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excellent all right thank you both uh for making time this afternoon for the subcommittee um I'm going to read out little statement that we have that tab all right so we are gathering here for the redistricting ad hoc subcommittee on October 1st at 4:15 uh this meeting is being held fully remotely and this meeting is being recorded for the purposes of posting to the gctv YouTube page if anybody else who is present is also recording please notify the chair now the chair be me I don't think that any any of the other folks are recording um we do have time for public comment but I do not see that we have any members of the public present um Karen can you confirm that there are no members of the public in the waiting room at this time I do not see anyone in the waiting room okay well um with that I think that we shall do a quick roll call of the folks who are here um I'm the chair of the subcommittee Stacy seon I'm here member child I'm here as well great and we're also joined by superintendent Pat node at this time we do have a quorum and we shall call ourselves to order at 417 PM um on this agenda so unless or until public comes we can just go ahead with that and dispense with that agenda item and move on to the main meet which is a review of the redistricting next steps um superintendent Pat node this is an item that you wanted to bring to our attention so I will give the floor to you now I just feel like a little refresher for everyone's mindsets is helpful I know um when you're in it like I am on a daily basis you don't think about other things like what are other people wondering so I wanted to just do a quick timeline of where I think we're at in our next steps and I do have uh I just want to screen share if you don't mind so that um you can see what I had in mind and a quick welcome to the assistant superintendent oh great nice okay okay I presume you can see my screen so um I just wanted to remind folks that um the premise of what was voted on with the school committee policy is fifth grade is going to remain at elementary so that means our current fourth grade will stay in the schools in which they go to for one more year for 26 they also um Wanted eighth grade to come back to our middle school so that our Middle School is a traditional 678 but I wanted to just give folks some context because that means the current fourth grade will be the fifth graders in their same school our current fifth grade will be the sixth graders in their same School the seventh grade will be the eighth graders that remain in the middle school and then our current eighth graders will be the High School freshman in the school in which they're at currently so I think some folks were worried about um additional open houses or if folks needed other opportunities to be in certain buildings and um unless there's great movement to new home schools per the catchment areas um um we don't foresee too many people being um very worried about the buildings in which their children will be in because most of them will remain the same so I just thought that that was a good kind of foundational basis for where kids are at and where they will be come next September and then I kind of just did a um timeline so it's just like the month of this year and then moving into kind of monthly things not necessarily everything that a school committee has to vote on with the exception of the first item but just really um like a monthly timeline of when some things need to kind of flow in order for the movement to happen for redistricting the first kind of waterfall effect happens at the high school so our high school students for grades 8 through 11 have to pick their courses as 9 through 12th grad for the 2025 26 school year and they have to do it much earlier this year than they normally do in order for us to have um at least solid rough estimate numbers I'm not GNA say you know exact but at least so we know how many sections we need to run and then how many um teachers we will need in order to support the needs of the high school students but that all starts with the school committee vote of the high school program of studies so Mr Browning is working with guidance and teachers currently and what they do is they review the current program of studies that is approved for this year and then they add or eliminate things either that didn't run this year that had no interest or new courses that folks were interested in running um we have some changes with our Innovation Pathways career planning on Pathways that we want kids to be able to access so there'll be some new electives so what they do is they create the 2025 26 program of studies and I will bring that to our November school committee meeting and you will vote on approving that program of studies once the school committee votes to approve that this High School can then go right into action and start having kids pick courses for the 2025 school year so that um we hope will have been completed before winter break because once we have that all accomplished um at that level we will then know um for instance you know if we need a split health teacher that has to teach an elective at the middle school and do they have the time to also teach Health classes at the high school and go from there and all of those things happen uh in conjunction with admin as well as the union because we do have to follow collective bargaining agreements the other thing that I think is just very important in November and I defer to you too if you think this maybe should be a vote but we um Christine last year with our former transportation coordinator did a draft with the kism Mascus bus company of the eight Street locations that would change from Federal Street to Discovery School and from Newton to Federal so there are eight addresses um that are highlighted in draft form on our website I'd like that to become final form so that we can move forward with that with the bus company um and then we can get that out to families so they actually know if they are part of that um do I need to commit to age out of my kids current school or do I want my child to move to my new home school and that's really information we need also before winter break because that will determine sections at the K to5 level so I couldn't find I looked in um all of our Reg districting materials I couldn't find where we ever even voted on a draft bus Street list so I just think to to be clean and to make it all you know uh formal I think along with the program of studies at the November meeting we should just add that as well as part of of V of the school committee so that they are not in draft form anymore on our website that those are the the final Street movements that we agreed upon and then kcus along with our transportation coordinator can really get a picture as to where we're moving forward with bus needs so those are kind of my November highlights I also think um an initial uh once that is voted on and those streets are secure what I've started working on is who does this really affect so I've gone through all of our current enrollment in the last few days and uh looked at everyone's home address and highlighted who's a child that could potentially have a choice between I want to age out in the school that I've been in because the policy is going to allow that or I'm moving my home school now is federal instead of Newton and my family thinks I should go to Federal now so I think a message in November and then work going to have to put a deadline on those determinations probably by Christmas you know the winter break so um there's always going to be some fluctuation you know if we have someone that comes into District in March and is in that situation we'll have to do some individual conversations an so if we need them to have their Answers by winter break should we see about instead since we've already got the draft getting it put on the agenda for the October meeting instead of November so people can get the information sooner and have more time to look at their variables figure out uh what kind of Transportation changes a change in school would mean for them yes I'm happy to um I meet with Glenn on Friday mornings I'll ask him to just put the draft Street list in final form for voting at the October um it is my understanding though I just want to verify because I did look back at former votes we agreed to transport folks regardless so if they currently are in Liden woods and they want to stay in Federal Street we agreed to transport them still to Federal Street but if they live in lien woods and they would like to go to their new home school in 2025 which would be four corners we also agreed to transport and Okay so I just want to make sure I'm you know I looked back at all of our notes and our votes and I want to be just certain um and that's really why we need decisions because the bus company will really have to uh figure out those runs and drop offs and making sure that we have enough space for all kinds of different scenarios so I'm happy to put the bus route highlighted eight Street changes on the oct October school committee meeting for you to vote okay any questions on November then I got into just the scheduling we're going to have our guidance counselors and our uh DJ Coons who is our power school data administrator she has to then set up power school so that kids can electronically make those choices at the high school and do the numbers so we're going to have her preemptively working on that um once you guys vote on the program of studies and that shouldn't take very long and then we'll have kids um they usually schedule with their guidance counselor in their English classes because everyone's required to take English so we know that we get every kid so they spend a day usually talking about um their course progression and what their interests are and then making those selections I think after that is when we will do the waterfall effect with what then the Middle School needs and then what those fifth grade teachers might want to opt to do some of them may choose to go to an elementary because they want to remain an elementary school teacher some of them are dual certified for their content area and would prefer to stay as a middle school math teacher or middle school science teacher so once we have a a better handle on the moves and the needs of the district we meet with the union and we'll follow the collective bargaining agreement on how to inform staff so that they can make their choices and have conversations with their Union and um really just uh collaboratively figure out what's best for everyone involved on the teacher end as well once that's done um I really think a a beginning of the year again update is going to be required so that uh folks know um the determinations of if you've decided X this is where you'd be hearing your information from so that we can get them in the loop with the principal if they chose to go to a new home school you know um I just want to make sure everyone's connected with the right people as the information starts flowing we will also oh sorry Stace go ahead can I just this is probably going to be a silly question but I've I figured that if I'm having it now someone else might if they watch this later um to be clear when we're talking about them going to their new home school that is not starting in the middle of the year that's starting next year right like if they El great just wantan to to assuage anybody's concerns that their kids gonna be moving in January so somewhere September 2025 but I also want to assuage any fears anyone currently in those buildings can age out we have grandfathers them in so if they are content with Federal Street they've been there as a Lenwood student for four years and they want to remain in fifth grade at Federal Street that is their purview so I don't want anyone getting nervous that they're going to have to move so those are the choices but those are the choices just for the families affected by the E Street changes so um and that is really once I can clarify that list that will really be the most communication that will be pushed out will be to the families of affected folks that have made decisions that they need more information on um and then we need to really hash out with the bus company those roots because we need to know prior to uh budget and Finance subcommittee in January if all of these um transportation obligations require an additional bus so at the time that we talked with kmus last year it seemed as if the buses that we currently have could potentially meet the needs to transport everyone where they needed to go if they stayed or moved to a home school but obviously numbers are the the bottom line and we will have to have some more firm conversations and and um I meet with them every Friday and we are already in discussions on the sooner we can get the list solidified and the sooner they can kind of map out sample Roots they will have some better determinations with their software so um they're on board as well and then um we get to um really budget season and February is when you get the presentation of a superintendent draft budget and what we're moving forward with and I think um prior to that February deadline we will know staffing needs or not we will know um specials are always the Wild Card depending on how many sections are in our elementary schools currently we split six specials between the three buildings but depending on the number of classes that will also come into play and then we will know um whether or not the the U educator split time between maybe part-time teaching at the high school and part-time at the middle school if they are certified to do so if they can fulfill those needs or if we really need to put additional teachers into the budget because they will move from halfe science halfe social studies to full year in both core content areas so there are a lot of um chess pieces in play um but we are certainly on top of all of those pieces we are in communication with the union we have um talked about this timeline with uh administrators and building based folks know kind of where we need to go next and why for all of this to happen in September of 2025 so questions that you both may have for me that I may not be thinking of that have come up um one question that just came up for me was and I hope I hope we know the answer but we might not at this time so if we are if we are keeping our current fourth graders in as fifth graders in the school that they are in assuming that they're not part of the group that chooses to go somewhere else um and we have another incoming class of kindergarteners are we we're confident that all of our elementary schools have the space that is needed to accommodate those shifts without displacing certain classrooms uh or or Educators we barely sure about that well this is this is the issue um because there are the potential for quite a number of students to move from federal to Discovery if they so choose is really um the determining factor in whether or not there will be space there are um only a certain number of classrooms in our tiny buildings as we know we also know we discussed trying not to display specialed programs that are currently housed in our elementaries and having to move them but Discovery schools special ed program is the largest and takes up a lot of building space and rightfully so and we we love our kiddos there um but that is a factor that may come into play in the future but this is all um Reliance on non-n knowledge as to whether or not folks are actually going to move from Federal Street or not so that is really why before break we need to have some firm commitments from families because that will determine whether or not um you know the potential for a fifth grade there if those Federal Street Fourth Graders currently move is in the 60s you could not have two sections so you know it's a it's a numbers game and it is always um you know an unknown known right now you know so that is why I think the the sooner we could get families to commit to what they um hope for 2025 for those uh few areas that are shifting I think the better off we will be in terms of knowing whether our space accommodations um are going to be able to hold all of the students we hope they can yeah I'm assuming the same is obviously true for middle school that's that's probably yeah they are um a little you know they're going from um keeping the same numbers so the space is there so it's not as um much of a shift um and that's really um the luxury that they're keeping the kiddos that they have so they know they can fit those currently and it'll just be a matter of um I think some scheduled timing shifts are going to have to happen in order for the accommodation of maybe a split staff member between the two buildings but we're looking at all angles so that um we can accommodate uh student need as well as staff need then I don't think it's quite the purview of this meeting but I do look forward to eventually hearing what what you all are thinking about for the space that um the space that will be previously housing eighth graders uh at the high school yeah um I know it's not on this agenda I think folks think there's much more space than there actually is I think they think of some hallowed Hall all of a sudden um but it's really four classrooms which is not tremendous when you have electives that are in uh computer labs that maybe could actually be used in those classrooms instead of being assigned to a computer lab um I also think um we have some exciting potential for some new electives under this Innovation pathway um career grant that we have so that our students could explore that I think um might ignite some space needs that hopefully would um help fulfill those that think there's going to be these um empty rooms not being accessed but um again it's all going to unfold and we'll see how it plays out but um we do have some Partnerships with GCC um not only their prek um program over there but also with their Workforce Development so we're hoping on some exciting opportunities to expand our high school programming so that kids really have um opportunities for differentiation in what they want to do in the future so great yeah yeah so in the event that ases has to move from Four Corners do we have other places already in mind for where the program could be moved to or is that something that we can't really get into until we have the numbers I'd hesitate you know I for me that would be my last option I would hate to have to move a special ed program um but there are some options I just just um I don't want folks to worry about something that we don't need to worry about yet and then as we get closer with numbers we could certainly discuss with Mr messing who's our pupil service director and families of that program too I'd really like um you know those conversations to happen at a deeper level if that really comes down to what we need to do but um I'm hoping we don't have to plan for that but we obviously have it on the back burner as one of our thought process and you know just thinking ahead okay fingers crossed that they can keep their space yep that I think is all of our goals um was there any other information that you wanted to share with us superintendent I think um if either right before break if we do have the numbers or right after break when the new year starts if we could reconvene um and then we could you know think about the the recommendations or the at least thought process before we go to budget and finance subcommittee um when I do those subcommittee meetings I think having your input and just uh your knowledge of all of the moves that we've had to make in the redistricting process would be helpful um just a touch base to let you know where we're at to let the you know a public meeting happen so that folks know where we're at even if they aren't in the family Communications um and just kind of keep people AB breast of where we're headed and and um just some timely check-ins would be helpful for me so um and then if anything came up after our scheduling or uh commitments in November and December if I needed to I certainly would reach out to see if you guys wanted to be open to another meeting as well yes we can we can absolutely make ourselves available for for additional meetings as needed thank you yes all right um one last confirmation that there were no members of the public that that joined the waiting room throughout the meeting no I'm GNA stop sharing my screen just to make sure maybe I'm not okay uh nope I do not see [Music] any I can I can click the button for you that's the power of the co-host excellent um do you think um just before you do close though do you think adding that timeline to the meeting materials or minutes would be helpful for folks I do think it would yes because then it would also necessarily be open to the public so if any families would like a sense of where when things are being discussed and where we're headed and when they can expect additional information and more most importantly perhaps when they need to make a decision and tell you something yes absolutely okay I will make sure that that gets added as part of the documents and an's getting attacked by her cat I think it's out of love this cat is the most affectionate cat I've ever had well we we love our surprise visitors to these kinds of meetings I think it spices it up for anyone who decides to watch this recording later yes Trixie has no public comment just purs um a assistant superintendent was there anything else that you wanted to add I'm glad that glad you were able to join us I saw you were still working somewhere so um no sorry I was having some video issues but nothing to add there I think uh the superintendent mentioned some of the Innovation career pathway work and excited to get that started but um I I think that's more of a a supplement not NE necessarily as connected to this part of the process but something obviously we're looking forward to moving forward wonderful so thank you for having me absolutely thanks for joining all right well if there are no other substantive items which I don't believe that there are based on the agenda we had um I would like to move that we close I will second that great and then the two of us we we should probably take a vote uh all inor of I I great uh with that we are adjourned at 4:45 pm.

good okay so uh I will call to order this meeting of the budget and finance subcommittee of the Greenfield school committee at 12:31 pm on I'm G to keep my video off in hopes that I will stop being kicked off of this can everyone hear me yes we can yes okay great uh okay so uh this meeting was called to order a minute ago and we have one item on the agenda today which is to review a uh proposed annual budget development calendar uh to be brought to the school committee for approval this week so let's see I'm going to try to share oh okay well I can't share unless you enabled participants screen sharing I think Karen I'm trying but might be easier if I share for you but let me okay yes go ahead I just wanted to bring up I give you options if you can now okay still not working for me so maybe you should just share so um as everyone will recall um the committee has talked about creating an annual budget development calendar the purpose for which is to help people better understand the different moving parts that uh work together over the course of a year uh to that lead to the development of our school budget um in terms of actions that are taken by the school committee School administration things that happen at the state level and uh if we wanted to get really complicated we could bring in the the federal but we won't do that um so I hope everyone's had a chance to um take a look at the calendar that's in the materials um as you can see there is a front page which um features some well curated pictures that I asked for from Karen of our students um which I had uh seen in use um in other other school committees and I thought it was a great idea because um our students are what this process is all about out and I I wanted to center it on them so that is the inspiration for the cover page and then the second page contains um the actual calendar itself um as you can see it is colorcoded um so that there are um there's a clear delineation between things that are happening at the city level and things that are hening within the school committee um actions that are taken by the school administration and a little bit about um how the state budget development process plays a role uh obviously we cannot include every single action that is taken by every one of those entities um in the course of budget development because that would just be way too long um this is just filed down to the things that are the most important for people to know and understand um about about the development of the school budget so um that is the second page and I just highlighted on the little calendar Pages at the top um our regular school committee meetings as well as some of the important um dates that are spelled out in the calendar below at the other levels um and then finally the third page is like uh frequently asked questions um uh based on um things that have come across the school committee's radar uh in terms of what people um often ask or wonder or don't uh understand about uh how they can have input into the budget development process and I tried to include links for people so that they can understand um at every level um at our level at the school committee as well as um at the city level and the state level how they can have a voice um in in the budget development process so that's my my Snapshot just nutshell of um of this document and I wanted to know what people think so I will open that for discussion Elizabeth you have your hand up Kate it's just beautiful it's just wonderful thank you so much for doing all of this work and thank you Karen for getting all of the things together and this is exactly what we need and I really like what you wrote in the FAQ um and how you said how we want to hear from everyone but linked the policies for people to be mindful about that's really wonderful um can I I'm just wondering how I can be helpful as the secretary uh can I I can input all of this into our calendar just so the people yeah I think if it's approved tomorrow yeah um it makes sense to do that yeah obviously based on approval but I just want to make sure what um like what my workload will be so I'll I'll input all of these dates and I'm I'm just assuming with my own knowledge of jargon that W and M means Ways and Means and BNF is budget and finance and just making sure that I've got the correct try to spell those out in the first instance that they occur in the calendar and then you the acronym there after but if I missed one or if you see an issue with like word choice or anything like that um please chime in anyone what is CIP Capital Improvement program okay right okay and then cic Capital Improvement committee correct okay got it thank you so much I know we hate acronyms and try not to use them too much on school committee but we can put them in page is a really small area some of those things so it was necessary for some um Ann I think the only uh one we miss is the first B andf but the rest uh I was able to see right away the uh parenthetical okay but yeah um I what Elizabeth said this is wonderful and I can't wait for this to be easily accessible to the community okay um so that um that would kind of lead us into next steps about um engaging the community and and making the calendar and its process as accessible as possible to people um which we'll save for another meeting um Karen I wanted to know I mean I know you've already looked at it um but I just wanted to be sure um that the pieces there that relate to the school administration sound accurate to you and um also when we were talking about this um over the course of the past few months um we did talk about the need to um help people understand the most important things that Administration is doing in this process um without pigeon ho holding you um into anything so I just wanted to make sure that this strikes the right balance and is accurate thanks Kate no I I agree it's it's wonderful it's a great timeline I think some of the uh Department meetings that we're going to have internally with regards to redistricting and realigning Fifth and eighth grade uh might happen in the calendar a bit early internally um so that we know where we stand but um obviously those are things I will continually um include the budget and finance subcommittee so that everyone's on the same page just so right forward that that transition in 2025 is smooth but that we're budget sound as well well okay um and I would also just say that this is um it's a document that is amendable changeable you know as things come up um if something needs to be adjusted then that's possible this is not like a stone tablet it's just a little PDF so um you know we can always adjust as we go along um but hopefully this is a good um just basic framework to start with for people okay um further discussion or um comments suggestions other that than that first B and F mention okay so um with that I just want to take a quick um vote on a motion I will move that uh we bring this uh proposed budget development calendar to the full school committee for approval at tomorrow's meeting and it is on the agent I enthusiastically second that motion okay and uh we'll just take a roll call um I will be a yes member child's yes member genive yes okay so that carries and we'll bring that forward tomorrow um at to the full school committee and uh if if it's approved lovely if it's not and it gets kicked back to us well then we'll have to um come back to the drawing board but um I did want to go ahead and schedule if possible a subsequent budget and finance um meeting since we're all here um that way we will have one on the calendar for a couple of things one if we do need to come back and adjust anything for feedback from the whole committee and to um going into what you said uh earlier and about um making this accessible to the community engaging the community um the next couple of things that would come up on this budget development calendar are to um discuss how exactly uh the committee would like to implement our own policy about um engaging the public and um Gathering public input and feedback in the budget development process which is policy dbd um it's referenced there in the calendar uh we already have a number of different ways which are elusive dated in that page three on this calendar for people to um to participate in this process but I do think it Bears some discussion about whether um the committee would like to do more um and when so um I would like to schedule a meeting um at least about those couple of things and uh I think we will also tap Le um the subject of just a review of our um end of year accounting for FY 24 um based on some questions that have been brought to me so those three things I would like to talk about in an upcoming meeting and um Karen and Andy I don't know if you are you in a spot where you could schedule a meeting right now or do you want to come back to that by email I could do it right now I think would be um amenable to that as well um how far out are you looking Kate not too far um I let's see if we were to look at the week after next would that be reasonable that would be the week of the 23rd we do have a handbook subcommittee meeting that we prescheduled for the 23rd of September I believe true that so and you and I will be at that so thing but I'm free the rest of that week other than that Monday and you are on the bus in the afternoon still is that correct yeah Tech is kind of late so I don't get done and finished until I can't do anything until 5:30 or six okay can you do anything before the bus yeah I have time like this I'm pretty free during the day I'm just homeworking so I can move things around I just have to be completely hard stop at 130 every day okay um so an um what about you do you have availability at this um kind of midday time like noon Yep this uh lunches time is an easy meeting time for me and the week we're looking at the Friday I'm not available but the rest of the week I have flexibility okay so Karen and Andy do you have any availability like Tuesday Wednesday Thursday that week during that sort of Lunch Period I can't hear you Karen you're muted oh thought I clicked it sorry uh Tuesday the 24th is my only availability we have the district walkthroughs the rest of the week with teaching lab and ssos so but Andy and I are both available at noon on the 24th if that works for everyone else all right let's set that then 12 o'clock noon on Tuesday the 24th will be our next meeting all right uh with that I will there is nothing else on the agenda and I will take a motion to adjourn so moved I'll second that one all in favor I I uh and we are adjourned at 1248 p.m.

okay it is Thursday August 8th we are in the Greenfield High School library convening the Greenfield Public School school committee handbook subcommittee meeting it is 6:10 p.m. there's currently no public present to make comment or to additionally record so let's call the meeting to order at 6:10 and we will begin our working session uh with our parliamentary procedure suspended as we have in the past and pursuant to Massachusetts open meeting law we are making an audio recording of this meeting for the public in attendance is Elizabeth Den Kate Martini present and Stacy seon present all right let's begin we do not have minutes for this meeting but we will for our next meeting and it's just finishing them up great and we should maybe look at the calendar as I have learned in the beginning to look at the calendar to see when we are available to have a next meeting so if we could all whip that out and see um I am fairly free starting September 23rd on there's any time after that time that works for any of you I can be very flexible yeah I mean that week it looks like any of the evenings okay what do you think Kate I will be available in person the most on Monday Friday and the weekend uh except that Friday the 27th I do have an evening thing so I hate to do something on Friday night just because that you know that cuts into the weekend weekend is begin nobody wants to meet on Friday so what about Monday the 23rd works forek okay so Monday September 23rd we seem to like in person for this format yeah yeah I think most productive okay do you like this time six o'clock I can't really do 5:30 just because I'm I'm sometimes off the bus at 4:45 and then I have to go home and do mom's stuff and then turn around I have to always have to do a Turn and Burn for six o' meeting so six is 6 okay okay I will contact UM Karen and see where we could meet because depending on the custodian schedule we can meet at the GMS library or here okay wonderful so so I didn't print out our doc because we all have access to the Google Doc but we did talk at the last meeting that we were going to have what we have worked on a rough draft to present next week at the meeting so I'll be sending it in as materials after I format it so have have you guys looked at it recently or not since I worked on my portion ined to okay so I left the um the we have our chapter and headings which I think we're going to have to fill in a little bit more today um and let's see Kate you did this great introduction glad you like it did you have a chance to read it yet Stacy okay I I I didn't know how to tag this so I just put like we completed check it out insert some optimism on this but this is really lovely and thank you so much what a nice introductory letter to new school committee members um hopefully Yeah I broke it into two I took the part about um the uh committee organization and I put it lower in the section for that so I separated them I don't know if you saw that um so Kate did her part with that so we now have an introduction scrolling through check all our parts and Stacy you said you had a report on the statement of inclusion as a foundational document yes so I have not completed it but what I have been able to do in is do a review of our current materials that are whatever's on the website as well as what's in our policy manual um related to diversity Equity Andor inclusion and I was a little disheartened to find that we if you search inclusion or search Equity nothing pops up on our website um and if you search diversity it's us honoring some our graduating seniors for them going off and promoting that in the world um so I was hoping we might have some materials that I could draw on um that would so that we could have resonant language and make sure it's like consistent our messaging across but since we have no current messaging really um that left me uh with the wonderful opportunity to go and look at what other school districts have have done so I've been doing a review of um how other school districts have either written about it or how they've embedded it within their other administrative Pages Etc um to get a better sense of the kinds of things they talk about how specific they get to their school and what they do um and all of that good stuff so I will be working to compile what I like the most from each of those um in terms of explicitness um you know how wide ranging it it touches not just like I'm looking for something more than we respect our students identities I'm looking for some more actionable language um that we might are bringing into Greenfield Public Schools to really make our commitment one that is we're doing things we it's not a general sort of statement um that's whatever I don't know if you have you probably don't have time to do this but if you have a chance you might want to read the minutes from the last policy and program subcommittee meeting because we had an issue come up where um the public was asking us what our policy was on tribal wear for um graduating seniors and so we had a discussion about that and we were talking talking about looking at it through the lens of Dei as Glenn had asked us to do all of our work that way and that led into a we don't have a foundational yes statement and I said that's interesting because Stacy's working on one for it yes and Karen then sent me any language that she could find so I can forward that to you it's Bare Bones yes um but so Glenn has in his mind that you're literally going to make an a whole thing up and is looking forward to reading it great so like the so I just give you the confidence that the ball is really in your court on this one and I think it's going to be great but if you review the minutes you might glean some info about that feeling you know have to listen to the whole thing but you know thank you for alerting me to that okay and I'm going to make a note to send with my pen that's not working well at all why don't I have I was told these pens are amazing and they're just not amazing do you want I have I have some stuff I would love a better pen if anyone can share a pen an I voted pen oh I love that and it's a I voted in Greenfield pen I also have highlighters and markers in case you want to color code your notes because these kinds this wres in blue this is one of those nice jelly this is great I feel I feel like a proper citizen with the I voted pen so I'm going to send that info to you well that's awesome thank you for all that work yeah no it's it's been really fun actually to go through and see how other districts are approaching their statements and I feel like you know you can get a real sense of a school district's commitment to the work by how they talk about it and about whether or not they can point to specific we'll know we're meeting our goals if kind of language correct um which I which I deeply appreciated so next we have the GPS District mission statement which we wrote down to possibly aign with the district mission statement um I just have the basic language from the website this is what we have that's that's it so I don't think that that entire second paragraph that's more like a what is this place statement because I I spent some time okay pouring over the district website and was actually not able to find the mission statement so you don't think this is the mission because this is all that I found that looked like a mission statement it was just like the you know the main thing on the main page I found document from 2015 I think that might still be the mission statement but I don't actually you know so I think we have to ask so we really need to find out if we have a mission statement I'm sure we do where is I mean so in our in policy a there's statements akin to a mission statement I think we might even call it mission statement but like from the school committee's perspective and I don't know if that functions effectively as the same thing so we need to have a conversation about this then with Karen and with Glenn but like one of our goals maybe should be having a functioning mission statement for the district and definitely prominently placing it on the district website yeah it should not be hard to find that where is mission statements so let's ask it this meeting coming up that's another piece of debt to okay that's okay he that's great at least we know okay okay so I'm just going through the list um okay the member code of conduct that's the only thing I didn't have time to get into what I'm that's a big piece that's a big piece of work yeah but what I'm really going to do is like take it off of our policy yes we have sort of a we have a policy um and I'm going to in insert it um this leads me to another question that I have for you all but maybe that question will come in a little bit so that's the only part that I didn't have time to get into and then the public calendar outline I have not made any progress on that okay it's okay um have you you have at least a portion of it right with the budget related yes we may nail down quite a bit of it tonight yeah that would be helpful and the school committee goals also something we're going to try to nail down tonight yes yeah I know that we that we crossed out the academic dashboard but there I was speaking to Karen about it and I was saying you know it does sound kind of frightening to be like oh we need an academic dashboard I know what is that but I was telling her that it could just be a link to like dear's presentation at the PowerPoint where she was showing how we have changed over the years and how you know what scores are going up and how you know um absenteeism is being dealt with I said just like that could be the academic dashboard so the people can refer to the data just a way to refer to data that's changing and she sent the parent up date a little bit ago I don't know if you guys have had a chance to read it yet but at the very bottom of it she says 2023 24 endof year report and then links the three-year findings presentation to the school committee so that is an academic dashboard that we could have in the handbook that it's at least a data presentation and I'm really glad that they went out to their parents and I hope that they so I'm wondering if you guys are into not scratching it out and um putting maybe the three-year findings in place slash data showing growth in that place I think it Bears a larger conversation with the whole commit about what types of data members are looking for okay and that will be related to one of the questions on the self evaluation that we are supposed to be discussing in terms of polls later this evening okay because as a district as a Committee Member I would find this helpful in a handbook to go and have this data so that when I'm talking to constituents and others I have data that I can back up what I'm saying with and I know what sort of data I'm interested in but I don't know what everybody else is interested in I like having a section that points to it I don't think that the dashbo should live inside the handbook if that makesense there could be a link to it one yeah we have one this is what it contains and how you might engage with it and where you actually find it so having it on the website and then having a link to it in the handbook so that we can go back and forth okay link to it from the website okay the um list of important Personnel I got most of the way through it because then I ended up talking to Karen who sent me an org chart nice so I have an actual I just was like please send me like I need a ladder I need your ladder whatever that is for thebook and she sent me the or chart and gave me information contact information for the legal council but she wasn't sure about the compliance off officer that we don't know that we need to know so I filled out as much as I could at the time and then I got way late but I have the orc chart and I can slot that in and then Kate did the committee organization thank you all the embedded links to the policy and it's so nice like oh it's all probably going to get need to be changed when our policy and book does get posted by masc because so far as I can tell it is not yet um and I'm not sure how accurate those links are to the policy uh documents on our own website because as I understand it what the policy manual that's posted on our own website is not even accurate so I just did the best that I could with that and some of our policies are individually linked like I'm looking this policy and it will go there and then some of them are not it's just the entire section so some of those links just take you to section whatever and then you have to find the policy that you're looking for which is UN helpful but hopefully that will be solved by it being taken up by the datab even if we just put link to policy here in parentheses and then fill it in later it would be fine and then you did the list of subcommittees and a general description of their function did you use the the the sheet that we were given at the last meeting about that to do that I did primarily use what was given by the chair for that okay so you didn't find the reenvisioning there was no description for that sub committee it existence is still up in the aired well yes however that's one of the pieces of I think things that had previously been missing on the committee is having a description of what our subcommittees do so I mean that should have been there right that information should have existed before whether we were you know at this point of discussing what to do with that subcommittee or not so uh I couldn't find any description of it anywhere I went through previous uh meeting agendas and minutes and things looking for references to it like previous organizational meetings and and there was nothing that I could find so okay I might go back to all of the prior reenvisioning the prior subcommittee meetings themselves I went into those yeah and I couldn't find a description of this committee we also need one for Union negotiations yes so I noted in there in what I sent to you the things that don't currently have a description okay and then and I didn't write one because I felt like that's not my place to do I think the chair should do that yeah I'm going fast because they're all going to start showing up in 15 minutes and I'm not going to let them in okay I did the important links I did the school Partnerships I filled in the acronyms uh you did the how to be a school Committee Member thank you lovely lovely gorgeous writing um I love this part about communication so nice um okay and then we hit the end and this is where I have a question for you guys because if we submit a rough draft to everybody next week I would love the rough draft to not have any of our text in it I'd love it to just have the bullet points of what we're going to fill in and I'm wondering how you feel about that because I don't want people to get too like stressed about reading it all I'd much rather have a list of like these are the points that we've decided we're going to hit and this is how it's going to look when I hear the words rough draft I imagine the full text of what I'm going to be seeing what do you think I think they're expecting to I think it's probably a good idea to have feedback sooner than later from Members um because I don't know about you but I don't have scads of spare time to devote to things like this so um if going to need to if I need to say go in there and amend this how to be a school Committee Member section which I am anticipating having to do because that is a particularly creative section that we just have to make um it's not like it comes off of a template or something um then I would just like more time to be able to okay that makes sense I hear what you're saying like I don't you know I do worry a little bit about hearing a ton of nitpicking from other members when we're not really ready yeah I just I worry that they're going to focus on the holes on What's Missing instead of what we've done and that that is possible that is kind of human nature to do so um and right now as we're drafting I think it's actually incredibly important to get the what's missing yeah okay so that we can fully flush stuff out but I think that we can be very in our ask when we when we say hey when you're reviewing this this don't just tear it apart this is literally a first draft so you don't have to worry about it being perfect but like what sections should be there that aren't or if there's anything that you're finding like egregiously unacceptable but if it's just perfect the job here is not to be the New York Times editor yeah yeah great no I I love I love those words that's perfect so then we should write down all of the things that we have left to fill in and make a list because whether we have it filled in or not or whether we assign bits to each other or not we're going to have to I'm going to have to print this all out format it and print it all out and at least have people have something for people to look at so we have the new member materials which will totally come from the website um uh the reimbursement section which will come from the website and our brains our knowledge of how it goes as well there is but it doesn't have all of the information doesn't really like tell you how to do it yeah I I think that was one thing I didn't finish a sentence and how to be a member section um because our policy doesn't spell out the operational stuff of how it actually works um like you need to sign up for a conference you need to send a copy of your badge or your program to the superintendent assistant and your to attended like I don't you know and if you want to get reimbursed or something like this is the procedure that you can that stuff isn't like necessarily there be reimbursed for things but not how to be reimbursed for things yeah and that has seems like it changed a little bit recently just in my last experience and professional development doesn't all exist in our policy area it exists in the town Charter and the policy and our brains cool so I'm just thinking of the places we have to get these things that are not all in one place uh how to contact the superintendent and why can can I make a suggestion about the PD can that just be considered embedded in the how to be a member section because that's I spent a whole bunch of time spelling out stuff related to PD okay so I don't think it needs to be its own and how to be a member okay all right um okay uh what does the school committee do what is our function scope I kind of think that you got that in the how to be a member the question is about the scope I think that's in the introduction okay uh budget policy already in intro okay and the administration ladder who are they what they do and what are their contract lengths uh okay and the org chart I got that from Christine I mean from Karen oh my God I'm so sorry to the listeners um how to respond to constituent complaints some of that is in our policy yes and I think that and brains correct me if I'm wrong I can't because I don't have intern but I do my best do you want a hot spot I think I put language about that in the communications section of how to be a member what part the respond to with members of the public yes yeah with members of the public I think it's covered in that okay okay these are just questions I'm asking is it in the intro communication K covered required courses uh that should be should be new member also okay and how to be uh member okay so really the the how to be a member the required courses and the uh professional development all need to be put in your section yeah they're in there they're already okay so you can just okay okay okay I'm just taking notes it looks like pure hell here okay so brainstorm with me what other things do we need to put in here what other things should we cover um I mean that should be the stuff that we that I still need to finish yeah but I'm talking additional because I think part of the report is when we give the rough draft like look through it and see if there's sections missing sections you can think about that will come to you but we should try to have as many as possible oh how to be I just thought of something for how to be a member uh did you add how to do like that you have to do a yearly campaign Finance form report no okay that's important Finance report yearly to the clerk and code um code of ethic is it what is it called conflict of interest training interest training that that's also all I need remember materials just making sure I don't want to to jog my mind and then go looking and then it and not be there cuz a lot of things have holes I'm just trying to like plug holes at this point what do you think um I would be okay with moving that piece about the conflict of interest training into the how to be a member requir training okay might as well yeah okay is a it is no I think that one's every three years I just had to do mine I just had to redo mine and I was like it's been that long already what uh maybe I just feel like it's every year whenever I receive that email it is such a long exciting training um I'm so I know that we have in our policy manual things around like interactions with school staff or interactions with students and what to do when people come to us to refer them in the communication section and how to be a member wow double high five for you not saying that section does not need to be improved but can you tell that I that I only speed readit under communication you'll see there's communication with students with staff with members of the public with the superintendent with each other so it's all should be all covered in there and I tried to link policies forther relevant into that because I hate the policy manual that okay it's just too legislators that's so nice I always wanted a thing in my hand that I could just be like oh that policy yeah I see with the superintendent with staff it's beautiful feel like if students have to have a student handbook we should deine totally yeah we should sign this in the um member code of conduct session section sorry you just that in my that's my section let me let me go to it you said that um put the note in we have our policy that's related to it and also um I was just thinking the committee does officially use um Robert and there's a section in it on deorum so that could just be there yeah so this is this is where we'd put Robert's Rules yeah deorum um articulated consequences is a phrase that I have written down or how to make a complaint all of that stuff is in see they're all here early am how um um all of that stuff is in the policy manual so I I asked thenen so many times like well I'm just going to cut copy paste the policy manual and he's like yeah but fill in the holes fill in the holes and also it's too long that you have to like boil down the policy into a sentence you know and when people want more detail go here's the link go look at the policy we're still in our meeting Susan but it's nice to see you okay don't let anybody else in they're good cuz we're still no we're just still in a meeting and I don't want them all coming in and okay yeah all right is aren't there rules about how many school committee members can attend members can attend sub hi we're still in a meeting though can I just sit in the air no sure yeah over there we're still we have TW we have 15 precious minutes yeah you can be members of the public but right because we had that happen one time where one came to a meeting and wanted to like all of a sudden be part of the subcommittee and it's like no if you come you have to be a member of the public so that's something we have to put down okay um attending other people's could add that to the meeting section of the how to be a member okay I didn't want too many things well it's also fits in Code of Conduct attending other people's subcommittee meetings don't you think I'd like to keep code of conduct less about like procedures operations and more about like Norms of behavior so I'm going to put it down in the bottom it make sense to go in meetings in the bottom list I put it on the bottom list I'm I'll clean this up later and you guys can all look at it and like please get in there and mess around with it fill in your stuff or whatever or change things put can you just put my name on that one okay because Kate will do I need to be reminded which ones I am adding to my so what am I putting your on the part about um how you can attend other subcomittee meetings and okay there was another one or two things that we already said I'm already not remembering which ones were relevant to oh Quorum stuff uh oh I was going to add the use of parliamentary rules we have adopted as a little sentence okay the meetings section so you just put that down put my name next okay um all right so we have like a whole list so let's just assign let's just make sure that we have assignments um reimbursement I I'll do it's fine uh professional development you're putting it in your section yes but put reimb whatever you do about reim I think it makes sense to go into the how to be a member section under um professional development uh which is I think it's the second subsection so there's already a piece in there about reimbursement I just didn't finish that so if you want that that's where it is and then you're doing the professional development part yeah it's already it's already in there they just needs to be a sentence added I think about the um conflict of interest training and oh the conflict finance and in that section should I yeah reporting I mean that's kind of like assuming you created a political entity though not everyone does right okay yeah you already feel like campaign finances in miscellaneous thing that's not really related to it is though because you have to do it at the end of the year and and don't have a political entity if you if you never spun up a political entity to help campaign or buy your stuff if you just all paid for it out of pocket then you wouldn't necessarily need no you have to if you opened an account right but if you never open an account or if you closed it maybe it should actually just be a sentence in there about you know members if you have campaign entity please be mindful of campaign Finance rules which you can find answers to frequently asked questions and support about from what's the acronym there's umpf ocpf all right so put your name on that you already did how to contact the superintendent so I'm taking that off the list because you already did it y um how do I request an item on the agenda did you already do that it's already in there sorry my phone is making noise when can I expect agenda and materials to be available for meetings did you already cover that I did cover that but only in so far as it involves posting and I think it Bears a further question for the chair about whether he intends to do that okay so I put your name on check this out yeah for that okay um we already did what does the school committee do what is our function and scope it's already in the intro uh okay okay so the administration ladder I'll finish that um because I got that word chart and everything and it kind of goes along with the other thing that I was working on do you do you um Stacy do you want to do um how to respond to constituent complaints I don't think that's necessary because it's already in the commun and the communic unless you want change it which is fine but it's already I will read through it and see if I've got any additions okay you know what I'm just going to put your name as Stacy will check I will read all the things okay and I do think that particular question probably deserves some broader committee discussion because people have had different opinions about how to respond in the past we do have a related policy but it's still very open to interpretation and there's not really an established practice on that for example I have established office hours and phone number that to make an appointment with me but other people don't necessarily do the same thing so that's something maybe when we discuss it at our our uh this update at next week's um school committee meeting that we should ask for yeah discussion about um point of information when when do our materials need to make it to them to be included for next week's materials like tomorrow okay like we like like definitely get it to me by like Saturday and I'm gonna be I'm going to be furiously formatting this document and so everyone concurrently format with me if you I'm just going to be moving sections and making it look nice and is as you're in there do the same if you see something agance or whatever and we'll get a somewhat palatable rough draft and then we'll send it I'll send it to them over the weekend and then we'll get in the thing okay does that sound doable for everyone I think for the ref I'm less worried about how it's formatted and more just the language yeah I mean I mean just so that it makes sense so that it's all the same font would be great and like the same size and you know what I mean yeah without weird brain scratches contr a is my friend yeah all the you can go through there and so I don't have weird questions like get or chart make up my mind for me on whether or not to capitalize committee I you will see that I was up two minds about that in there yeah stuff like that there's a lot of things that are like highlighted and bolded and stuff that shouldn't be because I was just going fast so that's what I mean by format it but we can decide how we want it all to look in the end this will just be the beginning go on the sections is this good now let's look at the sections because I do have like an unrelated let's look at it so this uh so we have the introduction the statement of inclusion the mission statement school committee member of conduct public calendar outline school committee goals academic dashboard list of important Personnel um the list of important Personnel parents and Community has to come out because that's a future product okay for more things um list of subcommittees in general description of the function important link School Partnerships acronyms how do I FAQ masc new member materials and then the how do I FAQ for parents and community members also has to come out for a future product yeah okay um so I have an unrelated question um which has to do with my um the disjunct between my ability to write things for this and my ability to design things on the computer for this um because I do have ideas in terms of the graphic design of the handbook that I just do not have the technical skills to materialize and I want wanted to know do either of you have skills in this area if not do we have the ability to actually like call upon perhaps our students to assist with the design of this thing or something I know we need some political interns it depends on how extensive the types of graphic design work you're looking for I can do most basic things in order and make it look okay um but if you're like like I could even if we really if you really wanted to get fancy like we could turn this into a canva product that's true I can I can work in Cana too with you but let's ask Karen if there because they have just launched yeah be so good I would love to work with a student on the design of the handbook yeah yeah let's ask about students and also they have this new um social media that they're doing and the graphics are sort of all the same so they maybe they want to use similar graphics which we could do anding yeah consistent branding like with the parent update it looks slick so maybe ours can have that same look with whomever stream but I love the idea of student so I mean like the yearbook group or whoever like does that sort of thing don't they have like a media MH students make this they must teach graphic design handbook slick okay all right so this is not ideal no I told I knew it I knew it I knew it so okay well that's it I think yep we charged through it really fast but I think we got enough to get us to where we need to go I'm proud of the maros with it yeah took a thing that didn't previously exist and now parts of it exist how cool is that and I'm also surprised that how hard this is I I will take budget and finance or any other sub committee any day this is the worst you it's so hard the feeling is not mutual over here really I just find it so hard to create nothing create something from nothing now is not the time to be saying such thing to me in the midst of making this budget C giving birth I think I'm just this is difficult for me like this part like you were saying with the writing is easier for you than art well this for me it's the opposite so I am maybe struggling but I'm so thankful that you both have done such work and I think it's cool that we're going to have something finally it's all right it's materializing thank you very much so let us adjourn now at 653 we are adjourned we are now adjourned adjourned we are now adjourned at 6:53 p.m.

e okay Andrew I have 6:31 sorry I was trying to log no problem wait no worries all right um call us meeting to order and we'll start with the pledge I pledge allegiance 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 this internet is not working very well today for me um all right so we have what comments from the audience is there anyone who would like to make a comment out in the audience this evening is there even anyone here I have no idea can people hear me is the Internet working yep you're good okay um so I assume no comments from the audience we have any additions to the agenda we do not um I'm sorry the agenda in front of me either next we have uh routine business approval of minutes minutes right correct um Can someone approve the minutes of the January I'm sorry I don't know what the date is it's okay uh we need a motion to approve the January 9 reason my internet is not working very well so moved Ria thank you Ria I'll second Chris thank you Chris any corrections any questions comments or edits uh oh never mind okay all those in favor of the motion please say I hi anyone oos all right thank you I'm sorry I'm trying to pull the agenda up my Internet is just not working right now no worries so we're on to uh Board of Ed committee reports Finance Ashley are you GNA that or um I didn't prepare yeah um I didn't have anything noteworthy to be honest from the last meeting I wasn't at the Kappa the last Kappa meeting um you know I'd say that the budget kind of reviews just kind of continue um so no substantive updates at this time okay so uh the 2425 budget is 47% expended compared to last year at this time which was 46% just reminding the board that special ed is always changing um and let me pull it up for you we can go over it can everybody see my screen okay thank you all right so we have a few transfers in January uh we needed a reclass to cover social studies uh subscription a transfer uh to purchase instructional supplies um in music at the center School a reclass to purchase a Yamaha alto sax which was on next year's replacement plan but kids we have a lot of interest and we need it now so we did that and then a reclass to cover the shortfall for uh psychological tests at BCS any questions on the transfers okay hearing none I'm going to move on to the report itself uh we are still um projecting full expenditure in regular education uh as it stands today we think we're in good shape with special ed I'll just say that as it stands today uh same for projecting full expenditure right now in administration support and Central Services uh operations and transfer um I'd like to talk about um the $63,000 transfer um that we are requesting to cover um the various uh repairs that um are needed at Bolton Center School to fix uh the heating system um for the remainder of this year um we actualized some more savings and salaries and benefits uh due to unfilled positions and as I've shared previously um people taking different Insurance than what they had originally stated or the fact that we had some new hires that didn't take Family Insurance um and then so if you approve the $63,000 transfer the board of V is sitting on a balance at the end of January of $380,000 so looking for a motion uh to approve the January transfers I'll make a motion to approve the transfers oh second so that's Ben Davies and anyone have any questions yeah just a point of clarification so are we voting on both the $36,000 transfer and the smaller ones or just the smaller ones the $63,000 transfer and yeah and you can do the 63,000 as a separate one if you want to that's up to you guys I just wanted to make sure I knew while we were voting yeah fair enough I can clarify my motion to include both thank you thank you Ben okay do anyone have any questions or comments on any of those um all those in favor of the motion please say I I I anyone opposed or abstaining alrighty um I believe that brings us to community meeting reports yeah no so I have one I have one more thing Finance Andrew please um and that is the USA mechanical bid for the fy2 bcsh HB back repairs and Replacements uh in order to award all these fixes to USA mechanical because they are kneed deep in it just want to remind everyone they were the lowest bidder uh they have been um in every extremity of that building and um so we're looking for a motion to wave the bid to award USA mechanical the fy2 BC hbac repairs and maintenance so move second any questions or comments on this bid waiver all those in favor please say I I I I anyone opposed or abstaining okay now that brings us to community meeting reports does anyone have any Community meetings to report on so Andy from a a finance standpoint I I guess my frame of mind before was on committee meeting minutes with the town so um that was that was my update as it relates to Kappa um I don't have anything anything further I can just say that uh that the finance committee did come up with a a budget that's going to be sent to the a board of Selectmen and they did that last week correct and I I if I could just add to that as well um I just want to remind the board that um the replacement of the camera system that was originally on our original list for this year has been moved to next year and um the BCS Bell system was taken off in the hopes that we can um have enough money maybe next month um to do a transfer to get that done hopefully maybe over April vacation John's in the process right now of working on quotes um and that we still have half the building uh at BCS that still needs replacement of window blinds we were able to do half of it last year with some um remaining monies that's not something that's allowed in Kappa that is something we're going to need to try to get done thanks um I attended the January B scholarship I attended the January Bolton scholarship fund meeting um we are gearing up for our Springtime activities phonathon will take place um I believe in late March and uh shout out to the VHS National Honor Society kids who will be helping us assemble our annual Town mailing um and then uh applications for SC scholarships will open on April 1st and run through uh May believe it's Sunday May 3rd or May 5th whatever the first Sunday of May is thank you Chris anyone else I didn't see a PTA representative tonight I can briefly talk on behalf of the PTA Andy if you want sure yeah um I was not at the Tuesday meeting but they're still fundraising um toward their boundless playground project um have the suon special dance this Friday I think they've sold over close to 150 tickets uh they have the spring Gala for I believe March in the works um they have the wolf pack um family night that they're doing and I believe that's in February 21st they've sold over 100 tickets for that um they have some family nights at Urban Air coming up I think chuckecheese maybe and um yeah they're they're they're very busy as always thank you very much I suspect that's all for Community meetings to report on and we can turn things over to the superintendent for tonight's superintendent of schools report you G to share my screen so here to present tonight A superintendent's recommended budget for 2526 school year just a reminder that that is our portrait of a graduate right there in the center and it grounds all of the work that we do our vision is that all students in the Bolton public schools are empowered to embrace learning in a healthy mindset continually build knowledge develop skills and become engaged Global Citizens this strategic plan uh vision statement is good through the end of 2026 an overview of the expenditure plan you can see that it is a 4.64 requested percent increase with uh regular instruction being 2% of that budget student Support Services 4% Administration and business services 5% operations and services which we're going to get into a little bit later 7% salaries is 62% and benefits is 20% this is a distribution just seen differently in terms of the increases um you'll see you know salaries and benefits are always the biggest drivers um currently our benefits number U from the state partnership plan is at 13% um they gave us a window of 10 to 12% but there is a factor added in for each um County and some counties were negative so you would take that top number and minus out and some were an additional and talin County was an additional 1% uh we anticipate having final numbers we hope the end of March I know that the town I spoke to Jim rert um and they are also budgeting 133% at this point time we're hoping that that goes down in March so that's a stay tuned um and you see too a really large increase in operations and services which we're going to talk a little bit more about uh later on this evening but one of the major drivers in that is the cost of electricity and the fact that we have a new um contract for electricity also so was like we we got a double whammy there the overview of the budget drivers include our contractual obligations as well as insurance and that's 71.6 4% of the budget increase increased cost in maintenance of operations is 26.625 of the requested increase and special education this year is a very small amount a 1.74% increase so we have a number of rounds um of budget deliberations that we go through uh the teachers uh put in their budgets early on in the fall to the teacher leaders the teacher leaders then reviewed their budgets with the building Administration um and um with Monica and Beth um the initial increase with just everything that everyone requested that was app then approved by principles was a 6.08% increase um I then meet with the administrative team to go through Page by page number by number the budget uh we were able to reduce it uh an additional 237 $862 for the 4.64% increase um some of the things that came out of that that were eliminated there were uh a professional trainer some online services that we were able to um do in some grants some instructional supplies and textbooks and some instructional technology again that we are able to do in some grants I just wanted to just share with everyone what local area superintendent uh budget numbers are so you can see that there uh what the various numbers are with an average for our area of 5.66% our projected revenues total 69 $1,679 uh both and that includes both federal and state grants uh the state grants really our choice monies which just want to remind everyone are used to pay tuition for Bolton students attending State magnet and agricultural schools and we anticipate this total projection to be $140,000 for next year our Capital proposals that um as Ria shared um are still uh on the list that is moving forward to the selectman and that includes the second phase of the energy management system the district handicap van replacement District utility truck with plow replacement um and the BCS and BHS hbac uh assessment this is a fiveyear set aside $6,000 for each School uh because every five years this needs to be uh this assessment needs to be done and it was determined at uh Capital last year that this is how they wanted to handle it and spread it out over the five years I leave this slide here just as a reminder um for potential future referendum items which will be coming up uh the BCS roof replacement will need to happen I think once things or will at least need to be discussed but it really does need to be replaced um as do the air handlers that are up there um consider putting air conditioning in all classrooms the units that are up there now that cover the uh office and the nurse's office and the library and a couple of other places um also need to be replaced uh there has been discussion for years about fixing the soccer field at Bolton High School a science lab upgrade at Bolton Center School and a library remodel at Bolton Center School here are our enrollment numbers our actuals and our projected for next year and you can see there's either like maybe change by one student or going up just a little bit the Columbia enrollment numbers I just share that with you they're 2425 enrollment there on the right um and you can see you know their numbers are a little bit uh up and down um as well and our projection for uh Colombia numbers for this coming year at 15 students and the tuition rate for Colombia is $1,728 183 uh and you can see how that's just distributed in terms of 80% to the high school bond and 20% to the general fund I just want to call to the board's attention the accomplishments uh that have happened in our schools this year uh the mtss implementation uh using data focused systems and team based decision- making to maximize student achievement and support our students social emotional and behavioral needs a continued focus on positive School climate including safe and caring classrooms building relationships with students and supporting the well-being of our staff embedded PD on K5 reading programs 6 to8 student L conferences BHS portfolios and prek to2 ongoing review of curriculum in Atlas or managed technology infrastructure support and cyber security services and training with novice an advanced BPS technology plan I will just share that um I'm very appreciative that uh Novis is uh our uh technology infrastructure partner particularly this year when we uh pretty much every school district in the country um Power School had a breach and um novas has been uh essential in helping us to manage that breach and get our arms around uh the data that was uh taken and and steps that we need to take next and to share with families continue BCS math coach to support the Improvement of teachers instructional practices and student achievement in math K to 5 our continued use of parent Square for staff parents and students and expansion of our social media presence continued expansion of our BHS Yukon and ecsu ECE dual enrollment and AP courses and BCS implementation of csde approved K5 reading programs um our students have been uh very active and engaged uh we have have a lot of students taking one or more AP classes or Yukon ECE classes uh in grade 12 we have even more students participating in those classes uh we had more college applications generated uh this year that we did last year which is great news we have a number of clubs and Athletics and um student body participating in various clubs and Athletics uh at both schools and uh as well as in the Arts uh our schools participate in the Sandy Hook promise start with hello week emotion into art the Hyer International and other uh various organizations that our students support um BCS and BHS did ccmc pajama day for kids to support kids with cancer we had food drives at both schools an amazing Veteran Day assembly yet again at Bolton Center School BCS held its third annual winter family night BHS holiday meals and gift Drive U BHS Senior Center partnership which includes food tastings and leaf raking you heard a little bit about that um last month Red Cross Blood drives at the high school for students in the community which has been longstanding and this year um our high school students have had over 1,200 hours of community service which is really amazing and kudos to them I share these pictures as a reminder of what this budget is all about and why we do what we do and why you all give so much time to ensure uh we have great schools and our children are engaged and happy and learning [Music] and lastly this budget is focused on our with guiding by Guided by our strategic plan our priorities continue to include maintaining Bolton Public Schools as a high performing School District Student Success caring culture talent development and resource stewardship and power build develop become this is just a reminder of upcoming dates for the board I will send you this presentation uh later this evening um we have our budget Workshop tonight at 7:30 we have another one on February 20th at 6:30 our budget is due to the finance committee by March 15th although we try to get it to them long before that so they have a lot of time with it the Board of Education and the board of selectman will both be presenting their budgets to the finance committee on March 27th uh there's a budget meeting scheduled for April 3rd April 10th if needed and April 17th if needed and that concludes my presentation this evening all right thank you very much um we'll be discussing that at Great length at 7:30 and we don't appear to have any unfinished business but we do have new business which are resignations we do not have it oh wow uh future business how about a motion to go into executive session for the purposes of discussing confidential attorney client Communications and to invite superintendent hex and director gold Snider don't moved this is Chris David second second you have your choice whoever um questions how about all those in favor of the motion please say I I I I opposed or abstaining all right that passes and I suppose we'll have to wait for everyone to leave leave and turn the meeting over somehow right

together and then we joke that on our board meeting days we always go 7 AM to 8:00 p.m. yeah so we like just it's a fun Monday it is that's how we spend our Monday all right have you night guys nice meeting no no okay um well next we have our board policy updates but um I'm going to take a moment of kind of privilege uh I was going to introduce uh re in the superintendent's information report but because her and I are Partners on this little board policy update now I'll take the moment to uh introduce you all to ream I know many of you know ream from our um finance committee meetings but as you know P has stepped into a role in another district and ree has um stepped up and uh is taking on the role of district office coordinator and uh secretary to the board of education so and uh remember yeah I was going to say her daughter was our board rep in the 2021 school year um so kind of a Coy she was amazing she she it was kind of a rough year for those meetings she had to sit through some stuff and I you're sat through a lot of that my heart brok she just graduated oh good friend December yeah from super cool from George Washington wonderful yeah good for Jaden graduated the next year hopefully next year from Purdue and then you have only two more Alissa is here yeah and then Luke is coming Luke is coming so and then er's gonna name a haul after me or at least a locker a lock something a locker maybe well we are super excited to have you and um in addition uh re and I uh kind of reviewed uh everything that P had put together and that we shared with you at the last board meeting for the board policy updates uh no real changes and again nothing's particularly substantive all of these are recommended by press and then we're further recommended by attorneys um this process is fairly new to Rene but she will be um kind of diving into this and we'll work together with Wendy um on the next press update but in the meantime we're presenting to you uh press uh issues uh 117 updates uh for your approval tonight okay could I please get a motion to so moov second was that Don yes Ronnie with a second thank you any questions for Eric about any of this actually I if I can I have a question sure um Eric there were only a few of the level a and level B types of changes and several of them deal with like the AP program and stuff was there anything that changes or was it really basically addressing stuff that we're already doing most of this is stuff that we're already doing um but it's important that we kind of keep up with the Press updates so it is really kind of concretizing what we're already doing and that's why Steve I mean you've been around for a while like you remember remember we used to just do these every year or two and I think now we're just trying to keep up with all of the changes that are coming so that's why you see all this more frequently and most intive most of it is non-substantive for us on a day-to-day basis but that's definitely true here as well and that's why you it's the one that's probably the biggest is the career Pathways information and that's why Wendy shared that previously I think in November December accelerated place yeah those are all so those are all things that we're doing yep yeah no I definitely like the way you're doing this compared to what the way we used to do it yeah so thank you yeah thank you okay Terry could you please P the board certainly no hi bsph hi s hi gon hi moons hi Ty hi Ross all right thank you carries seven to nothing all right and that takes us to the Personnel section this point I'll turn it over to you okay well as you all know Eric is still insisting that he's gonna leave here um he keeps promising he keeps I'm sorry I know it's not this is not the goodbye we will deal with all of that much later but in the interest of a super smooth transition we've been talking for years now about the succession planning and our our plans and through all of those meetings leading up to now a newer series of meetings and interviews and all the things we are here today to welcome Wendy as our next superintendent to succeed Eric when he leaves so Dr Wendy cust in a moment will become the associate superintendent as of July 1st of this this year and then would take over when he does leave July of 2026 she say finally she said finally was nice it was [Music] kind anyway so we're very excited we're happy to have you and uh could I get a motion to approve got it all right any other questions comments super exciting yeah yeah we're really happy it's a good it's a good fit it's a good we feel very confident that um keeping our culture of continuous Improvement and collaboration and all the things that makes make Stevenson really really special and unique are you have it you get it we're we're going to be good thank you thank you but choose the fill but I'm excited we haven't voted yet oh wait all right so don't get excited 30 more seconds please call the r certainly Ben I gon is that a yes course absolutely Moon's eye Tire I cross 100% I no I carries unanimously congratulations Bundy thank you it's gonna be great very no turning back now no no Jamie Jam's going to hit s and the whole world's going to on YouTube you can't go back it's on YouTube it's on YouTube you agreed whatever happens in the next month you agree we're we're really happy and excited about it it's it's all good all right well moving right along uh so you see graduate program approvals there uh as part of consent we'll have the human resources report um so we will not need an executive session following this meeting I know uh but we'll be sure to manufacture one for you at some point or April um and that brings us to the business section Sean and you have two items both of which we've talked about at length and finance committee but do you want to do a quick summary Yep this uh we need to hold a public hearing um for discussion and the board to hear from uh the community in regards to the issuance of working cash bonds um to pay down some of our existing workan cash BS so if uh you would like um we could uh seek a motion to open the public hearing on the Declaration of intent to issue 15 million in working cash bonds for the purpose of increasing the working cash fund of the district okay could I please get a motion to open the yes second Gary tyer thank you thank you all in favor okay so the hearing is open do we have any visitors or anyone who would like St is anybody here from the community not at this moment you want to say anything chicken chicken big chance come on [Laughter] away tax dollars at work could I get please get a motion to close the public hearing the working cash box so second thank you all in favor I I oppose okay the hearing is now closed excellent thank you so much um in line with uh that uh particular uh hearing um as I mentioned we are issuing um working cash bonds to pay off some of our existing bonds um and so uh we've had these conversations um at our uh finance committee meeting um we do have some additional uh leftover dollar that the county collects for delinquent accounts that we can add to pay off some of our bonds as well um so tonight we are asking that the Board of Education approve the resolution for the Redemption and payment of a portion of the outstanding taxable General obligation limited tax refunding school bonds series 2022a of the district and just for um clarification uh we are paying off $1 15,515 th000 who did I get a motion thank you second is that you Ronnie yes thank you so we have talked about this now in a couple of finance committee meetings does anybody else have any further questions for Sean okay could you please pull wounds oh hi tyer hi Frost thank you no hi benos hi s hi gorson hi cares thank you the next item is related Sean yeah the next item is related that's the parameters that go with the final cost of the bonds the issuance of the bonds um we are um looking at uh having a bond ratings presentation uh Liz Hennessy myself and Shannon weld we'll be doing the presentation on Thursday January 23rd that's with standard and pores um we'll provide we'll be providing more information in our main meeting memo um and then we will be bringing in February the final action for the board which is um to ultimately authorize the sale of those bonds Sean those are a virtual now right uh yes standard standard import yeah that's a zoom you don't have to go out there no hopefully yeah okay good question um and then the uh only I have two more items uh one is a we are working on the first student renewal um believe it or not it has been um five years since we or excuse me three years since we went out to bid for our buses last time um right now we are seeking um a renewal with first student uh for 5 years um we're working on the uh annual increases um but we are also in line um we're finalizing the collection of data from many of our comparative Market Basket schools to see and ensure that we're in line with um everybody else um and just for uh reference remember we do still share some routes with District 102 U but nowhere near what we used to share when we were with 102 and District 96 um several years ago and I certainly haven't heard as many grumblings is service service has been actually really good um they they have want 4% more now you said it out loud the bus are going to be late they have really picked up um the pace unfortunately the driver shortage and uh the KN the starting pay for bus drivers has not um subsided it's continuing to increase but it also did help in all seriousness with not having the duplicative roots with 96 correct so they were they would always get canutt it up against one another that was the issue with start times we had a bigger issue with 96 because they stretch so far out west um to our community it's hard to get them back yeah we'll definitely have more information of course anybody can reach out with questions before then um and then um we had our foyer requests uh there are quite a bit of them um several of them from one individual why uh we don't know um Jack spam 6044 gmail.com is um Anonymous it's Anonymous everything's been Anonymous spam is the family name huh the the spam line of products so um we are working on it it yeah it does seem to be centered around very specific things so so um and then lastly is the conscent item which is just the receptance of the audit from last year and then also included in consent are the instruction of close session audio video recordings that are no longer uh needed and then the continued um confidentiality for audio recordings in executive session minutes as well so that brings us to consent okay can I get a motion to approve the consent agenda second okay Terry could you please pull Frost hi no hi Ben hi so hi gorson hi moons hi Ty hi thank you so it Carri seven to nothing okay and just a few items for tonight the first is uh kudos to Mel Fisher our human resources coordinator who was chosen as a recipient of the Illinois Association of school Personnel administrators support staff award for the 2425 school year so uh yeah really really awesome she's amazing um and uh although you know Kim is the director of the Illinois school Personnel I can never remembera uh Kim did not nominate her nor was Kim part of the um selection process so um it truly was uh kind of an award- given to M for how amazing she is and the work that she does so we were very excited about that so next time you're in the district office feel free to congratulate her and then as I mentioned earlier uh just ironic that the presentation tonight was in some part on building student agency and I think Wendy was going to share a little bit of information about that um and the work that Tony has been kind of leading out um as well so yeah want to do a quick quick yeah do um when you have you know time your leisure to take a look there's a quick little slide deck has the article but also a summary and the uh and a little podcast if you want to listen to it um but talk it talks about giving the title of is giving kids some autonomy has surprising results and it talks about it goes back to how much kids really enjoy school and third grade and by the time they get to high school the love of school is not the same and they're making the connection to lack of autonomy and choice in their in their work and so thanks to Tony um we um added um just some research information to reference that and then what I think is the most important piece of here is um through the side deck it'll get to what we are doing in the classroom so to the point of our our Spanish team many many of our classrooms are doing a lot of really wonderful things and some of some of it's wrapped around our grer reporting systems um on how students get more of that agency autonomy of their own learning it does seem like something that's been going on here for like this this almost you read this it's like well duh right it's been a big part of our work yeah and it's it's kind of a dumb moment for us which is so so wonderful but for the rest of the nation it's not not so much and as Wendy said you know thanks to Tony and the work that he's done with all of our division directors slide number five is one that Tony showed me a number of years ago um and it just resonated with me and when I read the article in the New York Times that's the fir that's the image I thought I'm like oh my gosh like this is exactly what you know Tony had been working with Troy and Mark and myself and Wendy on for the last few years um but slide 14 that Wendy was pointing out is how we have Steve this is a question you texted me slide 14 is how we've tried to redesign our curriculum to be more focused on skills than on content which is what you saw what I was so excited to see tonight you saw a presentation that you know was really kind of align to this idea of you know building student agency and it's kind of framed out in the way that you see it here so I ironically enough it happened that way that believe it or not was not planned but um if you refer the slide 18 I I smiled when they referred to um students and their um classroom learning strategies and overall as a school in the last um student voice survey from this past fall 82% % of our students um feel like they have that autonomy over their learning which in that's you know 20 some thousand entries into classroom so students are feeling that in many many many many classrooms great yeah it's very cool okay so just wanted to make you aware of that and um it just occurred to me as we were having this conversation that make make a great board admin team Retreat topic for August to really kind of dive into this a little bit more so I don't know already been decided so I really don't need me here at all so we'll get that Clos ready for there you go there was ever any Clarity around that direct paper there you go all right so uh a couple other items uh thank you Jamie for sharing a little bit with the board of some of the stuff that's in the daily digest if you don't get a chance to read the daily digest it's amazing but a couple highlights uh from Jamie about operation snowball and Clash of Champions so some fun information there uh you'll see some news from the ELC um as well um there are important board dates coming up um please don't put those in pen yet um keep them in pencil um because sometimes things change but for right now um that's how things are looking for the spring um not all of them require all board members to be there um but some of them kind of fall under the all all may none must but some should like the retirement celebration those who Excel things like that Graduation May 23rd that you should put in pen that's really that's an important one um the alternate graduation on 27th is always fun so you're welcome to do that fun yeah but we're just trying to give you a heads up on what's coming in the spring because it's always busy but rean I'll kind of review this in the next couple weeks just to make sure that it's all finalized and the board meeting is moved up just so everybody because of president day oh sorry yes January and February were usually the second Mondays of the month rather than the third right and that is all we have for tonight did I get a motion to so M second so I I'm going to second the motion but I'm going to add I think it's amazing how quickly people moved and seconded without me there today we feel less stressed you think less stress well thank yeah we appreciate your self- awareness so it's all good do we have a motion in a second yes we do okay all in favor iOS all right

thank you thank you very much we'll see you at the next meeting thank you have a good night have a good day everybody [Music]

thank you everyone thank you thank you have a great rest of the day buddy tomorrow see you tomorrow bye [Music]

to rejourn on September 23rd at 6: p.m. reconvene not re Rec reer reconvene and then re that's right all right thank you [Music]

Aloha good afternoon welcome to the Joint Committee on education and committee on agriculture and environment and we are here to hear one bill Senate Bill 659 relating to the Department of Education this bill exempts from the electronic procurement system the department of education's purchase of fresh local agricultural products and local value added processed agricultural or food products not exceeding $100,000 subject to certain requirements requires the Department of Education to establish guidelines for determining a geographic preference for locally sourced products thank [Music] you our list of testifiers first is superintendent Hayashi good afternoon chair chair gabard voice chair Kim andur this my name is Dean Deputy superintendent with Department of Education the department stands and is really testimony support this measure um also I'd like to clarify like this is a similar build that was heard last week Friday Senate Bill 1548 and I fail to um tell the the committee that this tool will be used for us to purchase things that are not currently on the vendor list like Po and Lio things so it's kind of a short-term fix that gives us more flexibility to buy local stuff that's currently not on the distrib the distributor's list thank you thank you Sharon herd chairperson Hawaii Department of Agriculture chair members of the committee on of the Department of Agriculture please stand Our Testimony offer supporting supporting the intent thank you SRE right mamoto executive director Hawaii Farm Bureau hello chair members of the Committees mamoto here the Hawaii Farm bu down on testimony in support thank you Brian Bonnie kokui administrator State procurement office good afternoon chairs Vice chairs members of the committee bonica hako administrator State procurement office will'll stand on our written testimony providing comments and recommendations but we do apologize we have made incorrect references to the section and page numbers but we will send you a corrected version after this meeting thank you available for questions thank you [Music] Bonnie we also have testimony from Ted Bolan Nancy Red Feather n Nancy Moser and Hunter heavin all in support are any of them here to testify thank you any additional testifiers present who wish to testify on this matter thank you members are there questions of any of the testifiers questions for de deal please thank you um why are they not on the this why AR these vendors on the list or why aren these what what what you said that these allows doe to procure because these things that you want to procure is not on the vendor list why aren't they on the vendor list I don't think we ever procured before it's like the Hawaii based products like POI Liu yeah but don't you supposed determine what the vendor's list is it wasn't put on the list in the past and we we're looking at that now but can't you put it on the list without a bill we we will but we're going to go to the RFP we cannot amend the RFP the the contract is already out but in the next time we issue it will have things that are locally grown so why do you need the bill because we haven't issued the RFP yet so in the inter room we can use the bill to purchase like up to $100,000 of Po so when is the next RFP I think it's either it either went out or it's going to go out soon we're trying to see if we can amend it to include the boy and the locally grown products in it okay and if don't when is the next time you can do that could be next year the next cycle okay and if this bill if this bill passes it it won't pass until June or July July and then by the time you get up and running I mean it's like it seems like it's a temporary thing than it is a temporary thing yeah so why don't want to put in Statue what is the amount exceeding now that you can you can get without the limit is 25,000 25,000 you want to go all the way up to 100,000 okay thank you thank you Senator if I may um I was just going to speak to that that currently on the the small purchase contract we're only able to purchase up to $224,999 so for for U locally sourced product like POI and Limu that's all we can purchase this bill would then allow us to go up to $100,000 right but we talked about this last time about you folks are going to be purchasing individual things other than going to your vendor I mean isn't it more efficient that you're going to the vendor instead of you I don't know who in your department is going to be responsible for buying from all these different local small vendors we are we are looking at um com comprehensive package on how we can look to purchase more locally sourced product um this bill would support the department in helping us to purchase the type of foods that may not be on the list like deputy said things like poy and Limu and other local resource so that we can um start to amend our change our menu or what we're offering for students to support local resource you should go to your the vendor because you're going to need employees to have to now go and get from these individual vendors you know if you have 30 other kinds of local foods are you going to be procuring to 30 don't you that's why you have the large vendors to put it on their list so that you folks I mean you folks have enough things to do and and some of the things that you have to do you don't do it as well as you should be doing right I'm sorry to say but um and so therefore you know we got to try and make you more efficient instead of giving you all these little tiny tools that's going to add more to the work to the cost to to the taxpayers the last time we did the P at the 249 we we selected a distri a vendor who could distribute to the schools so there wasn't any um middleman we just bought it and then they provide it to the schools as you shared Senor came that as a tool this would allow the department to be more flexible and able to support more local product provide more local products to our students so it's really important for us want more local products you have a vendor now that if you put it on the vendor list that they can get these products correct right corre it's a long-term solution thank you okay thank you thank you members further questions so superintendent can you explain what the exactly what the change in procurement would be and do you have a list of these uh fresh local products thank you chair yes the um the the change in procurement currently uh for small purchase is the the limit for us to purchase for example po is up to uh $24,999 per purchase this would allow us to U raise that limit to up to $100,000 so it would allow us to quadruple the amount of product that we're local product that we're able to purchase okay but is this only for po or for all for for for other um other local value added Foods okay so this 24 99 per 24,999 per purchase is going to be up to 100,000,000 all local yes okay well for yes locally processed food in okay egg products thank you thank you forther questions number your question another decoy thank you so when you guys do the purchase so say you going to purchase po which schools you guys going to designate that to I believe the um and I ask Deputy CH to help me on this one I believe we did we did a um this past year we did a uh sampling of Po uh in one of our um complex areas we weren't able to purchase Statewide uh so in one complex area up to the $24,999 uh what we want to do is actually to expand that to offer these type of locally grown product to other students uh how the the the individual complexes are selected um I can turn that over to Deputy Cho we can get more information back to you on that so what if I said this because one of the schools had asked you guys that they wanted to do their own meals and they had POI and they had AA but you guys didn't refuse them they're um Senator I'm not familiar with the particular situation kalapu um Charter oh Charter School um it's not daily they wouldn't they wouldn't come under that charter school would be under um if I'm not mistaken under Charter School commission not under the department of head charter schools are separate from us but you guys had told the the email went to you guys and you guys denied it for them to do the setup of their own meals oh we can we can get back to you on that sener definitely let me take a look into that cuz yeah I I believe that um CH schools are able to procure under their own um sources under the charter school commission che check your email because I made sure the email came back like that cuz I was wondering why you guys wouldn't allow them since they would be able to Source locally for the smaller schools we'll checking it back to you definitely thank you thanks for that thank you chair um superintendent so the 20 24,999 is per vendor per area for what what how does that work if if I'm not mistaken senator I can get back to you the specifics on that um I believe it was for that one time for that one complex area up to the $24,999 so if you do three different complex areas it would be 24.99 comple what we what we don't want to do we want to avoid any any kind of partialing so we want to be sure that we follow procurement code so this $100,000 threshold then would help us to um to provide additional is it per vendor or per combine combined together I I believe it's per vendor but I I will double check per vendor so is there a PO vendor in Hawaii that can can provide $100,000 worth of Po there are I believe and I get back to C I believe there are a number of vendors that um are able to provide I can get you the names of the they can provide 100,000 on their own uh I can get you I can get you the names of the companies the providers that are able to help provide um that amount of point I think one of the things too that we're looking at is as we're able to move forward with locally sourced um produce and are able to support our local farmers that will um give them hopefully we can help to provide the confidence that because the department is able to purchase from them um on a regular basis then uh that would help farmers know that they can go ahead and pro um produce because there's a market that the department will be able to purchase that what you use your vendor for so right so so this does give us a flexibility so that's what you use your vendor for so I'm saying the the 24,999 is it per vendor so if you move it to $100,000 that means that you can buy $100,000 worth of Co from one vendor and the question is do you have a vendor that can even provide $100,000 worth a c don't you want to give it to different different companies to help the small definitely leverage as as much as possible for for a vendor um if they're able to provide then I think that's great if they're not then you know hopefully we can provide confidence for them so that they'll be able to um to plant and to produce up to that that if you want to provide po to Maui or po to m not necessarily you're going to go to one vendor maybe on a waffle right cuz then won't you want to support the the vendor on these neighbor Islands yes right yes and so again you don't need $100,000 then a limit for that well I'm not sure how much uh each of the respective islands are able to produce so the if we have the threshold uh it's up to $100,000 so right now it's currently at $24,999 up to $100,000 then would give us flexibility to be able to support our local farmers up into that amount up to that amount okay I keep to hear when you say support our Farmers because we do support them and that's why we have the vendors but you want this flexibility which concerns me because of various issues but I'll leave it at that thank you thank you I would think that though um in specific cases like wildfires or Etc that this would without this you would be limited on what you can get from a vendor that's maybe not in a a situation where wildfires took away their crops so I I do understand the purpose of the bill Senator hush superintendent I guess so so this is just for for State funds then because you you have for school lunch you have the federal funds so do you have to follow State procurement for the federal funds or federal has all their own procurement standards let me check Federal USDA has own procurement standards so then so this is solely we we're going to we're going to draw down all local stuff on the state funds then is that the plan for this one it's a shortterm well we're just trying to figure out what what the plan is cuz if you open up the state side that's fine but then there's this whole other pot of federal funds that you pay for school lunch for and if if you're going to draw all the state funds with this local local food that's that's fine but we need to know what the if that's your intent because I think what to Senator skim Point why she's pointing always to the vendors is because at some point you have to be able to make sure that it's Federal compliant if you're going to draw in the Federal side right and so if you're going to sell directly to the doe you might be able to use your state funds and draw down the state funds but they may not be Federal compliance so then you're not drawing down the federal side um Senor if I may I I believe um we did check into that and as long as there are there are I believe and I can get you what what they are I believe there are four um categories that as a state agency we need to be taking a look at in terms of federal compliance and USDA as long as they meet those four areas and I can get you those four areas um then we are they meet the Federal requirements and then we would then would be able to draw down federal funds uh so that we're not so that state fund not pay for so I guess I guess the the challenge with the federal side is then the farmers have to be federally compliant right so to Senator Kim's Point that's why you have to have these third party vendors to get them compliant because the farmers aren't going to be compliant themselves and that's why they if you're going to use State funds it's one thing but if you're going to use federal funds it's another thing so so that's why I think it's it's a convers that we just need to understand and I think that's why we had this conversation last weekend and that's why you peace meal it and we don't understand all the moving Parts it's really hard for us to kind of put it together to really understand what what is the end goal uh because I as as you know we we tried to sell to the D but it's not worth it for our family to do that because we don't want to get federally compliant right and so so okay you're going to draw down the state funds that's one thing but we don't know what what all the moving parts are in my mind thank you definitely take all of that into consideration when we do this and your failure to plan does not constitute a bill because you didn't put it into your procurement because you failed to plan for these vendors or these types of local locally produced Foods or um products right so you failed to put it in the procurement or you failed to put it in the contract again now you want to come in with a build to to cure something [Music] temporarily I take that in mind future thank you so so superintendent just to clarify that uh the current procurement allows you $24,999 per purchase and this bill would raise it to $100,000 per purchase right okay so um is that specific to um certain Goods or you know that we need to raise it this in this it would be used for things that the vendor doesn't provide right now it's un available to the vendors that we're dealing okay like the PO or Liu something so we're trying to add it to the next RFP so that it's included in the list that distributor can you can order off the list basically so I mean I guess I'm looking at the jump from you know basically 25,000 to 100,000 and I I think this is what the Senators are trying to get at is that why such a big jump has the the increase been 400% or is that what we're anticipating in the next couple years so you don't have to come back can you explain that I think the original pilot when we did the the smoke purchase in 20 249 um it was successful speak to the mic the first purchase when we bought the the small purchase agreement at the 249 um it was successful that the kids really like the PO so we're trying to expand the reach now get into more schools and this was kind of the language we talked to the um State procurement office B thank you members further questions Senator Detroit thank you chair so you know there's not very many people today that do puya how many of them is food safety certified we can get back to you on that sh only because if you Tak it from the state and the federal level they all got to follow food safety guidelines would it be that would it be limo and I know on that base will you guys help them to be food safety certified being that you guys want to increase because that's the biggest challenge um I I believe we're working with different organizations uh whether it be Department of egg um not sure EVP there other there are partners that we're working with that help to certify our farmers and and help them become food food safety certified thank you thank you chair and just for clarification then whatever products you purchases has to be food safety certified correct thank you one more question say we procure fresh local agricultural products and local value does that mean that you you cannot purchase anything that is not local with this amount it say may not sh it is May that's another concern the intent the intent of the bill Senator is to for us to purchase local so the question so we can change that because yeah I don't want folks going out and buying all this other stuff because now it goes up to 100,000 or 50,000 no no but I I disagree sen only because if something happens a wildfire or whatever wipes out our crops I think we're going to have to buy from some he sells well yeah but that's why we have the vendors we already have the vendors these are only for those those products supposingly that is not on the vendor list right that the lenders can't the vendors can't get for you the larger vendor that you go through correct this is not a wildfire stuff so Senator once the U once the contracts are cut with the vendor then um if I'm I'm not mistaken I believe it's a yearly contract uh so if the contracts were already cut for the 25 26 school year then um without this bill we wouldn't be able to purchase up to just for one year just yes for one year but but for us and you hav you're not even sure that it's finalized we you can amend it but for us the um the year is really important because we're really serious about trying to get as quickly possible up to our 30 our 30% and we we're far from it so we really want to move in that direction well I was hoping you've been moving in that direction for the last couple years and not wa to the last minute right okay thank you other questions members if not thank you thank you okay anyone else here wishing to testify on this measure if [Applause] [Music] not okay can we um recess calling the meeting back to order members we are in decision making on Senate Bill 659 relating to the Department of Education which exempts from the electronic procurement system the Department of Education purchase of fresh local agricultural products and local value added processed agricultural or food products not exceeding $100,000 subject to certain requirements requires the Department of Education to establish guidelines for determining a geographic presence for locally Source Products members the chair's recommendation is to pass this measure any comments any questions yeah I I'll be voting chair because first of all I think that word May in there for allows the department to not just purchase local Valu foods and products and this is a temporary we shouldn't be using a statue to take care of something temporarily that they didn't do um in their previous contract and so now they're coming in for a Band-Aid fix on this and then we did take up a bill very similar to this and we deferred it just this past week so with that thank you thank you m further questions recommendation of the chairs who pass Senate Bill 659 chair votes I chair votes I Vice chair votes no Senator Hashimoto no Senator kuha I Senator dord I three eyes two nose VES adopted um sorry I forgot to add something so we have to retake the vote that uh we are passing with amendments but we're defecting the date to July 1st 20150 those amendments at anyone wishing to change their vote hearing none three eyes in favor two not recommendations adopted same recommendation for aen chair votes I any discussion chair votes I Senate Bill 659 passing with amendments chair votes I Vice chair votes I sen decoit reservations Senator rhods excuse Senator AWA I chair you have four in favor motion is adopted thank you members thank you this meeting is AJ good afternoon calling to order the 302 p.m.

indivisible withy andice for all chance look over the consum agenda hold on I do have a question so on the so Sall Coes we don't currently we don't have any last year in the spring we didn't do anybody this is the first we have Jonathan marani already and then this would be the second one so we be fully sta on at the interest meeting there's 25 second second discussion concerns USD so um again so you saw the instruction you got five minutes to have discussion back and for okay tell us what all right I'll just stand over here hopefully everyone can see me hello I'm Julie luy I am an educator myself and I am a member of the LifeWise steering committee my husband and I live here in Burlington and we have three young children um I used to teach High School Spanish over in yat Center for eight years um I have seen firsthand students struggling socially and emotionally in the classroom and therefore unable to thrive academically um it's so disheartening to see your class roster decrease as more and more students opt for online learning or transfer to other schools LifeWise um helps solve T and Target this dilemma by teaching students Bible based character education students benefit from LifeWise by improved mental health better academic performance and character development our schools would benefit from an increase in attendance um a decrease in in school and out of school suspensions and support from the community because this is an entirely volunteer Rand program um parents would have the choice to enroll their students in this optional program what we need from the school is a time slot to provide this weekly program during this school day um the Supreme Court case zoric versus Clawson in 1952 makes LifeWise a legal program and it specifically states to it being during the school time day because it is a release time religious instruction um this allows for Equitable opportunities for all of the students um many students would be unable to participate during an after school program due to other extracurricular activities or their parents inability to provide transportation so I also want to acknowledge and thank Craig Marshall for meeting with our committee um I'm here tonight to urge the board to keep an open mind about LifeWise we're continuing to raise community support for this program we already have 150 people that have signed the petition for LifeWise and we also have the backing of the ministerial Alliance so we will be requesting some time at a future board member meeting to explain more so thank you for your time have can I hand those out thank you thank you we'll to the next item on the agenda unless there's public com Gilbert here to discuss possible partn yes and uh we shared with you guys the the board I shared with you about the land that says south of the high school West of the rec center about again possible future plans for that land we really don't have any foreseeable need for that plan Scott Jeffers which I mentioned to you Scott and the rec center people are mowing they love to be able to be done with mowing there um the kids really aren't using that land for anything anymore now because of the tech because we have the turf fields the kids are on the turf fields for practice and games and so on so forth having said that I shared with you guys do you want to just keep that land you want to do look to do something with it um we talked a little bit about the possibility of maybe turning that into nice desirable housing location there and I visited with Rhonda um about this you know her my information shared with you and U I guess right now all Rhonda speak on anything she would like to talk about I did go to the commission meeting visit with them a little bit about as you know that ditch Corner down that L the and that really is just kind of messing up the whole thing and we know that so we thought we may have to get a survey too with the city they did let me know that the one that's there is enough there 14 houses or anything like that um we thought maybe if we could get the drainage to go correctly and rout it around we could probably have six nice homes comparable to what's in and around it um I would not want to go or anything like that I think would be a good number and the CH go down the middle we did talk about um just to get the study was going to be about $8,000 and so we went to the County Commissioners and they were very open to let us uh you know get it with them paying half so they will pay 4,000 so we do have to figure out where we're going to get I think I discussed a couple options and that so once you get the dit strange study and uh that will tell us you know how much lost compar to open build house on there whatever so or somebody I mentioned they want to buy the whole property well but I think you know you do not want to get just one person getting that tied up and then not doing something with it I would assume so and the discussion I had with you guys as a board is we could go to a sealed B we to an auction we can do that if we want to if we do that then what we don't want to have happen is somebody buy it and hold on to it for 30 years 40 years we want housing to go up there because we have a desire a serious need for housing it's desperate know housing and that's a desirable location in my opinion so the point is we want to get housing going if we put like a stipulation in that the house the lots have to be developed let's say within 3 years and build on and let's say they're not then we have to come back and enforce the letter that agreement we don't really want to get involved with this uh in my opinion you guys may you know feel differently but I don't want to be a real estate agent I don't want to deal with land the partnership we can create with Rhonda and she has people who know that they want to build they want to get going they want to make that that land there desirable for housing that's very very nice very similar in nature to that area she can make those things happen without us having to deal with those you know legal agreements ble to get the houses built on that land so um CA Kansas statute d326 says that you know we can choose to do what we want to with property as we see fit as the board I should say we as the board sees fit it's not a piece of property where it's at a s a school where you have to give the state first R the first refusal on that it's a piece of land so um here's that information I don't know if you have any questions for Rhonda or me that I we can possibly answer so the the thing that I have with that I agree it would be a good idea but how do we enforce what we really want I mean do we have a homeowners association or what in that area that says you got to build this size house this kind of house whatever because you know I could say I want to buy this I'm going to build this and I you know build a little 800 foot house control of the land you know what are you doing you know and everything we're not going to tell you can or cannot if the city is good with it or whever they're building it but we do want to know what so could have that option to um a third of an I think is what we kind of figured out to be the lots of the the complete lots of a little bit more than two acres if I remember correctly so if you were divide up into six Lots it' be one3 acre lots if it was six lots that size block I live you know a little block away from there most of them have six houses on it you're not talking a gigantic house in that area um the I know one side of it Osborne the road that I live pretty right away so that limits and I'm going to guess that the road right there in front of the high school is going to be the same way as far as limiting how close everybody can get it's the RightWay is a lot larger than the people realize because where the water lines and stuff are so so are you wanting us is the goal for us to sell it to the housing authority and then you do it or like it's a partnership that you Housing Authority takes control of it and then when you sell ever then it would be something to compromise on how much that would be or what well there's decid some different ideas and things um I would have to go to my board even to see I mean we' discussed it of course but whatever we come up with and then see we don't have to own the whole walk it's just that what would help you guys and help to get housing in here and done right not just you know have you done an agreement with like gridle with their City on housing thing how did that work well we actually own the lot because the city had aoup that they just gave us the lot so then we need a little bit extra we went that so the city had some funding so they said he we partner again they didn't want to like build the house they didn't want to go out for bids they didn't want to do the stipulations on it and stuff so they asked us and so that's what we did they put up half the money and then we areed and'll so is that what you we would like to like us to similar there it could be possibly a partnership if you wanted to know you guys don't want to be in the house building bus and everything so that's what we have to figure out where we can you I mean so here would be a possible idea this is one idea and there are others obviously we're just brainstorming ideas let's say for example we find out that a third acre of lots and just throw out R number let just say a third acre lots in Burlington have a value approximately which just say I'll say $10,000 I don't know if it's five I don't know if it's 10 but whatever so um we could say if that mod is sectioned off and Ronda has a builder and they want to build and they establish the pr for house add on the lot price and when it's sold we would get money back from that that's that is one idea we could sell the lot individually you know like to the Housing Authority or to a builder those are other options too is it legal like I mean if we were to sell a lot could we legally put in there you have to build a house within so many years or whatever because then once they buy it it's theirs we did that did we want to on this l a good lot by C amount of time and not to us do you foresee so this $8,000 I commission voted to do have do you foree other expenses that's the next step we have to you know go back to the commission and ask for additional funding or whoever um you know we are just getting the study so that we could see because no contractor is probably going to want to forover all that money help know I visit with the city about could be retaining or something learning of but we want it done right we don't want problems I it's we want it land right and I know that the water tying to the water for some of those houses like you know with the pains Bill I know that was an issue is that an issue because a I think the biggest thing is do you want us to continue to explore this bring back more information in the next month of the March board meeting continue to explore gather information I think it's a great idea to keep exploring it and just us having this conversation about it maybe someone sees this and they have maybe a developer does have a hey I have a plan and a contract and we're ready to rock here my be willing and then we open up to more people not just not saying up for just one person here one end you but just us having a conversation we start add we'll figure that the big thing is you know once we get expensive then theer get more expensive of course we're have to recover some of that at the at the very least what we would do is just uh for the sale of lots we would recoup the 4 contribute $4,000 towards the half of the $88,000 drainage that we recoup that money from sale of lots or like Ronda and I have talk we I don't want to we have talked about other possible entities that may be willing to contribute to that other half we haven't had a chance to to get that done yet but we're that's what we'll be doing this next month but we would have to do the drainage study and then do whatever the drainage study says you wanted to yeah go we have the drainage study that says this needs to happen and the contractor might say I can do that that's I have the equipment when I build houses I can do that I don't know personally right I'm I'm I agree with luas I think we need to keep pursuing it since we built the fields that block has gone into disuse that's just cost us money and property taxes and the re time and effort um yeah I know the value of it will probably go up over time but I want to you know great location for some houses and stuff and I think it'll just improve that neighborhood overall as long as we keep it needs to be yeah we don't want to cause anys to have flood neighborh that idea of put houses housing there but we we have not explored any around any any as far as talking I've talked to one I talked to one person in that area explain what we're thinking about today like say the city has out was it for 14 but that that's not that's that I have no idea why so that's that is a rumor we're not putting 14 houses it's somewhere it's somewhere between 4 and 6 long hous and they're going to look like the houses in that neighborhood if if if if we set those parameters we just want bring help bring theity we want great location so it's obviously Zone residential so I mean if they if all the neighbors around didn't want it they can sign a petition they didn't want it they anything so is the drainage study something that the Housing Authority also would have some funds to help pay so it wouldn't just be all us so it would have us put money if you we just want to help facilitate you know and and get to a point where you can see what's going to be required dra do you make that corre $4,000 for and then or if we can somehow come up with some funds from other okay with your approval it sounds like I'm going to we're going to run and that we're going to continue to pursue this more information monthly and when I when I share some information with you guys weekly I I appreciate that you went to the commission talk to you Le got I did see one commissioner did person that voted against it he said the reason is because he want to pay for the whole thing right yes so I did appreciate that comment I appreciate me too rep ICT question I know this gets said all the time but I really enjoy that we bring the high schoolers down yeah to me it for the little kids think I know that's a big deal for some of them and it it's nice seeing that and then seeing them show up at the games at the high school and you know half the time they there to hang out with their friends and they're not paying that much attention but it just I don't know it just ties it all together in my head so we every the cat that they come all the time because when they're in our lunchroom like kids are like amazing how often you want to come l that's always a day good thank you Dar we did have our letter training today it went very well um as well it was more comprehension based uh so everybody was really able to benefit from it today and they're actually able to make some lesson plans per se to be able to use the stay to so that was good that they were able to actually take something something applicable there to transition back to the class I appreciate the student mon yeah I like when we're including the sponsor I like when we are including the I think they they really enjoy too good okay anything else for big day coming up on the 25th everybody's a little bit everywhere a little bit of everything we s our fresh over to Hills to take a little and get back the afternoon um I know I announced and the looks on your faces when I said that optional um only three students oped out and so just our our kids we're knowing that we're really trying to hit it hard of with the seriousness of this how this can benefit you so we really hope that with that and I me we're preparing that they are everybody's not um everybody is seeing it seriously and not just looking through because it's a free test on the state and then we have the armed um Services vocational altitude battery test um and that is also that day so we have everything going on the seniors so you do see some people eating lunch out in the neighborhood of that day they some are dismissed and seniors come in and get additional four five hours on scholarship because that's one thing that they said they need and they work on their senior portfolio so it's a kind of free not freefor all day but I say freefor all as I adults making the decisions anding them additional time along with thise test there last I did the breaking news that AC we did see fast Bridge testing so we are encouraged by that and then today we looked at the inter testing data which our need some work on and so I think that's that's where our so our sophomore English kids and that's where our Focus will be for run down from the fall I think we saw it on the slides of like what those questions were well this set of questions and these Concepts at this time of the year um we do not do well in the LA math we are looking good um so we have some Focus to do on our sophomores the activities just things that happened at the end of last week that aren't in there added to the state qualifying list for forensics mallerie over and Kar ban both qualified for State this last Saturday so they're added to that list and then our Scholars B Team uh Regional Champions um that happened on Thursday evening that's mallerie over Ed brand Chloe gy Isaac Rinker and Matthew Deck with Brian Bruning as the sponsor it's our first time advancing the state schol W since 2021 which is when we last won regionals and the best finish we've ever had is third and that was in 2013 so they're aware of that and they're competing at southeast of Seline High School in the state championship this coming Saturday that was exting we knew but what does Hobby stand for a Hobie Hobie what does that does it is it an acronym is it a it's something youth leadership okay I was like Hobie I was like I don't know what Hobie stands sor for a couple years during or something like it didn't happen for a couple years yeah I'm not sure about that I it's been I mean it's been forever but they did have some additional openings and and that's what I'm very proud of our kids because um they they sent an emails so they had additional openings and so I you know I told Donna I said hey I don't know if anybody else wants to go but there was enough that you know multiple people then applied and got in this is a really good opportunity and when they they have leadership skills that our kid other kids don't you know our 4 AG kids have great skills our FFA these are some other additional kids that just get that a different experience so it's a it's a really neat opportunity for our kids and to be with other individuals of like minded this though thank you sorry didn't me to catch up put in there I was GNA ask if you didn't there so many so many than you anything else I don't have anything major to add we um Joe and I did just come back from the winter conference and that was really pretty good um I wouldn't say it was the best conference we've ever gone to but I we still got some good information and it's you know not far away so that's nice um we've started some interview processes for professional positions open um today and you know we're still hiring Paris as they come through for this year so we're just going to keep moving along what is the Noe maintenance of effort so it's a state report um has to be done every year and it's kind of a a lot more in depth than this but I'll give you the thousand foot view is um it's kind of two part one we have to budget more than we did the previous year for to spend more each year or the same and so it's how we prove that that happens so all three of my districts have to report out and then I have to do my section and then submit it to the state um so it's currently been submitted but the state has undergone some changes and um so we had some questions that they couldn't really answer and while we were at the winter conference we got worried that they were extending the deadline yet another 15 days um so I know it's not just us that have those questions but um it's sub um so at this point if something's wrong looks kick it back for us to look at again but we didn't want to not meet the deadline either so um but we're trying to work through the state on that so the board clerks are instrumental in getting me that information that I need so for here that's OB thank you Al Lindsay Greg uh in addition to the technology uh report that I submitted um our CTE Pathways I believe now 12 of the 14 have got their approval um just we're still a month away from the deadline for submitting those so those should be coming soon um the Civil Rights data collection has been um completed Christie and I are working on the edcs and hopefully I think we'll be completed this week uh I believe um training's going well uh C uh Skyward cumulative um as we get ready to move to it this summer we have bi-weekly meetings with Skyward and they're um saying we're we're right on right on board or ahead of schedule on training and that so they're very pleased with our progress and um we are um our our contract with board docs is up as of uh February 28th uh they're um planning a kind of a forced migration to their new product and their price is going up quite a bit and so uh Craig and chrisy and actually James was around so he was able to sit in on it uh we looked at board book uh which a lot of schools around us use and um It's actually kind of like a I don't want to say sponsored by the they've got connection to um KS ksb KB KB um uh and so they're endorsed by KB yeah and would give us a significant Savings of even what we're paying right now so uh you may have a new product uh to do your voting on and all of your information starting March 1st so we're kind of on a short deadline to get that uh up and going but they uh said that we should be able to do on boarding within a week or two and be ready to go so um we think that's the direction we when all information migrate over that's already so um it we can manually migrate it um so we've been working on uh getting it off of the Bardock site if that was the way we decide decided to go we were pre preemptively getting it off of there um and so all of the old data may not be there March 1st but within the days and weeks after we get set up we'll we'll get historical data so at the KB conference uh James and Bob went to board book was a session or a vendor that they had there so give just a rough idea um Bo docks which we currently have is going up to $111,000 board book is$ 6,000 what was what is board docs right now 9,000 so it's going from 9 to 11 this is they that sounds about like what they told us when we were there right what we don't want to do and Craig chrisy James and I said it on very similar type of a product but they don't want to bounce back and forth two years three years we do board but two years three years board docks so but I mean when you go from well where we can be a 6,000 with the product to 11,000 I mean it 5,000 is not a huge number in our budget but that's almost doubling the cost and we can't have if we can save and you think about everything we do if we could not double in cost it's going to save us a lot of money so that's enough to pay for a drainage survey Craig Craig did challenge him on the price a little bit to see they do anything else there I called board dos to see if they would match board book and they said we'll we'll quote you at your price from last year because you've been a loyal customer and that's over $99,000 so is there anything you don't like about the other software that you're looking at any drawbacks I don't I don't we you think so it's learning yeah just a little bit of a learn learning um but very similar we're very confident in Christy's abilities so is it just a one year like would it be 6,000 per year and that's down 12 a multi-year contract I I do not believe I do not believe it's going to jump because I think again they're tied in with KB and they are wanting to do um I think they want to have theirs be the prime number one choice for board board you know board meetings into house board so nothing's guaranteed but I don't think they're going to jump our price to 11,000 a year two it's just a one year year so we are yeah we're actively looking at that just simply because again it's not that 5ou 5,000 is real money don't get me wrong but it's it's it's double it's double the price of what board dos and really we're not seeing anything that would indicate a need to have more docks for 11,000 this out I say one more question so there's a lot of times I'll jump on board dos to look up something in the past you say you're downloading stuff from the server prematurely right now um so that will upload into the new one we can still go back and look at stuff yes that's the on a different subject I I mean I I love all the um stuff that we're using technology before but I just thought it was super interesting and something like I didn't think that we would need to teach kids but it's great is that um learning about misinformation and developing skills to identify false um information online like it's you know I think that that's really well not just that we're doing it that we're doing it with kids at that age yeah first we're not we're not waiting until their sophomore in high school they've already gone down young kids that we're saying not everything out there is true yeah yeah so I just thought that was really interesting you kind of look back at even the sorry back in the 90s even there were websites reporting the tree octopus you know and you know there were pictures you know but they were fake pictures and I mean that was out there and people were supporting that was a real thing you know there's other it's a it's a good skill for even the young kids to know that not everything is right just because it says it a especially with the AI and you know thank you anything else moving on to here's some information as we are starting into getting ready for State assessments uh because of the high standards that Kansas the state of Kansas sets you can see that kids how do they score on on the state assessment uh tests uh they do really well even the level one kids which we want to have more kids obviously in levels two three and four they still do very very well as they end up graduating from high school at 81% rate um again this is due to again the high standards that the state of Kansas sets as far as their cut scores for State assessments U and again we're not all about State assessments uh in Burlington it's something we do we want to do well but there's a lot more obviously to evaluate how kids are doing but this is just one thing that the state does have us do um um I remember to uh want to introduce Lori Johnson Lor's been here before parents as teachers representative she's got some information to share with you and Early Education is so so important so vital to what's happening with kids and Lor is a terrific job be job of our parents is Teachers program so Lori you are on okay well um thanks for having me and if you don't know what parents's teachers is it's an early learning program for families that have children prenatal up to five years of age um the biggest thing I think that we we really need to know is that a child's brain grows more between birth to five years of age than any other time and so I have I work through Green Bush and so we have approved curriculum um I go and visit families once a month or twice a month and them developmental information um we talk about family wellbeing um and then we also hit a lot of Developmental topics like discipline Health um nutrition uh transitions like helping families with transitions um so we have a really good program here and I just appreciate all the support we just received our Blue Ribbon which is every five years we have to go through an accreditation process and so that's why you get the cups and Candy it's a big celebration because it was a big deal um so we're really proud of that any questions do you uh do you work with the Early Learning Center kids also or I can yes and I've been in contact with Lexi um we just had these new plyers PR and um I always say the best way to get families to join is by other parents telling them about it and I'll tell you Lexi's been one that's pushing it um so yeah I was just curious if you noticed any difference in those kids or I mean because we certainly here at believe in this Early Learning Center was is a big plus for us I have noticed a big difference I feel like families are not out because the Learning Center is always open um you know when they there's there's really great providers out there that you know they're sick they're closed and some families can't do that um and I I really like um hearing from families like they'll say yeah they painted today and there might even be some evidence on the child and so I feel likeing things well and I know I know um we've talked about one thing parents as teachers does every year is we do developmental screenings and I know the learning Center's using that tool also I know we weren't living here at the time we living in Missouri but we contacted PE parents's teachers for our kids when they were younger young parents hey the kids doing this is this normal is this an issue and they came in and it turned out there was no issue but just the Peace of Mind of having somebody who's willing to come you know non-judgmentally and be like hey you know yeah what what you're seeing was in the normal range and you know it was definitely a program that I we found beneficial and even though we weren't super involved we did you know just that part of it the uh you said the assessments or whatever part helped us want to thank you for what you're doing no doubt and how long have you been doing this 26 years I took a little break I worked at the hospital a couple years but I went back to par how many families Curr right now we typically serve about 25 in in this District or yes in this district and I also do just you know Leroy gley so um yeah you hear me running around that's so Qui quick I'm sorry go ahead I just said busy yeah and just to Echo what Bob said yeah it's just a wonderful program and glad that we can support that so quick reminder um Darla helped correct me if I'm wrong on this um we we pay for 25 slots for Lori through the grant that we received from mobilizing literacy through the Walter and Evan Jones tary truns trust fund and so we pay for those 25 slots from the grant that Mar and I have worked on M RS and others uh so that's how we do this funding for parents and teachers and it's very very benal La is terrific she's wonderful again kids when they when you get kids they don't come with directions so it's good to have somebody who can help support uh those families and those parents that just want to do great things as parents but haven't been parents before anyway so thank you than thank you thanks for all your dedicated time thank thanks for uh next item for my report I shared with you some information I had some board members contact uh when the article in the paper did come out in regards to LifeWise and their information here and we have Representatives here tonight for to discuss and to talk they shared some information about LifeWise I shared some information with you all and I I kept you informed way back dating back to September of 2024 about LifeWise and the contact that's been made with me and I just I wanted to share with you kind of that narrative timeline if you will um and uh you know just our thoughts it has been something that we have discussed as administrators directors we have discussed this not only once but but twice shared this information with you guys as board uh and I want to just emphasize um and it is a it is I think it's a really good it's a good program I I do um but I've given you guys recommendation from our us as administrators and me as well that we just don't believe it's something that should be in in our public schools throughout the day uh for very for a variety of reasons there are so many different reasons and I could go into a lot of them and I shared this with LifeWise some of my concerns and and the issue with u you know one one issue I will just throw out is if you let one group in where do you stop so anyway having said that I don't know if uh you guys if you want to share thoughts make comments or anything like this you sure can in terms of this this information I've shared with you and again I want to emphasize I think LifeWise is a really good program I think it in my opinion needs to be outside the school hours I just wondered like uh so I had a couple calls on it but I there's no working outside the box like the after school or any like option for after school program or you know or summer or off day school you know and I can't speak for all the teachers or the teachers but just like you know the curriculum they have to cover for the state is so much just you know like I know that we talked about like in the five minutes you were talking that um you know it's during the school day but is there ever you know do they consider after school as an option or non school days or you know those kinds of things so I just didn't know that there's any room for yeah wiggle there you know what I'm saying so I think that um you know I agree with Craig that it's a good program and that you know I'm certain you know we have to be really careful about you know um separating some things so you know option I think it's a great idea just to know where we can get it during the school sure yeah for the legality of it it does have to be during the school day but I will say our steering committee is is very much willing to be flexible you know try to work and make the program for whatever it would work for the district we are willing to do it just in one grade if that's what would be allowed so we're willing to be flexible whatever time would be given the benefit it in school is the the children whose parents might not be able to get them to the program it actually gives all the students and parents the opportunity to participate and the parents do have to approve uh and sign off on it so one of the challenges with doing it after school is what if parents you know can't pick their K up or drop them so so again I can go through a lot of different you know thoughts I'll give you an example okay what happens if it's bad weather getting to and from what happens if there's kids that have IEP support and need that to be able to go over with this program that's not allowed that will not be covered Lindsay can't make that happen What happens if what happens if I I I can I can rattle off a lot of has to be outside of the school it has to be held at a location then and then what you do say no you know the families that say no yeah what what happens I going to say what happens if talk about food service we can't just sack lunch meals because those are not reimbursable meals if I'm correct they're not reimbursable meals we can't just sack on and that causes extra extra time for our food service staff which our food service staff is challenged already as it is what happens if the lesson is set for 25 minutes and they get back at 40 minutes what happen I mean I I I come up with a lot of reasons and I shared this with the LifeWise representation again the program is terrific I I think I think it's good my opinion and our administrators and directors wholeheartedly 100% unanimously agree it should not be during the school day for just those reasons I've shared with you and I could listen to others you know and I wonder too like um you know maybe think outside blocks as your group I'm not saying LifeWise isn't a good program maybe there's something else you know other churches lots of churches have done things after school I'm not saying that you want to do that but it's just like okay this really is L how we want it to work maybe there's something else we can do I don't know what that looks like but you know that's just something I think u i kind of what Craig said was that um a lot of information was brought to him and administrators have looked at it and kind of made the decisions so I feel like that's been made and I support that and I think the LifeWise program is great outside of school hours um I've got a lot of other questions but you asked me to have an open mind and we going to bring more information and I will honestly tell you I will exactly do that I will listen to anything I do think it's been asked an answer and if I understood that the location was going to be at the Methodist Church was that right so the kids would be walking from the elementary school to the Methodist Church and you have a 25 minute time slot whatever time slot that the school would provide but if we take okay but if we are we just talking Elementary that's all we've ever talked about is it middle school I know what you're saying but if you take away that give them more time so you're going to take away from something else right yeah you're you're shaking your head so so the law is very clear students must be released during school hours religious instruction If the parents want that to happen LifeWay Academy gives you the opportunity to control that time because right now right now if the Catholic church say we want our kids out on Tuesday Mornings to do this and Methodist said we want ours on Thursday afterno it's chaos gives you an opportunity to control the time say here's the lot of time and you can figure it out without that the Law's pretty clear you can't say no we not doing so when does the chaos start because we've been public education for a long time yeah so when does the chaos start for that and and so when parents say we're pulling our kids out for instruction that's when it starts yeah and and the reason the law the U the Supreme Court got fought was because of parents and primarily then in the in Northeast it was Jewish parents and Catholic parents and some Lutheran that said we want our kids to learn this and so are there any communities in like religious communities in our area that do have programs over before school like they show up at s stuff you guys have one of Madison right I think you're coming about an open we don't trouble I no we do not yeah I think I think we look forward looking information Johnny didn't get any information my my challeng my challenge also would be to the board is if we understand this is a great program also looked into it I think it's a great time time slot but we also have to challenge ourselves as a board and say we don't have art in some schools right Elementary School we don't have the body shot at the high school so those are some other things that we would have to consider and say we're letting something else take our kids away from class are we not allowing an opportunity for the kid something else take that time away from everybody have other avenues to do other things to gu there's other extracurriculars that we don't have but we could also so this has kind of beened out for around L time that was what was that was what was brought to us the last time that we met a lunchtime there's some benefit to the kids during the day some downtime as well some benefit to the teachers as well because they actually get potentially whenever that time slot is put in at Madison the teachers what get an extra like partial plan period and one of the benefits is it it it brings the community in to help that that want to be involved in school actually helps support the school even more because now you're getting Community involved in teaching and supporting the school and actually giving teachers a break not adding another but actually removing a little bit to give them a little bit extra time and again I think we'll wait for more information but would you say well these kids the teacher get some downtime what do you do with the kids in aren't going program so somebody still got to have instruction with them yeah there's no easy answers we've talked about the lunch period I will say as a committee we' kind of gone back to the drawing board and we're looking more at like being being one of the options on this special rotation okay thank you very much for your if I then you just drop it off okay certainly any information have whatever you want to get did you say madisona and eure okay thank you yeah thank you all for your time thank you very much thanks a I shared some information with you about K goals for upcoming legislative session because you're starting to he information in regards to what's happening in TOA these are just the focus on uh what KB is focusing on and what they're um you know looking to try to you know publicize and and move forward with as far as uh public education and some of the things that they're really focused on again public dollars for public schools school funding for special education reup the finance formula uh and hopefully with an increase in the in that face a for student Excellence develop recruit and retain uh great great teachers and flexibility and local control and serving at students so those are their main goals and there's a list of dates because guess what guys February March April May it's happening fast it's going to happen quick and we'll be the end of the school year before you know it so there's just some reminders any questions for me questions if we have if we have one more snow day then the 21st I'd say there's a really it all depends too on well when that Sally this week yes so Christy and I oh gosh yes I'll just say that oh gosh yes that's why I just wondered if we have one is it one more and that goes here here in lies the problem if we have that snow day this coming Wednesday there's still a lot of winter left guys and we don't make up if we don't have days slotted in to make up or start adding time we we may not have any snow days but we may have five more between wednes the 12th we may have five more between Wednesday the 12th and let's say March 31st yeah so no I just didn't know how many more it it all it all depends on again yeah if if our if our next snow day were to like April 15th we may not have to that was that April 10th or whatever I'll just throw it April 10th we may not have to make that day up but if that next s day happens on Wednesday I'm probably going to have to notify parents because they are May on a 4 Day weekend and on top of that we are going to probably have a dollars of donuts bedding guy you know if I'm a bedding guy probably going to have another day or two so it's it's all that's so if you got a crystal wall mag gate ball I sure don't neither the weather so so it's it's from like we good we're good we're good right now okay we're good right now thanks for asking though for another 24 hours okay um 7A 6A 6A board reports board members have anything so I do actually take so uh couple weeks ago I think it I don't know it's a couple weeks ago when Craig put out some information um about Burlington late Learning Center it jobed my brain again and for some reason it kept in my brain over and over so all right you got to step up so um a couple years ago we talked about having a school foundation and Craig at that time it was in 2023 and I have a copy of it but I just didn't make copies for everybody that I can send out but we talked about doing a school Foundation at that time and then it you know you get busy and all those things so I just put together kind of a um information sheet about what the purpose of an Education Foundation Is So currently USD g44 does not have a school Foundation the purpose of the foundation would be to raise funds obviously um to to for the receipt distribution of funds for our our school students um so basically what it would be and the benefit is you would be 5 1c3 so nonprofit Foundation where people's donations would be tax deductible um you could do you could um qualify for many many more grants that we currently do not qualify for um you could have matching funds for grants that we currently do not qualify for you can have pledge initiatives um you could even tie in and I haven't talked to darl about this or the high school but you know maybe it's something that like um the elementary parent support group you know kind of get encompassed in that or catbackers or something so it's more of a schoolwide initiative alumni would be um a really good Avenue to be part of the foundation and obviously for FS um many many schools do have foundations um if you research anything these were just a few I found Shen I actually reached out to Kathy emene she's like oh yes and we have a room and we have this and so she was telling me some things person like that udora um has a very good they there's a connection on their school website to their Foundation they have like a pledge day there's all sorts of things there were just some ideas that I put down of Le race funds um I am definitely willing to step up and so I'm Christian and it just keeps coming back to me so that's just why I'm here anyway so I don't know if anybody else would be willing to step up and be part of it um Craig had sent out the just I just said hey would you can we talk about this again he's said yeah and here's the bylaws I created so he was like four pages of bylaws that he had from MC person um I don't know if there's another board member that would be willing to step up with me and kind of get this rolling or if nobody's interested and I should just let this die but I do think that we are missing out you know like four Burlington Early Learning Center and so you know we will really need to be and Craig's done a great job writing grants but there are many grants that we can can not qualify for because we don't either haveing funds but we're not a nonprofit Foundation that and I'm not saying that the money should just go there by but um I'd be interested in assisting with you I think it's a great idea because I just was Vis I try to stay on top of the Early Learning Center where our funds are at and you know it's like we don't any grants for so long and then you know we we you know we it's been a great program and we just got it and we we have been consistent as a board saying we're not going to take it out general fund because that's taken away from other employees Etc so we we uh so we have been pretty consistent with that and we want to stay that way and we need to find a way to fund yeah I'm will out too because like you know the Burlington Early Learning Center there was a lot of doubt and question I think from community on when we started it there you know that the need and you know whatnot and it's been proven that it fulfilled a huge and I think yeah and so um and we did make that commitment to not to general fund money and um if we can do by doing this if we can qualify for for more grants to keep that going um and also the fact that people other districts in the state are copying what we're doing because they saw the huge benefit of it I just really going and I I do believe it very interesting because initially you know we had a lot of like uh you know that we shouldn't be in that business and and you know I somewhat agreed but then but then on the other side who's doing it so somebody's not taking care of these kids already we know that they're coming into the school and they're not prepared they're not ready I mean we have some right now that come I think the administrators could attest to and so it has not to anything away from the local daycare provider they're doing all they can but they can only take so many Etc and all that so the more of that we can get but uh we need and then and again people people I like CH says people says how you guys doing that how you fun in that we say well we just we get grants and all that and they go what how they're taking it out of their general fund so uh somewhere somewh so anyways I I whatever we can do whatever we can do get community to support and so we Greg has talked lots of things Christie has talk lots of things try to figure out ways that we could you know fund it so um even like larger employers like a lot of times their employees can donate to to 501 c3s and they'll match funds but since we're not that you know we don't really qualify for that well you know several of us do work at Wolf Creek and that is something that you know like they'll match funds if you funds but you know we just can't we don't now because I think if we do something like this we do need to work closely with like the catbackers because yeah there's only so much to be donated and if we're taking some of it we're not getting it right so I think that line that way we don't create some kind of Rift there between the two groups it needs to be considered pretty heavily right I think a lot of Foundations from just from the research I've done which isn't tons but I've done some you know a lot of times like alum so like people they don't you know people for 50 years you would reach out to them or you know like this is what we're doing and a lot of people like to support you know their L I'm not saying for sure that would happen but you I think those are just things that people would consider and um so you know we can just you know it's just like we've got to get this off the ground well just for the opport just for the option of the more that much more grants and the ability for companies to donate also are are there any other groups besides C doers that we need to take into account um parent support group well let's not forget about we have teams and groups that do fundraising on their own too I guess my question would be is if you have for example we had U I know we had money coming to play with like send in the um forensics to Florida last year we paid part of it they had to figure out part of it they rers see if this group raised money would they be able to help out with stuff like that sure absolutely it would establish a process yeah I think this early on in the process we just talked about so yeah I we I think we all think it would be a good idea that we'll look forward to that but all those groups need to be discussed I mean we don't want to leave them out in the cold and the same but I uh so if I'm hearing everybody right we need to move forward U with discover more information Etc okay okay all right I'll a meeting with James great thank you thank you 7 curriculum Leadership Institute contract deis to Renewal there's some hisorical data that chrisy has provided thank you for doing that you can see that they have been remain remaining consistent with their over the last three years their their fees um again just the approval for a contract uh for them we uh again have a slight increase in days remember we have a number of new staff that are working you know with CLI the curriculum process time spent with the their colleagues and Stacy brutin and so on so forth so that's why slight increase in days but the DAT but the rate hasn't changed if that makes sense questions on the CI contract I just have a comment so I think St last year we are yes we are we're kind of force speeding a little bit here and uh and Johnny and I have had lunch already we're planning on having lunch and then we're going to do a board KC board training session and and and so yes I know that last year the information that Stacy shared was very good kind of open a lot of eyes up to what actually gets done so that grand good now that you're aware of everything the CLI contract for 2 25 26 school year in amount of $1,975 motion second discussion moary 7 Z is 7 can complaint which is our policies can complaint investigation report need a motion to everybody probably have a chance to read that I'm assuming most accept or reject the investigation report from the ksb investigating officer in regarding the Ken complaint to a Ken complaint so remind uh we did uh you did move forward to take the complaint and have it be looked into it was looked into you received a report and that is something that you received a couple weeks ago three weeks ago or so and then now it's a movement forward to accept or to reject that um that report I'm going to accept the investigation report from the KB investigating officer I'll second Mo for second of discussion quick reminder knen is just the board policy K it doesn't have cansas it's not a can abbreviation or anything it's the board policy [Music] we goty updates coming up so it's one of those okay U this is again a project that Taylor and I have worked on also Jody has been involved with this as well we um are looking to update our scoreboards at Burlington High School starting to with those um as as they get older there can be lights there can be upgrades to consoles there can be just a variety of different things so having said that we came up with a bigger and better idea with this and with some sponsorships and uh we've met with a number of sponsors and they are willing to provide uh again that funding piece uh we have created what's called anchor founding Premier type sponsors and they're willing to pay uh some additional advertisement as well as the advertisement package that Taylor provides with them for activities so on so forth so long story short this new project will be two brand new scoreboards and a new much larger much better better graphics video board and basically we have the cost of this paid for over a 10year period from our sponsors they're paying um a certain level of sponsorship based on if they're an anchor $4,000 year for years and then $2,000 a year for years 6 through 10 if you're founding sponsor 2,000 a year for five 1,000 a year for 6 through 10 or if they're a premier 1,000 a year for 5 years 500 a year for six years 6 through 10 so we actually have this project paid for and we have three sponsors that are potentially out there I remember right correct that may be signing on they're just going through so having said this this will be a very nice upgrade Improvement a neat thing also about this is there's a curricular to this so we have a help me with the classes class or classes at the high school digital media they are some of the kids are really excited they're going to be able to create some promo videos and maybe some advertisements using you know our multiple kids they may create uh hype videos or whatever you get the idea they are going to do this there's a curriculum that that Tronics has through this actually some of the some of the some of these kids that have had diatonics background actually go to college um D Tronics recently um had a student I think is from aene ended up at I think fortte State working into them there their graphics for they've got so many different you know either whether it's a football stadium or a basketball gym for those events that they have and they have got scholarships for these types of these types of jobs so having said that there's a curricular aspect to this that could lead who knows maybe somebody will be doing Graphics at Arrowhead Stadium from Burlington or graphics cof Stadium who knows in the future so anyway we have this uh uh this uh this project lined out and that we ready to put it up install over the summer and do training and get us ready to go for next school year um it'll also be a nice enhancement for the many many many different things that we uh host here and the events that we host um in in Burlington so I don't know if you have any questions Taylor did I miss anything I just want to say as the resident clocker she uses it the most that the other piece is is with the um shop clock piece right now the two devices don't communicate together um and so I mean marani does a wonderful job but he like it would make that job even easier and it's not that I want to get rid of marani but as we have to have two people for another facility or train people and he can't be there like it would just make that job a little bit easier and we don't have to like we have to go through all of this with the refs every night like they don't talk to other we do our I mean we've been fine this year but it would be really nice to have those two connected and talking to each other so that so I'll practice my next question with this question so can that be fixed yes okay well with the scoreboards we have now no yeah new scoreboards yes because like Charlie and the middle school they have datonics scoreboards andronic shot clocks and so they connect so like we had the tournament and we have varsity over in the middle school so we use the shock box it was incredibly simple and worked perfect at the high school our scoreboards are fair play and our uh shock box are actronics so they they cannot be connected so so my next question would be can we repurpose those I don't know that we're going to need to anywhere we repurpose those with another school or something that you know that fair play more old is the rec center what are the rec center or do they have play I'm not sure their is even older I that somebody may you [Music] know that's I wonder if they might I'm not saying go break your neck trying to find out how you get but if somebody wants it hey so they East or West sides the clock would be on both sides just a big board so my question is what does the whole thing turn into a digital display like because we just see this is the picture so like the whole part on the left is all a digital display is a score this would always be the spor onore would always stay this is the part that would change change and be essentially an LED screen is how they told us will no no that that package they will that's going to be tied into this and again those those sponsors that are whether they're anchor founding or Premier they get the total package of all so this board here would stay no bo would go okay and then this is where they're at and that that board is I have that laptop in my office and it's like launching a rocket every time I turn it on how loud it gets trying to update it it's just and you can't it's just it's just so this one and that one's going to go and then this will be in its place and then those same advertisers like those that aren't the anchor found your premere want to be on the board and want to pay the regular amount to just be cycled through during a game they will still be part of it can still pay their whatever $200 to just cycle through because that digital LED and it'll look better too because the LED board technology has just improved over believe it or not I think that board's 8 years old and we we were able to pay off the digital board through advertisements so and then looks like a [Music] light it'll be a lot more graphically appealing Taylor did you get all the donations for that say that again did you did you get all the donations myself and Craig we had like three three different lunch different people and then as some folks started committing we had it started with one lunch and then a few folks committed then we had another lunch because people heard about people committing and then they wanted to get they were interested so more uh almost right we still have three they interested still have maybe one more lunch that are there yeah we we did that throughout the fall and so I think it'll be I think it'll be really really good and for those places once they see their logo up there permanently I think they're going to like that any inter there's still opportunity to be a sponsor yeah you just put my name on there questions any other questions good questions what's theion it's getting paid for yeah I mean guys we we're not having to pay for a new scoreboard it's over a 10e career so we'll we'll front the money on a capital outlay because it's a capital outlay purchase we do not have to go to bid for this because D Tronics is a preferred through the Green Bush purchasing Co-op and we've had tremendous success with elonics equipment we've been thrilled their customer service is top to the top best of the best kind warant I can't remember warant is but it's it's I said they yeah that they have they have been great partners for work I just remember I don't know hospit it was we had our old clock didn't sink up with the new dionic scoreboard and they came back met with us and another guy came again another day to sitting there in the Baseball Press Box and showed us everything how it worked out was very thorough you said we have a few spots available at what level any of the three levels we have a few spots available at any of the three levels correct oh no I just don't understand um the pl foundation so on that point do we have electricity there no electricity is all it's there it's already there currently we have it for the score boards and we have it for the current video board margarito doesn't have there will be an installation fee that we're working with I'm working separately with the vendor because if we tie in with actronics they'll market up a certain I don't want to do that they've given me three different vendors that will do the install and I work directly with them which will cut the middleman out and save us money so this is a this is a it'll be a turnkey project when it's all said and done this is the cost for all the equipment and their inst installation will be a second dollar amount which I've shared with you approximately again we're still getting the actual numbers there somewhere in the neighor $3,000 but if we get one or two or three additional Partners that'll be paid for talk about adding this to like a classroom curriculum to digital media where this is another thing is it looks like we would have to pay $2500 a year to access that that program yes so that's something else that I guess we consider if we wanted to teach thatwhere any more questions on that okay I hear a motion make a motion to approve the quote from De Tronics in the amount of 10,16 for the new VHS goreo video second discussion only discussion I have so we we have firmed up pretty well the people advertisers yes it's down to the point where if we if we filled them all up like we haven't filled Bob was asking like all three levels like there's we filled up every sponsor we have available every anchor sponsor every founding sponsor we would almost get close to doubling what we would need so it's filled up with what we have that makes a lot more sense there are more there's more room we have 75,000 committed for the first five years and then 35 37500 for the second five years so if we got every anchor sponsor filled and every founding sponsor filled that would put us we're about 4,000 over the bid right now for what we have committed and so we would be anything other sponsors we get will be more than the discuss motion 7 okay I think we've had lots of discussion uh back and forth about U the U Elementary uh School we uh adop we're asking to adop the resolution so I'll read the resolution authorized providing for the calling of a bond election in Unified School District number 244 Coffee County Kansas Birmington for the purpose of submitting to the qualified electors of the district the question of issuing General obligation bonds of the district and providing for the giving of notice of the bond election just reading that I guess I am I have a question okay so um my question is so when it just says new Elementary so we can do birth to fifth grade like we can choose we're not discluding the preschool by saying this or everybody we depend what theice cut right but by just saying Elementary we're not locking ourselves into not having the preschool and whatever okay any more questions so that motion resolution number bs212 I made motion second discussion obviously more information is hold on well in this document that's attached there's AAS statute 72 that's what he talk about today we have to have so this will be the question that's on the ballot right sorry no that's good good discussion much 7 Z okay quick just a quick bit of information since the motion since it has passed um had a preliminary informational meeting with Gibson manini car Michael Nelson gmcn Architects uh prary meeting they want to provide or pay for this this is their on their dollar we'll provide a company called bowcom B werc bowcom that will help us to get information out to help us to provide and support again the information as far as for the bond issue they are covering the cost gmcn Architects bowcom B gncn are Architects okay CLK Clark Simpson their company I I've never heard that i' just always simps they will they will help us get information out put together promotional um advertisements uh and they'll create work on maybe website Creations separately from our website but could have a link there they they they do this this is what they do they'll be getting with us here very soon to have an advisory committee meeting with or advisory committee people are Board of Education and sharing you know what they can do to help they they say essentially it's six weeks they want to get information out the last 6 weeks before vote you don't want to send get information out 9 10 11 12 months that's too far you know of course we wouldn't be able to do that anyway because we didn't know about this until now so but six weeks is you to give the public as much information as possible share with them what the m l is going to do share with them what you know the pl going to be and so on and so forth so more more to come were they any part of the people that came to the GMC was there yes he was and then a quick reminder again just you know we cannot endorse like a vote Yes campaign in other words I can't send out an email to our staff and say hey you all need to vote Yes for this or else we don't do that we don't do that at all we can encourage people to vote like we would get informed and vote just like we with the presidential election or you know County Commissioners election or whatever we want to encourage people to get informed and vote and so we wouldn't you know twist arms we don't do that information so there'll be a lot of things coming out a lot of meetings set a lot of uh information shared with the public here as we move forward and thank you all for your time you've spent a lot of time over the past I want to say 14 months I want say Darla as well and a number of the community advisory committee members they were they spent a lot of time energy and effort on this uh so kudos to you guys thank you results report who wants report on results social studies social studies we still do the the project uh in seventh grade and then our teachers actually grade that again we don't we haven't got any feedback from the state on that Jenny Anderson did go to a recent training and it can actually we can change and evolve a little bit with that that we will probably that um it doesn't have to be as big as what it currently is um so we'll we'll look at making some changes of that and it can actually be what they're currently doing in social studies and not actually stopping any doing a project with that so uh science-wise um fifth grade performing above the state um I think when you look at the upper end 29 29% of our kids compared to 20 the state is pretty impressive um that would have been G Engles last year of teaching um and she did a really really nice job there eighth grade again that is the Freshman Class kind of a lower performing group um although in fifth grade they did perform better on it then um we haven't had a ton of time to really dig into this just because of letters training um as a staff to be able to sit down and look at this um but as we have given our spring and fall interims um we are performing at right at the state level above in some areas uh if if we perform poorly on like a question on the interim the state perform poorly as well um if we perform well the state perform well so we're seeing that direct correlation there so if maybe 25% of our kids got it on some of in the state 18% got it or vice versa um so just being able to utilize that interim data to impact what we're doing between now and state assessments so for example today uh Mrs ir and salburg to be able to look at that inter more closely that we lose them they get Y and that that is asade um when they took it in eth grade it decreases again yeah so also you know Deb Reed taught eth grade science for how many years um and so she figured some of those things out where you have Miss Salsbury this is her second year and so some of that just takes time do we always see this drop with age or is it over the past four or five years I'd have to go back I only ask I'm curious and I know I'm looking back and talking about time period but I'm curious if Co having any effect over the past four or five years that maybe we're still seeing some repercussions of that I would say did have an impact I would guess there read I would think that will carry forward for several years for a high school um you have your Urban space science and your physical science and their biological sciences and so like we pulled out today at where we're at in second semester Juniors and what they've been exposed to So based on everybody takes their science everybody takes biology other than that they start choosing right and so that second semester junior year is not going to look the same for that the prescription is not going to look the same for our kids and so even though I think with our scores you're going to see down what we've been looking at is that stem score is are we are we giving them a well-rounded experence me because again this is one shot at a test but we want to take a look at that the science Technology and Engineering map and um what we're seeing and what we're focusing on is some of those scores as well and I think in the long run I mean I think yes you can say some with Co but for high school is because of the does that make more sense it's the chice of classes it does I mean I would imagine the kids that are in high school now were fairly old when that happened anyway so I think it would not have as much of effect I elementary kids at that age would but yes I understand what you're saying that by doing the stim thing it removes some of the variability and schedules out it yeah and then I guess if you for us at the high school there this is act Trends and and I I've said that this is the same you guys this is the same CH on every single every single Resort result so we just move the AOW over um so you can see where our science is is lower and we're looking at that but we have a list of by what we're doing with the Triangular F inter data and then we have Pass Bridge we now have ninth grade taking act all right we have the 10th grade taking act we have the 11th graders taking the Real ACT and so this is going to be this is the first year we've have three pieces of data and we'll be able to follow the class of 2028 through this and so we have to have a starting starting point and I saw feel we're in a good spot with all of this to really um track where we're missing um where we're lower um but again I think for us looking at a fiveyear trend um we take a little dip we'll get back up there and then the next one is this is that achievement in stem so if you take a look at and I am blind so um if you look at average mass scores 28.8 ours and the state was 28.2 this is what I'm saying you know and when you say numbers don't match that this is where it kind of gets a little crazy and I think you I think here like a little bit of numbers and so you our average science scores of our students is like 29.5 and the state was 28.8 so there are Pockets that we're doing really well in but then when they come back to just the science that's when you see the composite score or the uh the score 17 we're doing some great things and so we're not worried um and heck look at our science kids and what they're doing um it's just we're always looking at the data and so again we'll keep looking at it but so don't get is what I'm saying and then the one thing I people don't understand is The Benchmark and the indicator is college biology okay so think of our kids for second semester Junior are just taking physical science right and some of them are taking chemistry some of them uh might might be in the college biolog but what these indicators are for stem and stuff is are our kids ready to take a college biology course so obviously since 18 College found I so so on the stem St we talk about the percent me in school so so we' dropped from 14 to six so what we ATN so the state's 12 and we're six yeah you're out there on that right and so um so what you can see though look at the posi no I am I am I am I mean but you you talked about so we go back and look stem well the the state Lo the state dropped and so we honestly say the same so you notice like so that's where we kind of go up on that 28.8 over to the side and so like 6% of our students meant the B the the um Benchmark where they're saying that at an average of the 12% of a class of the state and so we're I mean it's yeah it's not 12% but 6% exporing I know so it's this is newer within the last five six years on the ACT that they're putting the stem for together so um I like throw it in there because you know I'm going to show off that the St some it's just interesting they did that then over here talks about students meeting stem benchmarks and then you know we're up on that motion to accept the results monitoring report concerning science and social studies as a reasonable interpretation of the board of education's results policy second discuss it'sing me we know what policy updates yeah I want I want to go through these and give it enough time but also we don't want to you know spend hours and hours I think you you had a chance to look over these so I want to go through these but just please stop stop just a couple of quick things um Eda it looks like there is one typo there on the historical policy file it says the court shall keep historical set of board to be probably keep should keep historical sets of board policies so that's just a simple simple typo there add sure go ahead show you all what the changes were there were a lot of typos when you were already were that yes yes they got in corrected um if find going if I go too fast here because I'm just going through Page by page here there's a lot of just red light Corrections if there's anything that you have noticed I'm going through the dfac grant subrecipient monitoring procedures again there's a whole lot there if you look oh gosh if you look at let me see here it was a type of um it was M instead of under the amount made available M each Federal War it should be amount available made under each Federal war that was uh in one of the pages on the dfac grant sub recipient so again typo like Christie mentioned there was another typo as well again we got those we got those taken care of so I'm just I'm going to keep thumbing through and get to a couple of more say more need adjustments and if there's anything that you all have noted and say just let me know refer that um the dfh this is the next one I'm going do fundraising activities so Taylor Christie and I reviewed these and then we were also we also going to be going over these with middle school as well to make sure that again there everybody's in line here on the fundraising activities dfh it would be the third paragraph down U the last sentence it says door-to-door sales are strongly discouraged doesn't mean you can't do it but we're going to discourage us faculty and sponsors shall not require and we crossed out will promote door too St sales because when you say strongly discouraged doesn't mean you can't do it but we prefer not to have that happen so we felt like uh in talking tayor Christie and I faculty and sponsors will not require doorto door sales and just get rid of that or promote felt like that's what we do if you go to df2 and it's going to be the one two 33 Circle down df2 fundraising activities uh at the end it says last sense no money raised or items purchased shall be distributed to individual employees without the express rate consent of the superintendent or designate we decide to add or design me in there could be an activities director could be a building administrator that Ty of thing so we just felt like adding superintendent or designate there would make sense um I reviewed jgf GAA with Lorie Herman and having said that go to the J well actually jgf GBA j g j GF GBA J GF [Music] G and it's underneath epinephrine and inhalers um Lori felt like you wanted to include the word this so the self administration of this medication and just instead of say medication self administration of medication some people might look at oh all medication well it's underneath epinephrine inhaler she she's very th school nurse self administration of this medication is allowed for eligible students she felt like what we would do here is in grades 5 through 12 or in special circumstances as approved by a physician and school nurse felt like that's what we we do here and that's the wording and the verbiage that we should have any questions on that um okay continuing on onto that next page uh maybe the top of that next one permission form shall be updated annually during enrollment that's typically when we do those annually during enrollment okay go towards the bottom of the page now and it's going to be the one two three4 it' be the fourth bullet Lori wanted felt like we should clude this statement in there in an instance where a student demonstrates carelessness an example would be an inhaler or epin found around school premises sharing it with friends Etc the school has the right to revoke the students right to self- administer said medications and to follow the school's medication administration policy and procedur with direct supervision by the school nurse or designate so don't yes yes yeah so anyway that's just the that's a more specific disclaimer and then I think we might just about I don't have anything else unless you guys do so I assume that the fundraising policy was asked to be developed by districts but you guys thly at it we we want to make sure we want to make sure the policy fits what we current practices good real good question excellent question thank you approve discuss discussion it only pops up we do not need to have for negotiations but next month we will because we'll have to approve the March 31 notice letter and I'm working on training to set up for Lucas Ron and Bob we'll go through some negotiations SC so nothing right now unless anybody needs to discuss something before March yes at the calendar before you so again we put out the calendar we got comments made some adjustments uh for whatever reason uh I know requested last year Monique shared this with me and thank you for whatever reason didn't get ml we didn't get MLK MLK day down they as as off we do this year I apologize for that because that was something that was mentioned before so um and again we approved this calendar we say pending negotiations the only reason why the negotiations piece is if is if we lengthen and add the number add numbers number of days to the school year that would be part of negotiations either we would ask for additional days or the board or EXC me the abuda might ask for fewer days that would have to go through the negotiation process and the new calendar would have to be revised so pending negotiation on what people notice what notices and what the board noce C were there any I know we got some feedback after the first version were there any major uh changes that we made based on that feedback um the I want to say nothing major I thought a lot of the feedback was start that week of the 13th and then that way we can end the week of May 13th like move everything the draw to that was training for CLI setting up time with Stacy Bru that there's a time frame there and then new staff and our administrators and our secretarial staff coming back they'd have to come back earlier than than than August one starting staff in July and sped staff training for for new par Educators there's there and teacher and there's just there's a lot that's trying to we're CR we're trying to cram in okay that to the STA yes I shared that I shared that with them via email explained why we weren't able to move that up okay good no good question good question um I said the MLK day um and then false Sports can they not start anybody till 18 that's correct we had a few asked to be right I got a lot of training schedules toate after any other calar question motion move to approve the 2025 2026 calar subject to final ratification of the contct second discussion discussion care s yes motion to recess of the executive session for 45 minutes discuss non personel exception and to return to open session discussion your t e e e SL mic motions um motion toess into executive session for 5 minutes to discuss non-elected Personnel exception under coma and to return to open session in this room at the end of that time to include Craig Marshall Matt spring and Charlie apologize minut five second motion second discussion vot [Music] there it is Mo car 7 okay e e e motion to recess in the executive session for 10 minutes to discuss non-elect Personnel exception under Coman return open SE in the room at the end of this time to second second discussion thank you till Sunday anyway come up with a sermon just like that motion carry e e e yeah motion to accept the retirement request that Jan reer has gifted facilit facilitator with regret at the end of the 2024 2025 school year second Mo second discussion just made a com sorry yeah at the end of 2024 2025 school year Janet will have top for 37 years yeah 27 of wish Janet the best in her retirement are they sticking around here did she share there's no they they're she just her daughter and her motion Carri 7 motion to accept retir request of Dian as Elementary School teacher with regret now she teaches Grant end of 2024 25 school year and a second from any discussion yeah so at the end of 2024 20202 um Dan top for 22 years all of those are at USC 244 she was my oldest daughter wish well kindergarten teer many years HWH okay discussion no more discussion okay catch it car brief no more me I appreciate what was that I said no more long me I appreciate um parents's teachers coming to present and the people about LifeWise yeah Cris train very well I apprciate thank you we had a really good morning lots of really good discussion very healthy that came from ministerial Alliance a reminder back in our October meeting well the questions on here what portions could benefit from changes or modifications my challenge to the team here is the admin reports is the content that we're getting from the admin reports what we need to be reviewing here at the board you know is when you look at that content that's sent to you every month is that the right level of detail that you want from your admins so just no obviously no action but we challenge you to take a look at those notes and say is this enough or do I need to add more and I spoke with Craig uh from our lunch are there any other directors in our organization that we need to hear from monthly B monthly quarterly you know we have other Transportation food and Main is the other one right we havee so that's a challenge to you guys to say good point is that the right level of detail is that the right people that are attending this meeting that we need to be aware of I would like to hear from the other directors to me to New Perspective something to discuss and what's the the periodicity that they would need to be attend maybe something thank you J for attending the crisis train I think well appreciate everybody's input tonight uh so thank you everyone good job

e e e okay we will go ahead and call this meeting to order first item is approval of the agenda to approve the agenda as presented motion by Allison second by Josh all those in favor say I I any opposed same sign motion passes 60 next item is approval of the minutes from January 13th any comments questions changes would entertain a motion to approve those minutes also motion by Josh second second by Allison all those in favor say I I I any oppose same sign motion passes 60 and approval of the treasures report that's been in your online packet to review any questions comments i' like to entertain a motion to approve that also motion by Josh second second by Allison all those in favor say I I I any opposed same sign motion passes 60 and then approval of the invo is there anything you would like to call out Mr Murphy yeah so on the first document that's submitted um we do have our avilable credits for graduation Alliance for December payment is about $170,000 that's about normal for normal yearly credits for the December timetable so that's on that first one um and then on the second one one of the big ticket items that you'll see on the second one is is the flow through for the Clin Recreation Department that one's on there and I believe that one is $ 42,3 61 so those were a couple of the big ticket items that are yeah that one's on the second one on the second page so those were a couple of the big ticket items what is a shoot away gun to so that is a um rebounding machine machine for the basketball team and then that was reimbursed through their o account their um athletic account kind of at high school so yeah so it's a it's a got a big net underneath of you shoot it you can load three or four balls in it and it shoots balls back out for you so we got a new one we uh then one of them we have two of them the other one we had to get some parts to get it fixed but I think they have them both up don't they Mr okay any other questions hearing none I would entertain a motion to approve the invoices as presented so motion by Alison second second by Josh all those in favor say I I I I any oppos same sign motion passes 60 and Reconciliation and cash balance report I just want to note um everything reconciled the cash summary report to the bank accounts bank balance but as you can see the cash balances are much higher this month than last month because we got the tax distribution in January January 20th so all five County I'm sorry four counties are in here Russell came February 1st so that will show up next month but yeah that's why the balances are a little bit up there any questions okay recognition of visitors and we have jery jer jer okay Ward um and we will go ahead if you want to kind of present or talk to us at all about I can or did you want me later in no go ahead this would be a perfect time yeah hello everyone my name is Cherry Le rookie Ward yes I'm a check from Wilson my first name is pronounced Cherry like the fruit Cherry Lee I was enjoying a nice quiet retirement when I was approached to join the school board for Wilson I was approached because I had worked as a teacher for 30 years and I also paid property taxes in Ellsworth Lincoln in Russell counties I have three sons who attended Wilson Schools K through 12th grade where they received an excellent education which helped and graduate from college the reason I would like to be on the board is to help every student in our school district achieve the best possible Ed education and education Beyond expectations thank you that's it thank you okay so that leads right into item number eight um our application for the usd112 board position number two does anybody have any questions anything you would like to address I would make a motion to approve Charlie as the um number two Board of Education position filling the r vac it would be an unexpired term so she would have to run again in November she'd be on the ballot to start again in January so her term is just going to be from now until December well the first Monday in January so I'll put that in the motion for an expired term sorry I'm of my voice that's okay there's a motion in a second any other questions or comments hearing none all those in favor say I I I any oppos same sign motion passes 60 so you can come on up and join us for the rest of the meeting yes sorry I had welcome to the board I'm going to have you go and sign the o You're official you can just start building okay we're going to so you just need to sign that's how I've got just I got not that in the minut she okay thank you and I guess I would just say without too if there is anything that you're not comfortable voting on feel free guys if you okay so item number nine administrative reports [Music] okay um I have a couple of things um in my principal report um the first one is the music department would like to take um a trip not this year but next year um they're just trying to make sure that they know what funds are available and what they have to fund raise for um our I believe our policy is if they leave the state they need board approval so um they would like to go to Worlds of Fun and actually participate in a concert at the Worlds of Fun which maybe they've done in the past um so she was just asking for your thoughts on that if that was okay for them to do um when it gets a little closer we'll have the students the students who are going maybe aren't even you know there yet so um they would definitely you know have an itinerary and all of that believe it's in marchish so they would leave on um maybe Friday or Saturday and then they come back they get back on like a Monday so does anybody have any concerns about them attending would fund raise and pay for all of their own stuff it's just um you know getting out of state so so that'll take a board motion right yeah yeah but as long as nobody has any major concerns if they we'd rather heard you something different okay um the other item that I was asked to bring up was after prom is requesting the use of two buses um they were planning on using the gym which we had already gotten approval for but they would like to instead um take two buses they would like the students would like to go to The District in salinaa um after prom um so they would leave I believe their plan is to leave around 11: um and they would just need the two buses to be able to uh transport the students there they would pay for the bus driver um and all of that they just need to be able to use the buses so if anybody has any concerns just let you know on that we have um conferen is coming up we'll do IPS um which is their individual plan of study with the students um and we have a CTE meeting on February 17th that is for our Pathways for um approval for the state we will we have to have advisory committee meetings so we will get all the students together FFA week is that week so they are going to cook breakfast for our our advisory committee and then we'll have our meetings um the rough neck reinforcers auction is coming up um several of our clubs and sports teams have donated items I'm really excited about all of the items that we have out there um the and the teachers and coaches are getting into it as well so it's exciting to see all of those items what did we what did we photograph 50 50 items something like that and I have five more in my office today so um it's going to be fun uh for our Athletics and activities report um Junior High basketball has ended the 18 girls ended up third in the the league we hosted our CPL uh Scholars bowl last week um I think we had eight teams there and then they went to Regionals in Ellenwood last Thursday Junior High Scholars Bowl will begin soon I actually sat in and played with them today and I got a question right so proud of myself um the forensics team has attended a few tournaments on the weekends the league decided not to hold a CPL meet this year we um were asked to host that I know Mr M since you guys add an email or a text about that um with forensics you have to have five teams to be able to qualify students for State we only have three teams four teams in our league right now that have a forensics program um Otis bison has one but they don't have any students they have a brand new coach so we're hoping next year we will have enough um teams to participate in that we were going to have to ask other teams to come in which kind of defeats the purpose of a league um tournament so uh we decided to put that on that way the coaches could all take the students to participate in one that they would qualify instead of it being a glorified practice plus we had to let out school for the day for them to not get to qualify so that's kind of the story on that um the high school basketball homecoming will be this Friday and then we'll have senior night on the 21st we'll have hall of fame um Awards presented on this Friday the 14th little cheer and kindergarten first grade will sign the national anthem we'll have that on the 21st um and then our ball games on tomorrow and on the 14th have both been so that's exciting um our counselor's report the act and work keys will be administered on I think it's a 26th and 27th um a February again all juniors in high school have the opportunity to take the ACT for free we gave the students the option of whether they'd rather take the ACT the work keys or both if they'd like um not every student is College Bound so we wanted to give them the opportunity to take the work keys instead which is more of a skill-based test um sophomores and eth graders attended a reality U event in Hoisington put on by the United Way on January 29th um and then we took some students to the Barton career day last Friday um I just included a few things that were happening throughout the school and a few pictures of some things going on it is super busy now that basketball Junior High basketball has wound down hopefully we can all take a little breath before spring Sports start up all right you guys have any questions our bank statement equals what we have in our activity account the chief's week last week must have cheered loud enough but we still had fun uh a special Spirit Week where they got to do all different things throughout the week and then we ended with the pep rally in the gym lots of fun uh the 14th we'll have our Valentine parties on the 17th we have an in service where we'll continue curriculum mapping mtss and we're going to start working on our 25 26 schedule um elworth County Spelling be will be February 19th in the auditorium there at elworth high school um these students uh will represent cpes Otto Bogner took first place at our local B Stefan Montoya second the other students attending will be tapate McKenna will rot Haley hollingshed Ava Miller Wesley prer tacy Sheepman Whitley C and Remington Wimer and then after the spelling be we'll take them out for some pizza on the 20th our fifth grade will go to the clapin community center and the holwood Legion on the 21st our preschool four-year-olds and kindergarteners will sign the pledge of allegiance at the high school ball game I'll have my site council meeting on the 24th spring pictures on February 25th on the 26th the high school kids will come over and do a in the classroom for our thir through sixth grade students they do an awesome job on the 28th we have the traveling planetarium this will be the first time we've used that um from the Cosmosphere um again um all paid for through our launch learning program that we have that'll be for grades K through 6 it'll be scheduled from 8:30 till 3:25 pretty much to get everybody in there uh March 7th is the end of the nine or third nine weeks uh we'll have an in service and work day and conferences on the 10th and usually we don't do two calendar raffle back to back but we're trying to raise still raise money for our add that additional concrete pad out side so would like to have a raffle again in April and start selling those in March and try and continue to raise a little more money so any questions thank you than you good evening everyone um we'll start off with the calendar events on January 30th um we celebrated 100th day with PJs uh for that day January 25th through February 4th we did our flowers for Valentine's and they actually had to make two additional orders so that was pretty amazing um so it's going very well on February 2nd we had our first of three nights of Columbus free throw cont contest and I saw the email and I meant to write down the names but we did have some winners that'll be going on to the next one um there were about six of them I think that was on the the morning announcements but I missed to write it down um February 3 through 7 we did the Super Bowl spirit week we had kinds of things going on um if you look at our Facebook you'll see some pictures um on the 17th I'll have my site Council on the 19th we'll have our spelling be and I shared with you a picture of our contestants on the 27th we have spring picture day and on March 3rd we'll have our um Wilson Elementary School awards ceremony for character education our cop being good reward system is going strong and we're working together to look at expanding this program for next year also um the character strong update Mr long will be attending professional development in Kansas City this is the program that we're piloting at Wilson and so um he'll be going on the 27th to gain more knowledge and insight regarding that um our after school program has 23 students now that are enrolled either full or part-time our reading groups are averaging about six 6% our math groups are actually a lot of teachers are doing some of their own tutoring and so we don't have as many going into the math groups because teachers are doing that on our daycare um we have zero openings at this time we have nine that remain on the wait list they're beginning of the process of the playground F fencing so we've had them Dig Safe come out and um mark it off where we're going to put it and then we've had a um at least two fence companies come out and talk with us about um giving us quotes um we're also working on preliminary tasks to begin expansion so we're going to go ahead and expand to two rooms in our building which will give us a total of um 20 openings all total so hopefully the the goal is to have it's a quite a process as we know with getting Fire Marshall and Har so we're hoping my goal is to have that all in place by the 1st of September I know this is March and it seems like a doable thing but I've learned not always so we're going to we're going to give it a try um one of the issues that we're having at Wilson is behavioral issues it's pretty significant I think it's probably more significant because you only have 83 students instead of 400 and something students you know so you're see them more predominant so um it was sent out to me the CW fit Grant which is through Kansas University I know don't don't get me but anyway um we were approved for classroom behavior management program that is comes with it and I just give you the links to the information it's a $20,000 Grant that's paid out in two chunks 10,000 in one semester and 10,000 in the other each teacher that participates receives $11,000 for their participation um one of the things today I sent out a survey because I can take all of my teachers or I can take some of my teachers and I can be involved or I cannot be involved it just kind of depends on so um what I did was I created a survey send it out to all the teachers asking questions like you know do you feel like you need more professional development in this what are some things that you're dealing with da d da there's lots of different questions on it and um I'm going to take the results of that and we'll take a look and then during our professional development next Monday I'll sit down and talk with the different teachers that are showing you know the most desire to have more professional development so we'll take a look at that um I'd like to try to get at least least three to five of our teachers so that those three to five can teach the other teachers and create a facilitator in that group um that way it's not an administrator telling them what to do but they're collaboratively doing it together and um the program the program benefits the CW fit is about a four-year-old program and it has a ton of research behind it it's proven to be when it's done with Fidelity it's proven to be very successful with some of the behavior issues that we're dealing with my enrollment inreased again yay I'm an 83 um I added um let's see I added two first graders twins any questions morning I did get um approval for kindergarten for the booster club they're going to get a carpet that's similar to the size of the carpet on the floor here and it is actually for them to learn it's a science carpet and it has a technology 3D technology that's actually going to bring animals up out of the carpet and they'll be able to like hold the animal in their hand like spin it around they'll be able to take pictures on their iPads with it and then they can it explains and so the booster club I applied for booster club funding to purchase that and so we were approved for that so and I also was able to get a donor um the she Festival one of the um ladies that's on Melinda she works uh owns the hotel thank you for some reason I lost my where was she own yeah she owns a hotel and um she called me last week and she said Karen what is it going to take to get a Gaga P pit and I said money and she said how much money and I told her and she said done can we borrow it for the to use for the check Fest I said sure I said if you're buying I can't turn you down so um we got that one I'd like to get a second one over for time so we have one indoors and one Outdoors but it's okay one we getting and so we have a go go piit coming we're planning on doing a father daughter um mother son dance and so we're working on that site with side counsel to get that done so there you go any questions busy time thank you okay item number 10 donation okay so we have a couple of donations to the a department and one of these we we spent some time visiting about the first one is the CNC machine from Molly Manufacturing in Lorraine uh Courtney went over last week and met with Molly to check this machine out it worked fine when she was there it could have a couple little wiring wiring Gremlins as she called it in there that need to be fixed once we get it moved it is a bigger machine um one thing that this one does have is it has the water tape in it that helps keep the fumes down so we don't have to build an exhaust in there for it so that's one thing that's really um really uh proponent to being able to have this machine from Molly manufacturing so um as long as the water table did its job we wouldn't have to do any of the additional ventilation so um a few of the specs M shamburger sent me it's a 5x 5x12 table with the uh with the water table underneath um she did call the technician that's worked on that machine and he don't have any major concerns about it as well uh they did have to repair an air leak um and replace the torch and the lead at one time and has a new contact motor that was put in place um she did ask if he'd be able to come and look at the machine um if we ever needed him to and he said yeah he would be able to come out and make sure we have it all set up appropriately they are talking to a couple electricians to make sure we have the electrical outlets in there to be able to meet the needs of that so that's item number one on donations um ask about hauling it whenever I talked to Courtney she said she kind of had a plan to be able to get it over to our facility so you guys have any questions about that CNC machine that I can either answer or I can find the answers for I think that's great yeah a motion now I move to accept the donation of the CNC machine for the a department at Central Plains High School from Molly manufacturing a motion from Alison a second Josh any other questions or comments hearing none all those in favor say I I I any oppos same sign motion passes 70 and then the second donation is from Great Plains in illw they donated a metal cut saw and two welding hoods to the a department um they asked Courtney if there's anything else that she needed in there to be able to make things run a little bit smoother so um a lot of lot of really good things going on in the a department right now so I would just uh uh recommend us accepting that donation as well I Mo to accept the donation of a metal Cuts saw and two welding hoods for the a department at Central Plains High School from great PL can I add one can I add one thing to that I was just going to tell you in addition for for them to donate that they ask if they could come talk to our students and we were like absolutely so they're coming I can't remember exactly what day it is but they're coming to do a whole presentation for all of our welding students as well so I think that's really cool to tie the community okay there was a question by Allison and a second by Josh any other questions comments all those in favor say I I any oppose same sign motion passes 70 okay and we greatly appreciate that so thank you both the item number 11 the district calendar okay um I did send you guys in weekly notes option one and option two of the calendar whenever we did that they ask our calendar committee asked for an option three which was starting school a little bit later ending the school year a little bit later then still having that week off for Thanksgiving so we added that as an option three in there all those are attached for your viewing on there two three and one um and believe it or not there was a tie between two of them when all of our faculty and staff voted which was a tie between um option two and option three so um I just wanted your guys' opinion to take a look at those and give me some feedback a couple options if you guys wanted to make a motion to accept one of those you are well within your rights to do that if you want me to take it back to the calendar committee and have them break a tie and bring you one back I can do that as well uh the major difference in two and three is just the Daya schools move back a little bit compared to the other one and the school would get out a little bit later as well in the year so still has that weekl long offer Thanksgiving um that was really a big our teachers really were interested in that having that week off for Thanksgiving so did they say there reasoning to start later and end later or no not really they just talked about having a you know um just having a little bit more time at the end of the summer I think was an you know something that interested them as well but you know you get on one way you get the coming back to school and only having a day a day and a half having a break to change some things up before you start school fresh on Monday some of them liked longer time to start that week off they didn't just want a day and a half they would have like you know three days three solid days to get the ball rolling with the students so starting school later does that affect our Sports at all yeah it does so if we started school um let me just pull up the calendars real quick so on calendar 2 if you pull calendar 2 if you look at August see this one's calar count three has the later start date yeah yeah so so basically anticipating the fall sports starting on the 18th of August y so what that's going to run into with sports-wise is there's going to be a day or two in there on option number three where we are going to have sports practice but we're not going to have school B can yeah one of the things with option three is Sil and Lucas starts later than we do so I know for us you know our Middle School you know our teachers that have no school then there's this week where they don't know what to do with their kids because there's they start later because they don't have a spring break they have a kind of a different story of Sil Lucas so that was one of the reasons why our teachers were liking the later start because it matched closer to Sil lucases which I don't have a problem I just didn't want to to affect you know the sport situation you know which I'm sure we we thought of that okay what can we do what we going to do well I might just comment I'm thinking of Jamie and trying to get the bus routes established once people are get enrolled so that gives her just a little bit more time to get the routes established I enough and then also on the side of it we have a lot of projects going on this summer if we even had a couple days it was pushed back would give us just a little more flexibility in that as well too so so as a coach I I um coached when we didn't start school for three two weeks I think we had two full weeks of practice before we started school and I thought that would be a big deal I thought that was going to be rough but it actually was kind of good because the kids could get to practice they could kind of get in the routine but they really weren't at school yet so they had a little bit of time to kind of ACC so I thought it was going to be a big deal it actually not I for little Oilers I actually like it better than we have a week or so that we can do our practice before school starts right that way yeah because they get so tired from all that yeah and Junior High kids they're not used to that so it's good for them to have that little bit of transition so option three does have um option option three does have the later start date and then the later finish date both the hours equal out to meet the needs we have hour wise or that we're going to need hour wise for accreditation purposes um you know the one the one concern I have about the later date just being a former teacher is you know if we're only coming back to school for Monday and a half a day on Tuesday you know we still got to make sure we're getting things accomplished in that day a day and a half that day and a half a day that way you know we just have behavior issues tend to creep up when it's not you know when there's a lot of downtime in there for that last day and a half so on calendar 3 has us um finishing up on the 19th and it would be a half a day on that Tuesday so we would come back for a day and a half any thoughts as far as um us taking the vote and making the final decision or would you guys like to send it back to the calendar committee if you guys would like me to I can take it back to the calendar committee and have them help narrow it down to one and bring that back to you if that's what you'd like to do was the tie after they'd already eliminated option one the tie was only so basically you're going to have I wonder if that might break the time it could it could if you have everybody revote or if you just take it back to the calendar committee and say these are our two options we need to come down to a consensus of one to move forward to take to the board if that's what you guys would like I wish they just more information to you know what's their pros and cons on that okay you know because I'm not a teacher so everybody's different I know that late start in August what I heard in my building was sometimes that's the vacation time that families finally get done with June and July all the activities and August is their vacation right before they come back to school and because we have phone calls we're not going to be at enrollment which it doesn't matter anymore it's you know we do it on the computers right but you know part of that well and and you know like I said I'm not a te you know it would be nice to have some of that information of you know hey or the sports hey you know we had a great time having some sports before school started it kind of eased them into it too um [Music] option option one did not have the week didn't have the week for Thanksgiving I don't know I think get on I mean the board is here to make some of those decisions too and not going to make everybody happy and that way they know and can just move ahead with scheduling and planning one thing to note on that one that with Thanksgiving break we do have a Junior High game schedule on that Monday night thanksging of that week is break so and that won't change our schedule still go ahead yeah they would but then if families are traveling those kids are going to miss that game or they're going to be at the game so the family just yeah may not be able to travel until Monday night I mean that's just what when you have kids you just don't always get to go do things okay to me it sounds like pushing it back to the later date it's making more sense with our activities going on this summer in the building is you know just everything I've been hearing it's kind of Transportation wise too like Ian said that gives our transportation department a couple more days to get all that lined out with all the transportation too well with all those things at scho so I would entertain a motion to accept option number three a second from Allison any other questions or comments hearing none all those in favor say I any oppos same sign did you okay just Haven yeah motion pass thank you guys item number 12 Okay so um the three bids are attached so I also made a copy of them here as well so on the ceiling tile three bids that we received we received one from Granger um there's kind of a third party with this so their cost is quite a bit more than the other two um the room materials is out of Witchita and so is the fbm the Foundation Building Materials is out of Witchita they're more of a wholesale group that's going to get them in bulk um we're talking about the same ceiling tile all the way through though I mean this is the same exact serial number so this is what we picked up so I know this is not anything fancy but this is this is a ceiling tile so um it's the same exact like I said the same exact one and all three so this is what it will look like it's really fancy so um we have talked a little bit about where we're going to store these on whatever decision we make and make sure we're trying to keep them out of uh Mouse infested places just to eat them up and that sort of thing so we're really talking about what we can do over at the high school to get all of the cases that we need ordered and get them in a place where when we're ready to do this they're already there on the at the facility to be able to um access so that's what it is unless you want I don't think anybody wants the back side it as best as free it is as best as free yes sir yes sir um my recommendation um with talking to Tim uh he he don't really have any concerns about either one of them um with all the materials being the same so yeah so on on the fbm the Foundation Building Material they did include tax that would be tax exempts so that $1900 would come off there um and yeah so both of them both of them that was one of questions I take yeah and then once we get the tax exempt to them they'll take those off so um I did ask Tim if he's ever dealt with either one of these before and he has not but he's heard about both of them and doesn't really have any negative comments on either one of those companies so um if you're looking at just the net cost the sub total you have $224,000 on one side and 25 on the other um whenever you're you're comparing the two so the delivery charge on the room materials is included there you can see the the delivery charge of the $250 is included in that $24,000 so my recommendation um with gaining some perspective from Mr Tim would be to recommend the room materials out of wiah would be my recommendation um we do want to get on this and get this ordered so if it does take with that many cartons that that much time to get in that we do have them and they're here so what do we originally think that was a lot more than that yeah we were more in this range this $40,000 $50,000 so50 really this whole project has came in really a long way under what we expected it to be with the company that we're going with in there that's awesome yeah great news I would entertain a motion to accept the bid for new materials from Alison second from Josh any other questions comments room the high school the high school we in the high school all over okay all the ceiling tile in the high school yep do you want to tell her what we're yeah so do you want okay hearing no other questions or comments all those in favor say I I I any oppos same sign motion passes 70 item number 13 are open enrollment numbers for the 25 26 school year so we'll be bringing this to you guys we met in our admin meeting last week um we'll be bringing this to you guys in March this is kind of a first look right now so I'm bringing up the first one oh man my eyes are getting bad that's really small um it's little so Central Plains Elementary School we have the projected numbers for 2526 um we talked about what we think we can have open seats to be about 32 per classroom if there's two teachers in there so that gives us about 27 total open seats in kindergarten we anticipate 10 first grade three none in second grade um eight in third grade six in fourth and then we would not have any openings in fifth or sixth grade so if you see below 32 students it means usually we're trying to stay at one teacher in there so um if all seats are filled and what we have the Third row fourth row going down that would bring us to 207 students 2425 those are the amount of teachers we have in each room and then the total numbers of teachers that would be required for next year if they moved and we stayed the same direction we are now so down below are just some of the historical numbers from Central Plains Elementary School projected up to 26 and 27 so it's hard to really think about what we're going to get in kindergarten talking to miss oer it seems like we always get quite a few more in kindergarten coming in than what what our preschool is so um it's really hard to project those those kindergarten numbers moving forward so that one is Central Plains Elementary School the next one down is Wilson Elementary School last year we set those numers at 20 students uh per classroom um so it does have the open seats on there which would be 74 total open seats and then if we were able to fill every single one of those seats we have 140 students in that building this does not include preschool again I didn't say that in in Central Plains Elementary School dist this includes kindergarten through sixth grade so um and then it has the total number of teachers any each room um we didn't fill in the total number of teachers required for next year just because if there was some movement in there we might have to have those conversations when they come down um and then it has the historical student enrollment at Wilson in again this does not include Miss Moore Miss Moore's two first grade students um that she recently received in her building so again it's hard hard to really talk about those kindergarten kids just because you don't really know what you're going to get moving from preschool up has projected numbers out to 26 and 27 and then Central Plains High School Middle School has the projection numbers for for actually next year um in the past we put those open seats we've talked about putting those at 30 so that would give us two open seats in seventh grade five and e8th grade six and 9th zero and 10th 11th grade we'd have five open seats and in 12th grade we would have 10 which would put us at 28 open seats and if we had all of those filled we'd be about 180 students it's really hard to identify like the teachers because our teachers do a great job at doing whatever they need to do whether it's middle school high school so right now we have 14.5 teachers and we've talked about adding one teacher and what that's going to look like because of the Middle School need and only having that rotation of three and with our numbers we're going to need the rotation of four so it does have the historical enrollment numbers down there and you can see we're getting some of those big classes from the grade school so you know by 26 27 know we're looking at 155 students projected within a couple years this is something that the board will have to vote on and we will have to publish so we'll bring this to you guys again next month I just wanted you guys to have a chance to look over that um and cherle we'll get you all fixed up with all this okay that way you have access to get all that as well and if we need to make a plan to come in and talk about how all this works we can do that too as okay any questions comments concerns on open enrollment numbers at your guys's first glance so there's room in the Grade School classrooms for 32 kids in the class excuse me no in the classrooms is there room for 32 they're split 32 they're split 16 and 16 there's a couple of those classes that are only at 20 because there's only one teacher if they did expand to 32 we'd have to break it to two and then we wouldn't have a classroom space for the other teacher and well unless Miss oer have to move him into the office area or something so that 20 is our Max with one teacher yeah with one teacher yeah and then now I mean you could I mean the student ratio is 1 to 20 in those so that's at a smaller school that's getting up there yeah okay any other questions comments okay item number 14 the board policy updates okay so um we had these at the board meeting last month didn't spend a lot of time going through them I just wanted to spend a little bit of time and go through these so if you guys had any questions um I'm going to go through them pretty quick so if you have any questions just stop me so the first uh board policy is just um a a small grammar change for repealing any Board of Education policy to clarify and help us be able to use that that's the top one the second one we may approve an organizational chart when we start in July we talk about that chart that moves down on who's responsible for what and if that's something we want to keep moving forward we it says we May approve that don't have to it's May so um gives us a little flexibility there the next one is a delete and that's that the administrators ultimately were responsible to the board of education so that's a review and delete the next one CG um combines languages uh from all of these policies that state that states that the Board of Education can um employ Administration personnel as needed throughout the year so we're just reviewing that and that's just a revised board policy from kasb the next one is a delete one and that talks about administrative uh Personnel evaluations and how those are conducted that one's a delete on there the next one the CNA preservation of documents the legal action there that's just a small grammar change um whenever we receive knowledge of any legal action against the district the amount of time that we have to process that and move forward so that's a small grammar change in that one the next one at the bottom of that first page talks about fraud pre prevention and investigation it has language that's added to encourage complaints reports of or inquiries about violations of District different District policies so that's the first page the next page uh deals a lot with federal funds and we could be getting into into this a little bit more here as we get going through this meeting so um I want to take a little bit of time to talk about the these compliance and the most of these are review and adopt we have them just looking over them in a couple of small changes um the first one at the tops revision for Board of Education to ensure that federal funds are used in accordance with the law that's a review and adopt and then all of these underneath of them deals with federal funds as well the first one is that we are required for reasonable cyber security measures under the district's internal controls the next one's compliance language for employees obligations to report any violations of the law the next one's whistleblower protection it's requirement of employees to notify employee employers to notify employees of protections um this one is an addition of a veteran-owned business to be considered during Contracting and procurement of federal funds it also repels Provisions prohibiting the use of State local or tribal Geographic preferences and the evaluation of bids or proposals so that one's a repal also repeals uh the procurement Provisions required for school districts to negotiate profit is a separate element with federal funds and then also increases the fair market value threshold from 5,000 to 10,000 which allows districts to retain or dispose of equipment with fair market value of up to $110,000 with no responsibility to the federal agency so when we were talking about those Perkins funds earlier this year that kind of gets into what that's talking about fundraising activities gives us some new policy regarding fundraising um and general guidelines to those fundraisings on school property and school sponsored events GA complaints is a small gr uh grammar change allowing any employees to file a complaint of a school regulation or policy to their supervisor and then the ice pilot projects is a revised outline the requirements of the protection of people right Amendment and also student data privacy acts and how that's Rel relating to surveys that are administrated to our students and that's a review and adopt as well so that's page number two and then the last page the Ida AA uh talks about free appropriate education uh to students um under the district's responsibility um in accordance with federal and state law stock supply of emergency medication is the next one this is a new one policy drafted to reflect a change in the state law that allows districts to keep a stockpile of epinephrine and albuterol in accordance with guidelines outlined in the policy the next one is kind of goes along with that one as well but it clearly delineates between the self- administration of epinephrine and haers by students and is outlined in State Statute and the self- administration of over-the-counter medication by students is authorized by their parents so those two kind of hooked together and then the last one on here is the general revision to policy um and specific changes to formal complaints and timelines and complaints against the superintendent and I believe it's like the 10 days and the parameters um that those complaints have to come to the board so those are the up big updates and revisions for KB policy from December 2024 for this year there's a lot there so I hope I didn't go too fast but gave you a little bit of a snibbit on what that looks like also included in that one if you click on it it does have the right down and specific information for each one of those as well any questions about any of those specifically I would entertain a motion to approve the KB updated policies as presented second motion by Allison second all those in favor say I I any oppos same sign motion passes 70 and then item number 15 is going to be our walkr of the facilities here so uh talk to Miss oer Miss oer is going to kind of lead us around the facilities here at the elementary school we're going to talk about some things that we visited about with space issues and that sort of stuff as we walk through and we'll have about 15 minutes or so once we tour the build for you guys to ask questions or for us to answer them okay all right e e e back on they just open what mon used to be an old assistant Liv you say dive through some hoops dive okay so item number 16 just discussion space issues so need that kind going to talk about the AC and making sure we're we continue in the right direction so I wanted to bring up two things one is the space issue in the direction um here at Central Plains and then I also wanted to bring up our AC um units at Wilson to get some kind of Direction on those so um you guys want to visit about which one would you like to visit about first AC's or the space um let's talk about the space and so you know we did talk about the modular units that was one item that we talked about um Lee burfield reached out a couple times just seeing where we're at on that and I told him we were going to have a discussion um you know whether we want him to come here with some more formal um information for us and companies that he's worked with in the past um to kind of get the ball rolling that way if that's what we decide to do you know my job is to bring you guys options um so I really think we're talking a million dollars for that unit so probably on on the downside of a million dollars once we talk about the dirt work we talk about the um Breezeway all that sort of so you know that is one option you know the other option is with that million dollars we can look at other space we can rent that we have around the district you know so I did um visit with um a group from bushon about the facil faity over there and the opportunity to rent that and rent the classrooms so you know that is a viable option too um if you want to think a long term how long's that million dollars going to last you know if we did something like that it would probably last a little bit longer than you know building the facility here it you know over the amount of time with no loans or or anything else like that we'd have to take out for that space wouldn't give us the flexibility for daycare though um moving the daycare to this facility uh there would be Transportation costs some of that sort of stuff in there as well some movement of faculty and staff so I just wanted to open kind of the space talk on what you guys are W me to do or you guys give me some direction on information to bring you or if there's another option that you guys have talked about in the past that maybe I haven't been privy to on the information on how to do that you know the one thing we really have to take in consideration is with all these kids the funding wise we don't want to lose those kids you know so when we talk about transportation and all that side of it you know we want to keep them in the district we don't want to talk about moving them you know a long ways away where it's going to force their parents to take them somewhere else that's not that's what we don't want to do we don't want to lose those kids um so I just wanted to open the floor for you guys to give me some feedback on what your thoughts were or what you would like to see from me to give to you guys moving forward I feel like um I'll just open that up uh adding on to our current facility here even though it is maybe a little more cost up front is going to be the most efficient and give us the most flexibility for Staffing um not have to think about you know our P or supplemental stuff like I say say supplemental it's not supplemental but you know not cor or um but like our music and our PE and our art I mean we were just talking about art on a cart and trying to get her back into a classroom so I feel like moving to more buildings outside of our primary location just kind of puts us in the box um and make some of that difficult and it so we're not it might be you know improving our space issues but creating other issues at the same time and then you also have to think about meal prep and delivery and and that too so I feel like really concentrating on just improving the location that we have is probably the best direction to move in um and I feel like it was just evident at how important that really is especially with our our Littles and when they're so absorbing everything and really taking in the most that we need to make that experience the best we can okay get off mys anybody else okay add an an a mobile unit does it open our open enrollment a lot more or if we're able to move classes out of this building does that open our open enrollment more and on top of it if I mean some of them teachers are already traveling anyways uh the music teacher I mean you're adding another stock yeah uh I I just see a lot of it allows us some time to really look at it and say okay is a six unit available and the best un you know best spot for us or is an eight unit or is truthfully not a mobile unit but just add-on you know just like Jane was saying yes it would be beneficial because it allows us another bathroom but still these bathroom that we got are very small uh you know even if you transfer you know I I'm just going to throw it out there the older students out there you still got the same amount of kids in them areas that are in the small unit um I just don't want to jump into something that we say oh I wish we would have done this different um I I see if we are able to go somewhere else with some kids uh it would help I feel beneficial for the building because now Jane might be able to go you know even three sessions at lunch but they're not as crowded because her numbers are going to be a little bit smaller here um but at the same time you know I I don't want to say you know a six unit is is what we need but maybe a n unit would be better we yeah if if the goal is to move the daycare here someday I think you want to look at I don't think we want to go with the smallest just because you're going to outgrow it I think at some point right um adding that would allow us to have more open enrollment if we've got those double classes I mean we're locked in right now with those single classes you know if you could split that fifth grade group and have 12 and you know 11 we could open up and offer or we could let more people come in we can't right now and that's my fear is if we have families that are wanting to come here and we tell them yeah we can take two of your kids but your third one that class is full they're probably not going to come so we've lost a family right there and stuff so either way Josh whether you add that or move kids you're going to allow for more kids to be able to attend in my opinion and all so what other kind of expense besides renting space would having a facility in a different location in CK you you'd have the transportation for a part of it you know but we do run a bus route over there now right that's picked up there I mean more like tied to the building so like are you hiring a secretary are you restaffing the kitchen um cuz those are all cost savings that were seen when the building was closed so are we reversing some of those salaries I guess know depending what we decide to do for lunch and breakfast we would have to hire somebody to do the lunch side of it and you know depending on the secretary side of it how we wanted that to look I would anticipate we would have to hire some you know it's it's going to either fall on somebody's shoulders or we're going to have to hire somebody to do some of that secretary work and what's way adding another slot to her day because the travel she lose time traveling so you're you say J sorryy music I mean her traveling you know and even some of that if we did the molecular unit I mean are we thinking we're going to put a certain amount down and then my recommendation is if that's the direction we move we look at last time we looked at the budget it was about 400,000 less that we've spent out of capital Outlet this year than what we spent last year part of that was the bus that we purchased so you know we would probably look at this summer you know or spring trying to get some of that dirt work and piping and things done out of this year's budget to see how much we can balance that out and have to do the least purchase for the least amount least amount and you know the that's where I'm I would I'd like to know a number that we are going to shoot for to put towards this that we wouldn't have to do on a lease purchase we'd have to borrow the whole thing you don't you wouldn't have to right but I would like to have some sort of a number that we would be willing to put basically put down or well I mean yeah so that we're not doing the whole million yeah I mean well usually when that's done in the past you know I know it's kind of hard to do we at and once you know that you're able to say okay we're at this many mills okay this many mills per year for six years is where we want to be at to make sure that we budget those 1.5 Ms in or two Ms in to know exactly what we're going to pay here so what you're saying is you kind of like to know what those numbers are looking like yeah okay yeah I just don't like to go into a line and say is cost a million we're hoping to put 500,000 down on it and I mean well right now the cash in the capital outl fund is looking really well it's $1.3 million right now unincumbered cash that's the highest it's been for quite some time because at the end of last year we got to transfer that 300 Grand over into there and so we had that money left over so the goal was to build this up we increased the budget 1.5 million so the goal was to keep this cash up there so that way for this particular not this particular purpose but any major purpose for you know air conditioning at Wilson or whatever that we have so that was Mr Lowry's goal always to get that up and so we would like to keep it going yeah and obviously not spend it all right where we took all the salaries back out of there so that was that was almost $250,000 right there so we took that all out of there so um we still have a budget a little bit there for salaries if we want to I was talking to Mr Murphy about that but it look looking very very strong so we could get estimates on the cement the Ping whatever and put some down like you said that's kind of where I would go would be maybe to have Mr birfield come out or gives a little more firm numbers and I mean including like exterior finish and some of that stuff okay that well and all he's Breezeway all he's going to do is the building he wouldn't do the Breezeway or anything else he can he he would have when we talked about the Breezeway to him he said that could be built in to have the builders do once they got here if we wish you know if we wanted it done that way if we had somebody else we wanted to work with on the raway part we could decide to go that direction if we did so like I said this sounds very much like when we bought our house kind of the same process we had to go through they ended up um using a local contractor to do the finish work and they buil our garage on site and stuff would that be do they use a local contractor or do they have a like so so when we talked to Lee he said the local contractors would be up to us if we wanted to use them for the dirt work they would give us the specifications everything needed to be set to and then if we wanted to work through a local contractor or they would work through local contractors on their end so they would contact the local contractors and then basically have the specs for the unit once it came in is what we were told and as far as the finished work and like if we had any brick and stuff I mean it would be the same be the same depending what we went with on the side like we saw on side siding or whatever we decided to go with on that one side so if they did a subcontractor and they took care of all of that we would basically just have one Inc to that company and they would subcontract out local jobs that still do the same he said whether we have the local contractors do it or they hire the local contractors do it you're in the same me you're doing the same thing regardless because they're going to hire the local contractors that are around on their end that work in this vicinity rather thaning their groups all the way up here from they charge you by do more by doing that though if we had them take care of that 20% it might be it might be worth our time just hiring a concrete guy or if we're going to have the concrete trucks here already yeah do it all maybe they could give us I'll just tell them hey by the way you see that big lake I I'll ask I'll ask can you empty the truck right here we control we went [Music] to much on everything was L everything else would you have to bid that out every deal it would depend how much it I mean and then you guys would and then you guys would have the authority to accept you know whatever bid we decide to go with it really wouldn't be terribly that much I mean different things it just be concrete to freeze away and hooking the electric right and work's some work be as well so so is everybody on board with this is there anything on any other part you guys want me to give you more information on or find more information on I think I'd like to see more concrete okay sounds like probably get in this R here I can do that would probably be the best way to go with that I am more favoring additional space iici to keep it all heree the dayare kids all together okay so then I guess do we want is that enough that's all I need yep yep I'll contact here in the next couple days and try to get some numbers and things planned and maybe see if you know his next step was come out to a meeting like be here have some have some more numbers so I'll reach out to him and go that way say if not then I at least he can give you some idea of what to look for to get okay so AC unit at Wilson we've talked a lot about a whole bunch of different things um the unit's not working right now had a couple had a couple companies look at the the uh drives you know the drives aren't working the drives are not um new enough where there's replacement parts for those drives we talked about the split units but the only way the split units were going to work is if we had the um fan running on the unit up top to pull air in on that side of it so that really throws that out we talked about window units after talking to our electricians a little bit about what that was going to take to bring the electrical inside we're talking six figures now before we even get the electrical inside you guys have had conversations with train before and we've had conversations with train about what a new unit would run what a new unit outside what would it would run what the controls would run so you know I don't I guess I just need some you know some direction from you guys we did have a board member um want to discuss hiring like an hbac engineer to come out and look at that um to give us some other options some more concrete options which we can do if that's the direction you want to go um so I just wanted to open the floor up for some more direction for me on the AC units at Wilson I don't know that we can get anything done by summer I mean so we're really going to have to have the discussion of those little white units in the daycare to keep them cooled off for the summertime for now until we can get something concrete moving forward and um I know we've had a concern about cost and that side of it so I just need some feedback on from you guys on what you want me to do um is there no way to just update the drives no because the control system you're going have to you're going have to do the whole control system that's inside the unit to do that um if we did the whole control unit inside the unit to do that then it would be a different um different computer system inside but then the drives would be compatible with that if that's what we decided to do what was that c uh it was 10 the last conversation I had was that was not their recommendation and it was going to be over they they estimate over $10,000 just for that the controls the controls in the unit itself not like the controls for the system the controls for the drives to hook to that's in the HVAC unit the unit up top if you updated that that would it would communicate with it would communicate with it then um but then again we're running on four condensers already some of the fans they don't know once that starts working if all the fans are going to start back up and work so again we fixed that $10,000 add it but I don't know that we really fixed rather than putting a bandaid on it for now and they also said there's you know a chance that we get in at $10,000 do the drives do the computer system but now we have another condenser out once it starts up and then a fan out so there those condensers I think are around 35,000 I don't think we did the condens we did a whole compressors maybe compressors or something so there's a lot of unknowns that's why that's why they are not recommending us do that they're not they're recommending us not do anything well they're they're recommending want us to do something else but not replace the unit up there not not replace it f the unit that's up there that's what they're recomendation love to replace it they would like well I'll be honest with you I'd love to replace it too I mean if we can replace that and replace the control system and we don't have to worry about the EPM side of it and we could shut down certain rooms and have it run efficiently like it's supposed to it's going to cut down on the electricity too but I mean you know if we did all that we're talking a million dollars do you know how much it would cost to bring somebody pull I would anticipate if we bring an an HVAC engineer it's probably going to be $10,000 8 to 10 is what I would guess yeah we do have a couple of names from what we worked with before that have come to look at that unit that are Engineers um but it's just really going to come back to putting it just in layman's terms is you know I my thoughts on it in my opinion is if we're going to have somebody come in and look at it for $8 to $10,000 are we going to be okay taking their recommendations because I don't think their recommendations are going to be anything under $250,000 and if we're not willing do that do we want to spend the 8 to 10 to come in and I I'm for spending the 8 to 10 to come in but the the recommendations that they're going to have I just don't see them being anything less than a quarter million dollars yeah I mean yeah so but the whole point is why not just go ahead and do what we already and one of the options that we have instead of paying somebody $10,000 to tell us to do one of the options we're already talking about and if we're option if if we're on board with spending that much money I would really like to bring somebody in just as in case there's something that we're not thinking about you know I'm not an HVAC guy we don't have an HVAC guy there um but again are we are we prepared to spend a quarter million dollars up there on that because any way we go we're going to have to do something and that's what we're looking down you know looking down the pipe at but we're at a quar million dollars going the window units that we were talking about a little while ago cuz they're going to have to run an additional line whenever we did like the high amps and low amps on the units up there and that's going to have I mean they're going to have to put two boxes whenever we talk to morvin coming in from the poles and they said you're going to be a six figures on that before you even start running the wires back to the rooms for the window units I'd be more willing to do that as a right now bring somebody in at 10 grand and they tell us that yeah you can bandaid it for one more year but everything else is shot so we're looking is there a price number if we got an HVAC engineer in a certain range that we'd be more apt to do that to bring them in and if we can get an hbac engineer in to give us some more hard numbers or some more ideas that's in the $5,000 range is that something that is more appealing I would like to see it just because I mean I don't know we got so many people telling us one thing so many people telling us another thing you know now we have electricians telling us one thing I think it's just it'd be nice just to have a professional come in do a full analysis and tell us what we need instead of having four or five different people if this is the way to go because I'm confused I seen numbers thrown here and there and I don't even know how much it's all cost but I feel like the the numbers that we're getting is from their their area of expertise and like Marvin does electrical and like he's got a pretty assment is that the one L that' be a different electrician yeah Marvin's the the electrician we use ker electric we had two or three electricians the one from Lincoln I don't know what we since I've been here I haven't had an electrician from Lincoln come in I don't have a problem bringing somebody in but I think we're wasting our time because the bad thing is the unit up there is shot I mean we've spent so much money over the past years just band-aiding it you know this blower and that blower and we know that train says it's this the controls and the control people says it's trained and you know the bad thing is when they put it in we should have known that you know peas and carriage don't mix and we're we're at an issue that I I just got a feeling and I would love to have somebody come in but at the same time I got a feeling he's going to say hey you got to have great do now you're able to go this way and it's going to cost this or you go this way and it's going to cost this I don't have a problem you know I I like yeah I just I I mean I I know that's what he's going to say window unit thing was like quarter millon what was the from electrical and room well whenever we started talking about bringing the bringing the other wire in for two boxes in the boiler room that's when he said just that's going to be six figures and we were hoping to go from what we had in there already and not using the r unit up to the top just to run the 220 to every room and we they thought that would be around 60,000 so you got six figures coming into the building and then 60,000 going from that b to all the rooms with the 220 wiring plus the cost of the unit but the cost of the units were the cost of the units are about you know a piece the kit and the and the office there's no no no Kayla that so Kayla what we're talking about right here does not fix any air conditioning in the kitchen not in the inside the cafeteria or the office yeah that does not fix those rooms because there's no outside windows for those units to go into but we come back to that scenario can they section that off then to just the the rough toop unit control them rooms I mean if it was running at full capacity oh yeah that's not an option I mean because all they got to do is cut off the rest of the rooms and the controls would just be in them right and and we're only taking that unit which is trying to take care care of a big area which is taking care of a small area now so if we got um HVAC engineer for around 5,000 and he gave us recommendations on options like split units window units not just all the great big overhead train replacement yeah that's so but we just tell them expectations as we want three to five options that can work in our facility and the cost of those and the time table and what it would take to put those in yeah I mean and even if those options exclude I mean just like we've been talking about so even if those options exclude some of the Interior rooms or yes not just rep cut them off since they won't have any heat in air are it going to damage so so we're we're not talking about the heating component because the boiler system still runs the heat you know the air conditioning side of it if those rooms are not you know if they're not getting AC to them um you know just thinking of the heat that would be in those rooms I you know I don't know what's in those science rooms you know back in the the closets and things like that if there's combustible material I bet all of it's probably already been taken out but I don't know that for a fact um but I don't think on the heating on the air conditioning side that it's really going to hurt anything now if you're talking about the heating side with those pipes and stuff that yes you're talking about major houses and stuff you know once they're shut down you time I I think it's more of a not being used would tear it down more than not having air conditioning yeah and that's the Border system still works and still so we're not going to have any Frozen and crack PES I just didn't know how that yeah some wood and okay so I'm going to try to contact a couple of our HVAC Engineers to see if somebody just expectation is three to five options what would you charge to come in do an analysis give us three to five options to try to present to you guys before the next is everybody okay with that direction okay um and since we're talking about District facilities just one of the things while we were on our tour and did talk about was a Walkin freezer at one point in time we had talked about and I think we had even gotten prices maybe for a walk-in freezer right out the back door walk and is the condensing part so D and I were we didn't talk anymore about Mr Park thought we was going to get a Walkin freezer out the door yes so you could get rid of all that what happened to that yeah so we might revisit that again too if you took all those freezers out would you go down to two launches or you have to do the three tanker still have three out just spread everything out than it is spread out a little more walk space get it down to would be nice but I don't know that' be putting 90 I don't know if I can add that much more space even just me spread out a little bit sorry no I'm just jotting some things down that's fine okay any other comments about District facilities questions okay moving on to item number 17 Mr President I move that the board go executive session pursuit to the Kansas open meeting act to discuss non-elected Personnel for the topics of resonations administration supplemental positions and substitutes to protect the private of the individuals to be discussed with Mr Murphy present and returned into Open Session still 20 yes sir please at 8:15 by second byon all those in favor say I same sign e e e good mhm I move to approve Jane oer resignation as principal at Central Plains Elementary School effective at the end of the 2024 2025 school year under duress yes under duress second under duress was that Josh yeah yeah motion by Allison reluctant second by Josh all those who are reluctantly in favor say I any of those same sign motion passes I move to approve Kiron Price's resignation as head junior high volleyball coach at Central CLS Middle School second motion by all and second by Josh all those in favor say I I any opposed say sign motion passes 70 I move to renew the contract for Jessica Murphy as Central PLS Junior High Senior High School principal with salary to be determined later second motion by Alison second by Josh all those in favor say I I I any oppose same thing motion passes Z I move to renew the contract for Karen Moore as Wilson Elementary principal on possible part-time teaching duties with salary to be determined later CED motion by Alison the second by Josh all those in favor say I I any oppos same sign motion passes 70 I move to approve Brooklyn zi Hannah Baron is it Lara I think Lara Lara and Laura schleser as substitute teachers second motion by Alon and second by Josh all those in favor say I I any oppos same sign motion passes 70 I move to approve Michael Ryan for the position of assistant competitive weights for the spring 2025 season second moon a second by Josh all those in favor say I I any oppos same thing motion passes 70 Mr President I move that the board executive session for to the Kansas open meeting act to discuss non-elected Personnel for the topics of superintendent evaluation to protect the privacy of the individual to be discussed and returned to open session in this room at 827 827 with superintendent Bob Murphy to be on call motion by second second byon all those in favor say I any oppos pass e e e say so do you want should we add the um the extra year on this motion um oh wait there's no actual motion there's no motion we can talk about that and do that at the next meeting that's what you guys wish to do because we have certified staff for agenda okay we are back in Open Session and item number 19 superintendence report okay so a few things on here I'm passing around a Kelly Blue Book for our Ford Freestar van um that Jamie printed off for us uh the range for that um private party range was about 950 bucks to $2,100 a new transmission for that vehicle is going to cost over $3,000 um so it's not really worth putting it in um there is a gentleman that is interested in buying it as is for $500 and that's what Jamie's recommendation is and again it's a $500 deal so it's not really anything that has to be board approved um I don't want to put a $3,000 Transmission in for a vehicle that's only worth $1,000 that doesn't make a lot of sense so if you guys are okay with that just um the knowledge of it or if you would like me to do something else with that um Transmission in that Ford Freestar land okay perfect Okay so we've been working with property insurance um we got all renewal information sent in they did send an auditor out earlier this year to look at all of our buildings um and actually some of the estimates were a little high from what we put in last year that they rated them a little lower in the value they anticipate a 3 to 5% increase in our property insurance so nothing that's really extravagant I don't really know if we'll see that just because some of our values have diminished a little bit from what we put in last year but here within the next month we should have those uh rates for our property insurance for next year through the kicks program so I did want to talk about baseball and softball there is a very high possibility that this could be the last Cooperative year for Hoisington due to our numbers driving their classification up so I talked to um principal Murphy and Mr Styles about what our plan B would be Ellenwood is not interested in a Cooperative um because it's going to push them up to a 3A from a 2A so just put a couple feelers out to see if we would even have enough kids in you know I have a lot of baseball background you're going to have to have 15 boys interested in baseball to be able to put a team together I don't know if we would have those numbers and then on softball you know you're going to have to have probably at least 12 or 13 I just don't know if we have those numbers moving forward so we're going to put some feelers out and just kind of see what that even looks like you guys have any other ideas um with the knowledge that they could do a sport or is it yeah I mean it it would have to be a dual sport we don't have enough kids to just be one sport I mean it would have to be something where they would be allowed to dual sport and then you know if we would have enough we'd have to go look at the rec side and make sure the fields I did reach out to Dan frisbee um he was my Superintendent at Southwestern Heights because we started baseball when we were when we were there he said just from the equipment standpoint he said you know you're talking anywhere from 15 to $25,000 just for equipment for those programs you know when you're talking about helmets bats uniforms that sort of thing so you're going to have the expense there but plus you're also going to have the numbers you know if we have we don't want to lose kids ever um that's the thing we don't want our we want to keep our kids and we want to draw more kids in so um I know this is something we're probably going to be talking about a little bit more if the numbers are there I think we can have the conversation and bring it to you guys if they're not I don't really know what our other option would be what about Ellsworth I have not talked to anybody from Ellsworth about it how far from here 20 mil 25 I did bring it up at the last week put some feelers out there you know if anybody would be interested um so they were going to go back and talk to their people and just kind of you know just schools Ellenwood did say um not at this time um they wouldn't be interested just because of that so is Hoon dropping us because it's going to bump them up in Num that's what they're concerned about and whenever I talked to their superintendent about it he said they were going to have the discussion after the spring was over he wasn't going to you know he he anticipates them wanting to move on from it but he also is not 100% sure that they're going to drop us either um but he would anticipate with driving the numbers up especially on baseball because you know that goes from them playing 3A schools to playing 4A schools which is mcferson probably 4 a um Pratt's 4A and that would kind of be their regionals is what that would look like so um I really think they would like to have our athletes just not our numbers actually just to be honest with you so um but we'll pass along that information as we get rolling okay a couple of the the big items that I did want to talk about one is we've had a little bit of conversation about some things that we could maybe do to help enrollment numbers at Wilson so um we could potentially put a schedule together for a 7eventh grade middle school with the faculty and staff we have um there could be some talks about lure um we do have a teacher that does have a science degree so it might be where we would have to add a couple hours financially there but you know it makes some sense there financially if we use the faculty and staff we had and we could keep 10 kids in the building bu there um you know with having those conversations they would have to be using a trans ofand to come down and do athletics and stuff with our middle school kids and just going to throw that out out there you know the chase kids come to bushon every day and they drive 20 minutes to bushon you know I left Wilson's parking lot and I drove to bushon and it was about 28 minutes uh here to Holly Roode is about 22 minutes 23 minutes so I mean that's something to think about as well um what I would like to be able to do is I would like um us to be able to put a survey out to the fifth and sixth grade kids and their parents just to gain feedback whether they would be even interested or not you know if they come back and say no we already have kids at high school kids at Russell or uh silven Lucas or Ellsworth where that's where our middle school kids are going to go it's kind of a mute point if we don't have the numbers there um but I think it's worth a survey just to survey them and say hey if there was an opportunity for you to be in seventh grade um you know at Wilson with a schedule would you be interested and if they come back as you know I think there's 11 sixth graders no then you know we know that that's not a Pursuit we want to look at in the future if they come back where seventh and eight seven or eight of them would be interested then the funding you know side of it makes sense that would help some of their funding numbers there at Wilson um you guys have been in the trenches with this a lot more than I have I've only been here six months months so I want us you know I want your guys' feedback on how you what you think about putting out a survey to the fifth and sixth grade kids and parents a shot good idea that's only way you're going to know if interested to even pursue it before we made any decisions we bring those surveys back to you guys so you guys would know what that would look like before we you know did anything and I guess I just want to clarify too that it's um and you already said this so it's not that it's not hiring any additional staff and it's actually a way to be more efficient with the staff that we have up there and we're not um having like the sports up there they would be coming coming down to join with the teams that we have so we're not going to be increasing any expenses just transport just Transit van trans the teacher that might increase the number of hours that that one that one would go from but not even a full time it's just 58 they go I think 58 is what they're at now they would go from 58 to basically a full contract so that would be well because they split the the very split timeing come down not this teacher no yep are you guys okay with me surveying those can you survey out and see what we get thank you okay the next one this one's a big one okay so this okay this came down the pipe last week um when you guys filled out the application for the daycare center in clap and I think that was maybe two or 3 years ago um they awarded that Grant to go to Hoisington and great B they built the one in Great Bin they were in process of BU building the one in Hoisington and some of the funding got cut back to about $900,000 is what they had so what we were told is the facility that they were building in Hoisington was around like that 1.2 1.3 million and they wanted to go back to the school board to have the school help with some of those funds and they cut ties with them so Sarah the lady that runs that department through Barton County talked with us on Thursday last week that she has $900,000 federal funds to build a child care facility and they want to come back to us in Claflin to build the facility we have $250,000 put back for the building of that facility for the tax rebates um I don't remember if that was at the end of when Mr Clark was here or Bill had a hand in that so that has to be used to build the facility help build the facility the kicker with this is um I did talk with her today because we wanted to make sure those funds could be moved she talked with her her um her her contacts on the federal government side everything points to them being able to move all the funds and everything over to Claflin okay the kicker is what they told her today was that $900,000 that they have has to be encumbered and spent by the end of sep member and they would want the building built at least not operational but built by the end of December so encumbered by September spent or spent by the end of September built by the end of December now whenever she came over to meet with us we met over at at Miller's um so she wants to meet with us on Thursday this week at 1:00 and if the ball drops on this I mean it's going to get rolling pretty pretty quick we've had a lot of questions about you know what size does it have to be what's the budget have to be who's going to run it um she anticipates the number having to be around the 40s for the slots for that would be to be um to meet the federal guidelines for that $900,000 um we could run it or they can run it if they run it they're in charge of of all of it all the oversight prices the um you know the kicker that we kind of give our faculty and staff for our daycare they wouldn't get that if they were running that you know if Barton County was running it um we would still have a a hand in with the food um because of being right there by the high school middle school on the food side with the kitchen we would have wouldn't have to build as much of a kitchen um so even with the contribution of the tax credits that we received they still would not be willing to give the kicker for the teachers to no because it's not for operational that $250,000 has to be for Building and when we originally had this discussed it was supposed to be built where that t-ball field is on kind of corner of the football field like a tree row which I I like the idea of a tree row there on that Highway because then people don't have direct eyesight to our school when they're driving on that Highway um you know so it'd be over on that side there's a whole bunch of questions that we still have to have answered you know that Sarah's planning on answering um Thursday at 1:00 but the only thing she asked me for is the consensus of the board to move forward with the meetings that we're having to try to get the ball rolling in that direction on this I know the lot of question is what Builder are we going to use who's going to have oversight for that that Builder um the contractor side of it there there's just a lot of questions on what we're responsible for and what they're responsible for on that side of it as well that we do have to have answered with Sarah when we have those meetings um did talk to Patrick a little bit from Hoisington his um advice was make sure we have a hand in it and stay having a foot in the door as the superintendent rather than letting them have you know all the control over everything on the building side and how it's going to be built how it's going to be furnished on that side you know I think we just need to be really transparent of if they have $875,000 or $900,000 that they have to spend that's our budget knowing we might go over $100,000 but we have the $250,000 put back that has to be used for construction of that facility um just trying to Rack my brain we've talked a lot about this today whenever I had a a phone call with her I'm trying to make sure that I'm giving you guys all the information that I it has to be on District property it has to be on it needs to be on District property oh okay so they would own the building okay starting off after 3 years the building would be deeded back to the district okay so there is a certain amount of time they have to own the building while it's on so if they run it and it's deed back to us they would just rent the facility from us because we would be the ones that would own the building who is they I mean Barton County child advancing Barton County child advancing yeah that's the name of it it's got It's got a name yeah her name is Sarah AR arnberger she's the lady that a Federal grant program the reason that they're looking at at us and moving back to us is because they're saying we filled out the applications already and we're the we were like the runners up guess they so they want to send a survey out that's part of it too they want consensus on it's okay for us to move forward and have these talks and that um they can send a survey out to Barton County to see if they can fill it the conversations that we had was about the home daycares and you guys probably know more about those home daycares located um Odin Claflin those sorts of things and conversation was just how long those people were going to stay with their their daycare business or if they would be interested in moving over to that side of it and helping run the facility there and just having the kids go there like here in Hall like here and Hall like we did kind of with with with sha here in Hood so um so if we run it they still have to own it for three for a while they have to own get it Y and they would have to run it for a little bit of a period of time before we would take it over and run it I'm just going to be 100% honest with you guys if we do decide to run it I understand from the control side of it but I would ask then that we try to set aside some funds for like an executive director of daycare operations in the district because then we would would have two and Wilson two here and that down there I don't I I don't feel comfortable I don't think you should have to so it aot yeah and like we said know you guys without Taylor and Amanda and sha honey I mean we don't get Bo that would go great in these getting the surveys okay I would want it to be as small as it could possibly be because just from The Limited information and chatter that I've heard from their great B facility and then I mean about this Boyington one too it's like they have great big ideals and how big is the one 61 they've even had to add the add more slots to the one and great vanand too she said today 80 I think yeah I know they had that out the one thing I would ask is that we had a Claflin board member maybe that would set in on those meetings with me that maybe has a little bit of a construction background or I can phone him and he can at least I already told you yesterday okay good gotcha thanks other thoughts ideas is everybody on board with at least moving forward to getting some more information for the surveys and seeing what that's going to entail yeah I just feel conflicted about do we really want to run it I the hard the bigger it is the more work it is the more regulations you have and yeah you have to be able to step what will the cost be you never make money on yeah you're not you're not going to make we've talked about that we've talked about like the one in Wilson and the one in Holly that's part of our teacher retention and also getting young families in at some point you know we're going to spend money in the one W and we're going to spend money in the one of Hollywood but the reasoning behind it is to keep those young families and young teachers in the community and draw more in um you know the one in clapet I would have the same concerns of how big it is and if we are the ones to run it yeah because the school has to take it over that's a lot different than the city or right another organization taking it over right now the patteron foundation help offset a little bit Yeah but they won't be able to and the one at they won't be able to in well Patterson can Patterson Patterson covers all of rural Kansas Dane H does not that's the one that does so whenever whenever that Grant I'm fingers crossed when that Grant opens up again in July we'll we'll go ahead and put it Forward depending on what you guys decide and what we decide with the one in clapin you know we can decide how we want that to look the one we wrote we have right now is for Wilson and hollyood that's the way that it's written in you know if we want to write that where it's just usd112 daycares and it's just used for salaries and this part gets this this part gets this that's that's what we can do when we write it in there that's what we want to do the Patterson one can be used for operation cuz if I'm not mistaken who it was originally when the abcc advancing when they did the one and Great Bend and then they were going to do both Wasington and clap one and the funding didn't come through so what happens like just you know that aspect of it is th yeah move but those are those are some concerns to keep in mind okay I will keep those in mind I'll tell her we have consensus to move forward we're talking in the survey and then I'll try to keep you guys up to date on every meeting we have okay next thing is uh March Board of Education meeting is scheduled to be at Wilson we do have a conflict that Monday March 10th is also parent teacher conferences so there's going to be parent teacher conferences going on at that time if we move it the Monday before that I think it's March 3D that's sub could be substate basketball if we move it the week after on Monday March 17th that's going to be Spring Break um you know it's going to pull our administrators out if we do it on parent teacher conferences um and then we're going to have parents um in the building at Wilson um for those parent teacher conferences if we keep it so you know if we want to keep it March 10th we just wouldn't have our administrators there and we'd have to go maybe to the we could still do our walkthroughs and everything at Wilson that we want to do um do it in the conference room there at Wilson if we wanted to have them there and have Miss Moore lead us like Miss oer did then we could look at Tuesday March 11th foot months Wilson April well they're all going to have parent teacher conferences that day [Music] yeah well the good part about it is if I can get this HVAC thing rolling if I can get that rolling and I can have some of those options and we do it on Tuesday the 11th then we can really I flipflop because on Tuesday I won't be there on Tuesday you can't be there I got city council okay and we flipflop years ago so I could be on school so does parent te conference AFF quite a few of you can schedule your kidos earlier in the day it goes from 8 12: to 8 12 12 a.m.

of why things are happening there but my thing for common sense is I went to the Constitution of the student council my daughter is in student council she's the president she's been a president let me just start with that she's uh the president of her class in freshman she's a president this year in sophomore she's a straight A student she plays soccer basketball and softball she goes to every uh event for student council she does most of posters she does all this kind of stuff she has ideas about boosting attendance she she utilizes them all this kind of stuff so the problem is is we have four students in student council class that were not elected so in the Constitution which I brought up it says membership shall consist of all student body executive officers all elected class officers and a governing advisor nothing El about for other students that just just show up in your class and the teacher is making up uh you know positions for for these students like uh [Music] um junior class historian it doesn't exist Spirit coordinator does not exist co-p Spirit coordinator does not exist so these are some of the things my daughter has to go through um my daughter wanted to go to the state conference and we have these four students that are in this class and I do believe it's favoritism um the four students ended up going to the state conference over all the elected members um so I have a problem with that um so the common sense thing is this is what's in the Constitution and then went through several I mean I can read it to you but I went through like I said I went to the principal the vice principal Cindy Daniels and nobody can really explain to what I got was any students allowed to go to the student council class and and take the student CL counsel class because it's an elective well that's not really true um you're supposed to have your uh from my research you're you're supposed to have your uh elections in April and you're supposed to be in that class for elections and then the the kids that lose that election are supposed to transfer out of the class is from my research and my daughter's research is what we're understanding so I brought that up um I talked to Mr Richardson um after I talked to Mr Daniels and he explained to me then that it is a leadership class so while he was on the phone with me my daughter looked up leadership in the student council handbook and says You must be elected to leadership class right in the student council handbook okay he explained to me that that's that is true but because there's a shortcoming in financial you know you know dires or whatever for the school system that they had to place but my my point is is that's the student council handbook I mean everybody has to follow it so if my friend brings his son late to to school and he's on the basketball team he doesn't get to go to the basketball game you know and because it's in the handbook so I just don't understand why there's a double standard on the handbook um it's all too late this all happened and my daughter did not get to go but the four students that were in the class did get to go um I can go through a um Mr I apologize your time's up but I'll give you just a couple of more seconds if you want to finish up yes ma'am so January um I was here and I was going to talk to the board and Miss Daniels came up and she told me I could talk to her the next day I talked to her and like I said she said any student can take the the class but we did some research um we we don't believe that's true um I called on Wednesday January 15th to talk to the principal about student council Constitution I never got a call back from her but I got a call from Miss wall Myers and I told her the elections are are held in April for the sole purpose of students running for positions and for the students that lose to transfer out of the class she can't make up positions that don't exist for students in her class that are not elected um and she told me she would do some research and get back to me I've never heard from January 17th Mr Richardson called and had a conversation with me about my concerns and basically said it's it's not a student council class it's a leadership class and that's when he looked up the leadership while he was on the phone and told him that you know you're supposed to be elected to leadership class um I also asked him uh to talk to the students because I Believe Miss Miss wall Meers influenced them to not pick R um I also asked him to watch the videos that was the sole you know they they say this is what they picked the kids my daughter like I said she she excels at everything that's why I'm here I'll support her for whatever I mean she's a straight A student she does all this stuff she's she's a wonderful person so that's why I'm here thank you we we appreciate your comments what I'm going to do is ask Miss Dan to go ahead and find some clarification to us on what that is I does it say in the handbooks I mean under under um under student council I mean it says clear as day under leadership that you must be elected to the class a constitution clear day highlighted for members that are elected I just I mean there has to be some kind of Common Sense we appreciate you coming in all right thank you thank you is correct all right then number item number six is our information and discussion items number one is cbhs and CTP cbhs Administration is doing this so proper would you like me to join you or would you like me to wait until you're done I get up to my section okay just give me a thumbs up or say next slide just give me a thumbs up or say next slide I wanted to present to the board some improvements in our credit program uh last year when we presented we had some some concern we've been working through several things throughout as we learn more uh new eyes we start to see to Mr Bill's credit there's some things that we need to address and so when we were looking at our success rate in some of our dual credit programs um versus the money that is being spent we were seeing that we were spending a lot more um and covering the cost of students who are not necessarily passing so we vetted and we created a new form for students to be enrolled in some of our concurrent so off-campus courses and you'll see I think some significant improvements okay so when we talk dual credit there's two things there's dual enrollment and then there's concurrent both will award students college and high school credit so the ones that we have on campus are traditionally known as a or Arizona general education at your table yeah that's going to you'll see that's a a updated summary table that I updated today okay so currently right now in our English AET classes we have 61 students so they're participating in either English 101 102 and of the 101 102 it's mostly Juniors a few seniors um of all the students who are enrolled 97.30% of the kids earned college credit as well as so they earned dual enrollment credit and in the the college world you have to earn a Seer better in order to earn college credit our seniors are typically in the 217 242 class which is a Shakespeare class it's the most advanced English course we have on campus 100% of those students earned credit next in our YC math classes we've got uh du Ro is broken into two semesters so YC math and statistics and of those students first sem so this is data from just this first semester that's all that I have um at the end of this year we'll have a complete year to look at but right now 100% of all of our students enrolled in our YC dual enrollment class have passed that's in calculus pre-cal um college algebra which is part of the freal curriculum for YC next so concurrent classes this could be most of the time these are classes that students are taking online um occasionally they'll go to the college but most of it is done online on kids own time or if they have an extra period they can be on campus in our library but these are above and beyond and it helps kids to achieve an associates degree it's very possible so these are classes like biology or maybe some social studies classes anything that we don't offer on campus and is extra that will help them earn ax certification which is your Core Curriculum just like the entire High School we've got a certain amount of math englo science um elective credits you have the same requirements in college and so we work with YC very closely to get kids into classes that they want to take so the total number of students um we have 46 students who are enrolled but totaling 95 classes so I went through and and removed the duplicate students and so we have kids obviously taking more than one course on their own time this is where the data is interesting to us and and where I'm really proud what our counselors have done and what YC has done to help us and support us so percent of credits earned of all the 95 classes was 8947 the same time last year it was a 66.6% pass R so we looked at which kids earned a DFW or a y which on a transcript doesn't award them credit and so we removed those outliers and so right now total number of or the percent of credits not earned is 10.52 the 0.1 one margin there so a lot of growth okay here's where the data was updated so your um suppl now matches thanks to how do you say your last name dicko you m back there help me update of this slide uh so as I was going through and preparing I noticed that the math was not mathing and I think what I ended up doing unfortunately was leading some numers to last year but we have total number of classes enrolled in or taken if you're comparing all of the concurrent classes 95 there's 95 classes that kids are enrolled in um in our English we have um a total of 36 no in 61 and in math is 45 on our campus total that equals 200id so number of courses with passing grades we have 165 number of courses without passing grades is 11 percent of courses with passing grades 82.

e would you please join us in the of the United States of America and to the stands one nation under God indivisible with liy and justice for all he's not here he's on a plan vacation thank you no here Ben Ys here here scon here Mo here Ty here we are six tonight okay good evening everyone on behalf of the Board of Education I would like to discuss the events the World's Fair a couple weeks ago Stevenson has been hosting the world's fair for years it is a celebration of our school's cultural diversity through food activities and performances with more than 30 C countries and cultures represented this year it is also an opportunity to raise funds for charity and this year we raised close to $30,000 for the Stevenson Foundation we completely understand how the events that have unfolded at the fair this year left some of our students parents and attendees feeling hurt and uncomfortable and we are sorry moving forward members of our administrative team will work with the appropriate individuals and departments to develop a clear and transparent prior review process for all world's fair materials to prevent similar incidents from occurring in the future we know that most visitors came to voice their questions and concerns regarding World's Fair this evening please understand that although we will listen carefully we will not respond to public comment tonight during the board meeting however if you want to response to your comments please leave your name and contact information on the table outside and someone will contact you as soon as possible we ask that speakers be respectful and civil not repeat the content of statements already made and avoid comments are the are that are not directly relevant to school business finally we have a time limit of 3 minutes per speaker which will be displayed on the screen if public statements continue for an hour we may conclude the public comment to work through the remainder of our agenda items thank you okay all right uh Mr Carney I think uh you're going to help cue us um sorry I'm new to this um I am a parent in uh linshire um and I didn't come here tonight to talk politics uh frankly I came here to talk about a Paramount concern around safety inequality primarily I'll start with the incident that happened with an adult male that uh verbally assaulted and intimidated children yes children at the world fair uh the last time I checked this is still a felony in the state of Illinois yes the individual was allowed to leave the school grounds with no consequences had the roles been reversed however uh I would argue that a member of my community would have been in the back of a police car or worse this is a double standard that cannot continue to exist and manifest itself in the students or parents at Stevenson the reason the world fair issue has proliferated is that outside groups are attempting to censure enforce the Eraser and take the agency of an entire culture represented in the Palestinian and Muslim student body at Stevenson the existence of another group in this case Palestinians does not call for the Eraser eraser or destruction of another group xenophobia and islamophobia is real and it's ugly this is a clear wakeup call that needs to be understood at its root cause and let's not forget the current political environment that we face right now further empowers a speech of discrimination and we can't stand by complicit how does this start this was started by doxing and if you're not familiar with what doxing is uh taking photos and putting it online and spreading all kinds of Lies um and the trolls take over there at that point uh this also led to harassment of students at the school uh hate speech directed at students with Palestinian backgrounds uh and proliferated by adults and others outside of the school our students can't be told what's what they mean by a display or what their cultural identity is uh we need to be engaged in Equitable and respectful dialogue and this is what we're trying to teach all of our children bully bully somebody into fear is not a way that you talk to a child um I don't care what your difference is that's not how we handle things uh I know that my time is running short so I'll skip to really the end of this um I want to thank the teachers and the police and the members of this administrations that have really demonstrated the qualities I mentioned above that are Equitable uh but unfortunately this doesn't represent the ranks within the administration and the student body you have the tools and ingredients to do better and I implore you to take the steps to allow Equity agency civil dialogue and not allow the Eraser of identities of students and parents in this school to not allow fear to be the loudest voices to make you complicit in inequality discrimination and Hate thank you your name Mr Nasser thank you good evening board uh my name is Maggie slavin and I'm the school support coordinator uh for care which is the Council on American Islamic relations Chicago um we just want to say that we're appalled by the bullying and the gaslighting campaign that's been undertaken by hateful adults against uh palestinian-american students at ATT Stevenson and Muslim Students that attend Stevenson simply for daring to express their truth and the troubling hysteric surrounding the World's Fair last month that include the assault of the students that were working the Palestine Booth uh groups I identify with and cheer on foreign government forces that have led a year plus televised genocide campaign against extended families of palestinian-american students that attend Stevenson do not get to tell them what their art and their patterns mean and do not mean there's a lot of of effort out there to put words in these students mouths about what this um cultural display meant and what it didn't mean and as the owners of this culture that the students themselves get to decide to tell what it does and does not mean um and the school does also not get to thoughtlessly empower bullies to claim victimhood as they disempower and violate Palestinian American and Muslim Students our students will not forsake their right to agency and self-expression as a price of going to school they have the authority to speak on what their own patterns and expr means and what it doesn't for our students and Palestinians at large the watermelon pattern is a creative cultural expression of resilience against arer it's not a call for hate or anything that the outside bullies make up it to be the patterned map affirms their cultural familial and historical legacies throughout historical Palestine which is an irrefutable fact confirmed by documented evidence including birth certificates that are barely a generation or two old before the creation of the state of Israel if a group that again identif I with their oppression is offended by their refusal to self erase or upon demand well quite frankly that is hardly shocking they're welcome to their opinion but they are not entitled to suppress our students truth in America one opinion or take can be expressed alongside another and this and in this respected school we hope uh is not in the business of teaching that only one pinion is allowed the one that yells louder or threatens more any statements even if unofficial uttered by any school official that suggests otherwise and that affirms and external groups attempt at identity eraser of our students must be recanted and clarified for the Greater Community uh what kind of message do it send when a school administration makes students feel like their identity is a crime and that's what uh we are at care very concerned about uh alongside our parents and our community members we will monitor the situation very closely and we'll look forward to policies of equity respect for all and ones that protect against bullying and that affirm the basic First Amendment right to freedom of conscience and even more basic human right to self idty and agency thank you so much thank [Applause] you good evening everybody my name isaj I want to start with saying that how sensible is it for an adult to threaten or harass minor kids at the school event this is the premise of my message the act of bullying and harassing is simply not accepted this poses threat to the security at Stevenson and is in a larger way even to the district when intimidation and harassment are compromised or accepted for one set of people I just want to even State this Equity access statement that's on Stevenson that says success for every student we will recognize every student as a valued individual students will learn in a safe inclusive space where they are taught to be understood the value and their own experiences in relation to others and diverse perspectives we will be relentless we will be relentless in removing barriers to full Equity access and inclusivity in our curriculum and co-curriculum programming this in the context of what happened does not hold true and and looks like deliberately compromised in with what happened during the Warfare um and again um this this leads to some kind of a psychological W and I want the board to really pay attention to this and again and coming to point is this even leads to what's called a threat to the Bill of Rights like practicing you know equal rights religion speech and petition press and assembly this uh freedom and genuine expression from the girls has been um negotiated and this leads or this should not kind of spread to other districts that around here and uh finally um I also want to let people know here that we cannot have a SE of hate and divide going on and this is a repeated place and this should stand as an example for other districts around here thank you hi my name is Josh uh I'm an educator member for Jewish voice for peace and I'm gon to rehash I guess some of what you've already heard um but I came because I heard that Palestinian students were intimidated by adults over their flag and their watermelon symbol and first and foremost to the board uh I'd like to address you with a very simple comment which is to please continue to allow students the right to express who they are and where they come from um if there are any parents of Jewish students in the room I I would also like to address you I grew up around parents who felt that so much as a Palestinian flag bumper sticker was an anti-semitic symbol and I went to Jewish Day School and learned a lot of the same nonetheless I developed a lot of compassion for Palestinian community members and ultimately Jewish students like all students are smart and they're going to learn about Palestinian people whether we want them to or not attacking student voices does not create a space for education and community building it doesn't do that for students of any background we are doing a disservice to Palestinian students Jewish students and all students with attempts at censorship intimidation and Division uh I hope Stevenson High School can continue to be a place that Fosters a positive learning environment and I thank you all for your [Applause] time oh should I go um hi my name is Rachel I'm a youth worker I'm part of Jewish oyer peace Josh um I've worked with high school students who are Jewish and Palestinian um as well as college students for a few years now I came because when I heard about this incident I was reminded of a very scary phone call I got um last June a Palestinian student who I was working with who was a Val Victorian was chosen to speak at her graduation she called me late at night crying because she had written Her speech about how proud she was to be first generation um how proud she was to be having done different dialogue projects around Israel Palestine in her school um and how a group of students had threatened to beat her up if she gave her speech as it was um she considered not going she considered not coming to school and not doing her speech and I spent the better part of an hour trying to comfort her and remind her how correct she was in trying to Foster dialogue between students of all opinions and all backgrounds she went on to speak I shared her video on Instagram it was beautiful people loved it I'm so proud of her and I'm so proud of students like the ones at this high school today who said they will talk about their culture identity and history and they will Foster dialogue and they will not be shut down by adults who want to intimidate them as well as censorship as a Jewish person who got to go to Hebrew school who got to talk about my family's experiences with genocide um fleing Russia I feel like I was encouraged to talk about how my history influenced my views on social justice and why I cared about everyone around me and why I cared about human rights students should be able to do the same thing no matter their background Palestinian students deserve the same platform I was given as a Jewish student and I'm here to support them today as I would any student who's speaking up about their history and culture thank you so much thank you for allowing me to speak I'm Deborah Adelman professor amerita of English I am a Jew the granddaughter of yish speaking immigrants who left violence poverty and oppression in Christian Europe my great uncle and his children perished in aitz in 1943 no relatives in Europe were ever heard from after the Holocaust my family knows what genocide and anti-Semitism are we are committed to it never happening again to anyone when my family came here they aligned with us movements for justice and equality we believe in equal rights for all and so I am a proud member of Jewish voice for peace an organization with tens of thousands of members and hundreds of thousands of followers jvp stands for equal rights for all for everywhere this is why we reject Zionism a form of Jewish Supremacy furthermore as long as there has been Zionism there has been Jewish anti-zionism Judaism and Jewish identity far predate the political ideology of Zion ISM thus I warn this board loudly and clearly against the dangerous conflation of anti-zionism and anti-Semitism anti-zionism is opposition to Zionism for a number of reasons we believe Zionism is a false answer to the very real problem of anti-Semitism anti-Semitism includes words tropes stereotypes and actions that harm Jewish people criticism of Israel does not constitute anti-Semitism criticism of Israel does not harm Jewish people all nations are subject to criticism for their policies and actions to equate criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism is to suggest that all Jewish people share the same perspective on Israel but we are a diverse people with diverse political perspectives to paint us all with broad brush Strokes is in fact anti-semitic since it relies on unfounded assumptions and generalizations and even stereotypes thus you must be aware that the Chicago Jewish Alliance which has lodged a complaint and demanded things from you represents only itself it does not represent me nor many other Jewish people this leads me to the situation being discussed tonight as Educators we are responsible for creating engaged citizens and critical thinkers who can take in information make judgments and take positions on the basis of knowledge deciding where their values and commitments lie the Palestinian flag the symbol of the watermelon and the map of historic Palestine all represent a reality which we must freely learn about without censorship all maps and flags are political we should be teaching map and flag literacy so students can understand the Deep historic Transformations we are all witnessing and will witness in our lifetimes there's nothing anti-semitic in teaching about Palestine at jvp we believe in a free Palestine as we believe in Jewish freedom and freedom for all people equally the only way for there to be Jewish Freedom will be in tandem with Palestinian freedom and there are hard discussions which must be to make this a reality do not allow yourselves to be silenced and bullied from teaching your students how to productively engage with and participate in this discussion thank [Applause] you good evening uh my name is Amina MD I'm an alumni of seon High School class of 2015 I wanted to speak today because I believe High School is a critical time of identity formation for young adults and it is vitally important that their educational environment Fosters that process students no matter where they are in terms of ideology deserve this space to grow as individuals this cannot happen when we intimidate them for their values the students that put together the Palestine Booth deserve better than to be silenced at the demands of others shs students deserve the support of the administration that's meant to Aid in their education ston High School's Mission includes diversity equity and inclusion these values were not at all reflected in their handling of this situation unfortunately an effective Administration carries out the school's Mission but this is not what happened the students were told that their values which are held by billions of other people globally Were Somehow offensive the definition of offensive is something that causes someone to feel deeply hurt upset or angry just because someone might find the p m map of Palestine offensive and be hurt emotionally by it this does not give them the right to demand that others be silenced I want to end I want to end with an example of why this is so important during my time at Stevenson I was able to express my values my beliefs and my opinions about the world openly despite being a young person that was not so sure of myself had I been silenced bullied or otherwise oppressed due to them I would not have had the courage in 2016 to stand up for someone else a trump supporter no less that was being physically attacked for for his beliefs even though I did not agree with him at all ideologically I recognize his right to exist without being harassed or physically attacked my question to you is what kind of students are you participating in raising when you silence them do you want your students to stand up for others or cower in fear of retaliation as they had been this time who would stand up for anyone anymore in that kind of world thank you for your time and attention [Applause] peace be with you all good evening board members and community members my name is Salma Vora and I'm a Stevenson parent thank you for the opportunity to speak tonight on an on an issue that profoundly impacts our students and their communities in light of concerns of student safety stemming from the recent Warfare it is imperative that the district take proactive measures to ensure all students feel safe valued and respected schools shape the world views of our children and if we are truly committed to fostering an inclusive learning environment we must reassess our curriculum in staff training when Educators say I do not know the history of the area this is not just a statement of ignorance it is a failure of responsibility our district must do better structured mandatory training on cultural sensitivity and social justice is not optional it is a necessity schools often avoid explicit conversation about race and justice under the guise of neutrality but there is no neutrality on a moving train silence is complicity when we fail to address social injustices in our individual and Collective capacity we allow injustices to persist a key place to challenge increasing fascism is in classrooms that honor students stories truth telling and asking questions the board must act to en to ensure our schools are spaces of Education not not exclusion teachers who support diverse student narratives regardless of background Faith or identity also deserve to feel safe valued and seen as taxpaying citizens who pledge allegiance to the United States we have a duty to uphold and protect American civil liberties including student agency and free speech for all not just for ourselves one's personal solidarity with their Heritage country should never be used to bully docks threat and demonized students Educators or even the board especially at the expense of our sacred Duty as America First Citizens I'm sincerely requesting the Stevenson Community families students Educators and the board to work together for a just future for all of our children a future where young people recognize their Collective power where conflicts are resolved with wisdom not Warfare a future where the well-being of all the people and the planet take presidence over the profits of a few thank [Applause] you in the name of God the most gracious the most merciful may God bless all of you peace and blessings upon all of you my name is Al I serve as the IM and Islamic Foundation North I'm here to uh speak today about the importance of freedom of expression Mutual understanding and respectful dialogue especially when dealing with sensitive issues that can divide us it's natural to feel triggered in these moments but the key is how we respond instead of rushing to judgment we should ask what do you mean by that word what do you mean by that symbol what does it represent to you we may not agree with everything that was on the Palestine Booth such as the watermelon map we may not agree with everything on the Israeli Booth as it had references to is hostages without mentioning the thousands of Palestinians that are held today without being charged including Palestinian children so we may not agree with everything on the Palestine Booth or the Israeli Booth but I think all of us will agree that listening to just one side of the story is not just listening to the side that is the loudest or has the most power that is not just so my respected listeners when we come across symbols or terms that provoke strong emotions we will get triggered we're human beings miscommunications will happen misunderstandings will happen but when it does let us resist the urge to jump to conclusions let us ask questions let us seek to understand and approach these conversations with curiosity and respect even when we disagree with one another because even after having those tough difficult conversations we may we may still disagree with one another but we will understand one another and when we understand one another we can then collectively place our energy and our time towards the vulnerable towards those who don't have equal rights towards those who don't have freedom that is a better use of our time instead of spending hours at a school board meeting or online debating what does this symbol mean thank you [Applause] uh dear respected board members I am Stevenson parent uh I address you today with mixed emotions about what happened on the bulying and harassment harassment of the of the Palestine booth at the Palestine booth at the world's fair when some bullies and haters try to turn a festive and cultural enriching event into a tense political melee on one hand I applaud the administration Security Police and support staff I learned of the hateful agenda and vile threats the bullies are bringing to this meeting my presence here today is a message of Peace solidarity and support with you I want to spare you few minutes from their offensive and falsification filled propaganda speeches so I come here to stand with you choosing to resist this audacious attack on our children children's rightful agency to self-expression Liberty freedom of expression cultural heritage and everything this country and its Constitution are all about I sent you a little more detailed email so I'm going to keep it short but maybe you did not have the time to respond to it yet so here I am to put a face on my message as well yet on the other hand so I said mixed emotions right so I start with the positive stuff for the administration on the other hand we were hoping you would stand stronger with our kids rights of expression their their identity and Heritage some of us felt alteristic and felt the pressure you experienced so they complied with the school's unfair request up to my opinion we as parents of the students who were at the table are diverse on how we express our support how express our show of support to you but I as one of those parents want you to know that the cost of supporting you was very very dear it was our kids discomfort alarm and loss of rightful agency to self-expression that's the cost that we paid our expectation of of Stevenson High School is very high to guarantee an open atmosphere where our kids and their mind can Thrive and not be bullied censured or marginalized or erased we expect you to stand stronger at the few who are found to be accomplices to the bullies and haters who tried to turn a festive event into a security Zone and a tense situation we expect you to know how to deal well with Rogue people who disturb the Peace of our kids they went as far as questioning them as if they were thieves or impos imposters those harassers turned out turned our children's peaceful celebration of world cultures into a political war zone we want a safe loving and peaceful place for our kids that now it's evident needs some work let it be an educational moment let us educate the haters and ignorants thank [Applause] you good evening and thank you for taking the time to hear my thoughts today my name is om and I'm a concerned parent here to talk about three crucial aspects of our students experience their safety their right to express themselves and their right to be treated equally and fairly first of all all our students deserve to feel safe in school not just physically but emotionally and mentally being harassed or verbally abused is simply unacceptable it is our Collective responsibility to provide a safe environment both at home and at school and more importantly while at school school officials have the responsibility for for creating the same environment I'm extremely concerned to learn this was not the case at the recent World Fair security protocols should be reviewed to ensure our students safety is not jeopardized moving on to my second point just like adults our students should have the opportunity to voice their opinion Express their identities and engage with the word around them censorship whether through restricting their clothing speech or artistic Expressions limits their growth we must remember that freedom of expression is vital not only for personal growth but for developing critical thinking and empathy if there is difference of opinion students should be encouraged to engage in a respectful open dialogue they should feel safe to speak their truth and ask difficult questions lastly it is crucial that every student is treated equally and fairly no student should feel that they are being singled out or treated differently based on their background or beliefs RR is an excellent opport Unity for our kids to show their Heritage and to be proud of their family history it is not a place for censorship or an opportunity to argue border disputes some excellent examples as we saw Ukraine and Russia both claimed Crimea China included Hong Kong and Taiwan yet both had individual boots as well this was also the case with India and Pakistan both claiming Kashmir and yet they both coexisted peacefully in fact I'm happy to learn that kids helped each other dur during the setup which is a great example of Stevenson Community as you can see our kids don't have hate amongst themselves in conclusion I believe it's essential that we create a school environment where students feel both safe and empowered to be themselves I urge the board to continue fostering a school environment that supports students safety freedom of expression and equality for all thank you for your time and consideration [Applause] hello uh good evening board members Educators parents and students thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak tonight I'm a mother of three I have kids in District 103 and alsoa 125 for about 13 years we've been in the district just my experience when I attended World's Fair so I actually attended World's Fair went to go meet friends at the Palestinian booth and immediately a security person came up to me and asked me if I was bothering the children or harassing the children and I was confused like why are they asking me this so then I found out why because the day before unfortunately several our Palestinian students were harassed by an individual or individuals associated with the Israeli booth and since this incident a wave of false accusations of anti-Semitism and terrorist connections had spread rapidly fueled by lies and misinformation these accusations were shared on social media with counterarguments being deleted and silenced and as a result students who were part of the Palestinian Bo Booth especially have been subjected to harassment name calling and have been made to feel unwelcome and unsafe at school and as they did at the fair so this incident brings a light to light a deeper issue at Stevenson one of islamophobia it is islamophobic to question and harass children simply for representing their Heritage it is islamophobic to spread false claims about cultural displays like the QR code are to Target students for their beliefs and background similar displays were used in other area schools such as in Libertyville without issues and also in d103 as well without issues it is islamophobic to ignore the concerns of Muslim families as we've sent repeated emails without response even though we do have students here at Stevenson that were involved while other community members emails and template emails seemingly were responded to even though our kids were the ones that were verbally assaulted no should ever feel unsafe or un unwelcome in school they shouldn't feel marginalized for proudly expressing their culture their background and their beliefs unfortunately Stevenson High School has yet to demonstrate how it plans to ensure the safety and well-being of all its students like I said I have a current student Stevenson and two that are coming in one currently enrolled uh for freshman year next year and I worry about their safety can they proudly Express their Heritage their Muslim beliefs as the a Muslim woman and a woman of color I'm used to being marginalized unfortunately um and I do not want the same for my children I do not feel I want them to feel that they do not belong here this incident should be a turning point an opportunity to reflect on how we can create a safer more inclusive environment for our students and I urge this board to take decisive action by implementing educational programs on inclusion establishing clear policies of harassment and offering support for students students and parents who may feel marginalized are unsafe thank you for your [Applause] time hello everyone it's good to be here um I'm kind of excited that we get to be here and have this voice for our community so thank you for doing this for everybody um thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak today I hope you listen with an open mind because what I have to say is about fairness safety and respect for all students my family is part of this diverse Community yet last month my Muslim daughter was called a terrorist at school not the first time her Jewish friend classmate leaned over whispered in her ear just let it go they do it to me all the time this is a Muslim and a Jewish child coming together and yet our community is forcing division between the two these students who should find connection and support in their shared experiences are instead learning that these insults are normal that they should simply accept them and that they are expected to be divided rather than United this is unacceptable when incidents like this go un addressed it tells our children that m treatment should be ignored rather than challenged it emboldens others to harass slander and threaten their peers something that should never be allowed and encouraged even more we are now seeing adults bringing their own hostilities onto school grounds creating an even more unsafe environment for our students my children will be students at Stevenson High School in the next two years I want this to be a safe place a man came on to school crowns and threatened miners at the booth during the Stevenson World Fair I witnessed these youth clearly shaken I could see it in their face I could see the fear in their face they were clearly shaken this should not be allowed on school grounds there's clearly a double standard and it makes me question whether all students are truly treated equal the Israeli Palestinian conflict overseas cannot be ignored here I'm not asking the school to speak politics but I'm asking Stevenson High School to be responsible in protecting our students and to stay aware of what world events are occurring in the world and to stay AB breast of them and understand the divisions that are occurring and I think you all need to be proactive and not reactive in creating this environment of inclusiv that our children need right now those who support Palestinian identity are being harassed and threatened and I will continue to make sure that these are concerns are heard and so will everyone hear thank you taking hi my name is Patty Duan um I just want to thank everybody uh for allowing me to come here and talk today your guys's job is not easy and so I want you to know uh through my faith in God I am a Christian I have the utmost respect for all of you and I know that you guys are going to do what is right by every single student here I'm going to kind of piggyback on what she just said I have heard the horror stories for the last 14 months 15 months because we have been fighting our our Jewish our Christian and our Muslim brothers and sisters we all recognize and understand that that we are all part of one humanity and we fight for everyone's Freedom we don't want any Jewish people getting murdered we don't want the genocide to continue over in Palestine but we are not over in Palestine right now we are not in Israel right now we are here in America and in America grown adults don't walk up into children having a function at school and do the things that were done it's not okay it is just not okay so we have to speak to the issues I am begging I am asking for all of you because it was not those children that did wrong that day having a having a uh watermelon picture hanging up somewhere on the table is part of our Palestinian brothers and sisters Humanity they told Israel the Zionist told them that is banned you can never put that up anywhere that is why we raise our pictures of the watermelon melons that's why we have such an affinity for those olive trees that have all been cut down torn down while our Palestinian brothers are starving over there in Palestine I'm speaking truth and the people in this room know that I'm speaking truth the fellow over here to my left who is shaking his head said that you guys fell down on your job he's told me outside that he worked for the school district and you guys have been falling down on your job I don't believe that okay I don't believe that and I don't think that that is okay to say we stand proudly with our Jewish brothers and sisters and our Palestinian brothers and sisters it would be great if you guys could follow up and have a have a meeting with the parents because those folks should have talked to the parents and to you guys the adults should have had a powwow they should have sat down adults do not not step to the children thank you for your time [Applause] today good evening everyone I'm the mother with Stevenson student as a first generation Muslim American I chose this district for its commitment to diversity and inclusion like a lot of other parents tonight I stand before you as a parent but not only as a parent but as a witness to a direct attack on our children's dignity I'm going to address the administration directly shame on you guys for your silence following the attack at the Stevenson welfare where a grown man verbally assaulted a Palestinian student that was not a misunderstanding or heated discussion that was a textbook felony that was committed against a minor on school grounds serious enough to Warrant his arrest and your response deafening silence you should have immediately sent an email to the students to the parents to The Faculty stating this man doesn't represent us he he's not we're here for you guys I scoured every email since the 24th of the day of the event and I did not see a single email addressing this I send my children here daily under the assumption that the safe that they're going to be safe and protected parents from 16 other school districts were there that day and they were present and they were expressing shock at the failure to address this incident I must ask this administration were you not concerned that an external organization enters our school during a world fair photographs and Records Booth materials then distributes these across platforms what should have been a measured what should have been a measured parental concern became a spectacle that put students in the broader Community safety at risk outside organ organizations launched an organized social media campaign orchestrating hundreds of phone calls online attacks Le legal threats demands for staff termination and involvement of local officials these are all bullying tactics according to the Daily Herald assistant superintendent cust wrote to concerned parents we completely understand why the information presented in the Palestine Booth was offensive and hurtful director of communication Miss o added in an email they would like they would collaborate with appropriate individuals and departments to ensure prior review of posters and materials to prevent similar in idents superintendent cable and miss o let me be very clear these students cultural Maps their symbols their existence are not subject to your approval their connection to the land is as legitimate as any indigenous people's connection to their Homeland and I argue that your reaction is what is truly offensive and hurtful creating an environment of unsafety and marginalization and I demand an imp independent investigation to the school's failures consequences for those who created this hostile environment General sensitivity training not just performative gestures my daughter deserves to walk these Halls knowing that her friends are safe she deserves to see our Palestinian classmates celebrated not silenced and we Des she deserves School leaders that are all protected who will protect every students's right to be themselves a school that would not protect all students equally has failed and its most fundamental Beauty and the choice is yours now continue this failure appr prove that every student's dignity matters thank you hello my name is moadab I'm one of the I'm an electrophysiologist I work here in condal in the area so I treat people from different religions from different backgrounds I have a lot of friends Jewish friends actually my business partner is a Jewish person we work always together there's nothing related to race or anything in but the issue is obviously you know I also a father I have a junior my daughter is in junior high school so I from the teachings that we give them the teaching always is if you wake up in the morning you have you're in a healthy body and you have enough to feed you feed your family and you have enough um at the same time you're safe in your place that's enough it's like you owned the whole world that's from the teachings that we've learned as little kids and I teach my kids as well the issue is it's been raised multiple times already so I don't want to waste your time listening to the same thing again but we're all worried about the safety of our kids I'm worried about the safety of my daughter safety obviously physical but also um emotional as well you know when you see the kids getting stressed at home even with homework they're not able to focus and I can tell if my daughter is able to focus or not so when they're not able to focus their mind is preoccupied you can tell that in their face you can tell that in their emotions and the way how they speak to us so we can we can we can definitely tell that and because of that that emotion stress that we see in her face is what brought us here today just to discuss it with you and and tell you about it so hopefully we can find a good solution that will be good for them for the kids at least if they have good resources they can go to they have good Personnel they can reach out to if they feel in some way uncomfortable physically or uncomfortable emotionally they can reach out to that the the second point before the time ends is obviously Freedom also from that stress it comes it piles up they always teach them in school they're supposed to know how to give an argument and give an counterargument and if you bring those two together that raises the that improves that enriches the the subject they can learn more about it and if if you know the action is against what we tell them what we teach them then they obviously will find that contradictory in their mind so I hope that point has reached thank you very much [Applause] sorry sorry sorry good evening members of the board my name is Seth prman and I'm here today because I can't stay silent about what happened during the World's Fair here at Stevenson but first I want to point out how everyone here is mentioning the safety of students yet I am the only one as of now who is actually a student at this esteemed high school and to be frank an act of anti anti-Semitism took place an act of hate and a space that was meant to celebrate diversity andity and yet despite this harm it caused there has been no real acknowledgement or action that truly addresses the impact on those affected as a student I expect my school to be a place where everyone feels safe valued and respected but when an incident like this happens and the response is silent or in action it sends a message whether intentional or not that the safety and wellbeing of Jewish and Israel students are being ignored and that is not okay and it will never be okay this isn't just about one incident it's about what happens next it's about making sure our school doesn't just talk about inclusivity but actually practices it I urge you to acknowledge what happened publicly and clearly because pretending it didn't happen only worsens the situation support the students affected whether through open discussions or Mental Health Resources educate our community and not just about anti-Semitism but about all forms of hate so that we don't allow ignorance to be an excuse hold people accountable because without accountability there is no real change I love this school I know many of us do but having but loving something means wanting it to be better right now we need better we need leadership that doesn't just say hate has no home here but actually proves it through actions I ask you what will you do to make this make sure this never happens again because your response or lack of one will Define what kind of community Stevenson truly is thank you hi my name is Leia mosovich um I did not write a speech because I didn't know if I was going to speak but I have to speak um I'm a concerned mom um I want you know I've been listening to everybody's speak and I hear you know freedom of speech I hear people aren't feeling safe while me as a Jew and my child being a Jew we do not feel safe at stepen this is our first year in public school and I can say I can't even point out how many instances my daughter has come home telling me about anti-Semitism in the school it seems like this whole meeting is focused on one specific item which is the world fair well let me tell you there's a lot more that led up to the World Fair on Palestinian walk out day the Palestinian students were calling our Jewish children KES that was never addressed there are swastikas being drawn on the boards at school that's not being addressed there's so much anti-Semitism at Stevenson it's disgusting it's terrifying and it it has to stop it has to stop everybody that has spoken so far has been saying they want equality where is the equality for us who is going to speak out for us because every single person that spoke that said they want equality then when I walk away just like they clapped for everybody else they should be clapping for me because I'm hurting too my child's hurting too and it's not okay you want to add anything I mean my friends the day of the Palestinian walk out they were all dressed in blue and white and they were like chased around the hallways people would follow them around and they would yell things at them and I just feel like if you guys say that it should be equal then it should be equal for everyone and you guys should be defending the Israeli students and the Jewish students just as much as the Palestinian ones thank you for your time thank you hello my name is Tom H and before we even begin I just want to say I condemn any adult harassing any kids no matter what your views on anything are to paint every Jew as somebody wants to eras palan culture as we have heard tonight is anti-Semitic itself now I can actually begin my speech so dear District's 125 board members thank you for taking the time to listen tonight I speak to you as a d125 resident a proud Steven Alum and a first year High School history teacher in Lake County when I first saw images of the world's fair I was shocked at the display from the Palestinian Club as an educator I take pride in teaching with objectivity something I am most proud of as a first year educator is that at the beginning of November I Le a three-day lesson in the 2024 election and at the end my students had no idea who I was voting for I remain neutral and factual my role as an educator is not to impose my beliefs no matter how strong they may be but to teach my students how to research think critically and to form their own opinions from reputable sources can this school board say that all d125 Educators remain neutral in their classrooms because this poster was most certainly not neutral and factual looking at the poster itself that fals presents the country of Palestine as Israel saying Palestine is from the river to the sea with Israel literally ceasing to exist the poster also claims Gaza is the densest place on the planet with New York City a city in this very country is twice as dense as Gaza it also States all Jews pray at the her synagogue an obscure Temple I admit that I had not even heard of until I saw this poster while ignoring the Western Wall the holiest place of Jewish worship perhaps one of these mistakes alone can be considered Innocent but all three that is a deliberate attempt to erase Israel and Jewish history these were just some of the many factual inaccuracies that were allowed to be on display there was nothing at all subjective about these about these falsehoods again I have only mentioned objective facts we can argue all day about subjectivity but that's what I'm here for object facts so again how is this approved this past fall my high school partner with the spun Foundation headquartered right here in Lincolnshire to bring Holocaust revivor Agnes Schwarz to speak at the school despite being able to count on one hand the number of Jewish students in that entire School their entire Performing Art Center was full and respectful for the two-hour speech truly I fear what would happen if she were to speak at Stevenson but a 93 year-old Holocaust Survivor would be able to make it through her speech without being disrupted by student protesters and if that happened would this current School leadership and School Board even do anything or would there be a continued pattern of Silence just like there has been a continued pattern of anti-Semitic incidents at Stevenson does everyone in this room now understand the damage being caused by ignoring this what specific changes will be enacted I see my time is running out so one last time I implore you use this moment to take a stand make it clear that this kind of mistake will never happen again because if it does the consequences are in your hands I'm Isel thank you I'm hi everyone uh good evening my name is Natan asro I'm the co-founder of the Chicago Jewish Alliance and serve as the com controller for the North American values Institute both of which are committed to ensuring a safe and inclusive space for our students first I want to recognize what an incredible opportunity the World's Fair provides for students to celebrate and share their cultures I'm from the NorthShore I had the same experience at a younger age and it taught me the importance of uh diversity and inclus inclusiveness with everybody that I went to school with um they give students the chance to experience the Traditions history and perspectives of their peers in a way that builds mutual respect and unity that's why we were disheartened to hear by the politically charged elements of this year's Palestinian Booth which went beyond cultural expression and instead promoted messaging that erased Israel existence you heard a little bit about what Tom said but I'll quickly uh repeat a couple things but the map of Israel uh the West Bank Gaza shaded with a water Mountain design a symbol that although is uh solidarity also represents resistance um and is factually incorrect um posters declaring Jerusalem as the capital of Palestine disregarding Israel's historical and legal sovereignty and distorting the City City's complex history a QR code also that linked uh to the United hands relief an organization that's under the investigation of the Ways and Means Committee um for potential ties to Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad groups responsible for the October 7th 23 Massacre rather than focusing uh fostering culture Pro appreciation these elements pushed a divisive narrative that negates the ident identity of another people when a cultural display is used to undermine and erase another it doesn't promote understanding it creates division instead of bringing students together in celebration it sends a message that one culture can only exist at the expense of another that is not the path to peace and it is not the message that should be endorsed in a school setting we appreciate the administration's recent communication with our organization and Comm uh commitment to ensuring that future displays remain politically neutral to that end we want to make a a quick request and but I also want to preface that with saying that we understand that the that I have many friends that have gone and graduated from Stevenson and I know the the institution that this is and I have trust in the administration and the school board um to do what's right but a couple of things that we want to request as as action items to make sure that these things don't reoccur um so we'd like to understand what policy changes will ensure that a school sponsored events remains free from political propaganda even in such a difficult and complex uh topic such as this will uh will there be a written policy prohibiting QR codes and links to external organizations unless they're pre-approved and aligned with the event purpose and is there any sort of multi-step approval process to prevent these types of things from happening we believe that with the clear policies in place the World's Fair can continue to be positive enriching and an enriching event for all students and absolutely everybody thank you yeah we look and final final sentence we we look forward to working together to ensure future celebrations remain constructive apolitical and respectful of all cultures represented in our diverse Community thank you very much thank you hi well I don't really have a side I kind of offer a very unique perspective um my name is Carlos I am a graduate of Stevenson High School I graduated here in 2016 and I had the unique uh opportunity to uh actually host that world's fair for the booth of Mexico um and I you know as time flew by you know Cho's still here Dr custo still here you know former director of app Arts now about to lead us here um there was a lot of weird things that happened you know post-ww World's Fair you know I saw a lot of interesting comments um a lot of weird feedback from the community um I'd like to highlight one right now that you know really stood out just because it um it's quite daunting of and quite appalling what people are saying online one comment that's now been uh redacted had said I hope the students are expelled and arrested for supporting terrorism and Ice takes a close look at their families Palestine isn't even a real country and has no business being represented in a cultural Fair um yeah that's it's a bit of a yikes um you know I I always believe that the students you know here at Stevenson are very well educated you know I know there's over 4,000 of them so it's very easy to get lost here in this community but um I don't believe that you know they bring hate or are trying to support terrorism they're just you know trying to look out for the everyday human one way that they did that is presenting a QR code for United hands relief which as you know was uh presented beforehand is a humanitarian relief that has some controversy at the moment but does have a 92% score on charity Navigator just along with like UNICEF being at 94% Z Judes and Red Cross being at 99% however the claim that the charity has a bit of a questionable ties comes from a disgraced uh X FBI agent John wo who constantly posts d at tweets against the Muslim culture with his most recent tweet being Islam kills again yikes so I only have one thing to ask from you guys and it's very simple just please protect the students it's very simple um you know I know as adults it's kind of hard to remember being 17 16 you know having to navigate all the academic pressure here social pressure here again at Stevenson where there's over 4,000 students it's you know again pretty easy to get lost so with that all I ask is that you choose empathy choose curiosity and not judgment again for the better of the future of the community thank [Applause] you a good way to start hello my name is Diane Patterson and I have children who graduated here so long ago from this high school that gave them an extraordinary education in recent times Stevenson has failed its Jewish students and that is why I'm here today for all of what Stevenson stands for in their education standards they have failed to teach how easily Jewish hate can start the Educators and perhaps the board need to learn that lesson as as well someone certainly approved the Palestinian display and thought it was okay to erase Israel from existence someone allowed the display to include a QR code for an outside group when no other group was permitted to do this who allowed this to happen there should be consequences for the adults who permitted this maybe the students too I say maybe as I suspect they are being manipulated by adults in charge Nazism succeeded due to a very skilled propaganda campaign spread to Millions who easily accepted it as truth this is not Stevenson's first anti-semitic incident this year nor in years's past to AFF change something needs to change it is not enough to know that the Holocaust happened people need to learn how the Holocaust was able to happen at the norenberg trials people were shocked at how normal these nais seemed instead of the monsters that they would expect they were family men and women great Neighbors outstanding citizens I encourage everyone here to watch the documentary called The Wave perhaps require all Educators to watch and then teach it there's also a movie called the way and it's about a tsunami that's not it uh I have limited time so here's the recap in the 1960s a high school teacher was able to change a class who could not understand why people were silent leading up to enduring the Holocaust he turned them into the Nazi youth movement within days and another 170 wanted to join so they could be part of this movement for something more contemporary I suggest the very popular movie wicked wicked is a great allegory for the Holocaust other things too but uh The Whiz uses propaganda to control the masses much like the Nazis did in the story all students but one don't speak up at the end of the movie The Wizard states that where he comes from There's real discontent and Discord that everybody knows that the best way to bring folks together is to give them a real good enemy history is repeating itself and Stephen seems to be standing against the real good enemy I demand that you as a board each and every one of you live up to the board's responsibility to ensure that the school's leadership is acting responsible for all of its students ensure proper governance and oversight through policies procedures and meetings so they reflect the needs of every student including the Jewish ones and that failure to do so will have consequences all I am asking you to do is be like alphaba hello everybody um thank you so much for for having everybody here today um I wasn't going to speak but I felt like I have to um so let me start I am a parent and uh one of my children has graduated last year and now I have a freshman um so let me tell you a little bit background of myself um I am a Jew I am a Zionist I believe Israel is my homeland um I grew up in the former Soviet Union I am an immigrant um and I've experienced firsthand what anti-Semitism is um when I came to this country the first thing that I thought was wow I can be myself and it was the the feeling in the world and I never thought that I have to stand here today and have this fear for my children so in light of what happened with the world fair um when you when you cover the map of Israel with the palestin with the the colors of the Palestinian flag after October 7th that image has become synonymous with um an inata AER of the land of Israel the Jews have no place in the land of Israel um it's a sovereign country I have family there um I have family in the IDF for protecting the land and the people um there are many hostages uh there right now um and you know everybody's trying to get them out and we see the images the horrific images and you know when when we bring this to the school it does become political and it becomes it becomes like a horror story for everybody right um so I guess my point being is that with the world fair um of course we have to be you know inclusive and everything but I feel like there should have been oversight of uh you know what was being uh depicted at this uh Booth um and I mean you can't take you can't cover up Israel and say it doesn't belong to the Jewish people I guess that's that's the whole like got 45 seconds so um look at me guys how many of you know that I'm Jewish sir can you just address not too many right so because this is America you do not need to bring overseas problems here especially this a Melting Pot this is America if there is a painful Point schools should avoid the painful points right you can discuss in the class there are different opinions the problem is that parents forcing this ideas on kids bringing into the school I know what's means colored colored part of the map it means from The River To The Sea inhalation of Jews we're not going to stand for this we're not going to accept this and we don't want it in our we already went through one Annihilation we survived it's only 14 millions of us left in the world comparing to everyone else we're not going to let it go second time and Jee is actually uh the son of a holocaust Survivor his dad was he was walk to execution I didn't I I I never thought I have to go through this and explain to me right now what I'm seeing that's a I'm sorry guys but it is what it is okay so many adults wearing Cafe I mean I'm glad you guys expressing your I know you're smiling it's funny but this is not this is not what it is well it's be free guys how you doing hi ready yeah okay hello ladies and gentlemen before me thank you for this opportunity to speak my name is dollia Baron and as a student at Stevenson my plan when I came here tonight was to listen and to watch um everything that was going to happen and to absorb and to understand everything said by everyone who decided to speak as I've sat here tonight I have heard countless essays written by the people claiming to want respect and equality but there are two sides to the story and you and this needs to be heard today I I stand before you not just as a friend of Israel but as someone who believes in truth justice and the right of a people to defend their Homeland in a world that has seen the horrors of hatred time time time and time again we must recognize and call out anti-Semitism wherever and whenever it appears right now Israel is being accused of being the aggressor of bullying the Palestinian people but let us set the record straight Israel is not an oppressor Israel is a nation that has spent its entire existence fighting for survival against those who seek its destru destruction since its founding in 1948 Israel has endured Wars Terror attacks and Relentless calls for its inition no other country in the world is expected to tolerate Rockets draining down on its cities suicide bombers in its streets or the murder of citizens simply for existing let's be clear Israel wants peace it has made countless efforts offers of land offers of statehood offers of coexistence but time and time again these offers have been met with rejection and violence Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005 hoping for peace instead Hamas a terrorist organization dedicated to Israel's destruction to control and has since launched thousands of rockets at in innocent civilians yet somehow the world blames Israel for defending itself this is not about land this is not about borders this is about the right of the people of Israel to exist in their ancestral Homeland without the fear of extermin EX extermination it is about standing up to an ancient hatred that disguises itself as criticism of Israel but at its core seeks the destruction of the only Jewish state to those who claim to stand for justice I ask where is your outrage when Hamas uses Palestinian children as human Shields where is your voice when Jewish families are massacred in their homes if you truly care about Palestinian lives you should demand an end to the terrorist leadership that oppresses its own people and prioritizes War over peace supporting Israel is not about opposing the Palestinian people it's about opposing the forces that want to see Jews driven into the sea it's about recognizing rights to defend itself just as Any Nation would it's about standing against anti-Semitism in all forms including the idious lie that Israel is the villain I ask you when you say to the river to the Sea do you know which river do you know which sea school should be a place of safety but that is not the situation present at this moment just because I speak up as a Jewish student in the community does not give any other student with opposing views the right to glare at me through my classes or talk about how I'm crazy for believing what I do I place my yellow ribbon pin on my backpack representing we just get the last thank [Music] um we must stand with Israel not just because it is our Ally not just because it is the only democracy in the Middle East but because it is right because truth matters never again is now thank you thank you hello everybody uh my name is Julia and I'm a resident of the Stevenson School District with two children that will be Independence in a few years um I had a different speech written but after hearing everybody speaking today I had to improvise I think what all of us here agree on is our children are here for an education and our children are here to be safe and unfortunately what was presented at the world's fair was not education and it was not safe and that's what we need to remember and that is what you as the school board and the faculty and the staff at Stevenson need to fix for the future because the world fair was a chance for us to actually do something good um my children are first generation Americans um we are descendants of Jews from Ukraine my parents brought me to the United States to escape religious persecution and Jew hate because I wouldn't have been able to have a proper education in the former Soviet Union as a Jew I never imagined that in this community my Jewish children would feel unsafe and when you see the map of Israel completely removed and replaced by Palestine which before 1948 Palestine was a Jewish and an Arab home all at the same time but with various political and government situations it is now called is Israel and our flag looks like this and Stevenson as a school and as a place of Education needs to supervise what material is presented at the world fair and it needs to be an education that is provided by current American Standards where we recognize Nations that are recognized by the United States just the same as the other booths may have debated what Crea is Stevenson needs to understand that the United States government identifies it as such and that map that was presented by that table was a map of Israel and it's not meant to eliminate any Arab people or any Jewish people I'm not going to go into the facts of other aspects of that uh presentation because I'm losing time but it was lacking facts and we want to know which staff would be responsible for allowing that misinformation instead of fostering Unity this event promoted a one-sided and false narrative that erased Israel's legitimacy and spread divisive rhetoric schools have a duty to educate with Integrity balance historical accuracy and not to indoctrinate students with propaganda that fuels hate and misinformation we cannot stand by and allow this to happen again Stevenson Administration must be held accountable for the material presented at this event concr steps must be taken to prevent the spread of dangerous misinformation in our schools Jewish and Arab students all students deserve a safe inclusive environment not one that tolerates propaganda for the destruction of their Homeland and this must never happen again thank you thank thank you for having here uh my name is Eli ainson uh I am also fellow immigrant I'm a a Russian Jew and I know personally what it's been like to feel hate to hide your identity and going home crying every day for being Jewish and what I've realized is being raised in the former Soviet Union the hate wasn't in the kids it was taught by their parents because somehow 8year old kid or seveny old kid knew that being Jews was bad and I'll get to the point of where I see it's going when I came to this country I was angry and then I took my English language class in high school like Stevenson and I wrote a very angry article about the Palestine and what I saw and how what I felt and I had a Palestinian in my group so while my article called about H yaser Arafat from the first tree he wrote about given Palestinian rights in other Arab countries and I felt stupid I personally felt like oh my God so since that moment on I built Bridges with the other side and I connected to Islam in other in the different religions my U best man was Muslim my best friends were Muslim but what I'm scared of the most is my kids going and Stevenson will never have the opportunity to build Bridges they will never be able to have Muslims friends because of the environment that is being fostered in the school what I saw 15 first speeches majority not all of them but it tended to blame the Jews for all the evils that happened in the Middle East even the racing the the map of Israel and it's it's not the case so I'm not going to use the entire three minutes but to the other side I off see the kids wearing the hijab wearing the caas my kids are wearing keeper under their hats they will never take off their hats because they're afraid they're afraid to openly be Jewish and that's what scares me I am feeling that at the end my kids or their kids will live in the same environment that I grew up up in where they're going to be running from school hiding so if you can openly wear a hijab you can openly wear AIA and openly identify as Muslim the fact of the matter is none of the Jewish kids will openly do the same thank you hi my name is Marian baram and I'm a proud Jewish Zionist and a former school teacher who believes that all children have the right and Our obligation to feel safe in school I had the privilege of living in Israel alongside over 2 million Arab Israelis uh about 40 years ago I went to school with Arab Israelis I taught with Arab Israelis I worked alongside Arab Israelis we studied and we went out together and we were friends because in Israel Arab Israelis are accepted and equal empowering diversity and fostering dialogue is not accomplished by erasing the ancestral Jewish homeland off the map when you take a map of Israel and you cover it with Palestinian flag and you chant from The River To The Sea which has been defined by the state department as hate speech in the United States um that's not that's not flustering dialogue that's not creating Unity of students and Jewish students are feeling silenced and are being bullied by speakers here tonight telling your Jewish constituents that their Homeland is covered up by another nation's flag um that they don't have the right to be there or even to be safe here at school maps are not cultural they're factual Israel Muslim it includes Muslims Christians Jews and every other religion it's a Melting Pot of every religion and yet so many speakers here tonight have have have tried to erase that for the Jewish students here at Stevenson safety of students includes everyone it includes Muslims it includes Jews it includes everyone who is at school here at Stevenson High School and everybody has the right to feel belonging hate needs to be erased whether it's Jewish hate or Muslim hate or any other hate it needs to be erased and it's our jobs as the adults to do that at starting tonight thank you thank you hi I'm ya I'm a junior at Stevenson and I I'm one of the leaders at the Palestine Booth kind of the reason why we're here today and I just want to say I'm sorry that you have to sit here I know everyone wants to go home I want to go home I'm starving um I just want to say that I think that it's sad that it's spiral to the point where I as a high schooler have to come and stand in front of a board of adults and argue for the right to express my culture and my speech um but honestly I'm kind of happy that the events that happened at World's Fair happen because it kind of brings light to the problems that are at Stevenson at Stevenson we have this um idea that inclusivity is the most important thing and I agree with that statement I just wish that it was executed better and I think that this event has kind of gone to gone to show that when one body I'm Palestinian Egyptian American by the way um decides to express her culture and show what what her cultural roots are she's silenced and I complied I tried not to make a big deal out of it because I wanted to make sure that everyone had a great weekend I wanted it to be a fun experience and I was excited too I was so excited to cuz it was like my first year and everything um but I want to make it known that I think all rules that are placed on students should be equal because I wanted to make a note that the Israel Bo not Point them out they had a nice Booth um it said bring them home which I think personally is a political statement I think a lot of people would agree with that and that was never taken down even after I asked and I didn't complain about it when I first saw it cuz I understand that everyone has their own opinions and Everyone's entitled to their own ideas but obviously some groups feel the need to um feel the need to silence those voices I just I don't want to have to keep going to school looking over my back being scared for my safety I don't want to have to go to school walk into my classes knowing that my teachers might hate me for being Palestinian or Muslim I don't want to have to go to school being scared anymore I'm done this is this this isn't just an issue that just arised this has been happening it's been happening since I was a freshman here and I I love Stevenson I just I can't keep going to school knowing that islamophobia anti-Semitism all these other hate hate crimes and discrimination are an issue cuz it shouldn't be at a school that loves to say that we're inclusive of all groups um there's so much more I could say but I'm not going to waste your time I'm not going to keep talking yours off because I know I'm like the 30th person that's talked to you today so um again I'm sorry that you have to sit here and listen when everyone wants to go home and eat dinner like me I'm sorry I'm so hungry but yeah thank you for your [Applause] time hi my name is Shanna and I'm a student at woodon Middle School um I am a student there and I'm sick of hearing that schools should be Pro Palestine or pro Israel schools should be Pro students I've been called a terrorist multiple times and it hasn't been addressed I have told my teachers about these incidents who told me to stop making trouble instead of addressing the situation that just occurred right in front of their eyes schools have been criticized for failing to adequately address rising islamophobia and anti- Palestinian attitudes many students report for experiencing di discrimination harassment or lack of support from Educators when they speak out about these issues there are times where I have not felt safe at my own School some schools avoid discussions about Palestine altogether leaving students feel feeling unheard and isolated others fail to take action when incidents of hate occur creating an unsafe environment for all students especially Muslim and Palestinian students I believe that all students should be safe at school and everyone should have a safe equal learning experience thank you that was our last speaker so um I think uh it's very fitting that our last two speakers were students um because ultimately that's why we're here I can tell you that um on behalf of the administrative team members and I know this is true of the board um I can say that a lot of things went right with World's Fair um but the things that didn't were mostly uh failures on our part as the adults um in providing the right kind of support um for all of our students um and for that I would just say as Miss no said earlier we are truly sorry we hear the hurt in the voices in the room um and that that hurts us as well that's the last thing that we want to do or C so on behalf of the administrative team members who are here we sincerely apologize for that um that obviously was not Our intention but um we're not perfect but we will do better um for all of our students and all of our adults and our community member members uh and we would just say thank you for being here I know that for many of you it was very hard to speak especially our students um but we really appreciate it I know I took a lot of notes I know my colleagues took a lot of notes we're listening and we will uh absolutely take everything that you said to heart so we appreciate you all of you um at this point um the meeting's going to get really boring really fast um but you are certainly welcome to stay what we're going to do is take like a three four minute stretch break so that those of you who would prefer not to stay and hear all the other items that really aren't that interesting you're feel free to find your way out if you'd like to stay you're more than welcome to this is no longer the topic of conversation for the night if you would like to receive maybe a followup email or information as we're trying to kind of find our way through this there is a signup sheet up front so we'll take about a three minute break e okay um here we go well here we go um thank you for that um and uh moving on to new business uh in curriculum instruction and assessment we only have um one item tonight um and that is a first reading of the student guide book and some of you may be wondering wait it seems like that's a little early and you are correct um but um Troy my understanding is we're trying to get that done a little bit earlier um than in past years um for a host of different reasons not the least of which is to be able to get all of the um uh all the copies printed and all the information out into kids uh well before the summer so so and you know it's not here right yes you're going to see you're going to see a Redline version of that in the mid meting memo and then you'll have another chance to see it for the board book oh good um in March and that takes us to Personnel section um all of which is part of consent however I do want to just pull out and highlight um that um we are recommending tonight um for your approval as part of the consent agenda that we hire Dwayne Bates as our um new athletic director effective July 1st many of you know that Trish bouser after many years of service to Stevenson as a teacher and a coach and most recently as an athletic director is going to be retiring this summer and we are super excited to be bringing uh Dwayne Bates to Stevenson High School uh if that name sounds familiar Dwayne Bates was um a football player at Northwestern University uh he ultimately uh ended up playing in the NFL including with our very own Chicago Bears um became an educator after his football career was a teacher and then ultimately ended up as an athletic director at glenbard East where uh we had the opportunity to interview him recently in Troy and Wendy I think we're super excited uh about that and um and I think uh we're we're just happy that uh Dwayne's going to be joining us he uh we had the chance to bring him into the district office a couple days AO go and meet people and um just kind of lit up the room everybody connected with them and um it was awesome it was a great process we had a lot of wonderful candidates we had some great candidates he was uh really great we'll do like a little roll out yeah I look forward to meeting him here in the spring yep J will help us with that great so we're super excited um okay and that'll be part of consent and that takes us to the business section of tonight's meetings meeting and then Sean um so the first um resolution we have as you know we've been discussing this for the better part of three months um but this is the parameters resolution that ACC companies our bond sale um if you want to think of the parameters resolution is the rules that we U must follow the authorization that the board does in fact provide um once uh this is approved we will be bringing back uh to the uh board in uh March uh a resolution of baiting um the working cash fund as we've been discussing um and once the bond sale is completed which is 10 o'clock tomorrow um we will be bringing back all of the parameters that um were involved in that Bond sale so tonight um we are recommending that the Board of Education approve the resolution providing for the issue of not to exceed $15 million General obligation limited tax school bonds series 2005 of Consolidated High School number 125 Lake County Illinois for the purpose of increasing the working cash fund of said School District providing for the levy of a direct annual tax to pay the principal and interest on set bonds and authorizing the proposed sale of set bonds to the purchaser thereof so Mo second okay so we have discussed this at a few other meetings does anybody have any questions for Sean okay could I get a motion to approve please so moved second wait oh wait sorry I'm sorry we just have to vot have all the motions and all the movements Cherry could you please pull the board I no I Ben ysf i t i gorson i moons I Ty approved six to nothing and I did forget to met but I think I sent everybody a note we did in fact um receive our AAA rating yet again um I got the official document that I'll share with the board um the next item that we have tonight is a renewal of our agreement with first student for our transporting our students both our regular and special education students um they presented us with a series of different options all that um can kind of work in our budget um if you you will the average is about a 4% um they I will tell you that right now uh the existing contract has very very friendly to us um in light of still being still having a driver shortage um so tonight we um took a look at all of the options and when we ran them through our budget um I think option two is really the best option and provides us the most flexibility um as we move forward as well and kind of protects our budget down the long term so tonight we are recommending that the Board of Education approve the renewal agreement with first student as presented namely option number two and that is also the lowest cost over the course of the contract when we ran the um could I please get a motion to approve so move second okay so okay so you're saying that that option too I guess I was confused why not just keep it yeah so when you run the dollars it actually comes out to option two being the best because of the decrease in the 4% because they would go if they wanted all four years or all five years to be the same it'd be that 4.1 but having a little Spike and then bringing it back down saves the district over the course and is that that's locked in so it would be locked in correct and for everybody's um knowledge of District 102 um is presenting this to the board if they actually haven't already voted sharing are they get the same we still share with 102 correct same same percentages and same option like we all recommending okay yep Terry would you please sure Ben ysf hi s i gorson i wons I Ty I no I car six to than thank you very much and then of course you could see the plethora of foyer requests um happy to say that we haven't had it many in the last couple of weeks um so we'll see what March brings us how could you uh you know he knocked it's all good R tracking how much time they're taking yeah we track that we've been tracking that for multiple years could I get a motion to approve the consent agenda please second any questions on it Terry could you please pull so here I gorson I wound I tyer I no I Ben ysph I carries six to nothing we're good okay and then um finally for tonight just a couple items in the student uh student superintendent information report you can see student profiles so thank you to Jamie and reene for pulling those together uh for those of you who don't get a chance to look at the daily digest every day there's just great information in there these are two uh fun pieces about our amazing students uh also an update from the ELC um as we provide each month and then just wanted to point out uh we've been updating the board dates for the spring um as a Google doc and a link there uh just wanted to point out um that we will be having a board reorganizational meeting on Monday April 28 at 7:30 to 8: a that is one that um if you all could put that on your Calenders except miss m uh as April will be her last meeting but if everybody else can put that on your calendars you may be thinking wait really only half an hour yes I promise only half an hour um we'll get you to work um right after that um if need be um we'll have quick breakfast do a quick reorg and get you on your way um and then also just wanted to point out um that it's our very own ver version of um HEC week uh May 19 we have our board meeting on Monday night our admin review team meeting on May 20th which is Tuesday night and then Friday the 23rd is graduation so why not a boat trip in the middle if you want to go and if you want to go with Troy and Wendy and I and Mark you can go on a boat trip downtown in Chicago great yeah um so that's a lot of a lot of a lot of fun time with Troy and I Mark but uh I it'll be worth it I think it's worth it we'll feed you all three nights so uh and then and I won't provide Chinese this year so it's it goes to Grace oh Grace Grace I can keep your tradition tradition a lot okay I think that's about it so that's all I got okay could I get a motion to adjourn so loov who Moved Ronnie Ronnie Ronnie moved second second second second got a second all in favor

e e e all right we move back into Open Session can everyone please stand for the pledge the flag's right behind us I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God invisible with liberty and justice for all does any have anything to add the agenda can I please have a motion to approve the agenda motion second Ash all in favor I any oppose eyes have it academic Spotlight Primary School prek all right miss m I'll let you take it over thank you our prek team is going to present oural Focus for our academic Spotlight so Miss Amanda Hatfield and Miss Tiffany lck hello you want to click the slideshow if you could speak into the mic just because we got people streaming so you can awesome thank you School Readiness and a successful transition to kindergarten lay the groundwork for children later school Success being ready to succeed in school requires more than just simply being able to recite the alphabet or hold a pencil children need a solid foundation of self-regulation skills to help them stay focused on their learning get along with others and work independently and cooperatively in the classroom self-regulation skills Place children on the road to School Readiness this is why I teach pre um so this is from the castle website and it just talks about some of the many benefits of social emotional learning and um I know AC Spotlight but really in preschool kindergarten primary social and emotional learning is part of academics they can't get to academics if they can't get along in the classroom um it also improves mental health their development skills and the overall climate of the school so here we have our creative curriculum objectives um I won't read them out for you you guys can look at them um and then we have some slides showing the children doing some of these specific things like taking care of their own needs um it might take a little longer for them to learn how to put their library book away or to put their uh backpack away but um we kind of give them that time so they get build that self-confidence and take care of what they need to do and you can't really tell but that bottom picture he's ironing the baby's clothes so um participating cooperatively and constructively um this is a big huge one too um being able to work things out with your peers um solve problems on their own um we try not to jump in immediately we try to get them to work out their problems and here they are in Miss Lulu's room they built their own sensory table so that's working cooperatively um interacting with peers and making friends is another one of our um objectives and you can see them playing and learning through their play and working out I know that they're talking to each other they're sharing materials playing hopscotch looking at a book together um this shows them following limits and expectations in the library these are all three and four year olds um and as you can see they're standing in a line they're waiting their turn making Play-Doh um lot of wait waiting a lot of having to follow rules um a lot of exciting stuff and there they are and they got to take some home and more there's uh a little turtle there in the bottom so they had to be very safe with that and they're doing measurement activities and more positive relationship and emotional clue cues you've got people taking care of babies relationships with their teachers and relationships with others and now to the good stuff the the videos so this one is um a second step safety song and if I just they're singing about safety it's just not loud and as you can see they're taking turns this is in Miss Mueller's room they take turns pointing to the picture for rules there we go and here we have them singing so um those of you who are familiar with second step uh most of the class do this it's eyes watching ears listening voices quiet bodies calm they call this the learning Rule and let's see I'd like to play oh he's [Music] doing iset [Music] are and the other one just shows the our afternoon CL so basically to teach empathy is a life skill not a lesson plan so um I would say even though we do academics everything that we do is based around social emotional learning because at their age that's what they need to be successful in school thank you thank you so much thank you accomplishment recing Mr Gold would you like start what do you this is an unusual one tonight can we do it together the two of them okay we'll go ahead and do that go ahead I'll tell you you I would like to call up Taylor our primary student of the month with her teacher Miss weaton who nominated her [Applause] and then I'm so excited to um call up here um is Scarlet shiff you can hear the the same last names right so Scarlet shiff come on up along with her teacher Mrs Connelly you're good you're good and everyone should know that nobody knows who's getting nominated so this is totally natural goad all right um Taylor is a leading example of what a star student looks like she always follows school and classroom expectations she is a great friend who is always kind and caring towards others she is very bright and always tries her best she helps others even she helps others when they don't understand by explaining her thinking Taylor is a delight to have in class and I'm so lucky to be her teacher this is Scarlet She's mine I need to put my classes on this Scarlet is what every star student should be she makes sure she is following those school safety rules at all times she watches out for her peers to make sure they are safe too she's the first to come to the aid of her classmates helping with reading and math Scarlet Takes on all responsibilities she always completes her assignments on time and does her best on all tasks most of all Scarlet is respectful she has permission before leaving the room she answers questions politely and encourages her peers to do the same Scarlet is our class leader she is the classroom Starburst she is a positive example of everyone in the elementary school she works hard at cheer and reading club and being a big sister I cannot say enough about scarlet and I'm proud to nominate her for the student of the month it won't take my awesome thank you go ahead M for the middle school I'm gonna call up Kelsey Tom me to what am I not supposed to use that name surpr okay uh Kelsey told me is gonna come up and announce our student of the month for the Middle School okay it's just not changed here all right so Juliana how I was practicing how um so [Applause] yes you can come stand with me it's okay I'll keep you up if you fall um so miss haen actually nominated Juliana but she's not here tonight so since she's also amazing in my class I thought I'd come and speak for her so I'm going to read you what Miss Hagen said so she said I would like to nominate Juliana for student of the month as she truly exemplifies what it means to be a warrior in all aspects of school she's constantly demonstrating our core values of being safe responsible and respectful she's an active participant in class and is always the first to step up when help is needed she does a great job of adding positivity to her classroom environment it's okay by encouraging others to try new activities she is reliable and dependable and approaches every task with a strong work ethic and positive attitude she has shown that she can be a great leader she is a recent addition to our principal Advisory Group working to make Big Hollow the best it can be outside of the classroom she's a dedicated athlete participating in both softball and volleyball as you can see for all these reasons and more Juliana is a deserving candidate for student of the month her dedication leadership and positive influence on both her peers and the school Community Mak her stand out as a true warrior [Applause] dran okay so for employe of the month a very special par professional Mrs Shandra Allen and um Evelyn Vasquez who nominated her if you can come on up to the microphone come on up Mrs alen [Applause] uh I wholeheartedly nominated Shandra for employee of the month every day she walks through the door with a bright smile ready to embrace whatever challenges may come her way her positivity and caring heart is contagious is her positivity and caring heart is contagious setting the tone for a supportive and uplifting environment no matter how difficult the day may be Shandra remains cool calm and Collective showing incredible patience and Grace in every situation she brings insightful and thoughtful strategies from past and current experiences to help the student she works with always willing to adapt and try new approaches to ensure success her loving and nurturing nature makes her a true source of comfort and encouragement any student who has the privilege of working with her is incredibly lucky Beyond her dedication to her students Shandra is an invaluable teammate her kindness willingness to help and unwavering support make our classroom a better place every day she truly deserves this recognition and I feel so fortunate to work alongside her [Applause] and that's it for the recognitions yeah you guys are more than welcome to stay but if you'd like to leave and go home feel free to do so um board member cot of conduct review Brian I will take no private action that might compromise the board or Administration and respect confidentiality and priv information all right thank you anybody have any questions on the consent agenda no can I please have a motion to approve the consent agenda motion second Doug and Ash yes yes yes yes yes yes superintendent report Mr Gold okay uh Dr Pitman and I are gonna start I guess um we had a uh I guess how this started for me was I serve on the Ia board of directors and we every year our director talks to us about you know a renewal of a subscription to a it's called comsy is what it is and it's a service that superintendent across Illinois can tap into if they need any kind of mental health support which I I was surprised that we had this service but he would talk he tells us every year about that you would not believe the number of of people that use it and especially through the pandemic so every year you know we we go through this we talk about it we've always renewed it well at the Schoolboard conference this year I was walking through the vendor area and I saw this group called counselor without the it's spelled without the O and I've never seen it before I was just talking to the person there and and she said they're not in Illinois yet and they provide a very similar service that I was familiar with but uh it's for students grade six and higher and then obviously staff and it's a service that um they can get well you're going to see a video about it in a second but uh anyway I was very interested when I talked to her and they sent me more information it's a little pricey so I kind of talked to them about it we're they and they currently are in other states but they do not do any schools in Illinois so we kind of uh Dr Pitman and I were both uh pretty excited about it um you know specifically you know Dr Pitman runs uh you know the social econ social uh the curriculum work that we do um social emotional learning um and our U crisis teams fall under her so she knows some of the issues that not only our students are dealing with but our staff um so anyway we I kept talking to this group and and uh kind of used some leverage on the fact that hey if you really want to get in Illinois you might want to you know we can help you and we worked out a deal to get them on site to to use the service for the remaining of this school year so if we could show the video this is a it is eight minutes long but I think it's informative so this video will kind of tell you what we're doing we just started a month ago and then Dr P kind of talk to you about the usage we've seen with st have the students so name Caitlyn mowen I am the director of customer success here at counselor and I appreciate you taking some time to watch this brief recording about our partnership with Big Hollow School District 38 I'd like to get us started with a rhetorical question do you ever feel like you're juggling I know I personally can say I sometimes feel this way and that's natural because as humans we juggle so much from spending time with our families our friends our class schedules our home homework our extracurricular activities the list really goes on and on and sometimes life throws us extra things to juggle like stress anxiety depression maybe a sense of loneliness grief or other really heavy challenges this juggling can turn what Maybe started as a small issue into a larger challenge it can negatively impact our mental health and well-being and it can impact things like our grades our work our relationships and more counselor is here to help with that and as you learn about the counselor app I encourage you to think of us like a best friend in your pocket who just so happens to be a licensed mental health professional to officially introduce you to counselor and tell you more about who we are and what we do counselor is a text based mental health support app where we provide live 45 minute texting sessions with licensed mental health professionals thanks to our partnership with Big Hollow School District 38 staff and middle school students have free and unlimited access to the counselor app so that you can text in 24 hours a day 7 days a week 365 days a year for support whenever and wherever you may want or need it at this point you're probably naturally wondering what types of things do the counselors on the counselor app do or not do to start with a bit about what they do they are really here to lead with empathy they will actively listen share coping strategies and recommend helpful resources it is important to note that the counselor app is not a replacement for counseling or therapy and the counselors on the counselor app do not diagnose they do not treat and they do not prescribe medication on the screen I now have a few few images of what some parts of the counselor app look like the first image shows our Home tab which is where you can start a chat now session or schedule a session for a future Day In Time the second image is our intake form and this is where you'll be able to select from a list of topics to inform the counselor that you'll be texting with what you'd like to text about the third image is an example of what it will look like when you are texting with a licensed mental health professional Prof via the counselor app and the fourth and final image is what you can expect to see when you complete any texting support session you'll be able to give a thumbs up or thumbs down with an option to type in additional feedback about your experience this feedback is entirely Anonymous and it's really used by the team here at counselor so that we can understand what's working well what can be improved on and ensure that every person using the counselor app is having the best possible experience with us to dive a little bit further into how it all works on the last slide you saw a screenshot of our intake form this is also known as our brief assessment and as a reminder this is where you'll be able to select from a list of topics to inform the counselor what you'd like to text about in addition to that list of topics there will also be a small free form box where you can type in any other details you'd like the counselor aware of before your session begins these details enable one of my personal favorite features of the counselor app which is our smart match algorithm and what this does is it takes all of the details entered into the intake form and works to pair you with the best possible counselor available to support your unique needs and preferences at that time so let's say I am a middle school student and I go into the counselor app and select that I'd like to text about anxiety and depression in in Spanish counselor's smart match algorithm will use those details and work to pair me with a counselor who can do exactly that there are also two ways that you can go about texting through the counselor app you can either chat now where our counselors have an average initial response time of less than 2 minutes so it truly is chatting in the moment or you'll be able to schedule a session for a future day and time that you know works best for you in addition to counselors text based support we also have a wellness toolkit which provides a comprehensive database of clinician beded self-help resources this includes things like guided meditations breathing exercises and a bunch of resources related to topics like relaxation sleep Fitness Nutrition and more the wellness toolkit is also available to you completely for free and 24 hours a day 7 days a week 365 days a year so if you're ever curious in checking out self-help resources during the time that works best for you the wellness toolkit is a fantastic place for you to get started one very important note is that counselor truly puts user privacy first we are a HIPPA and fura compliant platform so we do not share personal information about the people who use the counselor app unless they give us explicit consent to do so the exception to that would be in case of an emergency if one of our counselors identifies that someone they're texting with could be an imminent danger there are some details that we will need to share to help ensure safety and well-being you've heard quite a lot from me today but I think it's even more important that you hear from people who actually use the counselor app I have some Anonymous testimonials on the screen now for your review and I won't read them in full but I would love to share three themes of feedback that we receive people report that the counselor app is easy to use a reliable resource and has a positive influence on their mental health with that I'd love to invite you to use your iOS or Android device to scan the QR code on the screen here or you can visit counselor.com download to get started with downloading the counselor app and creating your account I'd also love to invite you to follow us along on socials feel free to check us out on Instagram and X where you can stay in the loop on all things counselor and have access to tons of valuable mental health related content if you have questions about this presentation or about how to get started with using the counselor app feel free to email us at hello counselor.com or directly in the counselor app there is a small purple chat Circle where you can contact our technical support team with any technical questions you may have thanks so much again for watching this recording I hope that you find counselor to be a valuable resource and I wish you a great rest of your day be well bye so every month we will get an update of the usage of this app just to ensure that this is something that's worthwhile for us to continue within the district um one piece that we were very excited about is we put a lot ofal support in for students a lot of social workers staff crisis but and we oftentimes say we don't know what's going on in our students lives outside of school but the same can be said for our staff so we really welcome this opportunity to have something that will go for both students and staff so it's very exciting in less than a month this was sent to us uh on February 7th but so in less than a month it just started January 13th 32 staff members have created accounts nine sessions have been booked um and five have taken place but more importantly 7 75% of them of the individuals who had sessions said that they've never sought out support before the most common topics were stress and depression and 14 staff members also explored the wellness toolkit that they talked about as for students again at 6th through 8th grade six accounts were created eight sessions were booked six took place 66.7 have never had previous mental health support they were looking more at academic concerns and family issues and seven students explored the wellness so in a short amount of time already reaching quite a few people so what you know for next year we were able to work a good contract with them and we had some special Leed funding we could use so for this year and we we basically made it very clear to them we want to you know inform our community as much as possible and we'll see what kind of usage we get um and then we'll make a determination for next year one of the things they told us is if we can pull in uh specifically Grant High School like our feeder District into then I think we can work out a better uh contract with counselor to continue it but uh we're going to wait for another month or two and then we're going to talk to Grant ourselves and just kind of show what we've got going and see if there something they be interested in but um uh I do know they're pushing pretty hard in Illinois right now because they they're they're putting Big Hollow on their Flyers saying that they got an Illinois school and they're they're trying to push us out there a little bit but um so we're going to I'm going to talk to the feeder District anybody else wants to jump in on it but I just think it's been you know just to see a few staff have already tapped into it it's important and uh we'll see how it goes but just want to make sure you're aware of it and then uh we we'll talk again probably this summer to determine if we're going to do it next year or not you have any questions are we providing them with any student information or this is only we just provide the link to the app do everything else the only information they get is the uh email they get their email address okay right but what I'm not sure of though Ash I need to figure this out is how they Matt you might know because you helped maybe with email um they might have a name associated with the email address because if if a student were to say something in the text that's uh severe that they need to get some help that have a way to give us that information so there maybe is a name with the email address well are they actually contacting us or they're contacting the authorities they probably have to contact us because I know we didn't give them any anything more than the name and the email address the students actually give their parents yeah and then um so parents are contacted knowing that their child is using this um and then for uh if there's a significant Danger it's GPS like any other SOS and it'll notify authorities right away and how have you informed the students of this we sent it out to uh in their epic they' had their videos all seen this video and so we've sent it out and then also Mr Golds had it in his communication uh to parents so baby steps I was going to say is there a more direct way because most students aren going to want to pull their phone out in class well they can't yeah I think it's an awesome opportunity especially if the students take advantage of it so just any way that they can get it in a way that they're comfortable you know so we just got the swag and uh so that I think we're GNA probably put with some type of QR gon say they should have put a QR code um but we'll that'll be our next stop to get out to our staff and students good awesome thank you next uh Mr Corell is going to give us an update on the Yonder pouches for this year so I put a lot of information in here a lot of it is just a review so I'm not really going to spend a whole lot of time on the first couple of slides it's really just a recap of what our policy is since adopting the Yonder pouches as well as just some FAQs about what it looks like in the day-to-day uh the purpose of tonight is mainly just to share some data with you just so you can know where the money went that you spent so as you know every student gets a yander pouch we are all pretty skeptical about being able to get all of the kids in in the same amount of time as we did before but it has been extremely smooth um we've had very few students that have been in violation of uh not using the pouch which is great um and we're not seeing them in classrooms which is the primary objective um so I just summarized for you some data comparing 2324 to 2425 I'm just going to explain to you a little bit what you're looking at so with our referral tracking system we have major referrals which we also call administrator managed so something that is a bigger issue that goes to one of the administrators usually follow with a consequence from us and then we have minor or classroom managed referrals which are mostly just for documentation parents will get an email letting them know that their child was disruptive in class today or something to that effect but it's not usually an additional consequence unless the teacher decides Implement one those classroom managed miners are obviously every time they're having to address a student about something every time they're having a document it's taking time away from teaching so that was the main objective of the Y pouches is to allow them to focus on teaching again so our office referrals as you can see you know up and down but still overall down uh year-to date and this is just showing you the average referrals per day but when you look at our minor classroom manage referrals that's when you really see the difference so so as of last year uh in the month of August we had an average of four minor referrals right pretty much the same uh this year but as the months go on you can see the miners are cut in half in a lot of cases by 2/3 so again we are allowing teachers to able to focus on teaching and students to focus on learning so when it came to documenting cell phone violations we always have an issue with consistency with how behavior is documented and in Swiss where we maintain our data there wasn't a category for cell phone violations so and we didn't want to use other because that could fall under any number of umbrellas right so sometimes staff would put them in as a disruption sometimes staff would put them in as Defiance or insubordination because a kid was refusing to give it over and sometimes they put it in as a technology violation right in addition to those data points that were in Swiss which is our Data Tracking System each grade level had a spreadsheet where they were trying to just track cell phone violations so we had accurate numbers so this isn't even fully reflective of how big of a difference the under pouches have made in just one year now keep in mind this is data that is for a full year as opposed to half a year even if you double any of the data in that second column we're still way down in terms of classroom manage referrals and then I just included a couple of uh responses from staff we did a survey just to get their feedback um and as you can see staff reported that the Yonder pouches have made a significant uh positive impact in overall Dynamics uh that they are extremely effective in managing and reducing student phone usage um the disruption in class obviously is more General so it's not specific to phones uh but still a positive shift and then again as you can see the PO the policies for Yonder um having a significant impact in managing cell phone usage I did survey the kids I did not include their results um as you can imagine their feelings on the Y pouches were mixed at best um most of them didn't like it right um but we're the adults we're the ones that are supposed to make decisions about what they are able to handle and as we know cell phones are a significant distraction that a lot of times adults can't manage their time with and kids developmentally are just not ready to have that additional challenge so the Y pouches have helped our teachers be able to focus on instruction so we are very thankful that you guys approved that purchase so thank you awesome any questions are we going to keep it going next year yeah absolutely so how does that work with the purchas know the good question so Yonder said we should be able to get at least two years out of these pouches so um they are machine washable and we wrote numbers on them for the eighth graders we'll collect those at the end of the year and then we'll retag them to hand them out to fifth graders and we're just going to kind of have to see as the years go on how much use we can get out of them before we have to do a a mass replacement as of now they're holding up really well except for there's a pin that goes in and it and they get bent kind of easily but I've gotten pretty good at bending them back I've fixed about 30 so far um so that was the biggest challenge and we've we've kind of figured out how to manage that so that kids don't have to pay $30 to replace it just for that so but it remains to be seen how many years years we can get out of them all right thank you Josh and the next item is uh just our enrollment update I give you this every year in February board meeting it's through January 31st mid year we usually have a we do a check on our enrollment and you'll see we you know we went up by 13 students that's pretty typical for us mid year um nothing significant there and then IB board recognitions annually this comes out mid year and uh you know Doug and Vivian distinguished annual Merit uh Joe Joe is established and Kevin is established so Kevin told me it's just an award for getting older so all right so that's it for my update like you're established um anybody any questions on the gapa security solution for door access control project pretty self-explanatory can I please have a motion the letter recommendation contract with Security Solutions for the completion of the door access control project did Tiffany second enters yes Peter yes Johnson Lions yes P yes Bennett yes so I should State we've got we now have with that project in place we have three really important safety initiatives now either in the midst or getting ready to start so the communication system is is almost I'd say 75% complete in the whole District the uh and then uh the window film project will start next week and then this now will start uh probably be done well definitely be done by August so it's good stuff um anybody questions on the gly paving contract can I please have a motion to approve the contract early pavement services for seal coding crack filling to be completed on all asalt on the big Hall School District 38 campus motion second Doug and Ash Pon yes Bennett yes Johnson yes Keeter yes Lions yes enters yes well L easan agreement I can just give you a quick explanation we're not putting any finances into the project they're going to run the uh side the the path down Nipper syn I'm sorry down Fish Lake and then never sink over here so it'll be along the road they just need an easement to do some work right on our property but any questions can I please have a motion to approve the Volo easan agreement for the construction of a bike path along Fish Lake Road and Nipper syn Road Mo second Vivan enters yes Peter yes Johnson yes Lions yes Pon yes Bennett yes uh the forever long playground upgrade I should probably talk about this one for a second because this is a big big project we talk to the building grounds committee about um we're you know I I shared with you my desire to make our playgrounds a little more accessible for all of our kids and we looked at a rubber surface instead of the mulch but then we talked to people it looked like a Turf option would be better um so we kept we shifted gears a little bit and talked to a few companies about coming out and putting in Turf on the playgrounds uh Turf would allow us to if we want to make adjustments late we're not talking about first I should say we're not talking about adding or subtracting any equipment on the two main playgrounds but if we ever want to add any if we want to add any uh uh interactive activity on the playground Turf will be easier to do we can cut it peel it back put the activity in then RF it so that that's going to give us a little more flexibility on the uh exhibit Matt can we pull those exhibits up you don't mind it's uh exhibit 14 on the so we have it with the prek playground is in on the uh west side of the building the prek playground I believe was built for for kindergarten uh kindergarten students and uh it's currently it's not suitable for three and four year olds U what we have out there so you'll see if you go out there we we've purchased a lot of uh like stuff from Walmart or Amazon just ground level things our kids can play with because they really can't get on the equipment it's not very safe for them at their age um so with the with the prek playground it's going to be uh it's going to have more um interaction for the three and four year olds there's going to be like uh what they call like Mounds with slides on the Mounds um there'll be a little balance beam there'll be there'll be some like uh alphabet tiles that they walk around on and um we get to when we get to 14 here thanks Matt so that first one is a we are going to try to keep some of our current equipment so you'll see part of that there but the rest of that if we can go down uh this is an example of one they install so that's a picture of what ours would look like go down one more this would be a sample of one they installed at another location locally so that's what more what it would look like um a little more three and four year-old friendly than what we have um if we can go down a couple more map the these pictures are all uh keep going so these are just prek you can see the little slide we'll have things like that on that Playground now this is so that's a current yeah picture on the left is our current playground picture on the right is the remodel if you go down a little more I'll show the price sorry up a little bit price for that is $83,000 uh to do that work and then the next picture what you see on the right is our current element or primary playground and on the left would be what it will look like when it when the turf is installed so no no change in equipment just to thaing Turf we we are going to have um and that's $83,000 it says exclude site prep we're going to have our crews go in and remove all the current mlch uh we have to get everything out of there down to dirt and then we then we uh we're probably going to pay um landscape contractor to come in then and layer it in with the rock and uh and Tamp it you have to do it layered in and then they they gave us a Specs we get it all the way back up to a certain level and then they'll come in and put the turf down we're working on getting a price for that right now so the 83,000 is simply the getting the turf installed uh we have to do the site prep on our own so so um we're going to try to do as much of that as we can with our own crew though and then the next picture is Elementary playground on the left currently and then what it'll look like when we get the turf done on the right 88,000 for the elementary it's a little bit bigger but not much so total if we go down another one I think I've got totals for you project summary three different contractors up sorry up a little bit to that page yeah so we we got three contractors involved uh forever lawn was the one who I'm recommending we go with um total cost is 255,000 uh we like I said we will work directly to get as much of that done on our own uh of the site prep uh the work will take place the site prep will take place in June installation is set to take place in July I do have the them blocks to come if you approve this tonight and the funding will come directly from fund 60 um and we have a current balance in fund 60 of 1,429 th000 so that's kind of that's where we're pulling the money from um initial you know if you last year I would have been a little more cautious on this because we had other things that were targeting fund 60 money for those have to be done for building construction projects but now that we've been able to fold all of that work under the health life safety and the bond that we received so now I think that you know I feel very comfortable presenting this to you I think it's a good use of our funds to to make the playgrounds better for our our K4 do we know any idea on the lifespan they said minimum 10 years is uh the lifespan of the turf they think uh given this use it would go longer but they you know it's got a 10 year estimate we about the maintenance of it this does not have uh it's not like a football field where it has the rubber pellets and stuff does not have any of that I don't think forever laon did this no but is it similar similar type yeah they have a so forever laon has a proprietary Turf that has a weave in it that goes uh the they claim is a better weave and it's goes a little deeper in uh goes outside the fabric and back up uh and uh you know they they've had good recommendations um other companies that I looked at doing it were like playground companies who then just get a contractor to they buy a Turf and they install it but it's not something forever laon this is all they do they don't do they don't do anything else in fact I asked him if he would be interested to give me some quotes on new equipment to go with it and he we don't even do that they just do Turf so uh I would say that this would be high quality quity Turf but it' be very similar to what's over at Grant anybody else have questions right can you please have a motion to approve a recommendation from Forever lawn to complete a playground upgrade motion second Doug and Tiffany Patterson yes Hunter yes yes Peter yes Lions yes Bennett yes Johnson yes anybody any questions on the certified Sports St Senor something we see every year yep please have a motion to approve the certified support staff seniority lists motion second ashion Tiffany all in favor I any oppose I haveit school fees 2526 no recommendation for changes no significant changes the uh minor things would be uh uniforms might have gone up a dollar uh lunches could go up but we usually don't find out until June the state will kind of regulate where that needs to be we're on the low end sometimes we're too low and they make us charge a little more so that might change but other PE uniforms is that option opal for Middle School y it anybody else have any other questions no can I please have a motion to approve the school fees for second Vivan Tiffany Keeter yes hter yes Patterson yes Bennet yes Johnson yes Lions yes anybody have any questions on the January employment recommendations no I please have a motion to approve the January employment recommendations motion second TI Vivian call sorry enters yes Keeter yes Pon yes Bennett yes Lions yes Johnson yes uh we accepted a retirement from Julie verett 10 month secretary effective March 21 2025 we have any public comments anybody have any questions on the four requests anybody have any questions on the monthly reports for the board um this is something we need to talk about the next regularly schedule board meeting will take place on Monday March 10th Mr Gold can't be here do we want to reschedule it or do we want to go ahead and let him pick the assistant super to we're I would stick who says stick with it two we're good we're sticking with it okay is that okay you're up Dr Pitman stay um the one question I had is when I came I meet with Mr Gold before board meetings I got this be for you Mr Cornwell I got cornered by about five students and Mr Summers about calculators in the middle school and they said can we ask the board president about buying more calculators for the news so if it's just something you could look into heard that it's just something you can look into the kids seem really interested about using calculators so wow I don't know if that's something we provide through our bookstore or whatever but um just something to kick around yeah want more newat new or more Kevin they said more more we purchased a lot of the CC they said calculators I wasn't about to question which on I think it's actually pretty funny I will that's pretty good so that's um anybody have anything else all right can I please have a motion to Jour moot second thank you Vivan all in favor

sgle Community Unit School District Board of Education meeting for February 10th 2025 can I have a roll call please Mr Cerone here Mr Gatewood present Miss Johnson present Dr Maria here Mr ploger present Miss similon present Miss venoth present please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge 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 student board members poier president thank you thank you on behalf of the Board of Education I would like to thank you for attending tonight's meeting we value the feedback we receive from our members of the public encourage everyone to take an active interest in their Public School System residents interested in speaking to the Board of Education this evening are asked to have completed a comment card and presented it to the secretary to the board when the secretary calls your name I ask that you come to the microphone state your name for the public record and provide your feedback please note that comments are limited to three minutes per person and no responses to your questions are permitted comments should be asked addressed to the Board of Education as a whole and not be directed to an individual board member audience or staff the Board of Education will not address concerns against individual employees rather a complaint against an employee must be in writing and signed by the person who makes it and the Board of Education will refer any such complaints for appropriate review campaigning or advocating for any candidate is inappropriate during public comment comment should be limited to business before the school district and not political advocacy followup to comments and and your questions and concerns will be addressed by Administration through the contact information provided on the comment card thank you Megan hon hello um I'm Megan hon and I'm currently A J Junior here at OE um I would like to talk about why I believe our school district should approve flag football as an ihsa sport um making flag football in ihsa sport would allow our schools clubs to become full teams um as teams we would be competing against other high school teams um flag football has become more popular and growing in high schools and colleges and it still continues to grow I have always wanted to play football I've grown up watching it playing with my parents but I but they would not let me play tackle because I had some knee issues when I came to high school I was very excited to play Powderpuff I have played my past 3 years here at the beginning of the school year when I found out that as we go had a flag football club I wonder why my school didn't have one about a week later my school announced that it was going to have a flag football club I went to almost all the practices and had a lot of fun especially when we scrimmaged OE would have the freshman sophomore team scrimmage the junior senior teams and then we also played two scrimmages against as weo there were a lot of girls who came out to the practices and games and shows so much interest which made it in a a really amazing experience I believe in athletics for everyone and this is a chance to give more students options to be athletes team members and competitors I also play high school and travel softball my softball coaches have seen improvements in my throwing from playing flag football there are reports that throwing football is increased throwing velocity um there there was a commercial yesterday during the Super Bowl um about making flag football of our city sport across all 50 states and it sounds like a good idea to me and I hope you agree thank you for listening thank you thank you Don Marquee you're going to have to bear with me because I forgot my glasses I'm too old to do that but my name is D Marquee and as a concerned parent and taxpayer in our district I find the recent Trends in the educational spending and student performance alarming my daughter actually just recently graduated so both my children graduated from AO 308 the numbers speak for themselves highlighting the trou troubling disconnect between our investment in education and the outcome that we see I know this cuz my daughter just went to college over the past four years spending per student has increased significantly rising from $2,810 in 2021 to $1 155,156 in 2024 this is an increase of 18% per student however despite the investment we see concerning downgrades in SAT scores particularly math where the scores have dropped from 50501 in 2021 to a troubling 476 in 2024 the language art scores are similarly declining from 510 in 2021 to 419 in 2024 this indicates not only that we're investing money in our educational system but we're not seeing the expected returns from the students as a taxpayer I'm deeply concerned with the efficiency of our spending it is essential that we incre increase the fundings to translate and improve our educational outcome the current data confirms that this is not happening as a parent I worry about the implications on our children's future are we adequately preparing them for Success are our resources yielding better results it is crucial that our district address these issues headon we need transparency and accountability and our funds and allocated how they're spent additionally we must explore new strategies to enhance our student learning and performance our children deserve the best education we can provide as our community and we need to advocate for Meaningful change let's come together and figure out where our money is going thank you Kelly badoni my daughter attends Boulder Hill and is in the Dual language kindergarten class with Mrs Matas she is our oldest and honestly she loves going to school and adors her teacher as do we however it is becoming more and more apparent to us there is something not right happening in class my daughter has been coming home for months telling me how other students yell at the teacher throw things and are disruptive students try or do turn over tables when they're angry throw things that other students and the teacher yell at the teacher she hides under the table so she doesn't get hurt by her classmates because they're not able to control their anger or Outburst how she and the other students have to evacuate the classroom until these classmates can be calmed down or taken from class how she is afraid of one of her classmates who often has these out bur She was recently moved to another table away from him she told me she's happy because now she does not have to sit next to him and doesn't need to be so afraid what is honestly also disturbing to me is how she tells me these things like this is normal behavior in kindergarten I've heard stories about her classmates being stabbed with pencils students throwing chairs at other kids and did chairs make contact with these kindergarteners injuring them my daughter came home on January 29th telling me that a student injured her teacher in front of the entire class I as a parent was informed about this by my 5-year-old not notified officially by the school I wrote about these concerns to the School in the district the next day asking where the support is for these kids who are having these outbursts asking what's being done to protect the other kids and the staff in the classroom now less than one week later on February 5th I got a phone call from the principal Miss Jones telling me that it was finally my daughter who was injured by an outburst from an unregulated student my daughter was hit in the face by a pencil case that was thrown at her my daughter also told me other kids in the class are using language to scream at the teacher saying shut up and shut the up we do not use this language in our household and now my daughter is coming home saying these things are being said and she's learning them from her kindergarten class in the past 6 days there have been at least six evacuations for kids in this classroom including two evacuations in one day how in the world are other children in the class supposed to get back to class and focus on learning like this I've heard it mentioned one goal for kids at Boulder Hill is to be resilient I would agree I want my daughter and other kids to have the skill but should they have the skill at the ages of five and six in kindergarten after so many months of these evacuations they think this is normal because they experience it happening day after day in their first year of school this is not normal nor should we as parents the school or the district allow it to be so something has to change we just celebrated the 100 days of school this means there have been 100 days to take action for the school and the district and support the staff in this classroom whatever's been happening is not working because nothing is changing as I said there was another evacuation today students were throwing things at least three children have been injured Miss Matas was injured again we as parents were not notified about the teacher getting injured in front of our children by the school another mom in the classroom wanted me to share her story too her daughter was repeatedly targeted by one child in the class she was hit pushed pushed down to the ground and S out to be hit had a hand shoved into her mouth skirt ripped and was subject to a lot of verbal bullying her action her actions got the classroom a full-time aid but she was not successful in her attempts to get a third dual language teacher for Boulder Hill I found this interesting since in May last year I was told there would be at least three kindergarten dual language classes she was not able to save her daughter from the bully after multiple attempts at working with the school in District she finally got her daughter from the class pulled her daughter from the class A few weeks ago is this what we all need to do to keep our kids safe in this classroom what are the consequences and actions when these unregulated children are repeatedly violent or screaming at their teachers using inappropriate language please let me stress we do not blame or fault Miss Matas in the least for any of this we think she's a wonderful teacher who's doing her absolute best in this environment it seems to me there is a huge gap in what the school is aiming to do to educate our kids and keep them safe versus what is actually being done action must be taken now we have to make this a safe place for our kids please please get Boulder Hill the resources or ability to make this happen I do not want my daughter or anyone else to be more collat damage on the way to getting this resolved we need action now please step up and make this a safe classroom thank you thank you Sam Chavez no micone yes yes it's for people online girl okay I'll hold it a little way want to hurt your ears okay let's do this put the timer on we got it hi my name is Samantha I'm also going to piggyback on with that my daughter is in kindergarten with the best teacher Miss Matos and she finds it totally normal that she successfully dodged a chair that was aimed at her by the same child she also was successful in dodging multiple attacks throughout the school year this is this is normal I don't hear about it directly it's totally normal for us be evacuated multiple times a day because another child's having outbursts I don't think I've seen a project that she has worked on because the same individual has trashed her desk and stomped on her artwork so I don't get those things sent home very often which makes her very sad she works really hard on them she loves arts and crafts I got a phone call at the beginning of the year same kid smashed her fingers just stomped on them music class no reason couldn't tell me anything else other than that sorry I'm frustrated and just um multiple incidences then you know I find that other things are happening no emails no phone calls I didn't know that the class was regularly evacuating for the longest until I decided to ask her because they happened the beginning of the year and then I didn't hear anything about it because it's normal it's normal to dodge pencils it's normal to make sure that you kind of hover over your stuff on your desk it's normal to keep an eye and keep track on certain kids where they are in the classroom um she was crying cuz her best friend transferred to another school which is piggyback onto that you know mom's story like it's just sorry I'm again shaking it crazy um the lack of communication the lack of support for this child or any other children in there this should not be normal I mean there's constant violence in the classroom I don't know how she's learning and I don't know how she's thriving in it it's it's really sad because this teacher is incredible she's not getting the support she needs and we're not getting the information we need to help in the best way we can we would love to volunteer we would love to come with different Outlets to help but we don't know what's going on we literally have to hear from other parents and and reach out ourselves like we all found out the evacuation through each other because you know verifying hey my son my daughter said you know they were on the hallway because the room got trashed oh yep mine mine said that yep mine said that mine said that so we do talk and make sure that the story is align of what's going on and it's totally normal oh yeah know Miss Matos the the kid grabbed a big gigantic candy cane she don't know what it's called and whacked her in the finger she never came back she had to go to the nurse she left like totally normal to attack the teacher it's ridiculous it's crazy and lack of communication's probably the most frustrating on top of it something needs to be done we got to protect our children it's a great program it's a great school you have great teachers they're not getting supported we're not getting supported all I ask some action to be taken some investigation to be taken please thank you thank you Daniel Laos good evening good evening I'm going to read a prepared statement how are the children if you were to pose this question to Mrs Jones principal of Boulder Hill Elementary she might respond as she did to me I know the children are in danger this was her chilling admission when I asked what was being done to protect my daughter and here is a record of what's happened to her the injuries that she has suffered on September 10th she was pushed to the ground twice September 12th 2 days later she was scratched in the legs December 10th she tripped and fell January 22nd she was stabbed in the neck with a pencil January 23rd the very following day she was struck on the leg with a thrown chair and today today I had to go back to the school because the same child hit her on the arm with a th with a pencil box now let me focus on the incident on January 22nd on that day Mrs cure the assistant principal contacted my wife and I to inform us that my daughter had been stabbed in the neck with a pencil but as it turns out that was not accurate the truth is that my daughter my daughter relay to us was that the student threw a tantrum and hurled objects indiscriminately and a pencil hit her on the chin I was misled uh by this phone call um the facts were not straight and this is showing an escalation of behavior by this child oh and and furthermore we did not receive a phone call I was told that that was protocol that the parents are supposed to to be informed when a child is injured we did not receive a phone call so that very same day I spoke with Mrs Jones and it was acknowledged that the child that and that is when she acknowledged that the children in that classroom were in danger she assured me that she had increased staff presence to mitigate the risks but these half measures have failed repeatedly today I had to pick up my daughter again the same boy in another fit of rage through a container of pencils again my daughter was an innocent bystander again the school failed to properly account for what happened today it was Mr meismer assistant principal who called to tell me that my daughter was struck in the head with a pencil box later my daughter told me that it was not her head that was struck but her arm they're not giving me the the correct information and Mr mmer gave me the impression that he really didn't care for my presence that day he was annoyed and bothered by my concern let me be absolutely clear my daughter is not receiving an education at B Hill Elementary she is receiving an indoctrination in fear she is learning to hide under her desk she is learning to evacuate her classroom she is learning learning to endure harm to justify mistreatment to suppress her fears and to comply with violence she's learning to be a victim the children are in danger Mrs Jones the principal demonstrates an appalling lack of leadership through this failure she has become a willful enabler of dangerous Behavior her lack of decisive action is the reason our children have to endure perilous days in kindergarten in kindergarten a failure of this magnitude is an embarrassment to our district the children are end danger Mrs Jones has failed us all including and especially the children causing these injuries they're not to be blamed the blame Falls squarely on the administration on Mrs Jones and by extend mentioned those beneath her Mrs cure and Mr meismer thank you for your the children are in danger thank you I know that tolerating inexcusable behavior is a standard at Boulder Hill Elementary but what will be revealed today is if that is also the standard for the fine people here this evening thank you our children are in danger Jordan jeffre how we doing everybody my name is Jordan Jeff um I'm just going to piggyback a little bit off of what's already been said uh my daughter uh is a student at Boulder Hill Elementary she is in Senora mat's class which which she loves dearly um but unfortunately I have to sit up here and look at you all and say that my daughter is not being protected at this moment um I do not feel comfortable taking her to school I do not feel comfortable leaving her in the care of other people um it honestly makes me question the whole education system now I know a lot of the people here that work for the educational system feel that they are doing a great job and there are plenty of you that are doing a great job but the fact that is that we've got this many people sitting here trying to defend their children and that's appalling it's honestly ridiculous and we shouldn't even be here right now because we're talking about children and I've got a list here from 2024 into 2025 of my 5-year-old stabbed in the chest punched in the shoulder kicked in the chest slapped in the face nurse called and giving wrong information on what's Happening unfortunately her mother and I we are we are separated but we are united front now there are plenty of times where she's getting information that I not getting and I'm relying on her to relay that information to me and that's after going to numerous staff members and telling them I need information as well because there doesn't need to be all of this miscommunication and now that we're talking with other parents we're starting to see that some of this miscommunication seems to be deliberate and that's not good um even today we had another outburst another set of things that happened and another set of information that's being spread from parent to parent trying to figure out what is going on um it's it's infuriating to be honest I I don't know what else to do other than to literally take my daughter out of school and homeschooler and that's what I want to do personally but at the same time there's trust in Educators there's trust in the plan trust in what you people do every day I get that but her safety cannot come second and that's period that's for everybody else that's sitting here the kids have to come first so you can see I've got my Boulder Hill watch dog sweater on because every once a month on a Friday we get to go in as dads and we get to be that additional resource we get to go in the classrooms we get to say hey teachers what do you need is it mixing glue is it cutting things out or is it going over and taking care of the student and letting him know that he's cared for that he's loved that you can take some time and we're going to we going to attend to you like a father would right like a parent and if this is something that needs to happen every single day in Boulder Hill then that's something that needs to be in place and there's plenty of dads there's plenty of watch moms out here that want to be a part of this and they want to be in their kids lives they want to be a resource so I I don't want to hear about 60 90 days in order to get this and that and that and that I I I'm done with all that I know you guys have rules that you have to follow I am a father and that comes first you must protect my child or else we're going to start talking about some different things here and that's that's all that it has to be so I appreciate your time thank you thank you thank you Alexis ch okay [Music] so for those who have not met me nor spoken with me I will introduce myself I am Victoria Jeff's mom my name is Alexis jeffre she is a kindergarten student at Senora mat's class in Boulder Hill I was also a student and graduate of um Migo School District 308 aside from being a student I have multiple family members who have worked within the district along with previous superintendents I was proud to be a part of this community furthermore I am writing this email to come to a resolution to find some support for Sen matus and her students um to find just you know a little bit more support below are the incidents that have occurred with our daughter just in November she was stabbed in the chest with a pencil punched in the shoulder twice kicked in the chest and face slapped in the face the nurse had called me that my daughter was in um crashed into a kid hit her head and that she was hearing ringing in her ears so that I had to come pick her up upon arriving in the office I was um Bamboozled I will be quite honest by um assistant principal Miss Kerr basically encouraging me and trying to tell me that um my daughter was going to be the um the V she wasn't the victim that she was the aggressor and I'm like what are you talking about I heard that she just crashed into somebody um now my daughter has a scar in her ear there was two fights that happened um at recess and she was just shooted away when she was told to you know ask for help for one of the crossw Walkers basically I was was told you know I just want to let you know what happened before you decide to seek medical treatment with one is illegal um and it's just unethical moving forward my daughter was denied acccess to using the restroom by two staff members my daughter's five see something say something that's what we all say Mr meismer was great and did reach out to Jordan and I though about this and he's been in contact with this throughout this um the Miss Jones unfortunately she did explain that principles you know don't deal with this but it's after all this and I will continue my daughter was hit in the face with a Play-Doh cup with Play-Doh in it elbowed in the chest pulled down by her neck twice tripped over a student last week there was five evacuations in the classroom two in one day today there was another there's Holden Place drills where the children are held and told to hide under the desk and then there's the evacuation drills with an emergency bin where the students are taken out of the classroom um I will be running out of time but if you guys would like I can forward my email but basically everything is within the handbook that these children aren't learning um this isn't normal environment and everything that's in your guys's handbook is not happening in this classroom nor in the um in and this is not only it's for Miss Doom's class other students are being affected and it just these kids aren't learning they're emotionally and physically being injured and that's just not what we need we don't need 5-year-olds you know coming home like this our daughter has a scar in her ear has been having nightmares and urinating herself in class also at home because of all these situations and she's afraid to go to school so thank you thank you thank you I know I'm not supposed to do this but that event that she talked or when she said that uh our daughter was denied access to the bathroom it was during the pickup line so she was in the car going to pick up our daughter and our daughter was standing outside it was about 10° outside and she was refused access by the staff member outside and the staff member inside to go inside and use the bathroom my daughter ended up urinating on herself in 10° weather outside in front of everybody so it wasn't just a refusal of the bathroom it was much more than that so thank you thank you Michelle Trager hi Michelle Trager four kids in the district um I I wanted to this is related to Boulder Hill um but what my request is is that you fix NextGen it needs to be tweaked so at the beginning of the year at a bpack meeting an assistant superintendent said yes NextGen um does cover social work and related Services you have a TA at Boulder Hill who has an MSW but not the school certification part so she asked about NextGen um um she had a meeting set up a virtual meeting with someone from HR that Boulder Hill gave her time off her ta duties to take the HR person didn't show up the HR person didn't respond to emails to follow up from this ta either when this ta had a conversation with an admin at HR she was told oh no the grant wasn't written to include social work so my question is the grant wasn't written to include social work is that because of the parameters of the grant if that's the case then please find another way immediately for us to take somebody who's at Boulder Hill which needs the support is it going to happen instantly no but we can at least you know you guys are having your three to five year initiatives like you can get this started and on the way if it's within the parameters of the Grant and it was just an oversight then why was it an oversight and can we please fix it right away you're hearing all these stories about lack of support now you might say oh the social work positions at Boulder Hill are filled right now but they're not filled by social workers not all of them some of them are filled by school counselors school counselors cannot provide this the legally mandated Social Work minutes on a student's IEP so if you don't have the people to provide those minutes we are in violation of those IEPs only School social workers can do the Social Development studies that are necessary on case studies for IEP I don't have any idea if there are any students in active case studies right now at Boulder Hill I the number should not be zero because we're also Bound by child find which means that we should be identifying students and evaluating them to see if they need services so that's what I'm that's what I'm asking uh advocating for Boulder Hill as always I will say uh my daughter is in an older grade at the Dual language Pro program so she hasn't had these incidents but I just want you to know this isn't the first stop that these parents have made coming here tonight I've seen them at the parent focus group meetings at Boulder Hill they have tried they have been very patient at the expense of their kids possibly so please fix NextGen and do what you can to to support Boulder Hill better thank you thank you thank you right uh good evening uh board this evening we are going we have invited members of the OA to join us in the approval of the agreement with the asgo education support Prof professionals and I'm going to turn it over to Dr zmy well good evening everybody thank you very much for uh your time um I'm very excited I'm very excited uh tonight to bring up our members of our executive board for oesa so if U miss Lynn and Miss Nikki can you come on up to the to the podium please excellent thank you so uh along with their wonderful executive board um I would like to present tonight to our Board of Education um a fiveyear contract for your consideration uh we just recently had a ratification um I'd like to thank uh Mr obafemi and our finance team um led by Mr obafemi and Miss satar uh along with a number of folks within human resourc sources to help negotiate um but I'll turn it over to you two so you can tell a little bit about your journey and just uh be here for just a a brief moment hello good even for those that um do not know me my name is Lyn W I am the President of the OA uh Union and then with us we have some of our members that were on our negotiating team if they could [Music] stand thank you our board consisted of a lot of um I'm a special education secretary at ASO high school I'm the register at ASO high school and we have multiple secretaries we have our Tech Representatives everyone was very well represented on our uh bargaining team um also on behalf of the Union I'd like to thank our negotiating team for sharing your side um and respectable dialogue that we all had with uh all of our articles that were presented um from both sides uh we're continuing on a positive path of our support staff being recognized um by you all as an integral part of the SD 308 educational um family that we're putting together as a community and not we're starting to come together we're seeing it as a whole unit collaboration working together um because of the ratified contract that we are currently in this school year we were able to reduce almost 90 contracted teacher assistance that we had last year in our district that we have hired this year um that are our own staff for this school year and we're continuing to get applications throughout the year I just received three for our building last week so the Contin is working um our plan is working and it's becoming more positive um with the new contract that we'll be getting this fall um we know that we will be able to reduce now our nursing contracts um that we have this current school year to reduce it our our goal is zero um for next year um we continue to work with our mission statement of our recruiting retaining and rewarding our staff in the district um and then finally to the board members Jen Lata Jared and Eugene we want to thank you for all of your dedication that you had with us um while you were here and your support we wish you all the best in the future to those of you who are stuck with us Dominic bar Joe Amy thank you for your continued support we continue to look forward to um working together and coming together on our future and our newest strategic plan that we're working on with the district as well um we know that the road is not been easy as we've heard with our uh teacher assistant and the support staff in the district over the last few years there's still some bumps um but knowing that we can collaborate together uh and come to a positive solution and have positive conversations and um things are going to change and we look forward to that and making a difference thank you thank you thank you very much you with with that we would love to hear a motion uh would love to make a motion to approve the professional agreement with the asigo education support professionals Association second I do have can I am allowed to say something I just want to say this um thank you for all that you do first of all I mean I I I've spoken with so many of of you over the years and I I cannot thank you enough for all that you do um I also though want to thank um um those who you in our finances who have who have worked diligently I can tell you that they have worked hard because they're aware and uh when people want to talk about like the the money piece and all that I I I would I would challenge people to go to other districts uh that do not do five-year projections and so forth we we do pretty well with with what we can and this is a testament to some of the struggles that we have knowing we have those contracted employees we're all aware and I cannot thank you and enough for all that you've done to work with us through this um and um I I hope you know how valued you are you're correct we we hear stories and and we are fully aware and and thank you for weathering through all those things that we've weathered through and and uh please know that we care and and you're all appreciated so much thank you very much you yeah and I and I think you I I think that kind of represents I don't want to speak for everybody else but I think that kind of represents how the rest of us too I mean we could not function without you thank you thank you so much and thank you for going through this process and reducing by 90 contracted Tas that's amazing well that was a kind of a two steps like last year and then this year and um so that's a big number it should should get better yep even so um yeah we appreciate the win-win and you thank you that you done what a change great okay Miss similon hi Miss vmou hi Mr bloger hi Dr Mario I Miss Johnson I Mr Cerone hi Mr Gatewood hi motion passes 70 okay now we'll have a presentation from the air mark uh an update from aark thank you board um Aramark is here to kind of give an update and go over the second chance breakfast as well as some increases in participation in the Food Service program good evening thank you for having us um we just wanted to kind of go over our updates um that we've had in the last couple of months um we started our Second Chance breakfast pilot at Church Hill Elementary um in October and participation as our bar graph shows um participation in the cafe is in blue participation in our Second Chance breakfast cart is in Orange um month over month we've exceeded we've um exceeded goals there about 300% participation more in the cart versus Cafe 263 per in November and so forth um we have principal merits here from Churchill Elementary who just want UHD like to say a couple of things about the breakfast cart and what it's brought to Churchill Kelly thank you good evening um I'm really proud to be here tonight to talk about our Second Chance breakfast we launched this on October 1st and we really wanted to make sure that no student started the day hungry um we served an average of 25 bre breakfast and since launching that almost tripled our numbers in what we serve every single day I think we've seen the impact in fewer crisis calls meaning once students have their basic needs met we're not hungry and we're ready to learn so we're taking away that barrier we see increased focus and engagement they're super excited to go out there grab their breakfast go back into class and be able to be with their friends and have that snack time too if they need it there's been really minimal operational concerns we've had um a few you know spills of course especially in the younger grades but they're very easy to clean up um seamless execution I think it kind of goes all through our three pillars that we've been talking about effective systems and teams Aramark worked with me really closely to make sure that they were there to support including the scanning and so it's really been quick quiet clean back to class for learning I think high quality instruction comes back because I'm not hungry I can focus my brain can develop and those neurons can go together to make sure that I'm retaining the information and again it's really more than just a breakfast cart it's Equity student well-being and really building a stronger School community so I'm really proud of it and I think it's been a huge success at Church Hill thanks Kelly for all your support so we've also with um Kelly's support we've um done a survey to the other principles um regarding uh whether or not they'd like to launch a cart as well um we've had some uh reaching out from the other other elementaries um we have three other schools that would like to um pursue that as well so we're in the midst of connecting with them about um launching that as well um during that time we've also um implemented a breakfast uh cart in the hallway during breakfast at a e go high school um so the students have another point of food access during the day um just because the cafeteria is on the other side of the building a lot of kids are migrating towards the Dean's office so they have access point to the food that they would have in the cafe there again minimal spills principal Grace was great about allowing us to launch that there um so we're excited about that um again Boulder Hill is one of the elementaries that would like to go ahead and do the second chance so that any late arrivals have um access to food and snacks as they need so um and there's another three there as well um for our high school um at the end of January we did our um Grand Opening of our rally Cafe um this is the second Cafe we have in the district for uh the grand opening and aso's uh School District was the first in Illinois to launch our rally Cafe and it's really about school spirit um made to order bars our rotating Test Kitchen and lots of grab and go options so it was a great day there those are some of the um pictures um from the grand opening all right so now we would like to introduce to everybody the new popup rotation or station that Junior High School I think they are so ready for a uh steer fry bar steer fry bar Ramen Bowl Panini bar and smoothie so actually uh tomorrow we're starting it off with a stir fry bar at uh Cho junior high school and that's going to be happening uh towards the end of the week hopefully we're not going to be having snow days cuz I'm looking uh really looking forward to that um we also partnership with our um um vendor and partner riches um and we did a lot of sampling lately with uh within uh high schools uh junior high schools and elementaries and here just a couple pictures just to celebrate and U uh introdu new pizza crust introducing new breakfast items uh it's like a healthier version of the double chocolate donut Donuts so it's like you know less sugar less fats and all that good stuff but it's still delicious so um yeah that's coming up soon on the menus as well for breakfast um at elementary schools we did celebrate a hot chocolate day I hope you guys heard about it already it was a huge hit um we did send a flyers to all of the principals and they were so receptive um they did send out to the families and um hot coca day just generated 269 additional meals for breakfast which is just a great a huge huge thing to achieve so thank you for that um and then we just um as we said we're going to be focusing also on capturing feedback from uh students parents principls uh we did send out surveys and um out of all the principles we have uh 43% of schools responded um 88% U of them were um happy with uh with the uh results and how we do service there um and 80% recommended us being um their vendor for the school as far as students feedback um mostly I've been going through the junior high schools um and getting responses what you they looking for what manyu items they are um um they looking for and that's why we introducing those Chef popups I think they're so ready for something else and something more um however about 80% of students said that they are satisfied with their meal at school so that was a huge win as well um and overwhel Patty if you would like to yep so just to wrap up participation this year um this school Year's numbers are on Blue for the bar graphs and oranges last year so comparison to um last year over this year um we're ahead this year um we've had an increase in breakfast meals you can see and um lunch meals as well so um overall um we've got about a 3% increase in meals and about 233 meals per service day um more so we're looking forward to introducing more things for the students to try um in addition to the limited time offers like Chef Natalia was uh saying our rotating Chef popup bars um we're looking for that to be a big hit as well at the junior high level and thank you very much oh questions yeah um the second chance meal I saw looking at Boulder Hill um when are you so um is that for next year principal no principal Jones reached out and she said that she was going to be talking with her Administration about um implementing that and where she would like it so as soon as that's finalized um we have in the work Works a person to prepare those bags and we'll find uh the labor to what time she wants it running okay the school yeah last time I had the concern for the kids that tend to show up a little bit late um you know because the buses and correct Boulder Hill is quite large with a lot of busing um so and probably and then they have a large number of free and reduced lunch as well so um so just we definitely want to make sure we capture all of the students doesn't matter who as long as they're late you know they can come in at whatever time we're just trying to uh figure out a time when that would work best for the school and then the other thing I'm I'm still hearing some issues at Boulder Hill okay um milk delivery I don't delivery I'm getting nods heads delivery [Music] oh okay yeah I I yeah I just heard there was shortage of milk a lot of days so um those were my only I just want to make sure you know our kids are are getting fed you know we're not missing the kids that are showing up late not not by their fault you know SOC any of the late arrivals and we've tried to go to the offices as well any of the students that have late arrivals they're great about riding down like lunch Choice might be but if they're hungry please send them down we can get them a breakfast meal as well but this way it's a little bit more organized the way we've done it at Churchill it kind of also second like little snack program march on in and right back kind of like getting your head behind you it's worked really well so we're hoping to model that again the other I'm excited okay so iead okay sorry um so will this eventually be districtwide we would love for that to District okay that's my question I'm wondering who makes that decision yeah is it just about principles reaching out cuz through the lens of equity we want to make sure that all of our students have an opportunity to have that second chance at a breakfast if they don't get it if they get late but so what are the requirements or stipulations to get a cart just everybody's if they want it we can do it and we just need to get the labor piece there and we have extra carts in the district that we had ordered during Co so it would just be a matter of puring more equipment a lot of the constraint that been is because the district is carpeted and the spills but what we found at Churchill it's been very minimal as far as like the garbage and that so okay I think that's something I would be interested invest in researching get everywhere our kids well absolutely I mean I think so one of the things that I would recommend and I know with Amanda I think it would be important to look at the numbers and then to examine where there's a need and to ensure that we are I'm sure many of our schools would appreciate appreciate this kind of support so it would be great to see a follow-up report come to the board about some of the considerations and the criteria establish what could be some criteria to then determine where there is receptivity the right the Staffing and also the need and in order to support our students so we definitely want to go beyond you know um we appreciate the the collaboration and we'll call it a pilot right and so you've piloted this program and I'm hearing from board members the the interest to move forward so let's let's look into it further and so thank you you Amanda y go ahead yeah I just have oh no I just did you go no oh wasad okay um my only question was what are the setbacks that you're facing with this second chance meal because I know I raised a few questions at the last time we had this conversation so I just want to know what the setbacks are that you're experiencing you got to use the microphone sorry um a lot of it has been garbage and positioning of where it is we do need to get some Wi-Fi points in some of the buildings like asgo high school does have Wi-Fi outside and across from the dean area that captures to the dedicated pushcoin terminals um we do need to for Churchill because they have a smaller participation in the cafeteria we're able to mark off on the roster book who already purchased breakfast so it's not a duplicate um so we just go with a binder for the larger schools for participation we actually need the pushcoin terminals to to go ahead and do that for the point of sale to go through um I would say that um garbage and storage in some of the um locations like Boulder Hill has storage constraints we need um more refrigeration and things like that for their location um for the larger larger population smaller kitchens go ahead just have two questions they're both on the finance side and I imagine one you will be able to answer and one might be for you so um by the way anybody's ever interested there's a nice little inflation calculator on the EUR us Bureau of Labor Statistics and if you just as an example if you put $12,000 uhar on January 1st 2019 that's the equivalent of $115,000 today which means 12,000 and 2019 is the same as 15,000 today for your purchasing power I'm curious if you've uh how much um like hiring and and some of those pieces as far as labor market inflation has that affected anything on your end as far as rolling out or not really not really it's just been a matter of at the elementary the time frame between when school starts and when their first lunches start is kind of the kind of tricky sweet spot to you've caught about two hours so trying to find the best time in order to get that done okay and I guess uh this might and you might not be able to answer this Mr OB I mean if not no big deal or somebody from your team but uh I'm curious if uh we do lose Federal funding is it going to be problematic for us to to continue programs like this or you would you have to look into it more yes it will but I don't anticipate that we will lose funding for that uh the the funding for this comes from the US Department of Agriculture good not the US Department of Education that's number one number two they actually more States uh who are not as financially well off as Illinois would depend really really strongly on the national school launch program so because of those reasons I don't anticipate that it will be a problem that we have to wrestle always proud to live in Illinois I love State been here my whole life and go back six Generations I love it thank you okay is that it thank you thank you so much thank you so much yeah and by the way we promis the board this will be done quarterly this is Q2 so they'll be back again in three months for Q3 thank you and then in June they will do their final presentation at the end of uh for Q4 excuse me and we have one question from uh Miss Johnson on the line who Miss Johnson oh Jen sorry Jen go ahead go ahead Jen um I just wonder what the protocol is or what the rules are for say if a student drops their lunch what what is the protocol for what happens drops their lunch they drop they drop on the floor oh okay the student comes back into the cafeteria and the server ends up replacing the meal okay I've heard a lot of issues happening over at Prairie Point um regarding this um from um adults not from students so if you could look into that over there I would greatly appreciate it absolutely thank you for bringing it to our attention thank you Jen okay thank you again you all okay okay uh board this evening I'm going to invite Dr dubiel to talk and share information about some of the work that's been happening to really strengthen and address some outstanding concerns and work that needed to be done in the area of uh um our special education program and also in terms of our the diverse Learners task force specifically and so I want to thank you Dr dubiel okay um good evening board so this evening I'm going to provide an overview of the two diverse Learners task force that we initiated this year so I am going to provide an overview and give you you an update on those task force the two task force that we initiated this year was a multilingual task force and a special education taskforce the multilingual task force was charged with identifying one program that they believe needed specific attention during school year 2526 to be clear this does not mean all of our multilingual programs do not need attention it will very much be tied to the three-year strategic plan but a program in the multilingual Department that they felt needed particularly attention to there are three programs in multilingual and the individuals that were part of this conversation were District staff building staff and teachers that were appointed by the OA for special education similar structure where those individuals were tasked to identify up to three programs there are over 12 in special education that needed specific attention for them to uh for implementation in 2526 again that does not leave the nine remaining task uh special education programs to be disregarded but what they believe needed um specific attention um again that included members that were identified by the oea district admin and school building leaders the timeline of the task force for the this year had three phases and it will continue um into the next year so the task force came together for the first time in November and December I will speak to the process that that involved phase two is the analysis we are currently um in phase three well a little bit of phase two and phase three we're in approval stages so we're rating for on approval so we're having a lot of conversations about the financial impact for some of the recommendations that came from the task force um there will be adoptions and accommodations and um changes to the recommendations if it's going to impact fin finances or another Avenue that we just may not have the resources at the that time phase three is then the implementation and then phase four and five will be the progress monitoring and the continuous Improvement for phase one what that included is working with the task force to realign our work with the six building blocks you will remember our consultants and cummings Bogan with AC ACB Consulting um allows us to utilize her framework because those attributes lift up common vision of Excellence responsive strategies and areas such as datadriven decision making with working with the group we also emphasize the criticalness of a seven-point decision-making Continuum making sure that the individuals in the space realized this was not a my decision a you decision but an our decision finally we utilized a tro and that's the name of a company that utilizes a number of different decision-making protocols and we landed on the scan decision-making protocol and what scan stands for is where the individuals in the space could identify the issues be clear on the issues ask questions regarding the issues that could be impacting those programs assess the priorities and identify next steps so all the team had was all the information in front of them regarding all the programs and they identified the program again that they believe needed immediate attention in 2526 that immediate attention could range greatly in this work we emphasized and founded our work in the three foundational practice of effective systems and teams high quality instruction equity and rightful presence an example of the effective systems and teams that we lifted was ensuring that there was collaboration again Union Partners all the individuals all the teachers on the task for Force were identified by the union and we built capacity one of the things we learned is that there was some gaps in some of the awareness surrounding the program so we took some time to build everybody's capacity on it so that when we get further into the discussion during phase two they felt well versed on the programs for phase two of the analysis after we conducted our scan after we um verified that there was a Continuum of seven points and we lifted the ACB ACB blocks of the six building blocks of decision-making then we delve deep into some quantitative and qualitative data that data included student enrollment the students who were in The their home school or not in their home school but they were in a program that could have been far away or close to their home school the transportation Logistics and information academic data such as access scores and curriculum or an absence of perhaps some curriculum the qualitative involved some teacher administrator feedback there was a lot of feedback that was taken from the group based on their known experiences with students and families as mentioned the high quality instruction that was lifted in the phase two was going into a deeper dive to the quantitative and qualitative information there was also a lot a lot of hours weekends lots of hours I can't emphasize that enough behind the scenes information of just Gathering years of data um phase three and that's where we are at right now so now that the task force are done and have made their recommendation it sits with a variety of teams to analyze what can be realized so there may be some adoptions there may be some adjustments to the plan there's a lot of conversations that are happening in small groups with principles as well as oneto one with principles so that they get a sense of how their building may or may not be impacted with some of the program shifts that occur and then once those adjustments it made we would execute the plan this is where our equity and rightful presence is absolutely highlighted if and when the plan is that is recommended is approved um there will be a lot of moving parts to ensure that the work that we do is absolutely aligned with best practices everything from resource mindsets to program structures ensuring that our needs are never compromised of our students making sure we're having conversations and supports in place again working with our Union partners for Staffing and then thinking about the nuances of the facility and curricular needs because as you could imagine if we're discussing program changes we need to have a conversation about what that means with the facility so this is very much a cross collect collaborative conversation that has occurred with multiple departments including Transportation operations lni um equity and engagement all the building leaders and again our Union and partners questions thank you Dr dual so I just want to First reiterate I think one of the things that tonight's purpose was really to give you uh sense Board of the process that we're engaging um you will be hearing uh within the next couple months some of the additional now specific recommendations but I thought it was important for the board to hear tonight some of the process of what's gone in to thinking about the challenges that we are facing in our various diverse learning programs and to ensure that that's aligned um I I'll lead off in terms of questions Dr can you talk a little bit about how this is connected with the strategic planning process and how those two are complimentary and then I'll open up for the board yep so as um alluded to earlier with multilingual there was one program out of three that was identified and with special education three of the 12 what we anticipate in the next threeyear strategic plan is looking more deeply into all of the programs the purpose of this task force was to identify a program that the team felt needed immediate attention Dr dubiel thank you very much for your presentation can you let me know if BAC and epic were involved in these discussions so one of the things that we did is ensure that no they were not so one of the things that we did was ensure that our Union Partners were but what we anticipate first of all we're very much in phase three so that's where the accommodations and adoption pieces would be it would be very difficult to bring it to a group where we don't know quite yet what is being recommended so we're very much we're very much in limbo to see if now what's recommended recommended is actually feasible once and we've like just today we made more adjustments um based on some uh building leadership feedback once we have a sense of what is going to happen yes we anticipate that there'll be an opportunity for some informational um send out to the different uh parent groups okay I think their feedback would be incredibly uh helpful and supportive um moving forward so thank you okay other questions for I just wanted to inquire a little bit about because you had mentioned you know all the hours weekend like all the data that goes and I appreciate the the quantitative and qualitative piece uh both of those being there I think they're very important um I'm just wondering I'm thinking of um another conversation that I heard about data uh and how easily accessible it is in regards to being able to pull data for items like this is there seems like there's enough data but are there areas of growth in regards to what we could support as a board in regards to platforms that would do some of that data pulling for us and make this system or this process more um like agile yeah and I think we're having conversations at the senior leadership level to talk about some of the data uh platforms that we have we know we're examining one in part well we may be examining a particular but this one particular that we know needs a refresh and a reboot so I do think um it would be something that would be advantageous for the district to have a more friendly user friendly and we are having those conversations of what that could look like something to come in the future yeah thank you yeah and I would say that we leaned in a lot in these initial these are these committees that you're talking about many of them are union leg and so this initial phase is really that review the parent component was extremely instrumental in our strategic planning process and so those two to your question Miss Johnson will become very evident in terms of the feedback we've received through the strategic planning process as well as we did do a lot of work around um when Dr duel came in meeting with parents throughout her entry plan so in her entry plan she met with a number of parent groups um including epic and so there was a lot of feedback about significant challenges that we are facing and I've met with um a number of those groups as well um particularly with individuals from those groups and so there are some very true um tried and true challenges that are longstanding and a lot of those are a part of the work that we are working to develop a very coherent and methodical plan to ensure that we can get to the other side of this and I think one of the things that will close with is if you want to talk a little bit about the program descriptors and the win that we have received there that's a first for our district and I think a parent recently said to me that the last time we had program distri was 2015 is what I hear so correct um and I'll just add this piece as well regarding the qualitative part as uh family feedback as mentioned some of the qualitative information was leaning in on our staff and our leadership about what they have experienced and we're talking collectively over a 100 years years of input and we're not saying 100 Years of Staff input but just all the experiences combined we had almost an infinite number of feedback regarding all kinds of plans so um feedback and insight regarding people's trials tribulation celebration regarding all kinds of programs I don't think that there's anything that um would be shared would be S surprising however of course we still welcome that Insight right because there was a lot of information shared that we were aware of that's why we elevated this and we accelerated this rather than wait for the three-year strategic plan we knew that this was a concern both in the multilingual space and in the special education space so rather than wait to 26 27 we wanted to identify at least one program in each department that we could um prioritize right away and you really utilize that as a pilot as a model of what we could do with the additional programs um to speak to the programs and attributes it was clear um that some of the program Des scriptures in special education were not as explicit and it needed to be so um back in the summer we worked with uh several teams to think about ways we can provide more description about each program so in that work we included different attributes so not only described a program but what are the different attributes of a program those attributes are factors such as learning profile so that included academic functional and cognitive processing health communication sensory motor social emotional and behavioral profiles and access to general education so with each one of our programs not only are we describing it we've identified all of those attributes of the students that may fit or may likely fit within each of these programs so it was quite a collaborative process after we've identified and we um had these attributes drafted we shared it with the Oe the oea then provided a survey to their membership on what they thought about the language of the attributes and the descriptors we took that feedback and we um uh currently we took that feedback and we adjusted again so we're excited that we're finally going to publish it it's currently sitting with our translator so we can have it all translated into Spanish that's awesome very good okay thank thank you so much thank you thank you thank you all right now we invite Dr Kel Gotti to provide us with his superintendent report all right good evening board um just a couple quick updates first of all I want to um really bring to our attention board um I think that this is a period of time where we know that there are significant issues that are going to arise in each of our schools um I want to reiterate our our district administration's commitment to when problems do arise um we are always and we'll continue to continue to address those and work with the school staff work with parents work to understand how to do it better I know that at times um those issues become extremely escalated and uh it's extremely important to us that we continue to maintain a posture of improvement and never giving up until we have those fully realized and fixed um it's not uh done until every child feel successful at school and I want to reiterate our commitment as a district to that Spirit of continuous Improvement and the importance of um we won't not give up and we will continue to work on those and we recognize the challenges facing those and I would say that in that same Spirit um we think about our history and this is a period of time where in our history this month we celebrate and we recognize black history month and I think uh no history can be more in America reflective of that commitment to struggle and to Rising above the challenges that come before us um as a nation we think of um Black History Month not just as black history but really our history as American history I think the motto in our nation of eus Unum out of many one um reminds us that our strength lies in our diversity and in our unity and as we reflect on our Rich contributions and the rich contributions of African-Americans throughout history in our nation we celebrate how these stories are woven into the fabric of our American journey um I encourage all of our Educators um students and families to participate and to reflect on the activities and the experiences of our our history and recognize the importance of that um today um and Beyond um our district website actually has a number of activities being highlighted and so I encourage those of you to to reach out who haven't seen any of those to take a look at some of the things happening in our community right now um this is uh Peak uh cold and flu season I have actually uh it's a it's a really tough period I know a lot of of staff and students and Educators board members um are facing that and you know just as a I've been asked as a public health uh announcement just remind us the the value of washing hands my dad was a pediatrician and always reminded me of that so washing hands and lots of liquids and uh I used Ginger recently that helps a lot too so uh but you know that's a little home remedy on my end but I really want to thank everyone for their efforts to work together and staying healthy and and sometimes that can be hard and we have to stay home when those things happen um and uh last but not least I know that it is almost a kindergarten reg that oh wait I'm sorry I misread that so kindergarten registration is open and uh we are excited to welcome our next group of uh students I want to thank uh Mr Bell and his Department uh this is the time to really start to to complete those registration forms for parents it's kind of like oh my gosh I can't believe we're here um the process is fully accessible online and your early registration is really helpful when we think about the way in which we prioritize and we think about our staffing for next year class sizes and resources allocated and really it's the best way early registration and registration Now is really helpful when we think about the ways in which we can think about our dual language programming opportunities there think about the ways in which we are supporting families and students and entering the school year um I'm excited that on March 11th we'll be hosting a Kinder Quest this is a new thing for our incoming kindergarten students again that's March 11th this special event will offer a prospective students and their families the opportunity to meet School administrators staff and representatives from various departments including special education Transportation multilingual Services technology stay tuned for more details on this exciting event coming soon if you haven't seen it yet so and with thatal I want yep put in your calendars um and with that I want to thank the board and invite the board for any other comments you may want to make related to announcements and celebrations some celebrations uh several students from OS placed in the Scholastic art and writing Awards this year so congratulations uh to all of those Panther writers Poetic Justice an oehs writing group uh had a successful showing at the regional Scholastic writing competition they have advanced to the National Finals uh these students wrote these pieces in creative writing spoken word and the spoken word Club congratul congratulations and good luck at the national level wow Dr John Waller who is in this room Dr Waller who's the assistant superintendent of equity and engagement is the recipient of a number of recent recognitions for dedication to an advocacy for all students congratulations to Dr Waller for receiving the following the ace accelerate career through education leadership award the 2025 don't be and her dirty looks the 2025 women's empowerment award by the Quad County Urban League and the black Student Association motivational speaker award uh by the annual black Excellence ball congratulations to you congratulations many sd308 band and choir staff members were selected to present or perform at the 20 25 Illinois music educators conference congratulations uh to Juliana carus uh at mury uh chandren J Daniel at Thompson Lisa heemstra at bednark Devin Cano at trober Rachel Maxwell at trer uh Jessica Corey at plank Uh Kevin shach at uh OS Steven Rex wrote at oehs Stephanie San Roman at ohos and suel Moore at oehs thank you for showing off your talents and thank you for all you do for our students in band and choir those of us uh I wore the wrong shirt I didn't wear the band shirt tonight oh well we appreciate you our Junior High robotics teams have recently celebrated success so congratulations to the plank octobots and the benar benar domo arigato for their performance at the bavia section tournament and congratulations also to the bricks of power from benari the waterlog Gearheads from Murphy the otter Bots from trer and the C pickle Bots from Thompson for their hard work this season congratulations I don't know which name is the ohos and O oehs chapters of business Professionals of America also recently competed at their Regional competition in their first year of having a chapter OS Advanced Four students to State and in their ninth year oehs Advanced 83 students to State congratulations and good luck and last the asigo high school floral team recently won State congratulations on this amazing [Applause] accomplishment we'll pass it back to you madam president thank you and now we will hear from our student board members for their report okay so I'm excited to announce some very very important things that will be coming up so on March 3rd the students will be hosting a District's public forum as student board members we are honored and excited to create a space for students to share their experiences with teacher student relationships additionally we are hopeful to gain insight and feedback that will further guide us into finalizing our action plan to improve teacher student relationships amplify will take place on March 13th at oo High School from 5:00 P p.m.

e e e and so uh for those who are watching uh virtually and for those in attendance today this has a completely different format uh than a regular scheduled board meeting there will not be quote unquote action items this evening this is a free flow of uh conversation between you as a school board us as administrators those who are presenting today so you can see that we have a few agenda items to cover uh this evening School Board please feel free uh to ask any questions make any statements uh that you may have on each one of these we have six agenda items to cover um this evening so first we'll start out we have some of our Mr Park and parks and the high school students that are here this evening so um Steve we'll turn it over to you and uh your students and um you can uh walk us through uh what you have for us this evening so uh we know Mr Park but everybody around the table may not know uh the three students so um we'll start I don't care which side we start on ladies first how about that ladies first we'll have you go first and then you introduce our yourselves to us and what year you are okay and if you are a senior what your plans are next fall good enough and if you say I don't know that's an acceptable answer okay so go ahead okay um my name is McKenna landram and I am a senior so my college plans I plan to go to Indiana Westland and double major in biology and environmental science science and then hopefully move on to a graduate program for marine biology touch this you're good okay my name is Isaac Grog I'm a senior as well I have not committed to a university yet but I plan on going to a university and I uh plan on majoring in business and I'm excited to see where that leads me thank you my name is Max Ro Brock and I'm a senior here at hunson North High School I plan to go to Hudson University to study forestry environmental Sciences as well as play baseball there sounds like to me Mr Park you've had an influence on uh your students here so well the good thing is I'm a senior as well so I guess we all have that income and um well for those of you who don't know my name is uh Steve Park and I teach AP environmental science here at Huntington North High School and each day I'm honored to work with Indiana's finest um and you're looking at three of them right here um and so starting probably a couple years ago and then uh beginning uh really hitting the road running uh at the beginning of last year uh group of students uh were working with uh the mayor uh and some of the folks downtown um not by my um pushing but by their choice and so they came to me and said uh what can we do and that's always a dream of mine when some students come and say what can we do um that that's pretty powerful and so starting last year um there were a group of students uh that were on the Huntington tree board the City of Huntington tree board along with uh Katherine who's in attendance back there um and we would just kind of um loose L meet whenever we could uh study hall time um lunchtime whenever the kids could get together um and kudos to McKenna for kind of spearheading this and so I've kind of just been along for the right I'll be honest um when you put three highly motivated people uh in charge of something things get done uh and they they pull other students along as well we've got some other students um members of our of our Green Team here as well in attendance and so uh kudos to those individuals who um are wanting to make a difference um not just for uh themselves uh but for our campus and for the state of Indiana as well and so um what has kind of come out of this is a new club here at hington North High School that um Dr D um approved a couple weeks ago um and also uh some information that uh they would like to um present to you to uh to make sure that everybody uh is on uh the same page basically uh some ideas some dreams some hopes um and so uh I am going to stop talking so that they can begin talking and I'm not sure send if that's will that go to okay um and so uh we're going to start off with um our short-term goals yeah so our short-term goal our immediate short-term goal is to get what is called tree Campus USA recognition at Huntington North High School and I don't know if anyone here has heard of the Arbor Day Foundation maybe yeah okay so the Arbor Day Foundation when it comes to Nature um beautification through uh trees and kind of just all things environmental is one of the top organizations nationally and they have this program called tree Campus USA where uh any school Hospital uh or university which meets their requirements can uh the the requirements are quite simple um but if they meet these requirements they can obtain the cert certification of a tree Campus USA so we have decided that we would love to um meet those requirements and uh go for that recognition the requirements are quite simple as I said there's all you have to do are some uh Community tree planting so our plans are to do that at is it Crestview Middle School correct we're uh for sure going to do that at Crestview Middle School U and we also have to do some peer-to-peer education to engage younger students a big thing like as we as we've noted we are all seniors um um we are thrilled that we have this passion and this um Team uh to spearhead this but we also are aware that we don't want this club or passion to phase out after we graduate so a big part of that and also conveniently a requirement is to engage younger students engage uh elementary students engage middle school students and what it is that we believe and uh our passions for beautifying and creating a more sustainable campus and then finally you have to uh celebrate some sort of annual nature day so whether that be uh celebrate Earth Day or um what's the other one Arbor Day Arbor Day okay there's a few options there um but just an annual celebration and then we would to after we do these things we would uh meet the requirements for the tree Campus USA so there's a few simple things right but something I want to note is if if I can draw your attention to the bottom right that is the extent of the tree campuses in Indiana currently and those are both elementary schools so to be clear we would be the first High School in Indiana to receive this um recognition and as we're planning never in the planning process was it like hey let's do something to look good but as we kind of moved along we noticed a side aspect of this is going to be positive publicity for Huntington North if we can succeed in our goal um we don't know exactly what that will entail but I would anticipate that if we are the first in EST state to achieve something that's going to go along with some positive recognition so if we could move on to the next SL please thank you that as well not I think it's all right so we're in phase one right now sorry for that little miscommunication but we're in Phase One and as you can see we're already pretty far into our goals uh We've assembled a team as you can see we partnered with H&S Administration we uh gave this presentation to them in advance to run things by them and then right now we're partnering with the hccs school board so those we're already about halfway there through phase one and then we also want to part partner with Earth Charter and could you explain a little more on Earth Charter um so Earth Charter is just a foundation and Katherine is actually who introduced us to this Foundation because she's a part of it so it's a foundation that's interested in financially supporting groups like ours and high schools that want to just raise environmental awareness and so they're willing to partner with groups like ours and give us financial support and also just other kind of of support and advice in how we can move forward and make change in our school absolutely and the final note on that slide is just the steps that I've already mentioned to reach that Campus USA recognition and that's the final step of phase one if we could move on to the next slide thank you phase two so phase two of our plans more of a long-term kind of thing so we've been talking about the okay so I'm gonna have to describe it so the strip of land that's between us in the back of the strip mall where the tailgating before home football games that's what we're talking about when we say the strip of land so we'd like to beautify that and so obviously we're going to have to get a lot of support for this and a lot of okays so that's going to come from both the administration team and the school board once again and we've actually already met with Jake Wyatt and we'll have to pair with him in the future but he came during Miss one of Mr Park's Apes periods and talk to us about the native plants that should be planted there because it's a really specific kind of habitat there's a lot of water that stands in that area so that's something we'll have to be attentive to so yeah we actually already talked to him but like I said previously we'll pair with him once again in the future and then Mike Snelling is another guy that we're GNA have to talk to he's the director of GIS so he works with the city engineering department and he's mapped out all the infrastructure beneath the land and both above with too with power lines that we're going to have to be aware of just to decide what kind of plants that are going to grow there and then we're going to have to obviously create a plan I mean it's an idea now but when it comes time we'll have to have a conceptual plan with step by step so we can get it done and then funding options so talking with Earth Charters schools or even community members who would be interested in giving us some support for this and then we'll present the final plan to the administration and the school board again so you know everybody's on the same page and we can move forward forward so next slide please so this image here on the screen just represents the red line that's right where we're talking about so that's the parking lot that the students park in and then above the red line that's the strip mall that we're talking about right there so that just that image is just representing of the location of where we're talking about and then this image right here just demonstrates one of the challenges that we're going to come in contact with which is just simply put the snow room removal um we're not 100% sure what the solution is going to be whether that's going to be the strip of snow that's just like there or if we want to pile it up or something like that not 100% sure what's going to happen there obviously we need to be in contact with one the snow plow removal um team but also the maintenance team here at Huns North to make sure they're okay with it as well because frankly put high schoolers don't have BMWs and Cadillacs they have less than Ideal Cars for most of them so often times they leak oil they leak transmission fluid also sorts of stuff like that and that stuff soaks up into the snow and the snow is then being pushed into the grass so we're going to have to combat that with some sort of way we haven't 100% figured out a solution to that quite yet can I add a note on that slide before we move on um as you can see there's opportunity for beautification right here and that's not a knock towards the businesses there at all that's just that comes always with the rear of a business but we also recognize that our high school is right there and um we talked with Mr digits about this and one thing he noted is you know when people come to a school the first thing they notice about it is what it looks like and what it looks like around and you know right now that's nothing fascinating or eye-catching but in our mind we envision an area where plants and trees are thriving and that won't that will take time obviously but that will greatly increase the um aesthetic of this area thank you so the benefits of all.

oh oops okay Mr Smith thank you Madame President Dr Smith members of the board uh the band room continues on Mo progressing quite well the next slide shows you the near completion of the flooring and you'll see the acoustical tiles in place uh the hallway uh to the new kitchen area is now complete with window seals and baseboard the the kitchen is continuing on with full renovation and at b or at Fall Creek Valley uh the back house what we call the back house behind the kitchen maintenance area is uh cleared out and ready to be renovated hallway work continues on throughout the building new LCC parking lot the curbs on the west side are now complete again moving north and east uh exterior wall the green uh uh green board is going up and also the next slide shows you some uh uh brick work uh lower half is completed and some upper half will then soon begin interior work continues on the first floor most of it is now drywalled and uh mudded in and the upstairs is close to being uh finished out with the uh studs drywall is next here at Craig we're uh moving forward with the four storage file storage room and they are coming back together all right thank you Mr Smith board any questions regarding the Blue Ribbon update well it looks like it's coming along it makes it real when the brick work starts going up all right well we will move on to our summer school offerings update with Mr notor thank you madam president Dr Smith and members of the board I bring you tonight an update on our summer offerings and notice the the first slide is a change in name summer Learning Academy 2025 on the next slide we really go into the reasons that we need to make a name change the first is a change in name a change in branding to indicate that there'll be a change in programming and approach for our summer learning opportunity um this allows us to also meet the state law requirement to have an IAD 3 Focus a heavy reading Focus for any second and third grader who's not passed I read 3 and it also indicates a return to a preco reading and math acceleration approach to close gaps for individual students who aren't at proficiency the dates times and locations will be similar to what we've done in the past uh June 2nd through 26 with no school on J juneth so this is Monday through Thursday the month of June will be for Rising grade so students will be placed in their Rising grade 1 through 8 at every Elementary in middle school so we've been able to maintain that each Elementary will have their own program each Middle School will have their own program our high school programming will be through ltech as we have for for many years in terms of times our elementary will be 8 to2 with parent paid after care available for all students and 9 to1 at our middle school and transportation will be provided for students students uh in terms of attendance and participation our second and third graders who don't pass Ivory 3 will be required to attend our students who are below proficiency on I so using our middle of the year I ready or those who are just above proficiency will be highly encouraged to attend um students who are higher than that who are demonstrating grade level proficiency they may participate in the related arts program uh lunch and Par paid Aftercare program in but the main curriculum really will be focused on getting students to proficiency of course principles uh discretion and any exceptions to the above guidelines and we will have a separate life skills program for students who are enrolled in the life skills program during the school year Mrs lant will cover our parent pay options thank you for um care in the summer we want to do our best to offer parents as much Choice as possible and so we've got an option where they could have after care just Monday through Thursday after the summer Learning Academy that would be $50 a week and give them care till 6 they could also choose to add Friday or for those families who are going to have their child ride the bus home Monday through Thursday but need something for Friday they could have just a Friday option um for $40 a day and then in July we're happy to um have care for families that would need it as well in terms of curriculum for first and second grade we'll have an Ela block that's aligned to the science of reading and also a math block for third and fourth grade remember these are our Rising second graders and third graders we've got to be tightly aligned to I 3 um and the goal will be to retest students at the end of June uh for those students who haven't passed so the I 3 assessment will drive the curriculum so focus on vocabulary phonics uh literature comprehension as well as non comprehension and throwing in some test taking strategies as well the goal is to also have some time within the schedule for I learn align math for those grade levels for grades 5 through 8 we will be aligned to I learn for both math and Ela blocks and there will be related arts uh for grades 1 through six and a College and Career Readiness block for grade 7 and a all curriculum and instruction will be in English including at our dual schools at test preparation and test proficiency is the goal and there will be a pre- and post assessment that's built into the curriculum Mrs Johnson will cover Staffing good evening as we look at Staffing and class SI priority will be given to teachers who completed 25 hours of the state required literacy training as required by the doe our special ed and ml staff for each building and we may utilize classified staff there is a need and minimum class size of 15 to one as required by idoe and we're using a variety of funding sources to be able to continue to offer this robust summer school offering including our reimbursement from the state um Title One funds our special education Part B Grant immigrant influx Grant as well as we're writing this into the Lily Grant so that we can use several different funding sources in in order to make sure that we offer it at each Elementary and each Middle School be happy to entertain any questions at this time thank you Mr notor and team board any questions at this time yes Miss D thank you for this comprehensive overview Mr notor um just a a couple of questions with regards to slide number four with attendance participation I understand that second and third grade students who do not pass I will be required to attend um can you share how that's being communicated with families so that they understand even if they do attend but don't pass they're still um the unfortunate outcome potential of retention for third graders so that'll be communicated through our building principles so our principles will send out a variety of different types of communication depending on what category students fall into so for instance our second graders won't be retained um if they don't pass the second time but our third graders could be and so it's that message to parents that that you've got to have your kids there and so required um is a strong word but that's absolutely the reality that we're fac and I think that that's so different and I really appreciate the change in nomenclature to change it so that people do understand the the high stakes yes that it is not a jump start it is really imperative to ensuring that they're able to move forward I think along with those lines as well um it let's say that a family chooses not to send their child to summer school summer Academy however um will there be that opportunity for retest at that end of the summer programming the student could be brought in to to retest if they haven't the the other option is to retest at the end of May but we're really not wanting to offer that as a widespread option because we want our families to attend the summer learning academ exactly I completely understand I think the only other question that I have is students who are demonstrating gr level proficiency May participate so is this open to any student in the district that would wishes or are we just really focusing on those in the great with the greatest needs the Core Curriculum will be focused on those with the greatest needs but we wanted to offer something in case we had families whose children were proficient and wanted to participate in something this Summer that they could participate in the related arts program the meals that are provided at school as well as the after Care Program wonderful thank you and then I just have one other question um but this is regarding um this is for Miss Le plant love that we are offering the after care it's always so wonderful that we are able to stand up um that programming for families I know it's much appreciated uh do you believe that the July care will be at one site in the district or will that be at multiple sites we'll do multiple sites I I predict we always do it based on numbers um but last summer we went to six sites basically the schools or campuses that had a preschool since we have year round preschool so I predict we'll have it at those six sites again great thank you so much thank you for those questions um any other questions board foll up oh yeah Dr molland thank you Mr n for your information and presentation um I did have a question following up with Miss dun on the um the communication approach so could I hear a little bit more about what the approach will be for communicating the summer program programming requirements uh sure we'll do some general communication from the district level but really this is going to be communicated very specifically at the building level um by our building principles and so there'll be a variety of different messages that they send out uh depending on where students fall in terms of proficiency so those messages will go out electronically but then they'll follow up with phone calls and so there'll be an individual invitation given to families um so that they know exactly where they stand in terms of what we were talking about with the required piece versus highly encouraged piece so it'll be an individualized approach thank you you're welcome my question kind of goes along with that too so in the past and the the artist formally known as jumpstart we now have um the summer Learning Academy now that this is going to also um address students who are not passing I read I assume the registration timing will be a little different is that correct waiting for the test scores to come in we're planning to use the same timeline so May 1st was our cut off typically sign up around spring break beginning and running through the month of April so we um actually start I testing here in March just in a couple weeks and so we will get those results back in time for families to be able to register and then we'll use the middle of the year I ready results and so that data point point we already have oh okay thank you for sharing that Bo any other questions or comments it sounds like then the pre-test will be another data point that you can then use and what is um preest and then a post test so that'll actually happen during summer Learning Academy so and that's really to measure growth over that period of time um over the the 15 days of instruction so the preest would happen the very first day and then the post test happens the last day okay anything um you know I know that we we're in good hands knowing that those assessment results in that preest will guide uh the work to be done in that those summer months yes exactly exactly and it really allows us a measurement and then will give us a metric particularly as we're looking at some of the funding sources to show what an impact those 15 days make okay thank you you Mr um I did have one final question and that is do we know how many students we are predicting that will be in the um the Red Zone shall we say that we are concerned about um not passing I um we're getting that information from each school as we speak we've got I three meetings set up with each of our principles so we will have a good idea of that number well before the summer Learning Academy and then I know House Bill 1499 has been introduced just want to make sure that that is something that we're all keeping an eye on because it allows our students to test twice yes um which I think would be a beautiful thing but then also with the district as many English Learners as that we have I think it is imperative that everybody understand that language acquisition takes time and it takes longer than two years absolutely um and that is a lot of our students in this district and I am pleased with House Bill 1499 and the language that has been introduced for students who are access levels one to 2.9 yes automatically giving the good cause exemption So for anybody that is also advocating for children not to be retained um I think it's a good bill so hope absolutely we'll get that ped thank you thank you for that I just had one more comment since the slide is up on the screen I appreciate the work that's being done to make this affordable and accessible to working parents I mean if you calculate it because the school day is free to parents and because of the community eligibility provision I assume would cover the summer portion correct then their meals breakfast and lunch are taken care of too that's a huge boom to parents and working families so thank you for that that to if I'm looking at this right if you had your child in after care and Fridays that's $90 a week for full full dayare but also so targeted learning so thank you for for doing that board any other comments this was all great okay thank you so we will now move on to our board goal midye update Mr kusik and Dr hus Brown good evening Madam president Dr Smith members of the board tonight we bring you a midyear update on our board goals as we go through tonight's presentation you will see the majority of the updates are in blue because they're still in progress we're only halfway through the year um but you will see a couple that we've already accomplished and and are in green I'll turn it over our first presenter Mr not thank you Mr kosnik Madame President Dr Smith and members of the board the first goal focuses on our Equitable student outcomes action plan um and we continue to implement that with Fidelity and including dashboard updates that are completed monthly as we move on to our student achievement slides uh the first one is our graduation rate and of course this is still in progress um but we work we are working through our systems and our processes to maintain the average graduation rate of 93% um with a focus on our academic honors and Technical Honors diplomas the next one is our rigor diagnostic uh score of 9.0 and we are um planning to have our year-end rigor appraisals in the spring um the next two are about our student attendance um the goal of 95% we still are a little bit below that for our average uh attendance our average daily attendance the next one our model attendee rate and this is a really important one to pay attention to because this comes from the GPS dashboard from the state level and our model attend break at this point is 58.1% which indicates a 5 point 5 percentage Point increase from uh the end of the school year last year so we move on to the next Slide the next one is our proficiency growth for I ready and so this was the midyear I that I was just referencing in the the last presentation and we've seen a 133% increase in ela with accelerated growth from our African-American students and a 14% increase um in math the next one is the I3 proficiency rate that we've talked about so much um and our first Administration is in March students who don't pass then will come to Summer Learning Academy to assess again in June and then our last one is our iearn goal and iearn administration begins in April good evening I'll be bringing to you our strategic Plan update it's hard to believe but we are now in the middle of the three-year plan as you recall we had an update for the Board of Education in the month of January and we continue as a group to update uh quarterly on our dashboard for public viewing and we'll ask Mrs Johnson to go with our people go goals good evening as we look at our HR um goals for people our first area is that all employees will participate in common districtwide develop PD for all J job classifications and those are ongoing at 100% our second Port of our board goal when we look at maintaining our intentional focus on recruiting and retaining bilingual staff in order to increase racial and ethnic stat diversity by 3% um our bilingual staff that is still yet to be determined as we are in the middle of the year and currently our racial and ethnic diversity we are at 49% but we'll be monitoring that of course closely throughout the rest of this year on the next slide retaining 90% of our district effective and highly effective certified staff that will be calculated at the end of the year because that is based on our evaluations our next goal Implement an anonymous employee survey for all staff to better understand the drivers of job satisfaction and increase increase participation percentage each year so last year we had 37.7% and we are scheduled to give that survey again this spring so we'll be looking at the results of hopefully increased participation and our last board goal offer an exit interview to every employee that leaves through resignation or retirement in the fall of 2024 for our Midway goal we completed eight exit surveys and two employees requested interviews in the area of operations and finance uh we do have some green on this slide as uh 1231 year end of our fiscal year our calendar year is is really the measuring point for the three board goals as it relates to finance uh happy to say that we met all three goals the first of which is our cash balance goal in our education fund and we had exceeded $16 million in that fund the goal was 14 the next goal is a positive cash balance at the end of the fiscal year and all of our local taxing funds and we also met that goal everything was in the positive and our last goal is increasing our minority vendor spend uh by at least 3% and we were at 7.9% this year Safety and Security uh proud to say all buildings are State Certified for their emergency preparedness plans and we continue each building continues to do their monthly and semester drills site and building assessments uh are ongoing and uh we talked about the help me app which was launched last fall and it is up and run all right thank you for that board any questions or comments regarding our board goals update Miss done Miss Johnson well first of all thank you all for these tremendous updates Miss Johnson I did have one quick question uh in regards to the anonymous survey of employees it has come to my attention that emails were collected with that survey and so I'm wondering if that is one of the reasons why there was such a low participation rate because that it wasn't truly Anonymous in nature well the surveys went out in an electronic format but I think there were questions as to were there emails attached to that and so when someone took the survey they had the right to put their name in their school and if they even wanted to be contacted for an interview for those exit interviews you're talking about I'm I'm yeah I'm talking about the survey that's being delivered in uh the spring and so maybe it's not I mean maybe that is the misperception but I think there is a perception with stakeholders that there that their information is being collected and so I just wonder if there's a world where we can make sure that we are very clear Panorama yes we usean weuse we use a system for that so it's not conect I don't understand but there were some I think some questions initially when it went out and we had looked into that to make sure it wasn't attached to anyone's address but so I think just perhaps communicating because that is what the that is and it was shared broadly that there that there was a sense that identifiable information was attached and so just thinking that that could help with getting the number of the percentage up and I know that you're working diligently as well on the types of questions and so forth with the working group so um just some feedback but I appreciate getting that information from folks because I think it helps us with that wonderful retention thank you msh because M Bush I just wanted to share that I do recall that there was some misperception early on in the survey that people were concerned that individual surveys could be tracked back to individual people and that that is not the case it is an anonymous survey they were sent a link and so because they were sent a link they thought that it could be tracked back it it that's not the case thank you uh board any other questions or comments I know we've covered a lot in this great update um I did have one regarding it's slide slide three student achievement um I know the model attendee rate that we're tracking is kind of current year to date do we foresee that will probably continue to to increase um given that I mean I know we're experiencing it as a family a lot of this is a very sick time of the year and I I mean it's great too that we're already tracking in a positive direction but I know that this is ongoingly tracked throughout the year so by Spring I imagine the numbers will track up is that correct it is um in real time so to speak so yes it is as of at this point in time 58.1% and so we do hope that that continues to increase as the uh weather gets warmer and and students get healthier yes thank you yes yeah wash your hands everybody I tell my kids yes any other questions or comments for well thank you for those helpful updates everybody and now we will move on to request to advertise RFP for catering at the new LCC Mr miles thank you madam president Dr Smith members of the board uh tonight I bring to you as an informational item a request uh to consider putting out an RFP for a catering here at the LCC uh as we do from time to time have catering needs um we we do uh want to cast a wide net and we will uh as we're so excited move into our new lecc this summer um in June late June so we would like to uh use that as an opportunity to um broaden again who we work with from a partner standpoint and our catering area um we last did this in January of 2019 and we've had a great catering partner since then and hope to uh continue that relationship moving forward but again it it's just time to um to put this out and um and bring in new partners so excited to do so uh this will follow a service agreement arrangement which is a little different than some of the other rfbs we do but uh gives us a lot of flexibility uh moving forward thank you Mr miles board any questions or comments I just wanted to clarify in the language um of the RFP when it mentions lecc it's referring specifically to our the new location cor corre correct okay and then Craig Academy is the current building we're sitting in now correct yes there may be times when we bring our cater over here because these some of the facilities here in this building will still uh remain an option for us moving forward yes it's great okay well thank you for that board any other questions all right now we get to move on to the very um fun Neola Neola policy updates for our first reading with Dr harb Barker Madam president Dr Smith members of the board I present to you tonight Neola volume 37 number one revision packet this packet is comprised of eight advised policies one new policy and just as a reminder the revision packet is in response to recent legislation subsequent updates of Indiana code I now bring this for first reading thank you Dr harsh Barger board any questions or comments thank you sir it's been a pleasure working with you has been a pleasure especially it's been a pleasure yeah I I do want to say um oh go ahead no we just have a lot that's um moving forward and so it's been pretty awesome to see the parallels and to see it's just been great working with appreciate it Miss St I am very excited about these policies especially seeing that four of the policies are um addressing artificial intelligence and so wanted to understanding that this is the first reading that they still have to be approved wondering what kind of communication has been given to students to faculty to understand how AI is to be used in the classroom because I know not many of us are digging into these board policies uh especially our students I don't think they're getting online looking at these so so what is the uh plan to Cascade this information to all parties sure um like many things that that are in this format we'll work back through the plc's and the principles into the buildings it's new and it's something that we definitely have to treat just as we did computers that there is that level of responsibility and that will that will articulate itself back into the buildings to the teachers and to the classrooms with parents assuming same that it would work its way through communication systems in the building thank you Dr har Sean Bush and assistant superintendent we'll work backwards with the board because we'll eventually many of these policies find I'm sorry guys we'll find their way to student handbooks is that correct Dr Asher absolutely and so normally in June or July well June usually June Sean Bush we get those approved prior to the start of the next school year so you can expect for those to come back through again even though the board will already approve its policies you will approve their handbooks also and that's how the students will get updated information and their families and I'm assuming in computer science courses as well that this is something that uh students are learning about as well so yep we can assure that correct Mr notor curriculum team yes we have uh quite a few AI Pilots going on across the district so teachers that are out in front uh leading the way with their own work with AI as well as with students outstanding thank you so much thank you for that question Miss then board any other questions I just had a comment well thank you to the policy committee on this um I've been diving into policy just to enhance my understanding as board president and I will say it's one of our main roles as board members is to set policy um I like to use Sports analogies and so to me I I I've got a point to me um the policy is like your offensive line in football it doesn't get the Flash and the glamor but as we saw last night when your offensive line breaks down it can be pretty detrimental so you got to be set on what you're doing so yes say it better say it better and that okay that's that's how my brain thinks but yes thank you for that and we're looking forward to our second reading in two weeks two weeks long as I don't have to go up against any of those NFL players yep you're good all right so before we move on to our one action item I did want to send Miss Lawrence's regards um that she is out because we do have um other part or full-time um primary jobs so she is traveling for work so I told the public that she or I would let the public know she's out um again with our offensive line of policy uh we are required to have a quorum of three or more uh members present to continue to conduct our business and that is board policy 0162 so um with that I will go on to our act one action item and that is 3.01 approval of personnel report Miss Carla Johnson greetings Madam president Madam president Dr Smith and board members tonight we bring you the Personnel report for your approval all right second all right moved and properly seconded let's go ahead and make a vote all in favor of the Personnel report say I I I all opposed all right the Personnel report has been approved I will turn it back to Miss Johnson one announcement we do have an announcement yes you can change our mind too late known this guy for a long time Madame President Dr Smith and members of the board on our um board approved Personnel report this evening we have a retirement that is forthcoming in June by Mr Steve gagin our chief of technology and we just want to thank him for all of his years of service to Lawrence Township he's been a bear and a wildcat and just a tremendous LT asset Johnson would you we just want to put on the record how many years of service has Dr Steven gagin had here in Lawrence Township 37 37 years exactly years almost four decades Dr gag line I remember many of those congratulations no no party today party will come later he still has work to do so yes thank you for that Dr gag and we appreciate you all right board at this time we will we'll move on to our board and administrator comments who would like to go first anybody um I do have a comment I wanted to thank the board Dr Smith and Sheila um for allowing us to go to Washington DC last week for the um advocacy and Equity Institute put on by the National School Board Association we were able to deepen our um connections and relationships with several other school board members even within Indiana and meet with some representatives and people from the federal level because the federal dollars while they're not as plentiful as the state that we require they're still very very important for title one and special ed Part B so oh and eate Dr gagin yes yes so e so thank you board for that um I look forward to um continuing to work with the new board members that we met um as we all have you know passion about advocating for our students so thank you for that Bard anybody any other comments or question I just say it's been a last week was a busy week um Dr harsh barter you and I working on policies which was exciting like I told you it was actually quite exciting I like getting to the weeds of things and so that was pretty exciting and also too just uh the Pucket crew spent a lot of time at the basketball courts Thursday Friday and Saturday between the boys varsity and the girls and so um lots of LT Pride going and um so yeah thanks great great week no other comments Dr Smith or did you have one Dr I likewise Amy we attended the National School Board Association meeting in DC and I uh it was a very productive time of learning in the actual sessions of the conference but more importantly I think as a board we got to spend the time together to know each other's skills um expertise passions and education and I too I'm looking forward to working together um as we know we need to work together as much as we can to bring um our talents and our skills and um um working along with all of you and the community um so I'm looking forward to to um the next steps thank you yes ma'am M done I would Echo everybody's sentiments I also wanted to Express gratitude to you Dana for putting together the listening tour and the ability to talk to many of our Community Partners um several weeks ago we had the opportunity to speak with Cafe and I know this week we have the opportunity to go to the Rotary Club um and so just really appreciate the opportunity to get into the community and hear um about hear the great things that people have to say about our schools um and also to share about the wonderful things that are happening and so thank you very much for coordinating those efforts and thank you Dr Smith for allowing us that opportunity thank you great comments Dr Smith gr neith front and center we're still in basketball land sectionals were hosted by Lawrence norf what's the next step sir that's right that's right turn it off no it's green Mr retire man um Steve and I have known each other for most of those 37 years um as as anticipated LC and Ln ended up uh competing against each other in the girls basketball sectional championship and we had an upset uh the defending state champion Bears didn't make it out um but Lawrence North Wildcats did win so we still have a team alive they will play this Saturday at the cater Central High School on the southwest side they'll be playing the Arabians of pendlton heights at 1:00 that is a one-game regional this is the second year for that this format one game Regional and then on Sunday the 16th they will have a live uh stream show where they'll have pingpong balls and they'll draw out who's going to play in the South so if Ellen can win that game against penlon why then they'll we'll see what the draw is on Sunday and that'll be a two game semi State more than likely at Southport but again that depends on who makes it out of the Regionals excellent thank you anything all right go cats okay all right well um I will the one last announcement I had is our next board meeting our monthly board meeting is here in two weeks on the 24th of February at 7M at that I'll entertain a motion to adjourn someone seconded all right properly moved and seconded will have a good night everyone [Applause] your babies be okay well I don't even know why we bothered to go this afternoon

hello clockers welcome to another segment of waca news blog my name is hi silver and today I'll be giving you a brief summary of the ashin Town manager's newsletter Ashlin expands open space with 50 plus acre acquisition the town of ashin has successfully acquired 50 plus acres of open space from the southern New England Conference of the United Church of Christ furthering its commitment to conservation this complex transaction was made possible through strong collaboration between Town officials Reverend Daryl Goodwin and Kate auster tag and the sbur valley trustees who contributed $250,000 and will hold the conservation restriction special thanks go to Tony scabelly the Town Forest committee and Rob St Germaine whose efforts helped finalize the purchase with growing development pressures protecting natural spaces remains a priority this acquisition adds to ashlin's Legacy now totaling over 500 Acres of preserved land since waren Woods in 2012 some news you need to know call for nominations 8th Annual Mary peny Mortenson Public Health award the Ashlin Board of Health is seeking nominations for the eth annual Mary Penney Mortenson Public Health award created to honor the longtime Board of Health members dedication to the community this award recognizes individuals or organizations that have made significant contributions to Public Health in Ashland the recipient's name will be engraved on a plaque at Town Hall in honor during a Board of Health meeting if you know someone one who has made a lasting impact on the health and well-being of the community submit your nomination by contacting boardof Health Ashlin mass.com Ashland's 2025 Boston marathon runners 15 Ashland residents are gearing up for the 2025 Boston Marathon running not just for Personal Achievement but also to support the community each Runner is Raising $3,000 through the baa grant program which funds important local initiatives if you want to support them visit the town of Ashland's Marathon page to donate Ashland's 2025 rain barrel program ordered by March 28th looking to conserve water and reduce your water bill Ashlin is offering discounted rain barrels to help residents manage water usage efficiently the Great American rain barrel is made from 100% repurposed food grade UV protected and BPA free materials designed to last for years there's several reasons to get a rain barrel which include providing a clean untreated water source for gardening and cleaning it also reduces energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions at water treatment plants it saves money by lowering water bills and it supports sustainable water management for future generations to order visit ashlin's ring Barrel program page or for more info contact Donna Musto at 508532755 or DMO Ashlin mass.com don't miss out and order before March 28th this week's Community shout out goes to Tony Lewis if you know Tony Lewis consider yourself lucky a longtime Ashen resident Tony is a dedicated volunteer with a huge heart for the community his contributions span across various Town initiatives including his work on the upper Charles Trail committee which aimed to create a multi-use path through Ashland and his recent involvement in the comprehensive plan steering committee perhaps his biggest impact is at the Ashen Public Library where he volunteers weekly with the friends of Ashlin Public Library sorting in shelving books for the book sale assisting with tasks and sharing his marketing expertise to improve Outreach if you've ever dropped off a book donation chances are you've been greeted by his warm smile and helpful attitude Tony's passion for connecting people and resources makes Ashland a better place and we are incredibly grateful for his dedication so thank you Tony some upcoming events in Ashland the onslaught the Wes ausset incident by Christopher Daly will be held on Sunday February 16th at 2 p.m.

hello clockers welcome to another segment of waca news blog my name is hi silver and today I'll be giving you a brief summary of the ashin Town manager's newsletter Ashlin expands open space with 50 plus acre acquisition the town of ashin has successfully acquired 50 plus acres of open space from the southern New England Conference of the United Church of Christ furthering its commitment to conservation this complex transaction was made possible through strong collaboration between Town officials Reverend Daryl Goodwin and Kate auster tag and the sbur valley trustees who contributed $250,000 and will hold the conservation restriction special thanks go to Tony scabelly the Town Forest committee and Rob St Germaine whose efforts helped finalize the purchase with growing development pressures protecting natural spaces remains a priority this acquisition adds to ashlin's Legacy now totaling over 500 Acres of preserved land since waren Woods in 2012 some news you need to know call for nominations 8th Annual Mary peny Mortenson Public Health award the Ashlin Board of Health is seeking nominations for the eth annual Mary Penney Mortenson Public Health award created to honor the longtime Board of Health members dedication to the community this award recognizes individuals or organizations that have made significant contributions to Public Health in Ashland the recipient's name will be engraved on a plaque at Town Hall in honor during a Board of Health meeting if you know someone one who has made a lasting impact on the health and well-being of the community submit your nomination by contacting boardof Health Ashlin mass.com Ashland's 2025 Boston marathon runners 15 Ashland residents are gearing up for the 2025 Boston Marathon running not just for Personal Achievement but also to support the community each Runner is Raising $3,000 through the baa grant program which funds important local initiatives if you want to support them visit the town of Ashland's Marathon page to donate Ashland's 2025 rain barrel program ordered by March 28th looking to conserve water and reduce your water bill Ashlin is offering discounted rain barrels to help residents manage water usage efficiently the Great American rain barrel is made from 100% repurposed food grade UV protected and BPA free materials designed to last for years there's several reasons to get a rain barrel which include providing a clean untreated water source for gardening and cleaning it also reduces energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions at water treatment plants it saves money by lowering water bills and it supports sustainable water management for future generations to order visit ashlin's ring Barrel program page or for more info contact Donna Musto at 508532755 or dusto Ashlin mass.com don't miss out and order before March 28th this week's Community shout out goes to Tony Lewis if you know Tony Lewis consider yourself lucky a longtime Ashen resident Tony is a dedicated volunteer with a huge heart for the community his contributions span across various Town initiatives including his work on the upper Charles Trail committee which aimed to create a multi-use path through Ashland and his recent involvement in the comprehensive plan steering committee perhaps his biggest impact is at the Ashen Public Library where he volunteers weekly with the friends of Ashlin Public Library sorting in shelving books for the book sale assisting with tasks and sharing his marketing expertise to improve Outreach if you've ever dropped off a book donation chances are you've been greeted by his warm smile and helpful attitude Tony's passion for connecting people and resources makes Ashland a better place and we are incredibly grateful for his dedication so thank you Tony some upcoming events in Ashland the onslaught the Wes ausset incident by Christopher Daly will be held on Sunday February 16th at 2 p.m.

hello clockers welcome to another segment of waca news blog my name is hi silver and today I'll be giving you a brief summary of the ashin Town manager newsletter Ashlin expands open space with 50 plus acre acquisition the town of ashin has successfully acquired 50 plus acres of open space from the southern New England Conference of the United Church of Christ furthering its commitment to conservation this complex transaction was made possible through strong collaboration between Town officials Reverend Daryl Goodwin and Kate auster tag and the sbur valley trustees who contributed $250,000 and will hold the conservation restriction special thanks go to Tony scabelly the Town Forest committee and Rob St Germaine whose efforts helped finalize the purchase with growing development pressures protecting natural spaces remains a priority this acquisition adds to ashlin's Legacy now totaling over 500 Acres of preserved land since waren Woods in 2012 some news you need to know call for nominations 8th Annual Mary Penny Mortenson Public Health award the ashin Board of Health is seeking nominations for the e8th annual Mary Penney mortensson Public Health award created to honor the longtime Board of Health members dedication to the community this award recognizes individuals or organizations that have made significant contributions to Public Health in Ashland the recipient's name will be engraved on a plaque at Town Hall in honor during a Board of Health meeting if you know someone one who has made a lasting impact on the health and well-being of the community submit your nomination by contacting boardof Health ashin mass.com Ashland's 2025 Boston marathon runners 15 ashin residents are gearing up for the 2025 Boston Marathon running not just for Personal Achievement but also to support the community each Runner is Raising $33,000 through the baa grant program which funds important local initiatives if you want to support them visit the town of Ashland's Marathon page to donate Ashland's 2025 rain barrel program ordered by March 28th looking to conserve water and reduce your water bill Ashlin is offering discounted rain barrels to help residents manage water usage efficiently the Great American rain barrel is made from 100% repurposed food grade UV protected and BPA free materials designed to last for years there's several reasons to get a rain barrel which include providing a clean untreated water source for gardening and cleaning it also reduces energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions at water treatment plants it saves money by lowering water bills and it supports sustainable water management for future generations to order visit ashlin's ring Barrel program page or for more info contact Donna Musto at 85327 n51 or DMO ashin mass.com don't miss out and order before March 28th this week's Community shout out goes to Tony Lewis if you know Tony Lewis consider yourself lucky a longtime Ashlin resident Tony is a dedicated volunteer with a huge heart for the community his contributions span across various Town initiatives including his work on the upper Charles Trail committee which aimed to create a multi-use path through Ashland and his recent involvement in the comprehensive plan steering committee perhaps his biggest impact is at the ashin public library where he volunteers weekly with the friends of Ashlin Public Library sorting in shelving books for the book sale assisting with tasks and sharing his marketing expertise to improve Outreach if you've ever dropped off a book donation chances are you've been greeted by his warm smile and helpful attitude Tony's passion for connecting people and resources makes Ashland a better place and we are incredibly grateful for his dedication so thank you Tony some upcoming events in Ashland the onslaught the Wes ausset incident by Christopher Daly will be held on Sunday February 16th at 2 p.m.