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Ruby I was gonna say I'd ask dr. really to reply to that all right so we are we are I'm just gonna put it out there we're really blessed that we have Kevin Holly as our k12 administrator for supporting else we do better than pretty much everybody in our derg and we rank very highly and chemin is on this call if you want to hear from her she knows these data inside out and backwards we rank very highly in the state and we do that with not a a complete complement of the teachers that we need we're fortunate that we have some two tutors that work two three tutors that work with our TESOL teacher and we have kemon going from one school to the other meeting with regular ed teachers and our special ed teachers and our t saw support tutors and our seesaw teacher we have where we're doing the best we can so we're understaffed and what our goal is is to take our students and using their lost links scores which is the state test for that's required for ELLs every year and to examine those scores and be able to provide the types of supports to the students directly as well as to the teachers in the classrooms to try to move those kids from wherever they are it's a five there's a five score level ranking on the the lost links for reading writing listening and speaking we have to address all those domains and we could quite frankly if we had more we had another teacher we could get children up through the rankings of one through five to be able to be exited from the ell program which means that they are able to participate fully in the English instruction that we're providing to every other child without support and that's what we're trying to do and that goes back to the question of equity we do not want kids to be on crutches any longer than they have to be we want them to be able to be independent and so right now we're doing an amazing job because Brookfield as you recall some of you were on the board when John and I first came in this was a red flag we needed to our population was growing we had 19 languages it's fluctuated between 19 and 23 over the years depending upon who were who's in our population and we have put together a program that everybody can be proud of we get we get the state referring people to us to ask us what we're doing and how we're doing it and we're doing it but we could do it better if we had more teachers because we're not giving the kids the amount of time in terms of instruction and frankly the the regular IDI teachers in the classrooms the amount of support that they need because they're not trained to to to teach children who don't speak English and they need the support in in the classroom and I know that might not make sense to a lot of people that might be listening like why can't teachers do everything and unfortunately teachers aren't pretty much miracle workers but they they do need support to be able to perform some of the miracles that I think our teachers perform every single day Maureen thank you on that and I think another point that needs to be brought up I need to emphasize what Maureen ended with there which is you know we talked about differentiated instruction we asked our regular classroom teachers to do everything and they need support as well because every every time you know every moment they're not spending time with one child but there's been kind of one child and not spending it with another so we need to make sure they have the proper support the other piece to this is our enrollment there was I think one of the questions from the board member was enrollment what does that look like it looks like at least 15 more students English language learner students projected for next year so it could be more than that so that's another piece to this there's more students to service and this is as with exit students which is you know our numbers are very good for that students exiting the students continue to enroll in our school so just so can I just one follow-up and then I'll just get off of that so when we have special education students there's like legal requirements that we have to follow their IEP s and make sure we're staffed appropriately just for our education and the education of the community are there not sort of legal requirements in terms of staffing for English language learners what's the difference there's to my knowledge there is no guideline for number of teachers per students I will add because you you dragged my mind to say something else we also have English language learners who have special needs so they're duly identified and a lot of our our TESOL teacher and our tutors time is spent in supporting the regular ed teachers that have these these students in their classroom as well as the special education teachers because it's a lot more complicated when you're dealing with a student that has an IEP who also doesn't read write speak and comprehend in English so there's there isn't a legal requirement for the the number of teachers that there are there are standards and it's pretty much left up to the individual districts to figure out how to make that work and the the the ESL teachers also provide guidance to teachers with you know reading and a number of other things it's a it's a I I would love to have when we get back in school whenever that is have any board members that are interested come and see what we do with our English language learners because it's it's very impressive and we are understaffed okay just thanks for the clarification Laureen you're welcome how many staff members do we have doing their testing the a male population to do okay I want to speak out of turn but I believe that because we were concerned about the reliability and validity of the scores that chemin is going around and then Holly is going from school to school and administering the lost links assessment to the students and we have that takes place in the spring okay so Kevin's doing all that and it's three tutors yes I'm sorry I just want to make a note that the all of the tutoring time is not paid for out of the operational budget we have a title three grant and when I wrote the grant because we needed more time if you remember a couple years ago we asked for we also asked for an additional TESOL teacher and we asked for two and we got one and up I can't remember right now I think it might have been to Paris and we then paid for through the grant that I wrote for title three an additional tutor rather than a pair excuse me and more time for the Paris the tutors rather to keep them under the maximum number of hours for part-time but to give them more than what we had budgeted for in the operational budget so we are getting more services than what's actually in the operational budget because we're hat we have additional services through title three that makes sense so does anybody have any questions or comments about this because I know Debbie had shared some of her ideas with us via email I just want to make sure to be to that and let her have an opportunity to sort of share those opinions yeah I don't know that that my spreadsheet makes sense anymore because I I hadn't seen John's this spreadsheet that John did I somehow overlooked that in my email so I can still I can still talk about it basically you know I don't I don't want to give up any of it I hate to see Spanish go away and so I was trying to move numbers around and figure out you know if there was any any way we could be creative and save part of that program or all that program one thing I just like to add about that Debbie since you just brought it up you know two really important things that I heard dr.
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Burrell is saying dr. ruby was that they we don't have enough time to meet the science and social studies needs so according to our portrait have a graduate army and like you said to you w said exactly that our main goal is curriculum right academics and curriculum and and those are mandated programs right that's what we're mandated to provide our students are children and we're don't have enough time to meet those signs and social needs I don't see how we can keep justifying a program that's just an exploratory program if we're taking away their our number one goal of meeting the curriculum and educational needs of our students I'm not saying I want it to go away I think it's a great asset to have but if we're sticky with what we said we're gonna stick with our goals on our portrait of the graduate then I don't know how we can justify that especially if we're adding two back in to address where we do not meet the science and social use needs of our elementary students it's been a problem for years so I think that's great if we could we're moving into the future right we're building our students to be lifelong learners and we're going to be doing like a stem type program that's the way of the future good I was just gonna say before we were faced with having to cut this much money from the budget you know before eliminating Spanish was on the table what was the solution to this science and social studies gap that you're talking about I don't think we really had a solution but we brought in Smithsonian science to help bridge start to bridge that gap but you can't make up time if you don't have it so we are I think I would say dr.
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urban you would agree bringing in Smithsonian science was one way but we hadn't addressed the socials our social needs because we just hadn't gotten there yet we dealt with the LA we've dealt with math we're still dealing with science and we haven't really touched social studies yet so just to piggyback on what you said joy we selected Smithsonian because we needed a curricular tool as we that would support the NGSS standards and the science curriculum hadn't been updated to align with the new standards so we were very fortunate we looked at a number programs and one of the drawbacks to the programs is that they all of the one all of the major publishing companies that publish curricular tools for elementary science their programs were written for forty-five minutes a day five days a week every day of the year so they would not work for us because in the lower grades we alternate science with social studies so the students don't get science every day of the week every week of the year they get I'm just gonna throw 50% of the year they get science and 50% year they get social studies and so the Smithsonian program was developed knowing that there are schools like districts like ours and many others that that do this that they don't have the time and they they they call it content and they split science and social studies and teach it in that content time and so they had undergone some of the same curriculum development principles that we implemented in our curriculum development for literacy and mathematics and took the standards and bumbled them across the year and created these they're pretty amazing modules for teachers to use that fit into our time constraint and social studies is the last of the four major subject areas not that any of the other ones aren't important but the you know science social studies ela and mathematics the basic four we left that to last and we are currently during this coded 19 period one of the things that our director of instruction and missus various does is work in the schools on curriculum instruction and she is working on social studies curriculum right now and we have a plan because I talked to you about that I don't know last meeting in the meeting before about how we would have to not have the teachers be involved and the writing of the social studies curriculum because we just can't wait that long we would we would get it done somehow in central office and with our curriculum specialists helping us so we're working on the social studies right now we spent January through right when we shut down researching and reviewing a curriculum for social studies for k4 and the reason and I think Deb asked a question about what did we do before the the the need for more time for teaching social studies is not a new topic for this board of education either in the current configuration or previous configurations before the current board members were on the board we've talked about this many times and there's we we've never come to any solution of where we could get the time from although social studies and and this the elementary Spanish program have kind of been on the table in these discussions many times before so while we were certainly aware and cognizant of the need for more time it had been discussed and we did get a little bit more time back in fifth grade and sixth grade I believe three years ago but this is something that we've dealt with since I've been in Brookfield being forced yeah I I remember the discussions I wasn't implying that it was really a new topic just what would have our solution been if we didn't eliminate Spanish the answer is there was no solution no there's no solution because there's only so many hours in the day so this is an opportunity you know what's that phrase they always say when you're dealt when you're given lemons you have to make lemonade so given you know the situation that we're in we with this the timing and the need for student coverage for contract obligations with prep time and the budget cuts that are needed this this presents itself as as an opportunity to do something that is highly beneficial for students given the situation that we're tasteless and I just want to make sure my understanding is right I know we discussed this at the last meeting but I'm not a hundred percent sure right I get it so let me check so before we had elementary Spanish those kids would have extra what did they have extra of during that time do they have extra phys ed or are like where were they and how did we staff that time I still don't a hundred percent understand the Marine explained it last week again I'll just I'll try to go through it very briefly so it's not confusing and overwhelm anybody would be means specialists teachers at the elementary school employed as 1.0 full-time equivalent staff although there wasn't enough students or sections of classes to have been teach full-time their specific content area so they picked up other two or three classes a week perhaps of whatever it might be intervention monitoring a classroom so a classroom teacher could go out for a data team whatever it might be in additional content time something you know depending on how it worked out but we did not absolutely need for example a music teacher at centers school full-time 1.0 that's when two years ago we made the move because we were being good stewards of the taxpayers money as this administration continued to evolve into its role and really dig down on existing practices and looking at it with a fresh lens we understood that with the schedule and faced with a year just like this like it is practically this is obviously an enigma but every year is a difficult right down to the wire with our budget we reduce the students didn't lose any contact time with their specials but we reduced from 1.0 in most cases in some of the elementary cases to 0.7 FTE for music on our teacher at center school for example so the students still get out there once a week special of whatever the special was our music PE etc but the teacher position was less than full-time and that was a budget saver for being as efficient as we could with our staffing a couple years ago yeah that part I totally remember so but so did we never have time for kids to do science and social studies every day it sounds like we never did so this might be a solution to add that that's the part I don't get so when kids didn't have Spanish they had where were the kids extra specials they did or that you said the special teachers were like giving the other teachers a break through like intervention or or so I just don't know understand where the kids will gen I can speak to the middle school okay and I know this was prior to you guys class but I can speak to the middle school with certainty yeah I understand the middle school I don't understand Elementary had they had a full period of social studies right I know that I'm just wondering it did like maybe it is any of the elementary principals here remember yeah it wasn't push in when my kids were my middle school or my eighth grader was a huckleberry it was a cushion yes it was a push in in the it was a push in model um and we were finding it was not as effective and so we moved to the special model that was basically our as looking back on years is how we moved on that and it also was the the classroom teachers were still in the room and there was a a vision a long time ago that the classroom teachers would also learn some Spanish while the Spanish teachers were teaching to the students and then maybe integrate some of that work into and throughout the regular general education experience with the students throughout the day is my understanding of the kind of initial thought on the program years ago so this so the time came out of general classroom time that's I guess what I wanted to really make sure is the way class showed if you're getting at gen I'm sorry that the kids had more time with the classroom teacher now they have less because of Spanish and that more time could have been science and social space time maybe I guess but at the end of the day you're always the time has been finite the classroom the day hasn't been lengthened or shortened in years right no I think now they have more time because it's not a pushin anymore it's a special we're on before they still had a special but it was a repeating special because yeah because sometimes there was a reason yes I gently FPE of that other special Amy to your point right looking at this list - I just want to say like seeing unified go at whisk and ear is really kind of heartbreaking especially after everything they've achieved with it and the last here - Amy you want to talk about it painting me as we talked about freshman middle school sports and that kind of a thing because if you look at middle school sports that's where Unified sports is budgeted so that's part of that $27,000 there so yeah I mean we're everywhere we turn we are gored once we get onto the you know down to the Spanish program and you know start looking at people in programs it's just yeah dream on can you can you walk us through I don't know it's all I guess it's all on this sheet but I'm having a hard time tracking how many teaching positions are eliminated and then how many are added back in just looking at this sheet that that you have here for Spanish for everything there's no teaching position no teaching positions other than the Spanish teaching positions eliminated so that's what I mean so there's four Spanish teachers and then you would bring in the science social studies which would be two teachers and then in this model I have before you the it was one of our investments was the math specialist is added into the budget so it's four four three two clean on your FTEs Debbie get into your classroom okay and then the the TESOL teacher was an investment so it's not a loss of correct it's just perhaps not adequately meeting an existing need can I just some curious and if conversation to one other topic I'm curious about what other board members feel about the adding and the change participate I sort of feel like I'd feel very strongly not to do that I know it's a big chunk of money but I feel like if we offer programs we shouldn't at require kids to pay for them in agreement with you Melissa that's our first value is equity right so first value I mean that I think that particularly speaks of that because it's gonna be time for someone to administer so it's gonna come out of busy people schedule somehow you need to know that too you know we're not hiring the clerk to manage that that's that becomes more work in a couple of places for sure yeah just like a quick anecdote I have a brother who lives down in Georgia and he's a teacher and they charge for everything I mean thousands of dollars to be on the football team and his wife is an ESL teacher and she says none of the ALL kids play sports because they can't afford it and and you know it's not even something they would consider so I would just hate I know we don't charge thousands of dollars per sport like they do down there but I just think it's I I was shocked when we moved to Brookfield years ago and I saw that that's what they do here and it was just kind of what we did so I don't think anybody questioned it too much although I I know the board you know really sort of fought years ago to get rid of it so yeah I just and again I was very proud of that that was something we were able to do in my first budget was to eliminate that and believe me it pains me again back our back is against the wall to make this make this budget work just so everybody knows in the Southwest Conference now remember this is pay to participate so it's for everything but in the Southwest Conference in terms of definitely paid to play half of the 14 teams in the league 7f pay to participate seven do not were one of the ones that do not have paid over dissipate so just so you guys know that as a reference point so one of the one of the things I was thinking about when I sort of created my own spreadsheet and was moving numbers around was I know that we don't want to increase class sizes but the scenario that was on the spreadsheet we saw the other day was increasing class sizes in four sections in kindergarten first third and fourth right so how do we feel about maybe not doing all four but doing one or two in order to save unified sports and or eliminate the participation fees I mean I think that's the only other place to go right and I think another consideration Debbie is you know we would really both middle school and freshman sports are there but if we're going to have continuity at the high school it'd be more important to keep the freshman Sports than the middle school sports and you know again when you're down to the wire on hard prioritisation just something to think about and believe me the last thing I want to have that the conversation about and then I think like we mentioned earlier I forget who maybe it was joyed that brought it up you know what about the math interventionist and with the new high school scheduling system do we still feel that that's a strong of a need as we did before yeah I think that's something to think about and I think that was a good point that joy raised I mean I do think that that was by design that program was hopefully to meet the needs of some intervention and often I feel like if your own teacher is providing the intervention it could be perhaps more effective than another interventionist so I would be open to considering that as well you know and I think that's a if that's a further discussion we should talk about that next week's meeting a little bit and I know we want to get rid of salad tonight but we do have some time in building on the last one who wants to extend this conversation but will I be very intentional and strategic we didn't invite mr.
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bowl and ax to discuss that a little deeper I just wanted to share that what Mark said last week was that if he had to choose between one or the other the block scheduled the new schedule or the intervention math interventionist he would choose the intervention time period the software to do that because it would serve many students because it wasn't just designed as those of you who are on the cape committee it's not just designed for intervention it's also to support students on the other end of the spectrum but he did not say that he wouldn't need the interventionist and I know from knowing from data team meetings that we have we have a considerable number of students and mr. Hill could speak to this as well that are in need of really heavy doses of of intervention such that an interventionist might be teaching an intervention class we we we used to have intervention you know real intervention support for students when mr.
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Jewett was at the high school that was just something that he he did as part of his department head position and we don't have that for men anymore so I just wanted to clarify that you know mark didn't say that if he had the intervention period and we had the software to do the scheduling that he then he would not need the interventionist and as more as jaundice said he could speak to that for himself and another board meeting if you so wish no so that's good information because so maybe instead of thinking is it more appropriate for us to think about when we it's a really like some of these kids might have to math classes so they might have they're taking algebra but then they're also taking an extra support class because they're struggling is that not right now not right now I understand that it's a possible it's a possible interventionist yeah yeah and it could be for a short term or a longer term you know it might not be to you know to that model you're talking about Janet might not be something that's a full semester but it's an opportunity to get students in for key intervention they need for a few weeks maybe there's a lot of all kinds of variations and when you think about because it for reading we have you know all students take English however we have students who have reading difficulties and we have two reading specialists that teach reading classes at the high school they're not teaching class that's in lieu of English because English has standards that were the nine through ten and the 11 through 12 standard bans in the common core they are getting that and they're getting differentiated instruction provided by their classroom English teachers at the same time they're getting intervention in reading based on their reading data and their progress monitored and and supported so what we don't have the corollary for mathematics and by the time they get to high school is their last shot so so if I could sum it up here we're down to about 300 thousand dollars of controversy here it sounds like we keep going back and forth but that's that's basically what it comes down if I come if I'm doing my math correctly and so you know we've got some decisions to make and I just I don't know where the board is that anyone we don't have to vote on anything tonight for the for the administration to execute but we do need to start seriously getting need to get closer and of course we need to know exactly where the board finance lands and they out there you know the town meetings tomorrow night and then there's another meeting on Wednesday meeting on Wednesday night I mean I guess I just wanna know from everyone you know is this okay if I tomorrow at the public hearing you know there may be some questions about this you know I just need to be able to speak for us as a group that this is this is pretty much right now where we stand I I don't feel like I'm ready to sign off on this like I said it's not like a definitive thing but you know I just need to be able to tell people like yeah this is likely what's gonna happen I like Deb's point on seeing what of the list can be saved with bringing taking some of that 400,000 or whatever in that in teachers and teacher savings and seeing we can play with the number a little bit so from the boundaries from the original list where it was eliminate for teachers thinking that last year bringing back the possibility of eliminating teaching Jenna I want to say I'm not saying that I don't see away cuz I totally see it your way because I don't want to cut any teacher jobs harm cent know why he did it I'm just I'm trying to do some risk assessment is all with with some of these things i I know the the I think I share I mean that's when the Athletics those are those some that's a big number 145 and that's a big number that that definitely helps us to the to the 769 but if we're gonna keep our equity value which is number from listening to conversations that seems like is number one and I agree it should be you know we I gotta find some some subbing in for that and hopefully maybe maybe some cell being in and out for math maybe what he's an attitude or something you're in Debbie's point I know where Debbie's coming from is and and I was very happy because our very first goal is all sizes within the guidelines will be teetering on the edge of those guidelines on the on the high end or maybe just over but I know you're looking at saving jobs that's part of it were your guys are coming from yeah the K there was okay section in one of the additional to grade two sections that were in that list so by keeping those positions the sections the new positions in the budget we keep our class sizes there those don't exist right now so they're not actual people just so you know that and I know that's what you're trying to get at Debbie I you know with your scenarios I had a very quick look I didn't get a chance to to analyze it but I thank you for that so if that helps you with your perspective as you continue to you know let this marinate and think about it just want to make that clear that's helpful to know maybe I mean for your communication do you want to do an or so you could say we're considering these programs are eliminating - yeah so as long it yes yeah those are the sounds like those are still things up for debate why don't we just different karo say here's all the things that are under consideration we haven't made any decisions yet even list everything I'm sorry loading auditioning positions yeah the tooth decay in the one for example the way can budgets those in with benefits I think is 88 or 89 thousand so you're talking close two hundred eighty thousand for two positions those are big sound enrollment keeping our class size guidelines intact we'd be going against that and knowing that for well we'd be sacrificing that knowing that assuming we come back to school regular or not in the fall kids have missed coming in especially K going into one miss the law school this year and so they you know all of the kids well be behind where they should be so the other thing I was trying to figure out was are there any positions and I know we can't get into name you know naming specific staff or whatever but the hope would be that for example if we eliminated for Spanish teachers would anybody be certified to then be a TESOL teacher you know those kinds of it's still a position we can't afford to have so it doesn't matter but Debbie when there is a RIF a reduction in force just so you know the HR goes through a whole litany in their process of looking at certification there's similarly by teacher contractors all kinds of things that no matter what happens occur you know the matter in that is not or level that happens you know by US administration looking at the contract and going through all that process yeah the pumping rights of teachers and all of that an attack that you know we follow all the protocol for that and so if someone is dual certified you may have heard that term before then maybe there are other certification there's a popping rights but again everything is very by contract and then certainly in the individual depending on the person then we come to the question I was you know which to do we look at numbers projected enrollment and you know which of those four teaching positions looks at the two can itself I would ask in this because he could pull up he could I don't know he could pull up the one from last week but he could certainly share with us if he's able to pull up on his own machine the what the numbers would go to if we reduced the pay in the one as a review because yeah I've got that in front of me K would go from nineteen point zero to twenty one point one grade woman would go from eighteen point seven to twenty point eight and we've got twenty as our class size twenty is the max for kindergarten as well that's our max guideline first in the garden and first correct and the other two were fourth grade and what they would go from what do we have it with with them in positions there or max guidelines huckleberries are 21 so grade three would go from twenty point three to twenty three point one and great for would go from twenty point zero to twenty two point five and because I know this is important to the board with the three in four sections those exist so you can start to look at risk adoption divorce so the new positions are at center school for next year correct and they're still aiming to reducing the 1k in the one grade one we still have an additional grade one we're putting in the budget because of the significant you know the way the enrollment and that's after adding an additional for this year right no the additional for this year was in kindergarten first grade oh yeah so next year so we're adding to to first grade and one to kindergarten and the budget document so this would just put one additional in each right if you were to do that or zero on one depending where how might have big deep your appetite is John have we considered scaling back pre-k no our needs continue to grow and that and that's because we're mandated to provide those because it's a special ed program correctly yeah the regular ed kids who attend the program pay so maybe um could we just maybe get like an update of this exact sheet but with the teacher reductions also on there just so we can see sort of all the numbers in one spot yes we can I can do that for you get it to you it strikes me that the way the discussion is going we should have a list of things we're considering as a board that is actually greater than the reduction so we actually can make choices right so bringing in you know here's where some spot calm spot reductions or staffing might be in the range of the discussion equal pain to some of the other things is a one option eliminating those interventionists at the high school might be another one and just we spend our time at the next one maybe with a list of eight hundred and something right and debate through or nine hundred right and debate through where we go where the least pain would be I mean it's painful no matter how you cut it I wouldn't want to do us any of the stuff but but at least board we should have choices to make not just here's a list that adds up to seven hundred and sixty nine thousand the teacher you know can't bring that the teacher stuff back in maybe we take a look at some salary lines and I know we have to know these we have to get these numbers in quick we can save some negotiation yeah a million dollars like we were last week and let the board take a look at it again next one yeah do you feel like you're good for tomorrow's meeting Rosa yeah I mean I don't really feel like we made any you know sort of progress but I'm maybe not that we have to at this point but you know at some point this is gonna become a real decision so it has to sue not for the Board of Finance mate what is the schedule on the Board of Finance is that we have a public hearing tomorrow when do they get back together again to make their decisions on what they're gonna vote on they don't I think they're still gonna be meeting every Wednesday until they officially vote on for um eileen is actually on the line am i I don't know if you hear if you're hearing and Eileen but could you confirm that do you have a schedule yeah we we do have a meeting on Wednesday and then June 4th is our deadline for making a decision so and you're gonna be meeting will actually I didn't get to them but I think we know that we could schedule them so I think we'll see how the meeting goes and how the meeting house Town Meeting goes and how the meeting goes on Wednesday ok thank you Rosa maybe for us there's a little bit of homework to think about like I felt like what my purpose today is I wanted to ask some questions so I really understood the impact of these potential reductions but ultimately we have to make the reductions right so we're all gonna choose have to settle on things that we don't want to to rewrite like we're all gonna have to at some point but we have to make some decisions so maybe our homework is to look it over and you know if there's further questions ask them but you know start to be ready to at least explain our point of view on what we would prioritize over other things you know I think I think we should start to be and and but you know what what I enjoy about our board is that I'm listening to other people's questions and it's helping me learn and inform ideas as well but then I also think we should remember that what did John and the administration recommend there's a reason they put those things on their list because they're trying to you know run the district as they see fit I think it's something we should also just keep in mind there's a reason why they put they took off the teachers and let's think about that and as we you know kind of weigh those decisions okay and I think Jen it goes back to again what are the goals right you go back to the slides that Rosen throws what are the goals first one is always class size so that's that's priority then we understand that based on the context but just be mindful of that I think is really important thank you so I think we can just maybe I don't know I think it'd be helpful if we just you know went around one last time had our final comment it's and then I think we can sort of but um you know my I think my own personal stance and I I do not want to cut anything on this list but especially to be honest I don't want to cut Spanish my daughter actually loves Spanish and I think she has a talent for languages and I would hate to see that exposure even if it's just exposure go away however when something I think is got if we know something is going to hurt it that hurt needs to be spread equally and so I I think you know when we make cuts in areas that only affect smaller populations of our students I think that's a very I think it's a wrong way to approach this this problem so you know I look at things like pay to play and yeah Sports is absolutely not required it's not a part of the mandate but kids are gonna continue to play it and we're taking away sort of an opportunity for only some of the kids and not all the kids but I look at the TESOL teacher and the math tutors the same way that's an existing need that we have those are kids that need extra help or that can't access parts of the curriculum because they need that extra support so I think those rank higher on my list and some other things but you know that's that's sort of my my big takeaway friend tonight is just I'm gonna marinate on equity and how how best to achieve that I'm sorry I just Kenya was gonna work on some scenarios of how pay-to-play would shake out yeah I we could try but given the circumstances I don't know how quickly we can get a model together to get an exact number I think we have a hundred thousand dollars ami that I don't want to make a promise and what can't speak for himself but I mean it's just there's so many other pieces going on with the budget and facilities right now the response to kovin it's not necessarily a model we can do in the next week but we I do anything for you guys to have you understand have a better perspective put some final comments or thoughts I just I'm taking a deep breath it's this is really hard I don't think any of us take the district backwards and I'm hoping our Board of Finance brethren are listening carefully to the stuff we're struggling with and it's a hard thing because I've been on the Board of Finance and when the revenue dries up I know how hard it is and and I know nobody on the Board of Finance wants to take the district back but we're not finding a lot of things on this I mean that you get through the first couple of items on the list and you know I kind of look at it you got you get 200,000 of the 800,000 you can do rather readily right you know all things considered you might even say 250,000 may be 280,000 you can get rather readily but then we hit that line that starts on our elementary Spanish and we are straw love us are struggling with how can we do the right thing for students and so it's not last three four hundred thousand dollars is what's so painful here and I don't know if there's any appetite to change the direction but we ought to consider it but John I think we need to take not to take not just these items but we ought to look at where can we do partial steps I like the thought that Mike and that have both mentioned here which is instead of saying we're going to just change a lot of teachers we pick one or two here and there and look at the impact of that right third positions maybe live with a year of higher class sizes in a certain grade because we know some things about that grade maybe we do some mix of actions around Spanish so we don't have to one the entire program maybe we can keep most of the savings like being thoughtful about it maybe we do you know some of the sports but not all the sports and so I think there's but you can't do those discussions unless you're playing field is bigger than the 769 right so that's kind of I think to me that's the most important is that we expand our appetite so we can then pull back to what we can afford but I and I know they're all hard right I just know they're all hard so it's we need to keep working here and rose up for tomorrow night I think we ought to be very forthright with everybody that all of this stuff is on the table it's we didn't take anything off the table right we it's all on the table because it has to be on the table and but we haven't made any decisions of this is what we're going to do and that's what we're going to do because we haven't and and so it's I think just we have to make sure everybody a public hearing is about informing the public right and so that's what we have to do so and I'd say it that way I'd say we can find 250 K roughly at the 800 pretty readily it's once you pass that line it starts becoming painful for all of us we're struggling with it so and I'd say it that way I don't know I think I think I've expressed how I feel you know I'd like to look at as much as it pains me I'd like to look at you know my suggestion about maybe not cutting for teaching positions but to or not or the way John said it was just not adding the new K in one positions although I hate to say that out loud but I think I think we have like Bob said we have to look at more choices we have to just you know think of different ways to cut this up and and I I really don't want to see Unified sports go away I don't want to see the TESOL teacher go away so you know I think we just have more discussion to have okay Amy your turn I'm pretty much in the same boat this is all really painful I'm initially really not in favor of eliminating Spanish but it is a little comforting thinking that they're going to have what sounds like could possibly be with the stem and the social studies could be a very beneficial thing for the elementary students that sort of softens the blow a little bit I really don't like increasing class sizes and yeah I'd hate you know I'd hate to see the sports go and again I don't know I don't the equity as well as a problem if we're offering something everyone should be able to to afforda okay joy I think I've kind of been pretty vocal about my feelings on things but I think equity again is important you know pay-to-play is not equitable if you're going to do it that way so I think looking at I agree with the block scheduling at the high school and then in turn taking away the math interventionists because you're providing opportunities for all students not just students that need interventions in math so that's that's important to me I think that taking the world language Spanish world language program out is a benefit because then we can meet the mandates of science and social studies and the time that we neglected for those for those content areas to put that back and if we I think we're being neglectful for that and I think that looking at not instituting the k1 positions is important I mean I guess that's it for now okay so we look at everything else yeah how are you feeling great yeah I mean this is really hard I again have learned from my colleagues through their questions and I you know kind of agree with some of what Joe and Amy were saying about the world language program you know while it would be a shame to lose it the fact that we could address another need softens the blow as Amy said I like how you said we have to sort of marinate on are we taking away things for just are we spreading out the pain sort of that and not just sort of hurting certain subgroups of our population I worry about us not having a TESOL teacher I feel like I can't believe in a district that is becoming more and more diverse we don't have a full staff of those teachers and and I you know I wonder like often those community members don't have a voice and to advocate for themselves and isn't that our job to advocate for those who don't advocate for themselves so I feel pretty strongly about that and I I feel really strongly about the pay-to-play I just feel like that is I just feel like there's something so wrong with that but that that doesn't get us to our number so so we've got to perhaps look at some of the other issues as well I think we're in a tough spot I hope the community understands and I you know I hope they hear that we want to get our district to be really amazing and great and keep growing but we're living in the you know the middle of a real financial crisis and what are the changes that we're gonna have to make just to get through it but at the same time sustain our schools in a way that once were through it we can kind of rebuild so I'll be thinking about all those things well if they you know but also be helpful if kemon can kind of present to about what our program kind of looks like because I think it's important for other board members to know too that you know full immersion of these students in the general education classroom is very important and that's how they learn best and that's how they really excel in the language and also to kind of talk about our clustering that we've done at the elementary school because that's important so it's not like well I want to be careful what I say about it's it's not in the past we've had clustering right so one classroom per grade level has been our classroom of ENL students so that kind of lifts the level of support that's needed and a lot of the supports that are in place for ENL students are the same for Wregget for general and everyone venice benefits from those so it's really about good professional development also you know so she can kind of speak to that I think it would be helpful and helpful for the community to understand that also maybe we can have her scheduled maybe at our next meeting you know ask Ann to put the investments that are not on this list tonight as well as those teaching positions and of course we'll continue to look but I've looked for five years and I've been looking for seven months with the team so we're looking Mike I guess the fun thing about going last is trying to find out new things that haven't been said and I do think that if I'm gonna focus something good it seems that everyone is in agreement we're all kind of saying the same things which I'll start with the good stuff and that I do think that is good stuff I think we work well together and we ask questions and no one's rude to each other and that's that's you know and this is a very hard thing to do and it's easy to lose it but we I think we do I think we do a pretty good job but that's being said it's a tough list to look at and I do think it's a very good practice to go over the values when we go over these cuts so that helps take a little bit of the risk assessment the human element of making this you know deciding what goes what so yeah I mean that's that's everybody I mean after you know you know Bob said it best after the two heart that it gets it gets tachi and our to 270 or 280 whatever it is it gets talking so I mean I was trying to find like little chunks the st.
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Joe's closing or something maybe to save one of these investments maybe the T soul teacher maybe something but I don't know if John hasn't found idea I doubt I could find it so yeah okay so um I think we've beaten this horse so I do hope that everyone here all board members but also anybody listening tunes into the public hearing tomorrow evening I think it would be good if board members you know tuned into that I think that would be a good show of solidarity and and maybe if were called on to answer any questions we can we can do that sort of as a group so yeah seven o'clock yes we get us been waiting for that or what's the YouTube thing my god all forward to you the zoom meeting invite they could actually get into and then could actually okay watch too many to YouTube things it's painful against what it's built into if you want to look it's built into the agenda itself if you go on the website but I'll go over to decree you guys and then and then the link to the zooming on the actual agenda for tomorrow night yep alright so I think that's it unless anybody has any other questions okay so uh without objection meeting is adjourned thank you everyone thank you
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good afternoon this is principal sweet man I am principal overseeing seventh grade I am Hurst regional middle school and our purpose for this livestream this afternoon is to walk you through our course registration form for our students moving from seventh to eighth grade first and foremost I want to share with you that I hope you and your loved ones are safe and healthy at home and we are thinking of you we miss you dearly and we can't wait until we can be back in our school building together we've never done an online registration and typically we would be with students in the school answering any questions that they have going through the form with them and so this is a bit different and I wanted to give everyone the opportunity to meet with Miss Castro the guidance counselor who will oversee eighth grade next year who is currently in seventh grade group of students so that she can walk through the course registration form and answer any questions hi everybody I hope everyone is healthy and safe so what I'm going to do is I'm going to fill out the form as if I was you so we'll just start right at the top okay okay so we'll start with my email address then we'll move down to the student name we'll start with my last name first comma then my first name that ISA and we'll scroll down you can choose what team you're on I'll just choose team M because that's the first letter of my name and then parent or guardian name so we will put in we'll do that we'll do momma Castro okay and then put in a phone number and then what my plan is for the next school year all right I plan to attend and if you're not planning to attend or if you're not sure we ask that you please fill out the form anyway just so that we have we can be prepared if something changes and so we can have an accurate count of students who might be taking classes as you all know the required courses for all eighth graders are English eight social studies eight science eight and math eight and all students are also required to take health and PE for eighth graders there are four options we have math topics and that's for students who typically have a math goal in their IEP plan map 8 with the additional math elective for students who might need some extra assistance with some of their math skills and that meets in addition to their math class every other day for extra support and I just want to note that this class is not intended to have the student have more work or have more homework assigned it's really just a support to help them build some some skills to support their math class that they're in now and then math 8 and algebra 8 which is typically for students who took the math flex 7 this year we move down to so I'm gonna go math 8 I'm going to choose math 8 World Language option unlike this past year where the students took the world language every day for half a year um the students will take a world language everyday for the entire year so you would just choose if you want to continue with the same language you took last year or you can select no language if you did not take a language last year unfortunately you will not be allowed to register for a language this year as this year's class is a continuation of the beginning of the course starting in seventh grade so I am going to to continue with Spanish then we're going to go down to the music ensembles if you're enrolling in band or Orchestra we ask that you have completed that seventh grade band or Orchestra or that you have spoken with one of the instructors to have permission to join to join the ensemble if you would like to take course there is no prerequisite for chorus none of the ensembles are are required but they are there if you would like so let's see I like to sing so I'm going to choose course then we're going to move down to the exploratory x' there's a link there for the program of studies with course details I am aware that some of the courses were not included in the program of studies so I have a few descriptions that I will give you in a second and then what I want you to do is just choose the classes in order of preference one through seven I also want to note that if you decide that you want to take world language or music ensemble that those classes will be scheduled first and then we will move on to your elective choices so one of the courses that was not in the program of studies was music and social justice this class explores the music of various movements that have changed our world the glass the class will begin a conversation of how music sparks the movement its impact in our world and how it can impact you as an individual I also have some descriptions for the two art courses the media arts coursework will focus on contemporary digital art mediums such as digital photography photo editing and graphic design and then the studio art will focus on a more traditional medium such as drawing painting printmaking ceramics collage and sculpture so I would probably let's see I'm just gonna choose music and social justice first music exploration will be to steel drums will be three leadership before drama would probably be Feist I'm not extremely artistic so we'll do studio arts and then media arts and basically that is it there is a note at the bottom of the page that special education services and elective decisions will be made at on the IEP meetings and transition meetings and all English language learners placements will be finalized after the students spring assessments with the e ll teachers so if you're on any of those situations you will be contacted and then once we finish with the forum we just hit submit and then I receive the request and then we will upload those into PowerSchool and we do have a question here a student asked can a student sign up for dance instead of PE and how do we do that so unfortunately when I made the form I forgot to ask that little line there so what I would ask is if you if you are a student that wants to take dance and set of PE just send me an email as I'm keeping a list of special requests from students and I will make sure that we document that somewhere and there any other questions for us before we say not okay we hope you all are well and and certainly if you have any questions I do fill out the course registration form please do not hesitate to email either one of us or both of us and we're happy to answer any questions for you to make sure that this is an easy process for you and we look forward to to talking again soon Oh can you please describe the leadership class so I I have to be honest with you I am not 100% sir and exactly how this class is how its run but I know that it this year was it consisted of students getting together and seeing how they could be leaders within our school whatever that being by good student by helping out other students by putting together ways for the communities to do some community building and lift up everybody's spirits and also just just kind of being good role models for for the younger students so I would say that it's probably something within that that realm and just kind of teaching you how it is that you can lead and how you can lead by example as well and I would add in there I think there is also a component of restorative justice and being able to kind of lead mediation between students and um let's see and this is came through in two parts here's who can a student take two electives if they don't take a language or ensemble to Alexis so if you don't take a language and you don't take an ensemble then you would have six electives so basically that would mean that you would have six out of the seven electives as your exploratory great any other questions well again as I was saying you can certainly feel free to email either one of us and we're happy to help you sort through this and complete your registration form and we look forward to getting you set up for a successful he's been here have a great afternoon bye everybody hope everyone's having healthy
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Noemie but if not I'm Marlene Solano the assistant superintendent of schools in Maryland call has just joined us Marilyn is the going to be taking minutes of our meeting today so let me well start first by welcoming you all to the school modernization teacher input subcommittee this is a committee of the school modernization mission committee we should all begin by muting our microphones and that will hopefully facilitate ease of this I'm grateful for you all to you all for being here today I'm sorry that we couldn't do it this in person I know we would all much rather be doing this in person this subcommittee is chaired by rich Guttenberg along with team members I am Marie Kemp and Jen Bates anne-marie is actually the chair of the school modernization committee of the whole so today there are they are joining us and I really appreciate them giving us the opportunity to share share our thoughts about Darcy so before we get started I just wanted to make sure that everyone knows that this is actually being live streamed on our YouTube channel so I want to say thank you to Mike Salah Meany for being here with us today in doing that each one of the subcommittee meetings at all of the schools has also been filmed and televised on the town channel so this will be the same as all of those same but different I want to thank you for being here today and I am going to turn it over to rich Guttenberg who is the chair of our committee okay well thank you all for coming just to give you a little bit of history you probably know the school modernization committee would start up by the new Board of Education and the town council a few months ago the idea was that we had been trying to make some headway in terms of updating our facilities and had hit some roadblocks and things weren't moving so the Town Council and Board of Ed said look let's see if we can get together we'll name a committee that consists of board members and council members and community members they had a hopeful timeline of having a proposal to the town council for September that seems very very difficult at this point in time but we continue to work we were off for about a month and a half when the virus first hit and we're up and running again through zoom right now this subcommittee consists of the three of us we have at times had other members of the committee sit in particularly a couple of our town council members and our job is to talk to the staffs at each of the schools and get an inside look from their point of view in terms of what is happening with the facilities we're not there to design programs or anything like that strictly to talk about you know the facility and what the facility is meeting the needs of the the instructional program we've talked to the staffs at each of the other schools you're meeting unfortunately was scheduled for mid March and then we shut down so we never had a chance to get together with you I didn't know if we were going to so I had talked to Jeff Solon and Marlene last week and said maybe we could at least get some email input and it was suggested let's see if we can set up a face-to-face meeting like this we're willing to take as much time as you'd like we were scheduled for about a 45-minute meeting but we've had some that have gone longer than that and particularly I think when there are some programs that are unique and I'm just saying earlier when we first logged on we spent a fair amount of time over Humiston school talking to the alternative high school people because their program is not the norm and their needs are different and we really wanted to hear that we have a report that's going to the full committee next Wednesday and we'll be talking to them about the things that we've learned we have a second subcommittee that's out that I happen to be a member of and that committee is was going around to different schools looking at their facilities and comparing them to what we have right now so just as a very quick update I was an elementary principal for many many years and in fact I was in region 15 and all of the preschool programs for region 15 were housed in my building so although I don't know the unique and special needs of your programs I have seen up close and personal the needs of our special needs special preschool students and all that that entails and I've been very worried actually about what happens with those students during a shutdown like this so I don't know Ann Marie and I Jen do you want to take a second and just introduce yourselves sure hi this is Ann Marie temp happy to be here to hear this input I am a parent in the community have been a big fan of Darcy and the programs there so really interested to see what you have to hear today and that's really it we're just really here to hear you speak and hear your concerns and I will just apologize in advance that I'm hopping off this call a little early due to a work commitment but I you have me for about a half an hour so thank you and hi I'm John Bates I'm on the committee as well I have two at Dodd and one of the high school and I'm very invested in the schools I've volunteered in them the entire time my kids are in school and I'm very interested to hear what you guys have to say so thank you very much for all of you for taking your time to be with us today with that said I'm gonna end if you want to end Donna Reed if you want to start us off and we're going to do a lot of listening and not a whole lot of talking so we just want to hear what's happening all right well thank you I think first thank you for giving us this opportunity it's really important to us to share a little bit about darcy and what our needs are as you said we are very unique school and we do serve the youngest students of Cheshire and we are very very proud of darcy we're proud of the work we do but certainly the building is showing this age I do think I would be remiss if I didn't give a shout out to rich Clemente and his various maintenance crews because they really have kept Darcy beautiful in spite of its its age it's almost like an older woman who gets made up and made beautiful and that's really how Darcy is at this point there's some wrinkles and some some problems going on but really I think we're all very proud of our school and for somebody from the public coming to look at Darcy it really presents beautifully so thank you to rich and his crews for that thanks to all of my team I sent out an email and we certainly got a lot of response I have made a little bit of a list just so that we can flow with it's not in any certain order except I do know a few people have to leave early so I think it would help if when I call on you you just introduce who you are and your role at Darcy and then simply state sort of what you are seen as an area of need in Darcy so really just kinda I'm gonna I was hoping that our custodian would be here because he really was going to talk to some of the real maintenance kinds of issues and if he doesn't jump on then I will try to end with some of those ideas that he had shared with me so actually I'm going just jump straight into Cindy Jackson hi I'm Cindy Jackson I'm the physical therapist Darcy oh probably thirty years now I think one of the things Darcy has not being there we've had in the preschool especially environments that are really conducive to being able to change environments and beam systems and things like that and those have been really important to have so that part is really great the I think over the years of ABA requirements I'm not sure that we've kept up with them in this building I have had children in wheelchairs that accessibility throughout Walda environment both in doors another playground I think needs to be assessed close I know we had a person from Board of Ed services for the blind that came and she was surprised that we didn't have the stairs particular yellow paint to distinguish things like that so I do think having a priority of looking at this go from an ad a perspective would be really important what areas of the building are not accessible from the main floor the building is accessible to get to coming to getting in we do have an elevator which is important I don't think all the the bathrooms and all the rooms are would able to fit like a wheelchair so I think looking at bathrooms some of the ways where we have doors that shut off they preschool from kindergarten those doors I don't think I'll have access with a button so we we have one way to get in with access to I don't think the other side you can get in with access so I found crepe so I think that our carry area downstairs that's a elevator so that that's a real plus but to get to get to the elevator we actually have that space as an office so maneuvering a wheelchair and I think or we'll be talking about that later because that is her office so I think maneuvering to get into the elevator is a little bit of an issue with you know with a wheelchair so I think it's you know I think it's just to really have independent mobility there are areas that are affected and if you're a separate team you know we have a hallway and to be honest we do a lot of our therapy integrated into the classrooms what we don't have is quitman readily available so I need to if I wanted a particular ball or a piece of equipment many times I would have to go outside the building to the shed to get it to come in to use it with a with a child so equipment storage is a significant issue for as far as therapy okay thanks Michelle I don't know if you want to just jump in and talk a little bit about sort of your therapy and your equipment just to piggyback off of Cindy Michelle Torres has left the meeting Michelle Torrance's left the meeting yeah she may have been Liz ja Claire are you there sorry okay trying to yes I'm here let's see support Liz just wondering they were talking about the OT were storage and then you had talked about the room so do you want to just talk a little bit so IT storage we have the IT rack where we have all our switches for all the the network computing environment and it's shared with the OT support and so a lot of times their equipment is so piled in there that we can't get to the rack so we have to move everything out in order for us even to reach the rack which can be frustrating at times because you have to keep the door closed as kids are coming in and out and trying to maneuver the equipment in what the rack is it's where we have all the network drops for computers that allows access to the network environment I knew what you were talking about okay so so that and it should be air-conditioned but it's I mean it's just a closet but in theory it should be temperature controlled and in this particular case it's you have to walk through the storage area of the OT equipment in order to get to that arena thanks and Lissa how big a room is that ot storage would you say maybe needing three by feet therapy storage maybe yeah it might it's one wall it's only one one site has shelving and then they're shoving on the back of the wall so maybe yeah it might be eight feet am i early enough it's not that big no Cindy shaking her head no - maybe by 5:00 is what I would say story is something that we've heard from almost every teacher that we talk to there's a lack of storage everywhere and it's storage like trampolines it's balls it's it's ramps it's very large equipment it's it could be chairs that they use for children to sit in I'm sure they could speak to it more about what it is but it's not small equipment it's it can be very large adaptive equipment right yeah I don't know if Michelle was able to come back on but I think you get the point that it's multi-purpose spacing which probably is a good segue to Maura aedra you have to unmute Maura just say what your role is at Dorothy yes I'm more of the speech language pathologist for kindergarten early intervention Center and I have a small office outside of where the ends to the elevator I've always liked the space but whenever people have come in from outside like the fire department or and looked at spaces it's not the best that my office is right there for accessibility purposes children that may need it for if they have wheelchairs or they need to go up and down using the elevator or if our custodian needs to use it it's kind of hard for him to get out of the elevator and kind of go around my desk to get the materials out so that's an issue and then as the fire marshal ever raised a concern of having a basket things like that in front of the elevator area never had a concern about the death part as long as there's clearance but I have had to move some smaller bookcases that were in the way that have been recommended but no I don't believe so we've it's already always been in compliance but she does have to kind of reduce some of the storage sometimes I have another enclosed space that I used for therapy purposes for my kindergarten children it's a small space it's cozy it's not quite a closet maybe a little bit bigger my kids love it and I do too however the heating situation is up and down throughout the year so sometimes in the winter we don't get as much heat in that little room so I use a space heater when that happens and then during the warmer months it becomes very hot so I use a little fan in there so you know we make it work but if you were to ask me is it you know a great space for young children to work in it's a little small and temperature wise it can vary okay do you do you do that area quiet enough one on one testing yes that's what I love about it because it does have a door and and I I think if we could get the the temperature gauge better I think it's a great place to work and I wouldn't want to give up the space and right outside that's face the space that I was talking about that I have my office quite a few of our instructional assistants work with at a little desk with the children so it's a great space it's just that the elevators there and it can be impacting that way okay thanks thank you sorry Ian I don't know if you want me to talk now I was having technical difficulties when called on me so I left that's okay if you could just um stay Oh Michele Torres occupational therapist and I would have to kind of just agree with what's already been said about therapies I think the biggest concerns have been definitely office spaces my office is above the main office the only thing I really don't feel comfortable with up there is the there's not a lot of air I mean I have a window that opens to the main office but there's no like outside access so it's kind of a space inside the interior walls and then the air conditioner I mean I I feel like I would be risking my life if I were to turn that thing on there for a thousand years so it's kind of just a stuffy enclosed area so it's I try to spend as little time in there as possible and then as far as the therapies again I think you know we don't work used to not having a separate space and that's why I think we're really good at working in the classrooms but not having a designated area for testing not having you know materials and the supplies at hand ready within the building and not having to leave like cindy has already mentioned I would say those are the two biggest areas of concern so I think you're gonna see a reoccurring pattern or theme here at Ace and you know we have been incredibly creative as to how we use the space and I don't want to sort of go on too much but I think there's a few other people that wanted to talk a little bit about the space piece and I'm looking at my list and I'm wondering him Kim Garbowsky our library media specialist I think that there's a couple of challenges in your space if you want to share your main thing is air quality because the location of the library there really isn't an airflow so right I've been blessed with the air conditioning unit that has really saved us and keeping it cool in there but I also use it whether it's proper or not and wintertime sometimes it's really hot and stifling in there I mean you just feel like you can't breathe and it's heavy I'll put it on for him two minutes just to clean out the air because there's only like one big heater and it gets really hot it's it's just being having airflo quality Tim about how large is the library media center I am not good at that quite small I would say it would be probably the size of a large classroom let's say a kindergarten classroom at Highland would be probably the size or something like that something like that I think that a reoccurring throughout the building is we do not have any air conditioning we have room air conditioners in units and some of them are quite old and really are not efficient and I know that that is also a concern financially when they're running single room air conditioners that really are not efficient have library media classes they go to the library for that was one other thing I wanted Kim to kind of talk about was that it's a multi-purpose room it serves as our music room our library our before and after school room we do our yoga in there and it's also our staff room for when we have our staff meetings so it really is a multi-purpose room which has challenges in itself that we have to share it with that many different activities which kind of brought me to Donna knotty who's the birth to three do you want to share a little bit about the challenges and I know Kim can talk to it too because she's in the library when birth to three is in their area and the noise piece I don't know who Donna you're muted I think we impose a lot of voice on the people in the library and the yoga and things that are going on the library but we have a young population lots of families and we encourage people to be engaged and it's a very close proximity to the library so I know that when people are in the library we and the bathrooms right there too and our families are going into the bathroom and I know that can be a challenge right Kim I'm sure well and there's also no real doors so I mean I think if there were true doors that you could shut off it would help with the sound but because there are no real doors it's one big space but Kim do you want to talk to that a little bit when you're trying to teach so it's a lot of flow of going from birth to three if they're if they're going to the bathroom the bathroom isn't sure not only with birth to three activities when they're going on the Secretary's used that bathroom after school before and after school use that bathroom there's only one bathroom so that that's an also an issue of flowing traffic because everybody's trying to use that one area like this bathroom appropriate for little kids can you say birthday toast well they they have to have a big step up stool in order to wash their hands and the toilet is really an adult toilet for a child which I do know and it's also not ideal to have children and adults using the same bathroom for others and there's only one toilet in there some child's in there and there's an issue in there then it's shut down and then people have to go scrambling to go to the bathroom now quite far away so there is there other or is there another adult bathroom somewhere so that was one thing that our custodian was going to speak to and I'm so I will chime in for him we really only have one adult bathroom in the preschool wing and one adult bathroom in the kindergarten wing and when you look at the amount of people we have here and women you know it's it's really it's not fair it's very difficult on our staff and so that is a huge concern for many people and they're both single toilet they're both they're single toilets yeah I think that the the bathroom both child and adult is a huge issue at Darcy there's not enough children bath child bathrooms the one in the kindergarten wing that is accessible to our kindergarten students is very outdated it has very high urinals for five-year-old boys which does not work very well I can see some of my kindergarten teachers going so that it so bathrooms are our issue and I know my secretary Tammy grey is here and I know that it's been an issue when they have to share with Children and Families that's hard off of that and I'm not sure if it's part of what John was going to talk about like storage so I know that there's a very small storage closet for for custodial items in the EIC wing and the preschool wing but then on the kindergarten side I know a lot of the storage happens in the the bathrooms there's kind of like shower stalls in the bathrooms that are used as storage so that's where we're storing extra toilet paper and paper towels because they're not as good closet Thanks all right so while we're on the topic of storage I'm wondering if well I could go to Emory Wittenberg it's not really storage but often space I know we've hit that but maybe you have something you'd like to share sure hi my name is anne-marie Winton Berg and I'm the reading and math curriculum support teacher for Darcy and Chapman and I actually don't have an office at all so I share space with the school psychologist last year which in itself brings up its own challenges because I am working with teachers and Disko in curriculum helping with diagnostic testing with students and and also working with students so now at the second time I am sharing a space with the school psychologist who's doing his own therapy sessions and confidential sessions and also his testing so that is difficult to share the space now this year was a little more challenging because we had some students who needed a quiet space for their own therapy and so the entire office was converted for student use so the school psychologist and I didn't have an office at all we would either use a corner of the art room or just find a little space to put our stuff down in even using the art room if the art teacher was there then she's having an art lesson and he and I are doing our own things if art wasn't there that day the space is also used by the special education teacher because he does not have a resource room or a space either so um so that brings itself its own challenges Kim Ambrose hello hi I'm sorry can you hear me now yeah I'm Kim Ambrose I'm a preschool teacher at Darcy I have a classroom that has two large storage closets but which are currently being used as community storage we have a lot of stuff for preschool we need a lot of materials and we only have one common closet in the hallway that we can use to store our puzzles our manipulatives all the materials that we need for teaching so those two closets in my room are used for other community storage which leaves little space for the storage that I need for for my classroom what sort of community storages I mean what their outside groups that are using inertia I just mean during items that all of the preschool teachers use so we share materials like school yeah I'm talking about like dress-up clothes puzzles all those sorts of things that we share yeah now the classroom is a fairly decent size isn't it I remember yeah that was one of the big pros as I remember walking through the there were some My Size classrooms we certainly have a couple of nice size classrooms but I think that the kindergarten teachers probably Gina is smiling Gina do you want to pop in on that one sure I'd love to I'm Gina Mauro I teach kindergarten at darcy and it is my sixth year here and we work together to kind of create this list so it's not just coming from me and mr.
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Guster Brooke you were actually my principal at mes I was a former cricket so regarding classroom size our rooms are very small in comparison to other classrooms around the district with twenty plus students as you imagine they grow pretty fast and trying to fit everyone you know for morning meeting around the carpet is it's pretty tight we make it work no idea I don't know what do you think in I mean it's probably half the size of a room at Highlands honestly the rule said Highland would probably be about 900 something like that yeah I mean I'm also not I'm married to a roofer you think I know my square footage but I'm not good at that go measure they are very small and like Gina said as the children grow we we feel it more and more throughout the year and we really do accommodate it with you know not having a whole lot of furniture and we really trying to make you know the flow as best as possible but with with that many kids in a small space it's hard limited storage again we have very small closet that doesn't really hold anything we have some low cabinets that are pretty dangerous to even try to open they are really kind of broken and they're attached by some glue and some spaces they're just really old and and not in great shape sharing spaces so you've heard that that's been kind of a theme of this the CAF in the gym or a shared space we don't have a gym area so that is where we have our physical education is in the CAF as you can imagine our students can't participate in the same things that other kindergartners across the district who have a gymnasium can so it is I think that's hard and it seems a little bit unfair in that sense I think mr.
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Webb does the best that he can in that space and he'll use the outdoor space as much as possible but that's weather permitting we already talked about music and library sharing the space art with special ed and multiple other people our windows are kind of tricky they are they don't have screens so imagine a fly or B coming in and how distracting that is to instruction when you have four or five and six-year-olds so that would be great if windows could be updated a bit I know the location of the office in in regards to the parking lot and door access to get into the building we've talked about so we have parents that come into the front but we have a lot of families that also come to the back door so they have to be buzzed in they're told to visit the office get it past first sometimes they're not very compliant with that so unless there's someone to stop them they're you know they walk down and it kind of it could disrupt you know the learning process or just just a safe safety concern really so kind of awkward with the placement of where parking and entrances are heating and cooling as an issue I think my thermostat has been changed three or four times in the past you know several years I've been there which really doesn't seem to solve the problem we've already talked about bathrooms and sinks and we would love to remove the carpet if possible I know in our in our classrooms who talked about that just having all tile and being able to put down carpets to create spaces rather than having the majority of our room is carpet and we have a tiny space of tile and we kind of try to work all of our tables in that one space and it that's a bit cramps and I think and unless anyone else from K has Gina before you know sure one of the things the Doolittle teachers were very very adamant about was that they really wanted the kindergarten back at Doolittle and you know they were we were talking about whether sixth grade should go to the middle school but they kept being very strongly saying you know the kindergartners and all the other schools are in their elementary schools we would like to see a K through five school here at Doolittle do you have an opinion on that I think I think all of our opinions might vary a little different based on our experiences I think Darcy is a really special unique place and it has some incredible things at other schools in our district don't have so I love having a place here but I also see the benefits of being in a K through five you know with with those kids one being I'd be able to see my students again next year I'm so sad that I'm not gonna be able to see them in the hallways when they go to first grade but I think we all kind of have different opinions on that so I don't want to really speak for the group on how they feel about K being in the other okay thank you thanks a lot okay Thank You Dina that was a nice Jeana spoke a little bit about parking and security I'm wondering Tammy do you want to unmute and jump in a little bit about security at Dorothy sure my name is Tammy gray I'm the principal secretary my 20th year at Darcy school so my concern is from a security perspective because I work in the main office and we had a guard instituted I think two or three years ago which is terrific however when a person comes into the office they scan their license through lobby guard and if we do get some kind of hit that there is that they could be suspected for something when their license goes through and it's happened a couple times falsely but it we have gotten alerts the person is standing right at my desk so kind of awkward like there should almost be a separate vestibule that if clerk does come up they're not already in the building the town is actually moving ahead with that I don't know whether Darcy was part of that because I think there's still questions about long-term what's going to happen with Darcy I hired an architect the architectural plans for all the other schools to create what's called a man trap and that didn't bid but unfortunately they only got one bidder so now they're gonna go out and do do a bid again but it's what you would talk about where somebody would come in they would be in between two sets of doors and they would be checked in at that point and then they would be allowed into the bill that would be great and if I could just give my opinion under C school because I think 20 years and I'm also a parent I'm in Cheshire when I moved to Cheshire and I heard that Darcy was just kindergarten I thought that's really odd and I kind of didn't with it until my son went through Darcy it's such a special place and we are geared for children that are from birth to five years old and I feel like for their first school experience they're only on the bus with kindergarten students they're only in the cafeteria with inner garden students and preschoolers and I feel like they're protected for their first year of education I just can't say how special it is oh that's my two cents [Music] Amanda or Rachel I see and I don't know if Eric is in or not I don't see your picture of any either I'm not putting you on the spot but if you just want to talk about your thoughts then do little Darcy and how that is feeling yeah I'm emeritus UCLA I teach kindergarten this is my second year at Darcy I've also taught first grade at Highland district and I've been in a few other districts I also agree that Darcy does have a very special Arab fit in that it does cater to younger children however having been in other schools where there is you know K to 5 or K to 6 or whatever it may be I just feel as though in some ways our kindergarteners are a little bit of a disadvantage having to then transition again to go to first grade so there are up there community like school community things that they kind of miss out on as not having older role models in the school and and things like that I just I wish there was either a way to keep it consistent so that you they're all kindergartners were together in one place or all kindergartners were at their own home elementary school so that it would kind of be a level fair playing field for them well we just started out that right years ago there was an attempt to do some new construction it didn't pass and Darcy had been actually closed down and they reopened it at that time as a kindergarten Center and I think all the kindergartens in the district were at the school at that point ruble by little they've been moved back into their elementary schools except for the Doolittle students because there's no space thank you Rachel did you want to say anything hi I'm Rachel Crusoe on my kindergarten teacher at Darcy I feel very similar thoughts to Gina and Amanda I think Darcy is a very special place and I just love how it is so a childhood centered which i think is just wonderful for our kindergartners you know they get a very special experience at Darcy because we are so focused on early childhood learning and development so I think that's wonderful but I also you know kind of feel like with Gina you know we'll be nice to build us to hear your students from year to year as they grow and develop you know like many of the other schools in the district and kind of keep that connection but also to have a little bit more of a collaboration and consistency with other colleagues such as that Doolittle mm-hmm and other activities and celebrations you know things like that so it's it's kind of a tough call you know I'm kind of on the fence in that way to where you know I do think we have a very special unique environment but it would be nice to have a little bit of a closer tie to do it all kind of our sister school I'm just kind of looking at my list you know something when we're thinking about this I mean it would be really far out there and kind of really far out of the box but kind of joining those two ideas of the elementary school and early childhood if we're really thinking like redistricting the entire district creating a space that is just what a man is speaking about so an early childhood school that's a pre-k through second grade where everyone in the district would go you know and that would be that building and then elementary would be say three four and five and in middle school six seven and eight so you can really capture early childhood but see it through so a few years beyond so that you can create what's so unique about an Early Childhood Center through those really crucial years and then having your elementary experience in a separate building wherever would transition at the same time I think would be a really out-of-the-box kind of way to think about it yes there are some school districts who do that I'm aware of they do a k2 and then at three five and then and I don't we haven't had any in-depth conversations in the school modernization at this point I think for the most part we would be you know kind of led by the pool administration in terms of what we're looking for a lot of the discussion so far has been where should the sixth grade big should it be in an elementary school should it be in a middle school and that's that's been a lot of the focus because that obviously has a huge impact if if we were to look at for instance building a new middle school how big was that school that sort of thing I haven't had any in-depth conversations about restructuring everything else but that could come out of all this whatever Pentagon where the money is and what the facilities look like Marni do you want to talk for a minute hi I'm Manny Roberts I am one of the special education teachers in the building I have what's called the intensive IDI class I have both kindergarteners and preschoolers so I have a comment about the kindergarteners at Darcy it's a really good where my most intense needs students to have that two-year experience or that multi-year experience not all of them are ready for an elementary education system that looks different than Darcy so I my kids are supported based on kind of their developmental needs that Darcy in a way that an elementary school would have a more difficult time to do the other thing that I wanted to bring up which you've kind of heard a lot about is the special education K doesn't have a resource room so some of those kids don't need to be in my intensive environment but they you need a space to have air appease outside of their general ed classroom they also needed this where they can go to have a sense we break or just a time out of the room you you know have some additional instruction and that is sometimes done in the hallways it's sometimes which isn't always the most appropriate spot or most beneficial spot I think that the there is often the special education is brought into the art room when the art classes aren't there but they don't have their own everyday space and to kind of have their needs met on a daily basis so [Music] thank you I'm looking at I see Karen Clark Carrie yep hi everyone Karen Clark I am the building stuff for this is my sixth year there so I have opportunity of getting to work with all the students in the entire building from pre-k the EIC to the garden and I can see where some of the safety concerns are and ickerly the gates in the playground going to the parking lot the nature trail as I said I've the pleasure of being company with some very impulsive curious children that like to maybe we're trying to explore on their own and it's very easy for to opens gates so I'm just wondering if is a way to install what is seen on public playgrounds those push-button gates where they cannot reach but an adult can get to it it was part of the building or return of the building I apologize in the back of the building the rear entrance so there's I think at least six gates I can maybe a couple more that kids have a potential of we'd be slightly to me we do do our very best to keep our eyes on every but there are pretty quick little French dad on like exploring on their own it's very hard to catch them so just as even for kids leaving the building especially preschool with their parents leaving that back entrance team Oh numerous times I do what break free and the run back that's a very busy time of day there could also be a leaving that back just stop them so Karen kind of fading out so I'm just gonna kind of highlight I think what Karen really talked about or touched upon is our access to the building through the parking lots and it's really quite unsafe with our buses coming in and out and I know that in many other schools they've talked about the bus the bus lanes or the lack of bus lanes and we have a very high population of special needs so we have a lot of small minivans coming in and out of the back and that's also where our parents Park and they have young children so it's just it's not ideal and it's really not safe so um that I think is you know in a newer school they probably give more thought nowadays to how parents access the building and where the bus lanes are for schools now they separate out all the parent cars and their own driveway from the buses and keep those in a whole separate area you have large buses that come in the front and most learners they come in the bus the we call it the bus loop and then the small buses go to the back of the building and parents come both to the front of the school and to the back of the school especially with the toddlers and the the smaller children to the back of the school and you know it's a lot of traffic and often the cars don't stop when the buses are loading because they don't really recognize that it's a loading bus so we've been cited multiple times for parents not adhering to bus regulations so it's just it's really not ideal yeah we've had several principals express that concern that there's you know students walking between buses to get into the building you know things like that so that obviously is an issue one more thing in the corral were mr.
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Webb the gym teacher uses sometimes there's openings also to that that children can leave so if we can maybe get off openings as well and I also think the height of that fence might be a little too low because they tend to climb on top of it as well and it very easy hop over if they don't climb but I think that's another example of how Gerry Webb our PE teacher makes use of every space available and that is a space outside of our building that he can use when he can't have access to the gym so yeah and it's not compliant with any early-childhood regs as far as this height of the fence so yeah that is a problem I noticed that Cheryl O'Day our school nurse is on and I'm wondering if we could go to her hi I'm here hi Cheryl I'm wondering if you had something you wanted to share pretty much similar um the windows don't work the air conditioners old offices either hot or cold I'm pretty much similar to everybody else the bathroom is an adult toilet and I have three four and five-year-olds using it and at least sometimes staff can use it if the other one is busy but the sink is tall the toilet is an adult size in my office so things like that and your changing room for your children that require a changing table also serves as a laundry room and as a supply closet right that is correct so the nurses station consists of an office area and a changing or two separate spaces yes I have the one office where I have my desk in my file cabinets and the fridge where the ice and such is capped I have one bed in there and then there's a door into a back room and that has a Zn said the washer/dryer which has been a godsend and it's got storage of extra clothes for kids it's got a file cabinet with extra shoes for kids it's got a changing table when birth to three is hopping all the parents come up to my office to change the children and with the other things that need to be going on in my office that can be a little challenging sometimes but as everybody else we work with it we do work with it we we work around it is the one bed adequate for a school that size um there is no other place to put it okay I have I have one small bed and I have a couple chairs that the children need to sit in but there's no if somebody's really sick I can't have the other children coming into my office they have to sit outside waiting to come in because of the germs and such like that okay thank you I'm looking at my list Sabine are you there yes I mean yes I think Kim Crabill ski so I'm the library tech I think Kim talked about the program of isolation between rooms and you explained that the room the library used for many things many meetings so that's a problem aftercare noisy when you have meeting of a birth to tree a lack of isolation I think it's a problem in the bathroom of course next to the library room okay thank you Melia hi I'm Nelly Louise over at the intensive care classroom my concern is about the think that word of children will wash your hands which is going to be a must no lust let's do around this time and we have a large kitchen sink which is a double kitchen sink with a countertop that really is not conducive to children to be independent under hand-washing so we're here to get children dependent and first thing to do is to wash your hands before we start working in the classroom we need to put a block system on the floor near the kitchen sink styled where children can reach over and try to lift the faucet and wash hands well it within like a six by six space there's other things within that area as well like a straw junuh on the other side and the other side we have another large story cueing it so I really it's really tight so adult and children in there is a tight space and many times I it's of ten years have tripped over those blocks that blocked that that shouldn't to step on to get to washing hands and always caught myself which is good thing but I can you can see it could be a hazardous for the adults and children to step on that block and because it's not a big space that you can't really have mobile access to you know having more space for that large sink a smaller sink would be great child sized and get rid of that double sink for a kitchen countertop if that's gone and just a sink for children it's so much more conducive for safety and children accessing for independent washing Thank You Jessica can I just jump in on that before Jess talks yeah I'm Erica Pincus I'm a kindergarten teacher and Soni Leah brought up a point that I was thinking about and that was the sinks the kindergarten classrooms only have one sink and that's difficult for hand-washing before lunch before snack when children enter the room and also we have two classrooms sharing one bathroom so this year that was over 40 kids sharing one bathroom in the classroom and that one bathroom has one toilet and one sink where there's no sink in there correct that was where do students put their coats and their boots and all that sort of things you have space for those in the classroom yeah they have a cubby area yeah are any of your children sharing a cubby at this point yes I have every student is sharing a cubby and then we've ran out of cubby space actually and I had to have smaller cubbies from the preschool wing brought into my classroom to accommodate the extra children in my classroom all right Jessica I just wanted to put it out there that we had kind of talked about the kindergartens being divided up across and back into their home schools as a preschool teacher I almost feel the opposite of that I'm hoping our preschool is able to stay together as a unit I think the the early childhood part of things in the collaboration and the unity among that team I don't think it's enough to say there's two or three in every building it would have probably just be one in every building and that would I just don't think that would be as effective of a program if there was only one preschool in every building just to be clear I haven't heard from anybody that they wanted to split out the pre-k I just kind of hearing the kindergarten I'd kind of know well the only thing we heard when we talked to the little staff is that they liked having the students in the building from K on so that they the students had that consistency in the same building but there was no discussion that I've heard at anyway about moving the pre case to multiple spaces or anything you know anything could happen thinking that there's some agenda out there there I do think that we all are in the firm belief that an Early Childhood Center in Cheshire is a huge asset for the town of Cheshire you know it is Darcy is known throughout the state as a real exemplar early childhood program and and part of that is because everybody works together as a transdisciplinary team and and really when we think about early childhood it's not just pre-k it's it's birth through Grade three and you know the state and even the feds are really looking at the early childhood piece through Grade three so I think that once again Cheshire could be ahead of the game by recognizing through Grade three and thinking about a school that supports early childhood you know it really it's it is an amazing unique model and so that that's my pitch I know I'm on my way out so I won't say too much more but it really is an incredibly unique and special special place as everybody knows I know that the town of Cheshire recognizes and appreciates that I don't know if there's anyone else that wanted to speak I think that we've really covered all our bases I think in terms of space for staff we talked a little bit about the nurse's office the main office the bathrooms what kind of a teachers room is there in the building we have a staff lounge with it is adequate I would say it's adequate I think that one thing about the way Darcy has set up teachers don't have common planning time so the kindergarten teachers never get together so it's not a space that's overcrowded I would say easily but I also think that ideal model would be for teachers to be able to have common planning time and I don't know how that would look or if that's even for here the only part that is somewhat difficult is when we want to have our staff meetings we do have to have tables and chairs set up in our library and then taken back down again for the library class and then if we have another meeting set back up so it's sort of a lot of there's no kind of common space or you know for some parent meetings everything has to be set up that kind of thing do they cook lunches in your building yes they do it's a well the lunches are brought in from Chapman but we do serve hot lunch and there is a nice kitchen I said I wouldn't call it a full kitchen because she can't really cook she warms up but it but they've done an amazing job when we do they make it work okay I just saw Gina just just one other thing and I don't know if this is really the perfect venue for this but our traffic situation on our Road coming in if there if there's any way we could look into getting some more signage maybe possibly a blinking light I was in a pretty significant car accident right in front of Dorsey and January 3rd where my car was totaled so it's just it's a really tough spot I was stopped to turn and left and the person was going about 55 and hit me while I was stopped and and came running down and she you know I luckily was able to walk away from it but I think it's a really really tricky spot and I don't feel like there's enough adequate signs or just awareness of that there's a school here because it is a state road you know it's set back and people are flying off the highway so I don't know if this is a venue for that but yeah that's a state highway and I would suggest you know that and work with Vince if you know the school really wants to pursue that they need to get up to the state because it is a state highway so image and putting in lights anything like that they have to go through that I don't think the school modernization committee will you know be able to to deal with that sort of an issue sure okay just wanna throw it out there thank you okay Jen Bates I don't know if you had anything that you wanted to state or question or anything no I didn't have any other questions it was all very interesting and I made lotsa notes here so hopefully we'll be able to adjust these issues going forward when we decide on a plan okay I thank you all as I said you know we have a full committee meeting a week from today next Wednesday we'll be presenting our report at that time all of our meetings are available live streamed and I think you already receive the email if there's anything that comes up and you want to send us an email it's just what gesture let's say I never remember it we'll get it get it renal standard some staff members at other meetings who event sent some emails after the fact something that maybe they wanted to expound on or you know haven't thought of and so we love to hear from you if anything else comes up and we appreciate everything that you're doing I don't know just where we're going to go obviously the situation has changed somewhat now with you know a recession in the town and that sort of thing but we stay involved and if you have more input we would really love to hear oh well thank you rich and thank you for your time today this is really wonderful right
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edge no okay sorry you still need it I hope you're muted you okay we're ready yes all right good evening anybody this is J Leonard we'll go ahead and get started let's take a roll call J Leonard's here do we have Jen tanner she says she's trying one more time it said it journey it she said it was she was connecting but she's caught trying to call in okay go ahead and give her to the end Tracie think Bell here and Kristy yeah Pritchard and Don Densmore air awesome let the record reflect that we have everybody at Virginia at the moment and we'll go ahead and give her credit when she pops on if you'll just let me know let me so when she does get on if she is able to connect I'd appreciate that okay thank you let's go ahead and get started we'll start with the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge allegiance to the flag under God thank you everybody president Leonard I believe Jennifer Tanner is here Jennifer are you there yes I'm here excellent let the record reflect that we have all board members president for tonight's meeting thanks Jim [Music] are you sharing your screen with us okay so we're swapping screens oh okay I just saw that that switch I want to make sure I knew he was going Blair all right let's go ahead and start with public hearing we'll go ahead and go with hu public hearing for fiscal year 2019 2020 expenditure budget vision and I'll turn it over to dr.
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good morning gonna call this meeting to order dr. Thomason roll call please president Kaler members of the board please let the record show that we have all board members attendance mr.
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[Music] good morning we go today's at this time please join me in a moment of silence at this time please join me in the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you and have a great day go Wildcats [Music] hey we go I'm Sophia class of 2020 and I would just like to thank all the amazing staff members and teachers I've had throughout my four years I should thank you hey West Chicago it's Andrea Tipton and I just wanted to thank my teachers for helping me to get to where I am today and to help me be successful later in my life hey well Kent I'm Michael Clancy and my favorite memory from where Chicago was just just all the people that I met over the four years how well cats I'm daya one of the things I really really loved about my high school years is the things I learned throughout the years with my friends and new people and teachers and I am really grateful for that hey we go my name is angel so do I am now 18 and thank you for the past three years and I'll see y'all friends here we go this is Andrew Maldonado from coast of 20/20 and I just want to say a great big thank you to all my teachers from the past three and a half years of high school for being so consistent here we go villain here class of 2020 just want to thank all of you my teachers my class until next time we go here we go I'm Alonso Salinas class of 2020 and I just wanted to say thank you for all the staff members and coaches who made me who I am today hi I'm sorry that I took half of this year for granted I never knew that this was gonna come up but you did your job and you were there for us and that's I can't I can't thank you guys enough so thank you for making my three years the best and I hope to see you guys soon hello fellow Wildcats I'm Luis Guzman class of 2020 and my favorite high school memory was my sophomore year of track and field when I broke five minutes in the mile at the sectional meeting hey wiegel on Suzanne that clever 2020 and I just wanted to say thank you to all of my teachers who supported me and motivated me all throughout and I am also so grateful for every single one of you who I met throughout high school the experience really wouldn't have been the same without ya that we go hey watch the car watch Brian Selena's class of 2020 I want to thank all my teachers for all the lessons and that they taught me one of my favorite high school memories was getting the right and the dump truck during the homecoming parade oh yeah thank you once again my name's Hani Sufi and I just want to say thank you to the staff and like all my friends that we go who like made this like a good experience hey we go my name is Brian from the class of 2020 thank you to all those teachers and friends who I've met along the way and have shaped me to be the individual that I am today I couldn't have asked for a better high school experience and I wouldn't want it any other way oh well kids happy go I'm Kim Obama's class of 2020 I just want to have a big thing to all the teachers I've had friends I've made and everyone else has an impact on my life during my time here kanna's for all the awesome memories on the t wildcats it's just our class of 2020 and I just want to say thank you to all the teachers and my soccer coaches for always doing their best to make sure we succeed what's up we go I'm Evan Thomas Chesky class of 2020 and I just wanted to thank all my teachers everyone I met at will you go in the memories I made there I just wanted to wish everybody good luck and get by for the future hi wiggle my name is Reuben st Garcia and I just wanted to say how thankful I am for being able to spend two years old my life with all of you thanks to all my friends and my teachers for being there were never any editor I really hope to see you all soon hey we like slowly kind of 2020 one of my favorite high school memories was when my friends and I danced in the back of the student council wagon at the homecoming parade anyway thank you we go from the bus throughput five years of my life hi I'm Abbi I'm a senior of the twenty20 class I want to say thank you to all our teachers for putting up with us and just giving us an education my favorite memory of high school is definitely just doing tons of dumb stuff with my friends and managing to have a good time every single day at school hey we go I'm manly meléndez I am from the class of 2020 I like to start off by thanking my favorite teacher chemistry for helping me through my high school career and my favorite memory of high school will have to be this year's coming week thank you bye hey we go it's Katarina quantico's class of 2020 and I would just like to say thanks to all the students and staff for showing us what it means to have a strong supportive community and for giving me an unforgettable high school experience thanks again hi we go this is Julie class of 2020 and if I had to choose one favorite memory would be homecoming week senior year and I just want to thank all the teachers and students of we go for making it the best 3.5 years of my life thanks we go and I'll miss you hi we go I'm Kimberly class of 2020 I want to say thank you to all my teachers especially to mrs.
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okay [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] it's [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] good evening it's principal of Council High School it is my honor and privilege to welcome you to the 2019 2020 Honors Convocation and our first ever virtual program while the Cova 19 situation has altered our lives in many ways the global pandemic has most definitely impacted our students however I assure you these circumstances will not shake our spirit or K Hawk pride rather than dwelling on the opportunities missed the past few months we're going to celebrate the phenomenal work done by these students while at collinsville high school it is always a pleasure to recognize high achieving students while I thoroughly enjoy the athletic events performances and student activities I have previously shared that this program is most likely my favorite experience involving collinsville high school students this event reflects our primary objective at collinsville high school which is academic excellence these students have displayed a solid commitment to their academic endeavors as demonstrated by the variety of awards and honors they will be recognized for during this program as a result of their efforts in the classroom students I would like to personally congratulate you on your accomplishments more ever I encourage you to further challenge yourself academically in order to prepare for your future I applaud these young ladies and gentlemen for their academic achievements I would also like to acknowledge the importance of parental support students at home please share your appreciation for the guidance and support of your parents and guardians once again welcome to the 2020 Council High School Honors Convocation I am certain you will enjoy the program at this time please rise if you're able to join senior Logan stags in the Pledge of Allegiance Logan our National Honor Society president is the son of Nikki stags and mr.
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here so you know it's my intent to present you all a budget that's going to at least bring us forward and also start working on the achievement gap but it's going to require raiding and money that we saved this year and allowing us to put it into there's three buckets I understand it's going to be the insurance bucket that we always had as a fund balance one on technology and one in special ed that we could distribute and carry money three areas that are could be pretty explosive in our budget particularly the medical I worry deeply about we're saving half as much per month and when we open up again people will be going to the their doctors understandably so that may just balloon on us and special ed is is is they always a question for us and technology we need up so we've discussed opening knows that counts up and placing money into it I will caution the board for you to use that money you being us with your permission we do have to ask the City Council it's not just ours but the mayor supports us with a fund balance knowing that we had asked for as much as we did and that we're and this is going to really kind of tie our hands that we're going to need these fund balances and savings and and we're working on what that is I think that you know and and it's a we don't really have put an exact number because it does change but as we get another week or two we'll have a better idea right Courtney yeah and that fund balance you know the biggest atler as you all know haven't talked to joe and spent time with this insurance fund and while we were in : you know during this closed down like dr.
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[Laughter] of course boom all Joseph Britton your reaches Zaleski yeah Kate caneta here Gladys Cooper yeah Lauren Daly Joseph - Shobha here sorry Lauren I heard you there is Lauren there I'm sorry to do that she is I'm here okay Catherine Ashton here Richard Ginelli here Kathleen molinaro here Albert Russo here Ami's Bellino erica everybody's here Thank You Kate recognitions of our students dr. Sam you want to start with that it's a good way to start yes the kinetic associated Boards of Education recognize students throughout 169 towns each year and for their contribution to the school overall to the service of school and for their leadership and we have students that we are going to recognize tonight and I'd like to start we will go by school we will start with the wood Broadview I see that dr. Thomas is here would you like to start please we're really excited because we have two of the most amazing students in our building first we would like to do Jayla latigo Lake Jail is very caring compassionate intelligent young lady she is Curt had continued Bernadette bill grades in every class has this huge thirst for knowledge and she loves to help others Jayla is also part of the Excel program which is a competitive program which I'm just constantly preparing our students not just for high school but for college and also a career plan so Gala is also part of our National Junior Honor Society at Broadview and she uses this path this platform to kind of work with other students and her peers and just work in her community so I would love to present you to hopefully the last time you see her at a board meeting data let's Iguala Dale are you on hi yes oh thank you for everything that you said about me it really warms my heart you know it's all true right yeah yeah my mom is outside cuz she's an amadeo's yeah my mom is but she's in a conference right now for her job but I'll show her to you okay our next person is feeling Murphy she's a wonderful young lady too who exhibits a lot of integrity determination compassion especially about her academics she's excels in everything she has maintained exemplary grades and is just demanding all these demanding courses that she takes she just goes forth and she goes with full steam she is has tons of extracurricular activities like dance and karate and all that good stuff and she loves to perform and and had served in the community um she is really a leader she is not only a great leader she's very humble and kind and which I think make really great leaders she's involved in our National Junior Honor Society as well as our Student Leadership Program and she's committed to not just our broader community but to the community at all and like I said you'll see her again in front of this board before she graduates from Denver high school Michaela you are yeah I'm right here good how are you graduations thank you okay dr.
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Kellis Thank You mr. president and members of the board and members of cabinet whenever there is a need to revise the current year budget then there's also a legal requirement that a public hearing be held and that is the purpose of this public hearing Ken Hicks will introduce and provide more information on this budget revision thank you very much good evening mr. president members of the board and superintendent dr. Kellis colleagues and community members I am very proud tonight to protect our 2019 2020 logically patient number two and as dr. Kellis just met saying that this is why we're doing it why we're having the public hearings won't go into that but one point I will make regarding the budget is it's statutorily up until this year and there's been other times made the deadline but as part of the school closure legislation the Auditor General is given the authority to make adjustments and modify timeline they can't modify the budget revision palimony and they've extended it to June 3rd so that's here that it could real quick real quick your your audio is really digitized and really low so you may need to move a little closer or speak a little bit louder sorry thank you very much for that I will get a little closer to the microphone and hopefully that will help and so the audit agenda was provided with additional authority to modify timings and so there will be another budget revision and it'll be before June 30th but we will have a need because we do have some federal grants that have been appropriately allocated to us and that we're playing for as well as an online summer school program that might have some additional financial impact as well as that we'd like to include that and so we will be revising the budgeting as well so normally this is the last one this is not the last one but this is a quick one so not too many change it we have some overall it's an increase there's a few reasons we have some student film has gone up and gone down some of our grade levels are group beat which they began that increased and so did our tuition thing so we have an agreement with Matt Oberg beautify school district for a providing tuition for their high school kids in their number of kids though that still isn't committed so that is also bono here you can see just broken up by the for me programmatic areas as identified by the Auditor General a couple decreased a couple entry so we look at what the expenses are and make projections going forward and make sure that within and a revised budget which is the hotter than 72 million 151 our capital funds very small increase in unrestricted capital just a few thousand dollars that's mainly just the tuition adjustment on that the only renewal grant program a little bit higher than our December revision I believe in December until the board I expect this to be around a million dollars you can see later on in our consent agenda that I believe would have the weatherization project that's on there I thought that was going to happen a little sooner this is just at least a bid so we probably will not be doing the work on that program which is weatherization program which is about 300 a little over three hundred thousand dollars so that will be applied to next year so that's why that's just a little less than you probably were anticipating a clashing side found this is based out in previous year and ABM and numbers and you can see there's no change from December revision as December vision we really into their ATM into the carry polar announces so there's no change in that was from our special project bonds that a little bit bigger adjustment here the federal grant says a BER there's an apartment of Education approves grants sometimes after the December revision we don't have carry forward in there or other allocations and so it's a larger increase and a federal grant program and just think of this does not include the two federal grants that I mentioned earlier that Terry stimulus funds and then FEMA public assistance program that we're eligible to apply for as well so those two are the federal grants of this federal grant line will again when we do our budget revision number three but that is that means that we're our food service fund might be trendy really well with a lot of urban area pie the co big has had a huge impact on that although we're still providing lunches a lot of lunches and with expenses it's not the same level that was here growing at before and so we're leaving into 10 million but that might become told us out so just in summary we had increases in our ABM we had some decreases depending on what grade level you look at our food our groupies are specialized that we had increases in our student and a groupie count adjustments territory and our grants are creation just means we have and he approved grants increases funding and then we also had our tuition investment but not a lot of changes to the overall budget but it is a realignment in capturing some of that logically abreast do before we end the year and as I say that normally this would be the time we capture all of that we don't have to wait we're going to have another Jude revisions and we'll pick up some more federal crimes and maybe some and the no funds with the online summer school program that will be provided here is the rainbow report now I just went over this last month during our dollars in the classroom report so I really don't want to go back through all this because it's really just some minor changes because the majority of those increases ee fellow increases whirring other funds that or not they won't appear on this or but I still like to produce the report just so you can see and then line it to that budget so this is a line to the revised budget I'll give it again for the next budget division won't really do that in June but I don't like things as always I do always like to promote some of this just required but some of this we just go above and beyond and we're very transparent and so I like to know that we do put this much a lot of information out on our website for our community and people to go to and look at it and so that is still available on our website I would like to say that the forest and printing questions or if we want to read any comics if any of our community members have written in for statements or questions of everybody's budget I just like this mr.
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roat ovitch is attending telephonically thank you very much we're gonna have a moment of silence followed by the Pledge of Allegiance well we have a lot to get through today so I move that we approve the agenda second any questions or concerns on the agenda this morning all those in favor aye I heard you mister with ovitch motion passes 5-0 upcoming events dr. Thomason president Kaler members of the board so as this is coming near the end of the school year on Thursday May 21st we do have our virtual graduation for Higley and Williams field those will be available for download after they have aired the first time pigley's will start at 9:30 a.m. on May 21st followed by Williams field high school at 2:30 p.m. on May 21st then on Friday June 12th we do have a governing board meeting and superintendent evaluation here at the district office followed by a meeting on Wednesday June 24th the governing board meeting starting at 5:30 here at the district office also so that will be the next month and upcoming graduation events I also think mrs.
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from all to profit and pachuco and prophet Contreras here we go this is Ivana class of 2020 I want to take this time to wish good luck to all the seniors I know that we didn't expect our senior year to end this way but we are a strong class and I'm confident that every single one of us will do something great in the next couple of years whether that is at College trades for the military I'm gonna miss every single one of you guys I wish God is niku closer to 120 it's like to start off I think everyone you guys were all these greatest memories from Deb and all the boys up in the halls to stronger in our homecoming football game to post some pictures at Connors that Oreo business school yeah thank you guys it would be possible that's four years here we go my name is Brandon deep and I'm a senior here at West Ricardo so I just want to say that the past four years have been great and I'm so sad to be leaving school so soon and I just want to say I think it's all my friends family and teachers that have helped me and push me to my max and helped me succeed in the end and even though my seniors cut short I saw the time my life and I couldn't have asked for better senior year here we go I'm Carla Sanchez and I'm class of 2020 and I just wanna give a thank you to my parents my friends and my teachers for making my high school experience the best and I just want to say that one of my best memories was my school dances so um I feel like everybody should go and yeah that's my last goodbye what's poppin we go I'm hobby class of 2020 just want to say thank you all for the wonderful high school experience space moon high we go this is more class of 2020 best of luck to all of you bye here we go this is Shelby Stuart class of 2020 I just want to thank my teachers coaches and friends for guiding me and supporting me and helping me strive to be a better person whether it's academics or sports or just in general in real life hey we go my name is Jenny and I am part of class of 2020 I just want to thank everybody for all the great memories all my friends all my teachers I really miss you guys it's been a very hard year and unfortunately our senior was cut short and I just want to wish everybody go look down the road you know we're in the real world now I read them I'm gonna grade class of 2020 I wanna say thank you to everyone pick special your staffs for pushing every single one of us from the minute we first stepped into high school to March when everything was over so thank you to everyone that made memories and thank you to our staff for putting every single one of us I was Chicago I'm Paige are in class of 2020 and I just want to thank all of my friends and teachers for the past four years I've made a lot of amazing memories in class and out I want to thank my teachers for really being there for me and my friends for really helping me become Who I am Amy to go on the coop new class of 2020 and this is Lucy I'm going to the University of Illinois at urbana-champaign for Animal Sciences and the pre veterinarian track my favorite high school memories were going to Disney World and unit city with Orchestra behind the Bedouin team all four years and dream powderpuff my junior and senior years high wall cats I'm Alison boney class of 2020 and I just wanted to say thank you for all the memories this school is amazing has taught me a lot about community and helped me grow as a student and I know I will be prepared thank you to all my teachers who have been there for me through hard times and for the staff provides everything and I'm looking at hello my name is ransom Rodriguez class of 2020 and I just wanted to hop on here really quick to give us huge that I told my friends family and the teachers that we go I just wanted to thank the teachers for never giving up on me and always giving me a second opportunity to strive for the very best I never really envisioned myself or saw myself being a senior but now that I am and that I'm going to graduate it's actually pretty crazy it's been the fastest four years ever but I can honestly and truly say that I've grown so much as a student from when I was a freshman so now that I was senior I will forever cherish the memories I've made throughout high school and always keep those teachers in mind who always helped me and never gave up on me see a huge shot at all the teachers at high school and thank you so much from and conditional love and supports hi hi we go I'm Ryan from class of 2020 and I just wanted to say to my fellow classmates that even though we didn't get the rest of our school year we still have all these memories and great times together that we can remember forever here we go I'm Bianca and I'm milady Unruh class of 2020 yep and we just wanted to share a last goodbye we're so thankful for the teachers who have made impacts in our lives the other classmates we've been able to create experience this long with these years have been unforgettable and miss you a lot here we go I'm Maryann 2020 I just wanted to thank all of my teachers that I've had these past four years especially if I'm saying I have affection school that I said and wish it Kowski they really made every single day fun for me and they helped me a lot through these past couple of years class of 2007 most regional high school would be the dances okay here we go I'm su class of 2020 I just wanted to say thank you to my friends and teachers for four years good luck to everyone in the future and congrats to your class of 2020 hey where you go my name is Odalys Martinez class of 2020 a huge thank you to all the staff and students for making me go such a great experience these last four years and we go I'm Ruby Romero and I'm the class of 2020 just wanted to give a special shout out to a couple of teachers for being there for me these past couple four years okay we go my name is Moe Vargas and I'm a part of the class of 2020 I just want to give a big thank you to all the counselors have been there all four years for their students and I want to give a big shout out to mr.
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