I just want to thank everybody in the community for supporting us and getting us to these seats up here. Uh we have a lot of great things that we want to do for the schools, the students, the families, taxpayers, everybody. Um I want to congratulate the new president and vice president and I look forward to working together with all of you. Thank you everybody for their support for getting us in these positions. Appreciate it to the president and vice president. Congratulations. And uh now it's time to go to work. Thank you guys. Of course, I'd like to thank everybody who supported us and I'd love to thank my teammates. It was great running with you. We had a great time. I'd like to thank the outgoing president and vice president. I'm sure this year will turn out a little bit different. And I'm going to ask Mr.
I also personally also have concerns concern like to see them have stronger on the federal level because that's a lot of great changes to public schools and even a lot of the policy changes that we've had in the last few months from the federal office of course focus on schools and fun as much as they Yeah, I think your folks come and then Wednesday the folks can come up what their top five are. We can discuss here and figure out what the top five are with the board. Anybody? Those look pretty good. I mean, I'll just give my my two cents worth. I think that all that right there kind of a encapsulates what we or on a monthly basis. I give accountability. The top what is the top one to do? Top one is adequately and equitably fund district schools to the national median person.
So, I uh thank all of those individuals and I will stand for any questions you may have. Uh not a question but more of a statement. Thank you guys for your hard work. I as someone who goes through audits, socks related audits at where I work and SIP related uh not to throw out another acronym because we all love our acronyms. Um I understand that having a 97% pass rate is phenomenal. Um, and I appreciate everyone's hard work on this. Thank you. Yeah, I'll piggy back off of that. Um, it's phenomenal work what you guys do. I know it takes months and months and months to get this information and everybody is so dedicated and they work so hard and I just want to say thank you very much for for everything that you guys do. Ditto. I really appreciate everything. I just have a question um on the student attendance reporting where we see that that there's not a finding where there's no across why are those being presented if there were no findings in the last five years.
Let's continue to work together um in that commonality that we have and that's the passion for our community, our students and the things that we believe. But let's do that by remembering to be give each other grace to continue to exercise compassion and to also continue to be listeners because all the one thing I know we all want district 99 to continue to thrive. And finally to Julia Beckman. She was the person who thought it was a great idea that I do this. I do believe it was a great idea and I am happy to have served you all. Thank you. [Applause] I'm sorry. It's this is this is a tough one for me. Um I agree with everything that both of you have said. It's it it's a been a pleasure. Um I just want to say the number one thing I want to thank my family.
To my family and friends here and at home, especially my mentor Lesie was at her daughter at graduation with her daughter at Pit. David and Brad, I would never have made it through the last four years without you by my side. Wendy, we have walked through life's darkest valley together this year, losing our parents side by side. And I never wish that pain on anyone. I will forever thank you for lending me strength and making me get up, get dressed, put my lipstick on, and go out there and do it when I had none left, no energy. Do not ever forget, you did your job, and you did it bravely. And believe it or not, I know you care. to my husband and my sweet son. Thank you for standing beside me through it all. For all the days that I came home devastated because we lost a student.
and and I'm sure that as Dr. Thomas and Mrs. Yermalovich um how did I do that? Great. I thought so. U we'll talk through the school improvement plan and make those connections for us. So, thank you. First of all, thank you so much for having us this evening to talk about our school improvement plan. We're very excited to be here. Uh before we begin, I just want to say as a a newly principal, a new principal, um I'm I feel very supported not only by the district leadership team, um as well as obviously Mrs. Dermalovich, and also I just want to give a shout out to Melissa Mckenry and Elizabeth Coria from Dlo and Potter schools. Um this was a very exciting time for us because we were able to collaborate together. So some of the things you'll see in our school improvement plan, you have seen in Mrs.
So like given the um dynamic nature of of all these different definitions uh that's where it says you know are you providing the resources to support the community in in being able to follow this plan. I would argue yeah that sort of training is mission critical so that our administrators don't make a mistake that could end up in court or OCR or something. So, do we have a title n person? Yeah. Within district Robin Robin and Carrie is our title N coordinator. So, that's just one other person that who's sort of up to date on them. Correct. Yeah. So, oftentimes these things get tricky. I I said to you before like I'll share the data of the number of students per central office administrator and I was like why is that relevant? I'm not teaching any kids, but this is why it's relevant because these questions come up and you know they call us.
Tomco, you better get ready for me. And to Kurt, we know each other a long time. We know each other how we work. So, let's hope for a great year. Again, thank you very much uh Mr. Ramos, Mr. Taylor, thank you for your service over the past uh time. Mr. Willis as well. Uh looking forward to working with each and every one of you and like I said, we do have a common goal. It is the city of Garfield. It is the students of Garfield and uh we're going to do the best we can and uh appreciate your support this time. Thank you. May I have a motion to adjurnn? Motion. Who's it? Mr. Ramos. I'll second. Dr. Porchek. All in favor? I opposed. We'rejourned. Thank you.
The one opportunities to what's the third one? Keep going down. Improve opportunities rule in remote schools. Uh that's critical. Y school safety and security. Um, I know Miss Mercy is always working on the focus with the comprehensive school safety plan and federal advocacy. Those look pretty good for me. You guys you guys can decide what you want to do, but those are that's kind of what we're going through on a weekly basis. Yeah, really if I could just focus on all seven. I didn't see anything right now. Preserve respect and strengthen control. Wednesday. Um, sure. Could you possibly write them on the bathroom wall through the public accountability and transparent education savings account? We know that depending on the needs of the student substantial trip that they have that first preschool programs. That's I was reading that first one kind of general way covers the rural fund all of our schools.
So that's so the reason why we provide like was there an audit finding in the prior years is to allow you to have an understanding is is a systematic item that we're addressing. Is this really just when you're looking at uh the when we're talking about like the the calculated absences and uh some of those withdrawal items like those can be very challenging to calculate. So, we would anticipate that we would see more yeses in that history of those audit findings. Um, so this lets you know that as a board member, this uh that middle finding was not one that we've received in the past 5 years. This isn't a systematic uh item that's occurring every single day. It is one item uh a one-off item that was found. Um it was addressed by the um CIS team and they put some processes in place to be able to address that.
They gave me the opportunity to come here on Monday nights and to be able to read all of the information. I just want to say thank you to them cuz they gave me a lot and that they were the reason I ran in the first place. My parents taught me that um not to stay on the sidelines but to get involved and uh if you want to make things better and that's the way I felt. And so um I just want to thank everyone in the community who have supported me throughout my tenure on this board. Without you, I couldn't have done this. So thank you. I also want to thank our teachers and staff. They have made it a pleasure to serve. Also to all of my fellow board members, past and present. You have mentored and guided me throughout the years and I truly appreciate that.
For the days the Asiggo police were parked outside our house protect to protect us from threats. You asked for none of that. Yet you held space for my grief, my passion, my joy, and my commitment. You gave me 7,943 hours away from you to serve this district. And yes, my HR brain keeps track and never made me feel guilty for a single one. I love you both deeply and always. I step away with a full heart, grateful for every handshake, every challenge, every smile, every angry email, every tough conversation, every vote, and every stumble that allowed me to rise. I've been stretched, humbled, and profoundly changed for the honor of this journey. It's been messing, meaningful, and more than worth it. Thank you. [Applause] Who wants to go next? Try. Right. Uh, I had the honor um yesterday of attending um the Guru Vendana um in the Eola Community Center.
Mckenry's a couple weeks ago and you'll see next school committee with um Liz and so it was just very nice to be able to collaborate with them and we hope to do more of that as we move into next school year. So as Dr. Saber Magcguire said our school improvement plan stems from our district strategic plan which is very exciting and there are four uh focus areas um that we're going to be discussing this evening. Um and Mrs. This year Malovich is going to start with teaching and learning which is very exciting. I know right. I know. Hi everyone. Um so I'm going to take this opportunity obviously to talk about our first focus area teaching and learning. Um so throughout this focus area obviously we want to support students meet them where they are ex extend learning and do the best that we can to provide the best instruction.
Um they'll call me, they'll call Marlene, they'll call Robin um to try and answer these questions and guide what can be pretty tricky investigations sometimes. And uh you know I think this this chart and again this is only something that at least initially that the uh investigator sees uh is pretty telling about the decisions that you have to go through uh on a high pace and pressure scenario where you want to get this uh kind of adjudicated as quickly as you can to support everybody involved. whether the kid was um you know a victim or a perpetrator, you want to address it as quickly as you can and or maybe falsely accused or maybe it's just an issue we got to resolve but it's not any of this, you know. So, um this is what our administrators are going to be working through. And to be honest with you, they do it now.
Yeah, fully fund preschool programs in the K12 funding formula for districts that offer preschool. Thank you. I like that one. This one's a good one. Eliminated un unfunded mandates and administrative burdens. two words increase funding for exceptional student services based on the cost study including for rural or remote areas. That's good. Yes. [Music] This is your chance. Do we have to priorities or just I don't think we have to put them in. This is our top priority. This is our next one. They just Okay. And they did say that if there's one that's not on the year, we can make a recommendation for them. I'm not thinking of one right now that I would add to them. Definitely mod want to modify that one on public accountability on money to include money spent on service. sculptures. Substance See? Next item is the first reading and review of governing board policy advisory p 863 to page 75.
Uh but it also lets you know kind of the history of those audit findings. Okay. And I'm sorry I see the years now. Um so what was the current finding for that particular item? So that was related to uh a birth certificate for a particular student uh that was not on file for us as a district. We did do our due diligence in trying to locate that item, but there is no margin for the USFR question to be able to say like did they do everything they could, but they still couldn't find it. It's just um as you can see here is uh the district ensured the name of the student uh matched the name on the legal document and we actually did not have a legal document for that student. We were unable to attain it. Thank you. So, it was just the one incident, not correct.
Without working together, it wouldn't have been the outstanding district that it is. We have weathered many highs and many lows. I'm sorry. We've we've come through many referendums. The Woodridge property, we all remember that. Uh co well maybe some of us. Um and major renovations on on our buildings. They have made our district stronger. In my tenure, we have had the leadership of three outstanding superintendent, Dr. Elyn, Dr. McDonald, and Dr. The Thank you. Thank you all. All have contributed greatly to making this our district a desirable destination to raise a family. Keep up that great work. It's not easy, but I know you can do it. Looking back over the years, I will miss the challenges in in this district moving forward, and it always will have a place in my heart. I expect to be seeing our sports and our academics at the top of the standings.
There were um schoolboard members from 203 204 and well 308 because I was there. Um, and there were also uh elected officials from Bowling Brook. There were people there who had connections to Aurora, Asiggo, um, Bowling, I say Bowling Brook, Bowling Brook, Neighborville, Planefield. Um, it it was a reminder of how um, diverse u uh, the area is. Uh, they taught us a great deal about the multilingualism, multiculturalism that exists in the subcontinent of India. It was very fascinating and the whole point of it was to honor teachers and educators and to Miss Adams at Southbury who gave up a good portion of her Sunday afternoon and we had two other teachers and boy am I mad at myself that I can't remember the other two names. Uh but we had multiple teachers. We also had um our STEM director there and wow um from um Tony Hollow.
Um one of our first action steps as you know we are we have the exciting opportunity to implement a new curriculum next year. Um and we did have pilot pilot classrooms this year that did a phenomenal job. It wasn't an easy task. They had a lot of decisions. They had a lot of extra work that they had to put in, but they did a phenomenal job. Um, so I'm just going to highlight those teachers. Um, in kindergarten we had Christina Shiniggoy. In first grade, Lisa Nimi. Second grade, Missy Giosa. Third grade, uh, Casey Saunders and Taran Defryas. And she's here tonight. Thank you for that. Um, fourth grade, Kelly Rose. and also in fourth grade, Ashley Kapper and Jodie Paresi. Um, and in fifth grade, Donna Dara. So, these teachers not only took on took on the active of learning a new curriculum, they also opened up their classrooms at multiple opportunities for folks in their grade level to watch them get a handle on shared experiences and PLC's.
It's just not concise like this. You don't see it all in one place like this usually. So now that we have three fairly detailed forms. Yes. It says all over the form for you know about FURPA. Yeah. Doesn't say anything about FOYA. Sure. FURPO would trump FOYA. So it doesn't. Yeah. Yeah. So you can't you can't um request your friend's kids records. Right. Right. that FOYA doesn't address that. FOYA is a public records act and by definition student records including discipline are not a public record. They're these are considered discipline work. Correct. Yeah. So they wouldn't be. However, and I think this is where it's been hung up in the legislature this year. If you get to the last part where you have to report out the notification. Yeah. You know, I think this is going to probably frustrate more people than it now you're getting a watered down sort of generalized.