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the green line represents the premiums we paid the red line represents the reimbursements we received so you know the loss ratio there for every dollar that we paid in premium we got a dollar back in reimbursement you can't sustain that for too long without your premiums increasing right like i'm sure everybody realizes that same thing in 1920 and in fact if you look at the history here in you know these four years we were with symetra which was carrying out and then starting in 1617 we were with ct prime and you'll see that you know it fluctuates the best year we had from our perspective was this one where we received almost a million dollars in reimbursement and paid less than 600 000 in premium and the best year the insurance company had was this one where we paid let's call it 450 000 in premiums and they had claims that were below two hundred thousand so the you know these percentages represent essentially the loss ratios for the insurance company you know unfortunately these four years are not very strong in our favor with the insurance company we are fortunate though that we're with ct prime which is the stop-loss captive insurance company that's formed by connecticut boards of ed and municipalities i still serve you know on the board and i'm president of ct prime so our premium increases during the ct prime years were actually pretty modest considering that our reimbursements were so high and then i'm going to strip out the actual reimbursements here and just show you this that you know these are the premiums that we've paid starting back in 2012 13 with symetra and then with ct prime so clearly the stop-loss premiums have increased but it's justifiable because you have been having stop-loss reimbursements that exceed your premiums and two out of the last four years so i'm going to bring you and kind of end this section with this which i i think is important just to put a little perspective around history you guys all still with me okay last slide on this section um so yeah this is this is a bit of deja vu and you know this is what you're looking at here is in the benefits section of the budget book on page 10 and i i wanted to highlight this history for you because i think it kind of speaks to where we are which is is not that unusual historically but it it does happen in what seems to be a cycle so this is 20 the year 2001 through 2003 for you see that here that you know we had only modest increases to the medical benefits budget and then we got hit with a large claim year and we had to fund up the contributions so you know in 0.304 this budget line item had to go up 23 percent and because we raised the contributions we went through one two three four five years of really you know moderate growth at best in this budget line again reserves tend to build up when you increase your contributions and then you get another bad claim year and that happened in 2009-10 this is the year before i got here but you could see it was a 26 and a half percent budget increase then we went through one two three four years where in a couple of those years you actually decreased the overall budget um and then 14 15 rolls around and i do remember this particular you know budget year two years in a row where we needed a nineteen percent increase followed by a seven percent increase and then we went through one two three four years where we actually decreased the budget last year we increased it by 7.7 percent and here we are on 21 22 and we you know we're basically winding down our reserve fund which we hope would be gradual but you get a bad you know in this case claim uh not year but half year and we're looking at having to increase the medical benefits budget line by 21.5 so that really is um medical benefits and i don't know you may have some questions so i i think maybe i'll stop now uh i'll kick it off yeah i'd be in this time um all right so going back to the um i'm looking at the slide so the closer look at moving parts where you go where you're looking at the the stop-loss reimbursement so all this year we were waiting to see how much stop-loss was going to come in and so when you're budgeting for this for the new uh ask of uh 1.8 million um you're showing a stop loss of 35 000.

that builds a little bit of a a little bit more into a cushion i mean it's not a huge percentage but it's something that's an additional roughly quarter million dollars in the budget 240 grand so you know it could be adjusted in evaluating all this and i don't think it's a bad subject suggestion to have tom quality come back and and give from an expert opinion from somebody who deals with this everyday statewide market based on our data 900 grand what's the probability that we break even or do better but no but it is like predicting the stock market i mean nobody can guarantee past performance doesn't predict future results you know it's just it's the best professional estimate and i think this is what we've tried to predict is the best professional estimate based on a decade plus of data what's going to get us to not hemorrhage money what's going to get us to break even and so you know hopefully we can nail it okay there's no guarantee hey if i could just clarify my brain freeze question in the beginning i was asking about the pension are we fully funded in that no okay but we're getting closer okay i'll i'll take that as a win i'm actually pension as the is the next few slides and there's not many so okay you know and and that'll probably wrap up the evening okay thanks done okay um and did you have your hand up yes i did yeah go for it i'll be really quick i don't have a question i just want to just say wow then you've outdone yourself and along with that thank you because that histori seeing that historical trends the ups and downs in for me is really useful and it it it does put the whole big picture in perspective so thank you for crunching all those numbers every which way but loose and um and that's all i have to say yeah okay well you're welcome thank you andrew i think you're up and my question was answered tim asked it but um it's just i can't imag i understand this is the way that this is done but this is only my second time going through this but this is just such a large part of the budget and it's such a wild card and we could sit here and talk about historic data and claim years and things until we're blue in the face but there's no better way to to do this i mean this is this is this is the way that it's done because tim asks questions it's better to go with somebody else and i guess we can't control policy premium increases but at least we know what that might be year to year versus funding and running i mean ones if we run out of money mid-year i mean well if we run out of money mid-year we're either going to have to save it somewhere else in the budget you know and or you know request a you know an emergency infusion from from the town that there's really our only two choices um and it you know listen it hasn't happened over the last you know decade since i've been here we did get down to 200 000 and you know i mean some of the some of the board members are still with us you know that was kind of scary that that we would run it that close i see mr peregini shaking his head um and you know listen it's easy enough to get a quote you know to go fully insured but claims again claims the claims yeah you know whether or not you can predict them the quote is going to be based on what's the expected claims you know plus covering overhead you know plus profit in the case of a third party so there's no great answer i mean medical benefits no i i mean i'm not looking for an answer i have to say it i know we're just kind of you know talking it through here there's there's no great answer when we were you know fully insured we had a lot of the same questions well what do you mean my premiums going up you know 20 and that ultimately that's why we moved the hmo out of being um fully insured to self-insured and you know part of the reason that we were able to reduce our budget in a couple of years following 2015 is is because we saved quite a bit over fully insured premiums that we were paying to anthem so it it becomes it becomes sort of a comfort question because if you know that you're paying let's just use the numbers you know that you're paying a million dollars a month for your coverage and it cannot change during the course of the year because you had a lot more claims than the million dollars covered but the following year you're gonna make it up in higher premiums you know so even though your once your premiums are quoted they can't change they will change in the following year up there higher than what you basically paid for in your fully insured premium and in their in that model the insurers now have history of clean experience with our population and the actuarials will use that to adjust the premiums accordingly so that's always a lot of fluctuation um i'm sorry to cut you off andrew no i'm good when you mentioned 100 000 a year i i remember how and why we got to that but the town council if i care if i'm wrong i thought the the subsequent year they funded 900 specifically for the short the medical reserve account i could be wrong yeah i don't remember that being the case tony left 200 000 by ourselves well we got down to 200 and then you know claims started to subside so we closed that year even though we got down to 200 we closed that year with like 650 000 so that kind of the low point was in you know probably december after the h you know the high deductible plan year ended and then we kind of built back up to 600 000 by year-end and then we got a budget increase for the following year so that's how we started to build it back up the budget increase there was money specifically earmarked for the reserve fund yeah i mean it goes in the same way right it goes in that medical benefits line and you fund it monthly to the reserve i think that was uh if i remember correctly back when david schrum was still on the town council good old days no i had that that's all along though i mean not that it was an agent ago yeah yeah no council that now they had a short back up and yeah that helped that budget that year tim you have another question uh yeah just a quick comment that so i'm okay i mean given two bad choices i'm okay staying with you know the self-insurance if you think it makes more sense but i will just point out that you know like you were talking about comfort before budgetary stability uh if we got increased budgetary stability from from an insurance company there is a value an intangible value in that i think from uh from a taxing perspective um you know when the council has to levy the tax rate for homeowners who are paying the taxes to have that more stable i think is uh has a certain value to it but with regard to my one question the wellness program so it's not something that necessarily helps us next year but off into the future you know you have a pretty low turnover among employees have you talked to is it tom kowalczyk about wellness yeah increasing funding for the wellness program like with the benefit you know is it is the benefit does the benefit outweigh the cost of an increased budget there yeah so there's a couple of things the the you know the 8 100 we have budgeted is for the employee assistance program that you know we provide to all staff you know and the services that are available under that you know include counseling services you know for any employee who needs it if they're you know having you know some type of emotional distress um or other life events i mean it includes things like financial planning um seminars you know smoking cessation things that would help the employee and that's something that we pay for and it's predominantly to get those counseling services for when the employees need it beyond that though as part of our arrangement with cigna they have a much broader wellness program and they fund us you know between us and the town combined you know they're funding 55 000 a year for wellness programs to be used you know basically as as we see fit working with them so we've done some you know competitive you know exercise you know like walking challenges some recipe challenges we actually are looking at launching you know with them again this is paid out of the wellness dollars that cigna's providing um we're looking at a video based you know pretty comprehensive workout exercise program and that's on top of some of the integral programs that cigna has built in for diabetes management pre-diabetes management you know pre-hypertension management so within the scope of what cigna offers there is a whole wellness component that we receive and that's one of the reasons we went to to cigna is that they had a more robust offering than anthem did okay thank you and is is any of this is any sort of wellness wrapped into the contracts our employ our employer you're talking about the bargaining unit yeah the union contracts yeah we do not okay put that on your to-do list yeah i mean i think that is a i think that is relatively commonplace with union contracts isn't it where it's like you need to simply go for your preventive checkup correct okay so just looking forward yeah there is um you know i mean they come in the form of a carrot or a stick so the carrot is you know if you go and get your dental cleaning every six months you know you reduce your coshare or your your whatever payment you make toward your medical benefit um if you do that if you don't do that you get dinged so i'm familiar with what what um you're talking about i'm pretty sure the state has that incorporated into their program now as well but yeah that's that's a great suggestion it's not just that the state like i i know the police and that's a different thing but like the police have that wrapped or have some things or used to have stuff wrapped in their contract now they really need to be physically fit to run after somebody different from you know other other jobs but anyway that's it thank you okay faith you had a comment yeah um i i'm a big fan of screening so anything we can do to get everyone their screenings but that's not why um so you know tim your comment about the stability of a third um uh yep going off of self-insure versus going with a carrier you're not going to get any stability all you have to do is pick up the paper from one year to the next and see what happens with insurance premiums i think vin's on the right track with self-insuring it is risk it says it's hair-raising but when you start to see 20 and 30 premium increases which is what a lot of these companies are facing um i don't think we want to be in that ballpark or be playing that game so um just bite your nails everybody but i i then i i applaud you with what you've done and how you're controlling it and um i really don't want to be beholden to an insurance carrier it's my opinion okay thanks um just to close out this section i'll just say uh vin i did uh i also very much appreciate all that he stole the historical data that you gave us to hopefully better come to come to a good decision uh this time around and um we will consider having um the was it the broker or the uh forget the gentleman's name yeah it's tom from usi he is our insurance broker benefits broker yeah for additional information if we require it um we'll we'll see what what comes of it during our deliberations uh and also and just as a clarification um all of these claims or almost all of them did didn't even deal with the pandemic right we had good fortune where we weren't having our employees you know end up in the icu or any there were at least very few where there we had any life-threatening situations to date uh that covet that's correct and i didn't see december's report but the year to date through november covert related expenses was 60 000 and it's primarily testing so yeah we've been lucky on that front none of the large you know claims or we haven't had any large claims related to covet and let's hope that continues especially now that we've got the vaccine you know that is starting to be distributed i'm sure that you know there's been a lot more testing over the last couple of months but right um okay are there any other comments or questions on to the all right last second right home stretch i'll try and make this as quick as i possibly can and it is the it is the pension um there's not you know a lot of new news here it's kind of a repeat of last year with a just one small update so um you know we in in a nutshell pension comes in two forms either the town pension plan which was which is available only for those employees that were hired before 2012 and that's what this number is showing i'm assuming everybody could see that little laser red dot we've got 90 employees participating in the pension plan those are active employees that are still contributing we had 102 last year so as people retire that 90 employee number is going to continue to drop so this year's contribution to the town pension plan for those 90 employees is 864 627 and it's really not just for those 90 employees because part of what you're funding in the pension is for the employees that are currently retired and living longer and and receiving their payout for longer periods of time and and we'll get to that in a minute and then the second for employees hired after july of 2012 they're eligible for a defined contribution plan we've got 172 employees that's up from 161 last year 280 000 is the contribution for those employees so we're looking in this budget to increase by forty eight thousand five thirty eight to one million one forty four six twenty seven for next year you know what you see here noted at the bottom is that teachers and administrators they fund their own pension through salary uh deduction and so we only pay for an annuity for our administrators as part of their contract but teachers and administrators are not eligible for either of these two pension plans that i mentioned um nothing changed in terms of you know how the funding works the board contributes five percent of the non-certified eligible employees you know five percent of the wages if the employee puts in at least one percent we match it the secretaries have a slightly different offering based on the arbitration award from 2018 but some the important thing is in the defined contribution plan we pay a piece as long as the employee contributes we add either another one or three percent match um what's driving really our pension costs are two things one is the decline that we saw in the in the stock market um and that's what this next chart shows and i've used this in previous years so you know back in 2000 a 2009 you know when the markets you know took a significant hit it was right around this time frame you could see that the markets dropped and then the markets started to come back by 2012 but you know that caused a lot of pension plans to be severely underfunded and you could see since 2012 the market and this is the dow jones industrial average so this is you know just uh you know kind of a an indicator of you know where stock investments have gone since 2012 you know we're we're eight years in now you know the dow was at a low of 6500 and you know i'm pretty sure the market closed over 30 000 again today so it seems that the markets have certainly recovered but what happened during this period of time is a lot of the actuarial experts started to rethink because so many pension funds were underfunded they started rethinking what the rate of return assumptions are for future years and so that affected us and that's what what this bullet is and this is probably the more important thing that's driving our pension costs right now so you know back around 2012 we were carrying an eight and a quarter percent return assumption in the town pension plan and so the actuaries recommended and ultimately the town council who uh you know does have responsibility for this determined that we should reduce our return assumption in future years from eight and a quarter down to seven and a half percent which requires additional funding not only for active employees but also for all the employees who are retired and collecting their pension and then in in 2020 the actuaries recommended and the town council proved a further reduction in the return assumption so as of the end of this fiscal year the return assumption being used is seven percent so we went from eight and a quarter down to seven and by doing so that requires additional funding which offsets some of the gains we've had in the markets okay so i'm just showing you this chart it's a little bit busy um and it's also this eight and a quarter next year will read you know assumption down to seven percent so these are the these are the contributions we were making from our budget way back to 2006.

that's year to date this year year today and year it looks like you're anticipating another 500 000 is that how you're calculating that in your um i think it's the next slide where you're we're kind of figuring out the total cost for 20 uh for 2021 yeah so what i did in the 2122 budget is i used an assumption based on the prior year's averages of 500 000 that's that's where that number came from if we if we strip that out and say you know what we don't want to budget in any stop-loss reimbursements then we would have to increase the line by the 500 000. so you know i mean i did it because you know it is a projection that seems to be valid and by the way the 35 000 which is this year to dates reimbursement you know we i do expect that we'll be getting more reimbursement it just hasn't hasn't come to fruition yet right so uh i'm i so are you confident that we're gonna at least hit our average in in stop-loss reimbursement and i guess uh so parts two and three to that are are you confident that our claims are going to and i think i asked this uh i think a meeting ago that we're not going to be at the 1.1 million dollar level again and have the claims that have come in been analyzed to find out why we went so high if it was was it a matter of volume of claims or was it the kind of claims and will and have those claims been resolved or you know even with because even with the the uh deductibles that um our employees have i think it's only at uh what does it go as high as 16 000 if i recall or something to that effect maybe it's a little higher um i mean once you get past that i don't know how we're getting to 1.1 million after you know we blow through after the employees spend their deductible i'm not quite sure how that's all adding up and has you know has the insurance company kind of given us a breakdown of that well that's that's a lot of questions in there so let me address the confidence level you know with respect to the 500 000 um what i'm confident about is that's that's the average of the prior years whether or not you know we're going to come in at 500 000 you know it it's a projection that's that that i'm using um so i have i don't want to say that i'm confident about it other than it's an average you know it'll be something we've never had a year where we've had no stop loss so 500 000 i think is a reasonable number is the way i would explain it you know as far as you know what's happening this year with claims um it's still you know it's still still a bit early to get um detailed analysis but now we've got six months of claims under our budget you know i will i will be able to get some insight you know i will tell you that we've got a few high cost claims moving through but it doesn't seem to be as many as last year just yet and it's know the the best explanation i could give you is that we we see this you know every five to six years you get a claim here that's out of line with what you've been you know running in terms of average it's not unusual it's unusual for us it's not unusual for any you know self-insured employer provider of our size i know that last year the analysis that was done you know we did see quite a few surgeries we had some extremely high cost claims we see that you know the typical ailments like diabetes and heart and hypertension you know are driving the bulk of the ordinary claims um and the the one trend i i can identify is that you know high cross high cost um medications drugs not just for cancer treatment but even for non-cancer treatments you know some of these news these new types of you know you know bio medicines become very expensive you know and and so we have seen that our prescription costs have increased but that's all factored in with um you know what what i've been presented and what usi is providing as a projection so you know it's it's tough adam because we're trying to to base projections on history but sometimes those projections don't halt to the historical average and that's what's happening to us this year so i don't know if i answered all the components of your question but i tried um you did um i guess the one thing that that still bothers me is i guess do you feel that the risk analysis that is that is being done is adequate because when i'm looking at that chart it's going up and down and up and down over through the last 10 15 years and when we when we we set our funding level last year we were under the assumption that we had uh at least four years uh before we were in any kind of emergency zone and now it just fell off the cliff and so i'm you know i'm just honestly i'm i'm concerned that 1.8 million isn't enough um so i i'm just wondering if if you feel confident in the risk analysis that this company is giving us yeah now i'm confident in the analysis because it's it's it's standard you know what they're using this 12-month rolling average you know as we go through the next two to three months and get more experience you know it's kind of what i'm saying as we hit january february march what happens in those claim months you know because if claims don't drop and they continue to increase then yeah there's risk that what we're budgeting isn't enough for next year so i think the analysis that's being done you know is in line with what should be done you know but you know you can't really you know predict what happens sometimes the protection that we have is the reserve fund and the stop loss insurance right those are the those are the two main protections we have and so we you know built up our our stop-loss reserve to uh excuse me medical benefits reserved to a good number and now it's it's been depleted so far this year at a rapid pace so it's time to start rebuilding it under you know any under any scenario adam you would have to just look at the at the reality of where we are and and say okay well we've got to start increasing the contributions the there is risk in the projection that you know you see here but i don't think it's unreasonable to use 900 000 as a good number for next year's contributions we've increased the stop loss premium by 15 but i think we need to we we could talk more about the risk and you know i i certainly can have tom um tom qualcek who is our usi representative you know join either for one of these budget workshops you know or a separate meeting of the finance committee um because he's he's our subject matter expert in in this and he provides those projections but yeah it's following standard industry practice okay thank you um let's see um is uh let's see i'm looking uh tim i think you have the first question thanks adam yeah so following standard industry practice then are you do they look at do do they look at the demographics i mean has our workforce aged in the last five or six years is there any sort of trend that sort of mirrors what you were talking about before where we could possibly predict the future a little bit um yeah you know that's a that's a good question about our workforce and you know and the you know potential impact um and that's a good question you know for tom you know to pull some more detailed data you know we did have i just i'm just kind of thinking out loud you know with our workforce we did have a fair number of people retire yeah last year and typically the teachers that retire they are replaced by you know employees who are you know younger you know law and you can just tell that by looking at the salary scale that they're on um you know but younger doesn't always translate to lower claims you know if if employees are of child bearing age then you know you you take on additional costs related to childbirth so did the teachers who retired do they still get the medical plan for a couple years some well it depends there was a retirement incentive yeah if they took it some did not all some some did take the cash payout i'm just wondering if whoever took it and got the medical plan you know has a bunch of treatments right now and then it's something that disappears after two or three years they'll roll off um and they'll roll off in two years max but you know again not to i mentioned teachers but you know i will tell you that you know i know that you know a few of our high cost claims are not teachers that don't mean that none of them are but yeah just i don't want to get it's across the board you know and the high cost claims and you could see that from the years that you have those extraordinarily large stop-loss reimbursements you know that you had some high-cost claims that were driving quite a bit of the claim history okay thank you um i think these two should be relatively quick you mentioned biomeds i'm just curious like i hear about rare diseases you know alexion doesn't it's not like a pfizer that go or whoever goes after a cure for the flu it's like going after a cure for rare diseases is uh is that what these biomeds are some of them are cancer treatments some of them are to your specific ailments um you know and and we do get a report on that you know periodically and we we do review it with our provider um you know you're talking some prescriptions that are ten thousand dollars a month so you know those are that's all embedded you know within within our claim history and you know some of those meds are proliferating and that's a growing trend um nothing that that's what's driving our claim volume this year but yeah there are a number of factors that do affect medical benefits okay thank you um and the last thing uh i don't think you touched on it at this point do you think self insurance is still a good choice well i do because you know the and this is again another question that we could pull tom in uh from usi but you know i did i did talk to tom after you know i did see an email you know with this question so if you just subscribe to the premise that you know claims are claims i mean what we pay in our medical benefits is our claim costs you know plus the cost of protecting our stock our high claims with stop loss plus administrative fees right those are the core components of just the medical benefits coverage if we pay a third party to provide that plus a profit then you're going to pay more if you just accept what i'm saying at face value the thing that's been difficult when we were fully insured including with the hmo which ended in 2015 is you'll get a premium increase that's not necessarily in line with your own claims the premium increase is in line with the provider's experience with other groups or so they say and and that's been you know the difficulty i think with any organization that is still fully insured you know and most municipalities and boards of ed you know in connecticut are not they've gone the self-insurance route because you do have better control over your costs not claims cause claims are claims but you know what um [Music] you know what i talked to tom from usi what he said is you know he's been seeing you know this year the average renewal is somewhere you know around 20 you know in prior years have been in the nine percent or so range on average um but you know we did you know the other thing i will tell you is that even with our stop-loss you know we used to have our stop-loss with anthem when we were with anthem and then we started getting these absurd increases in the stop-loss premium which is why we went to simetra eight years ago and then the same thing happened with simetra that we started to see a couple of years where we knew what our stop-loss reimbursements were and the premiums were going up much higher than they should have you know and eventually we wound up moving to ct prime for that reason so you know by being self-insured you you have clear visibility over what your claims are if nothing else but admin administratively how many ftes full-time equivalent staff do you have related to medical benefits do you have any idea or is it like one person like 10 hours a week type of thing well we have one benefits specialist in the district who you know is responsible to help administer the medical plans also does you know new employee orientation all the non-medical plans right so we have the pension plan and we have the defined contribution plan and also she um supports payroll so it's one person it's really not even a full-time person doing medical benefits and then there's me okay yeah okay thank you certainly um faith looks like you're up next um okay so a totally non-healthcare question um our retiree uh pension is fully funded correct the retire you mean the retirees that are still on our plans it's not fully funded it's part of our self-insured plans either they're in the high deductible health plan or the ppo or the hmo no no i was no i was thinking the retiree um the retirement um then we have ace never mind nevermind i'm gonna no no no finish finish your question on that question i'm going way back i'm sorry that's okay so we have about 50 retirees in the health plan correct yes okay i was thinking of never mind never okay we're talking apples and oranges and i'm just gonna so okay um on your closer look at moving parts um under plus interest miscellaneous adjustments um what happened in 1920 with a negative 107 or is that a typo no no the i mean there are some years that we have um you know included in some of the adjustments are charges that um we have to pay for certain costs related they charge back through the state um there are there are some offsets that we have from prior years claims there are some claims that have to be manually paid through that account so that's kind of a miscellaneous account i'd have to look back faith i don't remember exactly you know what happened with the 107 000 that year is a combination of a few different things um and we get that information you know it's reconciled by donna ollette who um is deputy finance director so because we share the you know the cost of of the plans and servicing with the town donna does that reconciliation for us okay you know i mean there was something oddball for a couple of years we actually went negative um easy enough okay and then um so ct prime is a is district isn't it many many school districts involved in ct prime obviously i was just gonna yeah does it make sense to shop again yeah we shop it every year okay yeah we shopped it um you know last year and the year before with cigna and they couldn't touch the premium and but again because i'm on the board of ct prime ct prime actually shops it out so you know this year ct prime when it's it's not self-insuring it's actually purchased um stop-loss insurance through gerber life okay okay and then um so with this 900 000 per month that you're that you're asking for in the budget we will when will we hit our 2.5 months of reserve by the by i'm losing you yeah no you're not losing me that 900 000 that we're budgeting get it gets us even it's not a request to build up the reserve it just keeps the reserve from being further depleted so there's again going back to adam's point you know is there risk well yeah there's risk if we if we want to mitigate that risk further you do need to increase it some more okay so can we take a before we sign off and send this away i mean i i'm as concerned as adam i mean can we uh make sure that we take a look at we have to make a decision but will we get numb will we have an idea of what's happening in january before we i just hate signing off on this because i'm as i'm as panicked as adam is this is going on too long almost well you're certainly not deciding tonight you know tonight is the initial review and i i think it does need you know further discussion in prior years when we've had a fund up you know the last time we did it we did have to fund up a second year before we got to a point where the reserve started building back up so you know again i think we we budgeted reasonably here but we there's clearly a case that could be made that we need to further mitigate the risk and and budget up higher however we do that okay and when you said something there are large claims working their way through what part of the snake are they in are they close to the head working toward the tail are we at the tail are we yeah no i mean you know the way the the stop-loss reserves runs from july 1 to june 30th right so typically when you have a large claim it doesn't happen all in one month you know if somebody for example if somebody has cancer and they need treatment you know that is one claim that goes on for a month over a month and it accumulates because one claim for one individual so we're halfway through the year if there are individuals this is what i meant by they're working their way through so as we get into second half of this claim year that's when you'll start to see those stop-loss reimbursements increase we typically get the bulk about stop-loss reimbursements in january through june even though the plan year for the hsa begins in january that that stop-loss coverage is is july to june so okay it's a little longer okay yeah just take me a couple of quick points going back to pins priors i'm sorry a couple of quick points going back to them prior slide the one that basically shows control is what we can uh what we can manage putting into the account you know whether or not people get sick is an item outside of our control even if somebody comes off of cancer treatment which we certainly hope you know will happen we can't control if somebody else goes on the one thing i mean just looking at it if we were to increase our contributions let's say 20 000 a month and so now we're at 9 20.

so you could see here you know we were budgeting under 250 000 per year as pension contributions and then in 2011 was the last year before we started this pretty rapid increase in the pension contributions again driven largely by the the need to fund hire because we reduced our return assumption so you could see in these years we had significant increases to the funding kind of leveled off for a few years 2020 it dropped but you know the reason that that dropped actually is because that was part of the pandemic year and wages decreased we didn't have overtime you know we didn't have additional hours for a lot of staff because we were remote for three months so this was a bit of an anomaly this year's this is 2021 this year's budget is a million ninety six thousand and next year's budget is a million one forty four six twenty seven so this is again that request for forty eight thousand five thirty eight it's a four point seven percent increase um however the actuaries still i think do need to do some additional work so even though this is what we budgeted i don't have the final number yet it may change and that kind of wraps up pension this is just that same chart showing the percentage of total budget represented by employee benefits and you can see there has been if you did a trend line you know this has been increasing since the year 2000 it's been a little bit up and down and the driving factor you know this year even though we came down you know for three years in a row we just have to drive it back up so that contributions equal claims and then this is the overall summary for this you know section tonight that um total salary and benefits is an increase of 5.3 percent but of this 3 million 166 as we just looked at you know two-thirds of that is strictly for um for benefits and primarily medical benefits this is the budget calendar and we'll go back you know for any questions certainly but you know this i think concludes january 19th this is the first of the two administrative review of accounts the next meeting of the finance committee for public budget review is january 26th january 28th we have the public informational meeting and possible adoption of a board of ed budget there is a special board meeting to adopt a budget scheduled for february 4th if needed and again these are the you know dates that we have to meet related to the budget process and so i will go back and see if there's any questions on pension or anything else from this evening tim thanks adam uh yeah and pensions van uh so we have i don't know how much we have in our investment funds and our pension funds do you have do you have any idea is the is the dow jones a reasonably good indicator i mean is it a decent majority because i know we do like when i've seen it before those like rights and private capital equity i yeah all sorts of different investments i'm just wondering if the dow jones is a like a decent share of it it's probably not reflective of um we have a much more conservative investment profile than as reflected by the dow so that's really just kind of an indicator of the market um and you know all that information related to the pension is disclosed in the yeah you know in the kafir that the town provides you know we do rely on the actuaries to tell us what to fund to the pension but yeah that's a good point tim that you know had we gained all of that you know return you know from you know back around 2012 you know the pension probably would be funded a lot higher but it is you know pretty high fixed income percentage in our in our investments okay um and i may have asked this question last year i don't recall the answer if i did ask can we buy out pensions could we offer people buyouts i don't think we could do that within our structure it's not permitted within the struct so is it illegal or just within the structure we have no it's it's just not in accordance with you know our planned document okay yeah i mean the employees that you know retire have the right to you know take you know a pension based on their single life joint life those are the typical you know options that were offered in a pension but you know to to buy out somebody's pension no i can i can confirm that with jim jascott but i've been through the pension document i definitely do not remember seeing anything along those lines i'm just thinking all things being equal you ultimately could get rid of like an administrative fee i mean what you're doing is you're shifting risk away from the schools of the town and over to the employee but risk could be good or bad yeah so some may want to do it and if you can just reduce the administrative administrative burden you're getting closer to that zero number there's less work to do anyway just a thought thank you okay uh faith uh vin off dan do you know what the um the portfolio balances and if not could we get that yeah thanks you're talking the retirement the total retirement investment portfolio right well in the balance of the funds equity to bonds just how they apportion things you said it's a conservative fund i'm just error conservative yeah and if we could see that thanks you're welcome um then uh mike my question is um at what intervals do we reassess with the actuaries well they do um they do an update every year um and every two years they provide a more thorough valuation so they did one i believe it was last july um and as i said we'll we'll get an update from the actuaries on as to what we have to fund but i can talk to jim jascott to get the latest and and greatest valuation and the portfolio information as well so i'll provide that either you know at the next meeting or you know by email uh and the reason i ask is my concern is that you know i've moderately educated in in finance and from what i've seen we're coming to the top of a really incredible stock market and if we were to suffer a prolonged correction um what does that do to this pension plan because from what i'm seeing we're at like i don't know 60 funding maybe a little higher no no we're definitely higher than that yeah if i recall the cash value of that fund we could what tim was suggesting if we wanted to cash out and buy buy current pensioners out we couldn't i don't think there's enough money in there to do that um so i i'm just wondering what happens to us i mean if we're looking at what was it uh there are four years between 12 and 16 where our returns were ridiculous in the stock market but we were still piling money into that plan and it's evened out a little bit now but if if the market were to go down um do we do we uh have a significant financial exposure there or we could be looking at another 100 or dollars a year just to show up the pension and if we couldn't afford that what happens do we have bankruptcy or something i mean i don't know it's a huge liability you know i don't wanna i'm not an expert in this area but i will you know respond to a couple of things i know that um you know first of all the actuaries do account for fluctuations in the markets it's not just the stock market to point to made earlier it's you know whatever markets that the pension plan is invested in and they do take a long-term look actually at what the risk is with ups and downs of the markets that's the very reason that they've recommended that you take the return return assumptions you know down from you know where we were at eight and a quarter and now we're down to seven percent um so i at one point actually our pension plan was over a hundred percent funded right and then as the market started to drop and as the return assumptions changed then you know you were no longer at 100 but i want to say that when i looked at this last year you know i believe we were around 85 funded you know to the actuarial requirement and you don't have to make up the difference in one year you know the actuaries you know have recommended a schedule and and they provided various options you know to the town council to fund and get our actuarial actuarial value of the overall plan back where it needs to be so i'm just you know i just wanted to be careful about the 60 i'm pretty sure we're well above that at this point and part of that is you know not just because the markets have bounced back but it's because we've been significantly increasing the contributions each year not only on the board side but on the town side as well we're kind of locked step on that we get our pro rate of you know allocation based on the employees that we have in the pension plan so i'll get some more information from jim along those lines and maybe i'll snuggle up to the uh kafir uh because i think i don't think i had access to uh the current kafir yeah you know i don't think the new one is out yet oh it's not okay i don't think so well whatever it is uh we'll look at it again i guess you could snuggle up to last year's cafe if you'd like all right well i'll look at that because maybe it was two years ago the one i was looking at so um are there any other questions uh or comments on this section okay seeing none uh is uh vin uh looked like your presentation had concluded with uh i'm out okay all right let me just uh uh check that it's tapping out okay tonight just for tonight evan just just for fun uh was there any uh audience comment uh jeff did you have anything uh come over the email or anything like that no okay yeah is that usually what i mean in past years we have our normal commenters uh perhaps they'll they'll save their comments for next week or perhaps visit them for for next week i don't know um okay yeah they're waiting to review the conference as well before they could comment that might be next week to give a little try to wrap their arms around it yeah um that being said i i i am a little concerned that we don't have a lot of public feedback yet uh especially after last week's message and um i i again i i don't i certainly do not want to create any more work for anybody but there was a time when we would without the florida i think we used to do those short segments on the cable channel to put some out stuff out there i don't know if it's worked in some short youtube clips maybe from cps just highlight the major points of the budget because i i concerned that by time folks tune in tune in uh it'll be a surprise for them in february or march when the town council takes it up that you know there's so much going on with code that i think people's attention spans are diverted for right for reason so i don't know here tonight but i'll just think about what we can do to kind of uh put the word out there about this particular budget well you know i was concerned about that too tony and have already met with darcy chs pto tomorrow night is done i have others scheduled so you know certainly as part of that process i'm going through our budget and school modernization and then we'll uh you know certainly i can i can definitely add a video to put out to the masses as well yeah just just thinking out loud but but thank you for all your work on this thanks man all right business partnership too um seeing no other comment i again uh i'll extend uh uh the board's thanks to mr maciana for this excellent presentation or part one of the presentation thank you for answering all our questions this evening if there are no other comments or questions i would like to entertain a motion to adjourn all right um is there any discussion on the motion being good all in favor

that builds a little bit of a a little bit more into a cushion i mean it's not a huge percentage but it's something that's an additional roughly quarter million dollars in the budget 240 grand so you know it could be adjusted in evaluating all this and i don't think it's a bad subject suggestion to have tom quality come back and and give from an expert opinion from somebody who deals with this everyday statewide market based on our data 900 grand what's the probability that we break even or do better but no but it is like predicting the stock market i mean nobody can guarantee past performance doesn't predict future results you know it's just it's the best professional estimate and i think this is what we've tried to predict is the best professional estimate based on a decade plus of data what's going to get us to not hemorrhage money what's going to get us to break even and so you know hopefully we can nail it okay there's no guarantee hey if i could just clarify my brain freeze question in the beginning i was asking about the pension are we fully funded in that no okay but we're getting closer okay i'll i'll take that as a win i'm actually pension as the is the next few slides and there's not many so okay you know and and that'll probably wrap up the evening okay thanks done okay um and did you have your hand up yes i did yeah go for it i'll be really quick i don't have a question i just want to just say wow then you've outdone yourself and along with that thank you because that histori seeing that historical trends the ups and downs in for me is really useful and it it it does put the whole big picture in perspective so thank you for crunching all those numbers every which way but loose and um and that's all i have to say yeah okay well you're welcome thank you andrew i think you're up and my question was answered tim asked it but um it's just i can't imag i understand this is the way that this is done but this is only my second time going through this but this is just such a large part of the budget and it's such a wild card and we could sit here and talk about historic data and claim years and things until we're blue in the face but there's no better way to to do this i mean this is this is this is the way that it's done because tim asks questions it's better to go with somebody else and i guess we can't control policy premium increases but at least we know what that might be year to year versus funding and running i mean ones if we run out of money mid-year i mean well if we run out of money mid-year we're either going to have to save it somewhere else in the budget you know and or you know request a you know an emergency infusion from from the town that there's really our only two choices um and it you know listen it hasn't happened over the last you know decade since i've been here we did get down to 200 000 and you know i mean some of the some of the board members are still with us you know that was kind of scary that that we would run it that close i see mr peregini shaking his head um and you know listen it's easy enough to get a quote you know to go fully insured but claims again claims the claims yeah you know whether or not you can predict them the quote is going to be based on what's the expected claims you know plus covering overhead you know plus profit in the case of a third party so there's no great answer i mean medical benefits no i i mean i'm not looking for an answer i have to say it i know we're just kind of you know talking it through here there's there's no great answer when we were you know fully insured we had a lot of the same questions well what do you mean my premiums going up you know 20 and that ultimately that's why we moved the hmo out of being um fully insured to self-insured and you know part of the reason that we were able to reduce our budget in a couple of years following 2015 is is because we saved quite a bit over fully insured premiums that we were paying to anthem so it it becomes it becomes sort of a comfort question because if you know that you're paying let's just use the numbers you know that you're paying a million dollars a month for your coverage and it cannot change during the course of the year because you had a lot more claims than the million dollars covered but the following year you're gonna make it up in higher premiums you know so even though your once your premiums are quoted they can't change they will change in the following year up there higher than what you basically paid for in your fully insured premium and in their in that model the insurers now have history of clean experience with our population and the actuarials will use that to adjust the premiums accordingly so that's always a lot of fluctuation um i'm sorry to cut you off andrew no i'm good when you mentioned 100 000 a year i i remember how and why we got to that but the town council if i care if i'm wrong i thought the the subsequent year they funded 900 specifically for the short the medical reserve account i could be wrong yeah i don't remember that being the case tony left 200 000 by ourselves well we got down to 200 and then you know claims started to subside so we closed that year even though we got down to 200 we closed that year with like 650 000 so that kind of the low point was in you know probably december after the h you know the high deductible plan year ended and then we kind of built back up to 600 000 by year-end and then we got a budget increase for the following year so that's how we started to build it back up the budget increase there was money specifically earmarked for the reserve fund yeah i mean it goes in the same way right it goes in that medical benefits line and you fund it monthly to the reserve i think that was uh if i remember correctly back when david schrum was still on the town council good old days no i had that that's all along though i mean not that it was an agent ago yeah yeah no council that now they had a short back up and yeah that helped that budget that year tim you have another question uh yeah just a quick comment that so i'm okay i mean given two bad choices i'm okay staying with you know the self-insurance if you think it makes more sense but i will just point out that you know like you were talking about comfort before budgetary stability uh if we got increased budgetary stability from from an insurance company there is a value an intangible value in that i think from uh from a taxing perspective um you know when the council has to levy the tax rate for homeowners who are paying the taxes to have that more stable i think is uh has a certain value to it but with regard to my one question the wellness program so it's not something that necessarily helps us next year but off into the future you know you have a pretty low turnover among employees have you talked to is it tom kowalczyk about wellness yeah increasing funding for the wellness program like with the benefit you know is it is the benefit does the benefit outweigh the cost of an increased budget there yeah so there's a couple of things the the you know the 8 100 we have budgeted is for the employee assistance program that you know we provide to all staff you know and the services that are available under that you know include counseling services you know for any employee who needs it if they're you know having you know some type of emotional distress um or other life events i mean it includes things like financial planning um seminars you know smoking cessation things that would help the employee and that's something that we pay for and it's predominantly to get those counseling services for when the employees need it beyond that though as part of our arrangement with cigna they have a much broader wellness program and they fund us you know between us and the town combined you know they're funding 55 000 a year for wellness programs to be used you know basically as as we see fit working with them so we've done some you know competitive you know exercise you know like walking challenges some recipe challenges we actually are looking at launching you know with them again this is paid out of the wellness dollars that cigna's providing um we're looking at a video based you know pretty comprehensive workout exercise program and that's on top of some of the integral programs that cigna has built in for diabetes management pre-diabetes management you know pre-hypertension management so within the scope of what cigna offers there is a whole wellness component that we receive and that's one of the reasons we went to to cigna is that they had a more robust offering than anthem did okay thank you and is is any of this is any sort of wellness wrapped into the contracts our employ our employer you're talking about the bargaining unit yeah the union contracts yeah we do not okay put that on your to-do list yeah i mean i think that is a i think that is relatively commonplace with union contracts isn't it where it's like you need to simply go for your preventive checkup correct okay so just looking forward yeah there is um you know i mean they come in the form of a carrot or a stick so the carrot is you know if you go and get your dental cleaning every six months you know you reduce your coshare or your your whatever payment you make toward your medical benefit um if you do that if you don't do that you get dinged so i'm familiar with what what um you're talking about i'm pretty sure the state has that incorporated into their program now as well but yeah that's that's a great suggestion it's not just that the state like i i know the police and that's a different thing but like the police have that wrapped or have some things or used to have stuff wrapped in their contract now they really need to be physically fit to run after somebody different from you know other other jobs but anyway that's it thank you okay faith you had a comment yeah um i i'm a big fan of screening so anything we can do to get everyone their screenings but that's not why um so you know tim your comment about the stability of a third um uh yep going off of self-insure versus going with a carrier you're not going to get any stability all you have to do is pick up the paper from one year to the next and see what happens with insurance premiums i think vin's on the right track with self-insuring it is risk it says it's hair-raising but when you start to see 20 and 30 premium increases which is what a lot of these companies are facing um i don't think we want to be in that ballpark or be playing that game so um just bite your nails everybody but i i then i i applaud you with what you've done and how you're controlling it and um i really don't want to be beholden to an insurance carrier it's my opinion okay thanks um just to close out this section i'll just say uh vin i did uh i also very much appreciate all that he stole the historical data that you gave us to hopefully better come to come to a good decision uh this time around and um we will consider having um the was it the broker or the uh forget the gentleman's name yeah it's tom from usi he is our insurance broker benefits broker yeah for additional information if we require it um we'll we'll see what what comes of it during our deliberations uh and also and just as a clarification um all of these claims or almost all of them did didn't even deal with the pandemic right we had good fortune where we weren't having our employees you know end up in the icu or any there were at least very few where there we had any life-threatening situations to date uh that covet that's correct and i didn't see december's report but the year to date through november covert related expenses was 60 000 and it's primarily testing so yeah we've been lucky on that front none of the large you know claims or we haven't had any large claims related to covet and let's hope that continues especially now that we've got the vaccine you know that is starting to be distributed i'm sure that you know there's been a lot more testing over the last couple of months but right um okay are there any other comments or questions on to the all right last second right home stretch i'll try and make this as quick as i possibly can and it is the it is the pension um there's not you know a lot of new news here it's kind of a repeat of last year with a just one small update so um you know we in in a nutshell pension comes in two forms either the town pension plan which was which is available only for those employees that were hired before 2012 and that's what this number is showing i'm assuming everybody could see that little laser red dot we've got 90 employees participating in the pension plan those are active employees that are still contributing we had 102 last year so as people retire that 90 employee number is going to continue to drop so this year's contribution to the town pension plan for those 90 employees is 864 627 and it's really not just for those 90 employees because part of what you're funding in the pension is for the employees that are currently retired and living longer and and receiving their payout for longer periods of time and and we'll get to that in a minute and then the second for employees hired after july of 2012 they're eligible for a defined contribution plan we've got 172 employees that's up from 161 last year 280 000 is the contribution for those employees so we're looking in this budget to increase by forty eight thousand five thirty eight to one million one forty four six twenty seven for next year you know what you see here noted at the bottom is that teachers and administrators they fund their own pension through salary uh deduction and so we only pay for an annuity for our administrators as part of their contract but teachers and administrators are not eligible for either of these two pension plans that i mentioned um nothing changed in terms of you know how the funding works the board contributes five percent of the non-certified eligible employees you know five percent of the wages if the employee puts in at least one percent we match it the secretaries have a slightly different offering based on the arbitration award from 2018 but some the important thing is in the defined contribution plan we pay a piece as long as the employee contributes we add either another one or three percent match um what's driving really our pension costs are two things one is the decline that we saw in the in the stock market um and that's what this next chart shows and i've used this in previous years so you know back in 2000 a 2009 you know when the markets you know took a significant hit it was right around this time frame you could see that the markets dropped and then the markets started to come back by 2012 but you know that caused a lot of pension plans to be severely underfunded and you could see since 2012 the market and this is the dow jones industrial average so this is you know just uh you know kind of a an indicator of you know where stock investments have gone since 2012 you know we're we're eight years in now you know the dow was at a low of 6500 and you know i'm pretty sure the market closed over 30 000 again today so it seems that the markets have certainly recovered but what happened during this period of time is a lot of the actuarial experts started to rethink because so many pension funds were underfunded they started rethinking what the rate of return assumptions are for future years and so that affected us and that's what what this bullet is and this is probably the more important thing that's driving our pension costs right now so you know back around 2012 we were carrying an eight and a quarter percent return assumption in the town pension plan and so the actuaries recommended and ultimately the town council who uh you know does have responsibility for this determined that we should reduce our return assumption in future years from eight and a quarter down to seven and a half percent which requires additional funding not only for active employees but also for all the employees who are retired and collecting their pension and then in in 2020 the actuaries recommended and the town council proved a further reduction in the return assumption so as of the end of this fiscal year the return assumption being used is seven percent so we went from eight and a quarter down to seven and by doing so that requires additional funding which offsets some of the gains we've had in the markets okay so i'm just showing you this chart it's a little bit busy um and it's also this eight and a quarter next year will read you know assumption down to seven percent so these are the these are the contributions we were making from our budget way back to 2006.

the main entry level is is from the other documents the what's called the first level um that's uh that's a a staired access single single egress unit um the meaning that the main or first level is our as our primary address point out of the building um you know per those thank you deborah appears you're trying to you're attempting you're coming too close to sharing that is that the right yeah i'm sorry it would be the other one i'm sorry i thought you was attached uh yes it would be this one um if you wouldn't mind just enlarging that um so we could see it a little more holistically um there's two stairs that are in question we should be reducing the size uh enlarging the sheets so we can see the whole document that would be grand thank you um the without getting into the rest of the floors the uh without getting the rest of the diagrams we can talk off of this for the most part because it's relatively straightforward there's a stair on the lower half of the drawing going down to the lower level which is the basement level or garage level of the development um it is where the the sleeping areas the bedrooms of the of this unit this particular unit are located there's three bedrooms and a small common area associated with this um the primary egress path is through the stair to the main level the upper stair goes to a rooftop terrace um regrettably both were constructed with incredibly tight construction tolerances and that's where i want to spend a little bit of time reviewing and discussing them the basically this unit is separated from the garage level and upper stories by a upper joining units i should point out by a three-hour separation assembly in regards to the vertical separation between it and the garage it's a three-hour cast in place wall um in regards to the horizontal separation it's a three-hour precast and composite uh cast and play system that uh in in effect creates a fully sandwiched sandwich type system uh that's a 10 inch concrete plank which is the primary structural floor system it's it is basically uh the stair basically runs between those planks and then what we call the topping force which is two layers of cast in place concrete which sandwich an insulation level between them that's thread spread throughout the entire floor plate system itself there's also a curve at either end both the frame the opening itself as well as the support uh provide bearing components for what you see on the right hand of the image which is a two-hour vertical separation assembly which is a consistent separation design that separates all of the individual units including unit 11 in this case from unit 10 um and then on the west side of it which is just conventional lo it's a conventional load bearing but it's not a rated wall assembly so i do want to point out that this building is separated in no less than two hours two hour separation from all the adjoining properties uh or adjoining units themselves as well as the garage the garage is clearly three hour separation um to support that opening on the east side there is a uh and the the threat and the weight of the the double wall construction which is our our two hour separation wall up above there's a w8 by 31 beam running north to south and the columns to support that um functionally below that level these walls are are encased uh are are non-structural for the most uh shooting they are non-structural um the walls are basically um unrated framing with uh inch chips and board surround the upper level uh is a load-bearing wall on the west side that is supporting the terrace up above um this gives drills down to the real meat of the of the issue at hand uh the planks are a precast system um i don't know the total account it had to be in the hundreds in terms of what was ultimately installed on this on this plinth or this platform that separates the the garage or lower level from the beginning of the residential units up above um this was designed with an opening um with a three foot finish tolerance when the planks are laid out there was minimal tolerance um after installation and the we have a condition now ultimately that has rendered this one-inch deficient in terms of the minimum 36-inch width for both the lower level stair and the upper level stair we acknowledge the the code concerns and the findings there's no challenge to that effect um what i do want to point out is some of the conditions that render this uh outcome ultimately the eastern side is is what we term incredibly static meaning it cannot move based upon the both the plank condition the the curb condition and the thicknesses of the walls for the fire supper the vertical fire separation between those during construction it was noted that the tolerances were exceedingly tight the contractor confirmed with me just earlier today again that he was in touch with kirkstra who is the precast manufacturer uh he was given direction that he could remove upwards of one and a half inches of that um the uh be the right side of that plank that you see depicted here you'll see there's rebar running in the lower lower quadrant of that section he removed one and a half inches that that initial rebar is one and 15 six inches from the from the original and outside terminus of that of that um of the precast blank itself so that renders it would give me a less than less than a half inch tolerance um which was acceptable for them any further would have uh we would be cutting into basically or or dangerously um inhibiting the structural capacity of that of that plank we'd have to remove the rebar itself so ultimately that is what is bringing us to you today um the condition was limited through the the the repetitive nature of how these planks were laid was minimum was maximized by the repetitive nature the contractor did attempt to self-correct during the construction phase um the regrettably to a point where he could take it per cursor's direction without endangering the structural stability or structural uh conditions of the the plank itself um the only area that could be touched was that western side or the left side as you're viewing it right now um there we it obviously which is the term autopsy unit afterwards to try to assist and deliberate your deliberations in regards to the um the outcome and seeing if there's any uh opportunity for discussion on this topic and again this is not in reference to the michigan residential code but rather the nbc um we did it we did take the exception um uh exception one of i don't have the number from uh 10 10 11.2 um we took exception uh one allowed underneath that we had less than a 50 occupant load um in fact our occupant load based upon a maximum occupancy by zoning which is six occupants um building code will allow eight by square footage measurements but we're allowed a maximum of six by zoning for a dwelling unit um we we would have um we would have the extreme low end of the scale if you will if you're calibrating them on the scale of 50 occupants to one um so obviously the other elements related to the stairs is as you as i took a deep dive into the uh the coding commentary is the relationship of two-way travel and the requirements for those widths to accommodate two-way travel we have a very unique situation in this case where our primary means of egress is on is basically travel upwards on the stair to the main level for regressing out of this um if there were an emergency situation on that lower level the basement level if you will where the bedrooms are located as i mentioned earlier that in effect has a each of those units as well as that common area on the lower level have a um egress windows out of each one of them so there's three egress windows one for each of the bedrooms and a fourth for that common area so as a collective hole while i understand egress windows and wells are part of a means of be addressed and not a singular means of regression to themselves there is there is an opportunity for that um alternate alternate means of emergency escape through those windows in the case of a fire situation conversely the stairs coming down from the terrace the terrace i should point out as well is for in particular uh the uh the tenant use the uh residential use it's not a common terrace that terrace was likewise has that 35 inch width challenge that is likewise the same the opposite direction of travel is coming down as opposed to up but basically we have a confluence of our primary means of egress to the main level where we have already a dedicated single means of redress out of the space so i can't imagine an emergency situation particularly from the lower level that there could be a set of emergency service professionals that there would be a conflict of two-way traffic on the stair um i think that is the primary arguments that we're attempting to make and i do believe that it is a speaking candidate as a professional it is very unique for me to come up with a standard of approval the one i presented or petitioned as part of this application was the provisions of the code do not apply i was rejected but i do believe that there is a tolerance um inherently in the code based upon the the commentary that's been provided for an understanding if not a true variance aspect that will allow this accommodation to take place and that the safe uh egressing of people from the both the terrorist level and the lower level can be accommodated without any deficiencies by the relatively minimal loss of the the one inch clear dimension on that stair the only element of the residential code that i was pointing out was a unique adaptation in the residential code and it's only cons it's only um brought up for the sensibility that there is a an interpretation where we could clinically eliminate again in the residential code itself um the or we can reduce the minimum dimension beneath the hand rails down to almost 31 to 31 inches assuming a minimum 36 inch stair the the residential code doesn't allow to go less itself than 36 for the finished dimension but the addition of the hand rails allows a minimum reduction excuse me i think it's four and a half inches for each handrail so we could ultimately have nine inch reduction below the handrail itself that was my only point of reference in bringing up the residential gold at all i apologize for any confusion that that might have brought with that i i'm happy to provide any additional input or response to your questions as to the rest of my abilities thank you staff you have any follow-up comments on that no sorry um the only thing that i would like to state is that um that we're dealing with the the minimum code requirements here the section clearly states you know the 44 inches it gives you the exception um down to 36 for the occupant load um i feel like if the intent of the code was to have it below 36 it would have been written that way in the code language that's all i'd like to add thank you let's open up the board now for questions for the applicant could you um speak to me how the unit is laid out it looks like the kitchen is on the level one portion of the plan but the garage level um shows in the i guess it's the common area what looks like cabinet work with a sink could you just explain what's going on there i'm just trying to get a sense of how much communication there is between one level and the other let me flip to that um that would be sheet a401 would be the the most we provide the most clarity in regards to that layout i heidi could you no the basically because it is a common area um it could be an area where there might be a television there might be an opportunity for people just to gather um but it'll be the same residents as would be occupying the the bedrooms um oh mickey roma not mute thank you um if we get to 401 real quick uh i believe that'd be part of the packet please thank you uh this page i believe is this page yes uh there's no real pretense behind the um the the sink itself outside of um uh potential use for a coffee pot or something again to that that was going to be a wet bar at one point that actually was not we did not i was going to be installing that thank you heidi for clarifying that was not installed i was going to ask if you could chime in thank you so on the same plan the bottom of the stair shows uh what looks like three foot four and a half clear is that that also not the case because that's just not the way it was built no if you could um if uh debra if you could zoom in on the bottom of the store i can explain what what um uh kind of on-the-fly installation was created um there are i i don't believe that plan was taking into account the column location which functionally packs out some of that stair um that was uh obviously a coordination issue during the design phase you'll see a line um you see a dashed line coming down up above the stair um the that line basically is continuation of the the partition up above which forms the east side of that wall of that stairway wall that's now continues and and actually comes down as a at handrail height down below okay and my other question and i don't know if you can see this is is that how the strainers are actually supporting the stair uh they like that they most likely are embedded to the framing yes but they would be running on the sides that's correct okay so they're they're inside the finished wall that's correct they're inside that half inch of gym support [Music] look at the photographs that were in the packet it looks like the gypsum board runs past the the floor system past the concrete on the left-hand side it does it does we have that half inch and then you say you can take a half inch off of the concrete um um plank that would get you the one inch we took as much off the concrete um as we could there was there was approximately an inch and a half removed um leaving just under a half inch remaining of concrete cover before the rebar was struck that was a maximum allowed tolerance by kirkstra so portions of that plank were removed the tolerance if that plank had been left in place would have been much tighter at least an inch and a half so yes the drywall on both sides the gypsum board excuse me on both sides does run does run along the face of the one on the left-hand side of the picture here is the fire rated assembly where the one on the right is not fire-rated that is correct that's right sir how wide is the handrail in that photo [Laughter] that was a i assume i i don't know at the top of my head i didn't that was actually a owner's selection i don't know if you know off the top of your head either well i gotta believe it's it's code compliant that was confirmed um i don't know i i honestly didn't measure that when i went out to confirm dimensions myself i apologize compliant in terms of the the grip yes what was there a specific idea you had in mind in terms of how that could well i'm i'm assuming that you haven't and this is from a purely practical point of view in that the stair the way i see it the handrail kind of encroaches on the usable width of the stair that's true so if you have your inch and a half finger clearance and let's say you had i think the minimum railing is an inch and a half that's correct do you pick up anything i would say so i believe that's a a molded two by so that would be three and a half by itself so we're probably uh easily four inches um four and a half beyond the face of wall so we could easily pick up uh an inch and a half dimension through uh modification to handrail itself that would create more space for sure absolutely i think it solves the problem of the the wall-to-wall space but it uh but it does minimize the um the overall encroachment of the handrail into that dimension and that would be that would be obviously an easy fix to make correct so in this photo in the photograph there down below the floor height there you could shift that over an inch because it's the columns back from the finish there once you get past the floor thickness height you could make it the right width because you furred that wall out and that's not fire rated down below the floor deck kind of like that that pony wall that sticks out that's that's right where where we basically have the handrail on the left-hand side tidy i think is mr darling's referencing um yes that could be modified at the down below absolutely yeah so paul are you talking about just modifying the that one wing wall at the bottom i mean ideally you could move you could move the one here to the right move that over an inch and you know and then maybe the board comes down and you see the exposed edge of plank that you paint there and it continues down so you maximize you don't lose the half inch finish for the board there i don't know how much you're going to get 36 inches it's assuming they must want to wear it because they've already taken an inch and a half off during construction before they put the wall up so it seemed like they were knew it was an issue um prior to the finish we if i if i may hide one one of the talking points we had earlier i could i could i could express would be um owing to the to the very tight tolerances and the the the want to make this as close if not fully code to blind or there could be an option of of replacing sections of that drywall with a thinner drywall we could this is half inch and again even on the firewall side um the way the system is designed it's it's functionally the shaft wall that is the fire rating component the the finished surface is a finished surface and i believe i'd have to double check that on the on that side but minimally the right side which would be the west side of the wall could be reduced to a quarter inch board potentially if that would if that would assist add additional comfort to anyone's perspective i'm a little disoriented here in that photo that we're looking at which is the three out or the two hour rated wall to the left at the beginning at the top of the the top stair tread that you see thank you deborah for putting your cursor on it um rob maybe it would be helpful just in terms of uh the narrative of how that wall relates to the rest of the building explain why that would be a two-hour fire-rated wall and not the one to the right yeah that there is on not not on the lower level but all the way up on the beginning on the main or first level all continuing through the second level is another unit um the the all of these units were designed with formal and intentionally designed ul rated to our fire separation assembly so the continuation of that was essential um and it was one of the one of the trigger points to maintain that dimension ultimately does that to our wall take a two hours two by six that couldn't be handled with a two by four stud i see you have two by six studs built there i don't know if you get any more space by shaving some off that stud down to a you know two by four on the one side um i i every ul was a problem but it does and i i i do not have the eulo open i could quickly research that but i i my understanding is part of the um intention of that is to create a separation from from the exterior face yeah um i don't know if it if the minimum is six or if it's four um that's the only delta yeah i mean if a two by four sidewall two by six two by four were you know gaining potentially more you know i just i would like to go back to mr darling's comment for a moment if we could um and i i i do want to make sure that everybody understands it short of disassembling the entire building you know we're we will take any kind of a decision and guidance in terms of modifying things to create space but um just reflecting on the um the um observation that we took as much off the uh that cantilever plants the concrete as possible we did do that and the subsequent to that there were two inspections so uh you know we'll we will bear some real expense in terms of mitigating this and rebuilding it in whatever way you see fit so that we can meet with the requirement um but on the other hand i kind of feel like the the city's a little bit in the boat with us here because we got through two inspections uh and and and you know like we we have a good relationship with our inspector and i think our inspector is has always been very communicative with us and we've been very transparent but and yet here we are so to fix this um we're going to have to if if you allow us to fix it um you know we're gonna we have to go to some significant expense to fix it so i don't know how that accounts or plays into any part of this decision but um i would think that that might have some bearing on how this whole thing was viewed i can say that with the greatest respect possible for uh for the people that have worked hard to help us um get to this point from the city well i mean realistically it you know to to replace the drywall i think you can only really do it on one side right to preserve the fire separation yes that's correct so i mean the other side where you could remove we could go with thinner drywall um you can't shave anything off the um the precast that's that's there that's right so even even if we eliminated drywall in its entirety on the on the right side of this image we would still be gaining no more than a half inch because of where that ultimate face of the pre-gas plank is at this time yeah so practical things that we could do i think we've already been mentioned we could we could exchange out the drywall on the right hand side and gain a quarter inch we can change the handrail to um to not necessarily correct the problem but just just mechanically create more space and then for the eight steps at the bottom or so where there's a half wall we could move that wall out so that the the impact is you know reduced by a third i'm wondering if anybody has looked into the possibility in the sketch on the left hand side is a i presume that's the plank that you're talking about that you've either already shaved a portion of it down um i guess to clarify is that correct you've cut a portion of that plank off yes that uh uh approximately an inch and a half of that plank have been removed already all right so the plank plank manufacturer is saying that's as far as you can go uh without taking alternative measures so i'm wondering why the wall beneath couldn't be turned into a bearing wall to support that edge of the plank and cut more of the plank cut more of the plank off put in a a a new wall that would become a bearing wall that would pick up that edge of the plank and then cut more of the plank off if if that strand is if you're within so many uh millimeters or whatever of the strand if you support the plank from underneath then that strand is no longer critical rob what's the footer situation under there i'm checking just to look at the slab plan right now let me flip to uh she's ready for going out of vision for a minute because i think we had to pour a footer for that steel um beam there are footings underneath i think two i think there might be two columns along the length of that wall on the east side just to be clear i was referring to the left-hand side in the sketch and if i missed it i apologize well the extreme would be you just take it take eight inches off you take one whole core width of that off you cut in the middle of the core and then the next bar over has a lot of space for the to the piece what does that do to that hallway rob um i'm not i'm not sure we have that much space because um because of the hallway that goes through there that makes sense on this on the main level on the on the bottom level well on the main level too what's that yeah it supports all all of the uh it supports us a series of um common walls up to the roof i mean if you do that you'd be replacing the stairs as well right because the stairs only run from wall to wall right now they do that's correct i mean for an inch of probably the finishing of five mechanic cantilever i don't know where they fill it in put a stringer there finish stringer fill the gap um one thing to consider with that already i think there may have been a on the supplemental sketch there is a that i sent along earlier today with this with the overall scratch or supplemental information too many pages in front of me now uh there is a um the way that's designed at either end of the opening is a um an embedded plate or an embedded angle to support the width um we obviously would this it would be very unique because we're removing a portion of that um plank yet it continues in both directions beyond the section we'd be removing um i don't know the integrity of that rebar and the other spaces would have to be um updated as well my my concern is much like the ripple effect of the comedy of errors that led us to this moment i'm afraid of what might happen if that that rebar is cut and how it how that then transfers load-wise across the rest of that um because it wouldn't be in the same plane if you can visualize it in plan we have that that with opening i think it's 14 feet long we'd only be able to have access to that 14-foot width of section that could be potentially cut out assuming that kircher would even accommodate it and i believe that is a grouted core right now if i'm not mistaken that is correct um both sides in fact are because of the load-bearing capacity above um the that would be i'm just not sure how that what happens when we get beyond that opening then on either the north or south side um without further investigation can i ask a question have we um have we exhausted the uh whether or not this is an interpretation issue um i know that rob had one viewpoint and i i'd certainly hear mr lemieux's uh viewpoint have has that discussion been exhausted or or not it looks like in both applications that it says the minimum is 36 depending on what code you're in it still says 36 minimum and we don't have that so rob is that yeah there's i i as much as i would love to say i have a great alternative argument the code is very clear that the third stage i just want to make sure because i understood the um the directions right from the get-go yeah mr darling and i wanted to make sure we're not um working outside of that of course so one question i have for the building department is is the concern is the concern [Music] within the the width of this air alone i mean are there is there anything else that they can do to mitigate the egress situation in this unit um but i'm a little bit confused as to what what the question is well i guess what i'm what i'm asking is um [Music] if they were to introduce any other means of egress for example like on the on the uh level one floor plan yeah i'd like to say there was a second door out would that make a difference are you saying like turn one of the egress windows into a proper exit door maybe i'm thinking i'm looking at the back of the stair on level one where the bathroom is oh right is there an opportunity to put a stair to the exterior at that point i don't i don't know that there's a that there's a code route to get there um i don't know if any allowance to reduce the minimum stair width based on exits um if that's if if i'm answering your question well i i do think that there is an opportunity to create a sec a primary means of egress out of this level um which would render a compliant the the stair that's presently constructed would be um just communicating there at that point um i think that maybe and i apologize sorry your screen title doesn't give your clear name that was a great question um call me donna that's okay okay fair enough [Laughter] i suspect it was uh it was bob but i didn't want to be presumptuous donna works too um the bearded lady [Laughter] um that there would be some potential for that um there are um there are three there's there's a stair there's a landing already um if you look at the unit 11 ground level plan the lower level plan you'll see the stoop for the stair you'll see three window wells and then the fourth one is kind of cut off in that section up on the northwest side there are three window wells there um i'm not certain if there's enough run uh to connect those um without challenging i guess it would almost have to be on that common central window well um to accommodate it going in any other direction puts us into the garage level which i i don't think is a safer means of egress because we're not exiting directly exiting to the exterior there's there's way too much mechanical there anyway precisely i mean even if we could we formally had uh planner boxes rob and now uh we don't so that's a second means of egress on the main floor that we could put in we could put a door there right right at the bottom of the stair where it says um but there's a c designation for a small window and there's something else that says a63 oh yes that is a planter box that's correct well that's a planted box yes it's no longer a planter box well the original design right but i think the point is is the walkway go to the wall yes the walkway goes directly to the wall so you could take that window out and put a door in okay so to the building department what i was getting at is if they'll look you know to try to achieve something that's some kind of equivalency in terms of safety would that mitigate the one-inch deficiency in the stair in addition in addition with the idea being that it doesn't require two people going up and down the stairs at the same time potentially along those lines because because quite frankly that the whole two people up and down the stair rationality i i don't really see it because the fact that the kitchen's on the main level i see a lot of traffic there and frankly that terrace uh it it looks like you know an invitation for a much bigger group gathering let's put it that way so what i'm trying to suggest is if there's a second door on the main level does that in any way help mitigate the stair situation and and make it an easier situation as far as you know getting people out quickly i would i would honestly have to do the the code research on an alternative like that before i could give an accurate answer okay this is what i'm this is what i'm talking about what page is that in the packet i can bring it up 401.

we looked back at five years of data and we noticed that they also peaked in 2017 but we attributed that to a quarterly benchmark that we were administering that was uh impacting the uh the failure failure rate much higher than than traditional and so when we looked at and we take out this this 2017 we see the trend is somewhere around 500 but it spiked this marking period and this is marking period one failures only all right so we're not looking at across the board we noticed this because we had an increased number of conversations with parents and students regarding their participation and their their their work or lack thereof in school and these these conversations became more uh prevalent and they were happening more often so we decided to look at the data and really really dig down and we saw that there was a 92 percent increase from 2019 to 2020 in the number of failures on report cards this isn't something we're proud of it's not something we want to broadcast but it's something we want to address and in order to address it we need to be transparent and we need we need to talk about it so we we looked at the comparison over five years and you can see over a thousand there were over a thousand classes or a thousand failures in the in in various classes so 387 students had a thousand over a thousand failures across these classes these numbers supersede all the other numbers except for 2017 and like we said we identified that as due to our quarterly that was weighed and impacted students students didn't take the quarterly seriously they simply just um you know didn't even take the test basically they opened the screen submitted a bunch of answers it wasn't working the way we wanted to work it so we modified it we adapted to it but we can see the difference you know when we lay the numbers out 2015 2006 and 2018 2019 we have a you know that that mean number uh approximately 500 where we're listen we're not happy when students fail but we need to say hey why are so many students struggling right now what what is taking place here um so we we started having these conversations amongst the supervisors at the high school and and with the administrative team at the high school and then the middle school started joining these conversations and then when we looked at the middle school we saw even even greater increases so we brought the middle school on to have this conversation say hey what can we do for our population because we saw these increases you know in uh this is grade eight a six hundred percent increase and then we looked at grade six we even started going back even in digging deeper and we looked into grade six and we saw that um uh you know the number just it jumped tremendously over 300 increase uh from last year and and you know there wasn't much of an increase prior to this you know we had a few struggling students in in in in grade six well why sudden are all these students struggling now so we've got to figure out what's going on how can we how can we get how we can't simply continue with these kind of numbers and the the the conversations began okay what can we do uh we can see that we also looked at the honor roll because we reached out to other districts um in bergen county and listen we're we're in bergen county but there's two districts in bergen county for being honest and we're being fair there's districts north of route 4 and this district south of root 4 and we reach out to districts similar to our own district with similar demographics and they're all reporting that there's they're seeing these results in the amongst the populations now when we reached out to the the upper bergen county schools north of route 4 they they were they're they were coming back saying no we're actually seeing the difference we're seeing we're seeing students succeeding all right so we said you know let's look at our honor roll and we looked at our honor roll and we saw that the number of high honor roll students was higher than it's ever been before and you know the the total number of students on the honor roll didn't really change that much but the high honor roll students are are they're doing they're succeeding they're they have the means to be successful in this environment and when we looked at the actual grades the grade reporting we saw the b and c's b students primarily the the largest decrease in b's across the marking period so it's our average students that are really struggling and i don't say regressing but not uh not meeting the same success as our high performance but our hard performers at the high school when we looked at it they're exceeding the expectations at this point so we looked at the high school failures by grade level we see it's affecting all the students there's fewer seniors in classes so we have fewer seniors failing but we do have across the board it's fairly comparable um approximately a third of the students across the board are struggling in this environment and we saw that the 10th graders had the highest at 34 percent uh we looked at the cohorts because we thought that maybe it was just the remote students it wasn't just the remote students it was both the remote students and the students that were on the hybrid schedule the a and b cohort students were also struggling you know anywhere from 25 to 30 percent of them were struggling in their classes so it wasn't just the remote students who aren't logging in it's across the board because the hybrid students when they're not in school they're struggling to log on and they're struggling to stay engaged also now we looked at the failures across the departments and math is traditionally the hardest subject and when we have these conversations learning math online remotely is very very difficult and the math teachers are struggling but what we really saw that was really interesting was you know the number of failures in social studies or the number of students failing in social studies and financial literacy classes those aren't four-year requirements uh there's fewer students in those classes and we started having these conversations with instructors so it this data gave us the opportunity to go into classrooms and speak with the instructors where we're seeing this why is this happening in your class what what's what's the reason are the students not logging on are the students not submitting work are the students um uh you know is it the way we're we're we're instructing our students at this point so while initially we saw this as hey what are we gonna do we can't have all these kids fail it led to very very positive conversations and it led to somewhat of a culture change here amongst the high school and amongst the middle school i can't really speak for the middle school but i could speak for the high school because it opened up the discussion and where we know this is occurring in schools throughout the county only recently are schools in the county starting to say hey what are you doing we're noticing this what are you doing because quite honestly this is something districts don't want to talk about i i want to thank mr romagino for giving me the opportunity to share with you guys and you know even even meeting with the middle school and being part of those conversations to say how can we address this how can we fix this because this is a unprecedented time students are being asked to do things they've never been asked to do teachers are being asked to do things they've never been asked to do and quite frankly we don't have the capacity no school has the capacity and this isn't just a bergen county problem this is a national problem usa today has reported on it stanford university is conducting a ton of research on this right now and publishing that research it was recently in the um not the record but uh northjersey.com recently uh uh highlighted this i've seen it on the news so this is learning loss is something that we're talking about and it's something that we need to recognize and something we need to address so we looked at the special ed in the l population and we see that you know school-wide the l population versus the school-wide population is approximately 30 of that population so there's not really a difference between the special ed pro is a little bit higher but the ells and the school-wide population the general population it's it's very similar so it's not a subgroup it's it's across the board uh we looked at the attendance and we noticed that the attendance is down and this is something that i take very uh uh dear to me this is very dear to me uh the attendance i work very hard at maintaining our attendance our chronic absenteeism i'm happy to say has been low the state average has been below the state average since i've come on board because it's something we've targeted we've identified it and we've continued to attack it and and really encourage students uh and and help them understand the value of being here the greatest predicament of or predictor for student success is student attendance if students are in school students will succeed so our goal is to get them in school we've noticed that our attendance is down right now and we we started to ask why is our attendance then why is this drop all the kids have to do is log in what's going on exactly here are they not logging in is it something that we're doing so we looked at all these data points and we saw the guidance feedback we asked the guy the guidance department you know what are you getting from your meetings with parents you're you're reaching out to kids you're reaching out to parents what is going on uh the parents are shocked you know the kids are always on the computer but they don't know what the kids are on exactly you know the kids are on netflix they're distracted they're they're gaming they're on youtube um parents are off to work in our population of students they're required to watch their younger siblings and it's disruptive many of them are sharing devices many of them you know are working on interrupted internet or wi-fi um students have expressed the counselors there's just too much work they're overwhelmed they're in school for a number of hours a day and then they're given work after school so they're just on the computer constantly and it's it's stressful for them um they're developing you know some students have reported you know some headaches so we've limited that time uh students feel that the level of work is so unintendable they've basically just given up and this is something we call learned helplessness and it's once students develop learned helplessness it's it's really difficult to get them beyond that learned helplessness so you know we it's something that you know we've had these conversations with our staff and and we're going to talk more about that but you know make setting goals for the students and you know making sure that you know we're not overloading the students because the students are coming back telling us that they feel overloaded um and that the parents are telling us they're on the computer all day and something's not adding up and we we need to find a balance between screen time academics and personal life for these students as mr roman gino said earlier um athletics was post you know athletic seasons have been shortened you know you're looking at uh you know intramurals to make available to the students uh we're looking at um you know outdoor workouts for these students having difficulty fielding middle school teams because of student participation or other school districts just not running programs not being able to set up a schedule so really you know the students they're struggling through this and it's really you know layering this additional work on top of them you know isn't isn't beneficial so we've got to figure out some way to make this balance and then the family loss and you know that's where um there's just there's there's so much i guess familiar uh familiar um and i can't see my screen for issues that they're uh that they're facing whether it's lost work eviction child care uh some of our stories that we that we hear from these students it's they're truly heartbreaking so you know and the staff who's grading them don't necessarily know this so we we have to figure out a way to make this work and convey this and set up some modifications for students and that's really what all this data led to so we looked at a few different things we looked at at the district level what can we immediately do to effect change what can we do what district decisions or policies that we're currently running that kind of you know can we can pivot on we can be flexible on and and how can we do it without you know you know changing everything so we looked at our you know these policy changes that we can can make to maybe instructional you know remote instruction uh we revisit our instructional routines and had to have had a lot of conversations with our staff about instruction appropriate instruction during this time um yeah and and for different courses you know you're gonna you know the the ap population advanced policemen population they need to understand that you know there's a test that they're preparing for there's going to be work there and it's some of the other places where we have to have these conversations where you know it it's it's the work that you're you're provide that staff is providing versus the work that um students that that's truly meaningful and that's actually attainable by the students under these conditions and you know how is project we're looking at project-based learning what projects seem to be working and what projects are you struggling are teachers struggling getting feedback back from kids uh we brought in our supervisors our child study teams our guidance for very specific approaches and we'll talk about those shortly and lastly there's some items that we need to explore as we go down the road and revisit and those include bridge programs over the summer what grants are available to us to combat learning loss and those are things that we need to continue to explore and have more conversations and look at this data at the end of marking period two and at the end of marketing period three as we move through the school year which we plan to do in the next few weeks as market period 2 closes so some district decisions and policy changes that we've made was the mailing of the progress reports this is very simple mail products reports mail marketing period 2 report cards and portal letters it's the 21st century we expect everyone to be able to access all this information online it's simply they don't not everybody does i'm a parent i struggle to you know go into my students my child's real-time portal and follow how he's doing so you know what getting something tangible whether the product report is commending the student or the progress report is calling for um a you know a conference that's necessary or something they're getting something tangible and this was an easy fix and this is something mr roman gino was you know was all behind start mailing them so we we're we're in the process of doing i i believe our our third mailing at this point maybe second mailing at this point um because we sent out the progress reports oh we're putting the portal letters in with the report card so it's it's two mailings for this uh we found that a number of students are working so we we've to help them with the work especially with that shift to that full remote schedule um creating an asynchronous option if the student is is completing the work in a timely fashion and if the accommodation is is requested and justified so that asynchronous option while while it's not the the answer for everyone for certain students it is the answer for the students that are the only income uh right now in their household or one of two incomes or or or you know for the student that has to work because they got a surgery and they have medical bills the asynchronous option is the answer and as long as we can confirm that we're doing that um the cameras off does not result in attendance policy so this is something that we we thought was the best idea oh the students just have to have the cameras on if the cameras are on the um uh the students marked present they'll be present for instruction very simple you log on camera's on you're present our students weren't turning the cameras on and there was battles battles in classrooms of attorney camera on turning a lot of lost instruction time and we have this tool goguardian we didn't know a lot about go guardian when we developed this policy at the beginning of the year we know a lot more about goguardian now we can use goguardian to monitor the students to filter the websites that the students have access to and at this point my staff is using goguardi and they whether the kid has the camera on or not bill guardian is a tool that they can use to see what that kid is doing where that kid is engaged is he engaged in the actual assignment or is he engaged in something else and then we're increasing social media newsletter and mailing so we this is something that coming from the building my uh coming from the building principle i have to commit to ensuring that more social media goes out uh highlighting our student successes a newsletter goes out that we're hoping to get out by the end of uh marking period two and the mailings as discussed earlier so these are something some things that we're committed to and these were some district decisions and policies that were quite easy to change and we think have already had you know some results some immediate results specifically for that asynchronous population and that that camera penalty that was kind of you know really detrimental in hindsight but at the time in august we thought it was the best idea and many other districts cameras got to be on we didn't have golgari we didn't know the knowledge behind goguardian so we revisited our instructional routines also um we're requiring failure comments for all failures it's very simple this is something we we always ask but something we're reinforcing with our staff is that there's comments specific comments as to why students are failing on the progress report and on the report card record and make available lessons of new material this is something else that we've we've really emphasized with the staff and there's increasing emphasis that new material when new instruction takes place it needs to be recorded because some students need to revisit it and they cannot come back to class for extra credit or for extra help at the end of the day so this needs to be available conference more with students we lost breakout rooms for uh for a short time and it's really this conference conferencing ability where we're seeing this teachers have the most success with their students when they can devote that one-on-one time with the students aside from other students give critical feedback in a setting that is personal that's where we're seeing positive returns with our students so this emphasis on using breakout rooms you know having these conversations with the student like you would when you're in school this is the answer it's something that google introduced at some point in the fall we lost it temporarily it's back now so we have a large number of staff that's using this conference room and conferencing ability and really that's where we get that that interpersonal connection that we weren't getting in these meets uh the ability to remain flexible i am arresting students uh who are struggling and who do not who do attend class so if students are not attending class there's a there's a disengagement we're making house calls to those students i'm knocking on doors to the students that don't report to class guidance gives me a list i go out i knock on their doors you know the kids smile when they see me because you know somebody cares about them that's what we're realizing that kids just they're so depressed they just want somebody to care about them and it's little things like that knocking on the doors telling the kid hey listen we can we can get through this but we need you to do your part you know we've identified a number of students that need mentoring not nearly as many students as we like but we've identified students that you know are responding to mentoring so we've created a mentoring program um with peers and adults and they're uh you know we have you know a handful of students right now but you know something we push out every week and we have student response we're utilizing the pass fail specifically in our ell population it's something we found out we can do three years ago the state kind of gave some guidance on ell populations and that we could use a pass fail prior to that we weren't using a pass fail districts a lot of districts do not use the pass fail they had they're actually you know questioning the validity of the pass fail the state is saying hey use the pass fail specifically with this population of struggling ell students so something we've re-emphasized with our staff that hey we have this option the student's coming the student's trying the state says they have a we to score which is a one to a 3.5 we can use this option let's use this option um for these students and it's really you know it we're following the state guidance in that the instructors need to use goguardian plain and simple so we've put out a bunch of trainings on goguardian we plan on doing some more trainings next week uh for our staff because we have to use goguardian the cameras on was not working so the goguardian function does work students who choose not to use goguardian we're getting on their their parents we're telling them they have to do this uh we're i've been to two houses so far kids that refuse to use goguardian and tell them essentially if you choose not to use go guardian the next conversation has to be with you know re revoking your technology privileges because this is a district tool that's on every district chromebook we need you to use the chromebook and make sure you're signed in uh to using it and there's some things that we can do we can give assessments on the chromebook and essentially forces the students to use those the chromebooks that we've we've we've granted them to ensure this and ensure there's no cheating so goguardian has some tremendous um capability a student cannot receive a failure from mark and period two unless communication is documented in real time this is huge for so whatever reason in this remote environment uh teachers not being in school students not being in school there was a big disconnect between the kids in the in the and this this instructional staff and we essentially said we need you to call home i i sat the staff down in a in a meeting and said we i need you to call home i need you to make me make contact with parents you need to try and you need to document it in real time so that when when you do it and it's documented guidance can follow up i can follow up if it goes up the road to mr roman gino he can see that you know a number of attempts were made we have to make every attempt to help these kids so uh we did this and within the first two weeks of just having the staff make phone calls for their struggling students and we said listen you have an hour lunch you actually had long you have an hour and 20 minute lunch take you know five of your kids that are struggling the most each day and just call home and call home try to get the parent on the phone and if it doesn't work just document the line doesn't work or notify somebody the dot line doesn't work we'll we'll figure out the right number and within two weeks of doing this we've seen a 70 increase in our attendance so just by making phone calls um by the teachers making phone calls and the kids kind of bought into it we'd follow up with some phone calls and kids were like yeah i talked to mrs so-and-so i talked to mr so-and-so yeah no i'm going to start going to class so the teeth the the fact that the teachers showed a level of interest in the kids the kids responded and lastly instructional staff was hesitant about calling we provided some uh some options um use google voice you can use the google me to make the phone call you can do star six seven so there were some apprehensions about making those phone calls from their personal devices um and and and you know not being in the building but we were able to work around that uh our supervisor cst and guidance at the supervisory level they started to have these specific conversations with um areas that we identified high rates of failure and why is it lack of engagement is it students not showing up what's going on i'm going to help you we have our supervisors going to meet pulling kids out meeting kids individually and having them log in to go guardian and show me why you can't get onto goguardian you know having these conversations with kids identifying the staff that are having success and allowing them to share so we've gone back into our department meetings and given them opportunities to share and to share out and say hey what's working for me what this didn't work for me so i tried this and that's having positive results we've actually seen a level of writing in this remote uh era that's higher from our student population that's that we've had before they're they're they're producing meaningful works across the board in in our english department and we're noticing it because we're having these professional conversations about what's working and this conferencing with the students uh the cst and guidance they'll continue to assess assist with the differentiating for students and showing that they're that the teachers are adhering to them cst is advocates for these uh these students so they they you know they need to provide some input and some guidance for some of our instructional staff and what is appropriate accommodations during this time because nothing's normal right now and lastly the guidance also they're involved with meetings with supervisors students uh uh administrators so you know they're they're on the phones they're calling the kids they're updating records they're notifying me which kids need house visits and then there's there's some things that we need to continue to talk about uh this development of a growth mindset and this is something we're sharing with the kids that if they get back to work and they produce that you know we'll explore overriding that marking period one failure you know if they demonstrate growth over the course of oh the the school year project-based assignments what is working as i said earlier conferencing with students seems to be working um you know breaking down research assignments into very specific tasks works when you do it correctly and when you pre when you conference with students mentoring opportunities for staff and students the staff wants to help the kids it's you know the kids that we need to identify which ones need the most help and then you know so this is ongoing it's something we started with ongoing and it's instructors really finding success and what is working this has been very difficult for instructors our staff essentially learned you know how to conduct a class online within a matter of weeks last spring and they continue to learn things because the technology continues to change and they continue to adapt and not everything works all the time and it's important that they share what's worked how they're getting their students to engage why are their students engaging and my students not engaging so this is this opportunity has led to a lot of professional conversation and then still to come is you know if we do have a higher than normal failure rate at the close of the school year how are we going to address it are we going to you know if our failure rates at the middle school continue to be as high as they were in the first market are we going to socially promote these students are we going to have a bridge program over the summer are we going to have uh you know not a not a not a summer school but a true bridge program to make up for this learning loss those are conversations that we have to have um and you know hopefully after mark and period two we can have those you know those conversations as we'll have a better idea of are we truly having success or success or is the immediate results superficial so that's all i have so i'll stop the share and i don't know mr romangino if there's any questions or you want me to stick around for questions later well let's take some questions now can you hear me i can hear you yes i have a lot of questions about the data but i'm not going to far need looking at 2020 first question series are you comparing these 2019 first law opportunities in america together but my most profound question is why did it take the pandemic to accomplish because the things that i have seen on the screen tonight has been going on for my 30 years of education where is your school improvement panel that should have been looking at this for a year why is it generally away from the csu supervisor and excitement department to be immediately having professional conversations i really have a concern that it takes a pandemic for this to be done because i was asking if they tell them that foreign for the last 30 years because i will praise the kindergarten being that the kindergarten teachers have been conferencing with the students since they were five years old so why doesn't that happen at the high school level through the part so i'm sorry mr romagino can you restate that i had a real hard time hearing that question can you hear now i can hear you [Music] before make sure can you hear us larry i can hear that yes okay i have a question about the data first of all when you're looking at 2020 are you looking at only the first martin period of 2020 compared to the first marking period of 2019 or are you looking at end of the year scores in 2019 and if this if your end of the year scores in 2019 were better we were in a pandemic situation and teachers were not taught how to teach remotely and yet the scores were higher in the spring of 2019 they are on the fall of 2020.

second any questions comments all those in favor aye aye motion carries 5-0 congratulations mrs reese once again got a year off and now she's back and now i'm going to move on i move that we we approve mrs jill wilson as vice president second any questions concerns all those in favor aye aye motion carries five zero congratulations mrs wilson yes this is immediate so now i get to pass off the meeting to mrs reese and i was given this school board president handbook tonight which and i'm just gonna hang out over here i would like though um during board comments mrs schultz and mrs reese i can make a small request before i leave that they give us a little bit about themselves tonight and mrs mrs anderson i'm sorry not rhys we know about her sorry yes thank you i appreciate the little handbook i will look at that all right well then we will go on to our next agenda item the superintendent's report dr foley president reece members of the board tonight we start with one of our favorite uh favorite tasks that we do here at our governing board meetings which is the celebration of our points of pride where we as a at this meeting honor our employees our student and volunteers that are being recognized by the school now tonight we do this a little differently because of social distancing we're going to do these a little differently than we have before so we're going to call the pr the principal up and we're going to start tonight with power range and when mr rooter comes up along with along with mrs coda they're going to call the employees student or the volunteer up one at a time and then we will take pictures where you will stand rather than coming down because we used to love to do handshakes and close pictures but for physical distancing we do a stand and acknowledge so one at a time and so we're going to start first with power range tonight and then we're going to do santan so i'm going to call mr ruder up and mrs coda up so that they can help us celebrate our points of pride tonight from power ranch thank you president reece members of the board cabinet community members it is my privilege to stand here before you and recognize some awesome people from power ranch we are actually going to start with our student hudson lopez and i would also like to invite mrs tessen his kindergarten teacher to help me so hudson and mrs tetson if you guys can come on up here [Applause] all right good evening everybody um here i have a little paper i had written this um beforehand i just wanted to make sure that it was perfectly said for hudson because he's so deserving hudson of lopez has been a student of mine since the beginning of the school year as both quarters have passed he has shown great academic improvements in all areas hudson is a student who stands out simply because he is such a role model to his peers he also has a positivity that is inspiring in a heart that continues to reflect kindness kindness is heavily focused on in our classroom and his ability to show kindness to others often creates a natural ripple-like effect on all the other students i could not be prouder of hudson and i am honored to present him with this award tonight congratulations hudson [Applause] come here buddy some presents for you today come right here it's great because you really can see the smiles through the masks so next i'm going to call up our volunteer and it's ms shauna peterson so shauna is here tonight because she's incredible but also on behalf of our entire parent-teacher organization we do some amazing things on our campus and it's all because of the hard work that shawna and her group do for us our best example to date is our elective program which is fully funded by our pto but even besides that they've worked with me the last couple of months to try and support our teachers and recognize them knowing the hard work and everything that they're doing and trying to find different and unique ways to keep our energy up with our staff and our students and we greatly appreciate your outside the box thinking and your effort i know it's hard not being in the hallways and supporting in the classrooms but you guys are finding other ways to do amazing things so thank you very much and next we're going to have mrs coda recognize kelly bottice one of our special ed aides on campus kelly goes above and beyond her job responsibilities every day she is at school early and stays until everything is ready for the next day kelly works hard all day long and is so patient working with students and their behaviors kelly has a strong rapport with students and staff and is always there when we need her kelly knows the schedule and helps get ready for the next step all day long she is consistent in her attitude and drive to get the job done well she even thinks of our students on her own time and purchases items for activities despite personal issues she begins each day fresh and ready to work kelly needs to be recognized for her hard work and dedication to her job thank you kelly for all you do congratulations and lastly if we could have lauren considine come up please she is our certified employee [Applause] and i don't really enjoy reading um this stuff from here but i'm going to read it because it's from your colleagues and i think it's very important since march lauren has done a lot to support students colleagues and the power ranch community lawrence served as our canvas ambassador learning the program and leading staff pd for our teachers still to this day she supports colleagues including myself with questions and troubleshooting she is also she also led virtual staff meditations called mindful moment moments each morning in the beginning of the school year these were also regularly attended i apologize these also then began started started to be done with students my sister is a sixth grade teacher in new york and my sister also was invited to join and she had some other colleagues that joined as well these were in addition to this lauren serves on the site council power ranch leadership team is a student council sponsor and did it all while earning her master's degree in educational leadership her continued support is amazing and we can't thank her enough congratulations lauren [Applause] i'd like to now invite mr mercado and mrs reeves up so that we can honor and highlight the superstars from santan i was going to say president kaler president reece i had it all scripted out president reece dr foley cabinet community members thank you for this opportunity um i absolutely love this time when we can celebrate some amazing people i wish we can celebrate all the amazing people and things that are happening at san ten but we'll take this couple of minutes and celebrate some really good people that make a difference on a daily basis our certified member is our media specialist jen ford if you can come up please i've been told that i speak too much in staff bidding so they told me i have to read miss ford is a dedicated and passionate educator ms ford is a team player on our campus she strives to support all stakeholders to ensure 100 customer satisfaction these past couple of years she has been extremely flexible as we have shifted the roles of the librarian in our district ms ford communicates effectively with miss baker who you see up there as well to provide a positive experience in the media center and i would say it's a well-oiled machine she has a positive rapport with students with staff with the community the media center is a warm friendly and inviting environment at san tan thank you miss ford for making a difference every day on our campus our classified member is laurel baker laurel baker is our media aide miss baker is a positive and supportive staff member at san tan miss baker is always willing to support our campus in any capacity she is the definition of a team player every interaction i have observed with miss baker and students has been with the smile miss baker communicates effectively with miss ford and this is the one one of the reasons why i believe our media center runs effectively on a daily basis we have six sections k through four and five sections actually four sections and fifth and sixth and so these two individuals do an amazing job communicating with each other to make sure that our six-day rotation runs smoothly for our students and staff so there is no doubt that when you enter our media center it is warm and it is welcoming with your smile she is a difference maker at san tan thank you mrs baker for being a dedicated staff member at sentence [Applause] santan's volunteers amy randall i love that energy and passion and that's exactly what you see with miss randall on our campus ms randall is a certified substitute and pto member at centenn mrs randall is absolutely one of our best supporters of our programs and services she is a dedicated substitute that has saved us many times at the last minute to ensure students had support in their classroom she follows the lesson plans the teacher creates and has classroom management she is definitely the an effective substitute on our campus mrs randall serves as the vp of fundraising at san ten so whenever i call her ray what do you want because i have all the great ideas right she is always thinking outside the box to secure resources to support our campus recently during the holiday before the holiday break we had um a tradition of cookies and milk with santa in our gym where we would have 400 people or so it was just an amazing event that we were really sad that we weren't going to be able to host this year so with her thinking outside the box her support and pto support we did a drive by cookies in milk with santa and so it was an amazing event that community members and students and staff were still able to participate participate with so really appreciate that support when it comes to outside the box thinking for our campus she brings great ideas to the table to ensure we provide the best experiences for our students staff and community thank you ms randa for making a difference every day at san tan [Applause] and an amazing student brandon kowalczyk come up here brandon is a fifth grade student at centenn brendan was nominated by his teacher ms stingle as our student points of pride for sentan santan is a lighthouse leader in me school and we believe every student and staff member can be a positive leader i asked my staff to provide me with any student leaders that they believed should be recognized for using the seven habits consistently throughout the school year and brendan rose to the top to be chosen as san tan student point of pride his teacher ms stingle states brendan volunteers anytime there is an opportunity on and off campus he is a role model in the classroom robotics and running club he's just an all-around amazing kid thank you brandon for making a difference every day on and off our campus [Applause] thank you we like to let the families know at this time families and our employees know that while we we do not expect you to stay for the meeting so if you would like to we would love to have you stay but we also know you have other things to do this evening so you are free to leave if you'd like to thank you all for coming thank you to the families who share your employee or child with us president reese members of the board to complete the superintendent's report tonight we have upcoming events coming up as you can see we have lots of meetings and trainings we or thank you for your time this weekend and our first training and we have another one coming up again and another meeting other meetings this month the month of february so that concludes the superintendent's report thank you and we will go on to board comments and i would just like to take a moment to thank mrs kaler as serving as our board president this past year a very difficult year lots happening and um thank you for your dedication to our board and our district for serving in that position and we will go on to other board comments and mrs kaler you had a request for our new board members give us a few highlights about yourselves since you're brand new tonight up here on the dyes so mrs anderson would let you go first hi my name is michelle anderson um i've been in the district as a parent and as an employee my kids started when they were in kindergarten at coronado and now i've got one grad or we have one graduating from williamsfield this year and one coming up in a couple years at williamsville as well um i've been around and when i tried to get emotional but i've i've just i'm a teacher as well i teach at queen creek high school chemistry and physical science um but i've been working with these kids since kindergarten i've been volunteering at after school events and crosswalk loved crosswalk i was there for for a bit and it's so neat i know there's a better word than neat but to be with those these kids i've seen them as little bitties i got to teach them in middle school and possibly this year i hope so um i'll get to hand them their diploma as they walk across the stage it's super super awesome but anyway um i'm just happy to be here and happy to serve in this manner and hope to bring a lot of good experience and just a positive attitude to this wonderful district that i've given blood sweat and tears to so thank you for having me thank you my name is tiffany schultz and i have two daughters in the district who have been in the district since preschool and my daughter's in fifth grade and then second grade at coronado elementary school i volunteered i was the pto president for two years at coronado and volunteered in different various ways i am a small business owner in the community and hopefully bring a different aspect in the business side of things as far as joining together the schools in the business in our community and i'm really excited to serve and be a part of this board any other board comments president reece mrs wilson i just want to thank the two new board members i didn't thank them up until this point because i was waiting for the seat to actually be filled i know there was some question on why i waited but i just want to thank you guys for both for joining and for president reese for coming back another four-year term um on top of the already eight correct i'm like wait maybe i'm speaking out of turn eight years that you've already done and that's a long commitment and i just want to thank you for that so thank you guys both for joining and president reese for continuing thank you all right if we don't have any other board comments we will go on to our next item request to speak mrs reach no request to speak all right we'll go on to our consent agenda i move that we approve the consent agenda items as they are presented second all right any questions or comments regarding any of the items on our consent agenda president reece i do mrs anderson oh sorry okay um 7.8 it marked about some increases i just since i'm new and i'm not understanding i'm just curious if this is typical if it's short term and are we looking for other vendors because some of these were significant president reece board member anderson so one of the things you're seeing here is that this is one of those annual things that we do when we have purchases with organizations that have cumulative totals that go over a certain amount and so you estimate at the beginning of the year what it is you approve it and anytime that is expanding or extending this is one of those uh ongoing maintenance that we do they're always have been through the appropriate procurement processes but it's just because these totals sometimes like for instance a a power company you're going to based on need that will it will accumulate a total and so you estimate based on previous need but if numbers come in different you just continue to monitor it and bring it back and we follow our policy knowing that if there were anything that was an individual purchase over a hundred thousand dollars it comes to you as a separate item to approve so this is one of our ongoing maintenances of monitoring big purchases for multitude of things district wide president reece mrs taylor just a little comment on 7.9 i had talked to dr fowler and dr foley besides just the roofing on cortina i was made aware that weatherization has been submitted to sfb as well and that's kind of would be really nice if the roof and the paint and everything would come together at some point for that little mismatched school over in cortina but anyways i just wanted to point that out that that has been submitted to sfb and let's keep our fingers crossed president reece mrs i just want to thank um all the teachers in 7.2 who are doing six fifths we're getting our next round or our next batch of approvals for six-fifths hours for the second semester and there are a lot of them and i just want to thank them and all the teachers every day who are going above and beyond and the staff who are going above and beyond to make the school year happen because you guys are the ones who are making this year happen for us so thank you just to tag on to that mrs wilson we have pages of um approvals on our 7.2 for lots of staff like you said taking six fifths classes so our high school teachers who have volunteered to teach a full day plus an online class we are we have items on here for coverage and where teachers are stepping in for other teachers and we have other staff members who are stepping in and helping cover when someone is out so we have a lot of items on 7.2 so thank you for bringing that up because it is the teamwork and cooperation of all of our staff within this district to continue to make the instruction happen for our students i noticed elementary specials teachers on there and elementary fifth and sixth were also teaching online and doing their full day of classes it was just it was remarkable so thank you any other questions or comments all right all those in favor aye aye aye motion carries five zero we will go on to our information items 8.1 the second quarter special education day school report president race members of the board this is again um going back to the theme of the question miss board member anderson had about updates for you on um how we're spending with our estimate of what we've budgeted and where we are at this point in the year and this year we're bringing quarterly reports back for you if there are any questions mrs miller would be happy to answer them this is more for information purposes and if there's any questions she'll be happy to answer just as a quick note if we have a student that we feel we cannot provide the level of education they need and they go to a day school the district is responsible for paying that tuition for the day school so i know these will show up in your vouchers as well and so you will see them and we are now getting a quarterly report of what it does cost for the district to pay for kids to be educated outside of our district that we can't meet their needs but i do want to thank mrs miller for all the changes and the hard work that you've made to help keep some of these students and that we can provide the services for them within our district and you've made a huge difference for those children so thank you any other comments questions all right then we'll go on to 8.2 our hr quarterly esi report good evening president reese vice president wilson members of the board this evening just as dr foley mentioned in terms of the update in relation to this bed services we're also providing an information update to our educational service inc in regards to what we're paying for our district substitute teachers our rescue subs and for those who need additional clarification in regards to rescue scubs this school year for the first time we hired what we called rescue scrubs part b scrubs nut scrubs subs a little faux pas there i have pardon me rescue subs across the district um two permanently at the secondary schools primarily the high schools and one um at the elementaries to service if we had absences that were going to be occurring because of cova-related reasons what you'll see is most of the time we've needed to use those rescue subs across the district sometimes we've deployed them from one site to another site depending on the fill rate at the other sites as well as needing other subs throughout and covering in some cases covert related in some case other pre-planned activities as well as you'll see on there our district hourly subs so we have aids and peras whenever we can get them one thing and you've probably noticed in our superintendent status reports is that our fill rates aren't as high as they have been in the past and that is because those that are in our sub pool aren't interested in working right now because of kovid so at times there's been a little bit more pressure in that regard but our overall attendance in terms of our teachers this year isn't largely different than last year it's really our substitute fill rate where we hovered over 90 in the past and this year it's been hovering around 70 percent president reece mrs anderson um so the remaining balance for the remainder of the school year is the 948 569 is that correct yes board member anderson that is correct okay and forgive me for not knowing and this goes to towards paying the teachers whenever they cover or that's a separate fund no that is a separate fund our teacher coverage that showed up in terms of the consent items that were earlier is separate fund this is specifically towards esi for all the services we render with them okay with such a significant amount not saying to spend it all but there's absolutely no way to entice people more people to come in and help out to pay more or do anything to take that burden off the teachers it is something we're looking at in terms of future years some of you may or may not recall previously we vendored out i'm drawing a blank on their name right now smart schools smart schools smart schools sold to esi and esi purchased them we had already obligated another contract one of the things we're looking at this year into next year is whether or not we can bring those services back in house for the cost fee that we have for administration services we could probably look at bringing on another staff member to help in those areas and then be able to raise our substitute daily rate as well as our long-term rate as a result we are competitive to our surrounding areas with the exception of one school district that i'm aware of that a couple months ago increased their sub rates quite heavily but it would be a good time for us to assess that as we look into the spring for next school year any other questions thank you all right we'll go on to 8.3 with our athletic update president reese members of the board um i'm not one for putting pictures in powerpoints but if i did there would be a roller coaster right on the front because it has been very interesting uh beginning of this aia sports season tonight we're going to talk about just the timeline some of the changes that happen uh some of the aia mitigation strategies that we've implemented give you an update on where high schools are at where our middle schools are at and then we need to acknowledge some people who've done an outstanding job in moving our athletics forward traditionally the winter season starts with practices the week of november 1st with normally the first game around november 23rd that's right before the start of thanksgiving this year because of covet it was moved back and adjusted to january 4th and then teams were given the option to start practicing on december 30th that was at the option of the coach permissive practice and so many of the teams were ready to go they jumped in and started practicing with the anticipation we would come back and start with competitions on january 4th then the aia moved it back to january 18th so now we knew we had two additional weeks that we could practice then on january 7th which was a very interesting day the aia executive board voted to cancel the season a lot of i would say uproar a little bit of it from our people our coaches and and just trying to figure out what was happening and on that day we did pause practices on that day we'll follow the rules and they said the sports weren't going to go so we paused our practices and then we found out the next day on saturday that the aia executive board was calling an additional meeting on january 12th and so we allowed our practices to continue one of the things that came out of this was there was such a drive and need i believe for our communities to play not just our communities the surrounding communities everyone in the state that as soon as the aia canceled a lot of other organizations said well we'll host a league we'll do what we need to do the basketball coaches association of arizona had already come up with a schedule and a plan on how they were going to implement it whether the aia was going to be involved or not so on january 12th the a executive board re-voted and this time it was a 6-5 vote for the start of the winter season and so they adjusted it we kept the the start date the same and we started our competitions yesterday on the 19th so the mitigation strategy they put in place and honestly this is where i'm really glad that the aia tried to do this and then we're not dealing with outside organizations because while we're following the aia mitigation strategies we have more ability to implement rules and have people follow the rules the first one that they did was all the everyone in the gym or on the field is to wear a mask at all times including during competition so that's not just the the coaches and the players the referees the parents the people working at the table all of them have to wear their masks at all times now granted when you're in physical activity sometimes the kids will pull it down or remove it to catch a breath as long as they're just not trying to be blatant and get rid of it then we're going to be considerate of that there's a monitoring form that all coaches will have to fill out and turn in to the opposing coach saying we've checked with everyone and they're coveted clear as of right now and and basically signing off that we're following the rules and then the officials look at that as well before the contests one of the things that came out and one of the positive changes i believe that happened because of the shutdown originally there was going to be no fans at all and in the clear gym or a clear stadium and it's about competition however the aaa came back and said we'd like an opportunity to have the parents because we know that sports is not just for the participant but it's also the parents are so heavily involved and so the aia said that you're allowed to have a student athlete purchase up to two tickets for parent and guardian only and so then we can manage that it's not that they get two tickets to give to their friend or their girlfriend or anything like that it's two tickets for the parent to garden only guardian only and so we are doing that as we uh have these games um on the bench and sidelines we have to spread apart and so it's not the typical gym setup that you see if you were to come in there and they must be cleared between games and so what happens on that and i was at williams field last night i went to williams field and was there as they had a game against camp poverty for boys basketball and the idea with clearing the gyms is twofold one is parents can only stay for the game that their son or daughter participates in they can't stay for the entire program and so we need them to exit the second one is and i need to get a shout out to mr stengel who's right back there they put on the ghostbuster backpack and then they do the electrostatic sprayer and splurry down the benches and spray down the bleachers so that when the new crowd comes in that it's already been sprayed down and so um that that's two reasons why we're doing it but it really does help us with the crowd control and so we don't have people that are overlapping but let's say a parent had someone that was on the jv team and the varsity they would exit and then they would come in when we allowed the varsity people to come in and i think that's an important part of the mitigation strategies we do have to have our strategies posted and so we have them available as well as and and i think here's the thing for the aia if we have member schools who are not following the rules the officials have the right to cancel the game so if the crowd is not wearing the mask officials can look and say we've warned you we've warned you we're done we're canceling the game should a game get cancelled then that school would not be allowed to use aia officials for the rest of the season basically canceling their season and so the idea is let's take this seriously and if we're going to be allowed to have the opportunity to have games and that we can have a limited number of fans there then let's appreciate what we're getting because the alternative is is nothing or it's being run in situations where people can be combined like the club tournaments you hear about now where people are all over the place not messed up not following the rules and that's the last thing that we want mr blatts go ahead um i had a question i know that the aia had originally said that club ball they had to if a kid was playing football they had to wait two weeks that's still an effect actually they kind of pulled that because of the cancellation and restart because honestly as soon as they canceled people threw in club tournaments and there were club tournaments that happened they didn't feel like that was fair to the kids who went and participated in that thinking that they wouldn't have a season and then two days later now they have a season but then they'd say whoa but you can't do this and so you have to sit for two weeks as well so they didn't think that was fair so they did not continue with that so if you'll notice our winter season sports that are competing right now we have boys and girls basketball boys and girls soccer and boys and girls wrestling the games did start yesterday and honestly one of the challenges moving forward as we talk with the athletic directors we know there are situations where teams will be quarantined or cancelled in games because of covet we have a situation with that within our district right now we follow our covet guidelines and when we do that we're prepared to not hold games and practices and and that's just the reality of what we live in and so it's going to be kind of a continue to be up and down we might find out on a tuesday morning we're not playing tuesday night because the other team's there or vice versa we have to contact somebody and say we're no longer going to be able to participate in the game and we'll have to be doing scheduling and that's going to be a challenge and that's really where our athletic directors step in and the communication they have with not only the aia but other member schools around saying who's got a game who needs a game let's find something so we can compete our middle school at the same time the east valley conference follows the direction of the aia and so they're using the same mitigation strategies and so it's been a little bit different to control doing that because typically you don't buy a ticket to go to a middle school game and so they're working with their families through emails and so they can keep track of who's there and not just let anyone go to the games saucemen hosted their games last night talking to mr keeling he said it went really well and the parents were respectful and appreciative that they could come to the game and it's for the home games and so um they're going to have boys basketball girls softball and cross country they're having a small three-week season the evc and then they start their third season sports which is here girls basketball boys soccer and wrestling and we anticipate those ones to start the week of february 9th if we remember they're trying to take four seasons and condense them into three and then we lost even more time and so it's condensed but it is providing an opportunity for the kids to compete for our schools and so the acknowledgement first i need to acknowledge the coaches and the players who have been practicing and been anticipating and really it's been stressful on them because here we're ago we're not a go they've been practicing for six weeks and it is very atypical of what they're used to and so we appreciate their flexibility and their commitment to what they're doing because it would be easy to say ah let's let's try something else but they're ready and and we know that you know especially at the high school level these coaches give their years and their lives to this and their dedication and it's not just the season it's all of the other work that goes into that and so we'd like to publicly say thank you to our coaches and thank you to our players for being supportive and for continuing to follow the rules and for continuing to represent us in the best way possible and then finally there's four people that are really important within our district that really have a thankless job because of all the work that they do um our athletic directors at higley high school mr aaron dilley at williamsfield high school mr darrell stengel cooley middle school louisa schwartz and sasebo middle school brandon keeling and just publicly we'd like to say thank you because it's been a whirlwind for them because the first time something happens that's the first point of contact for a lot of parents and they've been able to handle a lot of tough situations with grace and with patience and with communication and on a personal not i'd like to thank them because i think we're developing a nice rapport where as a district we can talk and try to solve things as a district and not individually as schools but all the hard work they do and daryl thank you very much for all the hard work you do leading an athletic program so that's our athletic update thank you thank you president reece i have a question is that okay yep mrs anderson okay um david um it i see that so the spectators not so the not the home team their families nobody can attend it it's just the home team parents the two tickets correct correct it is just a home team and i'm not anticipating anything from our community but do we have a plan in place for enforcing in the stands or anything else are we paying people to walk around are we going to how we handling this because we've all seen the youtube videos where sometimes we go south i didn't know if there was a plan in place or if that's another day to talk about oh no that's correct we can talk about that right now we um remember anderson we first it's how we limit the tickets and parents can only we can only get two tickets and who we let through the door first is really the important part so we use gofan parents are allowed to buy them and then we have a list that they would come in and they don't just do the ticket they have to match the ticket the id to the name that's within synergy that says they're a parent or guardian okay and then when you look at the number of teams for instance last night at a home basketball varsity basketball team you have 12 to 15 kids on there so at the most we're talking 24 to to maybe 30 parents there we probably had 25 there last night we have personnel athletic directors other school employees we still are continuing to have security their ticket takers and our workers to monitoring that and with that limited number of people it's interesting how spread out the gym can become they know we don't even pull out the bleachers all the way so we pull them out part of the way and then they can spread out and for the night that i was at and then talking with mr dillian higley said the parents were very very you know once again appreciative worthy mask we will be there to remind them honestly i think it's a little different when you don't have student sections you know and and some of those behaviors and things because they're high school kids and how they want to yell the game is very different from a sound aspect because you don't have people yelling all the time but yes we do have people that are monitoring and we're very being very specific and we there was someone who came up and i'll just share it and said hey i want to can i give my second ticket to someone else and we said no the second ticket is these are for parents or guardians and and that's that's the rule and that's the role that we're going to follow and it's not going to be um kind of a free-for-all in terms of having two tickets i appreciate you guys being proactive instead of reactive that's good thank you thank you um and also on that note um mr lotson heiser is that even if a parent um even of a divorced family and the dad is you know he might be remarried but mom's not on that stepmom's not on the she doesn't get to come in so it's very strict mrs anderson it's just parents and guardians that are in synergy and i know they're following it very strictly um so yeah thank you for that thank you thank you to all of our athletic directors again just the same with this whole last year there is no precedence that we don't have anything to follow we we are creating it as we go and with organizations like aia with our other schools the districts around us and this is what we have to do so our kids can play and it's important to our kids our high school kids this is important for some of them for college and so thank you and the communication to the families on the teams and everything it it's nothing we want to do it's what we have to do right now so i know that puts a lot of our athletic directors in some bad spots sometimes um and i i appreciate the the time and effort you have to take to enforce these rules to give our kids a season so thank you and i have no doubt our community is appreciative that we get to have sports at all so i appreciate the update and being so thorough and thinking it all out so thank you president reese i'd like to echo your sentiments we've talked to students we've talked to parents who in a weekend lost a season and we gained a season so a true appreciation for whatever mitigation strategies we have to do where we are taking them with with purely to heart so we echo your comments thank you all right if there's no further questions or comments we'll go on to 8.4 for our fiscal year 2021 monthly monthly governing board financial report for november and december of 2020.

and during my senior year was uh the first year of mr mitchucki and mr smith being the coaches of the track team and uh i had always like since freshman year i'd wanted to do track specifically throwing uh but we simply didn't have the facilities at all uh i was told by coach kennedy uh basically go to coventry and that's all we have um when we started we didn't have any shot puts we didn't have a javelin we had a single discus basically we had nothing um for our throwing we had to set up a bunch of gym mats outside in the back of the school uh so we didn't crack the pavement um it didn't work uh there's some cracks back there but uh a track would be a great thing to have so the only reason i was really able to uh do what i did was uh i had already had a relationship with people from coventry uh since i played football there and so i had connections with those people and i was able to go there on weekends and practice with them and just like the sheer difference in like what they had versus what we had like i understand we were still building up the team but like they had a shed full of uh full of equipment like they had more than four hurdles uh which was a foreign concept for us um they didn't have to share shot puts the first time i ever threw a shot put was added competition because we didn't have any to throw with so we had to borrow them from other teams yeah it would be a huge help like safety wise because plain and simple a parking lot isn't a track we can't pretend it is uh no matter how many times we uh measure it see oh if we run around three times and it counts as a full track but i mean shot put specifically it's not a tremendously difficult thing to have it's literally uh seven feet of concrete and if you want you can have gravel but it's not a very difficult thing to have but i feel like it could uh as mr turkey touched on uh it could bring in more people because i mean like going when i was going to high school like i said i wanted to do track but we just simply didn't have the facility so i'm sure there's dozens of other people that saw saw the same thing i mean uh eo has a track so for columbia students that are deciding if they want to track it's far easier to choose eo over bolton when we just don't have one that's it thank you thank you riley i know mr mushrik is trying to talk but we can't hear him a year and a half ago so um oh i'm sorry claire actually graduated in the spring go ahead claire hi can you hear me hi claire so um yeah i had a great experience with bolton track um although i would have loved having a track in our field but um i was captain for two years and that gave me great leadership skills and i um got all-conference i went to i placed at states and i now compete at eastern because of my experience um for track but so for me i was a jumper and like mr mistricki showed the picture of the pit like it was a really like the runway was all pavement so i actually i it was my junior year i developed like shin splints and that caused me um to sit out on some practices and even one or two meets and also um just like a lot of the sprinting and all that on the pavement was really tough for like everybody like for me the shin splints but other people developed injuries and i think just because all of our competitors they all have tracks i maybe like one or two doesn't have tracks including us but like so it puts us at a slight disadvantage because they practice every day with a track and we don't so i just think we would very much benefit from one thank you claire um next is senior corey peacock who throws javelin i hope he's still here hello hi corey hi corey um so my name is cory peacock i'm a senior at high school and i just have a little to say uh throughout my four years here at bolton high one of my absolute favorite experiences has been being on the track team um but one of my biggest setbacks throughout my career was not having an actual track for me to practice on um though i feel my progress was outstanding with the help of my extremely hard-working dedicated coaches i felt that having access to something more like the real thing being a track um would have greatly been would have greatly benefited me in addition as i'm proud to have these wonderful gentlemen backing me as my mentors as i begin my collegiate career as a javelin thrower as i plan to in college um i could not help but question whether or not i'm missing out on something not having the opportunity to practice on an official javelin pitch uh looking back in these four amazing years of track and field i really hope sincerely that future athletes who go to bolton uh will be able to have a real track to practice on as i strongly feel that with that i along with other fellow athletes of my class could have had just that small edge in order to obtain things such as scholarships at our respective um universities that's all i have thanks corey and we just have one more student with us uh which is george chikulski george uh has come to bolton from columbia george is a senior distance runner hi can you all hear me hi george we can that's great um so i came from porter obviously and a lot of times at porter the general consensus is if you like athletics go to eo smith everyone really kind of overlooks bolton high school i had the pleasure of meeting mr mushrik and mr smith at a running camp like two years ahead of time so i knew personally this seems like a great place but a lot of kids don't have that they get their one day tour and they don't really get all they could i think if students could see a good track and good athletics and they they know that they could compete and have fun they would come here more and the numbers are really a lot of the students from porter go to eo smith they go away um and we could get that number up we could get more students here and they would enjoy it and they'd stay and i just think having a track and having good athletic facilities for them to participate in would help them a lot thank you all right well thank you all uh first of all thank you students for showing up thank you members of the board of education administration and community for hearing us out i'm happy to discuss it further but i know i went way way over time so thank you i hope everybody has a great night and stay healthy and safe thank you everyone for your commentary um it's helpful to have all input from all parties and i know this has been an issue that we've talked about for years and um hopefully we won't continue talking about it for years uh next we have additions to the agenda oh do we have any more comments from the public any submitted or anyone else here okay uh do we have additions to the agenda we do not this evening i i would just like to say thank you to mr mishriki and our students for coming out tonight i greatly appreciate it and to our honorees you all don't need to stay on but you're welcome to continue to join us thank you thank you we're on to routine business then chair romeo okay uh do we have a um motion to approve the minutes of the december 10th 2020 regular business meeting so moved this is chris thank you second second this is ben and ben thank you uh is there any um discussion or edits that anyone would like to see on these minutes uh this is chris again i have no edits but i would like to thank the superintendent for following up on my request of the last meeting to offer minutes that are a bit more reflective of what the board members actually ask and say i appreciate that thank you thank you yes they were very detailed anyone else okay all those in favor of approving these minutes say aye aye aye opposed we have an abstention me got rich stains um that passes unanimously or suffers i'm sorry uh committee reports capital committee so uh our kappa committee met with the board of selectmen in the you know the overall committee on december 16th and we reviewed the the lists that we had prepared and presented to the board previous to that we actually went through a very detailed list of the full five-year capital improvement plan um kind of updating on what the scope of all the projects were moving forward and then spent some time focusing on next year the fiscal year 2022 plan it's been decided that there there's really two categories for projects in 2022 there's going to be the typical capital improvement plan that comes out of the town budget and there's also expected to be a bond package since there are a lot of large-scale big-ticket items that are on the schedule so as we were talking about what was going to go into the bond package some projects actually specifically one of the board of education practices moved forward from future projects because it kind of fit in with the projects that would be talked about for the bond so um the board of education projects that are anticipated to be part of the bonding package are the center school roof replacement and masonry repair the center school hvac replacement of the existing equipment potentially the new air conditioning in the center school based on the feasibility the greenhouse at the center school and the high school soccer fields and the science high school science lab that's the one that had been projected out in 2024 but it's been moved forward it's currently it's been moved forward the items in god i'm sorry was that the bcs science lab or high school high school science lab sorry yeah oh you that's what you said i'm just that's what i have in my the notes no i think it's joe and daryl correct me if i'm wrong i think it's the bcs science lab i believe so i think it's the bcs lab yeah oh yeah you are correct sorry ecs science facts no worries the yeah the high school science labs are fairly recent the the items that are included in the capital improvement plan from the budget are the center school exterior door replacement the septic system evaluation window the balance of the window replacement and high school commons eight audio visual and lighting upgrades the final meeting our expected final meeting for kappa is january 27th where the list is going to be finalized and and voted on and then that will go to the board of selectmen there was some conversation when we were discussing the high school fields about some type of prep work to to look into whether or not a track could be accommodated um the the bond i'm not quite sure how the timing is going to work for from design standpoint and getting estimates and getting into the bond but there is there has been conversation about that that project being expanded to at least to provide the foundation the the pad size big enough for a track and so it is the border section are aware of the request and the need and the desire to have that so i would suggest perhaps that follow up with mr mishriki maybe they uh submit a similar letter to the board of selectmen that's all i wonder too if maybe we should bring that to our kappa meeting i could forward it on to that's what i'm sorry that's what i was suggesting maybe they they submit to the board of selectmen so that when ahead of that meeting so it can kind of help inform the conversation of what's there's no it's a tbd budget on that i believe no we actually do have a placeholder dollars for that but um prior to the january 27th meeting i would i think it would be helpful to have a letter sent to the board of selections it's certainly a good idea uh thank you very much on to the curriculum committee yes we met on tuesday ria also joined us um we had a review of the five-year plan for curriculum and how that's going to be addressed you know like each topic over the next five years um we had a presentation on the state mandated and also created by the state um a course that's going to have to be in place not next year but the following year um we have to at least offer it and it's african american black and puerto rican latinx course of studies um and we had a really in-depth presentation on that it looks like a pretty intense class we also had a fantastic presentation on the probability probability and statistics um textbooks um that she reviewed and you know piloted parts of um that we will be looking at possibly this meeting or next sarah next meeting meeting okay um but she did a lot of work and research to come up with what looks like a pretty good um textbook for us so that was it chris was there anything else oh you covered everything quite well thank you i should have asked before did anyone have any questions for scott or now does anyone have any questions for sue uh scott this um this is ria um i just have a question about the field uh so so right now there is a plan for soccer the soccer field correct yes to improve the in its current location to improve the the landscaping that the pitch of the slo of the field the crown and the drainage um and then to res you know beside it so so that would that would that be enough work to incorporate the uh a track or you need to pad the flat area the pad would have to be increased in size the field re-centered if we didn't have a track um accommodate be accommodated around the soccer field so it would if the the one point roughly 1.5 million dollar placeholder fee that would not cover the expanded site which just the site slopes off pretty drastically after the field so to build that up to the appropriate dimensions for the track is not included currently in the budget so do you think it would be another 1.5 million no it wouldn't double it to certainly to create the footprint but um it just it then it's a question of what is what is built you know that's you have to create a bigger pad and then you have to then if you start actually looking into the construction of a track then you have that expense there is also conversation about putting in the and i i'm not sure if it's in the budget or not the uh at least the infrastructure for lighting it would be conduit and bases but not necessarily actually installing the lighting at this point but having a pathways in place for that so it could be used in the evenings as well and would you also like in the center of the track would you have those other activities i don't know that would be it'd be the soccer field so i don't know how some of the field events would work in conjunction with uh soccer field in the middle oh the soccer field's in the middle that's how it would work yes we don't have that much land oh okay well i really feel that um after listening to the the coach and the students that it it is important for us and also the knee ask recommendations that it's really important for us to to do more than just talk about it if we can i i fully agree i understand that like i said so this is included in the potential budget for the um funding at 1.5 million right we don't even have a number for the center school roof which i believe was going to be in the 2 million range the town is looking for a new fire truck at 630 thousand dollars and the demolition of the natural municipal center and whatever their hope to do to do for the new or expanded town hall so we're looking at a bonding package if all projects are included of what seven million dollars that's going to go to the town for approval and i don't disagree on what the high school needs by any means for for athletics i agree with everything they said about attracting athletes retaining athletes but right so i think the most the best we can i mean at the minimum we should be shooting for is to make it ready to receive a track and not because it will never we'll never do the landscaping again to get it built up again are there um kristen are there any um grant possibilities to write for grants or like locally or you know nationwide or we could do a gofundme page yeah i mean you know really i mean that's really about it i mean probably going back i'm not even sure how many years ago at this point uh we had probably a year and a half or so worth of discussions with the board of selectmen and the board of ed um about soccer a track and field there was discussion about making the um tennis courts go from four to five rearranging where things were um setting up the conduits for lighting but not putting lighting in and then things just sort of happened and kind of fell apart i guess is how i want to say that so there's been discussion about this for as long as i've been here which is nine years now and there was discussion going on before i got here so yeah if funding sources were found like requests for you know proposals would that be something that the board or the school you know the school district would um be interested in exploring well it would become a a board of selectmen project because it goes out to bond so i mean i'm certain that the school system would be interested in that but i cannot speak for the board of selectmen i've just been i mean i've written a couple of grants for the uh bolton heritage farm commission and so i do work with they all have to be approved by the board of selectmen so everything's been approved but you can get some you know there's money out there for things so maybe um we could explore that anyway absolutely i don't think anyone's going to turn down a grant so exactly okay chris when i was at the cave convention in 2019 i approached the various architectural design firms that were there and asked if they could give me a ballpark figure on you know what does it typically cost for a high school track to be constructed and you know of course they hemmed in hard and didn't want to give exact numbers but they did say that you know you're you're looking at probably two to five million dollars depending on how many bells and whistles and what sort of materials you make the track out of um so and of course that would be in addition to the work that would need to be done to level the soccer field and um that number would include a lot of the sub drainage and prep of this subsurface that is already a lot in large part being accommodated by it would have to be increased but that drainage system you know that there are certain subsurface things that would be included in that number that may already be captured but i don't disagree you know and and then it's the field piece and how much if it's land that's just dedicated to the the field events um and setting those up which you know so that that's why they hem in hall by the way there's too many variables right okay i'm speculating quite correctly speculating i think well thank you thank you for letting me ask my questions by all means you know i think um to scott's point scott i think and andrew that we can just forward to the first selectmen and ask that it be uh shown for consideration at our next kappa meeting what mark had shared with us tonight since it's been shared with the board of ed we should be able to just forward that on are you okay with that sounds like i am all right but you know there's benefit minimum there's also you know benefit to students showing up at a board of selectmen meeting and a couple of comment there i think oh i agree i agree i think i i don't have any issue with forwarding it on behalf you know that with our blessing or our recommendation so yeah and i think that mr mishriki uh and company and i think there's a lot more company than that was with us tonight um would be very eager to go to a board of selectmen meeting and share um and i they were just trying to be respectful of certainly coming to the board first which they absolutely did um and i don't think the board of selectmen has a meeting prior to our kappa meeting so we could share it with kappa and then i can share with uh them also the board's thoughts about them taking their show to the board of selectmen meeting which likely would be if they went to the next one would be the one where the capitalist is being voted on correct all right i think it would speak volumes to have uh someone other than us board members speaking about that uh definitely it was powerful to hear the personal experience rather than say about others personal experience but okay so are we all done with that and the curriculum then we can move on to the finance committee report anne's with us right yes yes thanks andrew um okay so finance met this morning and at this point we are the budget is 41 expended as compared to last year at this point we were 40 expended um and we have a few routine transfers and a couple of transfers requiring some board approvals so if the superintendent could take us through this kristen you're muted i'm having a great conversation with myself over here thank you we needed to purchase uh printers um so we had a reclassification there on a technology supplies from travel into technology since uh administrators aren't using travel monies to go anywhere right now we needed a subscription for seven bolton high school students at 99 dollars a month uh we had a re-class to cover the cost of the east con contract to support director of instructional technology and curriculum to manage plan and implement new systems acquiring acquired during our one-to-one rollout as well as support with data privacy google asset management and technology planning you will also see additional monies just as a precursor to what's coming in the budget ask for some additional um technology uh support uh for a day day and a half a week next year because we are now one to one and teachers who are teaching all day who get a stipend afternoons it's just not enough for us to keep up with the issues that we're having and we need additional um technician support so that part's coming in the budget so that's just a precursor um we purchased viewsonic 18 view sonic boards we reallocated some technology monies that were in the budget to purchase these 18 boards um our boards are failing you've heard that before you're going to hear more about it tonight from sarah and then there will be more to come on the boards a little bit later on for the remaining boards 20 boards that need to still be purchased um we have um five teachers who have um found that particularly in this blended learning environment that their boards that wasn't uh the way that teaching really can happen within their specialized classrooms and that they needed a large screen tv uh instead art being one a visual medium so um mr miceli was able to get some great deals on tvs just before the um christmas holiday and so we were able to take care of that so that teaching can be much improved in those five particular classrooms at the high school we had some more instructional supplies we needed to purchase uh and um purchase of books for every teacher as well and then we have um uh french online subscription and um to purchase um some more instructional supplies so we'll need a motion to approve the transfers please i'd like to make a motion to approve the december transfers recommended by the superintendent thank you ben three seconds thank you ria do we have any questions or discussion on this transfers hearing none uh all those in favor of the motion bye bye is there anyone opposed or would like to abstain hearing nothing we'll continue on to our next item so could i just i would like to call to the board's attention one other piece if i could casal is on the page where i need her to be um and that is uh the two ninety 46296 um because i'll wear those so um we were able to reduce uh reported expenditures by that amount um because these monies were reclassified to the additional coronavirus relief funds that we received if you recall um that i shared last month we applied or we requested additional funds and were granted them so you will see uh additional uh savings there um so uh we currently have um up top you will see a projected balance of 318 251 dollars and we will be uh requesting a transfer uh total of fifty four thousand three hundred dollars fifty thousand eight hundred of that will be going towards the purchase of twenty additional busonic boards which sarah's going to talk about a little bit later but since we're on this page i just want you to have a precursor right now so that you can see that we well have the money to do this and uh request a transfer of thirty five hundred dollars to purchase seven touchscreen two-in-one laptops uh for our our six to twelve math teachers who are in real need of this technology to improve mathematics instruction in a blended learning environment so we'll come back to this um but i wanted you to see about the monies there okay thank you uh is that all for finance that is all for finance i'll set cassahl thank you we need a motion uh not for this part we're gonna do it later on in the meeting so you're good good night thank you thank you uh on to transportation committee um yes so transportation um matt and um are we going over this yeah so we'll review it in executive session transportation met on december 21st and uh we're talking about that in executive session tonight thank you okay thank you thank you all right and now on to the student representative reports midterms started next week and they stretch from thursday until friday or tuesday until friday with two exams for two hours each day the students will be taking them from home while the teachers are conducting them in the classroom and the junior psats are scheduled to be held on january 26th and the cia ciac confirmed today that winter sports will start on tuesday of next week so a lot of kids are excited about that and students have been doing a great job wearing their masks and social distancing in school and also cleaning out their lockers every day before they leave and mr mishriki who was just on has created something called the bbn which is kind of like a spin-off of a news network for the high school and they're pretty funny they have segments where he and mrs noheimer hosts them and they give the latest school updates on sports events and other miscellaneous things and they also recognize students who are doing well in school and have a segment with mr dennis where he interviews different students who come out as guests some of these students have been megan minikucci for her um cross-country achievements and a group in a personal finance class who has won the stock simulation so it's pretty funny and that's all thank you very much uh feel free to go do your homework or stay with us andrew can i ask can i ask a question ria thank you jack um okay is this only uh uh broadcast in the school or can yes it is not for public consumption oh okay and and i don't mean bad by that partly because of the inside you know tongue and cheek type stuff but also we don't seek out permission for kids to be in public it really everybody knows it's just kind of an internal piece okay thank you emin jack thank you very much i know you have to study for midterms today thank you uh do we have any other uh community meeting reports this evening is anyone think we have such things well yeah there haven't i haven't actually had any community meetings but i did want to report uh that crack is is considering we'll be considering at the january meeting next week changes to the correct constitution these have kind of resulted from some questions i raised last summer and the the major changes that they're proposing to make are to eliminate the board of directors um currently there's a confusing system where there's a correct council which includes one representative from each member of crack and then from that grouping was selected a board of directors which was supposed to be i think 13 to 15 people or somewhere there and um this caused some confusion well regularly caused confusion um and there was an issue this past summer where they nominated more people to be on the board of directors and the current constitution allowed for and so i raised some questions about that and they formed a committee to look at it and the i think it's a very elegant change to simply get rid of the extraneous body and just have one body it would also do some more minor things like allowing for virtual meetings to take place and allowing officers the executive committee to handle emergency matters in the event that a meeting can't be arranged with the full council so uh like i said we'll be discussing that uh at next week's meeting and most likely voting on it at the february meeting um if if anyone would like to see a copy of the proposed changes i'm happy to forward that document to you but in my view they are good changes and will clarify the governance of crack thank you do we have any questions or is there anyone else who has any community meetings to report on not hearing anyone so i will now turn things over to the superintendent for the superintendent of schools report great thank you so um as i think everyone is aware we returned from distance learning on monday january 11th and i announced that we will remain in this model at this point until the end of february our bcs k5 students are continuing with four days a week of in-person learning on monday tuesdays thursdays and fridays grades 6 through 12 is going to remain in hybrid and wednesdays will remain distance learning day for all students families again who continue to opt for full-time distance learning will be allowed to continue to to learn from home i will offer right now we're hanging on by a thread staffing wise i hope that we can continue to uh remain open and i at this point uh the other the only other thing i want to call uh the board's attention to at this point is that the state of connecticut has received 490 million dollars earmarked uh as like second phase of coronavirus relief funds to go specifically to education i was notified on tuesday that we would be receiving wednesday that we would be receiving notice tomorrow um about how much money each district is going to receive or can allocate or spend and what it can be used for uh you will recall the last time when they announced when we were going to find out it took a number of weeks before we actually found out so as soon as i know more i will let the board know i am hopeful that they allow communities like bolton to also utilize funds this time around for things like staffing and technology which we were not allowed to use uh in the last round because we have uh utilized the resources that we had the last time around for our ppe and all of those components for the most part i'm going to now turn it over to mr g yard uh good evening everybody uh as miss superintendent heck said it wasn't on my slide but yeah the staffing is very tight right now and we're doing the best we can it's day by day overall the staff and students so we're excited to be back in person this week uh which has been great to rewind a bit though the eight days uh prior to this week starting on december 21st uh through january 8th we had a very successful stretch of distance learning the feedback from students teachers families about distance learning now compared to the spring has been very encouraging combined with the feedback we received the administrators have made it a point to stop into many of the online classes and very pleased with the progress that we've seen firsthand we have well-established schedules that are similar to in-person learning days which has been a nice bonus from the spring to now the online life classes are very well attended by students attendance is up more and more students are putting their cameras on which is a big thing especially for engagement and most importantly students are becoming more actively engaged with their learning whenever we're learning remotely whether it's a stretch of distance learning or it's our learning from home wednesdays we continue to make improvements because of the great work of the teachers and students but also just as equally important is the support we've received from parents and families because we know it's not easy to be working and have a full schedule and get your kid on the computer health and safety continues to be a priority in the buildings students are doing an awesome job of wearing their masks social distancing washing their hands sanitizing their hands and using their desk shields the shields have been amazing to the point where a couple of parents have asked me what company did you use because i want my my work company to use them so it's been a nice addition and the kids are appreciating having those uh the families were excellent about notifying the school about travel plans over the break and following the guidance from the health department keeping the schools open and safe i can't emphasize this enough really is a team effort and i'm happy to say that i feel like everybody's trying their best bcs participated in the annual ccmc pajama day on december 11th uh which is a statewide effort to raise money for ccmc the bcs staff and students raised 1 352 for ccmc which is the highest amount since i've been in bolton this is great news especially during these tough times the staff last but not least the staff and students are continuing to think of ways to bring positivity and excitement into the school days we continue ms saffron meets with the pbis committee regularly to plan spirit days share buster shout outs on the morning announcements uh and we share a lot of success stories with each other and with families we try to make it a point to call home to share some of those positives overall the climate in the building is i would say very positive and we're just going to continue pushing forward together i'm going to now turn it over to mrs saffron for a bcs remote learner update thank you um as we can see here we we are changing um every month and there's a little bit of movement and what you'll notice uh recently is that overall we had a slight um increase in the number of students that have um switched to fully remote um the remote learning parallel track so some increases we did have some students return from being remote uh for a longer period of time to joining back in the classroom we have some intending to return within the next few weeks but i did snapshot this is as of monday's data so it does change daily between um students returning as well as choosing to go remote and we just really work with the parents the families we also work with the teachers to make sure we have successful transitions both ways so my subjects tonight is all that is normal in a high school and not pandemic related we're gonna go gonna grow some normal type stuff tonight with uh with a few quick updates so uh as the board might recall from conversations in the past the um the manchester community college program um dual enrollment program kind of dissolved because of changing what they were doing so we continue to investigate opportunities with colleges we have an excellent partnership with the university of connecticut and what they call their ece or early college experience program i'm happy to announce that just this week they certified mrs midford our math leader to teach university of connecticut ec calculus this means that next year's students will the opportunity to get the uconn college credit an actual yukon transcript with calculus on it as well as uh a bolton high school credit as they take mrs midford's calculus class here at the high school so that's that's a nice expansion of that program um as mentioned earlier by our students our mid-year assessments are next week and fully remote for all students and this signals the end of the first semester so i just really want to thank all of our teachers and students for really a really good first semester it has been impressive and it also signals that it's time to start planning for next year so ms johnson and our guidance team has already begun working with our leadership team to finalize our program of studies to include ece calculus um and some of the other new courses you've heard about and um we've started our whole work in powerschool just to start getting ready for next year so it's you know we barely finish the calendar year when we start talking about the next academic year another piece of all of this work is uh mr ginsanti and his work his upcoming meetings with juniors so he will be partnering with our english teacher to meet with every junior coming up soon as they start to work on resumes college essays and all that other pre-application work integrating you know the writing learning piece in the english class along with the the natural necessity of college stuff um mr ginsanti is also working with mrs destiny to begin a work with eighth graders not just at uh bolton center school but i spoke with the school counselor at horace porter in columbia this week and we have a tentative schedule for amy and todd to work with those students early in march um and similar story uh mrs zafran shared with you just moments ago the you know the remote numbers always changing the yellow column is our is our kind of our numbers that have changed since we last reviewed these everybody is up a tick and this as jessica said also a snapshot it changes daily um and we just work i think one of the other things that's made us successful as a district is our teacher's ability to uh welcome returning students and also to kind of embrace uh those families that have made the decision to uh to go remote so that's worked pretty seamlessly for us this year is there anything i can answer for anybody or are there any questions for any of us at this point under this part okay i don't hear any so we're going to move along to miss malinowski for a curriculum update please good evening everybody can you hear me okay great thank you uh so as part of this curriculum update i'd like to begin the presentation with the acknowledgement and appreciation of the tremendous work that our bolton teachers have done to provide us this information this evening um i do want to share that the document i boiled down to will feel a little bit lengthy this evening was originally 65 slides plus 30 pages in a document plus another 15 for the middle school so i um was very cognizant of who our ultimate uh audience was but uh during this reflection our teachers really dug in it was about six weeks of diving in and reflecting uh on how the fall went so the new normal is to pivot quickly and our teachers have been amazing in their ability to learn and teach at the same time and i cannot understate that enough they are learning how to teach in a whole new environment rearrange their curriculum and draw their students in and it as mr giardiv alluded to just visiting the classrooms now is um it it's exhilarating on one hand to really see how amazing things have changed are we perfect no but no no day is ever perfect in this in the classroom and we're continuing to work and to grow and i i'm so proud of everything that everybody has done um so with all that our curriculum our curricula were designed for daily in-person learning and not to be taught in all these different learning environments and so teachers have been having to work to figure out how to make it meaningful content as well as meaningful assessments so this evening's presentation will be an overview of what's happening in both curriculum and assessment the teacher's effect reflection and analysis was guided by the examination of standards addressed units and lessons reviewed in relationship to our various learning models successes and challenges and documentation of assessment practices we then connected this ongoing work to the bolton public schools 2020 2025 strategic plan which you see right here uh as a review um mr miceli i'm ready to go to our next slide uh our four goals and i'm pointing these out if you could take a note also of the graphics at the top we have a little brain for the students success the caring cultures the talent development and resource stewardship so as the administrative team and the leaders we reflected on all the work that the teacher brought forward to us we also saw natural connections to this strategic plan and usually about this time of year we're about ready to give you the beginnings of our strategic plan update so we thought we would tie this together because all of our work very much aligns to these goals and when no you can't see them very clearly all of our little action steps and they're not little but they're little print little font action steps um underneath each goal and so the graphics you will see throughout so to begin with the district-wide trends and all of these points that you can read and i'm not going to read each one again we'll be here only even with the 14 slides i have with this um do all address all four of our district goals in some way and i do have to say the ongoing support for the technology and the online resources from this board from our administrative staff from our teachers teachings about it from our community members sharing what's happening in other places has really been um a lifeline for us so we will be discussing technology a little bit later but that really has allowed us to do what when what i hear in other districts doesn't happen quite in the same way it hasn't been quite as seamless so i do really want to um thank the board for that continued support along with that what has been indispensable has been a common end of day of end of day planning uh for the teachers because now more than anything we're trying to be creative over ways we can connect we never knew how much we planned on the run in the hallway when we saw our colleagues when we could pop over to someone's room next door we can't do that any longer we can't share that so the end of the day has been invaluable for people to catch up with each other we can do that virtually we can maintain a safe environment likewise we can connect with our students who might be remote or have that extra time to be able to reach back with students who weren't in class that day because of they might be on that um their their bulldog day versus their buster day so that that end of day has been very very helpful helpful as well as our wednesdays we have to keep remembering each month we review how many of our students go remote so when we think about equity our wednesdays are very important for making sure we have some consistency throughout the year for all of our students times have been crazy as we all know so being able to count on those wednesdays for all of us has been very important for teaching and learning so moving on to the next slide while all those first ones were really had a lot a very fiscal piece and there's always a piece that is about fiscal responsibility the rest of our work really has most of its support for student success a caring culture and talent development and these aspects are truly interwoven for everything we're doing because we're learning teachers are doing pd as they're teaching as they are trying to build their community and this is just ongoing more than any other year so we have uh really this year when you're asking so how are the kids doing what are we doing we have had to review some skills from the previous year that was common across the district our sequence has had to adjust depending on the different topics people are appreciating the virtual environments for more immediate feedback in some of our some of our classes i'm hearing more and more that with that ability to have um seesaw our google environments kids aren't waiting till the teachers get all the papers grade them that night and get them back it's ongoing it's much more fluid and that's just getting better and better as we learn more we are um moving at our opportunities for partnering in small group is definitely a challenge so things are not the same and you know there's less use of hands-on activities because again we've had to be creative and find online pieces but students are really learning about being a little more self-directed answering their own questions and i've certainly been in many classes and say hey miss malinovsky did you try this with the technology and they're there and it's great and nobody worries about that some as we move along in language arts specifically the standards what they've noticed in looking at the standards we really focused in k-8 on the priority standards the state department of education provided some resources so teachers could really focus on the important standards because our bolton curricula is actually very vast and we really try to hit it all we try to do it all so this document has allowed us to really hone in on what the state has identified as the priority standards and upon reflection k-8 the teachers felt that they were on track except they feel that the listening and speaking standards are challenged because of this virtual environment and as we all know we're attending more of these meetings we can understand that i think the standards were written before we were thinking about maybe some of these speaking and listening standards that may have grown in a digital environment but yet we can't check that box on that part um the nine through 12 grade they feel that they are on track with their standards and then below i know everybody's curious about so how do we know and you will see on at the various content areas the different online platforms that um have been most helpful for that department doesn't mean it's not used in different departments but these were the ones that were highlighted most and certainly things are um you know the thumbs up thumbs down one two three using hand gestures in that regard the in-person online conferring and then again our our summative assessments and much of that's very much what we've done all along our platforms are different in math very similar what has been a great resource for us is that the ready math was designed for a blended learning experience so for elementary math class classrooms it was the big piece of how do we regroup from last year and the nice thing with ready math is they were ready to support us with providing us with materials to to um i don't know if there were gaps that were talking about but to fill those needs of maybe you didn't get to a certain unit and so we were we were on par it was it's great that we have this resource nine through twelve they very much prioritized their work this year around the sat and making that their priority the state did not provide priority standards for secondary so that is how the the teachers decided to to hone their focus first what is felt at the high school and as you heard superintendent tech reference math we will be asking for some devices math is really hard to teach in a remote experience especially the higher you get and if it's not an online or written from a program that's already designed for blended learning such as ready math you can't do a long problem very easy easily without the appropriate resources so they are finding that it this has been a challenge across the board and when i go out into um listen and speak with my colleagues in other districts that that is a common theme out there and again below you will see formats that have helped us learn how we know how our students are doing what is tremendous that you might be wondering about in the ready math program there's something called my path it's a totally differentiated individualized pathway that's based on the assessments that we do with ready math and so how i do versus how kristin may do our program will be tailored to us our strengths as well as our challenges again moving along to the next subject science we were able to have resources on the ngss priority standards in k5 and the teachers feel they are on track the online resource that you see below uh mystery science has been something we've used for a few years it was more supplemental this year teachers are finding that it is a more primary resource because it also has they've expanded their platform you know the company has responded uh it also allows for some assessments with it likewise gizmos is a program that was used limit in limited capacity at the high school it's an online lab simulation and i do believe mr gr you can give me a thumbs up because i can see you i believe that the pta is trying to support uh our use our continued use of it at the elementary so that more kids have access to it so a huge thank you to the pta for their support in providing another great resource so that we can tell how students are doing in social studies a very similar story the nice thing in the elementary social studies is often integrated with english language arts so that allows us to stay on track we've all the difference in our covid world is that we've integrated a little bit more of the second step lessons in our social studies lesson in k-8 because as we spoke about earlier this year including more sel the social emotional learning activities our social studies track our curricula has taken that on to make sure we are continuing to do that so that we've not we're not missing students when there is so much to do and 6 through 12 report that they feel that their students are on track as well world language again the teachers there were no resources provided by the state of connecticut for our world language teachers so our teachers did prioritize the standards they actually started that process last year because everybody teaches pretty much their same subject so spanish teachers at the high school stick with spanish students the difference is that collaboration between the buildings and as we know we've had a turnover in staff so we're fortunate that last year there was already a conversation about how to focus our standards and as you can see these are the standards that we used and the difference another difference being in grade eight we were able to maintain french for our eighth graders only by using a program at genuity which is a band-aid at best for some students some students are doing very well it's but it's allowing those students who at least had the basis for continuing on with french and the to keep our french program going it's providing them those opportunities and then again we have our cte and our college and technical mr misselli tell me what it is i why am i always i'm drawing a blank career technical clear i knew college threw me off i'm like no college thank you career technical education our four through eight uh computers is with iste this has been i think everybody's getting some some technology standards this year if they like it or not and uh but our we're continuing on with um more focus on fun on coding than ever and we were again in a response to scheduling needs due to the to covid we did add additional computer opportunity for fourth grade so we did focus with adding some more coding at younger grades and then the cte specific standards at the upper levels teachers are again reporting that they're on track however this content area was the one content that across the board felt that they were moving uh more slowly because if you think about a construction class in a pandemic world in a hybrid schedule it just doesn't it's just they're covering they're hitting their standards it's just slower so um that would that was a one big that one resonated very loudly pe and health they use the sh they follow the shape standards and what was their common message was because of again the schedule and their content there's less opportunity to follow up with people in person so while kids might do something offline that on that ability when they're face to face that's that's more of a challenge for them and again they also feel that they're covering their their content more slowly moving into the arts both visual arts and music our content is again being followed more uh covered more slowly as you do know it took us a bit to get going in with our music because of safety so this has been a very challenging area for our music our performing music performance music especially anything with wins our guitar as we heard i believe last month was fortunate to have that opportunity and anything with percussions also went went a little more at a normal pace and then of course their how they how students perform and we saw that last month um and again music theory which has a strong online component anyway has had a the least amount of impact one thing for the visual arts a students have been encouraged especially in the upper levels to create a home art studio and that has allowed um for some students so that that has been that actually has been a bit of a challenge because that is something we as a board of ed we can't fix that for students so students have to do art where they can do art and so to have that space so that that has been something that we've been working with the art department so that we can support all of our students to do what what they can do best and next mr miceli there we go alright so just going back one we don't want to get into this yet mr macelli i want to make sure anyone has any questions i need a sip of water before i go on chris thank you so i i i have a few questions um and since most of them are quick i'll just go through them and let you answer them uh will there be state testing in the spring would what you've accomplished this fall have been harder at bcs if we were still on a split schedule with the middle school coming in an hour earlier um is latin really included in cte was in the wrong one okay so that was a mistake okay thank you i thank you thank you chris thank you you got that answer so yes yes and thank you okay and then could you talk a bit more about the state priority standards um who came up with them and uh you know were they provided by the department of education and can you estimate what percentage of the overall standards are considered to be priority and then what will a focus only on the priority standards mean for readiness and you know preparation of students especially those who you know are going to need to be moving on to courses that might have prerequisites so i'm going to move back yeah can i go first please yeah um i want to talk about state assessments first actually i'm going to have daryl answer the easiest question of all darryl go ahead the two schedules um yes we are going to have s back this year i have a training no no daryl daryl daryl no no no no you're answering the question about bcs would it have been better or worse schedule yeah you're taking that one all right um 100 uh that moving to one schedule has been beneficial during this time and in just a normal time and the biggest concern was the arrival and dismissal of the parking lot and i see you in the morning mr davies um it's pretty smooth and even once we get back the other half of the hybrid at the middle school i was talking to miss williams the pe teachers on a bus study with me today but i think we have we have a good system and that we figured that part out so on a whole with staffing and just the classes the scheduling like i mentioned with distance learning earlier having a set schedule some of the staff would have been kind of funky and kids would have had it would have been a little off um if we were on the split schedule so it definitely has been great so i'm very appreciative that we did that in advance um that helped us a lot in terms of the s back as of right now s back and state uh day s.a.t are scheduled to happen i will tell you there is a lot of discussion happening about whether or not it should happen um i am in superintendent meetings multiple times every week lots of times talking about covid but also talking about the actual work of school as well um and that is a topic that has come up over and over again and as a whole superintendents are not in favor of this we are being asked to have students who parents or the student themselves are choosing to remain home for learning this year to come into school to take the test um that's a problem uh a big one um and it's it's not being tied to any district-wide results you know in the past we've kind of shown you the district's report card if you will that waiver has happened by the feds and is not happening this year obviously we didn't even do testing last year um we do have a new secretary of education coming on board hopefully soon um and i am not sure what he is going to do and whether or not waivers are going to be granted for the testing so that is a stay tuned right now now the longer question that i'm not sure sarah got all of because i couldn't write that fast i will leave to you and sarah to work out how's that all right and i felt like i wanted to start with your last question about the uh the preparation so the prior so priority standards uh at some point so that that actually came out as part of our when the common core they did identify which were more important to prepare all students for those classes coming for that should prepare everybody so if we just focus on those and do a great bang-up job of those our students are going to be able to move along the extra the all the standards are important some just carry more they go more over more years they provide the foundations for some of the other standards which might not be called the priority standards if that makes sense to you and so uh in bolton you know we we shoot high and all of our curriculum has attempted to hit all of the standards so to to back off and to focus in this during this time more so on the priority standards that we're we're in good shape with that that doesn't mean we're not looking at the other standards but we're not making that the primary assessment right now so so when we when we so how do i know somebody's learned something i need to assess it in some way so we're asking that teachers choose the most important because again as we heard the time is less so focus on assessing those priority standards so we know that we're solid there and all those other standards if those happen to be there you might know it more more informally it might be that thumbs up thumbs middle thumbs down i get a sense of it and we can move along so that's where teachers are using a variety of assessment practices assessments do not look like what they used to and some look like what they used to depending upon the content the age of the students um the activities we're asking them to do uh so i don't know if that helped no that was very helpful actually so i mean just to make sure i understand it it sounds like the priority standards really come more into play with the assessment side it's not that we're cutting back on what is being taught necessarily but that we are assessing the most important parts of what is being taught right we're not cutting so we have cut back i'm going to be honest we've had to cut back some things mostly topics but we've made sure we've not cut back anything that's going to make sure our priority standard is solid if that makes some sense there because assessments also take a lot of time and so helping our teachers learn how to um have assessments also become a learning tool that's a little of the work we're doing this as well now that's that's nothing new but it's moving faster this year and teachers will learn because now i'm learning perhaps you saw a jam board up there quite a bit that's a great way to do formative assessments like sticky notes online it's a great feature well now you have a formative assessment so teacher or it could be a new summative assessment so this is all part of that everything moving quickly so teachers are not um we needed to give teachers a guide as to how can i focus and the priority standards have allowed us to do that and that they found that very helpful and uh the k5 especially because they teach all subject areas they were very thankful to be able to stop and have this review i mean we review more informally we asked for a very formal review i i'm serious it was 65 page i asked them to do a presentation for the administrative team so that we could have really all the details and then they many of them felt that that was not good enough and then created a document on top of that for us so the teachers really appreciated it it was an extension of what we did last year uh where we started during the the distance learning which was that little bit of a free-for-all um to to evaluate but we had the basis so actually our basis of how to reflect on curriculum started last year and so we were able to move quickly and again i have to say this was a lot a lot of work and the teachers they didn't they didn't push back they just did it and and it was very thankful well thank you that that was very helpful um i also just wanted to say that it's very encouraging to me to hear that you know you don't think that our students are falling way behind um and i i have to think that that's you know a credit to you and superintendent hecht and mr giard and mr miceli and and and everyone for all the work that you all did during the summer to ramp up for this and of course all the teachers as well definitely to be commended because you know we're in a crisis situation and it's the leadership that sets the model for the team to follow and you guys have clearly set a strong model and have hired the right people to implement it so thank you thank you thank you and i'm not going to say you know it's not all all rosie it's hard and are some things you know if you as a teacher they're going to say no no not good enough you know what at their gut because teachers really hold themselves up here and but it was the reflection that helped them say because kristin came to us a bit with like it's like none of them came to us in a panic other than what we heard we knew how music fell early on they were in a bit of a panic at the start of the school year the content that can't be i can't cook i can't do culinary the same way i did before so those are real things so is it across the board perfect no you know i'm not going to i don't want to paint that picture but it at this point and we're going to do this again we're going to start looking again at some of our harder data in march we feel like march we'll have some more solid data for us to do an internal look um between our ready assessments and people have had time now to adjust to everything so we feel like the assessment information will be more more realistic as to the state of affairs so you know we will be updating again later this year but at this point we're feeling really good about how our fall went and we've adjusted so how we can move forward and our staff to your point chris before is absolutely to be commended because they have been nothing short of absolutely positively amazing bolton public schools is the clear definition of what teamwork is all about from this girl's perspective are there other questions thank you chris uh i don't have a question but i just wanted to um add my comments to this um and just say that anecdotally um this year has you know it's given me the opportunity to be a fly on the wall um you know so i've got my three kids in third grade sixth grade and eighth grade and i get to hear a little bit of all their classes um so uh you know watching your presentation i'm kind of nodding along like i hear all good and this all jives with what i am uh you know understanding from uh my kids experiences uh the teachers just like knock it out of the ballpark right i mean just everybody has done an amazing job with what we've had to deal with so thank you thank you chris all right kristen i feel like i'm going to have a christian moment i'm feeling a little choked up i don't that's not my role but i am thank you you know teachers are working really hard and i really as is sarah and our administrators yes they are absolutely so for sure are there other questions i don't want to leave any questions unanswered ria i know last time you had some questions about assessment i hope that this answered the questions that were kind of lingering in your mind yes thank you good all right hearing nothing more we're going to move on to technology replacement cycle okay i need to make my screen bigger for this hold on one sec all right so before i get into all of the technology and a little bit of what kristen had mentioned earlier on with a request of a transfer part of our technology plan as you've heard we are now a one-to-one district and that has happened at a lightning pace and excuse me one more moment while i make sure i can see my notes that i'm not missing anything over here um so the the chart in front of you is now considering what do we do because a chromebook we're going to work on the assumption that a chromebook lasts for five years five years out i'm going to assume that we don't want to be in the position of having to replace the number of chromebooks that we just took on so this plan is created with the idea of a way so that we no longer that we can keep to replacing no more than three grade levels so that's anywhere between 50 to in a grade level depending upon the year so at most 210 chromebooks if you had if it was big big grades in every one but that's not really typical so keeping that as a fiscal goal um we're also going to make an assumption that moving forward once this year settles down and into next year that we can get us into some best practices with at the elementary level where our devices will live mostly in the classroom so we will be a one-to-one district but in a ideal world students aren't cracking that device back and forth especially at the youngest for our youngest learners obviously for the fears future we really need to make sure we're one-to-one and that's what this plan makes sure of so where you see that the k-3 is in gray that's because those are the grades that we would like to make sure those devices stay within their grade level and as we look out our first column is 2021 and this is our current status our kindergartners have five-year-old chromebooks and then you'll see one through five the majority are one-year-old these are our newest chromebooks and then six through eight has some of the ones we bought previously and then the high school has a mix the high school also while we do have enough devices to give a device to every high school student i think and i think it might be miss johnson you may be able to help me in this a little bit it's about a third if not more of our students take a school device kids most of the kids have their own device at the high school most do we most i'd say yeah maybe a third to a half of our students yeah i think it's a six like a 60 40 split yeah yeah yeah yep so so that that our so what we've had has worked very well with that now moving out for the number of the years ideally next year we can get new chromebooks for our kindergartners and then moving forward those devices would stay with that grade level so here's their age out over the years and then the second grade assume they keep the ones i'm in the first grade soon to keep the ones that they have again they would age out you begin to see a star well this third year they're still good after that third year but i want to scatter i'd like us to scatter when we purchase our new chromebooks and so we'll use these retire these to be used up at the high school or other great or other areas so those will go into our reserve so that's how this chart is read for that so that we get to a point where every fourth grader will then get a new device that will then travel with them and that's the device that will carry on at the end of eighth grade those devices will be handed in anyone that still has a viable lifespan will be put into our extra pile because we do need extras those certainly have saved us in many ways and then high school will then become in charge of their own chromebooks and then begin to age that out and then we can we'll also be able to adjust our numbers as we move along in this plan because we'll know how many high schoolers are really needing devices for all that so this is the chromebook intention any questions about this okay hearing none this will take me on to now all of our technology so all of our technology has changed my old plan has been blown out of the water and it's not necessarily a bad thing but there's a lot to consider so this is this year you'll see fiscal year 21 this is these are all the things we have purchased anything that is not italicized these are the things that bolton center school that we have purchased with this year's funds as you've seen in previous uh some point last year i believe we talked about things we bought with last year's money a big number of our chromebooks came at that time so this year you can see the various pieces that we purchased the viewsonic boards i'm sorry and i also mentioned that we um also have the various funding sources that we were able to use this year between general fund open choice grant and then the corona virus release fund grant which has helped as well so one of the pieces um i'll do i'm not going to talk about let me review it and then i'm so i'm sorry i'll come back to the boards and talk about boards all at once two pieces that we've not purchased yet are some math laptops that kristen had mentioned earlier for our math department as well as some more boards so let's look at the high school before i move on to talking about those specific things so so far this year we've been able to purchase 15 deusonic boards that allows us to make sure all of the boards at the high school are now replaced with a viewsonic board or tv so now i i know you've heard in the past we were working on a replacement plan for our smart boards throughout the district and it was still a couple more years with that in fact we started this year with about 42 boards to replace and uh we're trying to do this a little faster because what we have learned is that we now ask teachers to travel and we're asking everybody to connect with devices and once you have a room that has a board that doesn't work well you no longer have equitable access to to the instruction so it really is paramount that we get our boards all of our boards working at an equal um functioning rate so that's been that's that's been our shift in priority and you see that the 15 boards were purchased they were delivered yesterday and we will begin installing as soon as possible so then the bolton high school will be whole with new boards from the oldest ones are three years old this is their third year yes you're number three for it so what you also see on here are the touch screen laptops for the math department as you've heard a few times this evening math is very difficult to teach in this virtual environment we've tested quite a few different devices quite a few from something you know trying to be as fiscally as responsible as possible and what we found that we'll do work best with allowing teachers are our secondary teachers meaning six through twelve teachers to run both ready math for our middle school but also cuda works which is a program we've talked about in the past we've had it we the teachers have used it for years but now it has a program for chromebooks that allow students to work in mathematic notation especially in the high school courses that's helpful but ask a teacher to write out a long math problem get into your advanced math and try to write out a long problem and have a child follow it on a digital screen in real time is pretty much impossible if you don't have the right materials the document cameras just haven't been working for the t for the teachers they've tried that's what they use it's fair it's okay but with um we've tried out we've tested a touch screen device and it allows teachers to make it feel more real so that when they are teaching it is immediate feedback they can work on problems and students don't have that delay and lag and time that all the other programs offer so that is our request for like uh wanting to get two in one laptops and that means the ones that fold over to be like a tablet so they can can continue to purchase you also see on this bhs is a hundred student chromebooks we put an order in for them in august they are still somewhere somewhere uh so my chromebook replacement plan did not include them i i don't know where they are i think we're going to have to make that decision as we finally hear where they are we do ask our vendor weekly we are able to complete this year just you know we're doing okay just fine without it they would it be better with it yes because we're now starting to have to give some of our newer elementary students some of the older ones you know it's but we're doing fine it would be great when we know where they are so this year as you can see our technology between the two schools the total is 137 280 dollars uh should the board be willing to um help support us in getting bcs whole as well as we're able to do at bhs so i don't know if kristen you want to add to that yeah no i just think you know to echo sarah's sentiments it's essential that we're on the same platform uh we really can't continue uh in this blended learning model uh having different boards having boards fail it's just not equitable and we just can't have it so if we are there questions on this year right now all right hearing none if we could go to the next slide please no couple more next one we'll come back come back one more there we go so at this point uh i'm requesting a transfer of eight hundred dollars uh from benefits to instructional technology to purchase twenty viewsonic interactive boards for the bcs classrooms as well as a transfer of thirty five hundred dollars from fiscal to instructional technology to purchase seven touchscreen two-in-one laptops for the math teachers in grades six to twelve do we want this as one or two motions uh if we could have it as two that would be great okay do we have a motion to approve a transfer of fifty thousand eight hundred dollars from benefits to instructional technologies to purchase 20 viewsonic interactive boards for bcs classrooms so moved thank you sir second this is ann thank you anne do and and do we have any questions about the uh viewsonic boards or discussion on this topic transfer got this yeah so we're just projecting if we transfer money from one one section to another and then we find that the monies that are gonna in this next grant package support technology or something like that do we transfer it back how do you know how do we get reimbursed for the technology if we've paid for it out of a different fund so in the last coronavirus relief we couldn't um actualize any of the monies until we actually had the product in hand so we had to pay for it already and then basically reimburse ourselves um which you saw show up in tonight's um right right so it would be the same thing i don't expect however necessarily i would be surprised let me put it this way if the coronavirus relief funds allowed for the purchase of boards i wouldn't be surprised if they would allow us to purchase chromebooks but i will be surprised if they allowed us to purchase boards so as far as we're concerned we pay for it ahead of time out of whatever fund it just gets reimbursed to the general fund correct even though it's foreign particularly items okay yes great question is there anyone else okay uh hearing nothing all those in favor of this transfer please say aye hi anyone opposed any abstentions passes unanimously now could we have a motion to transfer thousand five hundred dollars from the fiscal account to instructional technologies to purchase seven touch screen two in one laptops for the math teachers in grades six to twelve so moved thank you sir thank you thank you ria and ria do we have any questions or discussion on this transfer hearing none all is in favor of this transfer please say i opposed or abstentions uh thank you that passes does that conclude our report thank you everybody no we still have a couple more years to do for you but i appreciate very much as does our staff uh and sarah and daryl and joe very much thank you and uh i'll make this a little faster okay so what this means for next year so when we're into our next year needs and this is um what we're looking at to get onto that cycle 130 chromebooks and that is assuming we get the 100 chromebooks right so um i'm going to go with i we're going to get them and that's what we would need for bcf so that we can get new ones for kindergarten than another grade level at this time we've made bhs whole they have no immediate needs for next year the following year you now see our chromebooks continuing on we have added the chromebook cases that's something that we were also able to purchase this year that is again new to us so we're estimating they have a five-year life span and making sure that we have extras in place at this time we'll have x we have extras at this point so we're fine for next year um another piece that we are piloting that we are looking to pilot in our viewsonics we also were able to get a mini board one thing this platform offers is a 24 inch version of their board so teaching in a one-to-one classroom especially as you move up in the years you actually need to start to teach behind the students or be able to move around the classroom so as wonderful as the interactive boards are they often um glue a teacher to to the front of the room so we're all going to be dreaming and happy and healthy and 22 23 and teachers are going to move around the room and we're going to see a little bit of a normal classroom but now all of our students are going to have devices so the viewsonic mini board is a board that will allow teachers to then work from wherever they are in the room and it can project to the front of the room so those devices are about or 600 and some change right now each uh we are having a teacher try one out this year but this something like this where you can cast is something we're very interested in moving forward as we look to stay a one-to-one district in the younger grades we would anticipate it as a station so i know if you've seen some primary classrooms have had tables in the back things like that this could then just be another station for teachers to use so uh this is what the many boards we would like to consider as future planning another piece that we would like to at least put out there we don't have hard quotes this time is also classroom amplification systems so while this is something that superintendent and i have had intimate experience with and are huge proponents of and i know other other other people have as well uh the coronavirus has cert and pandemic has certainly made us aware of how important the sound is for all of our learners so amplification systems uh if you've ever taught um look at a few people have been in classrooms with an amplification system it saves the teacher's voice and it increases i forget what the decibels were it's like 10 decibels up it's just enough and student attention all the way around improves their learning improves there's all sorts of reach research behind how these amplification systems uh improve learning so not only does it do that for people in person should we still need to have to be in a distance this will only enhance our ability to have a blended learning experience and it puts us in good shape for just really solid a solid technology classroom that it has with the student at the center the learning at the center not the devices this is also the year that we would anticipate uh replacing the teacher desktop so this is a that's a number you would see for that at the high school chromebooks the chromebook cases the mini boards and then the amplification system and again this is the futures planning and as we've seen things change so i'm sure we'll we'll have a more a different something a little different next year but this is what we're thinking about exactly thank you sarah very much thank you any other questions for sarah before we move on um let's have a couple quick questions and kind of just one thing looking forward to when you talk about those mini boards and i started thinking about students start coming back the teaching pedagogy may still rely more on the technology that we're on the chromebooks at every one to one does is there any concern or about the wi-fi capacities and the infrastructure to handle that type of no no increase okay nope we've been on that one we've been out we're already primed for that scott we put in extra what do you call him joe sarah um more access points and an increase in bandwidth of the last couple years like a major step up from the original infrastructure okay we've been hoping to move to something you know long-term planning this is this is a vision of good teaching practice so we've been trying to make sure our infrastructure was in place for that should we be able to go there and this is more for kristen just to kind of the confirmation now we've done these these budget transfers and quite a few to handle different expenses um i just want to confirm we have not had to go back to the town to the board of finance for any additional monies correct to request dipping into the contingency fund that was put in place so we've been able to still manage it with reimbursements and expected reimbursements from the grants but with managing the budget correct so since i think that's important to keep track of yes thank you when people start questioning the volume of transfers correct if people sorry if people do thank you thank you thank you thank you all right that concludes this evening chair romeo on to you sir for unfinished business thank you sarah thank you very much uh unfinished business we have one policy second read uh we'll be looking for motion to uh approve the policy change for 6161.21 fees fines and charges i'll make that motion this is chris thank you second second oh was that sue someone else then ben got it in first oh he did okay thank you thank you chris and ben okay uh any further discussion or questions on this policy very simple straightforward change you're hearing none all those in favor of the policy change please say aye aye aye aye opposed or abstaining that passes unanimously and as all of our unfinished business uh we have some new business tonight uh the first item is the hs graduation date yes thank you so as the board is aware um or maybe not currently our last day of school is june 10 2021 and by statute that you are aware of last year uh statute changed whereby uh the board can set a graduation date for the 180th day of school and the night they set it that becomes the date uh within that school year so i'm requesting a motion to set june 10th even though it it's a little wonky this year because we have 177 days but we've been checking with the state so we're within where it's the last day of school so a motion to set june 10th 2021 as the bolton high school graduation date is the request this evening i'd like to make that motion thank you ben real second thank you ria uh is there anyone who would like to ask any questions or any discussion was june 10th the original last day of school or was it junior no it was june 9th and then we had that one snow day okay correct if we have another major snow event like the one to two foot category with wind potential which is why we had a snow day uh with because of potential power outages so that students would not be able to learn remotely what would we do in this instance mr miceli um we would just you know we would adjust so first of all we hope that if there's snow where we're in the remote mode right so that's goal number one uh and then there'll be enough time you know ahead of time to kind of figure out how to adjust but it will stay our date um and we're gonna and i'll share that with the faculty tomorrow so it'll always be in their heads yup and mr g yard sorry i'm printing something hold on one second okay with my new printer yeah the um so they would just you know we would have school until that day that's just how it would be um and as for seniors you know it might be we have to tell them you know you can come back tomorrow i because that's pretty much what the statute allows that's where it is and we're primed for the distance learning so if it were to snow day we were to have it we're in great shape but to your point andrew if it's a snow day and we can't have virtual learning we're still primed to address it by setting the date tonight so just to just to make sure i understand that correctly if there were to be snow days it would extend the school year for everyone but the seniors is that correct yeah well technically we tell the seniors that they come back you can't come back lock or clean out will be the day after graduation yeah you know and maybe yearbook signing or something i i you know but yes i have to get pens on six foot long sticks yeah exactly okay anyone else okay all those in favor of setting the bhs graduation date say aye aye aye on opposed or abstaining bhs graduation will be june 10th great which leads into our next new business item of the board of ed meeting on june 10th so i'm suggesting that we reschedule it to wednesday june 9th so do we have a motion to reschedule the june 10th 2021 board of education business meeting to wednesday june 9th don't move this is anne thank you man seconded sue thank you like to question why we are doing this or discuss it hearing nothing all those in favor of moving the june board of education meeting to the ninth say hi hi hi anyone opposed or abstaining that also passes unanimously and [Music] our last item is resignations so we have uh one resignation this evening caitlyn jones administrative assistant in guidance has resigned uh we'd like to thank her for her service and she will be greatly missed that is all do we have any future business no okay so now we will be looking for a motion to go into executive session to discuss the transportation contract renewal proposal from m j bus company and to invite the superintendent of schools i would make a motion for that purpose and to invite the superintendent thank you i'll second that chris thank you thank you any questions or discussion all those in favor say aye opposed abstaining the recording has stopped thank you everyone else for coming tonight and we will all be signing off and going to our executive session zoom meeting uh the email was sent on january 8th so the link should be in that email thanks everybody good night

we reported that to the board of finance at last wednesday's meeting and that was well received so because of course they're working on covering the kovitz spends so so all good right is the net of it we also talked about uh special education this is why ghana gave us a really good presentation on what are the drivers of special education spending and how do we work with that and manage it um and at some point in the future we will uh you know do that here i think at this board and we want to you know share offer it up to both the board of selectmen and the board of finance um it was very insightful and informational and uh i want to tell mrs wagonic how appreciative we were to receive that so um and then we went and talked about um some of the uh work that's been done on the operating uh budget numbers uh there were some good news as we've gotten some better estimates in i'm not going to report on that here because it's on the agenda later and mr post will report on that when we get to it but that said because there was new information coming in we agreed to have a second meeting this past monday and we had further discussion in preparation for tonight on the on the budget we went through all the items that were um were spending under under runs and we asked mr post to prepare for us kind of a summary chart of where we still have our waiting on news from uh from vendors so we'll have uh it was all about the budget we're gonna talk all about those at the at the later meeting but the good news is we're seeing some savings uh from our budget that was last presented by dr burrill not dramatic but uh still some good news and uh and the uh and we talked through how we're gonna work through the meeting this evening so that's kind of a report i'll offer to the other members of the committee if you have anything else you'd like to add rosa or jim okay so uh so good news on the current year and uh and we're going to see more on the good news on the budget as we get through the discussion later thanks all right facilities so we met on january 13th we reviewed the school dude reports and with most staff working remotely there were fewer work orders than usual for staffing updates we have a night lead custodian at the high school still open and a regular custodian position open what the water update at the middle school today we're in compliance with a plan to address water treatment we're continuing to do measuring and water quality analysis and february 18th is a deadline to send our plan to the state and we don't anticipate having to ask for an extension we began a discussion about possibly implementing an indoor air quality program the epa created the indoor air quality tools for schools program to help schools assess and improve indoor air quality and we're looking into gaining support for this program in the future the committee discussed questions about the facility's budget we also discussed the possibility of removing personal appliances from the schools for purposes of saving energy and as part of a pest management program i asked mr caldwell to provide the committee with an update on work that's been done and how that aligns with the niask report recommendations at the next committee meeting there was a school walk through so they took advantage of the remote learning time and they did really good work in the buildings they're very clean painting was done light bulbs were replaced and much more the new glass stoves were installed at the high school to keep it cleaner and to keep the mice away so all the schools were ready and for the reopening on the 19th yesterday there was a walk through with the boys locker room paul chucco and the nbc and techton walk through the space many questions were raised and items on the current design plan were clarified tech time will be come back to answer the questions of the npc and they're going to do a presentation for us as well and there was also a walk through at huckleberry hill ong techton and administration had discussions about the site layout to prepare for construction and preliminary work that is starting in march and the patch and garden has to be removed we have to start looking at the demolition of the building what do we want to salvage and we need to begin looking at what to tag of things to keep a casual conversation during the walk through happened about the awning at huckleberry and that sparked an idea to relocate it possibly to the middle school to the front or along the sidewalk or somewhere else in the district we thought that was a nice idea so that's it unless anybody has any questions a lot of uh we went over a lot yeah i have one was any uh talk done about the mosaics in the front oh that wasn't mentioned that has been talked to mike uh over it wasn't recently but that has been talked about as well is incorporating those into the new building as well all right thanks joy uh equity and inclusion okay the equity inclusion we had our inaugural meeting on january 14th the entire committee of 21 people were there it was an excellent and inspiring meeting each member took a moment to introduce themselves and speak about why this work is important to them we have a really great group of people everyone is bringing different things some are reading experience from their backgrounds and from their work many of our teachers students and some of the community members have already been involved in some human rights activism people spoke about the betterment of our community the futures of our children they also spoke about being leaders and allies how our voices are more powerful together inclusivity but also celebrating our differences and just making sure that all voices are heard the common feeling among really each committee member the board and district leadership as well is just hope and excitement about the work which is going to be a lot of work but and the future that we're working to build together after those introductions dr rural spoke from the district level about what's led to the committee formation um what work is already in progress how much more work needs to be done and how we're all in this for the long haul this is a lot of work that we have ahead of us and miss laden reviewed the vision statement and the equity objectives that the committee leadership has already established this is a multi-faceted district-wide and community-wide undertaking and the committee is just one important piece of that and then dr ruby spoke more about that and about the committee framework how ideas and the initiatives will be aligned with data how the district wants to empower students and staff and we'll look to the committee for input and ideas like a think tank sort of to move forward with those endeavors and some things that are already on the horizon or some scheduling of some professional development and conducting a diversity audit of all the school libraries and we finished up by discussing plans for our next few meetings as dr ruby called it we're forming warming and storming our first meeting was forming kind of meeting everyone establishing community norming will be at the next meeting we're going to develop a charter for the committee using the ruler approach and then in march we'll begin the storming getting into the work and identifying and prioritizing the issues and taking it from there that's pretty much it i don't know if anyone jen or dr barilla director would be want to add anything else or if anyone has any questions that was a really great summary thank you for doing that sounds like a lot of work so thank you echo amy it's a really amazing group of community members students and uh professionals from the organization that brought such a a wide range of passions and experience so i feel very fortunate that so many members of the brookfield community uh want to be involved it's a great sign for the work ahead absolutely agreed okay uh moving on to the consent agenda okay i will make a motion that the board approved the items on the consent agenda we have new hires retirements and the november and december financials a second okay all in favor oh i'm sorry rosa yeah yeah i just want to congratulate uh georgia for 17 years of service that's her retirement she's our occupational therapist and we're just very proud of her and thankful for her service for all these years to to our students georgia all the best thank you all right all in favor hi hi thank you the motion passes okay on to new business and first up is the school naming okay i will move that the board discuss and approve the name of the new elementary school as recommended by the new school naming committee in a second okay um actually i mean i think we can we can certainly have the discussion here although i think there's probably going to be another motion at the end of the discussion but as it reads right now the motion is just to well it actually does say the motion is a little bit vague it's discussed and approved and approved but it doesn't but we'll have to have a separate motion i guess on the actual name yeah so um so why don't we go ahead and just vote on the discussion um and approval process so all in favor aye aye okay um so mike do you want to go through these i actually um created a little powerpoint if you want that has um the results on it so we can all see it yeah if you have the um i'm using i'm not muted uh if you have the updated numbers i i have the numbers from last week so i don't i don't those yeah and we shut the uh about 10 a.m this morning we uh stopped taking um participants into the survey so it is fresh from this morning okay um these numbers are from last night but i doubt they have changed uh very much um so maybe you can just uh if there is any sort of change just uh let me know i don't think there will be but i have numbers here rosa saw i can help you okay so are you guys seeing what i'm seeing yeah okay so all right let this thing go away here i want to get if you click uh the little uh looks like a shade on the lower right here um right next to the slide button goes down go down to the bottom there so just put next to the slide button and saying look yeah click that okay there we go okay and pushing the menu at the top doesn't like to go away all right um so again okay so as of last night and i doubt these numbers have changed very much um we had a total of 2112 total responses and this is how it broke down so there was a it looks like there was a very clear favorite in terms of um people really liking some iteration of either candlewood lake or candlewood elementary school they liked having that um that reference in there and it seems like it sort of went down in preference after that second being lakeside elementary newberry and then last westbrook although there's another way of looking at this data um i don't think it makes a difference in terms of what everybody liked as a favorite um just to sort of like throw it out there if we want to look at if we're looking at just people's first choices the data breaks down slightly differently so obviously candlewood candle lake is the heavy favorite regardless but second would actually be westbrook if we looked at the number of people who chose that as their first choice so um but i don't think that changes very much in terms of what everybody really liked as their favorite um some of the comments i just wanted to like include they pretty much fell into categories similar to this um so a lot of you know it should be kept huckleberry hill why can't we keep at huckleberry hill a lot of people didn't understand the reference to newbury or westbrook um some suggested another name like brookfield elementary school that came up a couple of times um or something like lila nona elementary brook there were different sort of suggestions like that and then there was another comment um actually a couple of them about naming the school after a person so i think because this is going to be sort of a discussion i just wanted to remind the public here that we do have the board has a has a policy um that we must follow in terms of naming school facilities and one of the stipulations that it cannot be named after a person and in terms of maybe newberry or westbrook those rationales were were given along with the survey and the other suggestions you know keeping in huckleberry hill or brookfield elementary or any other sort of reference to brookfield that was a process that went through the committee and you know mike can speak to that again in terms of the committee's process so what rose to the top were the um the names that were there on the survey and most importantly actually i'll remember because i'm sure mike would want to say this too is that these were names the students um came up with so most of them that were on the survey um these were significant to the students which is the most important thing and then uh just to kind of show the breakdown of the representation uh 61 a little over 61 percent from the east side of town um 38 from the west side of town which kind of makes sense probably population wise as well that's the question we were asking ourselves were the ranking of the answers the same on the east and the west side i don't know how to break that down maybe eric can break it out if we if we end up you know choosing another name um i'll go back to the uh that was the whole purpose of that that was the whole purpose of that question do we have a breakdown of population on the east versus west side of town that's that's it's about the population's about the same mix as you saw there yeah that that that does we had a good distribution of responses but the purpose of the question was to make sure that the people who lived on the west side of town were giving the same answers as the total that's all that was the whole purpose of that it is probably data that can be broken now i i don't have that ability to in the in sort of just looking at the google responses um we can break we can break individual results from a google form out um into a spreadsheet and and see the individual results and then see you know everybody's one two three four and then if they picked west or east um versus that's something i could work with you on separately that um you know on another time we can break out the results but yeah we can get individual results and then and then get that number okay yeah i think that's probably more important though if we choose something that is more it's only pertinent if we choose newbury or or lakeside oh yeah you're right lakeside yeah because our just for a reminder our our uh our policy says not only should it not be named after a person it should be named after a geographical reference in the neighborhood of the school and if you choose to do some other name then you should consult with the the people in that in the that are in the neighborhood of the school and we felt the reason we added that question was very simple we felt that would be a good way to get some consultative input if we were to choose something that was not candlewood lake or candlewood elementary school or westbrook because those are those are geographical things near the school if we choose one of those three no issue right but if we choose one of the others we would want to look at that data right so i mean i think the public has clearly spoken in what they would prefer i think our job is to sort of maybe maybe everybody else kind of let's we can just go do a little round robin and see what everybody uh where everybody falls here um and if it ends up being candle like or candled elementary then we need to figure out which iteration of those is something that we need to to do so um anybody want to go first i'll go first rosa i like all the names i think the committee did a great job particularly i love that the students were so involved and and had their voices heard but i think if the large section of the community likes the candlewood name i think i'm okay with that and it it does represent an important geographic uh feature uh of our town so i'm okay with the canada wood name do you like candlewood lake or candlewood elementary i don't have a preference so i i'd go with the the will of the of the team on this one anyone else i agree with jen too i mean i like all the names but i like candlewood and i think i would go i like the candlewood would also be ces so i think to narrow it down between those two i would go for candlewood elementary school would be my first preference okay that's what i was going to say i like that i like the ces um [Music] candlewood elementary school i like that reference the acronym is i think about the younger students saying the name of their school just flows nicer but i'm kind of impartial to either either uh i well i wanted to say uh rosa we we took i mean i wouldn't want to leave nbc out of this because the nbc gave us a lot of uh suggestions and it kind of helped drive this too so i want to give you know a quick shout out to them as well as the students and uh all the faculty and staff uh yeah i can of wood for me uh yeah like the first option candlewood it's on canada would like road you know i've talked to some people they're like well you know whiskenier's on whiskey road cannonwood lake kenwood lake road i i agree i think kennawood because candlewood elementary is easier to say so i guess if i had to choose one i would go there but okay debbie um i think initially my favorite was newberry elementary but if we're really following the guidelines of the policy then um i think we should go with candlewood and it's really important to me that it's something that the kids really felt passionate about and candlewood was one of the ones that they that came up over and over again from the students so my vote would be candlewood elementary school without the word lake um so yeah i'm happy with it okay well um i will say i'm one of the people who is partial to westbrook um and the reason and i'm partial to westbrook is is quite frankly that's the stream that's running right under the front walkways that are being designed it would it would have brought a a very personal touch to the kids over time and i kind of was partial to that as a reason um but i can't it might easily my second choice would be candlewood lake elementary school with the lake um and the reason i would say with the lake is first of all i think it comes off of people's mouths easier because it's on canada lake road it's near candlewood lake people think candlewood lake it would it would become awkward over time to have this one be candlewood elementary school and have everything else be with lake right so i think it was just naturally the word lake fits in there and it will be more it'll be more natural for people um i think you could still use ces with kenwood lake elementary school be frank and i think we would recommend that they adopt a ces because i kind of like that connection to the old center center school kids who are moving over to there so um but it's uh so my vote i think right now would be candlewood lake elementary school with the lake okay and uh for my opinion i would agree i agree with bob actually i like candlewood lake elementary um for those same exact reasons it's on candlewood lake road it is very specific to the geographic section of town that it is can it doesn't incorporate um you know uh it's not sort of the candlewood section it's the candlewood lake area so that to me sounds much more pertinent to the geographic section of it's that side of town additionally i just went ahead and googled candlewood elementary school and candlewood lake elementary school and um though there are none in this area which is obviously important because we wouldn't be able to do that anyways but there is a candlewood elementary school in maryland but there is no candlewood lake elementary school anywhere and i like that uniqueness to me i think that would be something that obviously is just brookfield's um and being a school that is in you know this sort of general candlewood lake area should any other future schools in new fairfield or sherman or new milford or danbury want to they would never be able to name a school candlewood lake uh elementary school because of um because of brookfield so i like it for those reasons and i would i would also recommend um adoption of a shorter ces logo or abbreviation i should say for the for the name so so you would vote for candlewood lake elementary school but you would abbreviated ces without the l is that yeah yeah not that i think a a four letter abbreviation is a big deal i mean currently hgs is a four-letter abbreviation and people don't say i go to well they just say i go to huckleberry so i mean sort of how we talk it will probably just become known as yeah i go to canada one but i think as a formal name i think having candlewood lake is um a little more distinctive yeah i don't i don't i don't know too many people refer huckleberry's huckleberry hill it's like no it's zuckerberry right right yeah i like that rosa i think your uh argument makes sense and i like that if we're talking about geography too the lake is something very geographical so you convinced me to include the lake i like it okay great anyone else jumping on the lakeside not lakeside sorry i i don't feel strongly like i'd be fine with lake too so i'm really fine either way i do like that there's no other school named that too i like that debbie have i convinced you no but uh that's okay that's all right it's fair you know the thing i'm wrestling with is i think candlewood sounds more um sounds broader if you will and candlewood lake i feel like that implies that only people who live near the lake would go to that school but then i thought about it and i thought well whiskener is on west wisconia road but people don't think that only kids who live there go to that school so i guess you know my argument doesn't hold up but you'll forget i think i just feel like candlewood lake sounds like such a specific targeted area that it that if we took the lake part out of it you know it sounds more broad and more more inclusive of all of brookfield but i i'm fine with either one but i like that that's the actual technical name of the road too yeah you know yeah that does make sense yeah well we don't we don't call it west wisconia or middle school so right so and it doesn't harm us that much although it is near whiskenier road which is right up at the intersection there that whole area is known as whiskaner so and i don't think the whole areas the whole area up there is known as candlewood lake right it's not known as candlewood yes right i think it would be c c-l-e-s though i don't know how you just like dropped the lake out of there and i'm fine with that it doesn't need to be ces but i feel like i don't you just can't it's candle with like you have to it would be cles no you can't just like ignore that there's an l in the acronym acronyms tend to have a way of developing a life of their own right that's probably something we don't necessarily have to decide the acronym do we oh [Music] mike you're going to be the chair all right yeah so uh you know uh just circling back i don't know if i i think i might have what i said might sound like i was for ces i i uh just candlewood i actually was for kenwood lake just because it's because it's an actual thing i mean candlewood's like a general you know kind of thing it's it's so many things are called candlewood uh you know uh you know there's candlewood towing there's candlewood uh all sorts of things so canada lake um also i i feel like this is a very important part that the school encompasses a lot of nature themes within it it's very bright it's very vibrant and i feel like canwood lake mixes in with that really well um everyone's seen the artwork there other streams going through it's very nature oriented there's almost good point right so i'm just going to go ahead and um i move that the board of education adopt candlewood lake elementary school as the name for the new elementary school oh amy's screen lit up so give it to amy give it to me all right so um all in favor of candlewood lake elementary school bye hi all right that's unanimous exciting that's very exciting right this is exciting all right we finally have a name for this week we could change the website from new school project website to pandawoodlake elementary stop calling it the new school yeah you can do that that's great thank you everyone all right very exciting all right um we can move on though to setting of the graduation date for the class of 21.

okay um if you have any comments for the center joint unified school district board please fill out the form on the board live stream page at this time please indicate in the subject line the item in which you are addressing the item that you are addressing for example business item a consent agenda item 7 etc please send your messages as early as possible if the items are sent during the time that the item is being discussed we may actually close the item prior to receiving your comment and we cannot reopen this item for discussion so please send those comments in as early as possible and then do we have the flag start i do all right okay so you can all join us salute pledge i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands in one nation one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all i don't get how they coordinate that when they have those live stream music events how do they get it in in order i don't know okay um announcement of action no action was taken during closed session there wasn't a a resolution that we've asked the district to bring back to the february's board so resolution number 18 slash 19-9 extension will be brought back uh in february do i have a motion to adopt the agenda um miss kelly before you adopt the agenda may i address the board certainly um if we would please um it has brought to my attention that when the board or staff talks with um acronyms please say with the acronym the actual full name of the acronym this way it will be easier for community members to follow along with conversation thank you okay was there something specific that just happened or is that just a general comment a general comment it was brought to our attenti my attention at the last board meeting we used several acronyms and um they had no idea what we were talking about and they had people were doing search research on the acronyms okay sounds good thank you so can i get a motion to adopt the agenda a motion to adopt the agenda a second second general consent yes okay so the adoption of the agenda has been adopted um and now we will have the lovely administration of oaths of office for uh trustee anderson and she's walking down the hall so give me two minutes if that succeed okay okay uh so tonight i'm here for the oath of office for the state of california for the counties of sacramento and placer um if you please raise your right hand uh this is for the position of governing board member for the center joint unified school district please repeat after me i nancy anderson do solemnly swear i'm nancy anderson do solemnly swear that i will support and defend the constitution of the united states that i will support and defend the constitution of the united states and the constitution of the state of california and the constitution of the state of california against all enemies against all enemies foreign and domestic that i will bear true faith and allegiance and i will bear true faith and allegiance to the constitution of the united states to the constitution of the united states and the constitution of the state of california and the constitution of the state of california that i take this obligation freely that i take this obligation freely without any mental reservation without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion or purpose of evasion and that i will well and faithfully discharge the duties and that i will well and faithfully discharge the duties upon which i am about to enter upon which i about to enter congratulations thank you that's the second time today third time i've heard of the oath of office thank you all right um organizational reports if you could have vanessa mason provide those cuda reports the uta which is the uh center university teachers association yeah thank you okay good evening all the trustees here in the meeting and all you people out in digital land okay first i would like to thank the school board for keeping staff and students and families safe during pandemic as a priority that you've chosen as each of us become personal affected by covid it's more and more evident that no matter how safe you think you are the virus will surprise you in my own household two of the four members have had covid i know teachers are being affected every day with members passing away or those getting seriously ill and it's just unreal how quickly it can spread secondly the cta which is the california teachers association that is the state organization for teachers the capital service center which is our little regional cta office is hosting a school board workshop on monday january 25th from 6 to 8 pm and i am cordially inviting any and all of you school board members who are interested in attending this event it's held every two years and the purpose is to improve relationships among association leaders as well as school board members i will send out the invite in an email as soon as we log off from this email from this meeting to you school board members if you'd like to attend and lastly we appreciate that you are all experiencing the difficulties of running a live zoom meeting um just here in the school board member how a meeting how hard it is to get members logged in and everybody on mute and stuff doing their video and some people not i mean it's just a constant battle and so us teachers watching right now are feeling a little entertained by your shenanigans because we go through this daily four or five hours a day and uh it kind of brightens my spirits to see you guys struggle with the exact same things the staff and students are all dealing with every day and if there's any questions i'll be happy to answer okay thank you vanessa having no questions let's move on to the csea which is the california school employees association report by marie huggins president greetings as we transition into a new year it is encouraging to see classified staff members finding more creative ways to offer support and resources to our students and families it is like there is a renewed sense of purpose and possibilities we have had virtual book fairs at dudley elementary to enable families to purchase books at an affordable price to provide access to supplemental reading materials students can also check out library books through a safe process at north country there is a virtual story time on thursdays through google meets at oak hill there is a system to check out books online some of our classified staff are checking into ways to benefit our families by learning spanish and other languages using available professional development resources i appreciate that at center we can think outside the box and continue to provide a positive learning environment thank you many questions thank you marie i don't know if kelly's muted or we lost her there she is sorry i need to unmute there we go sorry about that i muted and my phone was ringing in the background okay so moving right along thank you marie and now we have the committee updates and the only committee update is the facilities report which we all dearly look forward to by craig diesen thank you all right well here i am um got a few things to update you on today um with our kindergarten program at oak hill uh the work in front of the school is almost complete the front doors are opened up and there's concrete to walk on we do have one little spot over by the entrance to the playground and some concrete work to finish in the interior and then at that point in the next couple of weeks all the work will be back at the back side of the school where they're building the three classrooms um even with the weather that we had earlier we were able to get our dirt imported and compacted so there's a nice square pad back at the back of the school site to place our three kindergarten classrooms and they're actually trenching on top of the beautiful pad that they made digging holes in it so they can add the storm drains so that's that's where we are right now with um the kindergarten school site um with our cte program that's located over at the district office annex um we have revised our designs and the staff input is complete so the staff is satisfied with all of the designs so far for those those two buildings and with that the schematic design is complete so just to let you know the schematic design is the is a 10 000 foot view you'll also be seeing that view of the new elementary school site tonight shortly um our next phase is a design development and that's where they get more to the interior and the plumbing people get involved the electrical people get involved and we start putting all of those components into the into the design we are also working on donating 14 of the portables on that site as part of our master plan to reduce portables which will allow us for um additional funding for high school classes in the future and there will there is a resolution before you tonight to allow us to um donate those those portables um there's also a resolution in front of you tonight to incorporate uh the land where the district office sets into the high school and that will allow us to um where we're building those um those cte programs will then be on the high school campus and that'll allow us to get to receive the funding for that program moving on to the elementary school there is a board presentation for the schematic design coming to you in about one more one more presentation we did do a page turn of all of the designs that we have so far um with the grounds and the maintenance and the custodial staff just to make sure that all of those designs are meeting the needs of the people who are going to have to take care of that site whether it's where the playground is going where the grass is going to be where the planting area is how much space between the planting areas you know what the roofing is like and what the maintenance folks are going to have to deal with and then also with the locations of um some of the things inside of the buildings that custodians would would be concerned with so um that was very informative to the architect and we'll be making adjustments to the plans based on their input and lastly we're still working on the purchase of the land we're waiting on cde which is the california department of education approval of that school site before we move into the actual purchase process and that's all i've got for you tonight unless you have questions all right thank you okay thank you craig mr diesen all right moving on to reports and presentations the first one is the audit report for fiscal year 2019-20 uh do we have someone here with crow llp to present we do i believe jen is with us right yeah yes hi dan hi everybody thank you yes i'm jen aris i'm a managing director with crowe llp and we are engaged as the independent audit firm and i'm actually the engagement authorized signer that signed the four opinions that you see in the financial statements crowe was engaged to audit the financial statements and i was just going to speak briefly about the audit process and then highlight a few items for you within the actual financial statements and certainly can address any questions that the board may have we are as i said engaged to audit the financial statements under um generally accepted auditing standards in the united states and because you are a school district you're also subject to the governmental auditing standards so we kind of wear both hats for you if you will if we as we work through this um you know i think that it's important for the board to understand first and foremost that um this audit was conducted uh very differently than most audits uh in that we perform higher audit remotely in the middle of a pandemic and so the fact that we are here with you today in january presenting the financial results and that your audit report was completed in mid-december is really something that the district should be proud of and significant kudos should go to your business office the deadline was extended by the state by over three and a half months and your business office came through and completed the audit under the normal time frame so certainly something to be proud of we did perform our interim audit procedures back in the spring looking at state compliance testing assessment of internal controls and our overall planning of the audit we then came back if you will and ended our remote field work in the fall focused on substantive testing and financial reporting this year was actually a bit of a quiet year if anything kind of went our way there were no new significant accounting standards that were adopted this year so you really won't notice changes in the financial statements or significant footnote disclosure differences as part of the audit process we look extensively at areas of management's judgment and where estimation could be involved we also look at the qualitative aspects and and the adoption of accounting policies to make sure that they're consistent with industry standard and that the disclosures within the financial statements are um you know very uh transparent in what it is that's being provided and consistent with the requirements i'm happy to report that there were no audit adjustments posted so no changes to the books and records that were prevent that were presented to us to perform our audit so again a testament to the business office and the the well-working machine there as it relates to financial accounting if we um focus on the financial statements for just a moment crow actually issues four opinions four separate audit opinions in relation to this uh to this engagement and the first statement is in regard to the financial statements overall so commenting on the appropriateness of the financial statements being materially correct that is included in the financial statement document beginning on page one we also issue a separate opinion on what's referred to as state compliance so all of the compliance requirements that are outlined within the audit guide that is provided annually for a number of areas that are included under the department of education and that compliance opinion is included for you on page 69 of your financial statements we also separately audit a sampling of federal programs for which the district receives revenue and so this year we specifically audited the national school lunch program and the special education program and then lastly because the gov the financial statement audit is performed under governmental accounting standards we are asked to issue an opinion on the internal controls that the district has in place over financial reporting and so i wanted to draw your attention to page 76 of the financial statements and this provides what i think is kind of a nice summary of the results of the audit and so if you were to look at that page it will show you that the audit opinions with the exception of the state compliance opinion are what we refer to as unmodified which is exactly what you want it's a clean opinion if you will and so that is all you know great news when you're thinking about everything that goes into the controls around financial reporting and all of the specific requirements for receiving federal funding we did have one finding as it relates to state compliance and that finding is detailed for you on page 79 of the financial statements and this is what we would refer to as kind of a clerical finding if you will in that there is no fiscal impact to the district but through our testing of the compliance requirements around the school accountability report card and the facilities inspection tool we noted i believe two instances at one site where there was a discrepancy between the rating in categories and so you know again this is what we as auditors look at is more of a clerical matter we are required to report that to all of you and your role as those charged with governance but as i mentioned there is no fiscal impact so no loss of funding to the district because of this we did not have any findings is it related to federal compliance and we do not have any control findings related to financial reporting to report to you i know that i went through that fairly quickly and i would be happy to address any questions that you may have could you repeat please what page the finding was on did you say 79 yes it's page 79 of the financial statements it's in the schedule of audit findings and question costs it's finding 2020-01 and it talks through the discrepancy in the reports that were noted for north county elementary thank you very much yes there any other questions i know i know all of my questions were answered prior to the meeting so thank you for that you're welcome there were a few yes and i shared did any board members have questions please feel free to reach out to me okay great thank you so much jen thank you so take care bye-bye thank you all right moving on to report number two which is the sierra vista new school architect presentation uh sarah ho and michael chang from ac martin architects hello um do you guys need to share my screen or do you have the presentation up i know they we sent the if you share your screen that'd be great okay i can do that all right so what we have here is the sierra vista 12 acre site for the sierra vista elementary school and this is you guys know this is in that sierra vista development with all the new homes um and the school site kind of lays on upland drive and what we've done is we're serving 800 students for this school and we've done our parking lot with a parent drop off off to the east side of the the school where um it's kind of your bigger collector street um and that's actually where all the utilities from the development kind of came in so for us it kind of saves money to kind of come off the side where utilities are set up kind of the most and then we've also kind of provide a bus drop off at the south side for um students that you know may not have the parent drop off they can kind of come straight into campus what we have is our admin building right here in the middle on the east side and that has the main entry is really to the north of that admin building with this node kind of being your main entrance into the site mostly for the parent drop-offs you've got kindergarten and any parents that want to go through the admin and in that's kind of where they'll touch base with your administration staff and so this this bodes well for having kindergarten these two modular buildings right here your kindergarten classrooms so parent drop off or even parents able to use the parking for walking their child into the secondary entrance here by the mpr we also have this monumental entrance and you'll see it when we show up the rendering which is next this is for you know kids that want to go directly to a classroom older um students we assume that we'll kind of put our older grades here on to the south um and so as you go into campus this is your admin plus your library so we have a media center and outside of that you kind of have a little bit of a learning area kind of outside so you can you know use that uh and then we also have learning centers in between each classroom building for different so we have back to back classrooms and each classroom will have a space to go out and do different outdoor learning we also have a bigger learning center outside of this building because there's two academic classrooms academy classrooms stem that would come out here and kind of do some larger activities outside we also put the mpr kind of close to the kindergarten so that when it came to meal time they have the least amount of travel again with your upper grades kind of doing the longer traveling thinking about you know what's ideal for students we have um the parking lot that's up here by the mpr also serves as really good for food service drop off so we kind of thought about making sure that there was really good turnaround for utility trucks and also the food service we have the playground area the play fields we've supplemented what the park kind of showed in their plan so where they might have larger soccer fields we kind of looked at the elementary age and we've met with the um parks and rec out in roseville to kind of make sure that we're supplementing with them and we're really working with their program and making sure that our park really kind of takes in what they don't and complements but you know we're not going to have something that they already have we really kind of work together to create this space that's um used together in the community and then we also have your playground down here with the three basketball courts um some four squares tetherball and a large playground we do also have a playground and structure set up in the kindergarten area as well we really enjoyed having worked with center joint we've kind of brought in experts from all different areas as we've gone through our space planning there's no official users in this school just yet but what we've done is as we work through the admin space we had a principal from one of the other schools that really kind of took some time and worked with us on what they would like to see and how the flow works um so let's go into some renderings for you really quickly we've got this is your admin main entrance here we have it as a kind of glass tower so that you a can see where your entrance is but also for safety we found that the visibility for admin staff to be able to see what's coming is also actually the best way to be able to act quickly and then we've also got like we talked about that secondary entrance a little monument uh space here so that students can come in and not necessarily have to go through the admin space when these are all on lockdown during sessions then you know people would only be able to come in through the admin and if you've got a secured location there the backsight rendering that we have for you here kind of displays what we have going on in the back play fields in the playground and it also gives you an idea of how we're treating the classrooms we have a lot of site to develop and we're trying to treat a lot of students make sure there's a lot of students that are able to get on campus and we've looked at using modular buildings um not portables but modular buildings to really kind of create the amount of space and classrooms we need at you know the best affordable rate that we can and then we also have some elevations just kind of giving you guys some ideas of materiality uh we have a really natural uh landscape out there and we're kind of trying to kind of play off of that and make sure that we're kind of complementing how the site works out there so we also have this is your mp building with some overhangs for outdoor eating we're kind of incorporating some of these you know larger garage style doors that kind of open up your space and give students a break from that learning environment any questions craig was there anything you wanted to add to that or anything um no i think i think she did a great job thank you very much sarah um yeah that's basically what what we have so far we're moving into design development next um and then we'll go into construction documents after that we're going to dsa we've got about two years to go um so there's a lot more to come as we work our way through this this process so if we had two years to go does that mean you're staying for another two years that means i'm going to miss all the fun that's what it means [Laughter] can't blame me for trying any other questions from the board okay great thank you so much i appreciate it okay um moving on to uh report number three the williams uniform complaint quarterly reporting don't blink or you will miss this one good evening mike jordan curriculum instruction and special education department and i am pleased to announce there were no williams complaints for this past quarter thank you thank you any questions great thank you mr jordan moving on to item report number four universal design for learning and i'm just gonna go ahead and announce item number five which is the social emotional learning sel as well and i'm assuming that both will be presented by mr jordan as one presentation so this first presentation the udl presentation universal design for learning i'm actually going to defer my time to the great senator becky lawson from the special uh excuse me from the curriculum instruction department she's going to take over that presentation and then i'll come back in for the uh the following thank you mr jordan oh there she is all right and um good evening i see some familiar faces and some new faces my name is becky lawson and i do get to work in the curriculum and instruction department and help with serving teachers and families and students and it's my pleasure to bring universal design for learning tonight um and i do have a presentation but sometimes i will use the words udl and i don't mean to but universal design for learning gets a little um tongue tied so i will do my best i promise and here we go let's see no becky i think now that it's been defined that it would be just fine to use the acronym okay um and we don't use zoom and so this is always interesting to me let's see why don't i see does it have the green arrow at the bottom becky the do you see what i see no no i see okay so let's see darn it vanessa's probably laughing too um optimism a little bit [Laughter] we don't usually do the bottom okay so i'm going to do it again share screen and then i have lots of choices and mr jordan's going to help me there you go now you're going to click i want to share the easiest thing is to share the screen that you have your presentation on separate video so that's what i'm on oh wait what if i click okay then you just said you have to keep your share but there you go then hit this now do we see something yep okay good excellent thank you for your patience i appreciate it so here we go universal design for learning thank you it is my pleasure to share tonight universal design for learning is a way to approach teaching and learning to reach and engage every student in the classroom on the slide you see in front of you is a definition from cast about udl cast is an educational research and development organization that actually created universal design for learning framework um and also the udl guidelines and the udl guidelines focus on the why how and what of learning to ensure that every individual student knows how to be an expert learner and an expert learner is defined as motivated knowledgeable and strategic this slide answers the question of why udl our classrooms are filled with students that bring their own individuality to our classrooms and into their learning they bring variable ways to exhibit their learning and teachers are working non-stop to meet their needs but we we know that some of them are still not getting met and so it's time to work on addressing those needs um i really like this graphic because it kind of simplifies the you the thoughts about udl so let's start right in the middle with why why drives um all of what we're trying to accomplish so in a specific classroom that would be your learning target or your specific learning goal basically what should i know and what should i be able to do as we move to the second ring that's the how we need to plan how all students will meet the learning target so teachers need to consider and plan for barriers that may stop students from meeting or learning their their their goal and that's where the udl guidelines come in and those are engagement representation and action and expression that last circle is what it is creating an expert learner that's what we're really trying to do we're trying to create learners that are motivated self-directed and resourceful about their learning now this takes a lot of time and it help with the help and aid of scaffolding from teachers and targeted feedback um so if you'll indulge me for a moment i find it um easy to connect new learning when i connect it with something that i'm familiar with so i'd like to use the ice cream truck tonight um if we think back to that target slide the one before the why of an ice cream truck is to make money knowing that um money is the goal how do ice cream trucks get the most money well they remove barriers they have a very visual picture of what they're selling and they're labeled so our non-readers can walk up to an ice cream truck and order and um so can our readers we have budget conscious um consumers at an ice cream truck and so they usually post the prices for things so they know exactly what they can spend we have um diet restrictions for some of our consumers and so we have dairy options and non-dairy options and then our ice cream truck drivers have been very um good with their collection of money and they they plan for for variables and they might sell water and soda and candy for those that don't even want ice cream at all so now we get to the what they want the most money from you and so they have made it very easy for you to access and get what you need and move on to that next learnings or that that next consumer spot so that they can gain as much money as they can so now if we go back to our educational space and we're moving into a science classroom we might say that a science classroom's why is their next generation science standard that they're specifically working on in a unit or a chapter or a lesson so next the teacher would think and plan options and choices for students so they they think about the students in their classroom and they might offer some different choices about how they can meet that standard get to know that standard they might uh let's see have students read from a textbook if that's what they want to do they might have offered a few videos for them to watch instead of reading from the textbook the teacher might actually offer some small participation or direct instruction and students can choose to do that as their their how about how they're going to get to that learning standard in the end um students have an option of the what they get to show the teacher their expert learner way how they understood and mastered the standard so again a teacher might plan for some options for multiple means of expression so they might say you get to create a poster that shows your understanding of the standard or you might compose a song that shows your understanding of the standard or um answer a flip grid prompt and turn that recording in they could even just write a short answer if they wanted to so this is the cast guidelines that i keep referring to as you see they're um based on three principles you have the engagement principle that's the why of learning you have the representation um principle or what am i learning and then you have action and expression so how am i going to show you my learning this is the same model or about principles but i think it it reads a little bit easier so the 1v4 is usually the one that is introduced when you go to udl presentations and you're trying to wrap your head around it and get to know it this reads a little bit easier for teachers to to begin that process of udl so they again think about the tools that they need um to make intentional learning choices to ensure that all learners can access and participate this specific side by side just kind of shows the relationship to the 21st century skills that we're working on with students and udl what i wanted to show is that it they align they um complement each other it's not one more thing for teachers it's not one more thing for students that they really do support each other and build our students who are ready for the future usually um the first thing that happens when teachers and others get to know udls they say oh i know udl it's differentiated instruction i do that and it's very um clear that it isn't and that's some of what the udl training does is it points out very quickly that they are they are separate and so this differentiation scale here actually reads right to left and it shows you how it how it differentiates from each other so curriculum if i took it out of the box i open the book i just touch out of the curriculum i could meet the middle of my class um and leave the friends on the edge unable to access what i'm bringing so then teachers say oh i have specific students who need specific things to access it so that's differentiated instruction it's very teacher directed it's only for a few students um and again it leaves some of our students out on the edge so udl is proactive it's it's teacher facilitated it's a student led or student choice it is for everyone everyone can access it and it doesn't leave anyone out it is more inclusive when um again you get involved in the cast website you start to see different parts of implementing the udl and this kind of sat out as an important piece for us as a district to start thinking about implementation so this is how they describe the implementation process of udl and they talk about it being from need for change to expert learning about four to seven years and it takes you know several years to move from phases to phases we want everyone to get a chance to get to make a choice about it kind of react to it do it and then review and decide what where we need to go next so obviously as a district we started in the explore stage and this is the steps that we took in the explore stage not all of them but some of them um basically it started with a professional learning um at placer county with dr katie novak and she's kind of the front face guru she does some learning and instruction with cast she's also active as an assistant superintendent in massachusetts so and she's really the driver of udl and get you kind of going and excited about it once we took our um pretty much our curriculum and instruction team our admin team to this um event we came back and started to explore it on our our own site and again we met as a curriculum instruction team and we spent a lot of time looking at a definition of udl and building a common understanding so we we participated as a professional learning community in many of our consecutive meetings to get to know udl together and define it together once we took that piece we we knew it was time to say okay school sites now that we've learned as a team let's take it out to our school sites so will you put a plan together that explores variability removing barriers and udl guidelines and those came from our definition we also noticed that um some of the udl or universal design for learning conversations were starting to penetrate or you know kind of ooze into special ed classrooms and we needed to provide some information to our paraprofessionals so they had an understanding of what we were talking about too so right here is the specific shared uh definition that we talk about for universal design for learning as a plc or professional learning learning community at the district level and this is the working definition that we asked our sites to work with too you'll see the word variability removing barriers that it really is a shift in our in our thinking about how we approach planning learning and expecting learning and showing learning and then as i referred to before this is what the sites did with uh universal design for learning at the explore stage again this is some of their work not all of their work but some of them chose to do a book study on katie novak's udl now book others chose to send teachers a group of teachers to workshops and trainings mcclellan specifically used some of their funding um to have a site coach work with their their team of teachers and talk about udl udl is conversations that are happening in staff meetings their uh teacher work days collaboration time we're constantly um figuring out ways to kind of push on what we understand and explore so simply to close what is udl it's a way to approach teaching and learning to reach and engage every student in our classrooms great thank you so much becky are there any questions from the board i don't have a question uh but i do have a comment um and i really appreciate the work um that miss lawson did in presenting kind of the the um the um extent that the district has gone to to really become familiar with um universal design for learning or udl um i i'm looking forward to learning more and just very excited um that you know you did distinguish between um you know just curriculum differentiation and udl it it's so important it's a it's a new paradigm it's a way of being inclusive from just from the start and by design and so i i'm just thrilled to see us moving in that direction becky you did an awesome job you know put a lot of work within that that's obvious so thank you very much it it really is i agree with dr leeds it really is an exciting um i it's a really exciting and the work will constantly continue so that's and meeting students needs needs all the time is is what keeps us thriving and working and pushing each day so i appreciate it it is so exciting when you're just right on the cusp of something new like that that you know is going to make such a huge difference thank you any other questions comments great thank you so much becky all right let's move on to social emotional learning all right are you able to uh see my screen yep and you can hear me okay dude yes outstanding thank you very much i have a tendency to talk too loud on these zoom meetings so if i do so please let me know and i will tone it down so social emotional learning i've been tasked with uh presenting uh social emotional learning within the center joint unified school district and just give kind of a brief overview of of what it means what it is and where we are going direction-wise so it's not letting me forward here give me a second there we go uh so first of all social emotional learning it's important to understand it's not just a single program a time of the day an activity anything like that it encompasses permeates everything we do uh from what's going on in the bus all the way till in the morning when they're coming to school all throughout the day uh till the end of the day we utilize a definition that we got from castle which is the the uh collaborative for academic social emotional learning uh and i'm gonna go through this definition then i'm gonna explain it a little bit bear with me it is a little bit of a long definition so social emotional learning is an integral part of education and human development scl is the process through which all young people and adults acquire and apply the knowledge skills and attitudes to develop the healthy identities manage emotions and achieve personal and collective goals feel and show empathy for others establish and maintain supportive relationships and make responsible and caring decisions sel advances educational equity and excellence through authentic school family community partnerships to establish learning environments and experiences that feature trusting and collaborative relationships rigorous and meaningful curriculum and instruction and ongoing evaluation sel can help address various forms of inequity and empower young people and adults to co-create thriving schools and to contribute to safe healthy and just communities although it is a very long definition they've done a great job of encapsulating what this really is and we have adopted that within our district uh as our definition as we move forward uh with social emotional learning uh to give you kind of a visual eye of this you can see it encompasses everything from the community all the way into the very uh independent interactions between students and teachers so the the main things that we are really focusing on in terms of the center joint unified school district are in regards to self-awareness self-management responsible decision-making relationship skills and social awareness and again that's from every individual interaction up to the class interaction to the school-wide interaction to the district-wide and even permitting out into the communities so our team and we have put together a social emotional work on it the task force that we have members of all uh of our school sites on um we have come up with our our shared vision for what this would look like within our district so we want school to be a safe place and we're talking both emotionally and physically uh students and staff are excited to come to school each day uh students and staff have positive relationships and demonstrate mutual respect students have access to support services when needed interventions are intentional and driven by data students work together take on challenges and they persevere so in terms of our district and again when you're looking at sel it is at all times so we're looking at pictures here of in the classroom uh in athletics activities at recess at all interactions throughout the day and not just teachers and admin and students it's it involves uh all of our classified staff office staff bus drivers custodians it's all the interactions everything that is going on throughout that day and it is a constant cycle of learning uh through those interactions and many of those are guided interactions we're going to talk about that coming up here in the next slide so this is our cover of our multi-tiered systems of support blueprint uh without going into this too deeply that would be a whole nother presentation we have sel embedded throughout all of our school sites our district office throughout the entire plan of our blueprint and if you have a chance to go through that you'll you'll see uh where it's marked out in there so that you can see that that again it permeates everything we do this slide is representing it's not at certain school sites or certain grade levels or with certain students it is all school sites within our district it is all students all staff within our district and to give you some examples of some things that would fall under this that are more guided uh in terms of activities or programs again we have that sel task force that represents uh members from all of our school sites and we come together monthly it's less now than this coveted time but when we get back to the the school sites we'll be able to meet again on a monthly basis and we're we're uh continuing to forge ahead in this whole social emotional realm uh working with our students we also many of us participate in the sacramento county office of education's commun sel community of practice where they're bringing in outside speakers we're looking at book studies we're looking at what is going on in this domain this area and what are some things that we can bring into our school to improve what we're doing we have pbis positive behavioral interventions and supports programs at many of our school sites that encompass many of the aspects of what we're talking about everything from restorative justice restorative circles um again how how we interact with each other all of those are things that go on within those programs center high school was working on a school culture through a grant really taking hard look at the school culture and how we interact with students again not just teachers but everybody and how can we improve that culture so there's a much more positive inclusive uh culture for everyone uh for all students uh we have second step at many of our elementaries in our in our middle school which is another it's a character uh building uh uh program it's a full program that talks about character development and decision making and so on and so forth uh again we have counseling service which also falls under this umbrella everything from our herms educa educationally related mental health services down to our counseling services at each of our school sites we also have brought in trainings throughout the district for trauma-informed instruction uh helping teachers to understand what's going on in students lives and how we can better meet their needs in the classroom it's not just about taking the shrink wrap off the curriculum and teaching that those days are long over uh it's a whole different time now where students are coming in and we need to meet them where wherever those needs are and help them through we also have the leader in me which is another character development program at one of our sites we have we have partnered with uh the kernels program which is out of harvard university uh which these are are set uh lessons but they also permeate throughout the day uh involving social emotional learning tasks uh and activities that would fall on again under that domain so again this is this is a very brief uh overview but i just want to stress uh oftentimes we think people think of social emotional learning as it's a pre-packaged program it's one thing or it's a time of the day uh that you would pull people out we're gonna do our social emotional activity now and now we're gonna go back to regulars but that's not how it works it permeates everything going back to the the initial description or definition social emotional learning is an integral part of everything we do of our entire educational program are there any questions that you have about the what's going on within the district i do of course um so i'm curious about um things like restorative justice and other programs that we've had um at various schools and they've been like it's not um consistent throughout the different schools there's different programs at different schools so how first of all has has this supplanted any of those programs have they been eliminated in in lieu of this program and secondly how have we incorporated the social emotional learning into the existing programs that we already have so it hasn't supplanted it's it hasn't supplanted another program social emotional learning it's not a program that you would go by through a curriculum you know magazine example like you would maybe an english curriculum or something it think of it more as a philosophy that encompasses many many programs many ideas many philosophies and it's about how you're setting up your culture of your school um and how every interaction that goes on now there are some programs that fall under that domain such as restorative justice uh second step none of those have been supplanted uh nothing that none of those programs that you mentioned have been replaced i think is what you're getting at have we replaced second step with this no that all is part of this whole overall program and i think to jump in mike i think what it also does is it allows us to align programs that help us support sel in many different ways so it's not one thing comes in and we push something else we're trying to get and you've probably seen that graphic where you you have all the arrows going in the right direction versus all the arrows going in different ways and what we're looking at is what can help us as we move forward because what we're also seeing is what we might think is a great way to support sel yesterday may not be the same one we need today so we're trying to open our toolbox uh for it but but mr jordan hit on another uh comment there that it it becomes a way of thinking you know it's not just cracking the book and doing my i did my second step lesson and therefore i've checked that box off it's how we treat students families how we accept them how they come onto campuses how they're welcome to campus and it just is the udl this is a process um that we're working through but we're trying to identify how do we continue to bring more and more support and meet those students and those families where they are and help them progress through the educational system in a welcoming um collaborative way mike i know from experience with my own family this this program is working tremendously especially at the schools that i'm involved with but with the autism spectrum being expanded and with it being such a large spectrum with kids at every level of it this is a program that's just desperately needed not to mention the kids that are coming from homes that are broken and not necessarily functioning real well they just need that extra support along the way and one adult can make such a huge difference in a child's life and whether they have a positive comment for that child in the morning or negative you know comment it just sets that child up for the whole day and i just i have so much respect for you guys for going out there and finding these programs and finding these attitudes if that's the way you want to phrase it because it's not a program but it's an attitude of the whole district and bringing them in and working them into our system it's just a wonderful experience for all of these kids and i just applaud you for doing it thank you thank you and it's it really is maybe the most important thing we do and it's not necessarily quantifiable but helping kids learn how to manage their emotions um that is a huge part of not only being a kid being an adult and being able to to uh be successful out in the world yeah social awareness self-awareness you're not going to be able to take a test necessarily and quantify those things but they are absolutely vital uh for all of our students um so that this is it is incredibly incredibly important in a world that's putting so much stress on these kids from day one i mean even you know first grade these kids are stressed out and they just need that extra special support mike so i know you mentioned trauma-informed learning and um you know i'm curious what kind of training we've gone through as far as adverse childhood experiences aces which is all about what we do at public health and i'm really excited that we're on the cutting edge of trauma-informed learning and would love to hear a more in-depth presentation at a future board meeting that just briefly if you could talk about what we've done as far as aces and trauma-informed learning that would be great so we've had some trainings through scoe's sacramento county office of education in regards to trauma-informed instruction we brought in from the national national mental health association i believe it is we brought in some uh speakers talking about uh you know dealing with kids with trauma and significant trauma and how you know you can't just expect these kids to leave that their baggage at the door so to speak and all of a sudden everything's okay we need to help these kids uh to monitor their emotions to to go through these experiences um and not expect them just to ignore it um we've had them come in they had some guest speakers that talked about their own experiences and and what they were dealing with and what was helpful to them um we've and we've had numerous trainings along the way i actually have a spreadsheet from every single site that's listed all the different trainings and all the different things that they're doing on their site so i'll be happy to share that with that with the board um a broader idea of exa all the things that are happening because there's there's a tremendous amount of things happening in this domain right and kelly you might remember it might have been before you were on um the board allison collier and tracy dobbmeyer were trained as and i cannot remember the agency and we were running we were part of a grant and we were running these early early on and asus was the critical component that drove those lessons that's we had some guest speakers come in and we had a lot of staff run through that early on um so it might be helpful too mike that we can we'll just share out with you what you can kind of see what what we've done and where we're going and it's continual because we've had new staff come on and some leave so it's not just one and done it's it's we continually need to get at that and the neat part with the aces piece i wanted to share was it wasn't just teachers it was staff it was everyone who wanted to participate could come to it because uh to miss anderson's point when a student walks onto that bus or when a student comes into that office how are we being perceptive to to address and lead with that positive and see and recognize that they might be coming with some some um trauma for lack of a better word and that was the youth mental health first aid training which we put through staff through um we came in with a different program now that we're utilizing that we can actually train all of our staff we've had we have suicide prevention trainings we have all i mean all kinds of things around this aspect these this domain is probably the best way to put it and we have it even in elementary unfortunately we have i'm sorry i even in elementary we have kids threatening suicide unfortunately sad but true we we start since we've been a distance learning what's called beacon which is monitoring when they're on our chromebooks and if they go to things that that trigger suicide ideation those kind of things it alerts us and we contact families and we've had quite a few contacts this year wow at all different grade levels that's another way we're trying to support kids and their social emotional difficulties right now going through this time of isolation yeah that program has proved to be very uh very important and very vital in some of these kids lives even prior to covid um the nine-year-old age group was the largest increasing demographic for suicide age demographic nine-year-olds with the largest increasing so and it's i'm sure gotten worse since coving i i think there's still a notion out of amongst the leak some of society the school is just academics and that's just not the case anymore uh it hasn't been for a very very long time to be honest um we are seeing a lot of of good come from the things that we're instituting in this social emotional domain it's almost like if education happens when you're at school it's a good thing but there's so many things involved i think also we're reshaping and and and shifting you know our understanding of what education is and you know what really matters the most um and that we teach you know whole people um that you know have lived experiences that we need to honor and um include and how do we do that and how do we maintain a balance what are our real values in in this endeavor absolutely oops any other questions for mr jordan thank you mike great thank you so much mike all right moving on to item number 13 comments from the audience regarding items not on the agenda anyone may address the board regarding any item that is within the board's subject matter jurisdiction however the board may not discuss or take action on any item which is not on this agenda except as authorized by government code section 5495 speakers shall be limited to three minutes we're pretty squishy about that uh all public comments on items listed on this agenda will be heard at the time the board is discussing that item mrs hart do we have any public comments i do not have any public comments regarding items not on the agenda great thank you so much moving on to item number 14 board and superintendent reports um how about if we have mr bruno go first if you would like um i don't really have anything except to say uh happy new year everyone and welcome back to trustee anderson thank you if we could have dr lee go next okay i have a just a brief um report um and i want to thank mr jordan ms lawson for their presentations today i am planning a zoom meeting on february 23rd um from 4 30 to 6 so save the date uh mr jordan is going to be posting it on the curriculum website for the district um i just like to learn more about the state of social emotional and culturally competent teaching in our district um so i hope you'll join me and share your thoughts so i can learn more um and bring back you know what i find uh to my fellow board members and and also to help inform my knowledge uh of of where we stand uh as you know you know our uh world in our district has been through um so many things lately and it's just super critical that we maintain you know this push and this commitment that we've talked about here today not just to social and emotional learning but culturally competent learning as well as well and all three of those things they really go together uh they're not separate it's not an extra it's not something new um but what we do have uh are new frameworks and and ways of looking at and understanding and having a common language around it so that all of our students are getting the social emotional and cultural uh supports that they need and i also just do also want to recognize monday we had martin luther king day very important day in our nation in our history and i really would love for some of the teachers and other members of the district to just send me information or slides or share with me the things that you did to teach your students at all levels about the civil rights movement and the importance of it in our nation's history really uh enjoy that and that's the end of my report thank you dr lee i do have one question just a clarification on your um zoom meeting that is on february 23rd 4 30 to 6 pm you are wanting district staff teaching staff to participate in that zoom meeting to perspective correct yes and teachers staff and teachers are all welcome and anyone who would like to share their perspective um is is welcome but it i am focusing on staff and teachers uh because that is you know who i'd like to hear from yeah so if we could please get marie and vanessa to share that information out to the respective labor groups that would be fantastic so that we can get a really good turnout for that event so thank you so much dr lee and if we can move on to mrs anderson i really have nothing other than i hope everyone does have a happy new year and this you know year we get rid of covet and can get back to a normal school year these kids desperately need it they definitely need that peer reinforcement and socialization okay thank you mrs pope thank you trustee kelly last month i mentioned that i thoroughly read the school plan for student achievement but i also read the student accountability report card and reading this i reading these two documents i saw one major commonality and that is mtss or multi-tiered systems of support and now having all schools using the or participating in ntss is a positive step for all our students as we heard today and i want to reiterate dr lee thank you miss lawson and mr jordan for this information it was so helpful um it was an eye-opener so thank you and thank you for your participation in mtss though mcclellan high school does participate in mtss but they have an advantage due to their smaller class sizes they also integrate in their program get focused stay focused with their students and that is a 10 year career life plan and a skill based education plan which i think is very important for students so i commend mcpaul into also incorporating that into other school curriculum is lisa coronado still available or she's still online i do have yes i do have a question if you're if you're available i am okay so um i know um you've done this several times but there has been some community chatter about um how we are spending the 4.6 million covid a dollar six million dollars of coffin money and and um also how are we spending the money saved from operating costs from march through december and i know you you've got a lot of information on so just an overview if you would please sure so in the first round of covid relief funds we received about four million dollars there is an additional amount coming but we haven't heard how much or when that's coming the first round of money there were specific requirements that it could be spent on and so um the majority of it was spent on learning supports about 2 million 1.8 million was spent on learning supports and that was the chromebooks for students to learn at home um that was extra textbooks um online programs so that they could be more easily assessed or and they can access you know other curriculum supports um and then there was about 800 000 that was able to be spent on staff members that were given extra duties so that they would not be laid off so those are noon duties and transportation and food service workers who we didn't really need in their typical roles and so they took on different roles for instance the bus drivers you know drove lunches around and delivered homework packets instead of transporting students to school so we're able to use some of the the funds for their salaries we spent about five hundred thousand on personal protective equipment and similar items so that's the masks and the shields the stickers and arrows that we put on the floor all the plexiglass that is in um offices and rooms we were able to spend the funds on the summer school program so that was about fifty thousand dollars and then some counseling and mental health programs was about another fifty thousand dollars um and improving telework capabilities for the teachers so all of the you know workstations and computers and such for the teachers was about two hundred thousand dollars so it all had to be related to distance learning and um that's what it was used for we are saving um about a million dollars lest i looked that we are not spending because we're not in school on things like substitute cost and certain you know garbage disposal and water costs but because the state has deferred our revenue starting february going through june um we won't be taking money in so luckily we have that that money that will get us through and pay our bills until the state starts paying us back in july um and then once that happens the state will pay us back starting in july for six months every month we'll get a little bit more from this last year that we're not getting um we will be able to use that money will be one-time money that we can use for the upcoming money that we think we're getting and we're not sure how much they did open that up so we can use it on hvac and doors and windows to help um with with ventilation and so that will be a priority um did i answer all of your questions you did you did and i did hear um a comment or read a comment that um from a community member that they were wondering why we weren't using this money to reopen our schools um i think there was a misconception in the community that the monies received was for reopening but as you just explained it's not correct it was for providing distance learning for ourselves okay i appreciate your clarification lisa i think that this would help some of the misconceptions within the community so thank you very much thank you um i do have one more question for mr diesen if uh mr diesen is still available i am here hello mr diesen um thank you for your facility report you know that's part of my favorite favorite things of of this meeting um so years ago the um your department the technology department submitted a 10-year plan to the state and presented it to the board um are we still doing this are we using the plan have we updated the plan can you just give me us um give us a little overview on that please yeah the the purpose of the technology plan back in the day was it was a requirement by the state in order to and the feds in order to receive funding it was mainly for the e-rate funding and that funding you know we've used to do many many technology upgrades in the district over the years but since 2015 they no longer require that that document so as it is still important to have a plan on how you're moving forward with whether it's technology or hvac replacement or you know the things that we have in our deferred maintenance plan thing like that you know we always have to have a plan of where we're headed um we have not updated that document for a while but we have made many many technology improvements over the over the last 10 years and as soon as we um get our um our technology department um re-um i'm trying to think of the word but um back up to um god help me scott i can't think of the word fully staffed holy staff thank you very much that's exactly what i was looking for um we really do want to address and and look forward again and it probably won't be the way that the tech plan was laid out because it was very technical and and it wasn't a friendly document at all but we will put together some goals and some objectives that we have as we look to where we're headed with technology in the future very good um so the board around 2017 maybe 2015 um budgeted 400 000 for technology and also you have received cares money as lisa just uh explained for for technology with all this money that you have coming in um do you think you need a consulting service to help prioritize your spending so we utilize this monies properly and efficiently um i believe that we have the resources within the district to drive the technology in the district we have a lot of expertise you know the the need for consultants is when when you don't have the expertise to do it yourself um so no i don't believe that i believe that we've had good direction from the board um on on where we were supposed to be going with that four hundred thousand dollars and we've met our objectives one of them was um one-to-one um devices for students um you know and and another one was connectivity we've pulled fiber lines to give us 10 gig capability we've upgraded switches so you know we we have had a plan we do reach out to um to our experts that we know out in the community when we need help um but i don't you know i i can get free help when i need it free help is always good well there really isn't a need to um to pay someone to help us with the the folks we have on staff and the people that we've worked with over the years we can we can gather all the information we need to make good decisions perfect thank you very much and one last question unrelated to technology but as i said i read the accountability student accountability report cards um and i find it very helpful um and one of the areas um on the report card stated that technol or the facilities updates and i believe that's a report something that your team puts together there was some areas that needed a repair or replacement um door handles dings in the door you know diffusers what how do you prioritize getting these um these things fixed or replaced if you will well within our within our maintenance department we have a program called school dude that um all the school sites can put work orders in so when they see those deficiencies they can put them in and over the year you know we we prioritize and and we work on the deficiencies at the schools the fit report is kind of interesting it's a snapshot at a given moment you know so as you go through the sites it's actually a beneficial thing for us because we go into every classroom my maintenance folks go into every classroom and they they jot down deficiencies that they see so sometimes we don't we don't have knowledge of all the throughout the year of all the the deficiencies so when we go through and mark them all down um we then turn those ourselves into work orders and then we prioritize and go through and do those um as we go so so that's that's kind of how it works the problem with the way that they the fit report actually tallies things is you know you could have you could have five or six or maybe even 10 very small things like stained ceiling tiles or like you said a broken light diffuser or a light switch that cover that's cracked or something like that and as soon as you get to a certain amount within a school site it all adds up with this formula and even though our school sites are not in poor condition it comes out with um with that type of report so you know we either need to you know not mark down every little thing that can help us to create work orders and make things better or we would need to cheat on the you know on the counting and the tabulating we believe that you know it's best just to to put everything down find out what we need to do prioritize and get out there and do it so sometimes just that snapshot that we get doesn't um always give a perfect view of what our sites actually look at if that makes sense it does and saying that um do you also go into rooms that are unoccupied yes so you do yeah so we we've got you know we've got all those portables at the district office annex um and some of those have ceiling tiles that have been removed and and fire alarms that may be hanging down because we're um we're working on the roof and we're not we're not actually putting them back into into usable space but when you walk in there um there's a lot of you know there's a lot of scene deficiencies that would be marked down so can i ask craig a question no okay go ahead nancy just sent your back the 15 000 donation you want to explain that a little bit so just to point to order these are some of these things are actually on the consent calendar so we might want to take them up when we get to the consent because i know the win it seems like we're pushing some items ahead okay that's a good idea if you're okay with that yeah that's fine i just wasn't gonna make him come back i'll be here um so thank you craig for your clarification there was just uh some of the things that i was looking at on the report card um so i appreciate all your time and your honesty and your help thanks um i think that's it happy new year everybody and um and thanks for all your help i'm done kelly thank you great thank you dale um okay so i'm going to let scott go last i'm going to go ahead and give my report a couple of things i wanted to give a an official welcome to christopher bieber dorothy stevens anna jacob and early resendez who are new employees of the district anna congratulations to angela espinoza and michael treadwell for their promotions and then a thank you to catherine mckenna who is retiring um i also wanted to give a really special recognition to lisa coronado and her team for the outstanding audit report that we just received it's it's just miraculous to get really basically zero findings the finding that they found was you know it was very very minor not fiscally you know effective and it's just a testament to what a great team you guys are and the work that you do and then um let's see i'm planning on taking the masters in governance training courses coming up here soon so hopefully that will translate into value for the district and then um i wanted to talk about covet numbers um just a couple days ago on sunday they reported that in the previous it goes from 11 a.m to 11 a.m so the previous 24-hour period from 11 to 11 we had 669 deaths in california which was stunning and shocking and very sad and i'm really you know i hate to say i'm happy to report deaths but i'm happy to report that the deaths are significantly less in the last hour cycle it was 146 now there's always a a reporting delay from the weekends so that'll probably shoot up over the next couple of days but to go from 669 down to 146 is pretty pretty uh remarkable and significant and it's a really good trend um and i know that we'll all think okay the vaccine's here and we're no longer on a stay-at-home order everything's going to be great but we're not at that point yet and we're at the point where we need to stay the course be strong it sucked not being able to go visit family for christmas i mean sorry that it was just horrible but i knew that that i had to you know respond and emulate responsible behavior and so i did not see family and um i just i just hope that everybody out there understands the sacrifices that are being made by our you know medical personnel and people everybody everywhere and that we all stayed the course and get through the rest of this um horrendous time together um and then on a more positive note um i wanted to um oh that was it i already recognized lisa coronado and craig diesen obviously for all your work with facilities is fabulous mike this all the work that you're doing on social emotional learning we have a fabulous group of administrators and i can't speak highly enough of all of you so that was my report your name scott mr lyric yeah yep you're up i'm going to start with the happy thing i want to wish kelly a happy birthday um for those that don't know happy birthday to kelly so i'll start that way i also wanted to thank um lisa and the business office for their incredible work of making sure these clean audits are not always easy but it's to the processes and procedures the whole team has so congratulations to them uh lawson becky lawson thank you for your presentation today um and i wasn't laughing when you couldn't get zoom up because i struggle with it too so it happens to all of us uh and mr jordan thanks for your continued work and and i think to me kelly you hit it on the head as it really emulates and illustrates what our district is all about working to try uh to be that cutting edge and get there and work together and do what we need to do for for our students and our families and for each other um so i appreciate the board's role in that um and then finally i want to i just want to leave with it struck me and i heard this and there and i'm not trying to say that others aren't doing remarkable things but i want to give you uh an example of a story that i heard that i was like okay this this illustrates what our staff is doing to try and reach out to uh families so last week we had a a meeting and it happened to be deadly principal mr jackson and he keeps calling me about different ideas he had he said scott i've come up with a great idea i'm doing a virtual lunch he goes i'm already sitting at my desk i'm gonna throw it out there see if any kids will join and and sit with me and eat lunch so he's had over a hundred kids join at different times his lunch and so to me that's exactly what we're talking about with social emotional learning is we're making connections with kids that aren't just around the textbook and the academics but we're building relationships in a very remote difficult situation so i know all of our schools are doing things but that one really stuck out when he said virtual lunch and then he said well i'm already sitting in my desk eating my sandwich anyway i might as well have some kids around um so anyway i just wanted to share with the board that that that's an example of some of the great things that are happening in our district uh through one example so other than that happy new year at all glad everyone's back and looking forward to uh the rest of the year great thank you so much mr lear okay um moving on to the consent agenda do i have a motion to approve the agenda a motion to approve um we need to make a change in it we need to pull item one off for separate consideration okay so do we have a motion to approve as amended uh yeah and a second i will second great and do we want to do a roll call vote then to approve the consent agenda yes uh okay dr lee yes yes hi mr bruno hi mrs pope hi mrs anderson i abstain and the chair votes motion is passed it was approved it was carol do you need me to repeat the motions and seconds for you i think we have it kelly because we also have it recording so we can always go back but just for my clarity so just now you just approved 2 through 22 on the consent calendar and you were separately correct item one is that correct yes and i was going to do that next we okay i was just because i know ms anderson you abstain from two through 22 i just want to make sure the next one will be item one i'm assuming because it was the minutes you might have been abstaining no i thought we were doing item one okay that's that's what i i think there's a little confusion on that one okay okay so then do we want to go back and redo the vote for mrs anderson no just just record it as a a okay okay all right and then on item number one do we have a motion to bring it to the floor i'm going to bring it to the floor moved and seconded um do we have any discussion on item number one it's just i wasn't on the board for that meeting so i have to abstain okay okay so we'll take a roll call vote mr dr lee hi and mr hi mrs pope aye mrs anderson i'm saying and the chair votes i item number one on the consent agenda has been approved all right moving on to business items item number a quick instruction center high school's comprehensive plan to maintain student academic progress during distance learning do we have a motion to can we approve miss kelly if we could take a moment i we did have mr ferguson to give a brief overview of what we were doing just and then see if there's any board questions right we just yeah we need to bring it to the floor prior to discussion so if we could have a motion to either approve or bring it to the floor and a second i'll second so mrs sanders said mrs pope thank you any discussion mr ferguson you're up evening everybody it's uh dr liam mr bruno it's a pleasure to meet you although virtually for the first time i look forward to when we can welcome you to center high school and miss kelly miss anderson miss pope it's great to see you about you all again if i could i'm going to share my screen real quick and hopefully this runs smoothly so center high school i just want to first before we begin on the plan i just want to make a quick mention of the teachers at center high school this entire semester have been working countless hours and working tirelessly to provide an education for our students and as we are seeing internationally students are still struggling during distance learning one of the concerns that we have is a lot of students are not going to be progressing towards graduation as they would have were we in a in person learning so a lot of conversations and a lot of thought have gone into finding ways we can comprehensively support every student and in doing so we also want to come up with ways that are going to provide alternatives for students to be able to meet their needs so we put together what is essentially there are four parts to this plan three of the parts we are requesting action from the board to approve but i'm presenting all four because they kind of intertwine with each other and they're very interrelated the four parts are going to be what provides students many different opportunities options and ways to recover credits from the first semester the first is going to be credit recovery and we'll go a little more into that later but that's going to be our primary focus of getting every student involved in either an online after school opportunity or with teachers who specifically are teaching a single class for a uh with a credential to regain credits in a specific subject we also want to offer an opportunity for students who could validate a course whose great performance in the first semester might have been just below being able to achieve a passing grade that if they pass the second semester they're able to still gain credits the board does currently have a policy about being able to challenge a course by exam however the policy is limited for students accelerating towards graduation a recommendation we have here is to expand that opportunity so students would be able to test for courses they've previously failed and that way they can be able to gain credits in an alternative way to taking the time after school if they are already inundated with a full schedule and then lastly is going to be the reduction of graduation requirements and that would be on a case-by-case basis and in a tiered model if i can show in the next slide since we've been talking tonight a bit about mtss the intention is to try to provide something like something for everybody and the universal approach we are going to have is the credit recovery every student who has failed a course initially what's required for graduation is what we are trying to focus on is our primary um the universal tier depending on the staffing we'd like to expand to offer many different options into electives or other classes that students are taking so as to maintain track if they're trying to get something like from a beginning guitar to advanced guitar for example giving opportunities for all classes but we would primarily focus on those that are required for graduation we we would be referring every student to credit recovery as well as every student would be able to challenge a course there are limitations that we have in the plan which would students can't challenge every course to do it multiple times but those would be what's available to every student then there would be a smaller group of students who would be eligible for validating a course as was mentioned and then even a smaller limited group of students would be eligible for a graduation requirements reduction so real quick the idea of credit recovery this is what we would be focusing every student on trying to do so as to mitigate some of that lost learning during the first semester one of the ways we would be looking to provide this would be through edgenuity it's an online program where students would be self-paced many of the courses are a through g they would be able to earn letter grades in edge annuity and one advantage of this is that it's also able to be administered by any any teacher so one teacher could be overseeing for example like three or four subjects if not more and assisting students in getting through the program we also would like to be able to put together a program where individual teachers are teaching specific subjects for two weeks those classes would be capped at about 20 students they'd be getting direct instruction from teachers based on essential standards so as to be able to regain credits from the first semester and continue towards graduation validating a course as i mentioned before would come we would still first be focusing every student on credit recovery for students who are either unable to participate in credit recovery either because of circumstances at home or other challenges if in the first semester they had a grade of 45 or higher they would be eligible to validate their score now colleges and universities have a similar program for some subjects and this would be to gain credit towards graduation if they have a passing grade in the second semester we would like to be able to validate that first semester and get them credits towards graduation the challenging of course as i mentioned the board policy administrative regulation 6155 it is limited to students who are trying to accelerate towards graduation and we'd like to be able to expand that just on a temporary basis so that students are say they're a senior under class subject that they had missed a semester of but they have a full schedule this would allow them an opportunity to be able to take classes that are either below their level or previously failed and that way they would still have another opportunity to regain credits to continue towards graduation one of the things about being able to take an exam is that if they pass the exam they would be able to get a letter grade and the letter grade would transfer if the class was previously a college prep course they would still be able to maintain an a through g credit for that course so that they could still remain competitive with other students applying to colleges and universities so then the last which would be a reduction in graduation requirements this would be on a case-by-case basis after we have already referred students to their credit recovery they have attempted maybe an exam or the credit recovery and then by determination of the counselor and the administration we would have a meeting with the students and the parents to discuss exactly how we would modify the credits so that they would still remain at or above the state minimum and that way we would try to make sure we're able to assist every student continuing with their progress towards graduation that's uh those are the end of the slides thank you mr ferguson uh mr ferguson i i do have a question if oh i'm sorry you're not done pardon me i i just went back to this because it's easy to understand how they work together i can turn i can turn the presentation off um so if i'm understanding this correctly um this these options are school-wide except for the graduation requirements which i believe you stated this for 2021 class correct correct okay and in regards to challenging a course by exam who writes that test in the current board policy it is the department chair in coordination with the administration which then what our intention would be as we would work with the department so the plc that oversees a specific subject would develop that test okay and then i'm assuming then the department chair would also submit the test correct administration okay but to the students what we would be looking to do is to find a way with county health to administer the test in person on campus and we would be doing that through administration where the test would be provided to us and then we would make sure to have a secure environment so as to maintain test security and administer the test on campus so that would be something we would take on because teachers would be busy with lesson planning and teaching so we would try to administer that test on their behalf that was my next question um and then lastly are other schools having the same options or is this something that our district or you and your staff created so i know mr larry mr jordan we've also been looking a lot of other districts and what they've put forward in comparison we may be a little biased we think our plan is a little more comprehensive we've seen a lot of districts they're simply providing students with extra time which creates a lot more work for the teachers this semester trying to teach current material to to go back and we're trying to create a lot of a lot of different opportunities for students and a lot of districts are trying to come up with various plans some are similar some are not going to be as elaborate or like comprehensive with multiple options they to your appointments pope too there is this is a widespread from local districts to across the state to nationally we're hearing of it you're reading of articles everywhere i've surveyed our local districts we're all trying to combat the same thing and and i want to compliment since i have a minute for the floor of mr ferguson and the center high staff for recognizing this early and coming up and really thinking it through before it's too late um and so i give all of them kudos and i know it wasn't just one person it was the team at center high that that made that happen so thank you mr ferguson and to your staff for that i have to reiterate what mr lehrer said um i want to thank you mr jordan and everybody at center high school because i know this wasn't easy i i can only imagine so thank you for your hard work um um i do have another question actually a comment um either for mr jordan or for mr ferguson so if one of you are available um if you will so yeah mr ferguson um there has been um chatter throughout the community that um center high school in particular has changed their policies and added additional homework to the students are any of your departments um within your school doing that to increase grades for failing grades or adding additional homework i i can just say no i will say that if anything teachers may be offering alternative assignments options for students to be able to catch up but nothing that is required or extra teachers are going out of their way to try to give students as many opportunities they can to improve their grades but nobody's increasing homework or mandatory assignments every teacher on our campus and all the conversations we've had are well aware of the struggle students are facing and the amount of time that they are we can look at you know they might be in class for only 45 minutes but we know the amount of time that they're doing outside of that is still expensive and teachers have been bending over backwards and doing everything they can and it's but no nobody is increasing homework no policies in fact teachers are the ones who are coming forward first and foremost and saying that our students need help we need to do something and a lot of this is driven by their their feedback and their their concerns for our students thank you um for putting a squash on this rumor um i didn't think it was true but you just have to ask just to make sure and again i want to thank all the departments within center high school for taking their time and going the extra mile to help our students i've had first-hand conversations with a couple of your department heads and i just want to say thank you mr ferguson i wanted to clarify um the reduction of graduation requirements when i first read that i was like i don't know about this and then i read further and saw that it is in fact not going to be any lower than what the state graduation requirements would be and on a case-by-case basis so i just want to confirm that make that part of the public conversation so that everyone is aware that we're not we're not making it easier than what is legally allowed to graduate that is correct yeah thank you any other questions or comments from mr ferguson i would just like to comment uh i'd like to comment first of all that i really appreciate the effort that's clearly gone into this um these are some creative solutions and i i really think you guys did a great job putting this together um what i'm wondering is how are you gonna convey this to the people and do you have the resources um primarily counselors i would imagine to um to meet with all the students to who need this to discuss with them what their options are so we we have plans in place and mediums already set up for next week depending on the actual if everything was approved tonight or if not we would still be going forward with credit recovery um the counselors and we have staff on hand who are able to make phone calls there's classified staff who've been making phone calls in the past for engagement purposes and we would be leaning on a lot of different staff to assist with the communication communications home counselors are aware of how many times they're going to be meeting with families to set this up and we we know it's a it's a tough task but they know the reason for doing it and they are everybody is on board and we're very eager to get started to get these students caught back up we also know that with the time frame we're looking at we're going to have a few months to be able to get the students in where we're going to begin in mid-february and then students who are not showing up we're going to still have time to make sure that we get them involved and engaged so it's going to be an ongoing process we're not trying to contact 900 families say within the next few weeks we're going to be going primarily with our seniors to get graduation requirements met and then working our way out from there kind of in the same ideas like a tiered getting down to our ninth graders as we're able to meet those those classes so we're aware it's going to be a lot of phone calls and we are ready great thank you very much okay any more questions or comments from mr ferguson go ahead nancy is there anything being talked about for graduation for these seniors they've missed everything all the way through it breaks my heart yeah so one of the things mr ferguson and i have spoken about is obviously we're optimistic but at this point you know we would have the same plan that we had last year if conditions don't warrant and in person um so i know he and his team is already talking through some of that and you're right um students have missed out on uh some great activities i have a senior he's missed out on those things too so um i think the uh staff is gonna do everything they can just like last year to make it as special as they possibly can based on the circumstances in our current environment yeah i think we talked about yesterday where they could have student cut day and break into school what yeah you gonna do it would be good to see him three-dimensionally yeah it's almost too bad we can't have some kind of function that would bring them back to the school and even at the elementary level to sort of reunite that school bond some of those kids have never been in a school room in the the younger grades well we've even talked about next year we're going to find out that half idea optimistically back on campus half of our students would have never stepped foot on the campus isn't that crazy yeah who would have thought thank you for the job you do every day any other comment or question there is sorry any other questions or comments okay we have a motion to approve and a second and we'll take a roll call vote dr lee oops aye mr bruno i'm actually gonna stain on this one um okay uh mrs pope hi mrs anderson hi and the chair votes i so motion uh item a business item a has been packed uh vote four to one and moving on to item b resolution number 22 slash 2021 for facilities and operations this is approving the expansion of center high school onto the adjoining center junior high school parcel and finding such expansion exempt from the california environmental quality act and approved the filing and recordation of a notice of exemption this resolution will allow the district to expand the center high school campus by joining the center joint junior high school campus with the center high school campus uh do we have a motion to approve a motion question uh mr bruno and do we have a second a second mrs pope and do we have any discussion on this item the only thing would be mr deeson shared during his facilities report that this action though the big grand vision the master plan for center high school was ultimately to expand into the old junior high as the district was growing um very uh rapidly and then that was always the master plan this action helps us because we're bringing cte funding different things that we can maximize that space with the ultimate goal of still bringing into there so this action just helps us make it one continuous campus which will benefit us for funding and and different reasons any other discussion we have a motion to approve and a second for item business item b take a roll call vote mrs dr lee sorry i and mr bruno aye mrs pope aye mrs anderson aye and the chair votes i this item b is passed moving on to governance business item c covered 19 status in our region and transitioning to plan two the board will discuss the current status of covet 19 in our region and its potential impact on our transition to our plan to hybrid model this says it's an action i'm sorry can i get a point of clarification from the superintendent what exactly are we acting on there is no action the only action would be is if we put it on if circumstances have changed and there was a uh some sort of action that needed to be taken as it relates to transitioning what we wanted to do was put this on each each meeting to discuss to see where we were i think you guys have requested um so at this point what we wanted to share was the adjusted case rate for for the sacramento area and kind of the region is around 48 which is uh i think to get down in the red tier you have to be below an eight per eight or seven below so we're very far away from that the governor has actually just released recently a new plan for reopening so we're digging into that i think it came out last week there's some incentive portions in that but there's also just some new requirements so we're updating um all of our plans to reflect the new requirements so we are ready to go in the event that we're able to go and you guys authorize us to to come back into plan too but at the current moment uh the sacramento county health department is not issuing waivers the criteria the governor has outlined is not allowed because you'd need to be under 25 cases per 100 000 we're at that so at this point there's really no clear path for us to come back to school because we had not opened previously some other districts had reopened or schools had opened so they were allowed to to reopen or even expand in some cases so at this point there's not a lot on this topic other than um i think as miss kelly you pointed out there's it's still circulating pretty widely in our community um but right now there is nothing for you to act on because there is no action i would also be hesitant to say come up with some sort of date for the future because we just don't know i would recommend that when things start to come down we convene at our regular meeting or if something's coming out quicker i would ask for a special meeting and then we could then move forward with with making a more definitive plan um we'll continue to keep this item on our agenda um so we can have the discussions and we and i know you all are are greatly involved with watching the data would also be involved with that um the other piece that's important with this is while we're still planning to to uh enter this transition to phase the reopening we're ready there we also are looking ahead at learning loss and the ability to serve students with um the ability we all know as mr ferguson had shared with his his uh staff they've known some kids are struggling so excuse me we'll come back at a later date too and talk more specifically about our plans for learning loss as it relates to summer programs um you know historically we've run a credit recovery type program i think this year it'll be much more robust and something's offered probably at every single school site for our students provided we can get back on campus and or some other creative ways to continue to reach so that's all i really had on the update if there's any questions or dialogue you guys wanted to have i'm not sure if miss hunt received any public comment um so however you want to take it from there that's that's all i had miss kelly i do have a question for a couple questions actually for mr jordan kelly if that's okay yeah you go right ahead mr jordan are you available i am he's there thank you thank you miss kelly um mr jordan since their last board meeting i have received communication of concern about the inadequate training of our staff um on distance learning and the preparation for dennis distance learning i know you spoke briefly last month about this and you even had support documentation but you go through it um because you made note that if anybody wants to look at it or read or get informed this is where it's at could you just give a slight overview of the training that our staff has had and are we still continuing with this training uh yes so we we have had multiple trainings both uh from scoe staff as well as our own staff as well as outside vendors on all of the different modes and different platforms that we brought in our teachers have had to learn a whole new way of teaching um and a lot of that has been these different uh these different uh platforms electronic platforms that they've had to learn so we've had trainings on all of those uh different platforms uh how to utilize them how to utilize them in distance learning how to further engage kids in distance learning so we we sent that out to all staff and again that spreadsheet that i shared last time has numerous different opportunities for staff to uh to participate in and the vast majority did participate in uh and those are ongoing as we see more uh need then we we add to those a lot of teachers are starting to get into kind of a rhythm now is what i'm hearing uh which is fantastic so we're trying not to add any new platforms anything new unless that it is requested um but the training has been ongoing there's been a ton of training um and then again i can share that spreadsheet with the board if you'd like and and you can see all the different uh things that have gone on and all the different platforms and all the different uh modalities um well no i don't think that's necessary i'll just make a public note that and if anybody does want to see the information that you shared last month they can look at the youtube video and also on our um our what was it uh february january what month december our december aboard packet because it's in there or they can also look at the slides um from last month's meeting thank you mr jordan i i do have another question um i'm sorry it's i've had a lot for you this evening um i was told by the health student health department that the ppe that we have is um not appropriate or inadequate um mostly concerning our masks they want the n95 where we have the k95 um and also they are they have or you ordered or they were given smokes as opposed to a lab coat per se that has more coverage um and uh could you just elaborate on that a little bit please yes mr jordan before you do can i just speak to the in 95 question so um i don't know if any of you have tried purchasing n95 math but they are not available to anyone other than frontline medical staff the kn 95s i was a little hesitant to get however my son-in-law who is a first responder emt those are the types that they are using so the k and 95 are being used and accepted by frontline um first responders so um sorry to to hijack your your question but i i i thought that was important to share go ahead mr jordan i'm mike jordan and i endorsed kelly kelly's previous announcement and she's spot on she's exactly right we've tried to go through numerous vendors and we go through uh you know vendors that sell to nurses sell to medical equipment you can't get them you can't get in 95s right now they won't sell them to you and you know usually something they'll say it's on back order they're saying no we will not sell it to you so can i just say how irritating that is that we can't buy them i i mean i just wanted doesn't have anything to do without a meeting but it just really picks me off agreed uh we do have a a handful of n95s that we were able to get i believe it's from the state early on they gave us the state provided us with a bunch of ppe over the summer uh some of that was the smocks if you want to call them that that were short sleeve that kind of stuff as soon as we found out that those were not adequate we bought the the long-sleeve disposable ones we i just checked with our registered nurse uh yesterday had a couple conversations we have 80 in supply we made another order a week two weeks ago to get more of those in so that we have plenty of those we have a we have plenty of n the k n 95 mass uh those are the ones we can get according again to our registered nurse they're they're basically just as good as the k95 uh excuse me the n95 but we can't get the n95s so we have tons of the kn 95s we have tons of gloves uh uh shields um well if they want to they can use that n95 with a shield absolutely okay kn 95 with the shield certainly okay certainly we we have more uh our initial and this is the the kn 95 i don't know if you can see that on the screen there we go uh we we got 150 of those initially we got another shipment in of these big bags that are also 150 at a time we have tons of those plus we have ton of the the three-ply surgical masks um that that the recent cd or california department of health said that's what is expected of of students and staff it's the three-ply mask we have we have tons of i can't give the exact number i was going to say zillions but obviously that's an example but we have plenty of those masks um we also bought special cots uh for each of our uh we call them isolation rooms um so that they have a kids have a place to lie down if they're dizzy whatever when the time comes we also have isolation rooms set up outside of the main office in all of our school sites because obviously the kid is infected and hasn't had a positive test but they're showing acceptance we don't want to become the main office and expose the entire front office so that all of our admin and office staff and everyone have to go to quarantine um that would in effect shut our school down that would be a very difficult situation so those are outside of of the main offices um again we've put out a couple time store health staff tell us what you need with obviously the exception of the n95 because kelly this kelly is correct we we've tried numerous times to order them but you can't get them um so you talked about isolation rooms but just to reiterate each site has an isolation room that's separate from the major population of the school and actually uh many sites have multiple iso isolation rooms because they recognize it that those may fill up because what we have to do is when kids have any of these symptoms which are common symptoms you know diarrhea vomiting uh cough so on and so forth uh you know we have to send those kids home that that's part of the the orders that we've been given from the state and from the county and as you all know elementary school those are coughing diarrhea vomiting i mean that happens on a normal year let alone during a covered year so we anticipate there's going to be a lot of kids that aren't will end up in those isolation rooms thank you very much for your time if i could just add a couple more things um del rey yeah each of those isolation rooms and the nurses rooms also have hepa air sweepers in them so they're getting an extra dose of of filtration in those rooms and then if you're really innovative and you're able to access some black market areas or whatever i actually found a place today where we can get some n95s so we will be increasing our supply of n95s but as as kelly kelly said the kn 95s will filter the same amount as the n95s out that's why it's called a 95 because it filters 95 of the particles out so wonderful thank you craig and thanks for the clarification and one more thing there are two more things and thank you to craig diesel mr deason has done a great job of getting all this ppe to us he's dealing with multiple vendors dealing with the state and so on and so forth as well as tina duncan in our office and gail who is our rn they've been working going through the catalogs uh ordering things as well um we also have goggles if they don't want the face mask they can wear the goggles and we have those uh not speaking the temperature uh guns that that's not the right word but you know the touchless ones thermometers there you go they look like the speed gun things right highway but uh we we have a ton of those as well i think mr mr diesen ordered was like 200 or some crazy number uh that we have out there as well so there is there is a ton of ppe very good thank you so much for your clarification i appreciate it mr jordan and mr diesen thank you thank you thank you i think he's camera shy that's all i had kelly can i be excused from that i hit that mute button sorry um any other other comments discussion on the business item c covered 19 status i would just like to add something to what superintendent lair said um he mentioned that we were around 48 for our adjusted case rate um we're currently as of this week at 48.7 for the adjusted case rate and 54.6 for the the actual case rate both of those numbers are up slightly from last month um so you know although we're it's seeming to be going back down after the kind of christmas bump um the numbers are still up from where we were when we were discussing this a month ago so i just wanted to make that point as well you know also they were talking about having a third strain that's hit california especially and we don't know what that's going to do yet so we're nowhere near close to being out of this thing nope okay any further discussion miss kelly i do know just as a reminder there's some public comment that i think mrs hunt has just so you're aware oh wonderful let's let's hear it can you hear me mrs hunt we can now okay all right so i have three of them at this moment uh the first one is from louise braden she is asking when will sdc classes start up in small cohorts the next one is from peter brown he says i'm concerned that we might return to school too quickly and put our students families and teachers at risk of contracting covid i contracted covid over the christmas break as well as several of my members my family lost one of the most important people i've ever known i don't want to see another family go through this ordeal my son is a senior at roseville high school and they went back and within eight days they had 14 teachers and hundreds of students at home which made them switch back to distance learning as a teacher in the district and that has had covid i'm still recovering from the symptoms and have been told they could last weeks to months if other teachers get this i am concerned we will not have enough substitutes to cover the need i am also worried students could take it home to older family members i do not want anyone to contract this and i feel we need to wait until all students and staff are vaccinated until we go back to school and the last one i have is from donna h can the school board or superintendent provide clarification as to the expectations for virtual learning in regards to videos during live meetings is it now a mandate for all students to have their videos on at all times during live meetings some teachers are requiring it some are not and that is all i have at this time so all mr jordan i'll let you come on to possibly answer the second question but if if the board's okay the first question on the sdc classes right now our our agreement with uh our teachers union for our cohorts is uh voluntary the staff would come back and so we have started with those classrooms that have come back so we continue to offer if folks want to come back to offer in person and we do have a quite a few people and we appreciate them doing that so they are doing uh some of those cohorts so i don't have a specific date when the sdc cohort would come back um other than it it's a possibility if that classroom wants to pursue that and mr jordan do you do you have an answer real quick for the uh video cameras i there there is no district policy uh that video cameras have to be on uh that would be a site by site or a or a teacher um we are not mandating that i'm not sure if that's the question that they're asking but uh it is not a district policy that student cameras must be on so we can communicate that with the the leadership team to make sure that they understand our expectations for sure and i know that had come up once before and the the plan was we we had said no they don't have to be on but we would encourage it but there might be situations where we would not require it i'm just curious i thought i read something in our um distance learning playbook uh related to this uh matter um does it address that or did i imagine that i thought it said that we do not require mandate cameras to be on our recordings of lessons to be taken as well address both of those privacy concerns yeah we we definitely we sorry did i cut you off nope no go ahead okay we definitely do not have recording at all that would require uh written uh consent so there is absolutely no recording and uh i i need to go back in i'm clicking in we may have addressed that in the playbook that said that it's optional for the cameras but i need to go back in and before i say that definitively but i i'm i'm almost thinking the same thing that i knew it was in there sorry it seems like there's so many different things going on but i'm almost positive that it was in there mr jordan so we can address that and then and re-re-um share with with individuals because i know there's been a lot of changes over time so so would it be safe to say that mr lair your office will be following up with administrative leadership regarding this just to clarify that so it's clear yes absolutely thank you okay so i'll go ahead if it's okay just to briefly address mr brown uh miss mr brown i am so so sorry for your loss i am sitting i'm not going to name names i am sitting in his office i've been in this office three and a half years it is still his office when people ask me where i work i i tell him i use his name he was i considered him a mentor to me he was a great man i am so so sorry me too mr brown um i am so sorry for your loss thank you for sharing your story it's much appreciated please accept my mine as well he was a wonderful wonderful man and just a big teddy bear i also had him out at rolinda very fond memories and i'll always have fun memories okay and on that note um since no action is going to be taken the chair moves to table business item c we only need a second not a vote a second mrs paul thank you and moving on to advanced planning item 17 few dates the regular meeting will be wednesday february 17th 2021 at 6 pm virtual or riles middle school 4747 psb road roseville california more than likely this will be a virtual meeting on wednesday february 17th um and that's correct and 17b suggested agenda items does the board do the board members have any suggested agenda items does anyone else have any suggestions for agenda items we'll cost god if we do i can't thank you um you know mr jordan kind of hinted at the multi-tiered systems of support and that it would be a much larger conversation i wouldn't mind hearing that larger conversation it doesn't have to be at the next meeting but certainly at some point we would love to hear about the multi-tiered systems of support so i can work with mr jordan we can bring back the the blueprint and go over i think i shared that re-shared that out with all of you again but we could certainly go through and because that really is the overarching net to all of the work that we're doing um so mr jordan i'll speak for you but we'll be happy to come back in february and and walk through that document um it's a living breathing document but it's it's it's some good stuff so yes happy to do that the presentations were given tonight i wouldn't mind having the slide presentation for those it was a lot of good information my our plan was to share those out with you so we'll make sure you get those asap will they be made public so everyone can access them or we plan to email them out uh we could email we could also post them with the underneath the um the packet the meeting notes i think that would be great great good idea mr um there's no reason to continue closed sessions so do we have a motion to adjourn so moved and a second i'll second i'll second mr bruno thank you general consent yes yep thank you so much everybody great meeting

but if we take it randomized kind of in a scientifical scientific analytical um process uh statistically speaking random a random order of speakers would give us a better idea of like the general representation of our stakeholders so i think that it's important to recognize the strengths of randomization for our public comment i hope i like stated that clearly enough yes thank you um again what i would like to weigh in with um with all of the valid concerns about giving voice to our constituents which are you know students and parents the equalizer is that the public comment email is available to everyone at any time even afternoon on the board meeting dates i i've gotten in fact today i got some after three o'clock that i you know i check because i read all of them and so to the public and and to those out there be comfortable with getting those in writing comments to us at any time through that process because i i believe that all of us are reading all of them and um so the voices are being heard and the the process that we're setting up i think would would be um equitable again to everyone that wants to do an in-person contact are we ready for the vote is everyone clear on what we're voting on okay all those in favor we need to do this by um individual vote because the last vote was not unanimous i'm sorry kelly i'm going to jump in here and i guess ask for a restating of the motion because i now am not clear sorry um how we are doing the prioritization if it is completely random or if it is random and then uh two per group the way i originally presented the clarification was it was random among the groups erica do you agree that that was the motion yes i have used categorization and randomization yes thank you okay are we ready now for the vote ms dalby dolby i kaiser ray tennis knee land do i robinson i motion passes four to one thank you board the uh the next is an information only item um we have um workshop committees and liaisons of board member assignments and you've all received a copy of those if i could jump in here and make a comment and this is gonna fall under the uh you really can teach an old dog new tricks um i had a question from a board member and uh you know trying to understand the uh definition of committees and in reviewing this um you know the comment was made you know rightfully so that usually when you have a committee you have an outcome you have a goal you're trying to receive you're trying to achieve and um in looking at this really what our goal is here is for board members to help staff develop the agenda for board meetings so that we are meeting your needs in that presentation there are not actions there are not goals so i went back and made changes to the definition and called it really what it is board liaisons for our chico unified school district board workshops and board agenda items and i think that um helps clarify that because there is a difference between when you have a committee that you want to go and achieve something so i thank you for the uh conversation it you know really got me thinking that you know we can we can clarify what things are so you will see some minor revisions in here it has no impact on uh who is assigned to what but i just wanted to explain why i had changed the language on that and keep those questions coming keep me on my toes and keep me thinking i appreciate it thank you superintendent do i have a we don't need a motion because it's not an action item so we are just accepting the um the list thank you um on number four item number four is the first reading of revised updated new board policies um what we get in part of our services through california school boards association is um we get policy recommendations for updating our board policies to be in compliance with recent legislation or precedent-setting court cases things that csba and then we have i believe there are eight attorneys on our policy board with csba so they review and make suggestions for the language for what we are about to adopt the process involves two readings this is the first reading which means you now have them all because i think they just came two days ago and between now and will they be at the february third meeting they'll be at the february 3rd workshop review them if you have questions send the questions forward to superintendents daily so that if we need to get further clarification from our csba legal department as to why the language is the way it is that we have time to get that if you have any proposed changes you can also get those to superintendents daily so that we can again review any proposed changes with legal so we know that what we are considering in change is legal and we can always add two things um to clarify for us that doesn't make a subject substantive change in the policies so we do consider those occasionally so get to these quickly and then be prepared to adopt or question before the next board meeting and we need to get the any of the language changes or anything to the superintendent's office so that they can be processed for inclusion in the agenda by wednesday before the meeting right as long as we have them by february first that monday um you know we we can get that information uh posted out to the board suggested changes we wouldn't necessarily include it as um part of the agenda right it's it's an attachment okay everybody clear all right thank you um educational services uh mr marshawn thank you madam president um we're here to give you an an update since our last board meeting and some of these updates educational services we'll be giving you on as our covet update our surveillance testing update or professional development it seems like forever since we had our board member board meeting in our last one but we did approve three days of professional development and we were going to want to go over what we our secondary and our elementary uh went over uh what did on those days also we're going to be going over a co and extracurricular activities that we're what we're trying to get through at this point instructional model enrollment so we're going to be going over the data which shows what our kids are going online versus um in person and then some learning loss information we're going to kind of go over some data that we can have on our learning loss during this time so at this point we're going to have um tina keane talk about our covet 19 and reopening schools update and ms keane at this time also could you also introduce who we have on online and out there so people know that who they can direct their questions towards would be great yeah absolutely good evening i am also here with my partner diane olson with kovid she is uh helpful in this as well with all of our nursing staff we do have on the line uh about four people that i'm really thrilled that are here michelle nevis dean is our one of our chico unified school nurses danette york from view county public health monica soderstrom also from butte county public health and dr linda lewis as well are all joining us tonight so i appreciate and i think we can all extend our appreciation as well for their time on this evening to be with us we are still keeping up on our dashboard john vincent could you click on that for me we need you to click can you click on the link or [Music] on the bottom there there we go so like i said we are keeping up our work on the dashboard it has continued to it's continued to shift in how we're going to be mirroring the two week time frame and we'll show you our draft of that it's almost ready to pull out here and put on our website it would be a replacement for this one i've said before many times and you know we'll say again as i'm as i always say this is a new language that we're teaching everybody with coven our dashboard in this form takes the cumulative view at first glance so if you keep scrolling down you see a cumulative number at the bottom and also as well i always like to point out the blue tabs there on the bottom do indicate the weekly numbers of staff and students so we are shifting it a bit to reflect the two-week 14-day number count that the county goes by as well and you will see that ready to be unveiled in fact we can show you the draft of it i think john vinson and erica have had that set up there as well it's very similar it doesn't look completely different but it just gives the two-week indications here there we go thank you you'll notice that we have the week of 111 and this week 1 18 on there and that will shift every week it will just shift to a new week of course and if we scroll down a bit please we did change the combined students and staff we did want to indicate how many are in person on the site we do know that one difference between this dashboard and the last one was we took the cumulative cumulative enrollment of the site this does indicate the actual number of students that are in person learning as well so the number is a little bit lower than on the other dashboard but is uh is very accurate and every monday we do get an update on the number of students that are in person learning because we do know that that number does fluctuate a bit and we want to keep that updated but you'll see there that the numbers are mirroring the the two weeks any questions on the dashboard before i before i move on we hope that it's pretty clear we hope that as we roll out the new one if any questions come up or ideas of things we need to finesse or refine we are certainly open to that as we've been this entire time we do want it to be as representative for everybody easily to see as possible yes ms kane can you reiterate what is the total two-week percentage of site population figure so that takes the two weeks that would be together and com take the total number of the cases with the number of the students that are on site and staff and that's your percentage there so this is the percent of both students and teachers right so if you scroll up a bit you can see that's per site the bottom there is the cumulative over so over a two week period this is the percentage of people who have had a positive covid case over all the students and staff for all of chico unified in a two-week period yes the cases that are reported to us all go on the dashboard the confirmed cases and those are what's indicated yes okay so that's 0.29 percent of all the people involved in chico unified have coved 19 over this two-week period according to the confirmations that have come to us just shy of three tenths of one percent okay correct thank you you're welcome okay um we also there on the bottom you can see the weekly tally we'll keep those throughout much like the other part or the other dashboard section that had time frames we will be able to see that too those are important to keep because we do need to know down the way as looking back if you know certain certain times were higher or lower or things like that we do report uh now with as of january 1st there was a new law that went into effect for three cases or more um it's a it's a business law well i don't know if that's the right term for it but all businesses have to adhere to it as well of three or more cases in 14 days of adults is how i understand we report to the county on that in a workplace so uh we have not had that yet but this does help us keep watch of that yes uh tina i've had different emails from people and they're very concerned about the fact that we don't at least on the dashboard anyway track uh people that are quarantining so is there any uh i don't know if we even can control that data very realistically but is there any value to having that aspect as well which is you know sort of the bubble around the incident so that has been a big question quarantining has been a big uh a big piece to tackle with this with this whole uh covet 19 pandemic and i think all of the nurses would agree absolutely i did this came up at the last meeting i know and i did talk to monica soderstrom quite extensively about the quarantine and trying to wrap myself and my head around how do we do this how do we how do we show this is it in a in a meeting as a update every time at a meeting is it on a on a dashboard and monica are you out there on online with us yes i am hi tina hi there would you kind of give us some some details from your expertise on the quarantine from our conversation about why it's probably not the best place to go for quarantine on the dashboard uh what what's difficult is really to capture at any given time how many people you have in quarantine because some people may be in quarantine due to an on-site school exposure where some people may be in quarantine because of an exposure they had off-site at like in their home in their community and the school nurses are tasked with monitoring those cases that are identified on campus and reporting those contacts that are identified related to that on campus case when it comes to people that are in quarantine outside of that it gets a little more difficult for the school nurses and other school staff people to identify if someone is in quarantine because of an exposure or because maybe they have some symptoms and the parents are simply following the instructions to keep them home because they're symptomatic or maybe they're keeping them home because they're ill not sure if it's related to covet or not so the numbers start getting a little blurred when you're looking at people staying home because they're ill or people staying home because they're in quarantine so trying to capture all of that into a dashboard would be probably very time consuming for the school district and the staff where that time might be better spent actually doing the work that needs to be done to ensure that all of the mitigation members measures are being put in place tina so maybe uh and i recognize what that i mean i was getting asked the questions i wasn't seeing it the maybe the framework would be to um just go back to our assurance that anybody who's in quarantine is getting their educational material presented to them while they're quarantining correct i think that's our response as a as an institution absolutely the schools are making sure that students in quarantine are getting what they need and you know staff and quarantine as well if they are feeling well they are still providing instruction and we've been very open and creative with staff to work with them to make sure that that happens and we can support them in that because it's tricky and it's hard to be in quarantine um people want to be doing their work but they know it's the right thing to do so if we can help them with that we certainly will i did pull so my part of the quarantine and i kind of work in tandem with tim on this i work with hr to track our staff quarantines and tim really takes care of the data for students so two different things of course but um i do keep a weekly tally of quarantine with our alina who is uh our our our person in human resources that's that's works and working on this with me and if it's kind of up to the will of the board if you would like me to bring the weekly numbers of quarantine to board meetings or if you if you want to know them at all i can certainly do that i just need your direction on on what you would like to see with that if if you want an update much like tim's the enrollment update numbers that come or or things like that tim do you want to talk about students sure i have a quarantine question also tina one last quarantine question um and maybe we could kick this off to danette york or monica but we had a public commenter a couple of them actually earlier tonight spanish speaking people they thought that we should open schools because the extra child care that they're dealing with is causing them to have to scale back the hours that they work what happens um do you have a sense of how many people are being affected by these quarantines do we know whether you know working class families for instance are how are they are able to cope with with quarantines if their children get a quarantine that is a high level question and i know that a firm answer might be hard to come by but dennett york do you have any thoughts or reaction to that how these quarantines might be affecting people hey this is matt can you hear me yes uh yeah so you're right to get a firm answer would be very difficult for that question but i can tell you that uh we too and many other organizations have heard concerns from families that are affected by quarantine it's it's a hardship uh on everyone involved but it also is the only way to prevent the illness from being spread so people do comply and they find ways around it but yes it is a hardship thank you timmer and diane so just to talk to the topic of uh monitoring student quarantine data uh we did start a week before winter break with two new attendance codes that were meant to address better address the keeping track of quarantines that being said they are new codes they are the fifth and sixth new attendance codes we've added throughout this year at my first look at the data last week i was not confident that i had data that was i'd like to say clean enough to to report out publicly due to the fact that it's new codes and due to the uh partially to what monica referred to as we we have kids reporting in sick that may be quarantining we have kids staying home for various reasons that we may not know they're in quarantine we have office staffs and teachers that were hesitant for also the reasons monica said that are under tremendous amount of stress and to put new codes and that's a lot of extra work for for teachers and for our office staffs they're already under a tremendous amount of tremendous increase in their workload and they're doing their very best but when i look at the numbers that tina shares and the and the quarantine numbers that we have for our students i think that we're um probably under i'm probably getting an under under reporting so that's why i did not include that in the uh board presentation today any questions about that i have a question um and it's it's actually for any of you um i think that the the value um in knowing the level of disruptions that quarantine is is um causing is probably what we all are are thinking about you know i think that we do want to brainstorm how to best capture in some kind of metric how how much of an effect on continuity of learning uh for staff providing um you know education and for students to attend school um and we're going back and forth like what's the level of disruption happening at while we're here in the purple tier and open half time you know so i think that um it would be good for us to try to to wrap our heads around that a efficient way to have a metric you know to know what's what's the level of disruption this is causing um and um i i know that's why we're having this conversation and i appreciate um just the recognition that the the data is too new to even like really uh really dive into it um but uh i just wanted to to put that on record that i think that it would be valuable to know that the level of disruption um that quarantines are causing um and and yeah so madam president we do have a raised hand on zoom um from linda from linda yes linda are you available your comment yes thank you um i just had something i thought i could add that might be uh useful to you all right um in in our data uh we know that the schools when there is a case there are up to 23 people quarantined due to that case so so you know for each case you have you may have quite a few others who are who are pulled out of school you know dr lewis while you're while you're on there with us i know you did supply us with a couple of slides that you wanted to share tonight and we just pulled them up so while we have you do you want to go and uh tell us a little bit about these slides sure yeah so there's a lot of questions about you know do kids get covid do they transmit covid and we're still learning a lot about this virus but what i did is i pulled our data from the time when we really had cobid starting in our community up until uh basically the end of the of 2020 and looked at the rates of um the numbers and the rates of covid cases in our and these are reported cases in our in our youth and so what you see in this graph is just the raw number of cases and the age groupings are based on what i could uh pull as a denominator from kids count data for our county so it's zero to four basically our preschoolers in the green line and not surprisingly um you know they're the lowest number of cases but you do see a general trend upward um you know schools opened around october uh 19th as i recall and then we had halloween get-togethers and then we had thanksgiving get-togethers and then we had christmas and you can see the effect of that in these graphs the the red line is the 14 to 17 year olds and that's a smaller age grouping than the 5 to 13 year old so i i have a second slide that shows rates that'll put it in a little better perspective okay if we could go back to the first one i just want to highlight and so and then the purple line is your 5 to 13 year olds um and then next slide please and this then this is based on cases per 000.

i'd like to call to order the january 21st 2021 regular meeting of the building board of appeals call to order um ever can we have a roll call catherine cousins here uh hugh flack here robert hart here paul darling here jeff perkins david armstrong and bruce carson who is going is going to be absent we do have enough for quorum thank you well first item on the agenda is the approval of the agenda do we have a motion for that move to approve the agenda you get a second from jeff looks like got it those in favor aye all right agenda's approved uh the first item on the agenda is the approval of the minutes from the november 19 2020 meeting was there any comments on those uh minutes i think i had seen some electronically that we did some reviews those been picked up and uh we're good to go um yeah i believe so i'll check that for sure can we have a motion to improve the minutes move to approve the minutes a second oh second okay those in favor aye aye the minutes from the november 19th meeting are approved uh so before we get before we begin the first appeal here i'd like to explain the process to the applicant how it works is we first have a staff report that the building department will give and then we'll have give the applicant a opportunity to present their appeal and then the staff will have a chance to respond any comments from the applicant's presentation uh then we'll open up for the board members to ask the question some questions to the applicant and discuss it among among themselves and then the board will make a motion and then we'll uh vote on the motion um and we need a majority to pass the vote for the motion to pass so in this case we have uh five board members presence we need to have three um positive votes for to pass and there is uh if uh the applicant wishes to appeal the um motion of the the vote of the board they can do that so to the state and the certain time limits um for that that you can follow up with uh let dempsey about if we're in that you wish to appeal that any questions about that okay with that uh we can begin uh with a staff report from the billing department um so the the background on the property 830 henry it's a mixed-use building containing r2 a3b and s2 occupancy classifications um 830 it has been approved for some occupancy only unit 11 has a non-compliant stairway at final inspection unit 11 the inspector cited the stairway measures 35 inches which does not meet the minimum requirements of section 10 11.2 exception one which requires a stairway be not less than 36 inches uh the applicant's requesting relief from this code requirement um staff recommends the application be denied doesn't meet the standards for approval the code has not been misinterpreted the provisions of the code do apply and the reduction in the stairway width is less safe than um than what is required by the michigan building code while the applicant states the unit was designed as a townhouse this isn't possible in a multi-use building the 2015 michigan residential code is a standalone code and it only pertains to single-family homes duplexes and townhouses it offers no provisions for mixed-use structures uh the introduction of the 2015 michigan residential code states this comprehensive standalone residential code establishes minimum regulations for one and two family dwellings and townhouses using prescriptive provisions townhouse is defined as a single-family dwelling unit that's constructed in a group of three or more attached units each extending from foundation to roof and then has a yard or public way on at least two sides 830 henry does not meet this definition therefore is not a townhouse the mixed-use nature of the building includes r2 a3b and s2 this has increased safety concerns from what would be considered in the 2015 michigan residential code which is why it's regulated by the building code and not the residential code because the because 830 is under the purview of the 2015 michigan residential code it must comply with the minimum code requirements of that building code the intent of the code is to establish minimum requirements to provide a reasonable level of safety public health and general welfare the building code clearly states that the minimum width of a stairway is 44 inches um that can be reduced to 36 inches if an occupancy load um of less than of less than 50 applies with these things considered the residential code is not intended for use in commercial buildings it's a standalone code that is this that is not to become the standard when requirements of the building code are not being met um because it's a because so 2015 michigan building code is a minimum standard and the code governing this project it doesn't meet the standards for approval the code has been the code has not been misinterpreted the provisions of the 2015 michigan building code do apply and the reduced stairway width is neither equal to or better than the code requirements all right thank you um so the next up is for the applicant to make the presentation and i would like to remind them that the board can't waive the code we have three vehicles two random variants the first one being that the true intent of the code or the rules governing the construction have been interpreted haven't been interpreted correctly um provisions of the code don't apply or you're performing a equal or better form of construction so when you make your uh presentation indicate which one of those three methods you're um following thank you thank you um this is rob burrows with ox studio representing the uh the my client the building owner um heidi poster who's here uh available as well um thank you for your time um i do want to clarify the the building was permitted um and my statements provided were creating a position um in reflection of the michigan building code not the mrc um i recognize mr dempsey's clarification of the definition of town home for townhouse um and and i'm not challenging that we have a very unique circumstance in regards to this this is an 11 unit development um 10 of which have been provided temp or tco uh to date they are functionally we'll call them kissing sisters they're identical units that stack in a three-floor walk-up variation a canon design palette which probably my better way of putting it to a townhouse in terms of their layout and displacement um unit 11 is slightly different it is still likewise a similar concept with a um interconnected levels um but it again with its own unique access point to the exterior um our unique situation and i'll drill down to the standard for approval as i kind of summarize some of these points without taking too much time um we have provided documentation i should point out um both as built drawing or excuse me drawings design drawings or permit drawings and of course the narrative in support of that as well um i wanted to also confirm that there was a a a supplementary document that was uh solicited and provided earlier today i just want to make sure the commissioners had the opportunity to see that i can use that as a talking point in fact that would be an excellent initial talking point if we could um this is a quick summary of of the installed stairs in question um this is unit 11.

401 you said yes okay page 42 of the packet thank you so yeah so deborah you're see where that um like stop sign is it says c on the left just inside the red box straight up with your pointer and now a little bit to the right that's right there right here the landing area which it looks like that landing area is big enough i believe it is i think if the applicant wanted to propose something else as far as ultimate form of that would be fine i don't know if it's the board's um action to come up with a solution to solve the problem as far as the lack of 36 inches um we sure don't want to um propose something that um is outside the purview of what the building department would feel comfortable approving so um i mean we would do the option we could we could table this and you might come up with more options if you can consider or we can make a motion now and you know vote on it um so there's a couple ways we could do it if you want to explore other options as a ways to improve the width of the stair or egress um you can do that i think the next meeting would be in a month or else you you're going to go to the variance of the state or um you can reapply over those variants to the city if we took action today right um well i mean and not to make the sausage in front of all of you guys but just netting it out and listening to your guidance in terms of where you have capabilities and where you don't um i don't i don't think that we've made an argument that that allows you to say yes um so i think probably rob what we should do is um table this hoping that we can explore with for example mr lemieux whether adding another means of egress to um where that window is makes the staircase now some kind of almost auxiliary you know third way out as opposed to a primary way out does that make sense it does to me yeah i mean i would be i would need to be presented with it with a code path that gets us there we definitely want to make the investment in making this right we're not um we're in no way coming here and saying hey it's it's only an inch so can you be flexible i know you can't um but maybe what we can come up with with uh with you michael since i have you here and um i can just talk to you for a sec is um come up with a second means of egress for the for that main floor and then maybe even a a even a door possibly in the uh in the basement so that there's a primary and then in that sitting room area and then there's a second means out of the bedrooms through the egress windows um i again i i'm gonna need to see and i just don't know it off the top of my head or if it exists that doing that allows you to reduce the width of a stairway um and i feel like we keep going back to that um it's in my opinion that the stairway width needs to be corrected but if you put it i think that's what i'm saying is is that there needs to be two means of egress and i think maybe what mr hart is trying to uh get us to is that if the stairway isn't a primary means of egress what's that the supplemental means of egress you know exactly does that make sense rob what i'm saying it does um i i it's actually what he's saying not what i'm saying the interpretation thereof yeah um but we would uh you know yes yes it does make sense to me okay so i think i think uh you know if you're asking me if i'd like to table to explore that assuming that it would be helpful uh to get the building department's um concurrence that they could work through this with us in time to revisit next month hopefully with a proposal to indeed be able to classify that stairwell as supplementary i think that is the best course of action here and i and i appreciate every person on this call and their input um to try to help us get this figured out in the proper way are these buildings sprinkled right now is the units fire suppressed there's every form of fire suppression man has thought of in these in these units yeah there's dense glass there's sprinkling there's yeah yeah we're fire fire rated fire suppressed um three hours everywhere paid attendant with standing by with a hose the whole night so sometimes sometimes we'll see that you're providing providing additional level of protection that wasn't required to help you compensate for this but it was already hard to be suppressed you don't wouldn't wouldn't get that benefit you wouldn't get that right well and i think that's where the the kind of the hybrid commercial residential interpretation really came in um so if these if these buildings weren't sitting on top of a garage um which we had to build because we needed parking right then all of this extra that we put in would be over and above and but and we still have the the plinth separation which is huge and all the fire collars go through so i guess we could kind of um add that in as a supple as some supplemental encouragement but you're right i i don't know that it gives us extra points in the argument but it's required anyway required anyways it's not supplement it's not in addition to what is required it's if there are things and if you wanted to look at you know there are ways to move that wall over make the wall thinner the non party wall you know if you've exhausted those options to take on the finish off or something like that it would be good to know yeah i mean the question is is can we can we safely get there and meet your requirement of um you know like you said you don't have the option to just wave it so i don't know if we can get to 36 is a problem if you got to 36 you wouldn't need the variance anymore so if you get to 36 that's ideal if you can't come back with something you're proposing uh you know that's yeah most is you can get to 36 and with something else that helps conversation so i think i think the safest alternative is to try to figure out a way um to get comfortable around making that stairwell a supplementary stairwell i believe jeff has a question is it stand up yeah i just want to be clear from my perspective when this when and if this comes back that i personally don't agree that a second means of egress on that main level or whatever you call that level is mitigates the problem and so if michael finds a pathway in the code that says that providing that uh mitigates the problem then fine but if in the absence of that i'm not willing to waive the width requirements on the stair [Music] and so i just want to be clear that to go through a lot of effort to add a door to it and if you bring that back i'm going to vote against it you don't have you don't have full knowledge of how people on the board feel you know about uh granting your variance it's just exploring you won't know that if we take a vote to a certain point but what the my point was that from my perspective i would hate to see the petitioner go through a bunch of difficulty adding a doorway that i'm going to vote against anyway i can't speak for the rest of the board so personally i would like to see some alteration made to the structure to get to the 36 inches and then you don't need the variance because i'm not willing to uh i'm not willing to stick my neck out to there are certain things in the code that i would be willing to depend on but width of a stairway is just not one of them so i just want to make my position clear so you know where at least one vote is going to be on this board okay definitely want some you will definitely want to have your variants before you proceed with any kind of ultimate alternate measure obviously yeah we would never go to the expense of actually putting a door in without knowing that it was going to solve the problem and and to be clear too i don't know of a code path that gets you a reduced stairwell um though i'm just not aware of that so the applicant wants to make a request a table that we can have a motion that way the board someone on the board can make a motion to table this application until we get uh additional information sounds good kindly request that we're table then please all right bob you want to make a motion to table this i moved that in uh in the case of dba 21-001 that the [Music] appeal for variance is tabled until our next meeting pending further research on behalf on the part of the applicant in conjunction with the department of buildings have a second continue to second in the motion a second okay thank you those in favor aye aye all right and composed okay this motion is tabled until we have additional information from the applicant thank you for your time the next item on the agenda is uh uh next item on the agenda is item e2 uh um we've [Music] got more discussions any old business that we want to talk about for the board well if i could i neglected to enter the staff that was in attendance in the record if i could do so now okay okay we have um brandy lewis jamie worthington john wiser mark howell michael redman glenn dempsey janet farrell gary and myself deborah williams thank you all right thank you is there any new business that the board has any reports of communication any public commentary no one in the waiting room no one in the waiting room okay we have a motion to adjourn move to adjourn second oh second all right thank you those in favor aye [Music] all right we are adjourned 234 thank you you

okay good evening i'd like to welcome everyone to our meeting tonight which we are streaming to the public uh i'd like to first begin by uh standing for the pledge of allegiance i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united mr raincourt here mr russo here mr shelley here mr baker i'd just like to read a quick statement if i made mr roman gina the new jersey open public meetings law was enacted to ensure the rights of the public for advanced notice of and to attend the meeting of public bodies which any business affecting their interest is discussed or acted upon in accordance with the provision of this act of course i thought of that has caused notice of this meeting to be published by having the date the time and place thereof posted in the offices of the borough club the borough library the voter rec department the office of the board of ed and the purposes of school number three four five six and the high school on january 2021 and notice is reported to reporters of the record january 6 2021 this is an official meeting okay once again i welcome everyone to our meeting uh we do have a short presentation tonight by our high school principal mr pinto who will be with us in a minute but just before that there are a couple of items i would like to uh just make mention of uh monday january i'm sorry tuesday january 19th all of our hybrid students return to class uh we hope we can keep providing both a hybrid environment for students who want to attend school as well as a remote student program for students who are at home on tuesday all of our staff after approximately six weeks returned back to the schools um so as i said before we hope that we're able with things that are going on now with kobe kova that we're able to keep our schools open and provide on-site learning for our hybrid students last monday january 11th we started our abbreviated winter sports season in the high school we have basketball both boys and girls that are in process right now and also bowling as you know we've mentioned many times before the state has shifted the schedules because of covered so basketball both boys and girls and bowling started on january 11th february 1st uh indoor track will begin and then after that there will be dates i think right now it's march 1st for wrestling and also for volleyball but as time goes on uh if there are any changes in those dates i will let both the board and the public uh know middle school sports uh unfortunately we didn't get the kind of participation for girls basketball and cheering that we thought we would have it's probably due to a number of students being remote and possibly not wanting to participate we are going to make it every effort to provide middle school basketball for boys because there was interest so hopefully we'll be able to feel the schedule for our students because other schools are cutting back on programs primarily for their middle school but we will make every effort to provide a program and i believe that's in the works right now uh the last two meetings our board has had some discussions regarding co-oping football with richfield you know over the last couple of years our enrollment in football has decreased and our concern is that if it keeps decreasing we're not going to be able to provide just our cliffside students with a quality program so our board of education and the richfield park board of education are in talks about possibly co-opting which many other districts have done in the past and has turned out to be successful i know the owner of pal state park have had a relationship for a number of years so our attorney uh steve fogerty is drawing up a contract once that contract is drawn up i will share that with our board with the richfield board and uh and then with the public so we hope to make a decision by that uh probably by our march meeting if not soon but that is that is a process uh in your folder tonight is a draft calendar for the 2021-22 school year again it's just the draft that um i put together so we could get a projection of what next school year we'll look at look like if you get some time you can look the calendar over if you have questions you can email me or ask questions at the next meeting i'll try to on our next work session so i'll try to approve that calendar at our february meeting and that will give parents and staff and students a look at what to expect for next year okay at this time i would like to any questions so at this time i would like to ask if there are any committee reports uh yeah we're hoping any other committee reports okay so at this time uh mr pinto if you are ready okay thank you mr romagino thank you board of education before i begin this and share my screen one minute would you like me to continue now it's better now continue okay i'd like to just recognize our staff today at the high school and uh through the district as many of you might be aware we lost internet service through altis and the staff did an incredible job maintaining instruction using their personal devices and hot spots throughout the district so i just want to recognize the staff for the incredible job they did despite losing service today the second thing i'd like to do is uh just so you're all aware uh the class of covid the deluxe edition is available and if you have not yet purchased your copy i strongly encourage you to purchase your copy there's an introduction by congressman pasquale there's also an excerpt from benjamin luterer so we do encourage you to purchase a copy if you haven't the students have been recognized essentially nationally at this point they'll be on cnn uh shortly there's a cnn interview that's running and there's also a nbc news interview that's running with a number of the students it'll be airing shortly so i do uh i just want to recognize the students under the tutelage of mr sean adler for the tremendous work uh because all this money that that goes through the proceeds of these books it goes back to the students they will be awarded scholarships uh through this uh through the sales of these purchas of these books so just like to recognize them also at this point i'll share my screen and begin to take you guys through uh some some i want to say initially uh we thought it was very troubling but we're actually very happy because as opposed to reacting to something much later we recognized that we were the first or one of the first to kind of identify a problem and actually become proactive in it and we're going to take you through some lost learning analysis and just make it a little bigger and present okay so lost learning analysis shortly after my return for my leave we noticed at the close of the first marking period that there were some disturbing signs amongst populations of our school and we brought these concerns uh to the supervisors to mr romangino to the uh the middle school and we looked at them very closely but before we begin we're going to look at some just some demographics of our population you know who our population of students are uh we're you know half the students are on free and reduced meals or referred to as farm students we have students with special needs um english language learners large percentage of the population households that speak primarily language primary uh other than english all right 73 of our population and that's you know turkish arabic spanish there's enough portuguese those are the major languages and there's a number of other languages approximately 28 languages are spoken in this high school we have a very high transient rate one of the highest in the state and the number of students so this is older data our our 1920 data isn't isn't it's available but it's not official yet so once it's official we'll update this but just a little bit of information about the students in our building uh what we noticed was our marking period one failures were higher than normal uh we see a we looked over the course of uh this year all right and they kind of peaked in 2020.

i'm not sure about that data but data aside which i have a lot of questions about how you compare your data and how you're drawing your assumptions all data aside i'm looking at the instructional strategies that you're using and my question is why haven't you been looking at this all along with your school improvement panel and where are your professional learning communities that should be having these conversations and why hasn't this been taking place in cliffside all along because what i see from the child study team from guidance and so forth is just what's in their job description and as far as mentoring caring about students and conferencing with students that's been going on in the elementary schools at least for the last 10 years that i could see because they were conferencing with kids in kindergarten so why hasn't this been happening in cliffside park high school all along why did it take a pandemic to start having conversations and what kind of conversations are you having around assessment and how assessments need to change to adapt to remote learning and also project-based learning with all due respect has been around for the last 20 to 30 years why hasn't cliffside ever entertained project-based learning and dealing with students learning styles before and also with all due respect i do believe kids are being penalized for not having cameras on and not participating all right so there's a number of questions there the first one is the data question is and i'm i'm going to try to answer this there's a lot of questions going on here but the first question i'm going to tell you is marking period 1 data is compared to last was compared to the last five years marking period one data that's what we looked at all right so market period one data did not does not compare to end of failures for fourth marking period the fourth marking period or the school data from last year is severely skewed and it's skewed because we were working through a pandemic and it's skewed across the board in cliffside park it's skewed across the board in other districts unless you can quantify other districts i have to disagree with you with other districts because i've asked the question and other districts aren't finding the exact same problem so we're going to have to agree to disagree on that well i i quite honestly i i don't know what you'd like me to tell you other than that we've identified that our students are struggling and that we're taking a proactive approach don't disagree that the students are struggling but why didn't you identify that in june after we went went through march april may and june they weren't struggling in march april may and june where you had the summer to plan for some of these things well i think we did plan and we we actually planned quite extensively and we recognized that our plan that we planned for for really i don't want to say june but we were allowed to start planning in july because that's when the guidance came out but in july and august when we did plan like many other districts we thought our plan was in place and our students were going to be able to be successful in the plan that we put forward just like many other districts we're finding ourselves the need to pivot somewhat and to re-evaluate our plan and re-evaluate how we provide instruction during this remote period so we had a plan in place we thought the plan was was was a great plan and it was very similar to many other districts plans and like many other districts we have recognized that our plan needs to be revisited and we identified it with the board because i don't recall seeing a plan for instruction shared with the board i don't know about instruction specifically but i'm not talking about the reopening plan this is clearly about instruction and assessment and failures what i wanted what i do want to say and i and mr pinto just to interrupt you i don't think anybody anticipated in august that we were going to have the number of students opting for remote that we do and i was anticipating 70 percent of the kids in 30 of the kids out it's now turned out to be maybe forty percent of the kids and sixty percent of the kids out and i think the number of students who are out and who are remote has caused a lot of um stress uh changes in instruction uh the staff have been in and out because of coving and i think all of that impacts instruction and i honestly think that the whole process on kids themselves has really been too much and our type of student who doesn't always have as much support from parents uh because the parents are out working or as mr pintos said there are older siblings who are home the parent goes off to work so i'm a high school student i have to be on the computer but i also have to watch my fourth grade sister and see what he or she is doing that she has done so i think we have different challenges than cliffside that other districts do have well i was going to say with all due respect there are a lot of districts that have that exact same situation and i actually think it's unfair to characterize the kids by saying our kids are this way there are plenty of esl kids special needs kids and so forth that can be very successful and possibly what i didn't see in any of this is how you looked at the assessments and how the assessments have changed to adapt to what you're both identifying as struggling situations of students because obviously giving a paper and pencil assessment the same way you would do in a classroom wouldn't be appropriate or as appropriate in a remote setting but again my concern really goes back to what i've seen thus far is not anything new or isn't anything that i wouldn't consider to have been good quality instruction all along quite frankly i'm very disappointed to hear that there isn't any mentoring going on or that the guidance department doesn't meet with the parents and it took a pandemic to do that i think that well no the guys department has always met with the parents the increased need and that's where we're that's what we're trying to emphasize here there's just an increase you know where all day long the guidance staff the administration is meeting with parents where this not necessarily was the case prior to this because we can we had students in class we're and it's just something else that i want to make you guys aware is that you know we had a plan in place and then the remote option was was was offered you know our plan was in place and then so we adapted our plan in the summer we adapted our plan to include this remote option so as we were developing the plan the guidelines for the plan were changing and you know in you know by no means whatsoever we don't assess using paper and pencil at the high school we use electronic-based assessments well listen electronic-based assessments to me is just a glorified version of paper and pencil that's being done on a computer i'm talking about project true project based assessments that's what i'm saying i mean that's been decades that's not a new con you know that's not a new concept so entering kids is not a new concept caring about kids is not a new concept getting involved with kids or giving elves pass fail isn't a new concept so my question is why haven't these things been done all along i mean with all due respect i haven't seen anything that you know inrs intervention and referral services for a child study team getting involved and advocating for students that's their job why why is that new or for because of a pandemic it's not new per se because of the pandemic it's the circumstances that we're living in and adapting this and re-emphasizing the need to real to really address these concerns of the students we're you're absolutely right there's a pandemic why'd it take a pandemic to uh to address this we're not we're not saying we're creating anything new what we're saying is the need to do this at a higher level there needs to be a team emphasis so we looked at everybody and we re um how do we say this we we reevaluated what we're doing and that we need to do we need to ensure that we're doing this quite honestly i would say that you need to ensure doing it pandemic or not well regardless we did not identify this prior to the pandemic and you know we're this is how we're choosing to address it at this point surely we'll be open to suggestions but project-based learning it's listen we're it's not so much using project-based learning it's using project-based learning which which has been taking place here since i was in the classroom and before but it's project-based learning and making it meaningful so that we're engaging the students who are remote because project-based learning for remote students is different than project-based learning for when you have students present in class and that's what we're emphasizing and that's what we're trying to address and that's why these professional conversations are having and we're simply saying we identified it and we're providing an opportunity to have these conversations as to how we're going to make this better for this population how we're going to help this population find some success because right now or initially they're struggling and they're struggling at all levels not just here um in high school but we identified it here in high school and we're not afraid to talk about it and we're open to your suggestions but i made the suggestion last year that the guidance counselors should be running groups with some of the kids at lunch time because i actually take you know offense to the fact that you think that this situation with the pandemic only affects certain populations of students students can have very high grades and still be affected by this so you can't just say well only a particular group needs support i think all students need support but i also believe that the state new jersey department of education put in things like professional learning communities years ago so the teachers would be having conversations around topics such as the ones we're talking about project-based learning has been something that's been around for years and years and years and the school improvement panel like when did the school improvement panel convene to have conversations about this i think they should convene last march to be having conversations about this i mean i'm happy that you're doing this but i'm a little disappointed because what i'm seeing to me is something that should be happening in a high school and in every school every day of the week irregardless of a pandemic i think it is i don't think you should you know we should say now because we're in a pandemic students need mentoring i started teaching in the 80s and students needed mentoring in the 80s and we know that having a caring adult in a child's life is going to make a difference it shouldn't take a pandemic to make us realize that and quite frankly i'm sitting in a room with two educators who i firmly believe know this because in 1978 when mr shelley was my teacher those teachers cared about us so it's not something that it takes a pandemic to say hey you know what we should be mentoring kids and caring about them and showing them that we're caring adults in their lives i don't know i don't think that mr pinto or anyone has suggested that the teachers have done less than what they are expected to do at any point 10 years ago and for the 15 years preceding that when i was in guidance guidance counselors regularly spoke to by phone contacted students went around the building which is much more difficult obviously today right spoke the students spoke to parents and did all the things that mr pinto was speaking about enhancing that's what i hear mr pinto talking about enhancing what is already being done so to suggest for my 15 years that it wasn't being done i take offense to that i take defense of the way it's being presented as if this is something that's new and this is what we're doing now in response to a pandemic i don't think mr pinto has presented this as new he has as i have said already presented it as an enhancement and none of us none of us educators and i'm assuming you included ever took a course when we were taking courses in college on how to deal with the pandemic well this is what you do you see you'll have some kids who are virtual no we never we this is all brand new territory so i think we have to give all of ourselves boards of education teachers administrators the whole list of everybody who works from us including the people who served lunches look this is new territory we're going to learn together how to do this that's what my sense would be that's that's not what i take from the presentation so we'll have to agree to disagree on that right because see to me this is being presented as hey we're in a pandemic and these are the new ideas that we have and to me they shouldn't be new i think that we owe them to all of our students for a long time inrs should be happening for a long time what are we doing to go above and beyond what the inrs committee does how are we you know identifying strategies that are successful and not successful what are we doing to help teachers share best practices what's what's been done in those respects what does your school improvement panel have to say what are your professional learning committees working on so the school improvement panel it's it's a great name for a uh for a committee but their responsibility is not to actually provide improvement for the school their responsibility is to ensure that the evaluation process is followed and schedule professional development so we do have those conversations about professional development and they are engaged in the professional development that we have they also have an option to evaluate but we don't that needs to be negotiated where they can go in and evaluate we don't necessarily do that so um the school improvement panel while it sounds like a great concept it's really just to as a watchdog or to ensure that the evaluation process process is handled correctly um we do have our uh our pandemic responsive and we do have these conversations some of these conversations in the pandemic response team um you know a lot of that has been shifted to um the protocols that we have in in the school not so much the instructional process but ensuring that we're following the guidelines presented whether it's from the state or from our opening plan uh we do have we we provide we've dedicated our our department at the time to having these conversations uh quite honestly and i i by no means want this to sound that i've reinvented the wheel here it's just a greater emphasis it's really to re-look at what we've been doing and how are we doing it how can we do it more effectively and quite honestly the goal is to help help students i'm not here to criticize the guidance department i'm actually grateful for the amount of work that they have done they do run meetings during lunch time there's a number of meetings that are run during lunch they're running meetings after school not after school but um in that one o'clock period they they run meetings there's there's mentoring meetings there's support group meetings there's uh meetings for ell there's meetings for struggling students there's meetings for new new americans so we are doing a lot of these things i'd be happy to discuss them with you and share them with you um but by no means am i saying that we're reinventing the wheel it's a commitment to these to ensure that the students are receiving the services that they need in this time because quite frankly you know as much as i don't say practice that we had in the spring this spring everybody worked really hard and we tried really hard and once april came around we lost students in cliffside park i know for a fact districts throughout bergen county lost students and the state didn't provide us answers students were not held responsible quite honestly because there was a pandemic and a lot of students were honestly given a free pass but they learned that they could you know not be engaged and not participate in remote instruction and we identified that we knew that because that was part of our discussions in our planning that we cannot continue and we thought september october that we hit it out of the park and then once those progress reports came in we started to recognize hey there's a problem here students are struggling students are not reporting and we started to have these conversations and we shared them with mr romagino we we brought in the middle school and we plan to look at this data again and if you have a better suggestion on how we should pull the data i'd be open to hearing it but the bottom line is we know our students are struggling right now and we're working really really hard to get them engaged and just by doing re-emphasizing these simple things we've seen increased engagement and that's what i'm hoping to share with the board and to encourage you know and make you not encourage but make you guys aware that hey we're you know i'm open to doing things differently and doing things better and you know i love the opportunity to to hear the suggestions that you have well i would like to know what you're going to do differently and what you're going to do better and i'd also like you to come back to the board after the next marking period to evaluate how the strategies that you've put forth are working because i'd like to see how you know they're impacting the students grades and the failures because i'm concerned about the failures but i'm also concerned about the assessments because i think if we're in a pandemic assessments have to change and there needs to be conversations around how we assess students so i'm looking forward to the next presentation where you can have some quantifiable data linking the strategy that you're putting forth to hopefully an increase in grades because you want the strategies you're putting forth to increase the grades right i mean that's the that was the whole beginning of it the failure rate uh we want to see we want to see the students achieve success yes we do we do we don't want to continue down this path and you'll come find ourselves in in in june where we still have we've had students struggle and quite honestly you know the idea of this growth mindset you know just developing that idea with with the kids this is a conversation that quite honestly i welcome the board to have and and you know take a look at our our our our grading policy and and you know a number of districts have shifted away from four quarters of uh uh four quarters and a final grade where there's just one semester grade at the end of a semester or or what the the grades kind of reboot in january and there's a final grade that the kid that the kids are measured from january through uh uh through june very progressive high schools have taken that approach and that's something i'd be open to discussing but it's really this this concept that that we cannot allow the kids to continue down this path that we have to look as instructors and as administrators what we're doing how we're doing it and do it differently and that's all i'm trying to state is that we've identified a problem we said hey it can't work the way we're doing it and we're going to pivot and we've we've got to address it and we've got to be more active about it we can't kind of sit back and say hey they're adults they're young adults they need to make these decisions uh and some of them are very simple so some are very simple just engaging the community more and that's something that we've we've really tried to make an effort and we'll continue to make an effort to do well see that's where i'm getting confused with the verbiage because you say we're pivoting to these strategies but then mr shelley's saying we're doing these strategies all along so i don't understand if you're pivoting to them or if you're doing them all along that's where i'm kind of getting lost because i feel like there are things that you've been done all along as far as putting comments i'll go a stretch further when i taught i put positive comments and negative comments and if the kid was getting an a i still gave them a comment you know because kids need feedback and and we give painfully little feedback i find computer based assessments takes away the teachers ability to give feedback to students because frank quite frankly sometimes all the kids ever get is a number grade this is what you got and they never know what they got right what they got wrong or if they didn't understand something because they're never really given that information at least from what i see that's one of the reasons we're encouraging them to use the breakout rooms to provide that feedback directly to the students in a timely fashion and that's that's one of the examples and quite honestly when we're talking about pivot there's a number of things that we are pivoting we are our our policy our instructional policy regarding the cameras which was shared with you know the middle school i mean the middle school had the same policy cameras got to be on and that's something that we pivoted from once we recognized we had go guardian some of these other things you're right no we they've been in place for a very long time and you know they're not meant to be critical of anybody but there's a re-emphasis of it as as as our staff has turned over some things were lost some things um might have fell by the wayside some things might not have been done the same way and it's really just we've got to look at what we're doing and ensure that we're doing these things and in some cases we might need to need we might need to do them a little bit more and that's quite honestly what we're trying to do here i i think you should look at what you're doing and do it more and i give a lot of credit to the people who are doing it and have been doing it i would if i can just leave you one thing ask you to look at how you're assessing students because you can be doing everything right and everything wonderful and if you're using a traditional old-fashioned assessment that you may use when students are sitting in front of you that may not translate to remote and it could not using proper assessments in this type of a situation could wipe away all of the good that you're trying to do in the other areas because you're not looking at assessments you know because i i would like to believe that the child study team has been and continues to advocate for their students so you know again pivoting not pivoting i don't really understand that i think that that's something that should have been done i would hope it's being done but if you're still seeing the failure rate then it's something else and i think that you really have to get into what is causing the failure rate and sometimes the conversation needs to be around assessment and i apologize for taking up so much time but i am on the board of education for education and we rarely get to have these conversations so i thank you for coming tonight and giving this presentation and showing us the failure rate because a lot of times when we get the presentation on standardized testing it's really through rose-colored glasses so i invite you personally to come back to subsequent meetings and show us how the strategies that you're using are making improvements i i'll also bring for you guys i i usually do it in november but our ap scores this year were the highest uh they've been in a very long time in a number of subjects i'll also include the ap scores from the spring um uh when i come back because i did not do that presentation in november nor as i asked but uh i'm sure mr romagino shared them but i'll show you the the yearly data for the ap scores so that is something that we're proud of here thank you mr roman are there any more questions mr romagino anyone else anything for mr okay thank you thank you good evening okay so at this time i'd like to look at the consent agenda which i believe you have a copy of in your folder uh just just a brief agenda tonight uh page two we are approving uh some of our staff members taking some virtual um professional development conferences at the top we have two bus drivers one we are approving as a new part-time bus driver and right below that a second resolution to accept the resignation of one of our drivers uh effective january 15th a little bit further down rama venetia who was a high school social studies teacher had requested an unpaid um lead for the week of january 4th we are rescinding that since we were virtual a little further down ken russo who is a high school english teacher remember last month we approved some staff members as per contract to work with students in the intramural program uh we left off king's name he will be working with students uh athletes uh top of page three we are rescinding the appointments for two middle school coaches uh vicki bucko and susannah pesa and as i mentioned at the beginning of the meeting that's due to a lack of interest in those two sports for this year and i'm pretty confident that next year hopefully with things getting back to normal uh that we will have full participation uh in all of our programs whether it be co-curricular or athletic a little bit further down we are um adjusting the salary of lunches as for new jersey state law uh governor murphy put into effect that the minimum wage uh effective january first for 12 so we are adjusting it for all lunch aids and policies and procedures on page five uh we are approving the vandalism and violence uh report and harassing report which we do is do each year and due to um the fact that we've been uh primarily remote for many many of our students there are no reported incidents of either so we are reporting none to the state that's why there is not a report in the folder uh because there were no reasons and that's a report that goes from july 1st to december 31st and then we will start again january 1st of june 30th so we're just approving that uh mr pinto if you have anything under finance yes we both got views um just a couple quick guys was throwing gino uh towards the end of the agenda there's uh four resolutions for uh the audit uh that'll be uploading to the repository of the state uh tomorrow uh the very last resolution is a resolution for the gym upgrade and mr cappano reference that's going to get the project application going to the department of education um mr capano mentioned the retaining wall and the gym upgrade the audit package as i mentioned we're going to be uploading to the state in the board's folders there's the amr the orders manager report in the capper which is the larger report that really goes through each and every sub-fund in great detail that's in the board packets and we are starting the preliminary uh due diligence on the budget we receive the guidelines and the software from the state and we have a county uh asbo meeting tomorrow with the county ba going through some of the uh initial minutiae when we got to getting the uh budget process for 21 22 kicked off that's pretty much it mr machine we usually get some numbers from the state regarding state aid after the governor the state of the state that's specific to state aid is february 23rd and then usually 48 hours later that that's the tricky part mr shelly about the budget you get the state eight figures so late in the process and you make an assumption that based on your trends over the last several years you've got to get incrementally flat or incrementally higher state aid if that's either wrong to the good or to the bad you're kind of reshuffling the deck right at the last minute but it looks like the governor's state of the state will happen february 23rd that's a tentative date and usually 48 hours later we get the state agent i'll keep you posted i thought i heard him say something else yeah it wasn't it wasn't what they call the state of the state where he gets into uh state aid and topics such as that that's going to be definitely obviously interesting this year given the economy yes and we've got no direction uh from from anyone in regards to what they expect we're going to probably make an assumption that it's going to be flat year over year but you're right who knows okay but we'll keep everyone posted that's it okay i do have two questions uh for two members of our community that are watching the program tonight as we screen it uh the first question is why would the notification communication system change as of january 1st it is unnecessary and bothersome for emergency contacts to bring receiving calls so that is something we will look at i didn't realize that we did move to a new swiftreach system where not only do we send out phone calls but we also send out a follow-up text message uh so we will have mr savastano look at that and see if we cannot send it to emergency contact so we understand that usually an emergency person who doesn't necessarily have to receive those uh the second question is actually a personnel matter has been brought to my attention that art uh is cancelled indefinitely uh art is not canceled indefinitely we are looking for a replacement teacher um if the parent that asked that question would like to call my office tomorrow i'll be more than happy to discuss that further but we are looking for a substitute uh our teacher for our elementary school and that will probably begin uh monday but we were short this week we didn't anticipate the staff member being absent and we were not able to find a substitute in this covenant environment that could fill in but um that's where we're at right now so we will find a replacement for elementary law we are in the process of doing that uh those are the only two questions i have and again if any parents at any time have questions they can call my office uh if i'm not available i'll get back to them before the end of that school day so feel free to do that so at this time anybody have any questions on the consent agenda motion to accept what's that mr number one may have a second if i may please mr kapano thank you i'll take a vote now mr debrew mr capano mr fredo mr garcia dr penguiano mr raincourt mr russo mr shelley yes sir so noted thank you okay our next board meeting um is february 24th i'm not sure at that time that the public will be uh allowed to attend at some point back in november the governor allowed small group meetings then uh he changed course and we are not allowing the public at this time that's why we're streaming it but if things do change for february 24th where we can have public attend uh we will post that information to our website but our next meeting is february 24th so if there are no other questions motion to adjourn mr raincourt

good evening i'm going to call this meeting to order dr foley roll call please president kaler members of the board please let the record show that all members are present and to our two new board members we wish you a happy first sport official board meeting it's quite appropriate this is inauguration day so um yes welcome mrs schultz and mrs um anderson we appreciate your your dedication in wanting to join this um group so we appreciate you with that i'm going to have a moment of silence followed by the pledge of allegiance i move that we approve the agenda second any questions or concerns on the agenda all those in favor aye aye aye motion carries five zero inauguration day and our first item up for action is the election of our governing born president and then after that will be the election of our governing board vice president and how this works so far new board members there'll be a motion on the floor for a new president and then there'll be a vote and then we'll do the same thing for the vice presidency okay so with that we always had our little sweet attorney here in the past but hopefully i will do this right for mrs reach tonight um i move that we elect christina reese as board president for the year 2021.

does anyone have any questions regarding the monthly report okay then we will go on to 8.5 which is our mno budget update and projection and president members of the board and congratulations to the two new board members who are here we have been reviewing with the board i think at every board meeting since about november what we predict to be the m o budget for next year it changes from time to time and especially one of the big changes is the funding coming from the federal government for the the covet 19 and that is directly helping our budget as those announcements are made so i'm going to turn over the presentation to a individual that i have a lot of respect for he's new to the district as of january 11th his name's tyler moore he comes with to us with lots of applicable experience and i'm personally very happy that i have some help in the business office with with this gentleman so with that tyler would you like to present the powerpoint certainly thank you mr god and good evening president reece and members of the board tonight i'm bringing to you the second review of the mno budget this is for the 2021-2022 school year um i'd just like to pre-face this mr gad did present the first review on december 9th and so for those two new board members i will take my time going through this and uh you know thoroughly explain some of the the budget calculations that we are obligated to follow by the state and how we're implementing some of the coveted relief funds to our benefit so with this first slide here you'll see a few mno highlights that are affecting our budget this year first bullet point identifies the current code relief funds that we have received here today totaling 3.2 million i will follow up on these 3.2 million in the next slide i'd just like to touch on the i'm sure you've heard in the news and around the state of additional coverage relief funds being approved by the federal government and the sr2 is what we're calling it is um that nationwide 82 billion that's going to be funding schools again i'll follow up a little bit more detail on the next slide but just know that is going to be affecting our emino budget this year the next bullet points um we are recognizing 150 adm loss in 2021 school year which is our current school year adm stands for average daily membership and what we're referring to is basically students that we've lost in the district enrollment this year these are primarily coming from the younger grade levels so we're anticipating they're returning next year you know due to covet and a lot of the younger grades have been able to at least stay at home or you know have a place at home to you know they don't need to come into school the next bullet point there for purposes of budgeting we've recognized a three million dollar reduction in funding for online learning the state currently funds online or distance learning at 95 percent um not 100 of the base support level um so that three million that we're recognizing and i'll touch base on that more as we proceed as a current reduction we're hoping that is reduced with students returning to in class in the second half of the year the next bullet point there is a we're implementing a uh reduction of our mno transfer to the capital budget um and fiscal year 22 so our next calendar year we are going to start phase one of that reduction excuse me this current year in our budget revision we're going to start phase one of that reduction and our intention is to reduce that transfer and bring those funds back to the amino budget this budget also has the district absorbing any increase to employee venice so we will not be putting those increases from insurance etc on employees this next fiscal year all right like i mentioned um our coveted relief uh grants to date this is kind of the slide kind of covers a brief breakdown of how those funds are what we've received and what we estimate to to continue to receive so as i mentioned the 3.2 million that consists of the enrollment stabilization grant which was funded by the governor's office that was in the neighborhood of 2.6 million we also received in elementary and secondary school relief funds we're calling that esser for the sake of consistency and to not pronounce the that full uh grant allocation act um that was in the amount of six hundred thousand so that that encompasses our 3.2 million that we've received here today that we know of um additional grants like i mentioned the federal grant government passed a we're calling it sr2 and december 28th i believe is the date we've estimated that an award amount to be 2.6 million we have not received an official allocation for that yet but those are just preliminary estimates and you'll see an asterisk there we've also footnoted another another possible funding source um a governor has earmarked in his 2022 budget an estimated 292 million or 98 million excuse me um uh for this funding force is based strongly on uh eligible free and reduced students so we don't anticipate a large amount coming from this budget allocation that the governor set aside but we just wanted to footnote that in this presentation alrighty our budget formula um i'm gonna go over two different budgets so the the 2021 budget which is what we're looking at here is a is a budget that we that all school districts revise in may so we're based on current year funding um and those of you who went through mr gad's kind of uh or training will kind of recognize some of these pieces um so this 2021 budget revision we are estimating um a total weighted student count of 17 659 so that's including that 150 loss that we're recognizing this current year in 2021.

tonight i think it's important that as always we start the meeting with the pledge of allegiance pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states thank you uh i believe we'll be starting the meeting tonight by turning things over to the superintendent for the celebration of workable excellence great thank you uh mr misselli could we go to um that page please um so actually we'll just stay on pictures right now so we have two uh awards tonight i'm so excited that we're doing some celebration of excellence this month i'll start there and our first one uh is the hobie award and our recipient this evening is julia zimmerman give julia a round of applause to start virtual though it is so since 1958 the hugh o'brien youth leadership program better known as hobie has provided leadership development training to positively impact the lives of thousands of high school students in the u.s and abroad annually hobie's program allows high school sophomores to realize their leadership talents and apply them in becoming effective ethical leaders in their home school community and workplace students will attend a three-day we hope in person seminar if not hopefully it will be virtual and practice hands-on leadership activities meet leaders in their state and explore their own personal leadership skills while learning how to make a positive impact in their community teachers nominate a grade 10 student who exhibits the following traits and skills outstanding communication critical thinking creative problem solving strong decision making sensitivity to others charismatic personality courage to speak out and challenge and interest in community service julia received multiple teacher nominations julia has and continues to make a very positive impact on bolton high school she carries a very rigorous schedule for her classes and shows her talent in all of them julia is already showing how she is a leader among her peers she is recognized for her ability to think critically about things in bolton and outside of it she also has the ability to start conversations about difficult topics and speaks out against injustices with julia's strong work ethic and desire to learn she is well deserving of this award we are very proud that she will be representing bolton high school at the upcoming leadership conference julia congratulations to you and your family a well deserved honor young lady well done would you like to say anything i guess just like thanks thank you for the award well deserved congratulations next we have the daughters of the american revolutional good citizen award and it gives me great pleasure to announce cassidy collins as this year's recipient of the dar good citizen award cassidy is now eligible to participate in the national scholarship program sponsored by this organization way to go cassidy the daughters of the american revolution was established in 1890 by a group of pioneering women in our nation's capital who wanted to perpetuate the memory of the men and women who fought to make our country free and independent dar members are passionate about educating the youth of america and contributing to schools and student programs in a variety of ways and in support of that the dar good citizen award and scholarship contest was created in 1934 to provide scholarships and awards to outstanding students throughout the country each year teachers from high schools across the country select students from the senior class who demonstrate dependability service leadership and patriotism in their homes schools and communities cassidy transitioned to bolton high school during the second quarter of her junior year with a transcript reflecting high honors and continued her success here at bolton high school in honors and ap courses while moving to a new school naturally poses many challenges cass city acclimated very quickly she was inducted by acclimation into the philip c ligouri chapter of the national honor society not only on her academic transcript and character but also due to her strong service and leadership credentials cassidy has been an active member of the jrotc in south carolina for years and hopes to continue her path of service and leadership to her country through an rotc program at her chosen university here you go that's awesome cassidy is a selfless and caring young lady who has risen as a natural leader and a role model to all who know her these qualities and more make cassidy a very deserving deserving recipient of this award cassidy congratulations to you and to your family on this wonderful honor way to go thank you so much i appreciate it even being here for like this will be my first full year now and so it's just a big honor thank you guys well we love having you and congratulations thank you chair o'neill that concludes tonight's celebration of excellence thank you congratulations to our recipients and it's nice to hear about some of the good things happening during all this um i believe that next we'll be moving to comments from the audience do we have any of those this evening mr mishriki okay good evening everybody letting me share i am going to attempt to share my screen not because i want you to read off of it a brief video okay i hope that's working and if it's not um somebody could just let me know that'd be great so thank you so much for letting me address you but i know that you know you don't have a ton of time so i'll be as brief as possible i'm here to share why i think it is in the best interest of the town of bolton the bolton public schools the high school and especially the track team to consider the construction of a track and field facility i know you don't have a lot of time and so i am going to try to keep myself to four minutes or less and then i do have some students here to share as well so i'm gonna focus on just three points but i tend to be long-winded but i also believe that there are many reasons why this is a good choice and why it's in the best interest of the town so i typed a very long proposal but i assure you each point has been individually kind of thought over and um if you would just do me the honor of reading it and considering it and passing it on to anyone you think it might apply to that'd be great so the three things i wanted to share would be my first point which is included in here but i'm not going to be scrolling through my document is i think it's in the best interest of the bolton public schools that we continue to attract as many students both from within bolton and from without bolton to our school system i don't think it's a secret that we sometimes lose some talented students both academic and athletic to other schools whether they be private schools whether it's students from colombia mark you're frozen try turning off your picture and see if we can hear you still because we keep our faculty at capacity and ensures that we keep our school system top-notch and competitive so i i think the track facility is essential to that effort um and i also think within that same vein if bolton is a tiny town but bolton going to continue to have its own district and this era especially financial constraints might move towards things like regionalization bolton high school should be a whole school i think it's in the best interest that it offer the same offerings that virtually every public high school in the country offers and has offered for decades and i think that will help keep our school bolton high school quite simply um i also have a lot of photos uh that i have included so i would just like to share them because they can express a lot more than i can this is our current track team home base which is the parking lot out behind the school um keep in mind that we work from march through june and that's outdoor track our indoor track also has to work outside um so we have one of the biggest teams in the school district we make up more than half the athletes competing each year at bolton high school um other athletes get to train on an actual start and finish line that seems like a small thing but our athletes are using a jump rope here on the soccer field which we're not allowed to step on which i i think says it all i'm not even going to elaborate our javelin throwers work in a muddy field in the corner because once again they're not allowed near the soccer fields because of course we know the soccer fields are badly in need of repair and better drainage as well our long jump runway if you want to call it that which would be very generous is blacktop it's too short and we jump into a pit that was made by a community member for us and we're so fortunate to have that but in no way is that an adequate facility for our jumpers i'm not going to bring up the issue of safety it speaks for itself but if one were to read my document it's pretty evident and so is this picture hurtling on uneven grass and a tilted field on the side of a soccer field that we're not allowed to go on and it's not just the soccer field it we are not given permission to work on any of our fields which leaves us virtually no actual training area our kids are stretching on blacktop as well shin splints are a regular problem we go to coventry to practice pole vault and i'd like to point out that our commentary to practice all after practice because i'm only one coach so sometimes they end up doing four or five hours of practice friday afternoon so they can learn pole vault but i assure you they all show up wanting to pole vault um here we are training on what is primarily our sprint track which as you can see through the duration of the season is covered in either ice dust or dirt but usually it's covered in all three which is a simple recipe for an injury and it'd be really nice to say find a safer spot but our options are a parking lot or the side of the field so that's not really an option and this is my favorite picture because we see our kids making the best of what's around them and i think we owe it to them to do the best but as i started i think that what's in the best interest of the track team and bolton high school athletes is in the best interest of the community as well so to me that's a win-win-win i have a lot of concrete examples of why this benefits academic safety making the town more attracting and appealing keeping people coming to our schools and property values but i'll just close um by reading from the 2019 knee ask accreditation visit committee's report because mark you're frozen we cannot hear you 60 which is exactly what the chair said to the bolton high school mark mark we did mark we didn't hear any of that oh okay where did i leave off you were frozen you started to you were referring to the 2019 knee ask report that's as much as we heard okay we still can't hear you mark i'm gonna take that as a no there now i can hear your voice okay i'm i'm going to walk through the house and i'm going to try the kitchen and i'll be done in a minute can you hear me yes i can it also might help us a few of us turn our video off sometimes that helps with zoom and then some chromebooks just for his presentation okay um so at the end of the niask visit the committee chair spoke to the faculty and his number one critique as you'll see in the report was that our athletic facilities did not instill a sense of pride in our athletes and that they quote looked more like 1960 than the 21st century and in that official report they wrote a lack of adequate outdoor athletic fields is a significant deficiency that impacts student life on campus poor drainage often renders the school soccer field unplayable there is no track and field facility tennis courts are in a state of disrepair of course those have since been repaired therefore bolton athletes are often forced to compete away from home and lose the opportunity to compete in front of peers with the exception of [Music] can't hear you again mark mark you're frozen and we cannot hear you in programs in some way the capital budget does not reflect the needs of the athletic complex the lack of proper field drainage tennis courts that are in need of repair as well as additional resources necessary to support the many athletes engaged in the track and field program are problematic some areas of the field complex require remediation for both performance and safety reasons it is not uncommon for soccer fields to be unplayable thus denying student athletes ability to practice for track members to be practicing in parking lots and running on roads is a as poses a safety issue the athletic director and school leadership have presented various budget proposals recommendation develop long-term planning i think for those reasons and the many more i list in my document which i really really hope you read um i just want this to be a consideration but i did invite some students here so i'll cut my video but if you guys have time i'd like to just let them each i asked them for 30 seconds to a minute so do we have time for that if not i could always record their statements and share it later please take your time no all right um well thank you very much so um i will forward you all the one video in case you would like to watch that at your leisure but the first student who is also alumni actually is riley gardner so if rather than to um share why this is important to him that's great and i hope there's something nice in the back printer because i don't even know all right uh hello is this good hi riley you're good okay uh hi my name is riley gardner uh i'm alumni i graduated 2018.

[Applause] all right so i think we're good right yep go ahead okay uh good evening everyone today is wednesday january 20th 2021 and i call the regular meeting of the brookfield board of education to order in accordance with executive order 7b suspending sections 1-206-1-225-1-226 of the connecticut general statutes the public will not be able to attend this meeting in person but will have the ability to view or listen to the meeting in real time by way of the brookfield board of education youtube channel furthermore such meeting will be recorded or transcribed and posted on the board's website within seven days of the meeting and made available as required by law all speakers taking part in the meeting are reminded that they are to clearly state their names and titles if applicable before speaking on each occasion that they speak individuals wishing to participate in the public uh comment portion of the meeting may do so by using the following access information you can dial area code 312-626-6799 or area code 929-205-6099 and the meeting id is 964-0184-8646 okay so let's stand for the pledge 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 at this time i'd like everyone to have a moment of silence for the passing of the longtime huckleberry teacher mrs diane nason thank you everyone our thoughts go out to her family friends and students during this especially difficult time and for any parents who are listening please know that there are resources available to help you or students with their grieving process should they need it and for as long as they need it thank you we have all of our board members in attendance tonight um so up first on our agenda is the student spotlight and we have center school so i will turn it over to uh dr brill and mary rose rosa thank you so much good evening everyone um i am just very pleased i'll be turning it over to mary rose in just a second but we'll be welcoming uh mrs sean knapp and mrs alicia macbeth from center school uh they're gonna as mary rose says they are zoom masters and um she wants to talk about the um how they begin the process you know they are at the beginning at center school and although we call the four c's the portrait of the graduate it starts at center school so without further ado mrs diamond i'm going to turn it over to you for the full introduction great thank you john i'm going to um share my screen have a couple slides see our enrollment reporter there first um there we go okay so as as john said we really um you know center school is kind of where it all begins um for many of our students obviously you know learning occurs at home and we're well aware of that more so than ever this year but center school is where we start putting all of it together and build that foundation so our teachers and staff are really embedding the tenants of the four pillars of the four seats in every interaction with students really from day one this work is evident in the phonics lessons that are taught on a daily basis um to build students abilities to express themselves verbally and in writing um the question that takes place during read alouds um you know it's asking students you know how do you know that the character is feeling excited and really that critical thinking that happens um the variety of making that students do so making can be making lego structures um and also constructing uh stories and writing and writing stories um and then the perspective taking that is also fostered through reflection and discussions about consequences and stories um and in the classroom so there's lots of uh of great work that's happening at our youngest ages to build these foresees and to really build that foundation so as we transitioned um and have transitioned back and forth between the classroom environment and the zoom environment um this learning has absolutely continued um it's been precipitated by a huge learning curve on the part of our staff and i'm incredibly proud of our team for not only teaching the 4cs but modeling the 4cs in their own learning as they have charted a course for creating learning experiences for students in a virtual world we are all at different points in our learning myself included we are all learners at center school um and we also have different comfort levels in terms of the technology and those kinds of uh tools that we have but every member of the staff from our secretaries to our paras to our monitors to the teachers are really collaborating and growing um in this environment so collectively we have determined how to embrace the challenges that have come up so some of those challenges include lack of technology skills for learning so kids can operate an iphone and i will attest to the fact that my children can change all kinds of settings on my phone but we had to teach my daughter who's also in kindergarten and my son who's in pre-k uh learning on zoom how to log themselves in and how to access their google classroom and get to their assignments and that kind of thing um another challenge has been the level at our level is the need for parent and caregiver involvement because again obviously students are young they're they're they don't have the kind of school experience that our older students do so we've had we've built connections with families um and brought that home school partnership to a whole new level um in terms of how we've done schooling for the last couple of months um with with our with our students at home and then another challenge has been finding the right balance in terms of expectations so it's hard to gauge from afar how much each student can handle independently um so you know teachers had to kind of gauge that and then nurture that self-confidence that's necessary for students to take risks again at home as well as in school and then the last piece that i would say not the only challenge but another big challenge we've had is just building a community and fostering connections among students who have not had a class experience and don't have an idea of what traditional school looks and feels like um so all of this has been done really a lot of this has been accomplished through the use of the zoom tools that have been available to us and the hard work of our of our teachers and staff and we've had some discussion um as well uh as you might imagine among among the staff um about what students have lost right so many of us have have been lamenting the fact that our students and our children are going to be incredibly far behind in their learning and development as a result of kind of the tumultuous schooling experience they've had over the last 10 months and don't get me wrong there are absolutely gaps and we're working to identify the gaps in fundamental skills so that we can provide the right instruction and the resources to fill those gaps but we also know that successes are not just measured through academic skills and we've discovered that our students are developing new skills and thriving ways that will certainly serve them well in the future such as confidence in sharing their feelings and the vocabulary to express those feelings um comfort in advocating for themselves if they can't hear if someone's on you they are the first ones to tell you that you're muted um using the resources that are at their disposal to troubleshoot so um we've we've seen students now at their um as their academic skills are growing able to use the chat more frequently to ask a question or make a comment um they're navigating multiple platforms to access their instructional programs and resources so we're building their independence and be able to navigate for themselves they're quickly switching gears and being flexible when something doesn't work out as planned um and that goes right along with managing some of the disappointment when technology glitches arise so you know all of those things that we as adults are having to manage ourselves in this environment we're also you know seeing that students are building those kinds of skills that would not typically have had at this point um in their schooling so we're really um proud of that um and though they might not be skills that we can quickly assess and quantify um they are definitely skills that are going to uh serve them uh and help the uh provide for greater success in the future for our students so that's another thing you just wanted to point out um so for tonight's spotlight um as as um john indicated we are we have mrs sean ms sean knapp one of our fabulous kindergarten teachers and mrs alicia macbeth uh one of our amazing first grade teachers to share how they have created a structure in their virtual classrooms that support student learning and growth at the center by focusing on social emotional well-being addressing academic standards and establishing high expectations and as a result we're seeing that our students are learning to use the technology of zoom to connect with one another build their competence and communicate so i'm going to turn it over i'm going to stop sharing now and turn it over to sean knapp our kindergarten teacher who is going to describe some of the things she's been doing in her classroom thank you mary rose and good evening everyone as mrs diamond mentioned our learning curve at center school has been going full steam ahead as the world had a crash course on how to use zoom last spring many of us at center mastered that skill and we're ready for more i remember hearing about the many tools of zoom and the so-called breakout rooms mary rose was great at modeling how to implement them during meetings she'd gradually try to release us we'd push back they looked interesting and yet rather daunting at the time however she persevered during staff meetings she put us in breakout rooms breakout rooms and i remember my own hesitations am i ready for this yet i can't even get my volume to work where do i click i sounded like my students then my colleagues and i began to practice with one another and i felt a little lighter over the weeks i found an academic need to meet one-on-one with my students it was time for me to put the training wheels on first i tested it out with one or two students then i heard miss knapp can i go into a breakout room too when is it my turn to go to breakout room i can't wait to go so next i added in an aid with a student then an l tutor with a student before long students couldn't get enough of the breakout rooms it was its own reward students were excited and so was i i realized it was time to take the training mails off so i started using breakout rooms as we signed into zoom in the mornings students brought toys photos siblings dogs elves on the shelves to share and they just naturally took off students showed up on time alert and excited to start the day because they could share their lives with their friends before i knew it students who'd never met in person were talking and learning in breakout rooms together my favorite morning was when the class signed on to zoom and joined their rooms one by one they dropped from my screen in less than 10 seconds i was alone in the main room i remember thinking that these five and six-year-olds just mastered with these the same social and technological skills that my own ninth and sixth graders are currently using it's amazing as i pop in and out of their rooms to guide conversations i wonder what's next for our class what started out as an academic need ended up meeting our social and emotional needs while maintaining high expectations mrs macbeth had a different need for breakout rooms but funny enough we ended in the same place alicia thank you sean hello everyone so my my experience with the breakout rooms i don't i didn't write anything i apologize um i wanted to share uh is focusing on the social emotional well-being of the students um i during remote learning had reached out to mary rose on several occasions just discussing my concern with their overall engagement and just noticing that something with my students didn't seem normal it didn't seem right but then again the situation nothing is normal um and after uh reflecting and trying to come up with creative ways and as sean mentioned the use of breakout rooms in our own staff meetings i decided to be brave i took a chance and i decided to introduce breakout rooms to my students during a reader's workshop lessons after the lesson they decided to partner them up and send them into a breakout room on their own i thought for sure that as i would be popping in and out of these breakout rooms that it would be show and tell in a free for all and i have to say that was not the case it was amazing i have to say i think that day my students taught me something one of the first breakout rooms i went into one of my students was sharing his screen and partner reading on epic and i think that's where it all began for me the moment i realized that they were capable and they were just as tech savvy if not more than we give them credit for um we went with it when the whole class came back into the main room um i shared shared what i saw in each of the rooms and as soon as they found out that one friend was screen sharing they thought it was the best thing in the whole wide world and it was the rest was history we we had a whole lesson on screen sharing and i had students teaching other students how to screen share a reader's workshop quickly became their favorite part of our day it happened to be the end of the day so um you know throughout the day they would always ask me is it reader's workshop time when are we going to be going into breakout rooms um because it seemed to work as a motivator for them we ended up my aide and i we ended up then incorporating it into writer's workshop how could we use breakout rooms for writer's workshop how could we use that during other academic areas so by the end of remote learning we were using breakout rooms for every single subject and i saw an instant change in their overall level of engagement their excitement their motivation and i actually shared a story with mary rose earlier um this evening and i wasn't i didn't even connect the dots to this but she had checked in with me to see how being back 100 was going and i was surprised i have to be honest with you i thought for sure when we came back it would be an adjustment for students coming back to school after being home in their own environments with in their comfort zone with everything that they love but it was almost like we never skipped a beat and it didn't even dawn on me until almost the end of the day yesterday that it was the first time that they had all been together 100 percent in school since before covid began and i you would have never even known just based off how well they were working how well they were working together so going back to their social emotional well-being um i think that the use of the breakout rooms and just that incorporation of uh the collaboration working together uh really did help foster foster all of what i saw what i am seeing now in the classroom now that we're back so thank you so i that that's really what we wanted to share today um it's our experiences and this you know this is sean and alicia have gone above and beyond to really use those kinds of tools with their students and we're seeing it pay off in terms of student connections and learning and their growth and that kind of thing so we're really proud of our of our kids um and just thankful to have teachers who are willing to take that risk and um and move forward in that way so thank you anybody have any questions that we can answer thank you mary rosen sean alicia thank you so much really appreciate it okay um up next we have public comment and i don't see anyone here there's no one in the waiting room right eric um no i don't i don't have anybody either by telephone number and and now that um we have the link available i don't see anybody in the waiting room or in the participant list okay uh so let's move on to the student representative report hi i'm tambie chandra as the brookfield high school student representative to start off the first in-person day for cohort a was yesterday and i've heard a lot of people say that there are less and less people that they're seeing in school and in their classes which i kind of anticipated because i think people really got used to being at home and didn't want to make that change back to school i also heard that because of the new schedule a lot of people got confused and missed a little bit of their classes but i think that's just something to get used to with ilt now in the schedule and that being said ilt is up and running and it was the first day yesterday where students actually went to ilt physically um one thing is that uh in the past i may have like kind of lightened the way that seniors are feeling about this year but i do think that the seniors have large cases of senioritis and i don't know if it's just because we are in second semester or because of the whole covid situation but i could see that they are kind of losing motivation in school like myself included a little bit sometimes um but that being said there are some upcoming planning sessions for senior activities with mr buckley and mr blanda that i hope to do during ilt um now that we have that time and um in honor of dr martin luther king jr day u.s senator chris murphy announced on monday 15 winners of his um fifth martin luther king jr day essay contest and this year he received close to two thousand eight hundred entries from elementary middle and high schools from across connecticut and brookfield high school eleventh grader samitha surchat was one of the one of only three fifth congressional district winners so that's huge um today during ilt the curriculum chain subcommittee of the human rights club met with the librarians and about possibly integrating a human rights shelf or section in the library um kind of like a holiday like they do holiday shelves sometimes but more long term and hosa the health occupation students of america club came back to bhs juniors have their psat on january 26th and that's a remote day for 9th 10th and 12th graders while the 11th graders are in the building with for their psat and finally the last day of summer of the semester is coming up on january 28th which is next thursday and that is all thank you all right any questions for tanvi i just wanted to say that i had a meeting this afternoon with all the librarians in the district and the librarians from the high school were telling us all about how impressed they were with the students that came to meet with them today so it was um heavy heavy praise so you can share that with them so it's always good to hear that when you're having a meeting about yeah how proud and how impressed um faculty members are with um with students so thank you yeah thank you i'll tell them for sure all right thank you tandy written correspondence laura orban wrote regarding the district response to the events at the capitol on january 6th ron jaffe shared information on a teen inauguration special then rachel wrote regarding the return to school and elijah hewling wrote regarding winter athletics okay uh approval of board minutes i move that the board approve the minutes from the special board of ed meeting on january 6 the public forum on january 6th and the regular meeting on january 6th second thank you uh all in favor aye all right thanks that passes uh the superintendent's update all right thank you rosa so um really wanted to share my enthusiasm for having the students back in person is just so exciting to see all of them and see the staff and the faculty and the majority of people are in good spirits the kids have great energy and it's just really a joy to see all of them as a reminder for the public k through 8 is back in our what we call model five days per week and the high school at this time remains in the hybrid model and uh everybody being back really is is just been wonderful to that end i wanted to share a few uh percentages regarding uh remote versus in-person attendance i know that's been something we've talked about um especially in the 100 model k through 8 which we can accommodate all of the students the way we've worked hard from the summer through the fall to set up the classrooms at this time total in the district we talked about having about 70 percent we anticipated students being in person right now that percentage is 63 percent of the students in person um and it breaks down like this at the high school 51 in person 49 uh remote uh whiskaner 62 in person and 38 remote at huckleberry 73 in person and 27 remote and at center school the highest percentage in person 83 in person 17 remote um so uh we're right around that averages like i said about 63 percent close to that anticipated 70 percent and in talking with each of the principals there's ebb and flow some parents are changing status from remote to in others uh full into remote and we'll let this first week into a second week uh unfold and we'll really see where we land on that um but we're excited to have the kids in there and it's just nothing like seeing them there another thing that's very interesting kind of regarding the code section of the update uh this this meeting in talking with mr bellanda because of those percentages he and his team are actually looking at uh putting a survey together uh very soon for parents to take a look at status of students and if possible looking at the course enrollment in each of the classrooms and how we can accommodate the students there may be an opportunity for those students who want to be in person coming five days a week so we continue to look at that that's not some static issue where we say it's hybrid for the rest of the year and that's it mr bland and the team are really focused on doing everything they can to have the kids in school obviously in a safe manner and in alignment with all of the requirements that we have to make um so we're excited about that being a possible opportunity obviously more excited about the next item under the covet update which is vaccinations because the sooner we get all the back to everybody vaccinated the sooner we continue to move further uh and past the pandemic so that end it's important to share with everybody not only is mrs cavanaugh our vaccine coordinator she actually has been sending out updates and communications to everybody there's been a lot of talk on the news i'm sure all of you are aware of this group called 1b where we were as educators made to understand that educators would be in 1b and quite quickly uh get in line to be vaccinated it's not actually not the case in 1b starting with people 75 and older then it appears we will go to ages 65 to 74 and then those 16 to 64 uh with comorbidity condition and then from there the front line essential workers which educators would be a part of would be uh able to make their appointments so uh we are doing everything uh by the book exactly as the dph has directed i want to thank mrs kavanaugh for her leadership on that and also her really timely communications and entertaining questions from staff who are just concerned and want to know uh phone calls and emails and things like that so we're moving along um as best we can there and we're watching every email every communication and checking in so as soon as we can upload our staff all 416 people will get you uh into a situation where you can get the automated email and make your appointment the last thing on covet is with coming back 100 i had to go back traffic for the most part is definitely heavier than it's been uh when we're in hybrid um center school seems to be having some of the more congested difficulty at this time mrs diamond is working with uh actually had some conversation with officer grambling today and the police department has been present at the schools uh to help manage a rival on dismissal there's things that we need to adjust and tweak and we'll continue to do that and as a matter of fact mrs diamond even takes um you know input from teachers that are on duty uh what they're seeing the officers that are on duty there as well as parents who are waiting in traffic lines you know if people have a suggestion so we're going to get that squared away as quickly as we can with the help um next i want to talk about athletics uh opened up the athletic season via the ciac yesterday in athletics uh really great news brookfield high school once again is a michael's cup award winner i believe only six or so high schools in the state are recognized as a michael's cup winner and bhs was chosen by the committee uh at the ciac for our willingness to subscribe to the class act sportsmanship standards empowering students to take an active role in school climate and the continued support for community service and so you know under all of our coaches and uh certainly mr baldwin's leadership and and the captain's council our kids are just doing a great job in the athletic department i want to share some data from the fall athletic season which is very important uh for for the board and for the public to know that in the fall 20 000 student athletes participated in fall athletics there were 33 000 formal events this is around the state and there were only seven positive coveted cases and from what is reported not one was actually transmitted during competition of those seven positive cases that's a point zero two five infection rate so again mitigation strategies and doing everything we can to maintain safe uh a safe and healthy environment um it really means people are doing what they're supposed to do when we have our students active in our school events the last thing i want to share about athletics is that while we started our winter athletic season it's pre-season workouts right now and what mr baldwin did is ease in athletics he didn't start all the sports yesterday so basketball and swimming did start yesterday um hockey started i think it was a 5 am practice this morning they were on the ice so anybody wants to go play hockey go have practice at 5am and then dance and cheer are starting this friday and then uh mr baldwin is taking a look at the ciac guidelines and he is being very discerning um to make sure that we can start indoor track indoor track right now does not have any scheduled meets that's a big concern about the high-risk nature of things with the indoor track the way the kids are together for indoor meets um but if we can get those kids together with their coaches as soon as possible um and scrimmages might be scheduled or meets might be scheduled we'll be working on that and mr baldwin's in touch with the coaches and we'll be in touch with the players on that so that's coming up in the next few days um and then the last piece is wrestling um will not be able to be a season this year as far as we know from the cic because it's close nature there's just no way to get around that so that's where we're at with athletics uh next thing on the list um and uh tommy already talked about this but we want to give a shout out to samita uh for being the district five winner of the martin luther king essay writing contest just just amazing and um the link i sent to the board if you click on that you can actually read her essay it's just amazing technology r b technology uh i talked about a donation they were giving a 65-inch mobile smart board and seven smart cap boards to the um we're gonna dedicate those to the pe department uh those boards are full donation from r b they're one of our vendors and they had extra equipment and they felt they'd give it to us so i mean it we're just really so appreciative of that and i know eric um the high school and uh and certainly mr baldwin and the pe teachers are very excited about that and then finally i had a chat with rosa earlier uh this week uh the caps uh blueprint to transform public schools proposal was publicized last week it really didn't get that much media attention so some of you if you only heard it from me uh it really is because of all the code news and election news and everything going on that this typically if we didn't have that going on would have probably made it to the front page of the local newspaper um so it's a 15-year strategic plan essentially from caps in terms of a proposal for what we need to be doing in the state to transform education one of the things i asked rosa if she would be interested in having the board here from fran rabinowitz the executive director of caps um and and rosa said if he can arrange something so uh fran uh committed to coming to us at our february 17th meeting um to share a brief overview of the plan and give an opportunity for board members to ask questions um but we'll be one of the first boards that fran will actually go out to and have a conversation with so we look forward to that and always welcome fran to be with us and officially rosa that is all i have for my superintendent report not sure if anybody has any questions any questions all right okay thank you okay uh subcommittee reports first up is finance uh can you hear me okay sorry if you hear my printer in the background it's been clunking away for the last 20 minutes um so look we've had two finance committee meetings since we last met i'll report on both of them uh the first one was focused mostly on the uh on the monthly results so we're about halfway through the year now so we're starting to get some really good uh shape of what's happening on our business results um this month our you know we've been showing an overrun on spending but it's all because of the coveted spending and the town is going to help out with that um and so we actually uh that got less of an overrun from last month to this month the reason is we actually in the forecast we booked some uh significant savings because we're seeing reductions in special ed transportation and it was offset somewhat by um the amount of money we're going to get in the matching grants from the state on special ed so um that was really the only major input but you know we we were at about 235 000 overrun with covid being over bigger than that and now it's at 000.

okay i move that the board set the graduation date for the brookfield high school class of 2021 as recommended by bhs principal mark belanda second so dr brill do you want me to just start talking do you want to introduce any of their conversation just want to make sure we follow the right people thanks mark just yeah i had to get off a mute there thank you no so mark and i um had some conversations over the last month about graduation and certainly he is uh i know he's started i believe he's initiated some conversation not only with his team but with some students and so forth uh speaking of latonvy was talking about the class of 2021 um and tying back into what could have been a very negative experience last year for graduation turned out to be one of the the biggest bright spots of the year was that uh at home right right on our campus along meadow hill road graduation ceremony and the parade and everything so i'm going to turn it over to mr belanda about the date and then he could share a little bit about some of the uh still initial and preliminary plans go ahead mark thanks john um so right now what we're looking at the last uh official day of school uh given the snow day that we had back in december the last day of school is monday the 14th um so looking at you know state law board policy things of that nature as to when we could have our ceremony we could have our say we could have our ceremony on saturday the 12th um saturday's traditionally been a day when we've hosted uh held our graduation ceremony mostly due to the fact that it was tied to grad party um really because they need that time to set up and and there's there's a those of you that have been a part of grad party understand all that goes into it it's a significant endeavor um it's so hard to plan for that right now um you know what's going to happen with you know uh inside gatherings with kids um nobody's entirely sure you know how that's going to happen so there really hasn't been much movement in conversations with grad party at this point as to what we're going to do i think everybody's kind of holding their breath to see what's going to happen next but that being said you know the alignment of having graduation on the 12th of june is something that i absolutely think we can do um you know we would the plan at this point i keep looking at my calendar that's what i'm looking at so you know and the other day other saturday date would be the 19th of june would be the other day if we wanted to keep with a saturday we certainly want to have it at the high school um that is something that uh i debate it and i actually love the fact that we had it at um westcon at the o'neill center when i first came to when they did it with new milford they do it at westcon uh and they did it again when i was in brookfield and it was a nice nice way to have that organized and a lot less work to some degree in terms of uh crowd control westcon does take care of a lot of things but given the situation we're in and there really is no telling or predicting and we need to actually start planning um given all the positive feedback that we had last year for our our graduation ceremony that was both parade and then inside we're thinking we would like to bring it back to the high school and find a way to make it happen there um you know we would certainly like to incorporate the the parade was a huge hit and i think was a great thing for the town um something that we would still continue to need i think moving forward thinking about even in june um that celebration of the community the pinnacle of when kids graduate in this town it's great to actually be able to celebrate that so i think the community would be interested in coming out and supporting the same way in terms of what the actual ceremony could look like you know we could incorporate things inside we can incorporate things also outside on the football field uh we have some great technology uh there that we have a pixel lock camera that we use to stream um our our sporting events that are out there we can use the same technology to stream uh the graduation ceremony we can talk about utilizing depending on what it is and how it works and where um where what restrictions are in terms of social distancing and things like that we could be able to limit or utilize the processional how many people come we can do it in the stands we can put kids on the field socially distance and spread apart you know so there's a lot of options of things we can do and still have that live broadcast opportunity which i think is is something that people really it's always nice to have um for those grandparents that aren't traveling or somebody from out of state that just wants to watch the ceremony the idea would really be to be on a saturday morning traditionally brookfield high school's graduation has been in the evening on a saturday since i've started the challenge as soon as you decide to make that move to go outside as people are aware in june those pesky thunderstorms that tend to throw us inside you know in the years i worked at danbury high school when their graduation ceremony was outside um or when i was at watertown high school and their graduation server when i was outside we were driven in on more than one occasion due to the fact that thunderstorms tend to pop up around that four five six o'clock time it's almost inevitable in the summer when you plan a graduation what happens less frequently is is those sorts of storms tend to not happen in the morning just based on weather patterns um you know so what we'd look to do is do it on a saturday morning similar to what we did last uh this past year for the class of 2020 um and my initial recommendation would be that we actually have it hosted on on june 12th um some you know time to be determined at some time in the morning that was what i would say uh and then we will work out some of the details moving forward but that is um even though the last day of school would tech may be monday we certainly could require kids to come to school to pick up belongings to finish things into the year which they're going to need to do anyway and count it as a day of school um you know it's still doable to do it on june 12th so that would be my recommendation moving forward uh i really would like to make it um you know i'd like to make it rain or shine because it would be a real challenge i think to reschedule and we could always find a way to to do something a little differently we can talk about tents and some other options um but at this point i think june 12th is the way to go um in my conversation with the superintendent that's what we've kind of come up with so i want to present that to the board and ask if you have any questions or input or anything of that nature thanks mark and for the board uh the motion for tonight is to to vote on the actual day that's that's what we have to do as a board or the board has to do not me um giving mark the opportunity tonight to talk about what he was thinking for the ceremony uh he and the team uh was just you know part and parcel of this particular agenda so we did want to share that uh information with the board tonight so i don't know if anybody has any questions about kind of the administrative process of planning the ceremony um or just questions in general about the june 12th mark what happens if we get another macro burst or another snowstorm or something and school ends up going until the 17th or 18th yeah it's a good question and i can't believe you said the word macro burst i thought that was like outlawed in this town um so but what would happen is you know we could still host host the graduation ceremony we would just basically we can technically hold diplomas until that last day so um if we had to extend it beyond there um but also the other flexibility is too is is if for some reason something happened that required multiple days so more than one or two days and we're really looking at okay there's really four more days of the school year and you know we could certainly with your permission you know move it to the 19th to that next saturday have conversations the nice part about being on campus and also depending on what happens with um grad party is and i'm not sure what is going to happen at this point we have the flexibility to do it pretty much anytime because we're using our facility you know if we have that if we did the parade which we're still planning on doing that would require a little more moving that is the piece that would be a little more challenging because using route 25 there has to there's a state permit that has to go as to be completed by the police department to actually get a parade permit um something i didn't know well i assume that there could be something along those lines but i learned more about it last year so we'd have to be a little more discerning about that in terms of how that goes but the that was the long answer to your question deb we could absolutely hold it on the 12th um even if there was a couple extra days and if we absolutely needed to we could always tweak some things and and make it the 19th as well if we needed to but i think we'd be flexible with that and be able to communicate that with the community great thanks mark any other questions all right um i think should we amend the motion so that it does specifically say june 12th i i would think we need to do that all right so um i will move to amend the motion on the table and have it read that the board set the graduation date for the brookfield high school class of 2021 as june 12th as recommended by bhs principal mark bellanda a second okay so amy's second in the mo uh amendment sorry um so we'll just vote on the amendment all in favor okay um that passes and then we'll vote on the thanks bob and then we'll vote on uh on the entire motion so all in favor aye all right thanks that's unanimous thank you i'll have some happy parents who will get to know one we're gonna actually have graduation this year it's that uh it's exciting hope for good weather all right uh up next is the extension of the food service contract okay i will move that the board approved the extension of the whitson's food service contract for one year as recommended as director by director of operations ken post second thanks bob uh ken it's all yours okay thank you uh so uh as some of you may know normally the food service contract has to be bid out every five years our current contract expires this coming june 30th for this year only the usda is granting one-year waivers of this regulation to states who apply the state of connecticut applied for this waiver and it was approved so we have an opportunity to extend our existing contract with whitson's for one year uh since the bid process is very time consuming to the district and to the food service management companies and since we are very happy with whitson's with everything else going on in our lives right now i'm asking the board to allow me to notify the state that we would like to extend our contract with whitson's by one year and then go through the whole bid process next year and and just for clarification and by the way i apologize we did talk about this at the finance committee meeting and i neglected to mention that um ken you want to talk a little bit about on what terms uh it gets extended and who set those terms it basically would be an extension of every the terms that are in the contract right now with the exception of the the management fee and the state every uh every time we go out to bed they give us the uh the rate of increase as a matter of fact when we renew each year the state sets the rate of increase based on the the inflation rate yeah so so i guess my point is it's not a negotiation it's governed by the state giving a given guidance on on the dollars and cents side so it's not really like we have to go out and negotiate something that's correct and then the contract is very very much dictated by the state and the usda and we're very happy with whitson's that's what my question was okay yeah and i will say we discussed this at the finance committee and the finance committee recommends the extension thank you bob all right so any other questions okay so all in favor aye thank you all okay um up next is the teachers contract but actually amy before you read that um i think this is better placed after the executive session so um the board members who were not privy to these negotiations before um can openly discuss uh the details of the moa so i will move to amend the agenda and place this item after the executive session second okay all in favor okay so we'll talk about this later um on to old business and uh we have a bunch of policies and the first one is deletion of policy 5141.23 communicable infectious diseases okay i will make a motion that the board approved the deletion over filled policy 5141.23 communicable infectious disease for a final reading as recommended by the policy and communications subcommittee the first reading was on december 16th 2020.

um the board met in closed patches yes i'm sorry to interrupt but i just if people could if if you're if you could turn except for the board if you turn your video off that way eugene when he broadcasts will only show for the broadcast you might see everyone's name tiled but if you go ahead and mute yourself and and turn your video off that way only those will be broadcast so your boxes will be bigger so sorry i meant to do housekeeping before and i think we're waiting on miss uh i don't see nancy on and i don't see del ray on yet oh i'm sorry guess we can't start without them okay here oops so you guys all get to see my lovely bedroom the entire center community is invited into my lovely boudoir um there are no background filters on my zoom so i apologize and so sorry it looks like uh so del rey's on now steve lee and kelly just so you're aware too when um for nancy's swearing in um she's down the hall in a private office but she's gonna walk down and want to do it in front of the camera together so we'll i'm gonna try to do it in here just so you know so she can do it put those masks on six feet apart i got it i'm ready i'm gonna crack my window crack your window all right let me check real quick lee you're too small what does your background say um it's just about the upcoming little invite um that i have about uh the state of social emotional and cultural culturally competent um teaching in cjusd it's an information gathering session that i'm gonna be holding in february just to learn very cool yeah thank you and we have nancy she's connecting right now okay and nancy if you just turn your video on you should be good to go where do i do that bottom left if you scroll down there it'll pop up on the screen click on that again it didn't undo it oh there she is oh wait what happened dr lee this is mike jordan hey if you can send me the link i can't see it it's too small um but if you get somebody to link to that i can put it on their website on our our uh curriculum instruction special ed website awesome thank you so much i i would love that um i will send that to you as soon as we're able to do that for sure i get it awesome okay if we're all ready let's go ahead and call the meeting to order at 6 06 and the board met in closed session no action was taken and so moving on to item number three public comments regarding items to be discussed in closed sessions there were no public comments uh and the closed session was held during open session uh we're calling to order at 606.

b you thank you hi michelle this is j marshawn do you hear us okay yes i can thank you we're good to go good evening everyone welcome to the january 20th regular meeting of the chico unified school district board of education we just finished with a closed session where we considered a settlement agreement and the board voted unanimously to ratify a settlement agreement to resolve a special education due process complaint filed against the district pursuant to the agreement the district will establish a compensatory education fund in the amount of twenty eight thousand dollars for use by students and educational services and assessments and partially reimburse the parents for attorney fees under the express terms of the agreement the board's ratification of agreement does not constitute an admission of liability by the district okay flag salute thank you let's slit 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 thank you okay are there any announcements are any items from the floor oh i'm sorry uh dr kaiser i just wanted to uh recognize as we got informed by an email that john vincent and the staff at um what was it sierra view sherwood i'm sorry john vincent sherwood and bcoe all collaborated together to get high-speed internet available to that school and i think that's a phenomenal example of uh the intersection of people with talent and the best interest of kids at heart so thank you thank you and thank you dr kaiser negotiations update from jim hanlon yes so we um we met with cta last thursday they asked for a review of the governor's proposed date budget which jacqueline krueger covered quite well we discussed issues on all day kindergarten we have four remaining elementary schools that will transition to full day kindergarten starting next year and that will mean all of our schools in the district at that point will be full day kindergarten we talked about a couple of compensation issues salary step steps on the salary schedule as far as for part-time staff and then also ongoing discussions about eliminating the 31st salary step we're also accepting clinicians from the county into the chico unified school district and they were talking about job descriptions and other things case loads those types of things as far as that transition goes we expect the clinicians to join us next year from the county with regards to csea we after last semester we concluded um negotiations for the semester but we are waiting for dates for this semester from sacramento we expect those dates any time now and we'll get back to negotiating thank you and thank you my apologies i did miss out of order item number five items from the floor and we do have some people signed up to address us um john you want to begin with our first caller who would be eric erica aguilera yes i'd like to welcome zoo hey main she's one of our targeted case managers from chico high school and she's going to be translating our first caller as she's calling that number um just a request of the board do you still want to stick to the three minutes given that there's translation yeah we have a policy where the translation time is not held against the speaker time thank you [Music] uh my communists i would like for my daughters to attend school full day regular full day schedule [Music] um [Music] there's three factors um as to the reasons why one is the emotional state the economic state the financial state and also just the general quality of education can i ask a question of clarification to her um yes what are the economic reasons behind her request [Music] um [Music] is due to the struggle to have to interrupt work so they're losing hours of work because they have to interrupt their time to drop off and pick up their children from school please tell her thank you very much i'm calling michelle yesbik hi michelle i'm going to put you on speakerphone you'll be addressing the school board okay just a second okay go ahead michelle hello can you hear me yes we can hear you good evening superintendents daily president robinson trustees staff and guests my name is michelle yazbek and i am the director at sherwood montessori can you hear me yes yes okay my public comment is to highlight how staff from bcoe chico unified and sherwood came together to solve the problem of sherwood's poor internet the neighborhood has internet that is inadequate for the increasing use of technology in our classrooms and the progressive use of more bandwidth and because chapman is a title one school the fiber optic fiber optic system that was provided with title 1 funds was not accessible to sherwood legally because we're not a title 1 school the pandemic demanded a solution and a zoom meeting that was led by david shippen who's an i.t consultant and a spouse to one of our teachers teresa shippen brought together patrick pacetti and john vincent from chico unified and steve monahan and matt desilvo sorry desalvo from bcoe and steve duke and myself from sherwood and having david as a fluent speaker of tech helped to push that project forward and now we have a path forward that includes e-rate and high speed fiber optic internet and it was thanks to that spirit of interagency cooperation that we often see in butte county we saw it during measure k and during and after the campfire and now for bringing technology to sherwood and i just want to highlight that good news and point out that it's the positive leadership um from the chico board of education and dr staley that caused these uh values of helping one another when the time calls for it uh to make a project like this happen thank you michelle and patrick and john are both here thank you i'm now calling amber brown hi amber i'm gonna put you on the speakerphone and you'll be addressing the school board okay okay go ahead amber hi i'm going to read a letter that i sent to the school board i'll do my very very best to keep it under three minutes hopefully you guys can give me a little minute grace hi my name is amber brown and i have six children five of which are school age attending two different schools within the district i am here to address the need for children to go back to school full-time with reasonable precautions i understand the concern of community spread however children having limited time at school is not preventing spread in my opinion it is contributing more than it is helping parents are mostly still working so children are being cared for by family friends and yes grandparents all these overwhelming restrictions are doing is preventing schools from liability and putting undue stress on children and parents there is no doubt in my mind that six feet apart and mass can protect you from this disease i know this from personal experience i also know that children and healthy young healthy teachers don't require extreme protection i appreciate the schools trying to limit my children and their teachers from exposure but i do not agree with the links the administration are taking the cdc says when possible some of what they are asking is not possible if we want to provide children with a well-rounded education and healthy environment this speaks volumes to when i am receiving email after email from schools about childhood trauma and suicide prevention hotline numbers i think everyone knows our children are the collateral damage and when possible needs to be reevaluated i do not say this lightly i say this as i well as an informed well-educated adult in regards to this disease my youngest daughter has cystic fibrosis a rare genetic disease that is progressive essentially she will die from it that is our daily reality so in march i was scared really scared i knew that covet 19 was serious for her by may i had done my research and discovered that other much older cfrs had contracted and survived covet 19 at home with no additional medical intervention just extra breathing treatments so i was hopeful but still cautious and vigilant by october i had seen my daughter's team of doctors and the cystic fibrosis foundation website had officially come out with more definitive information bottom line if she had not had a transplant or advanced stage lung disease she was no longer a high risk category i checked again with her team of doctors and they all agreed the cystic fibrosis foundation conclusions were 30 seconds left vibrations foundation's conclusions and furthermore did not recommend keeping her out of school or activities we still proceed every day with caution and weigh the risk to her daily however we have learned that that we have to make sure our daughter and her five siblings live a fulfilled life as well as you can imagine this has been and will be a continuous struggle for our family even when there is containment of this virus i no longer have patience for people that after 10 months thank you miss brown your time has concluded thank you okay we are going to hear from hilda hernandez okay i'm gonna go ahead and call i would like for the school to be open full time on a regular not just for a small amount of time but full time [Music] is in my case it's due for transportation i have to find someone to transport my child and also for payment as well and in addition my son would really would like to be full-time at school that is my comment yes okay in our last speaker i'll be calling casey taylor hi casey is john shepard you're going to be addressing the school board in just a second okay go ahead casey good evening superintendent scaley president robinson trustee staff yes my name is casey taylor and the executive director of achieve charter school of paradise i want to first thank you for your hospitality and support during the last two years as we have operated temporarily here in chico serving our paradise families who are displaced after the fire because many of our families and staff have decided to remain in chico we've been working with your school leaders and the city of chico to remain permanently we are submitting our permanent development permit and youth permit applications to the city of chico this month and will be submitting a charter petition for a kindergarten through eighth grade school to this board at your february 17th meeting we're also making plans to reopen our paradise school on our campus in paradise this fall our school is currently authorized by the paradise unified school district so in order to reopen our school for our families returning to paradise there and keep our school in chico to serve our current families our current school here in chico must be authorized by the chico unified school district as we are not currently authorized to run two campuses or a campus outside of our authorizing school district so far ed code waivers and a temporary youth permit from the city of chico have allowed us to operate here for the last two years now we know that school facility space in chico is super limited and achieve our our organization along with our insurance company have invested close to six million dollars in the development of our temporary location in chico on east avenue behind life church across from pleasant valley high school we want to ensure that this significant investment of taxpayer dollars remains and continues to serve students in this community likewise we continue to serve a majority of students who are campfire survivors and we've been able to offer unique programs and services to support our students families and staff as we recover from that trauma now layered with the additional trauma of covid so i'd be happy to meet with any of you to answer any questions take suggestions or feedback as we plan for the future but again i want to thank you for providing a safe place for our families and staff to heal these last two years thank you for your time thanks casey thank you okay we um we are now on to our consent calendar um can we thank our translator oh yes thank you so much thank you thank you so much you did a fabulous job and we appreciate you being here thank you the consent calendar are items that are general in nature and can usually be approved all in one motion however if any member of the board or the public wishes to pull an item from the consent calendar for consideration outside of the general motion now would be the time does anyone want to pull anything from the consent calendar if not i need a motion to approve so move i'll second that okay it's been moved and seconded that we approve the consent calendar um i'll take your vote uh in person starting with ms dalby hi kaiser i tennessee lando i robinson i thank you discussion action calendar um discussion action um is part of this work is is being done by the board in order to put some um of our processes in an approved symmetry so that we are all on the same page mr landau have you had a chance to review the um rosenberg rules and compare them to our board handbook and what is your conclusion on a recommendation i have reviewed several um different parliamentary procedures um i would very much like to see rosenberg's or some form of it uh added to our governance handbook but i certainly would uh propose adopting it at this point for our meetings moving forward would yes thank you dr kaiser i also thought that it was a very clean and simplified not simple but simplified um i would like to suggest though that we might consider uh having someone sort of designated as a parliamentarian if we get stuck since it's relatively new for us to have this as a guideline so that was just a suggestion i believe our our board handbook has the board president as parliamentarian although i could designate if the board has a wish in that case my experience with other boards where the chair you know has a key role is that's asking a lot for you to go back and forth between the rules so i just would suggest maybe i don't know i hate to trust jay with anything critical but something like that dr kaiser i know of your experience in using parliamentary procedure i and as second as a vice president of the board would you be willing to um be available for me to defer to if there is a question about procedure yes i could do that is there an objection from the board hearing none um is there a motion to approve yes i actually have a question for mr lando i i think because mr lando i think you're taking the lead on you kind of initiated this this investigation right and um why is why are these rosenberg's rules of order better than what you've been using well we haven't had a set procedure we don't have a set parliamentary procedure in the handbook at this point so i think we looked at rosenberg's and we looked at roberts of course roberts is in many ways suited for organizations with much larger membership and deals a lot with things like committees and presentation of committees rosenberg's is a little bit pared down and is used often by city councils and other small deliberate bodies such as ours why do you feel that we would benefit from from having from using these simply to make sure that everyone knows uh what's going on what step of the process we're in and we have a playbook and a rule book to look at to make sure everyone's i mean that there's a rule of loss actually a conversation is a concern that our conversations here might have a tendency to get out of hand yeah i think it's a valid concern i haven't observed that um it seems to me that that at the the diocese in the the last um i guess nine ten months or so that i've been closely observing these meetings i've never seen anything that would seem to be any kind of argument or or or point of order uh or the you know not having a a reasonable conversations so i'm reluctant to embrace this personally um because i think that one problem that we're having right now in our community is with the public being kept out of our meetings because of the covet risk um with all the masks and so we're losing a lot of non-verbal communication uh with each other and also with the public there's a kind of a for me and i think maybe i speak on behalf of some members of our public um that there might be kind of a chilling effect of them not being able to come us all having masks on and i would like for these meetings to be as conversational as they could be as long as people respect each other's opinions and everybody's getting a chance to be heard and there's general order personally i'm not seeing a need for for these these rules of order for for our meetings your complaint is recognized ms dolby thank you um in rather timely fashion i received a handy book today from csba and i was reading through it earlier and i just wanted to reiterate some things that are in here about rules of order so while they do not help to provide order the term order does not refer to the an absence of chaos but rather to a sequence actions or decisions made in the proper order and to rules governing debate and voting procedures and i have more to add in a second but um what's important there for example we accidentally went out of order on the agenda today so what would have been appropriate is for somebody who noticed that to raise a point of order and interrupt mr handlin to go back to the proper sequence of the agenda why use rules of order the csba published book asks they have two strong benefits for school boards they protect the rights of everyone they are designed to ensure that meetings are democratic offering three different kinds of protection first the equality of each member of the body is protected each board member has the same rights and privileges to make a range of motions these include but are not limited to making seconding and voting on motions requesting information asking clarification posing questions participating in free and open discussion and it goes by majority rules and then they simplify the work of the governing body it goes into detail i'm sure you'll be able to look more into that but the point of our rules of order are to make this a more democratic process where we all have equitable input and feel our voices are heard and also are not interrupting out of order from the agenda so that's just the input that i wanted to provide dr kaiser there's another aspect to this and we got this when we were being updated on uh the brown act which is that we are confined to doing things in a sequence in order to not be violating the brown act so i hadn't seen this particular format i'm used to being in board meetings where you know we definitely are following parliamentary and again i thought that was a nice summary uh how convenient csba happened to drop in on us but um what i liked about rosenberg is it is pretty simple and laid out and so i thought that would be appropriate is there any further discussion i need a motion to approve i would like to move that we adopt rosenberg's rule of order as our parliamentary system i have a motion by mr lando a second by dr kaiser any further discussion all those in favor signify by saying aye aye any opposed no thank you that passes four i'm sorry four to one and just to remind too that when we do our updates in july we would want to add reference to this being our guiding document in our policy handbook yes in our governance handbook when those when july gets here okay number two is discussion action item on public input at board meetings and compliance with covid restrictions i have erica down thank you there's erica miss smith good evening board so public comment is a essential and a required component of effective board governance prior to covid19 remote participation was not included in the brown act meeting protocols the public participation process is being brought forward tonight to review the process the board would like to utilize for the duration of the covid stay at home order the goals of this agenda item are to ensure an opportunity for public comment and participation to receive a range of views and representation of opinions from all stakeholder groups some of the considerations as you begin to discuss this is the fact that our intent is to try and get to the greatest extent possible a board representative of viewpoints from the public some of the things that we want to make sure is that we allow for increased public participation opportunities and that we're able to allow for equity of opportunity and to clearly define a process to hear a representation of opinions from all of our different stakeholder groups some of these that have been brought forward are students staff parents community members and other representatives within the community included in your board agenda packet there is a draft of a public comment card so this still is the speaker card some of the changes that you may note is that per law a speaker is only required to fill out the phone number and agenda item so they're the only ones that are required fields all the other fields are optional in addition we added the stakeholder groups either first come first serve or random from each group and then a brief statement to the board is also available if members of the community would like to provide that information so we are bringing forward this draft based on recommendations and comments that we've received for your discussion i have one question of clarification for you erica um you mentioned in your summary that um the board will have an opportunity to review the public participation process that has been utilized during the covid stay-at-home order um is there a coveted stay-at-home order right now a per what um institution because i thought that the stay-at-home order had been lifted the other restrictions that were put in place have been lifted as a result of our icu but we're still under the governor's stay-at-home order thank you um if i mean dr kaiser sorry erica i i know uh there's been uh in in effect your speaker category recognizes that some concern there would be a while a way to allow different segments of our community to have a verbal interaction with us everybody can submit an email but is the context that we would somehow randomize each speaker category assuming we had you know too many in a particular group so we do have some guidance in that just knowing that if we right now we're currently utilizing a first come first serve basis that has that is a lawful way of doing things we also have the option where we could do a randomization for large agenda items when there's a large number of public input that could be done by the category crew grouping one suggestion would be to take two members from each group and then randomize it so you'd get a representation and then continue from there but that is completely up to the board and how they would like to move forward with the prioritization of speakers i guess the follow-up to that would be i'm kind of assuming that we wouldn't every time have a large number of potential speakers so we might need to be flexible between you know random or categories so for example tonight we only had five speakers and we have time for five right so you know we just took them in random order but i'm flashing back to action news uh covering uh shasta and chico and if the title had been we need to play i think we'd have a lot more people and especially in the student category so that's what i mean we may have to be recognizing the topic's pertinence to a particular category yeah i think that uh we did have conversation with legal counsel on this today um and i think we would need to be careful there about placing priority on one group over another if we are taking equitable input from each group we're in good shape and we did confirm that today both kevin and i separately and erica as well confirmed that but to give preference to a group would be an issue mr alby i just wanted to ask a follow-up question on that because you brought up students is students included in that or would we be able to even pause the rules to allow for more time if we have student speakers and then still allow our 30-minute public speaking session i don't know if anybody has any input on that or if students would be included in the entire group legally and and so our past practice and um in our protocols has been that if we have students present and that was one of the reasons for wanting to identify students is that we would give them priority in the speaking so that they could come to a board meeting when we were allowed to have people and present and speak and then go home and and do their work not have to wait till the end and i think we would still want to do that i mean that that's our number one priority is our students we would still want to have them go first but i don't think that we could say we're going to hear from more speakers that are students than we are say from parents at least kevin was that your understanding as well today have you all had time to take a look at the possible procedure recommendations approval any more discussion yes ms dalby can i i'd like to just clarify um at what point in our item the speaker the public comments section happens um so is is it before or after our discussion or or do we hear the presentation from the board and then get public comment and then we have our have our deliberation in our discussion and then put a motion to the floor um where are we at on on that if mr landau if i made that it's happily covered in the rules of order sheet in front of you wherein we get a motion in a second we're recognized by the chair uh oh sorry i'm in the wrong side the very first life of a motion the first section there we get we ask technical questions of staff first then we get public comment then we have a motion then we debate the motion then we vote and also is there a piece in here that allows for us to interact with public commenters or are we only here to spectate um if the public comment is on an agenda item up for action and a board member needs to ask a question of clarification that's where that process comes in however it's not meant to be a debate it's just a clarifying um question um is that okay and we're not to um get into debate or exchange with comments from the floor that's a whole different process we're talking here about items that are on the agenda and the process for commenting on those and then so i'm sorry just one more uh question is um has there been a discussion about allowing the speaker to finish their sentence before cutting them off at the end of their time it's something that i just i feel like it it kind of is a bad show for us to just cut somebody up even though we have our three minute limit and i i respect that but you know just cutting somebody off in the middle of their last sentence just feels a little um they get warned i understand that um it has been our practice to interrupt and end in the many years that we have stuck with times for presentations that has been the practice of the president of the board i do think that um you know we could say you know when mr hanlon gives 30 minutes when the board says or 30 seconds uh you know we could say there are 30 seconds remaining please summarize your you know please end your statement or summarize your comments one of the difficulties i'm sorry did anyone did any other board members have a comment i wanted to comment at the end um tom if we're going back to if we're still forgive me if we're still on this uh we've kind of drifted a little bit we're talking about the speaker category still um i would like to see some kind of firm rule about if we have more than 10 speakers then we'll go to a randomized system where each group that's present gets at least one speaker that would i would want to see some some wording on that i guess um i don't know that that has to be i mean we've already said 30 minutes and we've already said three minutes per speaker it would seem like once we see the number speaker card submitted which has to be by noon we would be able to make that you know determination ahead of time there's also another common practice with um boards and taking public comment is when there are many people to comment on the same issue they reduce the three minutes to two minutes is the the usual practice and we always have that option as well to try and get more people into the the comment period one of the one of the issues that bothers me is whether or not the public understands that our email comment process is working so well that we we get all of these comments [Music] and quite in quite a usually in the week leading up to a board meeting and have a chance to read them completely there's no issue with being able to hear people on the phone if we as at least my practice is that if i have a question [Music] in order to clarify information that a writer has submitted you know i'll call for clarification from um school district administration to find out if the person's information is correct or being able to get back to the person to ask them for clarification the other thing that i feel is a significant um plus for people to use that public comment tool is it allows you to share personal things about the impact of whatever you're commenting on on your family or your student and it you can get it to the board member without having to make a public statement on the phone and i believe that we get more candid um information from the public using that format it's not something that's subjected to you know public uh scrutiny we have to if we are going to be in this format for um the next number of months of meetings we do need to put together a process that is going to accommodate communication that you know that meets the board's needs as well as the public's needs ms kaiser i move number two the public input it was board meetings in compliance with covet restrictions i'd like to raise a point of order ms dolby what was that request i'd like to raise a point of order um i believe in our in the order of things are are we not taking public comment before we have motions on the floor we receive public comment after there's been a motion and a second so we know and they know um what to discuss tom you're checking the um the cheat sheet no it is public comment on the issue before the motion is is ordered and completed how do we know whether or not we have public comment so i was just going to say that's uh in this covet environment if we don't get the card the speaker card prior to the noon cut off we won't have public comment in a traditional setting when we have members in the audience people could if they were here come up to the speaker at that time if they had a question so right now we would know but i still think it's it's a good process to say this is when we would have public comments even though we know or we can make this statement we have no request for public comment on this item and then move on just to get us in that that pattern did that answer your question mr tennis um is it possible to allow speaker cards to be submitted right up until the moment miss smith can you answer that what's the well i i can answer that um we have been really struggling just to get them all in and processed and then to john just through this system now by having them submitted by noon it would take you know and i will tell you i am trying to do that if you notice i've got a few screens going here so that if somebody does email to public comment that i can see that they are doing that but i'm not sure it's a sustainable way to to do that point of order man i'm sure i did make a motion i didn't hear a second so is anyone going to second there hasn't been a second yet okay uh i will second the motion mr lando and i would like to ask a question before we go ahead to vote um because the item on the agenda simply says public input at board meetings i know we have a uh sample of the virtual speaker card and that i like very much i am unclear still on whether we are also voting to prioritize certain groups if we have more than a certain number of speakers kelly i believe the legal counsel advised that that was not something we should do so if if we have 10 speakers um i mean i guess it depends if it's items from the floor we have set aside 15 minutes so that would be five speakers on items from the floor in the first we do have a 45 minute items from the floor later at the end of the agenda on the flip side if it is an agenda item input into an agenda item you have said that we'll have 30 minutes correct so that's 10 speakers so we'd have to differentiate between the two but if i guess i would ask that if if we know they're students we should prioritize the students regardless of instead of making them go 10th but the others if there's 10 they're all going to get to speak well yes am i not maybe i'm not understanding your question my point is if we have an issue where there is more speakers than we have a lot of time for is there some system or are we discussing so that we hit at least one member of each group right and so we would prioritize all ten speakers then at that point okay i just want to make sure i was clarified thank you so since i know this is new for our audience are we going to now ask for public comment on this that was the context of the motion and the second so now right the public can identify themselves as wanting to comment yeah at this this would be the point at which we would ask for a public comment actually earlier and we have no public comment um yes i believe there's a motion on the floor but i actually need it uh repeated to me please i'm sorry ms dolby what was your request um i'm not i'm not clear on what the motion on the floor is a motion was made by board vice president kaiser to move public input for board meeting and compliance with covid restrictions seconded by board president robinson is the current motion on the floor yeah if i may i mean there's no there there that doesn't tell us what we're voting to adopt i think is the problem i was utilizing the speaker card framework that we have a draft of i understand that does somebody like to restate the motion in different language well the speaker card information is is fairly long um you want me to read the whole thing you could just say that um yeah i moved to a drop adopt the draft of the board of education speaker card process developed by our communications specialist erica also do we need a new second at this point or that it's the clarification of the motion on the phone that was a clarification of motion and since i seconded it i i agreed that that does clarify it for the members before they vote thank you are we ready now i just want to make sure i have full clarification right sorry um so we're we this motion is to approve the speaker speaker card is there a like bigger picture of the complete process like choosing if there's 30 speakers who sign up for one agenda item how are we selecting who fits in that time frame is that a different conversation a different well is it the clarification i'm not seeing that in in here the clarification was presented as a legal constraint that we would randomize between these groups still staying with the 30 minutes and the number of speakers we can't we can't preferentialize one person or one group although i think i think what the question is and i believe this dolby is right we need to clarify that in the motion is do we want just to do a complete random everyone that is submitted um you know we will know who they are but we just do the random sorting or do we want to do the random sorting and then take two from each group as speakers so to add clarity because you can do it either way and be legal my suggestion would be that we use these categories and randomize if we have to among them we know that some issues and we've had some very elegant student speakers on things that they felt were really impactful to them so that would be my clarification mr tennis i have a final comment about this proposal based on the clarifications been given i um i think i'm going to be against this um this proposal and the reason is that um i think that what we have in our system right now is um there's a recognition of uh merit and a question of merit in my mind that if people are actively following the agenda process and and if they're you know eager really eager to speak in front of the board then in in those cases often times they've put a lot of thought into their comments and maybe they've taken time to write a big you know fancy impressive speech and i i feel that um not randomizing it gives some recognition to those people who really want to be heard and their heart is really really into it so at this point i'm inclined to vote against this proposal if it involves randomizing speakers rather than if it involves moving away from first come first served yes mustabi i think i see the value in randomizing overall to create a more equitable process the first come first serve model provides a platform for people who as you said are merit-based and allow for people who are ready for that agenda be posted and jump on it right away and then you have a flurry of of people who want to speak because you know maybe they you know are at a agenda release party and they're ready to put in their spirit cards right and that totally blocks out the ability for anybody who's catching up or really busy with their work week or just got done with a 15 hour work day and couldn't be there to put in a spirit card so i would like to consider fully randomizing or at least taking some kind of randomization into consideration uh for an equitable equitability piece um if we're thinking of it in terms of like pro versus con if you're in the pro group or the con group and being equal right um if there are 20 people who sign up and uh five of them are on one side of an issue and 15 of them are on the other side of the issue but we only select the first come first serve who you know maybe that first five who are on one side and then the next five on the other side it looks like it's 50 50.

so we essentially um corrected for the the different age groupings they're having uh uh different numbers of of children so again you can see the the zero to four year olds um although they remain low they're creeping up um at the same time that our our community covet is going up same with our five to 13 year olds and our teenagers are highest on a case rate which is consistent with state and national literature that teenagers are more likely to become infected and more likely to be ill we do know from literature and from other countries from different schools in this country that um and i think you all your numbers demonstrate that you've been doing a good job of of containing covid within the schools based on the measures that you've been taking and we know those things help prevent the spread and i i want to congratulate you that you've been doing a really good job i think there's danger in letting go of that too quickly and having a rebound effect or increased spread thank you dr lewis can i ask dr kaiser i was just going to give a family history example of how i think varied tim's struggling with the quarantine number so i'm the oldest of six so i get the mumps i am really really sick and out the window i can hear my three youngest brothers playing in the backyard they had the mumps too but it made no difference because they were you know just kept home from school so i think even if we know quarantine numbers exactly we're not going to know really how those different kids are responding i was pissed at my brothers caitlyn thanks um first i'd like to just raise a quick point of privilege and just can we keep our masks on over our faces even when we're talking just so that we're all on the same page there um while we're on the on the line still um i i you kind of alluded to it at the end where we're speaking to linda okay thanks um uh that rushing things um or letting go of our our current precautions maybe is a better way to say it um if we were to open full time especially at the secondary level looking at the rise in numbers and the number of quarantines that take place when there is an exposure in school so if there's a student in first period who test positive tomorrow or you know yesterday that student has exposed 28 students in each class is that is that generally i mean in each classroom that they're in or is it i mean because that would be different than at the primary level right because they're they're sitting near or is it in total um and so if we if my point is is if they were going to be going through six classes a day instead of three classes a day wouldn't that number double is is essentially my my point of question so the numbers would still they would go up i don't i can't say for sure that they would double because we still have that six foot parameter and so right now it's students are being quarantined within six feet and we're doing a really good job in most of our classes of keeping that six foot parameter if we bring more students in then you will have more students within that six foot parameter the one thing we're still trying to get a clarification on is that with some of the governor's new guidance there is a mention of reducing to four foot parameter what we don't know is if with reducing that four foot parameter they're saying contact tracing starts at four foot right now we're interpreting that contact tracing would still be within six foot even though it would go down to four foot so yes it would go up to say that it would be a whole class quarantined that's not necessarily accurate yeah okay i understand that now um i i think too i wasn't yeah i'm worried about the i'm worried about the disruption and the quarantines and like there being like a huge boom in the number of kids who have to get sent home because of an expo you know one student exposure um so i just want us to kind of take that into consideration and continue hearing the data it's really helpful thank you for that oh and also just um not all of our classes are six foot distance the students are within some of them are within three feet i think is my understanding we our principals are trying really hard to make sure that six foot parameters some of them have gone through the rulers yeah measures and just putting them out and everything i today i've been in classrooms that they had the tape drawn on the chairs in there so we're doing the best i can't guarantee that everyone's able to maintain six right and that's an equitable thing right there's some classrooms that are just smaller and have students closer together than others and there's a whole other variable i'm gonna say a good majority are at that level and that's why our quarantine numbers are are where they're at um you know we don't have full classes being quarantined in except for in special ed where we have those students that have hands on but if we have more students in the class that's less foot of distancing and if we have full day versus a half day that's more especially at the secondary level where they're rotating classes it's more numbers of possible exposures outside of it you know as opposed to the primary level where they're with the same group of kids all day that's just that many secondaries innately because of their schedule exactly yeah and they breathe and talk a lot more than than the poor little kids thank you madam president um dr linda lewis are you there i'm here super this is your chart that we're looking at correct yeah this is new county data okay and um the most recent date that i see on the right hand side is january 2nd is that right that is correct i just went through um basically the end of 2020.

the main entry level is is from the other documents the what's called the first level um that's uh that's a a staired access single single egress unit um the meaning that the main or first level is our as our primary address point out of the building um you know per those thank you deborah appears you're trying to you're attempting you're coming too close to sharing that is that the right yeah i'm sorry it would be the other one i'm sorry i thought you was attached uh yes it would be this one um if you wouldn't mind just enlarging that um so we could see it a little more holistically um there's two stairs that are in question we should be reducing the size uh enlarging the sheets so we can see the whole document that would be grand thank you um the without getting into the rest of the floors the uh without getting the rest of the diagrams we can talk off of this for the most part because it's relatively straightforward there's a stair on the lower half of the drawing going down to the lower level which is the basement level or garage level of the development um it is where the the sleeping areas the bedrooms of the of this unit this particular unit are located there's three bedrooms and a small common area associated with this um the primary egress path is through the stair to the main level the upper stair goes to a rooftop terrace um regrettably both were constructed with incredibly tight construction tolerances and that's where i want to spend a little bit of time reviewing and discussing them the basically this unit is separated from the garage level and upper stories by a upper joining units i should point out by a three-hour separation assembly in regards to the vertical separation between it and the garage it's a three-hour cast in place wall um in regards to the horizontal separation it's a three-hour precast and composite uh cast and play system that uh in in effect creates a fully sandwiched sandwich type system uh that's a 10 inch concrete plank which is the primary structural floor system it's it is basically uh the stair basically runs between those planks and then what we call the topping force which is two layers of cast in place concrete which sandwich an insulation level between them that's thread spread throughout the entire floor plate system itself there's also a curve at either end both the frame the opening itself as well as the support uh provide bearing components for what you see on the right hand of the image which is a two-hour vertical separation assembly which is a consistent separation design that separates all of the individual units including unit 11 in this case from unit 10 um and then on the west side of it which is just conventional lo it's a conventional load bearing but it's not a rated wall assembly so i do want to point out that this building is separated in no less than two hours two hour separation from all the adjoining properties uh or adjoining units themselves as well as the garage the garage is clearly three hour separation um to support that opening on the east side there is a uh and the the threat and the weight of the the double wall construction which is our our two hour separation wall up above there's a w8 by 31 beam running north to south and the columns to support that um functionally below that level these walls are are encased uh are are non-structural for the most uh shooting they are non-structural um the walls are basically um unrated framing with uh inch chips and board surround the upper level uh is a load-bearing wall on the west side that is supporting the terrace up above um this gives drills down to the real meat of the of the issue at hand uh the planks are a precast system um i don't know the total account it had to be in the hundreds in terms of what was ultimately installed on this on this plinth or this platform that separates the the garage or lower level from the beginning of the residential units up above um this was designed with an opening um with a three foot finish tolerance when the planks are laid out there was minimal tolerance um after installation and the we have a condition now ultimately that has rendered this one-inch deficient in terms of the minimum 36-inch width for both the lower level stair and the upper level stair we acknowledge the the code concerns and the findings there's no challenge to that effect um what i do want to point out is some of the conditions that render this uh outcome ultimately the eastern side is is what we term incredibly static meaning it cannot move based upon the both the plank condition the the curb condition and the thicknesses of the walls for the fire supper the vertical fire separation between those during construction it was noted that the tolerances were exceedingly tight the contractor confirmed with me just earlier today again that he was in touch with kirkstra who is the precast manufacturer uh he was given direction that he could remove upwards of one and a half inches of that um the uh be the right side of that plank that you see depicted here you'll see there's rebar running in the lower lower quadrant of that section he removed one and a half inches that that initial rebar is one and 15 six inches from the from the original and outside terminus of that of that um of the precast blank itself so that renders it would give me a less than less than a half inch tolerance um which was acceptable for them any further would have uh we would be cutting into basically or or dangerously um inhibiting the structural capacity of that of that plank we'd have to remove the rebar itself so ultimately that is what is bringing us to you today um the condition was limited through the the the repetitive nature of how these planks were laid was minimum was maximized by the repetitive nature the contractor did attempt to self-correct during the construction phase um the regrettably to a point where he could take it per cursor's direction without endangering the structural stability or structural uh conditions of the the plank itself um the only area that could be touched was that western side or the left side as you're viewing it right now um there we it obviously which is the term autopsy unit afterwards to try to assist and deliberate your deliberations in regards to the um the outcome and seeing if there's any uh opportunity for discussion on this topic and again this is not in reference to the michigan residential code but rather the nbc um we did it we did take the exception um uh exception one of i don't have the number from uh 10 10 11.2 um we took exception uh one allowed underneath that we had less than a 50 occupant load um in fact our occupant load based upon a maximum occupancy by zoning which is six occupants um building code will allow eight by square footage measurements but we're allowed a maximum of six by zoning for a dwelling unit um we we would have um we would have the extreme low end of the scale if you will if you're calibrating them on the scale of 50 occupants to one um so obviously the other elements related to the stairs is as you as i took a deep dive into the uh the coding commentary is the relationship of two-way travel and the requirements for those widths to accommodate two-way travel we have a very unique situation in this case where our primary means of egress is on is basically travel upwards on the stair to the main level for regressing out of this um if there were an emergency situation on that lower level the basement level if you will where the bedrooms are located as i mentioned earlier that in effect has a each of those units as well as that common area on the lower level have a um egress windows out of each one of them so there's three egress windows one for each of the bedrooms and a fourth for that common area so as a collective hole while i understand egress windows and wells are part of a means of be addressed and not a singular means of regression to themselves there is there is an opportunity for that um alternate alternate means of emergency escape through those windows in the case of a fire situation conversely the stairs coming down from the terrace the terrace i should point out as well is for in particular uh the uh the tenant use the uh residential use it's not a common terrace that terrace was likewise has that 35 inch width challenge that is likewise the same the opposite direction of travel is coming down as opposed to up but basically we have a confluence of our primary means of egress to the main level where we have already a dedicated single means of redress out of the space so i can't imagine an emergency situation particularly from the lower level that there could be a set of emergency service professionals that there would be a conflict of two-way traffic on the stair um i think that is the primary arguments that we're attempting to make and i do believe that it is a speaking candidate as a professional it is very unique for me to come up with a standard of approval the one i presented or petitioned as part of this application was the provisions of the code do not apply i was rejected but i do believe that there is a tolerance um inherently in the code based upon the the commentary that's been provided for an understanding if not a true variance aspect that will allow this accommodation to take place and that the safe uh egressing of people from the both the terrorist level and the lower level can be accommodated without any deficiencies by the relatively minimal loss of the the one inch clear dimension on that stair the only element of the residential code that i was pointing out was a unique adaptation in the residential code and it's only cons it's only um brought up for the sensibility that there is a an interpretation where we could clinically eliminate again in the residential code itself um the or we can reduce the minimum dimension beneath the hand rails down to almost 31 to 31 inches assuming a minimum 36 inch stair the the residential code doesn't allow to go less itself than 36 for the finished dimension but the addition of the hand rails allows a minimum reduction excuse me i think it's four and a half inches for each handrail so we could ultimately have nine inch reduction below the handrail itself that was my only point of reference in bringing up the residential gold at all i apologize for any confusion that that might have brought with that i i'm happy to provide any additional input or response to your questions as to the rest of my abilities thank you staff you have any follow-up comments on that no sorry um the only thing that i would like to state is that um that we're dealing with the the minimum code requirements here the section clearly states you know the 44 inches it gives you the exception um down to 36 for the occupant load um i feel like if the intent of the code was to have it below 36 it would have been written that way in the code language that's all i'd like to add thank you let's open up the board now for questions for the applicant could you um speak to me how the unit is laid out it looks like the kitchen is on the level one portion of the plan but the garage level um shows in the i guess it's the common area what looks like cabinet work with a sink could you just explain what's going on there i'm just trying to get a sense of how much communication there is between one level and the other let me flip to that um that would be sheet a401 would be the the most we provide the most clarity in regards to that layout i heidi could you no the basically because it is a common area um it could be an area where there might be a television there might be an opportunity for people just to gather um but it'll be the same residents as would be occupying the the bedrooms um oh mickey roma not mute thank you um if we get to 401 real quick uh i believe that'd be part of the packet please thank you uh this page i believe is this page yes uh there's no real pretense behind the um the the sink itself outside of um uh potential use for a coffee pot or something again to that that was going to be a wet bar at one point that actually was not we did not i was going to be installing that thank you heidi for clarifying that was not installed i was going to ask if you could chime in thank you so on the same plan the bottom of the stair shows uh what looks like three foot four and a half clear is that that also not the case because that's just not the way it was built no if you could um if uh debra if you could zoom in on the bottom of the store i can explain what what um uh kind of on-the-fly installation was created um there are i i don't believe that plan was taking into account the column location which functionally packs out some of that stair um that was uh obviously a coordination issue during the design phase you'll see a line um you see a dashed line coming down up above the stair um the that line basically is continuation of the the partition up above which forms the east side of that wall of that stairway wall that's now continues and and actually comes down as a at handrail height down below okay and my other question and i don't know if you can see this is is that how the strainers are actually supporting the stair uh they like that they most likely are embedded to the framing yes but they would be running on the sides that's correct okay so they're they're inside the finished wall that's correct they're inside that half inch of gym support [Music] look at the photographs that were in the packet it looks like the gypsum board runs past the the floor system past the concrete on the left-hand side it does it does we have that half inch and then you say you can take a half inch off of the concrete um um plank that would get you the one inch we took as much off the concrete um as we could there was there was approximately an inch and a half removed um leaving just under a half inch remaining of concrete cover before the rebar was struck that was a maximum allowed tolerance by kirkstra so portions of that plank were removed the tolerance if that plank had been left in place would have been much tighter at least an inch and a half so yes the drywall on both sides the gypsum board excuse me on both sides does run does run along the face of the one on the left-hand side of the picture here is the fire rated assembly where the one on the right is not fire-rated that is correct that's right sir how wide is the handrail in that photo [Laughter] that was a i assume i i don't know at the top of my head i didn't that was actually a owner's selection i don't know if you know off the top of your head either well i gotta believe it's it's code compliant that was confirmed um i don't know i i honestly didn't measure that when i went out to confirm dimensions myself i apologize compliant in terms of the the grip yes what was there a specific idea you had in mind in terms of how that could well i'm i'm assuming that you haven't and this is from a purely practical point of view in that the stair the way i see it the handrail kind of encroaches on the usable width of the stair that's true so if you have your inch and a half finger clearance and let's say you had i think the minimum railing is an inch and a half that's correct do you pick up anything i would say so i believe that's a a molded two by so that would be three and a half by itself so we're probably uh easily four inches um four and a half beyond the face of wall so we could easily pick up uh an inch and a half dimension through uh modification to handrail itself that would create more space for sure absolutely i think it solves the problem of the the wall-to-wall space but it uh but it does minimize the um the overall encroachment of the handrail into that dimension and that would be that would be obviously an easy fix to make correct so in this photo in the photograph there down below the floor height there you could shift that over an inch because it's the columns back from the finish there once you get past the floor thickness height you could make it the right width because you furred that wall out and that's not fire rated down below the floor deck kind of like that that pony wall that sticks out that's that's right where where we basically have the handrail on the left-hand side tidy i think is mr darling's referencing um yes that could be modified at the down below absolutely yeah so paul are you talking about just modifying the that one wing wall at the bottom i mean ideally you could move you could move the one here to the right move that over an inch and you know and then maybe the board comes down and you see the exposed edge of plank that you paint there and it continues down so you maximize you don't lose the half inch finish for the board there i don't know how much you're going to get 36 inches it's assuming they must want to wear it because they've already taken an inch and a half off during construction before they put the wall up so it seemed like they were knew it was an issue um prior to the finish we if i if i may hide one one of the talking points we had earlier i could i could i could express would be um owing to the to the very tight tolerances and the the the want to make this as close if not fully code to blind or there could be an option of of replacing sections of that drywall with a thinner drywall we could this is half inch and again even on the firewall side um the way the system is designed it's it's functionally the shaft wall that is the fire rating component the the finished surface is a finished surface and i believe i'd have to double check that on the on that side but minimally the right side which would be the west side of the wall could be reduced to a quarter inch board potentially if that would if that would assist add additional comfort to anyone's perspective i'm a little disoriented here in that photo that we're looking at which is the three out or the two hour rated wall to the left at the beginning at the top of the the top stair tread that you see thank you deborah for putting your cursor on it um rob maybe it would be helpful just in terms of uh the narrative of how that wall relates to the rest of the building explain why that would be a two-hour fire-rated wall and not the one to the right yeah that there is on not not on the lower level but all the way up on the beginning on the main or first level all continuing through the second level is another unit um the the all of these units were designed with formal and intentionally designed ul rated to our fire separation assembly so the continuation of that was essential um and it was one of the one of the trigger points to maintain that dimension ultimately does that to our wall take a two hours two by six that couldn't be handled with a two by four stud i see you have two by six studs built there i don't know if you get any more space by shaving some off that stud down to a you know two by four on the one side um i i every ul was a problem but it does and i i i do not have the eulo open i could quickly research that but i i my understanding is part of the um intention of that is to create a separation from from the exterior face yeah um i don't know if it if the minimum is six or if it's four um that's the only delta yeah i mean if a two by four sidewall two by six two by four were you know gaining potentially more you know i just i would like to go back to mr darling's comment for a moment if we could um and i i i do want to make sure that everybody understands it short of disassembling the entire building you know we're we will take any kind of a decision and guidance in terms of modifying things to create space but um just reflecting on the um the um observation that we took as much off the uh that cantilever plants the concrete as possible we did do that and the subsequent to that there were two inspections so uh you know we'll we will bear some real expense in terms of mitigating this and rebuilding it in whatever way you see fit so that we can meet with the requirement um but on the other hand i kind of feel like the the city's a little bit in the boat with us here because we got through two inspections uh and and and you know like we we have a good relationship with our inspector and i think our inspector is has always been very communicative with us and we've been very transparent but and yet here we are so to fix this um we're going to have to if if you allow us to fix it um you know we're gonna we have to go to some significant expense to fix it so i don't know how that accounts or plays into any part of this decision but um i would think that that might have some bearing on how this whole thing was viewed i can say that with the greatest respect possible for uh for the people that have worked hard to help us um get to this point from the city well i mean realistically it you know to to replace the drywall i think you can only really do it on one side right to preserve the fire separation yes that's correct so i mean the other side where you could remove we could go with thinner drywall um you can't shave anything off the um the precast that's that's there that's right so even even if we eliminated drywall in its entirety on the on the right side of this image we would still be gaining no more than a half inch because of where that ultimate face of the pre-gas plank is at this time yeah so practical things that we could do i think we've already been mentioned we could we could exchange out the drywall on the right hand side and gain a quarter inch we can change the handrail to um to not necessarily correct the problem but just just mechanically create more space and then for the eight steps at the bottom or so where there's a half wall we could move that wall out so that the the impact is you know reduced by a third i'm wondering if anybody has looked into the possibility in the sketch on the left hand side is a i presume that's the plank that you're talking about that you've either already shaved a portion of it down um i guess to clarify is that correct you've cut a portion of that plank off yes that uh uh approximately an inch and a half of that plank have been removed already all right so the plank plank manufacturer is saying that's as far as you can go uh without taking alternative measures so i'm wondering why the wall beneath couldn't be turned into a bearing wall to support that edge of the plank and cut more of the plank cut more of the plank off put in a a a new wall that would become a bearing wall that would pick up that edge of the plank and then cut more of the plank off if if that strand is if you're within so many uh millimeters or whatever of the strand if you support the plank from underneath then that strand is no longer critical rob what's the footer situation under there i'm checking just to look at the slab plan right now let me flip to uh she's ready for going out of vision for a minute because i think we had to pour a footer for that steel um beam there are footings underneath i think two i think there might be two columns along the length of that wall on the east side just to be clear i was referring to the left-hand side in the sketch and if i missed it i apologize well the extreme would be you just take it take eight inches off you take one whole core width of that off you cut in the middle of the core and then the next bar over has a lot of space for the to the piece what does that do to that hallway rob um i'm not i'm not sure we have that much space because um because of the hallway that goes through there that makes sense on this on the main level on the on the bottom level well on the main level too what's that yeah it supports all all of the uh it supports us a series of um common walls up to the roof i mean if you do that you'd be replacing the stairs as well right because the stairs only run from wall to wall right now they do that's correct i mean for an inch of probably the finishing of five mechanic cantilever i don't know where they fill it in put a stringer there finish stringer fill the gap um one thing to consider with that already i think there may have been a on the supplemental sketch there is a that i sent along earlier today with this with the overall scratch or supplemental information too many pages in front of me now uh there is a um the way that's designed at either end of the opening is a um an embedded plate or an embedded angle to support the width um we obviously would this it would be very unique because we're removing a portion of that um plank yet it continues in both directions beyond the section we'd be removing um i don't know the integrity of that rebar and the other spaces would have to be um updated as well my my concern is much like the ripple effect of the comedy of errors that led us to this moment i'm afraid of what might happen if that that rebar is cut and how it how that then transfers load-wise across the rest of that um because it wouldn't be in the same plane if you can visualize it in plan we have that that with opening i think it's 14 feet long we'd only be able to have access to that 14-foot width of section that could be potentially cut out assuming that kircher would even accommodate it and i believe that is a grouted core right now if i'm not mistaken that is correct um both sides in fact are because of the load-bearing capacity above um the that would be i'm just not sure how that what happens when we get beyond that opening then on either the north or south side um without further investigation can i ask a question have we um have we exhausted the uh whether or not this is an interpretation issue um i know that rob had one viewpoint and i i'd certainly hear mr lemieux's uh viewpoint have has that discussion been exhausted or or not it looks like in both applications that it says the minimum is 36 depending on what code you're in it still says 36 minimum and we don't have that so rob is that yeah there's i i as much as i would love to say i have a great alternative argument the code is very clear that the third stage i just want to make sure because i understood the um the directions right from the get-go yeah mr darling and i wanted to make sure we're not um working outside of that of course so one question i have for the building department is is the concern is the concern [Music] within the the width of this air alone i mean are there is there anything else that they can do to mitigate the egress situation in this unit um but i'm a little bit confused as to what what the question is well i guess what i'm what i'm asking is um [Music] if they were to introduce any other means of egress for example like on the on the uh level one floor plan yeah i'd like to say there was a second door out would that make a difference are you saying like turn one of the egress windows into a proper exit door maybe i'm thinking i'm looking at the back of the stair on level one where the bathroom is oh right is there an opportunity to put a stair to the exterior at that point i don't i don't know that there's a that there's a code route to get there um i don't know if any allowance to reduce the minimum stair width based on exits um if that's if if i'm answering your question well i i do think that there is an opportunity to create a sec a primary means of egress out of this level um which would render a compliant the the stair that's presently constructed would be um just communicating there at that point um i think that maybe and i apologize sorry your screen title doesn't give your clear name that was a great question um call me donna that's okay okay fair enough [Laughter] i suspect it was uh it was bob but i didn't want to be presumptuous donna works too um the bearded lady [Laughter] um that there would be some potential for that um there are um there are three there's there's a stair there's a landing already um if you look at the unit 11 ground level plan the lower level plan you'll see the stoop for the stair you'll see three window wells and then the fourth one is kind of cut off in that section up on the northwest side there are three window wells there um i'm not certain if there's enough run uh to connect those um without challenging i guess it would almost have to be on that common central window well um to accommodate it going in any other direction puts us into the garage level which i i don't think is a safer means of egress because we're not exiting directly exiting to the exterior there's there's way too much mechanical there anyway precisely i mean even if we could we formally had uh planner boxes rob and now uh we don't so that's a second means of egress on the main floor that we could put in we could put a door there right right at the bottom of the stair where it says um but there's a c designation for a small window and there's something else that says a63 oh yes that is a planter box that's correct well that's a planted box yes it's no longer a planter box well the original design right but i think the point is is the walkway go to the wall yes the walkway goes directly to the wall so you could take that window out and put a door in okay so to the building department what i was getting at is if they'll look you know to try to achieve something that's some kind of equivalency in terms of safety would that mitigate the one-inch deficiency in the stair in addition in addition with the idea being that it doesn't require two people going up and down the stairs at the same time potentially along those lines because because quite frankly that the whole two people up and down the stair rationality i i don't really see it because the fact that the kitchen's on the main level i see a lot of traffic there and frankly that terrace uh it it looks like you know an invitation for a much bigger group gathering let's put it that way so what i'm trying to suggest is if there's a second door on the main level does that in any way help mitigate the stair situation and and make it an easier situation as far as you know getting people out quickly i would i would honestly have to do the the code research on an alternative like that before i could give an accurate answer okay this is what i'm this is what i'm talking about what page is that in the packet i can bring it up 401.

we looked back at five years of data and we noticed that they also peaked in 2017 but we attributed that to a quarterly benchmark that we were administering that was uh impacting the uh the failure failure rate much higher than than traditional and so when we looked at and we take out this this 2017 we see the trend is somewhere around 500 but it spiked this marking period and this is marking period one failures only all right so we're not looking at across the board we noticed this because we had an increased number of conversations with parents and students regarding their participation and their their their work or lack thereof in school and these these conversations became more uh prevalent and they were happening more often so we decided to look at the data and really really dig down and we saw that there was a 92 percent increase from 2019 to 2020 in the number of failures on report cards this isn't something we're proud of it's not something we want to broadcast but it's something we want to address and in order to address it we need to be transparent and we need we need to talk about it so we we looked at the comparison over five years and you can see over a thousand there were over a thousand classes or a thousand failures in the in in various classes so 387 students had a thousand over a thousand failures across these classes these numbers supersede all the other numbers except for 2017 and like we said we identified that as due to our quarterly that was weighed and impacted students students didn't take the quarterly seriously they simply just um you know didn't even take the test basically they opened the screen submitted a bunch of answers it wasn't working the way we wanted to work it so we modified it we adapted to it but we can see the difference you know when we lay the numbers out 2015 2006 and 2018 2019 we have a you know that that mean number uh approximately 500 where we're listen we're not happy when students fail but we need to say hey why are so many students struggling right now what what is taking place here um so we we started having these conversations amongst the supervisors at the high school and and with the administrative team at the high school and then the middle school started joining these conversations and then when we looked at the middle school we saw even even greater increases so we brought the middle school on to have this conversation say hey what can we do for our population because we saw these increases you know in uh this is grade eight a six hundred percent increase and then we looked at grade six we even started going back even in digging deeper and we looked into grade six and we saw that um uh you know the number just it jumped tremendously over 300 increase uh from last year and and you know there wasn't much of an increase prior to this you know we had a few struggling students in in in in grade six well why sudden are all these students struggling now so we've got to figure out what's going on how can we how can we get how we can't simply continue with these kind of numbers and the the the conversations began okay what can we do uh we can see that we also looked at the honor roll because we reached out to other districts um in bergen county and listen we're we're in bergen county but there's two districts in bergen county for being honest and we're being fair there's districts north of route 4 and this district south of root 4 and we reach out to districts similar to our own district with similar demographics and they're all reporting that there's they're seeing these results in the amongst the populations now when we reached out to the the upper bergen county schools north of route 4 they they were they're they were coming back saying no we're actually seeing the difference we're seeing we're seeing students succeeding all right so we said you know let's look at our honor roll and we looked at our honor roll and we saw that the number of high honor roll students was higher than it's ever been before and you know the the total number of students on the honor roll didn't really change that much but the high honor roll students are are they're doing they're succeeding they're they have the means to be successful in this environment and when we looked at the actual grades the grade reporting we saw the b and c's b students primarily the the largest decrease in b's across the marking period so it's our average students that are really struggling and i don't say regressing but not uh not meeting the same success as our high performance but our hard performers at the high school when we looked at it they're exceeding the expectations at this point so we looked at the high school failures by grade level we see it's affecting all the students there's fewer seniors in classes so we have fewer seniors failing but we do have across the board it's fairly comparable um approximately a third of the students across the board are struggling in this environment and we saw that the 10th graders had the highest at 34 percent uh we looked at the cohorts because we thought that maybe it was just the remote students it wasn't just the remote students it was both the remote students and the students that were on the hybrid schedule the a and b cohort students were also struggling you know anywhere from 25 to 30 percent of them were struggling in their classes so it wasn't just the remote students who aren't logging in it's across the board because the hybrid students when they're not in school they're struggling to log on and they're struggling to stay engaged also now we looked at the failures across the departments and math is traditionally the hardest subject and when we have these conversations learning math online remotely is very very difficult and the math teachers are struggling but what we really saw that was really interesting was you know the number of failures in social studies or the number of students failing in social studies and financial literacy classes those aren't four-year requirements uh there's fewer students in those classes and we started having these conversations with instructors so it this data gave us the opportunity to go into classrooms and speak with the instructors where we're seeing this why is this happening in your class what what's what's the reason are the students not logging on are the students not submitting work are the students um uh you know is it the way we're we're we're instructing our students at this point so while initially we saw this as hey what are we gonna do we can't have all these kids fail it led to very very positive conversations and it led to somewhat of a culture change here amongst the high school and amongst the middle school i can't really speak for the middle school but i could speak for the high school because it opened up the discussion and where we know this is occurring in schools throughout the county only recently are schools in the county starting to say hey what are you doing we're noticing this what are you doing because quite honestly this is something districts don't want to talk about i i want to thank mr romagino for giving me the opportunity to share with you guys and you know even even meeting with the middle school and being part of those conversations to say how can we address this how can we fix this because this is a unprecedented time students are being asked to do things they've never been asked to do teachers are being asked to do things they've never been asked to do and quite frankly we don't have the capacity no school has the capacity and this isn't just a bergen county problem this is a national problem usa today has reported on it stanford university is conducting a ton of research on this right now and publishing that research it was recently in the um not the record but uh northjersey.com recently uh uh highlighted this i've seen it on the news so this is learning loss is something that we're talking about and it's something that we need to recognize and something we need to address so we looked at the special ed in the l population and we see that you know school-wide the l population versus the school-wide population is approximately 30 of that population so there's not really a difference between the special ed pro is a little bit higher but the ells and the school-wide population the general population it's it's very similar so it's not a subgroup it's it's across the board uh we looked at the attendance and we noticed that the attendance is down and this is something that i take very uh uh dear to me this is very dear to me uh the attendance i work very hard at maintaining our attendance our chronic absenteeism i'm happy to say has been low the state average has been below the state average since i've come on board because it's something we've targeted we've identified it and we've continued to attack it and and really encourage students uh and and help them understand the value of being here the greatest predicament of or predictor for student success is student attendance if students are in school students will succeed so our goal is to get them in school we've noticed that our attendance is down right now and we we started to ask why is our attendance then why is this drop all the kids have to do is log in what's going on exactly here are they not logging in is it something that we're doing so we looked at all these data points and we saw the guidance feedback we asked the guy the guidance department you know what are you getting from your meetings with parents you're you're reaching out to kids you're reaching out to parents what is going on uh the parents are shocked you know the kids are always on the computer but they don't know what the kids are on exactly you know the kids are on netflix they're distracted they're they're gaming they're on youtube um parents are off to work in our population of students they're required to watch their younger siblings and it's disruptive many of them are sharing devices many of them you know are working on interrupted internet or wi-fi um students have expressed the counselors there's just too much work they're overwhelmed they're in school for a number of hours a day and then they're given work after school so they're just on the computer constantly and it's it's stressful for them um they're developing you know some students have reported you know some headaches so we've limited that time uh students feel that the level of work is so unintendable they've basically just given up and this is something we call learned helplessness and it's once students develop learned helplessness it's it's really difficult to get them beyond that learned helplessness so you know we it's something that you know we've had these conversations with our staff and and we're going to talk more about that but you know make setting goals for the students and you know making sure that you know we're not overloading the students because the students are coming back telling us that they feel overloaded um and that the parents are telling us they're on the computer all day and something's not adding up and we we need to find a balance between screen time academics and personal life for these students as mr roman gino said earlier um athletics was post you know athletic seasons have been shortened you know you're looking at uh you know intramurals to make available to the students uh we're looking at um you know outdoor workouts for these students having difficulty fielding middle school teams because of student participation or other school districts just not running programs not being able to set up a schedule so really you know the students they're struggling through this and it's really you know layering this additional work on top of them you know isn't isn't beneficial so we've got to figure out some way to make this balance and then the family loss and you know that's where um there's just there's there's so much i guess familiar uh familiar um and i can't see my screen for issues that they're uh that they're facing whether it's lost work eviction child care uh some of our stories that we that we hear from these students it's they're truly heartbreaking so you know and the staff who's grading them don't necessarily know this so we we have to figure out a way to make this work and convey this and set up some modifications for students and that's really what all this data led to so we looked at a few different things we looked at at the district level what can we immediately do to effect change what can we do what district decisions or policies that we're currently running that kind of you know can we can pivot on we can be flexible on and and how can we do it without you know you know changing everything so we looked at our you know these policy changes that we can can make to maybe instructional you know remote instruction uh we revisit our instructional routines and had to have had a lot of conversations with our staff about instruction appropriate instruction during this time um yeah and and for different courses you know you're gonna you know the the ap population advanced policemen population they need to understand that you know there's a test that they're preparing for there's going to be work there and it's some of the other places where we have to have these conversations where you know it it's it's the work that you're you're provide that staff is providing versus the work that um students that that's truly meaningful and that's actually attainable by the students under these conditions and you know how is project we're looking at project-based learning what projects seem to be working and what projects are you struggling are teachers struggling getting feedback back from kids uh we brought in our supervisors our child study teams our guidance for very specific approaches and we'll talk about those shortly and lastly there's some items that we need to explore as we go down the road and revisit and those include bridge programs over the summer what grants are available to us to combat learning loss and those are things that we need to continue to explore and have more conversations and look at this data at the end of marking period two and at the end of marketing period three as we move through the school year which we plan to do in the next few weeks as market period 2 closes so some district decisions and policy changes that we've made was the mailing of the progress reports this is very simple mail products reports mail marketing period 2 report cards and portal letters it's the 21st century we expect everyone to be able to access all this information online it's simply they don't not everybody does i'm a parent i struggle to you know go into my students my child's real-time portal and follow how he's doing so you know what getting something tangible whether the product report is commending the student or the progress report is calling for um a you know a conference that's necessary or something they're getting something tangible and this was an easy fix and this is something mr roman gino was you know was all behind start mailing them so we we're we're in the process of doing i i believe our our third mailing at this point maybe second mailing at this point um because we sent out the progress reports oh we're putting the portal letters in with the report card so it's it's two mailings for this uh we found that a number of students are working so we we've to help them with the work especially with that shift to that full remote schedule um creating an asynchronous option if the student is is completing the work in a timely fashion and if the accommodation is is requested and justified so that asynchronous option while while it's not the the answer for everyone for certain students it is the answer for the students that are the only income uh right now in their household or one of two incomes or or or you know for the student that has to work because they got a surgery and they have medical bills the asynchronous option is the answer and as long as we can confirm that we're doing that um the cameras off does not result in attendance policy so this is something that we we thought was the best idea oh the students just have to have the cameras on if the cameras are on the um uh the students marked present they'll be present for instruction very simple you log on camera's on you're present our students weren't turning the cameras on and there was battles battles in classrooms of attorney camera on turning a lot of lost instruction time and we have this tool goguardian we didn't know a lot about go guardian when we developed this policy at the beginning of the year we know a lot more about goguardian now we can use goguardian to monitor the students to filter the websites that the students have access to and at this point my staff is using goguardi and they whether the kid has the camera on or not bill guardian is a tool that they can use to see what that kid is doing where that kid is engaged is he engaged in the actual assignment or is he engaged in something else and then we're increasing social media newsletter and mailing so we this is something that coming from the building my uh coming from the building principle i have to commit to ensuring that more social media goes out uh highlighting our student successes a newsletter goes out that we're hoping to get out by the end of uh marking period two and the mailings as discussed earlier so these are something some things that we're committed to and these were some district decisions and policies that were quite easy to change and we think have already had you know some results some immediate results specifically for that asynchronous population and that that camera penalty that was kind of you know really detrimental in hindsight but at the time in august we thought it was the best idea and many other districts cameras got to be on we didn't have golgari we didn't know the knowledge behind goguardian so we revisited our instructional routines also um we're requiring failure comments for all failures it's very simple this is something we we always ask but something we're reinforcing with our staff is that there's comments specific comments as to why students are failing on the progress report and on the report card record and make available lessons of new material this is something else that we've we've really emphasized with the staff and there's increasing emphasis that new material when new instruction takes place it needs to be recorded because some students need to revisit it and they cannot come back to class for extra credit or for extra help at the end of the day so this needs to be available conference more with students we lost breakout rooms for uh for a short time and it's really this conference conferencing ability where we're seeing this teachers have the most success with their students when they can devote that one-on-one time with the students aside from other students give critical feedback in a setting that is personal that's where we're seeing positive returns with our students so this emphasis on using breakout rooms you know having these conversations with the student like you would when you're in school this is the answer it's something that google introduced at some point in the fall we lost it temporarily it's back now so we have a large number of staff that's using this conference room and conferencing ability and really that's where we get that that interpersonal connection that we weren't getting in these meets uh the ability to remain flexible i am arresting students uh who are struggling and who do not who do attend class so if students are not attending class there's a there's a disengagement we're making house calls to those students i'm knocking on doors to the students that don't report to class guidance gives me a list i go out i knock on their doors you know the kids smile when they see me because you know somebody cares about them that's what we're realizing that kids just they're so depressed they just want somebody to care about them and it's little things like that knocking on the doors telling the kid hey listen we can we can get through this but we need you to do your part you know we've identified a number of students that need mentoring not nearly as many students as we like but we've identified students that you know are responding to mentoring so we've created a mentoring program um with peers and adults and they're uh you know we have you know a handful of students right now but you know something we push out every week and we have student response we're utilizing the pass fail specifically in our ell population it's something we found out we can do three years ago the state kind of gave some guidance on ell populations and that we could use a pass fail prior to that we weren't using a pass fail districts a lot of districts do not use the pass fail they had they're actually you know questioning the validity of the pass fail the state is saying hey use the pass fail specifically with this population of struggling ell students so something we've re-emphasized with our staff that hey we have this option the student's coming the student's trying the state says they have a we to score which is a one to a 3.5 we can use this option let's use this option um for these students and it's really you know it we're following the state guidance in that the instructors need to use goguardian plain and simple so we've put out a bunch of trainings on goguardian we plan on doing some more trainings next week uh for our staff because we have to use goguardian the cameras on was not working so the goguardian function does work students who choose not to use goguardian we're getting on their their parents we're telling them they have to do this uh we're i've been to two houses so far kids that refuse to use goguardian and tell them essentially if you choose not to use go guardian the next conversation has to be with you know re revoking your technology privileges because this is a district tool that's on every district chromebook we need you to use the chromebook and make sure you're signed in uh to using it and there's some things that we can do we can give assessments on the chromebook and essentially forces the students to use those the chromebooks that we've we've we've granted them to ensure this and ensure there's no cheating so goguardian has some tremendous um capability a student cannot receive a failure from mark and period two unless communication is documented in real time this is huge for so whatever reason in this remote environment uh teachers not being in school students not being in school there was a big disconnect between the kids in the in the and this this instructional staff and we essentially said we need you to call home i i sat the staff down in a in a meeting and said we i need you to call home i need you to make me make contact with parents you need to try and you need to document it in real time so that when when you do it and it's documented guidance can follow up i can follow up if it goes up the road to mr roman gino he can see that you know a number of attempts were made we have to make every attempt to help these kids so uh we did this and within the first two weeks of just having the staff make phone calls for their struggling students and we said listen you have an hour lunch you actually had long you have an hour and 20 minute lunch take you know five of your kids that are struggling the most each day and just call home and call home try to get the parent on the phone and if it doesn't work just document the line doesn't work or notify somebody the dot line doesn't work we'll we'll figure out the right number and within two weeks of doing this we've seen a 70 increase in our attendance so just by making phone calls um by the teachers making phone calls and the kids kind of bought into it we'd follow up with some phone calls and kids were like yeah i talked to mrs so-and-so i talked to mr so-and-so yeah no i'm going to start going to class so the teeth the the fact that the teachers showed a level of interest in the kids the kids responded and lastly instructional staff was hesitant about calling we provided some uh some options um use google voice you can use the google me to make the phone call you can do star six seven so there were some apprehensions about making those phone calls from their personal devices um and and and you know not being in the building but we were able to work around that uh our supervisor cst and guidance at the supervisory level they started to have these specific conversations with um areas that we identified high rates of failure and why is it lack of engagement is it students not showing up what's going on i'm going to help you we have our supervisors going to meet pulling kids out meeting kids individually and having them log in to go guardian and show me why you can't get onto goguardian you know having these conversations with kids identifying the staff that are having success and allowing them to share so we've gone back into our department meetings and given them opportunities to share and to share out and say hey what's working for me what this didn't work for me so i tried this and that's having positive results we've actually seen a level of writing in this remote uh era that's higher from our student population that's that we've had before they're they're they're producing meaningful works across the board in in our english department and we're noticing it because we're having these professional conversations about what's working and this conferencing with the students uh the cst and guidance they'll continue to assess assist with the differentiating for students and showing that they're that the teachers are adhering to them cst is advocates for these uh these students so they they you know they need to provide some input and some guidance for some of our instructional staff and what is appropriate accommodations during this time because nothing's normal right now and lastly the guidance also they're involved with meetings with supervisors students uh uh administrators so you know they're they're on the phones they're calling the kids they're updating records they're notifying me which kids need house visits and then there's there's some things that we need to continue to talk about uh this development of a growth mindset and this is something we're sharing with the kids that if they get back to work and they produce that you know we'll explore overriding that marking period one failure you know if they demonstrate growth over the course of oh the the school year project-based assignments what is working as i said earlier conferencing with students seems to be working um you know breaking down research assignments into very specific tasks works when you do it correctly and when you pre when you conference with students mentoring opportunities for staff and students the staff wants to help the kids it's you know the kids that we need to identify which ones need the most help and then you know so this is ongoing it's something we started with ongoing and it's instructors really finding success and what is working this has been very difficult for instructors our staff essentially learned you know how to conduct a class online within a matter of weeks last spring and they continue to learn things because the technology continues to change and they continue to adapt and not everything works all the time and it's important that they share what's worked how they're getting their students to engage why are their students engaging and my students not engaging so this is this opportunity has led to a lot of professional conversation and then still to come is you know if we do have a higher than normal failure rate at the close of the school year how are we going to address it are we going to you know if our failure rates at the middle school continue to be as high as they were in the first market are we going to socially promote these students are we going to have a bridge program over the summer are we going to have uh you know not a not a not a summer school but a true bridge program to make up for this learning loss those are conversations that we have to have um and you know hopefully after mark and period two we can have those you know those conversations as we'll have a better idea of are we truly having success or success or is the immediate results superficial so that's all i have so i'll stop the share and i don't know mr romangino if there's any questions or you want me to stick around for questions later well let's take some questions now can you hear me i can hear you yes i have a lot of questions about the data but i'm not going to far need looking at 2020 first question series are you comparing these 2019 first law opportunities in america together but my most profound question is why did it take the pandemic to accomplish because the things that i have seen on the screen tonight has been going on for my 30 years of education where is your school improvement panel that should have been looking at this for a year why is it generally away from the csu supervisor and excitement department to be immediately having professional conversations i really have a concern that it takes a pandemic for this to be done because i was asking if they tell them that foreign for the last 30 years because i will praise the kindergarten being that the kindergarten teachers have been conferencing with the students since they were five years old so why doesn't that happen at the high school level through the part so i'm sorry mr romagino can you restate that i had a real hard time hearing that question can you hear now i can hear you [Music] before make sure can you hear us larry i can hear that yes okay i have a question about the data first of all when you're looking at 2020 are you looking at only the first martin period of 2020 compared to the first marking period of 2019 or are you looking at end of the year scores in 2019 and if this if your end of the year scores in 2019 were better we were in a pandemic situation and teachers were not taught how to teach remotely and yet the scores were higher in the spring of 2019 they are on the fall of 2020.

second any questions comments all those in favor aye aye motion carries 5-0 congratulations mrs reese once again got a year off and now she's back and now i'm going to move on i move that we we approve mrs jill wilson as vice president second any questions concerns all those in favor aye aye motion carries five zero congratulations mrs wilson yes this is immediate so now i get to pass off the meeting to mrs reese and i was given this school board president handbook tonight which and i'm just gonna hang out over here i would like though um during board comments mrs schultz and mrs reese i can make a small request before i leave that they give us a little bit about themselves tonight and mrs mrs anderson i'm sorry not rhys we know about her sorry yes thank you i appreciate the little handbook i will look at that all right well then we will go on to our next agenda item the superintendent's report dr foley president reece members of the board tonight we start with one of our favorite uh favorite tasks that we do here at our governing board meetings which is the celebration of our points of pride where we as a at this meeting honor our employees our student and volunteers that are being recognized by the school now tonight we do this a little differently because of social distancing we're going to do these a little differently than we have before so we're going to call the pr the principal up and we're going to start tonight with power range and when mr rooter comes up along with along with mrs coda they're going to call the employees student or the volunteer up one at a time and then we will take pictures where you will stand rather than coming down because we used to love to do handshakes and close pictures but for physical distancing we do a stand and acknowledge so one at a time and so we're going to start first with power range tonight and then we're going to do santan so i'm going to call mr ruder up and mrs coda up so that they can help us celebrate our points of pride tonight from power ranch thank you president reece members of the board cabinet community members it is my privilege to stand here before you and recognize some awesome people from power ranch we are actually going to start with our student hudson lopez and i would also like to invite mrs tessen his kindergarten teacher to help me so hudson and mrs tetson if you guys can come on up here [Applause] all right good evening everybody um here i have a little paper i had written this um beforehand i just wanted to make sure that it was perfectly said for hudson because he's so deserving hudson of lopez has been a student of mine since the beginning of the school year as both quarters have passed he has shown great academic improvements in all areas hudson is a student who stands out simply because he is such a role model to his peers he also has a positivity that is inspiring in a heart that continues to reflect kindness kindness is heavily focused on in our classroom and his ability to show kindness to others often creates a natural ripple-like effect on all the other students i could not be prouder of hudson and i am honored to present him with this award tonight congratulations hudson [Applause] come here buddy some presents for you today come right here it's great because you really can see the smiles through the masks so next i'm going to call up our volunteer and it's ms shauna peterson so shauna is here tonight because she's incredible but also on behalf of our entire parent-teacher organization we do some amazing things on our campus and it's all because of the hard work that shawna and her group do for us our best example to date is our elective program which is fully funded by our pto but even besides that they've worked with me the last couple of months to try and support our teachers and recognize them knowing the hard work and everything that they're doing and trying to find different and unique ways to keep our energy up with our staff and our students and we greatly appreciate your outside the box thinking and your effort i know it's hard not being in the hallways and supporting in the classrooms but you guys are finding other ways to do amazing things so thank you very much and next we're going to have mrs coda recognize kelly bottice one of our special ed aides on campus kelly goes above and beyond her job responsibilities every day she is at school early and stays until everything is ready for the next day kelly works hard all day long and is so patient working with students and their behaviors kelly has a strong rapport with students and staff and is always there when we need her kelly knows the schedule and helps get ready for the next step all day long she is consistent in her attitude and drive to get the job done well she even thinks of our students on her own time and purchases items for activities despite personal issues she begins each day fresh and ready to work kelly needs to be recognized for her hard work and dedication to her job thank you kelly for all you do congratulations and lastly if we could have lauren considine come up please she is our certified employee [Applause] and i don't really enjoy reading um this stuff from here but i'm going to read it because it's from your colleagues and i think it's very important since march lauren has done a lot to support students colleagues and the power ranch community lawrence served as our canvas ambassador learning the program and leading staff pd for our teachers still to this day she supports colleagues including myself with questions and troubleshooting she is also she also led virtual staff meditations called mindful moment moments each morning in the beginning of the school year these were also regularly attended i apologize these also then began started started to be done with students my sister is a sixth grade teacher in new york and my sister also was invited to join and she had some other colleagues that joined as well these were in addition to this lauren serves on the site council power ranch leadership team is a student council sponsor and did it all while earning her master's degree in educational leadership her continued support is amazing and we can't thank her enough congratulations lauren [Applause] i'd like to now invite mr mercado and mrs reeves up so that we can honor and highlight the superstars from santan i was going to say president kaler president reece i had it all scripted out president reece dr foley cabinet community members thank you for this opportunity um i absolutely love this time when we can celebrate some amazing people i wish we can celebrate all the amazing people and things that are happening at san ten but we'll take this couple of minutes and celebrate some really good people that make a difference on a daily basis our certified member is our media specialist jen ford if you can come up please i've been told that i speak too much in staff bidding so they told me i have to read miss ford is a dedicated and passionate educator ms ford is a team player on our campus she strives to support all stakeholders to ensure 100 customer satisfaction these past couple of years she has been extremely flexible as we have shifted the roles of the librarian in our district ms ford communicates effectively with miss baker who you see up there as well to provide a positive experience in the media center and i would say it's a well-oiled machine she has a positive rapport with students with staff with the community the media center is a warm friendly and inviting environment at san tan thank you miss ford for making a difference every day on our campus our classified member is laurel baker laurel baker is our media aide miss baker is a positive and supportive staff member at san tan miss baker is always willing to support our campus in any capacity she is the definition of a team player every interaction i have observed with miss baker and students has been with the smile miss baker communicates effectively with miss ford and this is the one one of the reasons why i believe our media center runs effectively on a daily basis we have six sections k through four and five sections actually four sections and fifth and sixth and so these two individuals do an amazing job communicating with each other to make sure that our six-day rotation runs smoothly for our students and staff so there is no doubt that when you enter our media center it is warm and it is welcoming with your smile she is a difference maker at san tan thank you mrs baker for being a dedicated staff member at sentence [Applause] santan's volunteers amy randall i love that energy and passion and that's exactly what you see with miss randall on our campus ms randall is a certified substitute and pto member at centenn mrs randall is absolutely one of our best supporters of our programs and services she is a dedicated substitute that has saved us many times at the last minute to ensure students had support in their classroom she follows the lesson plans the teacher creates and has classroom management she is definitely the an effective substitute on our campus mrs randall serves as the vp of fundraising at san ten so whenever i call her ray what do you want because i have all the great ideas right she is always thinking outside the box to secure resources to support our campus recently during the holiday before the holiday break we had um a tradition of cookies and milk with santa in our gym where we would have 400 people or so it was just an amazing event that we were really sad that we weren't going to be able to host this year so with her thinking outside the box her support and pto support we did a drive by cookies in milk with santa and so it was an amazing event that community members and students and staff were still able to participate participate with so really appreciate that support when it comes to outside the box thinking for our campus she brings great ideas to the table to ensure we provide the best experiences for our students staff and community thank you ms randa for making a difference every day at san tan [Applause] and an amazing student brandon kowalczyk come up here brandon is a fifth grade student at centenn brendan was nominated by his teacher ms stingle as our student points of pride for sentan santan is a lighthouse leader in me school and we believe every student and staff member can be a positive leader i asked my staff to provide me with any student leaders that they believed should be recognized for using the seven habits consistently throughout the school year and brendan rose to the top to be chosen as san tan student point of pride his teacher ms stingle states brendan volunteers anytime there is an opportunity on and off campus he is a role model in the classroom robotics and running club he's just an all-around amazing kid thank you brandon for making a difference every day on and off our campus [Applause] thank you we like to let the families know at this time families and our employees know that while we we do not expect you to stay for the meeting so if you would like to we would love to have you stay but we also know you have other things to do this evening so you are free to leave if you'd like to thank you all for coming thank you to the families who share your employee or child with us president reese members of the board to complete the superintendent's report tonight we have upcoming events coming up as you can see we have lots of meetings and trainings we or thank you for your time this weekend and our first training and we have another one coming up again and another meeting other meetings this month the month of february so that concludes the superintendent's report thank you and we will go on to board comments and i would just like to take a moment to thank mrs kaler as serving as our board president this past year a very difficult year lots happening and um thank you for your dedication to our board and our district for serving in that position and we will go on to other board comments and mrs kaler you had a request for our new board members give us a few highlights about yourselves since you're brand new tonight up here on the dyes so mrs anderson would let you go first hi my name is michelle anderson um i've been in the district as a parent and as an employee my kids started when they were in kindergarten at coronado and now i've got one grad or we have one graduating from williamsfield this year and one coming up in a couple years at williamsville as well um i've been around and when i tried to get emotional but i've i've just i'm a teacher as well i teach at queen creek high school chemistry and physical science um but i've been working with these kids since kindergarten i've been volunteering at after school events and crosswalk loved crosswalk i was there for for a bit and it's so neat i know there's a better word than neat but to be with those these kids i've seen them as little bitties i got to teach them in middle school and possibly this year i hope so um i'll get to hand them their diploma as they walk across the stage it's super super awesome but anyway um i'm just happy to be here and happy to serve in this manner and hope to bring a lot of good experience and just a positive attitude to this wonderful district that i've given blood sweat and tears to so thank you for having me thank you my name is tiffany schultz and i have two daughters in the district who have been in the district since preschool and my daughter's in fifth grade and then second grade at coronado elementary school i volunteered i was the pto president for two years at coronado and volunteered in different various ways i am a small business owner in the community and hopefully bring a different aspect in the business side of things as far as joining together the schools in the business in our community and i'm really excited to serve and be a part of this board any other board comments president reece mrs wilson i just want to thank the two new board members i didn't thank them up until this point because i was waiting for the seat to actually be filled i know there was some question on why i waited but i just want to thank you guys for both for joining and for president reese for coming back another four-year term um on top of the already eight correct i'm like wait maybe i'm speaking out of turn eight years that you've already done and that's a long commitment and i just want to thank you for that so thank you guys both for joining and president reese for continuing thank you all right if we don't have any other board comments we will go on to our next item request to speak mrs reach no request to speak all right we'll go on to our consent agenda i move that we approve the consent agenda items as they are presented second all right any questions or comments regarding any of the items on our consent agenda president reece i do mrs anderson oh sorry okay um 7.8 it marked about some increases i just since i'm new and i'm not understanding i'm just curious if this is typical if it's short term and are we looking for other vendors because some of these were significant president reece board member anderson so one of the things you're seeing here is that this is one of those annual things that we do when we have purchases with organizations that have cumulative totals that go over a certain amount and so you estimate at the beginning of the year what it is you approve it and anytime that is expanding or extending this is one of those uh ongoing maintenance that we do they're always have been through the appropriate procurement processes but it's just because these totals sometimes like for instance a a power company you're going to based on need that will it will accumulate a total and so you estimate based on previous need but if numbers come in different you just continue to monitor it and bring it back and we follow our policy knowing that if there were anything that was an individual purchase over a hundred thousand dollars it comes to you as a separate item to approve so this is one of our ongoing maintenances of monitoring big purchases for multitude of things district wide president reece mrs taylor just a little comment on 7.9 i had talked to dr fowler and dr foley besides just the roofing on cortina i was made aware that weatherization has been submitted to sfb as well and that's kind of would be really nice if the roof and the paint and everything would come together at some point for that little mismatched school over in cortina but anyways i just wanted to point that out that that has been submitted to sfb and let's keep our fingers crossed president reece mrs i just want to thank um all the teachers in 7.2 who are doing six fifths we're getting our next round or our next batch of approvals for six-fifths hours for the second semester and there are a lot of them and i just want to thank them and all the teachers every day who are going above and beyond and the staff who are going above and beyond to make the school year happen because you guys are the ones who are making this year happen for us so thank you just to tag on to that mrs wilson we have pages of um approvals on our 7.2 for lots of staff like you said taking six fifths classes so our high school teachers who have volunteered to teach a full day plus an online class we are we have items on here for coverage and where teachers are stepping in for other teachers and we have other staff members who are stepping in and helping cover when someone is out so we have a lot of items on 7.2 so thank you for bringing that up because it is the teamwork and cooperation of all of our staff within this district to continue to make the instruction happen for our students i noticed elementary specials teachers on there and elementary fifth and sixth were also teaching online and doing their full day of classes it was just it was remarkable so thank you any other questions or comments all right all those in favor aye aye aye motion carries five zero we will go on to our information items 8.1 the second quarter special education day school report president race members of the board this is again um going back to the theme of the question miss board member anderson had about updates for you on um how we're spending with our estimate of what we've budgeted and where we are at this point in the year and this year we're bringing quarterly reports back for you if there are any questions mrs miller would be happy to answer them this is more for information purposes and if there's any questions she'll be happy to answer just as a quick note if we have a student that we feel we cannot provide the level of education they need and they go to a day school the district is responsible for paying that tuition for the day school so i know these will show up in your vouchers as well and so you will see them and we are now getting a quarterly report of what it does cost for the district to pay for kids to be educated outside of our district that we can't meet their needs but i do want to thank mrs miller for all the changes and the hard work that you've made to help keep some of these students and that we can provide the services for them within our district and you've made a huge difference for those children so thank you any other comments questions all right then we'll go on to 8.2 our hr quarterly esi report good evening president reese vice president wilson members of the board this evening just as dr foley mentioned in terms of the update in relation to this bed services we're also providing an information update to our educational service inc in regards to what we're paying for our district substitute teachers our rescue subs and for those who need additional clarification in regards to rescue scubs this school year for the first time we hired what we called rescue scrubs part b scrubs nut scrubs subs a little faux pas there i have pardon me rescue subs across the district um two permanently at the secondary schools primarily the high schools and one um at the elementaries to service if we had absences that were going to be occurring because of cova-related reasons what you'll see is most of the time we've needed to use those rescue subs across the district sometimes we've deployed them from one site to another site depending on the fill rate at the other sites as well as needing other subs throughout and covering in some cases covert related in some case other pre-planned activities as well as you'll see on there our district hourly subs so we have aids and peras whenever we can get them one thing and you've probably noticed in our superintendent status reports is that our fill rates aren't as high as they have been in the past and that is because those that are in our sub pool aren't interested in working right now because of kovid so at times there's been a little bit more pressure in that regard but our overall attendance in terms of our teachers this year isn't largely different than last year it's really our substitute fill rate where we hovered over 90 in the past and this year it's been hovering around 70 percent president reece mrs anderson um so the remaining balance for the remainder of the school year is the 948 569 is that correct yes board member anderson that is correct okay and forgive me for not knowing and this goes to towards paying the teachers whenever they cover or that's a separate fund no that is a separate fund our teacher coverage that showed up in terms of the consent items that were earlier is separate fund this is specifically towards esi for all the services we render with them okay with such a significant amount not saying to spend it all but there's absolutely no way to entice people more people to come in and help out to pay more or do anything to take that burden off the teachers it is something we're looking at in terms of future years some of you may or may not recall previously we vendored out i'm drawing a blank on their name right now smart schools smart schools smart schools sold to esi and esi purchased them we had already obligated another contract one of the things we're looking at this year into next year is whether or not we can bring those services back in house for the cost fee that we have for administration services we could probably look at bringing on another staff member to help in those areas and then be able to raise our substitute daily rate as well as our long-term rate as a result we are competitive to our surrounding areas with the exception of one school district that i'm aware of that a couple months ago increased their sub rates quite heavily but it would be a good time for us to assess that as we look into the spring for next school year any other questions thank you all right we'll go on to 8.3 with our athletic update president reese members of the board um i'm not one for putting pictures in powerpoints but if i did there would be a roller coaster right on the front because it has been very interesting uh beginning of this aia sports season tonight we're going to talk about just the timeline some of the changes that happen uh some of the aia mitigation strategies that we've implemented give you an update on where high schools are at where our middle schools are at and then we need to acknowledge some people who've done an outstanding job in moving our athletics forward traditionally the winter season starts with practices the week of november 1st with normally the first game around november 23rd that's right before the start of thanksgiving this year because of covet it was moved back and adjusted to january 4th and then teams were given the option to start practicing on december 30th that was at the option of the coach permissive practice and so many of the teams were ready to go they jumped in and started practicing with the anticipation we would come back and start with competitions on january 4th then the aia moved it back to january 18th so now we knew we had two additional weeks that we could practice then on january 7th which was a very interesting day the aia executive board voted to cancel the season a lot of i would say uproar a little bit of it from our people our coaches and and just trying to figure out what was happening and on that day we did pause practices on that day we'll follow the rules and they said the sports weren't going to go so we paused our practices and then we found out the next day on saturday that the aia executive board was calling an additional meeting on january 12th and so we allowed our practices to continue one of the things that came out of this was there was such a drive and need i believe for our communities to play not just our communities the surrounding communities everyone in the state that as soon as the aia canceled a lot of other organizations said well we'll host a league we'll do what we need to do the basketball coaches association of arizona had already come up with a schedule and a plan on how they were going to implement it whether the aia was going to be involved or not so on january 12th the a executive board re-voted and this time it was a 6-5 vote for the start of the winter season and so they adjusted it we kept the the start date the same and we started our competitions yesterday on the 19th so the mitigation strategy they put in place and honestly this is where i'm really glad that the aia tried to do this and then we're not dealing with outside organizations because while we're following the aia mitigation strategies we have more ability to implement rules and have people follow the rules the first one that they did was all the everyone in the gym or on the field is to wear a mask at all times including during competition so that's not just the the coaches and the players the referees the parents the people working at the table all of them have to wear their masks at all times now granted when you're in physical activity sometimes the kids will pull it down or remove it to catch a breath as long as they're just not trying to be blatant and get rid of it then we're going to be considerate of that there's a monitoring form that all coaches will have to fill out and turn in to the opposing coach saying we've checked with everyone and they're coveted clear as of right now and and basically signing off that we're following the rules and then the officials look at that as well before the contests one of the things that came out and one of the positive changes i believe that happened because of the shutdown originally there was going to be no fans at all and in the clear gym or a clear stadium and it's about competition however the aaa came back and said we'd like an opportunity to have the parents because we know that sports is not just for the participant but it's also the parents are so heavily involved and so the aia said that you're allowed to have a student athlete purchase up to two tickets for parent and guardian only and so then we can manage that it's not that they get two tickets to give to their friend or their girlfriend or anything like that it's two tickets for the parent to garden only guardian only and so we are doing that as we uh have these games um on the bench and sidelines we have to spread apart and so it's not the typical gym setup that you see if you were to come in there and they must be cleared between games and so what happens on that and i was at williams field last night i went to williams field and was there as they had a game against camp poverty for boys basketball and the idea with clearing the gyms is twofold one is parents can only stay for the game that their son or daughter participates in they can't stay for the entire program and so we need them to exit the second one is and i need to get a shout out to mr stengel who's right back there they put on the ghostbuster backpack and then they do the electrostatic sprayer and splurry down the benches and spray down the bleachers so that when the new crowd comes in that it's already been sprayed down and so um that that's two reasons why we're doing it but it really does help us with the crowd control and so we don't have people that are overlapping but let's say a parent had someone that was on the jv team and the varsity they would exit and then they would come in when we allowed the varsity people to come in and i think that's an important part of the mitigation strategies we do have to have our strategies posted and so we have them available as well as and and i think here's the thing for the aia if we have member schools who are not following the rules the officials have the right to cancel the game so if the crowd is not wearing the mask officials can look and say we've warned you we've warned you we're done we're canceling the game should a game get cancelled then that school would not be allowed to use aia officials for the rest of the season basically canceling their season and so the idea is let's take this seriously and if we're going to be allowed to have the opportunity to have games and that we can have a limited number of fans there then let's appreciate what we're getting because the alternative is is nothing or it's being run in situations where people can be combined like the club tournaments you hear about now where people are all over the place not messed up not following the rules and that's the last thing that we want mr blatts go ahead um i had a question i know that the aia had originally said that club ball they had to if a kid was playing football they had to wait two weeks that's still an effect actually they kind of pulled that because of the cancellation and restart because honestly as soon as they canceled people threw in club tournaments and there were club tournaments that happened they didn't feel like that was fair to the kids who went and participated in that thinking that they wouldn't have a season and then two days later now they have a season but then they'd say whoa but you can't do this and so you have to sit for two weeks as well so they didn't think that was fair so they did not continue with that so if you'll notice our winter season sports that are competing right now we have boys and girls basketball boys and girls soccer and boys and girls wrestling the games did start yesterday and honestly one of the challenges moving forward as we talk with the athletic directors we know there are situations where teams will be quarantined or cancelled in games because of covet we have a situation with that within our district right now we follow our covet guidelines and when we do that we're prepared to not hold games and practices and and that's just the reality of what we live in and so it's going to be kind of a continue to be up and down we might find out on a tuesday morning we're not playing tuesday night because the other team's there or vice versa we have to contact somebody and say we're no longer going to be able to participate in the game and we'll have to be doing scheduling and that's going to be a challenge and that's really where our athletic directors step in and the communication they have with not only the aia but other member schools around saying who's got a game who needs a game let's find something so we can compete our middle school at the same time the east valley conference follows the direction of the aia and so they're using the same mitigation strategies and so it's been a little bit different to control doing that because typically you don't buy a ticket to go to a middle school game and so they're working with their families through emails and so they can keep track of who's there and not just let anyone go to the games saucemen hosted their games last night talking to mr keeling he said it went really well and the parents were respectful and appreciative that they could come to the game and it's for the home games and so um they're going to have boys basketball girls softball and cross country they're having a small three-week season the evc and then they start their third season sports which is here girls basketball boys soccer and wrestling and we anticipate those ones to start the week of february 9th if we remember they're trying to take four seasons and condense them into three and then we lost even more time and so it's condensed but it is providing an opportunity for the kids to compete for our schools and so the acknowledgement first i need to acknowledge the coaches and the players who have been practicing and been anticipating and really it's been stressful on them because here we're ago we're not a go they've been practicing for six weeks and it is very atypical of what they're used to and so we appreciate their flexibility and their commitment to what they're doing because it would be easy to say ah let's let's try something else but they're ready and and we know that you know especially at the high school level these coaches give their years and their lives to this and their dedication and it's not just the season it's all of the other work that goes into that and so we'd like to publicly say thank you to our coaches and thank you to our players for being supportive and for continuing to follow the rules and for continuing to represent us in the best way possible and then finally there's four people that are really important within our district that really have a thankless job because of all the work that they do um our athletic directors at higley high school mr aaron dilley at williamsfield high school mr darrell stengel cooley middle school louisa schwartz and sasebo middle school brandon keeling and just publicly we'd like to say thank you because it's been a whirlwind for them because the first time something happens that's the first point of contact for a lot of parents and they've been able to handle a lot of tough situations with grace and with patience and with communication and on a personal not i'd like to thank them because i think we're developing a nice rapport where as a district we can talk and try to solve things as a district and not individually as schools but all the hard work they do and daryl thank you very much for all the hard work you do leading an athletic program so that's our athletic update thank you thank you president reece i have a question is that okay yep mrs anderson okay um david um it i see that so the spectators not so the not the home team their families nobody can attend it it's just the home team parents the two tickets correct correct it is just a home team and i'm not anticipating anything from our community but do we have a plan in place for enforcing in the stands or anything else are we paying people to walk around are we going to how we handling this because we've all seen the youtube videos where sometimes we go south i didn't know if there was a plan in place or if that's another day to talk about oh no that's correct we can talk about that right now we um remember anderson we first it's how we limit the tickets and parents can only we can only get two tickets and who we let through the door first is really the important part so we use gofan parents are allowed to buy them and then we have a list that they would come in and they don't just do the ticket they have to match the ticket the id to the name that's within synergy that says they're a parent or guardian okay and then when you look at the number of teams for instance last night at a home basketball varsity basketball team you have 12 to 15 kids on there so at the most we're talking 24 to to maybe 30 parents there we probably had 25 there last night we have personnel athletic directors other school employees we still are continuing to have security their ticket takers and our workers to monitoring that and with that limited number of people it's interesting how spread out the gym can become they know we don't even pull out the bleachers all the way so we pull them out part of the way and then they can spread out and for the night that i was at and then talking with mr dillian higley said the parents were very very you know once again appreciative worthy mask we will be there to remind them honestly i think it's a little different when you don't have student sections you know and and some of those behaviors and things because they're high school kids and how they want to yell the game is very different from a sound aspect because you don't have people yelling all the time but yes we do have people that are monitoring and we're very being very specific and we there was someone who came up and i'll just share it and said hey i want to can i give my second ticket to someone else and we said no the second ticket is these are for parents or guardians and and that's that's the rule and that's the role that we're going to follow and it's not going to be um kind of a free-for-all in terms of having two tickets i appreciate you guys being proactive instead of reactive that's good thank you thank you um and also on that note um mr lotson heiser is that even if a parent um even of a divorced family and the dad is you know he might be remarried but mom's not on that stepmom's not on the she doesn't get to come in so it's very strict mrs anderson it's just parents and guardians that are in synergy and i know they're following it very strictly um so yeah thank you for that thank you thank you to all of our athletic directors again just the same with this whole last year there is no precedence that we don't have anything to follow we we are creating it as we go and with organizations like aia with our other schools the districts around us and this is what we have to do so our kids can play and it's important to our kids our high school kids this is important for some of them for college and so thank you and the communication to the families on the teams and everything it it's nothing we want to do it's what we have to do right now so i know that puts a lot of our athletic directors in some bad spots sometimes um and i i appreciate the the time and effort you have to take to enforce these rules to give our kids a season so thank you and i have no doubt our community is appreciative that we get to have sports at all so i appreciate the update and being so thorough and thinking it all out so thank you president reese i'd like to echo your sentiments we've talked to students we've talked to parents who in a weekend lost a season and we gained a season so a true appreciation for whatever mitigation strategies we have to do where we are taking them with with purely to heart so we echo your comments thank you all right if there's no further questions or comments we'll go on to 8.4 for our fiscal year 2021 monthly monthly governing board financial report for november and december of 2020.

um that weight account does not that is not the current student enrollment in the district the there is a weighted piece to a certain enrollment for group a and group b weights for example sped students are weighted a little higher than regular enrollment kids so that's a whole nother conversation but for the sake of uh this presentation the total weighted suite count is 17 659 then the state gives us a base level funding amount this is the 43 59 per student this amount we take this amount multiply it by the weighted student account and this will give us our base support level of 76 million next we have the online learning adjustment as i mentioned earlier this amount again is uh is based off the 40th day funding so this is really high we're anticipating this coming down when we do reconcile to the 180th day on that percentage of students basically enrolled in distance learning classes or you know online learning so we're anticipating this coming down but for sake of budget we're going to plug this this full reduction in there so we take that reduction minus the base support level which gives us a revised base support level of 73 million there is a transportation transportation funding portion in there again that that piece we can have a whole conversation on how that's funded and how that's calculated but for the sake of this budget presentation that number is 2.7 million that we take that number that 2.7 million plus our base support level and that gives us our 2021 revised revenue control limit okay so you'll see that revenue control limit number again at the top of the screen so we're still talking about our 2021 revision we do have a couple more calculations in here so we have an mno overhead the mno override is 15 of our rcl so you'll see that calculation and there's that is 11.4 million we get to add that onto our our budget we're projecting a budget balance carry forward we have a revised so excuse me budget balance carry forward from our 2020 afr of 8 million we get to add that back in there we have prop 123 funds more commonly known as classroom site fund that gets put into the calculation and this is where we're talking about that capital reduction piece so currently in our adopted budget that we adopted in june we adopted a six million dollar transfer from emino to capital um you'll see we're going to recognize the start of this phase reduction of this transfer in our revision in 2021.