a strategy of ours to always take any uh unencumbered fund balances in our operations fund uh and transfer those into rainy day at the end of the year to build that rainy day fund balance of to meet that goal any questions related to that and again we will put this presentation on our uh website questions for Chris else all right now we're going to open our regular school board meeting we've already done pledge of Le Us in the prayer so our future school board meetings uh January 28th February 11th February 25th all right here at 6 o' uh don't think there's any revisions to the agenda so we'll go uh to our public recognition got some donations here recommendation we'll just do all these at the same time approval recommendation to approve a $200 donation from D Bar and Grill for Northfield wrestling recommendation to approve a $350 donation from Blake houon for North cheerleading recommendation to approve a $5 donation from Deon Beller for Southwood Elementary classroom stat recommendation to approve a $250 donation from Southwood booster club for Southwood wrest wrestling and a recommendation to approve $400 ation from Brian and Michelle Ross rice sorry for nor wrestling got a motion second to approve those donations second got a motion to second to approve all these donations all those in favor say I I you oppos and as always we like to thank all those that do donate to help these organizations move forward and to get better um we skip recation Yes except the ones I have specifically so we turn over yep so because of the weather um our staff that was going to be here are not coming so that's going to be changed to another date but we do have some that some of the principles gave to us first of all this is from Mr Snider says to to whom it may concern in a world that far too often focus on negative actions I want to take a moment to recognize some positive actions of several of your students after the boys varsity basketball game Saturday 12:14 I noticed several at least three perhaps more students come back into the stand shortly after the crowds have dispersed each of them were picking up various pieces of trash that remained in and around the student section bleachers it was great to show a pride citizenship and I just wanted them to know their actions did not go unnoticed nor unappreciated well done to those students as well as the parents coaches teachers peers that taught or encouraged such actions and that was sincerely impressed Peru tiger parent Dan May that was very nice um and also from Northfield for Mr Snider official John Scott submitted an ihsaa Exemplar Behavior report for girls basketball on 12724 at Logan sport Mr Scott said loogan sport host of norfield and girls basketball the norfield coaches players and fans all displayed positive spirit and sportsmanship throughout the contest well done um I'm going to do one other one and then I'm going to come back and probably change out I'm going to show you just a short video but from Mrs Lewis at Southwood Junior Ryan Nelson has been selected to attend a molecular motion in medicine at indan University on February 23rd and 24th this is a two-day Symposium where he will learn about the latest techniques and molecular biology cenogenics hand cancer therapy including analysis of gene expression imagery technology and loation of cancer cell growth only 50 um recipients are selected to attend the application process was rigorous and included a nomination reference letter from Mrs Reena markster his Anatomy teacher Mrs Mark ster will also attend as a teaching volunteer so we've never heard of that before so that's pretty awesome recognition of what's going to happen there with Ryan Nelson I'm gonna I might get out of this for a second go here real quickly I want to show you something I'm putting this on myself this actually came from Creek and um I want to share that here in a second from that's sixth grade put this on I thought this was just neat goes along let's see if I can get this Supreme Court premieres kindness today we're to tell you about something that awesome kindness It's all about how we treat each other every day respect is a big part of kindness you show Respect by listening Fe follow and when they when you treat others with respect you make everybody [Music] feel hard kindness makes your dreams come true kindness brings us all together and it will make ouro a lot better remember kindness isn't just about being nice it's about making a difference than watching and work [Music] hard so Mr Watkins um actually shared this and I'm get back to what I so I do have something to share here real quickly so Mr Watkins said um I I told him I thought that was very very good I said Thank you obviously it was hard to hear some of them they were talking maybe a little too quickly but or too quick I have had to hand it to our four students who create the video they have done a great job our sixth grade students elected the students on our Supreme Court and those four taking the job very seriously the top of this video they've had meetings with both SRO at norfield to discuss safety concerns and ways to to inspire students to be kind to one another and of course we know in our social media world and all the things going on sometimes people are just not very kind and it's nice to know that um they're teaching themselves and helping each other to to be kinder yeah more Kinder so have one of the here as far as on our presentation next thing on agenda um this has been shown to the Sharp Creek staff also the admin saw it today but this is just a little walk through norfield Elementary you guys have not seen this yet uh but it's really neat um Chris can I put you on the spot you want to narrate a little bit more as I sing you're I'll sing and you narrate so there's no music or there's nothing else so hold it hold it he just put his fingers in his ear that's not being F that's not being I'm going to show that video again so before you get started this was uh done through Bart coex and so this leads us in from the front entrance into that first Corridor as you're coming into the new mainentrance yes the new so okay you ready yep I'll stop so that quarter leads you into the office which that would be where the receptionists would sit leading back to principal counselor teacher workroom areas so the only way to get back into the building would be go through the office throughout that door that first hallway is the hallway that connects to the high school and so you see the nurses office station to the left you got the art and band room down there as well as the rise room and techn room which would be serviced also by high school kids as well then this Corridor uh lead you into some other doors that will lead into the office uh as well as um the custodian custodial area and work room um first set of [Music] bathrooms on the right is where the kitchen line would be through those doors leading into our com area which would also be the area where they can hold School functions there they can eat there and do other things notice the skyline in the back this will also have set up so we can put televisions in there for collaboration stations as well as part of the common area then you can see now this is the area that leads you into the learning area which will have classroom set up on both floors question what's that door right there I don't know what door it's like an overhead door on the right yeah on the right uh the gray spot I think it's just it's not a door okay that's just it's just the ins that's where they'll put like their trash cans and things like that oh right there right there right beside the display case yeah to the right of that yeah that's not yeah that's the for the golf cards seg see the stairway not happen so that leads you to the elevator access into the stairway to get to the second floor so I believe the second floor will house the older students grades super the middle of the hallways have are uh wider so they're kind of inset in there so if they want to have activities or projects group work stuff on the outside they can and those little inss are those light fixtures the the lines up there is that yeah okay so is there tears on the other end just elevator one El this this only the walk through the schoool very safe that walk pretty quick long steps wasn't rails then this will have your third grade classrooms your special ed classroom um and then some just extra classrooms can be used for Library other stuff um throughout the day and then it'll go into one of the classrooms just to give you a look at that layout you see it has Cubbies it'll have a front area with whiteboards and a TV some cabinets similar to Shar Creek uh for storage that leads you into the corridor or not Corridor the courtyard uh area and then storage will they have access out to there just there's only like three spots that will have access out the I know if so anyway that's uh it was exciting to see that um because of course we've been seeing a lot of things happening but not something like that and so over Christmas break we had one of the uh one of our meetings with W I did ask since it was so exciting you know could they have this done for next school year okay is that all you have all I have for now yes all right we'll move on is there any public comment on agenda items uh agenda items we got we need to approve our last meeting December 10th motion second to approve that second a motion second to approve our meetings on December 10th all those in favor say I I opposed uh Financial reports uh claims and payroll 11 and 12 I have any questions on claims on claims or excuse me on payroll um that December 13th pay uh reflects that teacher appreciation Grant dollars that we spent um so that's why you see a little bit of an increase there in payroll for that particular pay and then that last pay is pretty standard questions that second to approve second motion second to approve our claims and payroll 11 and 12 all those in favor say I I any oppos Financial summary uh so I already spent a lot of time talking about finances so I'm not going to go into too much detail but I I did give you a lot of information here as well so look through it if you have questions but here we have our fund balances for the end of the year so this is where we would have ended at uh for 2024 my slider need to keep going um cash flow for Education fund so this just shows you the actual amounts I'll start working on the estimated amounts for 2025 so this just kind of shows you what actually happened for that um calendar year and I've given you several information included with that that I've gotten that talks about some differences in uh performance updates and and uh dashboards for expenses and revenue but I'm not going to go into that in detail that's just more for your home uh per so look at that if you have questions feel free to reach out so you keep sliding then that leads us to um our transfers from education fund operations fund so as you can see for 2024 we transferred roughly 9.28% of our education fund to operations uh which is a little less than we typically have done um typically we've been around the 12% Mark and part of that is for two reasons yes we did transfer a little bit of less dollars but we also had a large transfer uh when we closed our TBR fund and put it into our education fund so that means that Revenue increased in that breakdown and so that also would have an impact on lowering that transfer amount how many it was just over 1.2 million and so that is earmarked only for TBR we can't use it for bargaining we can't use it for that but it's even though it's in in our know my concern that it'll get lost not lost it's better misused lost it's my concern as well it'll be a challenge to uh keep track of and and my fear is is that those years that we have large TBR expenses it may look like overall our education fund is losing money but you know we got to I want to make sure we understand whether that was caused because of tpr or caused because of other expenses like computer refresher and we kind of I think streamline that a little bit by doing it through those lease payments so we we know what to expect from year to year versus having one large lump sum come every four years or whatever that ends up being so I just want to make sure that you know that you know if we're if the money is you because we're going to lose money on the TBR end because we're not getting enough money back from the state to cover all of those costs and we can't charge anymore and so um um that will be the tricky spot I went down this road a few meetings ago but I'm still trying to understand the rationale for doing without fun other than if it is they don't want tracking of dollars coming back in to recover those dollars in which is crazy at one time they put they had a bill that they were going to get rid of those dollars and just say they dumped them into basic Grand dollars so you couldn't even you wouldn't even know what you got would just charged doing all that we would just get they would just they said they would add it into what they give you per student and so you would have no idea what dollars then would be Associated for TBR yeah in addition too they're so far in the re with some of the stuff we're figuring out crants for like you know maybe say years from now this is what your TBR should have been 2024 when you how how you hold an accountable and how do you budget with that I just think transparency you want that know how much school district is putting expenses all well they they can we can get that by how we code it they can see how much we spend on textbooks but but I think the real reason is is they decided to fund textbooks but but not enough so so I mean have has there been any discussion about why they can't just if they want to fund it why well there's definitely been discussion about it but that's up to that's up to them legisl just to say how much they're going to put in the budget you know we'll talk that about that a little bit but you know that's be one budget Bill figure all that out anything else Chris nope that's it all right we're going to move on to Personnel we don't have any resignations this time but under employment we have will Wier sixth grade boys basketball Southland High School affected immediately um Denise Burke cook at South of Elementary uh effective six Kyle France head softball at Northfield High School effective immediately case Walker educational interpreter for WAP effective 121 Madison bar 2 substitute teacher MSD affected immediately and Kylie Hampton volunt volunteer theater assistant uh South High School effective immediately transfers uh Stephie Tel custodian transfer from South High School to Metro North Elementary effective January 2nd Monica transferring from W map office manager to msdwc student Information Specialist effective date to be announced and we have some retirements Linda Miller PTA WAP effective 522 of this year Lisa Beaver Tech assistant North and Sharp Creek uh effective us June 6th and Shirley haes sis msdwc effective 930 this year that's it we get a motion second to approve these un move to the SL motion second to approve our human resource report all those in favor say I I any oppos I just want to mention a few um the retirements Linda Miller first of all is a PT assistant um you know many many years here with WAP so we appreciate everything that she's done also Lea Lisa Bieber and and Shirley Haynes all group them a little bit together because you know when they've started um the technology has changed a lot over the years of course and so to keep up with that that's a lot and so we really appreciate all she's done Lisa and then surely she'll be with us all the way through September 30th um the student Information Specialist there um the reports that she has to do are just just incredible through the state of Indiana and all I mean the ADM very very very important position of making sure the ADM different things I I have correct she actually came in um I believe my first year when I mean she's been in different position she's a secretary she was up white she was fountain for a while I think um and when she got this position I remember the very first time she came to me um and I think I was the assistant at the time we were talking about ADM and the ADM was a lot lot smaller a lot lower than what we thought it was going to be and here um some coding was not correct and they were doing all the kids as half timee instead of full time and I just about had a heart attack because that's not what we were expecting as far as that goes that was all fixed she did it she has a fantastic memory I could probably talk more Linda and Lisa if I work with them directly but we work with h Shirley directly but she has a a great memory um doing all the things that she does with all the thousands of kids that we have and so we'll definitely miss her um we'll put a lot of pressure on Monica to uh be able to take over and do and that's why it says to be determined because they're actually going to share a little bit for a while she's going to be training her um as she uh progresses out of the as Monica transfers out of the office manager position of WAP into the new position so it's really nice that we have that time period where they can do that cross training or that training so she's prepared to those very important jobs that we have to have because of course ADM is the finances that we get Revenue so it's very important with all the other U forms that we have so all the other things go along with that so anyway thank you very much for all their services all right thank you uh reports Matt anything not at this time no anything from mikee you oh yeah I'm next yes um sometimes h no I'm ready so first of all um this is January School Board appreciation month so um put these things together I actually spell my name right on this but thank you for your dedication Metropol school district of w County and n school boards Association are pleased to recognize the extraordinary School Board service of Scott haper also Christian Rosine Kevin Bowman Matt Driscoll and Jeff Porter and so your commitment to Excellence has been truly inspiring thank you for making a difference for our students schools and community and I know that some of you have been together for many many years and some of you have been together just four years going on the fifth year and so we've gone through a lot of things together in the last few years a lot of good things um some challenging things also but I just really appreciate your work um I did not frame these so you had to buy your own frame um so I'm sorry about that so thank you very much I want to give this to you what was that I heard some SN REM marks there at the end get I get some other I can get some quacks later thank you that's one thing I want to share so the other thing I want to share is the legisl I should have bed um the legislative session started on January 8th which was Wednesday um there were approximately 1500 bills that were um introduced and I did count them this morning as of today uh for Education bills alone there are 51 um and Senate bills that are 65 and we know Senate bill one which is the budget bill has not even come out yet so there'll be more than that so one thing that I know that even Dr Coon's uh organization is talking about they were talking about meeting with u representative bany who wants to do some deregulation but we can start about deregulating by not having 51 and 65 new ones but there won't be that many new ones but there will be several new ones um but we just don't know what those are this is the long session very very important year for the Bal um very very interesting uh uh you know bills that are out there so we're just going to keep on track of those and we're just going to have to try to promote as much as we can with our schools and with the budget and different things because there have been a lot of changes in the budget forecast which obviously can change things for all of us so um the sky is not falling in but we have to just make sure that we are um continue to look at things and making sure that we promote and lobby with what we want time to happen as much as POS possible and I will say that not that we always agree with our representative Lissa swe or our Senator Senator Andy Z but they are very much engaged in we ever want to talk to them I know Chris and I have had meetings with both of them um and then and Higgins and I also had meetings with both of them again on another situation um I know Senator Z called me the other day for two different reasons but it's just good that um they are reaching out to ask us questions and opinions and things like that we just hope that our opinion can and that they follow through with with that but again they just have one vote to so just wanted to mention that um if you ever have any questions about anything and you want us to look at anything else um certainly let us know we'll do that um want to talk about the state the 2024 State graduation rate I haven't given that to you yet but that was finally finalized uh typically you could go all the way through October 1 as far as being in that cohort and then they do all the the statistics that they need to do but we have great news um this year uh along with last year um this year Northfield with all the school districts that we we touch um Northfield was the highest at 91.4 % last year was Southwood um and if we combine Northfield and Southwood together um we are the second highest but that's 97.67% and so that's that's very very good news really in essence what that really relates to as far as number numbers go um there were three students from Northfield and Southwood that did not in our cohort that did not graduate that could be a lot of different reasons they could they could have um moved and not enrolled in another school and that would count against us or they could have just dropped out I don't have those specifics I can look them up you want me to look him up and I know our counselors know and our principes know but um you know we want 100% we've had 100% before um but sometimes those situations happen that we can't control if they move out of our district and then they don't attend another school and don't graduate it's really hard to control that part of it um other things that we can control that's why we have a high rate um and all the schools around us do you know fairly well um it's just nice to know you know what we're doing there um I will I want to talk about whites for a little bit you know we do have a lot of students um uh that go into uh whites and also our bridge program so in essence we have um a lot of students that graduate and I'll tell you that number a little bit but just to give you a little historical data to see how whites graduated ation rate has gone up in 2021 it was 52.5 6% you know we would all say that that's a really low number but you also have to remember that they're only with us for a little bit of time and they come from us from all over the state of Indiana and all of them have certain challenges that make it difficult 2022 was 59.71 per 2023 was 61.5 45% but listen to this 2024 74.9 9% graduation rate which is excellent and so if you want to know those actual numbers um that was 143 students that graduated out of 193 here again we would love to have 100% but the people that really understand um in our community um the students that we have that come to us you know for that short amount of time that's a very excellent figure um and so we do want to highlight that even though some people would say well why is it Sol low well we can we can go and we can um maybe go to the Josiah whites and go to the cottages and homes and and talk to some kids and see what they've done because they have been successful and you have to remember the same thing happens there those students haven't graduated um and they are dismissed for what they call release at josi whites if they're released from there um and they don't go back to any school which we have no control of they would be a Dropout and so that would that would count against us so again that's a very good rate but anyway we do want to congratulate Northfield again and Southfield this year um it was last year in 23 South would had the first and that was um at 98.15% so it's just really really good to hear those kinds of Statistics so that's really all I have for my report can you Mr MCD we appreciate yes Mr MCD and Mrs Boon that work together on that and U so good all right Tim you have anything for us so um I feel like it be good to Pig itback where Chris took us with TBR funds and Kevin was talking about that um so our district really invested heavily in technology and we didn't do so much on the curriculum side and I think we're starting to balance that a little more and so you're going to start hearing more about books and and programs and things and so we used s dollars to do that the last couple of years years and so um bring with Chris laying out a budget to try to keep supporting that with giving teachers that curriculum to sort of create that balance and so uh and in that balance really to stretch the TBR as far as we can um so this year every year for six years there's a cycle and it's it's really traditional that's how Indiana's always done it we kind of fell off of that when we went heavier with technology um we may not go back back uh to all the way the other way but I think we're going to find a balance of okay there are certain classes certain topics where they need to have some kind of curriculum particularly like if you're doing a first grade math they need to have this whatever skills you want them to build on the second grade path right like teaching US history I don't lead into another US history class and so the skills that I teach aren't nearly as stackable and so so with that in mind um and the states push for reading curriculum uh there is a law that requires us to get that and um so that's what we're doing this is the year to do that so we're looking at reading curriculum for K to 5 uh and I gave you guys the layout there just a big picture of how that looks um I think really the main thing that as a board member I want you to be aware of is uh on February 11th that's our goal to come with uh options for parent and public review we don't want to rush through something and then have a parent complain about something of course uh we could kind of remind ourselves of our teachers and how where they are of our community values and what we're looking for in book but we do what we will make that available and so February 11th we plan on having that here but it'll probably digital at first but if a member of the public wants to see something I'll be sure to get them a paper copy and so we'll have at least four weeks it ends up being closer to six um for them to look at it make concerns raise any kind of question questions they have and then we'll come as a committee and make our recommendation after listening also to the public there and so you can kind of see there hopefully by March as we'll make that that recommendation to you guys for a final recommendation but we'll introduce the two finalists in February 11th um so that parents and community members that want to see it I know we have community members near here who enjoy seeing that stuff and so uh we appreciate having that input and so let me take a second any questions about that part of it the parents are made aware of this early on as far as this period of Time how are they made aware um well mostly through the school board I mean we'll teachers will be talking about it teachers we've already been talking about it I don't know they send anything home necessarily um and so I don't know any other way that's probably about it um they would have to come here though they to see the actual material or it'll be at the schools it'll be at the schools if they email email me or their pres their or their principal or the teacher absolutely and almost all of actually all of the vendors we're currently looking at right now all have a digital component so you can see the the stuff um and so so yeah yeah but again I would I would remind any parent that I feel very comfortable with all of our teachers that are the communities they are they well attuned to what we expect to see in books for whatever age group what our Community Values represent but for sure that'll be on the Forefront in addition to the academic side of that so then the second thing is this one's a little stickier and I knew Chris had a had a long presentation so I'm not looking to stay much longer just a if you'll switch to three minutes three all right buckle up here you go if you'll go to the next page real fast keep faor and if you guys will see I gave you and I don't know I think Mike shared this with you before um this is the comparison of the new diploma and so you can see on the left column is kind of what most of us are used to seeing with the core 40 and on the right is the new diploma I'm going to highlight just a couple of things this is still unfolding um there are still rules being voted on but more importantly for us there are still interpretations coming from the Department of Education so let me just pause for a second to give you an example like if you look on science technology you can see you used to this year seniors needed six year six credits next year's freshman when they graduate they'll need seven and you can see there's listed it says two stem focused credits that's a legal phrase that has no educational support just yet right like which classes count for that are we going to create a new course or does physics count there or does an a well class there and so the Department of Education is going to release all that stuff in due time and so you probably have a lot more questions just like we do that there just not answers for yet um but I did want to at least introduce that to you so the new diploma actually you have to get 42 credits if you see at the bottom right there um but there is a ton more flexibility there um so it it won't really pose a problem so there are there that's to get the diploma so if you're going to graduate you have to get the new diploma and if you scroll down just a little bit then uh what we'll encourage and what the department is encouraging is kids to choose a seal and so you can choose to pursue an enrollment seal an employment seal or an enlistment seal we will meet with eighth graders and ask them to set a goal for what they want to do when they're 18 um and uh we'll do our best though to pursue to encourage them to Pro the pursue the challenging one right try to do the enrollment try to do the employment or whichever one for them um so that they have options that's going to be a big conversation options so when you're a senior and you decide after all you do want to go to Purdue or you're a senior and you do want to do this thing that you have the option to choose to do it rather than being kind of locked in because as an ath you were saying yourself I don't want to do that I'm just just going to go work wherever um which could be a great job but maybe it's an 18 be like wow I really do want to try something so this system really can lend itself to a kid being stuck in that man I'm going have to take all these extra classes and stuff and so we'll try really hard to convince parents we'll be on parents to join us to push kids to do to again give themselves options none of those are really bad ches but you don't want to be stuck yet well yeah so so that's I guess so that's the concern I know a lot of people had so if you do PI a as a freshman you can get two years into it and you are never going to recoup that you'll have to do a lot of summer school a lot of extra classes I mean you'll you'll have to just put more time which is way harder than to convince an 18-year-old to do a whole extra year of classes right um no year exactly and that's certainly so as you guys as Administration you're going to try to push everyone through that arom as many as we'll try to encourage yeah every kid that has any kind of skill that that may fit in that right if you we will certainly encourage them do that because it will be easier to be on the enrollment track and say okay you know what I really have found my this is what I want to do for employment and do that versus the other other and so again it's just trying to get them there with as many doors as they can choose to get well and that makes sense from a like a parent standpoint just saying okay just just get on that path yeah and then and then that you have more options if you start on the other you're kind of kind of almost committed yeah so how is the college going to look at it just the way they do today they look at it this courses complete yes course completion yeah and so the colleges really pushed that enrollment part there and so um your major colleges that have the most requirements were satisfied with what they saw in the enrollment and so to us for us oldtimers not that you're old with me but I'm time the academic honors diploma fits with the honors seat it's that same kind of thing and so uh they'll talk about so many extra math so many Dule credits so many world languages um so yeah and Michael he showed you there's another one underneath it that says there's a plus seal to be to be honest several of these are really just far-reaching things um some of them you can't even do uh they're still negotiating some of these like for instance I if you can zoom in on the honor seal the first one you see where it says AP scholar with distinction um you won't get notified of that until July after your graduate you graduate in May you can't know like a college board doesn't even release that honor and so the Li and so there are some things here that don't that that are still going to have to be hammered out but but for most of us if you choose the honor seal that's that's that's going to get you into uh any of the colleges where you used to get um and so yeah we will encourage people as eighth graders um it'll have the same challenges but yeah that'll be it and so like I said there's a ton more to go into and I don't I don't intend to skip it and it really isn't because Chris had a lot to say earlier it's mostly because you don't know like until the Department of Education tells us what a stim class is what classes count for math now they're opening that up what class is Cel English um there is a lot more flexibility which we're hoping will be good um and so if you'll go back now to my report there is something though that we need to be aware of one more I think yeah okay so requires 42 credits we are going to expect kids at MSD to earn a seal they won't have to because they can still earn to without but we will push them to that's kind of our what we'll expect from our kids you'll see here um under new required courses so in the new diploma you have to take personal finance in preparing for college and careers well if you've been a student in MSD you're already doing both those classes and so that won't be any change for us at all we've already been kind of doing that fortunately we were kind of well prepared for that actually several other things that I'm not going to get into you're going to hear me say that often we kind of were prepared for some of these ahead of time like it just du tail before we one that was new to us though that we have tried to with our robotics is computer science and so all gruits now have to take a semester of computer science it is a required class and So currently Northfield and South would have teachers that are taking training so they are certified to teach that course in the infinite wisdom of the biocracy uh Camy Ross is teaching computer science and she's teaching it for kids that could actually get a pathway Matt probably when I say pathway like that means they can build credits and they but get a certification kind right her class does not count for the graduation requirement so and so she's qualified to teach kids how to get to that pathway but she's not qualified to get like you have to do it's a whole it's a whole separate course and so anyway uh we are we are planning to offer that computer science course and so next year's freshman will have that option so they will stay on track with the new so I put at the bottom there and I sincerely want to hear your thoughts and questions as we go probably at a Schoolboard meia may not always be the best time to do it because we could really dive down in some rabbit holds of things and I may not have answers and so please as you talk to your friends or you talk to patrons if things come up shoot me an email I'm had to talk to people are kind of do that stuff as new updates come out I'll try to share them with well past three minutes yep oh yeah Mike just lost his [Laughter] over any questions on that all right we'll move on to a new business um yep you me explain this a little bit so uh with the uh this is the second year for the early literacy achievement Grant and we have to have a u resolution uh to be able to pay our staff members um that's already been talked about with our principal Dr K worked on that uh with them we did receive a little like around $6,800 or something that will go to approximately 40 students or 40 students yes like that 40 teachers and U that will be paid out later in February but we just need approval of this um adoption this is very similar to last year just changed the dates uh for this year 2025 something we're required to do so I ask that you approve this motion second second got a motion and second for a recommendation to approve the early literacy Grant all those in favor say I any oppos passes you I think you do yeah I think that was records okay so the next one is uh for the recommendation for the uh flexibility I'm going to start over mcwc haa 103 flexibility waiver um I'm requesting that you approve this resolution that we have to go along with the documentation through a jot form to the doe to go along with what our proposed calendar is for next year our our calendar proposal is to have four PD days in the past we've had three what there's been years we've had four before uh but we changed that the last couple years we only had three maybe three years but now next year we're asking for four again um this is one of those laws that were um they they kind of deregulated it but they deregulated by allowing us to have waivers so there's kind of a bit of time that's spent uh to be able to go through the whole process of the the job form but every year that we've requested we received it the one of the stipulations is that we do have to have the school board approve this and it is uh to w in the code 20-302 D3 instead of having 100 school days 180 school days it would be 176 but the way we get around that is because we have way over the minutes and you can see that the minutes there in the first bullet point right there for elementary um we have to have a minimum of 54,000 uh with the waiver um we still would have I mean we right now would have 62100 with the waiver we would still have 6,720 and for grades 7 through 12 you you can see the minimum there on the right is 648 um without the waiver we have 72,000 with the waiver we have 7,400 so we're still wait I ask that you approve this um resolution for the 103 flexibility weight now a motion second to approve the recommendation for mwc 103 flexibility waiver all those in favor say I I any oppos thank you very much we will be getting that uh job form and all this sent out later this week see if we can approve all right we got recommendation to approve 2025 budget reduction resolution yes so when we had our budget hearing and then submitted to the dlgf and they told us what our budget allocations were um we had one reduction that was in our debt service and that was just so that we could continue to maintain that dollar 10 tax rate just asking for a final approval of the 2025 budget I move for the resolution to be passed motion second direct to approve the 2025 budget reduction resolution all those in favor say I I any [Music] oppos got a recommendation to approve the local income tax distribution resolution so we receive local income tax dollars uh from the county and so we are required to determine where that money uh goes and we've always put it into our operations fund and so I recommend that we continue to do that any have motion second to approve that second got a motion second to approve the uh local income tax distribution resolution all those in favor say I [Music] opposed recommendations to approve 2025 transfers from education fund to operations F so the sbaa requires us well not SBO it's in law requires us to um have a resolution for the amount of dollars that we want to transfer from education to operations fund throughout the year so since we're starting a new year uh we need to do another resolution for that uh with re remaining to stay under that 15% uh requirement and so the amount hasn't changed of $215,000 the most that we've done so far is $185,000 and so that just allows us some flexibility to keep us under that 15 I to that recommendation I'll second that got a motion second to approve the 2025 transfer from education fund to operations fund all those in favor say I any of those got a recommendation to approve a resolution authorizing the treasure to pay the claims yeah so uh this is an annual resolution that we do um just in case for whatever reason we don't have our standard um two meetings a month uh so that we can continue to maintain be able to pay our bills Etc if they a to go down to one or something gets cancelled we can that with approval at the following board meeting for those we got a motion second to approve the resolution raing treasure to pay claims we'll start over with that we got a motion second to approve the resolution authorizing the treasur to pay claims all those favor say I I any [Music] opposed recommendation to approve a Cooperative special exemption pricing for NHS and shs student Locker replacement yeah so as part of uh some of the project work that we've been doing we we wanted to replace the student lockers in the hallways uh at both high schools and um because of the cost of the total amount of those lockers uh reaching over that $300,000 threshold uh we had to either do it through a Cooperative or put it out for bid and so uh usually when we've done these types of projects we've gone through the Cooperative contract and so uh there were some quotes there off of that contract uh for that pricing and the recommendation was to do the special exception onetime project pricing which was a little bit lower um than the other the other quotes installations this Su correct yes I'm just curious the color so we're going to try to color as closely to the um the the way we painted the hallways as close as we can get right come yes does anybody know how old these ones that in there are uh well they were put in I don't know they I know Steve has mentioned that they were put in when he first started with the district so they're at over 20 close to 25 years if not more with that so some of them are pretty bad shape and we'll we're going to make we're going to shrink the Locker size just a little bit as far as the width is concerned we'll place all the lockers which I don't if you remember the old senior hallway had different lockers than everybody else so all the lockers will match plus it'll give us enough lockers that every student could have their own lock six through 12 it says they there's no locks yes so they'll have to provide their own they can provide their own or purchase one that's why they don't get used now that's what I me that saves us a little money as well not worry about locks that type of stuff all right we a motion second to approve that so motion second to approve the Cooperative special exemption pricing for NHS shs student Locker replacement all those in favor say I opposed and last of recommendation to approve overnight field trip to for Shar Creek 6th grade to Summer Lake Indiana May 14th through 16th second a motion second to approve the field trip all those in favor say I finish Business board policy public comment me put you to sleep it's what one question what is TBR in the budget rent textbook rental it's actually cular materials the truth the truth it for board members anything all right we're Jour that's the last one

[Music] we are now live all right you ready yes all right sorry for the delay i' like to welcome everybody and we're going to start out with a pledge allegiance plge Al to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation God indivisible with liy and justice for all say PR us Heavenly Father we thank you today for your many wonderful blessings Lord the gift of life that you give us and the opportunity to serve today Lord I'm asking that you would just overshadow this meeting overshadow our staff the children Lord that we would that we would Minister to that we would teach and instruct I pray today God that you give us wisdom in this meeting that you give us understanding that we would make decisions that best impact our community and these children I pray father today that all that we do would glorify you we pray it in Jesus name amen amen all right the next time on the to go through will be the future board meetings uh February 11th 2020 2 here at 6:00 p.m.

February 25th 2025 6 p.m. and March 11th 2025 here at 6 PM uh there was no revisions to the um we just had a couple um small items yes some on I guess the HR and then a donation a donation also yes okay all right next it uh public recommendation recognation for uh donations first item uh need to approve $100 donation from Holman's Nursery and Landscaping for North girls basketball pink pinkal I guess I'm going to read them all right just read through them all next one to be a recommendation to approve the $50 donation from rowanne First Brethren Church for Northfield athletes in memory of Larry elol uh recommendation to approve the $100 donation from Troy and Stacy bear for Northville girls basketball pink out B all do I have a motion to approve all these second it's been uh motion made second all those in favor go move all right we're going to do one of the most exciting parts of our meeting we're do some recognitions and I want to change the camera here so we can have see them all so I'm going to start out and have Mrs Rebecca Macy come to us so tonight we're going to recognize our Metro north um Elementary staff of the year and teacher of the year uh this is nothing against all the business part of the meeting but this is the most part of the meeting we'll just wait Mr Drake until we get the three of them because I'm going stay out of these I have been staying out of those so anyway so um as MSD of wber County we want to congratulate you on having the uh Metro North Elementary staff of the year at Metro North I would want to give you something here on behalf of First Farmers Bank and Trust uh we always have they sponsor this and we will give you a $50 staff Spotlight um to our online store and so this is this so let's give of Applause the most way um I do want to read one thing that you wrote down so one thing that we do at the end of the year when we do this we have uh teachers or staff can do this but they don't have to they can actually be nominated for the actual District um of the year and so there's one of the questions says why I love my position I asked the staff to write something I want to read what you wrote okay remember I love my position because I get to interact daily with little ones but we in a tender development stage I thought that was very good their first impressions of school and teachers will be formed by my conduct as a teacher in these formative years I also love my peers and the people I work with so I thought that was excellent too yes and so if you want to share anything about your position um I just I love what I do so I'm thankful to have this position and to work alongside that pretty lady back there this is our fourth year so we are definitely good Partners very thankful very blessed yeah let Mrs Moore want to share anything about um so when you think of who you want working with our youngest Learners it is the dynamic Doo of these two ladies it is to work in a classroom um with another adult is sometimes challenging that you need to be able to read each other's minds and be able to give each other a look and be like I'm on it without saying a word and we've got that they do it they do um every student that has the opportunity to work with you is truly truly blessed and Mrs Macy poers her heart and soul into everything she does she sees maybe I'm gonna go with an opportunity for one of our little ones and she jumps on it um and I know that is because they work so closely together she advocates for kids even just simple things like I think we could do this just a little bit better or I'm worried about this little one and needing more time with this she's just always thinking about how she can help impact not just the little ones that are in their room all day long but others and as well as our faculty um I can't I mean it's simple things that you do like clean up after I mean she's the cleaner upper of the sack loung every time we have a carry in I don't know if you knew that or not yes I do know that and it's appreciate and my dishes just turn up wash otherwise they'd be down there for a while um it's just those little things that mrsy does that bring such light to our kids and to our staff and she's just give her another round of applause so picture one all right now we have Miss Amy sterley come to us today see Metro North Elementary teacher of the year let's give her a round of applause did the same thing here so thank you you're welcome thank you so one thing that we can talk about uh uh I'll say 81 rules and I'm not going to say any more about that but you can ask later about why we say 81 rules um some people are thinking right now what that means but but one thing that we really know about Miss Earley the things that she brings uh to the students and I'll let Mr Moore share more too but share this is more share more that was not very good but one things she really does well is um bringing those experiences to the the students a lot of different activities that um I've seen her do we've been a part of some different things that she has allowed us to look at which is really neat U but also just teaching the students um to be the character that they need to be um I actually had an admin meeting today and and we a little clip of a movie and it was about long story but basically what you do in the classroom as far as helping students to learn not just the three hours but all the other things that are very very important in children's lives so we really appreciate what you do that other thank you Mrs laen I could probably go on for hours about um Amy Sterly and just what not all stories I'll just share a few Amy pours everything she has and students and when you look at the Dynamics of her classroom they're why for what her Learners need um in in their way of their academics as well as just in their social and emotional development and she delivers her very best to them every single day um she's not afraid to take risks that always it seems like the rewards are huge um I think it was on Friday that I sent her an email about opening up her classroom to a free- service teacher and that takes a lot of trust because you're given up your little ones for someone and she said yes and that's just continuing to pay forward for our for our future teachers and so um it's just amazing the more children two of the three would say am gives the best their mother gives them the look and then they you know back up right next to youa um it just gives her very best to every student that she reaches and isn't afraid to keep learning no you have to it gets boring if you don't keep learning you like to share any more I would like to share something and that is the fact that what you said about Mrs Macy and Mrs Holly in that team I've seen firsthand cuz my baby they were her first cry they were her first school experience and they made that girl love school from day one and they love she loved them and Tenley knows who when somebody really loves her and she knew that year that she was greatly loved by them and I will always love them because of that so not about NE about them like I needed to say that because I've seen it firsthand they're wonderful let's give Amy a round of applause take a picture so we can have three of you are you in the middle yeah no perfect and I'll walk up here because I get yelled at brilliant with the do with the feed not with whatever thanks again I know you need to take off so thanks for coming and support from other staff members too thank all right we have a presentation and Mrs Becky Bradley who is our food service director um is going to present and I don't know both of them Carrie is going to come up to at the same time so I'll have you so I can have you on camera right here yep looks good and yeah so we can you can see the board people can see you live on Facebook we are on Mr Drake right you yes I checked us before I started so I don't know why I didn't work the first time but we're good so anyway they're going to share a little bit about uh food service and some different things that are going on and I'm going to swipe here so I can get if it works again so I'll put pictures and you tell me when to move the pict pictures too so my name is Becky Bradley I'm the food service director I've been do this for over 30 years how many over 30 so I'm going to ready to retire here hopefully in a year and a half so things work out but uh last e-learning day my step all got together and we took the filer's course from the state and everybody passed with fing College that's a lot to learn and then um last Friday the St had been for state inspection at Northville and she was very impressed with the quality of food the quantity of the food and she's just still really impressed with everything the salad bar the food of the hot tray look great she's impressed with the Bri on the alart and the kids were gobbling the food down she loved it so we got A+ our inspection so she very with that now to uh I had a lady approach me about a year ago that she wanted to put in a school garden and I'll have to be honest at first I was kind of hesitant because I was understaffed kind of drained and I thought oh that's the last thing I need is a school garden but with the trend now Farm to school everybody's doing it so I kept an open mind and believe it or not it was not that at all I was impressed how smoothly things ran due to this lady so this is my staff my two uh dishwashers are out pulling weeds and harvesting cop and they actually love doing it they do it every day if I let them I told three days a week so but this is two of my uh dish Brom ladies and they're while they're working this is some of our first harvest and the kids just Lov it we put it on our salad bar we put it on our hotline for the salads and the kids just doubled it up um next picture yeah ahead this is some more of the produce that we had now the the remain I have to be honest we bought that she had gr that yet we're working on it with the towers and stuff but the vegetables on the left was P from the school garden South okay the next one and here you can see the variety of vegetables we put on our salad bar and hopefully we're going to try some new vegetables this summer to help with this too so we're going to get together next couple weeks and we're going to give her our List of Demands and she's going to try to grow it for us weer demands yeah what the kids like what they don't like so that kind of shows you what we do at our Celler bar so is there another slide yes this is just a couple okay this is the tower that's in each of the schools this was taken at South elentary of course there's nothing growing right now but I think they're working on some stuff so each of the schools have a tower and this is one of the other high schools this is salad bar too so this shows you the variety of stuff that we offer to kids every day data basis so but I'll have to admit it went a lot smoother a lot it was great I mean my girls didn't even complain about when they fight who going to go out the garden and one day I was walking by the garden there's kids out there and they were praying strawberries and them cheeks they were pring you know the tomatoes and they go are we in trouble I said no that's what it's for help you solve and they thought that was great they were just out there just trying all kinds of stuff she was great about letting the kids do that I thought that was wonderful so this is what the kids what staff call The Garden lady they don't know her name they just call her the garden lady the kids call her the garden teacher so that's the way we address her but this is Carrie for the Purdue Extension and she's going to talk a little bit about her program okay um again like Becky said my name is Carrie I'm with kue University's nutrition education program and um I answer to the crazy Garden lady the crazy food lady you know all kinds of things um so I've got a couple of programs that I want to highlight tonight why I'm here with you all um but first of all I want to know where who phrased or who coined the term dream big was that a you thing a board thing how long has that been around that's a long time it's been 10 years now so it was a corporation thing that we did together dream big work hard was our logo year the past year um in my role I have truly come to appreciate and recognize that MSD truly does embody that from the bottom or from the ground up um you guys have allowed me to dream big which a lot of people don't um Mike has also been kind enough to guide me sometimes and saying whoa Carrie like hold on you know there's a chain of command and a way we do things um just because I get so excited and passionate about the work that I do um So currently I'm in the metropolitan school districts uh in some way in all of the schools um we have like Becky said last year um I approached turn and asked hey let's do a garden um I approached several people and said hey let's do a garden um Becky and Amber Lewis were kind enough to say show us what you got so we had to of course find a champion teacher out at Southwood tap of a Klein who teaches sixth and seventh grade science was kind enough to um accept the opportunity uh to work with us and in the course of a couple of months I mean we got the first grant funding March want to say March 15th I got the award it was this lowlevel grant $1,500 um for $1,500 we were able to transform a Barron Courtyard into a teaching experience a learning experience for students um we put 300 pounds of produce into the school cafeteria last year um as well as into the fax room for culinary lessons um we had a fun day that we took the blender bike out there and let the kids get pepper and tomatoes and we made salsa um so the garden had great success um fast forward to July is um we got another award so we have $3,000 from whole uh the whole kids Foundation this year to keep that Garden going and to uh produce sustainability over the next couple of years uh eventually we're going to talk about cows and chickens and goats I don't know we'll talk about that later another time um so the the garden is just it's been a true blessing like Becky said um the staff enjoys it it's a therapeutic moment for them to be able to get outside and get their hands dirty kids love it I had a little one approached me last week and asked me hey remember this alsoa this year can we do cucumbers so I've coordinated with my health and human Sciences educator we're going to do refrigerator pickles this year and so I just it's been a lot of fun it's been a great opportunity for the students um for the staff and for myself to be able to provide that um I'm excited to see where it goes from here um in addition she showed a picture of the tower up there um this was an opportunity that came through a partnership with the Community Foundation um in Indiana we obviously have a very short growing season um and unfortunately that's something I'm passionate about so I needed to figure out ways to break that barrier so I approached um all of the administrators and said hey do you guys have a champion let's let's do this I'm going to make it easy so we were able to obtain a tower garden for each of the schools and they're all using them very differently um here you'll see Southwoods it's in their main Commons area and um most of the others I know at Metro North she keeps hers in the classroom we keep that out in the common okay in the common area and then a couple others are doing them in the classroom for a variety of things um we have done salad parties out at Southwood Elementary that the rise room hosted because they grew um and that truly was a great experience to be able to see these 10 Unique Individuals that have so many obstacles in front of them um take the opportunity to become farmers and engineers and Educators as well as they gathered the entire second grade student body and told them about the process walked them through what they did um where their food comes from it doesn't come from the grocery it comes from our canans and our Earth and so it was really great the C70 little people get excited about lettuce like literally when we say salad party it was plates of lettuce and I had students telling me I don't like salad I don't like lettuce I'm allergic to lettuce they all tried it every single child tried it and several came back for more so um we've got I think it's Sharp Creek right now they're teaching statistics and probability with their tower garden so so many different opportunities cross curricularly that um I'm happy to be able to provide and that you guys have given me the opportunity um third this is my baby right now so I'm I'm very passionate about what's going on at Southwood uh impact pantries um they this is the one where Mr ke paper had to say whoa like don't get excited and don't jump into it without all the right people in place um and again Amber Lewis said hey I'll be that person so in October we received or over the summer I received money from the health department um and in October we decided we were going to Pilot our first impact Pantry which is a food and wellness pantry and it is at Southwood and we currently um currently there's funding in place for 11 schools throughout L County to receive these um I think that Southwood just wanted to display and demonstrate the success before we start having those conversations elsewhere um I I think that success speaks highly in some of the testimonies that we received um Amy long gathered some some quotes from people that have used this Petry and um I'm just going to share a couple of those with you because I could go on on um the food pantry at Southwood High School has been a huge blessing to my family my kids look forward to seeing what we receive every week I've been able to prepare wonderful meals from the items we get I really appreciate having the food pantry available at our school and I would love to see it in Incorporated in other schools so families can benefit um another one that really really struck me I'm thankful for impact pantries given the economy and how everything has gotten expensive impact pantries help to bridge this Gap with fresh brots and vegetables along with meat and eggs it has helped cut down on our weekly spending I also enjoy the recipes that are provided it has created some fun in the mundane of daily cooking I'm very thankful for being able to participate in Impact pantries so impact pantries again aside from the food uh we also thrive on the wellness end of it so we're able to provide items that families might not otherwise have access to um such as laundry soap hygiene items feminine products um and of course you know the food that we spoke of and a lot of that's able to be done through Partnerships with MPS who Pro who provides our eggs weekly um we work with Dows who provide apples for us um Second Harvest and Oswalt Thomas and now we are happy to announce that we have also partnered with Wabash County um the community sell grants we have received $75,000 to help both impact Ines through um ready for this here's the data on it I'm a data girl so I've got to share um on average we're serving about 22 families a week we have had weeks that we serve up to 32 um and and as low as 14 so about 132 individual family or individuals each week are service through this pantry and we send out about 800 pound of food every single week um and that would not be possible without your incredible nurse at Southwood Amy long she has been a rock star to the point now that I'm able to step back and she runs the show so it's been it's been a great opportunity and I'm super excited that you're allowing me to you know help service the families of School District so I will say as you can tell she has a lot of enthusiasm about this um and since she called me out though a couple times I will tell you in the best way I've learned from you and I've grown um the enthusiasm is great it's always um better to have somebody slow down than to try to motivate him because you don't have to motivate Carrie U being passionate about what she's doing so we really do appreciate that and we appreciate the people are getting involved I think we said that we would have you know Southwood has been good um with uh being kind of Up pilot and seeing some good things happening and maybe some other changes later but uh we do appreciate you and appreciate Becky actually getting involved with some of the meetings that you have as far as uh helping uh others in our community so we do appreciate all the things you have done and and uh we appreciate your enthusiasm many handn light work so I thank your staff and your team out there so give her a round of applause hi Mr question yes how a chicken Co look in the courtyard chicken C I thought we were doing Hogs and pigs all the things and I'll do theal St asked me they said what can you do to cut back on our work as far as maintaining the courtyard I said oh I can do all kinds of things we we can do that all right well thank you very much for your presentation you're welcome to stay for the rest of meeting or we'll let you be dismissed now thank you yeah next item is a public comment on agenda items only do we have any see none uh next item is we need to have approval of the from last meetings on January 14th and we had three different meetings if you recall um it's all right I think we'll just go ahead and approve all three of them uh we had the regular regular meeting reorganization meeting and the board of Finance meeting do we need any discussion on any of that or have a motion we move second have a motion is Z all those in favor so move uh next item would be the approval of the financial reports and the first one would be claims together questions about claims I have them all right here and payroll if if you want to go on to payroll if there's no questions about claims uh pretty standard um as Dr K was talking about last week had or two weeks ago we had two different ones but one was allow of pay out of um some different um grants and different things like that this is pretty standard I move set claims in favor second then uh a motion on a second all those in favor say I and last two weeks ago again uh the board of finance and also regular um all those financials were given to you so there's no wait till the end of the month of course for February uh to do the end of the month so I think we' be ready to go on to next one we'll go through HR got a nice list here the first one is under uh employment uh Debbie Martinez off stranger w m uh fact 48 of 2025 uh resonation Chelsea Kirland what's do the he's got updated oh yeah I'm sorry oh sorry go here off sorry all right back up here next one under employment would be Amanda oon uh fifth grade girls basketball uh Southwood Elementary uh starting effectively immediately uh Karen is that clar fifth grade girls basketball also South Elementary starting immediately uh next one would be resonation Chelsea Kirtland prek th I guess teacher Southwood Elementary that's the end of the school year 20 24 2025 then we have uh leave 186 number 186 uh that's to begin February 6 2025 for approximately four to six weeks moving on uh we have retirements uh Larry vaugh teacher whites uh that's going to happen end of the 20 24 25 school year and then uh we have Mike ke fav superintendent uh he's going to retire at the end of uh I guess it' be 6:30 of 2025 you read that correctly okay don't want to see that but that's going to happen Okay uh then now we're going to go through Northfield spring coaches um we got quite a few here looks like we have 22 of them so bear with me number one would be Kyle France head softball then we have looks like three assistant softball they are Avery Isley Cory Fuller Jamie R the next one would be Abby Mitchell that'd be a volunteer assistant softball we have Joseph Mitchell will be the head baseball Remington monz assistant baseball along with Braden rip Wier assistant baseball as yeah those two the next two uh Sam burkov would be the JB assistant baseball Micah Higgins JV baseball Bryce campus assistant baseball Kevin leming assistant baseball Maran M Head tennis Cassie Dyson assistant tennis Heather Heiden head track Larry vaugh assisted track dick leming assisted track Trisha olwal assisted track Hannah Brewbaker assistant track Braxton Delgado volunteer assistant Joseph delado volunteer assistant sh rice uh is that Junior I that'll be track yes track Junior I and Alysa Mel volunteer assist okay yes so with all those being read I have a recommendation to approve motion to Pro all up all right I got a motion I have a second think get a second I guess fell since it's all together you have to hire all these people so you better well it it says recommended by the board yeah for Mr keyer so you want yeah we all disagree on that yeah so we can we want to go back through and we can approve each one up sleep minus one yeah oh I'll reluctantly second motion okay we have a motion in a second all those in favor say [Music] hi motion approved and I do want to just share with you um Larry vaugh uh Larry vaugh um has been 44 years teaching at uh whites Junior Senior High School and he's taught 25 years as head coach and as you can tell you actually hired him to be assistant track coach too so I don't know if he'll continue on that or that will be his last year with that we'll have to wait and see but um we appreciate all the years that he has served I know um I was principal there for three years and he was teacher there Tim Drake was there for several years uh teaching with Mr v he's done different um positions there as far as the teacher goes used to be PE when we were more traditional at the school um and that's kind of changed a lot but he's he's done a great job working um with some of the more challenging students um at the at the school and that's um because of his uh creative ways of making things work I guess I'll say and so we appreciate all the things he's done over the years and I'm glad that he's continued and help us coach here this spring too but that's not until the end of the school year so appreciate all he has done so well like with you Mike I've only been here for going on five but I've been a privilege of working with you and I know these guys have worked with you longer than anybody I know we all hate to see you leave but I appreciate that it's been an honor and privilege um to be uh here Ms you know I was at oakill for 23 years and came back home and uh done a few things here as whites for three years four years at at Northfield and an assistant here one year and then this is my ninth year which is um kind of hard to believe it's been nine years all all together um in this capacity 40 years um uh for myself so I just appreciate that and like I said it's been an honor and privilege um it was it's a very very tough decision I've already talked to you guys about that um but I think it's a great time we have a great board here that's cohesive and and have a lot of great vision and there's a lot of great people that will continue on and and uh things will just go very smoothly I know when the transition so um but I'm not going anywhere so if you ever want to call and I'll give you advice or opinions or anything like that weather delays weather delays I'll have a hard time sleeping in anyway so yeah I can tell you if it's time to delay or not so again just thank you uh we will put something out as far as uh from the corpor ation with this uh our Communications person is ill and so that's going to take a few more days we're going to maybe do it tonight but um pretty much everybody knows and just appreciate everything and I'm not going to be a lame duck I want to still work hard at everything I'm doing and uh you can still push me to do other things that you want me to do so I appreciate again all things you've allowed me to do here um at thank you thank you next one we have is uh reports uh you have anything you'd like to specific we through the reorganization like we did and just had a short meeting after that okay thank you my superintendent report yeah I'm just going to run through this quickly I I've done this before just a the state of MSD U this won't uh just want to kind of highlight just a few things here and so let's see if we can do this again doesn't go off so just give me a second here all right um so this year in past I would do January and I go through every single thing all the Athletics and things like that and unfortunately sometimes you miss something and I don't want to miss anything so I'm just going to go on so interesting to note that the in January of 2024 we had the first early litery Grant that's just something through the state but I just thought it was something that was new so we put on there uh 103 flexibility waivers were approved there were two of those project process begins that was a um a huge thing that uh we continue on doing but that's when it really again and we're up 34 students on the ADM count from October uh so that's those three months so we go to the next three months family friendly schools it's always good to have um our schools that are are recognized for that uh some make it a priority that that's what they uh apply for um I think all of our schools are familyfriendly but if you there are certain things that you have to do to apply for that and then the state will recognize you on that the solar eclipse I put that on there because that's like once in a lifetime I guess we had an early release and a lot of talk about that for a long long time um but we finally made that happen and it wasn't cloudy so we watched it a graduation always is a highlight of of our schools uh Bridge had 174 students that graduated norfield 62 and Southwood at 64 and that was at Ford Theater again so that's that's definitely a highlight next three months of course we started school we had additional SRO college credits were earned many many of them we didn't uh necessarily count them all up but again um I can say Mr Drake can I9 what I think was 629 oh 629 there you go uh Founders Fest under construction parade you know we get involved in a lot of different community events the white corporate cup uh I know it might have been because of my lack of golfing skills that we lost but um we still participated that was fun and then the last three months of course uh updated the contract uh with the help of of the board and uh the Teachers Association starting salary 47,000 which we talked about that before which is really higher than almost every place around us here uh votus the greatest place to work in WS County second year in a row um of course with Hartland career center uh Mr Driscoll has done a lot of work with that but uh we finally got to the point where we had the rough bids and the nipo project all completed so that can move forward uh along with the other school districts school board members reelected on the three of you um and so like I said another good time for for me because we have very good uh board that's moving forward the next several years Sharp Creek Elementary recognized by Ida having 95% plus passing rate on I and of course the graduation rates um in 2024 I mentioned this last week two weeks ago again uh norfield for was number one amongst all of our border schools um and Southwood uh number two last year Southwood was first and so it kind of flip-flopped a little bit so we always have great stats there and then I just put some other things there the donations that you approve um every board meeting um I went through all those again is about 83,8 uh the education fund and operations fund R day fund on a very good healthy balances uh some general information all the amazing field trips that we have um I've done that before but I didn't want to put every single one because you know there's just lots of them also very a lot of successful school programs amongst all of our schools uh Melissa ball our transportation director had the test drive a bus day number two again if anybody's willing to want to be a bus driver we're still um open for applications there's only one application left so you better hurry um app um and then the other thing I put in here project planning ongoing and finished digital signs locker rooms weight rooms tennis courts norfield Elementary men nor Chiller in addition fencing parking lot driveway entryway Etc so just a lot of a lot of things going on a lot of um balls in the air juggle to uh do all these different um projects and really um a lot of it's obviously the board he are the ones that have to approve and allow us to make improvements to our school district so we appreciate that um some other general information the Fine Arts awards that our band choir and art receive and athletic awards and athletic combined with academic and then robotic State and world's competition and throughout the year several exemplary behavior reports student athletes and coaches of course there's a strategic plan that we continue to to uh utilize uh that is our SAR statement our goals Contin to strengthen MSD a challenging environment and sustain it for many years to come I think we're doing a great job doing that and that will continue and then of course we're already here in 2025 so just a quick update of 2024 not as specific before but um when I very specific sometimes I see heads nod amongst the audience because it gets kind of long to talk about all those maybe not the audience maybe people around here anyway that's all I have for that but I do have something else that I guess um I need to get out of this real quick I just wanted to share a couple other things uh next meeting that we have in February we will have Wan construction here and they'll do a little bit more of a formal report and we will also um have some more drone Drone footage and of course it's not going to be the whole building up but it will show a lot of different things I know I give you some pictures every once in a while but they'll come and give us a an update um also I want to let you know that the legislative session is really hot and heavy still um there are more bills even now they're all over with you can't subit any more bills but 102 house bills 8 three Senate bills for total of 185 that are education related now there's like 1,500 allog together we know that that's not how many going to pass but it's interesting uh several that we're watching um Senate bill one is the property um tax relief and I will tell you that obviously there's there's winners and losers when we have that of course property tax relief if there's relief that obviously is winner but then when there's relief with that and there also can be losers and right now with what they are projecting it would be $800,000 per year uh deficit um or decrease in our funding if they would go that route um for our operations and so I know it's it's one of those things it's like okay you're helping some but then for counties and for schools um it can hurt that too so we'll see what happens um we'll talk about it a little bit more because we will ask you to approve the uh notice of the Thomas bus price tag but it's $139,700 you know two buses are 279,000 and then if we get hits like that it's going to be a little bit more difficult so um also one that you might be interested into Senate Bill 287 they're actually asking school boards and other people to make sure they talk to their legislators but that one basically talks about um elections and they're still discussing that which I didn't know if they would but they want to make it a partisan um uh in other words that you would have to identify uh as Republican or Democrat as far as School Board elections and so they brought that up two or yeah last session it did not pass but there's more um more discussion about it so we'll see what happens there but really we don't want the politics there's enough politics we really don't want that politics in our in our school boards at least that's my opinion so anyway we'll keep you updated um if you want to get involved and calling anybody I can give you those numbers things like that but that's my report so thank you Mike uh next item is new business um number one under new business is the recommendation to approve uh two bus purchases yes so um as we already mentioned and you received the packet on Friday um the low again we go with the the co-op and the co-op goes with the different buses and I'll have to go back up here again and you guys know this but for our audience here let you know so you have the bluebirds the IC Collins and the Thomas and the Thomas came in as the low so it's $139,700 so I just asked um that you approve the recommendation to purchase those buses which won't be here for a long long time well yeah I'm getting ready to ask the followup question on they already been ordered they'll be in for next I to check I just wonder I don't have that I don't know because I I do know like you said it I don't understand think it'd be a lot better than that SP we name I'll make a motion we approve the Thomas buses got discussion you guys have any more discussion I'll second that okay we' got a motion a second uh all those in favor say uh FR classes next item we have a couple field trips uh first one is an overnight out of state field trip for Northfield 7th and e8th grade choir to choir contest Festival music in the Parks right yeah May 9th through 10th 2025 Kings Island theme park Mason Ohio do we want to do these together or some do together all right the next one is a recommendation to approve the out of state field trip for Northfield Advance PE class to Swiss Valley Ski Resort Jones Michigan February 10th 2025 have a motion to approve those two uh fil trips okay uh all those in favor say I okay next item is is there any unfinished business no uh board policy no board policy okay uh is there any public comment on all items I I trying to get it down here did you say the tax things on send Bill one would be like a $700,000 hit our $800,000 $800 they actually showed what W County would be hit as far as all of the county because it would be not just our school but the other school districts plus the towns and the cities uh any the municipal um that we have in W County I don't have that figure I mean I saw it but it was I don't know 2 I don't know it was 2 point something million I for what it was for sure so yeah all right um the items from any board members 6 652 stop this

good afternoon welcome to the senate committee on education today is Monday February 3rd 2025 this is our 3:00 p.m. agenda and we are in hearing room 229 this meeting including the audio and video of remote participants is being streamed Live on YouTube you will find links to viewing options for all Senate meetings on the live and On Demand video page of the legislator's website this Zoom meeting and YouTube live stream event will include the 3:00 p.m. agenda for this committee on education in the unlikely event that we must abruptly end this hearing due to Major difficulties the committee will convene to discuss any outstanding business on Wednesday February 5th 2025 at 300 p.m.

to Patty for our training so the New Jersey open public meetings law was enacted for the right of the public to advance notice of attend the meetings of public bodies at which time any business affecting their interest is discussed and acted upon in accordance with the provisions of this act and Board of Education policy 0162 Board of Education of The Bu of Bound Brook has caused notice of this meeting to be posted in the board office and at Bound Brook High School and mail their facts to The Courier News Bound Brook B clerk South Bound Brook Board of Education and any person who requested individual notice and pay the required fee please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance Al Mr Dori Sir Mr B here Mr here here upco miss m here Mr B here miss Hy here Mr bmer here and Mr Jan here Mr President you have airum President there you go in the interest of time I will keep my comments brief I will say welcome again miss Patty Reese who's here from njsba to train us tonight and acknowledge that hopefully this is the training that puts us over the threshold for Carol e Lon Master board certifications very exciting very happy to have you here Patty with us tonight and to learn more about our role in student achievement so Patty all right thank you for having having me tonight um and as far as the board certification when I looked it it looks like the only thing you have Lu to do is your board self- evaluation we've definitely done one yeah supposed to be every year um but at least do I did just Revis the board self evaluation so it reflects more of what a board currently does it should be up and running in a couple of weeks okay um but just just go ahead and do that but I mean you have the credits you and I'm running it by when uh just to make sure that I that and yeah well and and to see about the board self evaluation because I I you know if she has any of it we did it in I'm almost sure we did it in 24 in the summer when we did the superintendent evaluation I'm pretty sure we did the self evaluation as well you need to the requirements call for more than one year so either way just if you could do that but it looks like you have everything else that's necessary um so um that there any ways that you or us could double check to make sure because I'll take that as an action okay I don't think I as I Was preparing for this presentation the board's uh you know role in student student achievement I looked at your strategic plan I looked at your District goals and I looked at your board goals and then your vision and Mission like like this should be a refresher course for you because they all align and they all have they all there's all in every one of them there's something about improving student achievement so you really already understand the concept of what a board needs to do for student achievement um so if some of this sounds familiar um or old school it is because you already function at that level for students achievement and that's very impressive not not every board is as cohesive and and the the goals should all align but they don't always right there's other things that come in that but but yours every step of everything aligns one to the other to the other which is as it should be for a high functioning board and a high functioning District so so your CH your students benefit from um you already being at those levels there's a get to where on the side there's a slider you G have to turn me up that's it there you go that does it turn it off it's always helpful all right um so we consider um you know student achievement to be we consider a systems approach in student in a student achievement uh and Bo schools that are considered leaders in public education for student achievement support conditions that Empower students to meet rigorous standards that they set they align their resources to um to support student achievement and they Foster a culture of um that supports professional learning not only for your staff but also for school board for the school which you know when I looked at your credits you have a lot of credit so um this was actually you're already you know exceeded the credits to get your certification except for um that so you're already you need 16 credits um you're where I looked at today you're at 22 be 23 after tonight so you'll be halfway to the car Larson Master board certification once we do that so we'll we'll look at that and that's there are very few school boards there not a lot of school boards who are certified but there's even less that have the master certification um and and that's just something you could you could work for okay so effective School boards um Define clear goals for student achievement and classroom instruction based on your high expectations that every student can succeed and can achieve you also believe that challenges to Student Learning can be overcome and you accept no no um excuses challenges such as poverty whatever those challenges might be and different in every District but you accept that every CH every student can succeed at some level every can succeed that's when I set my back I'm like is it actually progressing uh you know an effective School Board make sure that the district goals remain a top priority and as I said I looked at all of your goals District strategic and they are they they they they are all aligned and they remain a priority and that's really that's really wonderful board members should understand and be able to explain what the Improvement initiatives are and promote a systemwide focus on school renewal is always um always important effective school boards effect effective School boards in improving or increasing student achievement are uh use data to inform their policies and our accountability driven I me you you and again you already have this you establish a vision that targets student achievement and yours does I think I put it in in your packet um and um you know you avoid micromanagement you allow the superintendent and the administration to Define what is necessary to to increase student achievement and then you the Board needs to support that you know whatever level you can you um Embrace and use and monitor data uh student data on on an achievement you using it as a tool and you identify specific learning needs through the analysis of your data and just discuss it regularly it's important for a board um to nurture a collaborative relationship with your staff and the community and have a as a um strong communication process which uh what I've looked at you have I Rel job especially between board Administration um we're always looking for opportunities to improve our communication um you know just like other districts Drive Dr Freeman has done some really nice things as we go through if you have tips suggestions or examples of other districts that you think have done a really nice job with you know it really is it is a challenge I think for every school district to engage your community especially you know in in the world of um two working parents uh and and everybody's just overloaded but I think the the more Avenues you have for communication uh and that you know they can your meetings are streamed and so they can view the meeting um at at any point in time uh but but also when I looked at your strategic plan and I see that it's up this year I think one we actually just redid it oh you just redid it okay I took the one from your website which is which is great because that that one had a lot of community imput and that's also um a good way to engage the community and and listen to what what you know what what they want for their schools and and I will tell you I I'm doing facilitating four strategic plans right now and it runs the gamut of how many residents show up some I have maybe um I did one where there was less than 10 people and then one at waren County that had over 50 people um a Ka and so it really does just run the gamut and it just people are just very busy so as long as you provide as many Avenues as you can uh and the website is easy to navigate I think you're will help keep your public informed I mean it's never a perfect picture when I was on my board um we before the age of streaming we televised our meetings live from you know early 2000s and um and so I know that people watched them because you would eventually get a text message or something uh but uh the only time historically right the only time people come at to a board meeting is when there's something they either don't like or they like a lot and want to continue it it's the struggle of we talk about engaging all stakeholders in the setting of goals and you've done that strategic plan as I said this is kind of like a refresher to kind of say well you already do this you know which is great as I said your students will benefit from having a board like like yours um and you know part of the process is periodic reporting out of progress towards District goals and any other information uh you know if you when you're with data that comes in for student achievement whether testing that might be reporting out at a board meeting so it's available to the public so even when there are budget challenges an effective School Board keeps student achievement as a priority uh and we all know that budget challenges are every every year and we're only getting more challenging in this world but keeping student achievement as a priority uh really is the best way to help your children actually achieve how do we do that I didn't hear the question was how do we do that do that how do you do that um you you work with your Administration and and the the the what they've identified as necessary and sometimes it it's about checks and balances or things that you can and can't do but you know I think your Administration is well aware of of what your budgetary constraints are and so when they bring something to the board um I'm sure it's well researched and you know for your consideration go about to just make purpose have done that yeah exactly but our resources just keep getting cut and more mandates come in and it's getting harder and harder true I mean and they're going to look at school funding formula again I know that's why I asked we'll see how that actually finally funded we were the number one underfunded District B Brook was the number one underfunded District in New Jersey and during Christie's Administration and we're finally able to fully fund and now it's being ripped out yeah poent challenge with the funding formula is it's such a political hot po but our kids AR you know and um hope that the legislators get it um but then again it's a political hit but our kids aren't but our kids aren't [Music] Poli talked about being a United Team uh with the your superintendent and the board uh and that you build a a a system of shared knowledge and values um towards your improvement efforts and I mean I feel we feel odd doing this because you get this already you do um you can always learn more though that's why and I think you see so by the same token we always know that we can do that yeah and so for the things that we've checked off already great and you know even if we only learn one or two new things here it'll just make us that much well and hopefully we'll reinforce your commitment to student achievement it's because we all want our kids to um achieve to the best that they can and that that you know and whatever level that might be whatever we can do to help them do that is really what's important because it's a hard World once you get out of school the harsh harsh world of real ities but if we if we provide for them high expect of them high levels of achievement and we provide the means for that to happen we're we're just giving them a leg up in the world you know giving them a nice space to start with and that's really what we want for our kids right so we High achieving districts maintain high expectations of professional development not only for your staff but also for the board which you already do feel like I'm reping but and that professional learning is for staff is job embedded and student achievement focused and then creating um frequent opportunities for staff as well as the board a board that's focused on student achievement creates an envir environment where Mutual trust exists between the superintendent and the board you define a vision for your District that is shared um by the superintendent and the and I realize I should that the seek superintendent who match the district's Vision you already have that you don't need to seek that you already have somebody that does that to be effective about a board needs to set time aside um to plan and discuss student student uh learning needs and student achievement it's helpful with you have when you have new board members that you Mentor them and encourage them to go for um training beyond the mandated training some of the student achievement is covered in G two now um but but it it helpful to bring them along to the mindset of the board is to mentor and provide as many opportunities as you can and that um a board should believe that every child can succeed and learn whatever their abilities [Music] are [Music] button so boards can develop a m a governance mindset towards improving and increasing student achievement and sometimes boards create an a vision statement like this toward student achievement I'm not really sure that you need that because you already it's already embedded in all of your statements um that you have but sometimes it's necessary for a board to do that so what can a board do to drive student achievement you can develop performance driven goals that reflect your mission vision and the beliefs of your community uh make sure that there are adequate resources available to achieve success and then monitor um and discuss and assess student progress review data frequently uh as it becomes available to you from the administration and then you hold the superintendent and the board accountable towards those District goals through the evaluation process and again ongoing professional development for the board these are some questions a board might want to consider as they're talking and in discussing student achievement uh what kinds of data are collected in your District and are they effective in providing you with the information that that you need um you want to make data informed decisions about school Improvement teacher quality um and student achievement and data really does help you um move your students forward having the right data and which will show what it is that you need um and then what are you learning from the data that you get and do you think you need more data so the next few slides are are steps that a board can take to improve student achievement and um these are also in your packet but um setting clear expectations for for your students clear and high expectations for your students get know what the greatest student learning needs are and ask you know your superintendent your Administration um how to address that you always want to believe that um more is possible of your students and com communicate those high expectations to your students and way they're living up to your expectations and focus on student learning and teaching um towards student achievement towards increasing student achievement two is creating conditions for Success you want to it's like a broken Mark uh support quality professional development for staff and and board uh support and connect with districtwide leadership make sure that all parts of the system of your system are aligned to the learning needs of students be that curriculum resource allocation whatever it is that everything is aligned to your student achievement you're so quiet we're soaking it all in we can interrupt and ask questions we got to wait until the end of your presentation go to every different slide yeah can you up here so I don't know if you allowing us to ask questions after every slide or because you just keep it's up to you if you want I don't want to just interrupt oh well just raise your hand or something if you have a question back in school now come on I I know I don't mind if you have a question okay fantastic and we have time at the end anyway but you know we can I can take questions as we go um since you don't have the like the another this is it for tonight you don't have anything else on the usually I'm um like I get like 40 minutes and then you're moving on to a very full agenda um which I understand and don't want to um you know go longer than is necessary so you can get to your regular agenda but you don't have that t so we can take questions whatever all right hold this system accountable uh to your expectations your high expectations by using data and using it a lot um and and decide and determine what you consider acceptable uh to you know an acceptable progress or progress of your students what does that look like and you know we recommend that you monitor the progress of your students again through data analysis frequently you know the one of the roles of the board is by is to create a um Collective will um or to build a Col Collective will by creating an awareness of the need for increasing your improving your student achievement and by communicating it uh to your community Through board meetings through your website through the Strategic plan and through um periodic updates and um prog that progress towards the goals of your strategic all your goals that that you have there you want to create a sense of urgency around the moral purpose uh that that of student Improvement because it only will help your students if you create that purpose and connect with your you asked about connecting with the community but really by periodically updating and Reporting out on um you know progress towards of goals any data that comes in uh when you have to report the data out to the community it helps them understand what student achievement [Music] is the community wants the they're very excited about these they are where is there basketball game going on I think it's the I had one child in basketball my one daughter my other daughter was all in music yeah so you know get the full experience yeah and I think in basketball because they went to Summerville I think they played um book so I somehow remember being here years and years ago yeah so Okay and like you're doing tonight it's important to learn together as a board team do you go to does anybody go to Workshop in October I know it's hard for people that work full have full-time jobs um but there's a lot of wonderful opportunities there uh for those that where we are coming up in April or May we're doing a h spring conference that is all virtual okay so if that helps anybody um it's um I I I don't know if it's on our website yet but we're also doing in April Equity Workshop that's in person I think that's in person but the spring conference will be virtual so that hopefully people that um can take look at what the um the offerings are and maybe build time into your work schedule you know so respons work is work and you're in education so so it's it's just hard to um you know work around that you want to you know you also want to build a commitment uh to improve to the Improvement focus by sharing information and discussing at your board meetings and and and not only at your board meetings but even doing deeper Dives in your community your committee meetings about student achievement student Improvement and student achievement I feel like an education committee if we don't get some kind of a report that's connected to student achiev it's it doesn't feel like a committee meeting it's literally every month right I mean as any is what your curriculum is all about right is is helping students achieve the the best they can achieve whatever that might be I'm wondering and I don't mean to interrupt that apologize that's okay we always kind of look at you know our Benchmark tests NJ GPA njsla but there's a lot of work that is not really captured by the test outcomes but I'm wondering if maybe we might want to start thinking about some other sources of information that can capture all the things the districts doing to try to move the energy and we compile like this is the number of hours of professional development that have happened this year yeah or these are the you know trainings that have happened you know other ways to share with the community this is how the schools are improving not just this is what the outcome of the test was right well I think because it's so easy to want to hyperfocus on the test results yeah because it's a very quantitative measure but to your point there are number kpis that we could demonstrate the fact that whether the test results move by .1% or 10% this is what we've done this year trying and you know test results don't show as you said don't show everything right and there are some kids that um you know it's not only being ready but career ready not every child is going to go to college and they're not mentor and um they're and and I'm happy to see that we've now made that full circle back to College and Career ready for many years it was you know everything was towards being College ready and as parents we know that not every kid is meant to go to college just not it's not for them for for whatever that might be and and to have your uh you know all of your high school career dedicated to CH a student getting into college when there that's not I mean is that really serving that student well if that's not what their future is at this it's not what they think their future is so I'm happy to see that College and Career Readiness has come back um back in the days when you had auto shop and all that I mean when I was in high school I took um took mechanical engineering and metal shop I think um and you know it was right there in the school and then we got away from that schools went to the votex but um now it's coming back because it's part of a full service program to help your students achieve to the best that they can whatever it is that is is for them to achieve right whether it's college or career and you talk about in um your curriculum committee but it also should be um discussed sometimes in your policy because your policy should be you should have policies focused on um student achievement and and that's important as well we talk about um talking to your fellow board members about what the not only the community's hopes and aspirations are for your students but what are yours as a board what you know how do you want how do you want your students to achieve or how at what levels and you want to make sure that you provide resources and programs for all students to succeed as I said not just um College ready but career ready and as you take a drink I think that calls back to Joanna's comments which are you know we've struggled specifically what are we prioritizing talk a lot as board administrators but are we focusing on kids who are below grade level what are we doing about kids who in the middle how do we keep kids that are above above and we have a very specific population of ell Learners that under for an extended period of time because of undering status so you know how do we prior bra activ so that we move the of theity forward as far and as fast as we possibly can and that's the the the age-old issue of of many boards because your populations are diverse some more diverse than others and so how do you provide what each population needs you know that's a constant discussion and and amongst boards and administrators it's just um you do the best that you can and with the res and again it comes back to budget as well with the resources that you have available just you know if your if your intentions are there to do the best that you can um it no matter what it will help um and you always I know I remember as a board member you always want to do more for those populations that may um be more needy for whatever reason that might be um and sometimes you simply can't because you're constricted by the budget but the intentions are there and you going to say something yeah so in your experience what have you seen that's worked that works yeah in your experience I me you can just go whatever for student achievement yeah I I think the what what works is just keeping it a constant Focus keeping what a conent focus keeping what student achievement in but student achievement can be anything I mean we can have achievement Define you could Define student achievement in so many different ways right well what that's the question what what is your definition you you the board what is your definition of student achievement and it's and it's likely very different in every District every Community because the challenges are different so let me let me rephrase the question so the question would be more um like you mentioned every board is different with different goals and different set of uh individuals that they have attending in schools so in that respect what have you seen in your experience um that has worked in other districts perhaps maybe um those are ideas are maybe something we could emulate or utilize in our own District that are ideas that we never even considered or thought about yeah and and I think the the point that you're making the original point is well founded and probably leaves p a bit of a deficit to answer because she would need to know what are our priorities in order to suggest strategies so I think some of the things that we've talked about in a variety of different settings you know the the standardized test scores are one of them the new evaluation protocols that we put in place to help us understand where we are and how we make progress in the classroom probably another one uh you know our level of professional development what are we focusing on what skills how much time probably another so maybe we would need to make the question a little bit more narrowly defined and that would give fatty I me I I wanted it broad because um just basically for everything that you I don't want to just nrow into one area I just wanted to hear a large SP from of different ideas I mean like from where you could just pick one or two examples dep doesn't matter where it's from or or what You' just more what you've experienced over the years and just an idea to at least maybe get the gears Rolling In Our Heads you know collectively as a team um and and again maybe it's professional development maybe it's attendance you know that's even one of the things that we've talked about is getting kids here on the day of the test and getting them appropriately oriented and motivated right to do well um because I I will point out one other thing just to add on everything that you shared on the screen is everything that we're trying to do I want to say I want to say 99% of what you put up on the board is what we're no no I know I looking at your stuff before I came in I'm like yeah you do all this you're right so it's just like now it's more like okay you know I'm seeing this and I'm like well this is everything that we're doing so it's like okay what what else what else can we do what are we missing what are we missing I think saying one of the things he's saying is from your experience you represent Somerset Hunton in FL County 56 uh different school districts is there a school district as using for instance Tik Tock and being very successful we said say we never thought i' done something like that so I think what he's trying to get at is what have you seen know schools do that is working that we said wow I never saw that so have you had anything that you would share and it doesn't even have to be recent it could be right no I think that that successful boards do multiple things but I think keeping bringing your community in is is also key but I also think defining as a board and an Administration what Student Success means to you um is is a start like does it mean helping your elll students to this level um does it mean I I think also one of the things is time you know you're not going to see a great big change in a year I'm an impatient guy my problem I know I'm expecting results overnight and I I acknowledge that and I think we're all in that you know we all want to see that happen and and happen quickly yes but it doesn't well so I think you have a really big Advantage coming from education and knowing how long things Tak and knowing unfortunately we know how far behind some of the programs in this District were yeah I'm happy with what has happened time I've been here but it's education moves like glacially it's like the government well it is it is the government yeah education you're right because when I do um I just did roles and responsibilities in another district and one slide talks about um education is not like Corporate America things happen very slowly but the board and the administration come up with a plan for continued Improvement um of Staff of students and of the board that is incredibly helpful if you have the same focus and you all agree to the same Focus to move programs forward and that as a board you seek additional training um professional development and towards that I know that we do have some webinars about student achievement that you can go online and View and we're in the process of updating to 2025 a bunch of stuff um a bunch of um trainings that we do uh to um bring things more up to date more excited about the training we did in Friday here for your student for the somerson County student board Representatives we're really excited about that thought that it worked well and that's also to help bring your student not only to bring your student student reps some level of understanding and comfort of what what a board does and then what their roles are um but also helps we're thinking engage them for future um community service for you know not to be and to to sit at the table and Converse with adults on topic is very disconcerting for students and when they they become you know when they become more comfortable but back to as a board and an Administration um look to see what your common how what it is you want your students to achieve and how you will you know reach out to your Administration how they will get there I mean every and before I did Somerset County because I did Somerset County um since Gwen moved down to Trenton she's has a new position and before that I did midd section Union in Hudson um and it's honestly I don't know if there's any one thing that works in every District to come up with something I I know when in Jersey City when when I was working with them they because they have so many schools right uh and so many it's such a large city they're what they were trying to do was to bring to different districts communities you know local smaller communities within Jersey City a listening tour of the board not the full board but that um you know not a quir but the superintendent and board members several will go and they listen to see what the um you know what was important in that Community now Jersey City is way larger than Bound Brook um and you know the population is is all over the place uh in in there um and and that's what they found was helpful to them did it is there positive results I don't know because they they just started that two years ago um I think Dan started two years ago no but we did something similar with our strategic goal when we did a strategic plan so right it's great to to see other districts doing something especially largely and it's like oh we did something similar or 50% of what we did kind of aligns with what they did and it's like you you know you're on the right path and you're heading down that right path and it's just now it's more like okay what other great ideas are out there that maybe we didn't but I think we just saw one when I started and I you know as I look through your strategic plan your goals your board goals um and they all align which is and you're right you're you are moving forward but but honestly that is something you've done right there's not a lot of districts that have had that where they all align where there's student achievement some student achievement goal from in every one of them which then shows that it's a focus of your community of your board towards student achievement but I think to to come up with what I what I have seen Works in some places every Community really is very different even in Somerset County right there's no two communities that really have um the the same issues or the same population or you know whatever so so it's a struggle for boards but that's continued discussion to come up with okay with the you know certainly with the guidance of your administr of your superintendent because they're in the trenches that he's in it every day um you know looking at what needs to get done and what what can be helpful but having that discussion um you know maybe a board retreat to talk about simply about student achievement um and what that means to you as a board and to the community and what the administration can recommend or see that or are issues that need to be addressed or programs they want to bring in um but again you do a lot of I mean you are really a high functioning board from my perspective um on moving forward and improving your students your student achievement thank you I wish I could give you something specific other than what what what Jersey City did um which um you know to be seen but but Hudson County is um is far more partisan political in school boards than they are um Hudson and Union my experience then certainly than here s County so that it's hard to say and and um you know maybe just frequent um discussion topics at a board meetings every you know quarterly maybe or or just talking about student achievement this is where we were this is where we are and this is where we're going we want to be and this is how we're going to get there that that keeps keeps everybody focused but it also provides your community with what it is that you as a board and you as a district are are working towards some of that even even fits in in with this slide um that you know providing resources for all students to achieve and you know you see the list up their special needs elll and whatever that might be um and understanding budgetary implications because they're everywhere everything you do has a budget implication um you know and so you have to just be aware of that and listen to to the recommendations um of your superintendent for updating things like your professional development plan uh whatever um curriculum writing if you have a lot of people that if it's time you know a lot of boards have like a fiveyear cycle of curriculum revision uh and so pay attention to that and don't skimp on that and listen to the recommendations of your superintendent including if uh technology when I came in tonight I here you have a lot of new equipment for technology which is which is wonderful um in this day age and that's not always easy to get to go there show on the right slide so the ultimate goal your ultimate goal as a board um is to have integrative strategies um to improve student achievement setting as as I said ear a college um not only college but also career ready standards so that there is something for all your students and then develop an accountability system that measures performance and activates support for Intervention which is key because we all know if you can uh provide intervention early enough then then it is most helpful for the students and then just by keeping student achievement an important part of your of um your work um will only help your students succeed um and achieve the best that they can and then here's our slide for questions but I don't mind taking during I said because you don't have you didn't have a meeting um after um and I know you wanted more specific and I'll go back and see if I can find any um very specific um examples I actually I'll I'll put it out on um to my colleagues and see if anybody um in their travels has has had something very specific um that that works but again every Community is very different and listen if you don't get a super strong response from your colleagues perhaps it's something we might want to consider putting forward as um an item for the upcoming school boards comple in terms of the case study from Brook the way that we've achieved align among all the levels of go you know what our administrative team has really done to make that happen in conjunction with the board so I'd be interested in finding out even if you don't get a great response I think there's a great way to move forward you I kind of like that and actually that might be also something that you could bring to Somerset County School boards Association to have um just open discussion amongst the the boards that are there what work what has worked uh in improving student achievement in your district and what has it that's not that's a very good idea I suggest oh um um part of one yeah yeah I know they have for the rest of the year but um their their topics set but I like that you know if you have anything that's successful you know for student achievement you might want to consider opposing it as a session at Workshop but I also like having more the open discussion from just for different boards to come together I to say something maybe to just for for the um other sessions that have all but that's a good point that um to just to hear from other districts what has been successful for them and why and how they achieved how they were able to accomplish that uh you know did it require um redirecting resources from somewhere else um whatever might might have worked for them that's a good idea them the other thing is that um to build on top of um our president is um we live in a in a day and age where it's a connected Society where and this is one of the things that's probably disconnecting with all the a lot of the boards is there's nothing really that's connecting with others or um I I don't want to say there's no Avenues because there's plenty of Technology out there that allows other boards to connect but it's more subjects or questions to discuss about topics to discuss about that can provide for areas of communication and areas to Foster creativity and you know we're we're a small Board of maybe about nine or 10 individuals but by collaborating with other boards we you know we expand the thought process we come up and potentially can come up with one or two other creative ideas that may not work for one but at least some type of idea that we could take from there and build on it and I I think it's a it's a great idea so thank you Rich for that and and I'll tell you what the other thing you you can do there's um if you've been on the connections pose the question on connections and see what other boards members uh reply um you know that's that's an Avenue for you to do uh also um any County school board meeting within the state um you can go to and they're all virtual for the winter months but after that at rest of the it's all hybrid so if you see a topic down in K may like student achievement you're welcome to register there's no cost to it it's included in your dues to register and attend that meeting virtually and it sometimes you know as student achievement as as I've said is very different everywhere you go but sometimes it's interesting to hear what they have to say especially you know C May and you go up to Bergen County and see what how things are there with 77 school districts um but those are all available you know the webinars any County meeting um is available to you but go pose the question on connections and see what different um people respond that's always that's always because periodically I go in and and look at it we somebody else monitors it but it's um it again you know it's password protected so it's not open to the general public um but there have been some interesting Concepts and questions on there that have gotten um different answers from throughout the state we let her go any other questions or comments for Patty I thought this was very good I know you had lower expectations coming in how discussion no F vote there you go well reinforces what you're doing so hopefully encourage you to continue and and improve on what you're doing you know because again it's um it's not always happening that a board is this aligned with with things so always happened here yeah exactly you haven't always been this aligned is recent development yeah all right I'll okay so do we have to any more I don't know we to find out about that P way back P one one important perspective too is the patients involved in the process because we're not far from really assessing when we first came in where we are you know and we we learned a lot through that process and then a lot of investment was made to improve student performance but like you mentioned in the beginning it doesn't turn around right away school district and it could take a couple years before we really see some of the results come through student performance right now I think like we're in a green leaf section of spring where we're beginning to see some buds but it hasn't really popped yet but you know like that an Green Leaf section of spring the buds but but you're right as we said before education is a long process change does not happen quickly it just by the very nature of it because you have to all not only do all the research on what what needs to happen you have to get buyin from a lot of different stakeholder groups to move anything forward uh and that that's just that's can be a a long process so but I like that analogy one of the big initiatives we had since Dr Freeman came in was to change the schedule and where right there now we're trying to get Buy in from stakeholders that's a big piece yeah yeah it's and that that's a huge change because people don't want and and as with almost any organization but maybe particularly in education people don't like change and so you have to really try and bring enough people along with you by including them in the discussion early on and getting your Buy in along the way it's not it's not easy nor as are quick but when you get to that point where you can make the change as hopefully go smoothly um you know everything has little glitches but but you know it makes it then all worthwhile all that early effort but it it it's it changes hard and but it does take a lot of effort the rewards are great you see the change implemented and and then you see how it impacts your students it's even better Mr Gorski is there anything specific we need to do to close the meeting um public forums so just ask I don't see anybody here for the public forum they have right to speak and then motion to adjourn Mr B did I hear you make a motion to adjourn so you have to make sure there anybody want to speak first anybody here open it up to the public there see none all right there you go there you go Mr B second for Mr D right there you go all in favor great job thank you thank you everybody for coming and attending

I'm present Mr Guri Mr CER just absent M Mrs olon here Dr s here Mrs Aron flag of United States of America to the stands may I have a motion to adopt the agenda I'll make the motion second all those in favor say I I any opposed is four to zero okay looks like we have no public comments so we go straight into the first informational item which is approval of classified employment substitute facilities staff re yes Mr President members of the board um Rodrigo Castilla has been interviewed for a position as a substitute faciliity staff the facilities department is interested in having classified substitutes to work when staff are unable to come to work Mr Castile will not start his firstly until an approved ivp fingerprint card is received um no board action necessary just wanted to share that um other districts one one example is a TD has a similar process they'll have like a custodial Services Rover department so let's say if at some schools maybe some custodians are at AB they're able to call on on someone from that department and come and cover that shift for the days and that way you know it stays clean they they they have someone who comes and still does the job of what a regular custodian uh will do and so um also before any candidate starts I'll make sure to check with our true professionals consultant Mr Moore regarding budget capacity but this is a good practice and is implemented in other school districts he's down for custodial maintenance yeah electric experience experience this is this a positive they came out ofwhere a few weeks back and they have a lot of energy so we've already shared this with our facilities team managers Mr Y and Mr cotton and they've shared with their teams that this just some more some more good positive change to we have different people coming in and we don't miss to be someone y work change come any further comments or questions on that not we'll go on to the next one which is approval of classified employment for substitute facility staff Justina Mr as members of the board Justina Castile has been interviewed for a position as a substitute facility staff the facilities department is interested in having classified substitutes to work on staff come to work Miss Castile will not start a first until an approved IP cardies receive so there's no board action necessary and and so uh we're just waiting for their IP fingerprint cards they brought in the paperwork so they're they're ready they want to they've been here in a for about the last year more or less they came down from Phoenix and they they lot of the things they want to just be a part of of the district and good news I she F the application she yes she know she does she does understand English she is she does understand English any questions or further comment on that okay then the next thing we're going to is approval of spring intercession re for March 2025 Mr presid memb of the board 10 teachers and for PA professionals from K to 12 work with students who need additional support and math and Ela during the spring break for four days and for five hours per day inter s days are March 10th to the 13th teers recommended are Al marar Loro Jen VES Casey as the instructional leader R Fernandez Roger P Christine anano professionals recommended are carag Shany patri and there is no board action necessary at this time they will be coming from title one and we have miss our principal in case of any questions any of the board members might have anybody on the board have questions or comments on that item okay we go to the next one which is extra pay resignation for soft purchase Mr President members of the board this is very uh very difficult uh explanation to read um you know we really were wanted to see them continue I I even spoke to them outside the district office when they came last week he did he did a great job last year uh you remember our softball team went to the state championship game lost nine to four but was so close to being state champions but Elanor and Jennifer Guthrie have verbally resigned their position with the athletic director for head and assistant softball coaches no bo action necessary at this time this is a study session item only get married CH okay so away from any other questions and comments on that item next item is extra pay positions and Mr President members of the board the following individuals have expressed an interest in the corresponding extra PID positions Christine Tucker head softball coach David leco assistant softball coach Tessa leco volunteer softball coach Eddie head baseball coach no board action necessary this is a study session item only can can we talk about yeah I was gonna say any questions or comments on that so I love David but in football he would only come out for half the practice and then he would a to go he had chores at home and so every day was only a practice half a day so if if he if his commit was willing to stay till into practice every day then I would be be all for him if his commitment is just to stay think guys go home and feed the animals then um I think we're we ought to spend our money on his wife and may make him the volunteer but I I don't know we can't the thing with that one though is is her work schedule is so won't allow her to do that but the thing with David is he was the conditioning coach so I know he really stayed for the conditioning portion of it so yeah I'm the IV starter so should I get out I start the IV I'm sorry I'm not I just and I'd rather see the money go to Angelina honestly because she going be every single practice every single night and she has been for the last 30 years and um she does it off for free she can't go to away games but she's there every night at practice so if I I have a choice I'd rather see her I said that last year to you you know I'd rather see her get the money but and Dr might be able to speak with Mr Sure concern I love David right coaches head basketball but but just I mean this is his second year doing head basketball so I don't I see where Ronnie's concern is but I don't come but it hasn't come up in basketball so yeah and I think with we can have we can have um our talk with Miss Miss and M the ones who they can follow sure wife think this either one I just and I know their situation at the homestead has changed not even right could to bring it up thank you we'll follow up okay any other question or comment on that item or any those folks okay now we're up to the exciting part which is the out State and overnight student field trip for the senior no way Mr President members of the board per board policy student out of the state and overnight field trips need to be board approved representatives of the senior class will make a presentation to the board for the proposed 2025 senior class trip on Thursday May 15th to Saturday May 17th 2025 to Disneyland park in California no board action necessary at this time we have we have Mr Crimson Leonard who's also on our football team offensive line and we have our senior class president miss m Kino to present and I believe their senior class sponsor advisor Mr vs I will turn it over now to Mr vs and his and his student Representatives you guys gu that even so we're here to ask permission to go on our senior trip to Disneyland California Adventure it is a two night trip so we will be staying at a hotel overnight two nights all right so as you all see we have the packets here should beone spot um we are leaving Thursday May 15th and coming back Saturday May 17th we have 15 students and three sh mrzy and um all together the ticket should be 5600 for all the students the that we're estimating about 2000 for the hot we going to raise in the next all right so in this pet we have our permission SS for each student so this is the packet that will go out to each parent is a of on the next page we have the senior trip Behavior com coma which outlines how members of the trip will conduct themselves in their agreement to do so um sign next we have medical release form so gives us all the information we need in Cas of medical emergency and so page and this is just making sure we cover all faes don't have any bad accidents um and moving on from the technical stuff we have a sued packing list and the agenda so we will be leaving around 3 in the morning on May 15 we'll be spending the first day in the Disneyland park and then staying overnight spending the second day in California adventure and spending one more night and then leaving the next morning around 9 any questions concerns was um that's not really a question or a concern but one thing I would like is um I think mentioned this in the previous show when we approve this one thing that would be really nice is after the fact if somebody a student from the trip could come and tell us how want tell us what they learn I know it's a little bit of a hassle because you will have graduated by then you won be a student and Summer started if that could happen that would be great something if you guys approve this senior trip we are plan to have a meeting with parents and legal gards two weeks before so just in case if they have any questions regarding the hotel accommodations who how many students will be per room who's going to be the the roommates ETA any questions any conservative have we are plan to have this meeting okay and then the academic expectations of course academic expectations they should have completed all the graduation requirements um the CPR pass the Civic test and all those good stuff so we're having a a food sale this Saturday we're selling burritos with Mexican rice and beans and we're we're expecting to sell 120 plates and most of them are very involved but they already know like I mean we're glad that they're helping but in order to attend this inter they need to do all requirements okay I have one question why are no parents being going on this trp for as as like as cheron um well I don't I mean I have been the senior advisor and this is a great question and that would be great you know so most of the time we always I mean think in the in the money of course and we need a a shop room for 10 students right that's you know that's why always but I mean that should be something good maybe I don't know and at the same time I don't know how you guys going to feel having a parent you all I know is as a parent that just had someone go on this unhip I would have liked the opportunity or even the opportunity to have been asked if I wanted to chapone so yeah take the small I mean we can keep the doors open just in case I mean even if we have students who are not participating like on the food sales and on the concessions I mean if the the the doors are open like if they can pay their TI they can Jo maybe we can do our ter no but the thing is we need a bigger V for that taking are you taking the school car then andol car do you guys have to raise um after this food sale we will have about 800 what we exp and what other fundraisers Do you have um we are going to have a car wash in March enely official but it's at the December at the December bank statements they had 5700 is and I did bank statements yesterday so I'll have ready for tomorrow but I don't have the numbers right in front so at last count at the end of December at about 5,700 and that cover the hot basically we have around 5,000 right so we have enough for the tickets we just need to get some money for the hotel I know the ticket have to be purchased like right now to get in set for that so my concerns always the same h leaving at 3:00 always concerns me because I'm always afraid that you won't be arrested and I hope you are I hope you get your rest on those two deck nights and you're not out chasing the kids around and then so you had a lot of rest to drive the bus home um if we if anything ever happened it would devastate the community the school and everybody involved right and so the the responsibility on you sir and the same responsibility coaches take when they drive that white bus and that is getting the kids there back safely right and so that's that's always my biggest concern and so I hope you have a good time I mean if you take Crimson I can't see how you're going to have a good time but uh I hope you have a good time and but just Safety First all the way around right make sure you get home any other questions or thank you both for approval of increase in ad Mr President members of the board the Arizona Department of Education national school lunch program has requested uni Val thank you guys current me prices recommendations and offs are below you see a a breakfast current price for breakfast is 290 lunch is 475 recommended 285 for breakfast lunch 485 no board AC necessary this is a study session item only any questions or comments do teachers have to pay that price so basically we're raising the lunch on the teacher the adults teachers lowering the cost breakfast which is surprising to me I kind of throughout options as long as it's at those two recommended it can be higher oh yeah but so we can lower it to make it so I just threw options out there if you guys want to make it some other different I was just surprised that it would go down because I know what's going on so all all it's the best deal in town lunch is real good try if you haven't tried the salad bar salad is is very good very tasty but um this is this is the best deal in time so we're not that's my only concern yeah I mean out of all the recommendations the highest would be a 25% raiseed only it's actually only 5 cents the cost of the breakfast is going to is it because we're we're school all all students free lunch the they want to make sure that we're not quote te marks taking advantage of it um so they want what they give to us for each meal to be equal to what the paid price is and that's this little tool that I I have attached so that they just put in what they reimburse us for nonpr sites and then that's how we get the full so they just want it to be equal we don't have to be over we don't have to make a a cash C they just want to make sure that we're not taking advantage of the to site or everything else I don't mind charge super but is there any further questions or discussion on that item thank you okay next item is the 2024 tax credit Mr President members of the board the board secretary will go over the 2024 School tax credit reports sent to the Department of Revenue and made to the board no board action necessary at this time this is a report only we have the information in your attachments it has a breakdown as far as um uh van stand field trips PSAT test all sports gos basketball non sports cheer golf volleyball softball we have the funds and we also have a comparison from year to year and Angelina is going to share this information I just wanted to um give this information to the board we didn't do this this last year and I I apologize for that this is the general report that we give for everybody that that donates from January to December for 2024 and um the attachments is the report that we have to submit to um Department of Revenue for what we we have to split it up between schools we don't normally do that but uh the donor can decide you know if they want it to go to the elementary school they want it to go to the high school um and then what we spent it on for the year so as you can see Elementary is probably almost always uh about field trips and then um we did with the new rules that came out about tax credits we can now use tax credits for uh CTE testing um CTE licenses we can use it for um uh CPR training we can use it for um college credit classes uh so what we did was um Mr Chi took the kiddos to um go and H their drone lies for the um the stem aerial Aeronautics uh class and this was that's for that second um so that's great to see we also um part of the is it part of CTE was part of our school grade where all one grade has to do CPR training it's a graduation requirement it's a graduation requirement so now um because that's a graduation requirement if we had to go Aqua ambulance or or to somewhere and say hey we want to teach all of the you know Juniors and seniors and whatever that can now come out of tax credit um so uh Department of R kind of opened that up for us so it's not only just about you know Sports and and um you know field trips and and and B um they're opening it up so that it can be CTE it can be you know graduation requirements um things like that for um because we're provision to we don't have to pay PSAT and sat prices because we are provision to so our Ks are are good that they get that so it ends up being like 10 or15 instead of the $80 it usually is but if we we want provision to it's on here somewhere we could use it for PSAT sat act uh testing for those kids that couldn't afford it it could come out of P okay so that's this is a breakdown of what we spent and what we received questions good job next item then is possible new agenda items for the next [Music] so I have agenda item I don't use disrespectfully so I'm sure you've all been listening to what's going on the Isaac school district and $26 million in debt and teach Haven been paid I just would would like to have assurances from the our accountants on on a regular basis that that we are not no you're not this we're not exceeding our budget you know what I'm saying I know Dr soel is doing a lot of great things and I just want to make sure that that we are staying within our budget and all that and I know that's why we have the of the year we have the budget but if we could just maybe sometime in the middle of the Year get something from the accountant even if it's just you know on the on the screen just says hey you guys are fine you're not overspending what you have you're doing great Dr so doing great as well know he is and just so that we have credible deniability you know but um and because they're they're talking about firing the whole school board superintendent are resigned and the teachers aren't paid they got 660 kids 6,000 kids I think it is that they're shipping off to probably other school districts unless the the legisl come in and bail them out Mr President Mr gy I believe they received an update just late last week that the staff did get paid we were given an update by um I want to say believe it was as SBA double Che email but they did get paid a lot is going on I can I can talk with Tyler for March to either here in person virtually to give I know last year he gave he gave we had the proposed budget in in June he adopted in July uh the annual financial report I believe it happens in October the budget revision Believe last year in February March gave an update powerpo just to show what the revenue control limit was the total M um we also G an update as far as what the reserve was I think you saw what the emergency Reserve was I believe if I remember correctly the exact number but I can have him give that presentation again March said there are a lot of school districts that are getting ready to have the same the same issues and it's all because of we don't have that problem here as much but it's all because all the kids are leing in school and going to charge schools right and so that's what was killing all these these school districts and [Music] I I can have a report to March March 14 I would appreciate it five minutes huh no whatever however long you need to be do on Capital on the um what we we have set aside for a capital reserve we always want to have set aside x amount for you have to purchase a new Transportation vehicle or a freezer and also the uh ml Reserve salaries and benefits line um so I can share I can share with him to present to you guys in March thank you I would really appreciate that sure not that I think for a minute that you're not on top of it right sure because I know you're on top of it it's just that I want to show the the district that we're on top of it but you're right other districts are having um in the valley you I've heard about other districts too that are having these discussions def looking at closing schools and some of the smaller districts in the phix area so we're very fortunate but um it's going on right now Statewide absolutely yeah bearing that wondering District anybody else I want to bring up I think the whole board should what the whole board should

e e e Julie not ready3 will you call the roll I would be delighted Chris Espinosa here jell Fuller here Jenny hagstrom here n Runner here ran Hashim here and Jason Trio here thank you all right having a Corum let stands for the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all he I'll turn it over for student perspectives all right I'll invite Arwin up good evening everyone um it is my pleasure tonight to introduce uh Mr D'Angelo Gerald um who is our sponsor for our black student union we as an entire South High Community are incredibly proud of the student leaders we have in black student union they do just an amazing job every every day is showing up as positive leaders and role models for all of our students and really advocating for every student at South to have the very best experience they can possibly have and I'm so proud of them and so I'm going to introduce Mr Gerald and then he will introduce our student leaders hi I'm D'Angelo I also did not expect to speak right away so um once again I'm I'm D'Angelo Gerald I am one of our Deans over at Downers Grove South um I am also the uh sponsor of our black student union um I have with me today our vice president k y um and she will actually hop on to the next slide hi everyone um as Mr Jo said my name is cim young um please excuse my attire I literally just got straight out of practice um so some of the other members of our cabinet Unfortunately they were able to be here today but we have our president Cameron Gillespie um our public relations manager Miracle Hudson and our secretary Isaiah Reeves and obviously our sponsor Mr jro all right so uh I'm just gonna just like I know there's a lot on the slides but I'm just going to basically summarize what our purposes um so at BSU it's really a student centered organization um we really focus on having those tough conversations that that really you don't have that space to do elsewhere um so we we talk about cultur awareness we talk about really expanding your mind and considering other perspectives and things of that nature so that we could create the best environment for all of our students not just our African-American students um we also promote postsecondary work um it's huge huge for me I I personally have three degrees um so I'm pushing I'm pushing for students to go all through college um and we're we're hoping for a couple more degrees so like I'm all about college and getting them prepared for it um putting them in the best position so that uh they can experience more get more information things of that nature as well um really I already spoke on the providing us a safe space uh we encourage Outreach and Community involvement um we've done things within the community just at South we've done things within the community uh of Downers grow as a whole um and it's just something that really is part of just you belong here is making sure that we're not just talking about our school but we're talking about the whole Downers Grove South Community because eventually most of us become Mustangs or Trojans and we still want to spread that message so um and really a a big thing that we're focusing on this year is uh breaking stereotypes and leaving leaving a solid Legacy um what I'll talk about and what we're looking forward to is uh some of our leaders all of our leaders actually are uh seniors um and so leaving a legacy for the next people um to step into their shoes and leave a legacy for those to follow um that's really what we're all about um and then the biggest piece is making sure that everyone knows that regardless of if you're black white brown purple whatever you are we accept you in BSU um in fact we encourage you to come to BSU because the more perspective we can have the the straight and narrow that we can get so um if anyone is ever interested in visiting by all means come on it all right right um so here's my keep going keep going um so wait that's I'll hop in yeah I'll hop in all right um so some of the things that we've done uh we we have really expanded um so essentially we started off with a smaller group of students when um I first stepped in and then we grew and grew and grew and we continue to grow which is awesome um some of the things that we've done in the past and you can see some of the pictures up there uh we coordinated with myself and um uh Lance Martin a social worker over at Hinsdale South um we coordinated with him to create a uh conference wide uh event for all of our BSU to come to um and it was fantastic we had a awesome keynote speaker in uh Dr valari Humphrey um we I hosted a workshop uh Lance Martin hosted a workshop and it was truly a great experience um we've done uh food drives uh can food drives uh we've done virtual College visits um we have invited teachers in to just share why we appreciate them where each student around the room shared to the specific teacher that they specifically invited uh why they appreciate everything that they do and we feel like that's huge um we've sat down with our leadership team both at the district level and our admin at the school level to talk about concerns that are going on in the school um we've created messages for the district and uh coordinated with the district and sending out stuff to the community and really that's where we're pushing that leadership piece so that our students can start to see the world outside of the perspective of just a high school student but be at the table with the adults as well here I am hi um so here's what VSU means to us as students um I know for a lot of students it increases leadership incentive um being able to have conversations with a Dean himself that can actually make a difference in the school um kind of encourages students to share their voice and share the concerns so that we can continue to make um dgs a place that is for everyone um I feel as though it also educates us on what's going on in the school um a lot of the times there is a disconnect between what we perceive to be going on and what's actually going on and I believe that coming to BSU and having those hard conversations makes it very easy to be aware of what's going on so we can fix um situations or problems before they happen and learn how to respond to things as they happen besides just being reactive um it also allows student and administrative collaboration as Mr drill was saying we've had numerous meetings in which we collaborate with administrators and I believe that that really helps us a lot because we get to really um like speak to the people in charge we get to talk to the big man and in turn that sorry um and in turn that also makes us um feel more connected to the administrators I know before I was in the black student union I was kind of um it kind of offut me to have conversations with administrators if I'm being honest just because I didn't really feel like it was a safe space just because it is kind of a daunting interaction to have but coming into BSU and being taught how to have convers ations with those people in charge really taught me how to be a leader and also help other people around me be leaders as well oh that's me as well um so for the future hopefully we would like to see an increased growth of male members um we have a very high female student ratio which is not a bad thing however a lot of the times the black students in our school that need help the most are male students and if they don't don't have a safe space in which they can come and not feel ostracized by the rest of the school then they'll continue to have certain reactive behaviors that causes people to have stereotypes on black students which is why we meet at BSU every um couple of weeks also um just an increase in schoolwide appreciation um I think that the um administrative team does a really good job of highlighting us that's why we're here now but we would just like to see uh you know continuous support and continuous um uh showing of us um just so that students do understand that they always can come and again like Mr Dr said it's not just for black students it's also for every other student just so they can understand things that they might not understand because sometimes you can't see things um from your own lens until you're stepping into somebody else's shoes and I think that BSU does a really good job of inviting that um also um administrative support for events in the future um we want to do a lot more stuff unfortunately we haven't done as much as we like to but that's just it's steping Stones step Stones we're start it's baby steps but hopefully not hopefully we'll most definitely be doing more as long as we continue to receive um support from um the administration and for our for our club all right cool um are there any questions that I could answer for you guys also for anyone interested that is watching we meet on Thursday mornings at 7:45 in room A110 how many how many kids are in the club right now at PSU registered or that come on a regular basis cuz there's a difference there is a difference um we have both we have a Google Classroom where I I still include all of those who have graduated um in our post about what's going on um so right now we have 44 people in our Google Classroom um that also includes parents of anyone who wanted to uh be included so that they can receive that information as well um about on the regular basis I would say that we have anywhere from it depends on what we're talking about if it's itself conversation there's a lot more students who come where it's roughly around like 3540 um if we are just a regular meeting and we're just kind of checking in talking about life uh it's usually around 25 okay but I will say since coming back from winter break uh there has been less numbers just because there's a lot going on it's January yeah I I I have to commend you because we as board have seen you in action uh and the positive impact you do play and the role you do play in messaging for the district I mean I think you guys are an invaluable resource in that regard and I'm really glad to hear your comments about what you said earlier about feeling daunted about having conversations with administrators but now based on the leadership that you feel comfortable in doing that and sharing your voice your voice is really valuable and we're really happy to have that and hear it on a constant and consistent basis you're important you you're really important and we we we love hearing from you that's awesome so I I think I heard you say are all the leaders seniors yes unfortunately and fortunately I started to uh look at that Nick set of leaders to lead BSU officially no but unofficially 100% like I already have my eye on a few um where in including one sophomore and I know you know who you are um so I I really looking forward to that because like the idea is to get more and more younger students involved so that it can continue um and so like I definitely have my eye on a few they might not know it but I do okay thank you will you continue that program of of the conference U Arrangement and continued workshops and speakers so uh both Lance and I have uh discussed like hopefully trying to do that same exact thing again uh we did have a lot of support from uh the Student Activities director Jen Martinez um because they usually highlight a specific Club to do something of that nature uh that just happened to be our time and we blew it up big which was awesome um but he and I have been in conversations about coordinating so that we can do it over again because all of the other BSU received positive feedback from their students and we even received feedback from other schools that weren't involved uh to get involved um I myself have spoken with uh the BSU sponsors in the D page area and put together just like a little little bit of a club a little bit uh just so that we could all stay on uh the same the same coordination basically and all that we're doing across our schools um so hopefully within that we continue to like kind of expand that and have opportunities like that is there any like National Association for BSU or is that does not does not even exist it's yes and no I feel like there's several um and there's some larger some smaller and then they populate at different like universities and high schools um to say that there's like a complete National one I am not aware of that but I will not say that there's not one just because I don't know okay cool well thanks for coming and sharing tonight yeah absolutely good work okay um yes I'll I'll go first um y me huh you want to go yeah I'll go for all right um hello everyone I hope you're doing well so the past few weeks have been really eventful starting with um Nathan Cisco and our boys bowling team took fifth in State this weekend so congrats to them uh cheerleading qualified for the state competition this weekend at ISU and as for uh Deca sectional competition that was 2 weeks ago we had 22 State students place for state so a congratulations to them as well it's a huge accomplishment it was really competitive this year um we also had a a student Advisory board meeting where the group discussed ways to improve the social aspect of our school and adding more communal activities for the students to bond over so we discussed better ways to get information to uh underclassman about cying as well and bullying in general and also what roles upper classman can take in order to create a better example for the rest of the school you know uh this whole idea was to employ better ideals and examples into our upper class so they become like a part of the social life at dgn so rather than you know getting told by the teachers that something is wrong or inappropriate it becomes a standard that is set socially and it's socially unacceptable by the upper classman so we understood that it was a problem of getting the message across and the real technique lies and you know the way that we employ and send those messages so there's a lot of really good discussions about this and you know trying to get like more stuff uh about education educating people about bullying in our access lessons um we also had future Trojan night last week where I got to speak to all the incoming freshmen and they all seem really excited and got to rund down all all their future classes and opportunities to see their school um and overall the event was successful for both the students and the families at in tendon otherwise we have some conference like the Ila all state that just passed this winter and the winter orchestra concert that that's coming up tomorrow and we also have the Evon Town jazz festival coming up Saturday and the spring play towards the end of the month so that's it all right so as you guys know Phil the ground hog just announced six more weeks of wi super excited to here but yeah uh both of us weren't here last week or a couple weeks ago because of the incoming freshman night which uh was a little nervous to go up there at first but I think it turned out super great and something really awesome I heard was I joined a couple people I knew at the entrance greeting people and I heard a dad say wow I would even like to come here which is amazing to hear especially from a student perspective Ive that people notice all the work that not only the staff does but also the students do just to encourage people to come here so that was really awesome we have a school assembly for uh winter on Friday and everyone knows that it's the most hype one because the seniors always win so super excited for that as you know and we just heard Black History Month is going on and black student union is running black voices showcased during resource February 5th and February 6th so it's super awesome that they're getting involved in the community during school hours so that everyone can participate and our Phillies dance team just went out to State and did a super amazing job uh teachers and students like to refer as February as the shortest and longest month of the year because we have a lot of days off but it's super chaotic so yeah it's going to be a chaotic month but a lot of fun thank you Julie do we have any visitors no sir okay and I'll turn it over to you Hank all right I'll quier yeah yeah you can drive because I'll get lost on the way there's there all right thanks everybody uh the moment you've been waiting for a conversation around AI um before we get started I just wanted to uh run through what tonight's going to look like uh we're going to give a little bit of background of what we've been doing in District 99 related to AI um I'm going to talk a little bit about the PD that teachers have had the opportunity to participate in uh we have some fantastic teachers here tonight to talk about examples of how they are using AI uh in their classes um we've also uh we're in the process of doing some listening tours to hear from teachers of what challenges and opportunities they're seeing in classrooms related to AI so we'll talk about what we've heard what we're planning on doing and then we'll open it up for Q&A so if you have questions throughout the presentation I ask that you can uh hold those until the end and then any one of us can pop back up and and answer any of your questions uh the first thing is um I want to acknowledge a few things one is AI in our schools there's really there's really two different things one is uh recognizing that AI is here and that uh utilizing AI is a skill that uh students are going to need to know how to do once they leave us in high school um so we know that that's something that we have worked to do to figure out a schoolwide curriculum on teaching those skills to students um so that's that's on our list tonight's presentation is about in the classroom uh itself um I also want to acknowledge that we have some teachers uh teachers are all over the place on their comfort level with utilizing AI um and they're also all over the place on their instructional goals and our work with AI is opening up possibilities for teachers to use AI when they think it's appropriate for their instructional goals so when they're ready when they think it's appropriate uh we're ready to engage them and to help them out bringing it back to a little bit of a research base here last time that I talked we were talking about uh personalized professional learning PPL uh and I was talking about John Hattie's work and how all of that is designed around uh Collective teacher efficacy which is um characterized in his work as doing Collective teacher efficacy right has the potential to consider uh considerably accelerate learning artificial intelligence is not listed in the academic research because it's just a tool however the thing that it has disrupted the most and that it gives the most possibility is around feedback and feedback is also in his research around when we do it well uh it has the potential to considerably accelerate learning so we're going to frame our conversation tonight around these two things uh feedback and learning and differentiated instruction the reason why feedback and learning is important for our conversation is because that's what's been disrupted the most is um it's getting increasingly difficult to give students feedback on their work when we're not quite sure which part of it is their work um so some of the teachers tonight are going to talk about the disruption around feedback but also some opportunities ways that they've used it uh to make feedback even more powerful in their classrooms the other part two is differentiated instruction uh di is uh the process where we uh customize instructional materials and instruction itself for the learning of each student uh it's a great vision um however it's an incredible amount of work on teachers to be able to pull that Vision together for over a 100 students each year um so we're going to talk about that tonight too because some of our teachers have found efficiencies and using AI to reach that vision of differentiated instruction so first up we're going to have Lisa lichman come up uh Lisa is our instructional coordinator at North High her counterpart is Isabel um Lisa is involved in all of our PD around the district she helps out our instructional coaches uh she works with Keith our associate principal for instruction um and then yeah Isabelle is her counterpart but Lisa is going to talk to us about uh opportunities that she's created at North High for supporting teachers with di AI sorry good good uh good intro so um we obviously at the end of 2022 the uh chat GP open AI all of this started happening and conversations were happening everywhere I was lucky SL unlucky enough to be at a conference when this really kind of hit you know the world and so there was a lot of conversations there so what we did when we got back in January is start to talk about what does this mean for us so we've done a lot and I feel really good about the things that we've done but I agree with what Rob said there's much more work to be down around AI um we started softly so we started a soft roll out with something we call conversations with colleagues where we would just invite people in to talk about AI what it meant what they were hearing and though we did that all of um the second semester that year and it was nice people would come and share things ideas some people would come in and you know just need a event or or need some support from us because they you know it's worrisome to some people so those those were went really well then we went to um directed building level PD for the staff we all met together um in a room we would you know we did three different sessions each we did about four of those directed PDS where we actually looked at a variety of tools what could these do for you based on everything Rob described di efficiency all teacher based so we did all this um building level and then we landed on subscribing to magic school and defit and I'm not going to go too deep into magic school or defit cuz um these amazing people are going to talk a little bit about those tools but those are the tool we tools we landed on could we have picked 10 others absolutely could you pick nine more by tomorrow morning that are going to be that great absolutely but these are the two we're using and I'm excited for you to hear about how they're doing that um as the instructional coordinator my instructional goals um and you know Isabelle and together with Keith and Jake and Rob I want to support teachers in creating engaging inclusive and effective learning environments this has been so helpful to me AI is help helping me do that as I work with teachers and support them and if we think about here at District 99 the growth of student ownership and agency helping students develop a broader understanding you know of their role as Global Citizens like Rob said this is here and it's going to stay so the more we can work on how we do this together to help our students will be amazing and you know I think about all you know the our strategic plan as well we evolve we challenge ourselves every day there's something new that I have to learn about or think about to to try and help people and is every day that posit you is it always positive no because there's some drawbacks that we know about but we're focusing on these goals um to help teachers refine their practice stay current with best practice and create learning and B environments that are supportive engaging and impactful for all students so that's a little bit about my role in the journey in the PD and I'm also quickly I'm representing Ela CMOS before um we call these guys up she she was couldn't be here tonight El is an English teacher extraordinaire and an instructional coach and the part that Rob was saying the feedback Elaine has done some really powerful work with students getting feedback peer feedback teacher feedback and now she's Incorporated AI feedback then after she did that she she gave the students a survey and I have that data if anybody's interested in it on how they felt about the different ways they received feedback in the room it was really interesting to read um but she said you know she uses AI for furthering innovation and um definitely so far she's found it to be an important component of the learning process which emphasizes metacognition reflection and goal setting and again she she talked about differentiation but I'm going to let um these guys tell you a little bit more about that so thank you for um letting me share the PD Journey so far great okay up next is Ryan Reyes Ryan's an English teacher at South High and he's going to talk about the writing process right yeah yeah so I've actually approached AI because a lot of my friends who work more in business talk about how just essential AI is to their work process their jobs and just how much it's changed their writing process in general and communication process so um working with my friends but also like I've been partnering with cood at the postsecondary level to think about like well how are these writing teachers seeing AI play in the comp 101 and just general composition courses at the Collegiate level and there a lot of the professors were like we do not care if you use AI right um the purpose is what are you trying to accomplish who is your audience and did you accomplish your goal um how effective was your communication um so that really um put that thought in my head of like okay how are we approaching audience how we how is what is what am I assessing here um let's make sure the assessment is is authentic and meaningful to what students are trying to do in a composition course so for right now I've been incorporating AI with brainstorming topics so just helping students um think of what can I even write about for this particular assignment we're going to be writing a story very soon that's one of the very first assessments of learning that I assign in my composition course and students when they think about what story they're going to tell um I'm going to ask them and pretty pointedly like well who is this for who's supposed to read this story and if they're going to say you I'm going to say who else so besides me right like who else is your story for um and that is AI might give you a topic it might give you a really great you know starting point but if you can't answer why are you doing this then we need to rethink um why you're what your goal is for this project so with that um I'm going to allow them to brainstorm with this particular um assignment I'm going toow them to revise um using the standards that I have set out so AI please read for this standard where do I think uh I can where do you think I can make some improvements and that is just an instant feedback response when especially when I'm conferencing with 20 other students about their ideas and like where I think they can take something where I think they can push or where I want to see some growth the rest of the class can immediately get feedback um and you know decide how valuable they think that feedback is you know all of that um so the feedback is awesome especially with the meeting standards um modeling a solution to better understand a problem I also teach an academic like intervention with literacy class and sometimes they come with math problems in Geometry or trigonometry and I'm like uh it's been a while since I've done that I'm an English teacher so let's throw it into Ai and see how it went about solving it and then if we don't understand a step and especially if I don't understand a I'm like do you understand that and they're like no I'm like okay we should ask why it did that right so modeling The Prompt engineering um that it takes to get a better answer and a more thorough understanding for ourselves um so so far um that's how I've been using it I like that it offers a starting point um especially if we're thinking about writing we thinking about audience it's a really great place where that for that student who's like I don't know a story I I don't know any stories so it's like here is some where you can start right like this is a great starting point um a nice perspective very very quickly um where can I improve my writing and especially because my teacher is going to be reading for this particular standard very fast feedback and you can decide if you want to use that feedback or not but it at least gave you something to work with um with that the wishes that I have for it right now are just that when it makes changes I've been playing around with the prompt engineering more and more with this but I'm like can you please bold the changes or italicize or show me why you made that change um right now it doesn't do a great job of explaining why it made it change it might say like oh for um you know different audiences we'll find this metaphor meaningful it's like yeah but like uh why an ocean right so um whatever it might kick out it's it sometimes does have trouble explaining why it made the change um so again when it comes back to working with a student and talking about their writing process what they were trying to accomplish with the piece um that's where we come back to um why did you accept that change and go along with that or why did you change that um with all of this I'm asking students to submit screenshots of everything that AI gives them so that I can compare what they were given with what they actually decided to submit and have a better understanding of their process cool thanks uh one thing that uh Ryan dropped here for us is this term around uh prompt engineering um so prompt engineering is uh to get the best results out of AI you need to tell it what you want it to be so then it refines the sources on where it comes through uh Ryan had a really great uh chat with US during one of our listening sessions and helped me to understand that uh teaching students how to do proper prompt engineering for a writing assignment actually meets some of his instructional goals around understanding the audience so the idea of teaching students how to use AI in this case uh they complement each other so learning how to prompt engineer uh also goes along with what he's trying to get his students to understand around uh writing for an intended audience all right next next up we've got malanka malanka does some great work with our El students and she's here to talk to us about how she uses AI with them hi I'm milanka vle and I teach social studies in elel at dgn so this year I am teaching two sections of el US history and one of my sections currently has 18 students that are considered to be newcomers to the country which means they have um limited to almost no English proficiency and they have arrived within the last year or so so some of my students have arrived within the last month so approaching this class and approaching AI I have been kind of thinking of the mindset of it's not going away and I'd rather they use it as a tool than something that will hinder their learning and I also had to rethink how I think about us history and how I can make them understand these big Concepts that they're going to see in the world around them so much of what I've been using revolves around magic school um magic school has this cool feature where you can interview a historical figure so if we're talking about the Constitution or the Declaration of Independence students have to pass the Constitution test to graduate which they all did they all passed but getting them to be able to talk to the people who wrote these documents right and then what their ideas were and what they thought was really important for the kids because the responses were at a level where they could totally understand what they were saying and they liked it because it felt like they were having like a back back and forth conversation with people that have been you know passed for a very very long time I also have been using it to provide them with cultural background for big topics that we do study so the idea of the first Thanksgiving what is a Thanksgiving what is it centered around how has it changed over the years Magus school has been great for giving me articles but so has defit so defit is a tool that we have at school where you can put in an article it can create one for you but you can also tell it what level you want it at if you want it in a specific language so I have students who speak Arabic Spanish Russian Ukrainian Allin one room so sometimes it does help them to have both versions side by side as they're learning um English and so diff it gives you not only the option to have the article but it'll create questions for you and so the questions are checking their comprehension level how are they doing with following the main idea um I've used it to help teach annotation skills so how do you track vocabulary words how do you track the main argument and then it does give them short answer prompts as well which will have them practice their writing skills and then give them that reassurance that they are understanding what the article is talking about I also have really liked it for big idea processing so when you are looking at things like freedom and Justice and what does it mean to have a democracy and a constitution it allows them to create resources but also to compare and contrast different constitutions across the world so they have been able to look at the Constitution of the United States but also the constitution of their home country or any other country that they want they can make a comparison chart of this is what we have and this is what other places have as well I also really like it for language development um a lot of my kids are in the process of learning how to pronounce certain words so it can allow you to do that it will give you that feature of practicing really sentence structure practicing how you pronounce words how you can them how you can write them um I've also been using news Ella or news Ela which we have a subscription for that has a built-in AI feature which does similar things to defit but it will give them like a little blurb at the beginning of the article that allows them to have a preview or a summary of what they're going to read before they can start reading the article it's been really great for the kids because sometimes it can be daunting to get an article that's titled Angel Island versus Ellis Island and they're very Maybe unaware with the vocabulary but the preview will let them know that they're talking about immigration um that they're looking at a topic that is going to be new but it's going to be done in a way where they can take breaks answer questions ask questions and all of that I have found it to be very helpful for me because it's made my job a bit more fun as well because I'm able to kind of figure out like what is going to work for my students so if we're going to be talking about different time periods having it kind of give me ideas of what would be a fun project to discuss different decades so creating a magazine or creating a different PowerPoint and really kind of focusing on the creativity piece of this class because I want history to be fun to them and for many of them it's their first encounter with us history and so they have this desire to learn they have this desire to want to know more about the country that they're in right now and so magic school defit allows me the chance to come up with projects that will have them engaged with each other and with other teachers in the school as well so they're practicing their English but they're also learning the content area as well great thanks so you can hear uh in mala's presentation uh elements of that differentiation so she's able to more quickly adjust instructional materials for the wide variety of students that she has in there uh next up is Diana Diana is going to talk to us about uh World languages yes okay I'm not as well versed as the my last two colleagues but my name is Diana Bal and I teach Spanish at um Downer South so I teach level one and level five so quite a difference in between the two um and for level one we started to want to incorporate a reader we incorporated one at the end of last semester and the kids did really well but we wanted to incorporate one first semester as well so in looking at the reader there were three different chapters and trying to think how are we going to do this so we used defit um and typed in all we had a book so I had to type it all in but it was really nice and just giving me a place to start on how to introduce it to the students um it separated vocabulary so it took main vocabulary words and um separated them for me so then I can create that so that they could use it as their reading but the way I really um liked it was for the differentiation so depending on where they are some of them have memorized the vocabulary way quicker than others so some of them need less support so I was able to come up with three different versions and um I would give them to all of them but then I would tell them there's you know step a step B and step C and you can go ahead and if you feel like you don't need to use a or b you can skip to C or use whichever ones that you like um to get to the comprehension of the reader as a whole and so for the first time going through a reader where they are taking their vocabulary words and it's a children's book but still it was a big accomplishment for them um and we had a little project and they did some slides at the end of um their own story in turn and so they did a really good job in level five though I use it very differently um obviously and I would like to dig in a little bit more into it in the future but as for right now so a lot of videos and a lot of text so sometimes to just transcribe the videos there's just so much going on I don't want to show show them the whole thing so instead of having to sit for an hour and watch the whole thing I can take a look and see what sections I want to use and then find that um it'll separate it for me and it comes up with questions that um can get me started uh with them so sometimes like I'm doing donkey hot right now I've read those stories so many times that I have the same questions going on over and over again so it it really helps me think of um different types of questions for the students um okay so I do find it very helpful um and I don't know why I didn't finish my sentence there but helpful in getting me started with what it is that I want to do with the students um and it's been a timesaver so um just having it the way that it outlines everything for me where I can take it and then just tweak it instead of spending an hour or two trying to create the format so it's really um time saving and I know that there is is some type of AI out there that can do this but if I could do an authentic interaction with my students where at their level they could get immediate feedback I would love that and I know it's there I just haven't found it yet but so that's my goal with AI thanks in our listening session uh I asked Diana what do you wish that it could do and she lit up with this imagination around this authentic uh conversation partner of just the idea of um right now in language learning uh students get a conversation partner in class but um she's imagining AI being uh at an advanced enough level that the students can have that with them all the time so they can be more immersed uh in the language and also some sort of repository around uh the vocabulary that the student currently has so then the AI in a conversation partnership uses that vocabulary not something that's way outside so it's a cool idea it's out there somewhere we just need to find it yeah exactly uh up next is Paula Paula is here to talk to us uh what she hears from teachers in her role as an instructional coach uh and Paula is also one of our district trainers on differentiated instruction thank you so much for having me um I am do you mind clicking oh sure I keep messing that up um I have a few points here that have come directly from my work as an instructional coach um with teachers that come to me with a problem that they need to solve like I have the answers or something so we naturally go right to the internet and um we work together and the idea of a conversation partner is one that is constant throughout my engagement with any AI whether it's chat gbt magic school defit and many more um but really refining that conversation and um giving it as much information as I possibly can to get the best outcome for all involved uh the first bullet point here talks about a rubric for a marketing project a teacher came to me uh they've been doing the same marketing project for years and years and years and their end result the rubric just didn't seem like it was truly grasping the quality of the students work it was more like a checklist of tasks do they have an a name check do they have these required components check and then check equals a but the both teachers in the marketing um class wanted more they really wanted to reflect like I said earlier the quality of students work within the rubric and within their grade um so we used magic school to do so we put in many of the criteria that were required we put in uh the idea of using five different levels to describe that criteria and out popped the wonderful and magical rubric of which the two teachers took back and like dissected it and made it personalized for what they were um what they needed in each of their classrooms uh so that was a really cool journey to watch kind of the building of it and then the execution of it it was pretty cool um I had another teacher come to me with the problem of I have only eight students in my rock band class um this is a music teacher in our finance department uh and they have only only eight students and it's a really small setting but they have to work together to play together um many students at different levels are taking this class so how can we get them all on the same page on the same team working together collaborating even even before they play the very first note so magic school also has a feature uh for team building and collaboration activities um and it within seconds it popped out at least 10 good ideas and some others that we decided to kick out of there but um she incorporates these activities on a weekly basis during the block day as kind of like a brain break slash get to know you let's build our bond so um that's been really powerful in her classroom the next two bullet points about reading comprehension is really to Echo what um all of my colleagues have said already before about um increasing language strategies and literacy and um creating materials where we haven't had a textbook in a really long time now in World languages so we either have to search out authentic resources or create them ourselves and um many of the AI tools are able to do that um my last point there is uh some I also wear the hat as of the trip coordinator for our department so um last summer we took a trip to Peru and uh coordinating with families and students to make sure that all required documentation gets turned in on time at certain times throughout the year so it's an 18-month process and there's constant conversations between me and um family's home to make sure that things are where they need to be that all the documentation is in on time and we're not penalized in any way for that so um I went straight to chat GPT to ask uh how many ways can I ask families to submit their passport information into the EF Tours site and it's 12 12 is the answer ask families very kindly to make sure that those deadlines are hit sometimes you know people need reminders I get it I'm I'm at top of that list so um so far I find all of the AI tools that we are very fortunate to have access to here at d99 incredibly helpful both in my own classroom and in the classrooms of the colleagues that I work with every day um and in creating teacher efficiency we we all have a laundry list of 10,000 things to do um and it just makes it a laundry list of 9,000 because it does really take out um some time and very very time heavy um activities that are involved so I always is the visual of it's Crea it's building a the perfect house with your conversation um with whatever you're putting into AI you create the foundation and the framing you see it you take a look at it you decide if it's really right for you or if it's not and then you can destroy the whole thing and start over again um but it's a constant conversation going back and forth at every layer you add a brand new aspect you add a brand new room a brand new color on the wall and by the the end of the conversation you have be much more efficient something that would have taken me years and years and years to implement in my classroom by getting feedback from students and then having to tweak it for the next year I can do those types of things in minutes um so I think we're putting out better product and we're having students think more deeply about our topics and our content and that's to me something that's completely invaluable um something I wish I could do is BAS basically the exact same thing that uh Diana wishes as a World Language teacher as well is that we could recreate the simulated conversation uh with a with a feedback component which would be really cool at the students level using the same you know uh aspects of vocabulary which is pretty impossible to recreate so I would love to see i' would love to see what's to come thank you so much for for having us and hosting us this evening yeah yeah so as one of our Trainers for for Di um I think it's safe to say Paula has always recognized that teachers are super excited about di but then when it comes to the amount of work that's required to create all of those materials to do di uh it tends to be a roadblock so when Paula talks about efficiency uh what she's meaning is that uh the more time that we can have ai doing that stuff the more time the teacher's brain can be focused on uh each individual student and what they need for their learning um so uh not everything's great about AI so uh one thing that we've been doing is going around to the buildings and uh listening to teachers asking them about uh what they see as uh good things that are happening in AI but then also asking them what do they need from us uh to help them troubleshoot some of the challenges that they are seeing uh we have TBD 1499 uh Lisa has that scheduled March 3rd uh she and I are going to go over there uh and really this part about the listening sessions is linked to our work around morale ownership and input and making sure that we're given opportunities for teachers to uh have their voices heard um on some of the challenges that they're seeing in there so Keith is going to give us an overview of what we heard in the listening sessions um and then some of our actions that we have planned based on what we heard from the for instruction I didn't introduce you I'm sorry it's okay I got this Rob you'll have your chance to correct me a little bit I'm sure um the so we had some awesome listening sessions at um at both of the high schools and I I I'll preface this with the by awesome I mean just great conversations where people were there to talk about how they're using Ai and learn from each other so it was really productive for everybody in the room and we got a lot of information out of as well of course there are questions that come with this it's moving very quickly um and we're also in a in a profession has dealt with a lot of very quick things in the last 10 years so uh that brings some energy with it so one of the things um but we've got five little trends that we uh came up with after our conversations so just that literacy is essential Ryan talked about this teaching our students how to use AI productively um moving forward in their classes but also getting ready for the next step whatever that might be clear guidance uh is essential our teachers are looking for guid guidance on how to use AI where the cuto off is for using not using AI so we've been having conversations about that rethinking pedagogy and how we do our lessons Paula just mentioned that just kind of really looking at we have these great Tools in magic school and defit and all the chat Pops that are out there but making those decisions on whether or not that's the right way to go uh with what's presented to us um addressing those challenges of AI use in our classroom so it can be it can seem very quick and an easy solution for someone who might be overwhelmed a student that might be overwhelmed to go in and use use AI to produce something that is they could be a good chunk of their work but has some a a little bit too much AI in it so we need to work on how we're addressing that and then of course embracing the opportunities here we Rob and Paula just mentioned the efficiencies um that's that's a big piece right productivity efficiencies and this as a teaching tool thanks Rob um and then what are our teachers that came to talk to us are looking for uh combating Aid driven dishonesty I chatted a little bit about that a second ago uh human centered AI integration we have some teachers that are just worried about um students who might be isolating themselves because of the technology so increased amounts of technology is not always better for us we want to make sure we're using it for the right reasons um the ethical boundaries there so how do we Define the use in addressing questions on who determines what effective uh ethical use is with AI addressing hesitations we have some students who are coming in our classes our teachers share this with us some students who are ready to jump in and use AI as the teacher explaining it some who are a little hesitant and some who don't want to touch it at all because they've been brought up as this may be a a going down the road that they don't want to go down and they don't know enough about it yet so they don't even want to touch it um then of course AI enhancing teaching and learning so our teachers are looking for professional development around this as well and really just conversations so um we have some other teachers with other than those awesome teachers with us today that shared with us what they're doing but that just helping reduce planning time effective differentiation especially within same class we have some students or some teachers just like our our our rock band teacher that have stacks which means they have a couple of different types of classes happening at the same time with smaller groups of students so that helps them with that and then another English teacher just like Ryan who's using it to um at North who's using it to provide feedback for their students including vocabulary suggestions and other things so uh we brought that together as a team and thought about well what are our next steps so uh Hank has put together and brought together bringing together which used to be together but now it's coming back together that's right Integrity committee that's being led by Kelly Zer one of the associate principles at North and Kim Bowski who's the library department shair at South are going to be leading up that uh reconvening and they're going to be talking about um just this uh identifying using it for plagiarism writing services like how the how we can use it in the classroom so they really want to get to that but these are really great people to have be a part that because I know Kim has been and I've been in a couple conversations with her she's been to a couple different conferences where this is a Hot Topic um that comes up and also um Kelly works with discipline so the two Hand inand will be a really good team leading that work um and so the final piece of the puzzle is how can we help as a PD team here and we want to make sure we're creating more opportunities to get together like we did for that conversation um already so like our Innovation Labs where we get some awesome teachers together to talk about this stuff and really learn from each other we want to promote uh learning goals and detract from those things that may be get in the way of moving our system forward as well perfect miss anything no you got it awesome thank you uh yeah so Keith touched on this a little bit uh the academic Integrity part uh back in the old days uh it used to be pretty easy to determine whether a student was being dishonest with their academic um uh but even even before AI there was still work to do around uh students who accidentally stumbled into academic dishonesty uh maybe paraphrasing incorrectly or citing incorrectly um and so there's always work to do to help them to understand how to properly site uh but those were still sort of black and white areas with AI and AI being able to assist students it's becoming more difficult to determine when it actually dishonest uh and when a student just didn't realize that they weren't supposed to use it to that level um so Kim uh in our library over there at South is really passionate about this so I'm excited that she's going to co-chair that committee to help us through that um and then Kelly on the discipline side I'm excited the two of them are are working together because um sometimes those things end up in her office at the same time the biggest thing that our teachers from what we heard in the listening sessions are looking for is uh vertical alignment between your board policy which already references AI that basically says it's the teacher's discretion when it's allowed um uh that and they're also looking for some schoolwide practices so that way they know how to clearly communicate to students uh when they can use it and how they can use it um all the way down to the course teams and then the the teachers so they want some vertical alignment between all those levels um and that's what we're going to be working on because what we heard in some of the sessions is that um there's a little bit of hesitancy from some teachers and students about even considering to use it in their academics because they don't know where the line is of uh when they've crossed over using it too much so teachers are just looking for some clarity to help them uh better Define that line for the students uh some other areas where we are using AI uh we are currently in the process of uh working with with a firm to train uh an HR chatbot um what we find is that we have uh a pretty large volume of Staff who call our offices uh looking for an answer and the answer is already present in a document somewhere on our internet um but there's so many documents it's difficult so the easiest thing is for them to call us uh so what we're doing is working on training that so that maybe that could be the first spot that the staff goes to to ask a simple question how do I find this or what do I do in this case It'll point them right to the document um again for the purpose of that frees up some of our time to go in deeper uh and better support our our staff in other areas instead of helping them find a document that's out there uh and then Ryan as part of uh summer learning last year he brought in a course uh an optional course for students to take around uh AI uh and that's taught by um some Alum of Stanford and MIT where they talk about what AI is how to use Ai and uh applications that are being seen in industry for it so there's some opportunities in the summertime for students to to dig in deeper and to learn about about AI so that is our presentation now what questions do you have for us um with a changing landscape and not a lot of research out there I would imagine um how do you how did you choose magic school and defit and how did you not choose others and can you talk a little bit about that process and then two um what are we doing on the professional development side um to develop standards throughout the district um in utilizing these s these resources in you know each of our classrooms yeah so um least can answer how we ended up at those tools uh the second part I think it goes back to the point of consistency it's what the teachers are asking for is um how do they know when to give permission to students on using it uh and how do they know that they've been clear enough to students so that way if they do get a a piece of work from students where they're wondering is this this kid's work or is this not this kid's work then they know that they've been clear enough with the students of where that line is at so then they can uh talk to them about that um but as far as the individual tools uh Lisa gets lots and lots of requests for fancy things that are out there and then she does a really good job of helping teachers go through tools that we already have so she talks about what their instructional goals are uh sees if we already uh have a tool that can do something similar and if it doesn't then she works with them to see is it free or is it something that we should look into purchasing definitely and that's what we did with all of these and again it changes every day so what we thought of um I'm come from a computer science programming background so for me all this is exciting I can't wait to get the next tool but I always have to remember there's people on a variety of levels so what we did was think about how will this help the teachers and I think you've heard tonight how much they've all said that it's efficiency and it's really helped them so that's when we started looking at the tools what's this going to do to help our teachers be able to interact with kids more as the human in the center of the classroom that's what we all always keep in mind everything they shared with you tonight is them spending more time with kids so magic school if you go on every day there's a new tool these guys can tell you at the top there's a new tool something that it does to help the teacher lesson plan and differentiate and and um do creative things with the the conversations that um were described and then diff it is exactly what it is it's differentiation it's leveling it's translating it's a asking questions and um all the organizers so we wanted to help the teachers we were we have been so far very teacher focused the listening sessions everything we're doing now as we get more into this is about how can we support the ethical use as all of us together student and I love that AI course in the summer how can we do this as a team how can we expand everyone's Horizons in in the AI field because again it is going to be here and it really is changing the landscape for you know the students in their classes but as Educators every day what can help me spend more time with with students and feedback and and talking again human centered with this massive tool that's out there so that's kind of how we've looked at several but that's how we landed now and and we have a great team you know with Travis and and Phil we have a great team of looking at other tools and I think we'll continue to do that and who knows what what might pop up in the future yeah yeah and Travis and Phil run a process so um any anytime that a teacher becomes aware of a new product um and they want us to look into possibly getting it it runs through their process so that way they can vet it and they can have those conversations to see is this worthwhile are we sending out any like leaders like on a consistent basis to like go and attend seminars and conferences to investigate these tools yeah it's such a hot topic that it's in every conference that anybody goes to anyways right okay and I'm on a new page group with all the tech you know people like me and we talk about it often we've been to several conferences um ID account is coming up in February that every session is about you know AI I think these guys are really good at seeking things out so yes an i me every day there's something new that that we're looking at and you know trying to stay AR rest of of the changes so I have a question so are you guys on uh a pay version of these tools and how are you administrating them are you giving them to every teacher has access to one of these tools of both of these tools and then talk a little bit Travis yeah both of these are they they started out uh we started them out as a free again to try them uh and then they gave us a I think we did it last the second semester with magic school where we did a a trial um on a smaller amount right to see what the full version if you will looks like and that's what we approach that we've done with all of those but these both are paid uh and and so that's part of the process in when when an app is asked because it it's it is like hurting cats there are so many apps that are out there there are so many things that you can go to a conference and oh that looks really good this looks really good and and they do there's a lot of really good tools but we have to land on some and and go through and then utilize some of those other free resources so are um the teachers coming to say I'd like to have a license for yeah that they can so that's part of the process as well so part of the part of the application is when they fill that out one of the things we have um soapa is the student online privacy uh protection act right so we have to go through and and bet that way but also with that um if there's any money associated with the app itself there's there's questions that are asked are you looking at using this as an individual is this something that the department is looking at is this something that's schoolwide is it's something that we need to consider districtwide because obviously there's different pricing structures with that but then part of our Challenge and and something that we're wrestling with is how do we determine that this ask is better than another tool that we already have right so that is the that's the biggest part about hurting cats is there are so many things that are out there and again there's a lot of really good tools but a lot of the tools have other components of a tool that we already have right so it is it's a challenge that was going to be my next question cuz it's almost like standardizing on what are going to be your AIT tools for the district cuz stuff will come up continue to come up every day it'll be new it's constantly Chang it'll be new um companies pop it up every day with something so I don't I was just wonder how you're managing that because you you're you're going to have a lot of time looking at every tool that somebody comes to you like it becomes another part of your day we've been managing that for a long before the AI Trend all of our instructional Tech the apps and the extensions and all that stuff we've been managing that through the same process okay no well that's great um the the other question I had is the students so what are they using for AI and are is it a what are they is it bring your own good thing we have two of them here I mean a school I think I can start with that um we use magic school a lot which is like especially my lit class and whatnot so you know the teacher will give us the rubric and what and how she's grading right and we're going to we put that into magic school and we just put our essay in and it spits out a lot of feedback you know and it's our choice whether we're we want to take it or we don't want it right and it's our job to you know kind of edit it so again in my experiences it's turned my mediocre essays into gray essays right so um that's again one of the big tools that i' I've really liked and I've used a lot and another thing is you know in our in my Cal class um our teacher literally just says put this oh ask these questions to chat gbt and it'll spit out a bunch of practice uh whatever it answers and whatnot and it gives you the answer to the problem and the actual problem and if your answer does not m match with that answer he just tells you to run through that stepbystep explanation and it perfectly step by step make sure that you understand every part of that problem even though even if it's a long very long problem or a short problem which I think is really useful when it comes to studying for big exams like the AP test when you know they have a lot of different you know requirements and a lot of different problem sets that you have to know how to do for those exams right so I think you know making sure like you know that requirement based type of education it really helps a lot yeah um same over here except magic tool we use more like chat GPT and I think it's really important to analyze how effective it can be for students too using appropriately like just how rayon was saying uh when I was doing my winter essay I put in the exact rubric that my teacher had and I put in my essay and it gave me step byep like feedback imitating her voice and another thing I mean there's countless ways that you can use it if a teacher posts um like topics that she wants you to master by the end of the unit you can spit them in there in practice questions and it'll just spit you out a practice guide so I mean it's super awesome especially because in college we're going to be getting less review guyses by teachers so learning to make those ourselves that's awesome but I think it's also really important to like practice and teach students that AI is not going to be perfect and it's not right always so you always have to double check there's been a number of times that my English teacher like ask Google a question and it's wrong at the top so it's just super important to analyze those factors and yeah I'm I'm interested do you do you guys use AI outside of school yeah what do you what do you what do you use for that actually a couple months ago I was applying to a job and I asked it to write me a resume it asked me my name my job experiences and I put it and then it just spit it out I put it into um a Resume Builder and it was just done so I mean I I I did the exact same thing for apply the jobs and then also you know sending text messages and emails and stuff like that I have a uh an assist that I use on my computer and on my phone and it really just helps me Prof professionalize a lot of my emails and a lot of my text messages I S so it's really helpful for that as well so do you find that this is grades 9 through 12 is it I know you mentioned in the you the Spanish level one and level five um is it more concentrated on the upper classman are the ninth and 10th graders using it do they come in like are the is like the Middle School using it like how far down does it go I'm using it to create work for my students I haven't used it with them yet okay I'm still trying to get them back to Google Translate things and teaching them that why that's wrong U but this is something I thought about in the future like AI if they start using it it would be something that you would have to sit down as a department to figure out how are we going to teach them to use it properly but I haven't started using it with the students okay yet okay I will say as somebody who teaches freshman and I teach Global as well a lot of them come in knowing what it is and prepared to use it for everything and then kind of having to retach those skills of like how do you use it effectively has been a big deal because many of them think like they can just copy and paste it and I won't know that it's a that GPT essay on the French Revolution but I will um kind of teaching them again how to use it effectively is really important okay uh one of the examples I just thought of in the math class and this came up in our listening sessions is um uh Gone are the days of assuming that just because the student shows up with the correct answer that they actually know how to get to that answer uh I see it with my own daughter as she is working her way through honors geometry and she's is using chat GPT uh there's points where she thinks that she understands the whole logic but she's applying some idea from a different problem that chat told her how to you it to this new problem um and what you can see uh the group that uh I got the checks from the foundation of building thinking classrooms uh that's a response to this environment so uh uh making sure that the time in the class period is where the students are processing through together how uh to do the logic of math problems and doing that in the space where the teacher is at so the teacher can make sure that their logic is sound um so it's sort of flipping it of kids used to do that at home but now they're bringing it in the classroom uh so they make sure that they know the actual steps so some responses to uh AI being around us now of changing the way that we teach so we can make sure that the students are are actually learning absolutely very interesting all right thank you thank you [Applause] all all right we have Arwin and courton coming up to present on uh the results from the relationship mapping exercise yeah um we're really excited to be back tonight to talk about this we enjoyed when we were able to share it with you the first time our why and how we were going to do it and so we're here to report that we've successfully done it um and have started the process of diving into the data so we're going to start um Courtney's going to present kind of an overview of North and then I'm going to mirror her but present an overview of s good evening everyone thank you again for having us um as Arwin mentioned and we talked about last time that we were doing this on our January Institute day and so every staff member um in both of our buildings and at t99 completed the relationship mapping activity it went really really well and the data that we're sharing with you today is actually the same data that we have shared with our staff members already and so this is an opportunity for us to shout out again to Phil and his team um they made this so easy and really um palatable for everybody to do um in one day in really one hour actually and also was able to get the data to us really quickly that we were then able to share with our staff um so again it just really confirms not only the importance of this but how um it is important to not only do the activity but then show how we're using the data to help us inform how we're going to approach some of the students with only zero to one relationships so um you can flip yeah so I'm going to let our inent go through our data first and then um turn it over to Arwin I'm not going to read every bullet here but I'm going to highlight a couple of things um we have students who come over from um Junior highs to take math classes and they are included in this data um so that's important to know um the one thing that both of us experienced at the building um once we shared this data everyone um was taking a look at it and like oh my God I can't believe I didn't mark the student can you please go back and change it um and it was a really just positive um great response from our staff members that they kind of were thinking about it in hindsight that oh yes I should have selected that particular student um and we said it's okay um we know and I can speak for myself too as teachers we like to be perfectionists and make sure everything is right um but at the same time we we it just reaffirmed the fact for us that people were really kind of paying attention and really thoughtful about the activity both during and after um the participation of this so that was really cool um and also to note the data was really consistent um with data from our Illinois youth survey that we've given over the past couple of years to show the strength and the relationships that our students have with adults so go ahead um the special notes and just kind of an overview on our data at north um on average each dgn student has um six approximately 6.9 positive relationships with staff we identified 170 students um with zero to one relationships and that's a lot of the data that you'll see this evening is centered around um what that looks like we had 56 students with 20 or or more relationships identified and 13 students have 26 or more relationships identified with the highest being 35 in our building um it no surprises here 12th graders have more relationships than you'll see on the graph the significant increase in relationships from nine grade n to grade 12 um again not surprising but really interesting to watch how that grows over four years in fact one of the teachers who um came to talk to me about the student that um she did at Mark was like he's a transfer student and I really want to Mark him we all talked about it and and so we know again our teachers are really thinking about even the new students that we have who come in on a regular basis into our buildings um females have have a higher number of uh relationships identified than males this is not surprising when I write a three sentence text to my 12-year-old the response is okay so not surprising there um again something we predicted but interesting to see um and then free and reduced lunch status does not really have an impact on how many relationships students have um and again something um confirming to the level of supports that we have for students that our El students and our students with IEPs have more relationships identified than those who are not elel or have an IEP again confirming the fact that we do have a lot of supports in place for those students who really need a lot more um than maybe the average student so go ahead all right I have to um because I can't see anything I have to look at my computer here just to help me out um and you may need to look at some of the slides a little closer too so I apologize but again um we'll go through a couple of the graphs here um for North freshman again have the fewest relationships reported um but uh the that growth over the four years is very significant and so um again in the in the percentage of students with um identified by grade level with zero to one relationships um we have again seniors only seven of the 170 identified have zero to one relationship so again that growth over four years is very significant um and again most of the graphs that you see are really centered around the students who have zero to one relationships reported go ahead uh again average number of positive Relationships by grade nth graders have approximately 3.5 relationships on average and by senior year that number triples um so when you look at the graph you can see that seniors on average have 10.5 relationships uh positive relationships with adults again gender um we see that males and females have a little bit of a discrepancy male students are substantially more likely to have zero to one relationships reported um again as we think about the areas where we're targeting with these students and making sure that they have supports we know that this is one area that we um need to need to analyze a little bit deeper average posi positive Relationships by race and ethnicity we find at North that on average our black and native Hawaiian students have the highest number of reported relationships and so you see at at the very top the red and yellow approximately 8.3 relationships um per student um and then our Asian students have the lowest number of reported relationships so again um one of the things that we'll talk about this evening is how what are we doing with this data and our equity and inclusion teams are really diving into some of these pieces here specifically um with race and ethnicity and then our students grades which you'll see in a minute um to really kind of dig in and make sure that we're providing the level of supports for all students that they need again um our El students um have are they're not we don't have a very high representation of el students not as much as South but um they are much less likely to have zero to one relationships so again providing that level of support for our students who really need it um was confirming that that it's good that our students um who are new to school new to our country have uh a lot of adults to connect with same on the next slide for our IEP students um again much less likely to have zero or one relationships as reported by our staff members um free reduced status um again an interesting statistic that on average um the relationships the number of relationships reported are very similar regardless of socioeconomic status um so that was good and um and then the last slide that I have here is our average by GPA and again this is one of those um interesting data points where we want to dig in a little with our equity and inclusion teams and you'll find um and and it's interesting again we won't know until we actually start to um really dig into some of these specific students but you'll see at the very top there students we have um in the 3.5 to 4.0 GPA which is the purple bar and the pink bar we have 100 students within that range who are getting really good grades and only being reported as having zero to one relationships so again they're being successful in school um are they connecting with people and so um as we will as Arwin will share too our CS teams are looking at each individual student of those 170 with only 0 to one relationships to make sure that we have the appropriate supports in place for those students you'll also see the green and yellow bars in the middle are our 2.5 to 3.5 GPA um and those are um a little less than our higher GPA but still a level of support we want to make sure our students have but also confirming that our students who aren't doing well in school um it seems as though there's been a lot of lot more reported um positive relationships which is a good thing so students who aren't doing well academically have a lot of um adult support in the building so that's it for North okay I'll change okay your SL that's fine um our data for South is is very similar there's a few different nuances um but really um very similar to what you'll have seen at north um so we had 154 students um just under 6% um with a zero or one relationship our average relationship very similar to north um 6.8 positive relationships um we really took time to celebrate um we had many students above 26 but we talked about we had 10 students um we had 10 students who had between 26 and 35 positive relationships we did share those names um with our staff and enjoyed seeing students at all ends of the academic Spectrum within that number um like North our grade 12 students were more connected than grade nine again predictable um and then cim and Mr D'Angelo talked about this a little bit too um with just that we are looking to have male students kind of embracing leadership roles and be involved more of our programs we too saw female students significantly more connected than males one um data point that we did get a chance to celebrate um with our black student union too um at South South High's black and African-American students are the most connected group in all of District 99 so that was something we we were really proud of was our group of students um who had the highest identified Relationships by a by a pretty decent margin um students with IEPs are more connected than students without IEPs um students with free and reduced lunch had no impact on the number of relationships students have um we can believe partly because our number is rather large and so those students kind of just fit right in um and have the same experience as their peers who are not on free and reduced lunch and then like you'll see at the end and Courtney talked about this too students at the high and low ends of the GPA range are more connected than those students in who are in the middle so that's definitely a Focus area that we found to dive into um some of this will be a little bit repetitive but just wanted to show you the numbers um this slide just shows you this is the students with zero to one so you're looking for the lowest bar possible which you can see is represented there with our seniors how that goes down significantly by grade this is just that slide in Reverse um our ninth graders have 4.6 positive relationship and you can see by senior year that number almost doubles so just super proud of the Conn that we make along the way with our students this is the slide that talks about um that male students were substantially more likely to have the zero or one relationships again kind of like Courtney said it's something our equity and inclusion councils are are working on and we're diving in from an activities and Athletics leadership Point as well this is the the slide that shows you positive Relationships by R race and ethnicity so like I shared our black students have the highest number number and then sorry no it's good looking at the um the N number kind of like North our yellow box is our um American Indian students that and number is very low um so we are officially reporting that our Asian students also have the lowest number of relationships so again something our equity and inclusion Council will look into for El our students are actually slightly less likely to have staff Relationships by a very small margin similar to what I talked about with free and reduced lunch re students are supported all across the building in multiple levels so much so that they're experienc mirrors um they're nonel peers so even though it might not seem like it that is actually something our equity and inclusion Council celebrated that our students kind of mirrored their peers and that that didn't have a significant impact um on the flip side our students with IEPs are substantially less likely to be on the zero or one list because they're so connected did with a case manager and our related services and their um smaller class sizes with their teachers this is the same one you can see free introduced status didn't have an impact in the data and then the GPA slide this is something um that I think we'll end up spending a lot of time on just that with the GPA cluster in the middle um are more likely to have those zero and one that would be like the red blue and green bars and then the students on the other ends of the spectrum where they have more of those supports um are less likely to be in that data um Corney kind of said this already that once we shared the list um teachers you know right away you know kind of reached out sharing some students that they that they thought they missed and those stories were actually really nice to see um most of the students on the list have multiple levels of support in place so even though their names weren't checked teachers were asked to say do you think this student would come to you if they needed something had a trusting relationship doesn't necessarily mean that they're not meeting regularly with their counselor or regularly with their social worker the adult just didn't feel like that deeper connection was there but those students did have support in place and then many had excellent grades and excellent attendance so aren't struggling but need to still work on that connection still a focus area so one of the things that we shared with our staff when we shared this data um was okay so one of the we also we shared this list of 170 students um and in Arn's case her number of students who had the zero to one relationships and we knew that a common question would be okay well what can we do and so our equity and inclusion team created a list um this is where they've really lean into this work and have been really excited to share the data one of the first things they said was there were we really need to celebrate this because it's really good and we feel really good about how many relationships our teachers have with students um but they also shared these um tips with staff to like if you know one of these students on the list what are some things you might want to think about um as you try to interact and engage with the student to make sure that they do feel like they have a welcoming and warm um warm environment in school to come into and so um we shared this with staff and again kind of reinforcing some of the things that we already do with Mustang way and positively north um but maybe thinking about additional ways we can celebrate and recognize students who might be on the L and then our next steps again we've met with our equity and inclusion teams who are really leaning into this and um excited to work with this data um and then potentially using access to um connect with students not involved in activities in athletics we know and I just share I always share this especially with ninth grade parents that one of the things that seniors tell me almost every single year is I wish I would have gotten involved sooner and so really making intentional connections with kids to get them involved in things um at North and at South um to make sure they're connecting with both adults and other kids we know that's really important and a major focus of both of our schools just the one thing I'll add about um the use of access to connect with students we're really viewing this as the next kind of datadriven metric in this work um so we do have a list in both buildings of our students who are not currently involved in District 99 activities in athletics um and on Wednesday at South our access teachers they have those lists already they've been given um a like a Google form that they'll fill out for each individual student kind of have a little student interview kind of asking them why they're not involved what barriers are there so that our teams can dive into that data and we're doing ours Wednesday and then North has plans to do theirs very soon so we get to be the building n works out the Kinks um and then and then the north will take it to the next step just because we know that that sense of belonging is created so strongly in activities in athletics and if there are barriers there um things we might not be aware of it would be our job to eliminate those barriers so that all students can be involved so we're looking forward to doing that on Wednesday at I think it is all yes that is all so yes do you have any questions yes that's with students who have the zero to one connections no it's separate that's with students who are not currently involved in activities in athletics okay so it's a different data point but same idea will you be reaching out to those students who fit in that category of the zero to one relationships we're actually letting um our c s staff take the lead on that right now so we're not necessarily reaching out to them right away and intent and intentionally for this reason our CS in both buildings um has created really like detailed spreadsheets and notes on all of those students and are looking for CS to connect with those students in kind of some natural ways where they would normally do that especially um because so many students on the list have great grades and great attendance we're looking to create those connections in more natural ways um than like calling them all down individually okay that makes sense yeah so how many students were surveyed for this the are you talking about the relationship mapping piece yeah there no students were surveyed so how it worked was all staff got a list of every student in the building okay and then staff put a check next to the students's name if they felt they have a trusting relationship with that student okay that's what I was trying to I was how did we get ratio of the economic of the background of um well because we have that's a great question um because we had the student names and then their ID number that's where Phil and our Tech Team really came in handy because they were able to use echool with the student ID and once we had a student ID field that's how we could pull out all of that other information like their IEP status or their free and reduced lunch status because that we have that information on students in our database so the the the staff got a list of all the students y y exactly every student so at South just for example they did have 2,601 names um to look through but it is it is surprising until you do it you don't realize um that it really goes very very quickly um because you're not even spending a couple of our Math teachers before we did it we're worried about like well even if I spend two seconds on each name I won't have time time and I had shared that we worked kind of in conjunction with um lurry Children's Hospital in the way they recommend doing this and it turns out that just you're you're you read the names very quickly because you only connect with the names that you know so it it took right about an hour in both buildings for staff to really do this with Fidelity for every student I really appreciate the uh how intentional you've been with with creating this mapping and um with trying to reach out to those groups of students that especially have the least amount of relationships with teachers um I think as we've seen with the black student union and and the way that the teachers have been talking this evening it's very evident that uh there is this desire to have a more um trusted Community between and relationship between the teachers and the students and I think that's um really important for them both as we saw with with that one student that talked about uh taking on that like initiative to you know stand up and talk to the big man and I think that's I think it's really great that that you have this opportunity for them um is there uh are you looking into the idea of having it in reverse so that you're giving the students a list of all the staff in the building and then have them go through and um yeah so we've we've we've talked about this a lot with our Equity inclusion councils and we actually when we presented to our teachers that was one of our FAQs that we went over um what we what we learned in like kind of our consultation and learning from lry children's hospital they recommend you start with adults first and kind of build the trusting culture and there reminder that adults do play more of a role in cultivating that relationships kind of like parents play more of a role and doing it for their children um and then the reverse happens usually a couple years in um we are though in our um we have tentative plans when we do our district 99 like survey to families and students of asking students do you have a trusted adult in the building you could go to asking families does your child have a trusted adult we won't be gathering names so that one will be anonymous so it's not the same data but it will definitely be a great correlation point to see if those numbers are similar or not so I think there are definitely plans for that in the future but no date yet awesome okay that's great have you if you thought about um running um across um not study but uh analysis of kids who are involved in activities or Athletics Y and seeing how that impacts yes we have we have both of those lists like we have both of those lists now and so the equity inclusion council's plan is like I said South on Wednesday we're doing the work with our students who are not currently involved in activities in athletics we wanted to kind of dive into their what their why was and then correlate them together and see how many of those students are all also on our zero to one relationships with and then kind of have all of the kind of qualitative data from the access teacher interview and the quantitative data from if you're involved and if you were on the list and then really have our teams put that together to look at what we can do at North we'll do that in a couple of weeks um Sal is going first and then we'll do that in a couple of weeks after so we're on the same kind of trajectory just a little bit how do you kick a student in the proverbial rear to get them involved in activities well I think so this I've in my past life as an activities director I I did a little bit of this work and one of the things that I found that was really interesting is that in many of the cases of students who were not participating again just a hypothesis but um in again my prior work showed that they were actually involved in things outside of school and for me that's also a really important factor that maybe they're not connecting with something in school but they have something that's really meaningful to them outside of school and so that will be part of kind of that that inquiry process with students to make sure like in what ways are you connecting with people outside of your own Circle right or people outside of your home and so um and again we always want kids to be participating in things at school part of that is too making sure they know the process that we have opportunities for kids to start their own clubs and um and so sharing that with them there are multiple things that we can do both with the access teachers and our student activities directors to make sure that they know of all the ways that they can connect and so reminding them of that and again I have always always always said um to both parents and students if you can't find something that you connect with you come see me right away and we will connect you with something and some do and that's really cool and sometimes the parents will call and say my kids really struggling can you help connect them and we will reach out to those students immediately and help them and so um it is really important and we also know that it's harder for some students than others to make those really authentic connections and so we'll do anything that we can to help them to help them find something that they that's really their Niche and sometimes it takes a while it takes some students longer but we find that most students do find their Niche um and we help them we support them to do that my short answer to your question is we're gonna ask them on Wednesday so I'm actually really excited about it you know just kind of just having a chance with their trusted access teacher and their students just to kind of say EXA exactly is there anything we can do what could we do differently to help get you involved I'm really excited to see those responses does any of the data concern you like I mean like the consistency of Asian and Hispanic students not having across the district not having as many connections as some of our other students is at concerning yeah of course of course like we again we knew that we knew when we set out to do this that there would be a group that came in higher and a group that that that came in lower I guess we I guess maybe it would have been equal across the board but we actually predicted that in some way shape or form um we would see some differences so yes of course it's concerning because we want every student in the building to have to have those connections where I feel um I think it's just our job and we're doing it already is to take that concern and put it into actionable steps so that we can see um the data improve and see more students connected and I'm so happy that in both buildings um the passion and knowledge and Care from the members of our equity and inclusion councils is so strong and kind of like the team that presented on on AI they're so knowledgeable about the best practice and how to connect all students whether and through like the equity lens it might not being doing it all the same way but how we connect all students to what we're doing and I'm excited to continue to see that changing and improving I think again just a shout out I I say it a lot because it's true our Tech team has really made a difference in that because we're able to get that action R data almost immediately and that I think is one of um one thing again as we talk about building trust with our with our equity and inclusion teams with our staff members we're able to get that out right away and while yes we definitely see things that are concerning we're also already working to helping lower those numbers and make them you know hopefully we want all we have all students um who have more than one relationship so but we're already working toward that which is what I find is really really cool so and it's been exciting because everyone's been really excited to dig into that I'll tie this back to the board remember we started our our 11 indicators and measures this year the two of them were talked about tonight the connections with staff and then uh participation in co-curricular activities right which are all under an equitable and supportive environment and just a reminder for the board our goals are 100% goals right so either all of our kids we check the box for they have the connection or they're in the activity or we have actively reached out to try to make those connections or get them involved in activities or understand why they aren't right so both Courtney and Arwin and our entire team is working here to hit that 100% goal 100% kids if nobody's fallen through the cracks in either of these exercises mhm that's what's important with five Labs that work and this work it's catching the kids who are potentially falling through the cracks and preventing that from happening exactly thanks thank you thank you everybody thank you you all right uh next one's a pretty easy one uh we're not recommending student fees change uh for next year so just keep those flat so we don't need to take this back for an action item it's more informative for the board any questions relating to that one uh the next one is uh an action item returning uh based on board request at the last time we met and uh Travis did some work on your behalf so I'll turn it over to Travis here yeah I'll just go go over this briefly so we do now have an early termination uh clause in the agreement uh and basically to summarize it after 18 months if uh the company is not meeting 75% of the expected gross revenue uh we have uh the opportunity to get out of the agreement um and what's identified as the expected annual gross revenue is $150,000 for each of the first three years and then in year four and five it is $200,000 for each of those those last two years so at any point in time if that falls under that 75% for that for that year we can make that determination at that time we also if you remember there's a posttermination commission that's built into that so through my conversations um I was also able to negotiate that um while we will continue to pay that if we um if we terminate the agreement it will be based on the percentage that they actually have not the the full amount so say they sell um $100,000 right so that's 100 out of 150 that's 2/3 right so they would get 2/3 of that amount paid down in that ramp so they wouldn't get the full amount that they sold um in in that functionality so um again I I think that captures everything that we talked about and more from our our last meeting but glad they any questions thanks a lot welcome thanks for dealing with a difficult board member it's part of my job is that you yes it was okay no it's a good change it's a good change it's good to have it in place thank you Travis for getting that you're welcome yeah I appreciate that all right okay that's it for our reports thanks uh on to the action item um can I get a motion from the Board of Education to approve the media license agreement with scoreboard media as presented so move so move charell can I get a second second J second okay could have said Jin there CH and Jenny cherelle and Jenny thank you so much cherelle Fuller hi Jenny hagstrom hi Chris Spinosa hi Don rener hi motion carries thank you uh second reception of visitors Julie do you have any cards no sir okay um then we are going to be going to close session can I get a motion from the Board of Education uh to go into close session for the appointment employment compensation discipline performance or dismissal of specific employees specific individuals who serve as independent contractors in a park recreational or educational setting or specific volunteers of the district or legal council for the district including hearing testimony on a complaint lodged against an employee a specific individual who serves as an independent contractor in a park recreational or educational setting or a volunteer of the district or against legal council for the district to determine its validity so moved second Chris moves Jenny seconds thank you Chris Espinosa hi Jenny hagstrom hi shro Fuller hi Don Renner hi motion carries and for the members of the public uh as we come out of Clos session the only action the board will be taking when it comes out will be to adjourn we'll take a brief break and then I didn't

good evening everyone good evening good evening thank thank you all for coming and all the people watching virtually thank you for signing up um a quick run through of the agenda just uh brief introductions and then of course Dr Phil he talks he gives us amazing talk he's been with us before and um then we'll have a quick break Dr Windam goes after that and then um our current executive board members Valerie and um Vicky will be talking about uh advocacy in real life kind of um suggest suggesting of um with suggestions and how can be better Advocate and learn from the prepandemic founding members which that's why we appeal to all of you to come and meet with us and then at the end we'll have know kind of Open Session questions and answers and all that so thank you so much for coming um we um first of all I the slides were a little backwards I didn't change them in the last minute so I'm Rahul Rahul sarar the current president of the oral Advocates and I have an amazing committee to work with and this committee put together this event and we've been working on it since August the idea came up and then we tried uh like a alumni Union didn't quite work but um Todd singer vice president he is dealing with a family uh lost in the family and he couldn't attend uh Vicky maanta Vicki then we have uh Brad Brad um is our Treasurer he was here to drop off a check and um course in in keeping in um with his role Valerie dier member at large and uh amazing person uh and also aka the mother of Daniel rer for those of you who are in the band drum Master Daniel rer yeah amazing yeah um and then we have executive committee members uh at at large basically we have um bookie bookie has been with us for a couple of years and she the reason she is in Brackets is because she's on sabatical for about six months she's got a course going on uh Laval um he's not with us today and then Dr Angie Ridgeway uh yep and um predecessor amazing uh President we needed two people to fill a role remember last year we had a co-presidents uh and of course the Avon School Corporation Representatives on our board Scott Windam superintendent and Sheila Sheila Sheila Glass and uh she does an amazing job talking to our class about finance and so on and so forth so um and we have many um acsc community members I know who have signed up virtually thank you all I mean without you all we wouldn't be here without uh you know in this nice room that they generously allow us to use and um and they do an amazing job don't they with the teachers staff uh admin uh administrative officials and above all the students right they are doing an amazing they do amazing things right Al together so can we have a big round of applause for the Avon com Corporation for which we are working towards their um you know success okay uh oh before I go now so that was um the committee now who are all of you we had a total of about uh 70 people sign up um virtually we had um 21 people virtually 46 in person okay so I I kind of broke it down by class year and um those of you who were pre pandemic um you didn't you weren't uh uh familiar with the class concept because we didn't have that it was primarily advocacy and uh Dr hornman Who is also uh attending virtually was uh The orial Advocates was her idea when she was uh had just taken on the role as 20 uh in 2012 as a superintendent she was coming off a failed referendum uh it was it was terrible right so then she had this idea how do I get the community involved and that's why we are all here and um if uh I was thinking about this if you were to give a little prize for the most the class with the most attendees then probably a class of 2025 which is current class would be the winners however here's the thing I think the award we don't have one sorry but maybe next time we'll go to the prepandemic class the founding members and um it's amazing we have uh we had 12 people sign up nine in person three virtually and that's amazing considering that you have been um we had some who just recently left our executive board but I mean uh many of you haven't even seen I've heard about I've heard your names and all that so if I could have you all stand please all who are with the yeah so um Dr hornman obviously was the person who came oh please please keep keep sing sorry sorry um Carrie uh um christe sorry Christy kry you do an amazing job with the pantry and of course with Barbara doll alongside you guys do an amazing job and uh anyone of you who are familiar with the merily my pantry we were um my family my wife Amy and I will attest to the fact that we were also beneficiaries because we had a tough patch so thank you for everything you do um Sarah parent school on the school board and uh Jennifer Jennifer Mills recently just uh last year I think you had uh other like a job and other things so uh Dena Dina okay she was on here Stephanie bod and thank you uh Amy M marahas oh sorry I did I M yeah sorry I I knew I would watch that one uh Barbara doll of course Rosie blanket ship and Scott Scott CL so thank you so much without you guys all the work that you did to found form the organization we wouldn't be here secondly we all and the whiter Community owes you a deep debt of gratitude why anyone referendum the 2018 referendum I have heard stories I wasn't around but it was absolutely amazing what you guys did and you know we are so grateful to all of you that's why I wanted you all to come just to give you a round of applause everyone please thank you so much thank you very much we'll need your help because we have an upcoming referendum so we will need your help so all right um then we have just a quick statistics uh 2025 would have been the well the uh in terms of people signed up total 17 2024 uh 7 2023 4 2022 3 uh excuse my voice I just got from back from India and if you're familiar with the pollution in India it's been I've been struggling with that so plus emotions so um acsd we talked about PTO we have three um two P members here are we uh yeah okay there they are um as you will hear later on we have some plans to extend our reach to schools and that's why they have both been very generous in uh their time to come here spend time with us we that's something we'll talk about um icpe uh Kathy Kathy FAS Rose icpe president is watching us virtually and thank you we are trying to align with uh like-minded organizations so she said she would would come obviously to hear Dr Phil but uh yeah thank you all thank you all for the amazing stuff you have done thank you for coming it's two hours and that's a lot of time I know you you could have done better things for for guests who may have not been uh familiar with the oral Advocates we essentially are basically accentuating what the mission of Avon Community School Corporation is uh mission and vision kind of the same thing um we have the uh U the the what is it the horn or uh the the mic or loud speaker because that's what we are doing we're trying to convey all the good stuff that the Avan Community Schools have done and um guiding principles basically five fundamental principles community in today's day and age uh the Zeitgeist of the times the spirit of the times is disunity Us Versus Them social media divisions and all that but we really believe that education transcends all of that and we really try to uh make sure we are respectful to all opinions and correct them wherever there are misconceptions uh we communicate with the officials and um we have a lot more coming up Jennifer and Sarah you both were um very instrumental in communicating with officials along with others uh truth and trans transparency inclusive membership we do not have any exclusions as long as your principles are aligned with the school corporation and public education we are all for it um quick history 2012 the idea came up with Dr hornman oral Advocates was formed in 2015 this is the 10th year we are entering the second decade um now before the pandemic we had 56 members 61 perspective this is based on the database we have currently we have 103 additional members in the class format Dr Windam after the pandemic he said how do we reinvigorate The Advocates and started the he had another idea which was knowledge we have to disseminate knowledge to our community which is where he came up with the brilliant idea of having six in-class uh sessions and visits to the schools meeting with legisl legislators amazing stuff so we've had as you can see the first group was 14 members Drew to uh by five in 2023 then 32 and 38 and uh it's an amazing people who hear about it are um and and join they hear some amazing stuff okay uh the why the why why do we do this why do I do this well Scott Dr Windham would uh in in the classes we would go through there was a lot of information coming uh we would he would talk about what um Public Schools the the disparity in the standards and regulations that public schools are held to versus charter schools and private schools this is not a hallucination the slide I have up there is not a AI hallucination this is from our Indiana code website and here's a language a nonpublic school now this is about esas a non-public eligible school is not an agent of the state of government uh federal government and therefore the treasur of the state state board Department Etc may not in any way regulate the educational program of a non-public school including regulation of curriculum content religious instruction activities classroom this is in our Indiana code and an accredited non-public school that is an Esa participating entity May provide for the educational needs of student without government controls ladies and gentlemen fellow taxpayers I have a problem with that my tax dollars going to an unaccountable school and entity and that is not acceptable and I'm sure it is not acceptable to all of you here and everyone watching with that I will hand it over to Angie who will introduce Dr Phil DS who you've been dying to here so I'll stop talking and Dr Phil DS thank you and welcome back uh Dr DS I think it was 1819 when you were here before and I was president of the Avon orial Advocates at that time that was a big year we had eight programs that year was it was a busy year but we are delighted to have you back it was uh such a great talk and I know even more imperative today in the um uh funding climate of Indiana schools so Dr down started his career in education in 1989 at Fort Wayne Community Schools teaching social studies and language arts he then um moved on and with a a stop in between and became the assistant and then the superintendent of schools for Southwest Allen County from 2010 to 2021 after his retirement from public education but not yet retired he is now assistant professor at the Frank school of education at try University and his um impactful scholarship and study work is around the impact of Indiana's Choice scholarship program and its impact on the funding of public schools thank you again so much for being here my pleasure I I've got a mic so thank thank you all for coming um my uh my history with Avon is always finishing right behind you in the band contest I got to put that out there for Maggie right off the G right off the uh the GGO um so to really understand how this works I I apologize but I I'm going to back up and kind of just go how go through how funding Works in Indiana Indiana has a siloed system of funding it is possible to mix some funds in that Silo but it is very very difficult and I'll kind of lay this out so that you can see directly how the voucher program figures into uh impact school funding understand that what you're going to feel is kind of like this right now um but I promise I I I will not go too much into depth I'll try to make sure that it all makes sense um or I can just push the button yeah there we go maybe I'm just too far away so okay uh think about uh think about this in the revenue is taxes we're talking taxes right so you pay property taxes here you also pay income tax sales tax you pay federal taxes as well each of those goes off and comes back with services for you and as far as we're concerned with the schools you have property tax that pays for stuff unless you have a referendum in which case it can pay for stuff or people and you have your income taxes that go off to the state your sales taxes and those come back to you as people and it's separate unless you're the superintendent you're paid out of property taxes it's about five years ago right they changed that so and then there's federal taxes that factor in this as well but it's a pretty small amount and we'll get to that in a bit but we're going to start with property taxes just so you can understand that this is your biggest bang for your buck because you pay it here based on where your house is and the services that are being provided and they stay here so these this is a list of some taxing entities that could be levying a tax on you and then in return providing you service services so with school districts it's obviously the stuff again some of you I believe live in the town of Avon you would have Avon taxing you school districts have two funds that use property taxes there's an operations fund and there's a Debt Service fund anytime you accumulate debt it's paid out a Debt Service state law says that we have to pay that first and then operations comes after that if you have a referendum and you do that is also out of your property tax taxes with an exception we'll get to in a minute that makes it interesting think my battery is low so you've heard of the property tax caps in the late a Indiana passed property tax caps where they capped the amount of tax you could pay on your Homestead at 1% of the assessed valuation all right other residential agricultural lands Tech a little higher the line but what we're going to talk about are are your homes so here are two tax bills one in Allen County and one in Avon we'll take a look at Allen County here first all of you have one of these if you own a house and if you look on it down here at the bottom you can see a list of the different agencies that are levying attacks on this property and the top the bill is $453 now if you go up to the top you'll see the assessed valuation which is it says number two right there and you can come down there's a homestead exemption deductions there's some exemptions and it gets down to the bottom and it says the property tax liability is 3,916 you come down over the big bar you can see there's a $700 charge on top of that that's the referendum if you pass a referendum you agree to pay beyond your 1% cap now that Bill is not capped so it's added onto the bill it gets there it's under the 1% so that person pays all of it notice though that what they pay the $3,913 is less than what the taxing entities are asking for and that is not uncommon that's when you hear people talk about uh uh a circuit breaker or a tax cap loss that's what they're talking about those people ask for that money in their budget but you aren't paying whatever that difference is okay now we go back let's take a look at an Avon one again same sort of structure you can see there's a Corporation total in there uh the school they're asking for $3,000 from this home there's a referendum of uh it looks like $430 on it maximum bill is 392 everybody was asking for five you guys have more cap loss than for wi Community Schools which is the other tax bill does that make sense Scott the life you're living so here's the impact of the tax caps all of those entities have to manage their losses okay and they all watch each other are you raising your tax rat are you raising your tax did yours go down I can raise mine there's all of this infighting and washing now on the taxing side of this rather than on the homeowner side the impact of all of this this is a lot to digest and I'm going to go fast don't worry it's not that important in the big picture but the new system makes it very easy to know the maximum bill you would pay you take your AV you figure 1% you know what the most you're going to pay and then if there's a referendum you can add that on if you want all right but it's difficult for Avon to know what tax rate they should be asking for because they don't know how much they're not going to get so and additionally that dgf you see that that's the department of local governing governance Finance they get to approve or not approve your tax rate and they use an old formula from 1972 called The Five-Year growth quotient thanks to Governor Otis Bowen um this taking you back um to determine what that what your rate can be it can't go up too much um and so now that's why there's now there's this compete between the entities for this loss right and what's happened as a result of it is you see an increase in the amount of General obligation bonds the issuing of debt that gets paid through Debt Service to try to offset loss in mostly operations that tends to be where this hits transportation is another part of that that can get hit um and it's also changed who fights over property o over property taxes and why in the old days when a city wanted to Annex the taxpayers would go nuts because they didn't want to pay more taxes under the new system taxpayers go I'm capped I'm probably already at the cap maybe I'm not so it's changed that and here's my example of this foreign Community Schools five years ago I think uh wanted to Annex ground just north of Fort Wayne in What's Perry Township part of Northwest Allen County Schools Carol high school they finished behind us in the ban contest so the um the city went to Annex it taxpayers were like we're already capped we don't it's not GNA who cares it was a big deal though in Perry Township because Perry Township had a volunteer fire department that was funded through taxes and these coming into the city would no longer be paying that tax to them they would be part of the city part of the city Fire Department the loss of that Revenue was going to basically put the Perry Township Fire Department out of existence and all the schools in Northwest Allen that were in Perry Township were not getting annexed so there would have been no fire coverage for the school and they couldn't have raised more money because the dgf has a growth it was it was this huge crisis and eventually everybody settled down the city did not Annex it but it gives you an example of how it used to be taxpayers would throw up but it it's changed now the new fight for taxpayers is the new bullet point here is over assessed valuation since covid there's been an increase in the value of property which means your 1% goes up and that's what you hear the complaining about in Indianapolis about property tax um relief now could be argued that if you go and look at your tax bill and compare it it's how much money is that really and is it a big deal de that's the big question and there are some people who think it is now the referendum again to go over this again it can be for stuff people or safety it's voted on by the taxpayers that will pay it you pay it even if you're at the cap and it's for a fixed project like a building with usually a 30-year kind of a mortgage payoff thing or if it's an education fund or safety with people it's an eight-year referendum which needs to be renewed eight years later which is two years from now yeah so you guys have one coming up the thing to remember about this this is the one where you get the big bang for your buck it stays here whatever it is you raise we'll stay here we'll get used here looking across the country just as a just as a point to make here Indiana is one of the lowest property taxed states in the country you may surprise you to see California on there I have firsthand notice or knowledge of this my son lives in California and owns a house here's how California is also capped at 1% that's 1% of the evaluation of your house when you buy it and then it stays there so somebody buys a house sits on it for 20 years and sells the house it's a surprise tax bill for the next for the next purchaser but uh so anyway anyway but that's that's if you take a look Illinois look at Illinois talk to anybody you know who lives in the neille area about their property tax bill and it's three four times what we pay it's crazy but their funding school funding is very much tied to that as ours used to be back in the day so where does the money for schools come from back in the day it was a hybrid this is up until about 2009 and 10 that was property tax and state taxes coming together to fund schools when they capped the property taxes they knew there would not be enough property tax to fund the schools so they raised the income tax and and the sales tax and that generated the revenue to fund the people in the state taxes so we're going to start talking about state and federal taxes now and as we get into this it's important to remember we're no longer talking about just Avon we're talking Statewide and big numbers are small and small numbers add up remember after covid when there was the big story that the state had budgeted $5 million for Afterschool tutoring right my God that sounds like a huge number surely we'll be able to fix everything Until you realize there's a million kids so it's five bucks a kid that's not going to be a lot of tutoring so always keep that in mind when you're thinking about State numbers is that there are a little over a million students we're talking about so if you go to the state budget website they have the budgets going way back and in Indiana we do two-year budgets you elect a representative to go for two years to the state house the first year they write a budget and pass a bunch of laws the second year they fix problems with the budget and the laws they pass the first year and the senators get elected to do that twice in a four-year cycle is how that works all the budgets then show up here on this web page you go to here's last year's budget bunch of lines third one fourth down as past you click on that link and it opens that as p and it opens up this page that has all the data you would ever want including spreadsheets Galore if you're into that sort of thing this is a great place to go and play around um so with that you can find out where all the money is coming from and where it all goes so this here is a py graph of the two years we're finishing up the second so the the one on the right is the Year we're in right now 24 25 and you can see three distinct colors the yellow color is broken up down here the red is broken up there and the blue broken up on the far side yellow is federal so let's take a look at this this is the money we get from the federal government red is Health and Human Services there are categories in the budget and they consistently use the same color all the way through this so as you can see blue that's education so we're looking for blue what we get from the feds is all the titles Title One title two title three those sorts of things and special ed all right that's it that's what comes through and it's about2 billion a year so it's a sizable amount of money Title One you guys know what title one is that's how with poverty title two is Staff Development there's there's things like that but it's primarily special education and title one so we come back we go to the red section this is what's called dedicated funds the state will occasionally pass laws that raise revenue for specific or dedicated purposes big yellow is the most famous recent one the gas tax for transportation remember that was a like five years ago that was a big deal deal that so when they pass that law it creates that tax that tax comes in and it must go to that purpose you'll notice blue that is Lottery and license plates and that money goes into the teacher retirement account not a lot of money coming out of this which brings us to the main event the general fund this is where uh the rubber hits the road really as far as the budget is concerned the feds and the dedicated stuff is all lined up and has to be what it has to be this is where the legislators have discretion okay and you can see that each of the categories obviously blue is the biggest one blue is the biggest one so where does the general fund come from the bright red at the bottom is sales tax thank you Amazon um the brown above it that is your individual income tax the green is corporate income tax the little purple line is gaming and then other revenues and then the last little orange thing says unforeseen revenues and that's basically leftover money from the last year so as you can see the general fund is primarily sales tax and income tax now here are the different categories um construction distributions General government and it goes all the way across to the fiscal year and the size of the general fund right there education's here the yellow is a line item inside education that I've pulled out and it's the tuition support line item that's the line that pays all the people in all the schools in the state of Indiana all right that is the biggest expense that the state has so let's look at this the rate of change from January of 2010 to October of 2024 the CPI rate or the rate of inflation was 45.