She's a great friend to all of her classmates and is always willing to help out others. Her commitment to excellence and willingness to help others make her a true standout in the classroom. Congratulations. Miss Neato, Mrs. Nato in second grade writes, "Emma, I'm so proud to recognize Emma as our cult of the month. She's really impressed me with her ability to solve problems independently and handle challenges with maturity. Not only is she always willing to lend a helping hand to her classmates, but she does so with a smile and a kind heart. Emma consistently completes her homework on time, often submitting it early, and always does her best. She shows great curiosity by asking questions and actively participating in class activities. Her positive attitude and eagerness to learn make her an excellent role model for others. I am truly proud of her this month and our class is lucky to have such a dedicated student.
So, our our admin does twice the work. Is that what we're saying, right? For the same pay. Yes. Thank you for that. Yes. Thank you. And then again, this is uh the local district spending um dollars instruction, classroom, and administration. This grid also shows the ADM and the override percentage at 15% for all six districts. So our intent here by including this is to just make sure that you're all aware from a funding level because all of these school districts have the 15% override. We all have on a percentage basis the same amount of money which makes it kind of notable. Um, so that's why the comparison we thought was was a good one as well with our local school districts. I had a question on the previous previous one. So, um, and correct me if I'm wrong, but I read the general's report and they said our transportation was kind of above average for our district size.
I have a No, go ahead. Is this on the same topic? No. Okay. Um would you like to rock paper scissors for those? Okay. Um I just wanted to like the choir had a big event this weekend. A lot of the um instrumentalists had their final concerts at Merit this last weekend and they were all phenomenal. So, yay. Kudos to the instrumentalists and the vocal instrumentalists. That was it. Okay, thanks. So, last month I attended the COSBA National Convention, COSBA Consortium of State School Board Association. Oh, wow. Which Illinois is a part of. We're all in the Cosba network. And so I along with um President Brown was there. And um I just wanted to say thank you to Cheryl for all your help with registration and the lodging and all my little one-off questions. Um but I I being a novice to the board um I'm still soaking in a lot of information.
If you're in the market for internet, TV, or phone service, check out adamswwells.com. That's adamswwells.com. Amazing. Amazing. They also provide the internet here for our school district. So, everyone who's on wireless or connected on a computer, they are also using Adams Wells internet and do a great job. Yeah. More. We got more difficulties. More difficulties. So, you know what, Mr. Rivitch coming over time. Yeah. Baker, save us. So, I I'm a little bit distracted. I think I'll be okay, but I'm a little distracted. Okay. Uh, last night my dog, you know, Daisy, my dog, Yep. She uh she ate a whole bunch of scrabble tiles. You know, scrabble tiles, you know, like numbers. I don't know if our audience or many thousands of people know what Scrabble is, but it's that game where you have tiles with letters on it. So, she ate a whole bunch of those.
I've worked under six different coordinators. This constant turnover has created confusion, disrupted communication, and made it harder for a department to function effectively. As a new teacher, I rely heavily on the expertise of these coordinators to navigate complex IE, support service delivery, and resolve conflicts, things that administrators simply can't offer with the same specialized way. The stability our current coordinator has provided has allowed us to address long-standing challenges and support f and start planning for future growth. If this position is eliminated, I fear our department will lose that stability and the quality of education for our most vulnerable students will suffer. Eliminating this role will only deepen the challenges we face in supporting these students with special needs, especially as we work to close the achievement gap. I strongly urge you to reconsider this decision. The special ed coordinator is critical in both our teen success and more importantly our student success.
Um, negative influence, being ostracized and nonverbal. Um, there's a bystander effect. and you know promoting positivity inclus inclusivity and zero tolerance of negativity is really important. Um but I do think that you can look further at improving um the details of that policy. And the last thing I wanted to if you'll permit me was just make comments about the mascot. Um, in 2023, I know the high school students were formed an internal committee and they were looking at, you know, polling the student body and and trying to come up with something. And my kids have been through Cherry Brook, the intermediate school, middle school, and high school and graduated. And there hasn't been a a visual mascot. There's been no imagery. It's just been a C, the word Canton Warriors. So, it it's sometimes really nice to have that imagery to associate with. And I would like the, you know, board of education to encourage a a mascot committee.
Okay, sounds good. Um, yeah, and just letting I think Larry know I I sent over an email with the link. I'm also going to send it to John just in case if you can text it over to him if that works easier. But um yeah, working through that and I'll keep an eye on the attendees list here. Um yeah, I'm not going to run through the stuff you already got in here because that was some of it some of the recommendations from the you know city administrator and some of that's being looked at um you know as part of the uh various review processes that are are coming through the comp plan and land use things like that. Um I don't have great insight at this time of where exactly where some of those are, but I do know that they are actively being looked at and considered for how we can move those forward.
Now, it's a little complicated here, but stick with me. It's actually pretty simple. The state says that every district should have an adequacy budget. Meaning, there's a certain amount of money it costs to educate a child. That number for an elementary student is 14972. So applying the funding formula says you take the 11,000 students in Clifton, you take a regular elementary education student, you multiply it by that number. You take the rest of the student and you multiply it by their weighted number. that total number minus what the local township contributes via property taxes or excuse me or I'm sorry that total number is your adequacy budget. The money you get in state aid is the difference between that total number and what your local district raises in taxes. So let's make the math easy. Okay, you have a th000 students and they're all elementary.
Maintain our bus aid positions because it's more costly to outsource them. Add to utilities, add an intervention team for general education, which represents three support positions, social worker, behaviorist, and counselor. These and these go handinand with the next one, which is adding two 10-month assistant principal positions for elementary. And the reason for those is our elementary schools are are large. It may not feel like it here because it's what we know, but if you look around and compare to other towns, our elementary schools are very large and they need more support. Case manager, that would address our case management ratios. Add a math interventionist at each elementary school. Again, core right next to reading. We have reading intervention. We don't have a math intervention position. We need it. adequate districts have it. Two related arts positions, for example, in physical education, that would decrease class size again, and we eliminated two of those positions in a previous budget year.
I know. I know. Oh, hold on. The eighth grade team names Javi Sallayia Sierro student of the month for March. Javi is the son of Jennifer Sallayya. Javy's home village is Bamorei. Javi is a student athlete playing basketball for the Babok Cougars. His favorite class this year is social studies with Mr. Cutler because Mr. Cutler is cool and he is a very good teacher. After graduating from Baba Kibri Secondary, Javi plans on going to college hopefully at Duke University. His current career goal is to become a lawyer. Javi would like to honor his mom, Jennifer. Um, Javi would like to thank her for showing him and leading him to become the best self in all that he does. Keep up the good work, Javi. Dwayne Manuel is the freshman class student of the month for March. Dwayne's guardians are his mother, Angelie Ortiz, and his guardian, Martin Emanuel.
She's doing physical therapy um down there. She does that what I think two two days a week. She does that two days a week. Blue Ridge two days a week and then she takes Friday to do all the paperwork. So, um, and then Sarah does the elementary school and the preschool for occupational therapy. Well, and that is news to me. Um, so she does the whole district. So, anyways, the teacher that nominated them wrote, "Our service providers are some of the most amazing unsung heroes in our school. Each day, Miss Lois and Miss Sarah work wonders with all of our students that struggle with physical movement and allow these students to know that they are powerful and strong, and that nothing will get in their way of their ability to learn. Each time I have had the privilege to sit in on a parent meeting with each or both of these ladies, I have been blown away by their thoroughess and professionalism.
Keep up the amazing work. Congratulations, [Music] Mrs. Hoff in third grade writes, "Bennett has accomplished so many goals this school year, and I'm so proud of him. He is the best helper in class, shows compassion toward others, has amazing skills to help in his group work, is the first to extend a helping hand, and always comes to class with a positive attitude. Bennett, you shine in all you do, and we are so lucky to have you in class. Way to go, buddy. Mrs. Lane in third grade writes, "Remy is a wonderful example of what it means to be kind, safe, and responsible Continental P. He is a friend to all and is always willing to help his peers. Whether he's talking about a friend at school or telling us a story from home, he always speaks of others with the utmost respect and admiration. His creativity brings fun fun ideas and a unique perspective to our class, often encouraging his classmates to engage in a deeper level of thinking.
Um, what do you attribute that to? Do we have a lot of commuters? And I know it's not that different from the other districts, but I saw that in the report. You want me to take that? Mhm. Please. Yeah, it's a really good question and we had one of our audit committee members ask the same same question as well. Um so we have been looking into that since the question was posed at the audit committee meeting and uh one thing that we discovered by accident I think um is that the accounting for student transportation is a function 2700 and um and what's been happening is that all of our white fleet though all the expenses associated with uh tires and and maintenance of the vehicles and stuff like that has been also erroneously charged 2700 00. So we have immediately fixed that. So we expect that in 2025 this should reflect that.
So it was really inspiring just to hear the different things that people are doing across the country. And so it incited a lot of thought for me and a lot of ideas. I'm like I wonder about what we do at our board, you know. So, I just want to encourage everyone u I don't know necessarily the policy per se about when we attend these conferences and when we don't. But I definitely want to encourage everyone to take advantage of these opportunities so that we never stop learning. We never get to a point where, oh, I've been to a million of these. I don't have nothing to gain from it. And I'm not trying to put words in their mouths. I'm just saying um when we are not present and I don't know I know it's a budget thing as well but when we're not present I just don't want us to have the impression that oh we got it figured out there's nothing new that we could be doing nothing new we could be learning you know and so I just thought it was a great opportunity to go um I met a lot of people if nothing else the networking that happens at these conferences is definitely worth the trip and so I just want to Thank you for letting me go.
Okay. Yeah. So, I called the vet uh today. Okay. No word yet. Need to eat a few more tiles and put those words together. No word yet. Yeah. No word. No word yet. I don't know about we need we need to we got to get this working because if not you got to pace yourself in these jokes. We're we're not even starting game one yet. Yeah. Those are my two best. Uh oh. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, we a take these papers home. Okay. You got We're going to take these pictures home. So you know little some Paw Patrol. Look. Yeah. Paw Look, he drew this. Is that Chase? Uh is that Chase? Do you know if that's Chase? Is that Chase? Yeah, Chase. Oh, yeah. He drew this. That is amazing. Two years old, he drew that whole thing. You believe that? I do. Okay.
Thank you. Hi, uh, my name is Aaron Kaine and I want to talk about some safety concerns that have come up. I'm trying to follow this agenda and so I'm revising my statement slightly. Um, it came to parents attention that there was a trespasser at Boilston Elementary School and it was not reported to parents. This person came onto school grounds and spoke to third graders during recess. And at no point were parents were the community other than two individual students parents notified. This is a safety concern. The fact that administration did not think that parents needed to know is deeply troubling. We need to do better. Our students deserve better and our community deserves better. Thank you. Anyone? All right. Um, thank you for your public comments. We'll move on to uh communications. We receive a lot of communications. Uh they are available out there.
Thank you. Okay. Thank you. Anybody else online would like to speak? If you're joining us online, you'd like to make public comment, you can use that raise hand feature and I will call on you by your Zoom name. Anybody else in the public would like to speak? Sure. you just give your name and your address when you come up to the podium. When I come up to the podium? Sure. Hi. Uh my name is Kevin Glass. I live at 23 Westbury Road here in town. Good. Yes. Uh so I just want to talk about um I'm a resident in town. I'm a graduate from uh public school systems. I have the pleasure of being a new member here on staff and I just want to come and talk about my experiences here with the can public school system and I want to thank all the members of the board of ed for your continued work.
Um one other thing I want to mention that we are we're currently doing that I know some folk are aware of um but not everyone uh or everyone might not be is um as part of the plan review process, we do currently have a sustainability review portion of it. Um there's a little bit of stuff that's kind of shifting around as part of that. But um for you know again for those who are not aware um for when a new development comes forward it has to go through a plan review and it goes through all these you know things that are mandated and required um you know things again like by the you know by the planning department by other stuff like looking at waste and waste water um you know fire safety trash like all that kind of stuff. Um and a couple years back we were able to incorporate a sustainability review as part of that.
1,000* 14972 is how much? Where are my math people? I hear a lot of mumbling. I don't hear my math people. 1,00 * 14972. Let's move the move it over three zeros. Okay. 14 million. Okay. Good. 14,972,000. Okay. If our district was 1,000 elementary students, the state says our adequacy budget should be $14,972. You with me? Good. The state also has another number and that other number is how much can a the district afford, right? I own a house. I pay property taxes. How many people pay property taxes? Yeah, we know most of your property taxes go to the school district. The majority and a bigger percentage in different towns, but that's another story. So the state calculates the percentage that the district pays based on the wealth of that district and based on the property value in that district. Okay? And the difference between those two numbers, the adequacy budget and how much the local district can be afford can afford is how much money the state gives you in state aid.
Lastly, maintain the building technology position, which we were going to uh phase out through this budget. The last piece, infrastructure improvements. So, we would restore 500,000 of maintenance reserves, which we depleted drastically last year as uh again a way to save off cuts as long as possible. And lastly, the capital reserves health, safety, and security. Um these are urgent needs which we have been looking at possibly but it would take years to get there through a bond referendum. The reality is we need this we need this improvement now. The heat pumps for example just to that carries the biggest price tag. One system in every room 700 rooms total 3 to 5,000 per unit. Um, I remember going to Deacy last year in the spring. We had a we had to evacuate because the smoke was coming out of one of them. Um, that's that's that that's what I'm talking about, that heat pump.