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Supporting the Ashlin Food Pantry. The Ashlin Food Pantry plays a crucial role in supporting residents facing food insecurity, but they need your help. Donations of frequently requested items can make a big difference for families in need. If you or someone you know is experiencing food insecurity, don't hesitate to reach out. The Ashlin Food Pantry is here to help. So call 508-5327949 or email human servicesmass.com for assistance. Every contribution count, so let's come together to support our community. Lastly, some happenings at the Ashlin Public Library. There's always something exciting happening at the Ashlin Public Library. So here are just some of the events coming up that you won't want to miss. For adult events, we have Ma Jang Night on Wednesday, February 5th at 6 PM. the terrarium workshop with the Ashlin Garden Club, Saturday, February 8th at 10 a.m. and a discussion with the library director, which will be Saturday, February 8th at 1:00 p.m.

we have the little Picasso's Club on Wednesday January 29th at 4:30 p.m. we have Lego Club with Kim and Friday January 31st at 10:00 a.m. we have drivein mov at the library for children activities we have gentle yoga on Tuesday January 28th at 6 p.m. a photography challenge winter Scapes wday Wednesday January 26th at 6:30 p.m. and hot chocolate bar in Winter reading discussion Thursday January 30th at 6:30 p.m. these are all wonderful opportunities to connect learn and enjoy something new in our community thanks to our town staff for putting together this newsletter and thank you all for tuning in today my name is Hal over good night and go clockers

the romance author Loretta Chase in conversation with Caroline lyen will be held on Saturday January 25th at 1 p.m. now for children's events we have the anime club which is on Tuesday January 21st at 6:30 p.m. we have or quas which is Spanish story time for families which will be held on Wednesday January 22nd at 6:30 p.m. and lastly but not least be a reading machine which is stem for Litt which will be on Thursday January 23rd at 10:30 a.m. that is all for today thank you to our town manager Michael Herbert and our town staff for providing this newsletter and thank you all for tuning in to waca my name is hi silver good night and go clock ch

to 7:00 p.m. details at future chess masters.com the Ashling Public Schools fall band and coral concerts coming up on Friday December 6th at 700 p.m. enjoy performances by by ashin high school and middle school bands featuring classical pieces movie favorites and a tribute to jsbach celebrate our talented young musicians Ashland's Thanksgiving Market on Saturday November 23rd from 10:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. in Montenegro Square the Ashland Farmers Market wraps up its season with a Thanksgiving Market featuring produce meat Dairy baked goods and Artisan vendors don't miss your chance to shop local before the market returns in June the Ashen Police Department Marine Corps Reserve Association is holding a toy drive on November 1st through December 11th donate new unwrapped toys at the ashin public safety building to support the Marine Corps Reserve association's annual toy drive the holiday Boutique will be held on Saturday December 7th from 12:00 p.m.

the greater Ashlin Lions annual porchetta the date will be Friday October 18th at 6 pm at the Ashland VFW fundraising event to support the Lions Community efforts finding William Lewis will be held on October 20th 2024 at 2 p.m. it will be held at the ashin Historical Society at two Myrtle Street this will be a free presentation in exploring the life of William Lewis through his extensive writings presented by Bruce Craven and Christy higginbottom parent and caregiver book read and discussion will be Wednesday October 23rd from 6 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. at the ashin public library discussion of the anxious Generation by Jonathan ha registration is required for a seat and complimentary book copy The Haunt dates will be October 18th to 20th and October 25th to 27th this will be a spooky attraction returning for two weekends tickets available online with proceeds benefiting local arts and YMCA initiatives the wicked pickle ball tournament will be October 26th this will be located at hopkington YMCA outdoor Center this will be a Halloween themed pickleball tournament open to all skill levels costumes are optional with a competition for the best costume registration and details available on online The Rocky Horror Show show join the Ashland Community Theater for The Rocky Horror Show featuring live music in Ashland on October 24th to 26th at 8:00 p.m.

For children's events, we have Little Picasso's Art Club, Tuesday, February 4th at 4:30 p.m. Clocktown Rockers on Friday, February 7th at 10:30 a.m. and Ashlin STEM Club, Saturday, February 8th at 11:00 a.m. No matter your age, there is something for everyone at the Ashlin Public Library. So stop by, get involved, and enjoy. A big thank you to our town manager, Michael Herbert, and the town staff for putting together this newsletter. And thanks to everyone for tuning in. This is Hi Silver with WACA, wishing you good night and go Clockers.

to 4:00 p.m. at the Federated Church of Ashland 118 Main Street stop by the holiday Boutique during the Holiday Stroll for Unique Treasures and goodies just in time for the holidays now some happenings at the Ashland Public Library for adult events we have the ESL conversation Group which will be held on Monday November 18th from 6:30 to 7:50 p.m. there will be some card making with Jan pomp andc Monday November 18th 6:30 to 7:30 p.m. now some half-past crafts giant Acorn decorations on Wednesday November 20th 6:30 to 7:30 p.m. and now for the children's events there is a Lego Club with Kim the legol lady on on Wednesday November 20th 4:30 to 5:30 p.m. La quento Spanish Story Time Wednesday November 20th 6:30 to 7:30 also Friday free play Friday November 22nd 10:00 to 11:30 a.m. a big thank you to our town manager Michael Herbert and the town staff for putting together this newsletter and thanks to everyone for tuning in this is Hal silver with waca wishing you a good night and go clockers [Music]

and October 27th at 4 p.m. tickets are available online and if you cannot attend consider donating to support the theater lastly the Salem and Sanctuary cave walk on October 26 10:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. the location will be in the Ashen toown Forest Winter Street parking lot Ashland Mass join us for a captivating walk through through the Ashland toown Forest where we will explore the rich history of the land this event will cover significant stories including nitm settlements refugees from the Salem witch trials and the ongoing efforts to preserve the forest against invasive species for more information on any of these events you can check respective websites or contact organizers directly that is all for today thank you for our town manager Michael Herbert for writing this newsletter and keeping us all informed and thank you all for tuning in today my name is hi silver with waca and this has been your Weekly Newsletter summary good night and go clockers

good afternoon welcome to the committee on education today is March 17 2025 it's 3 o'clock pm and we are in room 229 first on the agenda is House Bill 110 HD1 relating to to local agricultural products and to testify hello Cher kidani to members of the committee my name is De ucha Deputy superintendent Department of Education testifying uh we stand on a written testimony providing comments on this measure the department appreciates this Bill's intent to clarify the local food purchase goals and will do its best to meet the 30% mandate by 2030 thank you thank you next to testify Department of Agriculture D and members of the commune Matthew on behalf of the Department of Agriculture we will stand on our testimony support thank you thank you next to testify kavika kayapo hello Cher kudani members of the committee uh Kika kapo with Hawaii Public Health Institute and Hawaii farmy school network um this bill well aligns acts 175 and 176 helping us to make sure that the measurements for reaching 30% by 2030 is manageable um we strongly support this Bill thank you thank you is there anyone else here wishing to testify on this measure members any questions moving on house 1293 relating to the Department of Education procurement exempts Department of Education purchases of local edible produce and package food products less than a certain amount from the electronic procurement system requirements requires at least three written quotes for doe purchases of local edible produce and packaged food products between certain amounts requires at least two written quotes for Department of Education purchases of local Ed edible produce and package food products between certain amounts for certain schools in rural communities to testify superintendent Boe chair Donnie Vice chair K members of the committee Dina Department of Education the department stands on its written testimony and supportting this measure thank you for T thank you next to testify kavika Kaho hello chairani Vice chair Kim members of committee again K Kayo Public Health Institute Bo Farm to school network um we strongly support this bill uh this is another tool that the dewe can use to help get raise meet the 30% threshold um thank you thank you next to testify oh y not here next to testify Micah Mikata Vice chair his testimony is strong support thank you thank you Michel next to testify B kahui good afternoon chair Vice chair members of the committee Bonnie K administrator State procurement office the state procurement office will stand on its written testimony providing comments the $100,000 threshold is an amount that was agreed to by due in previous conversations thank you available for questions thank you Bonnie is there anyone else here wishing to testify on this matter come forward please La chair Vice chair members of the committee Cedric Gates here on behalf of the Department of Agriculture uh the department uh stands on it's written testimony offering comments on this measure here for any questions Malo thank you anyone else here wishing to testify please come forward good afternoon chair Vice chair members of the committee BR mamota here on behalf of the hoi Farm Bureau my apologies chair um if you do not have our written testimony make sure the uh committee gets her written testimony uh we are in support this measure as with all farm school um initiatives we absolutely support we want to see uh the doe uh achieve those goals um as you heard previous testifiers this is a a tool again uh any support and tools that we can give to the department education to try to re uh achieve at least the first 30% goal and then Tim may get up to 50% and we' like to see that higher but again we need to to provide doe the the ability to achieve these goals so we're in strong support and we will submit our written Tes if the committee does not have a chair my apologies thank you anyone else here wishing to testify this measure members questions all right assist the superintendent shall we try round two on this bill shoot let's go so so so maybe you can give us better Clarity of what you're trying to accomplish since the last time we have this bill okay well we we put out a request for proposal I think that we use a Doods one and there's another one that we go out to supplement the dods ls that only goes out once a year so in the inter room if we find a product that we want to try this would give us an opportunity to do it we use the um small purchase procurement to BU Po and it's like $25,000 and below and it was successful but we can only do it once time so if anything else comes up that's not on the vendor list that we want to try this gives us an opportunity to try different products so this is solely using State funds correct okay and these are direct to vendor purchases correct so why can't you guys go through your current vendors and have them purchase it for you it's not under your current contract it's I don't State funds right it's not fed funds state funds I don't think it's a product that's listed in the the the current RFP sort of ifbs why not though because it's a new product like boy wasn't on the vendor list before but why don't you want to fix that part first that the whatever so you can have flexibility on meeting the 30 you know your goals of what of locally sourced food would wouldn't you rate that more because again this is State funds not federal funds correct you should have more control over what state funds can buy so I'm just trying to get an understanding of what what you're trying to accomplish here if it's not on the vendor list this gives us a chance to purchase the food item but what I'm saying is why don't you put on the vendor list we will we're trying to now we're trying to put poy on the list but don't don't you have control over that how how often do you go out for a contract we have to go to you USDA to meet the requirements but these are State funds not fed funds but to get it on the list to get the reimbursement from USDA USDA has to approve the product and the ingredients and then we can get it on the list and then we can purchase from that so it's a there's two different procurements there's a state one and then there's a USDA requirement that's right right so but my understanding is State funds are flexible the FED funds are the ones that have to follow all that but you still need to have the product on the list that the vendor is providing okay so how long yeah so so how long would that take they go out once a year I said so next time it comes up we're trying to get four approved by USDA so we can put on the list the next time it goes out okay so so but but but but aren't you start can't you start thinking of things that you should be starting to qu on that list yeah we are right now we're looking at the menu we're trying to increase the amount of local products we can purchase in our existing menu okay so then you're you're good then we don't have PO on the list right now so we're trying to get it added we find other products that we can put on the list we're going to put it on the next time it goes out okay well I I have to say you're not making a good case of what you're trying to accomplish I think that that was the problem the last time is we just need to understand what mechanically you're you're trying to get to it's just sounds like you're just trying to go around procurement um and there's no thought process on how we're trying to put this all together because as I said this a state fund state fund is supposed to be very flexible if you're trying to meet USDA guidelines okay that's that's fine but you said you could purchase up to 25,000 already as a pilot so you would think that okay that's that that should work so then when you go in and and get the approval of whatever you're trying to get it should be within the plan so I'm just trying to confuse I'm confused on what this is trying to accomplish just saying you're going to give you more tools but it just sounds like you're it's just allowing you to do one-offs instead of trying to put it together comprehensively well I apologize if I'm not communicating effectively but what we're trying to do is we go out once a year to get the new product listed it's passed already and if something comes up that we want to try this gives us an opportunity to in said you can do up to 25,000 so so if if in the 25,000 you it's successful then you know you have to put it into 25,000 was only like a a handful of schools who could Supply yeah but if it's Local Foods how you how many vendors actually can supply that that amount we're trying to find out right now well that's what you're supposed to prove through the small purchases you should have more info over it rather than just saying okay give we're going to give you a $100,000 and you know try let us figure it out you should you should be able to prove that because my thing is I'm not sure there's that many that can can meet that that demand that you're looking for Al be at Statewide because I think I think the the thing that I'm trying to make you guys realize is that when you deal with small farmers you you it's it's very difficult to go to deal with the doe right and so you may not you know you need to understand what that small farmer um you know mix is like and and what will you know make them deal Direct IR L with you that's why I'm like okay if you have somebody existing if you have an aggregator that might be easier to to to make it successful I'm just saying I don't know I'm listening to this I don't know if you have it thought out you know I think I I thought a little bit about this this area it's just when you you present to us I'm not sure it makes sense in my head well we're looking for the the companies that can provide the product on each island and once we identify them we're going to try work with the Distributors to make sure that they connect with these The Producers so we don't I don't think we want to set up a model where we're purchasing directly from the farmers we want to go to the Distributors who can aggregate different suppliers on any Island and provide us the product to us right that's that's what we've been asking so that is this bill what you need to allow that your aggregators but this sounds like this is direct which is just a shortterm inter room until we can get the product on the list and then we can start dealing with the Distributors to aggregate the different Farmers okay all right okay so last time you told us that you would see if you could get it on the list right that the contract might not have gone out yet when did the contract go out I think it went out already when did it I think went out in February I think it was February last you think it was feary I can get I'll get you the exact date okay we had these questions and you would think you would have it now because this is a similar bill and I asked that question to you the Senate bill right okay I'll get it for you this time okay so February so in order to get it on and you're going to go back out again next February is that the plan how often do you go out I think it's once a year but I can check to make sure okay so if it's once a year and you already went out in February is it great to good to assume that you're going to go out next February I don't want to speculate but probably yeah probably okay so you can put this on the next list for February you can put poy on the list once we get approval from USDA you can put it on right okay so now you have this bill this bill may not get into effect until the governor sign it or whatever and so you're going to be able to put all this together and get somebody for $100,000 worth of poy to be able cure $100,000 worth of Po yet in February it's going to go on the list so between now and February why do you need this inum bill if there's another product that we want to test aside from po then we can use this bill to test the product but you can test the product with TW current 25,000 but it's very limited on what we can we can only do it one time a year only small purchase you cannot do multiple small purchases to different vendors not for the same product no I thought you said you want a different product you just tell me it's for a different I'm saying if we if we purchase a new product says um you know limo if we put a a small purchase for limo out we cannot do another small purchase for Lio 25,000 okay but how many how are you talking about every school year or forever one year school year okay so you can do one small purchase a year one small purchase for $225,000 period that's correct per year for that product for that product so you put out one for POI already right did you put one out for po we did one last year I did last po yeah okay so you did it when when did you do that I don't know exactly I can get that for you okay because you already did that so you would think that it would have gone if you had already done it Why didn't it go into the February because we don't have the USD approval of poy as a as an item we can use we have to approve the dietary components okay so what process are you in with the USDA to get we're working out with them now and the content how long have youve been working it out with them the last several months we've been going back and forth with them to try and get for approv okay so now you want to you you want this to go up because you might want to do limo or or some other product that we don't have on the list right now so how have you been doing it before the 25,000 small purch You' been doing that right I mean how many how much limo can how much limo what Farmers that do limo can do 50 $100,000 worth of limo I don't know we haven't asked him I'm just saying that this is a vehicle we can use for something the Lim was just an example and not saying we gonna purchase $100,000 with a limo but you're saying you can only do it once right so can you do okay so if it's $100,000 can you do four small purchases for 25,000 each I don't know I would have to check with for that yes sure so right we could do it up to 100,000 that's but that's the parse thing so if you do four of 25,000 we could do that if we have 100,000 threshold we would fall under that 100,000 but you canot do it for the same vendor right we we could do it for this you could do it as long as it's under the 100,000 total cap we could do that Y and the purpose for doing that would be what maybe if we'd want to do a different island or if we want to do a different bunch of schools to see if it's just as popular within those schools or in others because as as uh uh Senator Hashimoto was mentioning we do want to see beyond just a small group we want to see Statewide if we can find some of that same interest and that same desire to eat whatever that product would be okay so this is only to test this is not for you to be able to continually use this vehicle to be able to purchase over and over again $100,000 correct correct this got to be so what we're trying to do is figure out what products might be popular or what for example maybe perit maybe something that we haven't looked at previously right or or any sort of these these sort of products that maybe we haven't thought about Rutan you know Hai is very unique you know a lot of the different um vegetables that are and and produce that's involved here that's why we also have almost all of I think the produce in Hawaii Falls under specialty crop because it's not something that's grown in other parts of the the nation so we we Face very different sort of uh both challenges and and benefits of being here in [Music] Hawaii okay so is this requires a report from you as to what vendors you you you um we're happy I don't think it currently does but I think we'll be more than happy to put a requirement about what vendors would use because it would be interesting to see the report on what vendors you actually sampled out and what you're doing year with it because if if it's been used for other purposes I think that would raise concerns for me as well totally agree okay thank you thank you members further questions thank you okay moving on House Bill 1069 relating to education this adds two voting members that represent the department education and Board of Education to the school facilities authority to testify Department of Education after chair Vice chair members of the committee Dino of Education the department stands on its written testimony and support of this measure thank you thank you capson you also wanted to testify good afternoon chair uh Vice chair and members good to be back with you in person today capson po executive director of the board uh the board does stand on its written testimony uh in support of the measure and believes the addition of the board's voice to the SFA board uh would help with the needed account ability strategic input and oversight M thank you Ricky fuani thank you chair Kanani Vice chair Kim members r fujitani with the school facilities Authority we've submitted testimony with comments and are available for questions thank you thank you is there anyone else here wishing to testify on this measure if not members any questions okay I'll start off uh let's see Ricky can you come back up so the last time we heard this measure the Senate measure there were concerns about communication what what happened since then has there been more communication or better communication or what right so just to give you context right we have three programs preschools work for housing in New School Central Maui we have one program manager SFA has only eight employees we have three employees that focus on those programs actually two of the three are former doe project coordinators so they know the process very very well they have monthly twice a month meetings with their counterparts at the doe on those meetings to discuss all issues so that's all been scheduled that's continuing um and so you've held have you held a meeting after we heard the bill yes okay and who showed up at that meeting so for uh do who showed up at that yeah so for for uh preschools the first one is it's Heidi Armstrong okay and she's with uh the r k initiative and she was there at the yes for um Workforce housing it was um uh Deputy superintendent head of FTB the land person project management so they meet on that okay uh and then for new school Central Maui it's it's in full flight actually we had probably four or five meetings the last one was actually in Maui okay with with all the key principles okay in so was there issues that you e felt wasn't being addressed um that you're aware of yeah not that I'm aware of I mean we document everything everything's been documented we can send you that information if requested yes okay and um who's current members on the board right now the board members are Harold Edwards he is the industry representative he's a contractor for design build water uh uh Janny wasi who's a former uh deal principal and uh that's it but you have five members so three vacancies right so there were positions but the governor has retracted some of those um those positions that were in okay so you haven't been able to vote on anything how how long have you had right so um those positions were retracted last Monday so we had three members until then and we had our last board meeting so in our next board meeting we only have two members but by Statute that is Quorum because it's the majority of the sitting members so as long as we have as long as they agree then we can continue and approve measures with even two members even two members yes and what kind of things do you folks have to vote on um typically policy level things for what's coming up it would be the next series of Workforce housing locations uh at least to start the due the due diligent process and identify properties um for Central Maui schools not much because it's pretty much in design and planning and for preschools um pretty much that's being dictated by the ready Ki steering committee yes yes okay so there's not much at the moment any more questions fore do anybody El have questions from I have other questions okay um how about doe then so again can you tell this committee what what what it is that you think having two voting members as I believe the measure we passed out last time was two ex official members right so what is it that two voting members would accomplish or the problem it will solve that we can't solve now we can't solve with having two ex official members good because you're dealing with um basically school facilities um the doe would like more of a say in what happens with SFA and how they're moving forward so when you say have a say what do you what do you mean by that like aren't you folks don't you have a don't you aren't you included in the meetings where you can right but when the board takes action I think Poe wants to be a part of that decision making with the SFA for takes action and so what kind of actions have they taken that you folks felt that you didn't have a say in or needed to have a say in I think um early on I don't think we're aware of some of the projects that were ongoing um and I think if were if we had membership representation on the board we might have been more aware of what was happening before it went public see that that's the thing I'm trying to H get a handle on you want to be more aware but the me the meetings are public you can sit on it now and be aware or with nonvoting members you can be there part of the discussion and be aware so you know that's what I heard last time you want to be aware but it seems as though and then when I asked how many meetings I the superintendent how many meetings he only went to one so it's like okay we have stuff at all the meetings and and since the last meeting that the senate had the hearing on I've asked them to include us in all the meetings going forward so myself or another of the deputies would be sitting in on the meetings so how much more aware do you think you're going to be if you you be a voting member well I think that that decision making is what we want to be a part of not just the awareness but we want to be a part of the decision Mak okay other questions members maybe this question is for the Board of Ed executive director so since the last time we had this meeting did you guys have a presentation from SFA yes uh Senator we we did SFA came I believe in the February meeting and I think there was a lot of robust discussion between the Board of Education uh and SFA okay and then did are did you take our advice of having it as a standing agenda item or you guys are not going to do that we were um but then we we they were we took them off the the March agenda item but I do think periodic um having them show up periodically on the board uh meeting uh agenda why did you take them off of the March agenda uh that was the board was going to consider was in the process of possibly considering action uh regarding um School impact uh districts but um SFA requested that it be removed no no no but I'm just talking about a standing report from SFA so there there's none of that there there was uh in its place I think part of it was to honor the discussion and interests of what that discussion would have encompassed so that was used instead to talk about school impact fees um and and impact districts sort of generally and I think a lot of um issues were brought to top of mind for the Board of Education members okay so so so the reason that I ask is there is no reason to me why you need to have this bill if you just proactively kept keep adding them to your agenda the board so now that you took them off and didn't have a standing report it questions what's the commitment from the Boe side to start communicating with SFA so so you know assistant superintendent or deput you know your Deputy is saying that you want to be communicated to but but you know it's it's a two-way street you you you guys should foster that communication doesn't necessarily need to be just on a um you know you're sitting on the board but it's the question is if you have a doe member who's on the SFA board who are they reporting back too that's the question and so that's why I'm saying if if you if you really want to have that dialogue it should be at the board level and you should have everyone in that conversation at a posted meeting so if you're choosing not to do that then it's tells me that you guys are a part of the problem and why do we need this bill to fix it for you when you guys aren't proactively taking steps to fix that communication problem um well Senator then I think if we're part of the problem I think part of the reason for it is and for the ask is to be part of the solution right the solution is why don't you just have them as a standing agenda item well and so I do easy you don't have you don't need legislation we can look at doing that but again you know at at an well meet me halfway at least say you're going to do something cuz if you're asking me for this absolutely do something it doesn't seem like you're meeting me halfway you're just like okay yes move on but I do want to make sure I make the point though that it's not just about receiving updates right I do think similar to the department the board also wants more of a say but the board that's a good time for every single board member to have their say at that point right at s SFA meeting you're not going to have every single board member giving instant feedback on any project anyway thank you chair thank you yeah I have a question for you so it says the chairperson of the board or the chairperson's designate yes so it's it somebody that you're going to designate or you're going to sit I mean not you but the the board chair I mean the current board chair is Roy Tumi and I think um from some previous discussions I think we've had here uh I think his intention was whoever whether it's him or a design that it would be consistent that was I think your suggestion Vice chair that we don't change it every time so probably try be consistent with that so so this person will then have the ability to vote on SFA will they be voting on behalf of the board of BOE they'll be voting on from them by them mean how are they going to be able to run this on the board and is it going to be a board agreed that you should be voting this way I I I don't I'm not actually sure uh but I that not how I envisioned it I did Envision that it would be a representative of the board and uh they would have the authority to vote how how they saw fit and perhaps provide updates back to the Board of Education about what was going on at SFA but that the design would have the power uh and flexibility and authority to vote um without without really any restriction just how they feel they should and there in lies my concern because you're not going to necessarily be in aware of what that individual voted for before they vote right because I'm hearing this from doe as well so doe wants to be more aware they want to have a say well are they going to really have a say when the person that's there actually has to vote on something and maybe they're G to vote the way and the rest of the doe might not agree I mean I'm not again I'm not certain how this measure is going to make them more aware of what's going on which by having a non-voting member would probably serve the same way because again you're not going to pull the whole board to say how should we vote on this well I think um Senator sometimes uh you know it would be you have opportunity to have conversation right and you sort of know where people stand and perhaps overall what their values are and they're uh sort of you know heading in the right direction do they think things are heading in the right direction the board and I probably asked you the same question you folks ever reached out to the SFA board to let them know about certain issues and perhaps like how you folks tell us or you guys need to vote in favor of this you need to vote in favor of that please vote for this this is you folks we do monitor um it but I I don't know if we've actually said here specifically the action we want to take I I wouldn't want to go that far and say that but I do know we do want did you let them know how you guys feel on these issues that's on the agenda I I I I don't know if there was a specific I don't want to say yes or no I don't I can't think of us my issue that if you folks aren't communicating it then just because you have one member on from you guys board that that is going to be communicated as well because assumption is going to be that person is going to represent us we've had Representatives on heart I've never known what they were going to do I never agreed with them on what they voted on heart on the city on the rail okay never agreed with them and I don't think they ever came and asked us what we thought they voted the way they wanted to vote so I just doesn't know that this is going to to solve that issue and when doe had all of the facilities under doe there was a problem there were problems we had to move it out try all these different methods and now we're at SFA thinking that this is going to solve the problem they're gonna all be better and now it's not now doe wants back in to have control again so I I'm just yeah I'm having I I think I hear you I I do think again it's the at least from the board's perspective the board sees that sfa's largest client is basically the department and and that takes up most of the board of education's time and that's why the board uh was asking for its seat as well there in lies the thing why don't you have them on your agenda if you're the they're your you're their client yeah there there are efforts and I think I Feer I do think it's ongoing communication and engagement opportunities you know just because we didn't do once for one month doesn't mean uh we can't keep coming back to that and seeing when things can fit in and when we can have some of those discussions right I mean I think part of what's needed is more calibration on what's needed is ongoing consistent consistency which you just proved to us this by taking them off that that's not happening so thank you any further questions comments I do believe though capson that because this is related to the Department of Education and and the facilities that they need that it's important for for the Department to have um uh their voices heard and that's the reason for for this um measure is to make sure that um the board as as Board of Education as well as Department of Education is represented yes I I think so I absolutely agree with that chair and I do think it allows more opportunity for conversation uh uh alignment and calibration in all of our efforts because at the end of the day I think we all agree that um the board believes at least that we have to build school facilities that are gy deserve and their communities deserve thank you okay that last moving on to sc66 and sr44 requesting the Department of Education to develop and Implement a Statewide financial literacy curriculum curricular plan for public high school students to testify captains Aloha again chair Vice chair and members capson po executive director of the board the board does stand on a written testimony supporting the intent of this measure and we do suggest and request uh small amendments basically to use board policy Mahal Stephanie Sakamoto good afternoon chair members of the committee Stephanie sakota on behalf of the hoi Credit Union League um I just want to reiterate that while we support strr 66 we would prefer um the pass passage of HB 619 thank you thank you next to testify Tong goopo Chamber of Commerce good afternoon chair Vice chair members of the committee tongo po Chamber of Commerce standing in support of Our Testimony also want to thank you chair for your leadership and introducing the resolution we do believe that financial literacy is a really big component to preventing the brain drain as we've seen throughout the years for our local students leaving the islands after college and after high school so here for any questions and also happy education week thank you thank you Tom next to testify Dana your sister could have come and helped you with hello Vice Sher Kim members of the education committee my name is danen Honda and this is Phoebe Phoebe is two and a half years old we are testifying in support of sc66 and sr44 I brought Phoebe here today with me because when finatal literacy legislation was first brought up in Hawaii I was just a little kid myself and today here I am as an adult and recently a father and we're still here talking about potentially making this happen this minder here is filled with all the financial literacy legislation introduced over the years to me these aren't just pieces of paper these represent the voices of so many of us over time advocating for a more resilient Hawaii when I first started fighting for financial literacy it was due to my personal story of overcoming Financial challenges to become a homeowner but really it's so much more than just myself or all of us for that matter it's about our future generations and giving them the education that they need and the hope that they need that by working hard and smart that they can continue living here in Hawaii so please let's not delay any longer and let's provide the accountability and the resources needed to make this happen thank you so much thank you M's question thank you next to testif Marvin D good afternoon chair Vice chair and members of the committee Marvin Deng testifying on behalf of Visa Visa is a private sector leader in financial literacy and has developed a the Practical money skills program in conjunction with government agencies Educators and others you know uh this resolution is very important it's important because when high school students are able to learn about financial literacy and management skills it will make them better prepared to face the economic challenges that they may have to deal with as adults thank you very much is there anyone else wishing to testify on this measure please forward um this good afternoon chair kidani Vice chair Kim and members of the committee I'm Terry USI Jima assistant superintendent with the Department of Education testifying on behalf of the superintendent um I apologize for our late testimony the department is committed to expanding financial literacy education and has convened a literacy task force last spring in 2024 and has published an updated list of resources that has been distributed to all principals uh teachers and complex area superintendents um we have also um we are currently reviewing the vision of the high school graduate and following that we are going to be reviewing the required grit credits for graduation and we um note that the proposed resolution does have some challenges in terms of implementation Staffing and funding So to that end the department has requested an appropriation for a position dedicated to financial literacy uh to assist with implementing literacy financial literacy more fully so thank you for the opportunity to testify thank you members questions yes we always come to the point that we going have to add funding position which is okay but H where did he go you know teaching this in the schools where did it go what what took place at that um over the years that we replac it what we don't have today what you just said because we putting we tried to get it back into the schools but what happened to it when we was going school so that's the question I mean I understand you guys asking funding don't get me wrong it's it's a great thing to fund but we we're spending a lot of money adding positions adding positions and then you know you guys doing with Tas so when when are we going to be able to just use with what we have uh we have been using what we have so far and over the last three years um we have um had people who we don't have any dedicated um person with that this Falls within their duties um but we've pulled people um to work together to create to create and determine some financial literacy standards based on national uh Financial litery standards which didn't exist before um and uh we did convene a task force um with the resources that we have um inviting different stakeholders and we did come up with a report that list the recommendations and um even vetting um you know an updated list of financial literacy resources for our schools we've identified some free ones um and we've talked to Credit Union Partners we've talked to some um vendors there's newer things coming out all the time and some of it looks really good um and so there's some options that are no cost to schools because and some of it is from Community Support uh what we don't have is someone who is dedicated to facilitate uh this work and to move it forward forward more quickly we've also um explored um um you know the personal transition plan um that's um in progress right now and we've done we're asking students what are some of the things that should go in that and so we did add a question um to ask students what's important to you and as we continue our work with the vision of the high school graduate um that should be the core right um what we want to produce so um we're anticipating financial literacy um because we're hearing some of it already and um we've been hearing it from the community Our intention also is you know we know it's important for all our graduates to have basic financial literacy skills before they graduate um so we so once that's done then we of course we'll um include stakeholders in the graduation requirements and because that's one of the recommendations that resulted from the task force result um report and you know the number one um recommendation we had 11 members support this and uh no one um opposed it to or neutral was for financial literacy to be a fundamental core skill that should be embedded within the k12 and right now it is but I think we have to update to see exactly where it is we have list um but that's um we've updated our social study standards since then so um that would need updating but the second recommendation it um the gradu um the department should make financial literacy a mandatory graduation requirement that was tied as the second recommendation um with a stepbystep plan to make it a recommendation but do it more gradually and incorporate some of the other recommendations um into the process BR this something and I came and I was interested because all the students from my school well not my school the school I used to go to Camp High School I was surprised all of the kids that came different times they came with in over half of them was talking about that and then other half was transportation and it was really was really um good to hear that we're going to try to do something like this big that's what they asked when they were sitting in front of me that was the ask so he just want to take Senator K and his committ yeah and we we would like to do more too um we're just requesting thank you appreciate J question so you've testified to us in the past that deal that the schools some schools or many schools offer financial literacy as an elective correct that some some yes they they have the option to do that about I want to say four years ago um um a accn code was created so that schools could offer it as an option um okay so my question is why why are you going through all of this when if it's already been an elective and the whole requests have been over the years is to put it as a requirement in the schools so I don't understand why you need a dedicated person I know this resolution calls for a lot of stuff but over the years we've just asked that it be part of the requirements in as a required class so if you already have an elective you already have the basis of what should be taught we do we have that part we have um some drafted financial literacy standards okay and the elective course um it's a interdisciplinary elective so it could be um taking things from social studies it could be taking things from math it could um so when we came up with the financial literacy standards that is um a resource for any school who's providing financial literacy to kind of use that as a guideline so you are covering things very similar to what is in this resolution um but to make it a requirement um as if it's a graduation requirement it would have to go through a process and um okay so what's the difference between having it as a a regular course not an elective but not necessarily saying it's a requirement for graduation because if it's part of what you have to take everybody would take it right so I don't know the difference between it being a a a course that's that's embedded into the into the high school uh versus saying it's a graduation requirement because it would be part of the whole overall graduation requirement I mean we've been asking for this simply all these years as you can see from the folder that I've I've introduced measures for it other members here have can see yes right so how and then you you go and you put together a a um task force I don't understand because this is parents have called us contacted us we've talked to you folks about it so I I I don't and you have electives you just haven't pulled the trigger to make it part of the overall we keep hearing you got to take something away well you know again I'm not sure how us giving you one position because we don't give your a position every time you guys decide to add something to your to the curriculum right it's um that the our specialists in our office um they're at pretty much at capacity in terms of what they need to do and so um to devote the kind of attention we would need to to to move this forward so that we can the difference is I think we would like to ensure that every high school student has um basic financial literacy exposure right before they graduate right now right now it's kind of if they choose to take an itive they can so one idea that um was proposed was perhaps if it is incorporated into an existing course you know that might be a possibility and so part of the reason for having a task force was to see not just okay I think everyone agrees that financial literacy is extremely important then why has it taken the do so long to even put something together so we have been trying with the resources that we've had okay the last question I have is you mentioned you folks ask students what they want right you've asked students what they want in the financial literacy um we just put out a um as part of our personal transition plan survey um we first um had we went to some of our student leaders and so we posed a question out there I have not seen the Reas what's the question um I think it's asked I don't have the specific question in front of me but um we added it amongst other questions um regarding their aspirations for future careers what kinds of skills do they need to know what you know what kind of um knowledge but we had a specific question um about financial literacy in terms of should it be I think it was incorporated in as part of their personal transition plan that's that is a graduation requirement well I I I can understand you asking that question but it's hard to ask a question to somebody who maybe not not know what they need to know right I mean you have these high school graduates and they're not they're not I'm sure like when I was graduating what I needed to know as far as financial literacy I think that's why you're there I don't think you asked them you know what kind of algebra you think you need to have or um but I'm just saying saying that you folks are the Educators we are the ones that's supposed to come up with the policy and so it's great that you ask them but I hope you're just not waiting to see because a lot of times they're not going to be aware of what are the things they need to learn they might not know about you know student debt and and what and you know some of the things that are going on they might not know about you know the stock market and how to invest and stuff so how would they even know to add that in their their answer I think our question was more General I think they know that financial literacy is really important being able to manage your um your money when you grow you know get a job even if they may not know the very specific things like credit or you know how do you um um look in terms of um making smart financial decisions budgeting and looking at yeah as a high school student do you know they get so much money they're going to spend it they fig I know enough about finances that I don't need to take a class right I mean so I'm just saying that that we've been asking for this for over a decade and I think that's the issue with the electives because with the electives they would spend a whole semester um just on that topic I think in general um it appears that um financial literacy having those skills is um more of an interest well I think right now we need at least a one quarter of financial literacy to start and I think this is something that should have been implemented years ago and should be implemented immediately and I don't necessarily think that you need to go through a working group asking a survey and going through all of this stuff um to be able to give them the basics on Basics at least the basics on Financial literacy and many schools I think you know are it's just that we are not able to say that every student has it before they graduate from high school and that's what we would like to be able to do okay thank you further questions so so at least give us a timeline what is the timeline that you're looking at I think the timeline depends on our resources as well um so that is why but if it's a priority you make it happen so are you saying that it's not a priority I I think it has been a priority so that despite this not being in anyone's specific you know um responsibilities we have found a way to uh create the standards to uh get stakeholder um input and um we've updated our resources and even that you know requires time because um you have to meet with people you have to review materials and uh when we put something out there for schools to use uh we want to make sure that it's something that okay so so so don't so what is the class that everyone has to take these days I think back when I was you know this is 20 years ago was like everyone had to take guidance class yes I right is that is that still around no it's not okay what what what did that transform into um it's a person transition plan okay so it's not even a class anymore it is a half credit course okay so so there's something there yes so why don't you try and just get something in there as an incremental step can you commit to that at least I something I give us a timeline so you know respectfully I don't think it's my sole decision to say at least if I had a magic wand um that might be one thing that I might you know want to do but it's um because what I'm feeling is you're just kind of saying you're doing all these things and you're kind of like okay we'll keep doing it and we'll doing we're going to keep doing it and then we're going to be here next year with the same conversation so I just want to know something that we can say okay you you committed that some at least something will happen something th give us something I think with additional resources that we will um be able to but but but that's the thing who works on the personal transition plan curriculum right now that that person should be able to do it so um we have our office of student support services so they work on that right now um AC cross office you know we have someone from our office also involved we have um they have people from other offices as well so it's not solely them but they're reviewing that right now to see what else needs to um because right now there's variation in terms of how the P personal transition plan is designed mind because um the schools look at their school communities their students and they have come up with what they have determined as most appropriate I get it I get it so so so what I'm hearing and just just so you know this is what I'm hearing is there's a lot of excuses well there's that's what I'm hearing I a lot of excuses well I'm sorry if it sounds like we're making excuses um you know we do want to make happened for all our students and um and part of that might be through the personal transition plan it if we're I'm just telling you something that's existing if you say you need more resources I'm throwing something out there and if you feel that that's not the way then you go find something else but I'm giving you an idea I and and that's a great idea and I think that idea but when can we get something that you think should be you should be able to deliver something I'm not not seeing a full class I don't even know if you need a full class but at least something that we can have to all students before they graduate like writing a check how many people know how to write a check that every single high school student I don't think I even learned how to write a check in high school I think it was thanks to my eighth grade English teacher who taught us how to write a check so I don't so so some needs to be revamped with the curriculum and you should be concerned that people don't know how to write a check or balance a checkbook that doesn't concern you uh I I think they should be able to write a right I I just had this long conversation who was my sis with my sister who teaches in high school and we're talking about what are the life skills that people need and it's not embedded in the doe curriculum and so I think your office should be tasked with trying to figure out what is the relevant skills that people need and and not needing to create all these excuses to to get it implemented I think I'm just I'm just really frustrated maybe it's not even reso that we need maybe we need to move the bill because it just seems like when we come back here in one year you're going to say oh you know we maybe we moved a little bit on our working group but nothing has happened yet and I don't want that to happen I don't know what it's it's going to take we're giving you the freedom through a reso to implement this but every time nothing happens and that's the frustration well I things are happening I think um we do want things to happen quicker and um and that has been Our intention and I know that it has not been quick enough and given our present um capacity I uh we have um been doing what we can okay well well I think if if it reflects a priority of the department then it should you you can figure out how to make it happen with the hundreds and hundreds of employees that you have existing and if it's not then you will continue to give excuses so I think that is the litness test so if if if you feel that it's important you will make it happen so thank you chair thank you um I have a question yes so do you have any idea how many other states require financial literacy I would have to go back and check on that could you please yes we will check on that let this committee I think at one time we checked but I I don't have because if they have Financial literacy what did they give up or did they extend the school hours I'm just I'm just asking we need to the curriculum yeah we need to look at this because this comes up every year and we are um it is in cue for us to review our graduation requirements that's part of our um strategic plan so it is and who makes that decision the Board of Education would have to approve it okay but do are do they realize what we're asking and what we've asked for a number of years when you guys go over the curriculum I I believe they [Music] do okay well I'm not sure if what you believe is correct but I'd like to know for sure thank you two more questions one for you so you folks already asked for this position that you talk about in your testimony yes that was already asked in the beginning of the we asked the previous year also for the position okay can we have Board of Education come on thank you so the the Boe knows that this is a bill and this is something that we have asked for year after year for I don't know a decade now I think and what has the board done has the board passed a policy to say that this should be part of the graduation requirements or what what did the board do no the the board has not I I don't think the board has actually considered it I'd have to go back and confirm is there a reason why they haven't considered it I I without repeating some of the reasons that basically I was going to mention some of the reasons that the department did the board um has been the board is aware and is more keenly aware I think um you know especially after this session knowing um how how long or the the history now right that it has been for several sessions now so so the board is aware and and taking a look uh as far as getting movement um the board um was tends to look at the PTP that personal transition plan that uh assistant superintendent spoke about as the one of the preferred means to do it so have the board looked at look at it or you just talked about looking at um there's been discussion it and maybe more uh an update uh perhaps by one of the Committees uh usually that falls under the student achievement committee um but uh Vice chair I think to your question as the board you know grab the ball and run with it U perhaps not that aggressively what would it take to have that happen because again the board is well aware I mean I I we've been sitting in these meetings for years and there's always been somebody from Board of Education um in the meetings and we've asked them what it would take to to require it to be part of the graduation requirements or to be one of the required classes and they said well we have to look at what we're going to get rid of or what it's going to replace so I am just shocked to hear that you folks have not gone beyond a discussion that has not been something that you voted on um as to whether you're going to add it to the personal personal what is it called the person transition or because I know I had guidance class as well and you know I'm not sure why the wheel has to be reinvented when you already have electives out there there's other states that have adopted it and again we're not talking about you know um literacy 5.0 we're talking about literacy 101 or you know less than 101 basic literacy writing a check and understanding about you know when you when you charge something that you're going to have these fees and you're going to have late fees and so forth um because I know my sister and my mom thought I just paid a minimum amount you know didn't realize it's going to take them 11 years to pay off the balance if they only pay the minimum but those are the basic stuff and so I mean between the Board of Education and and educate doe you know you guys have smart people with degrees come on I can't you can figure this out we haven't done it yet I I think Senator to I should say then that you know you ask what it would take and I do think conversations like this to remind the board staff the department staff is part of that okay but we're tired already we've had this discussion over and over again we don't know what it's going to take you know can you ask the board to agenda this issue for their next meeting and um go as far as asking other states and counties um whether or not they have had um literacy required financial literacy required and if so what did they have to give up or what did they have to do what what was the mechanic chair absolutely I can tell you I will uh take that back to the either the board chair of the appropriate committee chair uh to see um what might be able to get scheduled thank you and we'll take that I'll take I'll definitely take that back thank you kson further questions comments yeah if we have a bill the bill pass what would you f do I I well Vice chair if if it is the prerogative and decision of the legislature of course we would have to comply so why AR be passing the bill well for me the reason why is I don't know what they would have to give up that's that's the the hard part they just add it to the personal or add it to the time frame of school and you know I'm just saying there's a lot of other things invol but then we just heard that it could be added to that personal gener without giving up in but I think unless we get serious about it it's not going to happen we've seen that just my two step I think when the board does consider it Vice chair um the board does also take into account some of the messaging that needs to go out to the schools I it is a large system so we do try the board does try and take that into account but but I as I said to chair I will definitely take that back thank you anyone else here wishing to provide testimony if not um recess reconvening the committee on education so committee has been in discussion and the recommendation is for Bill 110 HD1 to pass with amendments and we will defect the date to July 1 20150 okay um if there's no discussion House Bill 11 Z house draft one pass with amendments chair kidani hi chair votes I shimo hi Senator can hi Senator Dort Hi Five members present all voting I recommendations adopted thank you for House Bill 1 1293 house draft two the recommendation is the same to pass with amendments and defect the date to July 1 20150 okay members House Bill 1293 house draft two any members voting no any members with reservations hearing none recommendations adopted thank you for House Bill 1069 HD1 recommendation of the chair is to pass with amendments and the Amendments would be to um add to take the language of Senate Bill 1388 sd2 and defect the date to July 1 2015 okay recommendation HB 10 10669 1069 house draft one uh with amendments any measure any member voting no any mbers no no any members with reservations hearing none four members voting I one no recommendations adopted thank you and for the final measure sr66 and sr44 which request the doe to develop and Implement a Statewide financial literacy plan for public high school students recommendation is to pass as is strr 66 and sr44 pass as is any member V voting no any members with reservations hearing none recommendation is adopted with five members voting thank you member that concludes like to call the committee on higher education and jointly with education uh to order we are in room conference room 229 it is 419 we're on the 301 agenda item uh and this meeting is being streamed lived on YouTube and in the likely event we have to abruptly end this hearing due to technical difficulties a committee will reconvene to discuss any outstanding business on Tuesday uh that's tomorrow in room 229 at 3 p.m.

great thank you all right Mr Davis you want to call the meeting call the meeting in order and start [Laughter] with flaged States America God indivisible liy and justice for all real quick before we get started I just wanted to um recognize uh Mr Keith Jones he was um one of our board members here for over we think over 10 years we know it was a long time and and he resigned before um last month's meeting and we just wanted to take a moment and recognize all of his amazing Service uh to the students and staff in burand Township um he was a huge asset for us to have on the board and he will certainly be missed all right I'm GNA do a roll call Mr Davis present Mrs Reed here Mrs hmof here Mrs Allen here Mr Phillips here Mr Golden here M Juliana here Mrs oriente here all right we need a motion and a second to approve the um Action meeting minutes from the February 27th 2025 meeting motion second all those in favor I opposed or abstain uh presentations all right welcome everyone thank you for coming our favorite part of the meeting each week we are going to recognize our students of the month for both JFK Elementary and dbe Middle School these students are being recognized because they are the cream of the crop they are the best of the best and they have shown their teachers and everyone else in the school why they are so great and now we are going to recognize them here tonight so without further Ado let's start with our students from JFK so students when I call your name you're going to come up here get your certificate and stay up here and stand next to me sound like a plan okay good I heard one yes I think all right our first student is from our prek program uh Miss Ella Cooper congratulations just take this Ella has shown great progress over the course of the school year she has been working hard on her self-help skills and is becoming much more independent Ella has grown academically and socially she's always willing to lend a hand to her teacher and Friends Ella is such a pleasure to have in class and I cannot wait to see what she does during the last few months of the school year keep up the great work Ella congratulations Ella our next student is Jackson cath Jackson always has a smile on his face and helps out in class Jackson works hard every day and is a great role model he is an amazing friend and student congratulations to Jackson all right our next student is from first grade Timmy Wilson congratulations sir your certificate Timmy is a very hardworking respectful student he comes in every morning with a positive attitude and ready to work he listens to what I have to say and uses it to become a better student he is also kind and caring to his friends I can always count on Timmy to listen and follow directions he is always going above my expectations he is one of the few that does everything on our nine box Choice board for homework great job every week he does all of them when when only five are required awesome our second grade student is osas Marshall osias is respectful attentive and helpful he is a wonderful role model for his peers his efforts academically as well as socially will take him far in life congratulations to osas our third grade student is Heidi agilar asmita you're welcome very much Heidi is such a helpful student she is sweet and kind and always thinks of other she works very hard and doesn't give up she's an amazing student and a great person congratulations and our last student from JFK is Karen abier Karen is a model student both academically and socially socially emotionally she has a uh a great mindset and always expects the best of herself she is a leader and role model to her peers her confidence and pride in her abilities help her shine daily congratulations to Karen all right guys we're going to get our picture taken in front front of that big green sheet come on over you guys can stand right in front of me look that way hold your certificate up make sure it's the right way we' got caught with that doing that long before you're usually smiling at me on the bus when I Ride Along yep show your shirt look up Miss Megan Timmy put it down just a little bit buddy there you go tough C you guys can come up here and take pictures yeah come on pictures great thank you guys you can sit back the torture's over did a great job all right we are moving on to our students from the Middle School terrible she did great um first from the Middle School we have a student who was unable to make the meeting last month so I'm hoping he made it this month of sixth grader Dominic [Applause] shellenberger the sixth grade teachers have Nom get off this sixth grade teachers have nominated Dominic shellenberg Dom is a hardworking and focused student he is attentive participates and driven Dom is a kind and respectful young man who is always willing to lend a hand or help another student congratulations sir all right next in fifth grade for the month of February we have Sylvia cudra congratulations there you go the fifth grade team selected Sylvia kudra for February student of the month Sylvia is dedicated and consistently puts in the effort to excel she pays close attention to detail ensuring that all tasks are completed accurately and on time additionally she is always willing to help others demonstrating a strong sense of teamwork and support great job job our sixth grade student is Genevie relli [Applause] the sixth grade team selected Genevie Genevie is a hardworking attentive and enthusiastic student she completes her assignments on time asks questions when she needs help and is motivated in her studies so congratulations to jenab our seventh grade student is Marian zala Mendes congratulations there you go Marian is an asset to our seventh grade team she is friendly kind and considerate to all her classmates her work ethic and grit are second to none it is evident in all her interactions that she has a strong moral compass additionally she is involved in activities outside the classroom both in school and out of school the seventh grade team is proud to see her receive this acknowledge acknowledgement congratulations and last but not least our eighth grade student is Emma barazza uh the eighth grade team selected Emma because she is hardworking talented and driven Emma consistently demonstrates a growth mindset by helping her peers understand the power of yet she is involved in multiple student activities including student government and National Junior Honor Society and is always willing to go above and beyond so congratulations to Emma ready for the picture so get a little closer like you like each other awesome congratulations guys thank you all right so you guys certainly are allowed to stay for the meeting but you don't have to so this would be your opportunity to get up and celebrate your awards for the rest of the evening thank you so much foring thank you thank you great J thank you [Music] great job guys thank you all right no need to go over the mission statement or the goals correct correct all right at this time we're going to open the meeting to the public for the discussion of agenda items only can I have a motion and a second please motion all those in favor opposed or abstain no public all right seeing no public um may I have a motion in a second to close the public portion of the meeting motion second all those in favor I opposed or abstain all right you're up Mr Le all right on to my section here um first part of the section we had Safety and Security drill s for both JFK and DDE listed dates and times there item C is the monthly reports uploaded to the portal for the board's review item D we had one confirmed case of uh harassment intimidation and bullying that was at the Middle School uh E1 is uh to confirm last month's uh report of a non-hib a non-f found hi at JFK item number one one on the next page there is the second reading of our two policies that we introduced uh policy updates that we introduced at the way meeting item number two is a fundraiser it's to sell relli hogies uh and that is going to be on Saturday April 5th so this is going to benefit our e8th grade class it's the intersection of bro and rude in route 561 so who's who typically sells hogies there it's um son of ity and fire department does sometimes to so they agreed to allow our eth grade class to sell hogies on that intersection instead and and um yeah and U Miss um schaer from the middle school has done a really good job like organizing that um and actually all fundraisers theying are the eighth graders making them no they're we're sellies okay so they're just sell you can buy say is the son Italy gonna make them because they're con I agree with that they are um item number three there is our guest speakers for the month item number four is to approve two new school volunteers item number five is for the board to accept a um scholarship of $250 from the Camden County Association of school administrators that's the basically the superintendent um Association um the middle school has uh decided as a committee to give it out as one student will get a scholarship for highest GPA and then two other students will get a piece of it for best allaround students um at right before graduation this year uh item number six very thankful the district calendar um is complete uh it's it's pretty much directly in line with what Pine Hills doing our only difference is the first day of school is going to be a student half day here to allow our teachers some more time to to get themselves together um we did something a little bit different this year we also are starting in August so the teachers are coming in one day then we'll have Labor Day weekend and then they'll have their second PD day on that Tuesday and really I was really pushing for that and the and the Teachers Association was in support of it as well because it keeps us away at the end of the school year from that juneth day that we have to observe and so anything we can do to kind of push the start of the Year back is is is helpful um we also we also build in a snow day this year so the day before Memorial Day weekend that Friday right now for next year is a vacation day for everybody if we have a snow day that's where we'll take the first snow day from and the teachers it'll be a half day for students teacher and service in the afternoon so I feel like we did some some uh a little bit more creative things this year um we also have a countywide um inservice day with um on the day after the Super Bowl so no students are in school the day after the Super Bowl and a lot of different uh districts are are having the in service so if you want if we have teachers that want to go from here to to Eastern because they're offering something they can do that so lot lot of um collaboration this year on the calendar uh under Personnel G one we have uh one person being um approved for a homebound instructor under number two we have the approval of a mentor teacher for a long-term substitute number three uh we have the uh resignation to accept uh under H we have disposal of books which is a normal process each year for the media specialist they go through um and kind of weed out their their library and then we have to approve the disposal of books for them that's it any questions let me do a motion a second then we get the questions can I a motion a second to approve uh superintendent items XA through X motion second any questions all right um Mr Golden yes Mrs Allen yes Mr Phillips yes Mrs Helma yes Mr Juliano yes M Oran yes Mrs Reed yes Mr Davis yes all right on to business and finance can I have a motion in a second to approve uh business and finance items XI a to xim motion second thank you all right um items a through E I mean a through D rather are the financial report for February 2025 um there are sufficient funds available to meet the district's obligations for the remainder of the year the board secretary's report and the treasurer's report do match they are in agreement uh no changes in anticipated Revenue amounts or sources are um anticipated a is to approve the payment of bills which all four members of our finance committee reviewed and signed off on item f is to approve the February 2025 source for teachers listing with all of the pay rates as well as the bill rates um listed G is to approve the cafeteria dispersements for the month of February in the amount of $33,600 1 cents each is to approve the care dispersements for the month of February 2025 in the amount of 87432 I is to approve an added District tuition contract for a kindergarten student attending Archway uh the tentative tuition rate between for February through June is $2,166 63 J is travel and professional development for some of our staff members as well as the related costs for that and K is to approve our tenative budget for the 2526 school year um this is obviously the tenative budget because this has to go to the county office for final review and approval uh this is due on Wednesday so our general fund revenues and expenditures all match as you can see as well as special Revenue due and Debt Service so the total budget is 20, 857,921 10,721 144 and for The Debt Service portion of that which is bonds from um referendums and things of that nature um also the responsibility of the township of Berlin through tax levy The Debt Service is 303,000 we do have that um we need to put in travel that's been spent the travel expenditure maximum for um 2526 is $3,484 the current school year has expended $223,300 a lot of this money comes from title 2 grants that's use uh for professional development um and then L is the preschool expansion budget planning worklook for 2526 this has to match up in the budget software with the preschool expansion Aid um so all of our all of our numbers have to match up and they have to zero out which you probably saw in the workbook there was no difference between the top number and the bottom number everything was clear uh m is just to approve some budget transfers we needed to cover some additional bus maintenance on our district Fleet so we transferred some funds um from some salary lines and then uh we also had to cover some subs for Teacher vacancies and the reason it was transferred from resarch room was for a while we didn't have an actual IND District staff member so we were using some of those funds um we were using a sub from ESS so I was able to free up some money from there transfer that into our sub line to make those uh cover those needs any questions [Laughter] all right um Mr Golden yes Mrs Allen yes Mr Phillips yes Mrs Helma yes M Juliano yes Mrs oriente yes Mrs Reed yes and Mr Davis yes all right great thank you um moving right along uh we don't have anything for old business that I can remember um negotiations we don't have any updates right Mr Le nothing with recent discussions okay uh finance committee we did have finance committee obviously I don't have too much because my budget is done and yeah I had get to breathe for a little bit um we did review the budget report we went over the revenue report all of our revenues are coming in on time um I did discuss that all the budget details kind of a breakdown of some budget details were emailed to you guys last week uh our certified minutes and supporting docs will go to the county office no later than Wednesday which is when they're due and our public hearing the public hearing dates that you're allowed to have the public hearing from our April 24th to May 3rd and our public hearing is scheduled for May 1 so don't forget April we have our Action meeting on the 17th and we have that special meeting for the public hearing only um on May 1 so May 1 will only be our public hearing lots of quality time together yes yes um and the reason we're not having it on the 24th is because that's sted Spring Break um grants we continue to submit our monthly reimbursements and school bus inspections are on Wednesday so like I told the finance committee we'll be good in the morning to get our kids to school we'll see how the afternoon plays out um it should be fine so we'll have all those done on Wednesday um that was finance committee uh New Jersey school boards I haven't seen anything come out ed services Michelle um we just approved a second reading of a variety of policies uh we approved some students for field work and there was no other business really great and pel uh meeting tomorrow perfect8 um and then I just put on here Camy County School boards is hosting a hybrid meeting between Gloucester County and Camy County School boards it's on May 6th at 6:45 they're doing it virtually or in person the inperson session is at ad delas they are discussing board member milestones and certifications if anyone is interested in go free food at a yeah it's dinner I think so sign me up let me know if you want to go and I'll sign you up 9 out right from the kids that's right that's right so in all seriousness let me know if anybody wants to go and I'll be I'll be happy to sign this up um any other new business all right uh we're going to open a meeting to the public again for discussion of non-agenda items and agenda items can I have a motion in a second motion second all those in favor I opposed or abstain seeing none hearing none can I have a motion a second to close the public portion of the meeting second all those in favor I opposed or obain we do not have a need for an executive session this evening so at this point um I need a motion a second to adjourn get you done you know I had a question that wasn't on I remember what about the board seat opening that we're going to post now that we've accepted or acknowledged Mr Jones we'll go over the posting that we did for our last vacancy and we'll get that out um to everybody so and then we'll set those timelines but yeah that'll be in the coming days that that'll go out to fill that vacancy any other questions on that all right so motion a second then to adjourn the meeting motion second 72 all those in favor all right 725 Tom shut it down they are on but because we

e the open public meetings act that good public notice has been given by the secretary ofation in the following manner post noce on the official office email Brown here Mr here thank you m whereas NJ 12 will ask for a public body to close session during a public meeting and whereas the board of education is deemed it necessary to to close session to discuss certain the public and whereas regular meeting of the Board of Education will reconvene following the session at approximately 7:30 p.m.

e e e all right I'm going to bring this meeting to order it's Monday March 17th this is the governing board advisory committee to review policies um and the first agenda item obviously the call to order and welcome welcome to everybody uh there are no public comments as of now and uh a motion to approve the agenda can I get a second please I second I I move to approve the agenda as is all those in favor say I hi motion passes um and then the next agenda item is the actual call to the audience there's anybody calling to the audience I don't think so um so we're gonna move on to the next agenda item and the next agenda item is to discuss the policies on 224 we completed jir and uh we set future meetings and uh then also uh next up was jic H and the accompanyment documentation uh for drug and alcohol use by students but before we get into that is there anybody that wants to share anything or go and uh that's obviously related to the agenda anything that we need to be aware of before we get started I did have one thing go for it if if no one else do anything um I don't know if anyone saw the last governing board meeting but there was a policy that was brought forward that was uh for safe and inclusive schools and there were some questions that were brought up related to it because um it seems to interface with some of the um policies that we have regarding police interactions on campus Because it's it's specific to it's intended to be specific to immigration enforcement on campuses but it the way that it references uh interfacing with PD was not very specifically clear in relation to immigration so one of the things that came out of the governing board discussion was to ask this team to take a look at that policy and just kind of see what the fit is so I it doesn't look like it made it on the agenda for today um but perhaps if the team is willing we could get that sent out to everybody and we could um perhaps have a disc discussion on at our next meeting in the hopes of perhaps U getting it back to the governing board for approval can you repeat the policy um it doesn't have a it doesn't have like a numbering scheme yet but it's called it was called safe and inclusive schools one of the value sets that was brought out in the conversation was that name doesn't really tell you what it is and that perhaps one of the things it could really use is a more uh a name with greater clarity as to what its purpose is so and that's is that a is that a that's not a policy that we currently have is that it was a new policy that was recommended um to us um from an organization that we belong to called um Copper State I may be missing a word on that but education Alliance thank you so um group that was doing policy before yes yeah and it had already been vetted by District legal council those adjustments had already been made but um and the recommendation from Copper State was that this committee take it up the recommendation was from the board oh oh from a specific board member who is now currently present it was just to take a look at it because I felt like it in and I couldn't quote it off the top of my head during the meeting and I was also at home during the meeting but um it may be a simple fix with the title of the policy but the way it's currently written with the title of the policy it sounds like it would um clash with stuff we've already changed in other policies in terms of um law enforcement notification for certain things it didn't make I was like okay well this seems to go against stuff we've already written somewhere else and I couldn't pull it out of my head where we wrote it so I was like we just need to look at it really quick and see if something needs to be changed I think if we if they just ch May if we just change the title of the policy to make it clear that this only applies in these very narrow situations then it won't clash but the way it's written it seems like it clashes with stuff we've already gotten approved or about to submit to be approved so that was my only concern I didn't want to create us any more work I just didn't want um me to be the only person or set of eyes on it I guess is what I should say hi thank you for for your timing was imp no I was just I was trying we were doing is there anything that the group needs to know and I was doing my best impersonation of someone who's just come back from Spring Break and is you know a full two weeks away from that meeting and was doing my best to recall what we had come to conclusion on so I appreciate the bailout so I I just have a process question is uh I I'm not even is that how does that work I mean is we is it just say okay this is something that we do and then yeah we could we could just ask Hilda to add it to the next agenda for us and then it would just be um a discussion item and then if we're able to come to terms on a recommendation within that meeting then we could just go ahead and send it back to the board to cons continue their consideration and it's either do we think just changing the title of this is going to make it jve with the rest of the stuff we already did or should we change some of the wording in here too is really what it is okay makes sense I did watch the meeting and I'm excited to look over I do have an update SES process question as well so I met with the aps um and we didn't get as far as we needed to there's still quite a bit left to go over but um we have a a basically like a first draft that we're ready to say like this is what we're all comfortable using in terms of student statements for the concerns um we have the bullying thing uh there's some fine tuning with the uh like wording and stuff but we're close so I'm going to meet with Eric um and kind of just let him see those and then also um Miss virgess Amy she uh is also going to join us because she's going to be taking it over with her new role that she's in which is called the director of something director of student support student support okay um and so we should have that like ready to go and and started uh most of the schools uh have kind of started to like practice it and implement it in their classroom or classrooms their school sites um we still I think I don't know who does this there are still struggles though with the paperwork that DCS gives us so we found in our governing board policy the old form that we use um and it looks it does look nearly identical to what they have it's there's one spot uh so the aps kind of asked that we really kind of figure out what our form is going to be for DCS because it's kind of pressing because the visits are happening right now um and again if the whole like getting the question or confirmation they're there for those reasons if if that is going to end up being a script thing or like a sign here and say that if that could be added I don't know if it makes I don't know if this group makes the edits of that form though we could certainly this group could commend edits to that form okay and then we would bring it to the a yeah okay um so I think that that would be something that I feel like they thought was kind needed to get to get going um there been struggles with it and then the parent we they looked over the parent concerned form so we'll also have a parent concerned form um ready to show to Eric for like kind of final edits I guess um and then as I was saying before it's kind of snowb Welling into like well let's explore what this should look like and what should this look like um and so right now the team is um just kind of going to start looking at uh the paperwork keeping of it all so when will it be a Synergy component when is it like a separate report those types of things we didn't get much farther than just reviewing all the forms oh and then somebody at some point brought up in these conversations an update to our suspension form so we're also ready to finalize a updated suspension form that includes the restored practices we have we have three of the 8,000 forms ready to like finalize but that's be update for all of you thank you for doing all that and having those conversations I know it's all extra time I appreciate it problem thank you anything else for the the cover or questions or things I like your festive tie thank you my St Patty's Day didn't even know it was St Patrick's Day I do not buy my own clothes um but you wore that on your own I did I did manage to do that I I was successful with that many things that I'm successful at but I can take pride in my tie I feel like now we're gonna need to like when this committee is finally over we'll need to have like a happy hour or something I have many questions okay uh so circling back uh next up I guess is jic drug and alcohol use by students and then there's the accompanying ones jic and Jr so who wants to jump in don't everybody jump in at once did I get something wrong again well nobody uh I didn't do anything with that so I probably got something wrong but weren't we still like on the last one still figuring out like what reports would be and stuff I mean for J think we were done with whatever we were just doing oh I'm sorry I we agreed to move on I think right that we sort of finished on the last one think said we were going to look at this one okay I'm just trying to make sure but I think we also gonna check back in previous sorry money's not even on we can hear you that's good J on the agenda yeah I I think when we finished last time we had finished ji as much as possible to that point said that we would do our homework and come back with any more resolution or things that we could resolve within that and agreed to move on to jic in the interim I think okay that's my recollection does that sound okay to everybody okay um so anything in jir that any more of the comments that we can cross off yeah I don't I don't know that there would be I had a question on the agenda had said JKD and jicf before J and I didn't know if those already got covered are you talking about the those policies yeah under subject for discussion on policies oh yeah I think we did student suspensions in the past yeah there's that document that shows uh the completed policies checklist yeah I think what Hilda does is just recopies that every um every agenda so it's properly noticed that we could discuss these and or other but some of these on this list on the bullet point List have already even been approved by the board so as a new member last year sorry I think I did not that I was F I was under the assumption I guess these were in order of discussion yeah the the best the best document to look at is that completed policies checklist uh because it has it has everything on there and what we've completed and what we haven't completed and all the way down at the bottom it has the priority list where we start with ji jii I and that's kind of the order that we've been going in so far which is not to say that it's not set in stone I I'm sure we could tweak some things that's just where what we've been kind of following so are we looking at finishing up jir is that what we're doing yeah I think it was seeing if there was anything else I just looked at J and no those those little comments you to St there because we're still not anywhere with it um and then if you go to J um the the first first question that comes up that's still a question um is actually me and um this created a an interesting conversation in the AP meeting um so for C it says the investigator shall prepare a written report of findings and a copy of the report should be provided to the principal superintendent as warranted so I was asking a written report an incident summary can it be in Synergy like what do we mean by written report exactly um and so I didn't really get clarity of like what the aps would ask lus they were wondering like can it if it's start not everything goes into Synergy because there's so many things that happen so we kind of have like one of two Pathways we either decide we make a more clear like recommendation on what do you have to put into Synergy which the team is down for and we would have gotten to had the meeting continued um and then we would just need to say like then those are the things that like Synergy is enough um and then if it is one of those things where you want to report even if it's outside of synergy we don't have anything um as schools all schools have something a little bit different so there's something very easily like I know in my brain I can tweak for monov Vista um so that's where it's we're stuck so what is Our intention with the written report I can tell you that I don't think the expectation is for every minor barely and fraction and fraction that we have written reporting so I don't know if there's a way to set an appropriate threshold for it okay so so maybe do you want us to pause on this and then go ahead and get like confirmation like this is what everybody is putting into Synergy and then we'll start there and then we can look at the leftover what's left outside of synergy like monist to use as a cover sheet we put a cover sheet on everything um and so I was like can we just use this cover sheet if I don't put into Synergy can we just like use these checklists uh it was not well received by the group um yeah so that's not a great plan but I'm wondering if it's like we can just do that so like let's first just prioritize Synergy and then stuff that doesn't go into Synergy but somehow falls into this we can come up with something else yeah I think starting with indexing and determining like what is it we're dealing with right so that way we're making decisions based on what the reality on the ground is because policy is either statute or aspirational so if it's not driven by Statute then it should be driven by what's practical and functional and actually meets a need because I'm all about like if we decide we need to document something because we're getting feedback that without this documentation then it makes it harder to do this that or the other thing then that's a reason to document but if it's you know someone raised their voice in quiet class and now we're documenting that like are we really going to use that for anything and is it is it beneficial in anyone and just to kind of add to the story and and I'll speak for myself um um it there's a there's a balance in my opinion there's a balance between like what's happening and then the documentation and paperwork that's required uh or that could be potentially required uh as a result of that and the best analogy I can think of is uh years ago we had um uh I I remember as a teacher we had like a lesson plan template that everybody had to go and use and it was in the neighborhood of 14 to 15 pages um and not surprisingly people were not too happy about that and basically the argument is like do you want me to do my job or do you want me to document um and I think that uh we I'm I'm not saying that I'm anti-d doent I definitely think it's important I just think it's something to think about um because uh it it the more paperwork that is generated uh the less we are able to actually uh be in classrooms and to um do the core components of what teachers and people are asking us to do um when we're just spend spending hours and hours just processing paperwork so my Wonder is in the background we do this like we got to figure out what everyone's putting in Synergy and it's got to be the same can we I think we need to change the saying written report of the findings and maybe have it SE be more encompassing of like the investigator shall pre shall prepare or keep adequate records to report on said thing so reports not an like a tangible thing but more of a ver does that sound okay to everybody I think it would be beneficial because there are times where that hasn't happened and then it was problematic later and I think if you're investigating something at a minimum having those notes to be able to work off of Downstream is pretty important so I wonder if we could just look at our Behavior Matrix and like we just pick a lot like anything that's below this line on the behavior Matrix get put and then you know I gave you guys our our discipline the two part I thought we could get everybody's like that and then just we're all putting this right and what about these random things in tier one like what we've started doing is we try to make sure that we're doing like the disruption ones we really keep track of because those really do fall on top of each other even so I think that I feel like that would be a good conversation to have I mean one of the conversations we're having right now at Gateway is uh that when we're doing uh stuff that's like tier one we're we're finding that we're not good at documentation with those tier one type lower things which if you don't watch you don't manage eventually do turn into tier two tier three kind of situations and it's I mean it's important to note that it that stuff is being documented it is being addressed sometimes like in an mtss meeting or in some other capacity it's just not something that you would see you look for patterns right before they reach that tier three level um to both support the teacher and support the student as well um but we were finding at Gateway that we're uh that we we we spend a great deal of time on the tier three stuff which is you know the high flyer situation but um what we we're it's almost like it's It's Too Late by then right that kid is already way up here in terms of their behavior and what we should have been focusing on is that tier one stuff like in September you know what's been going on with this kid what are the things that are building and building and building to reach that point so if you go we change it to like something like this I feel like the shme thing which I think Tim you're really good at deciding how that like maybe that's probably better than the be able to so I I could figure out how to put check out that one little arst sometimes I mean I guess the question is is it kind of vague enough for each school still has autonomy I think so because um I think I don't I don't know if we'll actually have be able to have as as much autonomy as it actually gives as they start doing stuff but I think it's enough to know for sure I can guarantee every ad can do this where right now I don't know have no idea what like what do you mean report what do that look look like yeah so I have a question about that I mean okay and I'm just I'm not saying we have to or we need to we think but to me do we how much autonomy do we want I mean because to me I see these forms as trying to systematize and get people on the same page so when a kid goes from one school to another school the expectations are the same am I wrong in that um no no and I I personally see that as a good thing because that that that strengthens the cohesiveness of our district that way wherever a family is at wherever they're going they know that when you go to mon Vista that you're gonna have the same experience that you would at excellencia I think yes S I think yes and if you think about the conversation we had with the APS and I think the one who brought this up the only thing is when it's in terms of like the process and stuff it gets really messy if we go really far down in the Weeds about how much we're going to report which is why I think people were like I don't want to do the cover letter right right so it's micromanaging so I think ultimately like yes we want we want a baseline that's going to be okay to like have like everybody doing the exact same thing um that is reasonable for everyone and this is a lot more latitude than we have been intending to give but I think it is okay because the process is still like kind of for formulating navigating so it's like this is almost like a safety of space to once we fure out a really tight process when I feel like the experience is the same would be the same for the kids like if I do X the consequence at each of the schools is the same because we're all following the same you know maybe they fill out the same statement form at your school and your school or at your school but maybe how you process that form looks different than how I process it like oh the experience for the kid would be the same but maybe not necessarily like behind the scenes yeah no you're totally right I mean because there's there are different perspectives different circumstances I think the behavior Matrix has helped that um but I I think I mean again speaking for myself I don't think we're at a place as a district where there is um consistency from sight to site in how discipline is uh handled and I I recognize that that could be potentially a controversial statement to say but um that's what I think yeah I think we've made strides from where we've been but there's still more work to be done and my guess it could potentially streamline resources too because at the district level you'd be able to Target things more efficiently if everybody was on the same page in terms of how things were done I I'm just no I think there's legitimacy to that and then the other piece is you know it was brought up how kids move through the system but sometimes adults move to different places in the system so you create a learning when everything's completely different from space to space you you create this massive learning curve for people that really it's almost like an unnecessary Freedom right like we're creating we're creating a lack of standardization for something that people really haven't been asking for can I have my own way of doing this right but the the the um the downside to it is you know when Tim is a substitute teacher is on five different school campuses over the course of three weeks does he have to interface with five different systems even though he's in the same district it just it doesn't make sense to create that kind of cognitive load and that type of you know function burden for people when it's not you it's kind of like your 15 page um Lon lesson plan you know like when you create something that's so unwieldy that the benefit of it is outweighed by the burden and I think our lack of standardization the there's really very low benefit to it but there's very high Bur to what are your guys's thoughts on that comment the investigat prare maintain that what edits would you like to provide you saying that gets put in the D actually sorry s c oh there it is yeah sorry I had to scroll I know it's I'm both those yellow is it too micromanage to say how long it's supposed to be maintained um I think you're looking at D and maybe not um I was looking at your comment the investigation shall be shall the investigator shall prepare and maintain oh wait I misinterpreted never mind sorry that was a question that people had though and I used the three years after that school year you mean pain it but that was a question people were like well how long are we keeping these We There is likely a um there is likely the State library and archives maintains a standard for records retention and there's likely a records retention standard for it so that's something we may have to just investigate they they have like a document that says if it's if it's a human this type of Human Resources record if it's that type if it's this type of behavior record um how many years it has to be so things like notes like we talked earlier about investigator notes and things like that um if they're your personal notes for while you're working on things really the maximum that those are supposed to be retained for is two years but if they go into a file on a particular incident then it's related to whatever the incident is and so the nature of the incident would drive the retention period and the rule is it used to be there was a for not less than and there was no for not more than but now um the way the retention schedules work whatever the retention period is the expectation is that those records are discarded at that point so you can actually kind of get sideways if you over retain records it can be problematic so so that's something we could easily just check in the librarian archives when we use the Royal we who do we need um that's a great question I'm one who told them three years cuz went off of uh I was originally keeping him for two and Eric's like you really should keep him for three so I assum that was just and I don't know I don't know I don't know whether Eric had checked it so yeah um it's something I can take back to exact team and have someone from exact team check that that years from when from incident or from that school that school year so that incident happens in this Academic Year three years including that year or three more years so three years plus yeah um because like there's certain things like the there's portions of the cume folder that we have to retain for like ever and ever right and there's portions that have to be retained for so many years after they leave us at the end of eth grade right so um I don't think I don't think what we're discussing has that length of retention but I don't know for sure without us checking the archives could we um I have a request yeah can I let it lie with the other APS and then we will all just wait until we see something in leadership link that tells us other way yeah that would be fine yeah y okay what would be what would be helpful to me is um yeah if you wouldn't mind just with like what the nature of the record is just because it'll give me a prompt for for how to dig it out and I hate having to ask that but know I'll fail otherwise and I think it's it's GNA have kind of a list of stuff it's all well I knew you had a bunch of different things you'd been talk so if I tried to remember everything we've discussed like we're we're in a world to hurt so okay I'm gonna put the whole list then straight to you or do you want me to put CC Eric if you wouldn't mind CC and Eric that would be great because that'll help make sure that we bring it to conversation okay okay so see what do you guys think I like see and then D I'll copy it in just a second um oh this that basically goes back to the like we need to get on to like what's going to be on synergy um so I think you can technically resolve this even though it's not actually answer yet Tim take it away I don't even know where I i' written that oh because we had it said prepare a written report and you guys had said that you were putting stuff in Synergy there we go so that's I think we wanted to add and maybe and or electronic report no it's said changed okay got it unless C has to be a written report no I think we're saying it doesn't I think we're saying this is what we're saying for the documentation or do do you need to clarify that a written report could be electronic or do you think written report encompasses electronic reports as well that's a great question you could simplify and just say a report yeah prepare a report that because we're deleting it oh because you changed C so there there you go so then you can resolve the oh and electronic report speci okay have we added your completed intending higher I think we're good now I mean minus we don't have minus we have done yet good we're we're finished with that and now ready for jic okay so jic drug and alcohol I feel like we addressed a lot of this in another policy misremember remember because we talked about marijuana now being legalized we talked about alcohol I feel like we had these conversations and I just cannot remember what um yeah I probably went over the these issues like more vely was it the search and seizure yeah maybe it was that one or maybe it was the general student conduct one or maybe under tobacco use and we just kind of extended it oh yeah that was last year if I remember last year all right this one that was it definitely was not tobacco because tobacco is very very short yeah must Havey maybe we so just looking notes on this one I thought I went through all these there's some there's some notes yeah there's notes on do you not see your notes on the side um I'm having issues but getting on there but I just wasn't sure if I did okay yeah um I I don't I'm not sure if I'm reading too deeply into it but it's the the first paragraph there the non-medical use possession distribution or sale of alcohol drugs synthetic drugs does that mean if there's a medical reason for a kid to bring a drug of some kind that they could including something medical marijuana related within the confines of like how you would hand any other controlled substance for student use on because there are kids who bring trying to think of a good example because insulin is not a controlled substance but inhaler inhaler yeah albuterol there you go so kids bring those but they can't just bring them and carry them although that law might have just changed recently I think it did my examples are failing me but um back before the law changed with the Albuterol inhalers the kids would have to check them in with the nurse and then the nurse would be the one who would do the distribution so I would assume this would function in a similar fashion and that if a child was prescribed for some purpose that it would it would be managed by the nurse and it wouldn't just be a kid like going out in the hallway to take their controlled substance or whatever so they could like if they were prescribed medical marijuana they could check it in with a nurse I would assume that they would have the if that was part of their treatment program for something wow Brave New World I think that part of the um Arizona medical marijuana act has a bunch of delineations about how it can be used off campuses obviously colleges have a different um issue but as far as elementary schools I'm not sure yeah and I'm I'm not super it has it honestly hasn't come up so far it has come a few stories it has come up with other things like most people who are young enough who are if there's somebody who's Elementary School using medical marijuana they're likely ill enough that they're going to need like at home instruction at that point they probably have like cancer something yeah further down it says like if a student has the medical marijuana card that they can't possess or use they could still be could have it it could still be in their system which is also another issue like for other drugs right and keep in mind that these policies are blanket built for K12 not for K8 necessarily so there's as we're going through policies one of the things we've seen and we'll continue to see is that they've they've never been customized for our environment and so they do like there's there's actual references to if a person if a student is 18 years or older I would hope we don't have like an 18y old fifth grader right let's hope not and a drive to school maybe an 18-year-old eth grader I mean have to really fast forward their SP plan for um got this image of this kid driving to school parking up hi teacher can I just ask why the separation of CB and E is is this just kind of like a policy that we copied and pasted from somewhere else or it's a policy that was provided to us it's just kind of weird that it's like drugs synthetic drugs counter drugs and imitation drugs I know I was trying toe drugs would yeah synthetic drugs would be like an alternative that has the same chemical makeup but maybe isn't necessarily Outlaw at this time oh they're analoges yeah they're an yeah so like floro fenol or whatever so like some chemical cmer the drugs obviously would be you trying to pass is that like take my Ty you're passing it off as something else but it is actually a drug of some okay and then the imitation drugs is literally just not actually a drug yeah I mean I appreciate the breakdown because I'm I was really confused so so if a kid's pretending to sell marijuana but it's I think they're just trying to cover the int possible that's imitation if I have powder sugar in a bag yeah so that falls under that falls under e okay I guess I mean I guess that makes sense to break it yeah break it out like that further down I don't know if I I don't remember if I put a note under Aller substances visit byw I feel like that's a weird way to believe because in Arizona drugs are broken down into either dangerous drugs or narcotic drugs those are just the only two categories they're both legal but sometimes use this dangerous as like some I think they're using it as a descriptor not as like actually under statute there's either dangerous drugs or so I might just take out the word dangerous out of there because it might weird just have it there so like all controlled substances yeah uh letter A on the second list of things yeah do we want to kind of go through the comments one at a time sure yeah uh it looks like your first one Katie is just a a grammatical thing right add paragraph sorry can I share because I like oh thank you add paragraph where are we but the top first page after e as you have a comment there it says add paragraph I assume that's just a grammatical see I only see the huh on school property or did I write the words add paragraph that's your comment your comment say J does have that on his I mean jic right jic correct how weird maybe it was because I think what had happened was before it's not showing on here but before I think non-medical started right after prohibited and I said we should just start a new paragraph there basically so is that like just a space between yeah I just put it I already pressed enter so you can already see there's already a space there oh so it's it's basically already done I think it might show brackets is what I see there oh you know I only have the active ones up so if we Mark that one as complete that's why I wouldn't be showing it no no no but if that one was Mark I'm only showing the eight active commas oh because you can yeah okay okay okay next one this feels redundant that's oh but what about the don't remember why we cross when we crossed this out or why can we go up this I feel like I'm going to be embarrassed in like an hour asking this where would it be if I'm a kid and I brought Tylenol um and I was letting my friends I was passing it out like candy at lunch because my friends had headaches or whatever um this is different than what we have here it be so we're gonna I think there's already been editing Vapor releasing substance containing a drug of any kind right be under drug okay just making sure I think it's like a catchall term did we get an update from because my assumption would be that drugs would incorporate does it say that was destion the [Music] ction I was I went see where so I went directly from our website medication that's why I was getting confused I think that would also fall under yeah because that does is not a but I mean I guess that's true so students can't possess then like Mom sends right or like we have like Middle School girls bringing ibuprofen and so I went directly from here clicked on that now we're here but it also says for the nonmedical use think that's where the non it says shall not possess transfer drugs and or alcohol I wonder if maybe very confused I'm very confused too because they should here not asba it used to show you not at all obviously change without it's like we had getting the permission of the districts to do so so that's why I was like substance containing a toxic substance I was like I thought it was more simple than this but then they have a definition you can use everyone so she was easy herself look at non-medical oh yeah that's where I it's there you you just that first sentence that's that's weird unless that already got edited by us in a prior since but I and pasted this like two months ago be cough drops you know what I mean like when I did these can they no I was wonder if they adopted December 3rd 2014 so it shouldn't have changed unless they didn't verion weird never seen before so strange I'm holding on to this bu Katie and J sorry that's I was on our website and we went to policies on our website and pulled up jic from our website and like the first sentence is completely different on jic than what's on here but I definitely copied and pasted it but now it's also showing up as asba and not kraton and I'm very confused so it's just a different issue that we're dealing that's okay you're good yeah do do we know if we've addited in this one previously so I'm wondering jic or is this the first time we're touching it did we edit it before I don't remember I remember talking about marijuana yeah I don't remember looking at this but we can go back into the because the Vape for some reason I vaguely remember a conversation about the vapor stuff but I don't have Clarity on it back December or something we need a Stog I'm on the way back machine guys really going down a rabbit hole here now I think I'm crazy you saying the policy that is on the district website is different than what we have well it's not on it's linked from our website it's hosted by the Arizona School wordss Association yes it is it was just this in jic student conduct we I think we spent an abely long time talking about one bullet that says e unlawful use possession distribution or sale of tobacco alcohol or drugs drug paraphernalia yeah because we went back and forth that's it that's it we had a whole conversation about drug paraphernalia yeah whatever I don't have this is what we just proposed to send out right I don't remember what we originally had but I think we miss now I feel a lot better I like we had a long convers it's not going load how strange I guess we can sort out the first sentence some other time yeah so right now now what I just noticed is like if you go to our website and I swear I copied and pasted this from the one that was on our website at the time I did it so back in January the first sentence is completely different students on School of property or at school events shall not knowingly breathe inhale or drink a vapor relasing substance containing a toxic substance nor shall a student sell transfer or offer to sell or transfer a vapor releasing substance containing a toxic substance clearly not what's in here so I'm just very confused but we're also show when you go from our website it shows asba right here which in the past it says crate there so I'm very confused maybe it's an asva issue so when you go to so when you go to our current one that that's the sentence it has that additional content in the first sent that's also what was pull down when we went to Copper because I went to remember you made us the Legacy pile Dr policy so that was on the one that copper had too no it was we had pulled down all of our asba policies just to have them for reference because we were afraid we wouldn't get access to them again that's so weird how did but this is very strange because I copied and pasted this I'm guessing on January 26th or very shortly before that because at that point we were using the Copper State ones when those ones that were not not at that point we were back on asba already yeah cu went on here and just did them just like this and I remember navigating like I normally do the navigation wouldn't have been the same weird okay well I guess we'll figure it out later yeah maybe someone could just make a note to come back to the first sentence figure out what's going on after we figure out what's going on with policies in general it looks like someone appended the original policy at some point maybe as far back as 2014 to cover things like you know baking is the only thing I can think of is what that is but then that would feel like it's more recent well but huffing huffing huffing was huge yeah in the early 2010s there was a there was a big huffing epidemic everyone was I'm not sure it was everyone it's like the tide thing right it's all over the news I remember yeah I know I'm still recovering from trying a tide podt and I'm just kidding it the duster spray keyboard cleaner spray don't do it don't I've don't seen the effects firsthand folks a lot of your brain cells go away so Katie and J the question that Adriana kind of posted and I I wrote a comment saying so a kid brings ibuprofen Tylenol does that go under B yeah it is a drug it is a drug it's not a controlled substance but it's still a drug because it doesn't say controlled no yeah the beginning part the non-medical use but it would have to also be non-medical so I would say you still have an argument that it's a medical use that's why that's where I'm struggling because like if a kid brings a bunch of Tylenol and then they pass it out to everybody well that's not a non that's a non-med I mean but but kids are saying oh I have a headache sure but it's it's it says non-medical use possession distribution so that would be in violation if they just start Distributing yeah so that that woulding right right possessing like if you're saying like Middle School girls with ibuprofen or benad dril or anything yeah let me go to um hold on let me because I think you're I don't think this was a dumb question I think that's a great question I think it's a really Sor right well yeah and I think what what you would just want to do is figure out how to specify B to me or something or maybe need a bunch more letters prescription you know over the counter you know so time check it's 6: pm okay I'm just going to go to the statutes and see if there's anything taking underneath that 1341 okay so 15345 which is one of the sided statutes says the school district governing board May adopt chemical Abuse Prevention policies and procedures in consultation with pupils School District personnel and members of the community blah blah blah blah blah um these other the the 4-101 4 d241 4244 those are all liquor related statutes and then um 3401 3461 and title 13 are all the drug ones now as far as I know those statutes are not going to be talking about tyol or I right okay so I imagine if we want to carve out something for that for our district we could because I don't think there's going to be a statute that's dictating how we deal with kids that have like over thee counter medications that they can get at wals yeah we just definitely have times where kids went ahead and brought it and then they thought oh it'll be okay to give it to my friend yeah like oh no what's happening yeah I mean even even in policy it says possessed so I mean even if they even if they didn't give it to their friend and or they took it themselves right or didn't even take it their pocket just in their bag or pocket yeah so from all everything I can see and maybe the lawyer will come back with something different but from everything that's cited here unless they don't have it cited I don't see why why we couldn't make it a little more clarity regarding over the yeah that are not going to be punished in the same way I guess well and then Jay what's gonna happen you I mean you said there's a new law that kids can carry rescue inhalers yeah yeah so then that's gonna shift add a little sub section in here about that potentially yeah we'll probably there's still prescription right yes or is the law making them over well the law is not making them over the counter I believe the law is just create permission for them to carry them and I believe there's a law being considered this year of doing the same thing with epip pens where kids can carry so yeah I mean it makes that would be this right I didn't hallucinate that that's actually being considered right yeah so um so I mean that those are all things that would obviously have yeah but if you look further down right drugs they Define as under C any prescription over the counter of drug except those for which permissions to use in school have been granted pursuant to board policy okay which policy yeah so maybe the jlc or the jcd or something I don't know let's take a look would it hurt to add something under the non-medical part just a really specific know it's good to be General but students should not knowingly Miss over the counter kind of like how there's a sentence about non-medical yeah italic Medical okay hold on there is a statute that's 15344 which is administration of prescription patent or proprietary proprietary medication by employees and then it talks about establishing policies the governing board shall establish policies about administrating prescription medications I'm guessing proprietary medications is over the counter um anyway we have our own policy jlc which is health services and requirements and then there's also Sor that what's the other one there ji sorry you're fine jcd those must be the other polic but when here we go jlc is medicines administering medicines to students yeah there's the emergency and self administered circumstances emergency and handh in so it's already been integrated policy they car what does it say stored though because it's different they can administer it like it says may carry says may carry one says may carry one says may possess possess yeah and they don't have to have like documentation or anything it says yeah epies inhalers and diabetes management it says provided the students name is on the prescription label on the medication container or device and annual written docum from the student's parent Guardians provided to authorize self possession and self Administration so the parent actually has to provide documentation so that's all covered in jcd so maybe the best thing to do would be to instead of having it say um in that second list where it says uh letter C maybe after board policy put parentheses put jlc JL CD just as a reference now yeah could be granted pursuant to board policy jlc you said jlc and JL CD because otherwise I would they' probably be confusing yeah it's listed at the bottom but but the list at the bottom doesn't indicate what it specifically references so you'd have to start hunting through them and then as far as like I think maybe because you did have that question and you're trying to find a solution it's weird that they put for purposes this policy drug shall include like further on do we think that should be closer up to the other list or before it or before it was like before it yeah I would say maybe we move things around to solve the issue yeah because then you're like okay that's what drugs in yeah you had wrote or you had written a comment about separating out alcoholic beverages okay yeah where is that it's under that list it's B on that list we want to separate this out oh I think probably because I looked at this and thought under the law that I deal with like alcohol isn't considered a drug so it was confusing that it was on the list of definition of drugs um but I thought you meant separate the alcoholic beverages white CL I meant that I meant that from this list of drugs but that's fine we could leave it in there because the other one they because oh well I think also up at the top they have a alcohol B drugs but then they defined alcoholic beverages as a drug so I was confused oh yeah my l your brain is freaking out here where where where are we at what if you scroll down there's a second list that says for the purpose of this policy drugs shall include what not be limited to yeah got that under B alcoholic beverages I put do we want to separate this out and that's because in the first list it says the non-medical use possession sale distribution of a alcohol B drugs well they have them separated in the first list but then Define drugs as being at all alcoholic beverages so it was confusing to me does that mean the come in sense gone through already the this feels redundant on it okay we're going out of order so wow no which is fine I just not quite it was where is the this feels redundant okay yeah got lost in the shuffle thinking that bottom should got it I mean okay what would make the most sense is to get rid of the first A3 and just say the non-medical use possession distribution or sale of drugs yes and then Define drugs yeah right not have this list then you don't have to have synthetic counterfeit imit yeah because then they have synthetic counterfeit imitation basically defined under there as well okay yeah it's very ritten I don't I don't think I can edit the actual document I can I can approve the comment you should be able to edit the you can I what I would recommend is a strike through yeah it's not letting you well maybe I'll try we can give you EDI there we go okay here she had a conflict I was texting her like she was here she made sure it was really oh okay thank you she got us all set up and she'll be back to break I mean so I struck that through underneath the through list is the end of that sentence on school property do I just cut that out and put it after sale of drugs on school property do that and then you define non-medical and then we would put that for purposes of the policy drugs that whole subsection that goes above where it says students okay do that right now there we go and now we're not out of anymore thank you I appreciate that okay now does anything need to be added into the definition of drugs since we took out alcohol I think they're all there oh there's in Hal on so I don't know that we local news do make any sense okay I think we're good okay I guess if I can add it I'll just add this I don't know why I thought that sounded redundant about the students in violation maybe I was dreaming that I read it somewhere else oh no I think those two paragraphs together are redundant of each other that's what it was it's not redundant to something before it just felt like they rewrote the same paragraph over again yeah I oh is it because this is the second one technically doesn't talk about like the law it's talking about like the district I think this goes back to the like and we're gonna get you tested yeah so be subject to prosecution in accordance with the provisions of the law oh yeah then it's like oh and you might get suspended from school um so we could probably we could probably flush that out a little bit better okay it's not mandatory report for alcohol correct because it's just for anything that's it's anything that's illegal for everybody basically regardless of age that's a mandatory report so that's another thing where I would want to flush that out because like right if you have alcohol if you have some of these other things that are on the list if it's Al for somebody at a certain age then it's not going to be a mandatory report to the police but if it's illegal for everybody regardless of age it will be a mandatory repor so some of the things on that list could result in contact and law enforcement and some of them could not do you think benici on some list um I forgot I there has to be a simpler way to say if I'm listing everything out or I don't know I'm just thinking we should probably at least make a note of trying to CL like combine those two paragraphs but also clarify maybe refer to the the statute I guess that if there's if possession of one of these things violates whatever the mandatory reporting statute is then it would result in the contact with law enforcement otherwise you're also subject policy some way to combine and clarify with isn't there a mandatory reporting policy too that we could refer to I thought we did but now my brain is like the only mandatory reporting policy that we discussed at all was like the DCS report but not because we have't we also didn't talk about like the length of the blades and stuff right right we haven't done that is it in JK mandatory reporting okay this is about firearm oh I I guess there's there may not be a generic was in the assault it was in the yeah it was the bullying I gota look at the competed but that has to do with the 706 offenses and not with drug possessions and there's like a specific School mandatory reporting the drug possession that quote says either if you're violating if somebody's committed a serious offense or you've done these at a things where it wraps it all together but I can't remember what in paddle 15 what that statute is yeah I don't recall the specific statute let me look for it but you guys can move on oh thank you yeah but the drugs aren't included in that the reason you might is it because you were answering questions you had to go over and then when you looked at the regulations maybe that's probably it because right now like what you just asked is in jic R oh okay then I probably saw like Yeah because it says the principal may contact law enforcement authorities to help make such a determination talk about drugs in this one what the heck doesn't make sense because I know there are certain requirements for that yeah like I know specifically for um controlled narcotics let me forget wesla Google's gonna give us the answer oh I was gonna say I can buy Controlled Substances I guess all narcotics are controlled substances drug violations in the school Arizona State Board of Education mandatory marijuana yeah 3411 is marijuana 3407 is narcotics 348 is dangerous drugs think those are all just the different types of drugs but there's something somewhere that says you have police when you have because we can't dispose of them either it's the other problem the administrator yeah it's in there I think it's in you're right it's in each specific statute that's where it is look at it's in every it's in every drug specific statute separately that is ridiculous yeah yeah in each School District's governing board shall maintain permanently fixed signs blah blah blah observe Miss immediately report the the so it's in each each individual substance each of those individual sub that's why they put 41 through 461 yeah 3461 y okay yeah well there's that each each of the 60 different Controlled Substances language like The Identical phrase right well played legisl yeah oh and a drug free school zone you can't possess marijana that's why we have those signs up every let me a time check it's 6:20 right now okay so then I'd like to propose since it's 20 that we assign somebody to decide on edits to this paragraph that we're looking at and just a general like here's what will happen if it's like I we do a quick edit to that that we bring to the group um for the next meeting and then we go ahead and start discussing homework and actually get out of here at 6:30 I support that yes I wasn't looking at them when you guys said though here's a statute for person this is clarifying for medical marijuana I guess we're a common School in addition to limitations prescribed in the medical marijuana act including a card holder you may not in I think they're just assuming that nobody and this would be a card holder but you can be under yeah yeah weird they may not have updated it since have Che to see rep I mean technically like Xanax Is A Dangerous Drug if you don't have a prescription for right so there's lots of prescription drugs that are illegal and under the statutes if you don't have a I would yeah technically you'd be in violation yeah that's and that's actually an issue I know we're specifically focused on students but with staff like when we when we do like Road shows or like if you do the training like if staff let their supervisor know that they have the prescription then it's okay but if it gets discovered later and there was no notification then it's a problem so I think it's similar for students oh you have to as a staff you have to disclose your prescription to them because what happens is if the kids go Mrs Jones was acting kind of weird and then you find out it's because she's taking a substance even though it's a prescription substance then you know that becomes problematic at I just had some flashbacks to high school sorry yeah Al learning all sorts of new things I wonder how many high school teachers take smoke breaks these days you know I have quite a few of high school students or High School teachers teachers oh yeah have 75 feet right well now did you have Mr Hen okay fine right here this is 75 we do not have that information and now it would be vaping pleas don't tell me just we had a math teacher at Camelback rest his soul he passed away a few years ago but he had been retired no he had been retired from engineering and then was our geometry teacher and was real old school and uh would go out for a smoke break but walk all the way down to the Dunkin Donuts on Indian School and then come back with donuts after the smoke break and it would just leave all of us in the classroom did not care he was a great teacher he also had a Missile Command cabinet in his classroom which you got to play if you were done with your test or work yeah and it had the wheel that was just squeaking so if you were still doing your work it was very irritating yeah Mr huan I'm curious to see how other schools handle mandatory drug reporting well well the way and if we could the the policies that we have are all pretty much um copied and pasted for the districts across the state unless they've made their own edits the vast majority I don't know who doesn't gets them from asbaa which is the Arizona School boards Association what they do is they draft policies and then lease them out to school districts and so even the labeling system down to that is similar are the same essentially from District to District um and you can just go to Every District's website and compare and it's basically the exact same policies unless they've made their own edits it's about 9 if a policy starts off and you already see there's a copy right next to it that tells you right away that it's already it's the same policy that every other District probably has at some point if you edit it and you make it enough different and you take that off because so given the laws and given these policies the answer is probably that they deal with or they're supposed to and very deal with b v i don't I can't say speak practice obviously policy is probably identical practice May okay uh anything else before we start winding down because it's 6:25 right now look at that um okay so just to kind of sum up we went and covered um we had updates on the policies uh safe and inclusive schools uh for possible consideration at a future meeting um had an update on the AP meeting and uh also did some editing on GI g j i and then uh Adriana has graciously volunteered to edit the detail finer stuff from JC jic for the next meeting does anybody want to do it but I just want to make sure I'm happy to not do it as well okay you don't have a partner this year okay um so then for our next meeting we're we're going to finish jic and Jr um right that's the plan I know I have homework for the Jr is there one that we're going to go over after that there's a supposed to be jic e and jic HR I have three it's another exhibit it's an exhibit it's a part of the same scheme okay I think if we want to squeeze one more thing in can get the tobacco use and it's really short so jic CG yeah okay all right anything else for the go of the order so wait I am now noticing after the question earlier that these say completed but have we not updated this list completely with completed because we done JKD I know we have I know we haven't done secret societies and gang activities because I've been excited about that one for no real reason um weren't the completed ones the ones that were taken to the board yeah so we still haven't done student suspension or student expulsion I think we didn't we work on it already but it just hasn't gone to the board yet I think the student suspension didn't we do that this year yeah yeah yeah they just so she must be putting those are the ones I think the completed ones are the ones that went last year to the board okay okay sorry I have from the notes uh we worked on JKD last April that's we started it and then uh we worked on it in November oh okay okay we didn't finish it in time to take I don't have anything on here you have that file that I could look at the yeah list yeah hang on I think I think I know which one it's been worked on it's just hasn't been finished at least not in my notes I mean I guess it could be finished and I just didn't mind me sorry I'm I moved on by going back to what you just said um so those are the two things that we're gonna be able to do for policy but before we leave I think aren't we like running up against a like governing board counil I feel we figure that out okay so well that kind of falls into the second the next agenda item which is the meeting schedule so it's kind of the same thing okay I thought we did that jii ji we did that this year but we haven't taken it to the board yet but does the red mean that we did it just is whether it went to the board or okay I was looking for like did we no it says review completed but that I guess I'm looking for been updated since all right so I just wanted to make sure you know the completed policies list you know how it says review completed and if it's green I'm assuming we sent that to the board last year but I know that there's ones that are red on here that we've reviewed yeah but haven't sent to the board I just want to sort out what's left in this policy like in this list that we have on here maybe uh maybe can ask Hilda to kind of go over that wait hold on you're talking about like what's in the agenda that we haven't even talked about in a meeting because that this list doesn't necessarily delineate not up to date yeah on the completed policy check list yeah oh it's at the bottom that's right but we already did student concerns complaints and grievances yes It's like we' got that half a page that need to get yeah above is last year and okay I think that sorry let me root myself in what you were talking about no no you're good I we have the list at the bottom but also that list doesn't also include JKD or jke the priority list and I'm also confused if we finish that so the priority list doesn't include JKD or JK which are fairly important did not okay and what does red mean though so so that's what I'm saying so we're all we're all looking at the completed policies checklist right recommend review following jic tightly aligned with JK I don't think wasn't red like so green was that we reviewed it we were ready to send it to the lawyers um and it was like good to go yellow was last year we were told we want you to look at the and we pulled them from our list of work the red was we had touch we had not touched them at all in student suspension and expulsion because we spent so much time working on jic Allan and I were like we can basically just copy and paste and then just call these done that's right that's what that's what that means means there so we didn't actually like pull the trigger on that but it's not going to take a bunch of work you're fine yeah there's wor things you can say um okay uh okay so but we've done J I'm just going from this list that's on the agenda so I can get clear we've done ji J R JKD and JK we can basically create um we haven't done jicf we haven't done jicg we're currently working on this one we did do [Music] jih student interrogation searches and arrests I thought we did that one yeah we did that this year so it hasn't gotten but like we've talked about it at a meeting and reviewed it s yes okay yeah but it's not on their priority and then have we done JK da no it's still there as something we haven't done okay so what I have left knowing that we just went over jic and that whole rigar roll with the with the regulation and the exhibit and jicg is short then the only two things left on this list if we just for JKD and JK copy and paste are the secret society's gang activity and the removal of from school sponsored activities so do you remember why they were marked as po like who wanted we pulled secret society and gang activity yeah because we were like holy smokes this is taking us so long we're not gonna get to everything oh get it off the like drawing board of things so we were saving it for the end gotcha and because at that time for some reason those ones were included as ones we can look at but then oh no because that's not end actually looking at that makes sense because you're probably not on a daily basis dealing with a lot of secret society issues um so do we think we're still gonna have to put those then off for the fall those ones that rep pulled the secret societies and of students from school sponsored activity and the freedom of expression will those have to wait until the fall I don't see how we can manage to get to them yeah so then answer your question I think it's feasible for us to get this jic the the the policy regulation and exhibit done and the tobacco oneone jicg before we have to go do all that you all have to go do all that stuff it's possible we could submit JKD and jke if we simply are just copying and pasting and we all look at it and agree that it's cool to submit or we can hold off on those if we want to make sure we're giving it a special look until the fall with the other few that we have to do okay because do we have the next meeting is that going to be one where we're still doing something or we prepping at the next meeting for prepping at the next meeting that's why I'm like I don't know if we'll be a get to both of those things but I don't recall when we I don't know what the presentation dayses are April [Music] 17 oh this is tobacco you position yes it's that sure I thought the community council is the 24th 24th you're right chess it seems like we may not even need to edit jicg screwed oh I do know what pettes are now um because this came up but it's just not easily located in there but they like to use the term Petty offense but I figured it out this session um a petty offense is any offense that is punishable by a fine only when did you want to present it to the the board were we doing that after or before c Council after so then that would have been like May one yeah so it looks like jcj or jcg is not going to take much time at all maybe none yeah just check mark it start it won't even need to be approved by the board if we don't make any amendments to it um so that means that if our next meeting is April 1 or do we have a meeting before April 1 April 1 is the next 14 so we probably could still use April first meeting to finish up and then the 14th meeting could be the presentation for the community council okay so the plan for next meeting is to finish up all the jics and then the jicg and then if we can get to can we just copy and paste the suspension and extion stuff yeah so that we can at least get that passed up to the since we already have language for that that we all agreed on in the past April 1 is it's uh two days before we go on our trip yes yeah because then we head out that Thursday that Thursday yeah is it Thursday that we're leaving yes I believe so we leave Thursday we return on Monday I believe I missed it but did everybody have a good little break oh good did some did anybody do anything nice fun trips or just relax good good deserved I went oh nice my hot 10 maybe we'll see how fun I went to Mexico City it was a lot of fun oh that's cool I didn't have spring break break but I took a few days off work are we ready to ad is there anything else you still have wondering I feel like if I think we can adjourn and I'm going to the completed policy checklist and now like basically making the notes we had last year for this year will you stay though and share read them to me then I think we're good okay all right uh motion to I motion to adjourn can I get a second you better speak up I second a second all those in favor say I motion passes meeting adjourned thanks everybody for

e e e yes yes I am all right at 6:30 um Julie would you call the role please car Caston and here Mr Espinosa here charell Fuller here Jenny hagstrom here Terry pavich here Don Runner here and ran Hashim here thank you all right having the quum let's stand for the pledge of allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all all right um before we start tonight's meeting I wanted to address um you know some recent events uh good evening um before we begin our meeting tonight I'd like to address something that has impacted our community this morning we learned that a dgs teacher was arrested and detained by law enforcement the teacher was arraigned this morning and charged with aggravated criminal sexual abuse and assault of a current dgs student the teacher who was also a coach was immediately placed on a administrative leave and is no longer permitted on school grounds in coordination with local law enforcement we have communicated this terrible news to our entire Community we appreciate the close partnership with Downers Grove chief of police Mike Dev the Downers Grove Police Department the village of Downers Grove the DuPage County Children's Advocacy Center and Bob Berlin the DuPage County State's Attorney's office we continue full cooperation with law enforcement as this is an H ongoing investigation we are heartbroken for the victim and also for the hundreds of students staff and family who trusted this teacher and feel betrayed by this terrible situation our top Focus now is to support the victim and their family and to ensure the well-being and safety of all of our students we will also be contacting those families whose students have had Direct contact with with the teacher and Coach we will continue to address this situation with urgency and transparency we are committed to protecting our students and ensuring that they feel safe here at District 99 we encourage anyone to come forward to the police or the school about anything that seems dangerous or unusual if you are uncomfortable reaching out directly you can use the safe to help system on our websites to anonymously let the police and our Administration know of your concerns I want all of you to know that we take all reports seriously and we're here to help thank you very much now before we get into tonight's meeting um I kind of wanted to outline uh the structure of tonight's meeting just based on our unusual circumstances for tonight um we do have a public hearing tonight so we will have to go through that public hearing process um after the approval of our minutes we will next move to the first reception of visitors to address any action item that is on tonight's agenda okay um our action items tonight include the items displayed on the screen here if you wish to address any of those items please submit a slip to the board secretary Miss nidek for the first reception of visitors after the reports from the superintendent there will be a public hearing for up to 30 minutes on the honorable dismissal of teachers okay there will be up to 30 minutes under our regular guidelines and following our normal protocols for the reception of visitors to address the board on the single topic of The Honorable dismissal of teachers at the end of the meeting after all action is taken there will be a final reception of visitors where members of the public May comment on any topic pertaining to the district per our board policy 2.23 Z in the first and last reception of visitors a maximum of 30 minutes will be allotted for each reception of visitors with a maximum of 20 minutes on any one topic unless everyone who wish to speak has already spoken any need to recess due to the public not complying with the guidelines will be included in the total time allowed so our first item is approval of minutes um can I get a motion from the Board of Education to approve the minutes of the February 4 2025 business meeting the February 2020 or 24th 2025 Clos meeting the March 3rd 2025 Workshop meeting and the March 3rd 2025 closed meeting so moved second Terry moves Ken seconds kry pavich hi hen Dawson hi Chris espanosa hi Cheryl Fuller hi Jenny hagstrom hi Cara Caston hi and D Runner I motion carries so then we're going to go to our first reception of visitors on public comment for any of the items on our agenda tonight Julie do we have any reception of visitors no not the first session correct then I'm going to turn it over to item five to Hank all right and I will invite Jeff to come forward for uh walking our team through the Staffing and curriculum overview hi good evening and uh get things going today reviewing our annual Staffing curriculum overview for the year and I just want to always acknowledge that uh this is a very intricate process very complex I want to recognize the work of both uh district and building staff who uh do a lot to help pull together all the data that's used uh for these recommendations that we're bringing to you tonight um first off just talking about our certified Staffing uh FTE allocations we had uh sectioning FTE that year uh is at 31.3 which is also shown on the chart which has been shared with you and then as far as our non- sectioning FTE which is uh sectioning that's not tied to classroom requests and things uh so those are like our social worker psychology positions like that uh overall throughout the district and the list of positions you also see on the chart that's displayed right now uh that ft recommendation this coming year is 103 total um so that brings our Total Staffing uh increase this year of uh that we're looking at as a 1.5 over last year um so just kind of keep that in mind and then what I'll do next is I'm going to turn that over to uh Gina for uh section two here which is going to talk some about program impact and Staffing allocations thank you so each year as we look at course requests and teacher recommendations obviously our building administrators our principles specifically our associate principal for curriculum instruction and District admin make decisions about what courses we will be running and in some cases what courses we will not be able to run so I've provided the board with a report summarizing the recommendations of those courses that have enrollment of less than 20 for which we are not advocating to run sections for I'm happy to say that there's actually a decrease in the number of courses when compared to last year so there's 16 courses for next next year that had an enrollment of less than 20 that we are recommending for cancellation whereas the number was 19 at this time last year also provided the board with courses from both schools in which the enrollment is less than 20 but we are recommending running the section offering the course and there's a variety of different reasons why each course was decided upon but there's also a decrease in the number of those courses um so we're looking at 30 for next year and last year at this time it was 41 there are some courses as noted in the memo that are not listed that have enrollments of less than 20 and those would be courses that often times by law we have to run with fewer than 20 students they are specifically English language learner courses El courses special education courses and in some case interventions type courses so this report basically shows decrease in both the number of courses that we're recommending for next year to be canceled and the number that we're recommending with enrollments of less than 20 with that I'm going to turn it over to our associate principles for curriculum instruction Keith Pals from Downers North and Jake Giblin from Downer South who will provide some high level key points about the section process this year good evening everybody my name is Keith Pals I'm the associate principal for curriculum instruction at North high before I begin today I would really like to thank a couple key people and at the school building that really help everything uh get going here specifically the North High Department chairs and some of the key staff members in the Cs department and our building Administration for their collaboration throughout this process as the board is aware our sectioning process is student driven based on course requests and our team's collaboration is key to this success this year we received over 18,000 requests from 2011 students leading to 409 course offerings in nine different departments there's a lot going on so I just definitely want to make sure that it's not just us that's part of this process in our core departments English math social studies and science we're offering 99 courses total AP courses remain uh as very popular with 12884 different requests for uh within that group of departments we're looking to uh continue cons uh a successful implementation of our math 3 lab intervention and we started that this year it's been going very well and we're expanding eel support in science with a dedicated biology and a dedicated Earth and space science course for eel students in english four our offerings uh we saw growth in interest in three specific courses film studies journalistic expression in media literacy and Humanities and in social studies despite a move of our AP Psychology course from a half year to a full year we're seeing an increase of an entire section and so that we can serve 20 more students in that particular course our elective courses CTE PE dver at and health World Language and the Fine Arts are showing shifts in their Trends as well so CTE saw a drastic increase in interest in the internship program while they also saw a drop in the cwt program or the Cooperative work training requests I spoke to Brian Vite our department chair there um he's already having conversations focused on revitalizing the cwt course offering for next year um and he shared with me that there's going to be a more concentrated effort to put together a profile of our work-based learning students and he plans are working with counselors and other department chairs to inform stakeholders including potential students that the cwt and internship classes that provide career experience that is regardless of postsecondary um plans Fine Arts I'm excited to share with the board that AP music theory will be coming back to North High next year uh while a AP art history is going to take a pause and this is um as we shared last year that seems to be coming into a more cyclical nature of every other year uh World Language is is experiencing an increased focused in EL support with an increase of 60% requests for our El specific course requests however our French section numbers continue to decrease which is following the trend that we've spoken about over the last couple of years PE I did also want to highlight is offering 30 different courses specifically in PE what I want to talk about here is the leadership opportunities for students within that department courses like our Sports officiating course or also our PE leaders and lifeguard leaders program offer students opportunities to learn and to lead within the school day finally our special services department is expanding their number of multi- needs classrooms from three to four classrooms next year to better serve those students and this department also collaborates with English math social social studies and science to offer 21 different uh co-taught courses and those are courses in which um teachers collaborate with their peers to serve our special education students so thank you good evening I'm Jake Giblin I'm the associate principal for curriculum at donard Grove South um in addition to the department chairs and everyone who works tirelessly with this um I want to also point out we have data processor of both schools uh Barb rustic Katie Conquest who do amazing work and do a lot for us in the background that allows us to have some of these highlevel conversations because they take care of all the hard dirty work in the background for us and we can't do this without them so thank you to them as well um a couple trends for us um we we at South we saw a a an increase in particular in our Fine Arts sections um our digital photography in particular grew by 84 requests we had 143 last year we're up to 227 this year they're doing a really good job of of promoting that and getting kids interested in photography um we within the CTE Department as well uh Keith mentioned those opportunities for internship we had a dip this year we had 19 students involved in that internship program next year there are 92 requests for the same program uh to get students into the community working with our business partners and getting real Hands-On experiences um for their time while they're in the in the high school setting um we're excited because we're seeing uh stem growth we had 105 uh student requests increase in our science programs this year um so uh while AP um overall is about the same we we had uh an exciting thing in that our AP Psychology which has gone from a half year to a full year still retained four full courses kids are still wanting a an enriching experience in a what I would call a more challenging and more depth program that is going to be coming to them next year and we're excited about that um one of the trends that has definitely been part of South over the last few years is our increase in our El and bilingual programs two years ago we had 214 student requests for those specific courses last year was 368 this year we're up to 432 we've more than doubled in just the last two school years alone and one of the other things that uh is is generating more and more student opportunities we have um our incoming class this year 82% of our incoming ninth graders have chosen to take a full schedule of cour work that is increasing the number of kids who are getting more classes more educational experiences that is in contrast to this year's which was 57% it is a sharp increase in one we look to continue over the next few years thank you invite Scott wazer to come up and he's going to share with you a little bit about our special services and seat trip yeah c s needs good evening Scott I'm here to talk a little bit about special services so we um we've seen a increase at North High for next year for at a 2.1 uh FTE which the majority of that is coming um from expanding our multi program from um three classrooms to four classrooms so that's where we're seeing the largest increase there um at South High we're going to see an increase of 0.5 FTE and that's falling in uh our coocha classes um which is always a good thing to include our students in inclusive environment so we're excited about that um and then at t99 we're going to um have a decrease of 1.0 teachers um due to just our student enrollment um and then also with um I know it's up on the screen up there for psychologists um we're sharing our psychologist at t99 with north um which we've done in the past with related services like speech and that um and so it's going to be a 6 FTE at t99 and a 04 FTE at uh North and then CS we're not seeing any change the here so any questions thank you thank you thank you thanks and uh kind of rounding off our presentation around Staffing today um you have for your approval this evening a list of all the staff who are being recommended for renewal for next year who are currently non-tenured and those will you be continuing on the tenure track some will be approved for tenure for next year um and then some others will continue to be non-tenured but that's uh there for you to approve those renewals um and then as mentioned in the memo uh the list of those who are acquiring tenure going into next year will be presented at the next board meeting the next uh Workshop meeting in April um and then also uh for your approval tonight was the resolution I believe that was mentioned earlier we do have I believe six staff members who are affected with uh honorable dismissals the cause for those dismissals is those are uh all part-time teachers who we've had a reduction in our FTE in the areas that they work so that's why they're being honorably dismissed and then we also have a teacher is working a leave of absence who's also being honorably dismissed as well obviously teacher coming back so those are the reasons why we have those those situations but these are staff who in many cases like I said there's reduced FTE for some of those part-time positions they are welcome to reapply and some cases are offered those positions straight out um if they're interested in that reduced FTE that's available for their role um and then just kind of round out again so as I mentioned uh last year our staffing total was 42.8 um and this year is expected to be four 44.3 and again that's an overall increase of 1.5 FTE is said we have increased enrollment this year at South and some other shifting needs and so that's how we have arrived where we are thank you for your time and effort I know that's not an easy process to put together no as you heard everyone acknowledge it's it's many many hands doing you know trying to make light work out of it and a huge undertaking so thank you any questions thank you to all of you thank you thank you all right our next agenda item is the establishment of the board organizational meeting following uh elections in April and the recommendation is that we hold that re that organizational meeting on May 5th so returning board members will remember this is uh a night in multiple acts where the current board will come be seated then we'll transition to the incoming board and then organize for officers that evening um so uh we're recommending that the the board set that night uh for that that gives us enough time uh for all the results to come in before we we go through that organizational meeting uh any concerns with that being the date all right the next item is Travis's for North High garage roof replacement thank you good evening uh with the assistance of white uh we received eight different bids for our North garage roof replacement uh the low bidder Tori came in at $166,400 if you remember when we presented earlier in the fall we projected that to be at about $175,000 so it's a good thing uh always when it comes in under uh under budget we do have $10,000 that we have allotted for contingency surprises um within that so um everything looks to be in a good working order again uh the bids ranged from about $232,000 to this um 166,000 white has done the followup to make sure that they fully understand the scope of the work and so that's our recommendation tonight for to accept that bid uh this as Travis said is an action item this evening any questions for Travis at this point this is the garage north of the stadium yes thank you all right uh the next item is Travis's as well the 10-year safety survey report is back from earlier this year it is so this is um this is a recap of of what was presented in November all of this information is the same so just a an explanation of every 10 years that we do uh we are required uh by the state to go through a a survey uh to identify any areas of need that we need to address um so we have gone through that uh we've reviewed those this was all done again in the summer and the fall thinkk if you can give me the next slide so along with this um here are the next steps that are are related to it one is to authorize Whit and company to access iwis and submit the the report for us um once they receive that report we'll we'll get that we approve what they have uh submitted um and then we go through everything after that moment time where we know ISB has to approve the the work uh once we have that approved then we need to go through the process of getting the work all the bids uh that are needed in order to get that work completed um and then we would obviously report annually on the progress of those those things next slide please so you can see they're they're broken down into three different categories of work category a is urgent that has to be done in the first two years one to two years um and then when you look at next category B that has to be done within the first five years after it's been approved category C is recommended it is not something that we have to do next slide please so you can see the breakdown um of what that total looks like so we're just under $360,000 uh for both North and South for category a category B is just over 3.6 million category C uh we are just over 1.

Please Mr Cerone here Mr gatwood present M Johnson Dr Maria present Mr Boger present Miss similon present Miss menm present po rier present and Cel president please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance I pled Al to the FL of the United States of America and to the Republic for One Nation God indivisible andice for all good evening board and uh guests it's a great evening today to begin our our evening board meeting with our pride Awards so we want to invite uh executive director of schools Mr Francis to walk us through tonight's celebrations all right thank you Dr kilti uh tonight the Board of Education acknowledges Pride winners from Thompson junior high trer Junior High bed narik junior high and the goal program for the month of March Pride stands for proudly recognizing individuals demonstrating Excellence the Board of Education began the program nine years ago to recognize promote and celebrate the many contributions made by teachers and employees throughout our district we thank our generous District Partners Chick-fil-A C imagination Print and Design Huntington Learning Center serve bank and the scoop for helping to make this program a success we would also like to thank all those who nominated individuals for consideration awardees after your name is called and we share your nomination please come forward to be congratulated by the board and Dr katti and then wait until the rest of your team comes for a group picture first we have Thompson junor High School and our first winner is purum Barnes Spanish teacher purum brings out the joy in her students and leaves a positive impact by encouraging them to be excited about learning one student said having her class taught me success and failure she is a supportive teacher who will encourage you to reach for the stars but also ensures you can succeed seed on the ground first congratulations pum next up we have social studies teacher Nick Bono Nick has created a positive atmosphere for his students that is unmatched as shared by one nominator Nick brings social studies to life creatively showing his passion for teaching Beyond intellectually nurturing his students all appreciate his kindness and compassion he has made my life and many others lives promising and fulfilling just by being in it a student said congratulations Nick and next we have another social studies teacher Kelly Springstein Kelly is not here tonight but deserves her accolades all the same she is dedicated to making learning fun and engaging for her students both staff members and family members are impressed by her organization and communication skills Kelly cares deeply for her students and their voices serving as a student council sponsor in addition to teaching one parent said her teaching is the epitome of the district's mission to empower support and motivate students in their educational Journey congratulations Kelly and next up we have C custodian Josephina Garcia he is not here she is probably working at at the moment she is here no she just got here ah welcome Miss Garcia's hard work and dedication helps cultivate a cheerful atmosphere in her building she maintains a high level of standards and goes out of her way to help staff as shared by a nominator her attitude during the transition of improvements in the building has been a catalyst of positivity that carries the staff as a leader congratulations and lastly from Thompson secretary Lorraine zzen Lorraine connects with students in a special way serving as a comforting presence for all she goes above and beyond not just for her school but also for each individual student Lorraine tirelessly Works to make sure all the students feel safe and loved as they come through through the office congratulations Lorraine and let's get one more round of applause as our pride winners get together for a picture at this time any building admin Mr Lewis make your way up there [Music] congratulations Thompson our next Spotlight school is trer Junior High School our first recipient is Marcia Corino as an eighth grade ELA teacher Marcia's students feel welcome in her classroom as she takes them takes time to learn about them and their learning styles she makes learning fun Marcia also serves as a mentor for her students during their time at trer and Beyond as shared by a nominator Mrs Kino encourages her students to strive in her classroom she is always willing to help them be their best congratulations next up Tracy shortly Ela teacher Tracy demonstrates Integrity professionalism and a passion for education in her work her students needs are her top priority Tracy pores effort into the lessons she teaches continually challenging herself and others to grow it's clear she is more than just a teacher she is a mentor a role model and an advocate for students one nominator said congratulations [Applause] Tracy next up Shaya Zimmerman Shaya is a school counselor and a friendly face to both students and staff she places students first while also caring for her fellow staff members she makes time to check in with students to learn how to best support them she volunteers for each student event that there is and is involved in staff Gatherings one nominator said she communicates often and openly with families and goes the extra mile every day congratulations next up Vanita Parsons Vanita is a full-time dedicated building sub with a warm welcoming presence for all students at trer aside from working as a substitute she also possesses the skills that make her an excellent MC at all School assemblies her nominator said students love her and she's built a great rapport with all students and staff congratulations Venita and finally Bridget Z zaleski I had it Bridget zaski Bridget is a sign language interpreter and she brings so much school spirit to trer every day she also dedicates time outside of the school day in supporting her school Community such as serving as trer student council adviser for the past four years as a nominator shared she has built strong relationships with students and staff and has helped transform our school into a welcoming positive environment congratulations Bridget at this time Mr Evans coming up for some pictures and one big round of applause for everybody at Traver all right next up we have Ben narc Junior High School first of all we have Josh BR Brooks choir and music director Josh Brooks instills a love of the musical arts into his students he puts great effort into his communication with students and their families his dedication to his craft has allowed choir students to grow into a community that can rely on each other Mr Brooks is a Class Act by Leading with Rich character kindness and an unwavering value of collaboration with his team congratulations Josh next up Lisa heemstra band director Lisa strives to provide her students with with the best possible junior high band experience she puts in time to ensure her students receive the opportunity to showcase their hard work and talents Lisa has created a positive environment for her students who love spending time in her classroom even outside of their class period not only do they Thrive as musicians under her Direction but they have such discipline and respect for her a nominator said congratulations Lisa next up special education teacher Julie Velasco Julie is intention intentional about making genuine connections with students and staff alike her acts of service speak volumes about her character she leads and organizes Ben nar's house system which has helped Foster a collective sense of belonging and ownership in her school Community a fellow staff member shared she is thoughtful about seeing validating and bringing to the table those who may not be considered or thought of congratulations Julie and Erica Darren principal secretary Erica is greatly appreciated by her school Community for all she does she's always ready and willing to help students families and staff her nominator shared Erica is kind-hearted supportive and a person with a moral compass she's strong communication skills effective organization flexibility active listening resilience respect positivity creative problem solving vision and transparency congratulations Erica and from our assist of Technology team we have Kim richmiller Zin Kim is known for her hard work at benari her passion is admirable and implied by her nominator portrays enthusiasm about her school environment she's the most kind and hardworking person I have ever met her nominator said congratulations Kim all right as Mr oldaker comes out up we will take some pictures for our final building celebration tonight we move to goal first of all we have C ccor Nicole Perry Nicole is dedicated to her role of serving students demonstrating passion and a strong work ethic she truly cares about the success of each student Nicole is always willing to take on new challenges seeking both personal and professional growth her unwavering commitment to her students and her proactive attitude make her an invaluable asset to her team her nominator said congratulations Nicole next up we have Junior High teacher Shane smart Shane makes learning fun for his students and finds opportunities to teach valuable lessons throughout the school day he is flexible constantly adapting to the unique needs of his students and the gold program Mr smart is the ultimate team member as he is willing to help with anything asked a nominator said congratulations Shane and finally we have teacher assistant Kim Redfield Kim's Charming personality and commitment to the well-being of all students has made a lasting impact her efforts are greatly appreciated by all her nominator shared her genuine concern and enthusiasm Foster a supportive and engaging learning environment where every student feels seen and supported congratulations Kim all right let's have one final round of applause as we recognize and celebrate all of these amazing staff members for all they do honores please proceed out to the hall gathering at the landing of the stairs for a group photo thank you to the families and colleagues who were here to support our winners thank you John for get some attention he even better h [Music] turn we're moving now to 5.1 public comment on behalf of the Board of Education I'd like to thank you for attending to tonight's meeting we value the feedback we receive from our members of the public and encourage everyone to take an active interest in their Public School System residents interested in speaking to the board 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 give your feedback please note that comments are limited to three minutes per person and the board and administration do not typically respond to questions comments should comments should address the Board of Education as a whole and not be directed to an individual board member audience or staff member the Board of Education will not address concerns raised during public comment against individual employees at a board meeting a complaint against an employee should be in writing and signed by the person who makes it and the Board of Education will refer any such complaints for appropriate review we ask that during your public comment you refrain from any campaigning or advocating for your candidacy this is not the form for that and we would and it would not be fair to other candidates follow to your questions or concerns will be addressed by Administration through the contact information provided on the comment card thank you Chad rapper good evening everybody um my name is Chad rapper and I just wanted to have some comments regarding some of the changes that we know are happening with a special ed program um I'm sure there's no surprise that this is been a Hot Topic amongst the parents who have kids involved in the program um I have a daughter who goes to uh Murphy and she's been there a couple years now and my daughter deals with what's called kbg syndrome which is a chromosomal disorder which if you Google it it says there's only about a 100 people in the world that have it the number has grown we're now at about a thousand so it's not it's fairly rare obviously um it comes along with uh bonuses of childhood speech praia level one autism amongst countless other things that impair their ability to learn um the difficulty that we're having with what's going on is it seems like a lot of this is happening without any real feedback from the parents and the problem that we're seeing is when zoning happened a couple years ago the Gen gened kids were given the option you want to stay at the school at or would you like to move on to whatever school you can be zoned for and special ed kids aren't being given that opportunity and that seems fairly crazy if you have a special ed kid that you know has some pretty intense special needs our daughter on average takes easily a couple years to get acclimated to a program um at home she's a typical 12-year-old doesn't stop talking um which sometimes we wish wasn't the case um but it takes a long time to get comfortable with people and I mean a long time and the move to uh Murphy was a difficult one and it's been a couple years now and she's now comfortable at least mostly comfortable um she has half a dozen teachers they all love her to death and she's been great with the program it's been amazing for her um and now we find out she's going to get moved to um trer which you know is convenient because it's a heck of a lot closer but we know what this is going to do to her mentally and how much this is going to hurt her because that move's going to happen it's going to be for a year and then she's going to have to move again to go to asgo and the impact is massive you have no idea there isn't a single special ed teacher she has that thinks this is good not one the assistant principal not good nobody thinks this is a good idea now if a parent has a child and they want them to be at their home school God bless May the force be with them do it but for the kids that have other issues that make it really hard to acclimate this is going to set our daughter back so far that words can't even begin to describe what what's going to happen because now she's going to go to a new environment and start all over again and she just shuts down like won't talk or she'll she'll use one word right my dad doesn't live here he's in Colorado she still we talk to him regularly via time still one word with him you know won't do sentences won't talk a lot so it's it's very problematic and it's very upsetting because it's just it's strange the gened kids were given the opportunity to do to make a choice but the most vulnerable of the kids that we deal with are being told sorry thankk you so much for your time say what thank you so much all right so I'll end with this you're T is something we really push right and we want that to be more than just just a slogan cuz if we're not truly treating these kids for who they are and what they need then it's just going to be a slogan and we now we need a lot more than just slogans in the US so hope you guys will reconsider that thank you thanks CH Sanchez hello good evening my name is Chloe Sanchez and my child is a fourth grader in sd308 step and Hearty hearing program at PR Point Elementary School uh I'd first like to express my sincere gratitude to The District administration and Community as whole uh your dedication to the success of our children is invaluable and it truly takes a village my child has been in the district's Stephan Hardy hearing program since early childhood and though dhh programs are few and far between it is in my experience that this one is exceptional I've recently been made aware of plans for changes to take place in the special education department including the dhh program specifically a change of school location this is where I ask that you please take great thought care and consideration into the possible relocation of the elementary dhh program my child has grown and progressed significantly uh over the years because of the dhh program and the brilliant and inspiring individuals that it's comprised of but equally as important it is because of the abundance of love and support of the entire Prairie Point School community and its environment that my child has flourished to suddenly uproot well established students in the program and plop them down and to an entirely new school won't just hinder development but will almost certainly result in measurable setbacks and regression especially at a crucial time when they should be focusing on preparing for the imminent transition to middle school and the great adjustment that will be for any child but especially for dhh children like mine I hope that together we will make the right decisions in order to continue to set our children up for Success just as we have been thus far thank you for your time thank you Faith cardo do you want to reset the clock oh okay thank you thank you hi I have seen a lot of you at uh the numerous forums I have attended over the past couple years um my name is Faith serani cardo I am the vice president of epek however today I'm speaking on behalf of dozens of parents who I have been discussing these recent changes with um I am here as a concerned and baffled and exasperated parent I have a son who is 7 years old and in the first grade at a District 308 school he has autism he spend 60% of his day in a Stars classroom and 40% of his day in a general education classroom when my f son first started out in kindergarten last year it was extremely difficult on his first day of school five teachers and the principal had to surround him to keep him from running into the street and chasing down my car most mornings it took him no less than half an hour to be convinced to get out of the car he had never experienced anything like this before the preschool he attended was only 2 hours and this school day was 7 hours I knew in my heart that although I wanted to quit my job and homeschool him it was in his best interest to send him to a school that would provide a quality education as well as plenty of socialization over the past newly nearly 2 years my son has experienced tremendous growth both in academics and in social emotional learning his reading skills are emerging beautifully and he loves and excels in mathematics which I can promise you is not genetic um when we are out and about in asgo we are con constantly running into people adults and kids of all ages who know my son by name and eagerly greet him this is a complete turn from what it was when he was younger it has been such a long road to get there but my son is positively thriving thanks to all the hard work courage tenacity that he has put into his learning experience and the amazing team he's had at his school a couple of weeks ago or maybe a week maybe a week I sat in my my car in the school pickup line waiting for the Bel ring I got a call from the school's program administrator who informed me that his school will no longer house Stars classes and that he would be moved to a different school this would be effective in the next in at the start of the next school Year my son had his IEP meeting in February which we set goals and agreed on necessary accommodations under the assumption that his team and school placement would remain the same next year an assumption that any rational adult would have made a move this Swift to change schools seems cruel and calculated so many students who rely on consistency and have made such great strides will backslide and that should matter to everyone involved over the past few years I have participated in numerous forums regarding changes in the district at the time a part of me felt like it was all a show it didn't feel genuine it felt like a performance orchestrated by quasi public figures who wanted to convey that they were invested my theories were confirmed upon receiving the news of what I am calling the vast Exodus of the neurod Divergence you it feels to us as though our thoughts were never really heard you never wanted to hear our thoughts our fears our needs and our concerns it felt more so that in these forums the specifically formated questions were made to give you material for you to support the decisions that you had already made the whole process has been aggressively non-transparent and we the parents need and deserve answers because frankly this all seems ludicrous based on the patterns we have seen it seems as though when a solution is needed the students receiving special education services are always pushed out of the way to make room for the who the decision makers seem or deem more deserving of consistency and stability neurode Divergent students thrive on consistency and stability and neurotypical students Thrive being in the midst of those who are different minded than them so sorry in summary I'm going to skip um we need our children to be shown respect we need them to be valued and to supported we need to have a seat at the table where these decisions are making there is no reason that of all the forums that have been hosted the parents should have been left out of any decision making here um we need to have conversations with the people who are making these decisions and not whatever PR person you choose to send our way that week that part is really important to me um and we need um okay uh I'm G to skip over that I thought we had five minutes not three anyway um we we've been giving minimum information about what is happening last year why this decision was made and what we can do about it we have to go all of us are revisiting our IEPs and having to redo them which also put a lot of extra pressure on the Educators on the teams we feel this decision was made way too quickly with no input from parents with no transparency and we feel that our trust has been completely broken in this process after repeatedly over the past couple years telling the board members who seem to be interested in these issues what we wanted as parents and what we wanted for our kids what we need for our kids thank you thank you Cheryl Flynn I thought it was five minutes to somewhere on a website it does say five minutes just to let you guys know my name is Cheryl Flynn I am the President of epac I am here today speaking on behalf of myself as a parent and an advocate I come before you today a bit frustrated regarding the communication from the special education department from IEP meetings to the changes in programming within the district I feel as though decisions are being made without fully considering how these changes affect the individual involved especially the students at my child's IEP meeting there have been several occasions that I didn't feel like a true member of the team I was told what the district will do rather than having a genuine collaborative discussion but the issue isn't confined to IEP meetings as the new Administration pushes forward with changes families are finding out last minute with little opportunity to negotiate or even understand the full impact of these Chang changes especially when it is coming to programming for the upcoming year being a parent of a child with special needs can be stressful parents need time to process changes more importantly we need to ensure that our children will be safe and well supported in any new environment if we have concerns we have we need the opportunity to discuss those with the appropriate administrators and find alternative Solutions in an effort to increase transparency and collaboration with parents I am hoping that the special education department will consider holding Town Hall meetings in advance of any significant changes going forward this would allow families the chance to better understand the changes being made the reasoning behind them and most importantly give us time to process and ensure the safety and well-being of our children thank you for your time and consideration thank you David Baker uh good evening my name is David Baker um I'm gonna change it up a little bit and go for a different topic um I just wanted to uh I had initially intended to share this uh at the last meeting but I wanted to voice uh some support from a parent perspective uh regarding the Strategic plan uh that the board is uh in the process of considering um I've had the opportunity to kind of preview the plan as a member of the superintendent's Advisory Group and I've been able to see firsthand uh the amount of uh work put into it and also the passion uh behind it um Dr katti and his team have poured so much into this but the the thing that's been eye openening to me and and wonderful to see from an Insider's perspective is it's really not out of obligation but out of a genuine desire to improve as well as a passion for the kids the community and ultimately the Future Leaders of our country um sd308 is already a great District um but I appreciate uh Dr katti's wisdom to recognize how much better it can be uh with intentional strategic Improvement initiatives um at one of the uh Advisory Group meetings that we had there was an icebreaker question and it said um if sd308 were a vehicle what kind would it be and why and uh somebody gave an answer in there that I thought was really really good he said it would be like a classic car like uh say a 1965 Mustang h um like a restoration project uh the district uh has a lot of potential there's a lot of good things underneath um but it needs a little work and it needs some updating and it needs some improvement and then it's going to be something really special that can shine even more than it it does in its current state um so just like restoring a car uh I think it's important for the district to have scope um assess the current condition have a clear vision of the desired result and plan for how to get there uh the Strategic plan does just that so please view it as an investment into the district community and most importantly the children and students whose very Futures depend on our willingness not only to do the right thing but also to be committed to stick with it for the long haul um obviously it's not a short-term plan it's going to take a long lot of long-term commitment um related to that I just want to challenge the board to consider ways to communic at to the general public um particularly the voters um in in the area regarding District improvements especially some of the financial improvements um that have taken place in recent months and years um you know voters don't necessarily come to these meetings they don't know what's going on but they will vote and at some point the district is going to need additional resources additional funds or whatever so I think it's it's very important to try to get the positive message out there um I'm out of time I'll just say I appreciate Dr katti's leadership um I personally have known superintendents who do not seek uh feedback and input from the community or even uh Educators and uh seeing his approach to things is is refreshing I think it's good for the district and uh from parent perspective that's very much appreciated thank you thank you thank you Elizabeth Baker hello my name is Elizabeth Baker I have two students one at Plank and one at oehs I want to address the issue of the backpacks in schools the first is regarding the amount of time my first issue is the amount of time the students have between passing periods the students have a three minute passing period as of the 2324 school year prior to that it was a 4minute per passing period for the high school students here on The Advisory Board these students had at least four minutes to get from one classroom to the next while they were in middle school middle one minute can mean a world of difference While most middle school students spend 77% of their school day in the Pod where each class is near their lockers some students have other activities that take them to the other end of the school these activities include electives band choir and advanced placement classes not to mention the gym is in the complete opposite direction of some of the pods my youngest son this year faces situation where he went from his pod to the gym and then back to his pod and then downstairs again for an elective his pod is currently the one furthest from the gym on the second floor last year he had banned and he was frequently late for his next class which was Art because there wasn't enough time to be both put his instrument away and then walked to his class in a timely manner those two classes were fairly far from each other he was also in an advanced placement CL math class that was not near his pod through 3 minutes is only 180 seconds while some students will have time to get to their lockers between classes not all will and not every class and they are not allowed to run the second point I want to make is in regards to belongings on any given day students are required to bring with them to class most if not all of these things their computer a notebook and folder a pen a pencil and a highlighter school planner Post-it notes a calculator the textbook or required read ing this is a lot of things to hold and carry and will be easy to spill many students are even still using the Avid binders a binder that is at least 2 in thick it has slanted slides and it's a plastic material and it makes things easy to fall off in regards to carrying computers backpacks provide a level of protection they are protected against Falls and bumps disallowing backpacks will cause a risk for computers I don't know how many of you have had had middle school children but they are not the most careful of people knowing that my child's backpack provides Extra Protection for his computer is a definite comfort as fixing those required devices can get extremely expensive even using a protective sleeve does not protect 100% against Falls thirdly backpacks will force more girls to openly carry their purses in school most girls start their periods around this age and rely on backpacks to carry their suppli they will have to rely on purses instead if backpacks are not allowed and once girls are consistently always carrying purses there is an added security risk backpacks have multiple compartments In Pockets making it easy to hide wallets and menstrual Necessities if girls are forced to carry purses then their wallets and other personal belongings are at a greater risk for theft asking girls to keep their menstrual supplies in their lockers is unreasonable as sometimes Cycles are unexpectedly sudden and heavy and a person needs access to those supplies immediately some students also store their student IDs in their backpacks I know that with growing class sizes there is a concern for space in classrooms and that backpacks decrease the amount of available space here are two options I have come up with to help with that issue one have students put their backpacks under their chairs like I did when I was in high school either under their knees or in front of them or have a designated area in the classroom where his backpacks can be left like pile them up or something I don't know I appreciate this student advisers committee on this from last board meeting however this is a proposal that affects mostly middle schoolers as such I think you should ask the advice of middle schoolers and their parents those are the voices that should be heard on this topic as those students are the ones who will be impacted the most thank you thank you uh Chen Cruz meron good evening hello I'm here today to express my concerns regarding how an incident involving my son was handled in hopes that the board will consider reviewing the district's current code of conduct my son is an eighth grader at Bed nark and on Monday March 3rd he was pushed down a flight of stairs from behind intentionally by another student there was a staff member walking right next to them at the time of the incident it is also on video after he was pushed the other student said that's what you get the vice principal is the one who called me to inform me of the incident I was told that my son reported to be okay and that the school was taking it seriously I was not asked if I wanted to come in to check on him myself I was not asked if I wanted to speak with him on the phone by the grace of God my son was able to walk away but did sustain injury the offending student was suspended for 3 days I was informed by concerned parents that this was a student that had a history of disorderly conduct and has put other students in physical and emotional danger the fact that the assaulting student purposefully pushed my son from behind in front of a staff member shows he has no regard for adult supervision and intended to harm my son without consequence Tuesday afternoon the 4th I went to the police station and filed an official report the officers I spoke with asked me if the principal had informed me why the police were not called at the time of the incident another officer had asked me if I was told why an ambulance was not called to check to make sure he was indeed okay they told me that many schools will hold a mediation between the parents um the students and both sets of parents and that the school should be able to provide me with the other students parents contact information I brought all of this to the principal Wednesday morning the 5th uh Mr older the principal informed me that they only call the police when there is a severe situation I asked if he could please explain to me what qualified as a severe situation and was told that when students won't stop fighting or if an ambulance was needed Mr older told me with my permission he could give my contact information to the other students parents he neglected to respond to the part of potential mediation I expressed Mr oldaker that a 3-day suspension was not sufficient for an incident that could have had much more serious consequences he told me that the district agreed the code of conduct dictated the consequence based on a physical altercation and because my son was not seriously injured this is how it was classified I have spoken with the principal with the police and with other parents there is no question that this was an intentional act with potential for serious harm the school's response has been severely underwhelming and inadequate for an action that could have paralyzed or even killed my son had he hit his head I am bringing this to the attention of the board to bring to light how this matter was handled by the administration at bed nurk and in hopes that the code of conduct can be Revisited the consequences given should not be based on the end result but must include the intent and potential harm thank you for your time thank you okay we're moving to 6.1 action items ready approval of strategic plan action item 6.1 can I have a motion please make a motion to approve the SD 308 strategic plan as presented second Miss Simon hi Miss ven hi Mr pler hi Dr Mario hi Miss Johnson no Mr Sone I Mr Gatewood I motion passes six two and one one no 7.1 superintendent comments I would ask that Dr katti give the superintendent report thank you board uh tonight really marks a milestone as we presented the SPO strategic plan for approval we want to thank on behalf of the the community the staff the students um the board the the cabinet the senior leadership team principes Educators community members um we've had uh members of our village uh trustees and we want to just thank you all so much for your support this plan reflects a shared Vision shaped through extensive input from our students staff again from families and community members um it's a Forward Thinking guide if you've had a chance to peruse it um I had a conversation with members of the superintendent's Advisory Group a couple weeks ago some of the things may surprise you this book this guide really is a what I would describe as a foundational document there are many things in here that may you may think oh boy why don't we have that yet or wait that's not there yet and in fact yes some of the things that have been articulated in this document everything from the way in which we think about our individual individualized education plans to our curriculum renewal process to um the way we think about student information and data these are all fundamentally things that we have opportunities to improve and if you had a chance to re review the curriculum audit from this past spring I mean past fall um in that document it outlines a huge priority around planning that the district really needed to invest time into planning its future steps to move away from a practice of really um moving uh kind of in an uncoordinated manner across its initiatives and to really thinking about a long-term strategic plan and so in this document that I'm very proud of it's really the collaborative work of our unions um coming together um this evening uh this really is a is a is a washed moment not for anyone individual it's really a team effort and we want to thank the board for its vision and its support this all started I don't if you remember the Strategic road map that we had last spring and now we have a was it a Mustang that I heard a Chevy from our comments today I don't know we're not supposed to comment public comment but we we want to thank uh everybody involved in making this a reality uh tonight what a joy to hear uh to see and to celebrate our pride recipients um it's always tremendous to Center the excellent work and vision of our staff and uh I want to thank our Communications team uh for their help in coordinating this work uh and we're coming off of a really exciting last week we had a number of things you'll hear board members make comments to them but uh we welcome the class of 2030 38 uh yes if you can believe it 2038 I know right you feel old yes yes and their families at kinderquest we want to uh thank our staff for that and then our students on Thursday evening shared their powerful stories and and talent tremendous Talent at our amplify event um really celebrating the heart of our district and we want to thank everyone who made these events possible I testing is on way what a wonderful way for us to measure the progress our students are making we want to thank our our staff and our administrators for coordinating um also last week we completed the first round of math testing and navigated the new Adam platform and um Ela continues this week and again big thank you to our staff for their hard work in preparing our students let's finish strong um this today actually I had a chance to meet with the chief Consultants regarding our B long range facility plan so we've been referring to our Master facility plan and our our Consulting Group with the white group suggested today that we really start to shift towards the words long range facility plan which actually makes more sense right which is we're thinking ahead of where we want to take our district in terms of our buildings and so uh we are going to be we've engaged our leaders we're going to be continue to do that um we'll be bringing in our directors and then families and really engaging them thinking about what do do we want to see in our buildings um both in terms of long-term care but also in terms even learning spaces that we want to make sure they're excellent over the last couple weeks um as we've transitioned into adopting some recommendations from our diverse learnings program we've heard from a number of parents regarding the programmatic moves uh the stress and the challenges but also the joys so we've had a variety of feedback um we recognize that this change will and does require a lot of communication which I know our team is committed to increasing and if you have particular challenges we would encourage you to reach out to the program administrators as well as to The District staff and I know that we are committed to ensuring that any changes we always put our students first and we continue to do that as we celebrate our uh the season of spring which last week felt like summer today it's winter but we're almost there a few special recognitions um we've got we're in the in the spirit of things we've got we want to send warm wishes to our students and our families in the spirit of Ramadan we have St Patrick's Day uh celebrating those who bring our Irish Irish culture and Heritage uh we've got no Rus for those who are Persians and Mahi wishing happiness and health and this coming week we also have world syndrome day which is March 21st world I'm sorry World Down syndrome day uh this uh this gives us an opportunity um students and staff staff may be wearing mismatched socks in honor of the incredible contributions of individuals with Down Syndrome that is part of the tradition they have and the 21st chromosome is triplicated in those with Down Syndrome this important day promotes inclusion understanding and advocacy looking ahead welld deserved spring break take the week off everyone at the end of this week of course and uh we hope everyone get some time to rest and recharge and gear for the final stretch of the year I always call it the new year on the of this so that we stay you know we we jump in and uh last but not least we recognize that this is a great time also to give feedback when we think about um celebrating our staff and our students and the five essential surveys open is a time to really give feedback and with uh the participation of all our families to ensure that we can um get the most accurate feedback and understanding where we want to strengthen and also where we want to celebrate and thank you to all for your insights I apologize for my voice this evening and I want to turn it over now to board members and we have some additional news okay thank you um the ASO swimming and Diving team recently earned Ninth Place at the ihsa boys boys state championships uh Chase Meyer took home individual state titles in both the 200 and 500 free Owen lipple placed sixth in the 50 free and 15th in the 100 free Ethan shrer placed eighth in the 200 free and 10th in the 500 free congratulations but wait there's more um moving on that off the press um I want to uh give a shout out to our robotics team uh Garett forward 2338 who I want to make sure I get this right who were the regional winners and the and received the championship qualifying award at the uh Rocket City Regional finals this past this past weekend actually I think it started Thursday through Sunday or something like that but the important thing is uh Championship qualifying award uh it says here the Champions formed a powerful Alliance Who Rose to the many challenges of reefscape and pro and proved to be an exciting and competitive combination they can now proudly hang a Winner's Banner in their pit um again robotics team does some really cool stuff so um they did a really great job and um deserve the recognition Mr P over to you yes uh Kaa Chavez of asgo high school plays second in her weight class at the ihsa girls wrestling State final tournament so congratulations Ka and McKenzie man of asgo East High School was named the regional Student of the Year in graphics at the 2025 Valley education for employment system comp competition on Friday congratulations mckin the benar Science Olympiad team took sixth place at the College of Dage Regional Tournament earning a bid to the Illinois state tournament in April congratulations to these students fromarc junior high school and the best of look at state tournament our spe excuse me our Special Olympics basketball teams had a successful run at State the Wildcats Junior Team earned a silver and the Wildcat silver team Place fourth as individuals Andrew BOS won Gold and EMT hulac received a particip participation award in skills congratulations Wildcats uh Thompson junior high school had a successful 10th annual hoops for heart week led by their PE teachers the school collected a total of $2,850 to be donated to the American Heart Association our district has C cumulatively raised over $1 million to benefit the research of heart disease and stroke and local services to our community Through the American Heart Association good job impressive very good yeah in March we celebrate our school social workers and athletic trainers we are so appreciative of all they contribute to our buildings thank you to these special staff members good thank you thank you madam president and board for the time to share those Reflections right 7.2 board committee reports we'll start with our Equity learning and Innovation report who would like to start uh Equity learning and Innovation me met this month we've uh had several items that we discussed including um some of the changes to diverse Learners in special education we heard a presentation on backpacks and Bell schedules uh from the Junior High um we heard about a junior high novel selection as well as a textbook selection for African-American studies at the high school level uh we had a student join us to give us some uh updates about student engagement uh and then we also reviewed Vision 2030 uh a board resolution um from um uh from the uh state or from the ISB um a lot of these items are on our agenda tonight so we had a nice preview of them prior to board meeting tonight I'll just I'll just want to add one thing and sorry I'm gonna get uh semi controversial but um I I was late to the meeting first of all I'll start with that um for those that don't know I'm my mother's primary caregiver so sometimes uh it gets me and I'm late to places but here's what I'm going to say and uh I'm going to say my uh my uh nickelsworth here um there's definitely a history in um the district when it comes to moving um programs and I think we need to be fully aware that um it's uh not a history that leaves people with a lot of um good feelings uh I am aware of an exception that was made last boundary I remember it very well because um like I don't take a whole lot of credit for things but it was definitely something that um I I had proposed in the middle of the board meeting which was when uh we had Thompson and trer switched it was trying to see if those who had already started at one school could finish out um there was an added expense um it didn't just include gen ed students um but I do not believe it included necessarily everyone in those programs I bring this up and I say this because when I would argue that the last time we had to change boundary lines we were very successful and part of the reason we were very successful is because we made a commitment at District that we were going to leave programs where they were and when we couldn't that's when we knew it was time to deal with the lines and that's who we were going to revolve around our most vulnerable students that's Equity work as opposed to equality work and so I challenge us and I challenge our district and I um if if this is really what we're having to do that means we're behind on having to address some lines if we're really moving people um that's been the philosophy that we've had we had last time and so I challenge ourselves including myself right I'm not I'm not innocent and I'm not going to claim to be innocent and certainly not the reason for saying these things but um that's that's a commitment to equity that we've made in the past um and um I'm not going to sit here and blame a a brand new Administration but this is the part where the historical piece matters and we need to make sure we're keeping that historical piece intact um because we will have a negative reaction from some of our community when we forget it so I'd be a miss not to say those things thank you all right and now our policy and legislation committee report uh that meeting was actually rather short um I think it was one of the shortest ones on record um actually we we briefly discussed policy 130 we just kind of went over a Redline draft um um which is going to be kind of redone for our next meeting uh we tabled some meetings to uh the beginning of the next school year with or at least when the new board is in place uh probably what we talked about most was um policy 7150 regarding immigration en enforcement and policy 835 uh regarding law enforcement procedures um both of those policies are being brought tonight for a first read so you will have the chance to review them if you haven't done it already uh but that was definitely at the Forefront of our meeting are we supposed to talk about a bill that's out there is that part of our deal we never picked one we never pick one we didn't pick one yeah I I don't remember the bill number actually but uh there's a lot of conversation about I know the state contemplating mandating uh later start for high schools and I think that's fascinating there's a district not too far from here which is having the debate and it's certainly been a fascinating watch to say the least um a little bit of cart cart before the horse kind of going on over there but nonetheless um it's it's going to be fascinating to watch to see what happens with that and there could be implications for us down the road certainly with Transportation but also you're talking activities and and so forth if that goes through I think it's definitely something to keep an eye on uh for sure thank you okay moving on to 7.3 student board member reports um you want to take a moment to reflect on two recent events that truly showcase the power of student voice in our district the student board Forum on March 3rd and then our amplifier on March 13th at the student board forum we had the opportunity to discuss some of the most pressing issues affecting students today including phone use and its impact on respect and communication student skipping class censorship academics mental health and homework what St the most was not just the range of topics but the depths of the conversations that we had students were engaged honest and willing to share their thoughts and concerns and in return we received amazing and positive feedback from those who attended a reminder that when we create space for open dialogue real change can happen one of the best parts of the Forum was seeing students from different backgrounds and experiences come together to discuss Solutions and advocate for what they need to succeed it wasn't just about voicing concern it was about collaborating to make better change for everyone then on March 13th we had amplifi and it was truly something special the energy in the room was inspiring from the incredible incredible performances that showcased the creativity and the talent of our students to the breakout room sessions that sparked meaningful conversations one of the stand standout moments of the day was the student panel where we got to hear unfiltered perspectives from students about their experiences challenges and hope for the future the responses we received were overwhelm overwhelmingly positive with so many people expressing how powerful it was to hear students speaking the truth it reinforced the idea of our of our voice matters and that we need to Contin continue creating opportunities like this for students to be heard another important theme throughout the day was rightful presence the idea that every student belongs that their identity and experiences should be recognized and valued in every space they enter it's not just about being physically present in a classroom or an event it's about being seen heard and respected the decisions the discussions we had at amplify really highlighted the importance of creating environments where all students feel like they truly belong whether in the classroom in leadership or in a broader School Community both the student board forum and amplify shows how powerful it is when students come together to share ideas Express thems and push for positive change it was amazing to see how engaged and passionate everyone was and we hope to keep this momentum going let's continue to amplify our voes our voices oh my gosh advocate for what matters and work together to build a school Community where every student feels valued and power thank you and just to add on to that it was so nice seeing Junior High Coalition at amplify and what they prepared it was so sweet I don't know something about it just touched my soul in a different way seeing Young Voices like starting at Junior High it was something truly amazing and so inspiring for even the future generation so that was really good good thank you 7.4 board member comments I'll add just a followup to to what they were saying I didn't know that we had a classically trained pianist at the table but Callie Pernell it was phenomenal like not that I expected anything less but amplifi was amazing um but it was uh it was amazing I appreciated the thoughtfulness I learned so much from the breakout session I like the format and the flow of it all um but it was it was great being present to hear the voices but also to see all the amazing talent especially the middle school students as well it's a great touch so great job okay thank you I'm I'm gonna add to the amazing piano performance uh Mr Gatewood and I kind of looked at each other halfway through and went whoa wow so yes you you are extremely talented but we knew that you're both very talented I well you were both in my in my session you so much no because I was so scared because they had to take me out the breakout room early they're like Callie the piano's broken like come here so I was running I'm like is it okay is it okay so I was so nervous before I before I was about to go on but thank you I appreciate that was pretty amazing um the only thing I wanted to add and I'm I'm gonna make this I've gone through this in my head I don't know how many times but up as everybody should know by now there's an election coming up April first local elections uh you have far more of an impact in a local election than you you would particularly or during a national election so it's really important that you get out and vote but do it with knowledge um as happens in every election there are an awful lot of sound bites that are going out into the into the atmosphere that are being taken as gospel without any context um and I emphasize without any context uh particularly you know budget numbers I just just you know so and so is whatever um please be sure that you do your research um and don't blindly believe everything that you hear because because we know you're all smarter than that so that's it put things in context and vote so we were on to 7.4 and then so was that your 7.4 comment that was my comment okay well I thought are we on 7.4 we are on 7.4 now okay mhm we're good I was I was anxious I have a few things yeah yeah let go ahead Amy um I just wanted to um I probably should have said it earlier in the agenda when we voted on the Strategic plan but I feel like we're burying the lead here a little bit so we have congratulations to everyone on you know having the Strategic plan in place for the next uh several years um I think it's a great doc uh guiding document uh for the next several years and the work that we're do and I I know we've said it before but a deep appreciation for all the input from the community and from the administrators and those who led um you know the the creation and uh Gathering of all that information to uh put together a strategic plan um I had um over the week um met um with uh Dr katti just to ask a couple questions on the Strategic plan and um one of the things I said just to kind of lift lift it up from the conversation was this is also a strategic plan um where I'm hoping a lot of um we can memorialize a lot of procedur uh and a lot of uh processes uh as we go about doing the work so as we're going about renewing the curriculum doing all these things reviewing things we have systems in place so in the future when we need to do it again uh we have them in place and then I appreciated the conversation that we had uh Dr katti about um you know thinking like this isn't the end right we're doing some building blocks for things we want to see in four years and five years six years and down the road um so not everything is in there uh you know that's ever going to happen in the district but we're doing some good building blocks to make some other things happen in the future um and the last thing I'll say is and I'll continue to bring this up um this is a living document and so um it's not as we said something we're going to put on the wall you know and have a three-point strategic plan for the next three years and we don't know what it is something that I hope that we're we're digging into um throughout the um you know at every meeting meeting as we think about the work that that's ahead of us um so congratulations to everyone on that I I attended a few events um I just want to call them out uh Grand Park A diversity Fair packed with lots of people wonderful displays of food and entertainment um I treated myself to a lily scrub and a t-shirt at the spring craft show from the pathways transition Center yeah that was um I attended amplifi where I saw the talent and heard you know all the voices um it was uh moving for sure um and then steam night uh a few weeks back uh it's always a great turn out there lotss of Hands-On activities and science technology engineering art and math so um I just wanted to call those events out so that's it yeah I had one more item that I wanted say and that was the five essential surveys also out there right still right I don't know how many more days much so uh but if you haven't filled out your five Essentials please know that our school Improvement teams and lots of people are using that data to determine what moves to make in in your school building so a really important piece to um put on your to-do list anyone else um so when we first came to the board um almost four years ago one of the things that we we grappled with was the fact that we had a strategic plan and yet it was something that we couldn't really wrap our brains around it was just was a lot um and although there were many many voices is included in that strategic plan when you have a board and they represent the community and that and we're out there assessing what is it that our community wants what is the vision that they have and it's our voice that re reflects that as we sit here and so we were always thinking about are we is the do we have the cart before the horse right and we just we couldn't get over the fact that um our our community was saying something and our strategic plan was saying so many things and we just needed to put our fingers on those things that were most important to our community and I feel like we finally got here like you know there have been a many many voices um that reflect the Strategic plan and and all the changes that have gone into it I mean we've had the the curriculum audit we've had so so many um opportunities that our Communications Department has put together and sent out in the voices of our staff and our and our students and um our community and so I am very confident that that strategic plan is a reflection of so many aspects of our of our community and so many voices and so um I feel as though we are going in the right direction we have the the focus um we have the intention intentionality we have the meaningfulness behind it and so I'm I'm very proud of of of um the community the staff and I heard in so much of your voices such enthusiasm for how this came together and the participation and um why this strategic plan is um so important and is the right way at the right time so I just want to say thank you to um Dr katti and your leadership for all the administrators for our staff for our students and every and our community who's participated in this in in this what is a beginning right it's it's a live living breathing document as Amy said it's not something to be put up on a wall um we're we're holding you accountable for it um in your evaluations we're holding um our our buildings accountable in their school Improvement plans we're holding our Administration accountable and I'm so excited to see um how how it how we go forward so that's my that's my two cents thank you okay on to our consent agenda 8.1 can I have a motion to approve the consent agenda please make a motion to approve all items under consent including 8.1 minutes from the Board of Education meeting on February 24th 20125 open and close session and from the student Le public forum on March 3rd 2025 8.2 to acknowledge the foyer requests received by the district 8.3 to approve the field trip for overnight and or over 200 miles 8.4 to acknowledge the 2026 prom vendor for oehs and 8.5 to approve the 2025 26 membership to the Illinois High School Association for both asgo and asigo East High School second I have one question um on 8.4 which is the acknowledgement of 2026 vendor for as weo East um do we typically do we we typically don't approve that I think I heard somewhere that this is because there was a change in venue and so I I recognize it's just an acknowledgement but I'm just trying to now we normally we've never approved this the board has never approved that but technically speaking the board should approve it on their consent oh okay because any activity any transaction that is engaged in in the district us to be approved by the governing board okay so moving forward we should see yes all right it's a change in practice all right thank you I also have a comment um on the meeting minutes from the student Forum it lists my name um at the bottom final resolution motion carried 60 it should not be on there I was not I was absent I amend that I'll amend it so um okay do we yeah he needs to jar can you yeah just uh say uh just make a motion to amend the minutes from the public forum as discussed make a motion to amend the minutes from the student L public forum on March 3rd 2025 as discussed second Mr G wood I Dr Mario I Miss Johnson hi Mr siron hi Miss similon I Mr pler I miss venth hi now don't have to vote and now we have to 70 okay can second oh his first motion was already seconded correct no yeah so motion passes 70 okay now miss menm miss I Dr Maria I Mr Cerone hi Miss similon hi Mr Gatewood I Miss Johnson hi Mr ploger hi motion passes 7 Z okay good evening board uh we've got a number of items this evening 9.1 renewal of the state waiver for show choir we have a presentation soon no I thought there was a okay any questions regarding maybe that's the more important thing okay all right um next we have our uh illustrious team coming up we want to thank you all for uh joining us this evening I'll turn it over to Dr Paul to uh to lead us in okay all right while we're getting ourselves uh pulled up here do you want to introduce every have everybody introduce themselves and we want to thank you all for joining us again this evening good evening everybody I'm Megan man I'm the director of humanities I'm Kristen Walsh I'm on the ELA District committee for ELA and I'm an eighth grade ELA teacher at Murphy I'm Jill Bean I'm also on the ELA committee and I do seventh and eighth grade ELA at plank hi I'm Maggie Sadler also on the junior high Ela committee and I teach Ela at B narik Laura Bingham also on the ELA committee and I'm the principal at Murphy Junior High see you guys all wearing green very I mean we could have had Kelly playing the piano start yeah go ahead and start the the slide they have the documents so yeah let's do it all right so um we are really excited to come to you tonight and bring forth um Junior High uh novels our team has been working really hard the entire year um aligns with our high quality instruction priority and with our Equity um and engagement um equity and rightful presence um priority and uh we are excited to talk as a team um about the work that's happened this year I'm going to pass it down all right so um this is the junior high curriculum team team um some of us are here uh it's basically we made up of Staff members from the junior highs um in all aspects General multilingual Learners special education we also had um the equity engagement and uh learning and Innovation toast is part of the team as well so we've really worked hard together to try to to get the voices from all of the buildings um use voices from our students in order to make make sure that we're making the best decisions for our kids so the committee started a pretty rigorous process last spring when we had the hmh adoption of the new curriculum and we looked at what the novel options were and where as teachers we thought would be the best place to put our core novels um we started with the list they gave us and narrowed it down made um selections on what we wanted to look at and read a bunch over the summer so we all took home novels over the summer to read and come back this year to put together we then completed the text review process which was a lot of documenting everything in a book that someone could look at potentially sideways and the awards they've received how we could um teach content through these novels we made recommendations to the building principal and then we invited students to read the books um we asked for volunteers some we bribed they read many of the books and they had two opportunities to give feedback through Google form or in panels with some District admin some of the to's building admin and teachers amazing conversation that you'll hear about a little bit later in the presentation then we uh presented to the equity and engagement team just last week the novel presentation and the ELA committee also met with the all the junior high principles to field their questions and get their input um we are bringing forward three novels this month to you as the board um to propose and then once this presentation happens tonight they'll be on for public view for 30 days and we'll continue working after that and hopefully get approval okay there was so much work done with reviewing the novels and selecting um starting with what hmh provided as guidance um for us and then looking at standards integration alignment with summi of assessment and tasks looking at student engagement um social emotional learning culturally responsive teaching and learning standards um you'll hear some more about the student voice but even asking them about how could this be used academically in your course as as well as our Educator's perspective on on how these um novels can benefit our students in the classroom and that they had a lot of in student engagement interest and relevance and were very well reviewed and that was thoroughly covered through the text review process and all of the collaborative meetings in the junior high Ela classroom uh we use novels in a couple of different ways one is a core text uh with the core text every student um in the course reads that and students complete a summi of assessment uh we also have Choice texts uh the choice texts uh can can be read within the whole group it is often used within literature circles um sometimes the teachers choose those Choice texts sometimes the students choose those Choice text they can be on interests readability content lots of different reasons we might choose a choice text the benefit of a core text novel is it creates a foundation and a point of reference for teachers because we know that all of the students in that grade level have read that novel so tonight we are proposing three novel Three core novels um for approval so those are Out of My Mind by Sharon Draper at the sixth grade level The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins at the seventh grade level and Miss parag Green's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom rigs at the eth grade level so we collected data from our students in two modalities one was using a focus group after they all read the novels and the second was a survey and we had as you can see in our sixth grade uh the book out of my mind recommended by our student students through both survey and focus group was 100% of our students and they thought it was age appropriate and had literary value if you notice some of the comments these are direct quotes that our students said out of my mind helps others learn that some people are not the same as you and I love that it shows a different perspective on how Melody feels about how people treat her and how she achieves her goal to be in the competition and and we have some very excited sixth grade readers that said I read for two straight hours okay and it keeps you reading with suspense at the end of every chapter so our sixth graders unanimously voted yes for Out of My Mind by Sharon Draper then our second book for seventh grade was The Hunger Games as you can see by our focus group and surveys also a unanimous yes 100% of our students said that they would highly recommend this book for our seventh graders and again this book is my favorite ever and we had to make sure that that was in all caps it was how it was written it grabs you in and it is hard to stop reading a well-written book you can see the author took a lot of time to write this book as the characters are well written the plot of the story and theme are great not too much violence it's perfect for kids my age so that's our seventh grade voices and our eighth grade students read Miss parag Green's Home for Peculiar Children again a unanimous 100% said they would recommend this book for our eighth grade students it's suspenseful and mysterious they said and the beginning was a little slow and we talked through that and how we could you know go around that but around page 100 I couldn't put it down so you know they just had to persevere through and this book was really good the amount of horror and Adventure was just right I feel like every chapter I read it was getting better and better I absolutely loved the concept and I love this book and would recommend it for any student to read it so this is the voices of our sixth seventh and eighth grade students again unanimously all recommending all three of these books if you want a really good time you do book studies talks with students it's a lot of fun uh the projected implementation plan the this novel work is in stage two of our curriculum renewal cycle um we are in the planning and development and evaluating stage right here so um the team upon approval will in um April in may work on finalizing all of the sports around the use of these novels for our Educators getting them in their hands um and then knowing that in August we need dedicated time right off the bat at the beginning of the year for our Junior High e teachers as well as a checkpoint in the fall during um some um professional learning time that's available and to be really intentional about that okay so the projected budget um it actually is included in our contract we have an annual multi-year contract with hmh so the only cost that we are looking for approval for would be for the barcode cost so that it can be um integrated into our system so we are very pleased to present these Junior High novels to you um again taking your input as a board and involving our students in the process and we're delighted to hear their perspective as well as our teachers and um recommending these novels for information this evening do you have any questions I just at in eth grade what honors graders usually the year ahead what do the E graders oh they do and that's already done that is in the high school mini curriculum re renewal that coursework is being done there they did not change a novel yet but they may propose one in the next year okay yeah when I was in honors when English one we went we read oh wow we read Lord of the Flies to kill Mocking Bird animal farm and then one other book I forget but that's the book you read just in case all that e8th grade because I was in honors English won my eth grade year but that's what would the Freshman reading they were okay so so a I have a it's not a serious question good so I want to go back to the book that was slow to get into was that Game of Thrones no oh no I mean I'm not a game of thr I don't know but anyway that and that wasn't my question either Hunger Games that's right no no it was it was Miss parin yeah that was close um so um My ultimate question is how many pages is the book I mean like if it takes a 100 pages and it's like 300 that's one if pictures if it's 106 pages I have an issue no it's I think it's closer to 300 okay so so there's still a significant amount of oh there's a significant amount and they actually brought up some instructional strategies we could do in order to improve you know [Music] the likability I guess of the beginning so they did y they brought up some strategies we could use in the classroom to help the students along great okay thank you it's also probably a third pictures there's a lot of pictures old photographs in the eth grade mon okay the first 100 Pages yeah yeah there's a lot of thought so okay so um what my teacher does was she would play the movie to kind of have us like a better comprehension but my concern that is like some when I was looking them up the movies were rated like PG-13 and I know some um parents don't like their children watching that at that age like mine didn't so what would you do about that like a parent wasn't comfortable with them watching the movie to engage better in the book there would not at this time be the intention to to use the the movie it could be that you know but that there's always um parental consent around that if there's ever a movie you know that we're using yes but right now there's not that intent Point okay thank you I saw the word must that must read must read yeah on one of those pages one of those slides at the beginning so these are must read books like this is the book that every student is going to read yes so this would be a core novel Okay so what if a parent doesn't want their student to read that book do they have a choice an option so with same as with the high school novels where if there's ever a need for an opt out then the teacher and the parent work together they look for an alternative text that allows them to complete the same Summit of Assessments um types of activities that's something yeah skills that Ela and high school English teachers are very and so to add on to that the way The Curriculum maps are designed is that they're aligned to standards um which are aligned to summi of Assessments and so if a parent were to ask for an alternative text that was part of the review process we ask the teachers to think about alternate text that still meet the standards um and so that would give the parent an option to have their child read something in addition or in place of um the cortex that's not what the choice texts are no the choice text is different um they many options for kids to pick from um the core text is is different is this the a just for some context um was a process different this time I love the anchoring of student voices that's something that came up earlier we were looking at some novel study and so I'm just curious if this process changed at all or what changed um if you don't mind just sharing some Reflections um so just to um Echo what we said earlier uh we did take your feedback about involving students in the review process and that was uh actually very timely because I think the next day there was a meeting with of these ladies um who were able to quickly identify the process to include students and um be really representative of the student body anything else you would add I know that as um a Committee Member um we looked at lots of novels um particularly with it that hmh offered because this is already built into our contract with hmh and so we had pretty lengthy discussions on um where we wanted our not the core novel to fall within you know a school year within our classes we felt you know the um experience of doing a core novel was important for students to participate in within first semester so then that kind of dictated what units we were looking at for pulling our core novel um and in addition ially with the interest level so I we set some standards I I would say and this was started at the end of last year starting to look at the novels um and something that all of the grade levels wanted to agree on for those similar experiences across a different grade levels to address um I think you're asking a past process as well in the past um I don't think we had as many options as to what we could pick um having been on multiple curriculum adop age myself but in the past it was hey we can get one of these two books which do you like better what can you bring the skills through the most with and it was adopted pretty quickly um the there wasn't as much um process involved thank you um I will add that I'm really happy that you're adding um what's B A not a word what is it hunger games no hung games no Hunger Games I'm really happy that you're adding that book because me and Kelly actually led a breakout room in amplify for sensorship and we were talking about specific books that were banded in specific States and I was talking about 1984 so seeing you add another dystopian book into the curriculum I think is just tremendous so Props on that okay anything else team well we want want to thank you for your leadership and centering of our students needs and also your excitement right because ultimately if you all aren't interested in the books where teachers AR Educators aren't that it's not going to be much so your your commitment to the process and dedication really means a lot to us so thank you all thank you actually can I add one thing yes my my first experience as a board member was a an Ela uh curriculum adoption so I remember that piece and I think it's ironic here on my way out we're talking books and and so forth so uh I think I'm I'm leaving how I'm starting and uh definitely happier faces so good to see you I'm book um next up we have our high school African-American Studies textbook selection and nothing could be more timely in today's context I want to thank you all for your leadership and Dr Paul take it away yes good evening everyone um I am delighted to share with you our recommendation for AP African-American Studies textbook um I have a committee here representing um the different individuals who are part of this review process that we're going to have them introduce themselves uh right now you know who I am Kristen Paul assistant superintendent of learning Innovation good evening again Megan man director of humanities hello rayan Tanya sharp assistant president principal for curriculum and instruction at as weo high school and I'm Jennifer keto I'm the OHS social studies department chair so as we transition and give you an overview of okay thank you um as we um did in our last presentation we know this is an alignment to our strategic road map of wanting to identify rigorous and ambitious instruction as well as high quality instruction um text selection and you heard a little bit about who is here presenting this evening um we do have some team members Miss Manda is going to give you an overview of who was involved in this conversation we had a fantastic team um made up of our assistant principals of curriculum instruction our department chairs in the social studies departments from both high schools and three social studies teachers um all three teachers um are invested in this course and they are so excited about its development um and so this whole team met together to um go through the timeline um we started with the proposal thanks for moving forward with letting us um adopt this course into our our curriculum and our course catalog back in October November was spent researching textbook options College Board recommends but does not designate a textbook and so requesting copies getting them all sent to us so the team could could really dig into them um and then in January and February was when we engaged in that process with the whole group there looking at three textbooks um that were options and also going through curriculum document development for the course um and the instructors those three teachers did some preliminary um professional learning around the course and um now we are in March we have our recommendation ready for you that we were so excited about um it will be on display for 30 days and then we'll move for um approval in April following that our teachers are signed up for summer Institute work specifically for this course and we will be working on finalizing all those curriculum documents the team has already been continuing that work so as we met as a group we focus heavily on alignment to those Illinois state standards for history and the College Board Bo um requirements okay yeah you're great Megan so as with all text right we are are looking at how does that text align to the curriculum um and the state standard so in this case it's Illinois state standards for history and then in addition to the many college board uh standards in alignment which include uh the standards for AP African-American studies specifically it also includes the College Board board's course and exam description in addition to the content overview and course skills and then also with all of that we're also aligning to the social emotional learning standards as well as the um CRT standards as well in addition with any ancillary materials that we are looking at to support uh what is in the text as well so listed here are the three textbooks that we looked through um all three are currently used by AP African-American studies teachers and all three um incorporate the scope and sequence that we needed for this particular AP course so the one that we wanted to recommend for approval was freedom on my mind which is this one here if anybody wants to look at it um but five teachers are the ones who wrote this textbook two of which actually wrote the AP African-American studies course for the college board so it has the appropriate scope and sequence from ancient Africa all the way to the modern-day African-American experience um it is a holistic text that was very important to us we wanted to choose one that was not just a history book this is not a history course this is a studies course so we wanted to make sure it Incorporated art literature geography science all the other aspects um it incorporates um vocabulary terms that are needed for the AP exam AP exam tips and tricks reviews after each chapter and one thing that was also important to us is that um the other two books that we looked at were very dense and they're all college books so we get that um but this one particularly is chunked well for the each chapters chunked into sections which I think makes it a little more readable for the high school student so this is the one that we are recommending today aw so the work that has been done thus far uh we are going to be moving from the planning and development stage which is where we have been this year into the implementation stage for next year when the course will be running for the very first time at both high schools we're very excited about that um as Megan had mentioned our three teachers have already attended um a small training and they'll be attending the AP summer Institute which is a four to five day all day training so they'll be a week long over the summer where they will be really delving in even more beyond what they're already doing themselves this year and they will be able to collaborate with other teachers and um a a um College Board staff from across the state of Illinois and possibly other states as well um so we're going to be finishing working on um planning for the course to be ready for for the fall um and that will continue throughout the summer as well so the projected cost you can see we have a six-year cost or a four-year cost for review um the this is also in alignment with having one section at each High School um we also know that there's the um the hard cover that uh copy text that we have here if you'd like to check it out uh also we have digital access which allows students to be able to practice the AP questions and get feedback interactive um especially as you heard very interdisciplinary text having artwork and Maps um along with um the print material as well um and it also covers the teacher manual uh thank you so so much for your time this evening do you have any questions about this uh Tech selection you said this is going to be on display for 30 days can you pass the it will be in door one um we will have both this textbook as well as the junior high novels for the community to review we'll have a QR code for people to provide us feedback I'll be monitoring that and if anyone provides us feedback I'll be following up with them to thank them for their feedback perfect thank you you're welcome just a statement I I said this the other day in the um the committee meeting but I appreciate um that you all made a statement and I want to underscore it that this is not a history course but a studies course and what I also appreciate about the textbook I have not read it of course but I've I've you know browsed it and looked at the table of contents and I appreciate the fact that um it does start in the origins well before you know the 1400s um back in Africa through the transatlantic uh slave trade um but I just appreciated that it was truly a study and not just a history book and so I will continue to um you know look in it look into the book a little bit deeper uh but I also appreciate you all sharing that there will be additional um I don't want to say text but additional um supplemental material that will be used in order to help um enhance the learning EXP experience of the student so thank you when you on board a new book how do you get the students interested in it like how so this is going to be new right no one's ever taken it before how do you make sure that there's enough participation that the interest is high how does all that work for the course for the course for the course sure um I mean it it really started with promoting the course I mean as soon as the course was approved in October students were signing up for classes in November so we had about four weeks to really uh promote this course um and we do that in a variety of ways um the I know that the social studies Department goes into other courses we collaborate with other department chairs there are slide Decks that are put together that teachers share with their students uh we host a explore your potential event for any student that would be interested in learning more about the courses that we the AP courses that we offer and so we had some brochures there where we were um promoting the course talking about the course again Jen being there not having ever taught the course before but we were learning as much as we could as fast as we could in order to be able to share what um being what the experience might be like being in this course um so obviously there will be a learning curve with the teachers teaching it for the first time and the students experiencing experiencing it for the first time but one of the things that we talk a lot about in our courses is student feedback right is is is what our lesson structure looks like is how how is that working for you how are our students receiving that and getting feedback from our students in order to then change or adjust and plan our lesson design um so there'll be a lot of push and pull there and and give and take and working with our students because we definitely want this to be a very positive experience for for everyone thank you can I make one other comment one other thing I just noticed in the table of contents is that this is an American history class with a a focus on um the implications of African-American impact to that Civil War Revolutionary War I'm reading it but I just appreciate the fact that it's it's pretty inclusive I don't know what pages it is in the textbook but it is in the very beginning it there are two students who it's a full page of their of how they've experienced the course with the textbook so if you're looking for a student testimonial there are two of them in in the textbook in the very beginning um and I've worked with the the the three teachers that are actually working on planning on this course and they I have to want to say how excited they are to launch this class um they I feel like they are the right people they will elicit excitement for this class um they're going to be very purposeful in in how they plan this and they've already talked about working with teachers from other departments to make sure that they get that studies's you know holistic approach so we're just I don't know I just I'm very excited about this class I think it's G it's going to build up and it's just going to be great um I would like to make a comment um this is a really good class I'm glad that we're putting it into our curriculum I would urge that counselors or people that are like presenting new courses that are coming up also take heed to this one and kind of promote it just as much as they would promote other classes as well because often times like I was um like a freshman seminar leader so I would go through classes that freshman could take or courses that they could sign up for but sometimes I found in some of my classes counselors would kind of just freeze through courses and not really talk in detail about what the course is providing and what it can benefit the student so especially with a new class such as AP African-American studies I would really urge that counselors take a really positive approach and kind of talk in depth about this course and how it can benefit not just um people of color but everyone as well taking this course I would just and with the leaders um explaining to the F that's what we did like when I was a freshman the leaders would tell us like oh here at a core class and these what they take but I feel like as years go on you tend to forget what classes you can actually take so I feel like re acknowledging that this class and the importance of it I feel like it really brings in new people to have to have the class okay well I think you have you may have board members trying to audit the course so let's make sure there's a there's a cap on the number of board members who try again we have quum and then we have a whole another problem uh thank you very much for your thank you so much thank you thank you thank you just let us know when registration is Mr Bei TR I Char charge you off no doubt uh Mr Bei uh want to invite your team up uh so I'm actually before the Tim start speaking I'm excited to to talk about this RF over the years we've always bought our computer device is when we do our yearly refresh from CW and for the first time in anyone's memory we decide to actually do an RP for this so instead of buying from CW the units of devices that we buy we develop an RP we sent it out we got some pretty good respones just doing that doing that it's saving us 33477 holy cow so if folks are asking where all these savings coming from that's an example of that it's a daily account yeah and to make it even more exciting we actually are getting the service that we normally wouldn't get from uh CW with the white glove service right so this is this is I'm really excited about this so I'll pass it on to Brent and good evening uh tonight we are here to answer any questions in regard to the memo for the Recently posted Computing device RFP specifically as it pertains to purchasing student Chromebooks for the past few years we have purchased Chromebooks for the one:1 program for Fifth and ninth graders and usually an elementary grade level for the classroom cards this year we are looking to do the same from the RFP we had seven vendors respond after evaluating the whole package the vendors provided we are recommending that we award the purchase of 4,430 devices to bloom the plan would be to use a three-year lease with the yearly payments from the technology budget and prepare the devices over the summer for distribution at the start of the new school year short and sweet are there any questions and the other part of that Brent left out is that once we decide to lease we actually negotiated pretty hard to get best pric in for the lease term too so that saved us additional money those are things that we've been doing in in the district save money um Can can you explain again just because maybe I didn't hear at all how we're saving this boatload of money comp to current practice oh okay so because in the past we bought from the C oh okay so we bought it from that vendor because we bought it from Forever City W and CW knew they did not have to be competitive got it uh because we they assume we always buy from yeah and they actually responded to the r the price they offer was significantly high and we ended up going with so shocking thank you questions for the for them appreciate the effort yeah we thank you all great any time to save and get better products as well and for teachers yes yes four five okay thank you all um Mr obafemi we have our financial update so I just uh this is our monthly Financial we went through the uh and the the financial the revenue and the expenditures to where we are compared to where we were last year and there's really no significant variance we are where we should be for this time of the year and um so if you look at the uh can can we that I don't have the ability to move the next uh page please thank you so if you look at it uh ATT is to compare where we were uh at the end of February of 20124 to where we are now and there are no significant variances so we're where we should be so this is on the revenue side if you look at the percentage that we projected where we need to be for revenue and uh total revenue local uh as well as State uh sources we are right on where we need to be now the only place where you see a slight variance will be in the uh federal revenue and I think I mentioned that uh last month we lost a big chunk of uh Revenue source with the federal government in that last year we act uh Esser funded S A ran out uh in September of last year so we're missing that Revenue on the expenditure side too we're pretty much where we need to be now if you look at the other object there's a a variance there that's significant and that was just timing of payment on on bond payment standing Bond payment so that's that's that so there's nothing that's out of theary financially where we are compared to where we should be what this time of the year and uh I wanted to point out in your package you see uh the fund Bal now I as at the end of uh February we have 66.5 million cash on hand and that should take us through the the end of the fiscal year without us having to borrow money or do like that so we're in good shape but one thing I would like to point out if you look at it I can't say enough about it transportation we already have a negative fund balance of $4.6 million and so that is one area that we really need to focus on and I I know I've mentioned it a number of times uh we would need to do something differently with Transportation because over the long all is just not sustainable and we are working and if you remember it's one of our strategic plan uh item to to reimagine transportation and to do it operationally better than we're doing it so investment at the end of the month uh we at $59 million which is uh you know which is pretty much where we should be and the only other thing I would like to point out will be the uh CPI now CPI for the month of February uh came in at uh 20 basis point uh compared to January January was 50 basis point so inflation's actually gone down a bit which is very helpful so for the 12 month from February of 24 to February of 20 of 25 uh total CPI is 2.8% and then I I proceed to break down what what drove that CPI uh increase in the memo so gasoline price as we know went down by quite a bit but the the important thing that is driving the increase electricity and natural gas which is a big uh part of what we spend money on so we will fill that uh in our expenditure moving forward and I believe that's about it then then we also showed activity funds balance from uh all our schools as well as the uh fee collection rates and as you can see compared to last year we are collecting significantly lower amount of fees and we just not getting folks to pay the way they did last year any questions ra can I ask why we don't see the bill pay list anymore the bill pay list is actually there there's um approval of bills for payment is right there it's under action it's okay any other question about questions from Mr Obi thank you no thank you the next item is the vending machine IP and that was something else we found out that we had vending machine in the two high school and uh no one can figure out if you have a contract no one can figure out if we got any revenue from that vending machines so it's just kind of being a freeloader uh process so what we decided to do is do an RP for that too and we received a submission from a pretty reputable firm and what I'm happy to share is that as part of the process the winning biders agree to share 30% of the revenue that they generate with us so that would be part of our local Revenue that we can then use for other things when you say the the winner has agreed that makes me assume that the current vendor is not providing Revenue sharing is that correct not even way of a contract AR so just vending machines in the buildings yes and no one can tell us uh how long do they do we own them or do someone else own no it's a third party person that owned it so so this is I guess years ago they negotiate a deal and that has been in existing so as part of the just to due diligence that we're doing to look at ways to strengthen the district financially we did some uh Research into the vending machine and we couldn't really figure out uh we couldn't find any contract that existed do we know the vendor that we that the Cur the current vendor so we decided to do an i rep and ask them and of course they didn't submit it uh was this the only submission so we got one submission okay and the submission that we got is from a very reput we actually did reference checks on them and we included a copy of the RFP there and one of the things that they agree to is as I mentioned before 30% of the revenue that it generate not profit the revenue that they generate will be shared with us and is that in addition to the scholarships that they're offering and the staff appreciation and the modern equipments yes so the 30% is only just the gross sales but then they also offer scholarships and staff appreciation yes that's what happen when we sit at the table and we negotiate terms I fa able to us so instead of people taking advantage of it was for example the scholarship contribution and like the extras like the cold drinks staff on teacher appreciation week is that something that they included in there so they did we any anyway prompt those ideas in in in that or is that something that they just know because maybe they've worked at schools it was sweeten like their proposal we just try to make sure we get a good deal got it um um my my other question is um within the process of evaluating this I know that 30% of all gross sales will be coming uh to us as a revenue share are there prices comparable or are students going to be paying you know like $5 for a candy bar or something see from a business stand that's an excellent question from a business standpoint the vending company they want to make money yeah if they price thems too high kids are not going to buy stuff from there they'll just bring it from home or they'll buy it after school so they have to be competitive in order for them to be able to have uh significant Revenue because they in the business to make money and is there any well obviously we'll get to see um monthly what they're doing right what they're generating yes and are there opport unities to put more vending machines in the buildings like in more places yes okay we we we talked to them about the option to do that and they were very interested in doing that are you talking about more locations within the high schools or in other schools I think both uh in the high school in the middle school and other places in the district and do they have like some healthy choices in oh yeah option we actually we included that in the RP requirement yeah we try to tie it up to the uh USDA what they require we don't want them to just send a b sell us a bunch of junk for our kids to very good I I just real quick these are the kind of things that um um reinforce um Fai in in in the system right and I mean I can go back and think of times when there are board members who voting against things just because they were upset because they didn't really have faith in what they're being told or what was being done and so forth so I I want to remind again it's it's just impo it's just really important to have um Quality staff and also um staff that feel supported as well but um it's kind of a two-way street so thank you thank you and I just wanna I just want to piggy back onto that I mean it it fasc fascinates me like the last two presentations have been significant savings and or significant revenue and not to say that they're easy fixes because they're not but in in a lot of respects they were kind of obvious fixes that should have at least been addressed like long ago um so to that extent yeah thank you just it's there's so much loow hanging fruit or so much potential out there to save money I think it's I think it's great that you and and your team are turning them all over and taking advantage of them thank you I think to a great extent the board has empowered us to be able to do this so I really think the uh the appreciation goes to the board that allows us to be a do talk I appreciate you saying that but I'm going to VY it back over to you because it's one thing for us to empower you it's another thing for you to actually do it so thank you it's Fest yeah okay any more questions on that not Mr Obi thank you and thank you to your team very much um next I want to invite Dr Kade we are bringing to the board a vision uh 2030 board resolution um Dr Kade has uh worked very closely in uh helping facilitate and lead the process for the Strategic plan um as well as a strategic road map and uh part of that we've been thinking about this resolution that's been brought to our attention by our partner districts it's I'll turn over to Dr K yep so this resolution is basically on behalf of the Illinois State Board of Education this resolution is being asked to be passed by all School boards across the state um as we've discussed in committee and you can see um in the information provided it very much does align with our strategic plan um the Vision 2030 centers around keeping students safe keeping high quality Educators in front of students enhancing postsecondary success and improving measurement of what is working so we just wanted to bring this for information today um there is additional information available uh through board docs um and then we would be bringing the resolution to our next meeting okay um just really a to reinforce I want to thank you for that we we decided that it would have been it when you look at the content as she said I'll just reinforce that just to look at the content in both and you crosswalk there are just so many themes that that that there was no demarcation where we thought we needed to make the big change we definitely made sure that we prioritize them within our plan um everything from the Strategic uh from allocations or resources um evidence based funding the commitment to that um how we use our resources and any differences we felt were within our scope of sequence so we look forward to the board's feed and uh Dr King K back to you again um or any committee members regarding the policies for first read section seven absolutely um as we heard in our board committee updates um while we discussed multiple policies um at our policy and legislative meeting the two that we are bringing for first read are both 7150 and 835 uh the redline version for 7150 is included with your materials these are recommendations on behalf of our legal review the additional language does align with our current um sd308 practice and then our our inclusion of 835 is a new policy again at the recommendation of our legal review questions any questions okay thank moving on to 10.1 action item approval of bills for payment can I have a motion please make a motion authorize the payment of bills in the amount of 4,379 18272 as presented second Miss Simon I miss Venus I Mr Po hi Dr Maria hi Miss Johnson hi Mr Cerone hi Mr Gatewood I motion passes 70 action item 10.2 approval of student rights and responsibilities handbook can I have a motion please make a motion to approve the student rights and responsibilities handbook as presented second Miss VMAs hi Mr Gatewood I Miss Johnson I Mr Cerone hi Miss similon I Dr Mario I Mr pler I motion passes 70 action item 10.3 approval of resolution authorizing dismissal and non Reemployment of probationary part time teachers can I have a motion please make a motion to approve the resolution authorizing dismissal and non Reemployment of probationary part-time teachers and teachers hired on a temporary contract second Mr pler I Mr Gatewood I miss vmou hi Mr Cerone hi Miss similon hi Dr Maria I Miss Johnson I motion passes 70 action item 10.4 approval of resolution authorizing dismissal and non- Reemployment of first and second year probationary teachers can I have a motion make a motion to approve a resolution authorizing dismissal and non- reappointment of first and second year probationary teachers second Dr Mario hi Miss Johnson hi Mr ploger hi Mr Cerone hi Mr Gatewood hi Miss venth hi Miss Simon I motion passes action item 10.5 approval of a resolution authorizing non-renewal of a non-tenure teacher can I have a motion pleas make a motion to approve a resolution authorizing non-renewal of a non-tenure teacher second Miss mouth hi Dr Mario I Mr r hi Miss Simon hi Mr Gatewood hi Miss Johnson hi Mr ploger hi motion pass 70 action item 10.6 approval of resolution authorizing non-renewal of administrative contracts and non re Reemployment of Administrators can I have a motion please make a motion to approve approve a resolution authorizing non-renewal of administrative contracts and non Reemployment of Administrators second Mr sherone I Mr Gatewood I Miss Johnson Mr hi Miss vmou hi Dr Mario hi Miss similon hi motion pass 70 action item 10.7 s approval of resolution authorizing a notice of remedy can I have a motion please make a motion to approve the resolution to adopt the notice to remedy against 10year teacher Nicole pansy second Mr g i Dr Mario I Miss Johnson I Mr Cerone I miss similon I Mr pler hi Miss mment I motion passes 70 action item 10.8 approval of resignation of licensed Personnel can I have a motion please make a motion to approve the release and separation agreement with probationary teacher Ken ker second Dr Mario hi Miss vmou hi Mr Cerone I miss similton I Mr Gatewood I Miss Johnson I Mr cler I motion passes 70 action item 10.9 student disciplinary case 225-1290 by the administration pursuant to the board's written findings and decision second Miss men I miss Simon I Mr Cerone I Mr bloger hi Mr Gatewood I Dr Mario I Miss Johnson motion passes 70 action item 10.10 approval of building administrator contracts can I have a motion please make a motion to approve the building administrator contracts as discussed and presented second Mr cler I Dr Mario I miss Simon I Mr Cerone hi Miss Johnson hi Mr Gatewood hi Miss venman hi motion passes 70 action item 10.1 approval of personnel report can I have a motion please make a motion to approve the Personnel report as discussed and presented second Miss venman hi Miss Simon hi Mr cler hi Dr Mario hi Miss Johnson hi Mr Cerone hi Mr Gatewood I motion passes 70 and 11.1 can I have a motion to adjourn I make a motion to adjourn second all in favor I

e e e a here Fulk yes Gorman here papis here FY wson here Hil here all right approval to allow member vuli to join the meeting remotely is allowed by board 222 need a motion on second or required to allow member V to join the meeting second all in favor I hi no names no no names noes no names oh that saying all right we request the motion second to approve the agenda second there's no Mone no all right motion is carried all right please what no you you have to voice for you w you Motion in a second yeah then she's going to call it you can voice okay all in favor I I can we stay with her change I know hard I know it's so hard um please join us in recite in the pledge to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for stands under God indivisible with liy and justice for all I want to thank everybody for coming this evening um also the folks on the phone thank you for joining us any words welcome folks if you were a little confused on the roll call versus Voice vote by state law you only really have to call a roll call vote for when there's money involved or if there's policy involved or when you roll call going in the close session otherwise it could be voice vot and I'm suggesting just go to voice voice voice Voice vote uh for efficiency purposes just makes moves the the entire agenda pass moves along quickly so I welcome everybody and thank you for the warm welcome that my partner and I have had in the last two weeks here two weeks and one day in County Griff you want turn your mic on well he's loud but I'm louder I'm sure everybody could hear me anybody in the back did not hear me I have a study hall voice or cafeteria boys I can get to the other side of the the road if necessary go ahead all right we'll start public comment first up is uh pkps minutes related to um input from the public and public questions uh the first thing is about competitive bidding and vendor evaluations uh the board packet for this meeting and also in Prior meetings uh the material Administration the administration presents the board the stuff that public sees does not include the vendor evaluation criteria and how at least three vendors compare to each other on those criteria so for example um the math curriculum proposal in today's packet uh the external auditor Ral that's in today's packet uh the transportation bids from a month or two ago um they don't have uh three vendors being compared on objective criteria so the public can understand um you know objectively uh how was the best Fender Chosen and also the board isn't getting that information when it's then taking a vote to approve a particular proposal so I think that can be strengthened um that would follow the principles of competitive bidding benchmarking uh and public disclosure around uh you know how large contracts are being awarded second topic is related to board policies um the board policy 7180 which is up for approval today this is the one on prevention uh of and response to bullying intimidation and harassment uh it's seems to be missing some of the projected classes under Article 5 of The L Human Rights Act I made this point at the last meeting as well in regard to uh some of the other non-discrimination anti-harassment policies that were approved in the last round um and it's been improved so it's got more of them in the red line but it still seems like it's missing a couple of the protected classes so encourage you to take a look at that and make sure everything is included and then um another point I made last month uh which is not reflected in uh in in today's packet for board policy 2260 which is the uniform grievance procedure uh when there's a complaint about a senior person so a superintendent or a member of the board um the policy says that it's investigated by a complaint manager who is an employee of the district and I think that that presents an inherent conflict of interest or puts that complaint manager in a precarious position because they're investigating a superior right uh and so the policy should be improved to provide for an independent investigator in those situations similar to provisions and other policies that allow for uh other board policies allow for independent investigation and then lastly on policies for board policy 8100 which is about community relations it should cover not only written Communications from the community to the board or superintendent but it should cover the things that people raise in public comments right we've talked about this before that people are raising issues in public comment typically the board and district is not responding to those issues when they're raised and I think that's a huge opportunity it's it's a missed opportunity um to kind of you know convince the public or incorporate input and improve the the things the district is doing uh and then lastly there are a few uh questions or topics that have come up in some of the community forums that uh are not official District Community forums but that people engage in uh there's a question around whether or not there will be a Middle School Graduation Ceremony this year and if not why not um questions about uh How spelling is taught uh in elementary and middle school uh questions about uh whether our cursive is taught and uh students graduating without the ability to even sign signatures uh and then also uh some discussion around uh inconsistency of ability based groupings uh across schools and grade levels and subjects uh and that actually is is um one of the ways that we could Implement an accelerated program and stronger intervention in elementary and middle school without requiring additional teachers right um and supporting not only Advanced learners but also those kids who are uh in lower teers so um those are my comments thank you thank you okay next up Jean Meer Jean Meyer resident teachers and administrators must not teach or enforce moral Val values or religions to the district's children that do not meet the district 301 residents values on 3:14 of 25 a number of local newspapers reported on the comments a parent made at the Deerfield School District board meeting this could so easily be District 301 let's not let it be when three District administrators found that middle school girls were refusing to change in front of a boy in their locker room they tried to force the girls to change in front of him this activity went all in all week with the parent speaker's daughter refusing to have her privacy breached she's an amazing girl the vast majority of the taxpayers in this District would be vehemently opposed to this a student forced to change in front of anyone at 6 5 years I have never felt anything but uncomfortable changing in front of anyone as a transgendered middle schooler that I was in 1971 due to my Agony over puberty this kind of activity would have multiplied my Agony by a th% in fact it it brought back a memory of my Middle School gym teacher she stood where she could watch us girls come naked and wet out of the shower to get our towels under the guys that she wanted to make sure we got wet in the shower and now I'm starting to think maybe she was stimulating herself this almost killed my TR transgender shy uh middle schooler that I was at the league of woman voters candidate Forum a couple weeks ago every candidate there replied to my question similarly my question asked if teachers should be required to teach only academics and not indoctrination that was beliefs not held by our community the basic reply was that teachers will and should teach their values just like the three administrators enforced their values most likely saying locker rooms and bathrooms of schools that take State funds must be open to all 60 genders the law does not say that schools are to force children to strip naked in front of anyone our society has diverse values much more diverse than they used to be from satanists and pedophiles now heading towards mainstream to those who cover females except for a slot for their eyes whose values are we going to teach we have to decide a pedophil offering some of what public schools are teaching to a child would be arrested as for me my values are unchanging coming from God's holy word any one who would coer a student to change in front of anyone should be criminally charged and lose their job without benefits or pension I wonder if anyone on this board has the fortitude to take the same stand protect our children from indoctrination please thank you J okay now we'll have facilities director h will introduce our four architects who will each share their proposal presentations with the board hello again um we're going to take this opportunity for our four um finalist firms to present about a 15minute presentation to the board and then give you an opportunity to ask questions the first one will be architectural Resource Group the second one will be Str Str then Larson and Derby group then cigan and Clark leave and his team to get us started good evening it's connecting ready good evening Central 301 board members and guests architectural resource Corporation is truly honored to be shortlisted for this opportunity upon receiving the news we looked into your District its achievements and the values that drive the district's mission in fact your mission statement to engage the Mind empower the learner Inspire excellence and influence the world resonates deeply with our firm's commitment to delivering quality projects and education Central 301's prominence over 10 communities in King County is remarkable your central status amidst one of the fastest growing communities in the United States is remarkable yet your achievements in leading the national standards demonstrates in dedication to Excellence that we deeply admire we understand that Central 301 is striving to reach its full potential while navigating the challenges of growth we believe that strategic resource planning combined with well-designed architecture plays a pittiful role in addressing these issues our experience allows us to help you develop strategic plans to transform challenges into positive experiences and realize possibilities that help plan for the future this collaborative approach is what truly strengthens our our communities since 1980 our firm has been dedicated to award wording designs for schools and educational facilities my name is Ari bruus and I serve as president and will be your key contact person about 27 years ago I was a ufi graduate and intern when I joined Arc even then I recognized the firm's passion to achieving a quality design I had the privilege of working on school projects a Cornerstone of our practice I remember our design team collaborating closely with clients engaging me in meetings and assignments it was truly a wonderful experience to be mentored by principles and Senior staff who encouraged taught and nurtured my growth this immersive experience characterized by Dynamic energy and collaborative leadership was pivotal to my professional development my career has since been dedicated to educational projects driven by the belief that Architects have a profound responsibility to ensure educational facilities positively impact their communities we understand the challenges facing educational growth balancing resources space and student to support ratios we work with districts to translate their Vision into practical Sustainable Solutions that address immediate and long-term growth needs all shaped by Community input we are proud to be exclusively local deeply invested in Illinois we do not Outsource to other states nor do we have digital satellite offices we have a proven track record of delivering successful education projects solely in Illinois in our 45 years experience we have enjoyed partnering with school districts to Envision their district and delivering Master plans that brought it all to fruition the Synergy created in this type of work is how projects in education can Will and should bring communities together our experienced team which includes founding principles mix with emerging talents integrates a balance of Forward Thinking solutions that shape a quality design being small enough to ensure personal attention yet large enough to manage complex projects we offer a unique blend of agility and expertise our in-house construction management firm provides us with the superior insights into Chicago construction Mar markets enabling us to deliver cost-effective and impactful spaces our combined resources in both the AE and CM arenas have served several other Illinois districts facing similar challenges to Central 301 with fantastic results our methodology is a comprehensive datadriven approach designed to create educational spaces that not only meet the highest standards of functionality and sustainability but also achieve award-winning recognition we believe that a deep understanding of a school district vision is fostered through a partnership built on asking the right questions our studies include land analysis strategic building planning circulation needs and program studies to map parameters that help design shape and design a process our programming and process is intended to enhance the district's ability to integrate short-term challenges into long-term sustainable results this ensures a design that is insightful creative and highly functional our design philosophy centers on creating environments that nurture both learning and wellbeing we prioritize natural light healthy air and an optimal learning environment for students we design spaces that encourage social interaction and Recreation fostering a strong sense of community with care to accessible needs creating an inclusive environments for all students we seamlessly integrate technology providing robust infrastructure for digital learning and future advancements Beyond this we are committed to environmentally responsible Construction prioritizing sustainable materials and practices that set standards we design buildings to serve as a Vibrant Community Hub reflecting local culture in context to foster a sense of belonging our approach to ensure long-term value and Innovation includes utilizing durable materials and robust construction for longevity designing for flexibility and adapting to Future needs committing to a responsible financial management plan and modern izing existing facilities with Excellence to award-winning standards is what we stand for it's our history our ability to respond to the district we're local we're 80 minutes from Central 301 it ensures that we can provide a rapid in-person response to any urgent District need our local knowledge AB building codes regulations and jurisdictional authorities allows us to facilitate expedited timelines we use advanced technology Bim and project management tools to streamline communication and coordination enabling Swift adjustments and keeping projects on track our contractor relationships cultivated through our construction management division concept Development Group with our history of managing billions in Illinois educational projects ensures a rapid resource mobilization and seamless integration with any construction management firm above all we're committed to creating inspiring educational spaces that support students in the community working closely with your team to deliver projects on time within budget and to the highest standards possible to Central 301 we believe that architectural resource Corporation offers not just architectural services but a partnership built on shared values deep experience and a genuine commitment to your District's success we understand the unique challenges and opportunities before you and we are confident in our ability to translate your vision into real ity we're ready to engage our minds Empower your learners Inspire excellence and together influence the world we're eager to begin this journey with you and we thank you for your time and consideration any questions oh yeah let's open up for questions so I question so as part of your uh request you know like responding to this proposal have you familiarized yourself with sort of the circumstances that are unique to our school district I believe so okay so um knowing that uh we have a need to expand but we don't necessarily uh have a uh clear picture of how to expand and where to expand how would your firm uh tackle that that is the question and let's put it in perspective because our deep dive into your District suggest that what we learned is you're a central unit district K through2 One-Stop shop for educational excellence and you guys are not just expanding it at an exponential rate but you're top 25 in the state and you're in the leading growing School District in the nation so that being said I think it's a significant step in the history of this District I think what you do moving forward and working with the proper design firm is find a firm that can really ask you the right questions the right questions are we've been around long enough to understand models of smaller districts growing into longer range needs we've worked with districts that temporarily solved space Problems by the age-old mobile classroom solution and what that does to District's long term I think that we have the experience and knowledge to guide you to extract what is the vision what is the program what is the short-term problem and how do we reach the long-term Vision I believe that we have the experience to ask you the questions that you may not have considered I believe that in working with other districts in Illinois for 30 years plus we can show you models of how districts have grown how they've handled expansion quote unquote problems but I believe that your design firm and everyone you interview tonight should express to you their ability to communicate with you to understand your needs to project how fast you're growing and to understand every aspect of the district from Land planning to infrastructure to the age of buildings and the possibilities I think if a proper design firm explain this upfront I believe together in that partnership the questions and answers that unfold from there can lead to wonderful things thank you how does your firm engage with like the community in the design and planning process and what specific tools and techniques would you use the school board will direct us on what the vision and the goals are in short that means if there's Community engagement in the pre-design program we can create the kid parts that allows how to form questions how to gather information from the community and how to form that into a program tools that we use are really based on tools that are comfortable with the district we can operate in a digital environment we can operate in person we can have community outreach programs to which we come to the district and the community can answer any questions they have in an open form or we can host in our firm Summits to discuss any potential problem that may not be related to The District at hand but might become an issue down the road so to answer your question we can accommodate and be flexible to any Pace the district moves in so to set you apart from the other folks that we'll see tonight what is the one thing that you would say that your firm can offer a District 301 that no one else can I think we're dedicated to projects and education exclusively the fact that we reside in Illinois means that we're small enough yet large enough to handle any project the district has faced her encountered I believe that we have experience to navigate a process that leads the district to a proper solution and the fact that we are exclusively in education means that our nucleus we truly believe as Architects that projects and education have the biggest impact to any community and for doing this for 50 years I can tell you that if we were bad at it it wouldn't look good for us and it wouldn't look good for any district and so uh we like to think we stick our necks out we like to think that we're dedicated in our area and um not only are we Professionals in an office but we're also GR program that we're all local we've all been through the same educational system and we're proud to work here questions thank you for your time thank you very much you thank you thank you did stand why is it so cold too that's a little turned it down thank you it's all toin messing with it Ser app you messed with that I saw you I know I did why turn up the heat you got your coat on right see it's ridiculous you're trying to freeze me out what is that went appreciate you you4 you gonna be okay why did you wear long sleeves just I make some jokes but I I promise good so grip is like black and Stu I can take yours you want like serious no I got paper oh okay thank you Alan you appreciate you so ridiculous than thank you there we go thank you if you could if you could do it there with the mic because uh our audience that's watching remotely they won't be able to hear you if you're oh would be happy to um so our our talk tonight is organized into some really simple ways um first we'll tell tell you a little bit about us uh show some of our work talk about master planning um into um some uh referendum and Grant uh discussions so um feel free to jump in if you want to uh we'll keep it as informal as as as uh as you'd like so um uh we have a great project team we proposed um and uh we have three people from the project team are here um again Mike Henderson so uh be the Principal in charge um Jennifer Stan she's be the technical principal and Alan AR who's in uh communication uh in community engagement and grants we'll be talking a little bit more about that later um so uh We've um uh Str strr Partners has been in business 56 years so um and we have um 35 different school districts that we serve um a number of them kind of surround Central so um and who we've been at for literally decades um um you know 27 35 22 45 years so kind of you know in a in a big area around um and um we're very proud that we were able to um serve these districts for so long and have such longevity and um partly because um we see a role as a district architect in doing kind of everything for a district um going from very small projects um you know let's say a toilet room renovation or boiler or something like that uh to uh me Renovations uh additions and um up to you know entire school campuses brand new high schools um so kind of very small projects very large projects so the small projects are just as important um they just have a shorter time frame so um s Str partners because um we focus on on um on uh educational architecture our practice is focused on um uh serving public public schools and because of that we've organized our practice around a couple of big ideas and that is enhancing now and envisioning Futures we found that a lot of our practice was um you know roofs and and infrastructure and things um keeping the the students warm safe dry um but um also forward looking um uh where you know to helping to to align your facilities to where you want to be so that your fac support your educational goals so um uh and enhancing now is also you have a lot of score footage you have a lot of facilities so how do you bring those facilities and and um align them to the educational goals right now and so all of those are important and it's a big part I again of what what we do every day you have a very big school district so um take 20 minutes to drive across it you have a lot of very old buildings and you have newer buildings so there's a big range and because of our practice being um focused on small things and big things and and all the different aspects we think we're we're hoping where you see us as a good fit um so uh I'm just going to briefly go through the range of the different projects we have talk about with high schools Middle Schools elementary schools prek so um high schools we we serve uh 22 different high schools uh in Northern Illinois and and um again we do brand new high schools high school campuses um this is a Sarah good Academy um uh additions uh do tons of additions to high schools because there there's physically very large buildings with a lot of different needs Renovations of every sort uh do field houses Tech Technology Centers technology classrooms all the different different types um um stem labs culinary arts uh and of course stadiums we've done you know ton of uh of different uh turf fields and entire stadiums and U Leach ATT tracks and things uh for middle schools again we've done new middle schools junior high schools this is the Manhattan Junior High School we just opened it up um very recently actually we started in addition onto a building that wasn't quite finished yet um which was pretty exciting the their um the project came in under budget so they had money left over and they wanted to spend it on the building so we actually building another gym to it and the District administration Center onto a building that wasn't we started before it was quite open um so uh again middle schools junior high schools U do a lot of additions to them Renovations this is Thomas Middle School um of course classrooms um where they you know so much of the education happens um lrc's Learning Centers libraries lot of different names for these typ of spaces uh stem Labs at at a middle school level you know athletic facilities PE gymnasiums music areas um and science labs science lab can take a lot a lot of different flavors in Middle School um and you know an important aspect in Middle Schools is Commons are that where teams can be organized around and this is a common area that at one of our middle schools um elementary schools um just like the high schools just like the middle schools we've done lots and lots of new elementary schools um this is Prairie East Prairie um additions to to and Renovations uh common spaces we we found that um a big part of Education now is that um education happens in a lot of different places a lot of informal spaces can be important for breakout areas this is one of those breakout areas um lrc's Learning Centers Library um in in elementary schools it's also um important to understand that things are scaled down um you know middle school and high school kids can be you know very big people um when you get in down to Elementary and and kindergarten they're physically small and having areas that actually scale to to those students is incredibly important um this is an art space in elementary school um classrooms um we're doing a lot of these um marker walls markerboard walls where we can hide a lot of storage behind um those spaces cafeteria um uh again the gymnasium for a elementary school can be very different you see all the letters on the ground and that's part of their curriculum and um getting down to the smallest students Early Learning Centers um this is a gross motor skills area and of course um you know Play Arts and and so that they can have those gross motor play areas so at this point let me turn over to Jennifer good evening I'm here to talk a little bit about master planning um so a master plan when it's set up properly and um used effectively it's a very powerful tool especially when we have a district that's experiencing or potentially experiencing a Latin growth so um basically the master plan is is kind of a a take take look at what what is it that you have what is it that you need uh then we talk about what's possible and how we can afford those things so when we break down a master plan this is an example some phases that we would go through uh we we get together we plan we set our expectations set some guiding principles and your your goals for these plans and then we get together and we have what's called um an assessment and a discovery phase so we really do a lot of different studies so that we can get to to know the buildings get to understand um what it is that you have and what challenges you have your internal challenges your external challenges so internal really talks about the maintenance needs that you have or the curriculum needs that you have an external is kind of this enrollment projection that may be causing outside forces um stresses onto your buildings we take a look at all of that we gather that data and evaluate it and then we talk about different ways we can conceptualize and address those challenges and then we help you under your framework of guiding principles prioritize and work through with your budgets how you can prioritize these things across a few years so I have a couple of examples of some of those studies um this is something we're doing recently with another District they're calling it a district vision card or facility vision card where we have um identified their ideal U number of spaces and programs that they would like to have in their facilities whether it be elementary middle or high school and then we can evaluate the actual facilities against that card so we we do a space utilization plan we highlight those challenges and then we can check off and evaluate against that vision card whether or not they're meeting the goals of the curriculum or they're meeting the goals of those progam program needs additionally in tandem with that we do a capacity study where we are um also looking in and analyzing that enrollment projection but we're comparing it against the actual physical building so that we understand where there are gaps or where there really are going to be challenges or if there are spaces that can be repurposed or take advantage of other ways so a lot of different studies go into those things and then we can work on um conceptualizing ideas later I'll let Alan start talking about okay thank you I don't need to tell anybody in this room that referendums are really hard they just are it's the nature of the Beast even the ones that from a distance that look like they passed very easily there's just been a ton of work and a lot of positioning behind it so just last November uh both we had Mount Prospect for 85 million and Indian Prairie School District really really happy both of those passed uh Herculean efforts in both cases and you know we we do this a lot we've learned a lot from it every Community is different that way um but we're pretty skilled at it and we have teams of consultants and help fill the gaps that we can't do uh I think the one big takeaway I've learned is there's very little you can't find out about there's no reason to run a referendum and not have a really good idea of how you're going to do next please the through processes from communicating with your public uh hearing from them uh is really the core here and across the bottom you know we've engaged students in you know help helping us design a stadium uh in the middle their parents committee really digging in really motivated really great group that passed just a crazy high expensive referendum because that's what they wanted and they were willing to stand by it and make it happen so the graphic here really is just to take the whole process and make it just as super simple as possible so this District across the top they created their guiding principles and so just things they wanted to do as a district kind of a master plan but you know kind of a short form version of that on the left hand side there are four different schemes so really just with the committee go through it see which schemes really solve their problems and you can kind of do the squint test and yeah obviously all green is easy all red is easy but you know how much what can I get for my money can I get 75% of what I want for half the money okay you've got my attention so this process again just just really simple for communicating with big groups we found really be effective uh next please I think the other takeaway is that we are big Believers in public surveys everything you want to know you can know uh this is an example of a recent one where in this case this cell we're really just trying to figure out what projects will the public support you know we know what we want to do the school district knows what they need to do but if there's a gap there in terms of the understanding of the community they're not going to support it it does doesn't make any difference how good it is doesn't make any difference how much you need it if they don't believe it it's not going to happen uh and the different committees so you can understand that you can know with great specificity of what projects they really are excited about which ones they're not you can also know that by geography you can know which developments support which projects and the answer there isn't that oh they don't want it we're not going to do it no that's not the answer it means there's a gap in their understanding so it gives you the ability to focus on trying to con communicate and convince them that you need this for this certain reason and if you can communicate that well enough you can get it done next please similarly when it comes to money uh it it's really amazing to me how accurately You can predict what people will support and again survey is asking the right questions asking them the right way and asking them of the right people and the right people is really the key and how you go about the survey has everything to do with it you know online surveys and things like that really don't work because they really don't reach a broad enough segment of your population is what you're interested you want to know what the likely voters think you don't really care if they're old people you don't care if they're young people you want to care if they're voters and knowing what they want and what they think and what they'll support so that'll really point to you where you really need to expend your effort so here's this small dashboard and that's in the handout here the red boxes are really the projects they'll support we we learned with great specificity of what they would support What percentages people would support on and then the blue boxes similarly with the money you know everybody has their own opinion the problem is literally everybody in this room is too close to it you know we want to believe we're looking for that affirmation but that's really not what we want we want to know what the likely voters will think what do they really believe so that gives us the ability to change their thinking but also gives us the ability to Rack to their thinking where this really comes into play is duration of projects if you're trying to do something that's going to last 20 years there's very few voters that are have that much foresight to support so you can find what is their sweet spot what do what's the time frame that they're interested in supporting you can know that you don't need to guess um so we we strongly believe in that so there you go thank you very much I appreciate it and hopefully you have some questions I've covered everything so completely I do have a question so um the master the the phases of a master plan uh that sir Alan what you covered is a component of of what goes into the master plan I really follow it so the master plan will set up your guideline now there's there's communication back and forth because if we discover that the master plan develops a plan that that wants 10 and we recognize that the community will only support six we know we have to go back and either from a education convincing point of view or from a duration planning point of view so both speak to each other but you start with the plan see what you see what you want see what you need particularly as driven by educational needs and then see what you can really support and how quickly can do it I I just it just drove me nuts when I was driving around the district looking at your building seeing the mold mob and I just hate spending money on mobiles because it's just not a great investment so the master plan is is your firm is this something that's common you do this when when you're looking at a district like ours which you've studied and you've seen that we are growing we need to expand our facilities but how and where is the question um when you engage a community like ours is a development of a master plan like this always done or is from your firm's uh philosophy this is what we do this is how we do it or do you ask communities do you want to do this or not it's it's ultimately your choice I I would say the larger the district the more likely is to have a master plan just to generalize however there are other districts that are just very linear that's the way they've always done it the community buys into it and they can do that but I will say over time in our practice the bad news is I'm old enough I have some perspective on that that I would say the percentage of districts that have Master plans is 50% higher today than it was 15 years ago so as you were driving around our district and you were like you said you saw the mobiles what other sort of challeng do you see that we face I know you've done your research on us so like what are some of the things that you would say are challenges or that we're going to have to overcome I know the mobiles is one thing but what else did you see well from what I saw and from what I've gathered from the the results of of kind of your your previous efforts and things like that it's interesting and I think this is a real challenge for your district is your geography you know you have a strong central campus that's really at the heart of the district was built on and over time that's expanded from there I'd be really curious survey wise how the public thinks about that you know certainly I recognize the ones that are in a specific development okay I get that but what about the others you know what does everybody else think about that um I'd be really curious I don't know the answer to that and I don't pretend to know the answer to that but I'd really like to know I I think the other thing that I didn't really touch on is U we've seen this and Mike referred to the project in Manhattan which was a referend I'm just last year and there was a Tipping Point in the district where the number of long-term residents versus the new people at coming in and we could see how that changed the expectations of the people in the district uh note what was perfectly great 10 years ago that people loved all of a sudden doesn't fly and to recognize where you are in that I think is is really challenging but I also think the locations I think the intra District Equity I think is a real challenge for you um you know I think it's fortunate you have the one big campus Because I think people really do kind of hang their hat on that so that gives you a real Direction a real guide but I think some of the other U you know Lally like jumps to mind um you know I think that uh to get some intradistrict Equity I think would help the educational process I think it help your teaching environment and I think it could ultimately help in passage of a referendum but again it's a supposition I out of the districts you worked with a lot of those have you know industry we only have a lot of farms and rooftops you'd be amazed how many bedrooms we have in our clients we have we have shockingly little industry in any of our clients we're jealous of all the other Architects that have all the big uh data centers and U and factories in their pieces yeah it's so how do you deal with that challenge it it is literally that that's what makes the referendum so tough and makes the survey so important because you can you have to know you have to react to what those people think I think the one thing and my my last slide if you could go ahead um the I think that we do spend a lot of time on grants I think there is the prospect of some grants that'll be speaking to your District in the relatively near future and you know nothing is more effective um in aiding a referendum than a successful Grant um you know just a a couple here Round Lake Jennifer uh assisted Round Lake with a $5 million Early Learning Center Grant the other year and I realized it as I was driving out today I said and even uh the grant process for the public schools is exactly the same process it was for Early Learning Centers which is exactly the same process it was for public libraries moringo we got them a $700,000 uh grant for their library because it's that process we really know that process and we can position your District to be ready for that that gets into that point of that timing you know do you want a 20-year plan do you want a fiveyear plan we've seen some districts try to do 30-year plans but I think is folly um nobody's crystal ball is good enough to be 30 years out but I think all those choices but that's why the survey is so important because it's the people in the bedrooms that are making those decisions you don't you have no you have no fluff from retail you have no fluff from industry it's it's everything is bedrooms yeah it's a tough spot you're not alone though if if that's any consolation thank you so much very thank you appreciate the opportun just I was pausing right good one ma'am a lot of those schools industry STS connected here thank you yes thank you thank you there we go yes we go all right thanks everybody glad to be here we want to be very conscious of your time we know that's 15 minutes we're going to try and be as close to that as physically possible we are going to be very concise we might move a little fast but feel free to ask questions at the end happy to go back at any point and look at anything that you may have more questions on so here's our agenda for tonight we'll talk a little bit about us some project experience a little thought leadership our approach and then I would ask after questions if I could have 45 seconds for a very quick closing that would be great so we'll introduce ourselves let Andrew go first sure Andrew mlin architect and principal Larson I've been at Larson and D for about 10 years practicing architecture for about 20 and a chunk of that time been able to work on some District projects so it's great to do that president of theast chairman of the Discover Center Children's Museum Science Children's Museum great I'm Steve Nelson um I feel compelled to give you a little bit of depth and background on me so we clarify everything um I've been practicing architecture for 37 years 34 of which included Public Schools um I have uh grown up in the rural area I graduated from Sandwich High School in the University of Illinois uh both of my parents were in public service my dad was a police Chief and my mom was the school secretary in my elementary and worked as a bookkeeper for the uh build business manager at my high school district um I live six minutes from this door right down Plank Road I can get here faster than I can get to downtown Sycamore I have served 19 years on the Sycamore Education Foundation board I served 17 years um the Sycamore School Board 14 of them as vice president I served 14 years on sycamore's uh Planning and Zoning Board as the school district's representative I was also eight-year member of the iasb Kishwaukee division executive board and I was your resolutionist chair because you are in the Kish Division I have served uh 12 years yeah 12 years as an iasb service associate I'm current chairman of the board so I also sit on the IP State Board of Directors we just had a meeting this past past weekend um on top of that I also um was the only one of two board members appointed to a Statewide U inclusive American history curriculum commission uh which established new guidelines for inclusive American history in the state of Illinois in 2021 it was interesting because it was all done online uh during covid and I am then married to my lovely wife who is a middle school teacher for for uh 32 and a half years so I have a good perspective on what it means to be on that side of the table as well as this side of the table and I wanted to share all that with you real quickly here's our org chart we are 40 person firm these are all people that have worked on projects here in central um many more in the office have done so as well I would be your principal in charge as I have been for the past 20 years uh Jed trius is our design director Andrew is our senior project manager and a principal we worked with a number of Consultants here in the district including imeg and Ericson for many years which you have chosen to hire independently and then other Consultants although we have Structural Engineering in house they do more smaller projects concentrated projects so we will use DC engineering who we just used on the 20 classroom Edition that we completed for this school year as a structural for a new major project and then we'll bring in specialty Consultants as need be theater Acoustics whatever that might be and we would also uh recommend using Amy earo from brain spaces if you want to enter into any industry thought leadership with us or uh Master planning or Community engagement she is a great partner that we've worked with just recently in Bader we went through all of their Community engagement uh for their master plan and facility assessment just the last two years what do we know today I can tell you we know all this stuff about you guys you know that's the current enrollment according to your website 5150 as of March 2025 97% graduation rate 11% ell 11% IEP students uh you're 40 5347 male to female in your District so those are all the statistical data things that we're familiar with in your District um what's more important I think is this slide this is by building every project that I or Larson Derby have done for Central in the last 20 years it's important to know that we did not do these alone this was a partnership it's always been a partnership and it's been a partnership with your construction manager for 20 years board whoever was on the board at that time and your Administration and your community we have been here to do what the board and the district has asked us to do for those now 20 going on 21 years and they include building uh Country Trails they include building Prairie NOS they include all the recent major additions onto the high school including the one this past summer and the one that was right before covid and that was a referendum and operating fund project totaling $30 million and it came in $2 million under budget which allowed you to do some other things which we'll highlight here a little bit not going to read them all they're all in the presentation there for you keep things moving a little bit about project experience we're not going to stand up here today and show you all the cool pictures of all the other districts that we worked on that's not what we're here for we're here for to talk about you this is a list of all the districts we've worked for there's 48 of them all over Northern Illinois um to highlight a couple of things the very first client for uh Larson and Derby group was Collins Aerospace there's still a client today 63 years later the second client was Rockford Public Schools still a client today 61 years later we've worked here for 21 as I've mentioned Bureau Valley 27 dimick 18 and we have new clients like putham County two years beler three going on four years so we're always adding people to that list and we look forward to continuing our partnership with District 301 so this is the one quick slide here's a bunch of schools we've done for other people one Awards with them they range from mlan unit 5 South booy Rockford Public Schools dimmick Lena Winslow the seow center down at the University of Illinois superc Computing Center at the University of Illinois number of projects and highered that have trickled down and informed us on how we engage and push and lift up K12 education so with that you might be familiar with this project this is the one that was finished right before Co um again came in well under budget which allows you to U build your vet tech facility as well do some additional Renovations in the high school it included Your Fieldhouse wrestling rooms music gym classrooms locker rooms cafeteria all of that was redone as part of that referendum and operational fund expense it's the premier fieldhouse in the region by far um everybody loves that Fieldhouse particularly my wife's a track coach so they love coming over and using the facility but that like I said allowed you to do some of the things like vet tech you see here in that main lobby yeah I think one of the other things that's shown in this slide is the business incubator which is a great example of some transform work that we've done um renovating some spaces we love to build buildings we love to put additions on but sometimes what makes the most sense if you have enough space already is to take classrooms and make them just more functional make them a little larger fible fible Furniture can modify that space as down the road whats and makes most sense for space a couple of other pictures the 20 classroom Edition which we just recently finished up a great project and a great example of us working together collaboratively saving the district M and it was under a reasonably tight time frame to through planning design and construction so that they'd be ready for the students to arrive because we know they're still coming for you they're they're not stopping so and then of course all the other buildings in the district like you said I was involved you leite designs for Prairie nles and for Country Trails we put additions on at hbt additions on at Prairie View we've done AC hbac upgrades Roofing Replacements Paving work placed all the mobiles that unfortunately you have to have right now to accommodate all your students um we've done Renovations here in the admin villing and at Lively Lake and many over at Central Middle School when it was in all different functions when it was a full middle school now that it's an eighth grade Center all of those things and another thing to point out is when there are projects that the district can execute themselves we've been I think a good partner in with Dan and his crew to say hey here's what you need to get your Roe permit but you guys can go out and functionally do this yourself many of the renovations recently done here in this building were done that way so a little bit on industry thought leadership what does that mean that means that we don't just design in a silo that we actually are out there learning from other clients pulling from other Market sectors like higher education we work at Rockell College raford University University of Illinois um Northern Illinois University we're pulling those things down and using them in the schools that we're designing when they're appropriate for middle school high school age students uh we pull from other areas uh that also inform education at the elementary level and we do read uh quite a bit in the area of Education normally the leave behind we have when we go to an interview is the book list I put together for my clients every year and the book but we already gave you guys that this year in November so I didn't want to duplicate that but every year we do that because I I and our our group read what's happening in the industry and what's informing design and decisions that boards have to make this is where Amy yurko also comes in she's a principal at brain spaces they specialize in this type of thought process and uh she is also a degreed as an architect and as an educator she has clients all over the world literally Central America Europe Mexico South America all over the US based out of Michigan and Chicago we worked with her on a number of things including what we just did at belvadere um which encompassed uh all 14 of their buildings we did a full facility assessment and a full master plan that took well over 18 months and hit a considerable amount of community engagement and then steering committee work that was brought back and then the board went different directions with different things one things one thing that we will show is a different project is another example of transformative design just to illustrate what that is this is Rock Valley College sure I worked on this projects and I think we show this one just as a start transformation of what they had what we to with what they had and turn it into something that was very useful for them they had a nonfunctioning space the structure was in good shape group was in good shape we were able toose that them give them a brand new Lobby space that was much more stud we also buil out some transformative design is kind of the trendy buzz word you he now and educational designer to as it really integrates principles fromers Des down not just need today great example that is we've been you Curr design twoes for them that are taking what they've got asge some small classes making larger more flexible spes that they they can use for of different classes one of them that we completed a couple years ago creativity lab the profess to because it's fible because it's got modular furniture that it can arrange in a variety of different ways to teach I and tri down from the correct so sometimes repurposing what you have and using your existing footprint makes the most sense doesn't always have to be an addition or or a new building wrong so our approach has always been designed with not for you I can't emphasize that enough and mentioned at the beginning it has been a partnership Larsson and Derby's mission statement it's on our website it's in our booklet is building trusted Partnerships the very first sentence through a journey of inquiry and Discovery to create exceptional environments period but it starts with partnership and that includes everybody that includes the board that includes the community that includes the construction manager and the engineers and the Consultants all of that we have been here to execute whatever the board and administration's Vision has been over the last 20 years and the last four plus superintendent the best way to pred the future is to design it I truly believe that that's a quote that used to be credited to buckminister Fuller but that's not accurate he never said that just to say everyone thinks he said it but we can't find any record of it it's just a good quote so along those lines part of that is community engagement wanted to touch on that uh having been on my board I've been through a number of community engagements as a board member we did it when we wrote Our strategic design we did it when we Revisited our strategic design twice and when we built a new elementary and repurposed our Middle School from a junior high to a middle school and I was involved as a board member in that Community engagement and all of that took and redistricting and I was through two redistricting and four superintendents when I was on my board just came off two years ago but I've also facilitated and led those Bel again being the most recent one but we've done them in a number of districts for a number of projects whether they are new additions whether they're referenda based projects or whether it's we have only this much space and only this much money how can we SHP things around maybe that's changing to grade level centers maybe it's changing to a different schedule at the high school moving from a block schedule to something else because they need to more efficiently use space so we've done it for all types of of scenarios and we've LED that here knowing the challenges the community is facing now with growth is why I think it's important to talk about that and it's important to for us to bring up that Amy uro and her firm could also provide some support and guidance for the whole team the partnership that we would have going forward real quickly there's three C's to community engagement it's communication collaboration and commitment I'm not going to read everything but basically what you have to do is you have to listen actively listen to the community give them their voice and then provide them feedback on what they have have to say even if not what you dis not what you agree with or if you decide to go in a different direction you still have to give them feedback so that they know where they stand and that they feel heard and there's often good ideas that come out of that collaboratively have to work all together you have to put everything aside and say I don't have an agenda I don't have anything I have a clear and open mind what is best for the kids because that's why we're all here today what is best for the kids that's was our mon through when I was on my board that was the first question that was always ask what's best for the kids so you have to do that set it aside and truly collaborate with everybody the community your your Consultants whoever they may be your Administration and then that also means commitment and it means you can't just talk the talk you have to walk the walk and your partners have to do that with you so you have to commit the time you have to commit the resources and some of those meetings may not be fun they're not always fun because there's sometimes challenges you have to answer or respond to uh that the community brings up so that's part of the process of being transparent part of P pure communication with your community so you have to have a level of commitment to say I'm all in to do this so once you're doing that we have to wrap it up Mr so sorry yep there we go no saying we have to wrap it up okay no problem go I only got a couple slides left so this is the process community community engagement on the left design team you work through that think Circle that you get all that information it goes into a steering Community to direct it and out of the school board for the decision real quickly yeah I'll just go this we use all the the latest technology used VR headsets with clients to kind of so they can walk through some of their projects before they're actually built just go to the next slide key things about that is we save cost up front by making decisions when it's in through design process it saves you guys money having the v head uh is part of that in order that clients can put that on see what's going to happen in the design make the decisions on what they like or don't like to change on process allows us to balance the scope in the budget and the quad the project questions given the things that you know about our district um what are you what do you see are some of our greatest challenges and moving forward what kind of ideas do you have for solving some of those challenges well I think um I'm going to be as honest as I as honest guy so and I've been through it on my own board because we had some challenges too so I think regaining Community Trust is something that the district has to do uh through Community engagement that level of communication you do have growth coming in I did a number of projects for Huntley School District 158 back in the early 2000s when they were seeing a massive growth uh literally uh at one point their District in the late 90s was 850 students give or take k12 and by 2002 they were getting almost 800 new students a year so they were put we were designing additions on buildings that were under construction because they were coming so fast so I've been through what it's like to to go through that process I'm not sure yours is quite as Extreme as that but you're seeing growth just from the numbers that are on your school report card from last year 41 4817 I think it was or 87 to 5150 now that's significant growth during your school year and you're only a little over halfway through so how do you house those students so that they don't um lose out on educational opportunities and the short-term answer is you put them in mobiles that's that's what a lot of people do but how do you plan forward to repurpose space to reuse space to maybe not allow people to this is my only space I never leave the space I'm G to have to move out so someone else can use that space in the inter room and then you need to look at how you want to align your facilities to your growth model so going forward that means probably putting some additions on on at some point is there grant funding available I the state is hit or miss on that and maintenance Grant is not going to help you there $50,000 po so are there other grant opportunities we're we have a marketing staff that'd be happy to help research some of that for you and help you fill out some of the grants we have three people on staff that can help do that um but I think building trust in the community and and determining the best way to house the students without impeding their educational process is are two biggest challenges from what I see another question for you a little to the board being here it says that there are two campus Master plans that have been done on the under the General District on that site when were those Master plans done the one we just did as part of the high school process on the Moss property so we looked at what would fit on that overall property as far as how much acreage things would take what roadways that was in conjunction with Ericson engineering the most recent one the other one goes back to the rorison property okay back with Dr hawk in 056 I want to say that was done if I'm not mistaken so those are the two larger ones also on that list that I mentioned was uh districtwide facility Capital assessment plan which is different than a health Life Safety survey we've done both of those too for the last two cycles but that Capital plan I think Mr prob way would agree has been the Bible that he's used in making his maintenance priority list each year as to where things are and it doesn't mean that things haven't moved up or down the list based on how they've performed but it gave them a guideline with a 1: three 3: 5 5 to7 7 to 10 and above priority listing of what roofs what Windows what doors what floors all the maintenance based things for all the buildings in the district and he's been using that for a number of years I want to say we completed that in 18 I think so pre preo so another districtwide approach that we have provided for Central one final question for me I know you mentioned the history um that you've been with us you know for 20 years and obviously you're very close um to the location appr proximity of our district um as we look back over the three referendums you know the failed referendums and obviously you being in the community what would you have done differently or maybe advised us differently as you look back sure um so let me step back and say just to clarify you know we didn't come in one day and say you should build a high school or you should build a middle school or whatever we were reacting to that we did actually a number of studies on what the current High School could or couldn't do what would fit where what would require more property um I think maybe the thing looking back at it right now is I think the first one out of the need perception of the amount of students that were arriving was pushed a little too fast didn't have all your ducks in a row for that one and really it wasn't even a design at that point because we didn't have time to really put one together other than enough for shales mcnut to put a a budget number together for you you had a target number for the referendum it was a conceptual plan but it but was no way worked out it was it was probably um you know there was there was efficiencies that could have been developed through the design process but it gave us a perspective on are we looking at 150 million or are we looking at 200 million that that was really the quarter of magnitude that we were dealing with and I think additional Community engagement and as you may recall we weren't asked to participate in all of that Community engagement or really any of it U we did the steering committee we were doing steering committee uh which was very successful group I think that was a good process for those that were around that committee but we didn't do as much Community engagement so I would I would recommend that you involve your design professional in the community engagement so they can talk specifically to that piece in those meetings and even help facilitate it a little bit to take pressure off of administration um and then I would say maybe the third thing is uh particularly knowing that you've had failed referendums now that you you would probably be wise to invest in a referendum consulting firm that does the background data there's a couple that we have worked with in the past um that have been successful I just recently heard of uh another one and I did some research on them that has been very successful at the at the tri conference in November I was in that sat in that session to learn a little bit and that's the only reason I went to it I wanted to learn if the guy was good or just talking out the side of his mouth so he had data to back it up so those are probably the things I would recommend going forward that would hopefully open up that and it really all goes back to building that trust back with the community that's got to be your foundation that's my board member hat that's not my architect hat so thank you any other questions all right thank you for your time this evening thank you thank you very much um I just wanted that 45 seconds at the end I'll do it real quick sorry no problem it'll it Rel less than 45 seconds so it's just a closing you know they they always say you don't get the job if you don't ask for the job so like we said we want to continue as your partner that's why we're here tonight we know you've got challenges uh that you have to face and we want to continue to face them with you we don't want to abandon you we don't want to not support you we've always done that so we would like to continue to do that so I'm not going to read them all but there's the highlights we have a very deep knowledge of your District your staff your personnel how you operate not just the buildings and we we have think shown through what we have done in the past 20 years that it's had Superior performance that it's been enduring and it's been distinctive without being overly expensive uh we've picked areas of impact to have design impact and focus where the kids are going to benefit the most in the other areas and we feel me personally and Andrew the same having been on school board we can provide some resources Beyond architect I have many of our clients my clients that call me superintendents that call me business managers that call me and say I'm not asking you as an architect I'm asking you as a board member a former board member how would you handle this situation what would your perspective be if I presented this to you and I try to give them some insights and help them out that way Beyond just being your architect so we'd like to ask for the job and to continue our relation ship and I can provide you lots of references if you want more but throw one up at the end there for one just down the road at moart so we thank you for your time appreciate it very much good luck with your exp thank you very much thanks just exit out real quick go how long thank you very much that stain's castle in Germany that's exactly I went there and where Disney got his idea Castle went through Germany in sou Stein's Castle now is it architectural firm claiming they worked on that Richard Blair and team from I'm Brian crwi nice to meet you all so it's uh Windows V2 right oh oh look at that fancy this is [Music] fcy thank you thank you than you know K right it is it we ready all right thank you thanks for having us uh we're cording and Clark uh we got 15 minutes to walk through some of our thoughts on your process on your projects and quick introduction our agenda is very simple three three sections we're going to walk through a little bit about our company some uh previous experience and then some things about project approach uh introduction wise I'm ran crowter principal and Executive Vice President with the firm um 35 years plus in the business most of that spent with K12 districts Richard I'm Richard Blair vice president Cate Clark have over 20 years of experience worked in various Fields but K through 12 has been my Mainer project manager at cord clar CCA about seven years working basically so a little bit about cigan Clark you've probably seen our presentation materials before we have various offices in the midwest which allow us uh to really understand a lot of the the cultur of the Midwest K12 districts most of the the offices specialize in K12 or St L Lewis office has even got a longer history than we do over 100 Years of doing K12 we have an office in Madrid Spain too we have 25 or six 26 people that work there and it really allows us to be uh reactionary to CL cents who come last minute for trying to get Services done and projects done because we're 247 firm and allows us to react and be able to deliver projects in a very quick time frame Richard can speak to that and how that works for us from a production standpoint so as as our Spain team works with us they're part of our team so as we build a crew to work on any of the projects that we're on we'll have a team here and a team in Spain we work together as a crew so it is it is fluid it's not like they we give them red lines they Mark things up they are part of the team they're part of the process of what's going on and have that knowledge as well so works really well for us at 247 carries over and we can keep your projects moving forward additionally we are a full service firm so we do architecture the engineering disciplines which is Mechanical plumbing electrical we have an interior division we also have a Construction Division so we do construction management General Contracting we do about 75 100 million a year in that you know explain you the benefits to fir to company or clients that use us k for architecture engineering because we fully do integrate our construction teams as we're designing our projects as you can see the list of services we provide as we mentioned you know the the engineering disciplines as well as construction so you get a full service uh uh delivery model with us um Richard talked a little bit about collaboration okay so collaboration is an essential essential part of the process so if we don't work with you guys well the projects aren't going to go smoothly so our goal is to work with your team make sure that we understand what you guys need and make sure that we hear what's going on there are multiple ways in which we make that happen a few of them are listed up here on the board uh facility surveys and assessments understanding your buildings what's good what's bad what needs to be worked on and talking about those with you guys uh understanding what your stakeholders need whether that's theard itself that we're talking to here whether it's admin staff students and even the local community and what their thoughts are as well um developing budgets and design that's sensitive to those budgets are very important as well as uh looking at Target value design um and how that approaches we'll get into that a little bit more down the line and how that will work for you guys uh but we're definitely focused on Communications making sure that we get to the success that you guys need and being part of the presentations we need us involved with in as well so uh looking at some of the districts we've worked with in Illinois uh pretty broad list of various districts from uh K12 to K5 to even smaller districts so we do have a tremendous amount of experience with uh districts much like um Central 301 uh quickly I want to walk through some District projects that have a variety of different uh projects that have gone on within the district District Butler School District 53 actually is a project all three of us worked on over the course of three years we first started out with some master planning and then broke the project to about $25 million worth of work over three different phases at their Elementary and their middle school buildings it was a phase project we were the construction manager on this project too so we did uh all the work in house uh bidding and so on and then building the projects over the Summers uh the elementary building on your left you can see the three different phases colorcoded the middle school is on your right we haven't completed the entire renovation of the buildings but getting close so we ran out of some pictures of that this is the library at the U school library at the elementary building and Byron yes Byron's a school district uh just Southwest of brockford we've been uh we've had a relationship with them dating back to early kind of 2007 2009 did some really big additions Math and Science we and then as of late with them been focusing in on some more specialized spaces we just finished last summer a full renovation and modernization of the library space It was kind of outdated underutilized space we kind of brought brought some new life into that space that's what we're seeing on the slide here and then also diving to how this coming summer to a bunch of athletic facilities so Fieldhouse Aquatic Center the football stadium are all getting fully renovated just this summer Plano School District we've been involved with for over 10 years done a lot of facility improvements for them uh whether it goes from roof improvements tuck pointing site improvements but uh we've been doing a lot of work for them recently we did a new maintenance facility for them and then over the past year we've been doing some uh work in their gyms updating those in athletic fields one of the great projects for them kind of going back to lrc idea is you know revitalizing that making it a place where the students and staff want to go uh this space uh it was in the center of their High School uh the students and staff love it they actually kind of fight over who's going to get uh the space even that staff goes in there and fights for it too so it's been a great uh addition for them Easter School District we've been working with them for over 30 years now uh we've done over $150 Million worth of work over those 30 years a lot of Maintenance work uh for them uh there schools a lot of old schools that need a lot of work whether it was mechanical Replacements roof improvements window replacements uh so we've done a lot of work for them over the years uh going into uh back in 15 we did a large High School remodel big addition football improvements so we redid their full athletic fields and that department as well went into their uh music department in creating new spaces for them that are more usable for their students and work well for them as well as improvements to their Library upgrading that as well one of the last projects we did was created a new facility is called the rec center which is resilience education center which offers a lot of after school programs for their students that are different than what the school offers for them uh this building offers a stage uh where they can do after uh School bands perform lectures whatever they might need as well as um they have a music studio where they can do some recordings it's after school they can bring in their personal bands and do stuff like that as well as different things like um art uh food and bringing in people for that as well as therapy uh offices as well so they can bring outside staff in there to work with their students separately this was anly Childhood Center we as here we see for zum a school district in the St Louis area over the last five years or so a really big budget $150 million or so there were a lot of bigger additions we got to do a smaller addition on a autism focused school which was a very interesting project serving that user and then on two additions to a middle school and a high school that both included storm shelters given the addition size we triggered that storm shelter requirement so had to work storm shelters into those additions to that school district then the last district is Evanson skoki School District 65 uh pictures you see here are for the new Foster school which is a new Elementary building that is under construction in in evinston we also have performed numerous other projects for uh their District over the course of the last few Summers but this one is a pretty significant project it's about a $45 million new new building for Evanson skoki we just uh we're the construction manager on this we uh opened bids up in December for 90% of the work and the district has been going through some Financial struggles so they were you know tasked us for to come in lower than what they had budgeted for the project and our bidding came out right now we're about $3 million under budget so they're very excited to save some money and get a new building that they love so uh there were some uh intricacies in making that work which we call Target value design which is we're going to bleed into next so project approach is very important for us you you know obviously you understand you as a district have needs we had a chance to read some of your information available on the web and um you know the project approach is important to get the project off on the right foot and that it generally focuses on getting the budget set properly and making sure we design to that budget you probably have heard the term maybe have maybe have value engineering you've heard that word so it's not a very friendly or or positive way to uh go through a project we we start with a different methodology it's called Target value design it start with the budget in mind and then design to that budget maybe uh Rich you can speak to what that really means in in addition to keeping the budget in mind it's also leveraging our inhouse obviously we've got our construction team to leverage that helps with cost estimating keeps us a lot sharper on cost estimating but also our inhouse engineering staff we get to bring them into the building a lot earlier in the process so that there's no surprises in the back end surprises in the back end are what make us value engineer and then we've got to cut this so making sure that there's no surprises keeping that Design Team all integrated throughout the process help us avoid surprises at the end well said so it does save time and it saves money end of the day so project budgets you know there there are things out there that that are beyond our control in the economy and we ran through a significant amount of escalation in 21 and 22 and that's you know 30% so you hear the term things aren't getting cheaper well there aren't and unfortunately construction was a big belt lender of of having to absorb a lot of that so what what what it means though is making sure you design to a budget and have good budgetary information what's going to happen in 25 you know there's a thing you probably been paying attention to called tariffs right it's going to have an effect on construction cost we we've seen it in some bids that were opened up by another contractor uh just recently and we're we're seeing it leaking into the the bidding process right now what's that going to mean is it going to mean a four to six% escalation Factor we have to fact to that end we're doing our budgets for you this is a a sheet we like to to show is okay talk is cheap right what your what Your track record you can see the various phases our team as as rich and and and Nate just said we're doing estimating with the team regardless if we're building it or not and we're going to make sure we're watching that budget throughout the various phases the final thing is the variance between the final estimate and the actual bids that average of you know negative.

and we're calling the meeting order for the Brown County School Corporation there any modifications to the agenda there are none any visitors or comments from the office the audience okay presentation Mr Bale yeah all right all right I'm going to bring Aiden up here with me okay um I actually printed off he's going to speak on behalf of so if you guys want to copy of this you can Aiden is a junior going to be a senior football player for me and I I really asked um Miss Tracy if it'd be all right to have him come in and speak I kind of feel like it's important that um especially the Future Leaders of our program learn to be some uh a leader in their in their rights of what they what we're looking for out of you guys and so he's going to kind of talk about what it is that we're ask you permission for and then if he doesn't have some answers for you I can kind of fill the in all right well on behalf of the entire football team we're seeking permission to attend an out of state field trip to Church Hill Downs in Louisville Kentucky um for fundraiser leby entertainment is a company we will be working for they've agreed to pay us $150 per person for this fundraiser with the help of our coaches players and many parents we expect to race anywhere from 8,000 to ,000 for this fundraising event we will be going down on opening night Saturday April 26th and Tuesday April 29th this money will go a long way helping us prepare for the 2025 season and Beyond with the purchase of new equipment including jerseys and PR packs it is our goal to provide everyone in this program with all the necess ne necessary equipment without charging any players or their parents and families to participate uh not only is this a great opportunity us to make some money we're also interested in learning about Kentucky Derby week and this is just a great way for us to have fellowship with each other with our fellow players so what do you guys get to do we're going to be serving and busting tables up in some restaurant I'm not sure that that beats picking up trash that sounds pretty cool you're getting a better rate than we got at the 500 I think we only got 90 bucks for oh I don't know 14 hours of something so I think 150 sound per person that's great yeah have you ever been here before I have not I only drive through Kentucky to go to other places I've never I just remember go in elementary school the kids were in elementary school we went down there for church down for the day I got a little family down there but not really much it's an interesting place the whole football team get to go um most of the players will be attending on either one day or the other some have events that they can't make it on the Saturday but they'll be able to make it on a Tuesday we also have a couple other sport programs that are going to be joining us um to make some money for their programs if this year goes well we're going to really open up the opportunity for anyone and every other one that that can come down and make the time that's why we're really asking for this I know it's during the school day um but an opportunity for kids to not only come down and some money but really the just seeing a new environment I've done this for the last four years in another Corporation I've worked at and the kids have just get overwhelmed with just the the Nativity of things that they get to see both watching the races and just the I should say the very um expensive things that go on at the at the Derby races that we for are they going to wear hats no everybody has a full uniform but there will be plenty of people that wear their Derby hats for that's the most fun that's that's the only reason I would go yeah so as of right now we're asking for a bus to take us down there um on that Tuesday when we go we're going to need an activity bus and a regular bus because some of the kids have events for sports that evening we'll be coming back a little early to go to their sporting the anything else you want to not are you sure I'm sure okay thank you so much thank you any discussion items there are none uh I get a motion to approve the minutes for March 3rd of 2025 second the approval of the minutes March any discussion vot Doug yes Carol yes Vicky yes Amy yes J all right we action needed items I have the recommendation to approve the out ofate fundraiser activity for the football team under the direction of Tony Bell at the Kentucky Derby on April 26th and April 29th the opportunity may include alternate dates from April 26th through May 1st 2025 depending on need and availability move to approve the recomended team I'll second any discussion thank you let vote Doug yes Carol yes Vicky yes Amy yes Janice yes motion carries I the EA position for the 2425 school year at van and Elementary for math coach Christine heel can I get a motion to accept second any discussion Doug yes Carol yes Vicky yes Amy yeah Janise yes motion carries I have the recommendation to approve the $700 on behalf of an anonymous donor for The Invention Convention state qualifiers atuna Elementary move to approve the $700 anous thank you so excting and is this going to go for travel or for other things do we know is it just generally to go towards the program I believe it's whatever they will need to be able to make sure that they can get to where they need to go um effectively and it was two and it was two projects but it was three kids for State national and where is it this year it's always it in Michigan yes you're born Michigan yeah okay I didn't know if it moved around okay so we don't have to get a PL ticket or anything that's good any more discussion I I I guess I told Abby whatever is not covered in donations like the corporation will pick up the expenses for these kids to be able to go and have this experience so um but grateful for the anonymous so exciting years in a row yeah you ready to vote D yes Carol yes Vicky yes Amy yes J absolutely yes motion carried I have the recommendation to approve the donation of $971 on behalf of Linda Hawkins who partnered with America online giving Foundation to the Brown County High School cheer team move to approve the donation of $971 I get a second I'll second any discussion vot Doug yes Carol yes Vicky yes Amy yes J yes motion Carri I have the recommendation to approve the restructuring of ground count schools Athletics to serve students at grade 6 through 12 under a unified model rather than our current um which is maintaining a separate middle school 6 through eight and high school 9 through2 athletic direcor positions move to approve the restructuring of BR schools Athletics to serve through 12 can I get a second any discussion no Doug yes Carol yes Vicky yes am yes J yes motion carries have the recommendation to approve the creation of a strength and conditioning position to support student athletes across the district discussion V yes Carol yes rcky yes Amy yes yes yes I have the recommendation to adopt the resolution determining need for buildings project I get a motion to accept second I'll second any discussion yes and this will be the same for the determining need for the site project um this is in reference to the bonds um that were approved at the last meeting this resolution is just required by the school leasing statute um that the board determines there is a need for the building project any more discussion vot Doug yes Carol yes Vicky yes Amy yes Janice yes motion carries I have the recommendation to adopt the resolution determin a need for the site project I get a motion so moved second any discussion again this is required by the school leasing statute V dou yes Carol yes Vicky yes Amy yes Janice yes motion carries I have the recommendation to adopt the resolution reapproved to approve the adop resolution for reaping I'll second any more discussion again the IRS requires that the school board reapproved the building Corporation and then authorizes to issue tax exemp Bonds on behalf of the school corporation vote dou Yes Carol yes Vicki yes Amy yes Janise yes motion carried I have the recommendation to adopt the resolution approving preliminary plans in form of amendment to lease get a motion to accept so any discussion um this is just the resolution that states the school corporation is going to fund these projects through a lease financing um we have been able to do that in the past with other construction or renovation projects um they are used across many school corporations in Indiana to be able to borrow for renovation and construction um this financing does not count against the school corporations debt allowance any more discussion Doug yes Carol yes Vicky yes Amy yes Janice yes motion carries the recommendation to adopt the resolution authorizing refunding of the 2014 bonds motion accept to approve resolution second I'll second discussion yeah this is if you remember from the previous two presentations from um ice Miller and steil this is just taking care of the legal requirements if we would want to refinance those 2014 mortgage bonds that we have um this is just taking care of the legal steps to be able to do that if and when the opportunity presents itself any more discussion vote Doug yes Carol yes Vicki yes Amy yes J yes motion carries I recommendations to approve the changes of the 2526 and 2627 academic calendars do I have a motion to accept I still do any discussion yeah we we have decided to be able to add uh three days to the teachers contract to provide uh districtwide professional development um so the days that have been chosen are the February I think it's February 16th in 2025 but it's typically the president used as a weather makeup day um that will no longer be a weather makeup day no kids will be in session on that day regardless but our staff will be here um weather permitting um so we can be able to provide professional development and then we will also use the two election days um one in November and one in May to be able to um have staff come in and be compensated so we can provide professional development um students are already not in session on those two days um so this really doesn't have an impact on families um as as much as it does of adding the three days to the contract for teachers any more discussion and uh the you've had lots of discussion about this with the teachers and the union and all of that and they're all good with these three days right yeah I'm not sure it's 100% um in agreement with it but yes we Administration has met with the association um well and I know you've negotiated like what's gonna look like and when it's going to be and how many sessions we put out a survey for different options and scenarios and um to the decision to um just do three days and it doesn't really affect is one one of those would be a snow day right or no make up day right so as far as families are concerned it's not going to change that great thanks any more discussion vote Doug yes Carol yes Vicky yes Amy yes to yes motion Carri I have the recommendation to retain the services of the Rollins Group LLC and specifically Daniel D Rollins to fill the role of design criteria developed required by Indiana code for a public works design build project for a fixed fee of 23,000 to Services ra for Fe of 2000 I have a second second any discussion yeah this is required um as we said before the uh HVAC projects um at BM and the high school um we are part of an energy guaranteed Energy savings contract with Performance Services um so it makes a whole lot of sense for us to use Performance Services to continue to get those savings and then they have already forward um on the steps with that project however with the athletic site project we required by Indiana code to um hire a design criteria developer that will take us through the request for qualifications and the request for proposals process um throughout the entire project so um this recommendation is to specifically hire Dan Rollins um to to fulfill that role for the corporation and the $23,000 will the bond proceeds um not out of ground County Schools operations any more discussion vot D yes Carol yes Vicki yes Amy yes Janice yes motion carries I have the recommendation to approve the early literacy supplemental pay resolution have a motion to accept soov second second any discussion yeah we rece a small amount of money from the Indiana Department of Education each year to be able to um uh provide to teachers or staff members that have helped in uh getting kiddos to pass I three so um the resolution that is in the board packet just outlines who gets that equal amount um with the grant money that that we get and each year it's a different amount um it's kind of like the tag Grant um so that resolution just spells out which staff members at each of the elementaries receive that statement any other discussion vote dog yes Carol yes Vicki yes Amy yes Janice yes motion carries I have the recommendation to appoint a technical Review Committee as required by Indiana code for the process of selecting a design Builder on a public works design build project the technical Review Committee will consist of the following members Emily Tracy a superintendent will represent BR School William sheer is a professional engineer registered under Indiana code and then Daniel Rollins is an architect registered under Indiana code um who is also serving as our design criteria developer and a full voting member of the technical Review Committee move to approve the appoint of TRC with members of Tracy Rollings and shler second I'll second any discussion yeah I I just think it's important to note out that the board each January appoints a bid opening committee um for things within the corporation this project is different we're required by Indiana Law to have um an architect and an engineer as a part of that technical Review Committee so um you don't have just a committee that is just school people um and you can't have a board member that serves on that technical Review Committee because you will ultimately be approving um the the bid that in on it so um that's the background any more discussion vote Doug yes Carol yes Vicky yes Amy yes J yes motion carries I the consent agenda item starting with the separation of Brown County Schools Corporation nurse ask and Daniels effective May 27 20125 through the transfer of the Brown County Middle School 7eventh grade boys basketball coach J to Brown Middle School 8th grade boys basketball effective March 6 2025 do I have a motion to accept move to approve second second any discussion so are we looking for a new ner well of course we are um Aspen is going to stay with us through the end of the year um I think she's already um done some work recruiting and going to bring somebody tomorrow to meet with um so she's she's been really really helpful and and sad that she's leaving us she's been absolutely incredible for Brown County Schools um just in a really short amount of time that she's been here um but family takes her elsewhere so I guess we have to let her go more discussion vote Yes yes yes motion carries superintend forward yeah um welc back from Spring Break um it was a beautiful week to be home and on Spring Break um unfortunately we had a little bit of weather um coming in that Friday evening of last weekend and had a little bit of damage across the district um out of Eco Park we had a batting cage that was blown up against the Brown building and hit a a water hydrant which put a little bit of water in the basement um but nothing cast we will have to purchase a new batting cage um and fix two fence posts um from that but other other than that there was just a little bit of damage to the Brown County School's um emblem on the sign at central office um so we'll have to look at to replace that but I think um according to the schools right everywhere across the everywhere else across the district um seemed to be very very minimal um lost power but got it back and then um woke up to no heat at the middle school today but I was told it came back on and people warmed up so um I want to give a huge congratulations to uh bamb Elementary they had 100% pass um so that is really really exciting hburg and sprunica are are right there behind them um they are some legal changes in the requirements um kids in third grade will will get an opportunity to have remediation now until the end of the school year they'll get to test again at the end of the school year before they get out um if they did not pass the second time they will have an opportunity to attend summer school um that we've designed for two weeks and um they'll have a third opportunity to take that test um so we're we're hopeful and excited to to get them where they need to be for for I for sure um big fish is Musical that is coming up um I think it's April 10th um is opening so um encourage everybody to get tickets to see the spring musical um it is going to be really really great um and then I just wanted to give one last reminder that April 11th was our weather makeup day that we will be in session on Friday April 11th um and currently our last student day is um Tuesday May 27th that it I think that's it I knew it was 27 um thank you um claims do I have a motion to accept second any discussion V dog yes Carol yes Vicky yes Amy yes motion carries legislative update yeah uh I was just checking to see kind of what um I don't know what happened today but it is a crazy time in state legislature um so as I mentioned I think at the last meeting we have crossed over so all the bills that pass the Senate go to the house and all the bills that has pass the house now go to Senate um our organization the Indiana State School boards associ ation uh it's pretty much our lobbyist organization and they have reduced the number of bills they're tracking from 184 bills to 69 so that many bills died that they were tracking and so it kind of gets narrow and narrower as we get closer um the deadline that we're looking at next is April 15th A bill must have had a third reading in the Full House by April 15th meaning in the next three weeks a bill has to be passed by the committee of the other house in order to keep moving on and then has to have a second reading and a third reading by April 15th then the session will end I think it's April 29th so we're getting closer but we're kind of in the messy middle of all of that um so there are a couple of bills that you know we're paying particular attention to the one we've been most interested in the Senate Bill 287 which is the partisan Schoolboard Bill uh what happened with that was Senate bill that passed the house bill died so we're only dealing with one bill and it went over to the house it went to the uh elections committee and they did pass it out but they changed everything about it so they went back to the bill they had that they likeed better um they took out the need for a primary they um said that there could be I guess a choice you could choose a party or a nonpartisan or be independent ever unfortunately that doesn't solve the problem with this bill which is that it excludes a lot of people who cannot serve in a school board if they are fedal employee or part of the uh Judicial Code of Conduct so if the bill is at if the race is at all partisan then they would be excluded and it turns out to be a substantial number of people who would be excluded from serving on school board so it has passed that committee uh 8 to5 uh I think that's a party line vote and then it is ex set for a second reading this week on March 17th that means that in the house um either this week or next week probably there will be discussion on the house floor and it does indicate that um our organization is trying to change some of the language about party affiliation from a sh to a May uh so that you could use a political affiliation if you chose to the thing is is that you already could you could already put it on your campaign materials and say whatever you wanted to so um but it unfortunately it looks like it's it is moving forward but now of course we have two different bills one in Senate one the house and they don't match or they won't match so we'll just have to see what happens with that it is still very much an active um bill um the other uh couple of bills that are pretty important to us is uh one I haven't mentioned here before is House Bill 1498 which is about school accountability as you know we used to have a to F grades for schools uh we did away with that when we went from I step to I learn and we had Co um so now the legislature is proposing going back to a system which is some kind of accountability and it is still letter grades it if it passed it would have to be determined that the new system would have to be created by the end of this year and then it would take effect I guess in the 25 26 uh year so I don't know where that's at right now but it is one that we're watching because um but with the dashboard and other things you know I I think that information is more accessible but defining exactly you know what that means would still be up in the air um again the most important things to watch are the budget bills which is House Bill 101 and Senate bill one and um those are really messy I don't know if you heard but maybe last week in the Ways and Means Committee they heard like 10 hours of testimony and a lot of them were superintendent and school board members uh who were there uh talking about the effects of different property tax proposals on what it would do to local government and and I'm just glad that the committee listens like they often will cut people off at two minutes and don't let people testify but this one was just it's just has a lot of people with a lot of things um and then um so the next thing that happens there is that that bill has not changed at since that hearing so they were talking about amendments and then the house bill is set for hearing on Friday in the Appropriations uh committee um there is one other one that that is uh I I'm kind of interested in one of uh one of the house members is a teacher she's a 30e math teacher um and so she's very concerned about you know we have teacher appreciation grants and they're called tap grants and HB 1500 um would um change the way that we do those teacher appreciation grants the problem is they want to give it US money to give the to the teachers who are effective or highly effective for like two years and it would be added to base pay rather than being a grant but then after the two years they aren't going to give us the money anymore leaving us with a higher base pay but not compensating us for that so um they have not set a hearing on that and I uh she's been very vocal about there's nothing wrong with our system right now everybody likes it it's going well we shouldn't change it so if anybody has a I know teachers can feel very strongly about those things there are a number of compensation bills that are out there that um it's important to speak out about because as teachers and administrators you know you're the ones who are going to feel the effects of that and they need to hear from you um I think that is uh pretty much it as far as kind of those kind of and I appreciate everybody but um do pay attention the next couple weeks because um the thing is it's really important for legislators to hear from their constituents they don't really care what anybody else says but if you live in their District um they listen to what you say and so it's important if they get 50 calls on a certain Bill to find out that tap grants are really important or you know you really care about Schoolboard elections then they start to sit up and pay attention so it's really important for everybody to do that so thank you as a reminder Senator Eric cook yes representative J Paul Paul right yes and um both of those uh the information to contact them is at the Indiana general assembly and you can just put in their names and they'll tell you the phone number and the address and the email to so thank you okay thank you Amy can I get a motion to adjourn so move second all in favor any oppos okay

e e say it's a little unusual to have a happy St P's day to get started byw stand Alle moment silence thank you Mr basser uh move on to item 2.01 Patriots registered to comment on educational issues there are no patrons registered to comment today so we'll move forward to item three the consent agenda Dr ter good morning and thank you for your consideration this morning we have 3.01 the February 24th regular business meeting minutes we have 3.02 our Personnel agenda 3.03 for employ of cidate pursu of Indiana code 2026 11.2 and then finally voucher register checks as agenda refer the recommendations in the agenda by Dr Terrell 3.01 February 24th 2025 regular business meeting minutes 3.02 the Personal Agenda 3.03 recommendation for employment of candidates pursuant to Indiana code 2026 5-2 and 3.04 voucher register checks number 17570 may I have a motion com action item01 to apply rece funds schar thank you Mr President in working with the Point Community Foundation School Corporation is apply for receive a grant total of $22,000 $4500 going to help AP exam scholarships which we have done with the commun foundation for several years now exams cost $97 a piece of some our students becomes financial burden for them so they can apply through our counseling department additional support for those exams and then also $18,000 towards our engineering and Robotics programming or what is essentially 3D printer so that they can create parts for their robots and their projects and their engineering classes appreciate how the foundation has now kind of streamlined us to be able to apply for the e corporation instead of all being individuals and cre a portal we just put in projects and take it through the back with what they will support so the administration recommends approval to apply and receive grant funding in the amount of $22,000 commun Foundation support advanced placement exams at Point High School and Point High School engineering thank you Mr recomendation from the administra to appr to apply for and receive funding in the amount of $22,000 from the Crownpoint Community Foundation to support student participation on advanced placement exams at Crown Point High School and support Crown Point High School engineering and robot robotics courses and clubs May I have a motion so move so move by Mr angel second by Miss Bas are there any questions if there be no questions or comments move it to a vote all in favor signify by saying I I nay guys carry 5- Zer just quickly want to thank again the Crownpoint Community Foundation for their support uh not only on this particular Grant but other all the other matters they've been a long time supporter of Ground Schools moving on to item 4.02 approval to purchase fire walls Mr re thank you Mr President members of the board today for you the purchase of two fora net firewalls and the foret fora analyzer which is the software equipment that analyzes the information going through the firewall there are two firewalls in there one of used as a main the second is used as the backup that way if one goes down you have a backup to replace it uh with that we utilize the higher education uh compact purchasing cooperative for this bid and we recommend approval the purch of foret fortigate FG 900g firewalls and fora analyzer F 300g from electronic strategies Inc at $1 129,130 gate FG 900g firewalls 40 analyzer fc300 from electron strateg Incorporated at the cost of 9,157 63 Mo by Miss War questions coms is is the life expectancy this based upon old firewalls about eight years yeah so the the expectancy is five to seven on these and we went eight with the last one it's just time to do the refresh V carries 5 4.03 Transportation Center improvements Point high schools improvements L streets improv projects back thank you Mr President members of the board uh last week we receed bids for the these three projects the transportation center improvements the Crown Point High School improvements and the Lake Street def Improvement bids were received and total amount of the bids were 3,852 600 uh the school corporation at skilman has extensive experience with both of these uh low biders on these contracts so with that we recommend approval the contracts for those three projects General trades the Gibson Lewis the amount of 3,541 th000 and to electrical for sergeant Electric in the amount of 31,600 thank you Mr re you heard aom Administration for approval contracts for Transportation Center improvements Crown Point High School e e improvements Lake Street Pro as follows General trades to Gibson Lewis 354,000 for electrical to Sergeant Electric in amount of 31,600 I have a motion so so move by Mr second second any questions or comments there no questions or comments take a vote all in favor signify by saying I I I vote carries five 4.04 skilman Corporation amendment number 3 2021 projects again back to of the administra for approval of the amendment foration 193,000 bations all work a lot of a lot of schools are delayed we didn't see many delays at all I think so just well done again thank you for this and also just want to make a quick comment to the transportation center those individuals working out there were very patient as we touched every other building seems like we touched every other area of our school corporation they continue to this operate put their needs of the the students first and so happy to see that we're able to help make these improvements all those I think we're ready for all those in favor signify by saying I I nay vote carries five uh discussion and report items item five 5.01 policy updates first reading Mr thank you Mr President and board members um it's recommendation of isda that we have this policy are calling in an essential policy or one of like this anyway U but the use of artificial intelligence has been one of the fastest growing uses of technology in recent years there's a date of November 22 2022 for its origination but it's been around for quite some time Syria and Syria uh but very commonly it's used to draft essays papers articles and responses to questions in addition to other written forms of communication when prompted by the user it's a tool many students and teachers are aware of uh isba policy 5335 uh allows us to address directly Ai and have it policed or covered by our current academic policies so what we have today for you uh is a copy of this policy as reviewed by our uh curriculum Department as U offered to just today for our first reading and we would revisit next month for potential adoption thank you Mr VI to be had today anybody have questions I did find it interesting that we're touching upon AI I know it's it's entering every part of our everyday lives Workforce I know it's certainly so glad we're tackling this issue be interesting to see what this go is for students y all right moving on to 5.02 referendum informational presentation Dr Terell m good morning just making sure that all of this we're videoing this and it will be posted on our website with the board uh meeting as well so that way people can go there to see this so as we go through this once we get to the end if there are questions we'd be more than happy to entertain those let's try to wait until the end just so we can get a a clean video recording of this and go there with it okay okay so Matt and I have presented this presentation almost 30 times already um going out to all of our buildings to our staff um pto's now uh just continuing to get this information out there when we go out and present to our buildings we have to make sure that it's informational only today we don't have to worry about that with all of you this can be persuasive as to why people should approve this referendum renewing the referendum at a reduced tax rate is what we're going to do so I'm going to go through the first part of this kind of giving everybody the reasons why um Crown Point is different than a lot of places the reasons why people should even consider uh voting and supporting this referendum and then Matt will come up and he will give you the Mind numbing data as we like to call it and Matt does a really good job with numbing everybody's Minds so we'll get into it from there so Crownpoint schools the uh whole reason that we exist is to compel students to become lifelong Learners and we do that through the highest quality educational programs and you'll see as we go through here many of the things such as the facilities that we have done with the state-of-the-art improvements uh looking here at one of the media centers in elementary school all of our media centers now and all of our buildings have been updated and improved uh and again intentionally designed so that we can provide our students with the the latest uh technological advantages as they go through you can see here the community grow um from over the last many years but you can now our population when you put in the three different communities that we serve as well as the unincorporated part uh we're up to just over 55,000 um residents living within our boundary we've grown by a third since 2010 so while we've experienced some pretty rapid growth um we see that now stabilizing as you guys are well aware of with the demographic study that we've had um we expect that to really slow down and and Be steady 100 100 less fewer than a 100 over the next several years the average homes uh in our community is at $336,000 that puts us in the top 10% of all public schools within the state of Indiana and when you compare it to the median home value here in the state it's at 267,000 you can see that this past year our av so think about all of the homes new businesses within our communities that have been going up our av has increased by 14% which again out we are outpacing every other school district within Lake County the reason that that is important is as we look at this top number right here that 336,000 when we have our graduation in uh early part of June uh we graduate 750 is kids yet our sixth grade or our kindergarten students as they come in we're only at about 600ish so there's a big difference there but we see that change catch up when we get to third grade a big part of that is we feel like as people are coming in and affording the homes that are within our community many times they're a little bit further along in their career their fames more established so as they come in their kids are a little bit older than they would be if they were coming into kindergarten thus the reason for that increase as we get into third grade so you can see here uh by the chart the consistent growth that we've seen um almost 300 students in the last five years again as we talked about that's we see that leveling off Crownpoint High School is now the largest High School in the region with just over 3,000 students um and again people are moving here and a big part of that is because of our schools so with this the a big portion of the biggest portion almost all of the referendum dollars that will be coming in are about staff about teachers about teacher recruitment we're recognized as a destination District as we like to call it where we're attracting the highest level of Educators to come here when we have openings um really feel like our reputation because of our teachers and how they talk to each other because of our community members uh parents people want to be here we have have among the highest starting teacher salary in the state at right at 59,000 um what that everybody else our average teacher salary is in the top five in the state as well um last year we had 12 Elementary position openings we had over 80 applicants so when we talk about teacher shortages across the state of Indiana across the country here in Crown Point we're not necessarily experiencing those as others and again going back up to it's a destination District people want to be here they see the value of Crown Point as a community and again as our Corporation and how we work through putting the emphasis on our greatest resource which is our human resource with our kids all of this then leads to uh that consistent and committed staff where the culture of the district the culture of schools continues to be there and doesn't have to be adjusted each and every year a big part of what we did with this group of projects that we are just on uh finishing up this summer uh is really about the academic success and how do we prepare our kids for the future so you're going to see as we go through this all of this is anything but average um this past year the high school was recognized by the college board for excellence think AP courses we just approved the grant today this morning for the AP assessments um our students our high school received a silver recognition and that was because of the number of students who are taking AP courses but not just the number of students also the number of at risk students the number of minority students who are taking AP courses dual credit is another area that our kids can participate in you can see here that this year we expect almost 10,000 credit hours to be earned at the high school now keep in mind our high school's 3,000 students this is more than double what many schools our size are producing uh on an annual basis and you can see how that has continue to increase as we go through uh the year the biggest Advantage for this when it comes to parents for those of you who have had kids going through the schools or are in that process right now students can graduate with up to 30 credit hours earned and that could equate to a cost Savings of almost $1,000 but it's not just about kids going to college so as we go across the state as I go across the county I hear people say I think it's even been an article in the paper where need to put shop class back in high school we've all heard that right shop classes have never left Crownpoint High School uh as we go through and we look at all the different things here kids not only are going away to colleges but they also then can get their CTE certificates they can get ready to go right into apprenticeships into technical schools with the new facilities we're able to add the CNA program at the high school so this year our students can go through and actually graduate with their CNA certificate ific you can see the hospital bed here the facilities that our kids are working in are as new and up to dat as any of the new hos that uh come into our community over the last year too some more things that really set us apart and make us weigh anything but average way above average so we're in the top 5% of Indiana high schools uh top 10% of best high schools in the country we have a four-year graduation rate of 97.3 6% you'll notice the State average again is 90.1% this one is really above average our honors graduates so students as they go across that stage and get their diploma at graduation 57.5% of our students are graduating with an honors diploma the state average is 40.3 so just 177% higher than the state average attending postsecondary institutions Crown Point 92% of our students do this this isn't just College universities this is also Tech technical schools this is IV Tech right through wherever they need to be a big part of what we did as we expanded our our elementary schools and added on to all of them was so that we could add stem uh in our creative arts rotation at the elementary level so now for the first time ever in Crownpoint schools every Elementary student goes through and has stem class once a week just like they would PE art music uh media center a big part of this is we had two different curriculums that we using for this the first one was called Sam labs and it's really um we use that first semester it's a lot of coding second semester now we're into Project Lead the Way which then leads right into middle school and on into high school but in our first semester of uh having stem classes in our elementary schools our students completed more projects just over 6,000 projects than any other School Corporation in the country using Sam lab so again pushing forward with how we rolled this out it's anything but average again always striving to achieve Excellence Performing Arts now we were just talking today about the play that several of us went to over the weekend um the uh Orchestra concerts band concerts our kids just do an amazing job um and the benefits that they achieve from that or realize from that uh just continues to grow buzz and uh Friday Night Lights with football who doesn't like to spend Friday nights with four or five thousand your closest friends with fireworks things going around and while buzz and the football team is up here this really isn't about football as much as it is about the extracurricular opportunities that our students have seven out of every 10 students at the high school participate in at least one extracurricular activity many of them three four five um but that's how you take that 3,000 student building and make it seem smaller and and more manageable for our students is they're involved in other things as well this of achievement since August of 23 and it's just going to scroll while it's scrolling you're not going to keep up with it but Focus over here you're going to see speech and debate tennis basketball um softball Dance all these different events that are going on so it's not just Athletics Not Just Fine Arts not just High School not just Middle School not just Elementary but across Ross the board you can see that we continue to strive for excellence in everything we do and the achievements have been many one of the ones that I am most proud of um makes me smile every time it comes up not intentionally was the last one on the list as best buddy so in 2024 we were the elementary chapter of the year we've been working really hard on inclusion here over the last three or four years making sure that all of our students are our students and you can see that in the things that we've had the activities um the Crownpoint High School Ballers that many of you were at again really striving to have that inclusion piece that's a big part of it at this point we're going to turn it over to Matt for his uh data portion of this and we'll go from there in 2019 so since the last time we had the referendum in 2018 the state changed the funding uh for schools so my presentation is going to talk about three areas first area is going to be State support the money that comes from the state the second part is property taxes and then the third part is going to be talking about the ballot question we're all going to see on May 6th so with State change funding in 2019 they really broke it down into essentially four different funds for us to work with two funds shown here the education fund and the operations fund for the education fund I want you to think instruction if it's instruction related it gets paid out of the education fund everything non-instructional comes from the operations fund now we're going to talk about some blue money today and the blue money represents the money that comes from the state support or the funding formula that the state legislature is you're aware now is currently going through and devising a two-year funding formula within the two-year budget as that gets done the state legislature determines through that funding formula how much money every school district across the state is going to receive per pupil for us 85% of that state basic Grant goes into the education fund now that 85% of the funding formula makes up 98% of the re revenue for the educ the other 15% goes into the operations fund important to note is that 15% makes up almost 50% of the revenue in the operations fund the other pieces that changed in 2019 is they did away with the bus replacement capital projects and transportation funds all three of those funds were and now inside the operations fund are funded through property taxes so again if half the money the state support and operations the other half comes from property taxes the third fund I want to talk about with this is The Debt Service fund and you heard Dr Terell talk about the projects that we're just wrapping up it's important to note that all of that gets paid through The Debt Service fund all of the debt that we issued so think of that like your mortgage on your home the difference between the mortgage on your home and the debt that we pay is that when you do a mortgage you have a mortgage on your home for approximately 30 years with the idea that when you retire your home is paid off the difference between that scenario and what we work with in schools is that our debt is 20 years but the other most important fact is schools never retire right so we reinvest that money back into the buildings which is what we've done to just complete all the projects we've been working on so let's talk about that blue money a little bit and look across the state this is a scatter gram of every school district both traditional and Charter K12 in the state of Indiana you'll notice down here at the bottom is zionville the lowest funded per pupil at 374 $ 6632 the state average is 7374 you'll notice some schools are below the state average as we bring up some monster Handover Lake Central dunland Griffith you get closer to the state average as Hobert pops up along with Lake Station River Forest and Gary number six uh in the state the five above that are all Charter Schools Gary as a traditional highest funded traditional District at 8895 you'll notice the difference between Gary at 8895 and zville at 6632 approximately uh $2,250 now you may wonder where do the Crownpoint schools fallen in this as you can imagine we're near down the bottom at 347 6835 now if we just Reed the state average you'd be looking at additional almost $5 million in state funding coming from it that blo money coming in almost an additional five million and as you heard Dr Terell present nothing about what we produce with those dollars is average everything is above average and outstanding however our funding significantly below average now the other interesting point about this uh scatter plot is every single one of the districts on this has passed the referendum in fact one in five districts across the state have passed referendums let's look at our state support back in 2009 $5,200 per pupil in 2024 6835 as we just mentioned that may sound like quite a bit when you're talking about a $1,600 increase per pupil you have to remember that's over a 15-year period that equates to an average annual increase of 31% however need to take into account inflation over that that period over that same time period inflation grew by almost 50% in that 15-year period if we just kept pace with inflation our funding would be $7,800 per pupil or an additional 8.5 million coming in in that blue money it's interesting to note that our referendum fund generates about $8 A5 million dollar in property tax revenue so let's look at those Lake County school districts that uh tax rates acrossed what you'll notice is River Forest at 266 the blue represents both capital and operating referendums that are currently in place you'll notice Crown Point Falls right in the middle of that at a122 with our 18 Cent referendum rate it's interesting to note those that don't have uh blue bars means they have uh all but one have gone out and tried for referendums and you'll notice that those have failed in fact 15 of the 16 districts in Lake County have tried for referendum only one is not and that's marville let's talk about about the referendum rates as they come through you'll notice River Forest High at a16 Crown Point is the lowest referendum rate at 18 cents let's talk about how that money gets spent here at Crownpoint schools so and for the for the most part this has been consistent going back to the initial referendum run in 2011 to 2018 how we have spent that money has been very very consistent you'll notice that 19% goes for safety initiatives since 2012 the first year of the ref referendum every single nurse in school in in Crown Point has been paid for out of the referendum fund both salaries and benefits we've also enhanced our sro's through this process as well 49% goes for academic and educationally related programs what what does that mean back in 2012 it was determined that all Elementary art music and PE teachers we paid for from the referendum every secondary art and music PE teacher we paid for from the referendum on top of that every nonathletic extracurricular activity so think math bowl spell Bowl many of the things that you saw Dr Terell scroll through that we've received recognition for all paid for through the referendum 6% goes for retaining teachers and staff and then 27% goes for managing class sizes that is strictly used at the elementary level approximately three to four in some places five teachers at every Elementary are paid for out of the referendum fund the most important Point to P point out is though 27% plus 49% 76% of the funding for the referendum goes for teachers and staff to provide programs for students that money is going directly back into the classroom for all of those teachers also it equates to almost over 70 teachers that are paid for from the referendum fund so let's talk about the ballot question this is the ballot question in 2018 you'll notice those things that are underling are the items that you control as a board when you pass the resolution so in 2018 seven years was set up now it's important to note that when you passed that in 2018 you passed it for eight years the year before the legislature gave the ability for schools to run eight-year referendums instead of seven however Crown Point was one of the first ones to go back for a renewal of that referendum when you passed the this ballot language in 2018 it was done for eight years when it goes down to the state to be approved the state says no you can't you're renewing a referendum for 7 years therefore you can only do a renewal for seven years therefore the question that was posed to everybody was for a seven-year renewal why is that important seven years plus 2018 puts us directly where where we are right now in 2025 that's why this campaign is happening now you also notice at 21 cents and then the purpose of what the funds were used for was also outlined before let's go to 2025 this is the question now in 2025 again the underlined portions are the items that you control as a school board you'll notice then a year after that determination was made by the state that you couldn't do an eight-year they came back and said it was okay therefore this year we're going for an eight-year referendum again the purpose is outlined and the other piece of this is we're talking about changing the maximum referendum rate from 21 cents to 18 cents now we would normally use the words decrease or reduce but those those are not allowed because that would be unduly influencing the voter important thing to note is you'll notice in the non-underlined areas that the word increase is used four times it's really frustrating because we're actually decreasing the rate that we're allowed to ask for from 21 to 18 however if the first time you see this question is when you go to the ballot that day and all you see is increase and oh by the way you see percentages of 21 and 20% it's going to be very confusing it's important to note that this is not an in increase we're actually decreasing the rate and I'll show you that let's first talk about how property taxes are calculated if you had a home with assess valuation of $100,000 the standard Homestead deductions 48,000 you then get to take another 35% off of that number that therefore making your net assess valuation 33,800 you divide that by 100 multiply it by the rate of 18 cents produces an annual impact of just under $62 or $5 a month let's talk about our tax rate history if you look back to 2017 the tax rate was a138 with a 21 cent referendum rate you'll notice that trending downward and staying at the 21 cent referendum rate until 2024 where it was down to 20 cents and then in 2025 this year we're down to 18 cents what you also notice is as that Trend continued down a138 down to a122 this year now as we've talked many times during our budget sessions our range for our tax rate was between a130 and a140 as our assess valuation grew we were able to take that range down between a130 and a120 as I what's coming in the legislature at this point I'm fully anticipating more than likely a decrease unless we see a huge decrease in the assess value which some of the bills are calling for right now however let's talk about how that 20% is calculated the county auditor has to go through a formula it's about 30 to 35 steps and when they go through that process this 18 cents comes off of that and they essentially compare it to what the tax rate would be without the refer that's how they come up with the 20 cents and as I've shown you and will show you that's not true that's 20% increase is not what is not what happening we're actually going to see a decrease so let's talk about year-over-year 2024 to 2025 the total tax rate now this is the highest tax rate total tax rate so this would include the city the library the county to Township every taxing entity that you would face for us the highest rate is in the city of Crown Point the total tax rate just under $2.75 cents in 2024 in 2025 we're at 263 now remember our rate went from a128 to a122 or a 6-cent decrease so of that 11 Cent decrease from 24 to 25 we're actually a little more than half of that at six cents let's take the median valued home for US 38,500 produces is a gross tax using the calculation I just went through of $ 4654 24 and 25 down to 4461 but we have to remember we have tax caps and everybody's under that 1% tax cap 385 you're only going to pay 1% of your median home at 38,500 now the referendum tax goes on top of the tax cap so you have your tax cap and then the referendum gets placed on top of that you'll notice in 2024 that's 34 $9 in 2025 down to 310 so your final tax bill in 24 would have been 3434 and 25 down to 3395 what does that mean it's actually a 1% decrease in no part of that question do we talk about the decrease that's taking place when you look at the question that's on the 2025 ballot let's look at a little different scenario in 2018 at 21 cents the last time we ran the referendum gives you different levels of homes from 100,000 uh down to 4 00,000 I'm going to focus on that 38,500 because that's the median value median value $355 was the impact of the referendum back in 2018 for that same valued home at 38,500 in 2025 at 18 cents that's $39 important to note when you look at the difference it's down $46 from 2018 to 25 so I'll we talking about the 1% decrease from 24 to 25 we're also talking about a decrease from 2018 to the biggest part to take away from this this is not a tax increase remember the question says it's a tax increase four times most important part it's not a tax increase it's actually a decrease thank you well done so as you can see the takeaways from this are a little complicated at times as we look at the assessed value and how we were outpaced every other school corporation in our County think a big part of that is because of who we are as Crownpoint schools we're not taking credit for the fact that as a property owner my taxes have gone up as my assess value has gone up on my home but the value on my home has gone up significantly over the last four almost five years now that's a big part of what we do here when we looked at moving here my wife and I came up and visited went around the community two different week everything was about Crownpoint schools crowno schools Crownpoint schools it's not only us but it's a great partnership but as you saw those things that make crowno schools different many of those things paid for because of the referendum is all because of this the challenge that we face is as you pay attention to the rhetoric that we're hearing across the country the r rhetoric we're hearing across our state is that public schools this public schools that here in Crown Point we've been fortunate to stay above The Fray we don't get involved in all that stuff we have solid educational experiences for our students for our teachers who work here with us and this is about getting that message out but as you saw that question where it says increase four times when we're actually decreasing that this is the biggest challenge that we face as our communi go members go to the polling centers to cast their vote the first time and and Matt mentioned this that they read that question can't be as they're standing there ready to make their vote it can't be okay so I've seen signs I've seen materials I've seen presentations that everything said it's a DE decrease but here four times it's saying it's an increase we're not going to get into why we think it's an increase four times and not allowing us to say decrease that's beside the point what we've got to do is and we'll actually have a calculator that'll be both on our friends of Crownpoint schools Facebook page and on our website where people can actually go in and put in their address and see the decrease and they'll know what they paid last year what they're going to pay this year because of the referendum rate so that is the message we think is it's incredible uh value that people will get for this as we continue to move forward with it but our message that we like to end up with is we're asking you to renew our referendum at a reduced tax rate moving forward thank you so this will continue to take this presentation out uh I know Danielle's on rotary we're going to the rotary we're presenting to um many more pto's we've got um the Alumni Association coming as well and we'll continue to take this message out and get involved there's great opportunity for you guys for our community members for our teachers and staff members to get involved especially in the month of April um there's links on our Facebook page there'll be links on the website where you can uh sign up to get involved and volunteer to do neighborhood walks to help with yard sign distribution um to help with uh organizing pamphlets call centers so that we can continue to get that message out out and I think that's the biggest thing that we all need to realize here is while there hasn't been a lot out there yet about the referendum once we get back from spring break here next week so the first week in April that next four to be game on where we're really in try and get this message out there especially about it's not an increase in taxes it's actually a decrease so with that I'm going to transition back up there if there's any comments questions that you all have we'd be more than happy to answer those yeah Mr Reese Dr Terell thank you for your hard work that out think you did a great job are there any questions or comments from board members no I'd just like to State and just reiterate what we're asking for is just a continued partnership we've had a great relationship in the past we're not asking for anything more please just understand I thought you you gentlemen did a great job of laying that out there is no tax just asking for continued partnership with it's important that somebody that's lived in ground point for over 20 years now had four kids go through the schools you know it's it's been a real blessing just fortunate to have kids be able to participate and I know Dr ter said seven out of 10 of our students are now participating in extracurricular activities and that's stuck out to me so I also know I've been on the board long enough to know that there's a correlation with academic performance in those activities so with extracurricular participation and student performance they achieve a higher level of academic success so we're just asking for your your your continued cooperation and participation if if you have questions and you're watching the video please use the resources available to you to check and do your own you know fact checks and information and I love the calculator idea I think that's a wondery so enourage anybody else have super quick so um being in real estate as my non SCH War job um a huge draw for for increases in folks wantan to points in our schools so I would say nine out of 10 buyers that I have that are coming through want to be here because we have a great School Corporation so um I I think it's great what we offer for our students but it's also a community benefit our property values increase for everyone whether or not you have a student um so overall having our quality that we're able to provide and what we give as a selling benefit um increases everyone's home values when they go to resell whether or not they have a um a student it's a win across the board even if you're not a a parent or somebody who's got um active students else all right moving on to item six Super discussion groups start with Mr vassor Crow Point yeah good news for us fromel joog concession should have been cut already 84,000 that's a good that's my report that's a good report that's a great report so thank you for sharing item 6.02 director Grant assessments Mr Harman of um I was reflecting on the question I think last board meeting that was into testing I think the question was somewhat talking about how do we help kids with their anxiety okay T well ever since the beginning of uh school new calendar year started testing students we did wa the English Learners we came into that was January and February came into March we have I we have sat going on at the the high school we're coming up into uh April with I learn and I am which is our alternative alternate assessment we finish up with an advanced placement so we've been in this season of testing for you know five months we're coming into a situation now with the March Madness have you ever thought about Madness as far as what goes on I'm going to give you a few synonyms and you probably can reflect on some of these maybe it's you but maybe there's a little bit of craziness that uh that goes on maybe there's a little bit of Hysteria uh that you face or maybe I I can see Mr Angel a little bit hysterical with with some of the the march of Madness Mania is another word I found and then uh uh just uh uh just a kind of just a kind of losing control you know when we're participating or enjoying the March Madness I want to compare that to what goes on for the school that happens in our Madness which say is our testing season and Nick M Dr China kind of referenced these but there needs to be a sense of saintness within our buildings at all times so we can perform well and that goes from the top to the parents to the students the teachers needs to be we need to be same we need to be we need to have that we need to be reacting with common sense we got to have a level of just what say contrasting you know the the the the craziness goes on we want to have a very even key for all people but it does all start from the top and it works through the system so that our students do perform do perform well so a couple of points I just point out here I think our teachers our staff our principles all are working very hard to help our kids to be uh prepared for testing they're getting prepared not only academically but also the mindset for for testing and then I also think the other thing is that testing is a it's a long time it's a long season me you think of some of these students you know an English learner I mean they're going through a series of test depending on what grades they are and to keep that going is very critical and important for us we have great staff that do that parents working with us to accomplish that so it's a gratitude but also to understand that there is a level of comfort saness that we do go through in this time of Madness CR Point schs thank you very much thank you Mr item 6.03 director of Elementary education thank you Mr President and board members good morning uh just a quick update on a few Elementary things happening here uh one district one book uh we are kind of in the final week of of our one district one book I hope everyone's been enjoying just Harriet um we do this to celebrate literacy and encourage family engagement around literacy this Friday we're going to cap things off uh with uh every single Elementary classroom will be uh zooming with the author Alana K Arnold um that'll kind of be the last thing our elementary students do before spring break so we're really looking forward to that so they can ask some questions about the book and learn more about the writing process uh with the author herself uh just want to thank Janna Carney um our media and Library coordinator and all the people in in each building to help make this a s a success uh coming up shortly after spring break is math bow uh we love every time when our uh seven schools can get together so that is coming up on April 15th at 5:00 pm at Colonel wheeler uh students in fourth and fifth grade at each School are practicing hard and preparing for that event and heads up about another new event uh or a new event this year coming up on the evening of May 5th um second graders from every elementary school will be gathering at the cphs football stadium folk dancing night uh so the our music team uh a lot of creative thoughts there and trying trying a new event this year so that's coming up on May 5th to show our families what our second graders have been working on uh in music class this year thanks thank you 6.04 director of SEC educ good morning good morning thank you Mr President and board members I just wanted to take a moment to congratulate Mr fuelling the Crownpoint High School staff the crew the student performers for the play that goes wrong um they wrapped up this performance this last week and I just think it's a true Testament to the talent that our students are able to demonstrate and to develop over the course of the years because we have such BRS of programming from elementary through secondary and it really just shines and brings our community together so um I think that was just such a great opportunity um for all who were able to participate also want to highlight just some of the successes that our middle school students um who participated in the Indiana State School Music Association isma um over the past weekend accomplished at Taft the orchestra received two Golds band received three gold Awards and choir received received a gold rating at Wheeler Orchestra received gold ratings in grad six seven and eight they for band had two Silvers in sixth and seventh and a gold in eighth and then choir was all gold so really exciting that we see again that this is that comprehensive um opportunity that we provide to our students that our middle school students are really um excelling I'd also like to thank Susan Valentine and Annie Vasser they are two of our Blended instruction design specialist they have been working directly with our Encore teachers at the middle school level and I'd like to thank our Middle School Encore teachers as well we're transitioning from nine-week Encore courses at the middle to semester courses for next year and so they've really been um working hand inand to make sure that both buildings are collaborating with each other that they have updated pacing guides and that they have updated plans for how to really engage students through a semester long course which will allow students to have deeper knowledge more exposure a lot of Hands-On learning and and um you know really solidify relationships with those teachers so I thank the board very much for all of your support for the opportunities that you provide to our teachers and to our students thank you you Mrs news skip it 6.5 move on to item 6.06 assistant superintendent Mr J Mr President um couple items first I want to start with the artificial intelligence I know that you had a policy to review here first reading but in addition to that that just so you know the curriculum instruction team has been working with our Blended uh instructional design specialists in creating some AI literacy throughout our staff uh we know that this is something that's not going to go away and we want our teachers to be able to utilize their to the best of their abilities it helps them with their jobs and also helps our students succeed use it appropriately so uh on March 11th our Blended constructional design Specialists Jeremy Walker Vince Lewis Andy V Susan Val present it to all of our staff on this very issue so as we move forward with that and we are also um in the midst of piloting a couple platforms that are teacher platforms that are Tailor Made For Education magic school and some things that are built right into our Buzz learning management system so we're looking at that want to stay ahead of that so just so you know that there's the policy is the tip of the iceberg what's happening Behind These scenes and number two I want to give you an update on uh security badges from cix um they are in place across the corporation we do need some equipment installed at soin due to the construction that will happen over spring break and then after that happens all the training throughout the staff has been done um I want to thank Mr Gil for all his work on the back end um with making sure that the computer systems align um also Mr molaski and helping CICS get into buildings and install all that in December and then our building admins for allowing myself Mr Co said to get out the mornings in front of all the staff over from January to now our goal was to spring break have everything in place and when we come back from spring break everybody should be able to do a three button click and get a building level response or an a button click and put their building into a lock down so great job by everybody pretty heavy lift in the middle of school here thank you item 6.07 thanks Mr President and board members just a brief update on where we are sort of in oury school this isort of time we begin students in next grad staff across theard so I want to thank all of our our principes directors uh everybody involved with starting to move that data forward into a 2025 as we look at at staff for the next year in particular I want to highlight uh just two staff members in my office um as we create uh new workflow protocols there's some things that have to happen behind the scenes either when you was we call offboard somebody when somebody leaves us or onboard somebody when they join us um that in the wake of our old employee management system RDS exiting to just creating some new workflows uh for our employees across the board so that everybody's on the same page when somebody joins us in Point Community School Corporation and then everybody's on the same page they so I want to thank Jean Lang and Rene rich and my office for working very hard on on some of these that's all we have from uh the HR department and we'll keep you posted thank you thank you Mr 6.08 Chief Financial Officer I have nothing to see 69 director of communications Mrs Alan morning good morning thank you I want to thank a couple of our extracurricular programs at the high school who recently hosted um some Media Partners in the last few weeks first is Mr lablanc and the robotics program Lakeshore PBS is doing a 10-minute segment on their neighbors and friends show about that program it was great to have them there um not everyone loves being interviewed with a lital Spotlight on them and two cameras at the same time um so thank you to Mr LeBlanc and his students also thank you to Mr lowski and the Key Club students who run the St Bal DRS event each year CBS News came out and did um four live segments anytime you add a live news crew and a live broadcast to an event creates a little bit more um excitement if you will um so thank you to all of them and the the work that they put into that I think anybody oh kids these days um when I go to these types of events and I talk to our students and I watch them being interviewed um I think kids these days are pretty amazing thank you to them you thank you as I mentioned in our presentation regarding the referendum Matt and I have been out every building presenting to our staff um and talking with them and while that seems time consuming and a lot of work to do that we appreciate the fact of being able to talk with our people when we're in those buildings just kind of rejuvenates you as as we look at the work that we're doing not only uh regular work but also for the referendum work and hearing their stories and seeing their excitement as well um so I appreciate the opportunity to get in front of them um also I want to thank our referendum action committee uh there's about 12 15 individuals who have been working behind the scenes to prepare us and our community here for what's coming in April as we prepare for the vote May 6 and then also want to thank all of those who are going to help as well as we continue to move forward with this um looking at the the heavy lift that we've got to get our message out and appreciate all those who are going to be stepping up and helping with that as well thank you Dr only think spring regional meeting should be all right moving on to item statement appreciation I just elaborate on what we were talking about prior to the start of the meeting and Mr Mr rire touch base on it um the play goes wrong just uh an exceptional afternoon yesterday I went and saw the one yesterday and uh I didn't know what to expect not being someone that goes normally to plays musicals anything like that I'll admit that and I've been to a few but once again not knowing that aspect uh I was very very entertained for two hours it was uh amazing on how obviously it explains the title play goes wrong where things happen as they're doing it but yet it's part of it and between stuff falling down and all that I mean everybody looked to be safe even though it didn't look at times and they was well well executed from top to bottom so uh congratulations to all those involved being our theater Department along with those students and the parents that support that because I can't imagine how many practices and everything else that takes to make sure that's well done so kudos to everybody involved in that Mr yes Mr Reese you said you didn't have anything this morning you were so wrong your presentation was fantastic so it was great thank you for for all you did on that presentation I'm not sure who put the slideshow together there was a collaboration of many people but that was wonderful so today was number 31 then that you did so so thank you for that I I do want to uh express my thanks to uh to our parents in the corporation uh I've been a my entire professional life has been in education and I've always been a believer that education is really a a tripod of teachers and students and parents and if you knock off one of those legs it's not going to stand very well so parents that you continue to work with your students at home just even question how their day was what they're learning in school just just goes miles and miles and miles so kudos to you parents that are doing that continue to do that uh it's going to play Big dividends for you and your family and your students so continue to work with uh your teachers and so forth we really appreciate that thank you thank you Mr always something for me um okay so two quick things the first um Dr China we are loving just Harriet um in our house and I wanted to to recognize a a wonderful Community collab between Eisenhower Elementary and Sunday Funday so um last week they did a little collaboration where they had like a a community night at Sunday Funday and they had a just Harriet special which Harriet in the story she does her waffle cone with two vanilla ice cream so um I thought it was a really cute way to tie everything together I think the more um we make these things into a bigger deal it's just uh more fun for the kids it gets them excited about reading um I know like I said we're really enjoying it at our household and and it's something that's bringing my second and fifth grader together um in the morning which is even more uh of an astonishing uh feat there so we like to read um in the morning right before they go to school so we finish our our chapter of the morning is what they enjoy so um thank you for your continued work putting that together that is um so wonderful and I love that our entire Corporation is doing the same book um this year so thank you for that my second one I want to recognize um our our boys basketball team so we are uh repeat Regional Champions after the game last week so they are advancing to semistate um it's a two game semi-state so they do play Saturday and they are in elart so first game is against Homestead so um hopefully we can get some folks in the community to join us out there thank you Miss B this morning I just want to recognize two things first I saw on the agenda earlier today Scot three of my four children absolutely loved just just a passionate teacher I think that's just love to educate kids know we have a teacher our system said conratulations second last week uh had the opportunity and I know he spoke about this last month but to attend the big ball red white I saw a couple administrators there and so it's all crowno kids but what a phenomenal well- ran event and I think the thing that sticks out when you go to EV if you haven't been to one of these events i' encourage you to do so what sticks out is the The Joy the genuine joy that students these players have just it's just love and consideration and care for each other that they demonstrated something with us so my kids were there we all learn from them and I just think it's a great event great opportunity what what a fun day so I want to recognize the the students that participated and all the individuals that put into that just well done with that look for a motion to adj

e e call the meeting to order if you would all please rise I think we have a special guest that will lead us in a pledge of allegiance to FL of the United States of America and to the for it stands one nation under God indivisible withy and well good evening and welcome to the March edition of the meeting of the Green Castle School board thank you all right do we have any adjustments to the agenda we have no adjustments to the agenda and you all notice that Mr giy is absent this evening so Mrs mcferson will be leading in his stad very good all right moving on to recognitions M mcperson Mr Roberts well I have uh Mr Johnny steuart here he's a first grader at Red path and he was nominated for our character trait of the month respect so Mrs cron his teacher says Johnny never has an unkind word for others and is very respectful and receptive to others ideas thoughts and feelings he respects the rules of the classroom and school by following them at all times I love the way he respects the adults in our building but just as important he respects his classmates and Friends he uses his manners by waiting his turn and being patient and he's a kind helper when it comes to taking care of things in our classroom like the inside recess toys or whiteboards or helping with the Chromebooks I can always count on Johnny to make the right choice so congratulations to Johnny [Applause] seart and add to that a fine pledge reciter yeah outstanding for dear Meadow Mrs Cooper let know today that her student is unable to attend tonight so we are going to honor her on in April um Mrs eldri so at TZ our student of the month for March for respect is Norman Frost and I'm going to turn over to his teacher Mrs Stevens to tell you about why um Norman you are a wonderful student and I appreciate your kindness to everyone and your respect to classmates and to teachers and to all the staff is wonderful so thank you for always being kind and respectful and a good friend to everyone [Applause] this is Macy bowling and she was nominated by her sixth grade teachers for um our character trade of respect um Miss reader said Macy is kind courteous to all students and teachers she's an active participant in class and works hard to achieve her goals and Mr Hansen said Macy is a joy to have in the GMS choir she is respectful of her teachers her fellow classmates and mostly import and importantly herself Macy's a delight to have in class I put that on my email as well and we're thankful for having her as a student at GMS [Applause] finally Mrs good pastor this is Rebecca um she's for the high school and we had several teachers nominated but Mrs Frank said that it's a pleasure to recommend Rebecca hail for the March student of the month Rebecca consistently exemplifies respect in her interaction action with teachers peers and the environment around her making her truly deserving recipient of this award Rebecca approaches every situation with kindness and a positive attitude no matter the circumstances she treats those around her with genuine respect and consideration always maintaining a warm smile even when faced with challenges that all the time she preser uh perseveres through difficulties with Grace handling obstacles in a mature and respectful manner that serves as a model for other classmates Beyond her personal demeanor Rebecca Fosters a classroom environment rooted in mutual respect and encouragement she listens intent engages thoughtfully in her discussions and values diverse perspectives her ability to remain composed supportive and uplifting makes her a great role model for others when I consider a student who embodies respect for oneself others and the community Rebecca immediately comes to mind her actions consistently reflect the values of Integrity kindness and perseverance making a positive impact on those around [Applause] her okay moving on to public comments I have no one registered for any public comments is that correct very good moving on to the approval of the consent agenda which consists of the meeting minutes of the regular board meeting of February 24th 2025 the allowance of claims financial report and Personnel part one and two which are posted on the door Mrs rer yes hello U you've got a couple of payrolls in your payroll packet tonight um the first payroll for February was a total was 482,000 uary 14th payroll was 137 75966 as you looked at that payroll did you have any questions about anything no we'll move on to the final payroll for February 2025 it was uh $2,993 and4 and once again we have those taxes and retirement for that payroll it was1 94 we've got a list of prepays um for February 2025 as you look through that list did anyone have any questions there's nothing unusual on this list but if you have any questions be happy to answer them no okay we'll go ahead and move on to you'll see this is dated February 27th um claims number two we did um you uh gave me authorization to go ahead and do a second AP for February due to my vacation we've got some folks that still need to be paid even if I'm out the building so we we went ahead and did a second AP for February so that's what you'll see here on this list as you went through that list did anyone have any questions about that did not okay we'll move on from that one and then we've got a list of claims that are dated today March 17 2025 and once again did you um go ahead and glance through there did anyone have any questions about anything specifically pretty standard no okay no questions the total for the claims dated today and I'd like to point out that it is um a week early due to the board meeting so it's not going to be nearly as much as usual and we'll probably Circle back to this um in the uh later agenda item but the total for today March 17 2025 is 292,000 m871 11569 and we're going to go down a couple more rows to fund $300 operations balance in operations at the end of February 2025 629 go ahead and go to the very last page and the balance in all funds is 10 million 7471 12693 as we take a look at the bank to fund statement we've got our total um balance in our banks and then we also have our total balance in our funds that we have here at the schools and we always always want those two things to balance and usually they do and they have once again this month so we're looking good and then we have those fund transfers um that would include the education to Ops we have school launch transfer and then you also authorize me to make some adjustments if I need to move money from One bank to another total transfers for February 2024 or 2025 is 2895 and then lastly we've got um expenditures for Bond 2021 and 2022 as you can see we do did not have any expenditures during the month of February so our balance is there you'll see there's no new expenditures so you'll see what our total expenditures to date are in both of those bonds any any questions I'd like to submit for approval any questions all right can I get a motion motion have a motion to have a second second a motion in a second we have any further discussion hearing none all those in favor I I any opposed motion will carry thank you Mr thank you okay moving on to the reports of the assistant superintendent Mrs SM you have the floor yes um as you know this is our first year with the ja program at the middle school and high school so I've invited Mrs Crosby our high school ja specialist and some of her students to come up and share a little bit about a recent competition and participated it would you'd like to come on up everyone and share with us are just that we' these are just some of my students that came um Inman who's our president of the Jag Association then I have wat izyan wood and Maya slel and these are all kids that comped in the CDC um most of you [Music] played up to how we doing thanks for having us uh as you know I'm br mman I'm the inaugural Jag career Association president here at Green Castle as you know we are in our first year but I think we've started out pretty well I think Jag itself is a really unique class I think if you have the opportunity to take it you should it's it offers a lot that not a lot of other classes that you may take may have I I think the two that stand out the most to me are the job shadowing opportunities that you have and the guest speakers that come in because we have guest speakers that I think the best word to use for our guest speakers is diverse we have people from colleges come in we've had people from all the Armed Forces come in we've had employers come in just something for everybody I think but the CDC is something we participated in I think in January January it was held in Terra hope I think at ivch building ivch campus and it stands for the career development conference and I think that's really really what it was I personally participated in two activities I made a made a Jag commercial for our Jag program here at K castle with two of my friends who went up with us tonight same Lancaster and Dylan Campbell but I'd like to give them a little shout out because I do think they helped a lot with it I don't think I can stand up here and talk without them but we made a Jag commercial and that placed third in our is it class was it in ouris in our division okay we placed third in our division with that and fittingly up here I did public speaking as uh as my other activity which was impromptu you had to rehearse it and you had two to five minutes to talk about what Jag has done for you and that's what I did and I play in my division which I was which I was somewhat surprised by there were some really great contestants but I think that's that's something that I think highlights what the CDC does it lets a school like Green Castle compete with schools that might be smaller but also might be bigger and gives students at Green Castle the opportunity opportunity to do things that they might not have the ability to do not in Jag so I think the CDC went well but I think overall the more Green Castle Jag program does I think the more success Green Castle Jag will have but I think this first year here the foot in the door I think I think it went really well but that's all I have to say in case in case all my my friend up here want to say anything else hi um I'm Izzy um this is I'm a junior this is my first year in Jag and I really think that Dr is one of the most beneficial classes that I have taken all throughout high school and um I will continue to be taking it through my senior senior year and um just like Bren said it is like very beneficial class you get diversity of people in their tra people that went to college people that just went gr to like the workforce so I really think it helps like open like students Minds into like instead of like you don't always have to go to college You by far the workforce you still get successful so that well State I want to say something now I'm um so I would say that in Jag we don't just learn stuff about careers she also helps with life skills and stuff like that and I feel like that's really useful because you don't really learn that in school anymore so I feel like having this class is a lot like more useful than just knowing what you want to do out of high school and it's not like we've been having guest speakers come in and it's not like you have to go to college you successful like it like having different careers come in helps a lot with knowing what you want to so and I'm also a junior and I'm taking it next year all right thank you so much for sharing well done how many students were in the class currently I have 47 I started with 50 had three move out but I have 47 currently and our Max is 50 um I am sitting on 63 applications right now so I have Nar down wow good problem yeah it is a good it is a good to have some of the schools in our district like like in our Reg is seven which is ter they only have one period And I have four so I'm glad I don't have have that issue so awesome I was really excited to see this program get started it's a blessing to see that it's blowing up like that so well done to you all thank you thank you for being here as well all are invited to come into my classroom if you guys want to come speak we may just do that very good thank you soate it thank you I have just a couple of other things I want to share um we've had a lot going on in the world of Fine Arts the last couple of weekends um we have our um Student Art Show going on at the putam County Museum now through April so it's a great opportunity to go and see all the wonderful artwork that our students at gcsc have submitted and done I also want to thank harrie Hamilton at TZ um they had their musical last week at the Bandstand and I I hear it was almost standing room only there were hardly any tickets left and so it was a great performance and she put a lot of work into that students did too um and then our middle school and um van and choir they competed this uh past weekend for their isma competition and there were goals across the board for it so um it's a lot of wonderful things happening in the world of Fine Arts um and last but not least when we return from spring break uh on April 3rd we have our preschool and kindergarten Roundup at Deer Meadow and Ri so we are pushing information about that to get all of those um future tiger cubs ready and enrolled very good okay thank you for that all right we have no old business we'll move into new business we have several approval requests starting with uh schools for the future pilot program yes so we are asking for approval to participate in the schools for the future pilot program at the high school um part of the requirements for the new redesign of the diploma includes students demonstrating skills in areas like communication collaboration and work ethic which are kind of hard to grade and so this pilot program is designed to help students showcase those skills in ways that teachers can actually track their growth and development through them in order to um get the things that they need for that high school diploma this is just a pilot program and the high school guidance will be working um with just a select group of students this first year to navigate it and give feedback to the program it's not something that we are um you know that we have to do past 25 26 and we're not paying for it um it's just a way for us to kind of look and see what is the best way that we can um track our student growth in these specific areas so that kind of like zeros in more on what each individual student may be interested in or maybe want to move forward to right cool okay it's actually called skills for or the schools this tools for future initiative okay you have any other questions all right here can I get a motion to approve so I have a motion do I have a second second a motion in a second any further discussion hearing none all those in favor I I any opposed and motion will carry all right I have a a request for a memorandum of understanding which is mou between Green Castle School Corporation and Green Castle City Police Department excited about this one yes so we are requesting your approval um of this you between our school corporation and the city police department for an SRO officer to begin serving our schools on April 1st um the officer will travel between five buildings um but from what Mr Gib has shared we are still defining what those specific tasks and responsibilities will be but we are very excited about this partnership and the impact it will have on our students and staff this has been a long long process long process very excited anyone have any questions so we're going to just determine the location and then how like if a principal needs them how they can be contacted think that's still to come and then I see this is through June 30th but it's renewable each year wonderful y than you and right now we're going to start with just part-time officers from the Department um and hopefully in the future we can move to more of a full-time officer that we that we'll do it but this is kind of a pilot program to get it off the off the ground and and get us going so this is where we're at pretty excited about it very EXC what is the time frame to go through the SRO training you have a year uh from April 1 to Once once the officers start we have a year to get them through the the actal week long training for school resource officer so we're just putting them all through yeah any we have I think four four maybe five officers that are interested in doing that right now so we'll get them through um and once we get them all through then they're they're good from that point on they'll just have continuing education from that point that they'll be required every year to to complete they'll just have the one time one time training any other questions okay hearing none can I please get a motion motion have a motion do I have a second second a motion in a second any further discussion hearing none all those in favor I I any opposed that motion will Carri thank you very much all right we have a request for the 2025 26 mindful growth school psychologist contract with Dr Abby Jones yes Mrs Sullivan is requesting board approval to continue our contract with our school psychologist services with Dr Abby Jones through mindful Gro um Dr Jones has been working with us for over a year I believe this is right year and um has been really positive so we're asking for that contract okay can I get a motion motion to approve motion do I have a second second have a motion a second any further discussion hearing none all those in favor I I any opposed that motion will carry all right have a request for overnight tennis team to Floyd Floyd Central April 11th through the 12th of 20125 Mrs good pastor Mrs Mr greenle are requesting your approval for the um High SCH school girls tennis team to attend an overnight trip to Floyd Central in order to participate in a varsity tennis tournament they'll leave um Friday afternoon after school and then will return on Saturday most of the um tennis matches will be on Saturday she said there might be one Friday night as well are they G have enough time if they do play Friday night to leave after school very nice okay do I have a motion to approve motion motion do I have a second all right I have a motion in two seconds do we have any further discussion hearing none all those in favor I any oppos that motion will carry have a request for permission to pay late arriving invoices for March of 2025 yes alluded to that earlier in her the board meeting being a little early this month we want to make sure that we get our vendors paid timeline as of course those invoices continue to come in we want to stay on schedule and good graces with our vendors so um if you're okay with it if I get your approval we'll go ahead and generate a second AP just like we did in February and like we do at the end of every calendar year to kind of clear things out we do a second one in November or excuse me December normally but if you allow me to do that that way it kind of Keeps Us on top of pay pay to our vendors it's always good to St in graces with those of service all right can I get a motion so Mo a motion do I have a second second a motion in a second any further discussion hearing none all those in favor I any opposed that motion will carry all right and we have looks like we have a request for some donations Gary and Linda Hubert to Green Castle High School ban for $500 your self-explanatory all right do I have a motion to approve so moved you have a second second motion a second any discussion hearing none all those in favor I I any opposed motion carries thank you very much for the donation all right do we have any other business yeah so uh I just wanted to give a shout out to the transportation Department um we took the Middle School baseball team to uh an ISU IU baseball game the other day and we had issues understanding how the bus worked and Candace py was phenomenal she was on the phone with us for a good 20 25 minutes when we got to the game and then she met us back at the transportation office when we got back uh just to help us so we didn't have the same issue getting the child locked thing off so huge shout out to them uh for teaching us how to work a bus did you have someone locked in the bus no the other coach but it was fine that's cool that works that works yeah I have to I have to piggyback on that um our transportation department is is topnotch they're good folks they handle a lot of business in town um if you've ever been at the transfer lot uh after school it's organized chaos and they're hurting cats and it's very phenomenal how they have that all very quickly done and everybody's in and out um in the snow and the rain and it's it's a phenomenal thing so well done well done any other business spring break just reminder starts on Friday we do have school on Friday so I hope everyone has a really relaxing spring break and enjoys their time if they're staying home or venturing out to one I anyone else okay I'd like to give a u just a quick shout out um in regard to the SRO M that we just voted on um I want to give a a big thanks to Mr gibon and his crew for all their hard work on getting all this together and you um I just did my part on the side um our chief of police for doing a lot of work behind the scenes of getting this done our mayor and our City attorney for their hard work on getting all this uh written out and thought through um it's been a long time coming it's been five years it's been on my list every year to try and get this done and we're finally kind of moving in that direction so very proud to have this done and all the hard work of everyone has put into it so hopefully uh we don't need them for any reason but we'll be there if we do so very good and thank you for the board support and for the public support do appreciate it all right do we have any other business hearing none we'll move to adjournment do I have a motion to adjourn so move second I have a motion in a second do you have any discussion on that hearing none all those in favor I I any opposed that motion will carry have a safe spring break everyone see you next month yes

pledge of allegiance aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the repic for it stands one nation under God with lice at this time Miss Carla Johnson will present our above and beyond award not good evening Madame President Dr Smith and members of the board we are proud tonight to present two above and beyond awards from ELC Brook Park tonight with us we have Mrs Diana Goodwin if she could come forward and her principal congratulations to Mrs Diana Goodwin Treasurer at ELC Brook Park for being selected to receive the above and beyond award in November of 2024 we needed an administrative assistant and since then Diana has worked hard to enroll students adjust attendance and take calls from parents all of this was done in addition to her Treasurer responsibilities she works between two buildings and the other building didn't lack because of her time with us she literally kept us going and for that we're grateful she's truly amazing we are honored to present Diana Goodwin with the above and beyond award congratulations [Applause] and next Chanel gray if she will come forward congratulations to Mrs Chanel gray family Leah on at ELC Brook Park for being selected to receive the above and beyond award Chanel has been a huge support this year not only has she pulled between the four elc's but she also has supported other buildings Chanel has come to our building on numerous occasions when it wasn't her assigned day to help support family needs help with the endof day dismissal and get students enrolled when we were without a student support specialist she was here helping students talking them through their concerns and feelings and conducting restorative practice she always asks is there anything else I can do for you she asked from her heart not her position that's why we love her we are honored to present Chanel gray with the above and beyond award congratulations [Applause] and Chanel and Diana I believe have guests with them this evening would your guests like to rise and would you like to acknowledge them my husband Bob is there hi Bob thank you my grandmother and my husband wow that's amazing thank you thank you for your support Perot perect spot can't we see yeah all right here one two three one congratulations [Applause] congratulations again and that concludes our Awards portion of the board meeting at this point we will move to our information items with our Blue Ribbon update Mr Roger Smith Madam president members of the board Dr Smith again uh renovation on the kitchen continues likewise kitchen Hood going up uh just demoed and putting back the percussion uh band room and at pul Creek Valley we continue a lot of hallway work on the walls and Floors front ENT uh entrance with the weather breaking we're able to get back on that as well as some uh site work new lecc the building exterior green boards Almost 100% complete Roofing and a lot of next slide you'll see a lot of brick work going up and around uh all three sides right now interior work on the first and second floor continue and downstairs we will be finish up uh the four rooms for file storage uh spring break thank you Mr Smith board are there any questions or comments Miss D do have a question at the park and Rex board meeting um last week there was a question about a fence between Fall Creek Valley and the Fall Creek Park do is that fence owned by us the school district there's a partial fence it doesn't go all the way down but we usually maintain those fences okay that is what the Assumption was I just wanted to make sure that that was indeed accurate okay thank you yes there was some questions if there would be erected a longer fence to keep folks out and I said I was not aware of that being the case it's kind of opened it up for people move back and forth exactly which is really nice which was what one of the individuals said that they really enjoyed having the access from there so thank you I just wanted to call out that Craig is also known as the lecc or future Craig Academy for any any members of the public who don't recognize it as Craig Craig you can good um any other questions or comments board as far as the outdoor athletic um Fields um for the track and the tennis at the middle schools um how how far along are those projects uh they're back on at the Middle Schools they're back on the dugouts both softball and baseball baseball bells are uh the roofs going on right now so we're looking to have those uh ready for uh use thank you and I I appreciate and wanted to share with the public too that Craig or lecc where we're at the track was resurfaced a year or two ago and is accessible um for the public it's very nice and also I believe are the tennis courts finished are also finished oh okay tennis courts are finished so um thank you for that if there are no other questions or comments then we will move on to our next item Mr Smith um update on the bids for Mary Castle plans and specifications Madam president Dr members of the board I just want to uh recognize again our partners on this uh project Anna Marie's here with Schmid and the associate our Architects for the uh project uh Dustin thulman and Jose valz uh are the CMC contractors for this project as well uh we did receive bids on February 27th for seven bid categories and 27 contractors uh bid uh those seven categories bids came in below estimates uh good competitive bids uh the GMP contract for powers and Suns for Mary castle room Edition will be $5,500,000 and the total project hard cost and soft cost all in is at 7 million very good board any questions or comments about the Mary Castle plans okay very good we will move on Mr Smith to the bids for the Craig Phase 2 Renovations mam president Dr Smith members of the board again Fanny and Hoy is the Architects uh on this uh project Dustin thulman and Jose Valdez with powers and Suns uh will be overseeing the renovation of Craig Academy phase two um where bids were received on uh February were nine bid categories with 16 contractors bidding bids again came in below estimates good competitive bids and the GMB GMP contract for powers and Suns to renovate grade phase two is 23 m862 ,29 and the total project cost hard and soft cost all in is at 32 million very good board any questions or comments regarding the bids on Craig Mr Smith for members of the public who are wondering if this had to do with the referendum that we did many years ago where is that uh $32 million coming from sorry Mr miles I'll jump in good great question this is not part of our Capital referendum from 2019 this is part of uh new bonds that have been bundled uh which were actually approved um about it was part of our $90 million package that was approved about a year and a half ago by the board U that process that included this project and several others throughout the district thank you for that um any other questions or comments board regarding Craig I have a question just when I was reading um in number 19 of the GMP clarifications that no temporary classrooms or food service equipment are in included we're not expecting for kids lunches or anything to be disrupted okay that was it I was looking and reason thank you okay if there are no other questions or comments at this time we'll move on to Mr Matt miles for our 2025 budget tax rate update Mr miles thank you madam president members of the board Dr Smith at this time of the year I always report back um to let the board and the public know where our budget came in in um and just to kind of give a brief summary of how the process works again we we start work putting the budget together each summer bring it before the board through the advertised process the state uh required process and get a board approval in the fall we hear back from uh the dgf the department of local government Finance typically uh right around uh with the week of Christmas New Year's right in that time frame so first of the year and then once we're able to um gather the data we report back and so that's what we're doing tonight at this time um first slide shows um our actual budget um what was our budget from 24 the advertised budget for 25 the anticipated or expected budget for 25 and then what we actually got back uh from the dgf on that final column um would remind the board and the public uh everything that you see tonight is is requires no deficit spending whatsoever and remind the public once again we have no operating referendum so that's a great thing for for the district helps keep our tax rates low U just on this first slide couple things I'll point out um you again you can see last year's total budget um that's their appropriated budget so the amount we're able to spend was about $234 million this year is actually at 224 so a little lower um that first line item is driving that that education fund line item again that's setep set by the state uh might be something we revisit because certainly um there's you know we could need to spend more than $124 million and as long as the cash is there that actually helps protect our cash balance so we may uh be looking at an additional appropriation that line item is not driven uh by any kind of local property tax that's money from the state uh in the for through the forms of our ADM so on the next slide wh actually I'll go back to one other thing right there at the bottom I'll just point out our assessed value um comes in two forms our total assessed value U the top line item there that is subject to our property tax caps so for residences that's 1% property tax cap um and then we also have two and 3% tax caps for Farm ground and for business uh owned property um so that went up 4% this year we're just over7 billion do in in the township and our referendum AV is always a little higher U that is exempt from the property tax cap so that uh that number uh drives our Capital referendum dollars that we're able to receive and and as those have gone up over the years that certainly drives um the amount that our taxpayers pay as well so we'll go to the next slide this deals more with the rate again you'll see the the comparisons over versus 24 our advertised our expected and our actual we always advertise High noting that the state's going to knock it down so we we kind of project what an expected rate is you saw the expected rate was about A113 we're going to end up just over a112 uh for the year and then the same AV numbers again at the bottom and then the last slide uh is our actual budget order so the levy the actual dollars that we would anticipate receiving if all taxes are paid in full and on time um we would be at just over $80 million there uh for the year across Debt Service uh our pension Bond our Capital referendum and our operations funds uh and then also noting our circuit breaker impact that is the property tax cap piece that we do not receive so anticipating about $7 million in circuit breaker impact in 2025 thank you Mr miles board any questions or comments Miss Lawrence yes I have a couple Mr miles um the the first is related to the tax um um uh for members of the public who maybe aren't tracking on some of the tax caps that are running through the the legislature now I wonder if you could just give us a brief understanding of the potential impact to school districts like our should a tax cap be put in place absolutely um do my best there's a lot of things going around right now um Senate bill one uh has to do with our budget um House Bill 10 uh 10 24 1402 sorry got my ones in my four 1402 uh is another one that's coming into play and then another Senate bill um really the the cumulative effect that we're seeing potentially at this time um could could impact the sharing of our local property tax dollars uh with Charter Schools that's one of the big impacts uh uh going through the Senate um that could some estimates on some of the early bills that we going through and some of the numbers that were uh being projected was as much as $26 million impact over a three-year period U from 26 through uh 28 um a lot of different numbers some projected it's it's kind of hard to put an exact finger on exactly where those are going to go but but the general theme is um from from the governor uh through the state house now and and the uh the legislature is prop property tax Caps or cuts are coming um will certainly impact Lawrence Township it will impact all school districts um and just to the extent of what that's going to be yet is kind of to be determined and how does our tax rate compared to our neighbors that's a great question um again noted earlier we didn't we do not have an operating uh referendum which really helps us uh we are the second lowest tax rate in Maring County Mr miles if I were in court this would be called leading the witness now Mr miles um could you also please give me an understanding for those who don't understand the difference between a capital referendum and an operating referendum and why we see that number going down over time uh great question uh your honor um counselor um so the capital referendum refers to um typically building projects so for us we touched all buildings across the district obviously major projects at our high schools uh that was approved originally up to 24.9 cents I believe just under right at 25 cents uh per hundred uh dollars of assessed value well over time as our av goes up and the assessed value goes up we're not borrowing more money so we the rate comes down and still gives us the same money to pay off those bonds U on the operating referendum side um again helps us keep our tax rate low here at Lawrence the the schools that have that the districts that have an operating referendum they're able to use those funds in a variety of ways typically they can they can pay teacher salaries they can pay other expenses but they don't have enough money uh liquidity in their budget to to meet their budget without asking their taxpayers for additional funds so they go back out has to be approved they have to be renewed every eight years and so um while they're upsides and helps them have more funds um there's certainly some risk there and at any time it could not be renewed and um and then they would have some budget challenges has Lawrence Township ever gone out for an operating referendum we have not thank you thank you Miss D first of all I think that it is very important um that the public does understand so I want to thank you um Miss Lawrence because it truly is when we look at surrounding districts Lawrence is an anomaly as it pertains to um the fiscal health of this district and that goes um without saying that that is your leadership as well as the leadership of our superintendent and so um during times like this I think it's very very important for us to acknowledge the great work that is being done by our superintendent and the members of his cabinet so I just want to applaud you all for the outstanding work that is happening to keep us physically sound um just want to also make sure I for members of the public what is currently happening with proposed budgets House Bill 1402 Senate bill um one as well as Senate bill um 1518 would not have an impact on our district for this tax rate correct that is that is correct I think that's really important very that's that's important to note absolutely that there are some things that are out there hanging but for this for purposes for this budget this is what it is correct correct thank you for sharing that thank you board any other questions or comments I have a quick comment I thought was a cool note just to add that our tax rate has actually declined since 2022 so so again that speaks to um what what all has been expressed here so that's what I was looking at when you're like you are going in I thought it was the coolest I was just doing some little research so I thought that was awesome so yep thank thank you yes at that time we were a114 and some change thank you and on page two of this report on the last column on the capital referendum piece it said our actual rate is 01777 that is actually lower than what it was initially um predicted correct corre yes it's that's uh declined steadily since that initial that first year and was the first what was the first uh it was approved to go up to 24 almost 25 cents okay so so that's great and all of this is wonderful board uh this really gives us bargaining power when we speak with our legislators and those in public office about the good work of our financial and fiscal responsibil so thank you thank you all right so now we will move on I believe Mr miles is up again for the cancell canellation of outstanding checks thank you madam president once again members of the board Dr Smith this this is an item we bring back at this time each year um just like um you would do in your personal finances the district may have checks that we've written um they've sat out there for some time and they need to be um expunged or cancelled so uh you have a list of checks uh that have been written um that are over two years old at this point that by Statute we need to cancel those so uh bring it it to you now as information later this evening uh for approval and action U to clean up a Rooks uh with those cancellation objects I have one question related to this uh have they already been cancelled because if my name was on that list and I forgot that I had a check floating out there maybe I want to come get that, it's a great question despite our best efforts for somebody to claim these monies they have not yet now no they have not been uh canceled until the board approves it and then we'll take that action so if their name was on this list they can call you tomorrow and get their money too late okay so moral the story cash your checks when they we would rather you do that make our world a lot better along those lines do we still issue paper checks to most of our vendors or are most automated uh a lot of them are automated at this point we write fewer and fewer checks um over the years um electronic payments have have really caught on um and so we do write fewer checks certainly all our you know payroll checks um most people get direct deposits anymore that type of thing so some of our vendors um Still Still we do pay with papercheck I guess theoretically we could say it was publicly posted Thursday so if they saw their name they could Rush In And that is correct get their check before we vote on it tonight so absolutely thank you board any other questions or comments okay so now we will move on to the application for the common school loan Mr miles thank you once again Madam president this next item comes to us uh annually sometimes twice a year um and we always appreciate the state doing this um it's a big help for us uh what's known as the common school loan or this common School fund loan uh we're able to use this for technology devices for our students and for our teachers Prim they have to be in the classroom and it's driven by ADM so we get a percentage um of our ADM and so this year we would be eligible to apply for uh just over $1.6 million from the common school loan it is a loow interest interest loan backed by the state of Indiana at just 1% very inexpensive money uh the board did approve a similar action um last fall so Mr gag Dr gagin will be coming to us a little bit later here today to to share some information on that uh but we are investigating uh the best use of these funds should this get approved later tonight information now and then hopefully action um approval later this evening thank you Mr miles I do have one comment Dr Smith I'm wondering if you could talk about the federal program that allows us to purchase um purchase techn technology at a at a lesser rate because even though we get a loan it depends how expensive those those devices are Dr gag line your board members are very smart go to the podium they attended the advocacy Workshop by put on by nsba and they heard very clearly from board members across the country that the federal government cannot cut our favored term from federal government eate eate yes tell them about eate so eate comes in two categories and it is designed to uh provide connectivity to schools and libraries uh basically it looks at bringing the fiber to the building and then the devices needed that once it's in the building think of it in your own home the router uh that distributes uh the uh connectivity throughout the building that has those two categories um you can get reimbursement uh based on our location and various demographics we qualify for 90% reimbursement so we were able to for instance connect uh Sunny Side the other uh just happened a couple weeks ago finally um but that was 10 we only had to pay 10% and I think we brought to you millions of dollars worth of work and we're only going to pay $100,000 for it so it's a great program yeah I just would like to add to is somebody who works on technology and is in this field dealing with uh the high-tech IND industry every single day uh Computing capacity is not going down it's only going up as we move into this agentic future um we will continue to need to outfit our students with the right sort of devices in order for them to be cutting edge and for our country to continue to be leading in this in this effort thank you board for your work at the federal government because would you need to pay attention that if the federal government is deciding to make Cuts particular in E we will Adam be against it because it does provide us tremendous infrastructural support Dr gagl so your board members learned a lot about that and spoke V openly in support of the federal government continue to keep ER thank you okay very well uh any other questions or comments Bard okay well Dr gag line you can stay up there so president Norman members of the board Dr Smith um as Mr miles alluded in the fall uh you gave us permission to go out and seek the common school loan which we received so we got the money up front now it's time to spend that in our yearly uh routine of purchasing Chromebooks for the incoming Sixth and nth graders we had 28 vendors respond and we evaluated those 28 uh vendors on not only on price but also on durability of the device and the uh repairability of our device ease of repair we also threw a couple wrinkles in just to see what would happen because we want to keep these devices in service as long as we could or can and we asked if they would throw in co uh covers for them and then we said how about ADP because last year all of a sudden ADP showed up on one of the uh proposals so we said let's see what they'll do and they responded very well and so um we budgeted $1.2 million to pay for all these Chrome books this came in at 1.19 so we came in underneath just barely but that's good um but the uh electronic strategies not only did they give us one year of ADP they give us four years so the students receiving these devices will get four years of ADP so accidental damage protection and we're hoping that we can continue this every year so this just becomes something that is covered to the common school loan and won't be on parents from moving forward I just want to say say thank you for as as a parent in the district thank you but also as somebody who loves a good negotiation that's pretty that's great so appreciate all the work that went into that thank you so later on we'll ask for permission to engage with El electronic strategies thank you any other questions for Dr gag Bo are any of these uh vendors Lo local or um yeah electronic strategies has a office here in Castleton okay thank you no all right very good we'll move on back to Mr miles for the financial update happy this time to present our February 28 2025 financials uh both for the general fund and our transportation Fund in front of you you have the general fund and we always love to see those uh exciting green checks tells us we're running ahead of the original projection projection is just that it's a projection um but we use that that Benchmark throughout the year um our Revenue um at this time exceeds projections and our expenditures are slightly below our um projections so uh again yielding a good net uh cash position for us at the end of the at the end of the month uh in the general fund um as we move to look at the transportation fund um similarly um primarily we're seeing um a good Trend there this the transportation fund only receives money twice a year primarily are big chunks um so that's why there's always a lag in revenue on the transportation side versus what we see on the general fund uh but we plan for that we budget for that and again um our current ending balance is ahead of projection very good board any comments questions M I'm gonna say my my same thing is that I really really really like to see us move instead of general fund which is no nclat from 2018 to move to what we're using today in 2025 I think it's very important for our constituents that we're using the same terminology I also have a curiosity about um it looks like we are significant Oly over in Transportation on supplies and materials and I'm curious as to the cause of that and wondering if anything that we're seeing currently um with the cost of certain items potential tariffs things of that nature is going to play a role and if we need to make um any mooves specifically in this area moving forward so great great questions I think I'll start with your second one first the other one is just me being me that's okay you know that's that's that's your role um you know as far as the the supplies I think those are great questions uh we've talked to vendors on regular basis um about whether it's potential the tariffs uh just increase in cost of goods um we've certainly seen a tremendous increase um on the construction side um I was talking with a colleague um recently uh who said you know one of their building projects has doubled um over the last four years just what they were looking at um our cost of our bus is about the same you know they they've just they've just steel has gone up a lot of those so yes there are some of that driving this yes um we also tend to see a little bit of a higher expenditure earlier in the year just from January the way our the way our uh our PO process goes we kind of have to shut down some of the PO process in December to allow us to to close our books so sometimes January gets a bigger hit and and we don't always project that exactly um it is definitely something we will want to watch Mr Smith and Matt miles who's a former director of Transportation I know in January February Roger you have something extremely important happens from the state your bus inspections does that require a little bit more spending on equipment and materials yes and we have some older buses that does require a little more attention for fix and repair so Janu December January uh we are bu buying a lot of parts making sure that our buses are for uh ready for inspection and uh as noted before we did have a 97% pass rate uh so you know kudos to our uh mechanics in the garage for prepping our buses thank you very much yeah any other I do have yeah go ahead um thank you Miss Dunn for raising the Tariff question uh because I actually uh it made me rethink some of the questions from the the previous pieces uh particularly around the Craig academy uh Mr Smith do we anticipate that $32 million total budget for Craig Academy to be consistent um even given the potential increases that would happen because of Steel cost or tariffs or any other implication there well with your passing of that contract tonight those prices are locked in so uh we may have a few little things out there if we make changes to uh the process over the next two years but uh uh the cost that you see there tonight should stay within that cost and this is a question that I have that is um going to display my own ignorance about energy policy within the state of Indiana but does Indiana import any energy from Canada I know Michigan for example was going to be hit with some some tariffs that were okay yeah I I wonder because that could potentially have implications not aware of as is pretty much uh our provider for all of our buildings and whether or not they buy from certain ones I'm not aware of I know it's a big issue in States like Michigan for example I if it was hitting Indiana I hadn't heard thank you for us and we're some of their largest consumers Roger Smith and Matt miles and that citizen Energy Group and uh the power company IPO so good discussion are there any other questions or comments board regarding the financial update okay at this time I'll move on to our board board committee chair reports Foundation dral Holland well February ended very exciting with the Lawrence Township School Foundation gala and uh congratulations to the foundation and on uh raising close to $130,000 very beautiful wonderful evening and they will have an another event some of you may be interested in it's their 39th Annual for the kids golf tournament and that'll be Thursday May May 29th and it begins at 8: a.m so I just wanted to pass that along thank you Dr mahand Lawrence Parks and Recreation Miss dun yes we have a lot going on in the City of Lawrence um you can always visit the website visit Lawrence indiana.com for all these exciting um details every Thursday is the Forever Young club that is uh for individuals who like to um play games who are senior in age um April 11th is the Forever Young Club Fitness it's uh chair yoga that is from 11: to 12 and those both occur at community park there in Franklin Road um April 19th is the Spring Fling and then April 22nd we have um some volunteers from our Lawrence Township helping with uh the Earth Day clean up from 7:30 to 12:30 so some exciting things happening again if you want to visit Lauren indiana.com to learn more you can certainly do that wonderful uh do you know Miss stun are they planting trees as part of their e is that on the website that it is Mo mostly a clean up I know that um there is a push by Liz missort to um also use that time to cut invasive species of plant life but for the most part it is going to be cleaning specific areas that DS have been designated by the City of Lawrence as kind of hot spots to make them beautiful again thank you all right so now we will move on to policy here's some fun stuff yes um in policy news Neola revision package uh volume 37 number one has been uploaded for processing and we are now awaiting nea's final review before the revision packet goes active um moving forward the policy committee is scheduled we meet on Tuesday March 18th and um this is to review and update volume 37 um number one the administrative guidelines and lastly in legislation news this past week the Indiana General Assembly continued to address education issues spread out in a variety of committees as a reminder bills must have Advance out of they must Advance out of committee by April 10th and second reading by April 14th or they will be considered dead for this session so the session ends April 29th thank you Miss Pucket and to go along with that Miss Lawrence do you have any um updates for as our legislatively ason oh my there are several uh so as Miss Pucket rightly said we are kind of in the final throws of this uh of this cycle um Senate Bill 146 is a bill to increase the starting teacher pay from $40,000 a year to $45,000 a year not as much of an impact for Lawrence Township because our starting pay is $55,000 maybe 52 sorry thank thank you for the clarification $52,000 I was trying to go like tickle brain cells way back but um uh and and in addition to that the one thing that could have some impact for our district is uh a requirement within that bill to um fund teacher salaries from 62% of the budget to 65% of the budget and also add in 20 days of paid parental leave I'm not sure what our parental leave is I meant to ask you that before the board meeting but car do you have that off the top of your head our um leave you got it exactly go go ahead go ahead how many days I think 12 12 days so that would be an INE increase for lawren Township increase that um another bill that is hot to trot is Senate Bill 287 for those of us sitting up here on the de um the bill originally would require that um that those who are up for Schoolboard elections would have to declare a party or to declare in their independence from a party affiliation um that has they've eliminated the primary option which I assume means that we could have multiple Democrats or multiple Republicans um running in the same election I know for example in my race I had four people myself included I believe you had two on your ticket um so uh so there that is a an interesting kind of development there um they are also um sorry um it moves to the house for second reading um isba is advocating for May meaning that you may declare affiliation or declare non-affiliation um as we've said as a board um it's it's critical for us to be able to work across the aisle um so not having a party affiliation really allows us and frees us to do our job uh which is to to do the best work for our students um in Lawrence Township and finally the property tax relief you heard some discussion of that already in this meeting um Senate bill one uh is the property tax cap Bill there are several bills that have been offered in um as an alternative House Bill 1402 would result roughly um in1 billion do reduction to Public Schools over six years um as we've said before and as was Illustrated tonight in the budget um discussion these bills that would would cap taxes could have significant import for our district but also districts across the state so um for those of you who feel so inclined calling your state legislators or your state um Representatives is critical at this time that's all for me thank you for that Miss Lawrence um well said and to go along with your call to action I you know you can go to iga.in.gov and type in sech uh find your legislator you type in your address it pulls up who your state senators and representatives are um the best thing is just we need to keep contacting them and uh and advocating so um thank you for that yes the five star app is the app that um you can download and it makes it easy to navigate it literally gives you you put in zip code and it will pull up all of what you said but it will even give you a script and it will pull all of the bills that are currently um moving moving forward but the festar app it is a great tool it's just called five star okay yeah and to go along with that that's my plug um on why we're opposed to Senate Bill 287 I think we heard about that at one of the Democrat meetings and then it was also mentioned at the Lawrence GOP meeting so we're trying to bridge everybody because public education impacts everybody so um yes thank you for that information so um excellent reports board at this time we will move on to our action items and the first one is 4.1 approval of bids for Mary Castle Mr Roger Smith mam president Dr Smith members of the board I recommend the board approve powers and Suns GMP contract for Mary Castle Elementary as presentent I'll all right we have a second second all right properly moved Miss Pucket and seconded Miss Dunn board any discussion on this all right we'll go to a vote all in favor say I I I I'll oppos all right the eyes have it at this time we'll move on to 4.2 approval of bids for Craig Phase 2 Renovations Mr Roger Smith mam president Dr Smith members of the board our recommend the board approve powers and Suns GMP contract for Craig Phase 2 renovation as presed sove second properly moved Miss Pucket and seconded Miss Dunn board any discussion on the Craig phase to Renovations at this time we'll move on or we'll I'll um take a vote all in favor say I I all opposed the eyes have it 4.3 approval of cancellation of outstanding checks Mr Matt miles thank you madam president at this time I recommend the board approve the cancellation of checks as presented so moved second properly moved Dr mahand and seconded Miss Lawrence any discussion board all right all in favor I I all opposed all right the eyes have it for the approval of cancellation of our checks outstanding action item 4.4 approval of application for the common school loan Mr miles Madam president this time I recommend the board approved the application for common school loan as submitted so moved second all right properly moved Miss Dunn and seconded Miss Lawrence any discussion all right at this time we'll move to a vote all in favor I I all opposed eyes have it action item 4.5 approval of the revision of the 24 and 25 board goals Mr Dan kusnick and Dr Brown good evening Madam president Dr Smith members of the board I recommend the board approve revisions for the 2425 board goals as submitted so moved second properly moved Dr molland and seconded Miss dun um is there any discussion at this time Board of our revision of board goals at this time then we'll move to a vote all in favor say I I I all right I'll opposed all right we have approved the revision of the 2425 board goals action item 4.6 approval of the revision of the 23 to 26 strategic plan Mr kusnick and Dr Brown president Norman Dr Smith members of the board at this time we ask for your approval for the revisions to the Strategic plan is submitted so moved seconded all right properly moved Miss Pucket and seconded Dr molland any discussion at this time Prime board okay we'll move to a vote all in favor say I I I all opposed all right the eyes have it on the revision of the Strategic plan at this time we will move to 4.7 Dr gagin approval of the student Chromebook bid results president Norman members of the board I request permission to purchase Chromebooks from electronic strategies as submitted so moved second all right properly moved Miss D and seconded Miss Pucket any discussion at this time um all in favor say I hi I all oppos eyes have it I moov the uh I moov the approval of consent consent agenda items 4.8 all right um do we have a second for the approval or for the consent agenda a point of clarification I have to move it as a consent that's correct yeah agenda first oh yeah you say I yeah we move you have to put it into a consent agenda and then move approval of the consent agenda agenda items 4.8 through 4.15 it it's not uh no approval no approval Ive you moved and then moved it all right you have you have to package it asent agenda move that bad boy it's okay move it okay just for the record I had um I had my like that I have Che cards it is very it is very awkward that you have to like package it as a thing and then and then move it forward but yeah all right so do we have a second I I second that we create a consent agenda okay so miss Pucket has moved for consent agenda seconded by Miss Lawrence all in favor say I I I okay the eyes have it all right now now we make the motion for approval so move or seconded it's okay all right properly moved Miss Pucket and seconded Miss done for the approval of the consent agenda all in favor say I I all opposed all right the eyes have it Dr Smith I feel like we might need to have a social studies class up here somebody somebody somebody need to help help us out you're okay and I was still you're doing great there is nothing very confusing there's no shame in the game I still have index cards I even have index cards for this so it's taking me two years to say second so you're doing real well my friend yeah I'm good so okay well great this time we will now move on to our administrator and board comments I will start down on the end Miss dun um I need to have a moment if you don't thank you I just need a second no that's a problem I'll start down on this and then Dr molland you gotta be quick on your um feet let's see so I wanted to mention um a couple of things um I I appreciated the the superintendent notes um and the engagement that's happening in the district uh with the superintendent Dr Smith and um connecting uh through conversations through your road uh Road Show um and I I also wanted to say that how much I appreciated our February 28th Retreat as a board um and all the learnings that we've done in DC together I'm just thankful because this this past few weeks As We Know know there's just been um lot going on right so Friday this past Friday we had a chance to attend an event with the uh Lawrence chamber and so these the things that we're talking about here um why why do we want to say stay nonpartisan why do we want to be able to speak for the students without an r or a d behind our name I mean all those things come alive when you get to have these conversations and um so I just wanted I just want to say thank you for the time again I think I said this last meeting but the time that we are spending to um come together to educate that every one of you is doing you know doing your part so thank you Miss Pucket do you have any comments last second though talking was an absolute blessing on the campaign for us to Lally talk to thousands it literally thousands of Voters and so it's the lived experience is one thing on hearing about different things but to hear from people's hearts and hear so it resonates a little differently with all of the things that are moving forward want to remind um parents and families that check with your schools talk to your school counselors on the upcoming summer programs I was able to enroll The Not So Littles my not so Littles they're middle schoolers um into some wonderful stem programs that are free of cost that our Township provides through Partnerships and so it's important to go ahead and look into those now just want to make sure to add that Miss Lawrence yes well uh since no one's mentioned it we have another state championship on our on our on our Shelf this year so congratulations to the the uh the W the wild cats um for uh making it through state it was a really exciting got us nervous at the end Dr Smith we got we got got us nervous at the end though Amy and I were sitting up there in the uh in the um in the suite and looking down just hold holding it out so uh want to wish our uh men's team luck this weekend as well as they compete to maybe give us two state championships in one year which would be pretty unpre unprecedented I don't know that that's ever happened for us before but not Township so we'll take it uh close by I also I also want to call out that our uh that our robotics kids across all of our grades will be competing in the state robotics championship this uh this weekend as well this year it's at the um at the State Fairgrounds it's usually at Lucas Oil but this year it's at the State Fairgrounds um so anybody who wants to come out and watch some robot basketball it's riveting I sit through through hours and hours of that robotics Championship um and then finally I just want to say thank you because I know um with the water main break that happened in Lawrence uh Mr Smith I'm sure you have been a very busy man doing things behind the scenes to keep our kids safe as well as all of the people on your team so thank you for the work that you've done couldn't do it without a team it's I mean it's great and when accidents like this happen uh it's great to see the community come together and rally I heard there were lots of water bottles taken to the um to the uh to the show choir competition this weekend in which both of our show choirs qualified for state so that's another great thing but uh none of that is possible without the work and effort of lots and lots of people so thank youa thank you Miss done so I was just sitting here and part of the reason why I needed some time to think is because um we did not we did do some voting today on two things that the public has probably been aware of and I think it's important to note um that those two votes that were taken on Strate the Strategic plan and the board goals um is because um that Lawrence Township will always follow the letter of the law um and I really appreciate that about this District of taking Swift action to ensure that we can stay compliant to our federal and local laws I also um believe in my heart that we will continue to do good work in this District um not um against the good work that is happening in the state um but rather with them um but there are some there is a history of excellence in this district and I am proud to continue to serve in this District to continue that excellence and so want anybody that is kind of curious as to the why to know that this District does stand on its history of excellence and will continue to serve um in a way that makes the community proud and I also want to Echo my fellow colleagues sentiments um that we have had a lot of growing as a new board and I think that the best has yet to come for this all female board so it's women's history said history month and how grateful are to be on an all email board yes as a and thank you um Dana for shouting us out on social media it is um women have a chance to bring each other up or or sometimes we can bring each other down and I believe that this board will do everything to not only bring each other up but also the students in our district up so thank you for serving alongside of me thank you Miss dun well said board um great comments I also uh second everything and I second the state championship because I didn't realize we've been uh we haven't met in almost a month for our board meeting and in that time Lawrence Township does have a new state championship in or state champ ion in the lady wild cats now I don't know Dr nzb's more of an expert on this than I am but I believe we did make history is that correct by having backto back Township Champions and also if I understand the stats correct Lawrence was only a number of a handful teams who um had under 20 wins when they made it to the state championship so that is gut and that is resilience and that's amazing so so um that that's great and then there's all of the other qualifiers and the performing arts for the state championships so it it's really a spectacular time because I am diving into board policy and because this is a busy legislative time I wanted to tie in how our board policy 144.5 board member ethics we actually have a mandate as board members to advocate for our district it actually States a school board member shall not may meet their responsibilities to their Community by vigorously seeking adequate financial support for the schools so thank you Dr Smith and your team for leading this charge thank you board for um your Collective advocacy and that's all I have at this time Dr Smith it's 144.5 if anyone wants to look at it I'm sure Dr harsh barter knows yes wakes up in the middle of night thinking about those board policies ladies and gentlemen my uh comments are going to be real short Dr nth head to the microphone I do want to remind the district this past weekend you were host over 30 choirs across the state of Indiana as we had our Coral contest you know when we have those kind of events it's a big deal but people love coming to Lawrence Township Roger Smith facilities are second to none things that the Board of Education approv not only help our kids but also other kids across State compete at a high level so our Performing Arts facilities are second to none and so I'm very proud to serve a district that makes that kind of commitment to our kids in the Performing Arts area and they were showcased this weekend guys even though they had the water boy water we still had water we had a lot of singing going on didn't we Roger so we want to thank Lauren Central for being the host ladies you are correct we are state champs again back toback Dr nesbeth give us an update on the semi-state and also our girls Allstar cuz we had a little bit of History being made with our girls Allstar also that's right so yeah three weeks ago I stood here on the cusp of the state championship game we did win it we are the first district to have you know two different schools win it back toback years um we had a number of allars two from LC uh we have an Ln um our girls basketball is very good here in Lawrence which is pretty obvious really one could argue we have the number one and two teams the last two years um the closest games that they had were each other through those two tournament series oh let's talk about boys basketball uh Lawrence North won the sectional and then over the weekend won the regional down they now and what is the Elite 8 so eight teams left in 4A on Saturday they will travel east to the world's largest and finest High School Fieldhouse Newcastle the finest is what they say but it is the world's largest High School Fieldhouse uh they will play the 10:00 game against terot North should they win they will play again at 8:00 in the championship game and that would be against Jeffersonville or Mount Vernon you might recall Jeffersonville upset the Wildcats last year in the semi-state so they're looking for low Revenge they did beat them earlier this year so uh KnockOn would feel very good um going into Saturday um and then of course on the 29th should we capture the semi-state we'll be back down at gamebridge for an 8:30ish tip off uh in the 4A Championship we know what to do Dr nwith yep we'll be ready excellent that's all I have Madam president all right well just a couple quick reminders uh the board we will be traveling along with Dr Smith April 4th through the 6th for the National School Board Association um annual conference that is in Atlanta I look forward to our time together to all the meetings and learning that we will do there and then our next meeting here will be a work session on April 14th at 5:30 so at this time I will entertain a motion to turn so moved second properly moved uh M lawence and seconded Miss Pucket at this time we will adjourn thank you okay I don't know what she say 6:30 on Monday never it going Willi like it I bet he would do you like I everybody it

[Music] welcome Public Schools apologize good evening and welcome to the Greenfield Public Schools special school committee meeting for Monday March 17th 2025 this meeting is being recorded by greenfield Community television if any other persons present are doing the same you must notify the chairperson at this time hearing none secretary Den will you call the role excuse could you please turn the video on for the community room how is that can you see it now thank you there we are yes thank you thank you okay member Childs here member Goodwin here secretary Dena here chair Johnson mad here mayor dorer here member Martini here Vice chair seon here we are all present and accounted for and have a quorum and it is 7 pm.