So right now where teachers are really comfortable is you know with the first few chapters of the book teachers are really engaging in in selecting tasks that are appropriate for our students and are going to challenge them and get them to think deeply both curricular and non-curricular tasks. Um we've worked a lot with having them work on the task launch asking questions um giving hints and um extensions that kind of thing. Um teachers are also really comfortable at this point with randomized groups which really get students to work to look together collaborative collaboratively. Um and then we are also comfortable with the vertical non-permanent surfaces. So students are working together around the room. Their thinking is made visible. Um and everybody's kind of had a good uh handle on all of that at this point. Um moving forward we kind of want to focus on some more of the strategies that we haven't really gotten too deep with like for example consolidation.
So if you're not spending money, let's say on substitutes, right? We had a large amount set aside for subs that we couldn't get. I'm able to reprogram that. So I was able to reprogram it for some equipment that we're going to need for the new high school, right? So we'll we can make use of th of those funds if we're able to address things in real time. So, um, I I guess what you're getting at is is my concern is is that with the alliance being frozen at a certain point, Richard, hang on a second. I can't hear you. Uh, Mr. uh, Mr. Janelli, uh, Teresa has a hand up. Okay, let me finish my question to Cara. Y um, thank you, Glattus. Carrot, my my question was was with the concern that with the alliance being kept and this reserve or buffer that we have to keep in there for potential cost of living increases.
And after listening to the other two, then I felt comfortable that there was a universe of three firms that I would feel, you know, merit further consideration and, you know, working on a contract with. That's just my take. Okay. One question I have uh for the board is do you feel that the two firms that so obviously like you said we had four firms and then we had two do you feel that the two firms that we had which were um FGMR and W did they have an um unfair advantage by going second in a way right and those two um going on that Monday that was obviously after the fact of those four presenting did they I don't know like I said have an advantage over those or do you think it didn't matter? Well, I can speak to that as from a personal perspective.
Calling that. Ball goes up. Ball goes down. Are you kidding me? [Music] [Applause] MO comes away with the ball. Operates on the far side of the field. Nice nice check by Jordan. Can she get to it out of bounds? That that should be saw blocking. Good job by Addie Jordan. Knock it out of the stick and quickly and then run it all the way down. Was great. Rayold gets the ball back to Jenna Holly. Now Jenna Holly looking for somebody. She kicks it over to Reed. Reed has room where Kendall's still has room. Looks around again. Oh, he somehow getting away with that as Oh, balls ends up picking it up. Good job by Kendall Reed to flick it over to Whitw picks it up quickly. getting the ball over the restrain line is again quickly chases find Yeah. No, there's a lot I mean you see these girls in open on the open field there some real burners.
So right now teachers are really great with selecting tasks. Students are working in random groups on the whiteboards, but now we want to make sure we're consolidating that task and we're consolidating the learning and talking about what they've learned, connecting it to key math ideas, um and and that's kind of our big push going forward. We started doing that in professional development with teachers in grade levels um staff meetings and and that's kind of where we're going next. Um, we also kind of want to look at homework a little bit more and see where building classrooms can help us with that homework piece. Um, there's something in there called notes to my future forgetful self. So, we want to look at that and how students can take notes for themselves so that they can go back and look at their thinking later. Um, and then responsive teaching, getting into that assessments piece as well with building thinking classrooms.
Is that something that we can just say that we're putting aside x number of dollars to cover contractual increases for the salaries that are in there and that would be allowable? Yes, if you're asking me. Yes, the Yeah, I might lost internet. Um, yes. So, you know, if if we had contractual increases, we we could use the grant to offset and we could use the general fund to offset the increases that are in in all the contractual increases as they go up in alliance. Uh, one way or another, we we would just have to rebalance the staff that's in there. So what I would do is I would pull, you know, some a percentage of staff out that would have to stay in general fund and or we'd have to reduce staff to make everything fit, which is ultimately what we do not want to see happen.
I requested after the fir after the first presentation, I asked for the applications of all of the people who submitted and I took uh a day to read all of them and to kind of you know like go through everything um and sort of like uh create like my own like cheat sheet chart and see you know what are their years of experience, what percentage of their contracts are with school districts that are like ours and etc. etc., etc. When so, so I had uh I wouldn't say a comprehensive understanding, but I had a thorough understanding of what each of those um eight or nine firms offered. Uh when I compare what the four, you know, provided to us the first time and then what the two provided us the second time, I mean, I heard them hit the same issues. I didn't feel like, wow, you know, they presented something that the first four didn't.
Jordan with the ball. Calib see I like that match up. Let let Calib do something with the girl or to Jordan. Jordan to Marino to the Kasich. Kakes goes through one. Has a girl skating. She gets it. Yes. And it is. Wow. What an in and out through four law metal girls as Caroline Lucas gets the ball past Vanderhof. That was terrific. That's Caroline's first goal of the game. Spartans go up 8-6 with 10 minutes and 15 seconds to go in the fourth quarter. What a play by Lucas. Yeah. Get said started off with the fake as they were doing that rotation on the outside. Give it up. Give it up. She kept it. Missed the rotation. Went through on the fake and then brought it all the way in. A lot of times Steve I think the girls on the other team when that happens they don't think somebody's going to fake going to their their weak hand.
Um, and adjusting instruction based on student. So, we're kind of halfway through and we're working towards the rest of the strategies at 10 and we kind of set goals for ourselves for the next five years to ensure that we're creating high quality, engaging, equitable mathematics program. Um, we're going to monitor our curriculum to make sure that the pathways are appropriate for all students and that they're really understanding mathematics and building a strong foundation in order to succeed long in mathematics. um in terms of our assessments we've mentioned highlighted before and other assessment tools that we're using the information from them to inform our SB SRBI and our um targeted interventions well. So we we'll set goals around using that information. Um we want to ensure these instructional strategies um are developing active uh learning environments, independence and deep learning in our classrooms. So uh we'll continue to provide professional development that ensures these high quality instructional strategies.
Um, but you know, we can only spend what we have and within our means and we have to make sure that uh that that grant has um enough room in it to absorb a contractual increase for the next year of the next cycle. But again, we're heading into So, we we may have to program that grant before we even landed all of our contracts. So, it's, you know, it's complicated. Yep, it is. Okay. Thank you, Teresa. Go ahead. Okay. My question, I have two questions. Um, so the line positions that you're moving to the alliance grant, those are going to be the ones over in the west side. That's my that's what I'm planning to do now. You know, it's not over until we get our final allocation. But that's my intention is that because that was an approved strategy um the expansion of the high school and the satellite campus and that this innovation um you know transformation project that we're working on that I would be able to continue to slide staff that fit within that same strategy um in so do you have a total number how many people are going to be employed over at the west side I have a general idea I don't have it with me right now but we do Uh Mike's looking at it.
Um, really the difference for me was qualitative in what was found in the materials. They all had very slick presentations and pictures and, you know, canned presentations. Um, so no, I didn't I didn't feel like going second advantaged them because I don't think the second two firms in the presentation were qualitatively more impressive than the first four. It's it's what was underneath in terms of their experience and qualifications and what they're offering that I felt were were the differentiators. Um, Morgan, Brian, I know you guys are at the meeting, so any add I won't say that as eloquently as Jay did, but yes, I had the two firms that came in afterwards completely blown us away and answered all the questions that we had asked in the first presentation in their presentations, then I might then I might lean to the fact of yeah, they had a huge advantage because they took everything that we asked in the first set of interviews and covered it to a um extent extensively in their presentation, but they didn't um their presentation was very similar, like Jay said, to the first presentations, and we weren't looking at how flashy they were when they spoke to us.
Kasich takes the ball strong with her weak hand. Goes through a couple long metal defenders and gets one past Vanderhoof for her first goal and Spartans eighth. See, I would be very hard to defend in that case, Jeff, cuz I have two weak hands. So, they wouldn't they would they either way, they wouldn't know which way you're going. Jordan up on a draw. It's with Goodrich. [Music] And Conway ends up with it. She's got a head of steam. She's met by Kylie Marino. And that ball off wall. Nice save. Nice shot by I don't know who took the shot, but off the post. Ball gets up to Grace Howard is Grace Howard and that'll be a yellow card on Conway. [Applause] That's well timed for the Spartans. So that foul comes at the 950 mark. Yeah. So she'll be in the the the timeout chair until 7:50.
And then finally, we're going to continue to review all our resources across grade levels to ensure that they're the right tools in place to enhance the quality of our instruction. So, thank you so much. I think you mentioned the how this group has met more often than previous folks and all the work going on. I I want to say thank you. It's it's obvious how excited you are and proud of the work you've done on this. One of the things you mentioned earlier that caught my attention now was when you mentioned that I probably found some inefficiencies where um the common core wasn't taught year round consistently maybe half half I in my mind it goes back to trying correlation doesn't exist but would that would that situation contribute to a perception that some parents have um that we teach the common core standards probably because maybe test time might be come on the corner and maybe someone's been doing a full year now they're in a pinch to to to focus on the standards and it seems like it's the standards but whereas they just thought it as part of routine it wouldn't feel like you're teaching towards standards.
FDS are on here. We'll we'll get that for you, Teresa, because it's not just the new positions, but it's also people that we know are just going to make a shift over to the campus that are already with us. So, it's a combination of new staff and then existing staff that are moving. So, I'll get that number for you. Well, I just kind of want to know what's going under that grant. It'll it'll be mainly DHS West staff. Okay. Yeah. And we'll probably have to slide some of the transportation in there as well. Thank you.
We're we had a I think all of us individually had criteria that we really wanted to see presented to us. Um, and the second two I didn't, in my opinion, didn't completely blow the others away in presentation. So, I don't feel like they had an unfair advantage. or if they did, they didn't use it to their benefit. Do we want to put forth a motion for other firms since So, are we making a motion for just one or like do we I think we can make how do we want to do it? I think we need two. I think it would be good to go with two. I agree with Dan that having that option with two different firms as a architectural firms is better than just one. I agree. Well, I mean I I before I make a motion because I don't want it to go on and on, but um I I like I like Wald.
One thing I will give Grace Howard credit for, Steve, runs very hard. Pick it up. Good defense by Kendall Reed to slow her down as Long Meadow will this is one of those things they're going to want to eat up two minutes of the clock and so they can get the full strength at the same time you're also taking two minutes off the clock with and gameplay where they need to write try to come back get some goals. Yep. There you go by Jordan. tries to dig it out. Ball pops around. Paul's got it. Good. Good hustle by uh Addie Jordan. That's got to get over. Get there. Oh, get there. [Music] Good hustle by Addy Jordan to get the to make me nervous and throw the ball around only for us to throw the ball out of bounds on them. So, get just about a minute remaining on that penalty.
I just wonder if there's am I making a correlation there? I think it's been about the marketing of where like to kind of course stand. Everyone, you know, when it first came out freaks out like why can't they do it the way we use? Well, it's always the standards are just really they're they give us the skills. They show us how, you know, what we're trying to get students to think at. We're everything we're doing is teaching the standards. I guess I wanted to say it's teaching the best to test. Honestly, I think our focus has always been, you know, that the tests are aligned to the standards. you know, and the standards are are there for a reason and they make sense and it's more about finding resources that Kevin talked a little bit about big ideas, how, you know, they didn't do the best job at given the right amount of time for standards.
Anybody else have any questions on the grants? Thank you. If not, we'll move to the second item on the agenda, and that would be Mike, if you would give us an update on the cleanup process that uh you're engaged in with regard to 2024 and what you're finding as well, if anything on the year 2025. Yes. Let me um pull up a reconciliation. So, we um started the the 2023 audit uh was completed. We started the 2024 uh not too long ago, a few weeks ago. Can you close the door, please? We had um to the city um and the city submitted their numbers to the auditors. We started making correcting entries. Um and I have some of the variances up to uh highlight um what the um what the overages are. So I will share that now. Mike, would you say over this number inclusive of what the balance was before or is it in addition to there is a very yes a very large surplus?
I do too. I agree. And I like STR. I agree. I agree. All right. Well, then I I move that we um select Wald and STR. I'll second. Any discussion? I know you weren't here. I wasn't here, so I'm abstaining from them. I'm not going to. Yeah.
I would really put I'd put pressure on these uh back back defenders of Long Meadow. A few times they've thrown the ball away when they've gotten it, but we'll see what happens. 8:30 left with the Spartans up two. Goodrich with the ball for Long Meadow. Conway, one of their their scorers sitting in the timeout. with the yellow card. So that's always tough when one of your Exactly. goal scorers is sitting in the box. Here we go. Will kill off the last 15 seconds of the penalty. Very patiently waiting. I think 750 she should be. And if that was in fact a two-minute that should be at the 7. Ball gets out. Emetto ends. East Salto gets the ball by an unforced turnover from Law Meadow. East Saw Meadow calls timeout with the Spartans up 8 to6 with 7:45 to go in fourth quarter. Stay tuned everyone.