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Um, so that program allows them to transfer those college credits virtually anywhere in the country um, and bring that with them after they leave us here at Cheshure High School. So, um, I think was there another question on the sheet from the Google form or maybe I hit them all. There was one more. Are there separate lab periods for science courses? So some of our science classes are single credit classes. So we meet a single period and then some of them are one and a half credits which means periodically you meet for two periods in a row. That gives us this additional time to do extended labs that take longer. Um so you can't walk away from your chem chem lab in the middle. Uh so that gives us that opportunity. But all of our courses are very hands-on. We use a lot of inquiry based instruction.
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So students are doing lab and they're interacting with the science. They're doing science as opposed to just sitting and passively receiving it. Uh so that takes the extra time. The earth science class is a single credit. So it does not have the double lab period. Our biology, our chemistry, uh and our AP classes, they have the double period with them. Thank you so much. So maybe I'll just wrap up with our with our extracurriculars as well. We have a lot of opportunities for you to get involved in science here at Cheshire High and one is the science national honor society. Uh so you can join that. Uh you apply at the end of your sophomore year and participate in that in junior and senior year. uh and we do a lot of different types of activities with that uh outreach doing activities with younger students and also having things like guest speakers former graduates who come and talk about their experiences doing science in the real world.
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So those are some of the things we have going on in science. Thank you so much. And speaking of active engagement, Sullivan, can you talk with us about PE and health classes? And one little tangent there. How did you adapt to PE and the hybrid model? Talk a little about well wellness Wednesdays if you would. Okay. Um so all freshmen are scheduled for physical education in uh the fall semester 1 and then they will be scheduled for health in the spring semester 2. Um in physical education they will cover uh such topics as project to venture and cooperative games. uh volleyball, low organizational games such as ultimate frisbee, flag football, and soccer. Um they'll line dance, they'll get um introduced to the weight room, and they'll um learn how to play pickle ball. So, they get a large variety there. And when they move into health, they cover uh mental health, they'll cover skin cancer, American Red Cross first aid, uh relationships and sexual health, uh liver education, substance abuse, and if we have time, vaping and nutrition, depending as the year goes along.
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Um this year on uh Wednesdays we've been supplementing our curriculum by providing uh Wednesdays periods are health related talking about um positivity in the pandemic dealing with nutrition dealing with exercising. Um so every student in the school will get a little extra um health information and physical um health information uh in terms of um kind of surviving the school year and what they can expect and and how they can help themselves and help others. So it's been kind of a unique experience and we've been able to tap into a little more health education since our time is limited with them um especially freshman year. So, um, and typically we have inter murals during the school year. This year they're kind of on hold. Um, we've got the, uh, typical athletics is back. So, hopefully intramurals will find its way back again, at least for your children.
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So, thank you. Well, thank you everyone. Thank you to all of our STEM department leaders uh, for providing really valuable information and sharing your expertise and insight. And uh again, like I said to the other group, your your your passion for what you do and and the students that you teach. Um to all of our parents who joined us tonight, thank you so very much for participating. Um if you need to have more questions answered, you can go to that link at the bottom of the agenda in the letter that I sent you and you'll be able to speak to these wonderful people in a separate Google Meet and ask them some questions about your children. And uh we really look forward to communicating with you a bit more as you make the transition from 8th grade to 9th. It is a big one, but we look forward to wel welcoming you with open arms in person uh to take advantage of all the extraordinary opportunities that are available to you at Cheshire High School.
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So, thank you so much. Have a wonderful evening. And I would say normally drive carefully, but hopefully you don't have to go anywhere you're home. So, thank you. Have a wonderful evening. Thanks everyone.
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of the ann arbor city environmental commission i call this meeting to order at 7 02 pm um galen do you want to do the roll call mm-hmm one second okay okay uh commissioner graham i'm here commissioner uh skinner she shouldn't be on here okay commissioner needham here councilmember dish here commissioner apple let me check the uh technically these on okay uh commissioner uh gibb randall here council member griswold here commissioner kylie ward here chairman brown president commissioner overpack yeah commissioner mursky here vice chairman here commissioner bonilla here commissioner ferris yeah all right we have a quorum all right thanks galen um so do you want to uh uh do you want to give us the land heritage statement sure okay uh this is can i interrupt for one second do we have introductions to do or have i just missed something um introductions um of who lily ferris are you new this time or were you here last time and i just missed you oh yes i was here last time yeah oh okay sorry about that lily's are you one of our youth commissioners yes she wasn't able to join us until um that the december third meeting got it and i missed that one so sorry about missing that but welcome sorry all right okay galen do you want to proceed with the land heritage statement alrighty the land heritage statement i acknowledge that the land the city of ann arbor occupies is the ancestral traditional and contemporary lands of the anishinabe including odawa ojibwe bodhiwadmi and wyandot peoples i further acknowledge that our city stands like almost all property in the united states on lands obtained generally in unconscionable ways from indigenous people the taking of this land was formalized by the treaty of detroit in 1807 knowing where we live work study and recreate does not change the past but a thorough understanding of the ongoing consequences of this past can empower us in our work to create a future that supports human flourishing and justice for all individuals this is our land you statement hey thank you caitlyn so um let's see so next item on the agenda is approval of the agenda um are there any um is there are there any motions to amend the agenda you're muted thanks we have a motion to approve okay and uh do we have a second i second okay um and uh any discussion anybody wish to amend it okay all who uh approve it as written say aye hi hi hi any any days okay passes unanimously so let's move on to the special presentations the first um the first press special presentation is um from the office of sustainability and innovation energy principles discussion that's either missy or fang um yeah i'll take that one today i think we're gonna let fog have some family time great to see you commissioners thank you so much for your continued service this is a continuation of a discussion that we had last year where we introduced some draft energy principles to guide some of the decision making that's happening in the office of sustainability and innovations and per protocol of the commission that was an introduction we've got some feedback and we are coming back now uh seeking direction and potentially formal adoption of those principles so a little bit of a history i'm not going to go through extensive slides i can if you want i figured if you're at all like me your day job is uh powerpoint and zoom overload so i figured we might actually just talk and look for a second but i'm happy to pull outside that that is easier for everyone uh just to kind of reconvene we have draft criteria and principles this was a shift that was made where we've got the criteria being things that are essential um and those would be things that we would have to be uh looking to to emphasize in any decision made around energy investments so some high level things before i kind of go through that again for everyone's kind of as a refresher one is this really is centered on energy but most of these principles are transferable to almost anything in a20 and so this is a strategic way to make sure we have alignment but there are some nuances within the energy sector and because the energy sector is the largest source of emissions for us uh we felt it was really important to start there and really align our work across the entire city so that's why we came forward we certainly heard some feedback about the need to expand this for all a20 and i think that's absolutely right but again we contextualize the energy system here the second is we heard uh feedback uh very appropriately to align this with the prioritization framework that we use to develop a20 so i just we also heard this from council so we talked to you we've talked to the energy commission we've spoken with council um and gotten some feedback and we are working on uh that developing the framework for evaluation as we speak what we've basically done is taken the existing prioritization framework we have and i would say if i had to quantify it 80 85 of it makes sense within the framework of these criteria and principles there are some nuance that we need to add to that to make it more robust evaluation but that's a great sign from where i sit that means we have really strong alignment with the way we developed a20 and the way we're evaluating the actions that go into a20 so we've got a draft of that prioritization framework that operationalize the criteria and principles that are before you today for consideration i just wanted to kind of obligate fate that because it was something that we talked about in the in a previous session so what we've got before you then are broken into these two categories criteria and principles criteria are pretty immovable they're the things that have to be centered in the work principles are the things that we want to maximize but that may be intention and they may be in tension with each other or even with the criteria that are listed so the objective is to evaluate based on all of these and then be able to come forward with recommendations where we can uh compare and contrast and really uh present options forward that are grounded in these various elements so the core criteria proposed i'm sure you have this before you but for those who don't or anyone who's listening they are uh the three are reducing greenhouse gas emissions which is central j20 of course we want our investments to be additional to what would have already been generated without our investment and then grounded in equity injustice especially procedural and distributive justice the principles there's five of them these are the things we want to maximize to the fullest extent possible are enhancing the resilience of our entire system certainly our people our community and our natural systems and making investments starting local and we had some discussion with council about what local means and we are landing on at this point that feedback is somewhere around southeastern michigan and definitely a preference for michigan where we can speed uh scientifically of course we need to reduce emissions and we need to produce them fast the fourth is finding solutions that are scalable and transferable to other places so that we don't just find a solution that works for ann arbor but no one else could benefit from it and the last is of course uh critical which is cost effective solutions so those are the principles and the criteria before you our hope is that we'll be able to go to city council in february i believe we're on the docket for the second meeting in february to ask council to approve these criteria and principles so that we can then start bringing solutions to them or options before them for adoption that align with these criterion principles and at a minimum we can start using them to evaluate things as we're preparing to bring the council so that's what i wanted to share i'm happy to answer any questions or concerns you have any feedback okay are there any questions for missy i can't see everybody here so there we go i'll raise your hand if you have a question for missy um breeda hi missy thanks for the information and the presentation um so i do have some questions um and uh i'll just go through march through what i have if that's okay um you had mentioned in the reducing greenhouse gas emissions um a number of fairly specific things the solar photovoltaic hydroelectric turbines and i wondered why one of the types of things that we can do geothermal wasn't included in that or is that considered an hvac no geothermal could be considered depending on the technology we didn't make it an all-inclusive exclusive you know list of recommendations it was more illustrative of the kinds of things that were okay okay all right um and you mentioned biodigesters and you kind of define them as what they're not but what is the what what would they actually be that we would consider yeah like a biodigester at the wastewater treatment plant for example is something that we would consider okay thanks because i agree with the things that you excluded those are really good um and um on the virtual power reductions is that actually cca no no so this is a brand new mechanism we are only one of four states that uh we think can legally allow this this is something we're exploring uh there's been some papers written by former energy folks at the state and what this would be is uh we could make investments in energy efficiency locally for sure and that that is a really really important thing but we might also be able to make investments in energy efficiency in other places and receive renewable energy credits for those based on the emissions that are not emitted so we might be able to for example make an investment in uh schools in highland park or investment in river rouge and we could be making that investment they reap the benefit but we get the renewable energy credit from it so this is a brand new mechanism that we're attempting to actually develop okay all right because i didn't try to seek out some information it didn't sound like that so that's very interesting and kind of along the lines that you and i have talked um before um and then in terms of um can you just explain the thing about the fair and just compensation in the the equity and justice section yeah we want to make sure that across the labor market people are compensated appropriately for the work that they're doing and so we can't require uh you probably know this and if not we can't require union labor and that's not what we're trying to do we are trying to make sure that the kind of benefits that people get being a part of the union to be compensated appropriately and trained appropriately are moving through the entire marketplace got it good thanks all right i think that's all for now thank you great question thank you thank you any other questions for missy not seeing any um thank you thank you missy um we'll discuss your resolution further on in the program thank you i'm after um under old business um okay the next special presentation is um it's from eileen naples about solid waste topics hey aileen do you want to introduce yourself and i'd be happy to hi everyone my name is eileen naples i'm ann arbor's resource recovery manager in the public works department i think the last time i saw you it was spring the department has been very busy since then but i haven't seen you in the interim because i took a few months off for maternity leave so i was busy too just in a different way but i'm glad to be back and i wanted to take a moment to talk to this group a lot about mostly about the solid waste resource management plan which i think some of you are familiar with certainly council members and those on the solid waste working group including john and steve and and other and john calhoun who i see here so i'll i wanted to give you some just some details into what it is at a very fundamental basic level and then how we're proceeding in the city to implement some of the recommendations and then just talk to you a little bit about the future which is developing as we speak so the solid waste resource management plan this is the 2019-2023 plan despite its name just passed with council who had a number of great questions and recommendations over the course of its development and ended up passing council in september of 2020.
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[Music] so [Music] do [Music] do [Music] [Applause] [Music] i like to call this meeting of the eastham township board of education to order pursuant to the open public meetings act adequate public notice has been given by the secretary of the eastern township board of education in the following manner one posting written notice on the official bulletin board at the board of education office two emailing written notice to the burlingame county times and the courier post and three filing written notice with the municipal clerk of epstrom township can i have a roll call please mrs cappello here mrs everhart here mr fizzagaro here miss fleming here mr catherine here mrs knoll here mr lancelata here mr megan here mrs ryan here we have a farm thank you i need a motion to go into executive session whereas in njsa 104-12 allows for a public body to go into closed session during a public meeting and whereas the board of education of eastern township has deemed it necessary to go into closed session to discuss certain matters which are exempted from the public and whereas the regular meeting of the board of education will reconvene following the end of the closed session at approximately 7 pm now therefore be it resolved that the board of education will go into closed session for the following reasons as outlined in njsa104-12 that's items 2.2 through 2.4 do i have a motion motion by ms null seconded by miss ryan any questions or comments all right uh let's uh go to roll call please mrs cappello mrs everhart yes mr fizzagaro yes miss fleming yes mr catherine yes mrs noll yes mr lanzalata yes mr regan yes mrs ryan yes motion carries thank you uh we will be back at approximately and that's the key word uh seven o'clock [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] good [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] wow [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] do [Music] do [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] so [Music] [Laughter] [Music] do [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] so [Music] [Applause] [Music] um [Music] and [Music] oh [Music] hmm [Music] foreign [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] do [Music] hey [Music] uh [Music] do [Music] foreign [Music] [Applause] [Music] so [Music] so [Music] me [Music] so [Music] [Applause] [Music] do [Music] do [Music] do [Music] is i'd like to reconvene this meeting of the eastern township board of education if we could all please rise for the pledge of allegiance justice for all welcome back everyone we are moving out of our executive session into regular session for this session of the eastern township board of education uh going right into this uh we are moving into presentations which we do not have any for this evening so we are going to move into the public comment section at this point in time the meeting will now be open to the public referencing agenda items only however if your questions or comments pertain to litigation student or personal items or negotiations we'd ask that you see the superintendent after the meeting since you did not discuss these matters in public please limit your comments to three minutes per person is there anyone out there that like to speak about an agenda item seeing none we are going to move from that portion of the meeting and move to approval of the minutes uh i need a motion to approve items six one through six three do i have a motion motion by miss ryan do i have a second second by miss fleming um any questions or comments hey just uh just a reminder if you were not here for a particular board meeting uh that that particular board meetings minutes you should just abstain too so just a clear just a clarification it's cool just uh you know just to help you out a little bit i've got i've made that mistake many times um all right uh let's go to a roll call please mrs um capello abstain this is everhart yes mr visacaro yes ms fleming yes mr canton yes mrs nola abstained to 6.1 and yes to 6.2 okay mr lancelata yes mr megan yes mrs ryan yes mission carries thank you moving to item seven superintendents report administrative items in a motion to prove items seven one through seven seven do i have a motion motion by mr lanzalata do i have a second second by ms cappello before we go into questions and comments i give the floor to dr smith thank you mr fiscaro just at the outset i'd like to point out that we are currently breathing merv 13 equivalent air in this cafeteria as the large space ionizer here has been installed as well as it has been in the media center and in the gym at dms and as are currently being installed in all our schools across the district and just want to take another opportunity on that occasion to thank our board for your support of the ionizer purchase which seems um particularly prescient now during these winter months when it is so cold and it is hard to be outside so thank you again for that additional layer of support for our staff and students which will benefit us well beyond the pandemic as that level of filter protection also uh protects against mold and allergies and flu and everything else it is school board recognition month this month and i won't let a pandemic stop me from just expressing on behalf of our district and our families and for me personally just the deepest thanks for all the work of our board the hours cannot be counted work is very tireless and it is all voluntary it perhaps comes with the greatest perk though which is a chance to help chart the best path forward for our children as i would say that their education and growth is the single most important goal on our planet and there's a lot of competition for that but the growth of our kids is the most important goal for our planet so thank you board for all your work toward that end thank you as well to our mayor and the town council so last night at the town council meeting mayor vizi talked a bit about um just preliminarily of a way of for our township to be able to put some funds aside for our school district and for our fire district from any pilot programs that the township has and that would be a help for the future in the form of grants which we could apply for and receive that might cover such items including but not limited to public safety and so i just you know our gratitude our appreciation for the creativity um and care and those conversations from the mayor deputy mayor our whole town council our town manager and everyone else involved uh we're we are very thankful for that and look forward to learning more and would love to help in any way with any any of that process reopening update we're currently in week two of our temporary and strategic five-hour shortened day schedule we we are planning still planning to return to our full day schedule on march 1st right after the the coldest days of winter have passed um i just want to express thanks and gratitude for our staff and teachers as they have had to adjust to you know another change right the five-hour schedule and as they continue working hard through all the dynamism of this year to provide the best education possible for our kids budget update budget preparations are well underway and our preliminary 2021-2022 budget presentation will take place at our next board meeting on february 25th and then lastly just um timing wise want to wish miss tammy aronow principal of rice best wishes her retirement her last day of work is tomorrow and so by monday she will be retired and wish also all our best to miss kelly cam um who will be who's our current curriculum supervisor and will begin as the rice principal on monday in her new position of leadership at impact and you know just just as as great as kelly as great as tammy's impact has been on the community of rice and the staff his cam's impact i think bodes to be superlative as well for the rice community and staff so um you know that's it's a it's a wonderful asset to our district that we have that kind of in-house talent um and tradition and legacy to be able to pass on from person to person so that's my update mr viscaro on board thank you very much thank you dr smith and thank you for the kind words too any questions or comments pertaining to the superintendent's report okay seeing none let's go to a world called please mrs cappello yes this is everhart yes mr fizzocaro yes miss fleming yes mr canton yes mrs noll yes mr lancelata yes mr megan yes mrs ryan yes motion carries thank you moving to item number eight curriculum and instruction i need a motion to approve items eight one through eight four do i have a motion by miss null seconded by miss ryan any questions on curriculum and instruction seeing none let's go to oh miss fleming okay just one double check thank you any time it's fleming no questions or comments there let's go to a roll call please mrs capallo yes mrs everhart yes mr fizzakero yes miss fleming yes mr canton yes mrs noll yes mr lancelata yes mr megan yes mrs ryan yes motion carries thank you all right at this point i need a motion uh for finance and operations in motion to prove items 9 1 through 9 17 do i have a motion motion mr canton do i have a second seconded by miss ryan i wasn't sure what that was [Laughter] i thought you were fixing your mask um any questions or comments on on finance and operations okay uh seeing none let's uh miss oh sorry um seeing none let's go to a roll call please mrs cappello yes this is everhart yes mr fizzy caro yes miss fleming yes mr canton yes mrs null yes mr lanzalotta yes mr meagan yes mrs ryan mission carries okay moving into personnel need a motion to i need a motion to approve items 10.1 through 10.10 do i have a motion okapello seconded by miss ryan any questions or comments pertaining to personnel seeing none let's get a roll call please mrs cappello yes this is everhart yes mr fizzy cairo yes miss fleming yes mr canton yes mrs null yes mr lanzalotta yes mr megan yes mrs ryan yes motion carries thank you all right moving on to policy there is nothing in policy at this moment all right so we're going to move out of policy and go to committee reports are there any committees or liaisons that wish to share anything that they have [Music] oh no you go please okay i just have a couple okay we met with the pto presidents and pta presidents and i just would like to give them a shout out as i always do but a lot of their service in the past couple months have been around giving back instead of fundraising so i just wanted to say keep up the good work it's nice to see that even in this pandemic especially in this pandemic that your focus is on giving back to the community where your kids are that's a great example that you're sharing with all of your students and we appreciate that so thank you um also i would just like to say i went to the wrap room for miss everhart i attended a zoom zoom meeting and they are doing wonderful wonderful things focus on mental health so in this day and age i think it's especially important um so keep up the good work there as well it was very informative i enjoyed it very much so if you ever need a proxy i'm your girl and um i spoke with the eastern education foundation their next meeting will be sometime in march so marianne if you want to join on that zoom call i'll let you know thank you awesomeness ryan thank you very much yep all right so um one of the things when i first joined the board was um a surprise was the board by committee methodology like i thought originally we would all like discuss everything right but but we obviously have the committee structure so i figured from a curriculum space i'll give an update to the board each month and maybe other chairs could do that too so um from this month from a curriculum perspective the first thing we went over was the first reading of next year's calendar for 2021 and 2022.
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[Music] here we are all here so uh at this time then i would like to entertain a motion to enter executive session to consider information regarding the appointment employment compensation discipline performance or dismissal of a specific employee or legal counsel for the public body to discuss student disciplinary cases to discuss matters relating to placement of individual students in special education programs and to consider other matters relating to individual students to discuss collective negotiating matters or deliberations concerning salary schedules for one or more classes of employees and to discuss pending or probable litigation against affecting or on behalf of the public body so moved second motion made by member peter member murphy peterson seconded by member gracias to enter into executive session can we vote please yes yes yes yes we will enter executive session at 6 pm okay we shall return wow okay oh um yes we are back on okay are we ready to go okay uh welcome back everyone sorry we ran a little long uh but we are reconvening open session at 7 40.
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good evening and welcome to the bcsc live stream here on the bcsc youtube channel we are once again live at columbus east high school here in the orange pit to see an unusual match up here tonight with your visitors like a cathedral fighting irish in your very own columbus east olympians we will take a look at the visitors the cathedral fighting irish the irish are entering tonight's matchup sitting at 500 with a record of 10 and 10.
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[Music] the way or not [Music] yes [Music] it isn't [Music] everyone well ah well all [Music] but no [Music] no [Music] to or not [Music] to [Music] well or not [Music] and [Music] how [Music] [Music ] or not [Music] rating or but I think they were still following ah [Music] or [Music] a but I don't die [Music] [Applause] [Music] please [Music] no no [Music] and it's not like that [Music] no no no [Music] or [Music] I how d [Music] [Music] let's see [Applause] [Music] or no no no no [Music] or no how [Music] to e [Music] no [Music] ah when I hello let's see [Music] according to the route all of us at least [Music] yes in the ports all no no no [Music] ah with everything [Music] or not [Music] [ Music] how [Music] [Music] let's see [Music] ah or not to [Music] but not all d [Music] why [Music] but [Music] hello more or not but meeting them well [Music] [Music] [Laughter] [Music] and how s not so much yes [Music] or no ah [Music] [Music] [Music] to [Music] [Music] [Music] ah [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] with data [Music] ah i [Music] no no and no [Music] or [Music] now [Music] [Music] or [Music] look [Music] [Music ] [Music] you [Music] no no or no [ Music] [Music] all no no [Music] for everything [Music] just as they are ah [Music] and why but no ah [Music] when things [Music] [Music] [ Music] how [Music] with everyone like everyone [Music] how and [Music] normal [Music] everyone [Music] the boat by an eye [Music] now well no no no [Music] or [Music] ah [Music] no I'm going to work [Laughter] [Music] no [Music] but do [Music] no no no [Music] ah just no no or or no [Music] like a robot when no more [Music] well [Music] [Music] I don't know [Music] ah [Music] [Music] are we going to die or [Music] [Music] [ Music] [Music] or not [Music] other worlds ah [Music] or not [Music] ah sun as or [Music] no no no [Music] we're going ah [Music] or [ Laughter] [ Music] or not [Music] all how or not [Music] then [Music] or [Music ] or not [Music] just [Music] i no [Music] 18 of the same ah no [Music] college students [Music] point [Music] well [Music] Ah [Music] or [Music] apart ah d [Music] hello or no [Music] like good love and today [Music] or no ah [Music] and [Music] or no more I ah [Music] with him [Music] so he knows [Music] 2 no no and hello [Music] or [Music] out [Music] no more or [Music] or [Music] besides our [Music] well no 2 [Music] we're going yes [Music] ah [Music] no no a and no [Music] well [Music] how [Music] and well [Music] hello [Music] like that [Music] no [Music] or no when ah where how under the sun [Music] how [Music] of the wind a woman ah deeply no berto av [Music] ah well what's worth well then no no [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] or no ah [Music] [Music] [Music] [ Music] [Music] [Music ] as how [Music] how [Music] no [Music] [ Music] [Music] [ Applause] [Music] or [Music] ah [Music] no [Music] or [Music] no or no [Music] [Music] no no [Music] how [Music] how are you ah [Music] no no [Music] i [Music] ah [Music] or no [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music ] bye [Music] [Music] [ Music] and [Music] no no no no [Music] [Music] [Music] quickly [Music] now etc with this no no or no no no [Music]
⚗ AI-reconstructed · cite from original above
this is the i believe our third uh board of education finance committee meeting if uh someone please correct me if i'm wrong um we are uh here tonight uh to of course receive public comment uh before we um you know the finance committee considers uh the budget and moves it to the full board um so uh miss jacinsky uh please call the roll sure mr grippo here she was here uh miss ham here miss harrigan here mr martelly here mr paragini here mr white mr chairman you have a quorum thank you um please rise for the pledge as soon as we have a flag somewhere out there it's coming oh here we go perfect 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 that always looks great on tv when you're watching it back certainly sit back down all that good stuff um okay so um we have uh audience comment first i'm not sure how we treat that if that's the same as public comment on the budget um jeff do you have thoughts on that um well i could add that you know there were it was a little bit of a hybrid comment question we received a few um that certainly the questions we could address more readily i have a quick review presentation and then you know we you guys had a number of questions as well over the last several days that we thought we should address uh the things that you brought up um the only real comment was you know why are we uh posing a five percent budget basically when there's such high unemployment in cheshire um and so you know we can address that through the present day it was more of a comment i guess the question i mean i think we've talked about why the budget is necessary and then you know from a factual perspective cheshire has some of the lowest unemployment connecticut and has for months on end but you know i it's uh i guess it's more of a comment than a question um in an instance like that do we get a name and address uh when someone makes a comment they didn't they submitted a name but no address and okay you know i think you know moving forward we set up a special um email account to you know solicit feedback and we only had a couple of emails so and nobody provided an address okay apparently well yeah it's not really in florida i think we'll do a google form where you have to put your address if you know we're in this position again right hope not okay well then um jeff uh why don't we uh move ahead with your uh with your summary and response sure um actually what i'm gonna let me just do something here first actually i don't know that you need to see my face as part of the presentation tonight we've seen enough of my mug in screen time that i think we could just go to the presentation um so folks can see that okay yes yes we can okay you know i i always start with our goals only because carol's such a big fan of the the imagery but it i think it's really critical that we continue to drive home this is our focus this is why we're here for our kids every day to provide these things uh critically um our budget environment this year is obviously unlike any other in your path years past student enrollment is uh different for a change that we've seen a precipitous decline over the last 10 years and we're bottoming out and we can see the light at the end of the tunnel where we're going to start to see more people coming in i talked about the jump in enrollment i'm gonna hit some of that um in a little bit aging facilities uh it's constantly an issue that we're we're talking about this year though medical benefits really takes the cake uh and some of the external factors we always talk about the state of the state this year um it's you know somewhat shocking to me that connecticut is forecasting a budget surplus of 70 million dollars this year which is good news usually we're kind of wrought with panic at this point about what the state is going to do um but the other good news that we've received more recently is more federal aid in the you know way of grants for covid relief uh and that aid package is supposed to actually far exceed what we expected um so as much as this budget doesn't include our covid components the the things that we have to plan for kovid uh the good news is that there's more money uh being funneled in that direction which should help us navigate any uh implications of covid that may may crop up in the fall um we've talked about you know the the last several years being quite lean and we focused on sel class size is our real core indicators there's just not a lot of other places to go to to cut things and of course our per-pupil expenditure um you know it's bittersweet you know i think we're incredibly efficient um and i my goal is that you know some of that money that we've saved through our per-pupil expenditure be reinvested in our facilities to benefit our community and the quality of life and cheshire for our students and staff and broader community um so how have we managed the reductions in the budget over the last several years one of the ways is decline in enrollment we've been able to cut teachers uh cut other staff unfortunately this is a unique you know year fortunately i guess the good news is that we're growing again um and this year we've we've actually had to add to teachers to support just the enrollment and i'll talk about that momentarily the other thing obviously we've used the medical benefits fund the reserve that we've had to be able to um address some of the reductions but unfortunately you know do it to a wildly unexpected by anybody uh dip into those uh those funds that were uh were left having to to cover that so my recommended budget continues to be uh 78 million four hundred and eighty seven thousand and fifty two dollars an increase of five point two two percent uh again zero percent of that goes to improvements for our school system uh 58 is directed at restoration of areas that have been cut in the past the majority of which is as i mentioned medical benefits and then the other uh 1.6 million is contractual increases to cover things like our staffing increase uh you know contractual staffing increases which were all negotiated um in in you know pretty vigorously so on both sides and then uh we have transportation increases utilities things like that that account for the remainder of that balance our recommended budget where you know you can see where our budget is divided we are and i you know i know vin has said this a number of times i i reiterated often that we are a person heavy business um that are most of our costs are driven by the folks who work with our students and support food services and transportation and learning for our students every single day our health staff everybody and that's 80 of our overall budget you can see that ever-shrinking categories of instructional expense support services and maintenance and operations make up only about 20 of our overall budget so increases again by categories you can you kind of follow this along i'm not going to spend a lot of time because again this is a recap just to kind of you know reset everybody for tonight's conversation and questions our projected enrollment again this number here is what you know is impacting us most the uh significant jump and pre-k to six enrollment and i think that's where i kind of need to delve into a little bit further uh nasdaq projected for us this year that our enrollment would be 4052 students it's actually currently 42 11.
⚗ AI-reconstructed · cite from original above
this plan started off as council directing the city to take a look at operational needs but over the course of its life and even a little bit in its inception it was designed to take into account um zero waste goals and organic schools that the city had previously developed so that was the inception but the overtime development was that um as as we were developing the solid waste resource management plan the city started undertaking its a20 carbon neutrality effort as well so we um attempted where possible to to merge those two and so you'll see overlap between the two initiatives and that's intentional so the plan ended up addressing both operational needs as well as the city's sustainability goals [Music] so ultimately the goal of the entire plan is to both create more diversion opportunities in the city for recycling and for organics and to create more better improved service and more efficiency within the city so with that said we are there's a number of elements to the plan it's quite extensive but we're starting um [Music] with a few objectives this this year um with the idea of addressing both of those two goals both operational efficiency and sustainability so you all are probably familiar with the the murph the city's murph that was one of the elements of the plan we actually um council approved of the the mirth revitalization this summer in july of the summer so that is underway right now um raa is making uh design plans with um machine x which is a canadian company and they hope to have the murph up and running in late 2021 until then they're translating the city's material to rossock in southfield michigan we're also taking a look at residential recycling collection the city and council passed a residential customer recycling approved a residential recycling contract with raa recycle anna arbor in august of this past year um and so we are still working out the details of that contract with recycle ann arbor that we are hopeful to have it signed soon i'm happy to answer any questions on that we're also hopeful that one of the purposes of [Music] reorienting the city's recycling services to separate resident residential recycling was that we hoped it would create more of a funding stream for other services including potentially year-round residential compost which is one of the elements envisioned in the solid waste resource management plan and also mentioned in a20 so it remains to be seen we don't have a signed contract yet so it remains to be seen whether we will realize those savings and while this was all happening of course we've had a global pandemic and market disruption and so there are just unanticipated elements like truck prices that have the market has gone up and down since then mostly up i think in that in that sense so to be seen whether there's those savings that we had hoped for um but we are you know we will use them wisely and of course seek input from the community on any next steps um with those savings one of the other elements of the plan that we're very excited about and that we're um going full force towards right now is to take a look at downtown service for a long time area associations business leaders and i think just those of us who enjoy going downtown and seeing it as a great place to be have realized that we need some improved services there there's a lot of operational efficiency crowded alleyways we don't have weekend service there's there's a lot of opportunities for improvements and the the solid waste resource management plan in fact held a focus group with a lot of those downtown stakeholders so we have an initial set of plans thanks to that focus group that address those operational efficiencies we're doing we plan to create a distinct downtown service where we've got one hauler one group taking care of the trash recycling and compost for the downtown which is because it is its own entity and we think that'll be most efficient we're also both from a customer service point of view and because we think it will create more space hopefully to do things like introduce a right now we're envisioning a an optional commercial compost collection so this would be subscription based so you'd have to opt in rather than opting out so that's one of the things we're hoping to to do with both the new rfp that we're developing for downtown services and hopefully the new the new space that we develop as a result of this rfp right now it is looking like we do have we're in talks with the downtown stakeholder group it is looking like that rfp won't be out on the street until a little bit later this year which means the service the rfp likely or the contract likely wouldn't start until july 2022 rather than as we'd initially hoped which was this year and as i'm going through um i'd be happy to take questions about any one of these elements i've already mentioned two two or three so i'm just going to pause here see if anyone wants to ask questions any questions um lisa dish thanks um so i wanted to follow up on the on prioritizing what this city would begin to do or what new programs the city would uh would introduce and i wanted to ask um whether a for example non-subscription based compost service for downtown would be more efficient in getting us to our a20 goals than year-round compost collection for residences i think i think that's a great question i as we envision downtown services and subscription-based compost that's going to be a commercial subscription base as we were doing our stakeholder engagement for this what we were closely in touch with the business leaders and area associations who represent the the food establishments and bars that would be subject that would have the opportunity to take advantage of this commercial compost collection and what we heard from them is that the increase in fees that it would take to have a mandated compost or organics recycling collection and i think in that case they would prefer an opportunity to be subscription based instead rather than have something mandated and have the increased fees levying on them that would be associated with that um so that was something that we're we're taking into consideration the year-round compost collection as as the shrimp envisioned that as we were um is as a residential program not as much a commercial collection program the savings associated with the residential collection the new contract are so are small so they would allow for you know maybe the limited amount of resources it would take to say to do a one compost tip a month per per address for residential recycling it wouldn't be substantial enough to realize an entire commercial program or even a broader extension to other types of residences okay and when do you anticipate um six or seven day collect waste and recycling collections for the downtown district is that something that will be able to happen with when the new contract gets implemented or i was going to say not soon enough right but um yes we envisioned that it would be when the new con contract is implemented that's when we would start weekend service yeah okay yeah yeah i got a question too um so with the um i sit on the the dd partners group also and so i've been hearing about the the alleyways for a long time um so basically you're with with if if i'm a downtown restaurant and want to do this to to to do the compost i would have to pay extra to be able to participate is that what you're saying okay even though and i get it it's a separate operation but it's really the same amount of waste correct or it's not the same amount of waste it's less waste and more resource because it goes to our composting facility is there any way to consider incentivizing it for people because um i think that uh you know somehow making it the an opportunity for them or that there's some sort of even if it's even if it's not a um a monetary thing that they get some sort of uh sustainable whatever on their door for their customers to see that they are opting in to this thing because they are doing the right thing for the environment i think there'd be even if it's they're having to pay more we need to somehow give them a carrot i think in terms of um letting them know because people in ann arbor care about this people that go to their restaurants care about this and i think we need to do more than just like the ceremony once a year where they get the little plaque or something like that but really to let their customers know um either through social media and or through some sort of you walk in the door and you see that they they are participating that they're doing the right thing to be able to really make it attractive for them to want to pay extra to be able to do this so i just think it would be great to think outside of the box a little bit if they are going to be paying more that they also get some other kind of public recognition so that um people in ann arbor know who is choosing to do this great thing that they're you know so if there's some way to kind of be creative about that i think that um that would really help to try to make the program more um attractive for them to participate rather than oh we just have to pay more to do the right thing right but we get to we get some other kind of um some other kind of benefit which they should absolutely i think shannon i think that's a great comment um we absolutely recognize that um this is a service these these commercial establishments would be voluntarily engaging in on behalf of the community and and honestly i'd love it if as an ann arbor resident i would i could expect that of my um the restaurants i frequent um right now on doordash okay right that's right so we have the with the solid waste resource management plan one of the elements i haven't spoken about yet is the education and outreach component and so right now that's a very broad tent we were hoping to kind of see as these um various programs and changes unfold where the most pressing education outreach needs are and develop messaging and programs accordingly so i think what you're saying would be exactly in line with that we have been talking to galen and missy about including this as part of the green business program in some capacity but i think you're exactly right that if this is going to be voluntary it needs to be incentivized in some way yeah it would also be cool to have it be part of a larger effort for um sustainability in terms of waste there's a huge range in the restaurants in ann arbor and like some of them have all compostable um takeout i mean we're all noticing this right now a lot right as we're doing more takeout and some are just in the same old same old styrofoam stuff and it would be cool if like you know you could the five dimensions to whatever being a sustainable partner in ann arbor that you're kind of ticking off these these pieces that like when you achieve all of them you're like the superstar you know so if there's some way to be able to um you know since this is all part of solid waste to be able to to give restaurants resources um uh contacts for how to be able to like what are the best things to be able to purchase and things like that so that they can make good choices around these things and that it may be part of a kind of a larger effort of getting our restaurants to really up the game of uh being able to really fully participate in the 820 plan and just really match the values of what our city is all about absolutely uh okay rita and then john mursky um i just want to echo what what wendy said shannon just said right now sorry because my uh experience with restaurants is that it would be great to know that the materials that they use for their takeout or their take home are ones that i can reliably compost i still feel uncomfortable even with the ones that look great but there's this little coding that you know it's like do we really use put that in or not even though the the sign the label on it says it's okay so um whatever guidance and help we can do on that it'll be great and also uh i keep thinking about the reduced side of the equation and wherever we approach that i i don't have a solid thing to say to you right now but but i feel like reduce is something that's that's a big thing that that would be great to think about i appreciate that i think there's a lot of directions we could take that including when post-covered reusable containers yeah or can you bring your own you know or have the restaurant have their own branded take-home containers that you keep bringing back to them yep exactly have some sort of that could be a program for um customers too mm-hmm thank you rita did you have any other thoughts thank you okay um john i i would like to third shannon's comments and look at them possibly from a different perspective um in terms of the ability to finance expansion of some services that are important i've been in a number of different forums where people have suggested going to every other week residential garbage meaning waste to landfill collection i'm probably not necessarily uh a good um typical resident in the sense of what most people are doing right now but i think i'm probably a good example of what most people could do it's just my wife and me but we put out our garbage cart probably once every three weeks or something like that we compost either in our backyard or through the compost cart we use you know we recycle everything that we possibly can and we collect some things and take them to the raa facility for for some of the the things that can't go in any of the carts um and i think that's that's a message that we want to send to people and i would encourage um the city overall including council to consider um sending a signal that we're moving in this direction and we're going to um save money that way we're going to reduce greenhouse gases that way because we're not going to have garbage trucks driving all around town and making noises and stuff like that early in the morning all the way into the evening it's just it seems to me the right thing to do and especially if we want to drive thinking like zero waste and circular economy um this is the kind of thing that we should be moving to and that i'm sure would save a lot of money and that would be like i said a few minutes ago that would enable us to be able to expand services like the ones that shannon suggested as opposed to having to charge a fee for it saying we have enough revenue in in the whole program as a whole to be able to enable things like that i'm curious how other commissioners feel about that um let's see uh kathy has her hand up and then chris um yeah i don't disagree with anything that's been said but i would like to play the devil's advocate in terms of we have these downtown businesses that are struggling the ones that are still in business and so i think that we need to our first priority needs to be to support these businesses to keep them in business and to encourage them to move in this direction i get a bit uncomfortable when in ann arbor we're all highly educated we're very confident individuals and we have a solution for every problem and i i think that we just need to step back and and i agree with all the goals and we need to get there but our approach needs to be one of support and nurturing and encouraging these businesses that are terribly terribly stressed at this moment okay thanks kathy chris eileen i think i heard you say the mrf is back up at the end of next year does that mean that there's a serious overhaul of that facility coming and it comes up to more or less state of the art rather than being 25 years old absolutely sort of maintain yes absolutely and i think uh brian eukena ceo of recycle ann arbor could give way more technical details than i because he's been on the ground with machine x a country i'm sorry a company out of canada that's expert in designing merfs and they've been in the facility recently to look at optical sorters new line configuration they're going to revamp the entire thing they're using a hand a few pieces of equipment that the city sold to them from the old murph configuration and otherwise it's going to be reconfigured to be a new local murph the regional part of a regional hub it's quite exciting um do you know whether recycle ann arbor's found another location that can work for their reuse center i do not know the answer to that unfortunately i i do know i can't speak to recycle ann arbor but i do know that in the 820 plan reuse and repair hubs and supporting those types of local institutions um and and networks are our priority in the materials management piece it's a big hole in the community although we have habitat for humanity out there and a couple other things we haven't had in the past but that one was there a long time it's missed um are there any other questions at this point for eileen uh bob um not a question for eileen but i did just want to uh support the uh ideas that commissioner good brandel and commissioner mursky put forth um i i do think that uh going to every other week uh waste collection is a a really good potential source of revenue and you know it sort of normalizes putting things into the compost and the recycling carts first um and i think that would be you know it would save money and also go a long way toward culture change i think that's a great idea um lisa you're muted um i just wanted to uh this is something that i support as well there are two issues that emerge when we contemplate that change and one is the effect on jobs especially union jobs so and so i'm thinking that definitely the expansion of residential composting would help offset some of the job loss but i'd love to know how much of it i mean what exactly would we need to do to make sure that we weren't cutting union jobs and the other thing is that i uh that if we were to do something like this and i think that it would be a wonderful thing to do offer people more composting and less trash pickup but that would need to be accompanied by a pretty enormous education effort so that people understood you know so don't throw your extra trash in your recycling bin we want you to sort your stuff better and make use of compost and i wondered um as you are drawing up these rfps um what are you uh uh what are you in how are you setting them up so that you can tell what um what the waste hauler would be willing to do in the by way of education because the a couple of the the things that i've read about other cities that are doing this is actually takes a fair amount of door-to-door canvassing and it takes a program of trash ambassadors like we have climate ambassadors and i would like to see us do all these things but i know that your budget and your personnel are both constrained and so um i'd love to hear um your i don't know if you guys have done an assessment yet on what you would need to do to offset the job loss if we went to every other week trash collection and yeah you probably haven't because and then just what what is your philosophy behind how you would accomplish the the massive amount of public education that that we would want to accompany this well i i thank you lisa for that question for both of those questions um and we have not done the uh we've not done the accounting to give us a give me certainly an informed um [Music] opinion or any sort of informed answer on on what the the job equivalent would be if we were to move to every other wheat compost i would just say as a general observation that these um changes don't tend to have one-on-one impacts they have you know it's it's how big is the route what is that route servicing single-family homes or you know multi-family homes um what type of truck is needed to service that route and who are things like that but there's just a few hairy comp operational details um not that's not to say we can't work those out we just haven't i don't know i would like to just lay the prep the ground to say it's not a one-to-one comparison for those types of services um but a great question to ask nonetheless if that's something that the community is interested in for your second question inspiring question about how to which is important regardless of how to educate our community on what we can compost what's possible i think we learned through through the solid waste resource management plan we did extensive polling and interviewing the survey with the community we interviewed hundreds of community members and i think one of the things that we learned is people just don't know what goes in the compost cart even if it's available to them so we know that that's a huge opportunity for us to educate and then there's this commercial piece as well right now we have downtown education opportunities jenny patosky who many of you are familiar with she's out in the alleys every week and she works directly with the restaurants and bars to make sure that their staff knows what goes in the recycling and how to recycle it because as we all know a clean recycling stream is of utmost importance to get the benefit of that material and she's also out there she could be out there talking about organics as well but of course we want to build a more robust campaign so that's partially what we were envisioning using the education outreach funding for the shrimp for which i guess takes me to one of my last bullets that we're working on right now is that right now we have two educational contracts with the ecology center the subsidiary the parent arm of recycle ann arbor one of them was focused on murph tours but that ended when the old mers shut down so now it's more of a an events based affair and then we also have a school k through 12 i believe education kind of i'm sorry my words are gone i'm a new parent but k through 12 education modules that's the words i was looking for um and so but that contract is ending council extended it for a year to june 30th of this year but that contract is ending so what we're looking to do is re-envision what that money could be used for we have a lot of local expertise here in terms of educational groups in the ecology center and others so how do we leverage this knowledge and passion to get out the educational messages about compost and diversion um that we have here so but i say the second piece to that we have money we can spend on education and outreach and then we also have a very passionate and active community base so the shrimp and i think just amongst staff we envision designing some sort of volunteer program right now we've been channeling our efforts through jenny and her one woman outreach ambassador through the sustainability ambassadors program but we would love to expand that thank you um see first john mursky and then chris i'm hoping this can lead to something that is um actionable and what i'm wondering um what you would think eileen as well as other council people about a resolution something to the effect that the commission and then eventually maybe city council would ask staff to evaluate this i frankly don't care too much about the deadline um it could be a year from now but at least there would be a deadline and the kinds of things that we've been talking about what would be the impact on our our unionized workforce um what would be the requirements in terms of education um what would be necessary for example maybe you know for certain family sizes or whatever and it might be i don't know how it would be judged but maybe we give out an additional trash cart um so that if they only put it out every other week they they still you know if they're a family of six we're we're not disadvantaging them um but at least that now that this discussion that we've had actually leads to action as opposed to us revisiting this a year from now or three years from now and say well why didn't we take some action and actually analyze what it would take to actually do this so i'm i'm willing to draft a resolution if that's appropriate it doesn't have to be very long i don't think um is that something that people feel would be appropriate yep okay you can put it in the minutes okay i mean um chris one thing to think about and it's a very difficult one and that's how to keep plastics and especially micro plastics out of the out of the compost stream have used the city's compost to build garden soils with for years and i use it also in vegetable gardens it's a wonder how it does without using organic fertilizers but if it if it has a lot of microplastic in it then my whole value for that material declines significantly um a lot of the so-called compostable coffee cups for example have a plastic coating on the inside of them i think rita was just talking about that a lot of those carryaway packages have a plastic coating um i.e it's a problem john mursky do you put your recycle bin out more often than your trash bin yes recycle bin generally goes out um just about every week yeah okay thank you and by the way i agree with you i've i've ordered compost and it's appalling how much plastic is in commercial compost the large pieces have never bothered me okay i picked those out and cleaned them out and and uh deal with them it's the little stuff and the stuff i can't see that really makes me uncomfortable okay we already on this team uh talk about pfas and how that gets concentrated in compost yeah i was gonna bring that up you're the expert so uh take it away but i mean that's that's really kind of scared me i don't wanna put that in my garden well as the chair i'm reserving my time for the end so we have gabby buendia has her hand up and then kathy griswold hi um thank you eileen and sorry that my internet's lagging so i'm not on camera but i'm wondering what i guess obstacles and opportunities there are for composting and multi-family units is that is expanding to including multi-family units [Music] a priority in any way or is there any talks of including those kinds of buildings in city composting gabby that is thank you for that question it's one that's close to my heart um just until recently i lived in multi-family units where i would either drag my compost to work back when we were working in a building or to friends homes that had backyard compost because i wasn't available to me at the multi-family unit where i lived um but in terms of from certainly from a priority perspective i think it's close to staff's heart and from a honestly a equity perspective as well i think for a number of these issues we can sit here all we want and talk about what we would do as this group represented here on this call but it's um for me also pressing question about what people who aren't represented on the call are um are doing with their materials and and have the option to do so i think about this a lot and one of the issues and constraints that we're up against is the resource requirements of of staffing multi-family compost collection that would require new truck drivers and routes and i think i would turn that question as a city staff i would love to have funding for that and i would turn that question to council and others about how to prioritize it and how to make those funds available okay okay kathy and then rita uh i just want to reinforce what john murski said um i think everyone is aware that there are some growing pains on council right now to put it mildly and anything we can do to reinforce our role as policy makers and and lisa reminds us of that appropriately so um council sets policy the commissions are advisory and staff implements and that is not real clear right now and we have a lot of policy making being driven by staff and commissions and i think that's due to a void on council and so we need to do everything to empower council to assume that role because we're going to be more efficient and effective if we do that and we're going to make our limited dollars go much further so anyway that's my soapbox but thanks john i totally agree and thanks lisa for continuing to remind us of council's role and i guess the other thing is with a resolution we can speak with one voice and and move forward and that's important also so thanks um rita hi uh my suggestion is just to add the issue of the multi-family resources required to the study that john suggested just to be sure it's there because it sounds great um any other questions at this point for eileen uh shannon just i think that if if that does become a reality then i think that's something that we would also want to move into code in terms of new design to make sure that as part of the waste management design that happens with site plan review that there would be space both externally around the building and accommodations within the building to be able to get compost to where it needs to go sometimes they have shoots and things like that and so that there would need to be some sort of design kind of just expectations for that so i think it's fabulous if we're going to go there and i would just say let's let's look at it in terms of its viability and if it does go there then that's another layer of um of the dominoes falling that we need to make sure it gets captured so that new projects incorporate the possibility to be able to have that be a robust part of their design process and not an afterthought um any other comment any other questions or comments pryline okay well i'm gonna i'm gonna say i guess before you say that i was just thinking about um you know gabby's question stuck with me it's something i think about all the time um as how do we expand these services and particularly to those who haven't had the opportunity to take advantage of them before and i would just say that one of the things i hope to take advantage of is the eagle grants that were available this past year for infrastructure whether it's applied to multi-family compost if the timing is right or other projects like the dos we're always looking for opportunities to leverage that money so it's not just a question of can city council find a help us find a way to get the resources how can we best take advantage of all of the resources available to us yeah yeah so i did want to add that also to multi-family multi-family housing seems to be an orphan in a lot of state planning there's commercial and then there's residential and uh but most of the residential that has spoken of a single family um and the multi-family is sometimes thought of within the city staff in one category and sometimes in another i've come to understand and so it is um it is a bit of a gray area and it seems important to be able to come up with a strategic plan for how to deal with it that might include a lot of the um code changes as shannon suggested um so and then um there's there is money available from uh i think from you know from uh from the state and from the county yeah to do a study on multi-family and just see what and and see and see what could be incorporated what the benefits are and how it could be what the pathway to maybe a zero waste vision for multi-family housing would be um and i'm sure the university of course has dealt with this with their dormitories and all to some extent i'm sure but i'm sure there's some information out there in other communities as well so we wouldn't be starting off with a blank slate [Music] so um i would just encourage i would just like to know um i mean what does staff think about multi-family housing at this point in terms of proceeding i guess i could give you a personal answer which i think i've i've conveyed and then right now our priorities are the ones that we've discussed in the solid waste resource management plan those were the you know i think marching orders both from an operational urgency perspective for the downtown rfp that we're working to develop right now and then we've got the last operational piece i i didn't touch on was student move move in move out it's a service that we offer we've offered for years we used to offer it through a contract with recycle ann arbor where they were able to divert it's offered biannually spring and fall move-in move out for students rea would meet downtown and then for a period of i think two weeks each each season would offer services where they available to students and to student apartment associations where they would divert material students were bringing in where possible and then the rest would go some of it would go to the dos some of it would go to like kiwanis and the rest would be landfilled that was they're all thrown into disarray thanks to kovid and then ra's contract expired i don't think they were interested in extending it there's a lot of operational concerns about that program so now the city is looking into as you know an urgent need because this happens twice a year how to replace that and different options to replace that service so i think this is all to say steve a very complex circuitous way of saying that we have you know three staff members right now on solid waste and a lot of urgent plans so i don't want to at all convey that multi-family issues aren't a priority i would just say that they weren't considered in the the shrimp i would say probably more from a resource constraint i wasn't there during the development but i would guess that was more of a resource constraint issue than an interest issue and then because of the path the shrimp lays forward we have marching orders for quite some time so i would i would put that out there not to say that anything's impossible or that um community action and interest can't generate change but just to give you some perspective into how we're operating right now no that's all very understandable yeah the only other the other thing i wanted to mention was pfas that commissioner overpack brought up and as you know there's a uh there was a bill introduced in the state legislature last year fairly late like september i think i forget who the sponsors were in the co-sponsors but uh i think it was senate bill 1072 something like that which is to get the state of michigan to ban the pfas and food packaging and other persistent chemicals and um there are about five states that have already done so i mean washington state was the first and so um this will go a long way to helping maintain the value the commercial value and the usefulness of our compass so the municipal broadcast so i think the city needs to be needs to make an effort with their state lobbyists to try to move that legislation forward because as you know the city tested its compost for pfas compounds um in i think it was october of 2019 and um and they were found in the compost um but there are in the scientific literature there are publications that indicate that ann arbor's compost is somewhere around the middle of what's found in composts and other municipalities um it's quite a bit worse than when you look at backyard compost and all of that pfas is coming from food wrappers probably fast food wrappers and um and uh and um and containers even coffee cups so um potentially the worst the worst um um examples were from uh microwave popcorn bags but there are many others um and a lot and some of the takeout containers that are offered by the supermarkets and by some of the uh restaurants in town it's not clear whether those are pfos free either so i think in terms of this municipal city solid waste program i think it's really important that they also do an education effort with the local vendors with the supermarkets and the uh you know and the restaurants to try to do what they can with their suppliers to make sure that their containers are phosphate this is not to say they're free of micro plastics because many of these coatings are alternative pfas coatings are microplastics so um that's another problem as well so it's something that we should pay attention to because at some point it's going to reduce the in the cities compost you know for resale and its acceptability um [Music] okay are there any other questions for eileen or eileen did you want to cover any more topics like you talked about bulk collections or the student move-in move out i know part of the short was bulk pickups so um thanks steve i yeah i actually covered um i think between the murph the residential compost the downtown consolidated collection we've touched on commercial and multi-family issues great conversation thank you student move-in move out and education those are our priorities right now that's where our focus is on implementing a lot of these broad changes there's a lot of really juicy operational details to them which is if anyone wants to you know grab a virtual beer i'm happy to tell you more um but that's occupying like all of our minds and even some of my middle of the night thoughts right now um so that's a lot of fun work right now but then we have this whole set of other um projects we'd like to consider that the shrimp envisioned and part of them was from this group and the advisory committee i know some of you participated in that so we've got a lot of recommendations and meet there to take a look at but then a lot of some of the suggestions a lot of the suggestions that are in the shrimp came from those hundreds of community surveys that we did the phone calls to people who have never thought about solid waste in their lives other than to roll a cart up to the curb we wanted to see what their thoughts and needs and educational outreach gaps were so to that end steve mentioned bulky waste pickup and textiles uh as well as i'd say hazardous waste and electronics fall into that category as well so that seemed to be um those seem to be the services that the people that we just picked up the phone and called for these surveys seemed to be the services that they were interested in i know this group i've heard from some members that they have a different perspective on those services i would just say we haven't made a plan to move forward one way or another with those services i'm happy to keep this group updated as we are able to envision whether and how to roll out with those elements of the plan but for now i want to leave this group particularly with the question of bulky waste pickup which the shrimp envisioned as a fee service where you could call and say like i want my my xyz for me it was my um and like an ancient mattress last week i don't have a truck i don't have a friend with the truck so i had to call 1800 got junk and pay them 100 bucks in this case it would be 25 fee or whatever the you know market rate is to call and schedule that service through the city that something to be something that people were really interested in um as was textile pickup i like donating and you know facebook marketplace or you know the free the facebook for free from your neighbors myself but i not everyone wants to go that route so um they seem to be interested in textile pickup as well and electronics and hazardous waste enhancements too as for the i think the advisor committee and for impact that overlaps with our a20 plan we also envision a c d or a construction pardon me construction and demolition debris ordinance i mean that's a massive amount of our waste stream embodied energy um so we i think the shrimp envisioned kind of like a an exploration of what that ordinance would look like permitting associated with it etc and then moving forward with the ordinance from there um the shrimp envisioned expanding the dos or honestly moving the dos the drop-off station which is on an old landfill and is subsiding gradually it's it's safe to be there right now the city has inspected at regular intervals but it is subsiding and so it's not a long-term solution for this community so that's a priority as well as is fat oil and grease downtown to help clean up the alleys but first we wanted to implement the downtown um hauler the consolidated haulers that we can get those alleys cleaned up and prepped for something like a fog ordinance did i throw the whole kitchen sink at you there's a lot in there it's a lot in there so these are um i'd say that's like our first tier what we talked about first was our first tier um programs that we're looking and changes we're looking to implement and then um the next ones were kind of second tier but also close to our heart john mursky you have your hand up yes i have a 30 000 foot question um related to solid waste but not to anything that we've discussed so far and we've spent a lot of time in the environmental commission on these two topics going back 18 months even three years ago and that is diversion rate and our solid waste reserve fund and looking at the balance between expenses and revenues and the fourth quarter report from your office showed that we had the highest diversion rate that we've had in years um i think it was i i looked earlier this evening i think it was 33 the highest other rate that we had was around 30 point something percent and for the first time in years we had higher revenues than we had expands to expenses so the question that i have is what did we do right and what can we do to stay on that trend line as opposed to falling back to our old habits well eileen do you want to answer that or i was just riding high on what john said and double checking i think it was a 42 diversion but john i would just um i would caution the the percent that i gave was overall including um both commercial and residential yes so and i would say that in um one of the things i wanted to mention about that diversion rate is that we're trying to move away from the the consolidated diversion rate and we have a methodology we're applying to try to separate out commercial from residential because as we know the residential is this high and the commercial is this rate so we're really trying to expand that potential universe but we weren't able to do that for this past report because we transitioned the city scale one of the other big solid waste projects is that we have a new city scale open and in the transition between the old scale and the new scale we have some data issues that we're just working out so that's just a side note on on this particular report it's the fourth quarter report it says residential diversion rate was approximately this is i think your point 52 while commercial was approximately 10 percent presidential is my recollection up substantially commercial was in the past around 11 to 12 so it was down um and i guess you know just repeat my my broad question um what do we what did we do right and maybe what did we do wrong and how do we reinforce the things that we did right and how do we avoid doing the wrong things again and maybe maybe that's not something you can answer tonight but i think it's something that we all would like to be able to understand so that we can help you and help our our neighbors do the right things i think that's a great question um i don't know if this is the answer but i'd like to give a lot of props to jenny patosky our outreach coordinator she and i feel the a lot of questions and i've been we've been trying to carve out timing your schedules good to go do trainings and as many public forum training opportunities as she can as well as outreach to commercial businesses downtown i would question i don't know the answer to this john i'm going to ponder your 30 000 foot question because i mean why i'm here i like thinking about these issues but i would be interested in seeing how much of an impact particularly given the residential recycling increase um how much of that has to do with the fact that we're all home right now i i don't i don't know the answer to that but it could have something to do with it dude was that you know that's a fiscal year that's a fist because it was the fourth quarter report that's a fiscal year so we have roughly three months probably three months of the pandemic included in there but i thought this thing that may appear i mean i i'd rather give all the credit to jenny but i i have a sneaking suspicion there's more to the story yeah say um rita you have your hand up yeah thanks i'm not sure how to ask this question but i think it has to do with like a denominator when you talk about a diversion rate and um so if people are getting a lot of amazon deliveries they'll there potentially is more cardboard to go in but if people instead went to get their own things in a hot bag and brought it back there would be less recycling and that's actually a good thing in terms of like the reduced side so i don't know how do you capture the reduced side we rita you hit the nail on the head we talk about jenny and i spend a lot of time talking about this is you know our goal here is not to just increase recycling yeah is to increase um reuse and and not using in the first place actually right so we we're very much it's very much top of mind that our metrics don't measure that um so we're putting some thought into that i wish i had a better answer for you um then we're pretty join you in the question thank you and if you have any um insights or thoughts or even questions because sometimes that can lead to insights please let me know we are thinking about this okay um are there any other questions or comments for eileen okay well thank you eileen thanks for your time thank you everyone for your great questions and passion and engagement really appreciate it okay have a good evening you too so let's see the next uh agenda the next agenda item is public commentary um this is an opportunity for persons to speak for up to three minutes please call 1-888-788-0099 or eight seven seven eight five three five two four seven and enter meeting id oh i think it's um i think it's um hey galen do you know what our meeting id is yes hang on one second should be on the agenda right yeah i don't see it oh okay the meeting id is all these screens keep popping up on me okay i have it here on ledgestar oh it's a two 973-18416621 okay thank you thank you thank you so please please call 1-888-788-0099 and enter meeting id number 973 this information is also displayed normally on the meeting agenda and video feed city staff will select callers that have raised their hand one by one using the last three digits of your phone number in order to electronically raise your hand to indicate your desire to speak please press star 9 on your phone you will hear an automated announcement that the host is allowing you to speak when speaking please move to a quiet area and mute any television or background sounds so that we may hear you clearly please state your name and address at the beginning of your comments and be patient there is a delay of up to 30 seconds before a connection is established so galen do we already have people on the phone uh we have one person but their hand isn't up any indicating that they would like to uh speak then we just had another person okay uh caller 701 go ahead and speak caller 701 caller 701 go ahead and speak i think they have to unmute their phone please a mutual phone is it star 6 i think star six or star nine i think yeah it's probably star six show mutes oh i see somebody popping up um which is muted go ahead can you hear me now uh-huh yes thank you thank you sorry about that hello my name is brian yuke and i'm the ceo at recycle ann arbor and i appreciate the opportunity here to comment recycle ann arbor would like to encourage the city to focus its resources to support zero waste and to move away from traditional integrated waste management or or traditional solid waste management methods that are stagnating a significant improvement that we could make using zero waste policies simply put zero waste is the conservation of all resources by means of responsible production consumption reuse and recovery of products packaging and material without burning and without discharging to the land the water or the air that threaten our environment and our human health that's the definition that's been adopted internationally and that's the the definition that meets our city goals in terms of our climate objectives while supporting local economic development i i i can speak to a lot of the the advantages to zero waste but i'll just focus on uh jobs creation but so you can see the dramatic differences our investments would create if they were directed toward key zero waste initiatives our country could create 1.1 million jobs by recycling and composting 75 percent of our discards say that again 1.1 million jobs with the 75 of composting and recycling and these are the kind of jobs we want in our communities these are the kind of jobs we're creating at the murph in other places they're they're because they're they have a low um barrier to entry and they provide wages that are well above more than double above the federal minimum wages so just for uh a comparison a stunning comparison i think for every single one single job that's created in landfilling or incinerating we could create 35 jobs by recycling we could create 296 jobs for every job if for every job if we land filled or incinerated if we reused and you there were several points i think tonight about reuse and that's there's some real opportunity there and zero waste is a cost effective it's a very cost effective method it's very well accepted internationally and it mitigates climate change right now more than 40 percent of the climate impact in the us comes from what we consume in products and food it's called our consumption emissions we could reduce our greenhouse gas emissions by more than 400 million metric tons of co2 per year the equivalent of taking 20 percent one to 20 percent of our coal-fired plants off the grid by using local zero waste initiatives that that we would advocate for there's a group called local governments for sustainability and in their recycling and composting emissions protocol they call out specifically recycling and composting as some of the most effective and cost effective actions local governments can take to reduce community uh greenhouse gas emissions and there are like i said there are many many more benefits to zero waste approach but uh we'll i'll save my comments for others that might want to speak but i'll just close by saying i was very heartened by tonight's discussion and and i want to know i want you to know that recycle ann arbor uh shares your enthusiasm and we want to work with this group and other zero way and others in uh zero waste planning and endeavors in our community thank you for the time well thank you mr eukana um anybody else on the line galen yes we have caller zero two four caller zero two four go ahead and speak can everybody hear me okay go ahead yes okay hi um so i am anya dale i am a resident and i also work at the university of michigan in waste reduction in education so um i just want to sort of offer that perspective um you know really i feel like i've again very heartened by what was what's in the shrimp i think there's a lot of wonderful things um i really feel like the priorities as we're looking at what to implement have to be on commercial recycling with enforcement um multi-family recycling and then commercial composting uh to me it's it's pretty plain that those are sort of areas where we have the greatest opportunity for eliminating waste within the city and should be the major focus of efforts um with multi-family and commercial recycling we the university has a lot of staff that we're trying to work with that are actually staffed in not on campus you know many of them are actually in commercial spaces that are rental areas around the downtown area and we just hear constantly from staff that there's there's no recycling infrastructure provided to their building um and it's it's just it's it's very obvious that this is a big gap um and so i think that it just it really needs to be a priority you know if you've got a 30 recycling or diversion rate and there's just whole segments that are not participating to me that seems like a very easy win um to start engaging them and likewise multi-family in our cases it's often you know it's students and some of these areas but they have a difficult time um even recycling off of campus income and sometimes in some ways and then commercial composting um you know i i love that there's something in here for people to opt in i kind of i personally wish it was just required and then made free or very very cheap um but either way i feel like it's really important expectation and that there's some sort of carrot or incentive as some of the commissioners have mentioned um you know maybe it can be offset by trash fees being decreased they might not know exactly what that pay structure is like for restaurants but you know i i presume that more than fifty percent of their waste by weight is at least is um this compostable food waste so you know presumably their their trash at least could go down quite a bit if they're doing that and could that offset the cost or could some of the costs from that be offset from you know like some other folks mentioned switching to reduced residential trash pickup service to me getting getting the commercial restaurant on board and composting their food waste is probably the best thing we could do when it relates to waste and it has pretty no close ties to emission reductions too um and i think that that needs to be the focus more so than providing necessarily even year-round compost service to residents i i love my compost bin we use it all the time but you know my family we can if we're smart about it we can get it full keep it full and by spring it's ready to get picked up i would love a couple pickups in between but um i really think the commercial composting is the most important um and i in either way having the education or consistency um with like downtown restaurants specifically so that you know it's they're not using things that they think are compostable but are not you know having consistency that everything that is being used for takeout or packaging is compostable and meets you know free standards and stuff like that would make everybody's program better and make the university's program better because people are not hopefully bringing stuff in that's you know outside containers that are not compostable i think it would be so much easier from the education standpoint and um and to into that last point i think education is just critical and i think recycle ann arbor has played an invaluable role in educating the community about recycling i just hope that continues to be our priority for everybody all right that's all for me um is anybody else on the line galen yes um go ahead call her three two eight call it three two eight go ahead and speak you're on line hi this is jan wright can you hear me yes okay great um i'm i'm here as as a part of interfaith council for peace and justice uh among other things i was part of the advisory committee for the solid waste uh resources management plan and i am i was really appalled actually at the end of that to get the impression that that the uh the plan was based only or primarily on customer satisfaction and cost and i am so delighted to hear that that is not the way it's being looked at at this point and it's not the way it's being handled um i think it's wonderful that a20 and the sustainability goals are being considered i think that's absolutely crucial so that is really good news for me to hear tonight um i i really support probably almost everything that's been said i won't try to cover all of it you've heard it from other people but i certainly would strongly support john mursky's idea of a resolution to study less frequent trash pickup and especially i think it's very important to include monte family to look at multi-family dwellings because um if i know that one of the strengths for me of a20 is to look at everything with an equity lens and although there are plenty of people with plenty of money living in multi-family dwellings obviously there's more tendency for people with somewhat less money to live there um i know personally from a number of people who have spoken to me who would really really like to compost and live in apartments and can't do it or can't do it without doing the kind of thing that some of us do which is schlep our uh our our food waste to somebody else's trash or any compost bin or uh feed somebody's chickens so um i guess the only other couple of other things i would like to say i i also appreciate very much the effort uh the the emphasis on the part of several people to say to talk about consumption because consumption is sort of the basic place to start if you don't cut consumption it doesn't really it's not that great to just keep recycling things and even composting things uh cutting waste would be huge before we go to the the way we divert waste also i think education is very important as everybody knows and i hope that we can do some creative thinking and perhaps access some funds from other places to do some of the kinds of things that are being talked about here because they're very very important and hopefully there will be a source of either government money or public-private partnerships or something that can can bring some of this into being sooner rather than later thank you very much for the opportunity to comment thank you miss right anybody else scaling there are no other other callers right now okay well let's move on to the next item on the agenda which is the approval of the minutes um our last meeting was december 3rd 2020.
⚗ AI-reconstructed · cite from original above
right now there are no cohorts listed in the in the calendar so this is obviously a hopeful measure um but as we get closer at the time and we have more information from the state that might be changing um the the second thing we discussed was our district goal for reevaluation of our math curriculum we continue to implement the new math program and there have been some modifications due to covid but we are still on track for the 2019-2022 goal of refining our mathematics instruction with a focus on discourse and problem-solving strategies to enhance student achievement and the last thing kind of highlight that we discussed was our budget for next year from the curriculum and instruction space we're currently slated to account for less than two percent of the district's overall budget there is also a planned five percent decrease across the board from this year uh over to next year and we were able to achieve this while still maintaining our focus on student achievement thanks thank you for that detailed report i appreciate that nice job nice job anybody else all right uh seeing none let's uh let's move on all right um moving to old business we have no old business available to us so i'm going to move that to new business is there any new business that i am not aware of perfect all right at that point we're going to item 15 open public comment for any item of interest this meeting will now be open to the public referencing any items of interest however if your questions or comments pertain to litigation student or personnel items or negotiations we'd ask that you see the superintendent after the meeting since you do not discuss these matters in public please limit your comments to three minutes per person would you like to talk about anything of any item of interest seeing none we will close that portion as well we are not in need of a second executive session so at this point we're going to go to item 18 and or actually 19 and i need a motion to adjourn oh i got uh why do i i skipped 16.
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and uh the first item is i would like a motion to approve the consent agenda i'm sorry excuse me do we have any amendments no sir okay now i'd like for a motion to approve the consent agenda i move that the school board approved the consent agenda as presented second motion made by member murphy peterson seconded by member gracias to approve the consent agenda do we have any comments or questions okay let's vote remember o'sullivan yes member murphy peterson yes remember hardik yes member o'connor yes remember dalton yes member yes yes the motion passes okay do we have any old business yes sir all right then we have board committee reports uh education committee patrick you were canceled cancelled all right you're meeting already quick turnaround monday yep seven o'clock and we're doing something called a virtual meeting okay via zoom and you'll get a link in your email so you can i don't know how to do that enough great good exciting and the package is already in our uh in our email the agenda has been approved and published yes it has been all right and melissa the student services also canceled yes what's this you guys will meet on february 9th okay but as always building and finance we had our meeting although pat you would have been proud because sue really that was uh we were we were working in patrick o'sullivan that's right a lot of information but quick so sue it's all yours um we did meet on january 19th uh as a hybrid model and we started our meeting as we typically do with our capital projects mr keating shared with us the projects that we're going to be working on this coming year and and putting on to the agenda for following years as far as that goes the varsity baseball field project at sandberg is currently stalled due to the weather and mr keating was checking with the contractors to discuss what that delay would look like the roof phase 2 project is on target for june the work on phase one solar project should begin in february so it's right around the corner here the uh engineers were still working on the drawings for the pool filter renovation at sandberg so we're still pending on that the elevator renovation at andrew and sandberg which is two elevators that are the oldest elevators we have in the district um we look at having that start work in june as well and we have a water main replacement at sandberg we've had issues at sandburg for on and off over the years and we are just going to make sure that we fix it instead of putting band-aids on it and that will be coming as well we discussed the removal a bit for the roofs of part of the asbestos removal i will let mr keating cover that later on in the meeting today as it's on our agenda we then moved on to the budget and finance and went over our numbers and talked about our tax appeals along with the resolution for transfer of interest and a public hearing for the transfer of funds mr lavell will be sharing that with us tonight so i will just leave that for that along with our um an update on the evidence-based funding and we talked a little bit about our wellness event that was getting a good response that was coming uh coming up and transportation looked stellar it's been great all year no issues there and then just covered a couple of our routine policies that were up for a second reading and then our meeting our next meeting is scheduled for tuesday february 16th at 7 pm and again we expected you a hybrid of that meeting as well any questions for sue okay thank you sue all right uh so at this time uh teachers there are no respect no um comment no comments and uh esp yes i believe someone from esp is online yes hello it's tracy kozenza in for deb sandoval and we we do not have anything other than well wishes at this time thank you thank you tracy okay uh then before we get to our student reports um as as we all are aware there is a uh transition committee in place getting ready to uh work or currently working on a product process to determine how we get back to school and so dr dr gay and i talked about uh starting to discuss that process at these meetings so that we can give everyone an update as to where we are and where we're going so uh tonight will be the first report thank you um actually it's a that's part of the report it's kind of a big report where we are right now with our stages so a little bit background uh could you hear me on the microphone yeah okay thank you um as we are three weeks in the second semester i want to provide an update on a number of topics first and foremost i'm currently incredibly grateful for the support of the district 230 community over the past 10 months it is important to reflect on all that has been accomplished and to express the sincere gratitude i have for our students staff school board families and community it certainly has been a wild ride but together we are making great things happen for our students and this is only possible because of the dedication and compassion of the d230 family while we may not always agree the common belief that our students deserve the best education possible given the circumstances is what guides us so stage three since september 28th and that's an important date since september 28 2020 four months four months to the day to be exact we implemented our hybrid model that is when we implemented stage two three months ago on october 26th we implemented stage three before many school districts families have had the choice of hybrid remote on-site or fully remote learning i believe it's incredibly important that our students and families have this choice based on their commitment level and individual needs currently our families are very split evenly split with between 47 and 53 percent of families choosing remote and between 47 and 53 choosing hybrid option our students have been flexible persistent and compassionate as they access learning in totally different ways and have supported each other and the community our staff has done an amazing job adjusting the way we teach and provide supports to meet the needs of our students and flexibility no no bounds the video you will see this evening and the hybrid teaching from sandberg tonight is a true indication on just how awesome our staff has been and that extends across the district to each of our schools our pps teams have done an amazing job of outreach and connecting students and families to the resources they need they are available for any student in need of assistance as say something schools we encourage students and staff to share with our pps teams if they know of any student who is struggling our buildings and grounds crews have worked tirelessly to maintain clean and safe learning environments and with recent snow power issues and weather piled on top our administration have worked collaboratively and have been incredibly nimble as they've adjusted and readjusted and readjusted again to changing state guidelines and the many curveballs they've been that has been thrown at them our school board has been supportive all of us along the way as i've talked to superintendents across the state i've seen that the issues we are we all face are similar and daunting i've also seen that we in d230 have been able to navigate those issues with collaboration that's not always seen elsewhere has it always been done perfectly no but i know that we've all kept the best interest of students at the heart of what we do in order to keep what we do best for our students covet 19 dashboard shows our health and safety efforts are working it's important information for the first semester the average covert 19 impact on campus was incredibly low on an average week there were 3913 students and staff on campus with an average of 11 reported covet 19 cases and 16 closed contacts data from last week shows that 99.8 percent of students and staff on site are not impacted by cover 19 positive tests or close contests context there are four positive cases in three close contacts reported this shows that our schools are safe and our safety protocols work the dashboard can be found at d230.org cova 19 which allows families access to information they need to make informed decisions cobia 19 vaccines there is hope on the way district 230 is committed to assist our staff members to get vaccinated for the coba 19 and our regular communication to coordinate with the agencies who can help us get that done i've been working closely with the intermediate service center and cook county department of public health to assure vaccine doses are secured for our staff we have served at our staff and know that approximately 85 percent of our staff members would like to get the vaccine through the cook county department of public health others may prefer to secure the vaccine through other venues those staff who are category 1a health professionals which includes school nurses school psychologists social workers and some other physicians have been able to schedule appointments to receive the vaccine several have already completed the two dose cycle the remainder of our staff is in category 1b the district has provided information regarding vaccine sites throughout the region including health departments locations and the tinley park convention center several have shared with me that they were able to schedule through those sites and have already received the first dose district 230 and school districts throughout our region are working with the intermediate service center and cocaine department of public health to establish vaccination sites in a number of schools to meet the needs of educators across the region those specific location details are still in the works as mr serratore talked about we began a transition advisory committee so we as we plan for fully on site when the time is right with the whole helpful hopeful news of vaccines becoming available we're looking toward the future when we can turn return on-site fully while the timing of that is dependent on a number of factors including the state movement of phase 5 as well as illinois department of public health and cook high department of public health guidelines but we are preparing to be ready when that time comes i've asked dr nolting to chair a staff transition advisory committee comprised of teacher association esp association food service association and administrative representatives to brainstorm problem-solving ideas to recommend to the oversight committee on a wide range of topics related to our eventual return to fully on site the team will conduct research propose ideas and serve as key communicators to their representative stakeholders that's an ulting shared with committee that we know that the long-term effects of this pandemic will need to be considered while the health crisis may end the fallout and lasting effects will linger it will be a different reality for all of us at the committee's first meeting they brainstorm a number of potential topics to explore related to the following communications health health safety protocols and building operations technology and instruction academic intervention student support services co-curricular and school events staff support professional development and recognition there's a lot to be considered and i'm confident this group of staff members will do an excellent job of identifying needs researching solutions and proposing recommendations for the oversight committee they will meet every other week remotely to accomplish these tasks p s a t n m s q t and impact a and true 20 20 and through 20 20 21 school year fashion the weather gave us a run for our money on tuesday when the psat and nmsqt exam was held fortunately the weather wasn't as bad as forecasted and our grounds crews were able were on top of the snowfall making sure staff and students could safely report to campus fortunately our schools had planned for the majority of students to be fully remote that day for impact day activities so that worked in our favor and talking with students and staff this week impact activities have been well received and seen as impeccable while equity activities look different in each school because the work has been tailored to meet the needs of each campus the underlying purpose of advancing conversations regarding equity inclusion and belonging was successful these conversations have been taking place in smaller settings with groups of students and staff over the past three years tuesday's impact day gave the schools the opportunity to amplify those conversations to a broader student body the students i talked to this week shared that they felt the conversations were respectful and well-received among their peers they valued that their teachers and administrators put time and effort into structuring conversations that made them feel comfortable talking about these important topics feedback from impact day will guide future planning for all of our schools i'm incredibly proud of our administrators teachers staff and students for embracing these conversations and finding ways to strengthen the relationship in our schools and communities now there is much work to be done in this area and i'm hopeful that this generation of student leaders will make a difference for our schools district community and world a sum it up i'm incredibly proud of the district 230 family despite all that has been thrown at us over the past 10 months we are still providing the best possible education we can given the circumstances we've been working in crisis mode for 10 months it's students are still learning students still know we care about them has this been ideal absolutely not have we done all we can given the circumstances we are dealt absolutely yes and that is why continue to be and always will be d230 proud all right thank you dr gay and i look forward to the monthly updates on where we are and uh hopefully uh you know the day will not be far away when we can get back to some sort of normalcy our plan yes plan two yep that's true all right we have three young ladies anxiously awaiting to uh provide us with the reports tonight so i'm not sure how you guys decided who would go first but uh it's your floor i'm going first night okay good evening and happy 2021 i am very excited for this new year and for semester two of the 2020 2021 school year well this month has consisted of easing back into the remote such hybrid learning schedule there has been some excellent news released and a few things to report i think this is something i should definitely start with the ihsa has released some great news about athletics select sports are starting back up and contact days will beginning in the near future off-season programs are already starting and it's great to see people in the gyms again seeing my peers getting excited for their supports especially the seniors who are preparing for their last seasons makes not only myself but everyone hopeful for the future of athletics with all the progress being made excitement in the android community is in the air speaking of excitement the 29th variety show has started practicing the practices are virtual every sunday there are still a few things to be determined regarding how it will be film slash performed but everyone is eager to start i am so excited to be participating this year although it looks a bit different even with the modifications having love tradition continue adds to the normalcy that we need this tuesday while some junior tsat we had a presentation during advisory on inclusion and diversity we were informed about the different religions and customs of our peers were reminded about the importance of empathy and maintaining a positive environment within the andrew community and had great conversations about equity it was a very informative day and beneficial to all the national honor society is keeping their members busy by providing fun community service opportunities members were asked to build snowmen at smith crossing a senior living residency to provide some cheer to the residents while there is snow it was great it was a great event and a lot of members and their families came out to help build them student council and the senior leaders are formulating plans for some events in the near and distant future we are hoping to have a strong end to this year and will accomplish this by changing some of our normal end of the year events to make them safer for students and staff more updates about future events from all clubs to come with second semester beginning in the class of 2021 on the last leg of their high school experience i'm very eager to see what this year brings us hopefully an in-person board meeting for the st lawrence graduates thank you for listening all right thank you very much and i i really would love to see the uh virtual practicing of the variety show yeah so having having my son in it about 10 years ago i know how much work it is and i can't even imagine how you do it virtually but should be interesting so good for them good luck okay who is next ladies who is next i came here um good evening everyone i hope you are all happy and healthy as we reconnect for the first does your connection's pretty tough so why don't you go ahead and turn off your video and let's see if that works okay is that better yes yes yes um why don't you start from the top okay good evening everyone i hope you all happy healthy as we reconnect for the first board meeting of the second semester the sandberg seniors are going into this final semester with an upbeat outlook in that we are determined to end this memorable year in a positive fashion this month was filled with so many new updates i am excited to share with you all today to begin i am a huge fan of birthdays i love everything it consists of such as seeing people receiving gifts and most importantly eating cake as you can imagine when i found out it was carl sandburg's birthday on january 6th i was thrilled sandberg isn't just a school it means so much more to so many generations of students who have walked in and out of its doors it's allowed for students to grow and flourish created smiles on so many faces and allowed students to feel at home most importantly it has shaped people into who they are today for these reasons i would like to wish carl sandburg a sincere happy birthday to continue this month's theme was all about connectedness and dignity on january 26th and 27th sambar hosted a student equity and belonging workshop in which students came together to discuss important topics of identity cultural awareness and intelligence and the important and the importance of honoring dignity within school communities students had the chance to engage in reflective listening drills and dialogue about important topics in a safe space while student equity leaders served as breakout room facilitators students also participated in continued stop start discussion to bring student voice and feedback to future equity plans as one of the attendees and a current student council board member isabella torres stated beautifully the long term of the long-term goal of sambar's equity work is to honor the dignity of every student maximize their school experience and eventually hold a student-run and student-facilitated conference for local schools we hope to see these workshops continue to bring students together and allow them to have these vital conversations student equity leaders debriefed workshops as a result we'll be continuing to work with dr tyrell mr gardner and our consultant trent to develop lesson plans and facilitators agendas for future workshops january 26th was a busy day at sandburg as nearly 400 juniors took the psat slash nmsqt we wish them all the best of luck my brother a junior told me he and his classmates felt an overwhelming sense of support from the staff although he isn't a big test-taking fan he appreciated how smoothly it all ran students who were not taking the psat or attending the student voice equity workshop attended an equity webinar in which dr tyrell ms smith and student equity leaders nico dallas and rosella or fran facilitated students had the opportunity to learn more about student voice equity work that is occurring at sandberg develop a foundation of common language learn about the dignity framework and hear about next steps dr tyrell presents collected hybrid and presenters were also able to gather student feedback about their sandbox experience through the chat feature and the survey that all the participants took after the webinar we would like to congratulate several groups for example for exemplifying the phrase hashtag win the day on january 12th sandberg's chess team took a big win over andrew for the swsc title activities are in full swing and our programs cannot wait for the ihsa regional sectional and state competitions we look forward to seeing great postseasons i would also like to congratulate the five eagle musicians that have been named the ilmea allstate from orchestra simon han francesca pagani and arusha sharma and from choir trevor trevor buenos champion we're so proud of these elite musicians we are also thrilled that our student athletes and now are now back at gyms pools blowing alleys as the ihsa athletics have restarted winter sports are rolling with cheer dance swimming gymnastics and bullying starting last week in badminton and basketball starting this week we would like to thank dr nolting and the rest of the ihsa board for all their efforts to make this possible for our student athletes quarter selection for the 2021-2022 school year started on january 15th and is going really smoothly students have been reviewing recommendations researching course offerings by watching elective videos that are posted on the registration website entering selections into skyward and meeting with their counselors virtually dr tyrell mr smith and ms augustiniak also hosted the class of 2025 families for a pre-registration webinar earlier this week nearly 400 families attended in order to prepare for course election which will take place from february 1st through february 6th this is an exciting time for eagles thank you all for your time and i hope you all have a great rest of your evening it is always a pleasure to be here and speak to you about the exciting things happening at sandburg every day forward today still next month thank you liam when you said class of 2025 was like yep wow wow wow not bad oh time goes too quickly yeah okay we have one more speaker left first egg there she is okay good evening hi hello hello hi um hello everyone it's a new year and a new start allow me to give you a peek at what this month has been like at stack students have been meeting with their counselors this month to register for classes for next year while this is my last year at stag i hope kids picked classes that they enjoy and take it take advantage of the many different classes that we have in each subject as well as some fun electives teachers usually go into classrooms to inform students of their classes and while it was a little difficult to do that this year many teachers and departments made their own videos to allow students to understand what exactly they are signing up for all 9th to 10 11th grade students participated in an advisory lesson where they got the chance to choose which videos they wanted to watch based on their interests talents and post-secondary plans our pa department has a new look the pe office doors have been remodeled and there is a hallway decor piece on the wall that highlights our chargers student of the month for pe additionally the entrances to the nordstrom boys and girls locker rooms have been updated to show all who enter said students and visitors what charger pride means to us our health department staff and guidance department were recognized by the illinois general assembly for for the hard work they have put into teen mental health and support through the mental health first aid program stack high school cares about the social emotional and mental health wellbeing of all students some of our recent efforts include mental health coping kits a bag filled with mental health resources coping strategies and tools ways to ask for help in a student safety plan to date 125 students have received a mental health coping kit students that received the kit were identified through the guidance department mental health coping kits will continue to be available to students the stag social workers have shared shared community and national resource pamphlets created a website called the coping center and twitter page at charging forward these creations provide resources information on various topics including mental health substance alcohol abuse relationship violence racial and social justice as well as calming rooms mindfulness activities coping strategies and fun distractions all static students and families can access this site through the guidance page of the sky website on tuesday january 26th 230 stag juniors took the annual psat nmsqt exam this exam prepares them for their upcoming sat and the scores they earn can make them eligible for the national merit program students were enthusiastic positive and ready to take on the challenge on the same day stag held its first impact day through advisory impact day focused on developing a school community and focused on listening to the student body at stack our advisory teachers led us through a lesson that included a video featuring students and staff and afforded us and afforded us the time to be able to share our voice students at all grade levels had the opportunity to share their perspectives through a survey in the survey they could also indicate if they would like to participate in further focus groups and talking circles so that they can share their story and hear from others as we continue to focus on the unique experiences of each charger spring september spring semester of 2021 means a full swing in our athletics competitions clubs activities and performances aren't missing a beat this week alone students learn the opportunity to make crepes with the french club write articles for the stag line newspaper come to a science club meeting start power lifting implants plan school spirit events work on computer coding begin contact days for sports night in season join an esport league and more there really is something for everyone here with our region being moved back to tier one mitigations sports are returning for our student athletes winter sports have been given the go-ahead to resume practicing winter schedules are being set up for the week based on the latest updates that we received from the ihsa badminton boys and girls bowling boys swim and dive cheer and dance are all practicing every day all of the sports have been given to go ahead to begin contact days soccer volleyball softball have begun their contact days basketball baseball football and wrestling are looking for looking to begin this coming monday the campus energy is so high and our athletes and their coaches are thrilled to be safely together doing what they love our national honor society induction ceremony video was released we welcome you to watch 104 juniors and seniors chargers celebrate this achievement and are excited that everyone gets a chance to view it this video is now available on the d230 youtube channel and posted directly on the stag website i'm proud to share that at a recent district 230 competition 11 charges qualified for the state competition deca is our competitive business team and we can't wait to hear how the team does at state level congrats and good luck a huge congratulations to our junior varsity esports team they won the rocket league state competition in december crushing their opponent in the final round and going undefeated for the season you can't get much better than that service continues to be an important part of the entire side community over the last few months our international club has coordinated a holiday lights recycling drive instead of old or broken light strands being dumped into a landfill they were being recycled and profits from this go go to support organizations in need it's a win-win we prevent race and raise money this was not only a hit at stag but also for the community members who took advantage of the opportunity including a stag neighbor who donated an entire suv worth of old lights we love the chance to work with our awesome community and appreciate their support tremendously our theater program continues to provide students the opportunities for creative out for creative outlets through performances our winter show and contest play has been cast and are feverishly rehearsing the two comical performances to be released next month we look forward to enjoying their release this is all for this month but i look forward to sharing more exciting updates from our chargers in february thank you thank you ladies thank you so much we appreciate it and uh hopefully as uh things continue to improve in the state uh we'll get to see you back here with us sooner rather than later and i know the opening up of sports has really got to be a positive boost for everyone and hopefully a good sign going forward ladies before you leave um i want you to just hang out for another minute or so because i have some some really good and important news that i think we should share with everyone uh recently our superintendent dr gay uh has been awarded the illinois association of school administrators superintendent of distinction for south cook now of course i think it should be for the entire state but we'll take south cook at this time his selection was based on his leadership ability community involvement and professionalism and he will be honored in may by the iasa uh with the regional award winners from throughout the state and i can say honestly that this honor is extremely overdue and it's also very well deserved and uh i am very glad uh that uh you finally were recognized for all your achievements those of us in the district know it and we know that many of the other superintendents in the state know it but to have it formally recognized uh is uh something that as i said is long overdue so uh on behalf of the board and i'm sure some of the board members would also like to chirp in but a heartfelt congratulations because it is well deserved [Applause] anyone else um being on the board with dr gay um being on this side of things we are keenly aware of the hours and dedication that dr gay not only serves district 230 their students the faculty and our community as a whole but he also looks out for the interest of other school districts especially our partner schools and education as a whole for the state and the nation we are very fortunate to have dr gay's dedication and love for education and he does this by building relationships by following through on those tasks that are at hand and by energizing those people that are in the circle including this board so you um we're all very pleased that you were finally recognized as mr saratori said should be statewide recognition but thank you for your dedication we see the tirelessly efforts not wanting to take a day off being afraid not being here um if something were to occur and also um fostering those in our district to be able to take those roles as things change so thank you very much well well i'm going to save a lot of this for for june but it hasn't been prompted now um you know in this district even fairly recently we've had principals of the year we've had board presidents of the year we've had so many awards nationwide and locally and across the state and that's purely a function of leadership and you've been the leader of this district you've been the constant since 2007.
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they are an independent school so that means they are not in any conference so they are 0-0 in conference so put some independent just like the notre dame fighting irish as well that they were up to this last season but the irish record might not speak for how good they really are teams they have won against were some big schools such as lawrence central new palestine covenant christian and indianapolis bishop chartered some of the teams they have lost are known for having good girls basketball programs such as carmel brownsburg warren central and ben davis with that being said the old saying goes do not judge a book by its covered we shall see if that comes true tonight here in the orange pit some key players for the fighting irish are senior courtney fields who is averaging just under 16 points per game just under three rebounds and three steals as well another key player for the fighting irish is junior kate bimmer who is averaging 11.6 points six rebounds and just over two assists and steals this roster is very senior heavy for the irish so i'm sure they're going to be looking forward to their senior leadership throughout this game as a team the fighting irish are averaging 53.8 points 31 rebounds 12 and a half assists 11.8 steals and three and a half blocks looking at the fighting irish they will be taking on warren central and this year's sectional the score in the regular season warned central 70 to cathedrals 52 so i'm almost guaranteed they will have this game in the back of their heads for the remainder of the season but most important lee the thing is beating a very good columbus east team on the road can they get the job done and become one game over 500 team the regular season we are just minutes away from finding this out stay tuned to the bcsc youtube why is the columbus auto group the number one destination for your vehicle needs it's the no vulture zone duh our sales staff is 100 non-commissioned which means they are 100 committed to making sure you leave in the right vehicle not the one that pays them the most from sales to service from online team store at the no vulture zone speed is key our goal is to get you a price payment and an appraisal in 15 minutes not ready to visit the dealership no problem on our website you can get pricing payment information get an estimate on your trade and if you have any questions you can chat with a live agent i know what you're thinking i bought a car somewhere else does that mean i don't get to experience the no vulture zone absolutely not if you need an oil change routine maintenance or vehicle repairs we've got you covered convenience is important which is why you can schedule online in person or over the phone when you're here you can use our shuttle service wait in our lounge or we can come to you so whether you need a new vehicle or service for your old vehicle the no vulture zone is the place to be [Music] and welcome back we are live here once again at columbus east high school here for some indiana girls high school basketball so looking at the home team the columbus east olympians the columbus east olympians are having a fantastic end of the season run winning sixth straight and becoming outright hhc conference champs for the first time since 2006. they have an overall record of 13-5 and 7-0 in conference play like i mentioned the lady-o's are on a six-game winning streak picking those six wins over opponents such as madison seymour a thrilling upset over bedford north lawrence new albany genius county and batesville on tuesday night scoring a total of 82 points this is the last regular season game for the ladies then they will head to east central high school to take on east central this year east central is the host school so all the teams in that section will be playing there one mindset most athletes have embedded in their heads here at east is win survive and move on and that's exactly what the ladies are going to look to do during the sectional as they will take on a very well-ranked and well-rounded team the east central trojans looking at the stats and the huge win on tuesday night corinne gravy had nine points albany spear had three sage stahl had nine points as well leah bachmann had seven points gabby dean had eight points maybe roberts led the team hitting four threes giving her 12 on the night caitlyn crothers had a great game scoring 11.
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[Music] and you know this i i pulled the number of slides here from a mylona mcgroom powerpoint that was actually never delivered publicly it was sent to school modernization committee members but i thought it'd be beneficial to provide some context for why there's this projection in population growth for us obviously you know if you look at the median age and cheshire increasing there are more folks really ready to sell their home and um you know move on and so when that happens obviously we see increases in enrollment uh birth rates are a huge driver the last five years our birth rate average i think is uh 174 it's not a future slide but always a well below 200. and for next year's kindergartners and 26 those born in 2016 it's 205 and then 200 plus in each of the two years after that as well so our birth rates are up significantly our housing we have future housing developments available um there are a number of subdivisions here and i i often say people will move to cheshire for the night life um that many folks and it's a great thing that they come to our community and i know robin talked about this the other night they come here looking for a great education for their family and so when you build 21 large homes off louise road you have to think that a good number of those people will be looking to educate their children in the cheshire public school system this is uh something that myelon and mcbroom published called persistency ratios what it means is if you look at each grade level you would think that if we had 200 kids in a grade 200 kids move to the next grade that's a persistency ratio of one that one to one so where did the only places you ever see fall offs in cheshire really are in that eight to nine transition where a lot of our eighth graders have a multitude of options um whether they be a voag program or tech technical trade school or private high schools that's the only place where we see really a consistent ratio below one but i think it's really important to note the birth to uh k persistency level over the last five years for every child born in cheshire one and a half children register for the cheshire public schools so when you look at last year's birth at and this 2.66 excuse me 266 students registering for first grade in the this subsequent year the births are up here 205.
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um [Music] uh let's see it i hope everybody's had a chance to examine the minutes i know my memory was a little hazy by now so um um is there a is there a motion to approve the minutes as written so i moved is there a second um john keller um is there any discussion raise your hand nope okay um uh all who approve of the minutes has written please say hi hi hi raise your hand any uh any opposed i don't see any hands so uh the minutes are approved unanimously so let's move on to old business um the next item on the agenda here are the uh recommendations for chapter 40.
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i knew i was like i'm sitting there going this is really quick i'm sorry i bought announcements i i skipped right over it i got really excited i'm sorry i just um although i wish all the retirees the best of luck i just want to give a special shout out to mrs raider from vanzant you did amazing things at that school and you will be sorely missed and i appreciate all the time and effort you've given to our children over the years that you were there so thank you very much thank you miss ryan and thank you for reminding me let's plow through that end anybody else have any announcements for the board all right seeing none now let's go for a motion to adjourn uh do i have a motion do i have a motion to adjourn version by miss ryan seconded by mr lanzalotta all in favor aye everyone have a wonderful uh january [Music] you
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