So, we're going to continue that work and try and get a product out ASAP. I can't wait to see the fully animated uh traffic model that I'm sure Yes. [Laughter] Any other comments, questions? Thank you, Dr. Solen. Next item is we do not have any old business. Um chair's update. I just you know I I just want to really publicly thank the community for coming out earlier um in support of we we saw a large number of residents and citizens really trying to um encourage the council to not impact our already approved um BOE budget. Um so I want to thank those that were able to come out and those that were able to write um to the council. Um and hopefully we have a um resolution on April 22nd. Is that Dr. Soul? They're that's what they're shooting for. They're shooting for April 22nd.
So you can see just from 2223 to 2324, the cost of educating our students with disabilities went up $9 million. And so that's just going to go up over time, unfortunately. Um, I'm gonna I'm gonna put on my my board member and my um director hat right now and just encourage all of my colleagues to go to CSBA and to advocate for for full and fair funding for special education. Um, as a delegate, I always make sure I get into that group at CSBA and make sure that we advocate for that. A lot of people don't realize that even in good budget times, special education is not fully funded by the state and federal government, which is why there is a general fund contribution. Um, and that's only going to continue to go up. So, board member to board member, please advocate for full and fair funding.
Good evening. I'd like to begin by thanking our students that aren't here right now for their outstanding presentations tonight. Um, it's always a pleasure to hear directly from our schools and learn the exciting events and achievements. I'm finding there's two more plays I need to go and see. Beauty and the Beast and The Lion King. So, I'll be looking forward to seeing those. Uh special thanks to all the students, Yakaloma, Phoenix Academy, High Desert Premier Academy, Granite Hills, and Apple Valley High School for sharing with us this evening and for all the uh teachers and staff that help them. Um as we reflect on the end of March and look ahead towards April, we have a lot to celebrate and recognize. We closed March by honoring Cesar Chavez day on March 31st and that's a moment to reflect on his enduring legacy of social justice and community empowerment.
I want to start off with just sharing some um some fun positive news. Uh this year was the second annual district-wide math competition which we always coincide with March Madness. For those of you who don't know what March Madness is, March Madness is the college basketball tournament um the NCAA college basketball tournament. We do a very similar thing uh in Clifton which is called the Imagine Math uh March Madness competition and that took place in all 14 of our elementary schools uh grades K through five during the month of March. And the schools faced off against each other to see who had the highest lesson accuracy in Imagine Math. Focus was on how accurate the lessons were completed, not just how many lessons were completed. Uh for the second year in a row, the final round came down to a fierce but friendly competition between school nine and school 16.
But because we have a relationship and a connection it just it yeah it is a wonderful place to work from this side because of connections with the teachers. So we'll work through everything. And so I'm grateful for my team. Um, you know, as Andrew talked about that, you know, you watch this legislation and some of this legislation is going to um have some effect on what our decisions that we have to make. Um, and now I know so um that every two years it's going to be a little gut-wrenching and they've said that this is about the worst it's been since 2008 has been the unknown. Um, but trying to work with the what-ifs and trying to figure out what's the right time to wait, what's the right time to figure things out now, but you know, it's conversations with administrators, with our office, with the teachers, leadership to try to prepare those things.
I'm just saying like but I mean to me to me the to me it's kind of like it's up to us as the planning board to decide when we approve a project when all of these details are already there we should decide if we care for it to come back to us. When it comes back to us we can consider and ask the fire department if they care. I don't know if I would ask the fire department now because what are we asking the fire department? If if it's a little bit moved they're not going to care. If it's a lot moved they will. So obviously it should be there for the conversation when the project comes to us and says we're moving the fire hydrant. We could ask for input from the fire department. I I wouldn't ask to me we don't need to ask them now if they care.
So absolutely we have a plan to use the revolving accounts as you're saying this $300,000 that keeps being thrown out there. If we didn't need to use the $300,000, then we're not going to and we're going to carry it over to use in subsequent years. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that being done on a school side as there is nothing wrong with it being done on the city side. I'm going to continue. I have one another question if I may. Um, Chair Mad. Yep. Go ahead. Um, so I was I'm curious about the transportation uh the receipts uh where where the credits were actually from. Yes. Uh I know you you sent that about 4:30 this afternoon, Mayor. I was able to get that. If you got a pen, get ready. Yes. 35,52.50 was from Conway. 28,655 was from Frontier Regional. 9,025 was from Deerfield.
So appreciate that. Um I I also appreciate that you just used Barnum School. It's going to be really, you know, have to get used to it a little bit, but um it sounds great though. So really excited. Um and and I do watch the drone videos that you send. It's really awesome. So thank you Mike back there. Um, other than that, I'm just going to read out the um upcoming minutes before we adjourn. Um, we will be calling for a motion to adjurnn into executive session. So, we have next week would be our spring break, so no school for students. Um, which is April 14th to the 17th and then April 18th is Good Friday. Both schools and central offices are closed. May 26 is Memorial Day. Schools and central office are closed. Our upcoming meetings are uh when we come back from April break, which is Monday, April 21st, the curriculum committee will be meeting at Human Board at 7.
Um, with all that being said, we are trying to cost contain. So, we um have worked very hard to um take advantage of all of our medical billing opportunities and um we last year were able to recoup $6.8 million through medical billing and I am super proud to say that 4.5 of that $6.8 million was brought in by SYS employees. So, our school psychologists, our speech and language pathologists are really working hard to capture that money and to bring that back into the district through our medical billing options. Um, another thing we're doing to help contain costs is we've increased the monitoring of our non-public schools and our RTC students. What that means is we are doing a lot more ongoing monitoring and communication with the schools that are are um educating these kids and we're bringing them back as soon as we're able. Um which obviously you saw the price of what each one costs.
In April we have quite a few important observances. We recognize National ArabAmerican Heritage Month celebrating the rich culture and contributions of Arabameans. We observe celebrate diversity month which began in 2004 to encourage understanding, inclusion, and appreciation for the unique backgrounds and experiences that surround us. April 23rd, which used to be my most important holiday, was administrative or is administrative professionals day. And I'd like to take a moment to acknowledge the hardworking individuals across our district who keep our schools running smoothly behind the scenes and also Kylie who does so much for us as a board. Uh April 24th, we solemnly observe both Holocaust Remembrance Day and Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day, a time to honor the memory of the victims and the courage of the survivors and upstanders. Earth Days on April 25th reminds us of the urgent need to care for our planet, raise awareness for the environmental issues affecting our future generations.
And after a very close race, school 16 won the tournament and was named this year's Imagine Math March Madness Competition winner. Yeah, I think that deserves a round of applause. Uh, the students will receive an ice cream truck visit courtesy of Imagine Learning. What is that? Uh, I'll be there. Imagine ice cream truck there. Hopefully on a nice warm day. So, a big thank you to um all the uh the staff that participated. This this doesn't happen without teachers. Um uh a huge thank you to our elementary math coaches, Kristen Genshi Kiho, Laura Andreovich, and Jennifer Lanzerati. and of course our math supervisor at the K through uh 8 level, Erin Zamuda. Uh congratulations to all the students, teachers, and families who supported the journey. It's a it's a fun way to have students learn and be a little competitive. I think competition usually brings the best out in people.
So, um, couldn't do all these things without a great team. So, I am very lucky to get to serve and work with an amazing team. Um, and all these people work to provide the opportunities that you heard our seniors discuss. Um, so that's wonderful. Um, literally that's I felt like we should have just done a couple more videos tonight. Um, you know, we talk about what's best for students and this is the time of year where what's best for students, but also what's best for students and how we pay for it. What's best for students and what is affordable? What's best for students in the facilities? what's best for students in the schedule um and those type of things that come along and again can't do these things and can't do them well without a good team. Um so blessed there. Thank you to Newore.
Of course they're going to care if it's moved significantly. That's the whole point. We don't really know what's going to happen. I mean to me this is a no-brainer. Like I I if other communities are doing it, I don't think there's any harm in doing it. If we're nervous to do it, we can go back to my kind of more cautious idea, which is we draft a memo to applicants with actual live examples of what we've learned and seen over the last couple years. We, the planning board of whatever April 10th, these are the things that we've experienced. You as an applicant, we're trusting you to come to us if these kinds of changes occur prior to construction project. And we kind of watch it for a year. We collect examples and that eventually we'll ready for this kind of list. If we're not ready, I'm ready.
59,422.50 was from Gil Montigue. $19,620 was from Pioneer Valley Regional School District. $42,900 was from Mohawk Trail Regional School District. $27,13464 was from Athl Royston Regional School District. $2,400 was from Springfield. $5,400 was from Pittsfield. And then the balance of $65,525 was state transportation reimbursement for homeless. That totals $295,58464. Thank you, Andy. Member Ston. I have a question which hope is unrelated to anything we've been talking about and then um I would like to also make a comment just about what's being discussed. Um first I'm just noticing $22,000 uh additional for the federal street school elevator. Is that more than what we budgeted? Do we need to like approve any of that? So we did approve the or base contract increase because the bid came in higher and then what you have in addition to that is there is a change order that is required because the state regulations regarding the I'm going to really above my pay grade but the casing of the elevator needed to be changed due to the timing in which the repairs were being done versus what the original rules were statewide.
Thursday, May 1st, um middle school showcase meeting will happen at DOD at 7:00. Monday, May 5th, policy committee at Humon Boardroom. That's 7:00 as well. Thursday, May 20th at 7:30 will be our regular business meeting here in town council and chambers. Then we move to Thursday, June 5th, regular business meeting at Chambers here. And then we typically have our last Monday, June 30th, 7:30 a.m. our fiscal meeting here in the Human Boardroom. Um, no possibility of changing that. Dr. Sen just Okay, great. Neils is always a, you know, motivator. Thank you. Dr. Heran, did you have a comment? I like I'm all for Neil's donuts. That's all I'm going to say. Yes. Thank you. Coconut and those coconut. Okay. Um all those in favor uh I do need a motion please for us to move to executive session. If somebody can make that motion move that the meeting be adjourned into executive session to include the superintendent of schools to discuss superintendent's evaluation.
So it's a cost savings whenever we can bring students back. We also have brought in our educationally related mental health services inhouse. We used to contract with Orange County Healthcare Agency. We now have a small team of psychologists overseen by Christy Gutierrez who does all of the IRS counseling for our students with disabilities. Okay, so here's the really exciting good news that I want to share with you. We have had tremendous growth. So when we went into targeted assistance um with the state in 2021, you can see that our graduation rate for students with disabilities was at 65.7%. Where their gened peers were at 89.9%. The state identified us as not being where we needed to be, assigned us an improvement monitor, and told us to get to work. So we did. And through that we implemented our IEP audits, we implemented the SAI model, we implemented um the master schedule building changes.
And then we also celebrate cultural and religious holidays including Cambodian New Year, um, Puthadu, Tamal New Year, and I apologize for butchering the pronunciation, Passover, Easter. And each celebration offers us a chance to learn more about the diverse traditions within our community. In recent weeks, I've had the pleasure of visiting several schools. Rio Vista, Sitting Bull Academy, Sandia, and my alma m on my alma matter Apple Valley High School. It was inspiring to see students actively engaged in learning and teachers creating meaningful hands-on lessons from art projects to STEM activities like building catapults for a March Madness tournament. Thank you to all the teachers and staff and administrators for your continued continued dedication. I also want to extend my appreciation to Superintendent Nelson and principles Mrs. Poff, Mrs. Heightman, Mrs. Watt, and Mr. Goodro for taking the time to walk with us and highlight the great work happening at our campuses.
I want to thank Janina for a outstanding presentation tonight on could what is could be a very difficult thing to understand. And I think she broke down the uh district demographic report uh in a in in a very simple way that that that anybody uh could understand. But if anyone does have further questions, please feel free to reach out and we'll answer those questions for you. Let me reiterate some of the things that Miss Kusalevich mentioned, but I think are important and bear repeating. Um, first, the schools, the fifth grade students who will be going to the new middle school will be coming from the current fifth grades at school five, at school um, sorry, school five, school 8, school 15, and school 17. That's going to be about 220 students. of those some of those students will have siblings that already attend um Christopher Columbus or Woodro Wilson Middle School.
So they provide a signed sponsorship of a significant amount to take care of a batting project cage that we're working through. And that's just a great little example, right? You have a gift that comes in. Have some baseball parents who are eager. You have some community members like Roger Aar who donated a lot of time to spec out the batting cages and parking at the tennis courts and those type of things, but it takes working with Andrew, Bryce, Brent, um, and all sorts of folks to get those projects up and running. So, um it it's wonderful to have a community that can support that. Um trying to figure out how to make it all work and it comes in um educational instructional leadership. Dr. Bkart's doing a great job leading us in there in our professional development and textbook selection. Um enjoyed having Monty there.
Like I I like this list. I'm ready to adopt it and just see how it goes. Obviously, it would be good if Deepa and Trisha could add a couple of design elements that are very detailed based on your experience so that we can also capture those major material materiality changes that are less subject more objective, right? Like things we can actually agree to. So the way you described it like a window change that is like you have to find it. You have to really look for it. Nobody cares about. But if if there's I don't know dimension changes and size changes that a reasonable person would be upset about how do you define that in writing? So are these snippets in I mean part of decision making in other towns or I believe there in I I put every citation so you could find them.