Reader

hmm okay we are live on youtube yay welcome everybody a three-minute warning i have a question do we have the where the parents can go ahead and click on it for it to translate i don't see it on the bottom oh supposed to be uh yes it's there i i believe you may not be able to see it because you're a panelist oh but attendees can see it so i can see it because i'm the host okay last time we were i was able to see it that's why it there it is all right i just changed it yeah thank you would you like us to announce that uh right at the beginning yes yes please i'll call it to order and then i'll have you go ahead and announce it thank you hmm foreign and welcome to everybody uh we're waiting on one more person and then we'll go ahead and start the meeting there we go i need the host i need the host to allow me to be able to share my screen for the flag solution okay it is currently 7 pm and i'm going to go ahead and open the open session of this unified school district uh board meeting and first of all jorge could you explain not jorge i mean a turtle yes let me unmute myself okay okay so we move on to item uh a the flags loop so 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 okay next we will move on to uh roll call board member rodriguez pena president thank you board member arianes present i'm here thank you board member greer here board member cruz gonzalez here and i'm here so there we go um next we'll move on to c 4.1 approval of the agenda i would like to pull items 9.5 and 9.6 and motion for approval second that okay motion by me seconded by um board member arianas now we need to vote i can't do it are you having issues board member ariana's yes okay we'll do a hand vote uh board member cruz gonzalez oh i thought we were all yes okay thank you board member greer yes uh board member rodriguez pena yes and board member arianes yes okay and maybe if you back out and go back log back into um i'm in now all right all right cool thank you all right awesome all right then we'll move on to 5.0 um items from the floor public comment on agenda or non-agenda items this is the opportunity for the public to address the board on agenda or non-agenda items no action can be taken on non-agenda items individual speakers may be allowed up to three minutes to address the board on any agenda or non-agenda item to address the board please raise your hand while you're in zoom attendance so we have five hands raised four hands raised we do okay uh let's see i see a tavia lawson yes you can unmute your mic welcome tavia thank you um this my public comment is a non-agendized item this evening i'm providing updates for the east san gabriel valley selfa community advisory committee and parents place family resource and empowerment center who is our community agency partner first i would like to thank aaron cramer director of special education and azuza unified school district for providing the cac with translation for our parent in services during the pandemic this past school year we were able to provide for in services for families to get vital information needed for this upcoming school year we are aiming to provide four to five more parent in services in addition to implementing a virtual family night at least twice within the school year our first family virtual night is scheduled for thursday october 29th from 6 pm to 7 15 p.m second our cac has started doing monthly newsletters during the pandemic to make sure parents and educators receive resources and tools they may need while distance learning leslie castiano's our azusa usd parent alternate has been helping to design the newsletters parents place is also providing a resource list that is being updated monthly they're also working remotely monday through friday from 8 a.m to 4 30 p.m they're providing workshops for parents and educators via zoom and also their parents support groups are now meeting monthly by zoom to learn more families and educators can email the cac at cac felfa gmail.com thank you thank you so much mr lawson next up is miss barbara dearson dr dickerson you can unmute your mic thank you very much board and cabinet welcome good evening i am delighted to be able to address you tonight while i've extended my congratulations to the new superintendent ortega and the new assistant superintendent dr mitchell i also want to do it publicly i am certain that there will be they will bring their passion and their energy to the many issues that are before us during these challenging times i'm also here tonight to share some personal news as well as to highlight to the board and the public some of the achievements in the past seven years of my tenure on the citrus college board of trustees we citrus have initiated and held k-14 conversations for the past four years these have been times for all of us board members and trustees to come together to discuss areas of mutual concern such as dual enrollment we've entered into agreements with azusa unified to offer dual enrollment courses we have intentionally at outreach to assist the families for our k-12 summer offerings of which page program has been the most popular because it's assist our students in their math skills we have annually provided to principals information about retention and gpa of their graduates after their first and second semester with us at citrus we established the two-year promise program before most other community colleges we have also been more intentional with early decision and assisting students in fafsa enrollment we have a graduate we've had a graduate of sierra high school sit on the student trustee as a student trustee on the board and become instrumental in clarifying for her peers how college works and we have had a graduate of one of the comprehensive high schools be selected by the faculty as man of the year while i could go on and on because i'm still pleased with the work of the past seven years and that's why this decision to resign from the board is bittersweet for me i want to express my appreciation for the relationships that have been established and the collective good work that we have accomplished my hope is that the district will work as effectively with the future trustee to continue the good work on behalf of the students thank you very much thank you dr dickerson um next step would be mr jorge rosales uh mr rosales you can unmute your mic hello can you hear me yes we can thank you good evening board staff beforehand just a point of clarification is by understanding that you pulled items 9.5 9.6 for the agenda yes that is correct mr rosales okay so then i'll just limit my my comments on the item 9.6 to 9 to the fact that i attempted to get into the um website uh to look at the draft environmental impact report as well as the final environmental impact report and the links that were provided without the errors as a matter of fact there was no link divided for the final eir so if maybe mr ortega can be kind enough to uh send me a revised link or a correct link to access the environmental impact reports for the uh old school um and then just on that on a side note recent conversation with mr ortega i mentioned to him that i've been involved with the district for approximately 12-13 years and ever since i got issue of the old school old school house has surfaced from time to time 12 years have gone by and i'm sure the old school house has incurred i think deterioration um but be that as it may i i do want to read the before i can i make any more comments on this and one last note on uh i was bad to hear the stepping down of my good friend barbara dickerson from the citrus school board he has done an outstanding job for the community all its residents and uh we're gonna make sure hopefully we'll have somebody uh of her calendar uh to replace in uh and basically represent next up is mr james ramirez mr ramirez you can mute your mic hi there can you hear me yes we can thank you great thanks good evening honorable board members my name is james ramirez and tonight i would like to comment briefly on the old school house which i know the agenda item has been pulled but i still like to submit my comments uh if i may i'm a lifelong resident of azuza for over 30 years and a product of this fine school district i have attended elementary middle and high schools at ausd including slauson where the old school house is located i'm honored to call this city my home one reason being our city's proud history and heritage i believe the old school house is one of those pieces of history this 117 journal structure is a crucial part of our community's past providing a glimpse into the early days of azusa when it served as one of only two polling locations for elections to more uncomfortable historical moments when education of mexican americans were segregated to this building to still have a physical remnant of those times creates an extraordinary opportunity to provide local historical context to some of the current social issues affecting society today the azusa cultural and historic preservation commission was resurrected in november 2017 with the goal to preserve the city's rich history by establishing the foundation framework and guidelines for the city's historic and cultural preservation program as the chair of this commission i along with my fellow commissioners have been making great progress in developing our program despite the many covet 19 challenges the old school house would be a prime example of an entity that could benefit from our work i'm asking that you consider preservation instead of demolition and work with me the commission the historical society of azusa and the city to not only preserve this historic relic but to educate students and residents on our city's storied past thanks for your time thank you mr ramirez next up is mr manuel munoz mr munoz you can unmute your mic good evening president and members of the board my name is manu munoz i am the planning manager for the city of azusa i am speaking on item 9.5 and 9.6 i understand that the item has been pulled but i want to continue to urge the board that the city did submit a letter for both items in which we are urging um the board to work with the city for the possible preservation of this historical treasure the current uh the city is currently undergoing historic preservation efforts and this is definitely one area that we definitely want to continue to preserve due to the history and everything that is revolved around the old school house and that's it for now thank you mr munoz next up is carissa mendez miss mendez you can mute your mind welcome listen hi can you hear me yes we can fantastic um good evening everyone i am chris mendez mother to four ausd students my youngest is starting tk this year and he's he's pretty excited um i have a few things i want to talk to you guys about but i'm gonna start um with desks i'm part of a lot of online forums and one of the hottest topics right now one of the most searched for items one of the most needed items is a desk everyone's looking and asking for a desk and for a lot of families this is really just not an affordable expense right now um so typically school is your home away from home school is your second place home being your first place and now we have to effectively and efficiently merge the two places in a manner that is conducive to learning having a viable workspace where you are organized and mindful of getting work done is of the utmost importance i mean even we as adults we have an area where we sit down where we have all our necessities so we so we won't be distracted be productive and get things done during the google meets last year i accompanied my children my four children i um joined their meets and i noticed that consistently children who were not sitting upright or did not have a desk or table in front of them they just were not as engaged they were tired and were easily distracted maybe even teachers can give some feedback on that so my question is would it be possible for the district to check out desks to usd students we've already done this with the chromebooks would it be possible to check out adjust from your school maybe even from the very classroom you can be sitting in eventually um so why not check out desks to children so they can have a workspace and an area where they can be organized and ready to learn the first thing you do when you're going to your classroom is you sit down at your desk you have your things there you're ready to be receptive of information maybe some muscle memory can even assist here so i know a lot of families have had their workspaces figured out and that's fantastic but i know that there's kids that don't have an area where they can sit down and be ready to learn so i'm asking would it be possible for the district to check out desks to children who may need that area to have all their things organized and to be ready to learn another thing i wanted to talk about real fast was school reorganization a topic we haven't heard about or talked about you know i think a while now so i don't want this to be surprising when it comes up again and i do think it's a it's a topic that deserves some dialogue so i'd really like to see it you know come on an agenda soon um and then last thing the pact plus committee there are some things that some pac-plus parents had said that was really concerning to me as a parent just um in the sense of the information they were given and then what the actual outcome of you know school reorganization would be so i think it's worth revisiting maybe revising and expanding the committee because one parent even um mentioned that it seemed like they were being sold at a car dealership i think she spoke a few months ago at me at one of the district meetings so i think it's worth looking into and worth revisiting again thank you all for your time thank you mrs mendez okay there's nobody else let's see no other hands okay well we will move forward then and next we'll go to item 6.0 comments and requests by the board and board member rodriguez pena hello good evening um everyone i just wanted to thank uh dr dana mitchell and norma camacho they did a fantastic job uh with the um the zoom meeting that they had with the parents regarding um giving them options having to do with uh distant learning virtual academy independent study and i was really glad to hear uh in the spanish and in english that there was many parents and they had many great uh questions so thank you dana again and thank you norma camacho that was before we had the translator so norma was doing the translating um after dana would speak then she would translate for her and it seemed to work out okay at that time and i just wanna you know um say that i've noticed that glaston highness is a high school their fields are looking good i i just can't wait with that measure um okay thanks to the community and um i'm just going to go and see it closer and i like to look at the gyms because i think that they're coming out really nice and i just going to see the ending result thank you thank you miss opinion uh board member arianes good evening everyone and everyone that is on the phone on zoom or watching us on youtube live thank you for taking the time out of your busy schedule to come to our meeting i wanted to go ahead and point out that i i really enjoy having the highlights from our district um i don't remember the student's name but i do remember the teacher's name which is a cindy crawford and it was i believe in our board packet last week and a student was highlighted and was able to complete his credits with the help of the apex teacher cindy crawford and so what i did is i reached out to this teacher and um i thanked her for her tenacity and her dedication uh you know to make sure that the student was able to graduate from our school district and one thing that she pointed out was you know most of the students that perhaps don't graduate just need that one person to give them that chance that push that you know structure for them to be able to finish and they will be able to finish and that was such an inspiration for her to say that to me because i'm a i i'm i'm a believer that when you invest time and you invest you know some time in students and the district also works with a parent with a student we can build successful futures no matter what that student whatever obstacle that student probably had their senior year um that they're able to graduate from the souza high so congratulations and thank you at the district um for everybody who helped with that um i do see the the fields going up um that's pretty exciting getting to see what what they're going to look like and the bleachers i i also agree i would like at the end i i would like to see what they they look like especially at gladstone as a former gladiator as a student um those bleachers were there even before when my mother-in-law went there in the 1960s so now they're going to get new bleachers i i would like to to um you know get a chance to come out and check out the new bleachers at gladstone high school thank you very much thank you board member ariana's next board member greer good evening everyone just a couple quick things um first yeah um thank you uh to to dana and the team and everybody who who put together the conversations um you know that that were had um you know heard a lot a lot of great feedback from there um i also want to to thank you dana and also um aaron um for the you know the work i know tomorrow there's going to be a meeting that's being held for um families um with reopening with special education and so that's a conversation that's happening and so i want to encourage um you know those to attend to to share and give insight um do also just want to give a quick shout out to vanessa soto also who is a just a superstar mom who also um was instrumental in in bringing forth perspective uh to to make sure that the meeting was what's happening and so uh just just grateful for the combination of folks that we have uh in the district both on staff and also uh parents um to to make things uh better for for our families and for our students um last thing i have is just want to share out i did not uh and very intentionally i did not have a host of coffee um last month but i i do plan on hosting one this month and um that will be on august uh 17th that's on a monday um and so i'll be sending out information um but that's august 17th at 6 00 p.m so just uh just fyi um for the for any who would uh be interested in attending that that coffee conversation that's all thank you board member board member cruz gonzalez good evening um i just want to echo yolanda and adrian in terms of the meetings that we had for the parents i was able to attend two of them the ones in the evening um and i i really appreciated the comprehensiveness of both presentations as well as the thoughtful questions coming from our community so i think i think that was good um i'm looking forward to hearing how many of our students are actually planning on enrolling in the virtual academy right so i think you know um to understand what that means for our schools um and i'm just i mean i don't want to say i'm looking forward to school opening i i am but i am looking forward to seeing what what's going to be coming out of all this mad planning that's coming from our to from our from our administrators from our teachers from our classified employees to sort of midstream go back to distance learning that we thought i think a lot of us hope would be over in our past um and clearly is not um so i look forward to just hearing more details as they come out um and really always just reminding us all that our parents and our students our students especially in their and their families have to be centered in what we do right because ultimately we are depending heavily on them to make sure that that we can have the level of education that that we're aspiring to so i just wanted to put that on the table thank you thank you board member cruz gonzalez and i would like to um i called arturo today to tell him thank you because um in our packets the explanations of what everything is and what what each item is for is so clear and concise and i'm really appreciating the details that we're getting in our packet that don't have to be worked out while we're in a meeting so we already have it and if we still want to ask questions there we go um i'd also like to thank staff for all of the hard work they've been been doing and um the fields having been walking out in those fields and practically twisting my ankle i am so happy to see it i just saw gladstone's last week i haven't seen it in a while i see i live near azusa high so um and they are looking nice it is gonna be so nice to have our children be able to drive past that really nice football field and track and be proud when people come for track meets it's gonna be us so i thought i'd throw that out there as well and that's all i have to say and so we'll move on to item 7.0 comments and reports by cabinet and superintendent please proceed mr arturo ortega thank you um so mines are gonna be echoes as well so i'm happy to let everyone know that the turf for both the azusa high school and glaston high school fields have arrived and so that's always a good sign when the turf arrives because then we know that we're closer than we've ever been so we're very excited to to be able to see the finished product i want to also thank the over 700 attendees our community partners and families and parents that we had at our virtual community meetings about our distance learning in english and in spanish we greatly appreciate the feedback and the questions that were posed during those meetings because those questions and that feedback helped inform some of our next steps for example our improved frequently asked question document our one page infographic that i believe went out tonight or is going out tonight if not by tomorrow those are those are results of us working together in partnership and those things happen um when you give feedback and you give questions so i just want to say how thankful i am that you all attended and that you provided your input thank you okay miss dana mitchell good evening uh in the last week principals have been returning and we're getting excited about uh making plans for opening our our schools and our virtual environment lots of plans are shaping up we've got parent meetings welcome videos for students and parents we've got student meetings uh planning for different workshops and i'd also like to echo too just to say thank you so much for all the parents and community members that have attended the meetings and provided us with just incredible feedback especially parents who have given us so many suggestions on different kinds of workshops and the kinds of workshops that they'd like to have and how they'd like to access that and access resources and information so it's given us just uh really some great ideas for planning and especially when it comes from the the parents it's been very very helpful i also want to share that throughout the summer many teachers have been attending uh different virtual professional learnings one of the sessions is happening this friday and azusa unified is part of a new 10 district professional learning network collaborative with a focus on preschool through third grade mathematics and this collaborative is part of our work that we've been doing with california education partners and the collaborative comes it's a three-year professional learning network and it comes with lots of different shared learning opportunities and the first one that um that we get to participate in uh is this friday and it is a workshop on counting collections and it is facilitated but it's facilitated by dr megan um frankie of uh ucla she's a professor and an expert in the field of mathematics education and there are 100 seats and 35 azusa unified pk through third grade teachers um scooped up those seats so we're excited about that and and we just know it's going to be super super valuable and then lastly yes tomorrow we are excited uh august 5th at 6 pm we are hosting another parent meeting and this time it is for our parents with um students with disabilities and this is around just reopening schools it's a follow-up and so we'll be offering that meeting in both english and spanish and again look forward to continuing and to answer answering questions so thank you very much thank you dr mitchell and next uh miss ms patterson nope alrighty mr unkyo thank you i'll be brief i just want to share with you that i am really happy that um the work that we're doing with our bargain union leaders uh to really help reopen schools it's appreciated that each and every participant is really putting students and families first and as we think and talk about the reopening of schools thank you mr rilke all righty and so now we will move on to um item 8.0 report action of closed session matters there's nothing to report so we'll move on to item 9.0 general functions 9.1 appoint board representative to the los angeles county school trustees association laxta for the 2021 year um and that's an action item so right now we have board member arianas as the representative and board member greer as the backup do you all want to any change do you want to continue on what you're doing does anybody else want to step up actually um i i'm a director on that board right now so i don't know if i can do both and i don't know if they want to do it that's fine too but i just want to just throw that out there because i will be there at every meeting that's what i'm saying that's why i asked yeah that's fine um how go ahead adrian yeah i i would feel great about uh moving for board member rodriguez pena to serve as the as our representative okay i accept we do need an alternate so yes who's who would like to be alternate i can't do it i i don't mind continuing on as an alternate if that's helpful thank you so the motion is for you uh yolanda to be the um representative and me to be the alternate okay that sounds good um any discussion all righty well then we can go ahead and vote on this for board member rodriguez pena to be the representative and for a board member greer to be the altru okay passes five zero so next we will move on to nine item 9.2 azusa unified school district legal services miss ster ortega please take over thank you um i'm actually going to turn it on uh turn over to ms patterson uh but just to do a brief uh intro here so this item is a follow-up to conversations that we have had at the board level regarding new legal services potential new legal services for azusa unified school district ms patterson has done a really good job of clarifying the rfq rfp and putting together a objective and transparent timeline for your consideration and so today she's going to walk through that timeline and then ask for feedback with the hopes that after today's conversation we have clarity on on next steps uh so that we can begin uh implementing uh the timeline ms patterson thank you superintendent ortega members of the board so um what we have done is i know that uh there was uh this was broccoli board earlier this year i i've taken the document and worked with a wonderful district staff to make it a more robust uh document it basically added bond counsel into the legal services um asked for specific staffing i asked about staff helping us do professional development so we don't need to spend money as much money on legal services because we know better and we can do better and added corporate background diversity objectives and the ability to negotiate the rate based on how many different areas of expertise are awarded so that's kind of where the document is right now i have proposed a timeline starting with this evening if we can get a agreement on the document itself we can put that in arrange for placement in the local newspapers tomorrow morning and we can put it on our website the next day on the 6th of august um at that point we would begin mailing to all legal firms that are registered with the csba axa casbo and others known in the area with k-12 experience in addition to that on august the 17th uh would be the last day for anyone have any questions to request additional information and as those questions come in they would be posted to the website so the questions and answers would all be available for all people uh interested in participating in the process uh at this point we're looking at august 28th is the deadline to put to submittals of the rfp rfq um the week of august the 4th we would have a selection committee put together to work with the rubric in opening the proposals grading the proposals uh the week of august the 7th that would be done the committee would meet and do the ranking and then the week of uh september the 14th um the recommendation the top-ranked bidders uh would submit their last best and final offer of rates to the assistant superintendent who then um i basically we've reserved the right for that person to negotiate those rates further based on the number of categories awarded uh and then at this point we were looking at agendizing it under september the 22nd board meeting and so with that i'd like to open it for questions comments and be back does anybody have any questions i do okay remember ariana's right so i think this it um i like the timeline i appreciate the timeline given and it's very detailed i do appreciate all that um one of the things that i want to go ahead and bring up that when this motion was carried back in january what was motion and passed was that the board was to approve and to go ahead and select the legal counsel so i i really think that the board should make that decision there's two things that the board is responsible in doing and that is the hiring of the superintendent and the second is legal counsel and it's it's really important that when we you know select when we're interviewing or we're selecting a superintendent we do not invite another cabinet member we do not invite another staff member so therefore i want to go ahead and open it up to to my colleagues and see what they think anybody have anything to say what do you yes no disagreement we will have two people on according to the board members right but that's not what was motioned in past and that's what i'm pointing around all right it's the entire board that um that would that would go ahead and uh do this process the selection among the you know among the uh rfqs and rfps that will be presented so that's that's what i'm asking uh asking and throwing out there that's my opinion i i i don't agree with that so um i just want to go ahead and open it up to my colleagues i just wanted to add um i'm sorry honest i i do recall the conversation but um i don't know we specified all board or you know two board members to be on this panel yeah i i i don't recall i'm not saying it didn't happen but i'm just saying i don't recall um but you know i i don't recall with everybody or clarity just for the sake of the conversation um are what i'm hearing um that you're asking the other board members is that where it says the week of september 4 2020 and i'm asking for clarity uh you're saying that it should be five board members and it should not include cabinet and special education selected is that correct is that what you're asking the board uh for feedback on yeah yes that is correct okay i just wanted to clarify what what what what that was so i think i'll go ahead adrian yes as i'm thinking back i do remember that we you know we had this conversation i think this is one of the challenges when we when there's you know so much time that goes in between uh like a conversation and then when the item is coming here um i do remember that we talked about um the board being involved but i but i i also don't remember what the what that process would would look like so i mean i guess i guess maybe it would be helpful to hear what i mean how things one how things have happened in the past and to how would that process work if the five of us were to i don't i'm just trying to think about how that how that would play out i'm and that's not clear to me okay board member cruz gonzalez yeah i was just gonna say i mean i'm looking at this timeline um so i think i think to your point so let me just ask a question of arturo then and colleen right so because because i'm comfortable with a panel that has both staff and board members on it to vet to vet right i mean that's something that we commonly do but just to clarify i mean ultimately the contract would be would be approved by the board right so the ultimate decision will come to the board um i just can ask the question in terms of um do you is the is the intention to just bring uh like a sort of like an overview of the different of the finalists or is the intention and maybe it's too early or is the intention to bring like a single recommendation that then would come to the board for approval i just think there's like a there's like a you know like a halfway point to me where the board has some input but where it's not all five of us sit through all the root the scoring piece in the interview piece um in my history what i always find works best in these types of situations and i'll just put that out for you guys to to see if this fits or not for you for your community is generally the rubric done by the people who are using the professional development and the legal services and the board members um usually if there's a rubric that actually would grade that um and then i'm used to having that go to the board members um and then basically it's like okay so then we'll agendize that as a discussion you can do that as a discussion item and then put it back on the agenda for award so you could actually do it as a two-step board process um but usually um uh the the part to that is that you don't you won't have your assist you can't really negotiate a last best and final on the rates until you're ready to award and so i would want to separate those two processes to help you guys keep down your legal costs i think yeah so i mean that being heard i'm comfortable with having like the panel be both staff and the board to do the initial evaluation um and then i would just say i just i would just put on the table i want us to be um open to considering maybe having more than one firm do legal services i mean i'll just give an example i think our ed services is very happy with their special ed support that they get right now right and so you know depending on what interviews come back different firms have different strengths and so i know i know other districts have multiple firms so that you can have you know so you can have find the person that meets your best the needs for whatever area you're talking about whether it's hr or admin or just general policy work so um or special ed ed services so i just want to put that on the table because i think you know last time we felt really we had to have one one firm and then that was it and i think that sort of made us feel um it makes us feel constrained right because then we're sort of that's the person they send us is the person we use which in whichever field because that's because we only have one option so i just want to put that on the table as well and all right i don't want to be on the panel i i just don't i don't have time to to be on that on the scoring panel i i was going to say i i agree with you on that point that the um i i i don't the original panel if we're going to get together if we have maybe the panel can whittle it down to three because i do feel that it is important to let our the people who are going to work with our attorneys also um have part of the hiring process but also oh my gosh i had a brain leak there for a second but also for the fact that um yes more than one legal firm i checked around and i talked to people and they said that it's best to have more than one legal firm that way you have special people who are good here people who are good here people who are good here and that's my point and next step um can i speak to that before you move on yes please um that that's totally consistent with uh the piece that's in here now about conflict of interest because frequently um there is a conflict of interest and the legal firm will notify you that they have a conflict of interest and then you have someone else that you work with that you can roll to so i just wanted to get that in before you moved on because it's a very important piece okay and gabby did you want to say something or did i saw you took your hand down no okay um i did i did oh i did but i'll go ahead and let adrian and yolanda go go ahead okay thank you thank you i keep forgetting about the lag so please forgive me i'm trying to work on that so i so i i you know i think it's i'm i'm typically a um a fan of of allowing different people to speak into things especially when you know when it affects them and so so seeing that other people are giving input or insight i think that i can see how that's helpful i still recognize though that um as board member ariana said that this is one of those situations where this is the board that makes the you know makes the the decision here um is it possible um to as as you may be suggested here uh colleen to just add an additional step in here in between the what we have on the 22nd and uh the fourth where where where there is an agenda it would need to be agendas but there's an agenda conversation where the board is able to look at what uh recommendations came forward from that that group um if if we add that then it still allows the i think that still gets at the spirit of what it sounds like because i don't entirely remember but i do know that we talked about wanting to play a role um and i think that that gets at the spirit of what was decided back in january so can we is it so what if we amend the process to add that in there um one other thing i would i would say just to for point of clarification it says in here the week of september 4th which is a thursday or uh it's a friday it looks like um so i but i i i presume you mean you know the week of august 31st so maybe okay just one little typo there then i appreciate that yeah and uh let me i guess i'll add also i i depending upon what day that is that week i may also be unavailable um so it just depends personally so it would just depend on what day of the week that would um would be okay next uh board member is finna yes um i that's a great timeline and and i and i agree that um you know uh board members should be included and um but i myself i'm not interested so i i'm good with you know two board members you know i trust their judgment i would like to see the recommendations of course more than one one firm and um but but you know i'm i'm not interested in being included in the process until we get to the end hey board member ariana i what i'm hearing from from the board is that you guys would like administration to be included on this i i would like to go ahead as a board member include be part of that process so i will be available and i would like to go ahead and be part of that process if that's what the majority wants uh then um that's okay i'll go ahead and just continue and just be part of that process and bring back like board member yolanda pena said uh bring back and uh thank you for trusting our judgment okay board member cruz gonzalez i just asked a clarifying question about um about the um the vetting process will there be any like live interview with the firms or is this all just paper screening uh i actually uh in the rfp it makes uh the availability the firms the availability that the firms can do live interviews um when it comes to professional services uh generally it's it's not like done at a board reading setting because that kind of turns it into a marketing campaign um and uh the information um i put this it's more about relationships and and and you guys have been a senior board for quite a while so uh you have some history uh where you understand the background that some of these firms have been through um and so it's kind of uh that there's a lot of background stuff and rubric rating uh that usually is done in the background and then just brought forward does that answer your question or did i not address it yeah so i i'm not i'm not so so one i do i just wanna i think that it's very important to have live a live interviews um i'm not suggesting i'm not suggesting that it'd be the board i think i'm talking about the panel that's doing the scoring right that's gonna be sending recommendations and the reason that i say that is i think we as a board can agree that communication style is very important right and you cannot you don't know that when you read when you're reading some a written document and so i think that i personally feel like it's important that we have an attorney that can be concise can be clear can be direct um and and will answer our questions you know and not sort of give us great answers and i think i don't i can't know that from just reading a piece of paper so that's so so uh so yes i i'm requesting to have some live interviews with whichever finalists that you that you settle upon but not not the board but that committee the two board members and the other people that you're planning on including on the scoring process yes and i i think i believe there's a piece in here where it says the selection committee may vary select the firm's deemed to be the most highly qualified evaluation of the proposals and basis award uh will be based on the review and analysis numerous impact factors which will be included in the proposal and the firms um may be invited to present their qualifications and respond to questions from panel members so that's already in the rfq giving telling the people in the award system that the panel is keeping that as an option that they may ask them to come in and answer questions so if you're okay with that language in there we can just state the intent of the board that they would like for the committee to exercise that option and i would like to say that i don't mind being on the panel i'm not going to be here for the results so if you're okay with that because i'm stepping down i'll do it i just wanted to make sure the people who were actually going to deal with the law firm had a chance all right um board member pena did you have more to say okay board member arianas okay board member greer thank grier yeah um so do we have is there a target date just because like i said i i could i could be available but it just depends on what day it is that that week and then should we if we're going to go a two board member um route should we identify who those board members are now because again i'm available to do that um if it's the latter half of the of the week but i'm not available on the on the first half of that week oh okay well remember if you want want to go ahead and join do we have the date identified for when that would take place no okay would it be one would it be one day or would it be over the course of more than one day well if you're gonna want to meet with the firms then it would be probably more than one day but at least the initial screening probably would only take one day okay then the ranking and the rubric and then you might want to just invite certain attorneys back to discuss certain areas as you're deciding because there's seven areas that you could award in according to this rfp so you may want to vet them out or vet cheaply them against each other so arthur do i see you nodding did you did you want to let us know in your mind what this would be like because i i appreciate colleen's work but i'm not sure you're going to be with us calling when this happened i know that's why i tried to make it as as complete as possible yeah i i like that that two-step process of uh depending on how many i i think that we can uh have the opportunity to decide you know as as we get the the the bids if there's just as an example if there's four that we can add the the live if there's maybe it's a two-step process where first is paper and then you take your top and then you you you bring in uh some of that that live interaction so i think we can we can kind of be fluid in that depending on on what it is that that we get and then we can make those decisions as this committee that's outlined right here uh in terms of dates and times and make sure that you know everyone's available and we can we can move forward um i do just have some some some clarifying just so that we're on the same page here so we talked about the fact that there is a request and a desire and a want and we will include uh some live portions of this vetting process um i heard that um yes we're gonna move forward with the committee that it's outlined here which is two board members superintendent cabinet and special education the one that i want some clarity on is um i think we're all in agreement but i want to reiterate and then i want to be clear on this that even though this is a committee that we still want to honor the entire board kind of conversation that had taken place and so we're going to add a step between the september 14th step and the september 22nd step where the board can have an opportunity again to look at the top recommendations and be able to put in uh comments uh and ideas uh to that but what i want to do is actually be a little bit more granular about that and tie it uh to actual board meetings unless we're thinking about adding uh because right now um our our board meetings if we're gonna add a step in here we would we would either have to say that we're going to be on a quick timeline and that step that we're adding is on september 15th or that seems a little too too rushed and so then that's going to have to be added october 6th which then of course adds the the the award agenda to uh to a later board meeting so that's what i want to gain clarity on is are we aiming for that second step to be on on the 15th or are we waiting until october 6 or no there's a desire to put like maybe a special board meeting or where this is we're only talking about this particular uh item well we have been meeting almost every week i i i i'm gonna suggest that we we are able to meet september 8th and make that an agendaized meeting to be able to discuss this what do you guys think does that depend on though how many candidates we have or firms i should say wouldn't that depend on that if we have am i recording or not that many you know around there yeah my recommendation is if we're adding a special board meeting to to discuss the the candidates that that would be the earliest september 22nd so that that that step that we're talking about that would give the committee plenty of time uh to do the work that they need to do on the 22nd we would bring a special meeting just to talk about legal services so that the entire board can weigh in and then the award uh goes october 6th if if the process works the way it's supposed to work okay um i'm okay with that but board member grier uh do you have some a comment oh okay board member rams okay so i i'm a little confused i just need clarification so adding a step right to amend agent you said you wanted to amend what so yeah my my suggestion is that we add a step let me be clear the step that i was talking about did not have any dates attached to it um and i and i'm personally comfortable with pushing dates out if that's if that you know needs to happen you know um but what i was talking about is just steps the last two steps one says the week of september 14th one says the week of the september 22nd my suggestion is that we add a step in there where the board is able to to review some um you know some of the the finalists that comes from the committee or we you know we award um but if yeah if that were to happen on the 22nd and then push out you know um to the to the sixth or even if we were not to schedule a special meeting and have it on the sixth and push it out to i mean it's all i mean we're talking a matter of of a couple weeks to bring this to resolution so that's minuscule in my opinion so we have two options option one if we are not in the mood for adding uh meetings um then we would bring the step that's currently being talked about um to the october sixth board meeting that would not require adding a board meeting and then on the sixth all board members can weigh in on the top candidates that this committee has been working on then if everything works out the way it's supposed to work out then we're looking at october 20th for the possible award of the contract or contracts and if we're okay with that then that requires not not adding any additional board meetings i'm fine with it remember family is fine with it board member arianes finally that works out all right fantastic um just a point of clarity is that is it that would be a closed session um review or that's open session review of those contracts ms patterson do you know the i don't know the answer to that my sense is um actually i would say unfortunately it probably depends uh because if you discuss it strictly as a contract um then it would need to be an open session and if you uh want to discuss your current ongoing legal um claims in the context of who you want presenting and taking care of those then my sense would be that way that could qualify for closed session but remember i'm not your legal counsel but i have used a fair amount of legal legal counsel and i think that's how that would come down and for that 10-6 to your point uh mr greer for attend six i i will gain super clarity on that as well and board member ariana i just want to be clear um that uh board member adrian greer has uh said that he can be part of the week of the 31st of august but not necessarily the 31st and it because he showed some interest in being part of this committee if we can go ahead and um accommodate uh adrian if you can give your availability i think that would be great somebody so so the two board members are going to be who uh board member ariana's and board member greer okay and and i'm looking so so maybe um jerry would you could you be a backup if need so i could i am i'm available on the third i could do the third or the fourth [Music] and actually the third would need to be um more during the day and the fourth could be any time okay so then we are going to move forward with this timeline uh we are going to work with the committee um on specific dates and times if for whatever reason as a committee we cannot accommodate um a schedule then um mrs bible's logo will step in as an alternate is that what i'm hearing right okay thank you okay any more okay so we'll move on to item 9.3 approve public employment assistant superintendent business services government code 549545.5 do i have a motion motion to approve okay motion by board member arianes second seconded by board member greer um any discussion yes i would i would like for mr uh arthur ortega to kind of speak um on who uh mrs jamal i can't jamal uh just talk a little bit about her before we vote um i'm happy to do that and mr rokio please fill in the gaps if i fail to do that um number first and foremost we're very excited um to let you know uh that we're bringing forward latasha jamal uh as the next assistant superintendent of business services uh ms jamal i went through a pretty rigorous process that include that included interacting with parents of the district high school students of the district our labor partners from certificated to classified to afe uh to management uh and uh other staff members it included a homework assignment and it included an on-demand performance task so two written assignments one where they had uh the time to to think about and create uh one where they were in the pressure cooker to respond to uh with a timeline i also went through a process with cabinet and myself and i am happy to say that at every single turn of this process whether it was the performance task the homework the the various interviews mr tasha jamal um rose to the occasion uh impressed all the way through and just did a phenomenal job um and so we're very happy uh to bring her forward she currently serves as the assistant superintendent of business services for moore park uh and so they're very uh sad uh that this is uh that to lose her uh but we're very happy uh to uh to have her join our team mr tonkyo if there's anything you needed to or wanted to add to that mr attaina you did a fantastic job uh summarizing the process uh it was a very talented um group of uh candidates that mr ball uh was was participating with but like mr ortega stated uh is she was um the the outstanding standout of the of the group very very happy to have her join our team okay is there any more comments all right let's go ahead and vote and the vote passes five zero in favor and next we have approve assistant superintendent business services contract do i have a motion on the floor make a motion to approve okay motion by board member rodriguez pena seconded by board member arianes okay any comments okay let's go ahead and vote and that passes five zero and i would like to let ms jamal latasha jamal come forward if she has anything to say miss okay here she is mr mall you are in the room and you have been unmuted i believe you hear me yes thank you and i want to thank you for the opportunity um thank you superintendent and the cabinet members and thank you for board for your vote and confidence and i'm looking forward to just hitting the ground running thank you again okay thank you all righty so with that um we're going to move to the item 10.0 consent calendar all matters listed under the consent calendar are considered by the board to be routine will be enacted by the board in one motion on the format following the last consent calendar agenda item there will be no discussion of these items prior prior to the time the board staff or the public request specific items to be discussed if discussion is requested by a board member that item will be removed from the consent calendar and will be considered separately the superintendent and staff recommend approval of all consent calendar agenda items do i have an emotion or yeah um jerry i'm sorry i'd like to pull item 10.4 please okay go ahead and pull 10.4 i'd also like to pull item 10.6 and 10.6 and so do i have a motion to approve the all the consent items excluding item 2.10.4 and 10.6 so moved okay moved by board member grier and seconded by board member rodriguez pena it's all about time to vote okay is past 5-0 and item 10.4 becomes item 11.1 and item 10.6 becomes item 11.2 and um yolanda uh board member ruth pena yes i would just i want to ask a few questions regarding this teacher um my question was did she teach at ausd last year um doing this course and um i do know that sometimes we are in need of emergency credentials but i know that we try not to give emergency credentials we like to have the teacher in the classroom that has property credentials to teach this class um uh we'd like to see in the future in the in the resolution a date like when is this person supposed to get her credential to teach his class is there a timeline or you know how how does this work um very very good questions uh board member rodriguez kenya um it is our interest to have all teachers fully credentialed uh when they're in front of students um that's that's uh that we know that we set our students up for success when we have the most appropriately credentialed person in front of students we do have very exceptional situations where we do need to um look for individuals who are teaching classes where there isn't really um that many candidates um and american sign language is a one of those one of those uh classes uh we're very fortunate to offer that as a world language at um our at souza high school um and so we did go through a very rigorous process of trying to fill this position um last year um and so we we really we partnered with mount sac we partnered with citrus college um and really were um unsuccessful in finding a a candidate uh that was appropriately credentialed that would be a good fit for our students we did have a person who was who is actually going into her second year so this is her second year the second year of two so you're only allowed two years to be on an emergency credential like this um so uh she did uh our office required that this employee sign a a letter of understanding that they need to be fully credentialed by the beginning of next year or else they will not be able to continue on this on this path i've also asked of my my office to schedule uh regular check-in um points so that they are checking in with with the teachers so that we are getting regular updates to make sure that she's making appropriate progress so that we're not stuck in a situation like this in the summer trying to fill a vacancy when students are already enrolled for this class thank you very much so so they are aware that they have to complete their credential at a certain date like you said two years one right correct they have one more year you get a total to get a total two uh we are in the we're entering the second year of that uh two-year agreement and the employee has signed a uh letter of understanding stating that they need to complete it by the end of by this time next year so we give them the summer to complete it okay thank you very much for the clarification thank you of course thank you do i have a motion to approve i make a motion to approve okay motion by board member rodriguez pena do you have a second second by board member okay and we will vote and it item passes five zero and we will move on to item 11.2 approved contract with csm consulting incorporated and board member greer yeah could we just uh would you be able to publicly just share what what this is um you know the purpose and the takeaways from this contract sure i can certainly do that so this is a consultant agreement um this consultant provides the required e-rate related services independent of the e-rate application or dollar value of the application including audit support so they prepared documentation forms and applications regarding the federal communications commission e-rate program any other questions hey do i have a motion i move to approve 11.2 um motioned by a second board member rear seconded by board member arianas and let's vote [Music] okay we're waiting on yeah my mouse is acting really funny i don't know okay no i can just i just go to the computer all right no we're gonna hand vote now hold on a second i just seen a vote yes here did it vote did it register no yet [Music] yeah i just i don't know what's wrong with my computer okay we'll just do a hand vote no big deal oh um board member cruz gonzales yes uh remember okay board member grier member ariana yes oh there we go it worked yay zero thank you next we move to item 12.0 curriculum and instruction 12.1 approval of the california emerging technology fund cetf agreement for collaboration with school districts for distribution of chromebooks in response to covid19 dr mitchell i'm going to assume is going to handle that one move to approve oh okay uh motion by board member cruz gonzalez seconded by board member greer and any discussion you have several questions um i noticed on the agreement it does state that they have distributed 5 000 chromebooks to low-income students and in the communities in the frontier service areas my question is how many of those chromebooks will be distributed to azusa unified school district it's because it's not in the agreement and um how are they selecting the students that will be receiving them thank you my student does not if the student does not have frontier in their in their area you know it depends i guess where you live right what happened they don't get one or or what happens how do we work better around that that's a great question thank you so much for the members rodriguez pena um so um i received confirmation from um the uh california emerging technology fund that that they have allotted 500 chromebooks for uh zeus unified school district and we are our district we are the ones who um will identify students who may be eligible for these chromebooks and again students who are national school lunch eligible so it's really the district who we will be the ones who will be um determining those students and notifying the families and they don't have to have any frontier service um it's not it's not really um they don't have to have that part so we're okay there so we're looking forward to this and this is going to be very exciting we are also part of this agreement is also doing some publicity um as well and so we're excited that we're going to be getting these chromebooks part of the agreement also is that the students will be able to keep these chromebooks and so this will be something that is as is part of an investment for um for their education so who's paying for their service um so if they um so they have different um options for uh for service and so they would be able to use any internet service that they wanted to use and then um yeah and then if they don't have um an opportunity for um for that then of course they would reach out to the district and we would help them oh great great thank you board member ariana's you're saying we would help him so does that mean we would help him with hot spot or what does that look like yeah so it could be a variety of things um we we would help them with uh you know to get internet um part of this is also making sure that we publicize different options for families for low-cost internet but also we would help families who were not able to obtain that so we've got a couple of different options for that any other questions okay let's go ahead and vote passes five zero and now we will move on to 13.0 business and finances 13.1 approved contract with time and alarm systems do i have a motion motion to approve 13.1 motion by board member ariana so do i have a second second okay it's seconded by board member greer and any discussion okay with none uh we will go ahead and vote okay item pass is 5-0 next we're going to move on with contract with top-ranked communications item 13.2 do i have a motion on the floor question to approve 13.2 okay motion by board member ariana is seconded by board member rodriguez pena is there any discussion questions comments okay with non-scene give a little bit of lag time all right let's go ahead and vote that's 5-0 okay then we'll move on to item 13.3 approval of the memorandum of understanding mou with western justice center wjc in the azusa unified school district ausd do i have a motion on the floor motion two approved 13.3 motion okay motion by board member ariana seconded by board member greer and again i apologize for my lack of awareness of lag and is there any discussion yes i have excuse me i have several questions regarding um where will they be doing this training with the uh staff and students and how would they be selected or who are they mainly going to work with i'm going to ask mr gary creel if he could join us to answer some of these questions i think this is a great opportunity for our students and staff good evening uh can you hear me yes yes okay uh so in response to your first question all of the trainings that will be done now would be done virtually in fact we have um several employees who are going to the abcs of conflict training right now and that's all conducted online and they're doing this on their own time right now to be trained in such areas as restorative practices and conflict resolution you know those sorts of things moving forward with the students until it was safe to go back to school those trainings would still be done online of course as for who's chosen uh right now well actually last year uh oscar oyama who's now the assistant pro or one of the assistant principals at a gladstone high school he and i went through the training and he started a group of peer mediators over at foothill middle school uh steve scott and adrian acosta are going through the training right now so they'll be carrying on with what oscar started and then we have several uh gladstone high school staff members who are going through the training right now so they're just kind of running a pilot program and then as we get it going we will be incorporating it hopefully across the district so will the students mainly be middle and high school students in the beginning yes they would probably be middle and high school there has been some work done with um upper elementary school and now that we have fifth and sixth graders uh at our schools i i would certainly think that those students would be old enough to do that thank you mr creo you're very welcome okay i have a couple questions about process right so i think i think it's wonderful that we're doing this um i just want to talk about um how are we going to make sure that we are um fully committing right and this is not just like another thing that we're doing that um passes by um you know because we do a bunch of training and then something else comes along right so so we we've talked a bit about um addressing structural racism and anti-racism right and that's sort of on the plate so i just i want to hear from dana in terms of what do you how do you think this fits in those discussions moving forward because the other thing that we want is coherence right so it's like i i don't want us to go off on one tangent doing something with one group with one group of students or schools and then we're going a different direction with other people so so just in terms of the overall vision i know i know you're still coming back to us but i'm just i want to understand from you how this fits into what you what what you're thinking about well i think certainly when we think about restorative practices right part of that is also taking a look at our data taking a look at students in terms of social emotional learning so i i do think that this is a this is a part of um i think a a big picture right in terms of how students are um interacting with one another um you know this when you when you think about restorative uh practices this is designed to really take a look at um the system and the structure of um discipline right from like a punishment standpoint right and really helping students to um find their voices it's a way for students to develop their leadership and some of the conversations that i've had with the people who've been involved in this i think it's an opportunity for for students to really have a voice and i think when we think about kind of big picture with what we want to do in this district in terms of um i think you know when i think about social justice especially um i think really doing this from a student level is something that is incredibly important and i think there's a lot that we can learn from that as well so i see it as i see as a piece of that right and i also see this as being a five-year plan um and so we piloted this last year starting at uh foothill uh middle school and so over the next five years i think it's important to um to to prototype something to pilot something and then really find out um what are some of those best practices and and be able to share that um with other schools as well so that's from my opinion i see that is actually a um a component i think that aligns well to the things that we're talking about great i think that's important so i i'm just going to put a request then on um as a board member is is let's let's move forward with this but let's also um can we build some um let's say a process and outcome metrics that we want to measure against for implementation um that can come back to the report in a report um whether it's i i mean i think i'll defer to you in terms of thinking about when when the best time to report to us about it um i just want to make sure that that we're that it be that it gets implemented and that that it is something that does flourish right and so i think i feel like at the board level the best way we can push that is to make sure that there's reporting coming to us about about the implementation my other question is in terms about the the cost of it right so i you know last year i think was a pilot it was free i think this year we're spending ten thousand dollars to do this piece um i saw in the mou that they're committing to try to fundraise right um so do we have clarity in terms of like the financial commitment and out years what that would be if there's not additional if if they don't find grant funding has that been or are we just like sort of making this commitment and then it'll go year by year well i think we're making the commitment right now and in in the agreement it's it's not to exceed 10 000 but this is going to be a portion for training or subs or maybe we need to do some you know some extra hours and so that's really what we have the funding for um so we don't have any costs projected out for that um and we would like to be able to again seek you know some some additional funding so um so really that's what this uh that's what the cost is is around right to be able to um you know support uh staff and training with us so you're saying it's gonna be ten thousand per year are you gonna are you anticipating that as we expand to more districts at more sites that it would be more and out years um gary can you answer that one we're not really entirely sure yet as as dr mitchell mentioned the money is like largely for professional development it's not a check that's being written to the western justice center there's also some costs that we're looking at for the peer mediators that the western justice center hosts a peer mediator open and so there would be transportation for students to this open where they could you know take part you know in the in peer mediation and the whole celebration with other school districts so part of what the western justice center needs to see when they're for their fundraising efforts is that as you mentioned the district is like fully committed to moving forward so we haven't really talked about um any financial burdens in the coming years we don't know how many student or rather schools are going to be involved and you know it's possible as more schools get involved that there may be you know more extra hours more uh financial commitments so i just want to put that on our radars board members right because i think i mean getting back to my i you know my point if we're going to make a commitment to something i want to make sure that it's not just like a fly by night and that we're really committing and so i think we need to have the understanding that i i mean i hope that they're able to fundraise and we're able to find additional like you know foundation dollars or grant dollars to do this work but if not you know we may be facing a year where we have to maybe allocate more dollars to this at the same time that we're probably doing budget cuts because um that's just where we are in terms of our declining enrollment and and fiscal situation so so i'm okay with that i mean i think this is very important i think we need to put our money behind who our mouths are and so if we say this is important and we're talking about restorative justice and peer media those are really important pieces that engage our students but i just want to make sure that we're aware of that so that you know in a nine months from now when we're thinking about what to cut this is something that we say no we don't we need to put money behind it because we've committed to it i tend to agree i think it's a really good program and sheila nina you've been talking about it for a very long time so i thought you'd be happy about it oh i'm happy i just wanna i want us to come in oh no i didn't mean it that way i didn't mean it that way it came out wrong i knew you would be happy about it because i thought you know um yolanda yes um i have a question uh so since it was piloted last last year at putin middle school do we have any outcome to show any outcome what what happened at puto middle school the outcomes we have are anecdotal and i wouldn't really say it was a pilot because we really didn't have you know an mou with western justice center or whatnot this is just something where um mr oyama took his training and he started a group with um a group of students to do peer mediation um i'm sure we could probably you know get some of those students to talk to speak to their experience but we didn't really use it so much um you know as something that would be uh like for data it was just something that he did with students and you know it worked at foothill i i don't have like the number of referrals that they they handled but you know the students and this and you know mr ayam were very pleased with the outcomes anecdotal though they may be that they had i i think it would be nice if if we even had mr yama or maybe a couple of students didn't want to speak you know how it would work for them i just think it'd be nice and sir um i can certainly arrange that and actually the western justice center would be very very happy to come and make a brief presentation for the board for what the program is all about and what they do um [Music] that can be easily arranged if that's what you do mr creole that that would be great any more comments hey let's go ahead and vote that passes 5-0 and we will move on to item 13.4 approve the memorandum memorandum of understanding mou with department of children and family services dcfs for foster youth transportation i make motion to approve okay i'm sorry okay motion by board member arianes no cruz gonzalez versus alice okay thank you thank you i didn't and seconded by board member rodriguez pena do we have any discussion can you explain a little bit about this um wherever this goes under please this would go under me again oh um essa is the every student succeeds act and and part of that is directed towards uh youth who are in foster care and the studies have shown that students perform better if there's school stability that of you know keeping kids at the school that they were at if you can when they went into foster care so one of the real challenges is how do you do that and so what this mou does is well actually the school districts are mandated to along with dcfs pay for the cost of transportations if it's if it's in the student's best interest and so what this mou does is it splits the cost between dcfs and uh the school district of zeus unified they uh originally and the way that it works is uh dcfs and this and azusa unified they put a set amount of money into a joint fund and then that fund is invoiced when a student needs to be transported transportation can be in a multiple number of ways it could be the foster parent transporting the student and and they would be you know paid a certain sum of money it could be a bus pass or a train pass it could also be what's happening for for many kids is uh kind of a hop skip drive which is kind of like uber for students and so those students would be transported by car from their homes to their school of but during this pandemic how how would we use this service well we wouldn't um so that would be moving forward and actually last year we didn't transport any students at all using this method in the past before uh this came through esso we used to provide bus passes and you know those sorts of things for students but now um with the pandemic there no one is being transported and so we wouldn't need this right now but the possibility is when school starts again that we we may have to transport students any more questions okay so we can go ahead and vote passes 5-0 and now we'll move on to item 3.5 up ratify approve of consultant agreement gpt staffing we have a motion on the floor i moved a moved by sheet uh cruise member board member cruz gonzalez second seconded by board member ariana's and any discussion no okay we'll go ahead and vote then and it passes 5-0 and that is the end so i am calling the board meeting close at 8 41 pm and that's it in

okay i do not have a gavel but i will call this meeting to order this is a special meeting of the chico unified school district board of education on august 5th 2020 and we have just been in closed session but i have nothing to report out from that meeting okay if everyone will please rise we will salute the flag 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 okay we are going to well first of all we're going to start off with announcements but um i'd like to make the announcement that um anybody who is in the audience if you're the other board members eileen and um linda if you can make sure you turn off anything in the background that might be causing any noise that would be awesome and people here turn off your phone so we don't have any interruptions we are abiding by a new set of rules and those have been published so if there are any people who are out there that are wanting to participate please make yourself aware of what those rules are uh so any other announcements yes cathy is that live okay now it is okay didn't come on first so uh what i want to do is urge everyone uh who's either watching real time or watches it later the butte county census count is now about only 46 of what was anticipated and uh this is a really really critical aspect for our county uh literally there's twenty thousand dollars a head that comes to our area out of the census as well as legal representation so it's really really critical that if you have not yet done done the census you can do it online you can do it on your phone you can do it on your computer you can call and talk to the census people but please make sure that everyone who was in your household on april 1st is counted so thank you for that okay thank you for that reminder yes eileen yet okay well eileen we couldn't hear anything you were you were still muted so um we're having that technical difficulty is that okay no can you hear me now okay you're good now okay um i know that the uh the move was done to shorten the census and end it early do we know when the cutoff is now i believe it's the end of october i forgot to look up the exact date but it was extended it got pulled back a little bit so i know it's october i just don't know exact date sorry thank you okay um anyone else with any announcements all right seeing none um we're going to move on then to our consent calendar uh are there any board members who would like to remove items or pull items from the consent calendar yes linda liz i'd like to pull 5.1.3 okay any others okay um i thought there was something to be pulled for having to do with uh we did have uh five contracts under uh 1.2 related to field hockey that were pulled there are no outside group activities allowed currently in our county due to the coba restrictions and so those were pulled okay so do we know right off the band uh i was just going to look to see what number that was five one two did you say yeah five one five i mean one five one point two and it's the five contracts related to field hockey at chico high okay they're no longer going forward okay and with that i would move approval of the remaining consent i'll second that okay could i make a comment first though sure uh in this is included the uh inclusive early education expansion program which is a grant and liz messner has been absolutely phenomenal and i just want to give a shout out to her and her work i'll second that dr kaiser yes that was as usual great work on her part getting us more grant funding for programs we really do support okay so uh we have a motion by dr kaiser we have a second by tom lando and we will vote on the remainder of the consent calendar we will have a roll call vote starting out with the people who are not at the meeting itself in person so linda how do you vote uh harvey i okay robinson oh there it goes um my unmute feature is lagging very far behind but my boat is i okay thank you tom landauer okay griffin i kaiser i alrighty so the remainder of the consent calendar passes unanimously uh we have already discussed the fact that item 5.1.2 having to do with the approval of contracts that are relative to field hockey are being pulled uh as to 5.1.3 um was it dr kaiser was that yours no no that was me oh linda i'm sorry yeah that's okay i just had a few clarification questions these are probably for mr baltimore okay so my first question on these this approval for these expenses for the distance learning have we already received these uh learning loss mitigation funds and if not when are they anticipated to arrive yes we have not received the cash yet although we have received confirmation on the appropriation and as a reminder most of these dollars are under the cares act but specifically um we are receiving almost 7.3 million dollars related to senate bill 98 that is really being titled learning loss mitigation so the reason we bring this for you forward to the board is really asking for broad authority to spend these dollars as quickly as possible that 7.3 million dollars needs to be spent by december 31st and needs to have a connection to supporting student learning in this online environment so you'll notice the broad request such as laptops for every teacher in the district of a million dollars the intent is that we need to get these items ordered and in the hands of our educators as quickly as possible so and other than usually typically we get quotes and bring those to you when they surpass our signing limits but we're asking for the board to give us authority to move forward with your approval in these amounts so that we can make purchases quickly and just as an example the laptop quote we received for every teacher was around eight hundred and fifty thousand dollars so it would fit underneath that million dollars but the supply chain has been interrupted with the kovid 19 and so even if we get those ordered today after your approval it will still be probably right around the start of school or a couple weeks after school starts that we'll have those in the hands of our teachers so the intent behind this is an acknowledgement of needing to spend the dollars as quickly as possible but pointing out these are the areas in which we plan on spending the the money and we will bring the contracts back to the board for ratification so you can see what we've actually purchased thank you but that was the intent behind this agenda item now i understand that um it is a big chunk of money to spend before we are uh receiving those anticipated funds and so i have to wonder uh if we spend all these funds and the state uh delays or the federal government where whatever funding streams come in and they're delayed are we going to be in a cash crunch situation cash flow i think in the current year 2021 we're already going to be in a cash crunch situation related to deferral so right the issue though is typically we don't see reduced cash positions until november uh mainly before we receive those um tax receipts that we we get in december however we do expect this cash to come in the door in september okay so we do think that our reserves are sufficient that even if we spend these dollars now we'll have enough cash to make the purchases and not really require a trans the tax revenue anticipation note uh to be issued earlier so we think the reality and this is the challenge is these dollars were one promised earlier and frankly the appropriations took some time to get information to us and then we know we have the start of school so you know the challenges and if i'm a teacher i need uh ppe i need uh upgraded technology absolutely i need these things to do my job effectively and safely and so that is the intent behind these dollars and we do have the cash reserves to do it so that's why we're bringing it to you for approval to get these ordered as quickly as possible very good understood looks like there's a question okay yeah kathy so uh just as a additional comment one of the feedback loops that we got from the administrative uh assessment of the superintendent's work was how critical it was that we acted so fast on ordering technology because other districts could not get their technology the supply chain has been severely disrupted i will pick an inane example bicycles you can't get a bicycle part globally now because of the supply chain disruption because of the pandemic more people were riding their bikes well everyone is going to online learning and i think it is produced to our technical staff and to kevin's office that they're jumping on this as fast as possible because i expect many districts are going to find themselves shorthanded especially with anything related to online learning and or the quality of what we want to give our students and our teachers so i enthusiastically back this move oh i agree dr kaiser it's not a question for me of what we're ordering um it's all essential i just didn't want us to be in a position where we were starting to worry about making payroll so yeah right my second question has to do with um two of the funding streams on the provided matrix had a little note attached to them that funds are to be shared with private schools what exactly does this mean and does that reduce uh the anticipated revenue as shown on our on showed on that matrix the allocation methodology to private schools is typical of some of the other federal grant dollars we receive such as title one and you may be aware that uh title that some of the private schools in our area receive title one funds based on their uh enrollment or attendance so this is consistent with that methodology because these are federal dollars through the cares act charter schools however will receive we believe their own allocation it would not run through us but private schools would and it would reduce the amount you're seeing here based on those allocations to the to the private schools but it's not substantial it's not a large number of students that are attending private schools in our area um and so it's not going to have a a major impact to to the dollars that are available for these other things i had exactly the same response and i appreciate you bringing it up linda yeah uh yeah that was uh that was one of the questions that was answered ahead of time too so that information did go out but uh the thing is too that you also don't know exactly what the methodology will be on apportioning that correct uh we do now but the challenge was back when cares act was originally approved at the federal level then it had to go through the state and then there were some um we were waiting for direction on how the appropriations were done and there's really three different methodologies based on ada based on your unduplicated account percentages and then there's a third methodology as well so we're aware of what those are now but i would tell the board and frankly the community is we didn't get this information until july and um as linda points out we're not even getting the cash until probably september so we're in a little bit of a limbo we're stepping out as chico unified recommending that we order these things now one based on the known allocation that we are in fact going to receive these dollars and then just knowing we need them to start school effectively absolutely yeah absolutely okay so no other questions i'd like to move approval of 5.1.3 i second that second that motion okay all right so we and i seconded it okay so we have a motion by linda hubby we'll have a second by dr kaiser who i heard first and any further discussion any comments from anyone out there in view or land i i have a second question kevin you you mentioned uh when the money is coming in in september the private schools uh now that we know what their allocation might be what is the timeline for getting uh an allocation to them uh it's it's very quick once we receive those cash dollars at the county treasury we allocate those to the charter or the private schools uh per the methodology we use for title one and those other programs so it'll be very quick the only thing i just informed the board one of the items here and probably the largest item is for vusonic that is the technology that has now become a standard in all of our classrooms it's a computerized screen it has a computer built in the quote we've received on that to really complete all of our classrooms with that technology is about 1.3 million dollars so it's under that 1.5 there's over 350 of those that would be installed but a couple things just to note there there's certainly professional development that has to be provided the installation of those will take some time but we just think it's an excellent opportunity to provide teachers another tool whether they're online or whether they're in a modified traditional model there will really be a benefit not only at this point in time related to learning loss but will also benefit the district in a longer period of time so um anyway we just want to point that that's one of the items that's listed here yes okay okay um let's take a vote then all those in favor please say aye aye aye aye aye okay that passes unanimously all right we will move on then to our discussion action calendar yes do we need to formally move five one two move what we did that is 5.12 sorry that is that is what that was just to clarify tom's question the 5.12 had a multitude of contracts the one contract was removed that was uh related to field hockey okay okay so we let me just go back and double check on here because um we pulled 5.2 because of the field hockey yeah right did we ever move the contracts were pulled prior to the meeting for the field hockey and so when we did our consent approval um we approved everything under 5.2 with the exception of those field hockey contracts i'm sorry linda what did you say that's how i understood it as well oh okay because i i think i understand what you're saying tom i'm not sure we voted for 5.1.2 minus minus those contracts yes that we moved five to one two along with five one one when we did all the yeah which seems a little messy since then we pulled it we should have to vote on it separately yeah um i i just for safety purposes i'm going to go ahead and do that so under 5.1.2 we pulled a number of items because they had to do with field hockey and contracts relative to training or whatever activities summer camp but my understanding is we did not vote on the remainder of the contract so i just want to be sure that we do vote we actually did i can we did a motion was made to approve the remainder of the consent calendar with the removal of field hockey contracts in consent item 5.1 okay great okay all right i was getting a little confused about that all right excellent question tom it was it was thank you okay yeah because it we were kind of manipulating that one a little bit just to take out those items okay good then we can just move forward and we will talk now about our board's self-evaluation in order to do that do linda and eileen were you provided with the uh completed it's sort of like a matrix that had to do with how i have not received that unless it recently came in [Music] i did not go back to it yesterday after my back incident but i provided the my scores to erica um before the meeting but probably too late to process but i can verbally tell you what what i mark okay well what were what we wanted to do and this is how we've how what is causing that sound um well in a second um the way that we generally handle this is by looking at the scores and things that want to be discussed people can pull to discuss and that would be based more on the fact that we're not in agreement about that so just that's a preface yes kathy if if i understand correctly and linda and eileen don't think they have the summation perhaps okay then perhaps we could post that on the screen so they could see the cumulative scores and then if there's an issue we could bring it up sure so that sounds good be clear it is posted it's posted in the agenda and it's posted for the public as well as the board so if you have your agenda up it is an attachment and it says added 5 or 8 520 board self-evaluation okay so each of you should have that yeah because we received eileen's this morning it does not have eileen's in there but it does have the other four okay there it is okay i've got it okay eileen do you see it i'm still trying to find it hold on in the today's agenda that is correct it's under 6.1.1 if you open that item there's two attachments and it is the one that is titled added 8 520 board self evaluation my agenda will not download oh there it is um okay so just uh to give people an idea of what we're talking about here uh the board each year does a self-evaluation where we have three sections of questions which have to do with uh how are we fulfilling our responsibilities as board members so we evaluate how we are doing our job and and then we discuss it so that if there's areas we feel we need to improve we can talk about what we feel is necessary and uh hopefully uh improve so the first section has to do with the board and the first question is to keep the district focused on learning and achievement for all students and arguably that might be the most important thing we're supposed to be doing on that one we had a high average score of 4.8 out of five uh does anyone want to discuss that further as far as any deficiencies you think exist or what we can do to improve it's only two-tenths of a point so exactly okay eileen do you have this yet eileen have you received this yet eileen you'll need to check to your mute there you go yeah okay now now my needs off um yes i have received erica's email um i don't have a comment on number one okay okay so just looking through looking through the the items in in this first section um the other items are communicating a common vision operating openly with trust and integrity governing in a dignified and professional manner treating everyone with civility and respect governing within board adopted policies and procedures take collective responsibility for the board's performance periodically evaluate its own effectiveness ensure opportunities for the diverse range of views in the community to inform deliberations okay so is there anyone who'd like to make a comment about any of those items yes yes kathy so uh i'm uh referring to the uh collective uh comments that were given and which notes that in both 1.6 1.7 and 1.8 all of those have been impacted by our inability to actually meet in person due to the virus i think that we all would have appreciated the chance to have more of the public's actual feedback to us and we haven't been able to do that directly certainly we had a tremendous number of emails and comments uh from parents and teachers and staff but i i do think that's a realistic commentary okay yes uh eileen did you have a comment it was on the same lines that cathy just commented on number eight um just to add weight to what um she's saying i not only am i sorry about the past breakdown because of covid but i think as soon as we are able to bring the community into our deliberations um we should really do a i don't know about better job but do a significant uh job at letting people know that they are now able to participate and how they could go about doing that it's so important because moving forward not only are we going to have to deal with the impacts of what's already happened but we're going to be in this distance learning and uh part you know in and out of the situations and our we need to be able to hear from our community um as much as possible okay yes tom on the same note i think the last couple of uh months and certainly last couple of meetings have definitely provided us with some chance to reflect on how we communicate and how we interact with the public i would like to give kudos especially to staff and the board for putting these new guidelines in place for how these virtual meetings are going to be run as those will be for the foreseeable future we can do better we know that um eileen was saying that we are going to have the public involved later we we have the public involved now when they need to be and my masterpieces stay up so i apologize um but it's important to recognize that the public can still be involved now and we need to continue to work on new channels to get their input in a way that we can uh use that data to inform what we're doing and i thank you to the staff for working on that already appreciate it okay any other comments um linda anything to say no okay the next the next has to do the next section has to do the board's jobs and um these uh items uh there were two items that were a little less uh of a strong vote than the others so i'm going to go to those first the first is to involve the community parents students and staff in developing a common vision for the district focused on student learning and achievement and responsive to the needs of all students so that received a four out of five and the other one was to provide community leadership on educational issues and advocate on behalf of students and public education at the local state and federal levels yes uh dr kaiser so i'd like to jump to number nine first which is i think this aspect of community leadership it's at the state and federal level that we don't have direct input and having been myself at the state level before really it's somewhat the structure of our area and how that input is given so i feel like that's a fair score and i don't know what we could do about it realistically at this point but on number one i have felt the board has picked very distinctive that were educationally directed and that we've been really on target about those until march happened and it's like somebody turned over the fruit cart and the cart you know the fruit ran in all directions so it's really difficult because we never got any data back from the state so first of all we don't know what the heck happened because there was never any test data um all the universities changed their admission standards so kids didn't have to necessarily do anything with that um in terms of testing so really what we have i think is we're very dependent on student and parent and teacher feedback but that feedback is not qualified by some standardized measurement it's more what would we say evaluative input which is very important but i also think that's a realistic score okay any anyone else tom in regards to item nine on advocacy uh that is an issue where i think we really can improve uh in terms of building better relationships with our state level representatives uh we don't do a lot of communication with the assembly or the and the state administration at any level and that's something that we could look at perhaps even in terms of a workshop but i think it would be really important especially going forward to work on building the relationships with our representatives who can represent us at the state level okay uh that has been this that issue has been every year that i've been on the board that has been one where we have scored lower usually than all others and it's also because it's very difficult for people even when we've tried i know eileen has tried i've tried in other capacities too to participate because csba sponsors a a time when you can go to the legislature and participate but it's it's somewhat disappointing and from my own personal experience it's discouraging because you oftentimes are met with not the legislator him or herself but one of their young very young people who are working for them and you are asked to explain very complex issues in a very brief period of time and so it's it's it's rather discouraging because you don't really feel like it's worthwhile so figuring out another way to make that happen that would be ideal i've actually attended workshops at csba conferences a couple of times on how to improve that advocacy and to be honest with you you know none of them has really been very effective so we'll continue we'll continue and uh maybe we will get creative and come up with some ways to to make our uh efforts more you know productive i suppose um the next one is other items where adopt evaluate and update policies consistent with the law and district vision and goals we do that frequently maintain accountability for student learning by adopting the district curriculum and monitoring student progress that received a high score hire and support the superintendent so that the vision goals and policies of the district can be implemented that risky receive the highest score of five conduct regular and timely evaluations of the superintendent based on the vision goals and performance of the district and ensure that the superintendent holds district personnel accountable we have done that it's been a little bit more difficult this year because of the covet and the fact that we did not get data in which to help us evaluate that uh adopt a fiscally responsible budget based on the district's vision and goals and regularly monitor the fiscal health of the district that also has a high score due to our great staff that works on our budgets and our finances ensure that a safe and appropriate educational environment is provided to all students once again this is a challenge with the covid situation we have but also scored high and establish a framework for the district's collective bargaining process and adopt responsible agreements that received a 4.5 we also have interest-based bargaining which has proven to be very effective in creating an uh amicable and cooperative environment with our bargaining units so anyone else have anything they would like to share about those other items that were contained in section two if not we will move to section three which is the individual trustee and this has to do with each one of us looking at ourselves and asking whether we fulfill these responsibilities keeps learning and achievement for all students as the primary focus number two values supports and advocates for public education recognizes and respects differences of perspective and style on the board and among staff students parents in the community acts with dignity and understands the implications of demeanor and behavior keeps confidential matters confidential participates in professional development and commits the time and energy necessary to be an informed and effective leader understands the distinctions between board and staff roles and refrains from performing management functions that are the responsibility of the superintendent and staff understands that authority rests with the board as a whole and not with individuals any questions or comments about that yes kathy it actually got produced as a as a comment on the on the separate page i just am concerned in the context that we do have an election for two positions in november and i don't even know if csba will be able to actually meet in person because it's the first week of december and it's typically in extremely high population areas where the covet has even been more devastating than our in our own so my concern is not about any member of the board my concern is that we're going to be in an incredibly difficult time period to get additional feedback uh you know data uh potentially access to educational leaders if in fact csba is forced to be an online venue now i'm also a trustee or was a trustee it just came off for the league of women voters and they had to have their national convention on zoom and so our elected representatives to that literally had to do it online they had positive feedback but again we think about what does it mean when you have thousands of board members all on zoom trying to you know learn from each other and put their input in so i just think that this will be a very particularly difficult time period for current trustees and certainly for any new trustee and i hope that we can keep them focused on trying to educate one another in the space that we have okay certainly that's uh that is going to concern us and we won't know probably for another while but that is uh supposed to occur in anaheim uh this time around and um i believe orange county is greatly affected all right so any other further comments about the self-evaluation uh do we want to take any action with regards to any of the items that gave us pause um you know other than you know doing a little bit more research or trying to figure out how to contact some of our state and uh federal representatives um you know that that's always an option um but uh other than that i i i don't see that any action is is being asked for right here so um do any of you want to seek to uh request action yes eileen there now i'm unnated um just an fyi i have continued to [Music] communicate to both mr nielsen and mr gallagher and um they they must get my emails and phone calls but i don't receive um comments back disappointing um i i did have comments returned from mr nielsen up until about a year ago um so i you know i don't know what their the demands on them have been that may have changed their ability to respond but not getting any any communications back to me yeah continue to yeah for them and i know you you have been uh the one person who really has been consistent and and and trying to do that so i i think we all appreciate that okay so um seeing no other requests for action i'm going to move on to the next item that we have and that is whether we need to make any adjustments or modifications to our governance handbook and this comes up for review every year and we have done a few little modifications here and there however um i personally uh did not find anything that i wanted to see changed or modified or added so i would ask that if there are any board members who who would like to see something happen so uh yes dr kaiser so on number seven which is about the periodically evaluating its own effectiveness the second bullet there says ensure meeting agenda suppress provide first down order business and facilitate maximum focus on matters related to student achievement i actually just want to single out our professional staff tim karis in particular because he has been phenomenal in helping not just the board but our teachers to understand the data that we up until this year that we had gotten back in which analyzed student achievement on the standards-based test starting in third grade we don't have that this year but i think his assistance has been a really effective and i think that's something that we have done extremely well and i just hope that we will have the ability to have data sets that we can again get effective information from and facilitate the understanding of our teachers both high schools have moved forward in their status with their testing on essential learning aspects of the students and that's really positive so i think on both schools we are in the top 25 20 in the nation in the nation so i really do want to recognize the professional efforts of our staff thank you okay yes thank you um one of the things i didn't think about checking through my handbook was whether or not the changes that we just made to make participation in our zoom meetings clearer and do we need to also adjust anything in the handbook in order to accommodate that and i'm sorry that i i didn't print it out and so i i i can't now at the last minute review it it was just yeah i don't believe um i don't believe those are there it doesn't think there's any specific references to how them yeah either on page 10 it has board meeting management and yeah these are more generalized type of things they're not the exact uh you know instructions on how the meetings are conducted and and what rules we're going to follow so okay yeah we're fine okay um anything anything else regarding the government's handbook or do we want to we we do have to take a vote to approve it as is i shall move i'll second that motion okay we have a motion by dr kaiser to approve the governance handbook as it currently exists a second by eileen robinson any further discussion okay all those in favor please say aye aye aye okay that's a unanimous approval question it says number one was also discussion action and i we didn't i think it was it was action if we felt like we needed to take action with regards to any improvements we wanted to make based on our self-evaluation okay so that was the handbook um number three is uh our proposed 2021 uh adopted district wide goals and mission statement so since let's let's go to the mission statement first and let me read the mission statement and this is what we currently have the mission of the chico unified school district a partnership of students staff families and community is to ensure all students achieve high levels of academic and personal success contribute to their community and confidently compete in a changing global society by engaging in quality educational programs that address diverse student needs and promote learning throughout life that's a mouthful but it sounds like it pretty much encompasses everything does anyone have anything they wish to uh either add or subtract okay um if not then we will take a vote on whether to retain our current mission statement do i have a motion i heard kathy move i'll second okay we have a motion by dr kaiser a second by eileen robinson uh any further discussion about this um i just a clarification to make sure that everyone else on the board agrees with the interpretation of personal success i know we have focused tremendously on social emotional and other issues surrounding students in my opinion that reference to personal success encompasses that focus that that we've made over the last five years and just wanting to you know again real reiterate and highlight that academic and personal success are two different things and the personal success means you know healthy body mind and soul okay that's okay yes linda did you have a comment okay um so noted alrighty we will take a vote then all those in favor of accepting this mission statement as currently written please say i i yes linda did you say i you did wait i'm not i can't hear you you're muted uh-oh can you unmute yourself um patrick are you able to do that maybe linda linda i mean there it is yay okay i'm sorry what did you say were you know that okay my host was me i vote i okay okay great thank you for that alrighty so that is moving forward on the reverse of that if you have a handout in your hand we have our board goals now our board goals have always for the past several years since we've had lcap they've coincided with our lcap goals and we have gone through the whole curriculum for all grades except i believe the last one would have been 12th grade correct right and because they do not participate in testing we did not have that one okay so that's a great clarification there if anyone wanted to understand that so we're you know right now um i think the rest of what we're going to be doing this morning has to do with um you know keeping in mind what's going on with this this covid situation because um for us to set up goals uh you know personally i think our goal should be managing this coveted response as well as we can possibly do it and um what uh you know is is there a particular goal we we initially were thinking of having social emotional uh development be one of our major concerns but that can be also encompassed in our response to covid so anyhow i just wanted to throw that out there as a conversation starter yes kathy so i'm glad you brought that out because the goal number two as stated here as a social emotional learning or online learning and i actually think it's going to be a merger of the two i have a just turned five-year-old who's going to be entering kindergarten and online so and this kid is a handful so i'm like oh my gosh and then a first grader going to second grade and a 16 year old going into his sophomore year i mean his junior year and so the framing of this is i think every kid that i've had an interaction with in the last two months has had some statement about needing interaction with other kids and how school is difficult or boring or tense because they're having to do it online so i see that as a very blended uh need and definitely what appears to me this is just personal observation they're more aware of germs and a mask they're more aware that what they are missing desperately is social interaction so i do think it's a really critical need i'm just not house i'm not sure how to state it as a goal okay yeah kelly let me put a little framework around this sure so what we have done in the past and we really appreciate the board's support in this is that we have taken the five goals that are outlined in our local control accountability plan and those are the goals that we get community input from we get input from our school sites and we really develop our whole school year around the achievement of those goals the lcap has been postponed but it is not going away we still will be responsible for achieving the goals so um if the board could look at and what you have done previously is adopt the goals as outlined in the lcap and then each year the board develops a very specific focus goal and the reason it is under goal number two it does not have to be there it was just there previously because we had such a focus on the curriculum and instruction and assessment piece so at this point since we've completed going through and aligning our curriculum instruction and assessment with the state standards that will be ongoing i mean obviously we're always going to have to review buy new textbooks buy new materials but you have we've gone through the process of alignment so now there was lots of discussion last year especially as a result of the campfire when we were looking at the social emotional needs of our students so it really looked like we were headed towards having an overarching goal for the district of social emotional learning since then um now we've had the covid and that also puts an emphasis on the social emotional needs of our students but it also has brought forward that we have some holes in our educational process as it pertains to distance learning or online learning so really you're being asked to do two different things adopt our long-term ongoing goals for the local control accountability plan as well as then identify if the board so chooses a area of focus for the upcoming year so hopefully that provides some clarification okay yes tom thank you um so excuse me i think that what some of the other board members have said uh holds very true these are both goals that kind of come together under the heading of our response to covet i think that moving the social emotional one down to goal number five improving school climate makes a lot of sense i'd also encourage the board to just adopt the language of say mental health as well it's okay to say that right i mean we're saying social emotional what we mean is all of our students have been through two huge traumas in the last two years we're worried about them and we have a cause to be and we need to support that and there's no stigma just saying yes social emotional learning but also just providing resources to make sure that everyone has what they need to get through the k-12 education in one piece so i would not be at all opposed to adding towards mental health in there if we needed to or anyone else uh we're interested in doing that um yeah hold it there for now i think both goals are reasonable okay yeah and you know we're asking a lot you know through this distance education that is going to be required now we are asking a lot of parents you know we are just asking a lot of parents there's a lot of parents out there that you know do not have teaching experience that uh you know may be very very busy and uh you know you know you are just asking them to take on a whole new role that they've never you know thought they'd have to do and uh you know create a learning environment in their home there's a lot there you're also asking a lot of teachers because you know teachers are you know they're there as teachers because they love working with children and i'm sure a huge part of it is seeing the children's responses and reactions you know through whatever they're they're learning about i mean it's it's an exciting type of process and when you have this all shifting to online it really takes away from that and i i can imagine that teachers might get a little discouraged and demoralized because they're not having the contact um with their students that i'm sure has uh you know at least uh you know as i recall has has really make it all made it all worthwhile so um you know i think us checking in um frequently on how are things going that has to be one of our our real focuses how are things going for the students how are things going for the parents how are things going for the teachers and that's going to take up a lot of our time you know and i think we have to be open to that um part of what we're doing today too is setting up workshops for the future and i almost hesitate to to put a bunch of things on our schedule because i think we have to stay open to getting back frequently to discuss this with one another to check in and make whatever changes might be necessary to improve and prove things um so i mean it's it's a drastic change that we're we're going through here and it's going to affect and impact everyone and you know like what you said kathy kindergartners for sure um how about you know seniors in high school and you know all these things and and we're basically uh tasked with making this all workable so um that's you know that's what i want us to think about yeah kathy i have a a suggestion off of what tom just said so and i i do think that these goals are not segmented aspects because they really blend but maybe um because i don't like ore as a goal too maybe we could say the district focus is on improving or attaining uh effective online learning and then down in number five improving school climate via social emotional learning and health that i just don't think we should have an ore in the middle of a goal so i agree i agree yeah um are we are we really focused yeah eileen just a second are we really focusing and and discussing this as online learning are we referring this to as distance education or distance learning we made the transition to online learning just as a way to differentiate between the activities that took place in the spring okay and um where we're headed now but okay so you would like we we want to use the the phraseology online learning yes okay okay i just want to clarify that yes eileen i'm sorry yeah you know just to expand on on some of the uh input i actually in my notes had a little bit of a different phrase on the focus goal but but it was it was basically targeting the social emotional learning um but i i put the word evaluated and now i'm thinking that that's not appropriate that we how we accomplish the goal is not what needs to be stated in the goal itself so um [Music] i i don't like the ore because there's there's two they need to be two separate focuses um and how we accomplish evaluating whether or not we're doing a good job there is it is part of um what we're tasked with doing and i agree with with the comments about leaving some of our board workshop topics open because we have we have huge [Music] revamps reevaluation taking a look at what's working what's not working and making changes to make sure that we're we're doing the best we can with what we've been faced with um i agree that that it should be a focus but i don't agree with the or if it's going to be a focus let's make two separate focuses so that we can attach how we're going to evaluate and deal with that down in our other criteria on how we do what we say we're going to do and eileen just to clarify on that we put ore in because we had heard from board members interest in two very different areas previously the board has asked us to focus on one goal and make sure that we accomplish that one goal um so the ore was there for discussion purposes only it was by no means something we wanted the board to adopt as is this is a draft document you've got my opinion may i make a comment suggestion yes so i fully agree with everything my colleagues have said but i wonder about goal number three if perhaps we could include the distance learning in the support of high level of student achievements in a broad range of courses and distance learning you know that seems to be a good place to slide that in i agree that we don't want to have an or but we could have an and or an including support high level of student achievement in a broad range of courses including online learning [Music] and social emotional support okay i see yeah i see where you're going tom yeah so yes two goals are unusual but these are um relatively unusual times um yes i do think that as we address both of these goals that sounds like we're leaning towards doing we need to ask staff to think really carefully about a framework to support uh parents one of the big complaints we got is that parents don't you know necessarily really want to thrust into the role of teachers to that end i think our targeted case managers are going to be really really critical here and again i don't want to drill down too much into the technicalities at this point but if whether or not we're involving them in professional developments or supporting tcms as much as we possibly can to get support and some modicum of instructional practices to the parent and take some of the load off of those parents is going to be really really key it's also something i'd like to make sure we're talking with our parents about not just their communication with the students in terms of instruction but from my background as an independent study teacher you have to especially up front really work with parents to make sure they know what their role is and it is going to be a little heavier and a little bigger than it has been but at the same time we want to make sure they've got a structure for where they can go to for help so that we're not putting as much on the parents as we did last year and they know exactly what their resources are right and and you know i think that this can be okay what we're talking about really the umbrella of all of this is this uh distance uh online learning absolutely and how you know it's almost like the many aspects of it that we want to make sure are going to be going well we want to make sure that parents are receiving adequate support so they understand what the expectations are and they can help their students to be successful we want to provide the professional development and supports for the teachers so that they can participate in this and not have it just be lockstep but for them to be able to be creative and to be enthusiastic and to continue to be able to motivate their students so that they will participate and then we want to make sure that you know because students are going to be uh you know not in the classroom not in the schools that they do that their their mental health is a consideration because you know kids need that that interaction with other students you know they need to be to play they need to be happy sometimes and they need you know to feel that they are can be successful in this and if they're not getting those other supports they may not feel successful and they may be discouraged and that's an aspect of mental health so i think us focusing on that whole big ball of what is this transition and to online learning and that you know we do need to be checking in all the time to see where is it going how can we improve this how can we provide the supports that need to be provided it was it was great that we heard from you know kevin that you know money is being provided for these things now so it looks very you know it's very hopeful that we can provide these with these type of supports for people that are needed and so i think you know that that that overarching goal um and how we word it and and i've got something down here too um is that uh is something that we could use as our focus yeah kathy so uh i really appreciate everybody's comments i think they're um they're all pertinent and uh we're also going to have a new um it says our internet connection is unstable okay uh we're also going to have a new directive from the state that we're going to have to be able to respond to by september in terms of attendance etc so what i would suggest is i think we've given staff a pretty good set of feedback points i would like them to come back to us for our next meeting with a revised language format that reflects the concerns about parents about social emotional mental health but also about the effectiveness of online learning because 2 says fully aligned curriculum and assessment with state standards that hasn't changed the methodology has changed so that's true i think we should have a uh get some clarification from staff about how they think because we have to measure these about how they think we could best state these goals given all the very pertinent endpoint by the board so so just to clarify these are just the goals out of the lcap under each goal is a whole series of actions and accountability measures so those are already in place what the what the board is being asked to do is to you know what what are those areas or that area that is most important to the board for this upcoming school year that we focus on and accomplish and so what i'm hearing is that under goal three we have a board focus on online instruction online learning and under board goal number five we have a board focus on social emotional and mental health does that encompass what and then as we do with all the other goals underneath those you know through our lcap document we will address how that happens and how we expect to measure that okay yeah tom and i know that you've got this but i just want to make sure that something about parent supports does make its way into that goal under goal three i think that's going to be critical to the success of this yeah you know i was i was just kind of drafting a thing here you know under three having like a special focus support high levels of achievement in online learning including providing supports to parents and teachers no no this just this is just a a focus area under three it's a focus it's a focus area because those five are unchangeable those we are always going to have but just like as we did before we provided a focus under one of them and what i'm suggesting is that we have a focus that comes under number three goal number three and to be our focus area this in particular support high levels of achievement in online learning which involves support to parents which may involve let's say which may involve additional supports to parents and teachers in establishing this new mode of learning so what would be two nothing okay we're just leaving that to fully align with curriculum yeah that assessment yeah i agree that's enough i mean that's that's all those are still a given those are all there those all still exist those do not change but this is just addressing these new circumstances that we have now which has to do with this online learning and the additional supports that may be required you know which obviously have to deal with you know we've got teachers to train in this new methodology we've got parents to train in this new methodology we need you know in social emotional we you know we have people in the community who do not you know have never experienced anything like this before we've got some kids in some schools and i know personally from having been at those schools and worked in some of the programs that you know they do not have space in their house for study areas they do not have you know quiet areas for students and they you know sometimes parents need to learn how to make a an appropriate space available so their children can learn and you know this is this is these are all things that uh i think go hand in hand if we want to be successful these are things that we have to focus on we're dealing we're dealing with a wide range of uh students and parents you know we have found that through our uh our demographic data uh just you know the range of socioeconomic from very wealthy homes to homes that are living at the poverty level and you know this is what we have to address these are all our students we're making sure that they have the technology someone mentioned earlier about providing hot spots because some people may not have the um access or the bandwidth to participate in the online learning that's a huge thing you know other people it may not be it may be that they don't even have a parent in the home the parents are working and who's going to be overseeing their child when they're receiving this online learning is it going to be an older brother and older sister who's going to be there so you know these are things if we're planning to make this successful these are things i think we need to address and we need to focus on and that with our with our uh our periodic month-to-month workshops we should always be prepared that if necessary let's address these things uh because this is huge this is a huge sea change for for this district and the way learning is taking place yes i agree i agree so as far as voting on this um as far as getting this focus area goal let's let's craft maybe this so that we can all agree eileen yes sorry thank you i just wanted to go back to one of the things that tom mentioned and that was using the the term mental health in that social emotional yes i think getting us comfortable with the use of the term mental health is very important to help destigmatize um you know the issue of mental health by just getting it out there and saying this this is what we're dealing with social emotion excuse me social emotional is understood to be part of that but i think that it's time that we up front said mental health as part of it and just just identify it and keep it out there okay okay are we going to recraft some of the wording on yes uh number three well okay yeah sure go ahead linda okay so goal number three yes if we could just simply say something to the effect of support and evaluate high level of student achievement in an online learning environment and then if you choose to we can put in those sub categories for the social emotional slash mental health parent input but it just needs to be simple for our goal i think and that's my suggestion okay i i'll add in there i would agree i i like tom's suggestion of putting the focus on social emotional mental health going under uh goal number five yeah okay um school climate in terms of social emotional health and mental health okay well let's let's talk about that a little bit um okay just taking from what you said linda um this this is one of the things i crafted okay and you know you didn't okay um support and evaluate high levels of student achievement in online learning including providing needed parent and teacher supports and mental health resources perfect can we can we i'm not opposed can we supply mental health resources yeah that's a good question dr parents and teachers i don't really know that we have the legal or the financial capacity to supply that to parents i mean can we just say supports support i think we could say yeah we do have the ability to uh provide references and resources yeah because uh well yeah because this doesn't say providing the uh mental health supports it says mental health resources so i don't know is because the county has stated that the access to even telemed has dropped dramatically and their resources are dropping dramatically so i just think we just want to be we want to be cautious in terms of this breadth of what we're seeing and i'd almost like to keep it broader in the way of support because maybe we want to add something else we spoke about tutoring pods earlier so you know i'm not sure that we want to just limit to um the mental health supports well okay sources i'm sorry okay so let's let's try this one on for size um support and evaluate high levels of student achievement in online learning including providing needed parent and teacher supports and evaluating mental health impacts i i think that that goes too far in the how you do what we want to do um i think leaving the the leaving it as simple as possible and then specifying how we're going to do that in the in our action plan oh yeah okay yep i agree okay um so you wanna you wanna which part do you wanna just chop off do you wanna just uh linda mentioned i'm sorry language that just added after support high levels of student achievement in a broad range of courses including online learning that was i thought that you leaving it that simple was good and then under five improved school climate including social emotional and mental health period and not define what that means okay okay well we i'm sure some of us you know uh want to see the inclusion of mention of uh parent supports and teacher supports there's four that's in number four i mean that's the number no i agree with you on that liz i'd like to see that as well but i don't want to limit us in just saying like mental health resources that was my concern okay so what i'm hearing is support high levels of student achievement in a broad range of courses including online learning is that what you you're saying including online learning yes i support that language as well okay and then what you're suggesting is that improving school climate you add something on there on that to the rest of that too yes social emotional and mental health encompassing encompassing encompassing social emotional and mental health yeah um i i know that school climate is a very broad definition that includes um [Music] bullying and feeling safe on campus and and so if we're going to go into the adding the social emotional um i'd like to see it kind of separated as part of the school climate definition because i think school climate is is still should be defined as um you know feeling safe but not having students um with behaviors that get them suspended and stuff because there are interventions and things you know all of them how do you improve school climate but defining that we're also meaning social emotional and mental health issues with some kind of language that well you could just say including including social emotional and mental health that doesn't take away or alter the definition of social climate as it currently exists yeah i i like the word including without okay so i am going to jump in here so those five goals are the exact wording from the state for our goals for the lcap so you know to add on to those and adapt those um is going to cause difficulties for us with the template from the state so anything we do if we could add it as board focus right in a bullet below and and you know support high levels of student achievement in an online environment whatever the comment was okay add it below as a board focus goal okay so you could have like that be 3a something like 3a right and then you could um and five a or five right like a 5a perfect thank you i i really feel like we need to have this brought back to us by staff where it's corrected so here's my concern with that um we are starting school on august 17th we do not have another board meeting prior to the start of school and i really would like us to be able to be clear on what our goals are and i think we're there i i mean i think you guys all have a common understanding we're just struggling with the wording part yes okay you know um yeah i don't wanna i don't wanna uh stay on this you know any longer because yeah we've we've but you know what we've kind of gone around in a big big old circle and um you know basically what we want is just what is the district focus gonna be we're gonna keep these five goals as they exist and as kelly said because this is lcap and it's the state language so we're not going to change any of that and um so we would have uh you know 3a and 5a which would be but but you know like i say we like to have just like one focus area that we're focusing on a focus area and the fact that um you know we could have a focus on providing you know effective online learning which encompasses student mental health and academic progress those are two things that that's it so i mean that's that's the focus and i don't know if you want to go back and forth anymore on the language but that could be the focus area and that's one sentence you might even add parental and teacher supports in there that you were talking about earlier that is our focus is under that number three and uh i'm in agreement with you liz well and we could add those i think the interjection here and i'm sorry to break in is i think what kelly's trying to say to us is we can't really change a lot of this wording um exactly because it's because it's coming from the state i think if number two says effective online learning that leaves it because if that could involve a whole bunch of things that we would do to make that happen um and the issue of student climate and using the term including that i think that's fine but anything else that we start adding is going to be problematic um because we're again dealing with the state layout yeah so i think we need to uh leave it literally and just stay with effective online learning well but that in and of itself changes that so unless you put that as a 3a correct that's what i want to do is a three [Music] i do think it ties in nicely with three because our goal in online learning is supporting high levels of student achievement correct and again just be fully aligned two would just be the fully aligned yeah so okay so 3a was the one that was was uh given before was 3a which would be the district area focus area would be support support and evaluate high levels of student achievement in online learning including providing needed parent and teacher supports okay and that could be one and but if you wanted that to be fully absorbing everything you could add the ending and evaluating mental health so here is what eric had written down from what was stated previously okay providing effective online learning that encompasses student mental health and parental and teacher supports okay that sounds good yeah does that work yeah yeah that sounds good that i couldn't hear it well okay can you read it again please you bet providing effective online learning that encompasses student mental health and parental and teacher supports i think the wording was from you linda thank you simple okay how do you feel about that eileen yay erica yay okay i'm in favor of that how about you tom yes that works okay kathy okay all of us are in favor of that so did that actually require emotion yes okay so um that is the goal and i hope everybody heard that otherwise we can repeat it again do i have a motion to adopt that [Music] i'll second that okay motion by dr kaiser second by tom lando all those in favor please say aye aye aye okay hallelujah we got through that one all right um the next thing is going to be um workshops now as i mentioned before i think we might want to give some consideration to leaving calendar time and workshops for addressing some of these things that may come up in regards to the online learning absolutely i agree that said um seeing as we just did adopt a focus area around online learning and social emotional support systems it might make sense to plug those in relatively early so we can make a plan yes thank you tom if i can interject here um our september meeting um by the state deadline we'll need to focus on the learning continuity and attendance plan the other lcap we now have and um so tina has asked that we set cited time aside then to do that i agree that there's no i mean it's our data set is due to the state by september what 10th 18th i believe 18th okay so we don't we don't have a choice about that i think the context of what happens on the 7th or the 4th of you know 7th of october 4th of november has that potential but i i really think since we haven't even seen the absolute demand structure what they're going to give us that we've got to leave that one open for that okay so that's that's required on september 2nd but let's go back everybody has their list of suggested topics for workshops and maybe we should tackle it this way let's look at that list um tom just mentioned item number one which is you know social emotional learning and student support and number five as well which is the uh online learning distance learning okay so so that's kind of a it's a kind of a combination of those two right i think we can still break them out my my personal preference would just be first to to pen in online learning right away on october 7th thank you tom i absolutely agree yeah my suggestion here okay so so that we got into october so that would be number one that would be the first one um you know and that would be october 7th yeah correct okay so that would be um we'll just put that in there um online learning um then i would suggest that the social emotional learning and student support might be combined with number two because i think that our need both legally from the state but also internally is to be able to recognize that different groups may have very different needs in this area and maybe that can be for november 4th so i i would ask the board's support in separating those two because we have a lot of work that is going on with community and in number two the diverse student group outreach efforts and i would like to be able to invite those community members in to share with the board the work that they're doing um and some of the things that we have planned and i think it'll be a very robust conversation okay are we going to be able to do that though well i mean we could invite him in via zoom if oh okay okay well the other thing that i'm kind of questioning here is i understand the relationship between online learning and we want to check in with people and see about you know how kids are doing you know emotionally in this kind of climate and if they're getting their other needs met you know as far as their ability to socialize with other children and and that whole type of thing but i thought we had a whole workshop on student support systems that our district offers i thought we just had one of those we did so why would we want to do that again if we just did that isn't this isn't this what we're talking about here in relation to the distance learning and the impacts of distance learning not just what programs exist in our district because i don't want to hear the same thing i just heard a couple months ago good so yeah that's the beauty of the board liaisons that are part of these so when we are developing the board workshops based on the topics selected by the board this afternoon then we will have select board liaisons and then you direct us into as to what the board wants to to uh hear about in the discussion the board wants to have but i think even in um in voting on these and and when and how we're going to hear about them i want people to be clear about well what is it that we're we're talking about here if we're talking about the impacts of distance learning or learning online on kids and you know how that's affecting them other than just academically and their academic progress then i think we should make that clear right it's part and parcel of the same thing i think [Music] i agree that that's part of what we're talking about for october 7.

so there obviously will be some breaks and we're gonna these are little kids and by the way the kids the kids haven't created any of these challenges and neither have the parents they haven't created any of this this is a bad hand we've been dealt that we're all trying to do the best with the cards that we have to play thank you doing good there another one of the questions that's been asking is how is the food like breakfast and lunch how complicated is that issue going to be we're simplifying it for one thing all children that are receiving free reduced lunch and those that are 18 years and younger will still receive once daily two meals at the designated we have about 20 bus stops and other locations locally we're going to continue to deliver those two mails at once monday through friday students that are on site either special ed english acquisition or foster kids in foster settings or those that are frankly have no other option and they need supervision we're going to provide breakfast and lunch for those kids and we're going to do it in a packaged way where we're handing them and they're going to be spread apart and you know they'll be fed yeah we'll do the best we can with that and you know the one thing i want to reinforce if we can get the cooperation of our community our most vulnerable population and those families with the greatest needs i'm confident we can meet those but if we have people that are just either wanting to make a point and say i'm going to drop my kid off which you can i'd rather not have that discussion but if we have people that are willing to work together i'm confident we can we can meet the needs of a vast majority of our families so that's how we'll feed them we're going to make sure that kids are up and moving as well because it's not healthy kids not going to be sitting for three and a half hours if they're in elementary four hours in high school they won't be setting the entire time i also let uh mr merrell that we'll we'll provide space for i can't do a large number but if we had 40 or 50 junior junior high high school students that needed supervision for whatever reason maybe they just learned better than both of their parents are working we're not going to abandon those kids now they'll be in a steady hall setting they're old enough and mature enough to stand together they'll be in a study hall setting supervised supervised and you know and if they're participating doing their part then they're fine if they become disrupted and obviously that wouldn't work but i'm confident we'll be able to provide a space for even a number of those students for those individuals in that circumstance they would need to contact who we'll have a process set up part of the reason for that delay we need a little bit more of the metric because i want to make sure that we're incorporating these are the metrics and uh the data by which we are measuring our decisions and making our determinations and part of the participation will be if you're going to show up and by the way all we were wearing our masks all of our students and and parents will are going to be required to wear a mess we are going to take reasonable precautions of social distance physical distance but you and i don't have to have them because we're at least six feet apart in classroom settings we're going to do our best to keep those when we do return to in person well there's a phased approach phase one won't be everybody comes back and i have two thousand kids to account for we'll lose use a staged a b schedule and we'll have half the students in those classes we can do it on that basis we can social distance good we can get it done another one of the questions that people keep asking me is about extracurricular activities sports in a junior high in high school and music where are we with that all those groups are permitted to meet we're in phase one the aia has set forth a real strict set of guidelines by which all of its member schools number one must abide we're in phase one our athletic director bob london and our principal lauren webb and principal courtney hoffman and also frankie gerardi at the junior high level are working together and we're allowing small groups of kids 10 or less to exercise uh their social distancing and if if and when we can get this the spread of this disease under control that number will increase the aia recently came out and said no one can start official practices until at least august 17th now if that date i'm not sure if that date is immovable or not my guess is that if conditions continue to be widespread they may bump it back a little however it is the aia has made it clear we want to provide an athletic experience fine arts programs and our choirs and those kids participating in the high school level especially an opportunity even if that means an abbreviated season some of our sister schools and elsewhere have said you know what we're just counseling paul sports we think we can do so safely we would have to do it where the students and parents and the participating coaches did so on a voluntary basis no one's going to be forced into doing that but we believe if conditions will level that generally people will admit it's not really the kids that are at risk as much as the adults those adults would be taking an extraordinary risk admittedly they would and in many instances they do already by being out in the sun for 12 hours that's not healthy and the mosquitoes have the mosquitoes working in addition to their their daytime job the amount of time these ladies and men put in is extraordinary so our hope is we will be able to do that even if it's an abbreviated season on the other side of the fine arts it's more problematic orchestra outside of the reed instruments orchestra is is you can figure out how you can do that you can't wear a mask and play the trumpet not well probably not like anything but the problem is too singing is most of the most efficient way of spreading into singing and so it just transmits it so it's not really feasible to say okay dr d spread your kids 10 20 feet apart put them outside and have your concert i mean they i don't know if concerts will or will not end or they certainly will not move forward not the first semester but where they are looking for creative ways and given time i've learned this about public educator given time we've seen what they can do at graduation did you see a graduation they had a performance and they use zoom and then technology so we have that group and teresa dick and others are working really hard dr d is on that on that issue on the finance side our hope is we can do something for these kids now i will add and this is going to be a hotly contested issue it may require no spectators just students however we will film the games and the concerts and the activities and the parents will have access to those live at little or no cost and that's our commitment but if it means between if it comes down between allowing sports and games to move forward and fine arts programs and that requires not having spectators well it makes sense let's put the kids first now let's let's make sure they have their experience so that's an important part of that uh educational experience is that extracurricular it is it's it's a real founding thing to the overall education child i'll add mr merrill that in our survey we had roughly 450 respondents to the first survey close to 700 seconds 80 percent of our parents were interested in extracurricular degrees 8 out of 10.

so okay so what you're saying is that instead of social number one a social emotional learning that thing going as a separate workshop top talk topic it should be under it should be also contained under uh the october 7th one on online learning in general yes that's what i say yes to that okay so okay okay so um i would just put on there including social emotional mental health impacts well see here we go again because at that workshop i will be expecting to hear um not just social emotional things we're doing for students i want to know what we're doing for teachers i want to know what we're doing for parents so you know kind of all comes together part and parcel yeah with the online learning experience right and i almost think good to have the that twice you know as a follow-up depending on how long you know we're in this state of education yeah we do it in october and then we come back and do it maybe in april or i'm not sure i think that's very valid nobody knows how long this will last and the support that uh parents and kids and teachers are going to need will um be a ripple effect probably okay so so we've got um all right so so as it exists right now or what i'm seeing is that october 7th we've already got october 2nd has already been dedicated to the learning continuity and attendance plan that's mandated september 2nd i'm sorry october 2nd october 7th is dedicated to an ex an examination of online learning to evaluate the program including the social emotional mental and mental health impacts so it'll be kind of like the totality what are we hearing out there about what is needed what is going on how are the kids doing how are the parents doing how are the teachers doing yeah okay exactly okay so we're clear on that are you ready for november 4th suggestion excuse me just so i can get this correct that is both october 7th and april 7th correct i don't know about i mean well i thought i heard you yeah i thought i heard you say you wanted it on two different dates i did but my colleagues didn't uh necessarily agree well i actually actually i think he would evaluate it i think people did did agree linda because um i think it's it's just depending on how long this is going on oh okay sorry i'm having something yeah we're going to we're going to keep uh keep having to do this so so the possibility february might be a better shot at it because that's before if we're if we're going to be stuck with any kind of testing from the state i think we need a chance to to look at what we've got in the way of uh supports for our online stuff so i i like you know having a second time but i'd like to do february that's fine agreed as close to the beginning of the second semester i think is we can get it okay okay we have uh we have some uh yeah agreement on that and kathy seems to think that's okay too so that would be repeated um checking in again on those things would be in february okay so suggestions eileen did you have a suggestion for the 4th of november i did yes thank you one of the things that you know we're all aware of is the struggle that special ed is going through to meet the ieps and the needs of our students and so i'd like to make sure that we're hearing back on what successes they've had and whether or not there needs to be more support or a broadening of supports i'd like to see the special education program evaluation not evaluation but the the topic november 4th okay how does that ask you i agreed okay so you have buy-in from linda and tom kathy what do you think kathy's good with that i'm good with that yeah i think that that's going to be a very difficult thing for us because yeah so let's see you'll probably know some of the state requirements too on the special ed because it is going to be different but it seems as though mr thurman is singling out a special ed requirements through the state department and so by november we should have some of that information too okay all righty so i kind of put that down um as to be like an evaluation of special education learning um progress with with within this covet environment perfect okay to see what's going on so um so i'm going to put down okay revisit on february 3rd revisit uh same topic as october 7th right and then maybe the diverse student group outreach efforts after that and can we can we combine uh the diverse students with the uh via social justice and equity that seem to me okay which one that's a great idea tom items two and three on the suggested list yes okay you do that in april okay so diverse students and addressing equity okay that's you think uh april 7th right yes okay yes which of our student groups and equity okay okay so um i think it's a really serious um very serious aspect that we have fifty percent of our high school kids involved in athletic programs and now nobody knows literally what will happen with that but number eight the co-curricular and athletic programs programs has really been tied to the sense of school climate in our high schools so i'm wondering if we would get some kind of feedback on that by may 5th or if it never gets off the ground then maybe we have to think about other ways of involving students i actually think we can do a pretty concise job on that when we get more more information clarification from cia at a regular board meeting we can probably do oh at a regular board meeting okay okay so then i guess the may 5th would be our technology plan because it's going to be dramatically different with all the equipment that kevin's going to get for us miraculously by december 31st spent and maybe we can see um you know where we are with that and what's uh what's happening the technology well you know one of the things is that um okay with the with the budget are we going to how are we going to be updated during all of this you know linda brought up some concerns earlier about the budget at what point are we going to be updated on on on the budget is that going to be just like an ongoing thing through our regular meetings because i think that's going to be an important piece for us too with all this spending is the money coming in are we are we our cash flow is our cash flow good are we able to meet our obligations all that kind of stuff so i don't think we can have that be uh something that we hold on to i think it's got to be every yeah well that's what kevin just just said is that that but then the other thing i would um i would wonder too is instead of specifying something specific you know that may meeting is basically the end of the year meeting and you know kind of a overview of all right can we can we look back and see because we're not going to have much time then to prepare for the next year and um maybe it should be kind of like an okay here we go again we're going to be going into new year what have we learned where are we going what's gonna what's happening because we won't have been doing that so that'll be february march april may you know we'll be almost into it again we're going to have the question of graduations we're going to have i don't know i was just thinking not to commit to anything too too heavy but um you know maybe maybe something that relates to that like how students how students were able to you know function normally at all during this period so eileen yes uh liz on that on that line i think by may we'll want to take a look at um how well our students have progressed toward meeting graduation requirements under the covid yeah yeah as part as part of that not just limiting it to the graduation requirements being met but that that be something that we'll probably have some gnarly information on by then yeah that's that's a that's a good point yeah tom um i'd like just a couple of tweaks since we have on the online learning twice and i think that is a very good idea i'd also like to look at the technology plan at some point i was wondering if maybe we kind of make the october 7th online learning with a focus on the mental and emotional health of our students and how that's working and then the february 3rd we can kind of roll the online learning and the technology plan together exactly we've done a semester what more supports do we need how is our technology holding up now so you're saying with focus on on technology on technology that way we do have an explicit time to talk about tech purchases and where we are there on maybe on sufficiency of technology yeah that's good of tech i like that idea and then this one would be with the emphasis on um okay academic programs and seo okay great i think that's great idea but i'd like to stir the pot a little bit and just throw something else in there the other topic that we didn't address that was on our list is the grading policy and homework so we're going to have to talk about how we're grading the students during this time of just our online learning you know are we going to do pass fail how's that going to work so i don't know if we want to address that in one of those workshops as well well you're just throwing it out there like i say well you know that kind of ties in with the graduation thing that was mentioned because um it does it does late in the year yeah if we're going to talk about it for an impact on this year we need to do it right at the beginning i think the broader grading policy homework policies thing is is is not something that we can focus on this year it's it's i do believe we need to have it as a focus but i'm looking at something like that for next year yeah we could review how many you know how did our gr how how did our graduates do did we have did people just kind of fall off the map you know it's with this type of online program um you know were we able to still graduate kids um how many how did how did that impact that and then you know the grading how how are we grading because i i don't know how we're grading according to these new formats that we're we're utilizing so you know maybe that does you know all fit together so um kelly actually is do you think there'd be room on the september 2nd meeting uh in the lcap meeting for a discussion about uh grading and homework policies for this year yeah i think we can definitely talk about greeting because the teachers and the actual edge annuity program already has the greeting built into it so that um we can certainly explain at the september 2nd homework policy that that's a whole huge animal that is going we may want to leave that may 5th open at this point frankly and see let's do that let's just leave it open okay let's yeah let's leave it open let's not designate it if some burning issue comes up then we have a space to plug that in we can deal with the plague of locus that is clearly coming in 21.

and that reflects about our level of participation at the high school about 78 to 82 percent of our kids participate in extracurricular activities speaking of the high school at with uh the asu uh digital prep prep prep did strategic practitioners will we still be able to offer the college credit classes that we have been offering and the ap classes we have and i want to make one more distinction we've said it several times but i think there's some confusion arizona state university is providing the curriculum we're providing the instruction our teachers will need the instruction our students have an opportunity at the high school level for the first semester the fall semester to participate in a dual enrollment class that normally costs five or six hundred dollars i think it's they can take those classes and if they take it and pass it satisfactorily and they want to take that for credit they may we're going to continue to offer we have a great partnership with northern pioneer college our kids can take classes in what is called the top the talent project it's where they can receive credit college class while they're doing working here at the high school and we've had a dual enrollment agreement with northern pioneer college for as long as i've been here for about six years and we've had it way before i got here and we still want to provide those opportunities for our kids and we will in fact we think with the opening of the asu open learning lab they'll be space sufficient for black and you've set social distance inside a normalized environment a couple hundred students could be in that one time we probably never have a need for that much for that many rather but we have the ability for students to be taking electives of all different kinds like french and german we already have been teaching spanish and there are other opportunities for people maybe mandarin chinese maybe other languages that people could learn or kids could take benefit from those so i guess there are going to be a variety of options for our students wanting to get dual credit or college credit concurrent another question that's come to me several times is the fab lab how will this be effective with the junior high students and the high school students being able to access the fab lab and do that and will other districts be permitted to use our impressive fab lab the question for other districts no it's an exclusive relationship the only time that the lab is used it'd be after school hours if it were a 4-h function or competition and that that that pretense if it's not in use obviously we welcome people but our agreement is in our arrangement is that's for blue ridge students first in a person-to-person it's always been managed where we have a reasonable level of supervision there's high there's expensive equipment that that is being used that must be used there's a lot of high supervision that's required and then online only that's a that's one of the things we're trying to work through to say same as our career technology education programs there's a hand on hands-on component that simply cannot be met virtually not yet it may in the future but not not so far has to be in the lab has to be in a lab we're trying to look at creative ways the first nine weeks we were planning on having all of the academic stuff sort of out of the way of cte and then allowing kids to come in we may even what we'll be flexible with those teachers in that schedule my guess is knowing the dedication of those teachers they'll be offering night labs and weekend labs and they'll do what they need to make sure our kids get that we probably could once we're permitted and once it's safe to do so have small classes the bad lab is about 6 000 square feet and so we could have easily we could have 20 kids in there without putting anyone at risk they're spread apart and we have enough machinery so anything we will move forward with will incorporate those elements another question is uh regarding navit and or the auto shop program how does that go forward same thing with cte they have it struggling with the same thing that we are they have an academic component which is easy to easier to satisfy online we'll do that the next the first nine weeks and to use my friend's phrase the coded calendar nine weeks in the copic calendar is a long time that's about eight half years i mean one day's challenges changes it's so dynamic so we're sticking there and we also have formed this is a good time as sort of a segway to talk about a group of teams we've created numbering uh 16 different teams one team is the cte team those are those are faculty these are all these are faculty support staff blue ridge employees that have been formed into 16 different teams to meet the gaps that are created by online learning there's certain things that cannot be satisfied online we know that so rather than throwing our hands up and saying nothing we can do about it we said let's identify those gaps one of them was hands-on with cte so we've created a team each team has an owner someone that owns that project that is passionate about it is going to see it through and then each team also has a supervisor and then the subset of that would be team members to support it brian crane is the supervisor um one of our board members mr waldo is working as a team member to help out he's got 45 years experience in that we have obviously the people miss kay and bonnie craig and the others that are in that program are going to be on that team to discuss ways to best meet the needs of our kids and they'll figure it out great well first of all how many teachers have had to say repurpose that's a bad bad way of putting how many teachers will be uh teaching something that they weren't teaching last year i would have to look at i mean we roughly have 100 teachers i would say the greatest flexibility is going to be at perhaps the elementary bands where they might have to have combined classrooms to meet the needs that we talked about i've got to have kids that are online plus those in front of me and if we did that we would have a small class and we'd have primary grades you know i think the kinders are always on their own but you might see first and second graders in a group and third and fourth graders and group and fifth and sixth the high school will have perhaps the greatest challenge and i know we have hired some new teachers we remember we had a the override was not successful a year ago and so we had to reduce our m o budget by about five not about by five percent around seven hundred thousand dollars which caused some folks to move from the high school to junior high the junior high the elementary and uh so those those people will be teaching obviously they're inviting great events same subject but different rates i don't know it will be interesting but there will be i think it would be disingenuous to suggest there won't be some teachers that are teaching you know they're used to teaching just you know i don't know what it would be let's just say science for instance now they're teaching science and they're also teaching that i mean we'll have to be as flexible as we can to meet the needs of our kids our principals are doing an outstanding job these these women and men are working closely with faculty members and department chairs and individual teams on those their respective campuses to determine our capacity we're asking for we're trying to determine and have pretty closely determined who's willing to come in person when they're able to about a third of our folks have a serious underlying condition so about out of the 100 roughly 33 or separate of our staff or teaching staff or they live with a loved one that's in their immediate household so they don't want to put themselves at risk or their loved one at risk or they have a child with an underlying health condition so we're trying to figure out those that are that are don't suffer that condition and are able to provide in person support there they may be those that are doing a number of things some of them might i can tell you one one person that's teaching something different is my wife she was a music teacher last year we unfortunately had to cancel pe and music district-wide there was a kindergarten she's teaching kindergarten so i know there are others i don't know i'm talking hampton and other others just some real questions there are a lot of those that we went through in this other stack and um there are a lot of concerns i think over some common concerns around the organization of the school day what's expected of my of me as a parent what's expected of my student what are we going to do if my computer breaks down or i get blocked out or i can't access the content we have answered those questions and all of those questions the frequently asked questions are posted on our website now basically that's what i have in my hand is those questions and answers i did have an individual come to me and said the internet access that we have available to us is hardly adequate to what we use it for how are we going to be able to access this new curriculum with the antiquated system that we have i so well that could probably be worked out but you need to talk to the school district and that's true uh rural arizona in particular suffers from spotty internet at best we have purchased devices for all of our kids kindergarten through 12th grade received their own device that device doesn't mean anything it's nonsense it's not useful if you don't have an internet connection therefore we have purchased several hundred hot spots for students and families and by the way teachers except for the same problem some of our teachers don't have the internet access and we're providing them hot spots as well so hotspot serves up to 15 people at a time so one family and and we have a number of families that have several kids and different great bands that are all on the computer at one time that hot spot will serve up to 15 people at once that will take care of something needs with that bad internet connection one of the bright spots we had in action it was one of the bright spots we were prepared to pivot pretty quickly distribute technology and acquire in relatively short order a store of hot spots last spring and that was one of the advantages that we've had and we continue to enjoy this this was a question that you touched on briefly before but how many hours a day are my kids expected to be on their computer depending on the age group high school students roughly shouldn't exceed about four hours a day they shouldn't exceed four hours a day caveat as i mentioned will be advanced placement students students that are just i mean i know are high achievers that that are going to do more than that we don't expect them to it's about four hours a day for junior high through high school elementary age i would say let's start at the youngest age kindergarten might spend a half an hour to an hour depending on that day and what they have but we're not we're not going to burden them with three or four hours a day it wouldn't be realistic so it's based on the maturity the next great span would probably be first grade to second graders maybe a couple hours a day and then maybe your oldest kids middle grades four through six probably three three and a half hours a day um in no case for the younger kids be on the computer or in front of any device for six seven eight hours a day screen time screen time is bad it's anyway um technical problems how do they approach technical problems when their devices don't work on site so first of all let me create a little context we're encouraging our teachers and a vast majority of our teachers are going to work from their assigned classrooms for two reasons one it provides a distraction free environment and it also provides swift support so right now i got rocky with us and rocky's helping us with this technology finding out rocky's right here by the way rocky is very handsome he's very intelligent and he's easy to get along he's all those things he's wearing a mask right here he is so on those uh we'll have we're encouraging students and rather teachers we're asking them we'd rather you be on campus that's that's ideal however there are certain situations where teachers don't have internet access and they want they and yet they have young children provided we can create a professional environment and i'm sure we can because we did a lot of spring we'll allow those teachers to bring those kids to the classroom in some cases there are some young moms and dads that have to work from home we're gonna allow that we'll have a professional environment and we'll manage that we also have a help desk and a phone that you can can call and also technology that can be emailed and we have at every campus we're calling t3s they're teachers that have been trained to provide technical supports so there's three of those three or four at the elementary school an equal number to high school i think two at the junior high and we are we even are looking at taking a teacher and having them dedicated completely to the elementary given that is the great band setting levels and also probably the greatest need for support because the maturity engage in students those t3 individuals they will be paid extra for that they are they are that's a stipend in addition to what they're doing similar to what a coach receives coaching exactly okay question will there be any flexibility for students unable to complete work during their assigned time of classroom support yes you can visit the website just to see the presentations for the orientation as early as tomorrow every great band has different expectations essentially what we want to try to do is create structure for these kids that's another thing that parents were hungry for i need some structure i need to know when they should be on i need to have i've got different kids now you're asking me to have one student on with two teachers having conflicting schedules so that we're not overlapping there and we're trying to provide some space so students will ask to be online and they must register they must be online every day and now they have a long hearing day you have to log in every day if you're not you're not attending however there are circumstances where kids won't be able to follow that structure log step because of their support or location whatever those reasons are we encourage those parents to visit with their teachers to create a plan that works for them but in every case we need to have structure we can anticipate get account for that student got to provide a reasonable schedule for the teacher and we need to make sure that we're on pace with required standards and the kid needs to be able to achieve prior to the school zone great we've been talking for 45 minutes i think we've answered a lot of questions but is there something specifically that you would like to share that we haven't touched on yet i think it's perhaps just to reinforce a couple of things if if uh if the parents have a computer that the student's comfortable with they want to use that computer in most cases they are compatible with our software they're free to do it they're not locked into using a chromebook or what we provide we want to have a brief conversation with technology to make sure it works in most instances it does we need help from the community in not overburdening our teachers you've raised a lot of good points about how many different responsibilities each teacher is going to support if we work together i'm confident we can have our students that are most vulnerable at the highest needs direct services that are required and our parents single parents in particular trying to support their kids and their daily needs and not wanting to having to make that choice well i've got to go to work and i need to leave my you know six-year-old kid by themselves we're not going to put him in that situation in order to make sure we don't outstrip our capacity if i have a family that has the ability to to provide that necessary support we're asking them to do that and we're providing a means for everybody to receive a free inappropriate education we are also i understand and i mean i mentioned my own daughter i know that this this is not an ideal condition for me it's not an ideal situation and people are under stress and they're frustrated and we understand that our teachers and administrators and our staff we want our kids back as quickly as it is safe to do so it's important to emphasize where i am and the board is and our staff is concerned about the safety of our teachers and our support staff members as well it's true that the common disease may not impact young kids although it's clear they can transmit it it may not have adverse impact we don't know yet it may download we don't know we are what is clear however is that teachers and staff members that drive buses and serve food and support kids into classes if they have an underlying health condition some even healthy and they can track the virus it has serious consequences and in some cases fatal consequences we are we are admittedly taking a conservative approach but if if we're wrong no one dies if we're right people are safe and we are we are as much concerned about the safety of our of our own staff and teachers and community members as we are about the safety of our kids all of all of that equation needs to be considered before we move forward one last question about internet security and safety for those kids that are going to be online how will that be approached it's a good question one of the expectations established for the kids is that there's a hard set blind rule and it really starts in about 6th grade to 12th grade that's about the grade span that where inappropriate activity kicks in if a student is engaging in inappropriate posting of activity of materials chronographic materials they have they're the only ones that could do it because they have access access is limited to our parents and our kids through codes that are sent through it's not an open public setting those are disastrous what we're talking about is providing secure settings for kids if kids choose to violate that then they'll be long-term suspended and works built there's a zero tolerance for that we're going to take every necessary precaution to keep our kids safe the best safety mechanism is supervision and it's close supervision and close proximity so parents that are having their kids operate online they're not on schoolwork but they're on the internet they have access to the whole world in most cases unless there are specific controls in that computer in many instances there are a lot of homes have homes have our computers have controls our computers have limitations and filters on them but yet if a kid tries hard enough and if they're really intent on doing something wrong and they do it we're going to punish them we're not going to tolerate that so we're going to set those standards we're going to provide codes for kids and teachers and to participate to log in and then we'll uh we'll regulate that way anything else i just want to reinforce that we we want to get these kids back as safe as quickly as we can do so in a safe manner and i want to thank i would be remiss if i didn't thank the many people that reached out offering support our hard-working teachers and support staff that are working at this moment to ready our campus to make sure we're prepared to receive students when that happens and our hard-working teachers administrators and technology team that have been working tirelessly since mid-march to make this change i'm confident we are prepared to deliver a high quality education to blue students thank you and thank you technology you guys are the real heroes right now i guess we're all done thank you good evening have a good night

true true okay so um what i have then is that um added to the september second would be um an explanation of the grading using the online programs that were we're utilizing with the students okay all righty so now what comes to and then the last one which is in june is the lcap budget and approval and that also has already been designated we're going to leave that one open right now when the meteorite hits the earth and all us dinosaurs are killed [Music] okay now comes the difficult part of figuring out who the board liaisons are going to be for these okay so um does anybody have a burning desire for anything they just want to volunteer for right now yes tom i would like to be in on that october 7th the online learning and academics okay so i'm going to put you down now do we usually have two for each okay so we've got tom tom has already agreed to that do i have any other takers for october 7th online learning i'd love to is that linda yeah linda you'd love to i would love to be part of that okay linda is also then under october 7th board liaison online learning this is eileen and i would volunteer for november 4th and april 7th okay i'm going to put you down eileen for november 4th and what april 7th april 7th right i'd be happy to do april 7th as well if anybody else doesn't want to jump on it okay is that diversity and equity okay okay okay so i'd like to volunteer for the special ed okay okay and kathy did you say something that i didn't hear did kathy even get one not yet september 2nd okay so she won september 2nd that's kathy okay february 3rd february 3rd okay all righty so let's see okay so um i haven't i haven't got one yet so let me see what else you need people uh someone to volunteer for september 2nd with kathy and someone to volunteer for february 3rd with kathy okay um i will do february 3rd for sure and let's see what else gosh you all guys have two don't you um okay so let me what other one do we have oh that's the only okay then i guess that's me again okay good deal science linda was on um the fourth was that me yeah you on the fourth of november and uh so let me just reiterate these again so you can write them on your list september 2nd september 2nd is kathy and liz october 7th is tom and linda november 4th is eileen and linda february 3rd is kathy and liz april 7th is eileen and tom may 5th is open and then oh we still have june on the back of this which is the lcap since it has the word budget in there do we want linda to stay down on that one okay so what did you you volunteered i volunteered linda it hadn't worked budgeting absolutely that was nice sure i'm good okay so thank you okay so that i have on uh thank you linda june 23rd uh kathy who volunteered and uh linda who was volunteered by tom okay all righty so we've we've got everybody in there i've got it marked down um already so where are we at here let me see what else we have to do i think that's it uh districtwide goals mission statement do you need the board to take a look at the standing committees oh yeah and those are also attached we have a standing committee the chico unified facilities committee which also includes charter school facility oversight okay so that's uh liz and and me right now correct okay so why don't we just look at this and see why don't we do it this easy way does anybody want to either change or uh petition to get on a different uh committee or is everybody happy happy with where they're at i would like to be off of the athletic sustainability committee this is eileen okay you want off okay um anything else is everybody else good on everything else okay because what i have here what i have here is um for the facilities it would be myself and kathy for wellness it would be eileen and tom for athletics than it would be kathy for technology would be tom and kathy for uh evaluation of the superintendent it would be myself and linda and um board of governance and self-evaluation myself and linda and that's it and if we're all good with that then let's go for it and that's that'll be that does anybody want to join kathy on the athletic sustainability committee we don't even know how it's going to go yeah that's a pretty it's a pretty sort of uncertain picture you know that so i wouldn't feel bad if we just didn't have to right now yeah um okay so we good then all right unless anybody has anything which is number three on the uh athletic sustainability committee with randy gilzing's retirement do we need to designate a different staff person we already have that as john shepard we just need to go through and add the staff once we know the topics okay okay so i guess just to be absolutely clear do we need to take a vote on the uh number four approving our workshop calendar yes and our topics liaisons and committee assignments yes yes okay kathy has so moved i'll second it okay well tom jumped in there so we're going to put tom down as a second um and um any other discussion about this if not all those in favor please say aye aye aye all righty yeah we did we did yes thank you okay so it looks to me like we're we have completed our topics for today so i will adjourn the meeting very good thank you very much thank you all out there way to get through this

and welcome to the Wednesday August 5th 2020 electronic meeting of the Ann Arbor Planning Commission this meeting is in accordance with executive orders from the governor to affect social distancing and mitigate the spread of the covid-19 virus we intend to conduct this meeting similarly to an in-person meeting however please be patient if there are te technical issues public comment will be via telephone only to speak during any of the public comment opportunities please call 5247 and enter meeting ID 11143 this information is also available on the published agenda in the Public Notices section of the city website and on the broadcast of this meeting on CTN Channel 16 AT&T channel99 and online at www.a2gov.org CN you can select the government channel uh item two on the agenda is the Roll Call that's me uh commissioner Woods commissioner [Music] Briggs commissioner Mills here commissioner milin here commissioner Gib Randle here commissioner acrian here commissioner sov here commissioner abam here commissioner hamers Schmidt here we have a COR very good um do we have any introductions this evening Mr Leonard uh we do not all right so we're on to agenda item four which is approval of the agenda um can I have a motion to approve the agenda uh Alex moved by Alex and seconded by Ellie um I want to just note that wait what's next do we vote on moving the agenda uh there was a I just want to point out that there was an updated agenda that came out this evening that removes the minutes we just had some technical difficulty with um today this getting those done so we just pulled that in the agenda you'll see that at the next meeting got it any other discussion on the motion to move the agenda as amended earlier today all right all in favor of the motion please say I I I I any opposed doesn't look like anybody um so the motion carries um see item five is typically minutes of previous meeting but that's what was taken out so we'll look at those next time around um let's see item six is reports from City Administration City Council planning manager Planning Commission officers and committees and written Communications um so we'll start with Council Akerman do you have any report yes I do so ordinarily I would use this time to share an update from uh City council's meeting the night before um because of the primary yesterday um our city council meeting will occur tomorrow Thursday August 6 so instead instead I'll I'll take a moment just to share the results of of Tuesday's election yesterday's election um with nearly 33,000 anab residents participating in our city council election we had our largest ever record setting um turnout in such an election uh this um this vote resulted in quite a bit of shakeup and will result in quite a bit of turnover on the city council body um winning in the First Ward was Lisa dish the second ward Lyn song the third W Travis Rina who will be filling my City Council seat uh with my retirement in November and the fourth W Jen air and the Fifth Ward our very own Erica Briggs um who has earned a very uh who has earned her her night off uh tonight um these members of city council uh I should say um they've won the Democratic primary Each of which each of whom they'll be um unopposed in the general election uh so it is um almost statistically certain that they will be our our next city council Representatives um presuming they win the general election uh they will then take office November 16th being sworn in that night city council meeting um if commissioner Briggs wishes to it would be my assumption that she would take my seat here on the Planning Commission I think this would provide a really important continuity of service and an extension of institutional knowledge that I think would be really beneficial to the body um and then her seat would then become open for a member of the public to join to join this body um to those members of city council leaving office uh I think it's important that we thank you for your dedicated service over the years um while we certainly disagreed on very important policy issues serving neighbors and elected office is a difficult and Noble Endeavor um and and I think every single one of you deserves our respect and appreciation I think it's also equally important to note that each of these new members of council will take office after winning 51 to 66% of their vote in 2018 mayor Taylor won his re-election with nearly 60% of the vote Citywide this group of elected leaders ran with a clear message and platform that the status quo is leaving people behind that we can um and we need to push Progressive values and policies forward to truly be a welcoming Community to all I hope that this body will in turn do its part to put forward the best recommendations for policies and projects made better of course through public input and fair debate to support the community 's clearly articulated values and Visions as codified by last night's election so thank you all for your continued service um and it's a it's a happy day thank you council member Akerman um next is planning manager report Mr Leonard do you have any report no report this evening do any other commission officers or committee Liaisons have anything to report commissioner Gib Randall um I would just like to say that on the environmental commission we are kind of reshuffling who's on different um committees and um that myself and John Mery are going to be looking at our code in terms of how it supports or is in conflict with our 2030 goals for carbon neutrality so uh we're beginning this process we hope to get through a big chunk of it um to be able to report back some findings in October and so we will be keeping you posted obviously there will be some intersection uh with our own ordinance Review Committee and um and commissioner Mills has uh also agreed to be part of this effort even though she is not an environmental commission but she is a big part of the orc so we are happy happy to have her so anyway I just wanted to let you all know that that was going to be happening and that um if there's if there's ideas that you all have I'd be very open to them so just wanted to report that out thanks I am an orc junkie I don't know uh any other um updates I can actually update on the orc meeting we did meet last week and we talked about site plan requirements for small and medium scale projects that was something sent to us from city council and so staff is moving forward hopefully with some guidance from orc on that um we also talked about review of the c1a C1 R um District uh staff brought to us kind of some additional information we kind of told them what um what more information might be helpful for all of us to discuss together and then we also talked about new table design we weighed in on table design for the UDC for if you'll recall last meeting we postponed um uh some amendments to the UDC and and some of it was just kind of scrier erors and that kind of thing my understanding is that those redesign tables May well show up when we take that up which I believe Mr Leonard is the next meeting is that correct that's correct great and just to piggyback on what commissioner Gib Randall said about the environment commission looking at committees that's something that we're also going to take in the next couple of meetings I think we'll talk about it a little bit at the working session just pull up the Committees that we're assigned to now but we'll vote we'll U we need to do it at regular business meeting too so just put keep that in your mind to think about that that that's coming in the next two weeks or so if you have desires to be on the orc or things like that so all right um let's see that takes care of the officers and committees there in terms of written Communications we did receive some today um and that were posted online and there's also the comments that were um put from the on the online source so um just to note that we have those in your packet and draw your attention to them all right we are on item number number seven which is the first opportunity for audience participation um this is an opportunity for persons to speak for up to three minutes about an issue that is not listed as a public hearing on this agenda um to comment on other matters uh before us please call 877 85352 47 and enter meeting ID 51143 City staff will select callers that have raised their hand digitally using the last three digits of your phone number um in order to electronically raise your hand um and indicate that you want to speak please press star nine on your phone you'll hear an automated announcement that the post is allowing you to speak and when you do speak please move to a quiet area and mute any television or background sounds that you might have um so that we can hear you clearly please also be sure to state your name and address at the beginning of your comments and again if you're interested in speaking it's star n hello caller with phone number ending with 894 you have three minutes to address the Planning Commission hello uh my name is Tom renert I'm the association executive of the Ann Arbor area Board of realter we at 1919 West Stadium Boulevard I'm commenting on the proposed sign ordinance the city staff report sir um so because that's something that's listed on our agenda we will definitely take the comment but we need to take the comment during the public hearing for that which is actually the next order of business okay thank you so thank you you did you did the right process to raise your hand so if we can just put P um put you on that when we talk about that thank you thank you is there anyone else that would like to speak not about the sign ordinance or about um the vidiian project those are the two items on the agenda for today or our by bylaws God forbid or our bylaws if you want to talk about our bylaws now is not the time for that thank you not seeing anybody else all right then we will close the uh audience participation there's another opportunity later on um the actually I misspoke because this is my first time chairing so I'm not used to this the next item of business is the public hearings for the next business meeting so short item before we get to the the public hearing on the sign ordinance yes in addition to uh uh chair Mills referenced uh the UDC amendments that were postponed from the first meeting in July um those will be reappearing on the agenda and then we have one new uh public hearing item it is for 559 River Riverview Drive it's a proposed annexation and Zoning a request to Annex a approximate one acre parcel from annarbor Township into the City and Zone r1b single family um this would be in support of utility infrastructure very good all right now we're on to item number 9A which is unfinished business and the first item here is the sign ordinance amendments um this these are proposed amendments to chapter 55 in the unified development code to update and modernize sign require or requirements for signage um Mr Leonard will give a presentation and then we'll open the public hearing up again for this item great thank you very much so um uh we have been obviously working at this this these proposed amendments for for a while um with good good reason it's a complex issue um the one of the um important reasons that we're you know there are numerous goals in us trying to look at these amendments one is uh just to provide some modernization of our sign ordinance in the sort of context of of our current environment um and sign industry to that matter um as well as um respond to uh case law that has evolved since the original um drafting uh and en action of our sign ordinance in its current state so um at the last discussion um we um we had um addressed many of the sort of outstanding issues and I'm not going to rehash those at this point they're reflected in the proposed ordinance that was presented but there was a couple of outstanding issues that um that were of particular um discussion at um and unresolved which brings us to this reconsideration of the proposed ordinances um one is the the specific to the timing and duration of signage when a property is for sale or lease um the proposed area allowed for temporary signage um particularly in residential areas and then the sort of merits of inclusion of what we have in the current draft as an unlimited temporary sign uh an unlimited non-commercial temporary sign and so uh the draft um that we've presented to you i' like to just sort of um put together our thoughts on what you're seeing in the draft and then in the staff report we have included a couple of Alternatives if there if the Planning Commission disagrees with staff if you'd like to go in a different direction what we've tried to do our best here is to lay out a few options in response to those those scenarios so first up is the time or duration of signage when a property is for lease for sale um as a body we've sort of gone in multiple directions on this and I think um we had originally included some specific exemption language that would provide that a temporary sign can exceed the maximum limitation of duration which is currently 65 days with a 30-day break from um as it relates to Perpetual display and so what I what staff is proposing is to rein reinstitute language that has been removed in a previous draft that would um provide an exemption from that 65 duration for as long as that property is for lease or for sale so that would um in those circumstances it would Prov IDE a longer duration of signage to occur on that property to be clear it doesn't spec stipulate that it has to be a real estate sign but so long as that property was for sale or release it would provide an ex an exception from that limited duration of time previously um in a previous the most recent iteration of our draft um we had accommodated that by saying no you you well you could have a continuous display of a for sale or sign during a for sale lease period however it would have to fluctuate between the standard temporary sign and an unlimited sign which is much smaller in size and so while that would provide some Perpetual display um it would require potentially physical adjustment of that sign to meet the requirements of that ordinance and so our staff's proposal is to restore the original language that essentially provides that again the duration exception for when a property is for lease for sale that it doesn't provide any additional area however it does provide additional duration and time for the display of such sign um alternatively um the ordinance could revert back to that iteration that I just described where again a longer term duration is is enabled but it would require some a bit of um adjustment in the actual physical sign used to display those that messaging so that was sort of area one um the second area that was that there was a lot of discussion about was the area of temporary signage available to residential uses and so in in your uh I think one of the one of the questions that that was discussed was whether or not 12 square foot maximum would be an appropriate size for that signage staff's assertion is that it is um what we've done is we've gone out and provided you some examples of some signage that um might meet that test we think that um while not all of it meets that size the majority of signs does meet that size requirement um so we would not propose expanding that area um as proposed in the ordinance um if Planning Commission did deci desire to do that um one of the conversations that we had was trying to put some sort of limitation on a single face aspect of that so that if the size were increased it wouldn't necessarily result in a um inappropriately large single face sign because all of our signs are were sort of um you know our measurement is sort of is uniform it's whatever sign area is occupied be it one side or two sides so we have provided additional language that could consider increasing that where it would be a maximum sign area of 20 square feet with no single face larger than 10 square feet so in that event you could have up to a 10 square foot sign but again staff's contention is that based on our experience in looking at some signs in our community the current 12 square foot being proposed appears to be adequate from our recommendation then finally um one of the outstanding points uh from the last discussion was the merits of whether or not we should include an unlimited temporary sign I don't think this had quite as much discussion as the previous two items but it was raised um in that discussion um in short staff believes that that should be maintained um we believe that providing some um flexible and ongoing basically Free Speech opportunity should outweigh any sort of aesthetic concerns or or restraints that we we envision for our community so we would recommend maintaining that unlimited non-commercial sign um uh in the language but uh again if desired you as the board could determine that you would like to revisit that balance a couple other questions have come up that I would like to raise these were not specifically addressed by the Planning Commission previously but in sort of um finalizing some of these these uh proposals questions that came up um should the sign ordinance provide for a higher temporary sign if you'll see a lot of the examples um they are between five and six feet um our current temporary sign height limitation is 5 feet from a staff perspective we don't see the that height difference of five to six feet as objetive cable it seems very conventional and consistent um it seems um um pretty widespread so we would propose considering um potentially increasing the maximum height of those sizes to five and a half or six feet to accommodate that convention um should the maximum area of unlimited sence be increased from Maximum of three square feet to six square feet um currently that unlimited sign provision is going to provide basically a single-sided temporary sign phase whenever you get into two it's going to um I think a consideration would actually be to provide up to a six square foot sign um that could result in a single face sign that's six square feet as well however um I think that that flexibility for property owners would be um potentially beneficial um we have added a provision and definition to accommodate the use of non-commercial Flags um what what we've done is we've said that flags are per are permitted in any on any property in the city of a non-commercial nature up to a total square foot area and um they're not they're not counted towards signage so if you decided you wanted to have an American flag or a state of Michigan flag or any other non-commercial messaging flag it would not count towards any signage requirements in the city and then we have also clarified uh how we meas measure business Frontage um our sign area is calculated on the front edge of a business and right now the definition is very specifically oriented to public right of way what we've done is uh attempted to clarify that definition to provide um that it is measured either along a public right of way or when that space is fronting onto a shared access drive or a shared parking lot in the case of a multi-tenant building um there are circumstances where you might have a building oriented perpendicular to the right of way with multiple spaces this would provide a opportunity to measure the business Frontage along that shared access or parking area as opposed to potentially having multiple tenants have to share a single Frontage that fronts onto the public right away um and then not included in the staff report but one thing I do want to mention is um the from a uh the the draft ordinance provides some protection for non-conforming signs that are over 200 square feet um this is sort of the current version of uh existing language in our code that provides ongoing opportunity for the existing Billboards in the community but um but because of the 200q foot size limitation we don't have a lot of opportunity to expand those in our community in the future um I I I want to point out that that might not be exclusive to Billboards that provision could have implications for other signs that might be over 200 square feet um I have pulled up a couple of examples that I can share with you but um generally you could just think of some of the larger Business Center or business signs in the community that might also meet that threshold that would therefore then be afforded that same protection of additional sign sign area that is not counted towards that of the business so um again in its current configuration I um it's slightly more expansive than I think probably what I originally envisioned I don't know that it's problematic but I just want to make sure the Planning Commission was aware of that um and I'll stop there I'm happy to address any questions that the commission has or if you'd like to see any uh of the examples from the staff report I do have a presentation where we can pull up some of those example signs very good thank you Mr Leonard um now we'll open an opportunity for or now we'll open the public hearing for this oh sorry I don't know why I'm hearing feedback um this is an opportunity to speak for up to three minutes about the proposed sign ordinance amendments to chapter 55 of the unified de code public comment may be made by calling 1877 7 5247 and then entering meeting ID number 11143 City staff will select callers that have raised their hand one by one using the last three digits of your phone number in order to electronically raise your hand um after dialing into the meeting you press star nine on your phone you'll hear an automated announcement that you're allowed to speak and when you speak please do move to a quiet area and mute any television or background sounds and please also state your name and address at the beginning of your comments right sirell hello once again yes you have three minutes to address the Planning Commission okay my name is Tom renert I'm the association executive for the Ann Arbor area board of realtors uh we're located at 1919 West Stadium uh I'm commenting primarily on the city staff report uh for the proposed side mdance that was published on the city on on the commission's website uh the city staff report uh suggests to strike the proposed language that allows signs of properties advertised for sale or lease to remain in place 65 days unless the sign is classified as unlimited as an unlimited sign with a commercial message in a size of no more than three or possibly uh six feet if you if you choose to extend expand that uh one thing I like would like you to be aware of that as of yesterday there were 285 homes listed for sale in the multiple listing service within the city limits of Ann Arbor 116 of those 285 homes that are currently listed for sale uh have a days on Market greater than 65 days so roughly 41% of the properties on the market today when Mark when properties are selling fairly fast um are already beyond the 65 day uh maximum cap that's being considered uh striking the language requiring a sign a significant reduction in the size of the sign per properties advertised for sale Beyond 65 days will unfairly treat homeowners in certain areas at certain price points or simply homes that are more difficult to sell uh we're concerned that this you know may very well you know have some fair housing concerns um we would ask that you keep the exception language in place that's been proposed for properties listed for sale release uh as indicated in the staff report most of the for sale signs fall within the 12 square feet requirement uh the thing is though it's a real common practice in Arbor uh in our market for homeowners who are advertising their homes for sale for them to promote their homes as an open house on weekends in doing so they always place a second sign on the property in most cases that second sign will increase the total square footage above the 12T uh requirement placing them outside of the ordinance on weekend when they're advertising their open houses uh we would propose an increase similar to what you were discussing before uh we were suggesting you know at least 16 square feet as a maximum with some type of a single face of of either 10 12 feet something like that so it does sound like you're thinking along those same lines that so that might potentially accommodate that additionally 30 more seconds Sir discussion discussion about height of signs five of the eight examples in the staff report are above five feet with a maximum of fet we would respectfully ask that the maximum height be established at no more than 6 feet uh this is a long anticipated uh uh standard in the marketplace again thank you for your consideration uh if you like to uh ask me any questions uh please give me a call at 734 822 2265 thank you thank you very much is there anyone else on the line who would like to make a comment during the public hearing if so you can press star nine I see nobody else all right so we will close the public hearing for this I'm going to read the motion and then ask for or yeah read the proposed motion and then ask for a commissioner to move the motion so the proot proposed motion reads the an arbor City Planning Commission hereby recommends that the mayor and city council approve the amendments to chapter 55 unified development code section 5.24 and related references that motion is moved by commissioner wood seconded by commissioner s um we're open for discussion Mr Leonard um I just want to clarify to the speaker point our staff's recommendation is not to strike that language is to retain that language um um to provide that duration exception so I just want to clarify that the staff report language that that indicates it's striking would be if the commission were interested in reverting back to that requirement of Shifting between a up to a 12 foot temporary sign down to a three foot unlimited sign you would need to strike that language out of the draft that's been presented you've already made those changes that's good clarification because that's one of the things that I was confused about as well commissioner s uh thank you for putting all this back together in like the full update I really appreciate it uh I guess I just want to clarify in terms of the um the court like uh decisions about sale and lease and if like because it's not actually saying something about language it's saying something about use is that would that be an interpretation um yeah I I don't and I I have to be honest I I can't sit here and tell you the exact nuances of retaining this provision in the context of the Supreme Court decision um as a reminder for everybody the Supreme Court decision um to greatly oversimplify is that a sign ordinance that requires you to sort of read the content is inappropriate and so um I think that that's that's the distinction here is that we are not saying that real estate signs um have the potential to be exhibited during a longer period of time when a property is for sale or lease but rather a sign is able to be displayed um during that circumstance and so um we staff believes that that is consistent with with that um I think that if there was a question it's probably the availability of that signage to that property given that use status um versus a similarly situated property that doesn't have that use status um but at the same token I think that there is just sort of a and again I can't say legal but a sort of experiential um reference point that signage and signages utilize very commonly when properties are for sale or for lease so um the short is that I think it is consistent with case law to my knowledge um by being clear that we're just providing a longer duration of signage when your property is for sale or release we're not saying it has to be a for sale or release sign but that condition is going to Grant you more time got it that's helpful thank you um I mean I'll just kind of put it out there for other Commissioners too I'm comfortable with the six feet uh and this the sizes kind of as proposed so I think there's you know small changes that we're not going to see a significant kind of impact in the visuals as we're trying to um look at here in part so I I'm supportive of you know where where staff has really brought this over the past year so thank you commissioner Woods followed by commissioner milin um Mr Leonard thank you for including the pictures this time I think that's very helpful um there's just one place courtesy of Mr Chang okay there's one place where and it may be that I'm looking at the pictures on my uh iPhone while I'm talking on my laptop but anyway um I'm just trying to get a sense uh I think it's the last set of or the second to the last set of pictures down there one is a picture of a Sign by Mr McGee who was running for a sheriff so what was that an example of was that an example of uh of a a large sign going that was going to meet that six foot or what is that for no no no um so that would that would not meet um the temporary sign requirements um I was and to be to be clear well not to be fuzzy um many of these signs could be categorized as multiple signs I the intention here was just to provide um what staff believes are the types of signs that might um justify the city's desire to keep an unlimited sign um during so but um a black lives matter sign could be a unlimited sign under the designated sign area it could also potentially be a 12 sqare foot temporary sign that is subject to the 65 day duration and has to be removed for 30 days so so the intention was just to provide um maybe some examples um perhaps in sort of support of of staff's perspective that we think it's worthwhile to carve out something in our code to accommodate these kind of Expressions okay and um if someone had a an objection to a sign that would um staff's not going out looking for signs right no okay it's all going to and I and I think that's Point huh yeah and and that's a you know that's that's a fair critique you know one of the things that we've previously indicated is for example these types of signs are not going to require a permit so we will not have something on file that says this sign went up on August 5th and therefore it must come down um if if a complaint comes up we're going to investigate it that might result in US documenting as early as we can as to when that sign was established and then measuring 65 days but the you're right we are not actively out um on a routine basis resourcing people looking at um inventorying signs on a regular basis so that we could quote un quot catch one or or ensure compliance so it would be on a complaint basis it would be imperfect but at least it is putting some um size and duration times that at least gives us something to measure whenever we get to that and that includes real estate signs as well right y okay under this provision however as as the ordinance is presented to you that would be an exception where it's not subject to that 65 days so as long as that property is for sale for Le you could maintain that and again it wouldn't require a permit okay good because I think so many of the ordinances that we have sometimes we we would just want people to understand that we're not saying go out and tell on your neighbor but it's all about being good neighbors and I mean if you think somebody's had a sign up forever you could always go say hey is that looks like this is still for sale right and they might say oh no I sold it last month sign still there I don't know but anyway you know um it's good to know that staff's not you know making this a full-time job of going out checking and frankly for sale is probably we eventually get notice of sales via the assessing system lease is actually probably a little bit more difficult to ascertain okay thank you commissioner milin thank you um so Mr Leonard Mr Chang and everybody at uh in the planning department all the city staff that worked on it I mean we've been at this for a long time um and I will take some responsibility for that so I apologize it's just the process but I feel like we are uh so close um I really have just two more things that I would really like to tweak um the first one commissioner so had mentioned um has to do with regards to the temporary uh uh sign height and I'd like to amend that from what's currently um in the ordinance to uh six feet um so I'd like to make that motion to amend that um just looking at the images you provided plus you know my personal experience um I think six feet would be an appropriate uh height so I'd like to move that Madam chair if that's okay that is is it seconded by commissioner s so now we're disc making sure parliamentary procedure we're discussing now that um uh amend proposed amendment so the proposed amendment would amend the current draft to provide a cap of a 5 foot high maximum temporary residential sign to a 6 foot high res that's in table 5.24 D6 just to make sure I'm clear the top effectively the first y white row any comments discussion here all right let's vote on that Amendment uh roll call or okay I'm comfortable unless um any commissioner could request roll call but just for the amendment I think we could just do by voice okay all in favor of the amendment please say I I or raise your hand I um all opposed all right that is unanimous so now we have an amended motion your next point my next Point has to do with what uh Mr ranker from ARB board of realtors uh came board with regards to a uh in regards to properties that um have open houses um although open houses are not a regular thing right now during the pandemic although it's still happening um it it's a very valid point that when there is a um a openhouse occurring there's an additional sign that's placed in front of the house um that's usually roughly about 2 by3 or so um sometimes maybe a little bit larger um so I would be in favor of amending um the 12 foot um size of a sign um 12 square feet to 16 square feet um to account for for that um for a potential open house sign that's being placed so that open house signs are legal um in an arbor so I'd like to move that and I'm open to discussion on that as well anyone second that a proposed amendment seconded by commissioner abam now we're in discussion about the amendment to change that commissioner abam and then commissioner Gib Randall um is the I thought the 12 square foot limitation was per sign so commissioner milen are you saying that the openhouse signs would be larger one single sign would be larger than 12 s ft or is the 12 yeah the 12 is is not total right Min was 12 was total Mr Leonard is that so if I look at the table it says per sign maximum sign area per sign if if you look into the um if you look to the left though it does create a maximum of 12 square feet as well per lot per lot got it uh then I would be in favor of the amendment yeah makes sense but so we would be amending the maximum per lot but not the maximum per sign I would be totally fine with that yeah and that still then it then would allow for this Gap like your maximum per lot and maximum per sign are not the same so it's still a limitation on how big any one sign can be um commissioner Gib randel did you have something to add yeah no I that's that was my question too because I I'm not in favor of just having more sign area I don't want a ginormous sign you know that is allowed through that so if there's some way to be able to distinguish that it's kind of has to be two somehow or that we have a separate provision that talks about open house signs can be up for 24 hours and it has a dimension to it can't do that because it's content related yeah you could allow you could say any sign you want could be up for up to 24 hours got it yeah I just want to make sure that whatever we're doing we're not kind of creating a loophole that allows you to have a really big sign because it accommodates both those so as long as our amendment makes it so that you still can't just have one ginormous sign under the um that that would be my concern is that there would be some wiggle room in there to be able to make one bigger sign with that yeah I think um as proposed it would provide a total increase in sign area of an additional four square feet but it would not increase the maximum size of a single size sign Beyond 12 square feet so in order to get to that Max you would essentially have to combine a 12 square foot sign and a four square foot sign okay all righty then I'll be in support of them that that I just to be clear that's that based on the Motion in the discussion that's how I'm interpreting it's just amending the per lot maximum area up to uh 16 square feet instead of 12 square feet based on the math that per that Miss uh that commissioner milstein gave I don't know that that's enough though if a if a um open house sign is 3 by two that's six square feet um is that one side of it Alex or is that is that double-sided it's one side of it I'm just four square feet like we've seen in the pictures that they're not all the full 12 square feet to start with so I I think like um if you start with a 10 square foot sign which seems to be reasonable like the kind of hanging signs that I see without though the tops or bottoms thing on them um then 10 square feet seems reasonable I think in the staff report what I read was perhaps we increased the total area not per sign but per lot to 20 which I think it's closer what I don't want to do is like we're trying to do this to allow for openhouse signs and then if we don't actually have the right math and then not allow for it anyway I was trying to uh be kind ask for too much I am totally good with anything more than 16 um you know I think definitely helps the real estate community I don't think that we so the again like there's different signs to accommodate for this in my mind the staff report suggests that one of the options might be 20 um which would be the same size as the two you know Reinhardt kind of hanging signs without the without the adder whatever you call them on the bottom on the top or on the top so I I don't know how friendly that would be a friendly Amendment for me okay that's a friendly moment for you Ellie um seconded it so does it have to be friendly for her and it's friendly okay so now I guess what we're discussing is total lot total area of signage for the temporary signs to be 20 square feet keeping in mind that any one sign can only be 12 feet and we're still counting to be clear Mr Leonard if it's a double-sided sign and you have a message on both sides it's only six square feet then effectively because you count both signs for the one the one sign that's double-sided is you count both as it's considered as one sign it's a 12 foot sign that is six foot in overall Dimension but 12 square feet of sign area okay which in my mind seems reasonable uh commissioner s and we're applying this to lot area for single family two family multif family to six units and multif family of seven units and more correct all of those categories I guess it's like split into two right to both of those columns as well okay um I just want to verify like that it's not one or the other you know that those go from 12 to 20 uh I support it I also see the benefit when we talk about multif family that they're not sharing the maximum 12 square feet and it does split it up for signs so that when you have m multif family multiple households can get a part of of a sign there as well so there Beyond real estate there does also give more area in distributed signage for uh more ways to uh present your values and signs so I think it's good any other discussion about the proposed amendment can I just make sure that I'm clear on Our intention here the the the amended the the proposed amendment would change increase the maximum sign area for all residential just for freestanding signs from a maximum of 12 square feet to a maximum of 20 square feet and would not change the single per sign size of 12 square feet in either circumstance right which my I that's my understanding and my reading of the table would mean then you're making it would change the number in two places yep okay just I just want to make sure thank you commissioner hamers I have a clarifying I'm fine with this but I have a clarifying question just to make sure that I understand because when the caller was speaking I was thinking like well couldn't that just be the unlimited sign the openhouse sign but I'm reading this again the unlimited sign counts towards that 12 or 20 or whatever square feet no no uh it would have the limited sign has to be of a non-commercial message to that's what it is okay okay because like I'm looking so I'm looking at the temporary signs thing under okay so non-commercial message is it referencing the right table though I guess this is off topic a little bit that one that would count towards the max sign area period right now I'm getting confused and maybe I'm not looking at the right table non-commercial message but the commercial message oh Lord guys I'm sorry so so the temporary sign table those can be commercial messages yes yes okay the unlimited sign cannot be a commercial message correct but the unlimited sign counts towards that Max that's a so what you're talking about is that it's referencing table 24-4 yeah right yeah and that's an old reference yeah I think it's six because we've since added the Pud tables I'm sorry that's just a reference that I didn't catch I thought so but it but it does count but it does count towards that Max just for my understanding right so if your max is 20 and you have a real estate sign and an openhouse sign and you're at 20 you can't have an unlimited sign in your yard as well correct okay okay I'm good thanks thank you for clarifying that commissioner hamers Schmid any other um commissioner Woods then commissioner milstein I just wanted to go back to the the point that she just made uh commissioner hemmer Smith when she said that you could not have an unlimited sign as well but if your unlimited sign is something for example indicating that it's an open house for your child you could actually have that sign there plus the real estate Sign Plus an openhouse sign not if it goes above 20 square feet but why not because it says in the ordinance that it counts towards the maximum but see that to me in a way I mean I I know it sounds like a rare occurrence but it it could happen and it wouldn't necessarily be fair I'm I'm okay so I've got a real estate sign on a Sunday afternoon and I have that hanging sign or something saying you know open house or something and let's say that those two things together bring me up to the 20 but it's also my daughter's openhouse from high school and we stick out that sign to let people know this is where you should come and so I'd be in violation yes you'd be over 20 square feet hm you could pull you could pull down the real estate sign you could pull down the your daughter's graduation sign you could pull down the openhouse sign but that is this is limiting you to a total amount of square footage oh you could the Planning Commission could go in a different direction and say we don't care how many signs you have as long as they're under 12 square feet that would be another way that would say you could you could have a a real estate sign you could have an open house you could have a graduation and you could have uh um we support healthcare workers so um that would be another way but right now what we're doing is we're putting a total cap on the area that we think is is reasonable to provide some flexibility but it's not unlimited where you as a property owner are going to have to at times make some choices the unlimited signage says of a portion of that you don't have to take it down after 65 days we are providing a a reception from time but not area for a non-commercial message so doesn't that also therefore mean that you could not for example have a uh a sign we wanted people to vote for someone for president as well as for state representative as well as for Senator and you can't have all those signs in your yard at the same time then you could have up to 20 square feet of those signs up to a period of 65 days and then they'd have to to be turned down for 30 days that 65 days actually references some election law time frame so we actually um one of the reasons we timed that duration is based on some election uh state law Provisions okay but so I just wanted to say forget about dur duration for a moment but but in terms of the size or the number that you could have in your yard you could not have if there if the total sign uh if dimensions and everything go up to um 20 feet you can't do that if they go over 20 square feet it would be in violation that seems like then you're sort of limiting people in terms of free speech we are providing actually we I would say we're increasing it because right now the way our ordinance is constructed is we provide some ability for political science but not other type of signage now we're giving you 20 square feet to sort of use however you desire you may be giving me more more opportunity but you still may be limiting if I want to go if I want to indicate everybody on that ticket that I want to vote for it's it's a balance oh I'm just raising it because I know I'm probably not going to be the only one who's going to to notice that but okay I'll listen to other people Alex I have you but I want to get a clarification here because what I actually heard in that or that it brought up and I want to make sure I'm reading the table right is that we're now in inreasing actually um what we're discussing right now is increasing the total square footage that commissioner Woods can have political signs on um but in Du so so there's more than what was in the draft even so what the table still shows is that she's limited she can only have four signs and it could be four political signs it could be two political signs and two for sale signs you know the the sales sign and the open house sign but I just want to make sure that we know that there are still limitations on the overall number of issue signs or any kind of signs right that I'm that so that's kind of modifying what you were just saying Mr Leonard yeah there are limitation that there's not just the square footage limitation but there's also the sheer number yep that's true which may raise more red flags for you commissioner woods but I'll um I think that what we're discussing is what the overall square footage number should be we might want to discuss what the maximum number of signs should be um commiss or milstein Mr lonard can you help me do some math here quickly so let's assume so thank you by the way I'm happy with the 20 foot uh maximum uh but let's assume I have a 65 foot lot okay what would be my maximum sign allowed for a 60 pack but L um for a 65 lot you would get um lot width of more than 60 feet maximum of 02 square feet per linear foot of lot width so if it were 65 ft times 2 you get 13 square feet but however that would ratchet down to a maximum of 12 or in this case You' get 13 because we've up it to 20 potentially so you get up to 13 square feet maximum of 12 square foot per sign maximum of four signs so we need to change that yes because if you have 60 square foot lot you get lat more signage than if you had 61 square foot lot with we we've put yeah we've put a basic floor so regardless of the size of your lot you have some opportunity for signage on your lot but to me it sounds like so from what I'm reading here it says for lot WI more than 60 feet so if I'm a 65 foot lot um in this category it be 13 feet I reading this incorrectly yes it be 13 square feet um lot width of more than 60 feet maximum2 square feet per linear for lot width up to 48 square feet yeah so you'd get up to 133 Square fet um so yeah if we're increasing the 20 for the 60 foot Lots you got to figure out what you want how you want that to be adjusted there so could we say maximum of our can we just say uh 0.2 square feet per linear foot uh what about just capping them all at a Max of 20 regardless of lot size I'd be okay with that I mean if we're okay with it for small Lots um unless we found some value in providing a much higher area for larger Lots but I don't know that that's necessary yeah I I'd be okay with capping it at 20 feet and so this is an amendment to your my friendly amended Amendment right to be clear so what that is is in the two places for single family and multif family freestanding it is regardless of it's now very simple right now it's currently a very you know much text the only thing that would be in that perlot box is a maximum of 20 square feet correct yes uh so you did that so I'm sure it's friendly to you commissioner aband is that friendly to you all right excellent commissioner S I saw your hand at one point are you you want to speak I was gonna say if you wanted to do math it would just be times 333 repeating to get to the 20 if you want to justly no we don't need more math 20 is totally good with me the less work we have people do and the more direct things are I think is great in an ordinance the I think that this makes sense and is Equitable the only thing that it would mean is that if you're a corner lot you have more Frontage and you you are you no longer get your two signs like double signs if you have a corner lot for sale um I thought I would bring it up that's not bothersome to me but if it is to anyone else you should know that it is bothersome but I'm not gonna push my luck tonight thank you very much for working with me on this excellent Okay I uh it sounds like we're ready to vote on the amendment and again this amendment is to in two places on table 5.

um [Music] um bernie it looks like a couple of people have been muted so you i'm trying to keep up with them i can see it good evening everyone good evening hi jeff hey jeff wait don't talk hey susannah good evening good job hello how's everyone everyone hey i'm hi everybody i made drop in and out i was on my computer i'm having internet trouble so i'm now on my phone but i can't see my agenda because i'm on my phone so if i can i'm going to try to go back on the computer mid meeting just to let you know okay what do you have to do and i see mother is on so it looks like we have everybody i have 69 in a minute somebody's not on mute they're feeding bad yeah there's [Music] if you are joining our meeting we're asking that you please put yourself on mute until such time as the good of the cause where if you want to talk everyone will have an opportunity one by one but until then except for board members we're asking that you please put yourself on mute thank you so much in advance for for cooperating all right president becker i have 6 30.

call the meeting to order uh roll call Dennis Bender here Donna Davis here Maria okara here Rick Ry here Wilson so here five members have been attendance okay I would like to have the Pledge of Allegiance and the flag is here and we would all stand IED Al to the of the United States of America and to the stand indice okay we already did that okay and public comments we do not have any public comments pertaining to closed session okay um ratify time on August 6 6 2020 meeting from okay thank you uh change of August 6 2020 from 5:30 pm to 1 p.m uh I requesting a motion to ratify the time change at the August 6 2020 board meeting from 5:30 to 1 p.m.

24-6 to change to have the per lot maximum sign area be 20 square feet regardless of um lot size for the single family and multif family residential commissioner s what did I get also for six foot height those two things are together those in previous motion okay yep sorry good all right all in favor of that Amendment please say I or raise your hand I I any opposed I don't see anyone so the amendment or the motion is now amended for the second time so we've got the six foot maximum height we've got the 20 square feet maximum per lot area any other discussion on the motion as amended commissioner abon yeah I just wanted to bring up again maybe the potential confusion around the idea of an unlimited temporary sign or a unlimited sign in the temporary category and I've been thinking if there's a word other than temporary that would make sense that could embody and I was thinking um would it be could we consider the word impermanent so the temporary sign is intended to define a sign um I have the definition up but I lost it now but it's the opposite of a permanent sign it's not permanently affixed and I think maybe impermanent would work because an impermanent sign of unlimited duration makes more sense to me at least than a temporary sign of unlimited de duration because temporary canotes time whereas impermanent maybe doesn't so um yeah I think um I I don't think it's distinct from your what you're talking about but one of the intentions there is it's not sort of I think a physical um constructed sign in a way so I think the temporary is also intended to probably speak to the type of sign it is um versus perhaps a like a three square foot Monument sign that somebody might put in a yard um I I personally am okay with temporary I understand what you're saying but in the context of this we're actually um its technical definition is an is an unlimited sign and we're just identifying that it is an exception from the general provisions of temporary science because of that duration yeah so like if you read the definition it says a temporary sign um intended for a limited period of display I mean I guess maybe that's the confusion so there's an exception in here which is that you can have a a per sign intended for a limited period of display but that is not regul you know but is not required to be limited in its period of display I think if other people don't find it confusing if they don't think the public will find it confusing I think that's who we want to be able to understand the ordinance as it's written so if people you know if I think if there's consensus in this group that it won't be confusing I'm fine with it but I thought thought I would offer impermanent as an option thanks it sounded like that was not a motion to amend but maybe seeking whether there was were others that were of the same mind yeah and I I mean I also um I I'll defer to Mr Leonard's opinion too I think if if he feels that it won't be cumbersome to the interpretation of the ordinance then you know I just that no I I would just say I appreciate the feedback um regardless of trying to come up with an alternative solution we can if in the event that this progresses we can look at that just to make sure um I it's clear to me but I think your point is good to make sure that we're communicating it to the public um as clearly as we can um that said I think there's lots of opportunities for us to do some communication on this ordinance apart from the ordinance itself and so um there's probably lots of avenues that we can we can help clarify that but well that's not to say that we we couldn't look at it and if there's a a more clear way to define it or reference it um that could that could be something that we present to city council for example after your sort of policy stamp that it's it's something we want to accommodate other discussion of the amended language now amended motion commissioner hamers smid maybe we were gonna say the same thing um but first I like I I'm reading back through this temporary thing like commissioner like totally get your point and like the temporary is confusing but I think like for me because this unlimited thing is like under the temporary sign section but it's saying like but one of these temporary signs can be unlimited like it's maybe less confusing um so I I kind of think it's fine but I wanted to bring back the number of signs and um I I also had written down some basically what commissioner Woods was saying I mean obviously there's was an election last night and I've seen many houses with you know six seven signs I'm sure if I went and added them up they're both double-sided they're all double-sided like it's way over 20 square feet I don't have a proposal I just think that this is gonna be a potential issue but since we can't regulate content you can't say like with the exception of political signs right so yeah I mean I think I'd be i' I don't know like I'd be comfortable increasing the number of signs like I don't unless we get into like a situation where people are putting 20 one square foot signs in their yard which I just don't see happening um but I I you know I don't know how big well I think maybe on on some of the pictures we had square footage of some of these political signs um that now I can't find yeah they they range probably from maybe we don't eight square feet probably to a little smaller depending on sign well so like this this black lives matter in this house we believe black lives matter sign where you have is 4.2 square feet is that on both sides do you know that's just one side um I don't know Chris do you know that I'm guessing yeah it looks to me like it's probably about one side I'd offer up it's one it's the political one is 8.4 two-sided and that one's 4 oh there that's right below yeah so yeah I mean then like under the sign ordinance you could really only have two of these political signs and I'm I'm I I don't I don't know I just know that a lot of people in my neighborhood will be breaking this ordinance right now I don't really have a no and I I I get it but this is this is the absolute Crux of the issue is that we can no longer you know our current ordinance our current ordinance evolved out of just those sort of things that well for political signs this is acceptable for commercial signs this is acceptable for um other types of for Real Estate signs this is acceptable we don't have that ability anymore so we can go as big and as accommodating as we want we could go as kind of restrictive and constrained as we want the important thing is that we're treating everything equally yeah I mean I think this is the tension right like we don't want to say like okay so like on average if somebody wants to have like three political signs in their yard then that could potentially go up to like 30 square feet I mean I I don't know I don't know it but I think that is the tension that we have to decide like size versus it's why you get the big bucks right so you get the big bucks okay I'm gonna stop talking and see if anybody else wants to weigh in could you remind us I what might be helpful is currently is it a free-for-all with regarding political signs that might help it put in in context So currently um currently uh a political sign um has a maximum height of 48 in and a maximum width of 36 in and the bottom of the sign shall be a minimum of six Ines from the ground the sign shall be set back at least 5 feet from the public RightWay or fixed to a building uh a sign that Advocates or opposes a candidate for public office or a position on an issue to be determined at an election shall be removed not more than 18 hours after the election um political signs shall not be subject to any specified time limit or must be removed if they become dangerous or otherwise prohibited so not restricted in size not restricted in duration other than after the political issue is comes to some decision they have to be removed in 18 hours and so the McGee sign that we see actually fits in that because that's a quite large I mean that's nothing that we're discussing would allow for that aign that size right to be like it both exceeds the overall square footage and the per sign square footage um got it okay uh commissioner who uh people moved on my screen commissioner Woods did you have your hand up before I ask that question I did have my hand up and and um not so much that I'm not going to vote for the signed ordinance because I know a lot of work has gone into it and and I will certainly vote for it but just just again I guess just to be aware that that there will be situations where you would want I would want and I don't try and go around breaking the law but if I could have up signs I could just see where I could have up for a number of candidates as well as a couple of real good uh causes as well as saying you know girls can do it too or whatever you know it's so it's it's just after a while it becomes you know and and I know our department doesn't want to go out you know ticket ticket ticket but sometimes it becomes you know if a neighbor gets upset with me because of the content of a sign then they call in or something or or I call in because I don't like what they put up so I don't know and I just wanted to say that but I do appreciate everything that's gone into the whole sign orness thing I mean it's it's rough I think you mean it's awesome just doing the math myself I think I would with this idea I think I would move to make one Amendment which is um changing the total number of signs from four to five because I feel like that the idea that a single-sided sign tends to be about four square feet we're now allowing 20 at least then that number that's not a limitation and actually I could I think I might move to have five but if there's somebody who wants to argue that it should be more um I would be okay with that I feel like we're regulating by sign area and so this is just allowing for a little bit more and I think your neighbor is e it's easier to count the number of signs than it is to take your tape measure out and measure so um actually I'm gonna amend my little motion to amend and I'm gonna say six does anyone want to Second the total number of signs that are allowed um uh commissioner milin we're open for discussion commissioner abens that was not a thumbs up that was a hand that was like a tentative hand and then I took it away but I'll speak um so that would be six signs one of which could have indefinite duration and five of which would only would have the 65 day limit and still capped by the 20 foot per lot and still capped by 12 foot per sign uh okay I would support that great uh we'll vote on that um Amendment all in favor who second who seconded that I think I said commissioner milin okay thank you uh all in favor say I or raise a hand I I anyone opposed okay so now we've got a motion that had three amendments on it um that it's back on the table for discussion I will just close by saying thank you for all of this work I think that the the changes that you made in terms of going out to the community we don't we don't want to put a whole bunch of things um automatically make them non-conforming um that I don't think that's the intention here the intention is to come up to speed with you know to make sure that we're complying with the law as written um so I I really appreciate all the work into this and the pictures again Mr chain thank you so much that was that was really helpful in grounding our discussion um it's difficult to imagine what four square feet is or you know understand like the different real real estate signs so thank you very much any other comments commissioner hamers Schmidt I just want to say one last thing sort of emphasize a point that's already been said um and also Echo this was so much work like I probably still don't understand like 50% of this ordinance but um what commissioner milen brought up about the lot size I think it's so important that we have just capped everybody at 20 square feet total I mean I understand like the corner lot real estate issue but I mean it's completely inequitable for somebody with a larger lot size to be able to have more signs or bigger signs so I think that making it Equitable across the board for any lot um is a great thing to do all right it looks like we're ready for a vote uh we'll do a roll call vote Mr Leonard please commissioner Molin yes commissioner G Randall yes commissioner akman yes commissioner s that yes commissioner abon yes commissioner hamers Schmid yes commissioner Woods yes commissioner Mills yes carries unanimously thank you for all of your work on that endeavor thank Youk you thank you all right um we're at 8:15 I'm going to keep on going um so we are on item 10A regular business this is the vidiian at County Farm Park planned unit development zoning and supplemental regulations this is at 2270 plat Road commissioner Gib Randall yes I am going to need to recuse myself my firm has been hired to work on this project and so I will be stepping away from the discussion um and come back on after after we're done thank you very much and off you go you are demoted uh give me a moment we have a fair number of um participants representing these petitioners um I will for the benefit of the Commissioners I have um provided um we have a PUD petition and we have two distinct site plans for that so I have provided them the opportunity for two 10minute presentations or one 20 minute however however they desire um commiss I guess for clarification how are we going to be voting on on this or we GNA be since there's two separate site plans but it's one PUD how will the votes be handled uh there are three distinct motions one for the Pud zoning which is setting the Zoning for the site independent of the site plans the Pud as currently proposed does not link those specific site plans to the Pud zoning district and then you'll have two distinct motions on each site plan however because of their inter relationship they're sharing things like access utilities we thought it was worthwhile to consider them in Mass thank you and now you're going to be joined by lots of people what I would add on to that is that I think hearing the presentations is all together if there as you know after the public hearing and we read the motions we want to take we if it makes sense to to separate them out I'm happy to do that as well but I thought we would just take them all together and certainly the public hearing makes sense to do together and I'm are there's six of us on this evening um is that do we need to all vote in order to uh all vote in affirmative in order to pass it to city council with a recommendation to approve there seven seven and six affirmative votes would be necessary to forward a recommendation Zach's just got his camera off ah okay I had to do like count up um I'm still working on people just give me a moment um Alexis I'm going to make a co-host she'll be running the [Music] presentation it's not the Brady Bunch anymore or on my computer Alexis you've been working on some transformative stuff in town I am single-handedly trying to take over the town getting there if uh if this is what rule under you as a benevolent Queen looks like that be okay um I I would just ask quickly of the petitioners is there somebody that you were anticipating That You Don't See present um no all right great so as Mr Leonard said um I'll turn it over to the petitioners for a total of 20 minutes um and then after that uh misso you'll take over and fill us in on anything else great all right the developers just let me know which uh presentation to load first Avalons right so should I go ahead and get started yes yes please so I'm Wendy cardi Saxon I'm the director of real estate development at Avalon housing and yes I'm sorry are you guys doing two separate presentations or you just want me to run a 20- minute clock run a 20 minute clock we'll roll from one right into the other all right thank you sorry about that yep no that's all right that's all right um and just really excited to be here with our vidiian County Farm proposal uh for our joint PUD covering both the Avalon and the Thrive sites and with our distinct site plans also and the picture up is a rendering that was done a while back showing the overall site certain buildings and such have you know shifted and moved around a bit but I think it still gives a decent sort of General feel for the overall neighborhood so I'll chat a bit about Avalon site plan and David Esau our architect will provide a bit more information on that and we also have our engineers and Landscape Architects here to to answer any questions that you may have you know later on and after David and I talk we'll hand it over to thrive and they can discuss their site plan as well as touch on the Pud and its public benefits um but since I'm here I want to at least mention what we feel is a really key public benefit of the Pud uh the expansion of the supply of affordable housing I mean we're really excited to bring 50 new units of affordable housing to the community with this development and it's both more units than what sort of the Baseline is with the Pud as as well as more deeply targeted and I'll touch on that in a little bit um and I'll just say the Pud also brings the public benefit of allowing us to do a mix of uses across the site and some exciting site design like enabling us to design the two sites as one cohesive site with common circulation patterns both vehicular and pedestrian creative land division techniques compliment exterior architectural appearance and also contributing to the long-term sustainability with the environmental approaches being taken but other folks can touch on that a bit more later um just real brief background so it's county-owned land and we each have purchase agreements for our parcels and as far as Avalon goes I'll just say securing land has always been a key challenge to our ability to develop so it's really been fantastic to be working with the county having a committed seller on this property which is just a huge uh thing for us um and then if you want to go to the next slide so thereor perfect um talk a little bit about the specifics of Avalon plan bran at County for Farm north um you can see sort of the gray Drive area that's on Avalon side you can't you can sort of see the property line uh and Avalon's units are the ones to the north of those and then you can see in the middle right south of the grade in drive is the community center and then the building to the right is also Avalons but even sort of looking at that drawing I think you can get a sense of how overall the development is intended to flow as a the two different site plans are intended to flow as a single development but as far as Avalons go we have 50 units it's a mix of one two three and four bedroom units and we're very excited frankly to have some four-bedroom units in our stack here we found that's a real need um for our families 30 of our 50 units are Supportive Housing so they'll be for households who are under 30% of area median which is about 21 Grand for a 1 person house household um and all of those 30 units are expected to have Project based vouchers so the households would only pay 30% of their income towards rent um 10 of those Supportive Housing units are further targeted to Ozone House so youth experiencing homelessness would have a home here um the remaining 20 of the 50 units are standard affordable housing just below 60% of area median we have nine buildings on our site uh including the community center and it's a mix our units are mixed of stacked flats and twostory Tow houses which we found that that kind of design really works very well at Avalon's other family properties of the townhouse stack flat design also want to note that 15% of our units our 50 units eight of them are fully accessible across a range of bedroom types and I think the code may require like one so really going above and beyond that um and all the ground floor flats and all the ground floors of the tow houses are visitable so no steps entry and sufficiently wide doorways Etc but now I will turn it over to David Esau Cornerstone Design architect to chat a little bit more about our site plan thank you Wendy um I Am David Esau with Cornerstone Design I've worked with all of Avalon's new projects and many of their Renovations um I'm going to start with talking about the community center you'll see it in the middle of the site as as Wendy mentioned um provides easy access for all the units um it's a joining avalance playground area which will be just to the west of the community center and then a joining thrives open space just south of the playground so that there's sort of a central activity area for the entire development where residents can come together for outdoor activities and and possibly activities leading into the community center and that kind of thing um the program of the Community Center is very similar to the ones that Avalon has at Pauline or at carrot way if you've ever visited those a large meeting room tenant laundry facilities service offices um this one will be a a unique building for them in the Avalon is part of the international living future Institute it's an affordable housing pilot program as part of our effort to achieve net zero for the community center um so that will be an interesting challenge as we finish up the the design for that we're we're currently planning double stud walls around the exterior so there'll be high levels of insulation in the walls as well as in the roof of that so um that will be the primary way and then the building is designed to allow a lot of solar panels to be placed on the roof to try to get us down to that Net Zero level I think there are some elevations on the next slide of the community center oh nope that is uh building a the front elevation along plat would be the next one that would be the community center NOP that was wrong next one after that there we are so those are elevations of the community center the South elevation would have the large roof that would be available for solar panels um so moving back to the apartments if you want to go back to one of the previous slides U this particular one is looking at one of the townhouse buildings with four bedroom units at the ends and three bedroom units in the middle um Avalon's units have all or developments have always had significant green requirements usually through Enterprise green but this one should be Avalon's greenest to date in a number of ways um of course being well sealed well insulated we'll have casement windows throughout both for air sealing and for accessibility uh these will be a new feature for Avalon and that they won't have vinyl siding or vinyl flooring um so that'll be interesting to see how that affects our costs and how it affects all the projects are maintained um but it it was a commitment we made is part of working with rrive on this development to to achieve the goals of the development and the HVAC will be all electric using primarily heat pump systems um we haven't gotten into the design of those much we've used those some on previous projects and we're looking forward to see how those work out in terms of our coordination with Thrive I mentioned coordination of the activity area in the center of the site we have shared drives for access to Avalon parking and Thrive garages in a number of areas where we're we're sharing those and common materials throughout the site using similar types of siding similar sight lighting fixtures paving materials there are a number of common design themes throughout the site in terms of unit entries to streets and Courtyards um details of the the exterior designs that will be common throughout the site common landscape elements especially in the rain Gardens we're using similar plants that that will be a look consistent as you drive through the site or walk through the site and then we've worked closely through the design process on the interconnection of the unit layouts as Wendy mentioned the utilities drives and walks to make sure that everything was coordinated um and that's really what we wanted to present on the Avalon side so I'm going to turn it over to Matt groov from thrive Matt are you there I see you Matt but I think you're muted I see your mouth moving oh no I don't have an option to unmute you any more than you were off I wonder if we have a number that he can call in um I can repeat it from the agenda is that the right number to give him Mr Leonard oh boy says host is you can also use uh in the lower left where the microphone icon is you click the little arrow above you can hit switch to phone audio should present the dial in number all right can y'all hear me now yes all right excellent yeah I think uh while you were anyway we don't need to worry about how that happened can I get my two minutes back not that we'll need it um uh so guys um I said some really brilliant things that you missed you have you have 11 minutes left Matt all right thank you um uh so uh Alexis can you go ahead and bring up the slides uh while she's bringing that up I'll repeat the brilliant things that I said when you uh when you had when I was on mute um so I'm Matt groof of the uh principles of the Thrive collaborative and the the the whole idea of Thrive is to bring together these collaboration things to really try to achieve things uh that you know and overcome really uh uh institutional barriers and achieve some of these urgent challenges that we have um we've spent four years of deeply integrated design as as David Esau was just talking about um we've collaborated we've consulted with uh leading industry people from from around the world really on energy green infrastructure Urban agriculture biophilic lighting uh even sound ecology from somebody at the University of Michigan um so really really deep ideas of how we can rethink the conventional development model which is deeply flawed and so all of this is really looking at how do we take a a regenerative approach to development and the results we think is uh one of the most thoughtful and comprehensive Master plans that we've ever seen here in the city of an arbor hopefully it'll be a model for future development um so first I I think it's really important to talk about why we're here why are we doing this why is this so damn urgent and a year ago I had the extraordinary privilege of a lifetime really to meet with Greta thunberg at the first Global Climate strike in Stockholm Sweden I got to spend the morning with the parents of some of the original 10 climate Strikers and uh and one of the things that Greta thumberg said is that you know we've had enough pep talking what we need is action and I truly believe that pledges and plans and platitudes without action is Vanity so we've got to do something more than that we've got eight years to make this extraordinary transition so my takeaway coming home from Sweden and if um uh you can go to the next slide uh is what I learned from Greta was that you know hope is something that you earn right and so tonight is really an opportunity for the city to take action if you can go to the next slide I I told Alexis that I just do like a when I wanted to move to the next slide as a little signal so um uh and because of the work we've been doing um the uh United Nations uh highlighted the project at the world Urban Forum back in February in Abu Dhabi and um they actually sought us out and asked us to talk about how we're achieving some of the sustainable development goals and the goals you see on the screen are the things that that um that they've highlighted that they believe that Veridian is a model for for others to uh to to to to to to take exemplifying how do we achieve the sustainable development goals and you go to the next slide so we're on track to uh create what we believe is going to be the world's first residential Living Community challenge master plan for the vidiian parcel the project is already registered for The Living Community challenge we're a partner in the a20 um uh uh uh partnership and um The Living Community challenge is bringing the living building challenge to scale and the living building challenge is kind of the black belt of the Sustainable Building standards throughout the world so the next slide so vidiian of on the market rate side we've got 99 planned market rate residences and we've got a mix of all kinds of different unit types so we have 42 Town Homes of different sizes we've got 30 walkup Flats we've got 11 what we're calling Nest Flats which are micro units um and we've got 16 Village Homes which are single family detached homes next slide and this is a real strategic diversity of housing that we've got so the idea is how do we take market rate home homes and instead of having uh you know just kind of this you know again economic segregation at every level which is what the conventional development model does we've tried to by having these different housing types we range from 350 square feet all the way to 2300 square feet uh for the Village Homes and a variety of floor plans in between to really try to hit different price points uh in the community to make it affordable to different levels of of uh of of folks so next slide so our goal for the Thrive collaborative is that the entire Community is nit zero uh uh someday um we've made a commitment that our Target for the Thrive partial is is net zero uh and that's our CER that's our registration with the Living Community challenge with our purchase agreement with the county we actually committed to a minimum of 400 KW of solar and to all electric fossil fuel so by being all electric we've let the door open to achieve Net Zero Energy for the entire Community by having everyone do that what Net Zero is is just saying that 100% of the community's energy needs on a net annual basis is supplied by onsite renewable energy with no combustions next slide so this is our solar study so our solar potential on the site again we've committed to 400 KW but we can install up to 1,400 KW of solar what what that would do is produce as much as a 1.6 megawatt hours of energy a year in production which is a huge amount so the next slide and this is how we get to Net Zero so our Target energy use intensity which is basically energy use per square foot right our production is 11 kilowatt hours per square foot but our home usage we targeting it to be under 6 KW uh H uh uh per square foot um which would give us enough to power these homes and the automobiles uh for each one of these homes so next slide um we're also planning uh for the market rate homes levels of resilience for each home so battery backup and storage for those homes next slide and as David mentioned the Avalon uh Community uh building is going to be an affordable housing pilot project targeting Net Zero Energy so their plan is to have solar on that building next slide but if you take a look what we've ended up with there's a whole lot of area that uh is unable to have solar an additional 44,000 square feet of rooftop because of barriers to solar for affordable housing which is true for most multif family housing so next slide so we're really trying to figure out how do we get to energy democracy how do we make solar that's beneficial to the entire Community not just to private homeowners so for four years now I've been working really really deeply to form collaborations with folks to find a pathway and I I'm really excited to share with yall tonight that this morning we had a phone call with the chair of the Public Service Commission some Public Service Commission members uh and multiple people high level Executives from DTE who are all in to work with us to create grid interactive community and so we're partnering with uh DTE the University of Michigan 820 and number 2030 next energy and a whole bunch of other folks to figure out how do we get the entire Community to do to accomplish what a single developer can do on On Any Given single family home so next slide uh and so again for the Thrive portion we're planning on abundant EV charging every garage is going to have its own EV charging uh we're providing refrigerators let's provide car charging as well all the Necessities next slide and human powered mobility of course we're going to default to that rather than the cars we've got 179 bike spaces 12 124 of which are enclosed and we'll also have a an Eevee Bike Share program so next slide um uh and to make the bike ownership easy we've got a a Four Season bike maintenance and repair shed that'll have bike storage on there in an area called the The Farmhouse Commons that'll be a available to everyone in the community including Avalon next slide and one of the coolest Community amenities we have is this small retail building um we're calling The Farmhouse which is planned to be the home for the honey locust Farm stop modeled after Argus uh the upstairs uh uh spaces can be used for office uh there's a Monas school that's interested in in in being there uh or it could also be residential so there's multiple things and it's really cool to think that actually this idea of vidiian itself was actually born out of a serendipitous conversation that I had at Argus Farm stop here in my neighborhood so this is a an extraordinary Community Asset next Slide the other really neat asset is the barn we're restoring a public a barn that we're getting from a um a property right nearby uh which will be a really neat space in next slide and the storm water we're not going to have any kind of retention pond the storm water is deeply deeply integrated into it and we're finding ways where we can infiltrate all the water on you know throughout the different parts of the site and really create a resource for the rain rather than a uh apocalyptic thing and the next slide and along with the our zero waste goals um uh we're doing a living building a living materials plan and we're going to have compulsory composting and next slide uh and you can see we've got abundant Park connections uh lots of planned really for humans not for not for uh cars and the next slide and most of our spaces are going to be adaptable and resilient and designed with accessibility in mind and next slide and um really our goal is to make this so that it's so beautiful that it's going to delight and Inspire for Generations but the biggest risk is that it's going to be successful but we can't replicate it so we're planning open house tour is an educational website and interpretive signage for the neighborhood and the last slide so uh we don't know if humanity is going to be able to transition fast enough to avoid the catastrophic consequences of climate crisis we can't predict the future but we can choose to create a living future and by God we better start now so your vote of recommendation tonight is really the action that Greta thunberg talks about that can earn us hope so thanks and let's open it up for uh questions thank you very much all right Mr Leo you have more to add yes I do uh yeah not muted okay I'm going to do a another bit of uh screen sharing bear with me for a second um I will uh Mumble along while I open this one up here we go all right uh thank you very thank you very much okay um I'm going to for brevity I'm going to leave most of the talk about the site plant to um a the Avalon and Thrive teams but I will be hitting highlights of the staff report and mostly talking about the PUD process and the Pud zoning district and supplemental regulations um and our staff analysis um starting from sort of the beginning this is a collection of three petitions the vidiian at County Farm PUD zoning and supplemental regulations the vidiian at County Farm North site plan which is um the petitioner is Avalon housing and vidiian a County Farm South site plan petitioner and developer is thriving collaborative so there are three motions in the staff report um that you've been provided um the in super in brief summary the rezoning is a petition to rezone a 12.8 Acre Site from PL public land uh screen sharing is paused um is it back to screen sharing I think so yes yes here we go it's a 12.8 Acres sites from PL public land to PUD planned unit development and we have supplemental regulations going along with it as required for a mixed type residential development with Community spaces accessory retail and advanced sustainable construction methods including a significant percentage of affordable housing also tonight is this North site plan it's a plan for 50 affordable Apartment Homes um and the South site plan it's a plan for 99 homes uh detached attached apartments and Community buildings um the here we go the um I'll go back the supplemental regulations were written because the Pud is a custom zoning District they're written to enable the proposed development while requiring the features amenities and Community benefits that support and justify the Pud to be realized and maintained um there are three dominant benefits uh affordable housing mixed income residential and sustainable living um we have supplemental regulations that um uh that um contain a purpose statement applicability the findings that we are um going through this evening and the regulations the regulations address principle and accessory uses area height and placement standards Landscaping buffering affordable housing community oriented design and sustainability um the supplemental regulations divide the district into two components north and south north again is Avalon South is Thrive some things are addressed holistically the principal use of the district is residential dwellings accessory uses there's a lot of common accessory uses but we've got some that are applicable to the South only meaning only Thrive will be allowed to have a retail possible restaurant outdoor sales personal services the density is 16 dwelling units across the entire district 16 dwelling unit per acre um we've got floor area addressed setbacks are addressed um minimum 10 feet from plat Road uh 20 feet well let me say this um in the staff report it's written 20 ft from the north and west boundary and 50 ft from the south um let me come back to that we've got height addressed parking addressed um we've got landscaping and buffering addressed but put in asterisk by that um affordable housing and the community design Community oriented design principles which are basically taken from the master plan it's a benefit of this PUD that we're not just encouraging some of our community oriented design but here we are requiring it um regarding the Pud process all plan units devel ments go through a five-step process starting with citizen participation this one in particular had more citizen participation than usual in that the county entered its own process for what to do they call it disposition which is I think a fancy term for selling but they went through a process for if we were to dispose of the property how should it be developed so they went through a community process for that came up with their preferred use then they went out for RFP request or proposals looking for developers and they hand selected the Thrive collaborative Avalon team um and put a lot of restrictions on them to put forward to you what they wanted um process includes a pre-application meeting that's with staff a conference with the Planning Commission we did that um last year and then tonight is steps four and five combined the zoning District review and site plan review these could be separated but we are proposing them together which is allowed plan unit developments have eight standards of approval um and briefly they are that the district has a beneficial effect for the city um also that it can't be done in another District this is not to get out of development requirements this is to make unique development requirements that are as robust and perhaps a trade-off some maybe more robust than normally required um we've got um requirements that it cannot have a detrimental effect on public utilities it needs to be consistent with the master plan or justify its deviation it needs to be consistent with um the with density or affordable housing is required you've got to have supplemental regulations to document all this you need to make sure that all modes of transportation are safe convenient um Etc and if you're proposing any disturbance to Cal features or significant architectural features that they're limited to the minimum necessary um as for staff we have found that the proposed PUD meets all of the standards of approval um for the benef beneficial effects requirement it um is notably an direct quote an innovation in land use and Variety in design layout in types of structures that furthers the stated design goal and physical character of the adopted land use plans and policies um staff we feel almost that the Pud was written for this type of project because of its again quoting from the standards of approval language it's an Innovative land use and it's got that variety of design that we don't normally see um we have also found it meets all the other standards of approval um the site plans have been reviewed and they are consistent with the proposed plan unit develop I'm sorry consistent with the proposed PUD supplemental regulations as well as the other aspects of the UDC that cannot be amended through the Pud process one example soil erosion another example storm water management um standards I will um note that our original staff report published on Friday contained an error H which has been redone I incorrectly said that Avalon had three story buildings they are twostory buildings um and I had some hyperlinks that were broken so we published a new staff report for that and then though since that time we are asking you to consider a a couple more changes and so I'm I'm asking you to put forth an amendment on the floor and approve it as part of the project there are a couple of these one regarding setbacks and let me try to get that laser pointer back all right here um the rear setback which is going to be the West Side um we've written in 20 feet I'm asking you to change it to 15 um some of the Avalon buildings um are closer than closer than 20 um and so 15 would cover it um that is an error on my part I should have originally written 15 but I did not so I'm asking for an amendment a second second additional change that um I'm asking you to consider are changing the standards for landscaping and buffers um I've got a strikeout version here on the screen a copy was also emailed um striking out the west and North buffer and the vehicular use area we are striking these out because these are the same as current code requirements so no need to reinvent the wheel and repeat it in it up here you can say the standard for landscaping screening and buffering uh in the UDC shall apply to the district um with one exception that we'll keep the South District gets an enhanced buffer and it is enhanced because that was um the result of the petitioners community outreach and citizen participation the adjacent neighbors wanted a little bit of an enhanced buffer so um in compliance with the normal buffer no point will be less than 15 ft but but that buffer will be enhanced by having an average of 25 ft some places will be much wider than 25 uh feet and all cases wider than the 15 um we've got to have a little flexibility for Meandering around some existing features um we've also got um and it's written here for a 75 deciduous or everen trees evenly spaced I think that we may need to take that down to 50 trees actually because we did some math wrong but um it this is no less than normally required also um whereas the normal conflicting land use buffer is a hedge burm or wall fence we are saying specifically a hedge R so a um um a burm is not acceptable A hedro here with specifically of dense shrubs and that came I understand that came directly from um um um the adjacent Neighbors and then the Third change to consider is um I'm not asking you to um necessarily approve specific language here is an example of where um I'd like you to approve a concept for affordable housing um the concept is 15% of the dwelling units are affordable and that would be our minimum requirement um but we have discovered crafting the Pud supplement relations that it needs to work both ways and we need to anticipate and have a provision in case uh one component is developed sooner than the other component if so to a um so each one of them needs to individually address affordable housing because technically speaking this is the proposed density is more than the underlying zoning the pl district has a zero density it's not for residential so therefore even one home on the site is more than the underlying zoning so our goal here is absolutely we are going to achieve 15% of Def of the dwelling units are affordable housing and that meets the standards of approval and we're we'd like to say that this can to be accomplished only one way on the North component that all the dwelling units are affordable housing is obviously very comfortable with that for the South component we'd like to offer three choices the first choice is they can build 15% of their units as affordable housing this option might be utilized if they break ground and then look for certificates of occupancy first a second option that they can do is they could build Avalon site plan for them or if Avalon builds it they can take credit for some of the units that are at Avalon site and if all of Avalon's units are built and affordable the entire District does have 15% minimum affordable housing a third option that will offer them is a payment in Li and so that might give them more flexibility in securing their financing but still provide the city assurances that we are going to realize affordable units the payment in L could even potentially be refunded when Avalon builds their units or could be just turned over to help Avalon in some way I'm not in the attorney's office but we would like to offer the options to provide flexibility but I want to assure the Planning Commission that we are in all options we're looking for to absolutely make sure that the city real realizes the benefit of affordable housing that this project is proposing and will realize this benefit no matter who breaks ground first and no matter who closes first um so with that I will um stop talking except to uh reiterate that we are recommending approval I'm asking for a few additional changes um but we are recommending approval for each of the three petitions on the floor um the applicant team both are here to answer any specific questions myself and um uh Mr Leonard are also here to answer any additional questions very good thank you very much Miss Leo um it's nine o'clock I'm gonna move to public comment and then if we need a break uh let's do if it's okay we'll do it after public hearing so um uh this is an opportunity for for persons to speak for up to three minutes about the proposed PUD zoning and site plans for 2270 plat Road um public comment may be made by calling 877 853 uh 5247 and then entering meeting ID 9771 150 11143 City staff will select the callers that have raised their hand you can raise your hand by pressing star n um and when speaking uh please do state your name and address at the beginning of your comments just give it a few moments sure Alexis while we're waiting I know Heath is we have a in error that we discovered late in the afternoon that Heath could address for us if this is the appropriate time we'll put a pin in that and ask a question when we come back um it looks like a couple of folks may have joined if you're interested in making a public comment press star n to raise your hand he caller with phone number ending with number 034 you have three minutes to address the Planning Commission on the vidiian proposal hello my name is Susan Bowers I'm at 2400 South Kiran Parkway very good um I would like to question or ask has there been a traffic study done for the impact on Plat road so during public comment feel free to say any of your or bring up any of your comments and this is something in our discussion that we'll be able to address okay my question being is we are the business directly across the street right at the corner of here on Parkway in pla and I'm a little concerned about the immense amount of traffic that this could produce on Plat Road and has that been um reviewed and addressed that's just my biggest concern everything else is super exciting just looking for making sure that we can get in and out of our driveway if we need to very good that's my only comment thank you very much for your comment are there any other that would like to comment at this time not seeing any other all right then I will close the public hearing uh let's read the motions and move them and then we'll take a break if that's okay so there are three motions um it sounds like the recommendation is that we do take them all together tonight that that's appropriate so that's what I I will read all three and ask a commissioner to move them um when I'm done so the first is the an arbor City Planning Commission hereby recommends that the mayor and city council approve the vidiian at County Farm PUD zoning district and supplemental regulations the second the an arbor City Planning Commission hereby recommends that the mayor and city council approved the vidian County Farm North site plan Avalon Housing and Development agreement subject to land division approval prior to applying for any permits and the third is the an arbor planning the Ann Arbor City Planning Commission hereby recommends that the mayor and city council approve the vidian County Farm South site plan for the Thrive collaborative and development agreement subject to land division approval prior to applying for any permits moved by commissioner milin seconded by commissioner Akerman um I have 904 on my computer let's come back at 910 ready for discussion hydrated and such all right very good yeah I just um thank you I um first of all um thank you city planner Deo for um a great summary and I just wanted to um add a just another note or two particularly about the affordable housing provisions and this is something that was of specific importance um to me and um I think Alexis did a great job in I just want to clarify this notion of Concepts what our goal here is is to ensure that regardless of timing um we have the the means to ensure that affordable units are realized at this site at a minimum of 15% hopefully more as proposed and so um we are exploring those options to provide frankly Flex exibility to the combination of in this case Avalon and Thrive um but to be clear whatever happens in the future so that the Pud District ensures the same for whatever this happens on the site um that we have multiple methods of meeting that goal and so um I just wanted to clarify so we want I I'd appreciate the planning commission's um validation that that is an important um goal for you the the provisions or ways for us to get there the the language that um Lexus use was Concepts it's just that to be clear I think that I don't I I honestly don't know to what stent extent that's going to be in the supplemental regulations it's probably going to be some combination of supplemental regulations and development agreements but um our goal is to communicate those Concepts so you are comfortable with those end results and acknowledge that there might be some refinement in where we put those in the documents going forward so I just wanted to add that um additional language to to that discussion Point can I ask just a clarifying question sorry um did you say that that language was in our packet Lang the language was provided in an updated um supplemental reg regulations that um I think Alexis has um I don't know that that's been shared with you but we could share we could share that language and pull that up if that's something you'd like to see more specifically uh commissioner Akerman just a quick comment you know in looking through the supplemental regulations that are linked through our legistar packet it looks like they're in there so I that was what I was working off as I Was preparing for the meeting so should we just assume that the presentation and those those items that Alexa that M Deo walked us through are included in the Motions as R Alexis can you provide an overview of where the revised language that we discussed today is um yes I can and here we go um zoom zoom d013 on page four here we go um here are the supplemental regulations um that were um they are in legistar right now and they were emailed very late in the day and I'm going to scroll down because we have in here with track changes I think I've gone too far um hold on these are not with track changes but I think oh oh wait they yeah so I apologize I'm not sure what happened to the track changes in the con conversion to zoom but you'll see here that we have we had worked on Alternate language I guess let me say this um commissioner akman our concept was still before we are we are still wanting the 15% from the districtwide and Avalon has to do all affordable housing and then uh that was in the supplemental regulations that were issued in the packet but we worked on additional language that we were trying to make it more clear and provide more of the options the more of the if then sort of thing anticipating the different start times different completion times we and so we came up with um some more language that again but same the concept has never changed and so on my screen here I've got we've got Thrive this provision of affordable housing shall be accomplished by the following one two and three and then there's and as you can see there's a lot of stuff here yeah and as we are working through it the concept is never changing but we are wondering if it is more appropriate to have these this level of specificity in a development agreement or have this um or keep it here in the supplemental regulations and we're not we need to consult more with legal and our attorney's office on just the best home for it we're not really asking to change the premise yeah we're just trying to trying to find the right home for it right okay so as a matter of pro so I I completely understand the rationale I understand the language um I kind of operated today with the assumption that it would be included in the supplmental regulations and I was comfortable with that um as a matter of process would you like us to make a a motion that we're comfortable with this language and that between now and whatever the next phase of this project is city council presumably um or between an affirmative vote and uh and city council that we give you the space to decide um yes yes please I think we're asking regarding affordable housing two things number one in your discussion we want to be sure that you are comfortable with this um flexible approach yeah um say compared to you say nope nope nope we can't have that um we need this is this other thing is important to us cool okay so part of the discussion if you would make sure that you're comfortable with that and then if you are yes uh a motion that indicates you are authorizing staff to hammer out the very specific details in keeping with the concept that you choose beautiful okay um then I will I'll make sure that's the last thing I speak to then Brett did you want to add something there yeah I just think another way you could look at it is we Alexis highlighted all the proposed changes in the updated supplemental regs which are and lar and shared we just want to be clear that our recommendation is for you to adopt those amended versions it does it does include all that affordable housing language that was just referenced we want I want I just want it to be clear some of that language might end up realized in a different format but so and so that's just another way of looking at it I think the the critical thing is you understand those Concepts if you adopted the supplemental regs as presented and amended that'd be fine but I I just want to be honest with the Planning Commission we might we might ultimately go then progress to city council and say we think this these aspects are better Incorporated in another another document oh I'm glad you said that because I think if I saw in the development agreement at city council I would have voted against the proposal so just kidding I can I I want to have a clarifying question though because there were a couple of other things that Alexis highlighted changed yeah including the like rear setback distance the version that is now on legistar that that are are we when we vote like do we need to move those amendments that changed from our original packet but that's the version that's up there now or can we just effectively say thank you staff for highlighting those differences between what we may have reviewed over the weekend what's different in today's version that we are actually voting on includes the 15 foot setback rather than a 20 foot setback and the simplified UDC enhanced buffer language is that you can do the latter okay so no action has been taken on the draft that was originally included we're presenting you updates we have summarized the substantive changes to those updates so you can just take action on the amended version excellent thank you go ahead Zach um no that's great um so I I think just I want to make some general comments I want to ask some questions um and then it doesn't sound like we need to make it any amendments it sounds like we can work off the assumption that the the current version of the supplemental regulations in legistar are what we're voting on tonight which that that that sounds good so um I guess turning to to some general comments um I I've been looking forward to to today for a long time AR ranage Mr groov at KY town uh we were both Mass I promise and and uh um we you know I I told them I was excited about about this meeting in two weeks because it's something that I've been looking forward to for three years and that's because when constructed vidiian at County Farm Park I think he's going to be the most transformative and important project that we'll have worked on um because it's very real it's tangible and it's here right now and it's not something we're planning for 10 years down the road um our community has the opportunity to take the site of a decommission juvenile detention center and build the greenest and one of the most Equitable neighborhoods not only in the city in the county and the state um but in the entire Great Lakes Region um we're taking a site where we used to put struggling kids and segregate them from society and turn that land into a neighborhood that's built for people of every income level every background and produces more energy via solar than it consumes that's an incredible mission that we have the opportunity to be part of um not only uh is is the mission you know just and right and timely um but the developers have also put in tremendous work to make everything beautiful uh through the site plans the architectural and landscaping design um I I think when we negotiate with other developers to make incremental improvements to their projects um sometimes we're successful sometimes we're not but but when we are negotiating with other developers it's something like this that I think we all envision that we want to strive for Meaningful amounts of affordable housing true sustainability uh and that's that's exciting to get to to vote on it in a pure form here tonight um so thanks to Mr grov Miss patino uh and your teams that thrive in Avalon for the vision and the partnership um and the persistence over the last uh three four years um and then also a big thank you to the neighbors um there you know I was surprised we didn't get many comments tonight but I think it's because of the tremendous amount of organizing and activism that happened in the immediate neighborhood in 2017 um you know this sits in the ward that I represent and I've seen uh the lead the the neighborhoods really um bring themselves together to support something incredibly important uh even if it causes immediate disruptions to their lives um through the construction and through the you know slight impacts of of added traffic um so uh you know to folks like Janine Palms um who took what could have been a really divisive uh development and turned it into something that the whole neighborhood could rally behind um is super beautiful and to to watch so thanks to them as well uh ultimately I'd be happy and proud to vote for this tonight exactly as it is I think there's been a tremendous amount of work that's gone into it I do have um a few questions though just as clarifiers um the first is to the developer um are the renderings that uh were Linked In the staff report that are dated July 2019 are those still the most accurate representations of uh the aesthetic that you're trying to capture um are you referring Zack to first thank you so much seriously you had me choked up uh the are you referring to the elevation renderings of the homes uh yeah and there's also some yes and in the streets as well as some stock photographs of beautiful homes around yeah so thank thanks for asking that question because um the answer is is is no those have always been intended to be conceptual designs um uh everybody wants to see what we might build there we are we have deliberately waited uh until this stage to design everything vertically because um we really wanted to make sure everything on the ground is working and then work from literally from beneath the soil Megan glid from biohabitats can tell you all about that we really looked from where is the water going and then building up and then we're designing as we go from there um and then also that helps as a developer that you can adapt different unit types uh um um you know as as Market changes happen as pandemics happen and things like that so far all the unit types are exactly the same interior floor plans might change but the buildings won't the designs the buildings are there just as examples of things The Farmhouse will have very similar feel okay um and uh and a lot of it will have a very similar feel again so go ahead sorry is attachment k a better representation that's the site plan with buildings attachment which um Alexis can you put that up attachment K and while she's pulling that up I just want to make sure we don't miss the opportunity because there there was a um uh that goes along with the amendments that you'll be voting on tonight I want to see if there's a way to get that in Alexis we noticed that there was an error on the south setback and if you've got questions about it Heath har from MCI can address that uh it should have been 30 feet it says 50 50 would you know the barn is within 50 feet of that and so um so instead of having a 20 foot setback which is on the North side we would have a 30 foot setback but not a 50 foot setback we can we can address that yeah just want to make sure that there we don't miss a detail that's super important so the screen share the screen share right now is attachment k um and it was taken from the uh current site plan package um there I'll I'll move through them quickly and then tell me if you're good or if you want to move back um sheet one is yeah and so Zach are these the sheets that you're referring to yep okay yeah I can let Ben Willis from Union Studio architecture and Community planning um uh address that again all of these designs that you see here these are not these are not designs uh for vidiian uh uh they sorry they are designs for vidiian but they're not what is going to be built as is these were just perceptual designs um primarily to really kind of just give a feel of what the neighborhood might be like and if you notice they've got some funky roof shapes and things that on the ground with Landscaping will be balanced out but um they're unique because they allow for solar on the North and the South Side by having that shell roof pitch so the the roofs are very intentionally designed to be like that um uh but uh if you're interested Ben Willis from can can I'm comfortable with that answer that just clarifies what I'm yeah Focus my on um thanks um colleagues may very well have follow questions on that which ask but um and then in the supplemental regulations and development agreement I had a hard time finding two important items um the first is the 99e affordability Covenant and the second is the 400 kilowatts of sustainable energy production where where would I find those guarantees the and um I will only give a partial answer um regarding the kilowatt hours um it' be super difficult for the city to enforce that and measure it and monitor that so our the supplemental regulations are relying on the uh living building challenge and meeting those standards will uh wrap in those um however if I am very open to suggestions for um how how the city can come up with a way to keep tabs on that and enforce that um um we're open to listening but given the resources we have available right now we are relying on adherence to the living building challenge to um capture that for us so we would essentially use the living building challenge as like a third party auditor if they get that accreditation we can assume that they also meet that 400 kilowatt hour promise uh that our operating assumption yes okay Mr gr you want yeah I can simplify that so in our purchase agreement with the county we've agreed to to install 400kw and these are funky terms but 400kw is actually installed solar so we're we're committed to developing that amount of solar as a minimum standard so that's a measurable uh that that's a measurable thing so um uh and again that would be you know that's what we pledge as a minimum so that's measurable with the living building challenge and the living community challenge that is a performance-based standard that takes years so we have already uh registered the project so that alone is is a is a massive commitment we've already satisfied that criteria um and everything else is being designed that way but the measurable thing that is important and the amount of production that actually happens just is relies on the sun and the clouds and everything else the amount we install is a measurable thing and that's 400kw is the minimum that we've we've have in our purchase agreement and that's something the city can hang their hat on with confidence from day one okay so you have you have a contract with the county that said that guarantees a minimum yep can Mr L Miss Deo just between Planning Commission and city council can we do some documentation of that maybe in a memo or staff report just to say know the County will be the enforcing party yeah I've already taken note of that okay because I think that'll give reassurance which your I just want to clar clarify we've been we we've been sort of careful to not um they've made various commitments to the county as part of their purchase agreement is my understanding we are not party to that so as those things could change I just want to be clear when we're setting those thresholds we're sort of adding a parallel requirement to that and I would specifically ask in that regard um we had a little bit of this discussion with another project is the intention that that has to be realized at unit one or does that have to be realized at unit 99 um when we're looking at that are you interested in us going One Direction or the other to help us understand the the clarity of that language well so this project is would only be and correct me if I'm wrong but my assumption was this project will only be phased North and South but like South itself won't be phased construction yes but um the nature of a it it's not currently proposed to be phasing phased I would be very surprised if this doesn't end up being phased because the nature of projects like this is that they will ultimately construct finish a unit and they'll want to realize the sale or occupancy of that unit perhaps before they finish other units you're correct it's not being proposed to be phase I'd be very surprised if it doesn't end up being phased and so that's why I just want to be to clarify I presume Our intention is we want to get to a 400 kilow hour goal and I'm presuming that we should do that in a way that provides the flexibility that they can incrementally get there as they're relying on rooftops and the like yeah that that makes sense if we can find a way to sculpt that language in some kind of I just yeah yep no I I think that makes good sense and that that the same conversation we're having about Valhalla two weeks ago right okay um that makes good sense to me and then uh I apologize if you mentioned but the 99e affordability Covenant where where would we find that I think that it's going to have to go in the aord the an affordability agreement um you are correct it is not in the supplemental regulations right now but our UDC just requires those to be Perpetual units so that'll be that'll be part of the method by which we enforce it so the UDC requires that a PUD to have affordable units it actually doesn't set a time frame 99 years becomes the de facto kind of way to memorialize that um but it could be longer but it to be clear we're not proposing anything shorter of term it is intended to be permanent affordable housing units okay commissioner sov you you have something that jumps off this just attachment B page two shows affortable housing 99 years and the minimum 400 kilowatts for reference so that's the Pud development just cover those two things and is I guess where does the develop is a development program a contract that we execute with um it is not it is background and supporting materials for to um help your understanding and to help you um make your decision it's explaining what is being proposed and what is going on but the um the regulations are the supplemental regulations and then um details on execution are in the development agreement okay um so so I guess the 99e affordability Covenant baked into the zoning they apply for a PUD they rezoned as a PUD it's their by by default so okay I I get that um cool so it sounds like we're going to work on some language around the 400 kilowatt hours um and the housing is taken care of by its nature and I'm interpret I'm interpreting You' like to see this in the supplement of rigs more explicitly than just through the living communities challenge I think that that's wise but if that I mean if that becomes overly complicated complicated and restrictive um in a way that doesn't allow the developer to actually build um then I mean Mr lonard to your point as as they construct more they'll be able to realize more on the rooftops so if we can away no no I just I just yeah absolutely that that goes without saying but I I just want to clarify your comfort or the commission's comfort with relying on the living communties challenge which which includes some aspect of renewable it probably incorporates a lot of other sustainability aspects as well um currently the supplemental rigs require this project to meet that they might do that through the provision of forign kilowatts we could also say in addition to that or component to that or independent of that we expect a minimum of X number of kilowatt hours per square foot of housing to be realized through development yeah I think to Mr grof's point that the living building challenge is a accreditation certification that will take time and so that makes our enforcement of that dependent on this third party's validation so then are we holding a certificate of occupancy until this third party you know for which we have no control you know issues that accreditation that that um so I do I do think that there's an opportunity like Ballo to do that if that makes sense okay awesome thank you Mr um and then the our our lone Brave caller asked about a traffic study so I just want to make sure that we we address that on the front end um is someone prepared developer or staff to speak to traffic impacts um I am not I mean I'm happy to wing it but I don't have to our transportation engineers Cynthia readinger is on this call meeting time is ringer hello got a member of the I can um I can preface it by saying um there has been a traffic study done it has been reviewed by the city Traffic Engineers um who did not find anything worthy of um uh or who did not find fault with it now Cynthia can um provide any details or a general overview as you like yeah um I can provide a brief overview of the transportation impact analysis that was submitted this location um they did prepare their their transportation impact analysis and they did have to go through one round of revisions before we accepted it um just uh a a little bit of information on it I you know the they are proposing a mix of uses in the transportation impact analysis it is um you'll find it in the zoning so it's it's not actually located with um with the site plans it's referenced by the site plans but it's in the zoning because it is for uh the rezoning and the Pud in the transportation study they have broken out um which trips are being generated by each of the individual site plans so that you can get a better understanding of that and in this location we did have the the engineer who is preparing the study utilize trip reductions uh for multimodality because in this location we do anticipate having multi modality as compared to uh the Valla project which you were recently looking at where we did not use those trip reductions so we have trip reductions for um for walking and for biking and for Transit as well okay so if I please go ahead I was just going to say the um the proposed new intersections of the private driveways with the public infrastructure on Plat are not expected to have any um any operational concerns the nearby intersections which are already um overc capacity during Peak periods you know they will continue to be over capacity but this development is not expected to have um an overly large impact on on those locations or really to change functionality much at all awesome can I try reading that back to you and you let me know how I how I did um you know this is a a residential development um for which you know there will will be some level of car traffic not so much that it raises red flags but we also anticipate given the nature of this project that there's going to be a lot of folks um biking and walking and using Transit given its location on multiple bus lines given its proximity to parks and Retail um and given its uh bike access along washt not towards downtown um as such you know if I'm a nearby neighbor I shouldn't be worried about getting out of my driveway however the issues that I see on hon and on Plat that already exist will continue to exist but they're not going to be exacerbated that's accurate okay awesome thank you um and then the the last item was just uh the the error of the setback from the 30 feet to the 60 feet the 30 feet to the 50 fet um and I just wanted to get a sense of um I mean if it if it's just a little Amendment you know maybe just knock that out now I think it's just a clerical error um e you want to address it uh yeah I can I can quickly address that we had uh when we had submitted our recommended PUD regulations um we had proposed a 30 foot uh setback on the south um that would get us outside of both a u a water main easement um that exists and also get us outside of that 25 foot landscape buffer um 50 foot was as Matt said would be uh encroaching further than what we had had planned for the development for the P so it reads 50 now and you okay so that so in the Pug supplemental regulations is that that's page 3 item 4 c 2 a so I would make a motion to amend in the supplemental regulations for item e for C to a a change of 50 feet to 30 feet moved by commissioner acrian seconded by commissioner s discussion on the um motion to amend my only question is to staff is that kind of you're reading to and looking closely yes at the site plan that that's appropriate there yeah okay all right um all in favor of the motion uh the the amendment at proposed please raise your hand or say I I anyone opposed I don't see anyone um all right so now we have an amended motion you still have the floor Mr akman I'm an enthusiastic yes and I'm excited to hear other colleagues thoughts okay commissioner Woods I just have a couple of questions about the traffic and again with um with Miss readinger um is is now if I'm not mistaken there's a school across the street from this development is that correct yes that is correct sumers no um and I think the last time they that we looked at this item that the school was in favor of it if I'm not mistaken but um the developer could tell us about that but how will this impact if children who live it children from the development are going to go to the uh uh to the school across the street for example if and I know I think it's a private school or something but at any rate how would they are there any planned um um cross walks or anything between the development and the school across the street or would they go down to the corner uh at what is that platin pack platin here on River no platin uh here on River drive at that point and then come back up or um did that come up there um there's actually currently a crosswalk located near the school itself and yes it is a private school um but there is a crosswalk that is currently um located there and it is marked and signed as a school crossing and it has a school speed zone associated with it as part of the transportation impact study they did take a look at that crosswalk and if um the additional traffic would change where it lies within our crosswalk design guidelines and if any changes would need to be made and it was not found that there would be need to be any changes additionally um as part of our completes streets um policy for the city the both of the new intersections with the private approaches that are being created on Plat will have um non-motorized access so they they will have crosswalks um they will be installed according with designs according to our design guidelines and consistent with the corridor and positive contrast lighting will be provided by the developer as well thank you and then I had one other question and that was back during your um um information to us Mr Leo and you were saying there were there was one of the slides that indicated um uh and this was about the affordable housing and it was talking about the north side having um 100% affordable housing and then on the other side of that wasn't happening and there were three things that could happen one of which was a return I think of funding back to the developer could could you just put up that slide for a second I want to make sure that I understand what was happening while she's pulling that up I could um maybe explain some of the rationale for some of those ideas um one is um again these are um going to come in their timing scenarios so we were trying to basic create flexibility one scenario is the South site could just create its own affordable housing dwells dwelling units independent of the north um and if they did 15% of their units they'd be compliant okay or if by the time the South market rate housing units are ready for occupancy the North affordable housing units have been completed then they um that North those North units will meet the requirement for the entire site and that meets the set that meets the requirements or we're looking at two sort of in between options if you will one might be a payment in Li which is a option provided under the Pud where they would the on the market rate side they would be paying contributions into the city's affordable housing fund at a rate consistent with our formula where they're maintaining compliance with 15% of however many dwelling units are are essentially coming online in and if after a three-year period those North units have then now been fully realized those monies would be returned because the the requirement will have been met otherwise if that doesn't happen those funds would meet the affordable housing requirements um via a payment andl contribution instead of providing the units and then the last option we're exploring and I think this one probably has the most a lot of potential for other uh documents is um to for the city to frankly accept some minimal level of risk that is um that the units the affordable units on the North site are at some stage of progress but not complete where we are comfortable assuming that they are at a a progress state where we have um I guess comfort that will be ultimately realized so um so that was the The Return of money would be basically kind of until the units on the North are realized and then that is no longer required okay um and so that payment in L um and and I'm familiar with that you know for other uh times when it comes up when the developers decided they don't want to build the affordable or they've decided they've declined to do it um so that would be payment in Li and that would probably include interest or whatever the city was accumulating for whatever funding that was at the time no no typically with an escro payment we do not um it doesn't accumulate interest so that would just be a flat contribution and a flat re the refund of the same amount if that um scenario were to occur okay um and can you just remind me how many commissioner Woods I would mention that um so no interest typically accurs with um when it's in escr but the payment in lie can be set the amount can be set every year by Council so that's sort of in lie of Interest the payment inl amount is not necessarily static it can rise or fall with market conditions so what if they were to build it in 2021 um and chose the payment in l option it would be might be one price but if they were to build it in 2025 it might be a different payment and L amount and okay so and who keeps track of that city council or the uh um the um planning depart uh planning office but as well as the um County's office of um um I'm gonna get it wrong but community and economic development um and the uh they help administer um um these types of things and so um it's it's basically on file the amount is on file until it is changed and um uh the the county often spearheads the need for increasing the amount based on market conditions okay all right thank you that helps also saber Brier sends me an annual email asking about it well what's going to happen next year I guess I'll have to start sending the email thank you anything else commissioner Woods no you're on mute so um um commissioner so's hand is the one that I see just had a followup about if they assigned affordable housing to the South site and then they built the north how like can you just kind of flip where the affordable units go in the midst of the agreement and say assign them to different units I think that's what we're kind of trying to do but not by unit by unit you know building by building we're we're saying that if the nor if Avalon builds their or when they build yeah they're they're 50 units those 50 are it's basically um it's almost 30% of the total number of units so their 50 alone mean means that the whole project has at least 15% affordable so if if they go first everyone is covered if Thrive goes first if Thrive goes first without these Provisions then no affordable units are provided so we want to make sure that there's options on the table right so question is about the option that they make affordable housing on the south site okay then they build on the North site and the north site is Affordable can you then redact the South site affordable or once they become designated affordable for 99 years can you not Shuffle the units away you know it's a good question but I think you could adjust those as long as you are ultimately meeting the minimum requirements okay so by scenario if say for some reason the North uh site didn't get developed for 20 years but the South site um was developed within 3 years um under that scenario one of those Provisions is going to have to apply either the payment in Li in which no units are realized but then the clock expires and those funds go into the affordable housing Fund in that circumstance it would be satisfied um in the event that they designated units and then 20 years from then the north gets built and 50 units are built there and they say hey can we convert these 15% to market rate the answer would be yes because it would be compliant with the supplemental regulations at that point they're meeting the minimum VI of the north units and then they'd have 80 years left well again they're Perpetual we use 99 terms for the contracts but they should be Perpetual okay I just want to make sure like if if they're doing this kind of evolving you know revolving door to kind of get to it legally if it's blocking it in or not because I think the intent is to provide flexibility and so I just raise it just in case you know legally just cross check it as along yeah just as a reminder though with um you know rental affordable units is much easier than ownership affordable units I'm not saying that they're impossible but when you're thinking about these two sites and the mix of ownership models being considered ownership models can be much more challenging so um I think the likelihood for frankly for ease of financing is that the site is probably going to be developed and realized in a very similar way to what's being proposed for for some of those financial reasons yeah got it yeah this is that was my only other clarification thank you there questions comments from planning Commissioners uh commissioner abon um maybe Mr Leonard or uh Mr Leo could just remind me um what things go with the rezoning and what things go with the site plan so the supplemental regulations are part of the Pud um so the um if if it helps I don't know um so we are rezoning it to PUD I suppose you can also um think of it as we are rezoning it to vidiian and the supplemental regulations are the UniFi development code for this particular site and so they run so the Pud on the zoning map and the supplemental regulations run with the land um and that would be and if it if approved that that's the zoning designation and those are the rules that you need to abide um abide by um in that case um thri thrive could walk away Avalon could walk away and any other developer could come in but they have to live with the adopted supplemental regulations um then right on the in the same meeting you know you can imagine this could be done years apart but in the same meeting we also have Thrive has proposed a site plan and Avalon has proposed a site plan um and the only difference for these site plans is we are not judging them against um the uh for example r4b area height and placement we're judging them against the vidiian supplemental regulations that say 45 feet in height 30 foot side set back 10 foot set back um so the the site plans are the um entitlements to the developers to De develop they have three years from approval if three years go by their site plans expire and they'll have to come back but the zoning designation and the supplemental regulations um run with the land okay that helps [Music] um so like um if Thrive and Avalon decided not to pursue this project or for some reason the site plans weren't approved but the Pug zoning was approved there would still be like a North District and a South district and the North District would have all the affordable heal like all of that stuff is actually goes with the zoning yes yes yeah the requirement that so if you notice the Pud sub regulations they don't say Thrive or Avalon but um for for any developer the next one um they can buy the north component and then they need to follow the north component regulations which says it um all has to be two stories has to be 10 foot setback um all all of those things has to be all affordable um and then same thing for the South component um someone else could come in uh but they have to live with these supplemental regulations um they have to have this variety of housing type they have to have these setbacks these height they have to they have to register the living building challenge um okay yeah so that helps thanks that's my only question for now thank you commissioner hamers Schmid I have kind of a lot I don't think any of them are huge questions but it's mostly because I'm very excited about this project my very first Planning Commission meeting along with commissioner abin was what just over a year ago and it's the meeting where you guys brought us this project and I was so excited about it that I've been wondering for a year when it was coming back so I'm thrilled um I'll stay on the affordable housing piece for a minute there's just some things I wanted to make sure that I'm clear on so of the 50 I think the math was wrong when it was in the presentation so I just want to be clear 30 of them are supportive for less than 30% Ami 10 are for ozone and then you said 20 were for under 60% but you meant 10 were for under under 60% because 30 plus 10 plus 20 is 60 I'm gonna defer to Wendy Cardis Saxon but I think what she's going to say is the 30 that are supportive and 10 for ozone she means 30 or supportive including 10 thank you and and she's not and she's nodding got it got it got it got it okay it's an easy question okay then I was trying to do math so if the north is not realized and we we and we have these options for you know what to do with the pieces on the south is it is the 15% 15% of the South which is 99 or is it 15% of the total which is 149 15% of the total of the total so if the north is not realized the South has to come up with 23 units or payment and L or whatever we it's 15% it's going to be it's a 15% number it's not a number so they're as as their numbers increase they're going to have to provide 15% if if that's realized and then 50 units come later on the North site that is also going to have to provide 50% of the units oh no that would still be have to be all affordable so it's it's 15% of what is built so if they on the south so it's not 15% of the total is 15% of the total built okay okay got it um okay so is there a scenario where not all 50 are built then like is there any sort of well is there a scenario where not all 50 would be built or is this sort of like an all or nothing and maybe that's a question for the the petitioner right yeah the way we're structuring it at the moment is we're looking to put in our funding application for all 50 so they would all come together okay then I think my question is Moot and then the the P supplemental the supplemental regulations um don't have a minimum dwelling unit though now that would be separate from Avalon funding commitments but the the sub don't have a minimum or maximum number dwelling units the maximum would be 16 dwelling units per acre but they don't have a minimum but we do say all of whatever you do achieve so there there is technically a difference between what is required and what Avon is going to do it's I think in this case their funding requirements are going to dictate over okay okay and I'm this is just I'm just curious I know we have this now you know 15% of units are required to be affordable do we have any requirements on like the size of those affordable units or the number of bedrooms or do we just sort of leave that up to the developers we chose to leave it um we could we have the ability um to put in further restrictions parameters regulations but we chose to leave it as open as possible to give them the most flexibility as possible if the commission decides otherwise they can discuss okay I mean I think you know all all 50 on in a perfect world when this is all built all 50 and the north as affordable with the variety of units it's not an issue I don't know it becomes an issue then if the north is not realized and then you know I just I wouldn't want to get into a situation where all the the affordable units are the micro units and then we're not you know looking at this equitably and like really addressing affordable housing concerns of like our entire Community just to be clear though if if the sou happened that could that could occur we're not we're not saying that it has to be a certain blend it just is is a number of units so um I I just want to be clear again I think I I think that scenario is quite unlikely but um if that's not something we're specifying we're just saying 15% of the units um in I your question is a good one this does happen in other projects that have been market rate and affordable um they tend to be the small units because that has a smaller impact to um and um while I think in this case you have um um a partner who is really committed to a mixed income globally they also have some Financial realities that might make it challenging for us to add that layer of restriction okay I'd be interested in others thoughts but I'm going to move on for now um okay the Living Community challenge you're registered the supplemental RS say say that just need to be registered I'm curious what is the process for getting certified and how is how is that different than just being registered you'll have to attend one of my two-hour workshops on the be challenge for the I would sort of love to um yeah know it's actually really cool so right now we're working on uh what is called The Living Community challenge compliant master plan and um what's cool about that is is that we basically present this this overarching vision of this is what we could achieve this is what we should achieve and this is how we would get there conceptually kind of like what I did with the Net Zero um diagrams that I showed you tonight that this is showing how we would get there and we'll have to show some of that for the master plan too in much greater detail with all the spreadsheets and the numbers um uh basically just showing that yes this is possible this is How We Do It here's the master plan um once that happens then we go into uh construction period uh and then after construction we go into uh the occupancy period and to be certified it's when everything is complete you've checked off all the boxes and uh you've occupied it for 12 months of performance and that performance period is what separates this from virtually every other standard in the world this is not how many bike racks do you have it's not even how much solar do you have they don't care it's not a prescriptive thing it's it's what are you achieving in total and uh and it's up to you to decide how to achieve that and the standards are actually quite simple it's you have to harvest all your energy on site just like a tree does and um and you know and we and then so that's Loosely the process there's another hour and 55 minutes we could go on about that we'll save that for another day I do just want to add just one one other thing about this because we've gotten into big discussion about these supplemental regs that honestly for for for the committee's novel understanding we all kind of learned about this yesterday and it's it's really a function of this funky thing that we had to do by separating the parcels the initial plan for this community was that we would be one joined legal parcel lawyers and funders and investors all got involved and said no you can't do that you have to have two separate Parcels so we're stuck once again with one of these conventional barriers so the goal here is that we really do have 33% of affordable housing units and not just affordable housing units but you know people have recently experienced homelessness like so so that's the goal here is to make that happen um so you know I just want to be careful of not getting into this uh oh you know this idea oh we're letting this developer get away with zero affordable housing and that's not it at all under the original plan it was we do the whole thing and we we gift the land the developed land to Avalon because we can't do that anymore we raised our purchase price with the county in order to supplement that and and Avalon gets the land for free and so on we we could talk for hours about this but just understand it's one of these FY stupid uh unintentional consequences of decades and Decades of regulatory things of code things of of financial things of funding all of these things that are barriers that we're we're discovering as we uh put this over or not even discovering sometimes deliberately pushing up against them to show that these need to be changed moving forward so and I love your vision I love your dedication I love this partnership I think this could be replicated across the country I love I'd love to clone you thank you all over the country um okay just to make sure I'm clear on this living sorry just to go back quickly to the living communities you're occupied for 12 months which means that they actually get to see how the buildings are performing right like that is a benefit of this particular certification system do they have to come in and like recertify at any point in time or is it they evaluate you after a year you get your certification then you're you're good to go at at this point in the living building program um no you don't have certify um yeah I was just curious okay just have a few more things and I'm sorry if I missed this somewhere um the units on the South Side are they for sale or they for rent uh they're perform it for sale but they they could be rentals but yes TBD okay okay um who is managing the farm stop are you and you I remember you mentioned a year ago and you said it ago tonight a little bit modeled after Argus so is there like a third party coming in to it take it will be that that that person has not been identified we're in constant talks with Kathy and Bill at Argus and um uh you know I I I will tell you I'm I will push to have some sort of partnership in that I want to be part of that um but we don't know who will be managing it and it does have a name it's the honey locust Farm stop um but beyond that um uh there's there's lot more to work out and again we haven't really started working on that uh because we're we we we we got to get through city council and all this other stuff has to be all of these questions are me being selfish because I'm just like personally very interested these are the questions I love I only have a few more I promise guys um the community center I assume is open to all residents of the site it's you know technically on the North piece but I'm assuming like that you me somebody mentioned there's a meeting space like I'm just assuming like any Resident at vidian can access the community center yeah I mean we do with the size of it we're primarily anticipating that the within the unit or within the community center is probably primarily the folks on the north but barbecues outdoor activities bigger activities certainly and you know additional things that we're able to accommodate certainly be open to folks more and again so just a neat addition uh the um again when you look at it you see how it's designed the purpose is that you can't Identify the property boundary so there you know the the playground which is technically Avalon's fictional side of the boundary and this other open space which we'll have we're calling these Community moments that are yet to be designed um that's all one contiguous space so as built it you you just won't know that there's this legal fiction underneath it yeah I that's even from the rendering like that's very obvious to me um speaking of the playground in the open space that's my next question is that private for this that's private for this development correct or uh not necessarily no that's I mean these all these spaces are designed to be open again with access people we know people will be passing to and from the park and actually part of the Living Community challenge is one of the aspects is um is place and under that uh you have to maintain the What's called the rights to Nature um and you have to provide these Public Access to it awesome yeah not privatizing stuff it's we're not gross [Laughter] point this is I love it um so then I assume I assume though that it is privately managed public space public space like you guys are somebody within this agreement is maintaining those spaces yeah that would be a just classic uh homeowners association right okay I remember that from a year ago now um okay and I appreciate like Council acman thank you for mentioning all of the public support that this project has gotten I was surprised that we got a couple of um of letters from people that were not as thrilled about this project and a couple of them mentioned they didn't want to see this project on a park space and I just sort of wanted to reiterate this is not a park this was County Land it's zoned public land but it's County land that was a juvenile detention facility and may it while it may look like a park today it is not part of County Farm Park which is staying as a park this is a completely separate parcel I just wanted to put that on the record because a couple of people mentioned don't take away my park space or something to that effect and that is all for me for now thank you I really am truly very excited about this project uh commissioner milstein I will keep it very brief uh since most actually all of my questions have been answered actually all but one um so first I just want to say I'm really excited about this project I am looking forward to it um I've been on the commission for over five years is that right commissioner mels over five years we've been on here something like that uh maybe six something like that and I can count on probably just one hand how many times we've had uh affordable housing uh before us um especially affordable housing that is uh of this size um you know we keep chipping away little by little by little but we're finally like this is this is how we get to it so um I'm very excited about this and I'm very happy that Avalon um is a part of this project um one of the questions that I'm often asked about any project that comes before us is what's the timeline um so if all goes well today and by early fall you have city council approval um um what is the timeline for both the North and the South I can answer for the north uh so we have applied for some funding uh got awarded some the big piece of funding is low-income housing ta the latter part of 2021 begin building and then occupancy the latter part of 2022 is when we would start lease up and how about the other side of the project yeah on the vidiian side this is uh this is Joey Jonah um we're we're hoping to get through this process by October uh we'll finish our construction documents and apply for permit we expect about six months for that um and then at that point we're ready to break ground depending on winter conditions so um you know this winter or early spring is the ideal scenario for us okay thank you so much I'm looking around for hands I have a list as I always do but I will I don't see anybody else okay I'm gonna go through my list first off with the platitudes of like thanks this is amazing I I Echo all of the positive things others said and I would just highlight one thing that I'm really excited about I know Mr groof you talked about like the difficulty of splitting it into two like for reasons I actually think that this the the fact that you are two neighboring land owners that are working together and integrating a development that allows for this coming um multiple points of Entry between your properties is something that we push other developers to do all the time and we don't see and so I'm really excited that again um what commissioner arriman said before about being able to point to a project um and say this is what we had in mind mind like actually I know it sounds like it was a pain that that was the that that was the requirement of having these two things but I think it helps us see that it's possible um and so I would just I really appreciate how you really have blurred the line between those two and and you can flow seamlessly between these developments um I that set of comments about the Pud the supplemental regulations and then a set of questions about the site plan so on the supplemental regulations it is my I don't know self-appointed Duty on Planning Commission to figure out like what happens in worst case scenario and I know that there's been a lot of talk about the um affordable housing component of that and I am comfortable very comfortable with the approach laid out um and so I have no problem with that um actually the three benefits so that so there were three key benefits that Mr Leo talked about early on uh affordability so we've talked a lot about that one mixed income which I think that that's where are my notes that's on one of the tables it's very clearly spelled out um the minimum percentage of single family detached you know duplexes um multif family I think that's fantastic like we're I love that we are putting in the supplemental regulations that no matter what happens with these site plans that component of this will be required for anyone who wants to develop this site so I good job um staff on that sustainability um is another aspect and thank you commissioner hamers Schmidt for like hammering well for figuring out what exactly this is like we see a lot of lead so how is this different and um and so I appreciate that I also appreciate that staff so I'm comfortable I know it's having kilowatts is a is a clearer measure from the get-go right there's no risk associated necessarily with that and the fact that you have to live in this building and it has to function as you hope it functions um is risky but I really appreciate that staff has included you know what H so what happens if you're found to not be able to achieve that compliance years down the road and um that you have to then come back and negotiate what are comparable um comparable sustainability benefits so I feel covered on that aspect um the things that I would highlight that are in the supplemental regulations that are you know what's the difference between what we see in the site plans and what the supplemental regulations allow or require um is having to do with height so my reading of the site plans is that there's you know um night nothing at least shown right now on the Thrive side that's over like 38 feet but the supplemental regulations allow up to 45 feet I'm pointing that out I'm not concerned about it I don't think that was a primary concern voiced by neighbors um but I just want to make sure that like we're aware that if the worst case scenario happens right there that there could be taller buildings what are shown it's a minimum requirement of two stories um but there could be things that are taller than what we see um is that fair um uh actually I can ask Thrive and um and Avalon as well like I'm not reading the site plans wrong you're not maxing out the 45 foot height limit right right does that that gives us flexibility in a lot of areas and what we it was something we had to work out with the fire chief because that height thing is funky and so that would allow us to go as high as you know three four stories tall uh and then get some uh extra housing and everything else and again that gives us flexibility that makes this possible and the next thing that you hit on was about F which is or I'm sorry not F but um uh the density so you're right now your density your allowable density is up to 16 units per acre and what you have my calculations I think are 11.6 um so from me I mean actually my question that I'm goingon to ask to you is why are you only 11.6 and not 16 because this is the site that is like highly accessible you know this is where we want people building yeah no there's a there's a lot of functions for that and thanks for asking that question because in the dream world we would be finding ways of making these things more dense the the the weird thing is it's like it's it's units and the way we count units is just so kind of silly right and an arbitrary thing so if if you turn one of the homes one of the single family homes into four micro units it's four units instead of one so we have the option to doing that later with with the with with the uh you know the r4b frankly so um uh you know and then the other function of that is like you know on the footprints themselves how do you do that we're pushing up against all kinds of things when you do green infrastructure uh it's you know again Megan's one of our favorite people in the world right now uh you know trying to figure out where where are the setbacks where do you put your Equalization drain pipes inside of your bio swes these are all things you know do you tear down Bur Oak trees to allow for uh a setback that doesn't work now because you had to put your sidewalk going around the Baroque trees like crazy things like that are all really Dynamic and complex in a way that most developers would just say let's just build a grid and pop everything on here and maximize everything and we didn't do that we really tried to balance everything and optimize it um that said we want to find the opportunities to increase density um and then also really see give us flexibility going forward with market conditions um which is you know this is unique because we're doing this zoning and the site plan together so we have to present that but we don't have to design every square inch of this right now and we can do that in the next months after we get approval and really nail down some of that stuff so that again gives us that flexibility and I would say I'm fine with the flexibility I want to make sure that everybody on Planning Commission knows and you know whoever's watching us out on TV world that you know there's a possibility that that that you're site plants don't show more units than that but if there were if we approve the rezoning to this PUD with these supplemental regulations a future development there there could be more units right just because there is some difference and so I'm fine with that and I would encourage that and welcome that flexibility that you're building in this is the place for that and I think that the plans that we see show that you are doing density right um and so but I want to make sure that that's just um transparent there um just one more thing I'm sorry to interrupt you um uh just in case there are folks out there talking about the density and the 45 foot height I I don't want anybody to get the notion that we could just the entire site becomes 45 feet it's not even possible because the the fire chief has an issue um the only place where that is possible is one building and that's The Farmhouse and we deliberately put in a a permeable uh what will likely be like a grass it would look like grass but it is r for to hold a fire truck so you've got this really Innovative way where we can expand this roadway to allow for a fire truck but it doesn't look like a wider Road and that's the only place that you could get to that kind of height so we really don't have the option to get to that height in any other place um and in and even in terms of like if if the idea of density is um concerning to some people um again all of that density would need to be within the living building challenge because that's written into the supplemental regs too and so there's so additional units would still need to be able to cover all of their own energy right and so I think that that's um I just want to make make sure like that people understand there's a lot of um you know when you rezone something especially when it comes along with a site plan um there's sometimes an expectation that that's exactly what you're going to see and we hope I mean we all hope upon hope that that's what we see but I think um there there is some flexibility in case you have to go back to the drawing board in terms of the site plan but I'm comfortable with this is the place for that density like I said I think that even higher I would be comfortable with because because of where it is and where it's accessible um I this I'm skipped over this when I was talking about height but Mr Leo in the in the supplemental regs there's a within the height section there's a reference to paragraph nine like it here are the height limits except reference to paragraph nine I think it might have just been from revising I think it refers to the twostory minimum that's in now called 8f does that make sense I'm I'm trying to look at Z well um it's certainly possible it's hard working in a p it's hard working in a pandemic certainly possible I have a typo thank you for pointing it out um the the height is intended uh um I think you I think you got the concept um there's a twostory height limit but we did want to make an exception for the community building yeah and I think what I was talking about in case uh and yeah and then I did w to um I did want to um I see exactly is it now the height um the maximum height um I want to be I'm always conscious of there are some people who don't read the entire breadth of the regulations so when if you do talk about height in two different places I like to cross reference yeah so I don't think that my sense is that that's not like we don't need to have an actual motion for just like a m missed reference but just to point it out for the when you're moving forward thank you I do appreciate the extra eyes I can't help myself uh um I also want to point out that there is um there are limitations on how much um accessory use there can be non-residential um that differ from North and South but I want to also be clear to everyone there's no requirement that we see um a non-residential component is that right is that the correct reading of this cor correct there's no requirement that there is but they but it is enabled right sometimes I mean um this is this often comes up in our discussions of puds because the Pud is one of those um things where it allows for mixed use um more so than some of our other districts that's not the basis on which like this is unique um and so I am okay with not requiring there to be non-residential uses um I just want to highlight that again worst case scenario um and we you know these site plans don't get built and some something else does it may not include a non-residential component it may not have these accessory uses um let's see those are my comments about the Pud so effect the the supplemental regulations so generally I think that they're great I did have I did want to raise the question though um Mr Leo you had noted in your staff report or in your presentation um I think it was in six a I I about the number of deciduous trees or something if we need to make a change you s you seem to indicate that maybe that 75 was wrong it looks like yeah I got word um late today that the 75 was um someone double counted some trees and so um the petitioners asked if we could go um down to 50 which would be pretty close to what the normal um one I believe it's like one tree for every 30 feet is so um if the commission is comfortable reducing the 75 to 50 or um comfortable just matching the tree number requirement same as the traditional conflicting land use buffer the thing that we wanted to mostly add in the supplemental regulations was a specific allowance for spacing to work around the uh easements and overhead lines and whatnot um but um thank you for pointing it out um I I think we can cover it with nodding or we can do it more formally with an amendment but the petitioner said that they accidentally double counted when they reported the numbers to me um so they asked if it can go to 50 or to the traditional um standard I think that this is something that I'd like us to vote on in part as an amendment in part because this is one of the you know we didn't get very many letters and given the size of this development we you know I would ex you know I think that speaks to how much Community engagement there was but I think based on the folks that we're hearing about it's generally on the southern property line I like that there are there's something documenting an enhanced Southern buffer but this particular one especially because it's deciduous effectively the yearround um the yearround trees I think it is worth I want to make sure whatever we have there is at least as protective as what is in the current UDC personally um but I'm happy to make an amendment to change this to um to perhaps just reflect that um similar to what you did for the you know to to strike this is that the is that the best would that be the best recommend uh the best path forward um to to just again kind of make sure that the Deciduous nature of here is planted in to at least meet what is what is required in the UDC um yes I um let me read the the UDC requirement um there again there are three components to a conflicting land use buffer the first component is the width and it must be at least 15 feet wide our enhanced buffer is going to say average of 25 feet although some places can be a minimum of 15 but it must be an average of 25 um the second part of a conflicting land use buffer is the plantings the UDC requires one tree for each 15 feet or a fraction 50% of the trees need to be Evergreen um 100% could but 15% need to be Evergreen the rest could be deciduous um um and our enhanced buffer talked about uh we put in a number we the there's been a request to go back from a number to uh one tree for every 15 feet um and then the third component of a conflicting land use buffer required is a um continuous screening in the form of a head Edge burm or wall um a fence is considered a subtype of a wall our enhanced buffer is saying no burm no wall it must be a dense shrub hedge um so looping background for the um there's a request on the floor that the component that says a minimum of 75 trees be switched to either 50 trees or one tree for um for every 15 feet or a fraction thereof consistent with the UDC do you know what the length is uh give me one minute after 900m I trust my memory I do not trust my memory and I also deciduous does not mean Chris like Evergreens sorry see I know a little bit and I know decis means leaves not not needles uh yeah sorry sorry I'm the Jeopardy guy uh deciduous is when leaves can fall off the trees at certain times of year it is not Evergreen yeah as I was saying it in my head I was thinking I don't think that sounds right but I'm just going to go with it there's nothing like confidence to like push it through anyway this is uh what happens when commissioner gandle has to step out of the room I miss her it's late we shouldn't have to pronounce words like deciduous Miss Lou you're we're killing time while you're looking right thanks I appreciate that uh maybe the petitioner has has that number I'm getting closer and closer go if um it Susan I see your hand up that number it is 740 feet along the Southern border all right so who's got a calculator 740 divided by 15 is what's required so that's 50 trees that would be required anyway right um I think then if that's the case then what we should say is match I guess H this is where I wish commissioner Gib Randle were here like I don't know given that that may be a sensitivity if we would want to if this is an enhanced buffer if the intention there was to increase the number of evergreen trees not deciduous trees um since there's a vegetated hedge that seems pretty high I don't actually I don't know um do you know M Leo like what the intention was in specifically calling out the 75 trees the 75 trees there um like I said I think that the 75 was a double counting of one of the groups either we double counted the um uh Evergreens or we double counted the decis um instead of making it a subset of now um my every report back I got was the um adjacent Property Owners just specifically asked for dense shrubs and the the development teams really relay that to me as staff saying we have to make this work that was the request um that they they wanted almost a solid wall of greenery um so I it was not conveyed to me about the any specific requests about uh evergreen trees or um deciduous trees but um the development team made it clear to me that the neighbors really wanted um these uh dense shrubs and they wanted it a little thicker than usual um go I I defer to the petitioner's landscape person about what's planned again because commissioner Gib Randle is usually the one who looks at like what what the plantings are in the Hedge R and if those are deciduous or Evergreen because in my mind that makes the difference about well no they're both there are um there are deciduous trees um as and evergreen trees for the tree component and then in addition to that there are shrubs so so this is no but I think that that the whether or not that shrubs right like some shrub I don't know I've seen Hedges that lose their leaves I don't know so I'll go ahead petitioner yeah so the the southern um enhanced buffer was basically generated through a conversation with the community that happened last August and what the neighbors were telling us was that they really wanted shrubs as a screen because they didn't feel like deciduous trees are really going to adequately screen and so they ask for the dung shrubs and that's where that sort of 25 foot enhanced buffer comes from those are primarily deciduous shrubs but they're you know eight feet tall so they're going in at a minimum of four feet they're growing to a minimum of eight feet and we have a 20 foot wide 25 foot wide buffer that includes the deciduous trees and the shrubs so in terms of trees we have 51 trees right now for that southern buffer 33 of them are Evergreen and the and the eight rest of the 18 are deciduous got it again I what's in the plan I like you you've heard from neighbors right like this has been vetted I'm just trying to make sure that whatever we put in the supplemental regulations that would stick with it right um is is fair for the next person so actually I would I would almost suggest that you know we cut the number I think now I'm formulating what the right uh uh amendment that I'm going to propose is but it seems to me that the the plantings these deciduous or Andor Evergreen plantings that you have our code requires a minimum of 15% Evergreen if we say 50% Evergreen you're providing way that you're providing more than that this is providing some yearr round cover which is what I read in some of the letters that what I just heard too was that your hedge is not necessarily going to be providing because it's going to be maybe thick but but branches without leaves in the winter so my I'm going to move um an amendment that would modify um 6A I I to say a minimum of 50% of the required or the the number of evergreen trees as or of the trees required per the UDC must be Evergreens right so for clarification the mod the modification to 6A I would be um the planting requirement would match the UDC but um minimum 50% of evergreen trees correct so really the 50 trees that you're providing you're providing 51 you match the UDC that's fine and it's just specifying that that 25 of those in this case need to be Evergreens so we um uh yeah and so you you well exceed that it's great like there's some wiggle room in there actually for you yeah but I feel like we're protected in the future but nobody else is seconding that motion so maybe not uh commissioner s is seconding it any discussion on that commissioner woods and Comm um Mr Leonard first maybe and then commissioner Woods okay I just want to clarify if you're proposing an amendment that would um mimic the um UDC requirements of frequency of planting and 50 % Evergreen then I just might suggest just striking that provision altogether whenever there's nothing specific in the supplemental RS the UDC is going to is going to be required and if if I'm understanding correctly you've essentially just amended the supplement of RS to match what our code already says I'm asking for more Evergreens my understanding more than 50% I I thought I heard from I thought when Maybe I thought I heard 15% was what was required and 50% is what I recommended but is that did I miss here um 50 50% 5 zero is required the 15 is one per every 15 feet I got that sorry I thought it was 15% that the 15% of every 15 feet um okay well commissioner so I just I suggest that's the direction you you go in the only supplemental regs is it's going to be compliance with the conflicting land use puffer except for it's going to require greater width it's going to specify a continuous headro and allow the adjustments from continuous continuity um it's not in fact going to specify it would not the amendment would not specify any um uh quantity of ings beyond the what the UDC already requires got it so that make sense Alexis yes um unless commissioner Woods really likes this I can like take it back if Lisa wants to take it back is okay with that sorry that I couldn't hear I just want to encourage you to take it back so I just couldn't sorry I don't know if it's later that I 15 and 50 are close yeah Sarah yep so we still instead of taking it back we could do Amendment to the amendment to just get rid of a double ey thank you yes that sounds good you're friendly to that any discussion of just getting rid of that the number of trees here and just deferring to the UDC uh commissioner Woods yeah I I guess um and maybe it is the lateness of the hour but I think May um given that their landscape architect and um and probably ours also have looked at it and um I sort of have the sense that we are perhaps going down into the weed so to speak and one person who's not here is a person who I believe is a consultant on this project so I guess I just don't I don't think that it's necessary to do that at this point I would so I wouldn't be in favor of it I would that would just be my opinion what I heard is that what there what's shown on the plans right now don't match this like they're not they're not meeting this so if we we can't approve the site plan or we shouldn't approve the site plan if we pass these supplemental regs we shouldn't approve the site plan because it doesn't match that is that true Alexis that is what their landscape consultant told me well because it seems to be a little bit of confusion then this could possibly be something that could get worked out and get taken care of before it goes to council um well I guess this it does the commission like the buffer that's shown on the site plan and if so I will work to properly memorialize it if you think that more is needed we can discuss that but if you like what is shown on the plan then I can work to memorialize it yes like it so so we don't need any motion is that right uh no if no we don't need a motion I can if needed I can explain to city council that we have made a um change that you did not specifically recommend but I will explain that it had your blessing and the reason why um we needed to make this change was to memorialize what was shown and you specifically approve the plan as shown okay [Music] um is there was there a motion in a second yes thank you so we need to do something with it is that right Zach yeah we gotta vote it down okay so the motion which would just strike that language we're um we should vote on is there any more discussion uh commissioner hamers sorry I'm just like I'm confused so as it stands now it says say they putting in 75 trees they're not actually putting in 75 trees they're putting in 50 but we don't have to do anything on any we don't have to take any motion we can approve it with the 75 in there staff will do something with it before it goes to city council is that clear yes okay then I'm good we can vote all right all in favor of the Striking that language say yes or raise your hand all opposed say I raise your hand okay so the amendment fails we are back to the amend there was only one amendment that we had earlier which Zach had offered um I have two questions on the so on the those were my comments about the Pud and the supplemental regulations my comments about the site plan um one is minor and one I think is a little bit more major or or sensitive um the minor one is about bicycle parking I think that it's great like the I like the look of the bike house what I'm curious about is the people who who come to visit on their bicycles because this is a bicycling accessible place um who visit people in you know the apartments or the houses where's your guest bar bike parking by the residences it's I will just tell you it's it's on the plan and it's abundant um because yeah we and Shannon who's not here you know we bike we know where people Pike their bikes and there's there's a lot um uh if you want more CL we could look a little I was just I was trying to find it like so like when we we say it's abundant like there's bike Hoops throughout like along the streets or yeah so in in front of in front of units in front of the uh U Megan they get in your way if you want to answer you might have off the top of your head of where they are so Megan designed our from biohabitats designed our bio swes and stormw water infrastructure so sticking anything in the ground impacts her work so she might have an answer if you do R give me a thumbs up if not she doesn't so um I I hate to say this but they're there trust us I mean there's a lot of s to dig through so that's why I I that's the thing I'm sure you don't want bicycles parked to Street tree or you know to the trees that you've planted um so I just want to make sure um that it's throughout yeah um to to give you an idea we have 179 total bike spaces only 124 of those are inclosed so you subtract 124 from 179 and that's all the butt that's the park bikee parking that you've got that's an open air or or covered okay but not enclosed got it okay um I I will go back and look a little bit closer again and make sure that I can see them the the one that I think is a little bit bigger um and it's just because we've been talking a lot about lighting and sadly commissioner Briggs is also not here tonight who is kind of my lighting compad and this is the photometric plans between the two sites seem quite different um in terms of the overall foot candles and I'm trying to understand why um but particularly the kind of the the lighting that you see I think most of what I'm seeing is that when you're within this development you know collectively you move seamlessly between them why on kind of the Thrive side the most most common like number that I see on the roads and in the parking lots is 0.1 or like sometimes 3 foot candles there's a couple instances where I've seen it up to0 four point6 but on the Avalon side I feel like there's there's some numbers that are in the twos so I don't know which of you maybe it's both sides that can explain to me why that is or how how what's leading to that and I can talk a bit about it from Avalon's side I mean we've take well number one the type of fixtures that we're looking to use are consistent throughout the site as far as what kind of lighting and we've been working together on that but you're right as far as volume of lighting um we and and the um warmth of the lighting we're looking to be consistent but as far as number of fixtures we do look to have more really relying on our experience with our tenants at our properties over the last number of years and giving folks kind of that sense of security and that you know they're looking for depending on where they've come from in the past and what they've dealt with and how that you know um helps their experience living in our property uh you know and I think it's certainly it's it's bit different than where Thrive is looking at things and we've uh this would be the property that has least amount of lighting of any of Avalon sites so we take that as kind of a basis of experience but recognize what we're trying to do here and our you know certainly bringing it down below the levels that we've had at any of our other sites I don't know if anyone else from Avalon's team wants to add anything to that we haven't taken up our um one of the things that got postponed last time was uh kind of our lighting ordinance and so comparing to what we have there I think um is something that again I'm I wish commissioner Briggs were also here to kind of check in those numbers this sense of like more light equals more security I think is one that is common but a lot at least as we've been putting together our lighting Ordinance one that we've been trying that we've have had disavowed and it's actually contrast between light and dark that's that's really hard um that's actually what I worry a bit about particularly I was looking on the road that you have running to the on the along the west side where you go from you know it starts out as effectively kind of Avalon um Road and then it goes into Thrive and and at the border um perhaps because we don't want to have uh light pollution spilling from one um one property to another like there's this there's this dead space and you go from pretty bright to quite not and I that is I don't know that that seems to me like it will be noticeable sure only at night but that it will be noticeable um and so I appreciate that you're working to you know that this is less than what you might normally have I would encourage more collaboration between the two of you potentially to try to blend those things better because I'm really worried about the contrast actually between the two and that it's going to be noticeable um like why is one side of this development lit up significantly more than the other side um Mr grov yeah thank you for bringing it up I don't want to spend too much time on this and I think Wendy's kind of expressed why there's some of these these challenges but um there it's it's a really really complex issue and know that we are really deeply collaborating on this and um and trying to figure it out because because it's one of these things where you know on the one hand like you said about glare that can impact uh you know people with with seeing disabilities right um on the other hand you've got issues which I'm just learning about now of people have experienced trauma who even if lighting doesn't actually provide a safer environment it's their perception of safety that's really important so we're trying to figure out how do we balance all of these things and it's a challenge that I know people in affordable housing are are working on this and uh we uh in London right now there's actually a huge program underway and we're really working on trying to see what they're doing and figuring out things but just know it's really challenging Avalon's working on it we're working on it they've done a great job of coming down a little bit but we hear you and um and we're working on it we'll continue to work on it well and and I appreciate that and I'm actually like it's it's kind of the blending and so it might not it might actually be averaging it might I hate to do this but it might require it might require particularly on those areas where they're right next to each other again blending it a little bit more I don't again and honestly I think this the idea that we have mixed income mixed income neighborhood that's the benefit right that we're getting out of this figuring out like having this conversation and figuring out how we do this and like what are the issues that are coming up I think is really important this is like um commissioner hamers Schmidt said before something that lots of like that we want other people to learn from and how can we take this to other parts of the community commissioner Akerman as a point of order I'd make a motion to extend the meeting to 11:30 uh seconded by commissioner Abron everyone in favor of extending it say yes yes all right I see enough fans um thank you um that was the end of my thing so that just I encou thank you for those conversations thanks for helping me understand that um I'd love to learn from your discussions together in that about like what this means for other places um any other comments questions from planning commissioners so we have um a two site plans that have not been amended or anything we have a um um or motions that have been amended we have a um sub uh PUD rezoning that has been amended once um up for vote I think we seem ready to take a vote on that um could you Mr Leonard give us a roll call vote Yes so this is on the um revised supplemental regulations that were presented amended to adjust the south setb from 30 feet no change to the number of trees um and the site plans as presented correct akan yes commissioner s yes commissioner abon yes commissioner hamers Schmidt yes commissioner Woods yes commissioner Mills yes commissioner milstein yes it's unanimous very good thank you good luck at Council thank you really exciting thank you all of you um thank you thank you thank you to Avalon and everybody in our team uh this has been an incredible incredible journey we're learning a lot and we want to get some sleep and uh and keep eyes forward and move fast all right thanks guys thank you thanks you're bringing commissioner Gib randel back Mr Leonard all right did I accidentally jettison anybody one two three four five six seven nope we just need to get Shannon I think she went [Laughter] home you guys notice me jumping around a lot it's because I'm being tortured by a mosquito that I'm trying very hard to kill but I Waging War with for the past hour but I real on camera I was like jumping around Ellie I feel like we're getting a like a slow tour over weeks and weeks of your house because I feel like your background not this is not my this is not my house I'm at a at a lake house like uh on Lake Ontario fun so I started outside I would have showed you the sunset but it didn't seem appropriate to interrupt anybody now I'm in a little room so Shannon we voted down I'm sorry what was that we we voted down uh vidiian we thought you wouldn't I can watch the entire thing you realize I just wasn't on the screen I heard everything you said so how much you were missed yeah I mean yeah be tough getting that it's gonna be tough getting those 75 trees in there good luck with that it's the drawings all match it's it was just a clerical thing at the end in terms of supplemental regulations so I'm sorry the didn't care I I appreciate all your patience with that you all sorry if I had just heard the number early on it would have saved a lot of time I just didn't he um the next item of business is 10B the review of the Planning Commission bylaws and reading them to prepare for this I think what we actually have to do is we have to vote not just not when our meeting extends but when we're goingon to take something up after 11 is that true yes that's correct okay so can we need to vote whether or not we can take this up you actually have to do that not the other thing right I didn't want to correct commissioner aurman didn't think it was the right time never knew that yeah if middle of it you don't have to say that again if you're in the middle of it you don't have to I learned that last time when I shared uhuh but inform me of that subtlety so if we're in the middle of something we don't have to extend but if you take up new business afterwards that's when you have to extend so get irant in my life you're just getting it right at the very always works so Z move to take up the bylaws it sounds like Zack moved to take him up um Ellie uh seconded it uh any discussion about whether or not we should do that all in favor say I or raise your hand yes any that's everybody okay um so let's talk about it so we'll start with um a presentation to by Mr Leonard um and I think um so you you saw these about a month ago and um I had the Good Fortune of getting some City attorney comments um after that postponement but before tonight's meeting so there's a bit more changes in this version than the previous version that you saw I've outlined what they are um generally I would say it's just a lot of language cleanup making these bws more consistent with a lot of other boards and commissions um um I've to highlight some of the not notable changes um I'm proposing that we modify audience participation to be public comment um uh sort of formatting numeric conventions um um we did uh eliminate the secret ballot Provisions that were available for the election of officers um that is not in the spirit of transparency so I don't think we um want that there um uh clarifying those actions that require uh a majority of members present when applicable um there are still numerous uh Provisions that are unchanged that require six votes to advance a petition require six votes um uh for something else that escapes me 2third to amend the bylaws um um I'm adding uh I'm proposing to add my um authority to cancel um a meeting when I find out that there is not going to be a quorum or there's a lack of business as opposed to having to contact the chair for that um adjustments to uh the order of agenda um right now for example this is listed under regular business technically we don't have public hearings for some business items under regular business so just um clarifying that regular business could be some items with public hearings and some items without public hearings um um um we talked about this previously um the the automatic mandated review of me my performance by you as the commission was kind of a a bit of a holdover from when the Planning Commission actually hired the planning uh director um there's no longer a planning director now there's a planning manager I think that was um very intentional and so I'm proposing that that language that you um would provide that feedback when my boss the community services administrator asked you for that feedback as opposed to automatically requiring you do it on a regular basis um I'm always welcome to discuss um how I can improve regardless um so those are the changes and then I think previously we talked about the order of agenda the 10-minute presentation that um I didn't highlight that um not critical but I did highlight we don't have to have two public comment periods separate from our public hearings um I think I put this in here as a discussion point on the Eve of our last couple of meetings and perhaps this one where we've had a couple going late but um um it's there now um but um if if you wanted to shorten the agenda um providing one public comment opportunity as well as the corresponding public hearings for individual items would definitely meet their open meeting teack requirements so that's all I got um the bylaws do require that you I present these to you because there are a lot of changes even though you saw them before I wouldn't recommend action tonight but rather any feedback changes that you would like to see or discuss and then um we would um respond reflect Pro propose uh provide any of those changes for adoption at the next meeting the script that you gave me and based on what you just said suggest that we do not go to public hearing next that we that I read the motion is that right okay um so the motion is the Ann Arbor City Planning Commission moves to accept the proposed amendments for future consideration uh at the August 18th 2020 Planning Commission meeting well would somebody like to move that moved by commissioner milstein seconded by commissioner hamers Schmidt uh discussion commissioner Gib Randle I would just say I'm in favor of what you put forth so far and I think it is important to have two opportunities for public um comment just because not everybody wants to stay up late and I think sometimes we actually get some really interesting feedback for the people that really stick with it until the end um and it takes a little time but it doesn't take that much time so I would be in favor of keeping that other comments I concur like I said before I also appreciate reading this once a year to remind us of like the kind of little things like when we vote to extend the thing that that um I noted this time that is in there that we don't do is it says that the petitioner can respond um has three minutes to respond at the end of the public hearing before we go into our discussion we don't do that I'm wondering if we should and I think we should discuss it yeah um that's something thank you for bringing that up that's something that um I um I added one of the things that's come up like we've gone through an evolution if you'll recall in the past we actually didn't provide any separate opportunity for the petitioner to present their project apart from the public area itself and at times that could that manifested in different ways sometimes it might just be one person getting up giving five minutes at that time um we've had other circumstances where they would do five minutes and then their engineer would come up for three and then their architect would come up for three and then their landscape architect would come up for three and their traffic engineer come for three and so um when we switch to the 10- minute the intention was that um we were compressing all of that as a wider opportunity for the petitioner to present their project to the Planning Commission inclusive of all those aspects um to that end we we tell the petitioners they should not be addressing the commission during the public hearing portion that is really for um other members of the public to provide feedback on the project um given that restriction I think it is probably appropriate to um provide the petitioners the opportunity to potentially rebut um briefly anything that they heard in the public hearing that they would like to respond to um it doesn't come up much because I think frankly the commission does a pretty good job of responding and bringing up those questions in your deliberation and provides a lot of opportunity for those petitioners to do so um but it's probably cleaner if we if we want to sort of have that hard line to say nope you get 10 minutes at the beginning then the public hearing and then we'll give you a brief uh if if there's anything you'd like to add before our deliberation you have up to three minutes um or if none you can kick into your deliberation so um so that's that's something that kind of proposing to emphasize with that new petition structure about commissioner milstein first and then commissioner abens um I think the reason why we actually stopped that or sort of slowed down on that was because we had several uh members in our audience who would actually yell out why do they get a chance to stand up again you know people got a little angry in the past I remember commissioner Woods had somebody when she was chairing who got a little Rowdy um because they were unhappy that the petitioner got up for for another 3 minutes and they wanted another 3 minutes so they can rebuttal the have more time to rebuttal what was said so I think that's the reason why we got away from that so that was probably happening when the petitioner was speaking during the public hearing yeah uh yeah during the last part of the public hearing commissioner abens yeah um I I wasn't um privileged enough to witness that but that was kind of my intuition was that I think that format maybe pits the public comment against the developer in a kind of adversarial way whereas I think at least as I've observed this body I think we do a pretty good job asking we ask the petitioner to respond to what we hear uh from the public comment but I think we're often able to kind of frame the question or give it some context in a way that it takes that kind of confrontational edge off so I would be in favor of I guess striking it from the bylaws yeah um and and doing things the way that we currently do makes a lot of sense I like yeah it's kind of like data data data for us like we have presentation staff report public comment and then it's like ours to make the most of it I like that yeah and and I feel like they're probably like going to be a petitioner eventually who is doesn't have the temperament to like be cool after some strong public feedback and may end up you know escalating the situation um I can think of some examples commissioner abin uh one other thing that I noticed in here is that it does say that the chair can extend uh an individual's three minute speaking time at their discretion and I wondered if that was something that I have never seen that happen I didn't know if that was something we wanted to keep in here or not or what Serv would maybe that be useful yeah um it's it's probably most useful in the context of providing a little flexibility for maybe a a heated discussion um so that it gives the chair ultimately a little discretion so that if if know say that there was sort of oppositional views on something and and somebody went beyond their three minutes and well such and such got you know three minutes and 40 seconds so I expect that I'm going to get three minutes and 40 seconds I don't know that it needs to be there that I think just happens naturally in the chair sort of managing that discussion but that that might be where it or to kind of provide that official recognition that ultimately in this case Sarah has some discretion to try and manage that situation uh commissioner Gib Randall then commissioner hamers Schmid yeah Ellie I haven't seen it happen very often but it does happen every once in a while and sometimes it's just for somebody to be able to kind of finish their thought and it's kind of a see more than anything else um and I mean happened a half a dozen times um I would say so I think it is good for the chair to have some discretion um to be able to to be able to do that to be able to kind of call it in either direction commissioner hamers Schmid to unmute and that's is if I'm reading this right that's only during the public comment not during a oh my God I just totally forgot what is it called a public hearing just when it's I only saw it in there under the public comment so public hearing there wouldn't be that same extension or do we want it in both places to be I think it's a good question if we want it in one we probably want it in both yeah I mean the way that it's been described I have no problem with it being in both places that the chair has the discretion to extend either public comment or during a public hearing beyond the three minutes just in the in the scenario that commissioner G brandle described like as a courtesy I think that would happen in either case um I had one other question as I was going through this and maybe there's some background on this um so it says a person representing an organized neighborhood group can speak for up to five minutes and then like other people that are also part of that group can speak for three minutes what's the rationale behind letting one person speak for five minutes but then other people can still speak for three minutes it's always been there I pres I presume it's um acknowledgement that a neighborhood organization is organized and maybe has some voice of maybe a larger group of residents from that area but your point is good that technically each of those individuals still have the ability to get up as well um could be I don't I can't remember I don't I don't remember if that we've been facing that with that in the past year maybe we have I can't remember I don't know what next or two minutes a fors if you're still going to let other people talk for three minutes but if other people have thoughts on that it hasn't come up I don't think in the last year where I don't think that there have been too many neighborhood groups around some of the developments it's prior to that it it's been regularly invoked I think it's an extra two minutes they have to be on a list effectively um okay personally like yeah no that's I that's that's fine I just did not know the a sort of background and I don't think I've seen it so I was just kind of like why but it's it happens regularly then dep it depends on you know like where the project is where project is proposed Brett do we need to we going back to the like whether or not to allow um the petitioner to have a rebuttal do we do you want a motion from us to strike that or did you hear from enough like did you read our body language enough to suggest yeah no I don't feel like I need a motion because this is coming back for Action this is the that that's kind of the point of this um after we're done I just want to sort of summarize to make sure I'm I've got any and all changes that you'd like to see but no I don't need a specific motion other than the postponement and confirmation that I've got the changes you want to see in any other things that people noted okay so guess we're there the motion is not a postponement the motion is like we're going to take this up next time right uh it's to accept it yes you're right so we shouldn't vote to postpone we should we should affirm the vote affirm the motion okay yeah so but but um I just want to be clear when this comes back we'll strike the rebuttal maintain the five minutes for neighborhood organizations we're going to maintain two segments of public comment and we're going to replicate um the chair's discretion for all public did I say that last one twice okay all right you want a roll call or do you want it just Voice vote all in favor of taking this up next time I say I any opposed all right thank you it passes unanimously um now we are on item 11 um which is not new business so I do think we take it up even though it's after 11 now I need to go back and read our pyot um that's okay it's audience participation but now soon to be called public comments um if you'd like to speak you can uh make it come on any topic you have up to three minutes to address us you can call 877 5247 and then our meeting ID is 15043 um if to raise your hand digitally you push star n and uh you will hear that you have been invited to speak no one on the phone line so no audience participation public comment tonight um number 12 is there any commission proposed business this late hour I'm not even GNA propose something and I have something I'll do it next time um is there a motion to adjourn number 14 moved by commissioner milstein seconded by commissioner s thanks good night everybody bye bye

they call me president one more time our perez exclaimed um all board members ready everybody's on board okay let's call this needing to order due to the cobin 19 health emergency and in order for the board of education to conduct its meeting is being held conference and stream live via youtube on the district website at www.ebnet.org in addition members of the public may provide comment at this meeting through zoom by entering the url meeting id and password for you on the screen your [Music] i'm sorry there's a few people who have not muted themselves so join our meeting we're thrilled to have you with us tonight but we need you to mute thank you so much upon joining the meeting your participation will be muted to ensure there is no disruption to the business being conducted by the board of education and we'll go back to our regular screen and will the secretary please call the roll here mr sismar here this is gloss mr hong kia this is lax here this is rhys here mr simmons here mr winston here president backer here we have a quorum please rise to salute the flag i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states and to the republic one nation individually law was enacted to ensure the right of the public to have advanced murder servant to attend the meetings of public bodies we still need some people to mute themselves i'll give everybody a few seconds i know it's it's hard to get everything at the same time thank you in accordance with the provisions of this act the east brunswick board of education has closed notice of this meeting to be published at the board of education offices written nervous was also provided to the sentinel the new york star alleged the home news in tribune and the municipal clerk of east brunswick all board of education meetings with the exception of executive discussions are videotaped for later broadcast individuals who speak at the board's public meetings should be aware of these videotaping rules good evening i hope everyone is safe after the storm that we experienced this week that you those of you who lost power get it have it back or we'll have it back very soon and we're going to start off this evening with the superintendent's report uh president becker as we previously discussed at last thursday's meeting we're going to run the video uh that was put up on the website yesterday it's just under i believe about 17 minutes so we'll we'll do that and i'd like to make just a few clarifying comments after that video runs absolutely just give me a moment while i hear that video up while mr juliana is doing that um i'll i'll make the clarifying comments the um as people begin to read the policy board is going to take action on tonight the restarted recovery plan uh part of this was a mandated policy through the board's policy service strauss esme and they were working in conjunction with the department of education with mandates at that moment uh since then uh just recently governor murphy mandated that mask will be worn 100 on school property on buses on school property in schools so that's reflected in our appendix but that will be updated under the strauss estimate policy and we expect revisions to the strauss estimate policy to occur uh all the way up until the start of school there will be minor tweaks so i just wanted to make that clarification for the community that we bring bringing back the policy for those edits for clarification all right mr juliana has the are you ready to go yes we're ready to go [Music] okay hi east brunswick most of you know me for those who don't especially with a mask i'm victor volesky superintendent of schools and because we can maintain social distancing and safety in my office where we're recording i'm going to remove my mask for clarity previously my messaging to you has been by phone but the current situation we all find ourselves in is different so today my messaging is different since mid-march when we all shifted to distance learning we have been aggressively planning our reopening of schools earlier i assured you that every decision in our recovery phase would be framed by analysis of the spaces we utilized for teaching learning gathering and transporting placement and organization of students and staff in those spaces integration of medical social and important emotional supports with academics communication that is timely accurate and consistent for families and township leaders of course environmental safety and lastly security since that time our plan has evolved to exceed the requirements mandated by directives from the department of education i want to thank all the stakeholders who contributed to this plan parents staff administration east brunswick education association our principals and supervisors association community leadership and of course our board of education everyone shared the same passion to make this plan the absolute best it could be under the conditions and constraints that we know at this time the plan had to be flexible and adaptable as we know these constraints may likely change between now and our anticipated start of school i pledge that we will implement this plan with compassion we need to be deliberate and consistent with this plan's implementation but we all understand there will be a relearning phase during its rollout above all safety will remain our dominant decision factor thank you to everyone who responded so quickly to our survey it is clear that one choice doesn't meet the needs of all families in addition to the survey some of you have reached out to me personally some of you are ready for your children to return to school and some of you don't feel ready to send them back yet maybe later but not under their current conditions in fact the first two requirements on the department of education checklist for reopening schools released this past monday august 3rd are that we implement a schedule for the 2021 school year that includes in-person instruction in some capacity and provides public school facilities for at least 180 school days and that we incorporate a policy regarding full-time remote learning services in accordance with the department of education guidelines early on with our earliest conversations with the board of education parent choice was a priority and i'm proud to say our plan included both doe requirements for in-person and remote instruction before the checklist was released so join me let me show you how our reopening plan can work for you and what your children will experience depending on your individual choice for the beginning of this school year east brunswick public schools is committed to delivering high quality instruction for students in spite of changing circumstances the district's reopening plan includes resuming in-person instruction at all facilities with reduced capacities scheduling decisions have been informed after careful evaluation of health and safety guidance and mandates from the center for disease control and new jersey department of health as well as state mandates and the governor's executive orders lastly we have incorporated input from stakeholders about the needs of all students and the realities unique to east brunswick public schools constituents after review of the entire reopening plan parents will be permitted to choose between one of two different styles of instruction beginning september 2020 either a hybrid approach which allows for some instruction in school and some instruction at home on a rotating schedule or a full virtual learning approach parents will be asked to commit to their decision for the first marking period of the school year it is critical to ensure that all students regardless of where they will be during the day receive a high quality education all students will participate in virtual learning to some extent it is important to note that virtual learning will look and feel different than it did in the spring of two thousand twenty students will all receive a district issued device and all instruction will be delivered on one of two platforms google classroom for grades k through 7 and canvas for grades 8 through 12.

so move second okay uh all those in favor I I those opposed okay we need to go into Clos session to discuss the following I make a motion we go into close session I'll second it all those in favor I e that sounds pry good for August 6 calling the meeting to order plge of Allegiance do [Music] theedge yeah okay let's uh I will Le The Pledge again y pledge aliance 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 okay reports um um CCA we do not have a report from CCA thank you uh Apple Valley Teachers Association I do have a report thank you this was submitted by Miss chrisy CW good evening board members abuda wanted to thank you for working hard to get the contract for the 2019 20e settle we truly hated all the opposition it caused and our glad to put it behind us our executive board worked hard to get it settled explained and ratified within our membership within two weeks so that it could come before you tonight for final approval and payout in September abuda understands that it took all of us working in the summer to complete this Monumental task once again we appreciate your hard work in this and recognizing our importance as stakeholders in apple Valle Unified School District we are once again back in school but in a totally different way I want to thank the negotiation teams from both apple b Unified School District and abuda for making it possible the last minute to get everyone back at work and for the curriculum and it people for making it possible it takes a village and all of us at ad USD are working hard to make virtual teaching a reality we all want to get back into our classrooms as soon as it's safe for everyone to do so let's face it we miss our students and classrooms and seeing and teaching them virtually does not feed our inner teacher Soul we still have a ways to go with various IT issues apps not working Chromebooks not being enough tech for live teaching but ad USD is keeping us updated as things are being fixed and ordered we just ask that you keep checking in on all of us it is a lot on the teachers almost like starting over as a brand new teacher and having to relearn things so they are very overwhelmed and adding more things to them concerns me I have spoken to Miss Nelson and she seems to get this so I think we will be fine on a positive note there are some amazing things going on virtually and if you have time try and see if you can volunteer to lead a group or read a book in a virtual classroom I know I am and the teachers will appreciate all of the help they can get thank you for your time and caring about the teachers have a night thank you um is there a read up close session yes there is close session yeah in close session the Board of Trustees took action in support of the following recommendation from the superintendent conference on litigation government code section 54 954 point five d t Ramos versus avusd on a motion by Mr Bender seconded by Mr s the board voted unanimously to deny the claim of Tony ramas thank you in close session the Board of Trustees took action in support of the following recommendation from the superintendent B7 conference with labor negotiation negotiator on a motion by Mr so seconded by Mr Raleigh the Board of Trustees approved the following approve the pending ratification of August 13 2020 of the California School employes Association CSA chapter number 828 memorandum of understanding regarding return impacts and effects on the CSA bargaining unit with Apple Valley Unified School District effective August 13 2020 through June 30 2021 in Clos session the Board of Trustees took action in support of the following recommendation from the superintendent B6 conference with labor negotiator on a motion by Mr Raley seconded by miss okara the Board of Trustees approved the following approve the ratification of the Valley Unified Teachers Association avut memorandum of understanding of reopening schools during the covid-19 pandemic with Apple Valley UniFi School District effective July 30th through June TW 30th 2021 in conference session in close session the Board of Trustees took action in support of the following recommendation from the superintendent B6 conference with labor negotiator on a motion by Mr Bender seconded by Mr s the Board of Trustees approved the following approve the ratification of the Apple Valley Unified Teachers Association abut new contract agreement with Apple Valley UniFi School District effective july1 202 2019 through June 30th 2022 and that's it thank you so much and [Music] next adoption of the agenda yes adoption of the agenda uh and uh the board May approve the agenda as is po uh from the consent agenda for the discussion and action we need uh to adopt the agenda I'll second it okay that was U Dennis and then did you get ne yeah okay thank you and then comments you need a we have need to vote I sorry all those in favor I I all those opposed motion carries one public comment Kylie do we have any public comments we do we have a few the first public comment is from the Apple Valley Unified School District students diversify our narrative abusd team this was submitted on behalf of 173 signatures from Apple valy UniFi former students alumni current students faculty and parents dear Apple Valley Unified School board members we the students of Apple Valley Unified School District are contacting you today to voice our concerns regarding recent events that have highlighted the racial Injustice within our nation we understand that the school board is preoccupied with the reopening plans for this fall however we believe there is an additional matter that must be addressed we wanted to bring to your attention the lack of racial representation in our school's curriculum since racism stems from ignorance the educational system must take action to teach its students from a wider range of perspectives meaning the inclusion of more black indigenous and people of color authors into our curriculum our schools should be an inclusive environment for all students and the school board has the power and the capacity to make this a reality in order to achieve this inclusive environment we must encourage a productive Dialogue on race and identity among our student bodies through the diversify our narrative campaign we ask that the school board mandate that there be an inclusion of at least one book by a person of color per English literature class the full petition and demands can be found here a link was provided for that the names of the students alumni School faculty and parents and Guardians in agreement with our proposal can be found attached below I have that attachment as well we appreciate your time thank you so much for the work you have done and we look forward to further communicating and collaborating with the school board in regards to this matter sincerely the students of Apple Valle Unified School District thank you the next one is from Jonathan anger hello Appley unified school board members my name is Jonathan anger and I am a current student at Grant Hills High schol High School I am commenting today in support of the diversify our narrative petition which demands that at least one book in every English class be written by a person of color I stand in support of this because it is very important in the name of history and literature which are often paired together in education plans to hear the voices from all perspectives especially those who have been oppressed throughout our country's history as well as that of the world not just those in power to learn from history from one constant perspective while not accounting others based merely on the color of their skin or their culture is wrong and Clos minded including perspectives of people of different colors and different cultures are important within the education because it offers a wider range of ideas and allows for a better and more clear understanding of our history and our world as we live in for these reasons I urge the board to take action and support this petition by mandating these demands I app appreciate your time sincerely Jonathan anger thank you the next public comment is from Nicole VZ Hello Apple Valley Unified board members my name is Nicole vas and I am a current student at gr Hills High School I am commenting today in support of the diversifi our narrative petition which demands that at least one book in every English class be written by a person of color I stand in support of this because from my personal experience we still don't learn enough diverse lessons books and points of view in history in my English class this year I felt as though we did but in history we did not and I feel that this should be changed it is important to educate students on the oppression minorities have faced and still face in our country and is crucial because imple implementing these topics is a step toward anti-racism which should already be in these types of classes because it is not an opinion or political it is people's lives and if that can't be changed then we must now check our morals for these reasons I urge the board to take action and support this petition by mandating these demands I appreciate your time sincerely Nicole VZ the next public comment is by um Rachel dos hello abusd board members my name is Rachel dogs abhs alumni and valedictorian class of 2017 currently a UCLA senior undergrad studying psychology and cognitive science I have caught wind of the student L initiative diversify our narrative these kids are requesting something very simple but meaningful that in every English class they read at least one work written by a person of color I would like to share a study I've learned in my time at UCLA and I think it was a true learn learning experience a New Jersey high school for one year detracked their English courses meaning no honors AP and normal courses all of the students were each in class together with peers from each typical track in addition they extended their curriculum to include non-classical literature namely books and texts that are written by people of color they studied these works in addition to the normal Shakespeare Dickens Etc they interviewed students at the beginning and at the end of the year to see how their attitudes changed with this new curriculum the students at first were weary the typical honor students were nervous about their lower intelligence classmates they had fears of violence and they were unsure if they would be academically challenged in such a space the lower track kids most of which were students of color were worried about bullying and falling behind because they had been conditioned to think they function at a lower trap none of these fears came to fruition by the end of the year the students had flourished I teared up watching these interviews in my lecture hall these 14 and 15-year-old kids had such a nuisance way of describing intelligence one boy commented commented on how before he thought being smart was just knowing facts but he had learned from his lower track classmates that they have intelligence too about the world about experiences he would never know because he never lived their lives the Diversified curriculum made these kids more engaged that were not before again namely students of color because for many this was the first time that they had read a book in class about someone who looked and experienced the world like them when you hold your students in high expectations and give them the tools and resources to achieve them they typically will rise to meet those expectations students do not like feeling dumb unseen unheard if all it takes to get a whole population of minority students a bit more engaged in learning a bit more excited to come to school and talk about a book they read in English class I can't imagine why we shouldn't or couldn't go forward with this initiative an initiative that students themselves are asking for look at the petition signatures listen to your students let them learn about some New Perspectives and ultimately just read wonderful books thank you so much for your time God bless Rachel dos well that's that's a wonderful thing thank you so much you're welcome the next comment is from Vicky Murray I would like to know how it is okay for the town of Apple Valley to have kids camp where these children can go to school there providing that the parents can pay $120 a week but not okay for a classroom the state is allowing school districts to decide and have parents sign a waiver if they are to go to class so the waiver takes care of the legal issues you might encounter no citizen of Apple Valley that has children going to school in a district have been asked to vote or if the schools should be open or not which frankly should be done no one has been giving the choice of online or in a classroom many states are offering both but parents have to pick Elaine and stay there for a year so just who is it that has to decide what is best for the kids in Apple Valley it's not the parents which it should be the school board is elected by the citizens to represent them concerning a system this was not done as it was not asked of the parents what they wanted to see happen so just what is it that is driving your decision I will be listening for an answer at the meeting the next comment is from Audrey mayoros Hello Apple Valley Unified School board members my name is Audrey mayoros and I am a current student at the Academy for Excellence I am commenting today to voice my support of diversify our narrative and their mission which is to have at least one book written by a bpoc author taught in every English class Although our mission goes far beyond that that is the current goal for now of abusd students parents and teachers have signed the petition in support of this I am in support of this because although I am white I have seen family members participate in Injustice towards vioc and it is sickening to see what's happening within our own homes change needs to happen it is not acceptable to teach texts that only highlight the white experience and have students on campuses saying the n word I am not a person of color so I will never know what it is like to be discriminated against due to the color my skin but I am a queer woman so I know what it feels like to be called slurs and discriminated against due to something you cannot control but I recognize that it is no way the same as being a person of color all of my friends are bipoc it is not fair that they have had to read novels about white people written by white people about the white experience their entire lives the world doesn't revolve around us and the idea that it is an example is white supremacy we need more books about VI P written by B bpoc about the bip experience they need to F heard representation matters our students should be able to see themselves within our books thank you Audrey mayoros the next public comment is from Celeste Batista V Apple Valley Unified School board members my name is Celeste Batista I am currently a student at GR Hills High School I am commenting today in support of the diversify our narrative petition which demands that at least one book in every English class be written by a person of color I stand in support of this because as a student of color I see the focus on white authors more and their life story that we the students are educated for on in every book we read these background stories are important to better understand the author's reasoning in writing their books though some of the background stories by white men in America or Europe do not set a good example for students because their life background stories contain alcoholism profiting off of a labor of people of color and weird romantic relationships with minors and yet these people achieved the American dream for their literacy work examples of these authors are Ed Edgar Alan Poe for marrying his minor cousin and Mark Twain for being crowded with little girls as he grew old and widowed this is an issue because not only is I was appalled by the author back background story but many of the students of every race in my American English class were questioning our teacher about the author's weird lifestyle and rais questions on how these characteristics are the fundamental base for creating an American History Literature book for these reasons I urge the board to take action and support this petition by mandating these demands I appreciate your time sincerely Celeste Batista vaka the next public comment is from Jon H to the Apple Valley Unified School District board my name is Json Kim and I am an alumni of Gren Hills High School class of 2018 I'm also a former student at the Academy of Excellence I am reaching out to share with you that I wholeheartedly and un and unfashionably support the diversify our narrative d n initiative when I began College two years ago being in a new environment with a different and similar people helped me to become more comfortable with who I am while also pushing me to think more deeply about who I want to become I begin a journey of learning about who I am what are the focuses that shaped my life this far who do I think I am who do I want to become one realization that catalyzed this process was a shame I felt about being Asian-American a lot of my insecurities and resentments towards my family and friends were deeply rooted in my desire to disassociate myself from what beliefs or characteristics of Asians my desire to erase a part of my identity arose and part of me because I never learned about Asian-American identity in school or saw people who looked like me on the media throughout my time in high school my English teachers assigned books written by white authors more than 95% of the time and my history teachers blurred histography with their own agenda rather than trying to give us an objective account of historical events without any convenient omissions and when did I see American asian-americans on the media it was stereotypical or a neutral depiction at best this is why I wholeheartedly and unbashing support the do initiative beginning with the English courses I urge you to change the curriculum to include at least one book written by a non-white author in every English course I am certain that had I read even just one book by an Asian American Author I would have growing up I would have grown up feeling more proud of my identity thank you for your time the next one is from Jan Kim dear Apple Valley Unified School District board my name is Gan kin and I am currently a senior at the Academy for academic excellence and a former student of grite Hills High School I wish to both voice my support for that I diversify my narrative petition and I urge you to recognize the change that is needed in our curriculum if we take a look at the books we read on our English courses we can clearly see that the majority of the books are written by white authors why is that the experiences of people of color in the United States is also the American Experience so why are we not learning from their perspectives as well our educational system has the ability to create a more inclusive environment by educating students with diverse texts and varying perspectives therefore adding more books written by people of color into our English literature curriculum is crucial so today I ask you the Apple Valley Unified School District board members to stand with the students of Apple Valley and commit to making our community a better place for all not just because we expect it from you but because you know it is the morally right thing to do thank you the next comment is from Maria Tuscano hello my name is Maria Tuscano and I am a parent of a high school senior at Gren Hills High School we are asking for a more inclusive English and history curriculum that would include more contemporary literature written by people of color and Indigenous authors today's political climate should make you ask yourself if you are doing enough I think it is clear that schooling has a more than significant effect on Youth and it would not only be irresponsible but immoral to ignore the struggle of minorities in America when you have the power to encourage educate and cultivate an accepting generation the last public comment is from Valeria toar good afternoon my name is Valeria tsano and I am a senior at Grant Hills High School it has come to my attention that almost every book I've read in school was written by an Anglo an anglosaxon person even when speaking on racial matters I believe this does not give an accurate portrayal of the struggles of minorities through history nor does it give them the credit they deserve since there is a lack of historical black literature we are asking for more contemporary works that will not only highlight authors of color but also speak to Modern Problems faced in today's society please consider being part of the change and educating students on racial issues thank you for thank you for your consideration Valeria chusano thank you thank you good job K yeah that's right I'd like to make a comment on that um the superintendent has a comment first pardon we have a comment I'm sorry so let's go with this a comment from our the superintendent comment com you gota hold you gota hold board okay so I just um want you as board members first of all I will ask um staff to contact the parent that um did the public comment regarding the town's access to um child care versus our ability as a district to provide inperson schooling governed by different requirements under the California Department of Education so I'll probably ask Mr schlasser from Ed services to contact the parent and make sure they understand what the the ramifications of us doing a face Toof face that this is an an option for us at this point um different from the town um second I I'd like to um address a couple things things that have come up in the past um I first of all want to thank um cabinet for taking on the board meeting the last time um in my absence and the board for allowing me to be with my father-in-law um as he passed um I know there was a question regarding students and needs for psych um psychologists maybe supporting them and I just wanted to um let you know that one um with all of our psychologists back we certainly will do Outreach um from all of our school sites it won't specifically be our psychologist it most likely will be our counselors and our administrators and teachers if we Elevate those things and there is a need to go um down the pathway of school psychologists we will certainly do that um Mr schauer's department and um Mr Wheeler's um student services department has reviewed a program um called car Solus that is um being utilized by several school districts and um during covid-19 with some of the the caraz ACT funding we are able to purchase um some licenses for that which gives us direct access to counseling and um Mental Health Services immediately for our students and this is um 24 hours a day seven days a week and um so I wanted to make sure that you knew that we will be bringing back a contract to do that and um we're excited to offer it and we have other school districts that are currently using it down the hill that um we're thrilled to to partner with and know that it's it's working well um the other thing is um at the previous board meeting there was a um public comment that was not read because it went to a wrong address and so we tracked it down and um had Kylie make contact with the person that had emailed it and it was from the diversify our narrative and so she worked with them to make sure they knew how to get access to the Schoolboard meeting and do the comments and I just want to point out that number one this is what we work for right student voice these are our kids whether they are in our system now or were in in the past um it matters and um diversify our narrative is a group it is a student Le group from Across the Nation it was generated by a um two students from Stanford and um they are well organized they have curriculum that they are developing and um ways that students can organize to um address their school boards so um I'm proud our students are involved in this I will tell you that they have um a list of authors that they propose both um uh fiction and non-fiction and Mr scher's department will go down this Pathway to support this cause as they work with the English teachers and history teachers within the district to look at um some of these texts to be integrated okay so um there is a process for this it goes through the adoption process and um that that works will begin based on the comments that were made um beyond that um their goal is um to have schools have capacity and obligation because they know Schools public schools they believe in them and um that they have the obligation to educate about race racism and anti-racism in America um and they feel like what they said in their message is that the current texts don't address that fully um and the goal is comprehensive anti-racism education so um I know that there had been some other comments um by Miss okara about equity and different things like that and so I think this all bridges and there is um moving on to that there is a equity studies draft that was um presented on July 31st it will sit in review until August 13 um that's the first time that it will be reviewed at the um there's a a group that does that at CDE and then there's a timeline for model curriculum that is um a deadline of March of 2020 for the model curriculum for the um ethnic studies program and it's very clear 2020 or 2021 I'm sorry 2021 I don't want to go back no we're moving on um this guide will help our districts and schools as they begin to develop their own ethnic studies curriculum which reflects their students demographics and and Community needs so um these all tie very naturally together and I appreciate the students that spoke on behalf of of integrating um the materials and then the last thing um until the end of the meeting where I'd like to talk about startup is there um Miss okara did provide me with um all of the questions that were quite lengthy um the teachers that she met with and I want to assure everybody that um most of the questions are as we come back into a face-to-face environment most of the the concerns and questions were addressed by that um we will deal with those as we move forward and have more guidance um we will engage our our teachers and um negotiate the impact of anything that we have to do moving forward that is different than distance learning right now and the other things have been addressed in our distance learning and um through our Communications with staff so I feel like we've got a good start on this it's quite comprehensive and we will continue to update them as we as we get more information so great thank you great great let's see are we now Mr you have a comment I'm sorry you have a comment you okay I I would like to be last today okay you are last any there we go Wilson yeah no I I heard I heard the comment input from parents and some students about uh the history about you know I I grew up again go back to 1960 60s early 60s when I have to take the citywi exam we have to take the Julia Caesar you know at that time all the textbooks were written by the BR the British and and there's really no students in my my point is that the our education department set forth a criteria some standards and that's why these textbooks they given to us were approved by Department of Education right so we pretty much using those textbooks for us to go separate to adopt our textbooks I I don't think it's totally appropriate it is because it may not necessarily meet the standards so just same with his history it's easier for for science teacher say yeah we're gonna adopt this physics a textbook by somebody you know this math book but but the literature again there's I'm sure certain criteria set for we got to follow those criterias that's my my comment thank you I just like to commend the staff and the teachers for all the work that you've done to get us ready here in the beginning and uh it was interesting to hear the comments from current students and alumni on their their views the input from the students is what it's all about sometimes we do our thing and we're really missing it that's all Rick yeah I just want thought thanks TR for bringing that up about the counseling and Psychological Services I think not enough emphasis has been put on what the school closures that the state of California is mandating on the districts that actually do to the children's psyche I think there's a lot of damage that's being done kids need interaction they need interaction with teachers they need interaction with other other kids and u i I think that as time goes on we're going to see more and more kids or children having um issues and the fact that we have the counselors and psychologists on board I think we really need to to use them it's really concerns me I've seen it personally in my family and other families as well on what these closures are doing so keep us posted do whatever it needs to be done resources we have right hopefully uh by the first of the year we can do back thank you it's me um well um I have to say that I'm really um impressed with um all of our staff for um for taking this journey which is a little bit um Uncharted Territory Rocky and but they're taking the journey and they are willing to step outside of what they normally do in a normal situation to assist each other so they have they're rising to the occasion of being a village um and they help each other along the way having said that I I do beg to disagree with my a colleague who says that the government uh determines the textbooks and we just go with that um our goal in education is to have students who are critical thinkers and so these children have critically thought about where we have been in education and they have stepped up to say this is no longer okay and I do absolutely respect that and and I wish um we didn't have to come to that but for a minority child to constantly learn about every every other person but themselves um leaves a lot for them to to take and for them to figure it out when they go to college that there was some instruction they should have received but did not receive it because we are going with what the government said it's no longer okay um a child needs to know their history uh they need to be uh comfortable in their history uh to be able to uh stand up and speak on their on their history um the state superintendent of Public Instruction has had I think it's four four forums where he has been advocating ethnic studies uh and he says ethnic studies ought to be taught at the high school level but there are districts that are offering them as low as in the junior high level uh I don't believe that it child should go through public education and not really know their history they need to know their history they need to be able to be immersed in their history and not um catching it uh just in passing if the these children are very clear about their history we will not be having this conversation in 2020 United States became an independent country in 17 1876 or 18 whatever it is um and we're talking about race history in 2020 so something is missing so we need to be able to say no we are no longer having this conversation we need to address the conversation we need to be okay with the students telling us how they feel and we should be able to say you know what I hear you and now this is what we're going to do I will propose as a board because we are the ones that will agree to what happens that we really take Serious um seriously this things that these students have sent to us our job is to educate them but not to educate them on falsehoods we need to educate them on what is a fact this is a fact this is the history this is the story this is what you need to know but on top of that we also need to address implicit bias we need to address how do we as individuals feel about each other and how we feel about each other determines how we teach it if I feel that somebody who is of a different ancestry is not smart enough I will present the instruction in real water down level I'm a teacher by by profession and I'm a teacher I was born a teacher I think I was definitely determined to be a teacher and to teach in the in the understanding that what I don't know I will go out and search it out and what I know I will tell you what I know and you're welcome to teach it to me so as a district in Apple Valley in the year 2020 we need to take the front row seat of saying we hear you and this is what we're going to do and and and I'm not going to take what the state says that we should be reading um and say that's okay it's no longer okay the world has changed we need to go with the program and change what the world is saying secondly the question came about from one of the parents that sent the thing that says we're not doing enough to include diversity we need to do better as a district we still have to do better there's always room for improvement I am one of those people that never give somebody an A++ because because there's always room to grow we need to do better we need to do better in terms of our hiring we need to do better in terms of the programs we set the children into we need to do better in the level of of uh uh challenge that we present to the children our job is to educate children we must do better if they're taking uh honors classes be sure that you encourage as many children of of diverse diverse nature to go end a child will rise to whatever you set them up to be we will have to do better we have to do better in terms of how we discipline our children we have to do better in terms of how we understand how the children operate we have to do better in terms of how we communicate with each other we as a district must do better to receive this many letters from parents and from children cannot be ignored and for all those children that wrote that those letters I am with you I want to be sure that you understand I've heard you and I'm going to s still I'll keep communicating with the superintendent because that's who we communicate with to be sure that this your statements is not just brushed aside that as something that children said that's all I have to say for now well I I heard what you said and I agree with 100% but I think it's our job before we do anything is to evaluate what we have now and if we see there's a big hole somewhere say English History that doesn't have any minority mention authors then maybe it's it was it's not out of negative uh it's from history that maybe authors were overlooked but then what do we do we evaluate that oh we're not getting any uh literature students coming up that are going to write the books in the future so maybe what do we have to do we have to ask ourself what do we do to make it better we can't just ring our hands and say it's not good we have to come up with solutions to change the future and that's the that's going to be the toughest job all of us have and we can't walk out of here and not remember about this question how are we going to change the future how are we going to close in everybody it you know it's it's lucky I you know I grew up a little white girl you didn't but my father was Greek and he changing he he told me he that I would never go to college well that caused a lifelong separation from my father because I thought maybe there was a future in this college thing nobody in my family had gone but I had a teacher that said I believed in you yeah you can do it so I'm asking us to evaluate the materials we have see if maybe we already have a lot of the things that they're up here we don't know I honestly don't know where it stands but but if it doesn't meet the needs that we need to fill we need to change that's it Don J me Patrick department is in charge of the the text textbooks my thinking is I'm not saying that I'm listening to the comments I mean address literature and history a bit okay on the list literature books maybe there's qualified listing of from the state department they are authors by African-American authors we certainly put forth those list of books to the teachers for them to select to give to have student read that but in terms of History it's become very comp yeah I agree the the African American contribution to American history def need to be addressed that has not been really you know even I have heard from in up in Chinese Asian-American School Board Association they oh yeah we need to teach the the history about Chinese asian-americans building a railroad and the gr working the mind I I didn't say anything you know it it just depend on who who's writing those those histories right and and uh maybe in the in our curriculum we can have our teachers in each in our districts at at a high school level say maybe they need to mention some of these contributions what Mr B is a AP History teacher so Mr Bender was a history teacher yeah and and was one of the best my children ever encounter my kids um but I have to say though that um the history that we present in our schools or the whatever literature we present in our schools is not just about White America it is not just about Black America there are very distinct ethnic groups that participated there is the Cho ameran there is the Asian American there is the um uh indigenous American there's a black American there's a white America I say put them all in we need all of these people because as we're doing our DNS nobody really knows where are where we fit in but these children need to know what their ancestors contributed or didn't contribute uh they need to give them that information so that they know what to do with it I don't want to have come to a class where you are talking about uh ethnic diversity and you're talking about just what the blacks have done that's not okay by me I want to know what did the blacks Cho um Asian-American and Mexicans um all of this ethic groups that has created this salad bowl because I have always maintained that America is not a Melting Pot I have S sincerely maintained we will never talk about Melting Pot because when you melt everything in the pot you lose who you are I say make it a salad bowl so that all of the ingredients just stay where they are they just stay where they are and I just want Americans when you are talking about being an American you are talking about what each individual color brought into the picture that's what I'm looking for in our history and looking for in our literature so that these children who are writing yes you these children are writing about a black contribution that's not even okay I want a contribution that talks about what the the anglos bring into this picture what did the uh blacks bring into this picture I want them all so that by the time they get a good understanding I when I have been a a public speaker I have talked about the salad bowl and I have just said when you bring all of it together and put Harmony into it which is the salad dressing it is very t his and I say we need to be able to bring all of this in so that a white child needs to know what a black person has been through a black person needs to understand what a white person went through coming across the ocean and those things are important in the history of of of America and what better place than it's a small District like Apple Valley to say you know what we've heard you we are going to begin to address this believe me we we are not La USD we are Apple Valley School District we can do better than what we're doing currently did we get everybody cover got everybody let's move on let's yeah we can spin we be here tell the cows yeah yeah yeah yeah okay see I think we've what else presentation it's the presentation oh the presentation yes okay um Mr Scher is going to pull it up sorry I one more time while you're while you're getting there um this is in reference to the question regarding um the complaint filed um it's called a uniform complaint that was filed against the superintendent um county superintendent of schools in sanino so I wanted to be able to clarify the questions that went on last board meeting that I wasn't here at it with through a presentation that was a Public Presentation um so first of all it is a uniform complaint it was filed at the California Department of Education against the superintendent of schools at at the County Office of Education and um further the what's considered the San Rino County Office of Ed um the complaintant is the public Advocates Inc um and the ACLU Foundation of Southern California filed on behalf of inlink congregation United for Change and congregations of organized for prophetic engagement cope so those are the the how it's how it's been filed they are the claimant um the complaint was filed against specifically sadino County Superintendent Ted alandre as sbcss and the sadino County Office of Education in the heading it also um identifies a few other um employees at the County office that would be responsible for approval of lcaps the allegation is that s Nino County Superintendent of Schools abdicated their oversight duties by approving district elaps and specifically there was a failure in the um to ensure the 2019 and 2020 District ELC caps complied with the the expenditure regulations and adhered to the elcap template so that's the claim along with the the fact that sanino County Office of Ed um improperly approved um fees for local education agencies so remember in a process we do stakeholder engagement we identify what the goals are we identify how the funding is going to roll then we bring this for public um hearing here at the district office then we bring it to you as a second um board meeting and you um hear it and decide whether we're going to move forward and sign off so once you sign off as a board it goes down to the County Office of Education if they have any concerns they have to then respond back to us and we may have to amend and bring it back to you for those those items that did not occur there was no Amendment provided by the county office and um lots of communication back and forth about issues having to do with our lcap um and clarification so um the claim there are several claims in this um um ACLU UCP filed at the CDE okay a lot of alphabets there but um several claims that are there only in one category is the dep is the district Apple Valley Unified School Districts lcap utilized as the example in only one okay there are several others that um names neighboring districts and some districts down the hill multiple times as examples in their elcap use um doesn't make it okay just I'm trying to explain it's an example um sbcss allowed leas to count improper Services towards their proportionality requirements the example allowed leas to spend funds for high need students on law enforcement so for us that is what the example was they utilized our lcap goal that expanded our um Police Department above our base as one example of many that utilized those funds to um spend on a police department okay and with clear direction from the county that we were had the ability to do so as above base okay because the expansion by our stakeholders was to serve students at other campuses Beyond just high school but to do intervention at the elementary level and get support there as well um the um the primary accountability mechanism for protecting the lcff um Equity principles they are to ensure the district's properly increase or improve services for high need students and do so with sufficient transparency um there was a press release which caused attention to our district okay this would not have in fact I sent an email to all board members on July 7th at two o'clock I looked in my it was about 2:30 in the afternoon on July 7th my first day back in the office um and it was an overview of this issue because a press release had been sent out and um Ted alejandre had contacted our office via email to let me know that they had received a UCP and the press release then identified which districts they were using as examples okay so the press release on June 30th as highlighted up here was released by The complaintant and it says massive neglect of black and brown students alleged in Sam Nino in precedent setting administrative complaint so that's what led to the discussion about what Apple Valley may have done inappropriately although the complaint is filed against um sanino County other allegations so ones that have nothing to do with our LC cap um is other allegations sbcss failed to ensure the 2019 um District lcap identified and Justified supplemental and concentration funded actions violated LC's transparency requirements other districts were listed as the example we were not and undetermined meaningful Community engagement and accountability was also listed um in summary in that one no no no and we're not named that we're the example I have to keep explaining this that we we have no complaint filed against us we have no litigation filed against Des we have nothing other than we did what we believed was appropriate under the under the law um we provided it to the um the oversight Group which is the San indino County Superintendent of Schools it was approved they have the complaint because they it is their job to be the oversight I'm not saying that what was done is right or wrong what I'm saying is is that I want to be very clear that there is no lawsuit no complaint filed against us we are an example our LC cap was utilized as was chaffy Victor Union um Hisperia and sanino City among several okay um in summary the UCP was filed against sbcss not abusd sbcss holds the oversight and Authority for the lcap approval after the Lea Board of Trustees approves it at the local level and ab usd's elcap is used as an example to support the claimants AC um allegations um the response will come from sbcss not Apple Valley Unified School District so um anytime an an allegation is filed um they have a 60-day timeline as a um if it were filed to on on us as a district we would have 60 days to respond appropriately with the um response san berardino county superintendent of schools is doing that because it was filed against them okay okay any questions so we don't have to respond because we they're not file they didn't file against us yeah it's clear good I think that the press release is what caused some of the anxiety because of the way it was released and um it drew attention differently than because people read it with a context of it's been filed against certain districts so let me ask this question then alov School District's lcap give the authority to extend your expenditure to the police um to use that information on whatever it is that they have Al that the allegation is the question that I that I have is that funding was supposed to cover ways to help the minority students right no it's I'll let Pat talk about it it's supplemental and concentration funds it's not minority students it's it's the specific categories that he can explain which okay have minority stud because when I'm reading I'm reading the actual thing that they have here so that's why I'm that's the allegation that this is the fund that was intended for closing the discipline gap for black students and students with disabilities so the question that I have if that is the fund to close the discipline gap between black students and minority students what role did the police play here for that closure because that's what the fund is supposed to be used for yeah I think um what you're talking about is their premise correct let me tell you the premise because we haven't seen the response portion of it I'm just looking at this and I haven't either and I I probably won't until it's public I don't believe any of us will the response will not be provided to me unless because we're not we are not the respondant okay but I can tell you just some some underlying principles that that generate the supplemental and concentration Grant calculation is not based on our discipline rate or number of students in those categories but rather students are socioeconomically disadvantaged our count of students who are English Learners and our foster youth that's who that's the student groups that are counted to generate what they call the supplemental and since our our concentration of that student group is higher than a certain percentage we also get concent ation Grant funds the elcap process then does um mandate that we identify our greatest areas of need and you are correct in saying that in Apple Valley what our district advisory committee and indeed our board said was an area of need once we looked at our dashboard were those items you listed correct so we did have a mandate to produce goals that that work toward that address those correct not every goal had to but we did have to address those items and indeed those items we did address increase counseling greater number of counselors in the each School setting um the PBIS program and other efforts to train staff to use different kinds of uh methods for classroom management for example and the list goes on right C Foster youth focused counselors those items were in our lcap focused on those goals however our lcap also includes dollars outside of the supplemental and concentration Grant dollars we have an lcap total budget greater than the supplemental and concentration Grant funds so we have items in the elcap that are outside of that specific uh area of focus that is in a shortest answer I can give that is part of how our lcap is is uh there are items that are focused on because we had direction from the county to include everything that was quote above base unquote and so I understand the confusion but our supplement on concentration Grant and indeed our proportionality statement that says how we are principally directing U some of our items toward those students was clear to me and and and was clear clear as proposed but I appreciate the opportunity to speak on that we we okay on I'm good [Music] we in discussion action okay discussion uh action session it is recommended that the Board of Trustees discuss and take action on the following items number one mutually agree on no more than one candidate for the 2020 California school boards Association delegate assembly runoff for sub region 16b yeah Donna if I can explain yeah the all in s I'm on the 16 B all the 33 districts okay the other one is is in recover in your county the there are two two members I me if I can give you a brief explanation Henry C is with the kukam district and the Barbera forest with the cityo school district the city C Maria school just is big enough they are over 230,000 students so they do not uh get elected Del to they like I got elected by auth three districts but the sanino city UniFi they appoint their members on delegate they apparent this lady wasn't appointed and she wants to be honest so she ran so my recommendation is to support Henry CS because I I look at the body of work that they submitted as what they've done uh this these two people two candidates what they have done uh because they submitted their resume didn't they they submitted a sheet of paper that says these are the information we read that before we walked in but I'm just saying that these the the city assem need a UniFi already got two two or three they appoint their own three their own five M so they're just just like you know back in the court yeah you understand what I'm saying there are some districts like Unified they do not get iot in they appoint I I don't know either one of these but I'll take Wilson's um well Henry used to be up here yeah he used to assistant principal assistant principal I'm gonna vote for Henry can we VI all this in one motion there's well separate on the discussion information on this discussion action you have to take a motion for each one of them on consent you can take no no I got I got sorry okay I make a motion that we support Henry you want say anyone have discussion for that I I'm just I'm just going to let you know that my support goes to Barbara Flores that's right because she um she has a body of work that I can see what she has done before and her participation before and um and because of it I am not I'm going to support her uh because she can she shows me what she has done it's not just I'm entitled uh I think you show me what you've done so this not refreshing on that b is not do a good job I know her real well too I'm just saying she should have been supported by her own board I think we should just vote got a motion a second let's vote motion I'm motion second Rick second Rick second all those in favor I all in favor of Henry well that's the first one yeah yes okay I I I although it's appr I'm opposed I'm opposed okay I didn't hear you there was one oppos oppos four1 four1 okay uh Barbara Flores I'm in favor no no you've already voted you already that's just that one okay got it now you're down to number two to number three number two recommended board meeting schedule that's good make a motion that we accept it y so two two things to remember on this you have added a um a second board meeting this month and and next and they both are considered special board meetings on the list of board meetings and all will remain at 1:00 like this one currently is until we go back into normal session with students right right okay okay I made a motion to do that okay all those in favor I I okay number three approve the recommendation of an administrative hearing chairperson effective immediately on the annual review AR one uh one through 2021 um unless you have changes on those you can take one um motion to cover all of them unless you want to change any of them second that all those in favor I I okay there's 28 actually one through 28 can we amend that um motion to approve um annual reviews one 2020 2021 through am the motion to approve okay I'll second that okay no we are and you need a vote please all those in favor I I oppos no okay here on number four approve the adopt the Declaration uh do I have a motion I move second second okay all those in favor I all those opposed you're on number five number five um G to move it's the personel action that's listed approve the certificated and classified um Personnel actions is listed a motion move forward Mo okay all those in favor I I number six okay I got a little confused right here I make a motion that we approve the requested Le as as as I I second that [Music] okay number seven no we Haven voted have to vot have a mo V we vote number six all those in favor I I I uh those opposed it passes number seven adopt a resolution for number 2021 d one make spending determinations with respect to monies received from the education protection account so move all those in favor I I and it was unanimous uh number eight you have a presentation from Matt a brief presentation okay regarding the approval of the aosd budget adjustments based on the state adopted budget away thank you you do have a copy of my presentation I put at your table if you could follow along on that um and I will grab the screen here hey in it work thank you uh according to Education Code 42127 uh not later than 45 days after the governor of California signs and enacts the state budget uh we as a district have to make publicly available those material adjustments we make to our budget based on the action at the state level the 45-day deadline to make those adjustments publicly available is August 13th hence why we're having having the conversation this evening so some comparisons uh or actually just to talk really quick uh we adopted our budget June 11th 2020 uh 18 days before the state adopted their budget so the information we had to act upon was the information that Governor Nome released in his May revision and if you recall if you can think back to May and June those months not too long ago but seems a long time ago there were significant changes between the May revision and what the state actually adopted on June 29th uh in terms of our revenue and also in terms of some covid-19 relief funds that are coming from the federal government flowing through the California Department of Education so just a quick summary of uh some of those adjustments if you recall in the May revision we had a statutory Cola that's our cost of living adjustment of 2.31% and Governor Nome did propose to fund that 2.31% and then cut us 10% which was a net reduction of 7.92% to our lcff funding again the 10% reduction was implemented after the cola applied so it came up to a 7.92% reduction in the enacted budget they did adopt a statutory Cola of 2.31% but they're funding us at zero in fact fact they're funding us at the same level we were funded last year for lcff funding so it's a hold harmless at the 1920 levels so if you I didn't put it on here but I do want to mention back in January the governor's initial proposal when the California National economy was Trucking along doing great we were expecting lcf Revenue in this year of approximately $139 million the May revision cut that to 125 but the state enacted budget brought us up to last year's levels at 135 still $4 million less than we were expecting back in January based on the governor's initial budget budget proposal but much better than May however not listed on here because it's not a budget item are the significant cash deferrals we will experience this year which will cause us to borrow cash to be able to make payroll and pay our bills as we move through throughout this particular fiscal year more Revenue highlights in the cares Act and the covid-19 relief funding there were some changes from the May revision to the state enacted budget and even very recent just to align and clarify the federal monies that are flowing to the state of California and then what the C State of California is providing to us from those Federal monies we have three Federal pots that the CRF and the gear which will Flow To Us under Federal resource codes um the CRF funding is Flowing to us under what's called an unearned Revenue we do not get the cash until we spend the money so we have to spend it first we file an expense report and then the feds send us the cash so that is another problem with our cash flow uh and also that 10.3 million there of CRF funding must be spent by December of 2020 so we have what's what's left five months so we have to spend it fairly quickly uh the Esser in the gear have different requirements and what the governor did also is we have some State covid-19 Relief Fund they're calling it general fund relief that is some additional Federal money that flowed to the St state but they are giving it to us as state funding a little more unrestricted so our net federal revenue adjustment from the May revision to the state enacted budget to our current budget is a $1.6 million adjustment up in federal revenue through all those alignments and clarifications the State Relief uh and also we restored some State categorical reductions I'm sorry the governor stored some State categorical reductions so we also have a state revenue adjustment about 1.1 of that is the federal money that flowed to the state but we're we're getting it as state revenue and then some of our categorical programs were restored so we do have a positive adjustment on our state revenue side of about 1.6 million on our local Revenue line in our particular in our budget we had to reduce our AB 602 special education Revenue because the Sela our local special education local plan area change their projections so we we reduced that Revenue by about $800,000 based on the Sela projections on the expense side of the budget I do want to stress that we we have been talking about some settlements with our employee groups none of those are in our budget currently because when this was prepared they had not been approved so they do not appear in our budget at this point as we work more towards the UN audited actuals in the first interim all those changes will be incorporated and those adjustments made on the expenditure side of our budget uh books and supplies we have a significant adjustment in our books and supply lines because in a federal unearned Revenue program when you book the revenue you have to book corresponding and balancing expenditures so that 10.3 million of coronav virus relief funding we book the entire amount of Revenue so we have to book the entire amount in expenditures and we have to expense it all by December 20th in order to get the revenue so if we don't we'll of course adjust revenue and expenditures I I would suggest we do our best to spend it all because we don't like to send money back to the feds we had a science techbook textbook adoption that was budgeted in last year to an expense of 1.8 million it however was not received until July so we have to book the expense in this year so you'll see in the UN audited actuals that's an expense that will fall out as we closed the books last year and an adjustment to the 4,000 expenditure line in the current budget year you'll see the net of those two is approximately uh what's that about 12.1 million and there are some other minor adjustments that we made on the 4000s books and supplies in services and other operating expenditures we did have a large cabling project in Our IT department that was not complete so some expenses that were originally budgeted in the previous fiscal year were will not be recognized until this year so we had an upwards adjustment in some expenditures for some IT projects those are the material adjustments both on the revenue side and the expenditure side on our a budget and of course my recommendation at this point is for the board to approve those Bud budget adjustments as identified in the presentation and then we will make those and we'll bring an updated budget to you at a future meeting September uh yeah we'll have we'll have the updated budget at the September meeting as I present un audited ual just curious that reduce lcf funding 135 million but because you have because of deferral that actually could be impact by as much what five 10% because you the B you can spend money on borrowing well our our uh the the borrowing costs probably will not be 5 to 10% of that entire amount because we will not have to borrow that entire amount at this point we do have a small Tran that we're anticipating reeding receiving this month about $2.5 million in cash to help with some mid mid-mon cash flow um we will anticipate borrowing much more um but not the full 135 million uh possibly 25 to 30 million in the spring to shore up our cash depending on the deferrals and the timing any other questions I I do I have well I have a few questions but the most important is I'm just wondering do you have a budget Committee in this District should we have a budget committee um that is comprised of of a team of people that look at the budget on a on a regular basis do we have that uh we currently do not have an active budget committee we have we supposed to have one uh we're not required by law to have a budget committee um in past we have put committees together when it's been necessary to identify reductions in the budget uh to help prioritize I I I I I think I'll propose that we have so so we don't waste our time asking this same question over and over um that if we had a budget committee and then meet before a board meeting and then we have those answers everything answered ready to go whoever the members of the uh Team should be so that they participate in the in the conversation to have an understanding of what the budget that will be presented to us um we we have a budget um but it's presented from one angle and if we had a budget committee and they met um right before a board meeting they will have better understanding and we won't have this information floating around it are you saying take somebody from the school board and put on the committee um I don't know how it's been run before um how it was how it was before you know so um but I I have a feeling that you had it already you had it before and how was it run before and why was it taken up would have two maybe maybe two board members and then some internal some teachers along maybe a teachers princip at least two board members on there yeah it's a sub committee well if it's the pleasure of the board I can research past makeup of budget committees that I could bring some ideas to Future meeting to discuss how to structure a budget committee forward thank you so much thank you that would be wonderful okay any other questions nope then I would ask for uh the board's consideration to approve the adjustments so move second all those in favor I I I I pass thank you okay do you want me to read it yes please um it is um under the consent agenda Madame President asked me to go ahead and read it it is the recommendation recommended that the Board of Trustees consider approving a number of agenda items as a consent list consent items are ret R routine in nature and can be enacted in one motion without further discussion this procedure conserves the meeting time for all for a full discussion of significant issues consent items to be approved in one Motion One through G did we get eyes over there okay good good any opposed no okay okay and then you are to um coms public comments any public comments were there any public comments no public comments and then superintendent comments um I just want to publicly state that I am so pleased with the group of teachers classified um administrators um all that came together to get this opening under a distance learning model I know in my own home my child thought that my high school child thought that I should stay home his first day of distance learning similar to delivering him to kindergarten and I told him that wasn't possible he was going to have to figure it out and text me if he needed help um but it takes a bunch of Grace I'm I'm going to tell you this group all needs grace and patience and um a teacher reminded me that we need to have faith in our system faith in in our teachers faith in our classified staff and faith in our system to deliver on the needs of the students in this community and so I'm um respectful of that and I am proud to lead this District in this um horrible time time where we would much rather have welcomed back our students yesterday morning so um in a different mode out in front of schools I know being online but maybe by next meeting could you give us an update on the participation percentages absolutely isues that finding I did notice in the letters that came out to the students that there's going to be follow up to the homes that aren't participating there is yes and and we actually have a student Voice who talked about our platform and sent myself he sent me an email and so um he's going to let us know how the first full week of distance learning from the high school perspective went and is pleased to do that for us so um I think we'll continue to get some of those things we will definitely have data for the next one yes absolutely Mr so I don't have any Mr Bender no Mr Ry no Maria final question could you find out how many of um ethnic um textbooks that are are currently in our curriculum that you're using are you asking for textbooks or supplemental materials are you talking Mater like the the reading that actual reading that you have in your English or in your history that you already have so that we can have an idea of why the students are all saying that this needs to be an inclusive environment did you get my question I think I you're looking for titles you're looking for titles and authors potentially I know that there's a book that teach students struggle with uh and I have gone to some of the schools to explain what it means when they they read Things Fall Apart because the the content is is not clear um and I personally don't think that should be good enough literature because it's not talking talking about um blacks in America they're talking about blacks in Nigeria uh and the names do not match what they need to um have an understanding for uh so I just want to know what literature books that you have in your in your book collection that students are supposed to know that addresses the ethnic issues uh that these families or these children brought up in their letters today thank you um it's my turn and uh I have news for y'all uh my husband retired after 52 years and wow congratulations congratulations I mean we were baby when he started working and uh he has purchased a motor home and he has in invited me to go with him on big trips in the future and because of that uh I will not be running for the school board next next year so it's a good story sad story but it's the story congratul congratulations Donna it's a good story congratulations to both you and Mike that's what you work for it's what you work for the lifetime of Phil for calendar purposes just just want to make sure that all of you know that we have a district advisory committee that will be on a virtual District advisory committee because that's the only way we can meet right now um on August 17th so if you um are interested we can be sure that you have the link to that you probably have much more fun M yeah thanks no it's been a wonderful um uh part of my life uh I been in education since I got to California I taught at Apple Jr for 30 years then I taught it it's just been one long education Road and my husband is anxious for me to go with him on this road trip so but I I love you all and uh wish you you be here a few more months don't don't but I wanted you to think about you know who you would like to yeah you may change your mind I'll talk to M congratulations yeah he loves you because I'm gonna talk to Mike I'll see you can't quit so you guys need to make a motion to adjourn we need thato I'll check it all those in favor there you goie do anything to sign

instruction will be primarily synchronous meaning that all students will have scheduled times to log in to connect with their teacher for live instruction throughout the day standard grading assessment and attendance policies will be enforced students in grades k-5 whose families choose the hybrid model will come to school for two days in a row be virtual for two days in a row come to school for two days in a row be virtual for two days in a row and continue that cycle they will participate in in-person instruction with their teacher until dismissal at 1 15 pm after students depart school and have appropriate time for lunch they will have a final hour of instruction virtually regardless whether they're in school or in the virtual setting let me show you how this looks if your child is in hybrid group one in this case the blue group your child will arrive at school by 9 10 am and participate in person with the teacher until 1 15 pm all special area teachers will come to your child's classroom as scheduled the rest of the students in the class both the red group and the orange group will log in and participate in live video conferencing for portions of each period and complete independent assignments at 1 15 pm the blue group will be dismissed from in-person instruction and all students will complete the remainder of instruction virtually the afternoon sessions will be a combination of whole group and small group instruction depending on the lesson two days the hybrid groups will switch the red group will arrive at school by 9 10 a.m and participate in person with the teacher until dismissal at 1 15 pm the rest of the students in the class both the blue group and the orange group will log in and participate in live video conferencing sessions for portions of each period and complete independent assignments at home at 1 15 pm the red group will be dismissed from in-person instruction and complete the remainder of instruction virtually those who are in the full virtual group in this case the orange group will log in at 9 10 am for live video conferencing sessions and complete independent assignments under the direction of their teacher while they have breaks throughout the day instruction will continue throughout the entire school day if your child is not feeling well enough to attend school for any reason you should keep your child home however if they feel well enough they should participate in virtual learning for the day this will allow your child to be marked present for instruction at hammershow churchill in the high school an attendance capacity of approximately 25 percent of the entire student body will be scheduled each day students whose family select the hybrid model will be broken into one of four groups if your child is in group one in this case the blue group your child will arrive at school by the start of first period the rest of the students in the class will be learning virtually for the day virtual students will log in for live video conferencing sessions for portions of each period and complete independent assignments under the direction of their teacher on day two these same students the ones in the blue group will participate in in-person instruction for another four classes in their schedule at the end of in-person instruction the blue group will be dismissed to complete the remainder of instruction virtually the afternoon sessions will be a combination of whole group and small group instruction both synchronous and asynchronous depending on the lesson after two days group two in this case the red group will arrive at school by the start of the first period and follow the four period block schedule for two days the rest of the students in that class will participate virtually by logging in for live video conferencing sessions for portions of each period and complete independent assignments under the direction of their teacher after students are dismissed from in-person instruction they will complete the remainder of instruction virtually while students learning virtually will have breaks throughout the day instruction will continue through the entire school day if your child is not feeling well enough to attend school for any reason you should keep your child home however if they feel well enough they should participate in virtual learning for the day this will allow your child to be marked present for instruction if your child is in group three in this case the green group your child will arrive to school by the start of the first period the rest of the students in the class will be learning virtually for the day virtual students will log in for live video conferencing sessions for portions of each period and complete independent assignments under the direction of their teacher on day two these same students in the green group will participate in in-person instruction for another four classes in their schedule at the end of in-person instruction the green group will be dismissed to complete the remainder of instruction virtually the afternoon sessions will be a combination of whole group and small group instruction both synchronous and asynchronous depending on the lesson after two days group four in this case the mustard group will arrive at school by the start of the first period and follow the four period block schedule for two days the rest of the students in the class will participate virtually by logging in for the live video conferencing sessions for portions of each period and complete independent assignments under the direction of their teacher after students are dismissed from in-person instruction they will complete the remainder of instruction virtually while students learning virtually will have breaks throughout the day instruction will continue throughout the entire school day the health safety and wellness of all our students and staff is our number one priority we'll be taking precautionary measures to ensure wellness but we need the help of the entire east brunswick community please make monitoring for symptoms of illness a daily activity in your home parents should assess their child at home prior to coming to school for any signs or symptoms of illness as well as taking their temperature consider having a thermometer by your toothbrush or your keys as a reminder to self-monitor prior to school upon arrival all staff and students will be screened for a fever next please ensure that your child has a clean mask to wear to school each day all staff and students are required to wear a mask throughout the day think about mask as part of your outfit you can't go to school without your shoes you can't go to school without a mask visitors to school will be extremely limited however any visitor that is admitted must wear a mask any student or staff member that begins to feel or show signs of flu-like symptoms will immediately be assessed by the school nurse after medical assessment they will be quarantined in the school's isolation room and wait for pickup by a parent or emergency contact it is imperative that all parents update their emergency contact through parent access to include someone who is available to pick up the student within 30 minutes following current cdc guidelines if a student is sent home from school ill they must remain out of school for 24 hours fever and symptom free without fever reducing medication these guidelines are subject to change and the district will be monitoring these guidelines and making adjustments as necessary for a student to return to school they must present a doctor's note that they have been cleared to return if the treating physician required a coveted test this required a coveted test the student may return after receiving a negative coveted test result if a student tests positive for code parents should immediately contact the school nurse who will contact the county department of health the county department of health will work in conjunction with the east brunswick public schools to do contact tracing notifications and determine those who need to quarantine for 10 to 14 days dependent upon recommendations and current cdc guidelines regular lunch as expected by students and parents will not be served during school hours school meals are critical to student health and well-being so to ensure students receive complete meals the district will distribute meals similar to last year's grab-and-go model each custodian will be dedicated to the specific zones of their building to which they are assigned the district's facilities cleaning practices will be expanded to supplement existing practices including wiping all seats and touchable areas with an orbio cleaner and disinfectant hepa vacuum the entire floor surface sanitize the interior with an electrostatic sprayer dispersing hospital grade disinfectant hand sanitizer paper towel and soap dispensers will be checked and refilled as necessary throughout each day social distancing may not be possible to achieve on every bus run therefore in accordance with the new jersey department of education report entitled the road back restart and recovery plan for education dated june 2020 these minimum standards shall apply parents are encouraged to review appendix c of the district's restart and recovery plan for details regarding parent responsibilities and school bus ventilation cleaning and disinfecting students are required to wear a mask on buses at all times morning and after care will be offered on all days that students attend in-person instruction there will be no occasional use program nor will emergency drop-ins be allowed into the programs all students and staff will be required to wear face coverings exceptions for face coverings include while eating or doing physical activities within their assigned group while maintaining social distancing additional information will be provided to families utilizing community programs i am asking parents to complete their parent access forms by friday august 14th to select which instructional model they will choose for each of their children parents are asked to commit to their selection for the entire first marking period together we can do this now together we will do this for the benefit of all east brunswick students all east brunswick families our school community and the east brunswick community thank you thank you dr valeski do you have some closing remarks or follow-up remarks just want to clarify for the community and everyone uh logged into the meeting tonight we have a frequently asked questions uh portal on the district website under the tile that talks about our recovery uh where this document where this video is and i would encourage parents to visit it daily we will update it daily everyone who calls in and asks a question we're trying to populate that faq with all the information so people have that at their fingertips i know this is important decision for all parents it's an important decision for students so we're trying to keep everyone abreast of the latest developments real time on our website if there's anything urgent that we need to update the community with i will do that via blackboard as i have done in the past so that parents and families get an immediate notification or there is a forthcoming change or a modification to our plan okay now it's time for the good of the cause of the public members of the public may provide a comment at this meeting through zoom by entering the meeting id and password you see before you on the screen in order to be recognized use the chat feature select the zoom meeting host then enter and send your name to the host you will be recognized to speak when your name is called individuals will be invited to speak in the order in which we have received your request the board of education recognizes the value of public comment on educational issues and the importance of allowing members of the public to express themselves on school matters of community interest to protect the privacy of all students and staff concerns regarding individual students and staff members should generally be addressed by first meeting with the appropriate administrative staff all participants will be limited to three minutes speaking duration you will probably receive a one minute warning from mr juliana if you choose to speak and i ask that you state your name and street address for the record unless of course you are a student minors do not have to reveal any identifying information about them we would never ask that so i'm going to ask if there's anybody who wishes to speak to the board tonight this is becker we have a couple of folks lined up uh we have uh first christopher guerra uh mr guerra i am unmuting you now and you may proceed yes uh christopher guerra 151 applegate lane um i don't understand the viability of this plan if the students can go to school why can't they go to school for a full day i'm not understanding how anyone is being protected i think you're actually harming the students in doing this you're causing more issues this is going to be a bigger upheaval uh than they needed after what has happened over the last few months um and as far as a working parent like myself you're backing me into a corner um that is putting me in a position i i don't know where my son is gonna be able to go i can't afford all the extra child care that i'm gonna have to now produce you know banking on a normal schedule i'm not even talking before care after care just a normal school schedule like everyone has become adapted to over the last 100 or so years of you know the customer going to school every day i understand that you guys are not babysitters but the children need to be in school so the parents can work this makes absolutely no sense i if they're going to school two days a week or you know two days at a time they're still going to be you know around people so if an infection is going to happen an infection is going to happen two days or five days that's still gonna happen and by only putting them in two days and now they're going to have to go to child care providers or they're going to go to groups of students getting together for you know for the virtual learning afterwards um you're still no risk is being mitigated all we're doing is putting the children into an upheaval because this schedule is unnecessarily confusing with the two days and then switch to a different group two days one minute sir even if it was even if it was something like two days you know everyone goes to virtual on wednesday and then back two days so you can do maybe a deep clean on wednesday when no one's there that would make even more sense i think this is gonna be unnecessarily confusing to a lot of people to a lot of students i think the virtual learning is a complete not a failure i understand you guys are changing it but i from what i saw the last three months of the last school year my son was a different kid he hates where he loved it and was flourishing beforehand the kids need in-person instruction they need to be around other kids even if they're wearing masks and half the socially distant they need to be around other kids they need to be children again and i think this plan is completely failing at that time yes so um mrs becker that was um mr uh guerra thank you sir thank you for coming and uh next up we have um svetlana bogal yubova hello everyone i will have to read so it it would be much quicker i totally agree with the previous gentleman that this plan is total failure and we had opportunity to go over the 120 pages plan in our uh house uh house didn't lose power fortunately actually many families still do not have power in his brand switch so we have to it should be a great concern as well because they cannot actually go through the plan and they cannot present in a meeting it's not in the interest of the of the child or the student this plan as a parent i have experienced the problem of online education for elementary level kids it's simply not working our child already lost three months of education and the current plant is the manual uh manual to more disaster which such one kids will not only have quality education but any kind of at all we should not approve something like that in addition to disastrous learning gap of our children the plan doesn't address social isolation social delays and mental problems that our kids have experienced and mental health is totally not addressed in the plan kids suffer tremendously and not many families can afford private uh therapies also psycho psychological services drastically decreased due to demand place uh to face sessions in the charity are not currently available available due to corporate this is the only type of therapy that works for majority of elementary level children online therapies doesn't work charity doesn't work i can prove from our own experience mental health in our children is left behind with such a plan i also want to able to see any specific section related to special education and children with special needs they absolutely cannot be accommodated and accommodated by no professional adults at home distract person even available that represents the majority of parents or of care or caretaker that the quorum how a minute um ma'am one minute uh okay um jump into something else i'm fully aware that the proposed plan should not represent parents but because it's hardly really rely on parents or caretakers uh helped with short two days of school or elementary level children it should provide for qualification and help for working parents because we cannot afford child care like that or we cannot actually go online and be whole day with our kids especially elementary kids i can propose the plan which actually work uh i have a lot in my list i will post it in the chat but uh because i don't i have limited time i can propose the plan which actually worked and i went through this with my own experience um to solve the epidemic related problems absolutely seemed similar to covet uh back in my childhood childhood time uh our school district implemented a.m and pm learning and divided the school kids into groups basically it's like uh in the morning group and uh afternoon group uh time's up time is up uh thank you thank you for coming and talking to us tonight um next we have um sanjay i do not have a last name i'm not sure if that's a first name or a last name and so sanjay i we need you to mute unmute yourself please yeah can you hear me yes we need your first and last name and yes yes please yes this is sanjay lal uh sixth could you spell your last name please l-a-l-l thank you all right no i appreciate the messaging and the thought that has been put together of course you guys are the experts and you must have thought through lots of you know pros and cons and options various options so i appreciate what has been put through a lot of it makes sense of course there can be differences in opinions i do have a few questions right so one of the points was mentioned in the video was that for remote students portions of the class or part of the class would be video conferencing for remote students that part is not very clear if if an example can be provided as to how a typical class would be conducted that would help clarify and help in our decision for remote versus hybrid that's question number one the second point that we have is if i have further questions can i post it on the website or is there an email that i can send my question to that's my question number two my question number three is regarding the content and the quality of delivery both like since this is a challenging time and different right none of us have the staff the teachers we are not set up to deliver education in this scenario but we need to rise up to the challenge given that we are already six months into this scenario starting from september onwards i would expect that we are able to do the teaching and impart education at a higher level than what we had during q4 q4 is understandable it was sudden it was new but going forward in the new year we do expect the level of education being imparted and the content and the delivery to be much higher may not be as regular classes but still decent enough for a school district like east brunswick so can you explain what measures are being taken towards that these are my three questions thank you thank you sir hi i think somebody joined and we just need you to mute thank you so much president becker if i could just add clarification after mr wallace's comments uh anyone who does have questions we have set up a questions at ebnet.org and we will try to get back with you within 48 hours or sooner if we can and answers to those questions will get populated into our frequently asked questions site on the um on the first tile of our website where you saw the video the faqs are are hosted there as well uh we are um we will work with the academics we'll we'll create a document that will give more clarity to the community about what the class structure will look like and we we have all committed his organization this is for everyone who has spoken we've committed as an organization to continually improve upon what we did in the spring we have very talented teachers very committed teachers very committed uh administrators and board members we are consistently trying to improve upon what we've done thank you dr valesky i'm seeing some questions being submitted by chat and i'm trying to jot them down and i'll wait until um everyone has spoken and then um address them with you dr valesky so uh next um we have robin zernitzky hi yeah can you hear me yes we can okay hi thank you um three tracy drive is my address so just like the gentlemen before me um i have i have several questions so i'm going to try to get them in in time and hopefully you can address each of them um the first question i have is although you have a source and an email where we could send questions my opinion and the opinion of several other districts in the in the surrounding area is that a forum may be a better place to do that whether it's done on a school-by-school basis via zoom or via some other tele virtual method i think that might be a better way for people to get together and understand this a little bit better i think that the the program is definitely a bit complicated um i did read that that page cover to cover uh 101 pages um and i did have a very lengthy discussion with our principal to understand it better i do think i have a better understanding but i think it's also very good to hear other people's questions and sort of reflect on those questions in the same way as you reflect on your own so i'm just putting it out there we do have three to four weeks before school starts and i think that's something that can definitely be pulled together easily my second my next questions are related to the virtual so are teachers being trained to teach in person and via live stream and by that i mean to multitask in the ability to engage the students that are virtual be able to respond to questions that are being put on the screen you know they have to obviously notice kids in person that have their hand up how are kids that are virtually going to be able to ask those same questions so as to be able to keep up with what is being asked second question with any equipment purchased to ensure that the children who are virtual can adequately hear the teacher realistically they're going to have a mask on um is there microphones is there speakers is something going to be purchased to ensure that this will all be like adequately heard um my last question is actually a repeat of the prior gentleman's question is it possible for you to take us through what a virtual day would look like in the sense of you know the independent work versus so the synchronous and the asynchronous work like how will that all work it'd be really great to see an example um in some way thank you thank you uh mrs becker um next on the queue uh we had um a question from uh we had a couple of questions from zi would you like to get to those in the order in which these things were received well first i i wasn't quite sure dr valesky did you want to respond to so the if i could um dr bolly are you is your audio on yes it is uh wouldn't it be easier if we provided an example to the community of what what a day looks like if we gave an example rather than trying to explain it on zoom that we we put it out to the to the entire community certainly okay um can you talk about the professional development for teachers in the uh synchronous asynchronous teaching and and handling that with uh live instruction certainly we have extensive training being planned for our staff in providing concurrent instruction front loaded a few days before school is starting full days as well as ongoing in the afternoons throughout the um the school year so our teachers will collaborate at grain level and common planning times they will work closely with their supervisors and department chair persons as well as their building administration to and we will are committed to ensuring that they have all the training resources and staff development necessary to provide excellent instruction for all students and i wasn't i wasn't quite sure i think i need clarity on the hearing supplement or the hearing devices oh sure um i think my concern is you know you speak through a computer or a device you're wearing a mask how will their voices be amplified so that background noise is is sort of at a minimum and their voices are able to be heard you know through the computer i mean i'm speaking to you right now and i have you know muzzles on my family i'm just kidding but you know you can hear me but no one is talking in the background there's not 10 students in the background talking or shuffling paper or any of that so that that's my question is is anything going to be considered to be purchased to ensure that their voices are easily heard to the students yes we are working with the it department and vetting the best options be a microphone or some kind of headset that would allow the teacher's voice to clearly carry to the students online and in the classroom just to clarify dr bolly that's um equipment for the teachers to be utilizing it correct thank you and and it's and regarding the forum recommendation we had a very systematic way we were we were delivering this information to the community the principals were we're told today that they should begin communicating directly with our school communities beginning tomorrow and if the principles once we reconvene on monday morning after they've had a chance to reach out to their school communities if a forum is is the best way to communicate with the school each school community then we'll investigate that and figure out a way that we can get information to parents so they can make the best decision possible for each of their children thank you appreciate it bernie an answer to your question i think we'll continue with the people who are lining up to speak and then we can go back and take care of all the questions that we we've seen through chat very good uh so next uh we have bill lenihan uh mr lenahan uh you need to unmute please yes thank you uh named bill linehan uh one question hopefully it'll be quick uh i did read through the documents and the frequently asked and and i saw that if a student or teacher test positive that you know you'll do contact tracing but earlier this week a message went out that a single 12-month employee tested positive contact tracing was underway but the high school building was closed until further notice is that going to be the threshold of the precedent set when you bring back all of the 10 month employees plus the 12 month employees plus 25 of the students that's it thank you if if i could that that will not be the precedent um we were look we were simply closed the building as a precaution awaiting guidance from the department of health uh because we didn't have accurate information uh the the night before so as a precaution we closed the building and rather err on the side of caution but that i don't expect that to be the protocol we have refined that um and have a better uh a better way to uh react to those situations should they occur okay thank you would you is that something that you're going to share or is it sort of a fluid uh no if if we have um part of the governor's requirement that everyone wear a mask uh is part of the protocol that the department of health related to us that direct contact can be avoided in other words if somebody were to test positive and all the the occupants uh of an area where that person had been if they were all massed up they are unlikely to be direct contacts it would be if they removed their mask or had some interaction without mass protection so we're in our in our plan one of the issues is we're maintaining smaller populations so we can maintain social distancing but now with the added requirement that all students all staff and whatever limited visitors everyone who enters the facility was must wear a mask 100 of the time unless they are eating uh in in those occasions will be very limited uh because we're not serving lunch in the schools we're doing grab-and-go um so unless you know there's there's some other kind of uh issue like if they were in the nurse's office and had to be examined but otherwise people will be required to wear a mask 100 of the time thank you doctor thank you sir thank you for coming tonight and who's next please we have uh john shafer who is next and uh there we go mr shaffer would you kindly uh unmute yourself sure thank you john schaefer six buck lane let me start with i'm laughing a little bit because of robin's comment about the kid being muzzled and i was in total agreement so hopefully they don't fly off in the middle of this this question um joking obviously so i won't repeat some of the earlier questions but i do want to take things a couple steps further one i do appreciate your efforts the amount of time and effort and cost that probably went into building that thoughtful document i can't begin to fathom um in the in the abridged time frame so i think that's great i also concur that you do have talented teachers that's part of the reason we moved here was for the school systems and i've come to personally know a number of these teachers and and the principal and some other um staff and they're tremendous i will say though i am a little disappointed in this plan um i won't repeat the first caller's questions i think all that stands i think you have the the subject of working parents again admittedly schools not a babysitting station and then you have the social aspect of schooling i will let that sit i think you think you're getting that i would like to take this into two pieces one might chill if you have two children right will they be in the same group or are you gonna put them in separate groups because now you have a dynamic where you don't know who's on first so to speak right is child a going this day is child b going this day and then if there's busting for one now you're doubling the cost because there's busing for both so why not there's a number of uh logistical concerns so the question would be if you have two children in the same elementary school of similar age will they be in the same group so that's one question the second side would be you really didn't go into especially not in the video there was a purple bar but you didn't go into ieps right the the inference would be the the four-day in-person learning would be for special ed and i absolutely concur i think that without question children with uh many different services whether otp so on and so forth they need to be there five days but you have it's a spectrum right you have other students who have an iep yeah um how are you going to handle that because when i read through the document it looked like a lot of that for lack of better terms was punted to the the schools to kind of make a decision well we'll try it virtual and see how it goes and i will tell you right now with two children with ieps they the virtual um uh services were not good they were not effective they did not work um i think you should take that into consideration so i'll relinquish any remaining time thank you thank you and president becker really quick mr schaefer the uh we are working to align siblings so that that that led to the complexity of the scheduling between the elementary schools and the secondary schools and why it looks a little more complex so we can to the extent possible align older siblings with younger siblings for child care after dismissal because we knew that was going to be an issue for parents for working parents especially those that depend on older older children uh and obviously you know if you have younger children we're trying to align them as well the special education services we intentionally did not address a lot of it in this this video because the services are so distinct and specific for each child in our district and that was to come through our special education department and the communication started going out today but they are running a concurrent um uh explanation to our our families who have uh children uh that are identified and so that they can get those services and we have we we recognize the remote services uh needed to be improved and that's an effort that we have taken on since march dr velasco just to clarify when you said that we're aligning the younger students as well i think the gentleman was referring to if you have more than one child in the same elementary school yeah sibling alignment i'm sorry i'm in the same cohort that's what we're trying to do to the extent possible we're trying to make sure that siblings are aligned together on the same schedule okay thank you thank you thank you for coming john who do we have next bernie mrs becker at this point uh it's the various questions that were posted okay um i had jotted down a couple um somebody a few people wanted to know considering the facts that children will be wearing masks and distancing how will band and chorus work what will that look like dr bowley yes band and chorus are following the cdc and the nj siaa guidelines for social distancing students will be masked uh in regards to playing their instruments there will be a slit in their instrument in their mask that they can play their instrument and the bell of the instrument is also going to be masked and in terms of our chorus group in terms of singing and vocalizing and harmonizing with the masks um what will that look like do you have a can you tell us a lot of the instruction will be occurring outside the students will be social distancing and wearing their masks as appropriate according to cdc guidelines okay uh i have jotted down another uh question somebody had asked it who came to speak and also a few people um texted me personally they wanted to know about the professional development in terms of teachers um having the capacity to multitask that we're going to be asking teachers to do something very unique and that is teach virtually and in person at the same time and that's a skill set that uh for anybody um how are we addressing that specifically in our professional development we have three full days planned for professional development before the school year begins many staff members are already engaging in professional development this summer as well as half days in the schedule for staff throughout the school year to meet with their department or their grade level cohort team with the supervisors with the department shares with their building administration that we can meet the professional development needs of all of our teachers okay bernie did did you have some questions shouted down i see a question here from a gentleman asking uh or uh i would like to know how the virtual learning students will be graded and how the exams will be taken so um the the grading and assessment practices um that we have employed in east brunswick will resume um and assessing student understanding and mastery of content will be implemented in various ways not just paper and pencil tests but online quizzes opportunities for projects presentations written assignments certainly some uh formalized testing will occur but certainly students will not be coming into school and testing all day when they're in school they're going to be engaged in creative opportunities they're going to be having experiences and um labs and and things that cannot be done virtually so that precious time in school with their teacher will be for those types of activities okay mrs becker i did not receive any other individual any other questions directed again i want to reiterate what um dr volesky said we know that your questions will continue uh we want them to we want you thinking about this and as you think about something you have questions and there are various ways that you can get in touch um with the district uh dr valeski mentioned your question becoming part of our uh q a on our website there is an email address it was infrared eb network questions ebnet.org eveningnet.org when in doubt you can call the administration building and find out uh the best way to get your question to someone and um dr valesky was there anything you wanted to say otherwise i will close the public portion just one thing president becker i did see a piece in the chat about cleaning and i want everyone to understand that even before the pandemic we took cleaning to to new levels we we actually we don't have to worry about a supply of disinfectant or about supply chain issues early on the district was proactive and our maintenance department mr juliana bought equipment that we actually produced our own disinfectant uh the product is called orbio it is a hospital grade disinfectant it's used for hand wiping with microfiber towels and we we clean not only dust surfaces but the undersides of chairs under sides of desk any touch points we've learned from experience where children touch things and we've watched but we've supplemented that with electrostatic sprayers that are going to spray a hospital grade disinfectant that covers the surface and kills the virus we we are we are taking this seriously and what you saw as as the standards in the document are the minimum standards they will probably be done much more than that but those what what the public can expect as a minimum mr giuliano did you want to add anything to that that that pretty much covers um what we do um i think the other thing and i'm sorry if i if i missed it and what you just covered but um did you mention the electrostatic cleaners so um i think we're pretty well covered with that and then i think there was also a note regarding of um our ventilation systems so i i will say that with regard to our hvac systems um they uh have all they all have regular and frequent uh filter changes um and they have all been um prior even to the pandemic but we have them all upgraded to the maximum merv filter that they can handle and when i say that they can handle we can't go up to the highest mirv because it will have a detrimental effect on the equipment and actually will burn out motors because of the restrictive airflow however the highest that we can go on any of the units we are implementing that and have implemented that so that's an important point and all of our facilities uh with the exception of the high school are fully air conditioned uh churchill is uh is nearing completion of the air conditioning project which will ensure that all the classrooms are air conditioned in that facility and i think that pretty much covers okay and there's nobody else in the queue i do not see uh no no one has asked okay i will close the public portion i thank those of you for coming very much moving on to our board of education item agenda can i please have a motion for items only items one two and three don't move mark second second by libra is there any discussion this is a well called vote i'm sorry we're getting back from mom from someone okay again um we're very happy to have so many of you join us we're just going to ask that you please keep your microphones on mute thank you so much okay um will the secretary please call the roll this is true yes mr sismar mrs gloss yes mr hong yes this is lax yes this is rhys yes mr simmons yes mr whit mr winston yes president becker yes motion carries moving on to item four submission of restart and recovery plan to open schools meaning the board is being asked to approve submission of the district restart and recovery plan to the new jersey department of education may i please have a motion for that don't move move by todd second by mark is there any discussion board members yeah mrs becker yes todd dr volesky that was really an outstanding and understandable video um i know that you couldn't cover a 100 pages in there but um i think you got to the important points and thank you for that thank you i also want you to thank the administration um but also all the parents who gave up parts of their summer to take part in the individual school restart teams i think we can all agree that there is no such thing as a perfect plan out there i think we can all agree that there are so many variables and circumstances beyond our control and this is at best frustrating at worst maddening we all want what's best for our kids we all don't pretend to have all the answers but i think what we tried to do is come up with a plan that would get 8 500 children their proper education and 1 300 staffs the opportunity to do their jobs in a way that would be safe and conducive to learning we will tweak it as we go on the situation will change as the situation in the state in the country changes i'm sure um and i thank all the parents for being so engaged thank you for partnering with us hang in there we're going to make this work any other board members wishing to speak yeah i i do yeah all right i heard a lot of the comments tonight i agree with every one of them on both sides i completely get it i don't know how working parents are going going to be able to accomplish this in this plan or quite frankly any hybrid plan um the rules that have been handed down to to us i think made this particularly challenging and i think dr blusky and his team answered to every one of those rules and every one of those suggestions and in really thinking about this the last few days i have to say to the community don't hate the player hate the game uh you know it's not it's it's not this plan it's what we were told could be in this plan and i think that uh dr velasque and his team answered all of those those things what wasn't mentioned as in terms of handing down the information from the department of education the federal and state government was addressing the probably the the largest concern which i think the first caller had with uh being faced with an extremely tough decision it stinks and i'm sorry uh to this community that this is going on uh and i do hope that this changes uh i don't i i hope that uh well quite frankly i believe that this school should not restart until uh there's a handle on this because of what we've seen evident in other states that have and uh so i'll vote for the plan i am against this entire process i want this uh children to be safe and i'm particularly concerned about the teachers so um that's all i have but my opinion though thank you thank you jeff any other board members wishing to say anything susanna i i just want to say um it's difficult to be a parent right now it's difficult to be a teacher um and it's a tough job to balance all of these interests and i all i can say is you have the full commitment of this board to to look out and just try to do the right thing thank you and the other board members if you want to speak and i'm not seeing you just um leave both hands in the air or nope okay um there's no other discussion will the secretary please call the role chu uh excuse me sorry i was waiting for the student report um student report is later oh okay okay okay we're still we are going through the agenda okay thank you so much thank you anthony this is true yeah mr sismar yes mrs wasps yes mr hong yes yes mrs lacks yes mrs reese yes mr simmons yes mr winston yep president becker yes question harry's moving on to our community programs agenda can i please have a motion for item number one by todd is there any discussion all those in favor all right all right motion carries moving on to our financial services agenda can i please have a motion for items hi thank you second by jeff is there any detention this is a roll call hall with the secretary yes mr hong yes mr slack yes mr simmons yes mr winston yes president becker yes martial aries on a human resources agenda i hope all of you saw the people's agenda there are now three items can i please have a motion for items one through three don't move by todd is there any discussion this is a royal call vote will the secretary please call the roll sorry who seconded on that yeah jeff thank you sir uh yes roll call vote mrs two yeah mr sismar yes this is gloss yes mr han yes mrs lacks mrs reese yes mr simmons yes mr winston yes president becker yes motion carries moving on to our i t there is one item can i please have a motion for it is there any discussion i i have a question on number one absolutely all right so um for those who are on the line this is for technology department purchasing of a firewall associated license for about 64 000 but i'm more interested in the next section in terms of bandwidth uh this is the number one complaint i've heard from uh students and staff in the district uh that the bandwidth of course has been um terrible where they have difficulty times either staying on or being on or downloading documents within the school so that being said before the contract was awarded to this company uh evaluate usage and determine that the nine gigabyte speed would be sufficient mr winston i'm just checking to see if mr electronica is on with us right now okay yes i am online nick can you would you have answered mr winston's question please yes absolutely so uh currently we're at three gigabytes and we actually have quite an extensive traffic analyzer system so we can see what usage is every day what our plans are for next year in terms of video conferencing we know what all the statistics are we kind of know what the benchmarks are so when i went to my network department with where they felt we needed to be i basically doubled that so nine gigabytes is without a doubt going to be sufficient for our needs with every classroom nick that would be uh running the zoom or running the canvas and live along with the general internet access say in the high school where 25 of the students are constantly uh engaged so what we're doing we're shifting so last year we did a lot of zoom zoom no longer has the free licenses for public education but as part of our microsoft subscription we have access to an enterprise tool called teams which also supports video conferencing and we will have a couple of uh team servers on premises okay traffic inside our premise on our side of the firewall we could do internal video conferencing all we want without affecting that external bandwidth though we'll really be able to minimize traffic and uh in addition to that the firewall that we have that we're purchasing has very extensive capabilities to be able to disable certain applications disable certain services if we needed to disable byod for certain hours of the day we have a lot of flexibility to really control the bandwidth that we're using all right and just a lot nick just the last question is that is this the package that you wanted or do you wish you we bought a different one but you felt the cost was too restricted no so the cost really is when we are going to nine gigabytes that's really where i think we need to be in three years i i don't think we're gonna get anywhere near that um nine gigabytes is is a crazy amount of bandwidth last year we were barely topping [Music] there were times in the beginning of the year when everyone was downloading the applications where we were topping getting close to three gigs but on an average day we're not getting much over one gig good deal thanks for clarification i feel very confident okay this is mrs becker so mr latronica question does microsoft teams have any limits on how many people can participate in a video conference though the limits are very similar to zoom it's 300 participants for a regular conference but unlike zoom presume they have webinar licenses which we would have to pay extra for but with teams we can just assign those on the fly and have up to 10 000 participants and we could also line live stream events like we're doing with this board meeting and have unlimited uh viewers thank you should we mr electronica perhaps be looking at teams for having these meetings so the one downside about teams is um it's really geared more for east brunswick participants you know the security is there for them um you know there are some enterprise presume they're great but many of our administrators have already adopted using teams and once they start using it they love it every teacher's class list will be integrated in there so it'll be easy for them to control the security to their students there's no chance of a zoom bomber coming in you know but it it's kind of a new tool so we need to kind of get everyone on board with with teams and thank you nick anyone else with any questions for nick okay um i did get a motion and second for this correct yes you did mrs becker we just need your question i'm sorry talking to you when you say something okay all those in favor aye motion characters moving on to our student services agenda can i please have emotion for items one through three move by todd second by jeff is there any discussion this is a role called vote for the second please yes um yeah mr sismar mrs yes mr hong yes mrs lax yes mrs reese yes mr simmons yes mr winston yes president becker yes martian countries okay we're now up to um [Music] committee reports an information items anthony my crystal ball something tells me you wanted to give a report how was how's the summer going it is good thank you i'm sorry uh for uh jumping in a little too early there no worries good evening uh first things first is i wanted to congratulate mr hanis on being named principal churchill junior high uh i speak on behalf of the students when i say thank you for all the great things that you've done for us as students and i'm sure you'll continue to do those things uh now it's august and it's uh the i guess midpoint of summer which for a lot of seniors means that it's time to start thinking more about college uh luckily evhs offered the uh boot camp to kind of help guide parents and students were a little unaccustomed to the process so that's been going well uh i also wanted to reference a storm that knocked out a large majority of students power two days ago and students today are still feeling the uh effects of such storm and um onto the return plan which i think as mentioned by a former board member was explained very clearly in uh dr golovkin's video so thank you for that um but it's also a little too early for me to determine what the student preference is in terms of the two options uh i'm fairly certain that they're relatively split as is as is meaning that both the options are valid and it really boils down to a matter of personal preference and on my personal behalf near the beginning of july i was heavily geared towards online learning i didn't think that the situation would be safe and i didn't think that a return plan would really uh allow for me to be comfortable but as i as i as me and other students were allowed to give a little bit more input on the return plan and really see it develop i became a lot more accustomed to it and now on my personal decision i think i'll be doing the hybrid mainly because i feel more comfortable going in uh for the two school days out of expo days and um yeah that was just my personal uh choice and continuing with the return plan uh there will continue to be more student input on revising and i guess accounting for variables that might have gone unaccounted for even though i'm sure most of them were were most of them weren't accounted for so yeah i look forward to seeing the revisions made and suggesting some myself and uh with other students that's all for tonight thank you anthony thank you for taking the time to come to speak to us tonight are there any uh information items or good of the cause on the board um i had somebody actually email me a question they said that they weren't able to go through the chat uh they try several times so their question was that they are assuming that the strict guidelines for the maximum number of people in any given building at one time must have been a huge factor in determining the logistics for the number of days in school for each grade for the number of hours that they know a lot of people will be critical of two days half day hour virtual but they are going under the assumption that you had very strict guidelines to work with that were not flexible at all and you this was in reaction to that and they wanted a confirmation on that um actually yes um there the guidelines that uh for occupancy the building uh do not apply to specifically to schools although we use them as a general guide but the distancing is a factor uh also when you're talking about the logistics of actually trying to serve lunch that that becomes a factor in the gathering of the number of people and being able to maintain social distancing even with mask so we're trying to do both we're trying to um if in every occasion that we can that the distancing and mass combined together provide the greatest level of safety but also when we started looking at aligning siblings that became a factor in our scheduling our capacity but one of the other things i want to make clear to the community is that even though our secondary schools are built right now on 25 of the total capacity so that is if everyone decided they were going to select the hybrid model we have the room in the high school based on the 25 model to bring all those people in and maintain social distancing and the same way with the elementary schools it was built on a 50 capacity the reason why those numbers fell out that way is because if conditions change and we are the virus becomes contained in some way or they administer a vaccine and at some point when we try to re regather our students we can scale this up and increase our capacity in secondary to 50 75 and ultimately 100 and the same with our elementary schools but we have to maintain that sibling alignment to the extent that we can because of the child care concerns that many people brought forth tonight we are we are sensitive to all those as mr winston said you know these these are factors that um this was a huge puzzle with constraints that continue to change and evolve as the board knows because we shared you had a meeting every week and we talked about the changes within the week but as i said in the video this is the best plan for east brunswick at this point in time and it will it will continue to evolve it's a living breathing document it's fluid absolutely but it but it will but i need to make clear that when we open schools we need to follow that document consistently because that that is the that's the piece that will um provide the greatest level of safety for everyone we have to follow the plan okay thank you anybody have anything seen no we do have a need for closed session the board of education must discuss matters which are not appropriate for discussion in a public meeting the board of education intends to discuss the following matters those items listed in tonight's agenda the length of the closed session is estimated to be those in available opposed motion carries thank you for joining us tonight everyone please stay safe board members please log out and uh log into the closed session good night you

good morning dr thomason would you please call this order call to order our meaning i'm sorry roll call it's already a day president caleb members of the board please at the record show we have all five board members present today thank you so much and i thank everybody that's here today on their saturday morning i appreciate you all we're to have a moment of silence followed by the pledge of allegiance i move that we approve the agenda second any questions all those in favor aye aye motion carries 5-0 request to speak we value input from our constituents this time has been set aside for anyone from the audience who wishes to address the board please remember that this is not an appropriate venue to evaluate discuss or criticize district personnel policy keb provides a process for complaints about personnel speakers should be aware that the false statements about individuals may result in civil liability members of the board may not discuss items that are not specifically identified on the agenda therefore pursuant to ars 38-43 h action taken as a result of public comment will be limited to directing staff to study the matter responding to any criticism or scheduling the matter for further consideration and decision at a later date please limit your remarks to three minutes i've asked dr thomason this morning to go ahead and read all the comments that we did receive via online and also i just want to state that all of us up here have received numerous emails over the past week we have read every word whether we were able to respond to every single email i apologize i personally am not but we're trying so again thank you for reaching out community and dr thomason i'll hand it over to you president kayla members of the board we do have 27 comments that i'll be reading today i'll read them exactly as written and sent to us okay the first one aubrey fulmer students at cortina saseman middle school and higley high school we just moved here a few weeks ago from out of state and my kids need normal in-person school to start asap there is no way to meet friends and feel comfortable in a new place without it this move has been extremely hard for this reason we need normalcy and that means productive normal school routines delaying it is not healthy these children need this structure and to regain confidence again next one shelly naylor children at cortina saseman and higley high school the children need to be back in person learning asap this is vital for their mental and physical health being home in front of the computer screen is not healthy for them they need the interaction of other students and teachers they deserve the right to a good education and not dependent on a little instruction given over a live teaching session and having to navigate their way through a computer program to get their work done children already have too much screen time in their lives without schooling being in front of a screen please let these children go back to in-person learning now so they have a chance at actually learning and being mentally stronger rebecca shiver children at higley sassem and cortina i would like to speak and ask on my behalf of my five children that you please let them go back to school they have been struggling with the distance learning program and some of their teachers have been struggling as well please let teachers staff and children choose rachel schweitzer children at san tan elementary and soseman middle school dear miss keeler i don't know how much of a voice you have in reopening schools but it has been more than i have as a parent we are in five we are in day five of remote learning and it has been disappointing depressing and overwhelming i know everyone in authorities seems to be saying it isn't safe to open schools please do the research for yourself it isn't safe to keep them closed the cdc is saying it isn't safe to keep them closed we want a choice for in-person school for teachers and students please be a voice for my children i have a child in seventh grade at saseman who hates school now and cries that everything she loves has been taken away she excelled in every subject before school closed i have a child in fifth grade at san tan elementary who is anxious and has a panic attack every day over computer work she has gained 10 pounds since being home and we are already concerned about her health her activity and stress eating it has gotten worse i have a second grader in spanish immersion who is missing her friends and teachers and acting out aggressively toward her siblings she loved school before it closed and remote learning is not working i have a kindergartener whom we call our sunshine girl because she is always so happy and bouncy and i can see the light draining out of her she is so excited to start school and she feels cheated and disappointed she's not getting the socialization that is so critical in kindergarten and lastly i have a two-year-old who prepare who perhaps is being cheated the most because i cannot sit with her and play like i used to disney junior is taking my place as a scurry around between my four student children helping them with computer program issues and following lengthy steps to turn in in assignments is overwhelming exhausting and demoralizing i have had to put my career as a real estate agent on pause because now i am unpaid full-time technical and emotional support person who can't even do that well because i care for a two-year-old at the same time we are drowning we want our happy kids back we don't want to give up on public school but this is asking too much please please be our voice rebecca schweitzer mother of five share cardona children at soccerman and higley high school our kids need to get back in school being out of school this long is now online is having a devastating effect on my children my oldest is a junior at higley high school and involved in band this year you can't have banned class and not meet in person it just can't happen he's losing out on the experience and losing the benefits of the me that music has has for their brain developments he is also taking higher level classes and needs to be in class with an instructor so he gets the full learning experience he can't get online our middle daughter is an eighth grader at soseman middle school she is very much an extrovert she thrives on being around people and being social she can also be by herself for small amounts of time but she needs human interaction she is an accelerated classes she is in drama she's involved in many things she needs to be in the classroom she cannot keep doing these online classes and staying staying home away from people she is trying to keep it together she has never had an anxiety or depression issue since being out of school she has become anxious enough to need a counselor she is now being treated for depression also she can't cope with everything being online we are slowly losing her her personality is changing our youngest daughter is in seventh grade at sasaman she is a bit quieter than her sister so initially staying home was not a bad thing for her social aspect but the scholastic repercussions have been huge she basically failed her last semester in elementary being online didn't help that at all she is she has an iep and she needs to be in the classroom with teachers that will assist her where it's needed she does not engage online and i need to stress not she shuts down if she can't be in the classroom she doesn't have anything to help keep her focused and keep her adhd manageable there is not enough structure to keep her interested and engaged she must be in the classroom that's it she has to be i feel like we are already sitting setting her up to fail the teachers are great they are doing the best they can but they are not going to be able to help my child through a computer screen last year she was just starting to get her confidence up and participate in class and now she's gonna have to start all over and try to get some of that back please please please have the option to go back to school for those of us who want school if someone wants to stay online then let them have that option but do not withhold in-person school from us that is so desperately so desperately needed connie webb children at san tan elementary our special needs kids need to be back in school online learning is not effective for a child with special needs she was unable to navigate it on their on his own and able to learn anything from 30 minutes of screen time on top of that their speech surfaces have been cut down to 10 minutes per child per week which is a waste of everyone's time ieps are not being followed which is which are legal documents that are ignore that you are ignoring our kids need to go back to school but in particular special needs kids need to be back in school because they need services they are not they are legally entitled to sarah launder children at cortina i just wanted to make sure i was able to express my desire for kids to be in school in person as soon as possible online learning is provided to be a sub has is proving to be a subpar option for elementary children i had to pull my kindergartner out of public school and find an alternative if we go past the 17th of august i will be moving my second grader as well i would also like to request parents being able to be present at the next board meeting thank you for your hard work i know these decisions aren't easy christina klontz children at cortina and higley high school it is absolutely imperative that our children have the option if they so choose to have in-person learning multiple experts have been consulted and asked about whether it is safe for children to return back to school the consensus across the board has been yes jonathan apodaca cortina saseman and higley high schools have the ability to safely reopen hannah johnson williamsfield high school i would like to advocate for our children to be in school face to face please listen to the hundreds of professionals that have advocated for the mental health and development of our children and the children and the need for interaction and some normalcy to return to their lives i can tell you the number of suicide attempts and sadly success have skyrocketed during the last few months and now it's terrifying to see actual damage and loss of life happening with these children and healthy young adults because their entire lives have been ripped away from them quidera walker williamsfield high school i wanted to offer solutions for the absence of physical education for our students physical education solutions brooke buschmann students at cortina parents who want their children to participate in remote learning have been given that option please give an option for in-person education for my children for our family online learning will not be sustainable long term i have four children one preschool age and three enrolled at cortina elementary none of my children are proficient at using computers my sixth grader has adhd and will likely need a 504 plan in place sometime this year he has five different teachers this year and struggles with staying focused during online learning i i have to click through each teacher's canvas page to check for assignments daily to make sure he hasn't missed anything my third grader has down syndrome i must be present with her all the time online learning sessions she is bored with watching her teacher on the computer i can barely get her to sit for 20 minutes i'm very concerned with her regression in reading and math since march also concerning is the lag in therapy services she doesn't get as much out of speech therapy sessions online as she would in person my second grader is getting better using canvas but still struggles he is often left to fend for himself while i attend to my two older children's needs a second grader shouldn't be expected to navigate canvas on his own i feel a lot of guilt that this child is on his own and simply because his siblings need extra help all three of my kids schedules overlap i am running from room to room computer to computer all morning trying to make sure each child is on the right meaning and no one is having technical issues all while trying to keep my four-year-old busy and quiet the first week of school was incredibly stressful and i'm at stay-at-home mother i can't imagine the stress of parents who both work or who are single parents this mode of learning will not be sustainable for our family please allow families to continue to send their children back to school in person nicole camp children at cooley and chaparral since no one is happy about the online option with florida virtual how about the district follows what combs district is doing you can broadcast classes live and stay at home kids if when school is open this will greatly reduce the stress parents and kids are feeling about changing teachers and classes again and kids won't have to lose their electives or accelerated courses if they decide to stay at home the kids need consistency also if schools have to close again because of covid then the kids can keep the same classes and do them virtually again your online option is less than satisfactory at this point kids need consistency my kids will be heartbroken if they have to change teachers or lose classes kathleen richards student at higley traditional academy the current plan of placing all students with remote learning requests once buildings open for instruction requires removing students from their current learning environments based in their schools and putting them in the global academy the stress this creates for students on a social emotional level makes this absolutely unacceptable additionally the florida virtual learning that provides the online content for the global academy is not up to par with several schools and their curriculums including our homeschool higley traditional academy the majority of fvl content does not allow for student teacher live lessons and does not involve peer-to-peer interaction the idea of self-guided learning for a kinder or lower elementary student is not a viable concept the board has stated that there will be a seamless transition available for families and students from remote to in-person learning but there is no way for this to be accomplished if these children are behind in their curriculum there is no reason for this transition to be acquired and i encourage the district and the board to look at education needs from school to school and set up measures that allow remote learning to continue as it was started on 727 by not implementing fvl curriculum when the year began the district effectively limited this as a viable option for our students the lack of transparency with enrolled families with regards to this plan will i fear ultimately result in many families deciding to enroll their children and options that removed them from the higley unified school district if that happens the funding impacts will be lo will be long lasting as soon as children's as soon as a student leaves the district it is very hard to bring them back you cannot pull the rug out from under parents and students and expect them to roll with it with all this in mind the district has several options delay opening until the end of the first quarter this allows the districts and schools leadership teams to further develop a viable option for remote learning while monitoring the health and public safety issues if opening immediately is found to be safe and necessary then it is the job of the district to continue the remote option that has already begun petrina davini children's bridges we have been part of the higley school district since my son was in kindergarten he is now in sixth grade and attends binges elementary school and loves it there the first thing i need to know is that my son is a differentiated learner he has a very high iq and adhd and odd and sensory integration disorder which all leads to high levels of anxiety my son needs structure and challenge in his life daily the quarantine of the schools being closed have been very detrimental to my son's overall well-being and mental health the second thing you need to know is that my son also had covet in december he was sick from thanksgiving until the first week of january with a cough off and on fever and body aches he only missed a few days of school he continued to play baseball and soccer during the time as well i want you to hear this because he went to school and exposed this virus to everyone he was in contact with for an entire month and there was no catastrophe we we nor his doctor had any idea what it was at that time but my son now carries the antibodies and my husband and i do not it is far more harmful for my son not to not be allowed to go to school please give us a choice thank you for your time and consideration lisa cotton children at higley traditional academy i'm at a loss for words if children can be on campus with janitorial staff support staff etc why are teachers exempt from this returning to school is not the only risk of covid it is not going anywhere how long do we feel it is acceptable to continue this online learning how long to expect kids to tolerate isolation and lack of social and emotional interaction how is any length of time acceptable every other aspect of the workforce has returned accepting their responsibilities and the inherited risks why are teacher and school staff exempt from this please do not delay in-person learning past august 17th the parents and students need a choice a long one i'm gonna take a drink jennifer blast channel children at higley and saw semen i am requesting husd extend the current virtual model of learning for at least the first semester and ideally to offer this through the entire 2020-2021 school year to show support for this i have created a petition online to indicate how many parents fill in a similar manner as well as to list our specific concerns please view the petition at www.change.org backslash husd online learning the petition reads as follows i am writing to request the higley unified school district continue the current virtual learning model for the 2021 school year as well as to express our concerns with the different models this document focuses only on the methodology of off-campus learning this is not intended to address the decision to return to campus for the students who wish to for the purposes of this document in person refers to the regular on-campus learning online only refers to online learning with florida virtual academy curriculum and virtual refers to the current learning being offered as we begin the school year we appreciate the higlino fight school district is doing as much as they can to support families and students making meals available at schools and bus stops distributing technology to facilitate online learning keeping us updated as best as you can and more the outreach communication and concern coming from our individual schools and teachers has been wonderful the combination of live online meetings and independent learning is working well for my students i would like to see the current model continue or be the base for our online learning model for the 2021 school year our current model allows instruction and live feedback from the students teachers our current model is workable balance of live and independent learning can we not use the per purchased online curriculum to supplement rather than to replace this model there is a variety of reasons that families have not there's a variety of reasons that families have for not wanting to send their students back to campus whether out of concern for the health of their own students or their ascr our at-risk family at home of the teachers and staff or other reasons many parents do not wish to send their students back to campus some of the many concerns that parents would like husd leadership to hear are listed below disruptions and consistency in learning many parents are concerned with the disruption of online campus learning that will occur when quarantines are necessary if our students return to campus but must then quarantine how will their learning continue if they must quarantine due to exposure in the first period class will the other classes offer online support how will the logistics of that work are there adequate substitute teachers available to support in-person classes emotional impact of multiple transitions how many different learning environments will students have to adjust to during transition from our current model back to virtual in case of quarantine where shutdown teaches reassignments for online versus virtual versus in person's learning etc husd has stated that students may transition back to the in-person learning at the beginning of each quarter how will that work if they have had to change the courses being taken for example would a student be allowed to rejoin an ap blinn class or another class not offered online if they begin this year for students who need to change from in person to online midway through the year many of the same concerns apply do they get have credit for this coursework completed in person but not offered online especially if the course is a full year course how will absences from in-person schooling be handled will current guidelines of no more than blank absences be updated high school the classes offered online will not allow students to take full course load will additional classes be offered later to allow students to catch up they may lose progress towards their graduation as well as lose the opportunity to graduate with various seals are any details available regarding allowing students on campus to take elective courses that are unavailable online reducing the exposure risks what options are available for dual enrollment as an online student are students allowed to take any cgcc online course for husd credit middle school will the online spanish still count for high school credit algebra and geometry how will distancing work during the passing periods during lunch elementary school curriculum consistency for students in special programs such as hta or h pal online only offerings do not meet their needs continue their programs how do they continue learning new material adapting to changing teachers losing interaction with classmates will be the hardest for our youngest learners our current learning method allows social interaction with both teachers and fellow students which we feel is important for students mental health and development teacher and staff concerns teachers are already asked to do so many things asking them to be the primary protection of children's health as a concern will class be will class time be used to clean surfaces where students and wash hands how will teachers sick leave policy be updated to allow for mandated quarantines will they be financially penalized should they be required to quarantine or be or become ill what if multiple teachers in a department are absent at the same time do we have qualified substitutes to keep classes on pace if teachers are required to quarantine off campus 10 to 14 days we support teachers who wish to continue teaching via our current model as it allows them to teach our children without compromising their health or their students faculty concerns how will distance facility concerns how will distance distancing work during lunch are the facilities still available for rent to outside groups what cleaning this defecting is done after the rental before students and staff are in the buildings again how will this investing or distance be possible on school buses what are the protocols for notify notification when students have a test positive how will contact tracing be done and communicated with hit within higgle unified school district we recognize that many parents are selecting to send their students back to campus that is a long-term goal for most families with the current offering offerings families are feeling forced to choose between educational projects and student health and safety if the current canvas-based virtual education model and were not to continue to be offered many families would choose to continue their students learning without disruption many families are happy with the online only model that will be offered once campus reopens specifically because it loses the live instruction and social and academic interaction in addition the loss of courses available for online only is a great concern especially for older students we urge the leadership of the higgle unified school district to continue offering the current educational model throughout the school year or for as long as any online learning is offered thank you katie wolfenden children at cortina elementary to all those who are making critical decisions right concerning our children and their education i would ask that you seriously consider the following concerns and how their education affects them mentally socially and physically first scree time there have been countless studies as well as pediatrician and psychologist recommendations to limit the use of screens and technology the long-term effects on children especially under the age of 12 is damaging mentally and emotionally the current solution to have our kids sit in front of a computer all day is beyond unhealthy addiction to technology and screens is a huge problem in our society and online education being forced will greatly exacerbate the problem second internet exposure it is close to impossible to keep our kids safe online now we are throwing thousands of kids on computers for numerous hours and drastically increasing the risk of exposing them to pornography online predators and countless inappropriate and damaging content that they should never witness between parents working and trying to help multiple children there is no way that kids will have someone monitoring them every second there on the computer we have to keep our children safe and prolonged time spent online as anything but safe third anxiety depression suicide mental illness is huge is a huge concern because of this pandemic having kids isolated no physical contact no real emotional connection to friends and teachers is incredibly detrimental to their mental and emotional well-being suicide and youth has already skyrocketed over the past decade and those numbers will trajectively be astronomically higher if kids don't get back to in person and due to their social isolation their anxiety and depression take over fourth at-risk children the homes where these kids are at risk of neglect and abuse there's no place for kids to be combine the normal stresses that trigger abuse and the current pandemic situation and abuse causes cases have drastically increased since this all started five months ago we need to protect our children in these situations and often teachers are the greatest chance of coping and escaping these situations i won't even go into detail about how much less effective online school is as far as our kids getting an education i think that is obvious but honestly the above concerns are much greater and children's lives can be ruined or even lost if we don't take these concerns and factor them in yes covet is real but these other factors are just as real and can be far more damaging to their mental health the current online situation is not sustainable nor is it mentally or emotionally healthy for my kids if school isn't resuming in person on august 17th i have already informed the principal that my three kids at cortina elementary school will be withdrawn from public from the public school system this has nothing to do with cortina's teachers i applaud them for their efforts right now but i have to do what is best and put my kids in health and education first we are so grateful for our health care workers and all those on the front lines right now where are our teachers principals and superintendents that are willing to stand in front on the front lines on behalf of our children please take a stand for our children and fight for their mental and emotional well-being please advocate for in person as well as provide an online option for the most vulnerable please make it possible to find a way to get them back in school immediately respectfully katie wolfenden jennifer tsar students at san tan and saw semen dear husd board members superintendent thomas and associate superintendent foley thank you for taking the time to listen to the concerns from the community and share them at the board meeting during these challenging times i have learned the importance of voicing my concerns and have two concerns that i would like to share with you first i urge you to follow the recommendations of both the maricopa county department of health and arizona department of health services and not open schools until the metrics have been provided on august 6 2020 and they have been met in 2019 there was a measles outbreak which thankfully did not hit higley community hard however i have no doubt that if it had you would have followed any of the recommendations from the maricopa club and arizona health departments for closing schools this is no different the maricopa and arizona health departments have provided clear guidelines for when schools can reopen safely and we are not there yet opening before the metrics have been met would be irresponsible sorry getting dry second as mr montovich mentioned during the board meeting on july 29th one of his concerns is retaining wonderful professional and dedicated staff in the higgle unified school district i recently learned that two prayer professionals in the district are being told they must come to work in the on-site learning options for children who need a place to go on august 17th they have been told if they do not they will have to resign many of these paraprofessionals have children of their own who if they must work the on-site learning options will have to bring their own children who they are trying to keep safe with them why is the district why as a district are we asking them to risk the health and safety of their own children for someone else's child is there another option for providing work for the for our paraprofessionals i'm afraid if we don't explore other options by the time we are able to open we will have lost the dedicated talented staff we need for our schools thank you again for listening to the concerns and thoughts of the community as we make these challenging decisions kate windsor children at cortina although state and county bureaucratic agencies gave a one-side fits all guidance to opening schools these are not mandated and you still have a choice to either blindly follow or make the right choice for the higley families that elected you into office your primary responsibility is to answer to the higley taxpayer not the teachers unions or government bullying as a dedicated certified educator and parent i have to do what is best for my children i'm so happy that we have choices to make for our children's education because of past experience and beliefs i chose to put my children in a public in-person education yet due to uncharted circumstances i'm forced to educate my children in ways i never would have chosen via remotely or through another school choice that is where the problem lies every parent in this community has a choice i'm grateful husd still gave a choice with surveys with an in-person option and online my fear is that choice i have chosen will not be available due to this district's decisions there are so many options for online school but we are limited with in-person choices i don't want my choice of in-person learning to be intimidated by mister by ms hoffman's letter which was not based on facts or data i read the cdc guidelines and recommendations for in-person learning this fall i have seen zero evidence that the state of arizona or husd that learning on campus is dangerous each day the numbers roll in that show that our children are not at risk that and that cases and az are decreasing they show us that children do not transmit the virus as dangerous rates but since kathy hoffman says arizona is not ready will we just accept her opinion my business gave me the opportunity to work from home a few weeks ago so i could be here to assist my children in their education there is simply no way that they could attempt their learning and keep up their classes without me at home let alone deal with the technology problems next week as i head back to work i am just trying trying to pray my kids can navigate their educational needs without me their full time with without me their full time to help i am at a place where if higley doesn't allow in-person learning on 817 i have applied to a local charter option to pull my three children out of husd pending they will be open i hate this but i have to take care of my family first i have seen firsthand the struggles of my children and have had and have had and it is not something i am going to sit by and let happen further i plead with you to take a stand for what is right for the families of higley and vote to give an in-person option for students on august 17th those who are fearful of in person have already been given the online option as hoffman stated families will hold districts accountable she is right about this but wrong about why thank you kate winter cortina parents certified teacher and hst substitute teacher dr thomas and tate just i you've expended a lot of air just take a second and breathe please this is my third time reading these so yes we're almost done i've got about six left and all the long ones are done thank you mr clever next monica coates children at higley and higley high school in cortina distinguished members of the board dr thomason and dr foley thank you for all of that you have done during this difficult time i am a mother of four we have a higley graduate three still in school our family would love nothing better than to return to school that being said even more we would like to return to school when it is safe to do so our family follows science and metrics we have tried to make decisions for our family based on logic rather than the emotion after listening to the state metrics and take and even taking talking to our own doctors and first responders and our own family we know that waiting is the best thing right now we love the staff and teachers at our schools we worry about their safety as well as the safety of our own kids i have big concerns about the tight spaces that our secondary students who are at higher risk are being asked to return to we are compelled to look at us the situation from a bigger picture than just ourselves what am i concerned about returning too soon shutting back down and so on we have seen this happen on multiple in multiple countries and now in several states this is what would be even more emotionally damaging to our kids we have been nothing impressed with our online program so far our kids are fine their teachers are fine and we will get through this please do not put our kids into a situation where they cannot sufficiently social distance while the arizona numbers are so high also please do not put our teachers in paris into this situation that situation either we have been impressed and proud of how husd has handled kobe so far we trust that you will make the best and safest decision for school return sincerely monica coates jennifer gibras children at higley traditional academy and williamsville high school in reading over the return to school plan i disagree with the cafeteria setup and having children all face the same way if we as a general public can go to a restaurant and sit face to face why not in school what do classroom setup setups entail will there be plexiglass on desks if so then why not why the mass also my children has a hard time hearing people with masks on will teachers be in mass or will they be in face shields angela james children at saucerman first and foremost i want to thank each and every board member for their tireless thankless hours you have spent during these unprecedented times to ensure the decisions you all make are as right as you can get for the safety of the husd family the last survey only indicated two options in person or online later we heard that if schools open the online option for those who chose not to return to campus in person learning is still available but it will not be interactive as it currently is our family is a high risk family we have chosen to keep our middle school son home to minimize any risk we feel as though families who are choosing the online option are being abandoned by the district basically telling us that since we are choosing the online option we are not privileged enough to continue the interactive instruction our kids are now on their own per se granted our son is very responsible and can do this with minimal help but enjoys seeing the teachers and interacting with his fellow classmates through the course interaction has anyone brought up the option to do live streaming to avoid this somewhat of a letdown i understand that hybrid was taken off the table because of the budget but you cannot tell me that with the amount of money within the state that someone hasn't solicited major corporations to fund the option to live stream classrooms statewide i just don't want to be part of a problem of saying how this isn't fair for those who are a high risk without offering some sort of solution to this this problem we are facing this system that is currently in place is working thank you for your time stacey abrilla children at bridges and cooley first and foremost and first and most importantly i would like to thank the teachers staff and administration of the higley district for their tireless efforts in preparing for the embarking upon remote learning i'd like to share some concerns and suggestions for the board and the district leadership that will assist and support our families while we are managing remote learning being physically separated makes connecting with classmates and parents challenging i've seen and heard several parents desperate to connect with classmates and their families for support and interaction but unable to do so because they don't bump into each other at pick up or drop off please consider making school directories available for those who have given permission for their contact information to be shared consider allowing classrooms to share contact information and for classes to help families and children connect outside of their brief online lessons many families are struggling during this time and could use assistive assistance while the schools may not be we may not provide direct assistance you can place links on local agencies on your covid webpage it would be simple to add a link to the county's resources page or assist for instance to help families locate rental assistance employment and other resources that they may need while we are on the subject of the website please have your it team convert all documents from word to pdf on the websites to make them readily accessible on all devices irrespective of the operating system and application of the liberty availability i've previously mentioned that word documents appear jumbled on mobile devices and this was told and was told that the district is not allowed to post files as a pdf because ada and a idea requirements this is simply papikash there is nothing in those regulations that prohibits the districts from posting files in pdf doing so will actually facilitate accessibility not limited files and announcements need to be readable and they are not currently readable on mobile devices where most people view them please fix this by replacing word versions with pdf as soon as possible canvas is a great tool it's unfortunate that teachers were given a crash course and then required to figure it out in such a short period of time the teachers have made a tremendous effort and should be commended however there are issues families are finding assignments difficult to locate secondary pages are not consistent with one another which leaves students and parents having to try to navigate six or more systems and expectations kids are having to look in multiple locations and are getting emails and announcements and discussion alerts this is too much for young kids to manage please make sure that teachers are getting the appropriate technical supports that they need please have teachers use the system similarly and post and organize their pages similarly to help kids and families know where to find items and when they are due finally and most importantly as the board and administration are considering when and how to open our schools for in-person learning please explore the benefits of opening first for younger students especially elementary ages please consult the emerging body of evidence that demonstrates that children age 10 and lower have the lowest risk of getting coveted of having complications if they get get it and transmitting kova to others when they are infected if and when we meet the metrics for reopening please allow the elementary schools to open and keep middle and high schools closed to ensure the district can manage potential outbreaks and to mitigate further spread this approach would reduce risk to our teachers kids and families while also getting the kids who need the most support back into the classroom which will allow parents to work from home and or allow them to work outside of home during the school day older kids are generally more independent and need less assistance from their parents or caregivers during the school day as compared to little kids older students can navigate the technology ask their teachers for help and can safely be at home alone to continue the remote learning while parents return to work the middle and high school campuses have more students and staff than the elementary schools do they have kids changing classes and congregating and passing in hallways throughout the day and have many more kids at lunch simultaneously it's clear that the elementary setting is a lower risk and it also creates a higher burden for families when schools are closed allowing younger kids back on campus first will alleviate serious burdens for our families and would be a lower risk than opening for all ages at the same time we could monitor the trends to ensure the metrics continue to trend in the desired direction for a few weeks before sending the older kids thank you for your time and consideration albert putzing children at cortina elementary given the lack of clear evidence that schools contribute to the incidence of community spread for many countries that chose to reopen their schools in may of 2020 and their intention to do so again in september 2020 why is husd choosing to keep schools in remote learning mode evidence suggests that the sustain suspectability of students and staff contracting coven 19 is not any different than other people in different professions or even the general public additionally the rate of transmission between children and between children to adults is low with most evidence suggesting that children contract the disease through exposure to sickened family members wouldn't this suggest that in-person learning is justified two more lee takovic children at higley high school questions one will parents be notified in a timely manner when there is a confirmed case of covid in my child's school two will students be subsequently quarantined if they were in contact with the confirmed case three mask lower transmission rates will higley require students faculty and staff to wear masks four if masks are not mandated then seriously why not the kids have a dress code to follow final submission travis st dennis student at bridges my kids are in k and first grade arguably some of the most important years in their educational development they aren't learning anything nor am i an educator to know how to teach them the right way to understand these principles not only that my wife and i work full time if amazon can operate a distribution center with thousands of employees on the assembly line safely or costco can operate safely with everyone who said they are scared of this having no problem going to costco or target can't we run a school for a demographic of science that has by and far deems to be mostly not impacted by this virus in fact the infection rate of our youth is less than that of staph infections and the death rate of negligible is negligible to the point i can't really be quantified that from the american association of pediatrics john hopkins and the cdc the three benchmarks that are used as a guide for deciding to for deciding are deeply flawed the false positive and over reporting of the virus gross is grossly rampant and has been caught and exposed time and time again a recent high profile example of this was the governor of ohio who tested positive then retested a few hours later tested negative or florida where they openly acknowledged that reopening reporting of the death from a motorcycle accident was recorded as covid arizona has its own stories and very concerning testing debacles it is more than obvious that a this is largely driven by politics please choose another demographic to hijack or political agent for political agencies my children are not a political tool and will have lifelong repercussions of these selfish antics all we are asking for is the option to go back and let teachers that want to go back with kids that want to go back go back your online program is already established if people want to use it let them thank you president keller members of the board for going through that with me thank you dr thomason for reading all of those for us i know that was a lot take a breath a drink appreciate your time on that okay we're going to move on to our action and information items in consideration this is 4.1 in consideration of the recommendations and guidance issued by the centers for disease control the arizona department of health services and the executive order 2020-51 issued by the governor of the state of arizona it is requested that the governing board approves the first read of this face covering policy for all students employees parents vendors volunteers and visitors of the district second any questions comments or concerns i just want to thank um mrs reach and dr foley and dr thomason i know we kind of had to put together a face policy based covering policy it wasn't very clear what we were given by um asba so we kind of looked at other face covering policies in other areas and i appreciate you guys putting this all together for us mrs reese did you have something i do um just a few suggestions let me i'm sorry i had my notes and i walked out without them [Music] um i would like to ask that we make a slight adjustment in the general area item number f says individuals should wash their hands after removing their face masks i would like to ask that we add wash their hands before and after if they've been touching something else and they're then touching their face it washing their hands before and after i think is very important i had one other give me just a moment and because this is the first read we could make a change on it when it comes back and then on our second read we could go ahead then make those changes and then adopt it on our our goal is for our august 12th meeting i will have to i apologize like i said i walked out with out my notes this morning um i will i will let you know it was another small change just like that suggestion um mrs reese you could email that possibly and then um we would have a change then for our second read absolutely this afternoon okay any other questions comments all right all those in favor aye aye motion carries five zero we're going to go on to our 4.2 our information update on reopening schools uh dr foley i believe has quite the presentation and with her uh other staff is here today um dr or dr mr witovich also would like to do a little presentation of cleaning at some point during your presentation so when you are prepared for that please let us know we would be so grateful thank you president kaler members of the board good morning thank you for joining us here this morning we are going to start with some updates and if you would advance the next slide please i'd like to share with you what we're going to talk about this morning so that it that everyone understands what will be part of our presentation and the agenda of flow here will include this we're going to start this morning with a little bit of an update on clarifications on the distinctions between our remote and our online one of the things we've heard from our community we want to take a second to address some questions and misconceptions and have them also know that there are things that we're working on to help provide that clarity so we're going to have a little update there that we're going to start this morning we're then going to transition into our information as we spoke at our last board meeting we talked about collecting survey data from our community and from our teachers our certified staff so we're going to share with you what we've learned in that communication at our last meeting we also discussed the mitigation plan one of the requirements um per the executive order is a mitigation plan and we're going to talk through this morning what that plan is looking like it is in a draft form for you to review this would obviously be something that would go posted on our website with links and information connected to the sanitation responsibilities for physical openings of schools and we've been making progress there so this morning uh we'll have an opportunity to mitigation plan and board member whatever that might be a perfect place for you to share your your your thoughts because it will tie right into that and then we're going to talk about the information that we received from the arizona department of health and benchmarks and metrics and discuss that together as well so that's kind of the flow of what we've got going this morning so just so that everyone kind of knows what we're going to be talking about in this section so with that we're going to advance to the next slide and i'd like to introduce you to dr susan borsig who we are so fortunate to have joined our team she started with us in june and as i've shared with you before on her first day we said hello susan so glad you are here she comes to us with decades of experience from colorado she has various levels of leadership and expertise in her career and she has been a joint to work with and so she is going to do some information and we're finding some update and we'll be and you have myself and mrs richards and mr um lotzenhouser who will be chiming in as questions come up because we want to be sure that we address misconceptions and concerns and also talk about where we're evolving as well so we'll start with uh dr borzitch on giving us a little update on some clarity of distinctions we also want to share that this inf some of this information has already been shared with our community she's recorded a little uh presentation of this although we'll do the live version here as well as some additional documents to help clarify thank you and welcome to higley thank you very much and thank you dr foley um i'm dr suborzig and i currently serve as the director of assessment and student information here at higley and it's a pleasure to be here president kaler and members of the board it's my honor to be able to present this presentation to you and at any time during this presentation certainly if you have any questions um we'd be honored and and hopefully be able to answer those as well so the purpose of this particular presentation is just to clarify the difference between remote and online learning as it has developed now and as it currently stands within our district so we know a lot go back to that previous slide please yes we know that um there have been some miscommunication misperceptions misunderstandings perceived misrepresentations and misassumptions that are associated with the communication around remote and online and so we apologize for that we want to take responsibility for being transparent and so we want to listen to the community we want to clarify here and we also want the community to know that we care we really care about what we're proposing and what we're putting forth in this uncertain time we also want to then make sure that we are making a commitment to being transparent and and into developing and providing opportunities for our community to have a deeper understanding of our options next slide please so over the past few days as you have heard we have received many many questions regarding the differences between remote learning and online learning and if we clump them together these are probably the categories that we have most received communication regarding in addition to what um you have already heard this morning but primarily um there is some confusion around what is the difference between remote and online learning uh questions around why can't we just continue doing remote learning for the remainder of the time that we cannot be in person what is flvs will my child have interaction with their teacher in online learning lots of questions around who will teach online what does that logistics look like will my child have the same teacher and then questions around the robust piece is online instruction as robust and challenging for my student or will my student be receiving the same educational experience as they would in the classroom next slide please so part of the confusion i think revolves around the way in which we use words that represent learning that doesn't happen in the classroom so for example we have heard the words virtual and remote online and distance in reference to learning we hear about canvas computers technology internet and flvs when we talk specifically about the educational components for students learning at home at higley and while each one of these words actually means something different the fact that people use them interchangeably is partially why i think we have some of the misconceptions and misunderstandings that we do so the purpose of this is to explore these a little deeper as it relates to higley so how nick slide please so how is remote learning different from online learning first it's important to define what it is um and you'll notice that both of these definitions while worded completely different ultimately mean just about the same thing remote learning is for students and the educator or the information source are not physically present in a traditional classroom environment information or teaching is relayed through technology such as discussion boards video conferencing and online assessments typically remote learning is designed to be an intervention that is not anticipated or intended to be permanent for long periods of time so keep that in mind as we move through this compared with online learning online learning is education that takes place over the internet or through the various use of technology tools it's often referred to as e-learning however online learning and remote learning both can be considered distance learning so that even complicates the matter more online learning typically however is designed to be a longer term or a more permanent option so as you can see um the difference is primarily in their platforms and how they manifest manifest state how they manifest themselves and the intent for duration remote learning is temporary whereas online learning is more permanent next slide please so as you can see here since remote learning is temporary remote learning will end once in-person learning resumes it is a temporary situation or a fix until the in-person learning is put back in place we don't anticipate that this fix will be necessary for the entire school year whereas in contrast online learning is designed to be in place for a longer period of time it is designed to be consistent and could be in place from now to the end of the 2021 school year so in in a nutshell online learning can actually be an extension and is designed to be an extension of the remote learning environment and modality when remote learning ends and students go back to in-person learning next slide please so let's look at the distinct differences and similarities because i think that's what that will actually speak to what is different between the two remote learning at both the secondary and and elementary levels students are assigned to classes they have consistent contact with their teacher in elementary this is more daily contact whereas in um secondary it becomes bi-weekly due to the nature of student schedules in some areas of our country and in our state some online models only employ synchronous learning which means that the the learning has no scheduled live interactions they're recorded and there's no live interaction or minimal live interaction with the teacher and the student in contrast our online learning is designed to have a combination of both have a combination of live interaction with the teacher and also lessons using a recorded modality and two of our teachers are doing that now right they're doing live plus a combination yeah they really are they really are kind of already doing some of this yeah and you'll see you know when we created this we kind of had a clear distinction of what the differences between the two are and what we have found is the longer the teachers are in remote learning the more it starts to blend with this online learning and you might be seeing something i'm seeing that already i see that they record things because they might not want the live video with the kids so they'll record it for the kids who can't watch it i'm seeing that with my own children they'll like record but they won't put that one up they will you know they'll do the live session but they'll record a separate one so those kids their questions aren't maybe asked yes yeah and that that's when their faces aren't seen i think was more the thought behind it but i'm not sure i just know that some teachers are choosing that way they're getting skilled with their ability to use technology thank you um so the re and the reason that moving forward the reason that um remote learning and online learning are the way that they differ in this particular slide is that if a student in online learning if they were to go to online learning from remote learning once our in-person school is possible that the teacher is the big piece here because the teacher in both elementary and secondary may change and probably will change for the students once they enroll in that online modality and i'll explain a little bit about why that happens as we move on next slide please um in the schedule of learning students both have dates daily schedules in canvas for either one of these modalities the process of logging on and accessing their learning is the same the only difference will be for secondary students may not have access in the online environment to all of the courses that are available currently in the remote learning environment so our online learning environment you know and it is difficult to particularly with some of those electives in the secondary to have access to those in an online environment however um in situations that may come up and it's hard to predict how this will play out obviously but we do offer concurrent enrollment if needed but that's a student and a person-to-person um decision with the school administrator uh regarding that availability thank you for clarifying that and some of these particular needs of our secondary for a graduation requirement they really do we encourage them to reach out to their principals directly because as i've been told and i've been seen we are getting very creative with how we're making sure our students are still going to get those requirements online is that not true i want to make sure we are you know the people that know your the students best are the print the administrators and the counselors who work with them on a daily basis at that school so we feel that those are the people that parents can reach out to for those individual and specialized situations president taylor to follow along with that one of the things we're trying to say is in this presentation we are will be very hard to globally answer very very specific questions and what we're wanting parents and and students to do is is is after we clarify some some generic components of this to work with their administration so that we can figure out how to accommodate what we can and can't do because again this is this is really important for us to be able to help individuals understand the options for their family one of the things that again the number of that we asked families to help us begin to get an idea of what they're thinking because the staffing of this is really important the hard part again we're clarifying is that um having an understanding of how many students drives our sections so currently right now we're all in a remote learning section our all in remote learning section if we were let's take let's use a secondary classroom as an example a teacher a teacher has multiple secondary junior high high school teacher has multiple periods they may teach the same section of something multiple times it's impossible for a teacher who is meeting face-to-face with students in person to also facilitate interaction with students online unless they are doing something like a live streaming or those kind of things and those are technologies again that we are looking at more but it it when in our current platform it's hard to do you can't do in-person hybrid and online all at the same time but um i could as a student if i wasn't in the face-to-face portion i can engage with what's going on online and interact with that teacher who may be an online interaction with me in the afternoon so again knowing how many drives our sections and availability for who can teach what and what electives are available so we'll continue to answer or provide a little bit more distinction on that but it goes back to the fact that one of the things that's important is that we have to declare for the state how these students are have chosen are they choosing remote slash face-to-face or is it online and how we report that is is a requirement for for funding um and attendance and a requirement that we have to adhere to just to clarify some of these electives are not being able to be offered because of a staffing issue and or or curriculum issues curriculum issue so it's not that we chose what we chose or what we didn't choose it was a staffing issue and now that this i think we have surveyed the staff and that will be coming later and that some sections could be opened up for other electives is that what you're saying i don't want to jump ahead but i know that we received an email from a student who is very concerned and i put students needs above a lot and so i just want to make sure that that's put out there yeah thank you and keep in mind too and while we're all in a remote learning environment there are electives that um while we can support their learning in those electives it's not going to have be the same experience like marching band for example it's just not going to carry that same experience when you move over into online learning that might be one of those instances where you would concurrently enroll a student or do something along those lines because because it's available but not available in the online environment may i just chime in also i i think same thing you said we've gotten a lot of emails uh particularly about electives so thinking um openly about uh sort of this live streaming is is kind of appealing for some of these unusual classes and and we may have to think a little bit differently about it because you know i would hate for someone to force one of two choices when they're there there might be a third that's that's maybe not you know that's doable for these cases yes the next next slide please sure in reference to the um classes offered in secondary have we started utilizing any conversation with our community colleges back to to go go with us in reference to offering some of these additional classes that we're not able to do yes we've had some conversations about how that correlation and things would work with working with chandler-gilbert community college especially in some of our dual enrollment situations a lot of that still is going to depend on that that need how many kids we have out there and that's why once again we're asking go to your directly to your school and let's see what we can figure out and then that follows up with with the requirement of again making sure that the teacher has the capacity to be the dual enrollment teacher and it means again those numbers help us too with we may have to offer some additional six-fifths and things so the number drives the need drives the staffing and that's one of the things we're trying to fit to figure out okay moving forward um this is a big question that we got a lot particularly at the beginning of all of this um a question about teachers and what are the teacher qualifications and so forth um and the teachers going to be the same in the online learning environment as they were in the remote environment and because we are doing that and we're shifting with our staff and we're making those decisions you know based upon where students are going to be students in both remote learning and online learning will be taught by highly certified unlicensed higgle unified school district teachers so we will not be bringing in any outside vendors or unlicensed teachers to be teaching those sections online next slide please do other districts utilize outside vendors that are not um certified teachers they may use other vendors and and to the extent of are they certified or not i don't know the answer to that ours are going to be taught by our higley teachers hence we need to know i just didn't know if that's what you were getting at that they um that on online would maybe not be a certified teacher so i was just wondering for follow-up because we have heard um that question thank you and just another point um that i that i'm hearing in our community too is that none of us were prepared in the east valley for an online elementary program so this is all new territory i'm sure mrs richards gets this every day it's all brand new and even though our our secondary have had some online programs available to us those two are not taught live and never have been taught live in in an online high school secondary program so if a student needs an extra english class from chandler online academy and or mesa we did partner with mesa this summer for summer school there was interactions with the teacher however it was never a live teaching and secondary and so i know that that has been a concern in our community that they want that live teaching for an online program i've never seen one exist yet i'm really trying to go out there and look around and see but it hasn't existed so we would be it would be double the staff and i know that there's been a lot of suggestions on the live streaming the classroom um i know that there's some concerns about um the technology hipaa other children in the classroom being seen that weren't don't want to be seen there's a lot of things that go into this and i just and i know it's hard to explain that to every single parent out there but um i think that's the biggest thing is that it just doesn't it didn't exist before and now we're trying to scramble and it's just not like do it am i i'm trying here to explain and i know it's not what people want to hear but it's just the reality of where we're at in education and i know there are some school districts around us that have done some different online they're trying different online situations and again it goes back to our staffing our funding our technology our so many different things president taylor just and i hear you about our our high school piece the colleges though did go to online learning when their physical schools closed they went to live stream you showed up in class at the time you were supposed to be in class you just logged on it was all live streamed and whether you have this class that class i you may log in at nine o'clock in the morning and then your next class may be at three o'clock in the afternoon and you log into that class so our colleges and universities went to full live stream in the spring when school's closed and that's why for months i've been asking let's look at this can we do this live stream why can't we just replicate what's in our classrooms online with that our kids are our school days are set up consistent versus a university who has a class here in a class there i also understand the difference of screen time as well like do we really want our kids sitting from 7 25 to 2 30 with a lunch break and they're in front of a screen i don't know the answer to that but we can also reach out to our university partners and talk to them about their live streams and that's how u of a nau asu that's how they went in the spring so i not high school or middle school i know that those online classes have been just the same as we've had where you have some interaction your teachers are available but it's typically not a live lesson so but it's out there um we have it local we can check and and try and see um what we can learn also from from our university partners and with that too i know that they didn't have both going on so they didn't have kids in their classroom and they were teaching online and i think that's where we're getting that big question of classes going on with children in the classroom where our college is it was just online and so and i see like that's kind of what we're doing right now is that there's no students in the classroom so the teacher just focuses on that online instruction but then when we're going to bring kids back in and then trying to that's where that technology piece the staffing piece and that comes into play these are very good points because when you think about where we were when we started this back in march the first thing back in march is that we didn't have a common learning management platform for the district uh as a k-12 we had canvas at the secondary level and we didn't have a common management system so one of the investments our district had to make and a huge lift we had to do was getting a management system that would be k12 because we heard very clearly from people that was a big issue you know the other thing is is that we didn't have an existing um online arizona you know online instruction academy so again in order to do in order to have that you have to have a curriculum that is a standalone curriculum and and quite honestly and i know that there and we're going to talk a little bit more about what florida virtual is what it isn't there are very few online curriculums that have the are aligned to the arizona standards that have been approved for entities who want to be an aoi to have now again as we've talked before this is a supplemental piece how we use what parts what pieces whether it's in the remote setting again this is a tool that we are just adding to the arsenal and this year we did it so that everybody has access to it because we don't know how long we'll be in remote or not in remote or if we'll ever go back into remote we still need to have those pieces we also have talked about the fact that even when we return to in-person learning the canvas shell has to be continued to be a way that we communicate with families because if at any point a student is again a culture of when we're back in the buildings if we're not feeling well we are encouraging people to stay home to not come to school and to not get behind so that if i am in person and i choose in person learning and i end up with with with being ill if i'm home for two weeks my i don't want to fall behind i can continue to stay up to date and again the florida virtual curriculum allows us to have a library of resources teachers can enhance what's happening in the classroom for the um for the in-person option for the online option again there will still be our teachers teaching it connected with us in some cases our secondary teachers may be teaching sections of it live and sections of it remotely that'll contribute a combination of both so the whether we're live streaming and recording or recording it how do we do that so costs associated with this we've had a huge lift of buying more devices since since march so that we can increase our one-to-one because we were not a one-to-one yet and we're working really hard to order more devices so that's been a huge lift the addition of canvas the establishment of the ability to be an online school with an approved curriculum to for in order for us to to do that have all been lifts that have happened since march so again now we're also our i.t and et group our instructional technology and our educational technology folks i.t and et are working together to look at what are the other live streaming options costs associations tools resources so that we can begin piloting some of these things and cost analysis of some of these things so that we can respond um again right now our lives we have some good live streaming capabilities at the performing arts center in the little theater as well for specialty things so again working toward this but quickly and fast so continuing with the conversation of the curriculum is something kind of important for us to hit on to right and if we frame our mindset around them you know the idea that remote learning was one of the things that we experienced previously online learning in and of itself is something completely different and isolated and separate we had to create a model here that we could provide some um transitions and some seamless transitions and options for families because it couldn't just be black or white it has to be something that's that's can that we can provide for families to have choice so that's kind of why this online looks a little bit different than perhaps maybe what you have heard and spoke to because some of those online programs students have to be in online 100 of the time for the entire school year we're trying to make it so that families can make choices and move back and forth because that's what we heard was really important so in curriculum um in both remote learning and online learning teachers will be using the board adopted curriculum that they're using now the resources that they have available to them and things that they're already using and have already been trained to use in the brick and mortar classroom the difference between the online learning and it really is flowing over into the remote learning right now too because we've been in remote learning for an extended period of time is that ability to access that florida virtual system the florida virtual curriculum so while that florida virtual curriculum is not the curriculum that drives their instruction at this point it is a resource that is available to them to pull from it is a resource also that is created specifically for the online instruction modality so we'll have some things in there that are specific to teaching kids when they're online versus teaching kids when they're in person in the classroom and i think that's the important distinction to make is you know online instruction as you well know as parents is very very different from online instruction in the classroom and so sometimes we have to shift and use a little bit different um strategy a little bit different way to reach kids and keep them engaged and that's where the advantage to the florida virtual system lies is that ability to access some of those best practices can i ask a quick question right there so the way i'm reading this is for our curriculum the way we have it spelled out for this that our online option is different for the year of than it will be going forward so [Music] we are tr like you said we are trying to mirror and match to allow people to flow in and out as needed as as we can and there's limitations to that but for the 2021 school year and then going forward when we refer to online that is going to look very different so our initial online platform is going to be more flexible for this school year than it will be going forward while we don't know what conversations will be happening for the 21 22 school year who knows where we'll be at that but to make that clear that that online platform that we're talking about you guys are working really hard at making as flexible and as adaptable as we can for just this school year and then we'll have different options for next year is that correct i mean we're really talking about three separate models here in the onset because that this online why maybe a better name for this online would be a modified online really because it is that transition piece between remote learning and true online you're absolutely right when we transition back to in-person school and person learning will florida virtual be available to all of our campuses and even those teachers who are in the park okay perfect just making sure because i thought that's what i remember from that's what you were doing but i wasn't now i'm thinking maybe it was only just an online piece but it will be available that's what we approved this year and we did it because virtually we realized that to have an aoi you had to have you had to purchase a a full online curriculum that is aligned to the arizona standards and when we look again this is each district who has a majority of them have adopted this because it's aligned to the arizona standards it comes and there are two ways that this comes you either you come you will see gilbert is using buzz which is the learning management platform that you can buy if you're using florida virtual um that's their management platform we already had an existing platform we already had canvas so what it is is it's a library that exists within canvases canvas that teachers can pick and pull created lessons for that are aligned to the standards to use as they should choose to enhance the remote instruction or the full online instruction that doesn't mean that teachers aren't creating some of their own but it gives them the same online tools that every other district would have had that had an existing aoi so again how much or how how much you use or don't use it's a supplemental tool for all for the online it is a core program that we can supplement again part and piece our teachers are utilizing that and they're using our standards maps and our curriculum guides and the needs of their students to figure out what part what piece and and how to make the whole are online teachers are they able to use our other curriculums that we've adopted okay so they are i yes i just want to make sure i'm like wait is this saying they can only use florida virtual no they can use the all the math curriculum we've already purchased the new science curriculum that we plan on implementing and our ela our previous ela program okay so everything to clarify the same pieces it's just how they're putting them together might be different okay and to clarify that we encourage them to use those same pieces in the online because that's how we create that continuum that allows students to move back and forth between online and remote so in a in a complete online program that self sustained um as you can as you know online correct or online instruction is a little bit different um in terms of scope and sequence and so the pacing and so forth in a traditional purely online program would might be a little different than what you would see in in person so by creating this we're creating kind of a combination of both which provides the flexibility to our families who may need to move back and forth between the two and i think too mrs wilson we did get some concerns um like from hta because they also use spaulding and saxon and so that still gives the teachers that ability to use those programs online as well so if a student is online they will still have access to that specialty curriculum because that's what drives the instruction on that campus and again i just want to make all that very clear i know we've gotten several emails on that one so and hp sorry there's been a lot of acronyms that we're still trying to switch that one over in our brain gate okay i will remember we're going to have a presentation on that at the end of august that we're really excited to share so moving forward next slide another big concern of parents because it happens in very different ways in very different situations at very different districts but um one of the things is that typically parents view online learning and it has been in the past and is a separate school so they so the idea around gosh would i have to withdraw my student from one school to go to the online school and re-enroll them and then withdraw them from that school if i wanted to go back to the in person learning in remote you know in a in-person environment and that became very cumbersome which was another reason why this online learning model is so powerful because students are their enrollment stays at the school that they're enrolled at we don't withdraw them and enroll them in a separate school just because they have chosen to go in the online environment which makes it possible then for attendance grades all of those things to stay constant at their school of enrollment and to provide a little bit of flexibility and again that goes to this this year being a little different because when we talk about creating an online school and online academy which is what we're working toward that we're essentially creating the online curriculum pathway there this year looks different in the fact that we wouldn't unenroll you from your current school you because there are more people choosing this option than what historically because of the fact that of we're in a pandemic and we want that option for families to choose location so again this is an evolution of the idea of this year being a modified version of that online in the housing of you staying still within your own school okay next slide specialized support is another concern of a lot of parents and these are when we talk about students with special needs or extenuating circumstances in both models we will service students with ieps iops 504s those gifted and talented students will also have opportunities for enrichment and enhancement in both models the only difference in the online learning model is because there are different dynamics and i think shawna can probably speak to that more but there are different dynamics with special ed requirements in the remote learning environment as there is in the online learning environment and so certain support structures will not be eliminated but they'll be modified to align with the online learning environment and student proximity so that's the only difference between the two models and i just wanna business miller here is she in the just i know that she was working very hard answering several emails that we received this past week and personally reaching out to those families and so um thank you mrs miller for that and i know there'll probably be more as it goes forward but just reaching out to those families specifically i think is so important because i know we did get a lot of information from our families on that topic so next slide please um attendance is one of those that is probably not as important to parents as it is to us particularly in the area where we work attendance is literally the way that we get funded for our schools and so it's really important for us to pay attention to how that not only how we record it at the school level on the teacher level but also how we record it from the district so here is um there's no difference whether students are in remote learning or online learning elementary students um have daily attendance recorded by the teacher and uh secondary students once again is very similar to what they do when they're in person attendance is recorded by period we report that accordingly to the state in the manner that's required under our distance learning plan and that's how we get our online attendance clerk will we have a separate not this year i think it sounds like it will be combined but moving forward maybe next year are we going to have our own online attendance clerk how does that work well it really you know that's i don't know i'm like wait how does this work i know that our attendance clerks are working very difficult right like their job is difficult right now um with this remote learning style because we're asking them to pull different pieces oh did they see it you know did they come to the class later because brother had a class earlier and we've kind of worked with parents so i don't know online how that will go online it will still be through synergy um so what what that will look like in terms of staffing and personnel assigned to different depends really upon the enrollment um if it's if it's you know when we move to that environment if it's a smaller enrollment and that can be embedded into what we're already doing that would probably be the case but once again enrollment would drive that as to exactly what that would look like but it's all done through synergy so we don't have to buy any new platforms or do anything differently and it's all reported the same through our student information manager so and just as a reminder the board has already waived attendance we won't be sending letters for those who we received emails about that so for those who have longer absences more absences that we've already addressed that that there's not punitive or any repercussions of that we want to make sure our kids are safe we want to make sure if they're not well that once we return to in person that they're not coming on campus for any reason if they're ill whether it's coveted related or not that prevents them from even participating in an online format that those attendance concerns we've already addressed them they're they're not going to happen um for this school year so we did get some questions about that just a general reminder we've also suspended awards and recognitions for attendance also this year but just one thing to keep in mind we do still have the 180-day mandate and we still do still have to process through 10-day drops so um those are all the only two attendance pieces that we have to be concerned with that are we still have in place so some of those syllabuses that we're seeing from high school are just old that say talk about the 10 day that you will not be getting homework and stuff so just as a reminder to our community those syllabuses that maybe attendance clause might not be um as important right now and again this just goes back to communication with us so that you let us know if your student is absent or sick you just need to communicate with us the duration so that we know that you wh where you are and that you're okay and that your your your parent has excused you because we're worried about your health at this point we communication with us just needs to continue next slide please uh standardized assessments the most important topic and the most fun to talk about um but as far as assessments go um all students in both modalities will be required to take the standardized district on benchmarks which will happen three times this year as well as the az m2 state assessment that will happen in the spring we will provide opportunities for secondary students to also take act of course their honors and ap exams as those would play out in the spring and then any other required state assessment at this point we're all still required to take whether we're in the remote learning environment or the online thank you for that has there been an update i think mr um lotzenheiser on the sat being offered this fall have you heard any the a.c.t will be offered to um students who were juniors last year who did not get to take the act okay it will be offered this year as seniors um the date is september 22nd we're just in the planning stages right now i just attended a webinar um on thursday so you'll be getting information um sent out next week any student who had an accommodation for last spring's assessment that has automatically been rolled over we do have an opportunity to enter anything that we need to for any new students enrolling in higley prior to that test date and we because we are part of the menu of assessment arizona testing component piece um while our date is scheduled for september 22nd if we have students who can't accommodate that date we've also been allowed to use the other two october dates as well so that can be coordinated through the assistant principles at both of the high schools and then we will again then have the spring testing date for our current juniors can i just give a tip of the hat to the universities who have waived the s.a.t and act requirements yes my own daughter wasn't able to she wanted to up her scorn didn't happen next slide please so to wrap up kind of our long-term plan um for learning once again remote learning is temporary it's what we're it's our current situation now but should um this this modality will cease once in-person learning resumes parents of course have been asked which they prefer whether they want to send their school to in person or choose to continue in a remote learning or more formalized online learning capacity once in-person learning resumes and the reason of course as dr foley had talked about that simply a staffing piece that we have to work through but it is important to remember that the students will receive a high quality education in either modality and no choice is the wrong choice we want families to be able to make that choice based on what's most important for their family at the current time and we want to be able to provide those opportunities to students and their families so that if changes occur moving forward that students don't have to withdraw and re-enroll that we can make the transition between the two programs very transparent and seamless i think that's really important for us to remember that whatever choice you make for your child is the right choice and no one should judge you for that that's the choice you need to make for your child and i just want to really reiterate that i saw a pediatrician came out and said you know if this is the choice you need to make for your child for their health for their well-being that's the right choice and just to reiterate that to our families our community whatever choice you make you have a reason for it and i respect that choice and i think everyone up here respects the choice that you're making and i appreciate the choice that you're making and i don't need to know why you're making it i appreciate it so thank you so next slide please real quick on the long term plan and i know it's learning um and it this is part of what mr glover had said last week though is since we are keeping our our online kiddos with their schools is there a way we can provide some enrichment opportunities some inclusion [Music] i know some of the emails we received was you know my child is very much so about school pride it's not their fault if i choose to keep them online but some type of enrichment some type of community feeling again they can choose to attend or not attend whatever that may be but if we can look at that for the long term 2021 school year online model on how do we include some enrichment opportunities how do we how do we make some inclusion and let these kids still feel a sense of their their school pride i think that's important mrs reese you bring up a good point is just making sure that even our online learners are getting all the same emails from their home schools and the events because it might be that that you know particular student could attend something that the community or the school's um doing so just making sure we get all that communication out is huge and just so you know in our distance learning plan that was filed with the state of arizona that was a big component that was included in that as well all right before we move on i just i want to make a comment um well first of all i totally agree you know the sense of community and a sense of belonging for just humans in general is it's really important uh it's what separates us from the animals um that's from the simpsons that's all right um no but i i keep thinking about and i've been thinking a lot about like we did we've been reading all these letters and some people have had some really good suggestions and things i i hadn't thought about you know i thinking about the people who would stay home if all the classes that they wanted to take were offered or all the electives were offered i'm really thinking a lot about them i would feel a lot better if we had some sort and well look you look at the places where um where people are pointing to as examples of how we could safely reopen and most of the ones that i've seen in red have been able to spread out and reduce the ratio of humans to adults or t students to teachers like a 10 to one day care ratio all right humans all right anyway um but they've been able to reduce that so i mean for me as we're still thinking and playing our way through this this idea of live streaming um allowing people to still see and sort of be part of a class i really think maybe i haven't paid enough attention to it but but it is definitely worth talking about because reducing the the number of students on campus and being able to keep the spacing is really one of the things that that most of the experts i think can agree on and not all the emails that i got agree on that but for the experts i think are saying that next slide so understanding that remote learning is um not permanent and online learning would be that extension to remote learning for families who don't want to send their students back to in person learning right now there is one particular instance where we might have remote learning and online learning existing simultaneously typically you would those would not exist simultaneously but if we go to the next slide this is a diagram that kind of shows you when that one particular exception might occur um so our current reality right now is that we're sitting here in remote learning um it you know we it is hopeful that at some point in time we would be able to offer that face-to-face option for parents again so some parents will choose face to face some parents will choose online and they will operate side by side if by chance something would necessitate a school closure again to where we could no longer have face-to-face or in-person instruction then those students who were in face-to-face would immediately move into a remote learning environment with their current teachers and their current schedules and in and back into that remote learning environment whereas those students who had selected that that extension or that online piece there would be no interruption from a school closure to those students they would just continue on in that modality moving forward through through that school closure and through that reopening and so this is where you'll see that third option pop in is that at the end of the year essentially what we have is we have some face-to-face learners who are in person and we have some students who have opted to stay in the online environment throughout the course of the year if students in the online environment at the end of the year decide hey this is great this is what i would like to continue this works for me we would ask them to make a deeper commitment to that online piece and enroll in the higley virtual academy which then is that separate online school it would become a separate school at that point and then those students who didn't want to choose that complete 100 online option would then of course return the following year hopefully with face-to-face in-person instruction so essentially then that online piece that online transition piece as of now would disappear now we know that you know these plans are always um changing and to meet the circumstances and so forth but this is what looking forward now this is what we would anticipate to happen all things stable last slide please so we and we you know dr foley i think addressed really what flvs is i know a lot of parents wanted to know what this flvs was one clarification i would like to make on this is this is a curriculum program there are three different options when you purchase this curriculum program some people purchase it as a standalone independent curriculum for a standalone independent online school and um there is an option that doesn't allow you to have the flexibility with the flvs program in other words you can't pull modules out and put modules in and do do some of the things that we feel are you know a big plus to be able to do with our teachers and be able to create that intermediate modified online program so some people i have heard say well you can't pull things in and out of flvs because they're talking to a friend perhaps who teaches with that with that curriculum please know that there are very many there are several options when you purchase the curriculum the option that we purchased allowed the most flexibility we can use modules independently we can use units independently we can adjust them we can pull them in we can use strategies from them we can do all of the things that we need to do to be able to remain flexible in our district um or we can use it as a in if we had a situation with a an independent online program and they wanted to use that independently they could also do that um so i think those are some of the con the the things that we're hearing is just kind of a misunderstanding around what florida virtual is and how it can benefit our district and what we purchased it and how we can be really really flexible in it and provide that as an additional tool um to our teachers and you'll notice that you know as the longer remote learning goes as we dive into this florida virtual the more you'll probably see that pop up perhaps maybe in both modalities and it is aligned to arizona state standards and and we we were forwarded the documents that show that alignment if anybody's interested in seeing those we have those in the office when will we get access to florida virtual actual um the on because of the of the situation and the demand for online tools our actual install is scheduled right now for the 19th um we tried to get it moved up a little bit but were unsuccessful in doing so um but they guaranteed us that it would be installed on the 19th now we'll have to take a couple days beyond that just to test how it works within our systems make sure that we're not in encountering a bunch of bugs that then would cause teachers and so forth to become very frustrated so we'll test that in our environment um for a day or so until we're absolutely positively sure we've worked out all of those kinks and then that will be available midweek um for teachers to explore teachers have been our ambassadors and some of our administrators have already received the first two hour training in florida virtual we have another series of trainings going on for teachers and coaches next week as well so that training will is continuing to happen in a test environment right now while we're waiting for our install do we have one ambassador per site i'm sorry is there one ambassador per site at our site okay i just want to make sure somebody's really like knows it their stuff at least one site and they'll be training their staff on a t uh train the trainer model so but we're continuing to offer these two hour trainings as needed with certain content as needed as well just a quick question i get that there's been a high demand for online when this was presented to the board to purchase we were told it would be in canvas on the 10th now we're almost 10 days later i mean literally right now every day counts it does we were myself and the others were informed on wednesday that that would not be the case until the 19th so we were anticipating monday having everything ready to go and we're informed that the delay is is there so again this is our our our we have been just updated on this as well that it was there slower in getting them in there so again going back to the fact that our online and our remote learning are utilizing our canvas tools and they're going to get there as quickly now the 19th is the date you gave right there and they and with every system that they install this out they have to make some adjustments which is partially part of the reason that um that we've experienced a small delay is just because we have to create some programs that talk that allow flvs to talk to what we currently have in place and so in order for that to happen we you know that has extended the time frame by at least a couple of days so that we can get those in place as well and that also is why we have to test that in our environment for a day or two before we release that to teachers as well because what we you know we always anticipate everything is just going to work seamlessly and we all know in the technology world that's not necessarily the case so we want to make sure that we are doing our due diligence before we release it to teachers because we want them to be able to use it seamlessly without um too much frustration whatsoever remember we were also disappointed to learn that there was a delay thank you um i know that we have gone above and beyond asking our teachers to learn and to pivot and to soak in so much information and so i do appreciate at this time somewhat of the schedule we have for our teachers so that they do have this time for this training because it's not just um get it boom it's going to take some time to learn and so i just want our teachers to know that we so appreciate they they're forever learners too and we're so grateful so this is president taylor i would want to echo what you just said our teachers have worked so hard they have learned so much they have challenged themselves and are embracing this and are doing the very they are doing amazing things for our students and we appreciate how hard they have worked and are going to continue to work to support our students in any modality and with whatever resources we have to the best of our ability so thank you we are very proud of our teachers because i think one of the things that we saw as a theme in the feedback from our families was concern wanting clarity and but there was a lot of praise for the teachers and how hard they're working and we still also hear families who are concerned and who are having challenges so we hear you and we understand that but our teachers are working very hard rock stars rock stars and i hear you too mr glover and i think it is important how ever we can make these students that do choose online to feel um just a part of our community still and i know it's nothing is ideal i keep saying that and i know it's kind of you know cliche but nothing is ideal in this environment right now and i know that parents have to make the best decisions they possibly can for their individual families and we're just here to support them in that and if there's something that we can do thank you for providing your email too we're all getting them so just spreading out what we can do to help everybody out there so thank you for this great presentation appreciate the clarity on that note that last slide i think is a thank you slide just once again reiterating what reiterating what you have just said it's really all of us working together that provide those opportunities for our students to learn grow and contribute and thrive and even in challenging environments such as what we have been faced with this year we can continue still to work together as a team and make this happen so thank you very much for your support as well thank you and it's been two hours so i think we're gonna take a little break thank you you see them thank you for allowing us that break we are going to move on there's going to be some survey results and we are a go thank you president kaler members of the board we want to transition now into sharing with you the results of the survey that we talked about at the last board meeting at the last board meeting we spent some time talking about the fact that we would be surveying our families to get an idea of what they were thinking about which led to the opportunity for us to learn more about where we needed to clarify obviously for for instruction but also to begin to help us get a sense of staffing because the staffing is a really important piece remember we started this year with the you know our teachers as numbers and class sizes and being sure that we structure this appropriately and it and it can be a true puzzle so we're trying to figure out what does our staffing look like because we have to also be at fair to our teachers because we can't ask them to do three things at the same time so how do we do this and how do we prepare for it so we're going to talk a little bit about our survey results that we learned from our families and that we learned from our employees and talk about some of the things we also saw not only in their responses but also in the comments and trends that we learned from them too as sort of themes that emerged next slide okay kaler members of the board uh hear the results uh on a general view for the confirmation instructional model confirmation survey that we surveyed our families on first thing i'd like to know we had around a 65 response rate so there was still 35 percent of our families that we did not hear from or did not answer the survey and so what that meant was we had 8 358 surveys that were returned on all the different levels that we had so the first one if you'll take a look is the instructional model confirmation if you see the blue part which represents 49 of the responses those were the families that indicated that they will return to our campus when we are able to reopen our campuses for in-person instruction the orange piece is 26 percent are the leaning towards returning to campus and so our choice was they wanted to know more about the metrics but they were leaning toward returning to in-person our next group was 15 were leaning towards online learning but they wanted to know more about the metrics as well and those were two additional options that we added based upon the feedback that we had at our last governing board meeting and then if you'll notice that we have approximately 10 of the responses said they will choose the online learning option and for those we consider those they were that group and that's the group that right now that our principals are looking at and i know our secondary principles have met up and i want to give them kudos publicly they've partnered together to start looking at what this puzzle looks like and where can we expect to offer classes and then the next piece would be how are we going to align teachers to fit these these models but they have met and are working on it together because we know that for instance at the high school level if we have a certain number of higley high and a certain number of williams field it might be feasible if we combine them into a single online section and are allowed to be able to offer that to them as opposed to doing it independently and so i'm very pleased at the progress that they're already making knowing that this is a very giant lift for us and these are the puzzle pieces we have to figure out the second question that we ask is we know because of the executive order that we are going to open on august 17th for those specialized situations and students who need support services and i know i think at our next meeting we'll be addressing more specifically for you what does that look like and i know our community is asking for that as well and so if you take a look uh 80 percent of the respondents indicated no they would not be looking at that however we did have approximately 13 percent of the respondents say yes we are looking to do some form of that returning on the uh 17th in some some capacity for support services next slide please president taylor members of the board i want to personally thank all the families for their thoughtful response to the survey and their comments are important as we're learning this morning that when they email or specifically when they put comments in these surveys it helps us step back and think wow maybe we need to provide more information and the presentation on re remote versus online is the perfect example so you'll see some themes in these comments mask keep coming up but i'm glad that you guys are looking in a policy so we have a clear direction of what we will do in our schools but having those breaks will be important we'll just have to approach them in a very safe manner the other thing you see is people love their teachers and their their favorite thing is to be in person if at all possible however you're going to see a lot of statements about safety concerns about safety so as you read through those i think one of the main things you see is that they want all of us to be looking at data wise thoughtful timely decisions the other thing we've talked about is the social emotional needs and it's hard for kids to be away from kids it's hard for kids to be away from teachers and routines those relationships are key i really appreciated some of the things dr thomason read this morning like it really got me and i know people are hurting and we're all doing the best we can but i think these comments show you how thoughtful our community is and i think in our wildest dreams we would never ever be sitting here doing this that over and over i read comments of thank you thank you to you guys thank you to administrators teachers and everybody out there mrs richards i was just going to echo that that every email was so kind and so thoughtful and we just so appreciate all that you know we're trying to be so positive and i really appreciate that so yes i echo that they were and very constructive and very thoughtful and things that we don't always think about were brought to my attention so um ours as well president taylor so we're grateful and we're going to keep you know backing up restarting changing doing what we need to so next slide morning president kayla are members of the board so the next portion that i'm going to present in relation to the surveys were directly to our certified employees we intentionally did not survey our classified at this time primarily because we had just recently made a number of phone calls to all of them inquiring about their interest to work in alternative assignments um as dr foley mentioned um and president keller you mentioned wednesday's presentation we'll have a shift and talk a little bit more about some of the additional items that we've discovered related to the executive orders and the need to support these support services and what that looks like so today i'm going to focus on the certified and primarily those do encompass our teachers however we do have other certified which is our slps our speech language pathologist our occupational therapist our psychologists other ed pros and some administrators that are in there too that responded to the survey so when you look at the pie chart it's a little misleading as we talk about the next slide but before that you'll see on here that we have a large majority of individuals that did say that they're ready to come back to campus and we had a small number nine percent say that they only wanted online teaching when you add the other two items together it's 91 um just like miss richards thankful for our certified who responded to the survey and very transparent and honest about their comments i know some of you had access to them and probably saw a number of them as we switch onto the themes i'll talk a little bit more about that but thankful that they took the time thankful that they were open and honest and i said misleading earlier because although our individual employees are saying that they want to be back in person they're not ready to come back in person so there's a disconnect there in terms of the choices and we did get some comments in relation to woody waning would have liked to have had more choices in the process in terms of saying well can we choose a hybrid or i'm okay coming back but again i don't want to come back until it's ready to come back and i understand what these metrics are that the arizona department of health services in alignment with ade are going to present in the bigger picture so next slide piece so i read every single response that we received back from all of our certified individuals um and we had a little bit of some duplications but removing the duplications we did have 742 which is a very high response rate because at any given time of the year we can have anywhere from 730 to 750 certified employees so at 742 it's it's a high number everybody participated there's certainly a possibility of some duplications as some were labeled anonymous or they did not put in their name in the response which is perfectly fine but out of all the comments that i read these were the large themes of those comments wanting smaller class sizes so what does that look like you know a number of individuals mentioned could there be a hybrid possibility and talking with cabinet and talking with ed services one of the reasons why we said that there couldn't be a hybrid possibility and this is some of what we talked about another surveying that we had gotten back from our teachers was that they would then be doing duplicate work potentially having to prep for in person and then also having to prep for individuals that need assistance on the days that they're not in as in addition to that our understanding is that for those individuals who choose that hybrid option there still has to be a location for them to attend to if they want to come in person on the days that they are not scheduled to be on that hybrid option or come to a location in which they can receive support some of our surrounding school districts to my understanding had empty school buildings or empty spaces in which they could designate that would be their location that their students in that hybrid model would attend to we don't have that luxury here at higley so we don't have a location to where if they chose on the day that they're not in that in-person session for a place to go we don't have them a place to go to then still maintain some of those smaller class sizes so that's something that is difficult earlier i heard miss reece and i think mr glover talk about well if there's the possibility for this streaming then maybe we'll have more families that choose that online option and then they could then provide a potential for smaller class sizes miss kaler i believe you mentioned earlier too though that's budget you know we're working with mr holland he's not here today but actively working with him to look at all of our funds and all of our accounts to determine what monies do we have in this unique year that we could pull away from these one-time expenses they wouldn't necessarily need to be stained in the future sustained in the future but paid and utilized now for looking into additional options whether it's technology definitely extra fte what else do we need to help sustain and make sure that it's the best environment that it can be for all individuals involved in the process the next item is more mechanisms for diligence of safety precautions and as we talk about the mitigation plan later dr fowler miss malloy and miss fulton will talk about but wanting to know am i going to get training i'm okay with having to utilize some materials if i need to utilize materials to clean in between but as long as you give me the ppe you give me the sanitation products and you teach me how to do it i'll do my best i can however at the secondary levels also needing some extra time as a possibility if the expectation is there to clean the classes in between and what does that look like certainly thoughtful and thankful about adding staff and this is a concern that you guys have brought up before too but is one additional staff member really going to help is that enough and again it goes back to the larger component of budget and what we can sustain and so we are actively again looking at okay what are our dollars what are our availabilities and what can we do with those dollars that we do have available um can we look at additional fte within support services and helping with the cleaning aspects too or maybe we can look at some of our other employees that are part-time and extending their fte to help in those areas in addition to our current staffing that we have a large item in what ms richards mentioned in terms of mass must be a requirement how are you going to keep me safe and make sure that i am safe so the mask policy will be something that a number of our employees will appreciate i do know subsequent questions and i'm sure you've been asked of and my colleagues have been asked of is how do we hold accountability for those mass if students choose not to so that's a deeper piece that we'll have to go into a little bit more but also certainly educating and letting them know that this is what the district if the board chooses to pass it at the next board meeting the route that we've chosen to go um and it's important for us and why it's important for us and if you're going to continue at higley this is what you have to honor in that process mrs martens too that is an executive order straight from governor ducey that we did have to adopt some type of face covering policy absolutely and also going back to how can you keep me safe if i have 25 anywhere plus some of our secondaries 30 plus students in a classroom you know there's not a way that we can physically distance um and we acknowledge that if we're going to go back to in-person instruction and we're going to allow students to come back we're not going to be able to safely physical distance in those classrooms even with the addition of ftes if we financially can afford it for in-person we don't have the space to then separate and divide classes from 25 to 10 or lower um so that's a that's reality um and when we talk next week i'll talk about some other realities that that executive order for lack of a better word forced on us whether equitable or not equitable but what we have to do as a district and some of that is the support services on 817 and if certified aren't working these support services because they're doing remote teaching all we have left of our classified and if our classified don't return then we cannot support these support services so what do we do so that's a big challenge and you know just like the emails that all of you are reading i'm reading emails to from our various employees some that have copied me directly with copying you or sent to me directly or making phone calls that we're hearing so we we absolutely understand the challenge and appreciate that a lot of our employees understand that we're in a no-win situation and we've been put in this no-win situation so thankful for them in the larger understanding and trying to do our best to accommodate the best way that we can if possible mrs martins i um i did ask several of my teacher friends to i would like to hear more feedback from them directly and i did get that and that that constant communication was yes we want to be back in our classrooms when it's safe and that was the the common denominator in every single email that i received and there they have concerns about even when um so a fourth grade team has four teachers and one is out and we divide that fourth grade class into all the other we're not going to have just 25 or 30 in that situation we've we've done that practice in the past and again that was another concern that our teachers are bringing to my attention and so i i hear what you're saying and i heard it as well in my letters that i received absolutely um and some of that is kind of going to leaves and pay and mr glover brought this up at our last meeting in regards to the fact that we hadn't really talked about substitutes yet we are actively working on it and we have been actively working on it as you know sometime in the summer you guys approved our contract with educational services incorporated esi who maintains our substitutes as well as our face retirement program and we've been working with them and they've termed it now rescue subs ourselves as well as another district has inquired about hiring full-time subs our goal is to hire a minimum of 26 full-time subs that will work for us this school year and be housed at each campus to support and go in as possible we know that even at 26 if we sign one per campus two at the secondaries maybe have nine floaters it's still going to be difficult and may not be enough but we're trying and we know that that's gonna cost us another four hundred to five hundred thousand dollars if we do it for the full school year so another budget impact that was not planned for this school year that we'll have to find the dollars to support but we know that's important because we know that we have to have at least one additional person to help assist wherever they can possibly assist as needed as we go back to in-person instruction another thing i want to make clear too is a lot of employees seem to be confused about the family's first corona response act ffcra in regards to if they get sick what happens a lot of employees thinking they had to use their own general leave time during that time period and i want to clarify that for those first two weeks and this is a federal act so that's why you see other employers across the nation having this is that for that first two weeks if it's coveted related and they're sick or they've been told to self-isolate and or they have to care for somebody who's that they need to self-isolate and be directed to isolate they get 80 hours of paid time at full pay for that initial component and then anything beyond that there are some other components that can extend an emergency fmla that's separate from the original fmla enacted in 1996 the family medical leave act this is separate of that in which depending on the qualifying factors that are related to covid there could also be a potential for 10 weeks of extended leave at two-thirds of their pay so 66.7 percent um so i want to make that clear as a lot of individuals felt as though they had to use their own time could there be a possibility that they have to use their own time at a later date yes but initially they would not have to would it be ideal if we could give employees unlimited leave for this school year yes but again there's lots of other challenges and consequences with that too you know so we'll have to kind of see how this year plays out but the fact that the federal government did enact this ffcra and i think i mentioned at another board meeting that this is the first federal leave act in which employers have to pay their employees all other leave acts that exist individuals it's unpaid and they can use general leave vacation sick time whatever that organization has to keep them in a paid status with the exception of some components of military leave but so this is a unique position that all of us have put in not only school districts but also private employers and employers outside of here so in terms of the last area notifications of positive cases we continue to work with the arizona department of health and will continue to follow the arizona department of health or the miracle maricopa county health department in regards to how we are to inform people and when we are to inform individuals um you know as i've reported multiple times things have been changing every week in regards to just the status of when you're out how long you're out if you have symptoms how long you have to be out during those symptoms before you can return so although we have no laid out plans for now there'll be more discussion next week too as we talk a little bit more about the school's reopening plan and how it applies specifically to this area but there is the notion of primary contact and secondary contact still in regards to who gets informed and then separately of that just like with any other types of illnesses like hand face mouth disease arizona department of health are following those same guidelines in regards to how you communicate to others yeah i've seen across the country lately that what's happening is employees that have died their families are suing the employers if they didn't provide adequate safety measures so i've seen that starting to come about here so saying that certainly mr witovich you know we we live in a world um that can be very challenging to where individuals really um can seek suits for numerous reasons we've mentioned this before but you know we certainly have our risk management we have workers comp um and it would be difficult for somebody to see or prove that we were negligent and they were able to get covered directly from here depending on the circumstances you know certainly if it's in a classroom there's some dynamics related to that but it'll be really interesting to see if some of these cases get pursued and how they get pursued and then what um what benchmark that provides for other places mrs martins i was able to read through most of the comments i think um i was really happy the way you guys made them all anonymous for us um i couldn't i didn't know who was saying the comments but i did get to read through most of them and this mirrors a lot of them and i just appreciate that um i appreciate our staff being open with us and telling us exactly what they need so we can move forward thank you next slide thank you ms martin thank you so one of the things that we had talked an awful lot about at the last meeting and it's one of the things that's also required as part of this executive order is a mitigation plan a document in which you align what is your action plan and your priorities along with the it's aligned to the road map for over opening schools and so it's a document that you begin to implement what are your processes and procedures so you have a draft in front of you again this is a working draft that we've been working on to bring this together and there are some components um that we're going to talk through kind of like chapters if you will or sections and so uh we are fortunate to have again miss felicia malloy who is also new to higley who also comes to us with decades of experience and we are so grateful for her to join us and so she is going to start talking a little bit about this and we have dr fowler and jillian fulton our nurse who will also be sharing some information as well and great board member withovich this would also be a time to if with what you're in point that you wanted to share would be a fitting in one of these categories wherever one things as we talk about let's bring this let's bring the children back to school let's let's do this okay it's okay to bring the children back to school but we have to understand how we're going to clean schools okay nobody talks about that and when we say clean schools okay so so what is the cleaners okay i mean what what is this brand of cleaner that you're having here right now okay this is the branded cleaner that we're going to use in our schools and i was looking through i asked for what the teacher supplies would be and over here for the board members to take a look at the teachers are going to have a spray bottle hand sanitizer paper towels face masks gloves things like that and then i looked at in addition to teaching our teachers are going to be asked is recommended that the teachers will use this product we'll set we'll mist each desk spray each desk with this disinfectant leave it for 45 seconds then wipe it with the paper towels that's the teacher's desk now the high school students as i look at this if there's 20 students in the classroom 20 desk and it has to be 45 seconds that's 900 seconds that's 15 minutes okay that's just on spraying the desk okay now i was looking at at the product the teacher also is going to require to have gloves on at this time also to have masks on and when the teacher you know when we clean our houses we clean them maybe once a day or once however it is you're asking your high school teachers to have this product five to six times a day they're asking the teachers to smell these products five to six times a day you're asking your students to smell it all day long now i was looking at this product here on the on the side here that says it contains 8 hydrogen peroxide now the catch is other 92 percent and i looked all over the bottle no it's not telling me what other is okay so so i'm going to be spraying this on on students desks not having a clue what it is um i am reading this is what we fill the bottles with that we dilute it with and it talks about on the bottle here it says hazardous to humans domestic animals it says milk may cause irreversible eye damage and skin burns and then it says prolong useful perhaps skin damage and things like that over prolonged use i think teachers using all day long is prolonged use and children smelling it all day if we have concerns about peanut allergies we're spraying products that we don't know 90 of what is in that on a student's desk and it says also on this product that if you come in contact with it if it's wet you are to not chew gum use um eat any type of food or may cause any damage to your clothes so if your desk is wet you need and it says you need to wash your hands immediately after we do this so okay so so you've got your teacher in here um high school she's got five minutes and i already told you cost 15 minutes to wipe all the desks off it takes three to five minutes for it to dry is what the instructions say on this so the students are going to come in in between classes teachers go to mask up wash the desks off students are going to come in they're going to come down and sit next to the desk and oh my gosh if they sit at the desk and the desk is wet they're going to have this chemical on their hand they're going to discolor their clothes make sure they don't eat anything sitting at their desk because if their hands are wet and the product is wet they cannot put it up and eat it during the mouth on those type of things so my my concern is you know i'm all for coming back to school but but i'm concerned about products that we're using and and to keep our kid our children safe and clean and and to expect our teachers to do this all day long um it just it just makes me extremely nervous with that and it just uh and then in addition to that what you're asking the teachers to do and the staff to do i mean we're just talking about cleaning a desk here and it's gonna cost 15 minutes of the day and every time i walk in a high school room i'm going to get the fresh smell of these camels with 90 i don't know what is and then in addition to that i'm expecting the teachers to clean the door handles of the classroom and it takes 45 seconds for that to dry it takes three to five minutes uh light switches and drinking fountains and all these type of things and this is just this is in addition to to the daily type of things that that takes place on that so um i just wanted to share that with you in in reference to that i mean i could go and um every 45 minutes here i could sit and i'd be more if we're expecting our teachers and staff to clean the desk i'll be more than happy to every 45 minutes put my mask on and clean your desk here and then you will stay away for five minutes and then if you sit there then you're gonna smell this for the next five to ten minutes then every 45 minutes i will spray it again for you and make sure you don't get near your clothes because this might discolor your clothes but i'm just making a point i'm not going to do it with you today but i just want you to understand what you're asking the staff and the teachers to do you're saying i want the kids to come back to school i want them to come back to school but you know what there's more to just bringing kids back to school it's about cleaning and making sure it's clean and we have the right chemicals and those type of things so i just want as we think about these things as we think about maintaining the health environments are we okay with this all day long i don't know if i'm okay with having a child smell this all day long okay so i just wanted to share this with you today thank you this is thank you mr pitovic yes mr woodtovich to be fair um you can get all the information on the msds sheets that is actually required by the government we have to have those on any chemical that we use we have to have them on chlorine bleach we have to have the msds sheets for everything that we have which will inform you of those other items so it's there and it has to be kept by the facilities and everything else and then there's a difference between the diluted and non-diluted form and referencing the spray bottle is the diluted form which once that product is diluted in the appropriate fashion which the msds sheets will tell us how that has to happen then it is a safer product than the concentrate just the same as if you get the concentrate windex you're not supposed to use that concentrated form it's supposed to be a diluted form there's a huge difference in the safety between concentrated and diluted forms so i completely hear what you're saying and i understand your point but to be fair we're not giving non-diluted anything to our staff to put in front of our kids that would not be deemed reasonably safe and maybe even reasonably safe isn't the word maybe it wouldn't be deemed safe if if we see the product provided does not require any ppe so the diluted form is safer than the straight out concentrate um that we have that we receive so there there is a difference i understand your point um as far as high school to say it takes 45 minutes yes if that you were doing one at a time and waiting and waiting if if someone goes around and sprays the desks and a student walks in grabs a paper towel and dries it that's not going to take the 45 minutes and so just i completely get where you're coming from i just need to state to be fair this stuff is not being handed to them in a concentrated concentrated form that it is very different once it is mixed and diluted with the appropriate amount and the msds sheets are required and i'm sure that dr fowler anyone can get you those so you can see exactly what is in it because that is required by law my concern is like i said is the smell of chemicals all day long with the students the coming into the classrooms like you said the high school students um you're going to ask high school students to spray for the teacher those type of things now in addition to that when the teacher gets done doing all this it says on the directions they need to wash their hands so in five minutes the teacher needs to wash all these things off then go the restroom and clean up it's it's not going to happen in what we're expecting so perhaps that conversation on the length of time and those type of things but but my my basic concern is is the constant chemical use in our classroom during the daytime sure it may you know they may have all types of list and the safety but i don't know about you but i don't want to smell something all day long like like these type of things and and i don't know about in my house but i don't smell bleach all day long in my house but it's just it's it's it's the safety and those type of things so spelling bleach all day long welcome to kids welcome to child care welcome to schools welcome to hospitals it's what happens to be safe could somebody follow up and find out how many of our classrooms have sinks in them because i know some of them do um and so that would be i don't need it now i know you guys have no idea i would know either so i was just wondering if we could get maybe something on that how many have actual sinks that we're allowing kids to wash their hands on thank you good morning board president president kaler members of the board i'm felicia malloy and before we get into the mitigation plan i do want to point out that when this was noted that this is a requirement for us to have the state didn't come out with a template didn't give us any guidance on it so we were left with the task of trying to figure out what is this mitigation plan going to look like and if i could summarize how we came up with this is it's basically the work of our task teams that we had from the last board meeting and it really is trying to put all of the information that we gathered in those task force teams and trying to put it into a concise document that we can update as the information changes and as you know it changes very quickly so this is our first draft i did do some google searches trying to find some templates that are out there so i think i found a template that allows us to put in the important information that everybody needs to know but it doesn't have everything if i put everything in here for our mitigation plan it would be a book and that book would change every day or at least weekly so i do want to point that out some of the documents that we used to put this mitigation plan together of course we use information from the cdc the arizona department of education education elements maricopa department of health and the national institute for excellence in teaching many of these documents were also used while we were in our task force teams trying to come up with this information so i do want to thank all of our task force teams that helped to put this into one document so we thought it would be good to start off with what are the husd priorities and our priority of course the number one is our instructional options so when you see the underline on this draft that is actually a link that will go to a document for you we do want to educate all of our staff and families about when they should stay home and when they can return to school or work it is important for us to continue training all employees on our health screening and safety protocols posting signage as you know you have seen through some of our board presentations the signs that we're putting up on the floor the barriers that we're installing at the schools today you just approved the first reading of the mask policy that's now a requirement as you talked about the ensuring that we have our cleaner school spaces with intensified cleaning what are the concerns with that disinfection and our ventilation how are we going to sanitize our high touch surfaces what are those high traffic areas how we're going to monitor them ms martens was talking about how we don't have the physical space to lower the class size as well how are we going to handle hallways when all of our children are in there going from class to class so these are all of our priorities that we are literally that that has definitely been one of the conversations i've had with multiple parents is that passing period in our secondary hallways what is that going to look like if anybody has any weight on that sometime today maybe we can answer that one one of the things too is that we are also going to talk about coming back and probably not the 12th meeting but the 29th with additional updates on specific processes and procedures on all of those because one of the things we're looking at too is that there can be flexibility in those passing periods because of the instructional day how we might schedule those and there are a lot of ideas that have been generated that we're working through you know we want to pursue virtual events as much as we can during this time we want to maintain our physical distancing limiting group size and of course we want to limit our non-essential visitors and volunteers and activities even though even when we do come back to in person i think a lot of these things are still going to be in place so we still have a lot of work to do with this document but i believe this is a very good start for us so our first area the areas that we have in here we have promoting behaviors that prevent the spread maintaining healthy environments covet 19 measures and maintaining healthy operations this actually comes from the mode the road map from ade so what are we going to do two of the most very important things that we have and i won't go into detail with these miss fulton will discuss these we have our husd daily health screenings and our exclusion guidelines we of course want to teach and reinforce hand hygiene we want to teach and reinforce our face coverings we want to ensure that we have the adequate supplies you know we're telling our teachers that we're going to have these items in their classrooms we want to maintain those supplies we don't want to run out so that's the first section which is our promoting behaviors i i didn't read every bullet i don't like to read to you you have that opportunity um but we'll go ahead and move to section two unless we have questions on that just uh miss malloy just one thing um i just want to take a moment to reiterate to the people who are watching um that well okay so like growing up i don't remember my father ever taking a sick day i think he was in the hospital once and he didn't come home and that's it like he now he he went to work day after day after day and we have to as americans really rethink our when we're not feeling well for kovit if we're going to get through this and we're going to open and people are going to be around we really have to just say to ourselves okay i am not going to work yes i could get through it i'm not going or i'm not sending my kid we send i mean i've sent sick kids to school before and and we just have to really emphasize and ask the community to please if you're sick feeling sick think you're sick just do the right thing please especially with just a cough and i think we've all sent kids with just a cough because otherwise our kids would probably be out for a long period of time but if they just have a cough you might need to think about and reiterate well maybe we need to take a day and make sure that it's just a cough or just allergies what we thought it was the second area of the mitigation plan is maintaining healthy environments and just want to first of all before i talk specifically identify all of the members of our support services team that have been working extensively throughout the summer and continue to work to prepare and adjust and change and and provide all the needed supports including gathering ppe and making adjustments to to spaces and doing all those things that that we're talking about and continuing to be flexible and change with that a lot of these items are ones the boards board has already seen i'm just going to highlight those again in the area of intensifying cleaning and disinfecting appreciate the board support as we've hired additional staff to to work through the high touch areas that that is a work in progress and i've communicated with principals and we're setting out those specific guidelines we do feel that that increased cleaning on those high-touch areas throughout the day is is very important and those services that get touched a lot with with their increased visibility and on campus when those students return that will be important process to that and and our training is ongoing and we'll continue to make adjustments as we we work through in reference to the ventilation and i've talked about that as well we do have a very extensive system that was updated many many years ago through climatetech and we we had a group independent third party group come in and assess our systems and they are very efficient more efficient than most and we'll continue to tweak and look at those but we do have programs in place and systems that help to maintain those and uh our summer processes include the evaluation and repair those and and maintenance of those and so that that continues to be ongoing but uh we're in a good place there and we'll continue to make sure that those are running efficiently the third point was the water systems and that's again part of our preventative maintenance we have done a system flush at each campus and we'll continue to do that every few weeks until students return if if that happens this year also the water treatment system that service began thanks to the board and you're approving that rfp so our closed water loops that that feed our hvac systems have been enhanced i've been working very closely with principals at sites and you can only imagine the the pressure and and weight that's being felt by our principals on our sites as they try to prepare their sites for the return potentially of students and so i've had extensive walks and talks with them working with administrators on revisions to their hallways in terms of routes and how to promote physical distancing i want to thank our warehouse and print shop staff for providing physical distance markers and arrows and dividing markers and other visual aids that will assist in that on each campus as as when the time comes for those students to return we've talked about the cafeteria and the time involved in in putting students through those areas in the safest way possible we've examined and made plans for hand sanitizing stations and looking at ways to to promote as much safety that we can bring to the setting given given the constraints that we also have we also know that physical barriers are helpful and we've we have already installed those in all our front offices in the reception areas and continue to work and looking at putting those in places where we're needed again related to communal spaces and cafeterias looking at the the intensive cleaning of those spaces and adding more lunches or and increasing the time in which those spaces are used and really working hard to to meet as many of those cdc guidelines as we possibly can um just in reference um and i want to thank and appreciate mr rotovic's perspective and and board member reese's perspective as well um the classroom situation is one of concern and i completely understand the points uh taken um it is true um ms reese um in terms of the the cleaner it is a diluted solution um and it isn't the concentrated form in fact that's just our trained staff that actually uses that and so when it's at the class setting it's in a very diluted form and it is true to leave that for 45 seconds but you know we have done that in a class and you can sanitize spray sanitize each desk in a in about a second to second a half and if you go down the rows with within the five minute time frame it's reasonable to sanitize and wipe those um you know in in that set in that setting um we we do know that um the items also on there just to bring reference the spray bottle the hand sanitizer also paper towel and the green microfiber towel are there for teachers use um as well as information about the new sanit the new disinfectant it's the facili pro peroxide which was specifically chosen because this in a diluted form doesn't require ppe we have included masks and gloves in the in the teachers supplies but um in this particular product doesn't require the ppe although we've provided it anyway in addition also some specifics in terms of of how to use that sanitizer and each of our platform and custodials have been trained and we'll provide additional training if needed upon request the other thing that wasn't noted but also is in there is posters for each classroom one related to the requirement and i know the county has required it and i'm anticipating a board action coming soon about wearing face masks also about washing your hands which we know is extremely important in this in this time as well as a um a poster about the symptoms of kovid um as per mr rotovich's i mean mr glover's my apologies comment in terms of just being very aware if you're not feeling well it isn't that we're not in the day and age where we're going to just kind of tough it out and if you're not feeling well please stay home and we want that message to be received loud and clear and then another poster about stop spreading germs and and certainly as an educational institution we know that our teachers will take full advantage and help to educate all of our students on these i want to note that these are all items that our print shop is able to produce and produce very quickly and make available to all of our teachers in addition i wanted to note that there's a number of supplies and ppe that has been stockpiled in our warehouse and we have an additional additional supplies that are available and and i had noted the amounts up there for board members as well to see that and we're continuing to to get additional mass and and those items that we know that we're going to need and so um we we are doing all that we can and we understand that this is unprecedented times we when we're in a position if we need to return we want to return in as safe a way as possible and we'll continue to adjust and i appreciate the the feedback and the suggestions we agree that the safety of our students and and staff is about more importance and we'll continue to do and provide all that we're able to in support and i know in my time as an educator and this being my 30th year i i can't remember a time where you know coming to work and being in this role is as challenging as it has the only time that i could remember that would be even similar was the the morning of september 11th as i watched the news and uh had heard that the first plane crashed into the tower and and as i was getting ready to go into my role as an assistant principal responsible for the safety of a campus the second plane hit and the rumors and people talking about they might be trying to take over schools or what's going to happen that was more of a an enemy and an attack that was more visible this is an invisible enemy and one that is probably as more so or even more menacing for our our teachers and and especially administrators and so i reiterated with each of our principals that um that i am here and my team is here all of support services to support them and please this is not something that they have to do on their own and that our our entire cabinet is here to support them and we really appreciate the support of the board as well i can't imagine how difficult and challenging this is for you to navigate this and we appreciate your support but we will do what's best for students for the safety of our teachers and staff and and thank you for your support in this area thank you dr fowler um have we talked about maybe doing some videos training for teachers and our videos just to showing our community how this cleaning process may take place in a classroom president keller yes we have a couple that are already in process are ready to to go out and a couple more that we're working on so that is something that that uh that is is in the works i think we're very visual people today and um just being able to see how that looks like for our teachers our staff our community i think is super important so thank you go ahead mrs wilson do you uh last board meeting i believe we've had a lot of board meetings so i think it was last board meeting you mentioned plexiglas was the new toilet paper have we been able to find i think that's what he was the words have we been able to find plexiglass are we able to secure more plexiglas we're still limited on plexiglas but we have not given up and so we'll continue to reach out to we do have a little bit of supply but um we're gonna keep working on that yeah i was in a couple schools this week actually and last week and i noticed that where the kids come up to the front office there's no plexiglas so we know that kids are carriers more than they are maybe having it so for that person at that front desk it might be important to have that side as well covered i did but i did notice that as we was out but i knew that plexiglas was the new toilet paper so i was willing to but i did want to offer that up thank you thank you good morning president keller members of the board i'm going to talk about the third section of the mitigation plan i'm going to touch base a little bit on all of this the hsd daily health screening that's a form that i believe you guys have already seen the questions that we ask both employees that comes up on their computer then also the kids that right now we have going into kids club and that will carry over to the services at the school coming in august 17th those questions are all symptoms of coven and have you been in contact with anybody that's been tested or is positive and we from there we take those those uh answers if it's yes they're directed to the health office and my health offices all have processes and procedures of what we do from there and inside that health office off those questions they're going home and then off the guidelines that are also included in here the htsd exclusion guidelines that helps formulate how long they're not at school when they can come back and every situation is different and everything is a puzzle so i take every situation and kind of piece it together and that's how we get to those guidelines and figure out when someone can return to school safely there's questions about if an employee is confirmed to have cover 19 husd will inform local health officials fellow employees of their possible exposure to coven 19 in the workplace will also be notified while maintaining confidentiality as required by the americans with disabilities act also hipaa ferpa and both health departments and state and federal laws there um there's a lot of questions about if anybody is confirmed ovid positive and how someone is informed and again like i know miss martens has mentioned several times we're looking at uh close contact secondary or primary contact and secondary contact and right now we're really sticking to that mainly for confidentiality because that's how we're going and rumors spread so primary contact will always be notified and that is in collaboration with the health department so we talk and then we'll notify there's several ways of notification that right now there will always be a personal phone call i can tell you that that was decided but email letters those are being formulated by the health department now and i'm waiting for those because they do have blanket ones that they would like us to use at some point um in if an employee is diagnosed with copin 19 they must stay home i know ms martin's covered the family's first coronavirus response act with that yes they must stay home and i want to include obviously students too also something that has changed that came to my attention yesterday is we've already talked about this before it's been on guidelines and it's been off but now it's going to be back on that their siblings will be pulled also obviously you would think that that was something we you know would stay but that goes back and forth so that will be added again um you know different even if they're at different schools it's the household will be taken for those 14 days on quarantine when there is a confirmed puzzle case in the district the area will be cleaned and disinfected i know dr fowler touched on that and prepared to isolate and safely transport any student or staff exhibiting covet i can't stress enough a couple things of notifying anybody of your symptoms and telling somebody that you're not feeling good and you're not coming to work and not showing up to work not feeling good please not sending your children not feeling good that only makes everything effects everywhere that student or employee goes and it's just going to not be a good situation from there um does anybody have any questions for me yes so i just kind of want to talk through because i know our families are very interested in this piece of the puzzle so if a student comes into the classroom and is showing symptoms and later we find out that student did test positive they were sent home are his classmates considered primary or secondary contact and is the teacher considered primary or secondary contact and that's that puzzle that i have to put together because naturally if we're sitting here just thinking visually of a classroom and every student in there wearing a mask and the teacher wearing a mask and or face shield those are separate things in the mass policy you wouldn't think that every student is a primary contact things change every single day there was a point since march that student all those students were not primary contacts there was a point where they were primary contacts we're back to their not primary contacts and as of yesterday the way i'm interpreting some things i still have my own questions i think we're going back to their primary contacts so that being said that's and things have changed more than that how long we're keeping people out it's gone from 72 hours to 24 hours to 72 hours again we're back to 24.

you know for a fever or a symptom we've gone from 14 days to 10 to 14 to now we're back at 10. like so all of those pieces came into it where were those students how long were they in the classroom before that student the one particular student may have been removed those are things that come into it too was it the first period of the day and they the bell rang and they walked in and the student told the teacher i don't feel good and turned around and walked out and went to the health office those students aren't going to be primary contact there's so many things that come into that but for the most part at this point as fluid as things change i could say they would be notified as right now today would be notified as a primary content and that would same for the teacher if the teacher was from the classroom the same the classroom itself would be part of contact as of today they would all get a phone call from us personally yes thank you very much i think go ahead i was just going to ask when we initially got our presentation we were told that people wouldn't be contacted until we got the confirm from the health department i hope that's changed that if they see a physician have a test and they come with us with a test and they're notifying us that we're taking that and we are taking that they're positive and that we're notifying people while at the same time the health department's being notified which if we're waiting for the health department to come back and notify us or for us to confirm that they have it we keep talking about time is of the essence that's too many days so i i'm hoping we will take notification from a testing laboratory a physician that that's a positive is that that is how it's working so let me reiterate when when the health department gets a positive case it's an electronic transfer from the lab to the health department from there that goes automatically into their system i get information nine times out of ten from a family member an employee themselves a staff member that was told and then it goes from there so not very often do i even have to call the health department to get on the phone and confirm that right then and there when i already have all of that information i have and it's the matter of a five minute conversation somebody searching a name and a birthdate that i'm giving you know who i am where i'm from the information and we're confirming that it does not take long to do that outside of the fact that i'm taking the information from the person themselves yeah can we make our own policy on primary and secondary and and not listen to the state and make it very strict is that possible everything is possible with that yeah before you to make a stricter policy set to keep it i would say if it's switching back and forth so much for you would it be better is my question president kaitlyn remembers the board i think that we should uh stick with the standard definitions that we that are utilized by the cdc and arizona department health uh services if we start making some of our own definitions for some of these things that could confuse our public we can set strict standards using the definitions that are already out there with the cdc and arizona prime health services but to set our own definitions for for that may be confusing to the public and our community and even our staff mrs wilson were you asking so you said something some things are going between 10 and 14 days back to this day back to that if we went with the more restrictive one and just said this is what we're going with even if they change it back to that we're sticking with this that that our policy quits becoming so fluid that based on the most conservative safest piece that we have right now if we just say this is what we're doing and not worry about now it's 24 hours now it's 72 now it's 10 days now it's 14.

if we this is what we're gonna do and make it the most the safest piece is is that what you're asking and not to redefine what a primary secondary that's exactly what i was asking going between 14 days and 10 days and going with the stricter guideline of 14 days and keeping it with that that's what i was asking if that makes sense or if that is clear and i know it's nothing's clear everything's mud right now so i'm just trying to help you because it sounds like you go back and forth a lot yeah with oh yes now it's 14 days oh yes now it's 10 days oh yes and now it's 14 days and i think that may be confusing our public as well because i honestly don't know and i get an update so yeah dr foley you laugh at me but you probably are the same bow president kayla are members of the board i understand where you're coming from in regards to trying to help with our consistency the difficulty that i struggle with is that depending on the situation the time we will get challenges from individuals and saying that here's what's being presented now and it could possibly be based on other medical data information that we're not medical experts on right so there's that dynamic we have the dynamic of individuals who might challenge that and then we also have the possibility of depending on the time and the nature you know there's an article that was included in our board presentation materials today you know could you then have potentially a department where you have a number of individuals out to where that department is not able to efficiently operate as a result too so as much as it is confusing miss fulton and some of our employees that have come to us and asked questions i have to say give me a second let me pull up the most recent data and i pull it up and i read it um you know and it it does make me perplexed at times in regards to you know why it changes so frequently but i hope and want to rely on our medical experts that they're making the right decisions for all of us in that process um and that's why they're certified to do what they're supposed to do with that said mrs martin do we know from one day to the next what our policy is like we go back to school if if things are changing and we're back in person school well today it's a 24 hour thing oh next week it's 72.

when do we decide that we're not changing or are we just expecting our community to say hey well our medical experts today and let's just be clear it just depends on what medical experts because there's this that and everything else today they say 24 hours so i'm going to send johnny home you have to be home for 24 hours but next week susie i'm sorry at 72 now you have to be home for 72. we cannot possibly communicate that to our community for them to know what to expect to keep our health aids up to date what is today's rule so i mean i hear what you're saying about following medical experts but at some point at some point we need to decide what that is and it doesn't mean it can't be reviewed it doesn't mean it can't be reviewed on a monthly basis it but as a parent as a community member if we're back in school and i need to be prepared for my job this and that what happens if my child is sent home what happens if a another child in their classroom is positive whatever i need to kind of know what to expect not going what's the rule today so i mean i hear what you're saying but at what point do we make that determination for some consistencies for our sites for our health aides for our community for our teachers um i i and i'm probably asking just the same with everything else an impossible question um so maybe it's the question isn't when can we do it it's when do we do that can i weigh in maybe a little bit maybe this is definitely something to talk with um our attorney and seeing if other districts are doing something like this i'm not quite sure if because it seems like that would be a question of um in inferring what they mean today and how does that look for us and is that something that we need to further investigate i i don't know i'm just thinking that that might be something we ask them to help us navigate if you know multiple concerns here from this board so and one of the things i think from this mitigation plan again these are the bullet points that are literally aligned to what the what the road map has i believe we need to come back with an information item specifically for you on what does the letter look like what does the communication look like and and perhaps more formal processes for each one with the information that we have at this date knowing that again things may change and we'll have a process for how we identify that update but what will we what will we communicate with people on the website right now about first primary contact secondary contact communication what would that letter look like and the amount of days depending upon the symptoms the diagnosis and the situation so i think we will come back with a more specific plan in the near future for you with this so that we can go through that with more artifacts and processes again this is part of that mitigation plan with marrying the information that sound good okay thank you appreciate that okay the last section uh section four is maintaining a healthy operation some of this has already been covered but you know our ultimate goal is to protect people at higher risk for civilian or severe illness from covet 19.

miss martin has already talked about that and the processes that we do have in place for that we also are trying to encourage how are we coping with the stress you know it's not just the stress that the children have it's a stress of all of the adults that are working under this we've never been under these conditions before i think everyone i talk to talks about how they've missed that personal touch that you're used to having with people and we're keeping distance from people and we're not you know we're not talking to people as much as we used to so we're trying to come up with those coping strategies for our staff and for our students we're talking about staggering and rotating schedules how do how do we make this work at our school site when we do finally go back to in person and again i know this plan doesn't have all the answers it's a start because our i see the principles i see the district staff i see everybody just running around trying to figure out how are we going to make this work and just as uh miss fulton said it changes constantly so you know we we're putting it together and i think we have a pretty good format to start with and it's definitely something to grow with we're trying to create static groups or cohorts i know this is going to be talked about um when we have our support services so that the the students that are together stay together so that we know who has been in contact with whom we want to consider options for non-essential travel in accordance with state and local regulations i'm in charge of all the federal grants typically people are coming to me asking hey can i go to this conference this conference well number one there really aren't conferences going on there are some virtual conferences but when that starts to open up we're going to have to start considering at what point do we allow our staff to go on this travel and is it necessary at this point we want to we have designated that our site administrator is the designated covet 19 point of contact we don't want a lot of people to know because of hipaa regulations what is happening with that so that administrator at the school site is directly communicating with hr and communicating with our district nurse ms wilton we want to implement flexible and non-punitive leave policies as much as we can can in accordance with the law ms martin's working on that we want to monitor our absenteeism and the big one how do we create that backup staffing plan i know you're going to hear quite a bit from that with our support services that are supposed to start operating next week again this is just putting it in here what our daily health screening is and then encouraging those who share our facilities that we need to adhere to our mitigation strategies the things that we have put in place we have put them in place for a reason and for the safety of our students and our staff and anybody who may come in contact with it with our facilities and of course notifying our community of any facility closures so that is our plan as it stands today i was just all wondering if there's any districts out there throughout the country because we're talking about maintaining healthy operations any districts that when they begin to open they open first with the kindergarten group for a week and then the next week later they bring the second first grade then they bring the third grade so perhaps like after um two months but the whole school system operates because if you're bringing one group in first we can like we need to tighten this we need to do this the cleanliness cleaning supplies those type of things need to be addressed and then we can bring the next group in because i understand that the the students that are having the most concerns with online right now is the younger ones so why not start with the younger ones start bringing back and see how it works and walk it through i just wonder if anybody has across the country started staggering the population because you know what as soon as something happens like there's some positive if you shut down you just shut down one or two grades you're not affecting the whole entire student body and they don't have to deal with going back online again bouncing back and forth but just kind of curious do you hear anything out there as far as any school districts that are staggering as the students return i haven't heard of staggering but i have seen there's other schools that have opened up back east that have had issues that they have determined that there's covet cases and i believe they have closed down the schools again so it's an ongoing and certainly something we can look into president caleb members of the board there are some staggering school districts that are happening across the country one of the school districts that i know about specifically is the one my brother works in in washington and so what they've done is to spread the students out they've had they've closed their middle schools and high schools up just to online so the middle schools and high schools then they've spread their elementary schools out to where they got first through third or the school and then fourth through six are spread out to the middle schools and high schools so that is something that we can look into i'm sorry i just want to thank everybody yes it's saturday it's a lot you guys are all here so i just thank you for coming in on saturday i appreciate it me too thank you very much for your time and all your information and i think we are um ordering some lunch because this is going to go through lunch just to let everybody know it's coming yep so again the mitigation plan is something a work in progress you know there are more processes and procedures obviously that are being implemented that are being finalized so as we transition into the next part of our conversation it will be about the benchmarks that were just was the health ben health metrics and benchmarks that were just um just released so you can forward to the next slide and dr thomason is going to take a second to talk us through a few things and then he will navigate a little bit on the the dashboard as well so president caleb members of the board the metrics have now been out for a little over 36 hours i can tell you within that time i've attended three webinars and read everything i can on the metrics and the benchmarks that have been put out there so there's quite a bit that's out there there's more that's coming there's more questions that we have also so i can tell you that that at this time i probably can't answer all of your questions but i do have a firm grasp on what's happening out there and can explain that so uh first side please okay i think we okay so uh the benchmarks so uh the benchmarks have been broken up in three separate areas so there's the minimal the moderate and substantial uh spread uh to the community so you can see right here there's three areas that we're looking at the number of cases the percent of positivity and the covet-like illnesses so at this time um you know the second level of spread uh occurring within the community or when the both the moderate and the minimal are occurring is what the recommendation from the arizona department of health services says that we can start to look at in-person [Music] next slide please so what does that look like so let's just take a look at what we're talking about for arizona so the three areas are cases and they've broken this up into two areas the benchmark can be we're two weeks below 100 cases per hundred thousand for the county or a decline in weekly average cases for two consecutive weeks when we look at specifically maricopa county where unified school district resides we're going to see that we're getting pretty close to meeting the second threshold of declining weekly average cases for two consecutive weeks the second area is the positive uh percent of of those testing with um with coving so for two weeks the percent of positivity has to be below seven percent and that does not include the current week that's two weeks previous before you take a look at opening up and the third area would be the covet-like illnesses and once again we're looking at that two-week benchmark for hospitalization visits due to covert-like illnesses that are below 10 and on this one on the covet-like illnesses it's not broken up by county it's broken up by by region and so we're in the central region that's going to include data from gila maricopa and penal counties at this time i can tell you right now that the maricopa county health services is looking at breaking it up much smaller and tighter for even within the maricopa county it's not available at this time but we're looking at breaking it up into smaller areas so what are we looking at next slide so we're looking at um the the checklist that has been recommended for the maricopa by the maricopa county board of supervisors um and then the arizona department of health services so the checklist is right there we want to reopen buildings on-site services or in-person instruction that is consistent with the applicable state and local laws and that right there goes specifically with right now the mask mandate so we do have a local mandate on mask and so we would be following that and then then the next three areas for the checklist include the metrics provided by the arizona department of health services and it's the cases below uh one hundred thousand hundred per hundred thousand the percent of positivity uh less than seven percent and then covalent illnesses less than seven less than ten percent so um and then we have to adopt our mitigation plan which we saw today and then also um take a look at different opportunities for traditional hybrid and virtual learning models dr thomason yes so you had mentioned that they were looking at trying to provide us maybe some more information so we're stuck with maricopa county which is the largest county in arizona uh president kaler and mrs reese specifically at this time we are but i can tell you that maricopa county is putting metrics together right now it looks like a zip code area but then they're trying to define it down to local school district area also they're working on that as we speak it wasn't available as of last night uh when i was on the the um conversation with several of my colleagues and representative udall from from our area because when you look at this and i know several of us have probably spent a lot of time i know i have looking at this our area the zip codes that we serve are not the same as other zip codes and our zip codes that we serve even with two larger communities because we would have to take into account we only have a sliver of our boundaries within queen creek but understanding people are coming from there but it's all of queen creek in our zip codes we have a large zip code from mesa that's also in our in our district and we're still at less than a two percent of our overall population who have tested positive for this but we're not able to make those decisions based on their rules because it looks at all of maricopa county so when they say that local school boards wanted to make these decisions locally is what i heard in a press conference that we asked for this that we wanted local control not kidding press conference said school boards asked to make local decisions for local control but you're not giving us the tools to do that you said that there's some discussion if we're supposed to make this decision with this information but it has to include all of our county when are they looking at providing more localized information vice president reece they're looking into developing those metrics at this time i don't have an answer for the maricopa county department health services but i can tell you that the metrics you're looking at are different than the metrics that we have and we're going to get into that in just a second and there was some explanation on some of those different facts just like to throw a comment in on this we have to remember that the higley school district is a school of choice we are having students from all over maricopa county come into our school system as well as the employees that come into our school system every day um i don't know about you but people travel outside our four or five zip codes to work and socialize to eat and those type of things so so for us to to just look at the statistics according to what our zip codes are we're out and about everywhere and and our population is out and about everywhere so um i'm i just wanted to throw that in there the school of choice and employees traveling and things like that when we take a look at the metrics please and president keeler uh mrotovich thank you for for that comment too but even by zip code uh the higley unified school district does not follow a zip code pattern uh the zip codes that are within our district we are less than 50 of any zip code that is in our districts that that we follow including queen creek including gilberts including mesa and so the zip code pattern would not be beneficial for the higley unified school district to follow either so we we have specific boundaries that incorporate six different zip codes and less than fifty percent of each of those six different zip codes are within our boundaries we can take a look at that yeah the next slide so one one of the things that we're also looking at too is the time frame for when we're looking at these metrics so this is the part where i believe that we can get off base because if you go to the arizona department of health services and you look at their data dashboard that's going to give you incorrect information there's a special separate dashboard just for schools and universities okay and so the information that we're getting in the specific dashboard for schools and universities is delayed by 12 days so it is one week of information all of these metrics are broken up for one week okay so when we take a look at the metrics it says less than a hundred per hundred thousand that's 100 for the week okay these metrics are broken down by the week that is the percent of positive cases below seven percent for the week okay they're going to be different than the main data dashboard that you look at that is one thing that our our public and our community and everybody needs to know is that if you're going to the main data dashboard and you're not having the information look the same it's because it is not the same we're looking at a separate set of metrics and dashboard so at this point we're going to look at the maricopa county dashboard next slide please okay so these are the three specific dashboard areas that we're looking at for the the safely returning to in-person instruction recommendations from the state okay so these areas as you can see the first area looks like they have met that uh that requirement for less than uh 100 per hundred thousand or two weeks declining okay so that is a big statement that is an or okay so you can still see the numbers there we're still at higher than 100 per hundred thousand but you can see that it's been declining for two consecutive weeks and once again this data is almost two weeks old okay the middle area that you're taking a look at that is going to be um two consecutive weeks with a percent below seven percent and you can see we have not made it there yet and this is for for the state of arizona but we're going to look at maricopa county specifically in a second and the third area would be two consecutive weeks for hospital visits for covid19 like illness below 10 percent can we go to the live portion of the arizona department of uh health services so this is it this is live and you can see that we do have maricopa county here that is specific this that's a state and then there we go maricopa county okay so for the first metric decline in cases or less than a hundred per hundred thousand you can take a look there that we've had declining cases for three weeks in a row going from the nineteen thousand to the twelve thousand to the seven thousand and it tells you that um in the middle week it was three hundred and five per hundred thousand and then uh the the next week is 173 per hundred thousand so we've met that metric according to the arizona department health services that was a check that one's a go the second one two consecutive weeks with a percent of positivity below seven percent so about four weeks ago we were at sixteen point nine percent about two weeks ago we were at thirteen point two percent this is the area that uh we need to get below seven percent for two consecutive weeks we're not there yet we're not even close and then the third area would be two consecutive weeks with hospitalization visits for covet-like illness in the region below 10 so you can see on july 12th we were 12.7 july 19th we were at 8.8 we have not met the metric because that is not two consecutive weeks it's trending in the right direction but we're not there yet so any questions on this that i can answer for you this is maricopa county data this is not higgly unified school district data or zip code data i will also say too is that the one area is for the central region and that is the covet-like illness area let me make sure i'm correct on that one one of the areas oh decline in cases is is for the region because they don't have it broken up by by county dr thomason i don't know if you know this i know in the state numbers from the research that i've done the positivity rate and everything that the state is doing and breaking down and and all that includes our long-term care facilities it includes hospice facilities it includes assisted living facilities it includes our prisons and our jails and so all those positivity rates and the positive tests that are coming from those areas that aren't they're in our community but they have limited access um also known to be a higher rate of positive cases because of the close quarters and and everything else i think everyone understands why those areas test higher do you know if there's any discussion because it's not really community spread those are specific areas spread do you know if there's any conversation of removing those to get a better idea uh president kaler um vice president reese those were talked about heavily in one of the forums that i was in too but i would also like to say that in that same forum that i was in talking about too they also talked about the percentage of negatives of individuals that have taken this the test two and three times because of needing to go for um for non-primary or non-um mandatory procedures for hospitalization or for for care at the hospitals and so they have also said too is that could detract both of those things could skew the results absolutely prisons nursing homes and non-required medical operations also what is the word i'm looking for well with the word they used elective surgeries there we go thank you so on a lot of elective surgeries too they brought that up in the same the same context of the the nursing homes and the prison facilities too is that sometimes you have to take two or three tests for an elective surgery and they say that we know the first one came back negative but that's a week before surgery we know they got to take it three days before surgery and you know they got to take at the day of the surgery they brought that up in one of the same conversations too and so i i do believe that quite honestly uh a lot of the information we're getting is not going to be 100 correct and i'm not sure there's a way to go ahead and make that correct especially from a school district point of view of trying to deal with all of that while we're talking about that i just maybe if i got the information right asu is opening up and asu's bringing people from all over the country and the world and if i remember what i read rights maybe somebody could let me know if i did or didn't that they're not going to publicize as far as their positive covet to the public or what what is the numbers or something or i didn't hear that they're not gonna i know they're testing everybody on campus and anyone who anyone who comes on campus yeah will be tested as well as everyone who lives on campus housing i didn't hear about whether they were going to publish the numbers i'm just curious on that because i just was warning because since we're across the field over here that would be in our zip code area um with the higher number of students coming here in the dorms over here on campus from around the country too as well so it'll be interesting to see what happens you know absolutely and then and then final slide so this is this is the final slide for safety returning to in-person instruction um so one thing i would wanted to highlight is the arizona department health services recommends that schools and school districts meet all three of the benchmarks at the county level that's what it says at this time we're hoping we'll be able to break that down to a more localized area in moderate or minimal transition categories for two weeks in order to begin the hybrid or in-person education processes so at this point in time i believe that maricopa county has met one of the metric systems but we still have two other areas that we're looking at and then i know i'm going to get beat up here but it was very highly recommended by this superintendent that we meet the metrics before we return to in-person education any questions dr thomason for this very detailed um document and yes does anybody have any questions for dr thomason yes mrs wilson i don't have a question i want to apologize to the community i was under the impression that these were going to be mandates so when people were emailing me earlier in the week i was saying the governor will put out a mandate i am now under the i now know they are guidelines please don't email me further i have now realized i made a mistake i am sorry i thought they were mandates so i just want to apologize to the community because i did think they were going to be mandates and this is what we were going to have to follow to come back i've heard you loud and clear they are guidelines i see that thank you thank you thank you i apologize and i'm very sorry mr glover i just in case anybody was watching and they're not familiar with our our processes on on our website there's a place called board docs and so if you were interested in i mean you watched it on the slideshow i guess but uh if you wanted this they could get it there and and and you can have it there but um you know even though you saw some green in some of those charts please people we were here in may already wash your hands often improperly avoid crowds social distance wear a mask and if you're sick stay home and this is the way that the numbers will continue to go in the right direction but we cannot let up at all we have to be vigilant and we have to care for one another yes thank you mr glover for that reminder dr foley member board member glover you're absolutely right in fact we have the entire document on the board docs as well as again it's available online because our presentation didn't include the whole document it had some of the recommendations just as you've shared and also kind of a little diagram about when we do return to in person learning the fact that these mitigation strategies are going to become the new normal that this is a this will be an ongoing piece so there's a and other pieces that are also in this document that we did not go in we're looking purely at what are the metrics at this particular moment so thank you thank you dr foley and i know that the community is anxiously awaiting some further information from us this morning i'm thankful to the asba that came out and said here is a way that your boards can go into an executive session and that's what we're going to be doing next and this is a way for our board to talk openly and as a five because normally we can only talk to one um for open meeting law violations and so people have asked me well why are you going into executive session this this is ab asba has encouraged school boards to go into executive session and go dig and hash and review and all the things is one of my sayings i like to say and so we are going to do that next and then we will return so i move that we move into executive session um in executive 7 pursuant to ars 38-431-038 for the discussion and consideration of matters related to school safety operations or school safety plans or programs second any questions or comments all those in favor aye aye motion carries we will return board approves the resolution covid 19 district operations as presented and i am going to read the entire resolution second thank you i will read the resolution and then we can have a conversation higley unified school district number 60 of maricopa county arizona resolution regarding covet 19 district operations whereas the higley unified school district number 60 the district closed schools effective march 16 2020 pursuant to orders from the governor of arizona and the arizona superintendent of public instruction and whereas subsequent orders and legislation called for the closure of schools for the remainder of the 2019 2020 academic year due to the outbreak of covet 19 in arizona and whereas the governor's executive orders 2020-18 2020-24 and 2020-33 established certain restrictions on public activities in response to the covid19 outbreak and whereas the governor's executive order 2020 36 the return order was issued outlining requirements for businesses and other arizona entities to assist in mitigating the spread of covet 19 as they reopen whereas executive order 2020-41 2020-2021 school year prior to prioritizing kids in schools during covet 19 was issued on june 24 an executive order 2020-44 protecting public health for students and teachers was issued on june 29 2020 whereas executive order 2020-51 was issued on july 23 2020 outlining the governor's plan for reopening of the schools for the 2020 2021 school year and whereas the governing board wishes to resume educational activities and business operations for the 2020-2021 school year in a manner that is consistent with existing executive orders but with recognition that there are many unknowns about future conditions that affect the district's ability to conduct its educational mission and other activities and that the current executive orders may be sub superseded or modified by future executive orders or federal or state laws now therefore be it resolved by the governing board of the higley unified school district number 60 of maricopa county arizona that the governing board hereby directs and or authorizes the district superintendent or his designee to take the following actions to ensure that the district complies with executive order 2020 51 and the provisions of the executive orders 2020-41 and 2020-44 still in effect hang with me folks in conformity with order one of executive order 2020-51 the governing board approves the return to in-person teacher-led classroom instruction beginning october 12 2020 or earlier if the arizona department of health services maricopa county health department's public health benchmarks are met the community will receive a one-week return notice when benchmarks are met all benchmarks will be re-evaluated re-evaluated at each scheduled governing board meeting in the conformity with order two of the executive order 20-51 2020-51 the governing board directs and authorizes the district superintendent or his designee to take the following actions ensure that a teacher-led distance learning instruction begins by the first day of the district's instructional calendar submitted to the arizona arizona department of education and submit the district's distance learning plan to the arizona department of education no later than the start date of distance learning instruction or august 14 2020 whichever is earlier in conformity with order three of the executive order 2020-51 the governing board directs and authorizes the district superintendent intended or his designee to take the following actions arrange for a free site online learning opportunities and support services for students who need a place to go during the school day beginning on august 17 develop procedures to help ensure that social distancing and other mitigation strategies are implemented implemented for the free on-site programs pursuant to order three dot d of executive order 2051 2020 51 authorized the superintendent to apply for a waiver of the requirement to provide free on-site learning if the county health department in conjunction with the arizona department of health services adhs advises the district to close during a coven 19 outbreak in conformity with order four of executive order 2020-51 the governing board directs and or authorizes the district superintendent or his designee to comply with the posting and notification requirements described in order four dot a dash d in conformity with order five of the executive order 2020-51 the governing board directs and or authorizes the stu the district superintendent or his designee to develop recommend and implement a policy relating to face coverings and revise the same as needed to to comport with new guidance or requirements from the adhs and or the centers for disease control and prevention in conformity with order six of executive order 2020-51 the governing board has determined that it may continue to pay its employees during periods of school building closures based upon data and information provided by the superintendent and other sources that affirms that such payments are a are necessary to preserve preserve a properly trained qualified and experienced workforce b serve the public purpose of protecting the district's investment in its workforce c are feasible because the district has sufficient revenues to continue such payments and to be eligible for payment district employees must remain committed and available to work during the employees normal work hours during periods of school closures whether the work is to be performed in person or remotely or is alternative work for which the employee is qualified to perform if the employee does not accept an offer to work in their primary role or in an alternative assignment the employee will not be eligible for pay according to the committed and available to work status the governing board authorized number seven that i think i forgot the number was i reading the numbers thank you seven the governing board authorizes the superintendent to work with relevant governmental authorities to comply with all laws regulations orders and guidelines designed to prevent the spread of coven 19 as the district resumes its operations and activities the superintendent may implement regulations or protocols to support such compliance number eight the district's regular practices protocols and procedures as set forth in the governing board policies administrative regulations or otherwise may not be reasonable feasible or advisable to implement during the coven 19 outbreak therefore the governing board authorizes the superintendent to temporarily suspend compliance with or implementation of the same as needed to comply with applicable laws and regulations orders and guidelines and to promote the health safety and welfare of the school community and to efficiently and effectively operate district district programs and services during the coven 19 pandemic should the superintendent exercise the discretion authorized by this section the superintendent shall provide the governing board with a prompt notice of the actions taken number nine the governing board authorizes the superintendent to execute any further documentation to effectuate this resolution including but not limited to requisite request requ sorry requisite documentation required by the arizona department of education or legal authorities with jurisdiction over the district number 10 to the extent to the extent that any provision in this resolution conflicts with or is superseded by enacted federal or state legislation or local ordinances the district shall comply with those laws or ordinances this resolution was adopted and properly noticed meeting of the governing board on august 8 2020.

the governing board hereby authorizes the governing board president to sign this resolution on behalf of the governing board comments questions concerns president taylor yes mrs reese so first i want to start off by saying i apologize to anyone who took my comments at the last board meeting is not supporting teachers or thinking they're doing a bad job that was the furthest from the intent of that comment i think teachers are working so much harder for so much less time interacting with their students i think teachers are doing great with the situation they've been handed but i will stand by my comments that rel the remote learning method is not effective everything is emotionally charged right now because our worlds have been turned upside down and we just want some normalcy and that starts with our kids in school i want to thank everyone for all the emails i've read every single one and understand each and every viewpoint and situation i was able to reply to some but we received so many i was not able to reply to all that doesn't mean they were not read or taken into consideration but shame on us for putting education in our kids at the bottom of our priorities we would rather say we we say we would rather be able to go to our gyms rivers bars amusement parks and everything else before our schools open is backwards we should be saying we need to look at our community and see what else we can do and what other sacrifices can be made just so our schools can open first our kids can go to top golf they can go to main event and they do but they can't go to school how backwards is that i know our businesses and economy is extremely important and that we need businesses to open i get that as a small business owner it's tough i think we should resume in person school and give our families a choice we know that the best method for most of our children is to learn in person what the state and county has provided us as benchmarks are skewed numbers from what i can tell they include prisons and jails long-term care facilities hospice care assisted living facilities rehab centers and other areas that would not be community spread they don't provide us the number of tests being done in our area with our positivity rates maricopa county is huge and we should not be held to the numbers of the entire county those who are afraid at high risk have high risk family members or just not ready to send their kids back on campus also have a choice of online education there is room improvement for improvement for these options yes and i hope we can come up with something that helps all students for a couple a couple months now i have been asking for live online classes that would mirror typical day that they just physically aren't there for our littles adjustments would need to be made i'm not saying no one is going to get sick that's just not possible no matter when we decide to return to school it's still not possible every time we go somewhere we risk catching this virus unfortunately this virus is here to stay what each person's level is safe is is different people say listen to the medical experts but then you have local medical experts who live in our community saying it's as safe as it's going to be for our kids to return and those who are saying it's not who do you listen to which medical expert is accurate i don't know it all makes sense and none of it makes sense i am still in support for our teachers to make the choice they have if they're comfortable coming back into the classroom or working with h the hr department to see what we can do to accommodate them and giving our parents the choice for their child if they should send them back to school for traditional in-person learning i will continue to try to support our teachers and provide the resources we can and to keep our heads up love your job love the kids you teach and start each day new thank you mrs reese mrs wilson thank you thank you for reading all the 20 20-51s as you were reading them i was sad for you so thank you for that um i've heard from many members of the community like mrs reese's said my stance has always been kids first and it will never change this is an impossible decision and it is hard we are tearing our communities apart there are the in person and the other and i'm sorry i didn't write it down there's the in person and the online and i feel like the battle has begun please be kind whatever decision you make for your family is the right decision please don't be mean to someone else for their decision we have many factors to consider consider today the health data numbers the mental health numbers the community and staff data the cost data and all the other data that we've been inundated with for the last 10 days most of us have not slept we've been tossing and turning every night over this decision and how to move forward in our community we want to listen to everyone we've heard everyone i've heard everyone i appreciate all the comments i did not email everyone back but i appreciate them i read them and thank you for all the data that you've given us in that form thank you tobit i i would just like to say um you know we've gotten a great deal of discussion many emails and given a lot of thought a lot of sleepless nights in reference to this but i want history to judge me for by my decision today and by what my my judgment is and what my decision is by what is best for teachers and for students in this community that is how i want to be remembered thank you mr witovich mr glover thank you so much well i just i thank you guys are all well spoken i i do hope that we meet meet the benchmarks soon and so i just again for the second time tonight please do the things we know that are effective in helping us get back to uh being a medium person so you know wash your hands often and properly avoid crowds socially distance wear the masks stay home if sick and uh don't go to any house parties or take that trip to lake havasu just and lastly i think um you know be kind to one another it has been a rough week it's been i mean i've lost it i just i lost it a few minutes ago so um you know we're all at the end of the day we're all neighbors and uh most of us are in the education business we care about people and so you know you can blame us for whatever decisions or differences of opinions but it's our opinion based on our judgment based on you know the fact that we care about our community and our kids and and public education so that's all thank you mr glover um yes i echo the sentiments of my board members and it's it's a no-win situation and we knew that going into this meeting today that there was there's not a win for education in this decision and we did not take it lightly i mean i'm emotional fragile at the moment i'll just be very honest because of what we've been put through over the last several days and we are human and we love our staff and we love our students and we have family members that are teachers and we have our very own kids or our students and so to say that this decision was taken lightly is just not ever going to be true in this community or within this board that i truly have come to respect so again i want to thank um we want to thank our staff we've asked so much for them and i just appreciate everything they're doing and i know it's harder work and more hours than ever before i want to thank our families thank you for reaching out to us again we appreciate every email every comment every even if we can't agree on everything we are thankful for you to be a part of our higley family i want to thank our superintendents and our secondary elementary maintenance hr i mean the entire district office i know also has been working around the clock literally on so many things we were just given these benchmarks on thursday it's saturday i mean we are trying to turn things around and get things going the person i will not thank today is our governor i will not thank him for putting any of us in this position today and i'm just going to end with that any other comments all those in favor aye aye those oppose nay motion carries 3-2 thank you and have a good evening you

twenty nine sixty one tulip drive columbus indiana four seven two zero three thank you however i'm here as the president of the naacp 2969 you need that address [Laughter] getting from the community child comes down actually the african-american community what policies and procedures are we going to be in place so people will become a way to find if the situation arises for child understanding you do not want to create a panic what policies and procedures everyone's probably informed that way they can tell people where the situation in the acp we're looking we understand you do not answer those questions for them however we want to make sure that we are properly informed that way they can take a lot of speculation steps we're looking forward to answering those questions fine and then just plan it from another standpoint we understand speculation staff is really rather directly from your before we were looking at some of the time online posts and then applications for another standpoint we understand [Music] i don't know if the job [Laughter] that want to help in the school system if there be a way or something which was the only person that signed up for public comment this evening thank you mr edwards dr roberts is there any uh any response uh in terms of the notification we talked about which was the only person that signed up for a public comment this evening it was an executive strategic planning meeting right and they're i think you and your team are going to look at a couple in terms of the [Music] so our responsibility is to uh so the process that we've identified just in case [Music] symptoms of that positive um [Music] [Laughter] which is the family educational rights and privacy times based upon numbers of cases and also hipaa situations circumstances additional decisions situations circumstances where additional decisions have to be made thank you for your notifications and your suggestions just take your individual positive test cases that's the way we're walking through that all right forward on our agenda um board commendations and we have a specific one thank you for your questions your comments and your suggestions appreciate this yes we just made sure to uh bullet point this under its name foreign this is as the school year began so we had this month a representative from the september uh last wednesday mornings he that they are aware of is getting pictures taken so congratulations to laurie an outstanding teacher for us many of you know thanks so much and the great job that she's done in our school corporation so just want to make sure that you're aware of that i don't think that's been in the newspaper yet anybody help me out with that remembering so yes so anything coming it will be a nice article about uh lori and the work she's done she teaches first grade for us congratulations thank you you are all right just school board member reports any anything from any of the board members to report to see our committees have been uh playing low with uh distancing so uh we're going to do it just for more just from an efficiency standpoint really this time schedule some of the information shared tonight will be also shared at that one so in case somebody misses dr boswitch's presentation we'll talk about a few additional things but basically catching us up performing from the end of the summer is thursday morning at eight o'clock thank you let me put that like i forgot to change the screen no other school board member reports we have cabinet reports take us through the teacher performance evaluation face mask let me put that like i forgot to change the screen so there it is lori and dr hacking myself supporting her lincoln shirt and i think it's even a lincoln facemask august 15th of each school year and it just discusses the results of chemistry caldwell um as we do every year this is an annual expectation needs to be done by august 15th each school year and it just discusses the results of the entire year since we could show you evaluations of certified staff um this year is kind of interesting last year per the governor's executive order we had a couple of options we could choose from so two uh we're done and we share our evaluation scores the first option was eleventh and you couldn't take our normal evaluation scores but we had to stop where our school year ended option so in conjunction with cea we chose option two uh we had 82 options of our teachers choose to use the previous year's scores um that also kind of indeed the only exception to doing that is if you were a first year teacher you could bring there you would not have had a prior year score so we had 77 in the first year scores that also could have included anybody first year maybe to bc it was their choice so you see but they could bring their prior year score to us and we would use it get their final evaluation teachers that could have an option just to get a rescore and that was their choice so you see the breakouts of how our teachers chose to change get their final evaluation score here in these in these um columns as you can imagine with 82 percent choosing used to be one of our carrier sports and we can change that increase and you can see that here in these in these um pbis continues to be one of our top areas and we still continue to see an increase in the udl over the years so nothing much changed here i think the biggest area that changed the next slide dr roberts was academic citizenship doctor shed usually was 3.49 in 19 3.47 unfortunately the 73 did not provide changes for information for us this year so that's last year's uh chart shedd usually likes to see this chart unfortunately the state of indiana did not provide this information for us this year so that's last year's chart supplies that yes okay we i hope we get that before this gears up but we'll see as you'll see and most veterans this is years of experience that's the state department of education that supplies that okay from the prior year we have years of experience uh citizenship as you'll see most veteran teachers receive the highest scores i want you to point out again that's a carryover from the prior year we had one exception there in academic citizenship for our 11 to 20 years and 30 teachers what i want you to point out is the count in each of those boxes so okay first through fifth year we're almost 300 into this information 30 plus years that number is dwindling 32 experience for the staff was 14 years last year it was 13.54 so that kind of hangs into this information just general information year which um our average years of experience with the staff wasn't a whole lot of 14 years last year it was 13.54 um we hired 41 certified staff to have a zero year which experience is down dramatically from past years was it a whole lot of movement in the state of teachers because of those 41 19 years just have zero or one year experience um they did hire a new veteran staff in that 41 years of experience [Music] so that number continues to increase staff satisfaction retention rate with only 41 teachers was 93 percent advisor felt like the year before