Our grades are growing rapidly because of these interventions taking place. We're also so grateful for the many field trips, college tours, walkthroughs, and ACI trips given to us. We look forward to expanding our college and trade school field trip experiences next year. Thank you for your attention and time, but most importantly, make it a great day or not. The choice is yours. [Applause] Good job. Good job. Thank you. Good job. Good job. Good job. Very good question. Okay, not to be outdone, uh, next is Phoenix Academy, Natalie Flores, Angelica Himenez, Gimenez. Good evening. I'm Natalie Flores and I'm ASB president. And I'm Zululea Himenez, ASB vice president. We're thrilled to talk about our amazing school with you this evening. Uh before we start, we want to thank you all for support for we want to thank you for all the support you have shown to Phoenix this year.
I'm just curious. So it's going to be about 110 per school. So 220 for year 1, 440 for year 2, and about 650ish, 660 for year three. Um, but by year two, people are sharing classrooms again. Okay. Thank you. Um, and those spaces that may not be used may be used for other things like specialized programs. We will also be moving. Right now, Woodrow Wilson is where all of the self-contained special education classrooms are housed. And those will be split to have a more even balance because that makes for a very a very challenging um situation when you have so many students with so many needs concentrated in one school. You can't give as much attention. By spreading them out, you now have more people who can give attention to the programs. Hey, what up? Yes, Commissioner here. So, I have a followup on that.
Um, obviously uh and and I would say this too and and it was echoed here that the obviously this is 25 years for me. Um, I was an administrator, a teacher here. I've I've worked under a lot of different leaders and been a part of a lot of different admin teams, but I would say our current admin team is much more collaborative than it ever has been at any point in my career. Um, and so as much as I give Dr. Riker a hard time and and I'm probably a huge pain to him multiple times per week. Um I do want to give him a shout out. I think the collaborative nature that he has brought to our admin team has trickled down. And so when we get something like this, um you know, Tammy and I at the middle school have been working very hard together to make sure that we set our middle school kids up for success with the new diploma.
Any discussion? All those in favor? 70. Um next we have under new business programs. Yes. um bringing it in form tonight and would like to bring it back for an approve an approval later. This is a say something program. So this is put out by Sandy Hook promise and we became aware of this group when Warsville school district had a school safety concern um that was a reported before an incident happened and this group was attributed to stopping um that concern. This is created by um the families from Sandy Hook and they have found funding so this is to any school that would like to join. So, I have the information here for you tonight um about what the program is. It is basically an anonymous reporting system, but I feel like it takes the types of things that we've had used in the past like we named tonight um anonymous uh reporting forms, email, and it combines it all into one streamline system.
But the position is open until filled. So um they don't it's not just one deadline for candidates and then they pick someone from there. It's looking really for the the right best candidate. Yeah. So, um, which makes it a little difficult in the meantime for our friend Elvo here, but um, but um, uh, but hopefully we'll get that filled soon. I I don't have any other information, new projects we should be aware of coming. We have not received any update on any new projects. We don't have any bigger projects that we're anticipating in the next couple months. No, at least nobody that has come into the planning department to give me any heads up. Okay, so that seems like a good transition to talk about items, right? I think we covered everything, right, Trisha? We can go back to the uh item eight. Yeah, I think so.
Um she is the most competent uh superintendent, educator, human, one of the most competent humans that I've ever met. Um I've known her for 15 years. I've known her as a colleague, as a principal, and now as superintendent. And I just hope that whatever conversations are happening include her as an expert because as Luke mentioned, uh, making these proposals based purely on numbers doesn't make a whole lot of sense. You know, I have a small calculus class. We have nine kids in class. So, there's 15 extra desks, but I can't fill them with seventh graders. Okay? So we we just because we can hold the students in the building doesn't mean it makes practical sense the way that our school works, the way that schedules work. And I think it just you really need to include some of the the folks who know how these things work in the conversation.
Um, so what is included in student activities? So, we have not paid out the stipens for the spring sports. Okay. And that will eat up most of that balance. So, that's coach's salaries essentially. That Okay. Yeah. So, that's why it still looks I was like, wow, that's really sticks out. That will get to zero. Okay. Yeah, that'll get to zero. Um, but it's a good observation. Well, you know, I try lowhanging fruit, man. It's 200,000, you know. Um, uh, let's see. So, what was my second question? Uh, oh, gee, I had a like I had a real question there and everything. Um, all right, come back to me. Unless I'm the only one. No, Mark, you're not me. Go ahead. um the gentleman before who spoke about renegotiating health contracts. Yeah. Is that is that a real thing and is that something we can look at?
We would like to thank the district and the board for their continued support of CSEA employees. Our association would like to thank the board of trustees for taking decisive action on the classified salary study recommendations and recognizing that every classified position within the district should be paid fairly. Um, on behalf of the CSEA association, we would also like to extend an invitation to the board of trustees to help us celebrate the achievements and oftentimes hard thankless work of our association members. This year, we'll be hosting the annual CSEA Chapter 74 barbecue at the district office near the time of the official classified employee week. We'll be sending out invitations soon, and we hope you all can attend. I am also happy to report that the first CPR training reimbursements have been sent out to the first batch of classified employees. Currently, after a hard-fought negotiations process last year by our association, we have been approved for five members at each school site for CPR and first aid training reimbursement.
As you know, Phoenix Academy has students ranging from preschool to 8th grade, which allows uh for a lot of different opportunities with our students. ASB has hosted lots of fun events this year. We have had two middle school dances already and are really looking forward to our spring dance coming up soon. This year, we have added several family nights for our Phoenix families. We have hosted reindeer stars, STEM night, uh, math night, and family movie night. We hosted our annual fall festival, which had our largest turn of all of the events so far this year. It's great to see so many families supporting our school and community. We are looking forward to expand our family night opportunities next school year. AVID students went to Victor Valley Community College to learn what program they have to offer. Students in AVID in AVID were able to go to the fairgrounds earlier in March for a career fair.
Um I think I'm happy that you mentioned it because since each um teacher is going to have a different classroom, will that mean the classroom sizes in this particular school will be a lot smaller? No. Or is it still the same? The class sizes for the general education classrooms are going to remain similar with both schools. The only way that we'd be able to make them the class sizes smaller with the number of students would be by adding teams to the schools. Um what this is doing is taking teams of children or enough children to make up a team and the teachers that would go along with them. Um but in terms of the per capita number of stu teacher student ratio in a in a general education class that will remain similar to what we currently have. Okay. Thank you. Anyone else? Yes, Dr.
And honestly, you know, 10, 15 years ago, I'm not really sure that would have happened. Um, and so I do want to give a shout out to to Dr. Reker. And same with Dr. Bokart. Um, he's been super helpful and obviously he's sometimes my direct point of contact for a lot of these issues. And, um, he's come over multiple times to talk through this and and ask questions. And he I go a lot, this won't surprise a lot of you because you've known me for, I go a lot of the gut and I just charge into things. He is uh he analyzes things, he thinks. He his brain works a lot different than mine, which is actually a really good thing. That's why when we're together, I feel like we work really really well together. So, he's also been very instrumental in that. But at the eighth grade level, uh we've always allow allowed or uh given kids the opportunity to get a world language credit and algebra 1 credit.
So, it is an app and it is a website that families can go to, students can go to to report um any school safety threat, any type of bullying concern, um any type of selfharm concern for students um or even a concern that someone needs to be checked on um for a self harm type of issue that they might be cutting, for example. Um it includes within the app and the program the ability this is is innovative and new for social media. So, someone can take a screenshot of a post online and attach it to the report um very easily through their phone. All of this is free. And in addition to this, you'll see it goes to a national crisis center. So, instead of being um manned by um only our own internal staff, this national crisis center operates 24 hours a day, seven days a week, all year long.
Yeah, I think so. So, and Kate uh so Kate had um formatted and printed out um that goal list. So, I um updated this from last time. The MBTA zoning got taken off. So, I reumbered the green. I just left because they're in progress. We think they'll probably be okay, but they're still in progress. And um hold on a second. Hold on. The AGU is still in progress. Number seven, that was a change from 30 days to Okay, now I get it. Sorry. Um and then like number um six, obviously bylaw review is big, right? that doesn't really cover it, but I did update like the sign bylaws potentially need to be updated. Um, so there weren't major changes since the last time I issued this, but so there's one thing I think is missing, which is I thought we created a checklist for projects that would go like on the front of every We have that.
Um and I think it's frankly insulting not to. Um so I hope that moving forward, you know, we can collaborate as a team, right? We're all on the same team and not make any quick decisions. I understand for next year like the way I see it, we've got two choices. Move ahead with the current plan or maintain status quo, but coming up with some third option doesn't make a whole lot of sense right now. It's April. We've usually run schedule scenarios by now. We can't do that because of the chaos that's happening. So, I just I hope that it can be settled and that all the stakeholders can be invited to the table for those conversations. Thank you for your time. I'm going to go take a breath now. [Applause] Anyone else in the room who would like to make public comment? Anyone on Zoom who'd like to make public comment, you could raise your hand, your digital hand.
So it's not I think he's if I recall he is pretty knowledgeable on this subject but you know so just a couple of you know a couple of my thoughts on that because we do you know shop certain portions like our stop-loss insurance is stop is shopped every year. the medical benefits themselves, the fact that we are self-insured, no matter what carrier we go to, claims are claims. So really the, you know, the benefit of shopping would be if you can reduce the fees you pay for the processing of claims. It's not to say we shouldn't go out to bid, but doing it every the gentleman said, you know, every year just not practical in a in a setting where all your bargaining units have certain parameters around what happens if you do change carriers, benefits have to be like same. So, you know, the fact of the matter is since we moved to Sigma, in addition to having, you know, frankly, a better service and administration from Sigma than we had with our prior carrier, Sigma has not changed their management fees at all since we started and moved over to Sigma.
Unfortunately, CPR and first aid training, both potentially life-saving procedures to ensure the safety of our students, is a requirement of continued employment of many of our members. Around 600 classified employees, mostly instructional assistants in campus security are some of the lowest paid classifications on our district and required to pay out of their own pocket on a bianual basis for CPR and first aid training just to keep their jobs. Our association would like to see continued progress in these positive first steps in cooperation with the district to ensure that our members are fully trained to support the safety of our students without having to spend our own money to do so. Uh at this point in the spirit of a classified employee month in May, I would like to recognize various CSA groups who are hard work and dedication enriches our district and student lives on a daily basis.
They are looking forward to seeing what other colleges we can visit next year. Our sixth grade Our sixth grade students created an anti-bullying presentation and held an assembly for our first and second grade students to help them with being kind and respectful to all students, staff, and parents. It was amazing to see all their hard work and how receptive everyone was to the presentation. And we are looking forward to what other assemblies to what other assemblies the middle school students can help present to our elementary students to improve how we all work together at school. During our career fair, our career fair, all students were able to see a medical helicopter land on the field and we had the opportunity to walk around and see what it looked like inside. It was a great experience. We have had some new addition to our elective class offerings this year.
And just uh something because I know there's a lot of staff here tonight and for any staff that are watching at home. Initially um there will be a survey going out um and we're looking for people who might want to change who might want to move to the new building. Uh ultimately we have to make u transfer decisions based on the best interest of the district. But we want uh to give opportunities for people to move first. Um, and so some people who volunteer to move might get moved, might not, and some people who don't volunteer might need to be moved. So, I want to be very upfront about that. Um, we'll do our best to meet the needs of of the staff, but obviously I think the staff would even tell you that the students needs will come first, but we'll do our best to balance that.
Uh recently we've actually started having kids go ahead and do PCC um which is the career class preparing for college and careers class and then also health. So recently even before this we we had started to kind of slide that down into the middle school and and again Tammy's worked really hard with her schedule because that does open up opportunities and possibilities for kids when they get up to the high school level. ninth grade. Uh I would say the biggest change is computer science. So now it's a required class now for this freshman class. We'll all have to take it. It is an introductory level class. Um and so they'll take that. It's a one semester credit class. Um and then after that, um I think one of our goals would be to try to create a pathway for computer science. We're obviously not there yet um on several levels, but I do think that opens the door for that.
and they are fluent in multiple languages. Um, if someone wants to speak to someone directly, they can reach out and help connect them to resources and they also will put in a call directly to the local law enforcement if it is an urgent concern and they can't reach a follow-up contact. So, it is an added layer of safety for school safety and student safety. So, what I'd like to do is and um bring back anou what our next steps would be if we're interested um would have to get anou agreement in place and then they would work with us free to onboard the system so that we would have it up and available for next school year. It takes them a while to get all the pieces and components in place. Um but it would be an option then that we would have in place for next school year.