It was definitely a journey, but I'm excited to be a part of the ongoing journey and and to be a part of all the great things that we continue to move forward with. So, thank you all. Um I well right before this my family headed on out because my children have not been able to play video games for hours. They've been here um homework's done and then they had to come here. So um I do want to thank them for coming. I want to thank um everyone for voting for me. Everyone throughout um the campaign who helped out. Um, I want to thank um the other new board members who uh we've been on a strange unexpected journey for the last four months and the current sitting members who I cannot wait to learn so much from you all and you've all put this district on a great path and then the departing board members who have done amazing work and I look forward to being able to continue what you have started.
I've had an opportunity to hear the principal from Colbine speak. Tomorrow there's going to be some people there from Sandy Hook law enforcement. Uh there's going to be a parent from Parkland and it's really important to learn from their stories um and be prepared. So I I think we're in a good spot where it comes to that emergency. We're now going to move on to and I'm going to bring Mr. pays back to our third focus area, family and community engagement. All right. So, the first part of this uh for us is creating and offering engagement opportunities to families. And so some of the ways that we do that, we certainly want to survey our our families um and get their input on what they need in order to help them be engaged with our school and our school community. Um we continue to offer our open house um twice annually with in-person options and with virtual options so we can try to include as many people as we can in those events.
That's so that's the process how that works. you want to go. Next one. Um, yeah. So, as far as athletics goes, u both at North and South, uh, a few of the key takeaways that we we got from the data was, uh, communication opportunities and removing barriers, which we've kind of, uh, touched on a little bit. Um, but just things that we're focused on and we want to continue to grow within the athletic departments. Um, is is the ease of registration. Uh, making sure it's very transparent and making sure it's very accessible to all of our students and all of our families. um our Fanx app which both schools have implemented this year. We're kind of in the infancy of those still, but it's going to be a great opportunity just to get that information out uh on a very easy and accessible platform for parents.
Thank you. Uh, I also was not prepared to speak. Um, I'd like to thank my husband who was the only one who could make it here from my family because I have kids in high school and they are busy doing things. Um, and I would like to thank everyone who participated in the campaign. uh whether you voted for me or not, I think it's cool that we can still do democracy. And uh I again, as Heather eloquently put it, thank you guys. And thank you guys. And thank you guys. So thank you. [Applause] I I look forward to working with the four of you. It's uh I think we're gonna do a lot of great things and um we share a lot of goals. So, it's exciting. Um I'm so sorry. One more. Sure. I think I have to thank my mom. No. Yes. She's like, "You better thank your mom.
Uh along with holding our new parent orientation for our new families to the district at the beginning of the year. Um we also hold some family and community events including our bingo night. Um our drama productions which are always a huge hit and and those students and staff always do an amazing job. Um our career day which I'll speak to a little bit more in a bit. Um along with our literacy night. Um and then we're always open to offering, you know, the opportunity for our families to be engaged in our parent teacher um organization. Uh they do the the crew that we have now. They go above and beyond. They do an absolutely phenomenal job of supporting our building, supporting our students, supporting our teachers, um a number of different events and and that's been a wonderful opportunity for people and we continue to offer that.
Uh Infinite Campus, which is is coming next year, is going to provide a lot of lot of opportunities again for uh making communication easy uh and accessible for our families. Parent Square um as well as the new website. Um and again, all these things there's we just want to simplify it and make it easily accessible to all of our community members. And we think focusing on these platforms and keeping them um specifically to these platforms will make it easy uh for families to access information and also to communicate to coaches uh teachers, administration um and just kind of bring everyone together. And the reason we mentioned that is if if you're in or not familiar, registration is there's a lot of different levels this there's registration to school, then there's registration for an activity, then there's registration for athletics. uh to register for athletics, you have to also provide an athletic physical.
You can thank us." You can thank her twice. Yeah. Yeah. You're on. So the the meeting is adjourned. Yeah. Oh, can I have a motion to adjurnn? I make a motion to adjurnn. Second.
Um, we also want to be connected to the community itself. So, uh, spoke a little bit about our career day. So, we've been running, we've been able to run career day with the assistance of our community for over 10 years. Um, with this year having over 36 speakers to come and address our seventh graders about possible career opportunities. Um, and I think and we think, you know, the one of the important piece of that is these are the people that they see every day. These are the people in our community who are there in front of them to talk about a number of the different opportunities that they will have in their life, you know, should they choose to pursue some of those pathways. Um, we've also been able to host a number of guest authors. Um, with the great assistance of Laura Gardner, our school librarian, we've been able to bring in authors of books that our students seem to love.
So there's a lot of steps that so anything that we can do to streamline that, make it easier to find and communicate that out that that helps our community and our families as well. So that's what that's why we're we want to continue to make that a focus and a goal as we move forward. uh opportunities. Uh obviously we tell all of our students uh as incoming freshman and non- freshman the first day of school is the school that is today will not be the one in four years when you leave because things that you come up with the thing you're going to change things and uh as we just got new programs changing that's because of the students that are currently here um and they're going to leave a legacy with that. So students that will be entering they're going to have different passions and different things that they uh they want to see happen and then we're the ones that are going to try to work on making sure that happens.
I can tell you I haven't read a whole ton of them, but the students seem to be super interested in them and super interested in the authors that come to speak to them and that's been a wonderful deal. Um, and then Mystique spoke on touched on a little bit our civics showcase. Um, students did a wonderful job of choosing topics that affect them in their communities. And we had uh we were able to have 17 groups of those students present to the staff, present to other to members of the community who were able to come and visit us. Um particularly members of the community who had specific interest in the topics that the students were presenting. Um and then from there, two groups of students were chosen to actually present at the statewide showcase. So they'll continue to do that. Um and and also students who want to affect some specific change in the middle school.
Um, what we do here, I think that's where boys bowling came in. That's where girls flag. Uh, we've done a great job. We've talked about co-oping. Last last time we was here, we moved to a co-op for boys gymnastics was doing really well. They actually have sectionals this Wednesday and looking forward to state the following week for them. But that that's us looking at our our school district's resources and just making sure we can do everything we can to maximize opportunities to continue uh to benefit all of our students. Uh, and then removing barriers. Um, as far as transportation, uh, minibuses again is is they've been implemented for a while, but it gives us a great opportunity to cut back on some of the transportation time, which, um, as Ryan mentioned, is is kind of a concern for a lot of our our athletes and our parents, uh, those financial options for athletics, um, with the angel fund and and waivers and things like that.
when we actually have had a group that I don't know if that's all entirely out but has been able to create some change in our building you know coming forward. So I think students did a really wonderful job with that. Um and then lastly just making sure we have open communication with our families. So we use a number of different avenues which includes parent square which you've heard about. Um and we're looking to increase the usage of that throughout the building. Um we send home parent letters, emails and phone calls obviously. Um and then also as a middle school and I know at the high school level as well, we use Aspen to share data with our families particularly as it comes to um students like grade data, assessment data and such. So these are just some of the ways that we are looking to connect to families and make sure the lines of communication are always open between us and our families in our building.
And then, uh, kind of long-term, um, is making sure that there's no language barriers that are present for any of our families. Um, and that goes across the board everywhere from registration to the information that's accessible on all those other platforms, making sure um that all of our families have access to it. So, we just wanted to talk about a little bit of some of the best practices that we want to continue to do and make sure that we're thinking of new ways to do moving forward to continue to encourage connections and involvement for all of our students in district district 99. So, one of those things is like how are we sharing the good news of the opportunities that exist and making sure that students know what they can get involved in. So, some of the things that we do, we have activity and athletic fairs at both schools.
And I'm going to pass it back to Mr. Rossy. All right, we got one more to go here and I'm going to take us home with um budget capital improvement. Um we talk about facilities, we talk about uh I I did want to touch a little bit on recruitment and retention. Um I'm really proud of the staff that we have. I think they've created a culture where um people feel valued there and they want to be there and I think we attract good candidates every year. And I I think um if you show me a school where teachers are are happy to be there, I'm also going to show you a school where kids are learning. And I think that's something that uh is certainly something we value and we don't take for granted. As far as our budget goes, um I've been fortunate enough to work pretty much my whole admin career with uh Mr.
Um, we have like our future Trojan and Mustang night for our incoming students in January. Uh, conversations with students during new uh student orientation. So, like at South it's Mad Dash and at North it's their positively north runs it. So, they have their awesome freshman day too. Um, we've had opportunities during access to talk to students about the various activities that exist. We've had opportunities to go to like our transfer lunches. So, at South High, I know specifically we have our transfer lunches. So, once a month the students that are transferring into our district, have a lunch with the psych psychologists, counselors, deans to learn like how to navigate our school and transition into our school. But that's an opportunity to talk about the activities that exist. We've gone to AVID, our EL resource and breakout sessions. So just finding ways to reach out to all of our students to make sure that they know of all the things that do exist and making sure that we're having personal connections as much as we can, whether that's directly from us or from our student leaders or from coaches and sponsors.
Kylie. He's always honest, he's always transparent, and he's always very straight to the point, and I certainly do value that. Now, if we get to facilities, I can't say enough about m uh our um custodial staff. Um they do a fantastic job. Um we've had a number of facelifts at the uh middle school over the year, but if I talk about what we really need, um we do need a and I say this with great respect, but we need a uh we need a change at 366 Road. I think it's really time to maybe think about and seriously think about how we're going to get a new building there. Whether it be Dartmouth High goes there and we come here. This is a beautiful facility, but I think the kids um the kids in the town are ready for it. I also think they deserve it.
And so just continuing to get the information out there so that everybody is aware that they could come in in August and not be interested, but maybe by January they are. And there's always something to be able that they to do and that they could get started doing. Just to reiterate, um, with communication, um, something that we've all talked about, but that's something that we want to continue working on. And so, you'll hear that over and over from us, um, we can never communicate, you know, too well. Um, there's always room for improvement. So, that's something we're always going to be looking to do. Um, the four of us are all members of the district's communications committee with the terrific, um, Jill Browning, um, and her staff. And so, you know, we continue to meet and to identify ways that we can improve, whether that's stuff through the new website, uh, which is really great and we can do some really targeted stuff through the new website.
And again, you're talking to someone who spent pretty much uh the majority of my life at 366 Sloum Road. I've loved every minute of it. But if you look at the plaque in the lobby, it says 1955. And again, a lot of people put a lot of hard work into keeping that building up there, but uh I think it's time to uh for a change there. And um we'll leave it up to questions and feedback at this point. Thank you very much. Excellent presentation. Um any of my colleagues have questions? I don't know if it was mentioned uh but for those people that may be watching at home uh can you talk a little bit about what RAR means because we heard RAR brought up several times the acronym what the acronym actually means. So the acronym is respect, accountability, responsibility and esteem. So, you know, when we when our staff members pass out those rare cards, they're passing them out when they see a student exhibit one of those rare qualities.
Um, the continued use of parent square, which will allow us to also translate into different languages. Um, and just finding ways that we can be consistent and better with what we're doing. So, again, all students, all families, parents, guardians know exactly the opportunities that exist um, and that we can minimize those barriers um, for students to participate. uh next steps for us is to really continue collecting more data. Like I said, we have that baseline um that we were able to use this year. We wanted to make sure that was accurate and now we have that story. Now we can continue that journey with those students and see if there's things that we can improve upon to to get them more involved. Uh many of them are involved. We see a lot of multiport athletes as well. So it's kind of really interesting that that we were able to dig into that into that data as well.
I know it's been around for quite a while now. It's been around when I was in school. So, it's full disclosure, it was a Darren Done creation. I thought it might have been. Thank you. Other than that, great presentation. Um, I certainly appreciate uh everyone taking their sections and uh some of the uh some of the action steps that you'll will be seeing in the upcoming year. If we're going in order again, we like to go in order here. Um yeah, I great plan. Great. Um I you know I I as I said with Quinn and others um and I'll echo with the middle school plan is that it's very clear that the strategic plan is woven within. I think that um I appreciated all of all all of which all of all of the information that you shared. Um, in particular, I'm just curious, um, when you talk about the new curriculum and I think of the middle school and I think of you as ever evolving, I I I do appreciate not unlike the other schools, but um, I remember uh, I think talking about Darren Don, but within all of your time, uh, your school was, and I'm using the wrong words, was like a model, very innovative of in terms of um project based learning.