Money first, people second. That's what it's been for years now. I am pleading with you to please live up to your previous words and put the students and the staff first. They are the ones in the building. They are the ones the most directly affected by these choices. They are not dollar signs. They are people. Hi, my name is Lisa Argus, 31 Albany Road. Um, I'm on the Deacy Elementary PTA board. Um, I have two children who attend Demi. Um, I support our board of education and Dr. Smith. I'm here to be a partner and I know you've seen that from me with previous things we've worked on in the past. But I do not support the decision to have an outside school rent space within our within our elementary school walls. This is not to be pompous or dismissive or to reject the Yale school.
And then again, we're taking this, bringing it to the board for information, the approval, and then we'll have to follow the proper paperwork with the state and then go out to families and present that information. So, we've done it in incremental steps. Okay. Thank you. I just wanted to understand what those three phases were. I do have just maybe a precautionary thought, which is while we may have crossing guards, we can't ensure that they're there every day. I know I've seen many crossing guard areas where I'll be like, "Oh, I see a crossing guard there every day." And then they're not there for a week or they're not there for a day. So, it's not always a for sure thing. Yes, it should be. And yes, we hire them, but they have vacations or days off or sick days or whatever. Just a thought. Two of these two my next two questions um are probably to Mr.
And so that is one of the concerns that we have is how do we meet this capacity? Um, we don't know what that's going to look like yet in terms of the number of students who are going to pursue, but if we're looking at past practice or or how students have graduated with us before, it gives us pause. Um, and so we've got some things to kind of figure out on that. So, our expectation is for every student to earn a seal. That's our expectation. And I that's it's lofty. And we'll say that, you know, right out of the gate. It's lofty. But we're going to treat every student as though they can earn a seal uh from day one. Um and then and you know if they if they fall out of that pathway um you don't necessarily have to earn a seal. Well, just not necessarily.
This is to keep our elementary school to keep the feeling of solidarity and safety alive as it stands today. I ask each of you, do you have right now or have you ever had children attend to Macy Elementary? If you have, you as a board would never have chosen chosen this spot in Deacy Elementary School to run out to anyone. I did bring a map which you can't see from that far, but um right here is where circled in blue that you can't see is where the elementary pot is. There's so much more school other than what's here in elementary. And you can see how um in this area we just have this close little knit community there. Um the part circled that's in blue. Um it's um yeah, actually you can't see it, but so there's spots in yellow there that we call pods.
Obami and um Dr. Katti. And I really don't mean them to come out in a um in the way that they're going to sound controversial, but we've been talking about transportation being an issue for now four months that what we got to get to the next step. And I'm looking at our new board members here and I know they will take that on, but we can't keep talking about it because it will take a lot of time. And so I really encourage like the new board and our our board that is uh moving forward or veterans moving forward like that really needs to be something that is addressed. And then my second question is and it's kind it's tangential but it really does have a a basis here too. We still don't have the to my knowledge a residency director and a many many districts have this and it's a way to really understand you know who's in the district and who's not.
You don't have to earn a seal. So next slide. A readiness seal is not required for graduation. So if they don't earn the readiness seal, they still have to complete the pathway. And the thing that I want to emphasize to everybody is that we do that right now. We do that right now. We talk about these three buckets that students have to uh earn in order to to be able to graduate. Next slide. And those are the three buckets. So number one, you have to earn a diploma. That's the first thing you have to do. in order to graduate. The second thing that you have to do is you have to learn and demonstrate employability skills. And if you look, there are three ways to do that. There's the work-based learning, there's a service-based learning, and there's a project based learning. All students in BCSSE demonstrate employability skills by completing a senior project.
Um we do a lot of learning in these pods. Um and I'll email you the map so you can see what I'm talking about. I know Dr. Smith has been there, but maybe some other people on the board don't know how the school's laid out. Um, so we do a lot of learning in the pods, a lot of PTAing in the pods. We have a lot of fun and create core elementary school memories there. And this is where all of the activities um I mentioned take place. Um, and as you shift our students around into the um, middle school portion, this is all going to be lost. Um, and like I said, this has nothing to do with the Yale school. You could have rented this space out to anyone and we'd still feel this way. It is the fact that you're breaking up our elementary school and we can't sit back and watch that happen without a fight.
It has a lot of financial implications transportation being one of them. Is that something that is in our strategic plan soon? Yeah. Do you want to speak to that first Jeremy and then I'll add something? Sure. Um some people would call that a residency officer. Um that uh responsibility falls to our office under and because we are responsible for central registration. Um we actually just met this last week with a vendor um that potentially could do some of that those residency checks for us. Um we want to make sure that we're being um responsible uh financially to employ a full-time person to do that. Does the number do the numbers of residency checks support that or can we do it on a per case um uh you know I'm drawing words here they're not they're not good tonight uh on a on a per case basis right case by case basis um and so that may be more cost effective in order for us to do that when we've flagged residency concerns whether that's throughout the school year or whether that's coming through central registration from a new new student um renewal.
So, we've got everybody covered there. pathway or I'm sorry, bucket number three, complete a postsecondary readiness competency. And there are a lot of ways you can do this. Um, you can get your honors seal, right? You can uh score 1250 on the SAT, which is you five uh I believe it's 560 math, 590 writing. You can score 26 on the ACT. Uh you can get your CTE concentrator. Uh that's uh principles one and two and then a and then a capstone. Uh you can can uh take the ASVAB. You got a score 31 on the ASVAB. You can get this industry recognized credential. We give away TW we don't give away. I'm sorry. Students have the opportunity to earn 12 of those through our C4 uh courses. And then dual credit. You can do dual credit. You have to have six verifiable transcripted college credits.
And I wonder I also wonder too how this could have been a decision that was made without putting it out to a public vote to take over our school. And why Deacy? And why this spot? And I wonder why you can't break the contract. They haven't moved in yet. You owe them nothing and you owe our kids everything. Thank you. Um, hello. My name is Andrea Brown and I live at 19 Raleigh Lane. I'm in a I'm the mother of two amazing boys, but I'm also in a very interesting situation here because one of those boys goes to Yale and one of them goes to Demacy. So my questions really come from the Yale point in the sense that my son had to leave Jagger unfortunately because he got too disruptive. He threw chairs. He ran out of the building three times to the street.
Some of the things we've we've started to and um have been really productive um through the registration process is having residents that have been in our system for years and years and years who have never had to reprove residency reprove residency at our transition years. So we're not expecting a family to have to prove residency every single year um because that's part of what we understand from uh the impact of living here and being a a taxpayer. But we have to say from fifth to sixth grade, you need to reprove residency. And it's not the entire full residency process. It's an amended um piece of that. From 8th to 9th grade, right? Um uh that kindergarten, we got to catch them right away. Um and then we we have put some additional measures in place, but it's volume and it's making sure that we have the personnel and the staff to be able to kind of ensure those things.
Or you can do uh AP, four credits AP and take the AP test. Or you can do a mix of dual credit and AP. You can earn three dual credits and two AP and take the test. So there are a variety of ways that we can get students a post-secary readiness competency. And if you meet those three, you still graduate and you don't necess you don't have to have a seal, but they're there. uh for folks who want to work through them. So uh we can skip the next two slides, but let me tell you why. First, uh these are exactly what you have as a handout in front of you. So I wasn't going to originally put the handout in front of you, Dr. Phillips, and I think it'd be a good idea if we gave them the two-page printout. And so you have that two-page printout, and so we could skip those.
The school wasn't available to meet his needs. I question if Deacy has been looked at and ensure that these children are able to stay in that area if they elope and run um is the building. My son has thrown a desk. My son has done these things and he's a great kid and these children at Yale are great children but they turn into the Hulk sometimes. That's what we call it. And Yale is equipped to deal with these students and to deal with the physical and the destruction. I question and I keep my fourth grader separate from my 14-year-old who is autistic because sometimes the physical aggression can get rough. So, while I'm a Yale parent and these children are amazing and lovely, I I fear for some of the safety of the children in the Demasy school, my child included. Um, on a simpler note as well, the not simpler, but my fourth grader, these were the children that really got hit by COVID when they first started.
Um and then we have to look at affidavits. We have to look at McKennie Vento status. Those are things that are constantly changing for us. um and understanding hardships um that families have um with still staying true to those rules as it relates to and thank you very much for this information. It's greatly appreciated. And as it relates to uh the question that you ask about transportation, we know it's is very dicey. Uh the cost of transportation, even if we did everything by the book, as far as the cost of transportation, for every dollar that we spend, if we're lucky, we get 71 cent back from the state if we did everything efficiently. So, right off the bat, we are we're losing about 30 cents on every dollar that we spend. We also recognize that for a lot of our parents, transportation is emotional, right?
This is pretty cool. Um, and it's lofty, but it's cool. The first thing I want to do, though, is apologize if I've offended anybody because your logo is too small or it's not in the right order. Uh, when I did that, I was just trying to make them fit. So, full disclosure. Okay. So, if you, the governor just announced uh two weeks ago uh in partnership with these seven uh institutions, if you get if you achieve, if you earn your honors plus enrollment seal, you are auto accepted into any one of those universities. So when they say we want you to leave with currency, that is what they mean. The seals give you currency. There's this further proof that you're ready to do something or that you've worked hard to achieve something. And so on the other side of it, you you get to autoenroll in one of those seven institutions.
They didn't get that kindergarten experience where they got to go in without masks and learn how to be a child and learn all of those things, but they did always see those fifth grade clapouts. And my son was like, well, if we move and we're not getting that, and that was something that was so special that these children will also miss, I believe. Uh it's a silly little thing, but it's a it's a momentous occasion for these children. So, I just hope that all of these factors are being considered, especially for the safety of our children. Thank you. Good evening. My name is Jason Lutz. Um, I've been a dedicated EPA bus, you know, employee for 13 years. And I humbly ask you to save our jobs. We we care about these kids and we bust our butts to get them to school on time every day in a timely in a timely manner, safely safe manner.
Oh, yes. So, we know we have to walk it systematically, which is why we're taking our time to do that. I think we recognize that if we do this too abruptly, it's probably going to be a backlash, right? So which is why we we requested the commission of the hazardous study and those would be the lowhanging fruit. The example that you gave at uh club where we know their communities that were built 10 years ago which was the last time we did a hazardous uh study that do not that now have sidewalks that are not walkable. We want to take care of that and then we start moving to other things so that within uh the time frame of the strategic plan the next five years we can clean things up and be more efficient in doing it. But we have to be very systematic instead of as much as I want everything to be fixed yesterday.
And there are benefits for employment honors plus and enlistment honors in enlistment in service uh plus. But the uh most glaring again is uh autoenrolled into one of those seven institutions. So I wanted to um bring your attention to that. Um but anyway, that is an overview of what's going on with the new diploma and I'm sure you have questions and uh in some cases I may have great answers. Please, we'll start it off. Uh, one of the big things for me is on the Alistment uh, honor seal is JOTC. I know we don't have a program. I know it's not a requirement because there's another uh, sure uh, requirement that could be completed. Is that something that we're looking to explore? I I spoke with Dr. Parsons about that last week and it's kind of iffy. I do know that there are ones in the area.
Everybody does what they have to do to make sure those buses are safe every day and nothing's going to go wrong. So, I think you should really look at this and say, well, it it doesn't make sense to outsource because you just don't know what you're getting. You know what you're getting here. We're dedicated. We're always willing to do what we have to do. And it's not easy to get up every day, come to work, knowing that you're not wanted. It your your job's pretty much done. And that's, you know, that's what we've been hearing for the last six months now or whatever it's been. So it it's not easy, but we try. Everybody tries. So just try and reconsider keeping the bus drivers in the budget. Thank you. My name is Kathy Munger, 52 South Locust Avenue. I have been a district employee for 20 years, bus driver for 14.
I know I'm dealing with our parents here who have emotional tying to making sure their kids get to school and it's done just just well. That gives them grace. For for many years, the district did not levy to the max. The implications of that in terms of financials repercussions of that, we are still working through those. As a result of that, when we make changes and so as a result of that, we often have to plan, work diligently to assess what needs to be built, make sure that we have the infrastructure to sustain the change that we seek to realize and then we implement and move. But if you do it in reverse, you implement, but you haven't built the necessary scaffolds to to withstand the change, you will end up right back where you were because everyone say, "Well, I'd rather be as dysfunctional as it was yesterday." Right?