I'm going to do that. I just wanted to say that I did um get a chance to see you're in town and um Greece this weekend and I I I don't know our arts and our arts and music program is alive and well and one of the best things about this district and our students continue to amaze me. Um I went into year in town knowing what it was about but being pleasantly even more surprised. um and a lot of similarities and parallels with uh life today. And then Greece was just a good old-fashioned um fun time. And it's been a long time since I've been able to just kind of let go and enjoy something like that. So I just want to thank um the production crew, the tech crew, the teachers, the um directors, and the students and the staff. And um it's just one of my favorite things to do um in our district.
That way we understand what because right now if we just change this I don't I don't see uh tangible return on investment in any way shape or form. It would be good if you if you have some data that says you know uh we're having to spend 432 hours a semester doing data analysis because of this. We can put a dollar next to that and show that it's an improvement. that is then more time that the counselors can spend with kids versus doing data. And so it also is another thing that helps support things like the whole LHP work that was being done that ties back to your uh request for a data analyst person that this might be yet another way that we can do data analysis uh improvements in the future that help reduce cost. And so that's just again showing the return on investment for that person as well.
the state would match 40% and I feel like we pre-surrendered. So, having said all that, I'm sure um you know that I was going to vote no, but I I really hope some of you reconsider because there was another way in my opinion. Thank you. Any other questions or comments from the board? I just Yep. Sorry. Um just regarding the Yale situation. Um you know, I feel you, Deacy. I'm a PTA president at Marlton Elementary myself still. Um I just want Dr. Smith, we talked about this, but just commitment going forward if this is the plan that it has to be to, you know, I'm somebody who very much believes in the student experience and protecting it and you know just your commitment that we will go about this in the best way possible to preserve as much of the experience for Demise as as pos as as we possibly can.
So, congrats to everyone. So, so Jared, were you Does that mean I should still keep your signs in my garage just in case? All right. I won't I'll leave that up to you, but if you if you if you want to stop by, feel free. I I suggest doing it when my wife is not around. We'll move on to 10.1, the consent agenda. Can I have a motion to approve the consent agenda, please? Make a motion to approve all items under consent, including 10.1 minutes from the board of education meeting on April 7th, 2025, open and close session. 10.2 to acknowledge the FOYA requests received by the district. 10.3 to approve the field trips for overnight and or more than 200 miles and 10.4 to acknowledge the 2026 prom vendor for Asiggo High School. Second, can I ask a quick question? Yeah. Can I ask a quick question?
We can do that if you like, but there is literally no investment. There's no additional investment in Jason. I I can speak to that a little bit from a different perspective. And this predates our I I think cohorts really brought this to a head, but CSA started in 2008. Is that Yes. And and so since then when I was math department chair here, every time we got reports on state tests, we had to go through and sort through because it did not include students that we had control over in terms of their math. It include it included CSA students and they would have to do the same thing. They would get a state report and have to pull out, okay, now let's pull out our students and see how we did. Um, and and it really does complicate things. And I mean, when you're looking at at initiatives, what you're going to do to improve some of those scores, it it depends which students and some of those students are here and some of those students are here.
Absolutely. [Applause] Any other questions or comments from the board? Best way to do that. Seeing none, Mr. Yates. Roll call, please. Roll call on finance and operations. Mr. Brown. Yes. Much mowitz. No to 9.16. Yes to the rest of it. No to 9.16. Yes to the rest. Noted. Mr. DeMarcy. No to the budget 9.18. Everything else yes. No to 9.18. Yes to the rest. Your motion is courted. Miss Fox. No to 9.18 and 9.16. Yes to the rest. No to 916 and 918. Yes to the rest. Thank you, Mrs. Null. No to 918 and yes to the rest. No to 9.18. Yes to the rest. Thank you, Mr. Thompson. Yes, Mr. Peeleman. No to 916. Yes to the rest. No to 9.16. Yes to the rest. Thank you, Mr. Pman. Mr. Bach, yes, Mr. Conton. Uh, yes. That motion carries. Thank you, Mr. Yates. Moving to item 10, personnel.
I notice on here that and you know I have no problem. I'm not going to vote no, but I do have a a pondering here which is I I'm very happy that we have a 2026 prom vendor for Asiggo High School. understanding the situation that East is in this year with prom. Um, do we know if something is coming with that around the corner or we've already guaranteed that? I I just don't listen. Uh, we don't I I want our kids to be safe. So, that's why I asked. We can follow up on that. Thank you. That we did. That's what I was asking. So, we are good for 2026 for both. Great. Perfect. Thank you. All right, Mr. Mr. Gatewood, I Dr. Mario. Hi, Miss Johnson. Hi, Mr. Cerrone. Hi, Miss Simolton. Hi, Mr. Pler. Hi, Miss Venmouth. I Motion passes 70. Okay. Thank you.
And yet in the report, they're all mixed together. So, it's and that's all I'm getting at is there's data analysis. Yeah. So, I don't know if we ever kept track of how much time that took, but but it made the reports way less efficient and useful than they could have been. Yep. I think the point is it's less. So, so I'm and I to say that I I think this is a win for East North and CSA Newekch. Um, but the other part, the branding from the student perspective, I think it will mean something to CSA students that this is their high school. This isn't just where they take classes and they're really officially at East or North, but this is their high school. I don't know if this is helpful, but there's like three components that we mainly look at. One is the state takes our data every year now, and as of last year, we couldn't do any modifications to it.
We need a motion to approve items 10.1 through 10.11. Do we have a motion? Motion by Mr. Thompson, seconded by Mr. Peelman. Any questions or comments from the board? Seeing none, Mr. Yates. Roll call, please. Roll call on personnel. Mr. Brown. Yes, Miss Mowitz. Yes, Mr. Dearson. Yes, Miss Fox. Yes, Mrs. Null. Yes, Mr. Thompson. Yes, Mr. Peeleman. Yes, Mr. Bach. Yes, Mr. Compton. Yes. That motion carries. Thank you, Mr. Yates. Moving to item 11, policy, of which we have none for this meeting. Moving to item 12, committee reports. Are there any committee chairs who would like to share a report? Miss Fox, not a report, but I would like to just say one is coming from curriculum. Um, there have been a few parents that I've been speaking with regarding the ELA concerns. Um, I I did have an update and then work got insane and I left the update on my desk.
I want to um invite Mr. Obi to see if there are any uh further updates or board questions regarding our financial profile. As that I just want to go through Dr. Kagatti, thank you. I want to go through the financial uh the treasurous report at the end of March we have a fund balance of just uh 55 million and um we are pretty we are very confident that uh we should be able to make it through the year without having to do any TAW or borrow money and we expect our first installment of our property tax to come in late June. We should be fine till then. Now we've also included a copy of the investment report from our municipal advisor um PMA which is investing in ISD LA and at the end of the month we have a balance in the in the investment account of 40.8 eight.
So we had to put CSA under Columbus North which resulted in 30,000 errors in terms of courses and teachers and students matching everything. So that's a small component but the bigger one is the data piece. So North counselors there's things built into the system to allow them to schedule students easily. They can't use it because new tech is within their SIS in their system and that creates boundaries. And then what Dale just said about anytime we look at data, we have so many exclusions and things we have to take out. So quantifying it, anybody working with any data set in any of our systems is adding time to try to figure out and including new tech. Newekch has to go in North and in East to even look at attendance rates right now. It's just a immense amount of work on everybody's part to try to make it work.
Um, but it is it is being discussed and I will have an update next meeting. Thank you, Miss Fox. Any other committee chairs like to share a report? Okay, moving to old business, we have none. Moving to new business, we have none. Board member announcements are next. Are there any board members who would like to share an announcement? Mr. Peeleman. Um, this isn't an announcement so much as just something I wanted to say after much of the public comment tonight. The a lot has been said about many of the issues that were raised. I am sympathetic with the Demacy parents and their concerns about where the EL students um are going to go. I I just I really feel the need to say that the language regarding autism and autistic children was vile and disgusting. That lumping all autistic children together under one banner, lumping an entire spectrum of people as behaving in a simple single way and saying this is how autistic people behave.
And um we've also included the budget report in the uh in the financial which shows that uh we are actually right on target as far as expenditure and revenue where we thought we're going to be. That's exactly where we are. There are no outliers in the financials as it relates to uh revenue and expenditure. The other thing I want I would like to point out is we included the March uh CPI U in there that was released on the 12th of April. And as you can see for for March uh inflation actually decreased by one uh base point which is a it's a good thing in that the cost of everything that we're buying is going down. But from the revenue side though, not a good thing because it will impact a larger source of revenue which is property taxes. So as it stands right now, the 12 month moving average for CPI is $2.4 million at 2.4%.
Thank you. Um I'd like to give Logan a chance to chime in. I think he was he was trying to Thanks Nick for helping us understand that. Yeah. Hope hopefully I'm coming across. Okay. I guess the the question I have is mostly is what have we done to procure the information from parents andor students regarding the diploma offerings. And like the reason I asked this is CSA came out about I think 1 year after I graduated um if I recall and I actually went ahead and texted a lot of my friends given this news that we got on Saturday and I've gotten a couple of texts from parents that have actually said that they would consider going to North or East given the diploma differences while I've also seen about I'd say half the students saying they are excited about a diploma that would say CSA new tech.
This is how autistic children react. You'll never want to be in a room with an autistic child. is unbecoming of this district and the people in it. I am shocked and appalled that that was the language that was used tonight. And I I just cannot get over how any of the kids listening at home who any of the parents listening at home that have children on the spectrum feel after listening to this board meeting and after listening to the people in the community speak about that community in such disparaging tones. Thank you, Mr. Pilman. Mr. Thompson, as a father of a child with autism, you should all be ashamed of yourself the way you spoke about the children with autism. It is a spectrum. It is not just one way of being. It operates many different ways. My child is not a biter, not a hitter.
I'm sorry, 2.4%. And uh I mean there's some there's some things that would benefit us in the CPI data. We had uh looked at the energy index and it had been trending up especially as it relates to electricity and uh and gas natural gas but as of March is actually trending down it fell by 2.4%. And uh part of that also is gasoline pricing that fell by 6.3%. that impact us as it relates to uh fueling up uh buses and other uh other vehicles in the district. So that's that's where we are as it relates to CBI. The last Can I can I say something about that? Yes, sir. Because I I think that's important to like kind of instill and I I like that you said it. You don't actually want deflation. Yeah. But but you want some magic number. We all do, right?
So my concern is is do we have enough data to know that this wouldn't be destabilizing to the current population? Um given that you would be introducing this midway through a lot of folks's uh high school curriculum. Um and you know what information have we received from parents? Because the ask here I mean to be frank is I've got I know this was there was mentionings of this coming. I believe this was brought to us in the board packet on Thursday. There was a newspaper article on Saturday. I don't feel like I've had enough time to really ask constituents about this to give a good honest vote. Um, I understand the data integrity, but I really am focused on the students and the parents and like have you pulled them to see like how they feel in terms of that specific diploma situation? Because that was a big selling point back in the 2008 eras.
The only thing he's going to do is he's going to attack you with hugs and kisses. You should all be ashamed. Are there any other board members who would like to speak? Mr. DeMarcy. Um, I want to speak more to the budget. Um, you know, again, I said a lot of it last meeting. I I said a lot of it prior to the vote. Um, but I I just want to reiterate, you know, uh, our state, our community, we've been in an affordability crisis. Um, but the vote that we took tonight 100% contributed to that to a level of which that is unprecedented in our town's history. Um, you know, again, I I not just sympathize with the people who have to figure out how they're going to deal with this now. Uh but but my whole big thing with this and I've been saying it since last year is like you know we owe a a duty to like make sure that this town is an option for for people um you know people who want to live here like the kids who go to this school right now, right?
like 0.1 or 0 2 is is is that right in between there is that nice sweet spot which we want to just see continue and so deflation is not good either 0.5 is bad but minus 0.1 is is not good either and that's that 0.1 and 02 that we strive for right you're right if it trends till uh the the one month that we care about is actually December because the December CPR is what we use right for the uh for the next year's levy but what we know is folks love to shop for Christmas. So, I'm always happy about that. And I always tell people that in December, go out and shop. Shop for Christmas. Spend some money on your family and yourself because it helps us with our property tax le. So, yeah. Yes. So, I would like uh Sure. Thank you. Um I'm looking at the fee collection report.
You still get a north or an east diploma. So when you say differences in diploma, are you are you literally talking about whether it says north or east or Yeah. When they Yeah. Because they get to graduate either north or east, but they also get to participate in the graduation ceremonies which is a big deal as well for many of them because they do go to North and East andor participate in North or East athletics. Mr. Gable, you put this out in your newsletter two weeks ago. Is that right? Did you receive any any feedback at this point in time? Yeah, I I did not receive any calls um or responses to that newsletter. Um can't promise they all read it closely, but I didn't I didn't get any of those. The other thing is, you know, on a on a given year, the number of students who would participate at our graduation ceremony and at East or North is probably under 10.