a student who is economically disadvantaged the state is calculating the cost of educating them at almost 15 dollars um an english learner that increases the foundation amount by one thousand seven hundred and twenty nine dollars so that this has an impact when we start not not thinking that all students come to school from the same place or needing the same supports it does have an impact i want to show you just a little bit and and so there are a few things for you to know one you will get a copy of this presentation and i will be happy to walk anyone through it again who might need more or have more questions um two yes so you'll have this copy and you will also have the link to all of the tools to look at these calculations on your own and bring them up and even compare them to other communities so this is the resident student count and this is what was used for the 2021 education cost sharing model the year that we're in and um the count for for danbury was 11 729 students and so what we're looking at over here is also the weighted count there's no additional weight so it's just that number um we can look at low income student count and that's six thousand two hundred and two students the weight adds an additional eighteen hundred and sixty-one students if you can think of those weights just adding up right that additional fifteen percent or um in this case 30 english learners you have 3328 and so at the end of the day you know that your student count in danbury is 11 729 students but the funding that you get is kind of based on all of those weights and if you were to look at that it essentially adds up to 14 089 students funded at 11 525.
uh there are 20 students that are pending enrollment they're either on a waiting list or they are new enrollees think together has been providing us with daily enrollment numbers in addition to any numbers of any cova 19 positive or exposure cases of students and adults think together is also serving students in a virtual setting after school and has 64 students enrolled also they have an equitable access grant and so they have been providing an after-school intervention program at paramount and they started their second session which is offered tuesdays through thursdays and it runs for nine weeks thank you and again lastly uh the human resources department continues to work with employees who have contracted the virus or have been in close contact with confirmed positive cases we are also closely monitoring the information from the department of public health and the governor's office as it relates to the dissemination of vaccines and additionally the district recently partnered with valencia laboratories to explore the administration of testing for employees and students if we do return to in-person instructions as was described earlier any questions or any comments by the board seeing that there's now we'll go ahead and move to our next agenda item and it's 9.2 school reorganization update thank you i will share my screen all right is that large enough for everyone what's up yes okay so our last school reorganization update we provided an overview of model one through three and since our last update we have held an additional meeting where we discussed and outlined model four so tonight i will provide you an overview of model four and as we promised before we will hold another meeting we will have in-depth discussion with all of us together on all of the models that have been presented before um the school reorganization team has held four meetings and we have our fifth meeting scheduled for tomorrow in our meetings we have continued to discuss the why behind the reorganization and during the meeting we emphasized that we did not want to tie the reorganization to budgetary cost saving measures now as we said before we all understand that school closures can equate to potential savings but right now the focus on roi is one to maximize facilities as well as maximize programs so during our session we're going to address our why behind the reorganization and we took time to ensure that all gain the understanding of the model and all of our models included six agreed upon pieces whereas piece one was the model piece two is the implementation plan piece three the programmatic drawbacks piece for the programmatic benefits and piece five support staff and p6 including any potential budgetary impact so we have two why's behind our reorganization plan the first why was to maximize or is to maximize facilities as you see illustrated on this slide before you um back in 0.203 we barely had 20 percent of our capacities available and now most of our sites are operating with over 50 percent capacity available the second why behind our reorganization which will be touched on later on the discussion with dr mitchell is maximizing programs so piece one the model this model is called our sixth through twelfth grade model this model includes five traditional elementary which is tk 1 tk8 and 2 6 through 12th grades piece 2 the implementation the 5 year implementation allows for phase in phase out approach it allows time to roll out the implementation plan it also allows those that are currently in the third grade and up to promote from their current home school and this model also gives parent choice now we'll pass it to dr mitchell so with this model there are some potential programmatic drawbacks there would be younger students on a high school campus smaller 6-8 student cohorts at the tk-8 self-contained classes and not traditional electives smaller staff teams sixth through eighth self-contained eighth grade students would transition directly to high school and a coordination of pe and sports facilities the high school and the middle school would be on the same campus there's also some potential programmatic benefits parent choice of traditional elementary and a tk8 larger elementary schools might mean fewer combination classrooms in a tk8 school fewer shifts for students and that would be that means the consistency of the learning location so they don't change schools also increasing student population could increase collaboration for programs at sites there might be an opportunity for an elective wheel at tk5 and tk8 students or possibly magnet specialty focus like school of the arts class sizes would remain the same larger schools might create larger parent groups and then the last potential programmatic benefit would be all current cte pathways would still be viable and for example pax and patterson pittsco labs would be installed at both of the 612 schools and i have the pleasure of walking you through the support staff that presented here the table here is our work in establishing floors for the great bands that are represented in the tk through eighth grades so sites that have these gray levels would uh would be impacted by these floors uh for so for sites that um have a seventh and eighth grade all sites would have at least a 0.5 uh fte of an assistant principal uh sites that have more than 750 students would it would gain an additional one whole fte um the same applies for counselors so for sites that have less than 750 students the site would have at least 8.5 fte of a counselor and similarly to my previous statement those sites with 750 students or more they would have a additional counselor for social workers this is a new position that we we are introducing and against sites that have less than 750 students would have a 0.5 social worker and then those sites that have more than 750 students enrolled would have a full fte of a social worker i'd be remiss and and not pointing out when and how we established the 750 students uh this would be established at the um the normal seabed reporting date which is october 2nd so we would be using the enrollment data of the um of the year uh proceeding when they the sites would actually be receiving this uh additional um fte if if called for uh the second half of the table um speaks for for our our sites largely in the elementary level is that um already uh again establishing a floor for those sites that do not have more than 750 students so if uh at all sites elementary sites that have less than 750 students will at least have a four-hour uh base of a community liaison for our base of a library aid and an eight-hour uh clerk base once the enrollment again using the same idea of the seedbed state once that enrollment exceeds um or meets and exceeds 750 on the uh the site would be would be given six hours of a uh committee liaison and actually i want to make sure this is uh accurately stated it's a as a total of six hours so it'll be an addition of two additional hours for of community liaison similarly an additional two hours of library aid if the enrollment exceeds and then an additional half fte of a clerk so the total amount that a site would receive if their enrollment exceeds 750 would be 1.5 of an fte total and for the sixth piece which was the budgetary impact in addition to the projected cost that would be associated with the increase in support staff the only other budgetary impact that we foresee at this time is if we added tk or kinder to any school that currently does not have that program as we would have con construction costs to equip the classroom to meet the standards as well as the restroom and the playground area and with that i will say thank you thank you so much do we have any uh questions or comments from board members i have a quick question okay okay go ahead remember both uh mr monkey i just had a quick question i'm sorry i didn't ask this in previous presentations um on the slide where it it talks about adding a 0.5 ap counselor or social worker would that 0.5 ft be to serve the seventh and eighth grade only or is that for the entire school yes for the seventh and eighth grade would be the the council but i mean these uh my understanding is that the counselor will will work with who wherever there is a need but the primary work would be with the seventh and eighth grade students okay so would that mean that a school of 700 students would have one and a half ftes in those positions okay so half or the seventh and eighth or what would that look like no if the school of 700 would have a um 0.5 of a counselor and a 0.5 ap and a 0.5 social worker correct okay thank you yes in case um anyone else probably before we move on okay great let's go ahead and move to 9.3 mandarin language dual immersion program thank you board president giannis um we're going to call norma into the room sorry give me just a second there she is good evening can you all hear me yes we could hear you okay wonderful good evening ford president arianes and cabinet board members and cabinet um i'm just going to share just a brief overview overview for you in your packet and as an attachment you have an overview that we provided that outlines a few program types that could be utilized for a mandarin language program the first being a dual immersion two-way program in which the class enrollment would include a balance of native english speakers and native speakers of the target language in this case being mandarin the instructional model could be a 90 10 90 bean mandarin in this case 10 english and the english would increase by 10 each year thank you it could also um be a 50 50 model for the duration of the program being 50 of the day taught in english and 50 of the day taught in mandarin and the goals of this program would be language proficiency academic achievement in two languages as well as cross-cultural understanding another program type is a one-way dual immersion program and the makeup of that class would be primarily non-native speakers of the target language in this case being mandarin this instructional model is typically taught in a 50 50 model being 50 in english 50 in mandarin and the goals are similar to a two-way immersion program being language proficiency academic achievement and cross-cultural understanding the third program would be a flex or a flex which is a foreign language elementary experience or school the enrollment is made up of non-native speakers of the target language again being mandarin in this case all students or designated students or designated grade levels could receive time during the school day or after school for language study the goals of this type of program are typically exposure and enrichment and an additional language so i just kind of gave you an overview of what those three types of programs um are and what kind of enrollment requirement that they would have these would fit the mandarin program that i know that you are exploring and to share some previous efforts that were made to establish a mandarin program in the district that began in 2018-19 the district began by advertising a potential mandarin program to the community by sending out 60 000 mailers advertising mandarin as well as our spanish dual immersion program we also hosted six community meetings um two were at dalton at that time we were discussing housing a mandarin program at dalton school we hosted a parent and community meeting at longfellow and three here at the district office in which we shared information about our dual language programs we also advertised on our social media our district website flyers were put up on peach jar and they were also sent home in a paper form on our website we included a link to an interest form that parents could complete and then we were able to follow up with them with additional information in 2019 we had a total of eight transitional kinder and kinder students interested in a mandarin dual immersion program three indicated a primary language of mandarin and five indicated a primary language of english in 1920 we began that advertising cycle again we got to host one parent meeting prior to closing on march 13th but our efforts were thwarted by covid and that year last year we had a total of three families um complete the interest form one being an etk extended transitional kinder and two kinder students so i i gave you quite a bit to process so i'm happy to clarify any information answer questions maybe research some questions that you might have do any of our board members have any questions at this point uh yes board member bro thank you hi miss camacho it's nice to see you again nice to see you um i have to have a couple of questions kind of um looking at some of the background of our current spanish dual immersion programs um can you talk a little bit about the the benefits and the challenges of implementing the spanish di well the benefits for our spanish dual immersion are obviously you know our goals are to develop students who are prepared to engage in a a global world a global economy we know that technology is making our world smaller um we also have predominantly 90 approximately 90 of our student enrollment being latino latinx um so we want to really you know um you know utilizing and highlighting that spanish language as an asset was important for us so those were some of the huge benefits we also have historically in this district supported bilingual programs in spanish and we have many of our teachers who have b-clouds in spanish so we were able to utilize our internal staff and not have to seek outside of our staff um to to teach those classes um some of the challenges um are sometimes because of the makeup of of our schools um having an exact 50 50 um we usually have about a third primary spanish speaking about a third bilingual students because many of our students do come from homes where they are bilingual they um either have learned spanish and english from a young age or have parents or grandparents at home that speak spanish but you know that's not really a challenge but you know it does it's a little different than a traditional makeup of the dual immersion program but typically our our spanish dual immersion um we have a lot of interest our tk there's waiting lists for our preschools and tk's for those those programs and um as students matriculate and stay in the district um how well are we able to retain our base um of dual immersion students in middle and high school well our district program hasn't reached middle and high school yet we are currently our program is currently at uh fourth grade at hodge victor hodge elementary and at valley dale elementary and is this the is it was it called the second strand so we have the older strand that went through in a generation it did not go through middle school um we we like to refer to the that that's that program as our 1.0 and we have a 2.0 um so our 1.0 program has existed in the district for many many years it is um currently at about fifth grade at hodge um and that is the program that shifted over but historically that program was only one class um beginning in uh preschool um and moved through fifth grade but some of the challenges with having just a single strand is sometimes as students would mature matriculate and leave the program we had very small classes at fourth and fifth grade because our class size changes from 26 to um it increases to 35 at fourth grade so sometimes we were looking at a particularly smaller class which was why we shifted to a two-strand class and then we were able to open up more seats to our dual immersion program so currently our fourth grade bi classroom at hodge has about i believe 30 34 students so we were able to avoid that challenge of a shrinking classroom with the two strands the two strands at each school in thinking about thank you for the background on the spanish dual immersion program in thinking about um the possibility of offering another world language in a dual immersion setting or or another world language in a district-wide program um can you talk to some of the anticipated challenges of implementing a mandarin dual immersion program well um i think with just looking um at some of the initial numbers that that we got um having if we wanted to offer a two-way dual immersion um having sufficient um mandarin speakers to to be able to offer a true program and then also looking at numbers of student enrollment to be able to either offer a two-strand the way we do with spanish which would um help us to avoid um having um a very small classrooms or combination classrooms as class sizes increase um but obviously if we weren't we didn't have the numbers for a two strand you know looking at the potential of offering one strand and then considering how how we would adjust to to a smaller class size as the students reached fourth grade and above and miss camacho this is i promise this is my final question that's okay um and and i know my my colleagues uh may also have questions around this um just in thinking about um possibilities of offering world language um to elementary and middle school students has the district ever offered or explored the idea of doing the um the primary or middle school years international baccalaureate program that could possibly be a feeder to the ib program at azusa um i'll jump i'll jump in here uh miss camacho thank you uh to answer your to answer your uh your current question and then i want to go back to something to to also consider in terms of moving forward with the dual immersion mandarin uh yes we have had uh conversations about a primary year's program and the middle years program as potentials just as a note when you do have a primary years program at an elementary site one of the required components is actually language and that is not for a particular grade level or a particular class when you are a primary years program site uh the whole entire site uh it's expected uh that they are getting uh a second a second language um we have i'm gonna tie the next two things together uh one of the things that i think we should consider is that right now we're currently going through a school reorganization process and so you know just having those wonderings about how does a a potential a school reorganization decision affect a potential decision in terms of a quote unquote dual immersion mandarin language program as you have seen on the potential drawbacks and the potential uh benefits one of the things that we list as a potential benefit for our several of the models that we have provided to the school reorganization team is this idea that if we were to to to kind of uh grow smaller then we might want to consider uh potential magnet or potential uh schools that would be identified for example a school of the arts for example a stem school for example a primary years program school so it has also been talked about in that context that as as a possible programmatic uh benefit um if we were going to do uh something like that um as you as as as you may or may not know um we had to move the uh the spanish dual immersion program from um mountain view uh to valleydale um we we captured a majority of that program uh they are thriving and they're doing well at valley deal but we did not have a 100 of those students that were in that program uh come over to to to valley deal so just just as a consideration or you know something to add to the conversation thank you we have board member chris gonzalez has a question um no more uh more commentary um so i you know i appreciate all the input um and it seems to me the thing that you didn't mention that it felt like was the biggest doubling block in the past was really around the um um having the the certificated teachers to be able to even do a program right well that's it that's a challenge for mandarin right and i mean my understanding is in districts that do this um a lot of them actually recruit people and and even support them through the credentialing process so that they have teachers coming in that's what i've heard from many other districts to be able to have a high qualified credential teacher so i i i guess from my perspective i think we've been talking about this as a as something that's important as a board for a couple years and it just hasn't actualized so the reason i wanted it on this agenda is that we could start talking about like what what direction are we going to go in this how can we make something like this um viable right and so whether it's it's the the ib route which i think is great i mean i think it would be great to have the whole the whole continuum from kindergarten to 12th grade to have ib um whether it's that route or whether we think about an individual program i i i want to see us moving forward and i i say that because i see most many districts around us moving forward and putting programs and being successful even a couple that launch them in the middle of the pandemic right and so you know as we make decisions with budgeting and decision making this spring i want us to think about and i guess maybe i'm i'm actually i want some agenda because i want to hear from my other fellow board members is this a priority for us is this a priority for us to expand our language programs to give students access to other languages beyond just spanish because it is for me and i think i think it makes it would make us as stronger as a district as we move forward i am completely in favor of exploring options to increase the world language component in isuzu unified i think for all the reasons that miss camacho iterated around global economy um the cultural competency um and it and the programs being reflective of our demographics i think that's important um i also think it can be a great attractor for students to move into the district um i know several families who were really hoping that we would open our mandarin program here and when that didn't realize they're in different districts um but you know their students are in kindergarten so i think there's an opportunity to attract back some of the students that left the district um for some a highly structured program and personally you know i i would love to do more work around looking at the ib program because i think it's important to have a base um i think it's it's hard when you have the shrinking cohort to you know for students to have that student support and also to build that community and so i am definitely in favor of exploring these opportunities in the greater context of reimagining schools i think so and i well uh yeah what about the rest of you do we have a uh any more comments or uh questions a board member career yeah i i would agree with um with all those uh those sentiments uh sabrina that you shared i i think that you know similar to you know the idea of the concept of having a continually shrieking cohort which would be discouraging i i guess one is this is or or let me answer your question shilling i as as a member of the board do i would i be interested in seeing us pursue this absolutely i think pursuing these options and keeping these options in front of us um but being careful to not put ourselves in a a position where we kind of start a program that is maybe doomed to to to not um flourish um and so and so i i guess i i would wonder what some of the interest is what some of those numbers um would be what it what is some of that critical mass that's needed to to sustain a program through you know um what could be you know even the slight diminishing of the cohort i guess i would wonder some of those things but um all those things are would be investigated and i think it's definitely worthwhile to investigate uh those things yeah i also agree i i think it'd be i think it's it's it's actually past due it's been needed i know we've discussed this many years ago and i think the perfect timing is now through this reorganization um to bring a new program to our district i think it'd be great and again hopefully we we will get um people from out of the district that will come because i do know uh that mentioned that you know schools our surrounding schools they do have uh mandarin dill version and i think this is a unified i think we're overdue thank you i would like to also express um that i think it's a great opportunity to embark um i also agree with my colleagues and um especially now that we are going through the reconfiguration trying to figure you know what schools would be uh available and towards this this um moving into this direction i have a question for my colleagues actually there's there's three different um types of programs that are being presented to us um right one of the things that i heard board member grier say that we would like to go ahead and have a program that um it is uh is successful and if we look at all three programs the dual immersion the the two-way um we tried it and we did not have enough response from our community um to to have a full class um so so one of the things to think about is perhaps you know how how do we we know we want to start this program but how do we start this program do we start at you know the um the flex flex uh way where non-native speakers of target language right so we we start with with that program do we start with one-way immersion um i would like to hear from the board um what are your thoughts on that um well i can do you mind if i jump in i think i think there's just a couple things um one i would just caution um both available with you and adrian i mean i hear you start talking about like how is it going to pencil out from the beginning right if that was our criteria we wouldn't even have our dual immersion program that we have right now because when we launched the spanish one the classes were not full and we didn't have waiting lists right um you think about ib right like ib still is starting to still continue to grow we have a commitment to it because we have a belief and it's and it's growing as we've seen right and so to me some of it sometimes when we decide to do something some of these things um it's really around what we think is the best for our community moving forward and maybe at the beginning maybe of course it doesn't pencil out and not we don't have like full classrooms we've done that and we continue to do that when we think it's an important something important that that as we go into it is going to be really valuable for our district so i just want to put that on the table in terms of which program i would just i i mean and this is my personal preference right when you if we're going to do a dual immersion program right there's only one most programs in our area are 50 50 half and half there's only one 90 10 program mandarin that i know of in the area um in the region and that's in pasadena so there's only one district that's doing a 90 percent mandarin 10 in in english program so if we wanted to like put a program out that was very competitive that was very appealing right because when you when you actually look at language models um students students gain greater um fluency the english learners that are learning mandarin actually become better speakers of the foreign length of the target language when it's a 90 10 model um and so it we would it would it would make us more competitive because the other districts around us are only offering 50 50 models so it means the kids get 50 mandarin 50 in english right so i would suggest that the the difference between that and the fles and flux programs plus and flex are more like a like it's not it's like like it's like a after school activity right like the kids are not going to learn to become fluent in the language it's more it's more about them just getting an exposure to another language and i think if we're going to go that route i'd like to have a conversation about how can we say that's a priority for our district and all kids should have that kind of should have that kind you should have access to touching a foreign language um but that's a very different conversation than saying we want to launch a program around dual immersion where we have the small cohort that's going to become biliterate in english and mandarin so i mean that's why i i i guess the short i gave a long explanation but i think i would those are the decision is do we want dual immersion do we want like a like an after school like a like you know a uh um what would you call those classes um when the kids get to choose what classes they have i'm sorry i'm losing words like an enrichment class right enrichment class right or do we want to have a program where kids learn to be biliterate and then that after we make that decision then you can decide is it 50 50 or 90 10.
so i'll turn it over to mr martin thanks sir thank you dr mccord dr santa cruz governing board colleagues and community members it's great to be back hard to believe that uh two months ago at the december first work study we went over different drafts of calendar options for the 2022 3 and 23 and 23 24 school years and after that work study we told you that we would be conducting a survey with both parents and staff and so tonight i'm here to go over those results with you first of all i want to thank don in our communications and marketing department because she's the one that took the lead in getting this survey out to our staff and community and you can see here between december 8th and the 16th is when everybody had the opportunity to weigh in on their option if you look here too at the survey results too if you just look at we have a little bit of information from two years ago when there was the survey to the 2020 survey and you can see there are more respondents from both the parents and the staff that responded this year in 2020 was it single response yes it was because we made a big deal about that last time and i didn't i didn't see anything on here where we had to for sure fill out our own email and make it a single response i'd have to find out from dawn but yeah she's not here tonight oh she's not okay so i'm just interested because we can find that out for sure the details on that i did highlight then for you in the 2018 and the 2020 responses in yellow what was the majority and you'll notice that on the parent survey of course two years ago on the one two one calendar option there was 52 of the respondents in favor of of that and this year that switched then to the 222 option with just over half 50.5 percent so talk about uh squeaking it out but it basically moved if you look from 48 to 50.5 percent and then similarly on the staff responses two years ago they were already at 63 percent for the 2-2-2 option and this year they were 65 so both of these groups moved two to two and a half percent more in favor of the 2-2-2 calendar option the other thing that i believe mr carr asked too on the survey was what are some asking every survey respondent to give a reason one or more reasons why so dawn and i came up with some big ideas here student academic achievement vacation planning work schedule alignment child care options and other and so when each person took this survey they had to choose either one or more they could choose more than one option if they felt like that was the main reason why they were choosing that calendar option but it gives you some information i think the one thing that we've talked about time and time again with the calendars is it's very situational it's very specific to families to staff and so this gives you a little bit of information on why people and this first part here the staff chose either the one two one or the two two two and then um continuing on the survey there was an open comment area and so that's where we have it tagged here as other themes for choosing one two one and on the staff some of the um reasons for choosing the one two one they felt it was too hot to return to school in july the potential loss of learning over the longer spring and fall breaks which you'll see is also on the other so it's once again how people perceive things this one was interesting concern over no pay for two weeks during spring and fall breaks that came from support staff and that wouldn't be from our 12-month employees but like our paraprofessionals and other things they would get paid the same for their 181 contract days but it would look different and of course we know that if support staff normally have a job in the summer or something else this would be shortened by a week and a half to have that opportunity on the flip side though there might be opportunities for some of them to work at our school or do other types of jobs during the two weeks of break so once again very situational one of the things that i've chatted with otm and business services about is if we were to move to a 2-2-2 we'd want to be very up front ahead of these years so people can plan out accordingly for their paychecks especially if it was the two-week period fell entirely in one paycheck period so that people can financially plan out those reasons so those would be things we would want to look at if we were moving towards that option to help support the support staff in that change and then the final one that we saw themes coming up prefer they just prefer a longer summer to unwind and prepare for the new school year but then interestingly enough the staff for choosing 222 they felt like it aligns with many of our surrounding districts the shorter summer supports student skill retention longer spring and fall break promotes staff mental health with time to recharge and plan one thing we saw in there is that teachers feel like with that one week of break they're still finishing up things sometimes finishing grading those types of things and starting to plan for the upcoming quarter and so some of the comments were they felt like they could do that in one week and yet with a two to two still have a um vacation or a week off and so that was one of the reasons that we saw anecdotally come out in the comments for the 2-2-2 and then preferring just a shorter summer break overall same questions were asked of the parent survey so you can see there we gave them the same category so it's interesting too you can compare if the categories are similar how they answered with one two one and two two two and then once again the other themes for choosing in july very similar to the reasons why the staff chose their one two one or two two two um one of them of course with the one two one don't change stay with stay with what everybody is already used to because of course we are currently a one two one district and then the potential disruption to learning and routine with three two-week breaks during the school year there were some parents that felt like that two-week break sometimes makes for a harder time to get back into the swing of things but then once again with the 2-2-2 we see that how we align with surrounding districts and then shorter summer supports students skill retention and learning loss and prefer a shorter summer break so you can see everybody looks at it in a different way but those were the results that were gathered by over 9 000 parents responded almost 10 000 and for the staff there was almost 3 000 staff that responded to this survey so questions mr martin i do have a couple questions um if we chose the 2-2-2 calendar what happens with high school sports and activities during those breaks you know sports act you know football basketball soccer those those are pretty those are set by the aia and so those things would continue just like right now with the one week of fall break and spring break i know those seasons go just because two right now sometimes even for example mesa and gilbert are both on a 1-2-1 but our week of fall break and spring break are not always the same week and they would they would practice and play games um but again just like they are now with our breaks so yeah it's just harder if you had teenagers to plan a vacation if they're going to be playing sports so that's right one of the things in considering changing the other question i had was changing to the 2-2-2 we have talked about being able to help students during those breaks spring and fall what would that look like or what do we anticipate in being able to help or if some students are a little behind moving them along so that they're not getting further behind like we've shared we can do those things even right now too theoretically in the one week of fall and the one week of spring break but i think you would get more staff probably to volunteer this is just a guess if they still had a week off and then a week of interventions or enrichment and here we can use a number of different resources we could use our title resources differently and then also too we have instructional improvement funds which is another category where the district administration team and the school site teams could do some remediation or enrichment too during those breaks so would that look like maybe a half day for students to come back into the school i think when you say volunteer well they would get they would get of course they would volunteer to get paid just like uh just like summer school teachers that teach summer school they just want to make sure people understand they would get paid right it's not that they're doing it for free exactly right but uh you know would it be like a maybe the first week off students come in for a couple of hours or a half day or something is that kind of i think at least a half day you know if we're going to bring students in we would want to work with them for at least a couple of hours but on the other hand maybe we don't feel like we need to spend all six or seven hours or once again two if we have them for the entire day then we have to start planning for lunch and other things on those breaks whereas sometimes too you could bring in possibly two groups one in the morning and one in the afternoon as well and those teachers could still work that entire day so those are all options that we could explore and those are things that we could do with either the one two one or the two two two the two two two though teachers have said kind of like they said in some of the themes they like some of them would like the 222 because they feel like they could have a week off for themselves but they could also plan or work or in this case maybe work some of the interventions or enrichment that is going on throughout the district and how how long of a time is our summer school is that four weeks the four weeks of june usually you have kind of a week off and then four weeks in june and then um yeah correct some our summer schools are usually four weeks this year they're going to be july 7th through july or june 7th through july 2nd so that we get off just before memorial day this year memorial day is may 31st so there's about a week off and then they're here for four weeks some of them are monday through thursday program some of them are a monday through friday program depending upon the level and then they have basically that month currently of um of july off before we start back in early august okay all right thank you i just my questions are what would be the are there any financial costs that are different in either of them and then um what how do we make sure that the learning experience whichever way we go is the best for our students like that we're maximizing the time that we have in classroom every day that we're really focused i feel like we've we're i know partly it's been just this year has been the last year but i feel like we i want to get back to asking that every thing that we do is how is this impacting our students learning every single day and i i can see people think that it affects the student academic achievement so i'd be interested to actually see the numbers on that as we go um also if we start on a monday are we going to expect that that week actually we we start school and get into some of the work or do we think that that first week will be kind of a get to know you week kind of like it feels like that's what we do this right now with starting on a wednesday or thursday is kind of a little bit of a you know well i think because we ha historically the last several years we've started on our wednesday thursday we've done that but i also know there were years when i was a principal or a teacher in gilbert where we started on a monday and i know by that third or fourth day teachers were ramping up i know at the elementary level i can speak for myself things used to be grouped the way the reading program was a monday through friday program that is no longer the case you know we used to have spelling tests that were monday through friday that is no longer the case so things are are done a little bit differently so starting on a thursday in my mind is not as worrisome because they know they have 180 instructional days and one of the things with our scope and sequence documents that our teaching and learning department does very well is each year they help block out how many approximately how many days each standard or skill should be taught and what's the time frame as well okay and then i guess i also just want to point out that if we start so it'd only be about a week and a half earlier that was starting but we would need to do meet the teacher night it's really two weeks ahead of time that families would need to be back and teachers because two or two and a half weeks because we do open houses we do meet the teachers i mean it's right it's about a week and a half to two weeks ahead of time so for for example right now when we start on a one two one on a wednesday night technically at the elementary level uh meet the teachers on monday in this case when you start on a monday it's usually on that wednesday or thursday night that is um the previous week right so i'm just saying it's another it's a little bit earlier than even this year everything gets bumped up with that yeah so tell me financial costs what's what have been the analysis and what would you say well when we've looked at it we haven't seen a whole lot of change because we heat and cool the buildings during the summer that's one of those things those types of things so when we've looked at financial there hasn't been anything that pops out that's major because you're still you're still operating 180 school days 184 teacher contract days it's just in a different in a different time frame for lack of a better word but no major the buses are still running 180 days food services those types of things are still working that same amount of time what about um recess starting earlier or outside pe a lot of times are we don't have a place we don't charge for recess well i'm glad we don't charge for recess but when it's 110 we don't exactly have kids wandering around outside it's a good question so yes you know we use a heat index and so the earlier you start because as we all know here in arizona july and august are hottest months with the heat index the humidity combined with the temperature and it's interesting because some parents will say well i don't i'd rather have my kid in school because then they're not out running around in the heat whereas then you're thinking through the school perspective as a teacher or as a principal you might have a couple of more days where the recess is inside be due to the heat advisory so once again it's it's that perception for our staff though it definitely does make a difference i will say at the elementary level which is where recess occurs they've gotten incredibly well with making that um we used to call it a rainy day schedule and now we call it the modified indoor schedule because we use it for also the heat days as well too where many times most of the students are in another area of the building such as the library or they're spread out in the project room those types of things as well but it does take staffing to do that and what about outside pe because many of our classes will be outside so typically at the and then this is the elementary level i know secondary is different but at the elementary level pe for the first quarter is done inside the cafeteria and then after fall break is when they start to move outside and so that really wouldn't change here the fall breaks are in the similar positions it would just be that that nine week period starts a little earlier if we were to choose to go with the 2-2-2 and what about band camps things like that that start before school everything would have to be moved up a little bit well i think it's important to recognize too that they're generally practicing all summer to begin with so i think that's i think the camp is just more formal but right those kids are doing stuff at the secondary outside all summer long when it comes to sports and music okay mr martin thank you for putting this together i find the results interesting you know this is we did this 2018 and i know they did it a couple years before that before i was on the board and it seems like the the trend seems to be more and more each time uh towards that 222 schedule um i did find it interesting to see the reasons uh i was a little bit surprised at some of those results to be honest with you i thought vacation planning based on the anecdotal information that we've received and feedback two years ago when people made public comments i thought anecdotal or i thought vacation planning would be just the opposite amongst parents [Music] and i i think it's interesting and creates a different thought process of you know 51 of parents uh indicated they were concerned about the work schedule alignment you know and i think that probably particularly again i'm making some assumptions in this comment so be it what it may probably more impacts our single parent families uh or you know or families that have both mom and dad working um you know so that's that's that that's something to consider but uh it's it's interesting to see the results and thank you for putting that in well that that does remind me of another question i had which was um what we would providing child care through community ed um you know i think we've relied a lot on college students to do the vik in the summer those two week breaks don't necessarily line up with what colleges are doing so i wanted to ask about the prospects of hiring people to run a vik program for two weeks that could be a little problematic wouldn't you probably have staff that would be willing to do that like instructional assistance i would imagine there'd be a high number of people that would maybe want to that's exactly right and even now a lot of our breaks don't line up with the universities and so community ed has been very very good over the years at at acquiring staff during those times and and like mrs rogers said in situations like this there would be opportunities for staff that are on campuses during you know the regular day to be able to come and work during those breaks okay all right thank you that was something i had thought about our community education department does a great job of providing daycare child care options whenever we're not whether it's the summer or these the winter break the fall break or the spring break or even sometimes the one day holidays too and they've done that this year based on demand right now we're at the elementary level mostly at one location findlay farms but you know i think that's what the pandemic and everything normally the last few years they've ran it at three campuses but we've really based that on the demand and i foresee that we would have enough staff between community education and paraprofessionals to take care of those needs okay all right thank you of many of our neighboring districts that have used this 222 schedule seeing any uh reductions or improvements in the ability to perform capital improvements things like that i mean i know we use that spring break and fall break to do some really quick projects on campuses but two weeks can be considerably more than than one week and you can hit some different projects right i've talked to albert dutch over just about the 222 and he hasn't expressed too much of a concern with the week and a half or two weeks less and he has said that potentially some of those smaller projects where you only need a week or so they would be able to do some of those sometimes during the fall or the spring breaks contractors and he said the one thing we run into in the summer right now is of course every school district is out so the contractors are really busy so for some of these more minor projects that could be done they could utilize them in the fall and spring break when i've talked to i haven't talked to all the districts but i've talked to queen creek quite a bit about it because they've been on it one of the longest and they haven't i think it's become part of their culture so they don't even realize what the 222 versus 121 is because their culture has been 222 for so long so they get their projects done throughout the summer and the breaks as well too and higley's so new this is just it's first or second year on it too so they're just starting to go through those changes but when i've talked to them they haven't expressed any major concerns or anything anything else related to the calendars mr martin thank you for your work there i appreciate that next steps then probably is a february 23rd board meeting we will uh put it on the board agenda for an adoption because we do have parents that are wanting to know start planning next summer of course we have the calendar already for this upcoming school year so this is a year away but they're wanting to know when school starts a year from this summer in july or august so thank you very much for your time tonight thank you thank you for all your work jason all right we'll move to item 2.03 it's uh update on global dr mccord thank you dr santa cruz governing board members i will ask mr jared ryan to come on up and introduce this topic and then he can introduce some of the friends that are with us tonight good evening dr mccord dr santa cruz governing board thank you so much for the opportunity to be here this evening um i personally am very excited about this uh opportunity for some of the fine folks here who have joined us to be able to share with you kind of the path that global academy has been on not only throughout this school year but prior years peter has been invaluable in his leadership of all of us and teaching us throughout the year as we've as we've worked to support him and what had been a relatively small program for a number of years which because of circumstances outside of our control provided a unique opportunity two things i'd like to share before i turn it over to the team that's here tonight is um one kind of what i was just referring to this this unique opportunity that presented itself the one thing i want to say about the team that's going to present they have viewed this since the moment i stepped foot at global academy and met the group and listened and heard from them and watched them work that this isn't something they ever viewed as a patch or a get through a period of time but rather this is something that is that is a unique opportunity to provide to our entire community and with excellence in mind and while not every turn has been you know necessarily without its bumps they have absolutely called the challenge and stepped up in the time of need and done amazing work and the second piece of what i want to share is that as a long time school administrator and somebody who has taught in gilbert schools and and been a principal multiple schools in gilbert schools brick and mortar campuses i fought the fight of brick and mortar is where it's at i fought the fight of you need to be on campus to receive a great education and fundamentally you talked to me four months ago five months ago i would have told you the exact same thing what i've learned in my time at global academy and what i've learned in my time working with the leaders you're going to hear from right now is that there are students in our community there are teachers in our community and there are leaders in our community that excel in this environment and not only do they need it but it's something that we have got to be able to provide to them it's our obligation to provide this opportunity to them to be able to learn in the mode teach in the mode and lead in the mode that is most valuable and most productive for them and it's been eye-opening um for me to be part of it and a few months ago when um i was uh asked to to provide a little bit of support to the campus i don't think i had any clue what i was going to experience and so without saying any more i want to turn it over to peter amber and michelle who have been a trio of leaders amongst the pack who have been there this is a unique thing in that it's kind of taken a village um barbara and her leadership through teaching and learning sean and missy and otm marcy and and jason you know the list goes on bonnie and john this is really every day it feels like another phone call going out another support piece needed and every single time it's been brought forward dr mccord and his support it's it's the reason it is where it is today and has a really bright future so without further ado i'm going to turn it over to the team to come on up and give you their their presentation so thank you there you go all of our work this year has been focused on this goal gps global academy will provide a high quality personalized and flexible learning opportunity for all kindergarten through 12th grade students to illustrate this goal in action i want to read to you part of a letter that was sent to our junior high teachers from a student from global academy i would like to just thank you for caring and being there for me through these tough times everyone's experiencing you were so great to me and my peers even through coven 19 has been hectic and has caused deep trauma for everyone including yourselves still you guys put on a brave face so you could teach us what we need to know so we can be successful in life and i want you to know that we are all deeply appreciate you guys [Applause] here are what some of our teachers say about global we wish we had the time to share all the videos and statements from our teachers however the ones we are sharing truly embrace the community and connections that have been created here at global enjoy the challenge of creating materials and lessons that will both engage and set the foundation for some of our youngest learners each day my students use whiteboards manipulatives songs technology and a variety of other tools to help learn their academic goals i also get to come alongside families and help them think of strategies and solutions when working with their students at home i'm thankful for the opportunity that global has provided for me and others like me thank you my relationships with my students and my families are just as deep if not more than they were in brick and mortar and i'm working with colleagues that surpass any unit or team i've ever been a part of this has been nothing but a valuable rewarding positive experience i couldn't be happier and as some know i have been running around saying i'm having the time of my life i love being able to videotape my lessons so my kids can replay it until they understand it it's been a great year so far there are so many positive aspects about teaching for global one thing that has always been extremely important to me is to have the ability to connect with each and every student i used to have the mindset that in order to do this or the best way to do this was to be in person however i was wrong in all actuality i believe that building connections with students and their families is greater through online learning i've also really been able to develop the relationships between my students and myself and the relationships between my students and their peers i really enjoy working for global academy i have to say the best part about being a teacher here at global academy is the opportunity to rise to the call of duty it's been it's been truly inspiring to be a part of it and see what we can do as an organization to offer quality outcomes to our community and having colleagues and administrators all who share that common goal of wanting to rise to that challenge it's truly inspiring i'd say the most exciting part about this job is the future is what gilbert global academy could be years to come our teachers have really taken the bull by the horns when it comes to online learning and to say it's been a challenge is really an understatement they you know we've heard stories uh of especially at the beginning of this of this journey of teachers really just working very long hours learning a whole lot of things about their students that they didn't know before and really persevering to build something great uh and and i can say we are really proud of all of our teachers uh and the work that they've put in and and kind of the path that they've set forward for us i'd like to start first by going to the next slide i'd like to start with just a little picture of our history looking back over the past four years global was as mr ryan said a very small operation we had at any given time about 125 full-time students uh and a cadre of about 15 part-time teachers who were working our asynchronous classes on top of their day jobs uh and and you know they were a small but mighty group and and served a whole heck of a lot of students with the graph that you see here the bottom line shows you our average full-time group of students and then the top line shows the total number of students so you can see for all of our existence our part-time kids have made up a big component of our population and as you can see over the the first few years 2017 through 2019 our art school population grew but nothing compared to what you see that happened over the summer and going into this year we peaked at over 9 000 students a combination of full-time and part-time students and you know we had to build staff really fast and we learned a lot of things that we needed to build and improve and we'll share some of those shortly currently we're at uh 4300 students full-time students as of yesterday and about 2 000 more part-time students who are with us so still have a lot of kids still have a great opportunity and and we're still moving forward i do also just want to mention that global has brought in some out-of-district students as well i ran a report this this morning and and found that we right now we have about 156 students who chose global as their first gps school and we've seen students come in from all other districts but quite a few this summer came from queen creek we saw some from the traditional legacy traditional schools that are that are in our area so you know we're starting to see some some students pick global out of out of the pack so not only have we had a student change but we're fortunate to also have a location change uh as you know we we used to be housed out in the portables at mesquite high and while they were a lovely place we're super fortunate to be uh now at the former gca site and i just wanted to show you the transformation that's been done over there everything from a brand new paint job to some new offices for all the staff that we've had to to build up and put in place and we've got some some banners and logos that you know we're kind of cleaning up the school out there and making making it proud and making it known that global is is here in a part of gilbert as you know we use florida virtual school curriculum as our base kind of online resource and it's been used in gilbert public schools since 2016.
so without further ado okay oops i gotta turn it on i turned it off to save batteries so today we'll have an audit update by miss jennifer shields then we'll talk a little bit about the 2020 government-wide financials the 2020 governmental financials and then other items to note that's from from the actual document so without further ado i wanted to hand this over to miss jennifer shields to talk about the specific audit results good evening um dr santa cruz dr mccord members board members um it's a pleasure for me to be here um hopefully you can all understand me masked up and everything but um i've been here for several years i get the opportunity to present the audit report so i just have a few things that i'll go over with you i don't want to steal any of bonnie's thunder here but i would like to point out that the audit report itself from the independent auditor's opinion is unmodified so that is the good thing and that's really good um what that means is that there were no material misstatements in the financial statements and so as we go through the audit you know there's a number of different tests and tasks that we perform to arrive at that conclusion i'd like to also give a big shout out to all district staff that we deal with through the audit it's never an easy time but certainly during a covered time period it's presented some additional challenges so in particular i'd like to thank the finance office everybody worked really hard we were able to with a lot of hard work from both finance as well as our own audit teams we were able to perform a lot of the procedures that we had to do remotely so in in many cases documentation is available electronically from the finance office and so we can share information in a secure portal type of an environment and then we can review the documentation that way but district finance office staff did also allow us the opportunity to come in which again was a little bit um it's a little unique trying to keep your distance but yet still hover over somebody's computer as they show you you know how a process works or how transactions go through the system so a big shout out to everybody for kind of making all of that happen um because of the um you know ability for us to do procedures both electronically as well as in person we were able to complete all of the procedures during the normal audit timeline so there were no no hang-ups with respect to that in terms of required communications between audit firm and the governing board there were no disagreements with management about accounting practices or anything else like that there were no difficulties encountered performing the audit every time i say that this year i do have to you know give a little bit of a pause because everything seems harder this year but there were no know what we consider difficulties in performing the audit there were no significant audit adjustments to report so all of those things sound very good right and then last but not least we haven't yet gotten to the part where we um issue the single audit report which is the report that contains all of any findings that are noted but at this point we're not expecting any significant findings to be reported there will of course be instances of non-compliance with you know state statute or other rules and regulations that are issued by other agencies so there will be some of those items that get reported but nothing significant and i think that concludes all of my required communications so i'll turn it back over to bonnie but i'm happy to take any questions ms shields can you just clarify i think this is the first time in how many years that we haven't had any significant findings um well thanks thanks to jackie for telling me um she looked back in it since fiscal year 2012.
so as a comparison i'm a visual person there's a graph that shows what our budget estimated breakdown was for those funds how much of that was for education how much of that was for operation debt and rainy day and then based off of the appropriation reduction uh very similar in in that so not much changes as far as uh that comparison is concerned when we look at expenses of the education fund there was no reduction of appropriations so it really is very same as what we initiated um back in september this gives you a good breakdown if you go to the next slide mike gives you a good breakdown of those categories so you can see that our budget about 90 of our budget is spent on salary and benefits when it comes to the education fund and then the other categories um other big ticket categories then would be things that we pay as part of our heartland agreement and then supplies and materials and then part of our white's agreement as well now we get into the operation fund a little bit i'm not going to go on this this is a hyperlink that you can click on and it gives you a historical breakdown of tax rates and levees and those type of things but it's numerical so it takes some time to dive through and look at but you always have access to that if you want to look at it from a historical perspective you can click on that hyperlink so when we're dealing with operation fund we like to understand and know what our assessed valuation is going to be we had a slight increase of our assessed valuation for 2021 about half of a percent it's better to go up than down because your assessed valuation drives your tax rate right and so um having a higher assessed valuation can offset uh our tax rate a little bit and and keep it at a lower level go ahead mike please that's just a historical picture um this is what this is what i found interesting um i think it was back in october and november we had policy analysts come in and kind of do a forecast a little bit of what our assessed valuation tax rates could potentially look out look like out into the future and so um you know for 2021 they showed a assessed valuation of 722 million dollars and when you compare that to what we actually were we were 70 721 million 814 000.
and so and our push um you guys might be curious our push to require the doctor's note um you know it's a little bit of trepidation like they're going to go find some other virtual program or do something but of the all out of 100 or so kids that we started with we really had only two kids choose other programs we we got a lot of parents that came back some of them fighting kids that did not want to come back and so it has been very we have been very fortunate when i talk to other curriculum directors around the area they're having huge questions of what do you do with these kids that have been out all year and they're talking about hundreds of kids or thousands of kids and do you move them on to the next grade level what kind of testing and remediation and so we have just been very fortunate i feel like and everything has kind of come together and that's a testament to so many people working so hard to be able to communicate with the parents and let them know how important it is and also just with the students that were in school and not having a lot of situations with um you know making sure everybody's safe and a lot of work a lot of phone calls uh administrators and teachers and everybody involved to make it work and you know we're taking some risks as far as you know saying okay we we need to do this because we really feel like sometimes you take a risk because you want to have the kids to come because we know it's better for them to be in school so it's not really a risk but it's just a challenge to let them know that you know we're making uh we're doing the proper protocol and doing things to make it work so we're up over 90 but over 98 people actually attending in class and not workshop yeah yeah it's certainly a like a balance a realistic balance so trying to maintain the safety versus trying to balance the child's needs and it is not an easy answer for any family but yeah all right we'll move on to new business and uh i can hesitate calling it new business because all we've done since last march so under new business our recommendation to approve the copa 19 additional lead resolution i would like to speak to that yeah as you recall we brought to you the additional lead resolution last meeting and then we had actually a change to that with our school attorney that gave us some advice about doing that you never really signed it but you voted on it based on the decision after more discussion and just thinking about how it works in reality um we felt like it just needed to be changed and be a little closer to what the family's first coronavirus response act is and so that's basically what it is so instead of going with the 10 days after they use their own days or whatever as far as any staff members we're actually doing the same thing as what we did the first semester so if if there's anything going on with a close contact positive then they will get 10 days just like they did first day it resets if somebody used 10 days at the beginning first semester they could also use 10 days if they're close contact or a positive for that and this would also then go back to start january 4th when we started our semester so okay so i think legally what we have to do and mr downs can cover this if we're going to rescind our vote from last time we actually have to make a motion and a second to rescind that and then vote on this is that correct this is actually contained language we're sending the other one yes it does already have it in there it has language in there it says it's in the one two three the fourth paragraph i'm sorry make sure that we're following the protocols um so uh okay so we have that included we're good any other discussion on on this i mean we basically know what we approved last time and based on mr keyfavor's additional tonight was that it's just changing when that occurs and we did add a second bullet there at uc2 as far as the prior if if they can telework and this happened at the beginning of our first semester also if they could telework then they actually were not counted against any kind of days whether it's coven days whether it's personal days whether it's you know sick leave days but that has to be approved by by the principal or the director in other words transportation director food service director or even a director or nursing so that's a little bit different too well move to the additional lead resolution motion and second to approve the additional leave resolution uh all in favor say aye aye opposed okay next up under new business um a recommendation to approve the scholarship for the 2020 2021 to be 500 speech for northfield and southwest like we apparently did last year i don't remember that but that's that's certainly important i think at our last meeting we did approve to be three hundred dollars uh per student so this would change that is there any additional information you had there mr kipper yeah so last year when you go back to the not to the minutes but when you go back to the agenda the agenda of that reorganization meeting um said the 120 that you guys would donate and so um it ended up being the 300 and so during that same meeting it was decided then so instead of going back to the minutes we went back to the agenda and failed to see that there was a change in that and so last year you did do that so i just want to make sure i think i mentioned that to you earlier if there's any problems with it but i'm just recommending it because that's what we've done before so if you don't want to do it then obviously you don't have to but that's what we did last year i don't have a problem doing it i know especially since last march you know the economy is getting tighter and quieter so whatever we can do to help these students out even more to do some sort of post-secondary um so i'm okay from three well keeping it five technically if we did it five yeah we're keeping it there instead of going backwards motion a second to approve the recommendation to ensure that the board scholarship is 500 each for northfield and southwood all fair say aye and for christian i will give him just the application so he can look at it in case you know i don't know who's going to do that this year this is an old one but then when you're done just looking at it so you know what it's about then you can pass it on to scott that at some point and again that's from last year it won't be any different i mean the only difference will be on the date so the essays that the students write right well i mean that's just a yeah just so he knows what it is all right next item under new business is a recommendation to approve the purchase of new buses so i gave you the documentation um and includes some more information just for some of the the new members represents our entire vehicle fleet so not just buses but other maintenance vehicles etc the red represents what we've recently salvaged so those are no longer a part of it so those are gone and then the yellow represents the spares so we currently have 42 buses in our fleet 36 yellows and six whites of our yellows we have 28 active and eight spares and so our recommendation then is to purchase one activity bus and two yellow regular buses at those costs and the following documentation just gives you kind of a comparison between those bus purchases these will be the yellows will be built buses from scratch the activity bus actually is there will be new buses but they've already been um they're already in the process of being stock buses so they're in the process of being completed as far as the building built is concerned and so those came up came a little bit cheaper from that aspect so that's our recommendation this was a recommendation made not only by myself but by our transportation director and our mechanic who works on the buses as you can see some of those activity buses being built from scratch getting pretty expensive up there so um we went up i didn't go up but melissa and kyle went up and looked at some of the stock buses that they're building uh up at curlings which those thomas buses came back to be the cheaper option anyway but there was a few things that they wanted to change on the bus that would be a little bit of additional cost but very similar to the activity buses that we purchased in the past it's obviously a different brand because these would be thomas's and i think the other ones we've got were starcrafts they no longer build starcrafts so too bad that once your warm-up equipment would not include heated seats but there's no charge there's no i know like for example and i don't know how many miles that has um you know the spent buses typical buses are supposed to go for 12 years after 12 years they have to have uh two inspections a year uh and usually they cost a lot more to upkeep and so forth so typical lifespan is about 12 years but for like a sped bus for us it's about half of that because those buses drive all day long um and but i don't know as far as mileage i can find that out or else location type used to start starts yep that travel in the city have a lot more start stops than those that are out in the country your projection there i just found that a little interesting what is that four or five percent i didn't do that i do four percent each year and then once we get up like a current price then i can kind of go in and reflect that a little bit more to do that if you remember we submit this bus replacement plan as part of our budget process it used to be a 12-year plan i still keep it kind of a 12-year plan but we only have to submit it for five years which then makes it a little bit easier to go and make adjustments and be a little closer to what a bus might cost within that five years so um yeah i just do a four percent markup each year i've always appreciated the fact that we're able to own and not have to leave yep and the buses typically take four to six months to build and with covid last year it took longer one of our buses got held up like almost three months before we do that we do a bus inspection every summer in july so we like to get the new buses in so that they can be expected with the rest of our fleet because they have to be inspected before they can be legal on the road city police state police does they come in and do that and certify the buses from the inspection but anyway we like to order the buses around this time of year because of the time frame it takes to build those and then with kova you probably add a couple months to that even getting that bus in so usually we like to try to get those ordered by by uh end of january we're not we're buying these direct not through a purchasing group then it is through a purchasing group yep and that purchasing group then breaks down the three different types of buses the bluebirds the ics and the thomases and then we selected thomas's last year and kyle kind of likes that type of bus to work on plus the service is a little bit closer if something goes wrong with collins being down the road so that's where the buses will be bought from to approve the purchase of two new uh yellow buses and a activity bus a whole favor say hi hi recommendation to approve the overnight extended trip from northfield seniors to orlando and coho beach thank you watching the second to approve the overnight trip to orlando of cocoa beach uh they're in march all february okay i don't have any unfinished business a fourth policy to deal with tonight public comment okay so any items from board members [Music] okay foreign
spartans trail by a goal i just have an odd feeling about luke haynes and sherwood i feel like they're gonna somehow get it done here and now terriers good zone time dumped down low pass up to the point wrist shot blocked down zone was kept alive great player there great play there from six and now shot is blocked by kaloji that one's stung comes back out to the point and carriers will have to reset now nero runs into a man and they go for a little ride monroe can't handle the hot pass from la flesh and now another pad save from sherwood i think he'd be close to 20 by now got to be and a blocked shot from nero couldn't have felt good he's got gotta feel that tomorrow morning sherwood flips it out to the middle of the ice hanes has been great on the four check now teddy kun is getting diced up and we're gonna get a whistle looks like a slash oh maybe a hook a hook i don't agree with that one of all the of all the times they could have blown the whistle i guess this has got to be a makeup call i don't i don't i agree with teddy there i don't think anything happened i disagree with it but unfortunately i'm not wearing the stripes so we'll go back to the kill with 8 20 remaining in period three i definitely agree with you there's been some opportunities that call more calls than that like that's really nothing compared to what i've seen before looks like garvey hannah just blew a tire and now terrors oh my al garvey hannah blocks one great shot block garvey hannah a key piece of the spartan penalty kill shot comes wide kids flying all over the place and now chad o'brien oh great saves the man in oh and now out at the point an easy one for sure would garvey's feeling that on his ankle right now garvey hannah that is not t sizzle there's some red flashing light you see that trying to find it yeah the one that's right there when you move your head off the glass so i've seen this since the first period it's like grinding my gear i think it might be the live barn thing i don't know let's be honest but anyways back to the action shot is ripped way over the head of sure sherwood now keloji tries to lay a check now out to the point shot is blocked down i'm telling you sherwood and haynes put on a clinic for the penalty kill right now one minute left on the spartan kill luke haynes is knocked down great hit from the terrier captain i believe that's pluto looks like haynes was going in to lay a bod but the terriers got better and got the better of him and now luke haynes with an intercepted puck he walks in and misses the net golden opportunity for haines but unable to cash in i mean just haynes has just been a little snake bit in the past couple games and got a feel for the guy he definitely had that side of the night open gave it a go but couldn't cash in spartans 10 seconds left on the kill another puck spits out and now walking in doback can't bury one novine or i forget his name but what a save by the west springfield yeah goaltender back-to-back chances from dobeck and haines and they can't cash in now here comes polk i think that was more of a penalty than the last one but we play on i don't even want to see king's reaction if he got caught for a penalty right gobek and haines gonna have nightmares tonight after those two absolute golden opportunities on the shore especially dobeck the puck literally trickled by the side of the net but we play on now doveck with a chip on his shoulder flying in with speed braden doback fires one low shooting the puck much more than he has in the past but now chad o'brien with it tries he just flips it into the skates of the defender not sure what's going on there but i don't think he made up his mind 5 30 to go period three spartans with a few good chances comes in o'brien sherwood let them know that that's their goaltender and we'll get a face off i do got to say 24 on the terriers that's one heck of a move oh slice and dice around them 5 25 to go spartans trail the terrors buy a goal here at olympia eye center it is 10 p.m eastern time and another golden opportunity for the terriers it looked like it was blocked down by o'brien and sherwood finally covers i think i'll make it to the gym by 11.
spartan's down 15 16. nice strong cut by anthony fowl on top that was kind of an unnecessary foul i think he just thought he could have had the ball works well for the spartans almost in one on one yep carter with the drive and it's good that leads the score 17-16 spartans with six minutes left in the second quarter good defense by carter right there 10 with the good ball here good help passes out to 22. gamara's almost got his hand on that great look number four to 30.
so essentially what they do is just kind of bucket all the weights and then measure that in terms of the foundation amount 11 525. so basically then the state's calculation if we accept that the foundation amount is indeed what it costs to educate general education students what they look at is say okay in danbury it's going to cost you 162 million 373 766 dollars to educate the students of danbury and now we have to get back to the purpose of the base aid ratio which is state has to figure out how much can you pay in danbury and how much does the state need to provide assistance and support so they do that by looking at the property wealth of the community and the income wealth of the community and it's a 70 30 split and essentially what you're looking at is how much money can this community raise in taxes and how much money can this community afford to spend in taxes and that's at a 70 30 split of property wealth measured by equalized net grand list per capita and income wealth in terms of median household income so we can look at this slide too and if we look here the equalized net grand list per capita in danbury was 126 677 dollars connecti connecticut's median is slightly higher than that at 138 000 almost 300 then they look at the median household income and in danbury that's sixty eight thousand sixty eight dollars and the median household income across the state is eighty five thousand two hundred and ninety six dollars so they walk away with that and they look at a couple of other things that go into this are you an alliance district yes you are and we'll talk about the public investment communities index rank in a minute the pick index um but but it doesn't um have an impact on your ecs the pick index doesn't and so they take those that foundation amount the total need student count basically how much is it going to cost to educate and they utilize that ratio of 34.77 to say well this is how much the grant from the state to danbury should be and i just want to talk a little bit about the pick index this is a tool that the office of policy and management at the state uses to calculate the economic health of a community and it's a it's a scale of zero to 500 the higher the score the um more economically distressed a community is um so the state said at the time that they created this new formula which was 2017 there were 19 communities above 300 and so they set that 300 as that threshold of economic distress and then they tiered the percentage points to add more you can think of this as the state putting their finger on the scale and the base aid ratio to direct more resources to the neediest communities so it's a scale of zero to 500 this is the test you don't want to do well on in in scope and scale understand that hartford hovers close to 500 in the 497 to 500 um score and i'm gonna slide back one score for a minute one slide for a minute your pick score is 246.
anybody else have um yeah um would it so what what would the process of of you know assessing the cost um of or you know the initial and maybe even even term investment into something like a full dual immersion um i wonder if if that was known on the on on the front end and and weighed and recognized um i think that would be helpful for for me again so so i'm still 100 in the camp of like let's explore that let's explore you know dual immersion even to to the point of of a full and entire daily immersion program but um what you know how difficult would that be um and could we get that to see what what that that investment would look like maybe maybe even for each of these but but i'm really interested in the dual immersion um of the three the dual immersion um again um to board member cruz gonzalez's point um in the most ideal situation uh you would have you would you would build from the get-go to full kindergarten classrooms and the research backs up over and over and over and over and over and over again that the 9010 model is the model to go with so the first investment would be two teachers uh who have a b-clad and are authorized to teach in mandarin and then of course the materials that would that would have to be accompanied for this program now again in the most ideal situation you have 52 students in these in these two classrooms in each classroom half of those kids are native mandarin speakers and half of those kids are not but again that's ideal right and and that's that's again that's that would be something that you would strive for or that you would work for if you only launch one classroom then i think i think that it is our responsibility if it's a dual immersion it's our responsibility to make sure that we're communicating from the get-go uh to our community that because we only have one classroom moving up that when they get to fourth grade uh we're going to make decisions as as we move along but we want to be transparent that in fourth grade um we we depending on the numbers uh there might have to be a combination or we might have to um mess with the with the uh program a little bit uh the model that we all that we are offering because again at this point in time it's only one strand moving up and any dual immersion program we see this in our spanish dual dual immersion program you're gonna have attrition as you move up people move people change their mind about being in the program and so the reason we have those two strands is that when we get to fourth grade boom we have a full classroom uh so again the initial cost is the is the staff and the material for for the staff i just want to do a quick time check i think um i think we were supposed to start the parent piece like 15 minutes ago and so i'm i mean clearly it's not going to happen the next couple weeks or the next two days so i'm wondering if we can just you know continue this conversation maybe do a little get some more information for board members to mull over and so that we can move along on the agenda i'm going to go ahead and suggest i was looking at the time um it is 7 12 the award should be starting soon but is this something that we would like to go ahead and bring back at a future to discuss in the future okay we can go ahead and just make that recommendation there's obviously a lot of interest i do want to share real quick before we move on i do have two kids that have gone through the dual immersion spanish i have one in high school right now and um just exactly what they said she is a sophomore and she is in the spanish speaking class and she is working towards getting her by literacy seal and that is you know that is um something that she decided to do and continues to um commit herself to spanish so i do see the benefits in the dual immersion program and this is definitely a conversation that um we'll definitely get back to we're so uh all passionate about this and thank you miss norma camacho for for all your work and dana mitchell um thank you so much we'll go ahead and move on to our next board uh item we're moving on to 9.4 approve resolution 20 21 25 for national school week counseling week february 1st through the 5th 2021 and i would like to go ahead and invite frank chang to say a few words before we move on thank you um good evening board president ariana's members of the war superintendent ortega cabinet members and the azusa unified community thank you board of education for considering the resolution this evening and recognizing our counselors you have always been so supportive of them and recognizing the hard work and dedication they consistently demonstrate please allow me to recognize them by name as i know as i am honored to share not only their work but the people they are dominique perez at slauson middle school who i believe is in the audience roxanna reyes at center middle school steve scott at foothill middle school sandra wyatt at sierra high school daniel soriano at adult education center gladstone counselors george abdo joyce de leon dr janae koram who i also believe is in the audience and laura ortiz who also services ellington school azusa high school counselors jackie oak crystal mejia anna sanchez and dave lewis we are all hoping for a speedy recovery and that he will be back with us soon thank you karen kardashian for stepping in and assuming his responsibilities and goals in these challenging times our counselors have continued to do what they have always done advocate for our students and ensure they can realize academic achievement and or social emotional well-being for example counselors have been collaborating regularly sharing social sharing ideas but also offering support to one another on how best to adapt to the challenges we faced during this pandemic they have been in virtual classrooms presented information on the importance of middle school years to transition into high school developing four-year plans talking about grades credits credit recovery a through g graduation requirement reviewing transcripts college applications post high school college or career plans college and career lessons on ambiance academic and social emotional learning lessons but most importantly being a comforting presence to allow students to explore their fears concerns struggles and dreams counselors are continually reaching out to both students and families on a daily basis by phone through google meets and emails new ways of communication have been put in place such as informal student hangout groups an instagram account and even check-in surveys to assess how students are emotionally coping during these difficult times counselors are providing access to services through mckinley's children's center azusa pacific university counseling and foothill family they have continued to coordinate teacher parent conferences sst meetings 504 meetings home visits and even participating in iep meetings they have presented at parent meetings led multiple fafsa meetings and are also planning on virtually visiting feeder schools in preparation for next school year such as course selection goal setting and simply answering questions as you can see their work seems endless but they are unrelenting i am truly blessed to be able to work with such amazing yet humble people every time we meet there is laughter and yet there is always a seriousness and focus to do work that they do and they always are thinking about what is the right thing for our students they are always willing to help each other and help guide me when i need help they are an invaluable asset and resource to the school for staff teachers and administrators their expertise dedication kindness and empathetic nature have always been so critically important to the success of our students and never had those qualities been at full display or have been so needed as they have been these past several months thank you thank you frank for those words if we can all give our school counselors a round of applause thank you thank you thank you to all the school counselors can i please get a motion to move 9.4 make a motion on 9.4 we have a first by board member rodriguez pena can i please get a second by second thank you we have a second by board member beau any discussion seen that there's none i just want to um excuse me i'm sorry okay i i just want to thank the counselors for all the all they do for our students for helping them continue their education and also always being there for them i do recall my children and grandchildren when they were in school when there was a situation going on they're like oh i need to go talk to my counselor you know no matter what it was and and i'm very thankful for them thank you yes thank you board member rodriguez pena anyone else seeing that there's none let's go ahead and cast our vote please and it passes 5-0 we'll get we're going to go ahead and move on to consent calendar we have 10.1 can i please get a motion to move item 10.1 approval of consent calendar so moved thank you we have board member cruz gonzalez can i please get a second second we have board member adrian career for second if we can uh does anyone have any uh comments or anything that they would like to pull cnn at this time let's go ahead and cast her vote i'm sorry i'm sorry board president i like to pull item um 10.9 10.10 and 10.11.
it is an accredited and specially designed online curriculum it's designed with online learning online independent learning in mind it is ncaa approved and what we've done this year more than any other year in the past is our district curriculum coordinate coordinators have gone through and spent countless hours aligning uh the content to our arizona standards um you know moving things around bringing things in from other courses to make things line up a little better and that work continues uh as we speak our curriculum coordinators are are working on bringing in our our district district adopted curriculum um we're we're looking we're working with readygen for example and then we've found a way to bring in their content into our platform and so that'll be a highlight of our our ela courses and going into next year so we make that we continue to make that a priority and florida virtual has recognized that they have quite a few clients out here in arizona and and they're looking at some deficiencies in some of their courses and releasing some some updates that are are specific to our needs out here we for example just recently got a chemistry course that fits better what we need as well as some social studies courses which for a long time have not been up to up to snuff in terms of what we've needed we've realized as as we started the year that our kids especially who are full-time and especially our elementary kids just can't be online at the computer all day long and so we're making it a priority next year to to provide some to-go boxes including printables art boxes basic science materials we want students to have some hands-on experience in addition to what they're doing online and amber will talk a little bit more more about that as we go we're going to talk about what global looks like and what global will look like and we're going to base it on these these two models of of online teaching and learning so i'm first going to focus on asynchronous learning and so i wanted to share the definition up here and just share that the highlights of asynchronous learning are that the student is is the person leading the learning they can move at their own pace and the teacher is really there as as a support person students can participate in small groups uh and and the benefit of the last point of students are starting and finishing their course at any point throughout the school year so we have kids who are making up credits that they weren't able to meet in brick and mortar schools we have kids who are pushing ahead we just had a student graduate this past year who left gilbert public schools kind of dropped out and came back to us and said i'm getting to it and she was able to make up a lot of ground in about two years basically her whole high school career just pumping out courses once she finished one moved right into the next so right now as i mentioned students moving at their own pace is a highlight of our courses we have moved to a procedure of controlling class sizes just in the past month or so with the idea that that we need to make sure that we're not just piling students into our classes especially at the asynchronous level because students are going to get lost and so we're we're really prioritizing making sure that teachers have a consistent uh class size and as we move into next year we're going to push even more that teachers are really responsible for their students that they are engaging with them that they're meeting with them similar to how a teacher and a classroom that relationship would be right now we have 207 asynchronous class offerings we've we have honors classes credit recovery and this year we have a couple ap classes that are asynchronous we have so far this semester we have 9991 student enrollments compared to 2000 last year and what we've done with with our synchronous staffing as we've seen that there's based on student demand we've seen that some classes for synchronous are are more or less popular than others we've been able to shift some of our our full-time global teachers into asynchronous classes and and when we've been able to do that we see that those relationships that those teachers talk about still carry over um so you know we we think that that's an important piece to consider as we go forward in addition we partner with performance academy over at mosquito canyon valley school and all of our conventional high school center for success classrooms and so that's that support includes everything from answering phone calls and emails about grades to helping with buzz support and and getting those teachers uh trained and what they need to do and so in addition to all that first chart i showed you we have 1 600 more enrollments at the high schools that we support so we're quite busy right now but it's a good thing on the other side is the synchronous model so that this model is teacher-led leads the learning all students move together the teacher delivers the scheduled live lessons students participate in small group and the course length is fixed based on the district calendar so if we look at elementary model is the synchronous model we've changed quite a bit since the beginning of the year and currently we're offering live lessons daily for our students so they receive in the primary grades the fundations instruction every day and that is an adopted gilbert curriculum ela and math are also taught daily and then we also provide in the primary grade small group interaction so that those kids that need additional support they have that we also have assembled a reading team so we have an instructional coach and we have reading specialists that provide additional support as needed in the intermediate grades then they have focused learning groups so that they can come together and work on a specific skill or if they're struggling in a particular area based on parent comments from the beginning of the year we've also implemented writer's workshop every week we also have science and social studies was asynchronous where now we're offering at least one lesson a week of synchronist so that they get that opportunity to be with the teacher and get some feedback we do offer one-on-one support if students need them so that they can meet with teachers in order our reading team and we also have six traditional classrooms k-6 we offer asynchronous art every week and then the synchronous pe and music and they also plan special events that our families attend um we do vary the live lessons so that we can accommodate parents schedules because we know a lot of them work and they need that opportunity to have a little bit of flexibility so we take that into account and all of our live lessons are focused on arizona priority standards and really student engagement and academic conversations we don't want this to be any different than what they would experience in a brick and mortar our we are also offering professional development to our teachers just to build their capacity so that this virtual learning that they're able to implement best practices we do use and participate in the district benchmark and we've been using that data and analyzing it to make instructional decisions moving forward on this side these are a few examples of what you could experience in a primary classroom so on the top left hand corner there are this is a book in a bag so third graders are reading books and then they are presenting them to their peers and so working on that oral presentation skills and it's giving the teacher a lot of opportunity to assess our students and gain more insight to the top right hand corner is a kindergarten and it's just showing once again our foundations how do we really begin to help them with those foundational skills but also give them word sorts and some of that higher level thinking and then on our bottom um left-hand corner is one of our students actually presenting and sharing um with her her classmates and then we have some interactive games and this gives the opportunity for students to interact with each other to build community but also to work independently at home to practice those skills as well so the current model for global secondary 7-12 synchronous model we focus on a few different things we have a bell calendar that matches the campus as well many of our students choose to be enrolled on a campus and with global so far our students are concurrent enrollment the schedule allows them to do that as well synchronous format allows kids to have live lessons there's live lessons by teachers twice a week another days are a small group and one-to-one office hours and small group instruction time there's also when teachers teach a live lesson they record the lesson and then that's available then for students to refer back to who miss the class for some reason or who need to have additional instruction as well on top of the small group and the small one-to-one office times teachers also use our plc times to plan what they're going to be teaching so our curriculum is very consistent on campus with plcs know working together and planning their curriculum class offerings are pretty much the same as they are on a campus the core classes are all offered for content areas we also this year i've increased our honors offerings for a synchronous model for high school and junior high and then there's also the currently 20 ap courses being offered which 310 kids are enrolled in and then we've also added synchronous electives which is brand new for global as well secondary we have a child development toy box class being offered and the world languages of spanish and american sign language are live lessons we have an art program that has been designed for our self-contained special education classes and then logic creative writing and psychology are also offered as electives for our kids who attend global or sorry gilbert classical academy the one thing that we want to focus on this year we've seen aside from the academic part of it has also been students this year regardless of their background their skill level the skills we're seeing kids acquire what they can acquire by doing online learning is it's quite impressive from presentation skills to workplace skills to time management um it's just been a different set of skills i think they get from doing the online model that you don't see on a brick and mortar campus so we also have found success in students i've been very varied on varied levels of students so students have been very successful on campus that i think in the past they thought wouldn't have been on all my model for various reasons because i often struggle you'll see how do well on the online model and this slides just um another one is a sample of just some things teachers sent in for work samples um the things i've been doing in classrooms i will say as an administrator doing evaluations one of the biggest joys i get in my day is getting an hour to go into a classroom what you see online it's so hard to explain with visuals and uh pictures and a video but the students are interacting there's discussion there's hands-on learning there's um small groups breakouts so some of those are just some small samples they're showing like there's a dm board activity students did to answer a question a teacher asked about a video they watched the bottom one the middle showing just student choice there was an activity the kids had to do a project they had to create and it's providing choices to students the bottom left is a science physics experiment our physics class for seventh grade science students had to choose one of the three newton laws and make a video and demonstrating what the um the mall was describing it and then on the far side there's um students at home because they're obviously at home they're had to do a um user items in your house to make a friction activity and then write it that lab up as well so what we see in classrooms is just like being in person and it's really unique i've seen students interact with games with online live lessons and the instruction is the same as it is on a campus continuing with that in special education the continuum of services is just like it is on a campus um seven actually k through 12th grade for special education there's resource available at global there's co-teaching in the seventh through twelfth grade their self-contained levels of classes servicing the being c-level students the related services for speech ot no and then also paraprofessional supports available too from various grades and for academic and behavioral supports as well very similar to on a campus okay so the next two slides are going to be about things that we recognize as areas of growth at global from the time we all started there to where we are right now today so some of the things we're focusing on in areas of growth have been attendance so we have established processes for monitoring and communicating our procedures so we communicate our attendance procedures to students and to teachers and to parents upon enrolling when we also follow up with weekly communication to parents and students about their current enrollment and their attendance on sites from in person and for asynchronous as well accessibility and communication we also um so as you guys know we started off with i think us in the office and our support staff behind us right now our other colleagues and we've since then added a receptionist office manager a registrar and some clerks to help also so we're slowly improving our communication with parents and with teachers and with community members our class sizes we've established kind of a system or a program to talk about class sizes being manageable and then develop the wait list for students who want to enroll at global either an asynchronous class to protect those numbers and then for enrollment from general ed and special education as well in the course availability with the waitlist system we're able to deploy teachers based on our staffing numbers so where needs are needed based on the waitlist numbers we have so with the asynchronous format our waitlist has when the student finishes the class because they can finish at any time when they finish the next student gets that spot immediately so we've seen a lot of turn around in our asynchronous classes with numbers of kids getting back into a class when another kid finishes as far as teacher support we realize the reduction of the synchronous class sizes is important to be able to expand those live lessons because that's really what our families are wanting especially in the primary grades just and then looking at our asynchronous classes how do we continue to improve those we have been working closely with the curriculum coordinators so that we're continuing to align and integrate district resources so then that way there's that consistency between schools and also we've established that student intervention we we have students that we are concerned about and so we're making sure that we have an mtss system put in place that we can identify those kids that have needs and we're able to offer some services and help them along with a bht our behavioral health team we have that we do have a social worker and a psychologist that support us we have an inner a reading intervention team so like i said we have a full-time instructional coach and we have two reading specialists that service our primarily our primary students but support some of the intermediate students as well we also have begun a goal-setting procedure for those students that get off track whether it's that it's attendance or completing work that we're in meeting with families to really get them back on track and set some goals for them so that they can be successful and then curriculum resources at the beginning of the year we did just distribute foundations materials for our students notebooks we had math white boards and workbooks for our traditional program and next year we plan to distribute materials quarterly so that the families have those resources and can participate easily so can you just tell us what mtss stands for it's a multi-tiered um student support system and so it's just really looking at all aspects of what they're needing some support with thank you thank you for so what's next um i told my staff at the very beginning of the year that my expectation and all of our expectation is to be the best online school in arizona and i really mean it um i i think we're we're well on our way and we we've learned a lot and and we have some plans that we're looking at going into next year so again we'll think we'll we'll talk about our three models um the first is our 2021 vision of asynchronous classes and you'll see uh that two of these items remain uh and and we're holding these central and the first being that we still want students to be able to move through their courses at their pace we think that's a reason why many students choose asynchronous classes we have we have students who come to us with a variety of situations and and this really fits that flexible aspect that our online school provides again we we and this has been a theme throughout this right we want to control our class sizes not that we we don't want to bring in as many students as possible but we really want to to do that while ensuring that our teachers are able to manage the class load and able to provide a consistent level of service to all of their students we are we are planning and and hoping that we will be able to have full-time teachers teach our asynchronous classes while our our part-time uh you know teachers who worked on the side have done an amazing job um you know we we haven't been able to expect them to to have those really strong relationships with kids to be in touch with them regularly to hold be able to hold kids accountable and and to provide a high level of instruction so while you know we may still use some of them we we really would like to have our asynchronous classes be taught by a core of full-time teachers and then like i said they'll have student and parent meetings they'll be expected to hold live and recorded lessons maybe on essential topics that that will apply to students no matter where they are in the course to hold student success conferences that's that's research says that's a big component of successful online learning is you have somebody who's checking in with you who's really diagnosing your strengths and weaknesses and and setting goals on on how to be more successful and we'd love to take advantage of our campus our beautiful campus we love to have times and places for students to come in and get to in-person tutoring to get a really cool science experiment or to do a field trip together in person i i don't believe that online should be purely online i think we we should take advantage of in-person opportunities for those who can make it and when we can and lastly we want to continue as amber mentioned we want to continue to build our intervention program uh we know uh and we've seen that it's it's possible for kids to fall through the cracks when they're in this self-paced program right and so we we're continuing to think of ways to to make that not happen if if uh if a child is online and is struggling whom should the parent contact what is the best way to get a hold of someone when they're having challenges we have them start with the teacher and to have those conversations and then the teacher will reach out to us and it will it will depend if that is you know a behavioral health concern then we'll reach out to our social workers um if it is more of you know there's their it's compliance or attendance they'll reach out to our attendance specialist so being able to have that team in place so that we know where to filter those kids to receive the best service and the best support that they need and and just the communication among all of those people are key to helping our kids move forward and if they don't get an answer back from the teacher what should they do majority of our our prayer elementary students are meeting with teachers daily so they're having that check-in with them if it's not then we're following up either as the our front office staff or one of our the administrators are following up with our families through a phone call if we don't reach them there then we're going through um providing emails okay thank you so look looking at our vision for elementary we want to build on what we currently have um really be able to articulate what is our standard level of service what does that look like at global so families truly understand when they sign up and they're coming to global or choosing global they know what that means we want to expand on our district adopted curriculum and those live sessions so that it is reflective of what the brick and mortar is doing as well explore possibilities of adding electives because we want to do something that's a little bit different than a campus offering be able to assemble and provide educational toolkits so that our students one of the things as we hear from a lot of our families is printing of materials and and you know that's been hard and so by able for us to be able to provide these tool kits where kids can have the materials at home that that will make a difference build flexibility into our schedules even though we have done that we'd like to expand on that we'd like to be able to offer some reteach and enrichment periods and then have some on level um what we're calling on demand lessons we thought it would be really cool if we had a a library of different recorded lessons that families can go choose from in addition to those life lessons and small group that they receive every day so once again we're trying to do something a little different to offer to our families one of the things that we're very proud of here is we really have built a culture of community and connections and it's very evident as you walk in into any of our virtual classrooms from kindergarten to third grade to sixth grade it's it is happening our students have been able to participate in extracurricular opportunities so the district spelling bee the science fair oratorical mlk art show our pe department has family fitness nights and so it's really exciting to see families come together and have fitness challenges and dance parties and and they've done cooking challenges they go on field trips so it's been really exciting halloween parade our kindergarten team organized a halloween parade where the families dressed up they decorated their cars and then they did a drive-through where they really got to see the teachers and we had over 300 families participate so it was really cool to see the connection that the families got to make with the teachers um they do we offer virtual fun runs we had school pictures this year and we also recognize students and staff on a monthly basis future things that we want to consider is having reading nights or evening events that our families can participate clubs a student council a pto and psych council the esports teams debate team robotics coding steam stem whatever it is that our students would show interest in we'd like to be able to offer that for them as for the secondary model going forward for next school year we're looking at changing the format students we're looking at allowing students to enroll back on their home campus and then choosing a synchronous format by doing this they'll be able to connect with their home campus and still be able to choose the option of being a synchronous student or an asynchronous student with being enrolled on your home campus all the connection of their home campus counselors and support staff and teachers are familiar with and also be able to participate on campus activities and also with sports as well so a different change in how we're going to do the formats for next year um so the next slide actually will kind of show a little better but so we're looking at students who want to take an online course so when they're registering right now for next year they're choosing either they want to be a synchronous student an asynchronous student or a combination of both so how that would work would be if they choose to be a synchronous student they would enroll on their home campus and then their home campus would offer synchronous classes based on student requests and staffing patterns while there they were taught by their top of that is teacher and the student center on the campus or at home if a student chooses a center for success model they're on their campus and they're using asynchronous classes and they're taking those classes in a cfs classroom on their home campus and they're also taught by either a global teacher or a campus teacher the global academy-based asynchronous classes are for full-time global students for next year so these would be students that are taught by global teachers and then the work is completed away from a school site and for many of those students at school site or away from the school site could be you know our traveling hockey students are completing their homework while they're in a tournament in another state so lots of variations and opportunities available outside of just being at home and working on school work and just to be clear that the global academy asynchronous classes we will have full-time asynchronous students but students can still choose if they're they want to concurrently enroll they can still opt to do that as well so part of my role for next year as we move into this model where you know the online program is built into our campus schedules my role really uh one of my roles will be to support those teachers uh and make sure that they're offering high quality online teaching right and so we'll i'll be offering trainings starting over the summer and going into next year on everything a teacher will need to get going whether they have experience with us this year or whether they're starting for the first time so topics including proficiency with our platform buzz onboarding students what's the first day look like communicating and building relationships delivering effective live lessons one of our goals with this embedded model is live lessons will happen not just twice a week but perhaps more often administering authentic assessments and and providing meaningful feedback as we know those are really strong levers for having kids be successful online additional things that we are considering is having on-site open labs so that students have that opportunity to have a blended learning experience those in-person classroom experiences science classes you know a class cultural building field trips professional development budget and expanded resources for our teachers digital subscription budget and then offering k-6 asynchronous classes for acceleration purposes so that's something we've been thinking about for future we also for next year we're going to continue with interventionist teams that we have currently a math specialist or reading specialist and instructional coaches i'm social worker our school psychologist a special education instructional coach and a secondary counseling as well and we'd like to continue to build our instructional capacity to increase that full-time asynchronous online teachers with the additional responsibilities of meeting with students running small groups doing interventions and providing that more direct contact 101 as opposed to it is now right now the asynchronous really is a self-driven model with teacher interaction as needed whereas we would like to have it be a required portion of the teaching duty to work with students to reach out to them and have a set schedule to follow up with students on their they're working with so just to wrap it up moving forward as mr ryan said we we know many of our families will choose to go back to their brick and mortar schools once this pandemic thankfully moves on but we also know and we've heard from families and teachers that the global is a good fit for them and so we're building our school with that expectation that we still need to deliver excellence for them but that they come to us with needs and they come for us to us for a reason so our goal is to continue to attract district students who are seeking an online experience we would rather they not go to other schools if they're wanting to go online we want to make global the attractive option for them we know that we're hearing interest from home school students who who maybe want to come to global for a full or even a partial experience we hear interest a lot and hey can you provide math can you provide science we'll take care of the rest at home and we believe that we can attract students from around the valley and the state who are looking for a high quality personalized education so we'd like to thank you for this opportunity thank you for your time and and we'd love to take your questions and share more about what we're doing dr bartman just a a quick question and at me if it's unfair i apologize but my interest is simply uh what have been the greatest challenges as we use florida virtual and buzz in particular and can you can you speak to that because the place over these past few months where i've discerned the greatest criticism is that thing called virtual and not global global is not a part of that discussion but the idea of virtual has been highly criticized and highly suspect from my point of view can you speak to that at all yeah we i mean we hear we hear it as well um first of all let me let me uh attack that question in two different ways uh the first being our platform which is buzz right um over the years we we've heard that we've heard different criticisms of buzz and but what we found is is as teachers and as students and families get used to it they do find use in it um it is a top tier platform um it's not like it's the cheapest option right but it is a it is a powerful platform and and we have teachers who have who've they've admitted like they at first they were very skeptical uh you know they they thought that oh there's something out there that's better but as they've used it and as they've seen the capabilities um they found it to be useful uh with the curriculum you know i i think going into this year we did not expect the you know the the need for principles to to happen um and that certainly navigating that's been a challenge i think we found a success in and working with our curriculum coordinators and and really moving around curriculum so that it it was in a place that made sense to gilbert public schools um and and that work continues as i mentioned and and i think that's that's gonna help uh kind of bridge it a little bit right so that the experience that students are getting uh in school that the materials that they're using uh they'll see something similar online so the criticism as it relates to that idea of virtual instruction which is not what you do you're doing that certainly but that's not tied to you it's tied to the teacher out there using buzz as a platform and trying to teach electronically remotely what what's that criticism been about do you have any idea i i think i answered that a little bit after talking to a parent their day actually i think some of the confusion has been the platform we're using at global and then using it also on a brick and mortar campus as well the disconnect there has been um and in the very beginning our teachers are probably with the brick and mortar campus because we had teachers you know being added day of school day after school started um the lack of training i had to use it but as they had been with global full-time that's been a constant thing they're using as the platform and the training the resources our ties are amazing peter's knowledge is insane um so our teachers not global i think are very comfortable and they love the platform and they love the way it's being delivered i think the um disconnect has been the criticisms we've gotten is from the kids who are on the brick and mortar where teachers are using a virtual platform for using different platforms are you trying to incorporate google classroom or trying to incorporate a different platform altogether and that inconsistency there another criticism then on the brick and mortar campus it's a very different setup than we have at global or global the only option is to use buzz that's been i think the challenge there is that virtual and global are really two different things i think that's been the disconnect for some of the criticism that we've raised that we've been hearing as well if i could also add we know that we have work to do in onboarding uh students parents and teachers and so tiffany who's in the audience has been working really hard with our marketing department and really thinking through what are all the aspects that somebody needs to know when they become part of our community and a lot of that's technical right everything from how to log in to how to record my attendance to how do i navigate through these lessons that you know i've never had to experience before you know i i think i'm the first one to is guilty of kind of assuming that people have uh knowledge and understanding of online classes and online platforms and so you know i've really even myself had to take a step back and say what do we need to provide up front to make sure that our kids are successful going forward okay board members anything else i had a couple questions you mentioned kindergarten through 12th grade i understood that we have a pre-k option as well you want to talk a little bit about the pre-k option yeah the pre-k option actually isn't through global um it's it's through a different department i believe so we actually don't uh don't affiliate with them okay that's fine thank you um and then the other question i have um and i know you're expanding but i am i'm a person who really appreciates the arts and i heard a lot about your art activities i appreciate that what about music do you have music education also you know in on campus situation we would have the opportunity for band strings or choir so are there some thoughts about how we can provide that to these kids um in the online moving forward for next year next year or in the future because elementary elementary i'll amber speak to that god well and i i definitely think that something that having those conversations as our families are interested that we are really wanting to provide a comprehensive program or you know comprehensive experience and part of that is being able to have band and strings so we we do have music but being able to expand that to our intermediate grades is something that we we are definitely having conversations because i mean part of it is that people may switch back and forth you know as we come through this year of crisis hopefully next year will be much better um and people may return to a brick and mortar but they may switch back and forth and so if if kids are going to participate in music they have to get those basics um at some point you know elementary junior high and and prepare you know music is not a one-year thing it's it's kind of a long-term commitment so i think some of it too for the secondary um the model changing note for next school year with the students will be on back on their campus some of those kids would be ideal they could take their on-campus orchestra class choir class band class and then choose to do also academics online as well and i think you're right as as a knee continues as we move forward a lot of it right now is that the platform for online instruction through the bus platform we have in curriculum we have isn't there but there's no reason that that couldn't be pursued moving forward um if there's an interest from our students are enrolled in asynchronous full-time okay and then the other question i have is just because we do have i mean this is our biggest school now i mean this is a lot of kids so do we have some plans or some thoughts about graduation in the past we haven't done anything for graduation for those students that graduated from our online campus yeah it's certainly been a discussion [Music] i would say when students bring it up they really want to be with their their home school peers to be honest we face some uh some criticism like oh we're am i gonna have a global academy diploma or you know i'd rather have a one from my school so it's definitely something like i personally have dreamed about um and i think now that we have a large number of students that might be something that to happen in the in the foreseeable future but you know we're we're kind of balancing those two forces okay all right thank you go ahead ms wood thanks so what do you anticipate the enrollment to be next year because i can tell you i think i'll be significantly lower i agree i do um we are we are significantly lower we are planning to put out a survey um prior to spring break so that we can uh you know get a sense of that information uh prior to the district making staffing decisions and those kinds of things um you know i i if all goes well with with vaccinations you know who knows i i tend to agree i don't know and i think there's room for growing i just don't think i just i'm wondering if you guys are anticipating that it would be at these numbers i don't i i wouldn't anticipate that but i don't i don't think we anticipated being at these numbers so what numbers do we need to break even or is this going to be like an enterprise um where you where it funds itself or how financial i have a lot of concerns financially of how what is the funding um the state funding model right now when the students are part-time with us what is the funding for that all those kinds of things how are we keeping track of that and and making sure that we're sure so attendance has been a big uh a big deal for us and and that's the exact reason why um our our funding is based on the number of minutes that students spend working on their online courses and so it's been incredibly important for us to figure out effective ways to capture that information and and some of it is technical so we collect minutes every minute that a student spends working on their course in buzz that that those minutes are collected automatically the challenge comes when you know students are working away from the computer or offline then we have to rely on our families to to give us some of that information and and sometimes that's a challenge but we've developed uh procedures as as michelle mentioned um where we're reaching out regularly to families who are not meeting those minute requirements where we continue to educate we have a whole page on our website with videos for elementary and secondary students and families on how to go through this process and we're starting to hold kids accountable for not meeting those minutes um what we've also done is we we've empowered our teachers a bit too and we every week a report goes out to teachers on on you know where their class average stands and a lot of them have turned it into a competition uh to beat last year uh and and we've seen tremendous growth in that if we if we compare first quarter to the third quarter now you know in secondary for example we're up over 30 points in average attendance and so you know so we're near about 70 percent for secondary classes we need to get higher but you know that's tremendous growth from where we started elementary has kind of lived at 80 percent plus for the the past month or so and so that's where we'd like to keep it so you know it's it's kind of it is a lot of work to capture those minutes but that's what we really rely on okay i would love to see some details about that maybe mr ryan can help me with that at some point and then i do want to say how much i appreciate all of you and the way that you've just approached this the exciting things that have happened i appreciate the teachers the global teachers who have jumped in and i've heard great things from many about the experiences they've had and i do appreciate and recognize all that they've done to make good things happen and i think we should definitely capitalize on what we've learned and leverage it to move forward i'm just not quite i'm anxious to see you know kind of how it all plays out as far as numbers wise and i think too another thing to consider and remember and i think you've mentioned that is um i think a lot of the success comes if parents and families are understanding of what is required of them it's i don't know that this model would necessarily fit every student you know and that's why we still need a brick and mortar and need to be in person for many students but this is an opportunity that people are looking for and some really are but there has to be a commitment on you know by the families for sure but that we can partner with them in a great way for those students i think that's exciting absolutely i one other thing i was just wondering um in the past we've we haven't seen the success as far as completion of courses on the asynchronous or different measurables like that i just was wondering what have you seen as far as completion of courses and what other measurables do you have in place i'm glad that you're participating in the district um just evaluations and benchmarks i would love to see those too and see how you guys you know how that's been going but yeah our completion rate has been steady compared to last year um however our attendance for asynchronous classes has improved um we have we brought we have some amazing teachers who have you know some have really held students feet to the fire which is hard to do in an asynchronous setting um so that's been really encouraging actually to see that that it is possible and and part of it is we have to have teachers who are devoted to this whose time is not split between uh another school or another job and global because we've seen teachers who global is their focus are showing good progress both in terms of you know what what does their classroom environment look like what does their instruction look like and what are their kids how are their kids complete completing courses i don't believe we have benchmark data yet on asynchronous students most students who take asynchronous courses are taking benchmarks back on their home campus because we have you know that that large part who are part-time global students or concurrent enrollments um but you know i i think it's something we could look for yeah what and then what about completion do you have numbers on completions yeah we are so i looked at it this morning actually um for first semester we were at about 65 so uh you know room for improvement for sure but um you know i'm pleased that it's more than half for sure and it's certainly up over two or three years ago okay thanks anything else board members just a few few comments if i may um first i i'd like to thank you for all of your work i have heard positive feedback from parents who have chosen global and that has not always been the case for global academy the strides that we've made the last couple of years are showing and it's showing in feedback so thank you for for all of that work for listening um i think one of the one of the things that i really appreciated if i go back to my own experience with online courses for my kids the flexibility of start dates the asynchronous but yes it may have been asynchronous before but you still have to start and stop on a certain schedule and i think that's important because a lot of reasons that people look for an online course is that very flexibility um so i i i commend you for for offering that um i also loved hearing that you know i i think uh dr ryan started with the comment but uh uh mr ryan i just promoted it don't swell that head anything sorry please sorry don't don't need to stroke the ego but uh um there has i think for a long time been a sense of competition between the online offerings whether it be global academy or outside and the traditional and as we move into society whether it be in the workplace whether it be in education whether it be in the universities and now whether it be at the high schools and even elementaries with what you're offering it it really shouldn't be a competition it should be you know what i'll what i'll call a co-op petition meaning we're cooperating and competing at the same time so that we offer what's best for the students and i've sensed that approach in in your whole presentation um so i'm i'm i am grateful to hear that i'm also you know i do like the competition i think competition makes us better it makes us all com all be better um so if you're offering something that hasn't always been offered sometimes it's that change of pace that allows you to do something that's a little bit harder to change a culture someplace else now you see the success and you can change the culture so i hope both you know that our traditional schools are learning from your successes and we're learning from their successes and and that's that's what i'm hearing so i'm grateful to hear that and i especially love that we are reaching out as you indicated to homeschool parents to other districts um i know traditionally we have lost online role enrollment to other districts so to hear that we're getting it back uh and and being an attraction you know yes it it brings in funds and and ms wood brings up some good points that we need to make sure that it's a it's a positive flow um we don't need to bring in more people that we lose money on but but bringing students back attracting them builds our reputation and it's going to bring us not only to the online offerings it's going to bring us to our traditional offerings so just in general want to thank you for your presentation for the information and for for pushing the envelope it's it's a good thing to push the envelope when we're pushing it in the right direction so thank you dr santa cruz yes i i would like to also say thank you very much to you um all and mr ryan i was probably like you um six months ago i didn't think there was any way that that that anything could compare to brick and mortar however um i have a personal interest in this because i have a daughter who's chosen to be a part of it and i've been invited to a couple of different grade level plc's over the last couple of months and having participated in plc's for many years i can't even tell you that the camaraderie and the and the working together of these grade levels is just blowing me away um i tend to try not to talk too much about anything that happens to with the board at home because between emails and everything else that's all we would do but i do have one thing that i was asked to please read to everybody tonight this is from my daughter please make sure that the board knows that it's a real school and we have formed real relationships with the kids and often have better communication with parents because they are right there with us and she's got some pretty funny stories too about that so thank you for all you do i think it's been a wonderful opportunity for many people at many levels thank you i would like to just take a minute if i could to introduce my team back here uh while our team really please do please do uh christine laxo is our elementary dean of students alongside amber heather preston is our secondary dean of students she's really the guru who works with parents and families a lot tiffany pearson in the back i mentioned she is our extended education specialist i think you met her last year uh really focused on you know what can we what can we add to global to to really support our kids and she also facilitates in person summer school did i get everybody i think i did i'd just like to say that um you know the beginning of this school year was difficult whether you were online brick or mortar or wherever you were um and we we got a ton of emails at the beginning of the year about being online about buzz and and global and you know i just want to acknowledge the fact that i i think it at to some degree we almost set you up for failure at the beginning of the year and um and i apologize for that for the mere fact that we just didn't know we were getting into and where we were then and where we are today and everything that we've learned in between i think will make for a phenomenal global academy at some point in time as we move on every single day i know you're getting better and and where what i really appreciate is the fact that you guys are trying to do everything you can for kids i know global can't provide every type of of class available out there and i know that some people think that they can and and you do an excellent job of explaining that to everybody it's something that you know i i know at the beginning of the year my hair was not nearly this gray um but that's just because we're in situations that we we're working with unknowns and i'm just really really proud of all the things that you've done when we talk about people stepping up all you got to do is step foot over there and and see what goes on and see how they do it so kudos to all of you especially all of our teachers um you know there's i think what we have now the students that are there the staff that's there everybody wants to be there for whatever reason and i don't care what platform you're teaching in whether it's in a school brick and mortar whether it's online that that's 90 of it people that want to be there and i think that's where we've settled into on that at this point in time to miss what i think yeah we will lose students going back and and we know that we recognize that but there are a group that's going to want to stay and then there will be some over time that want to come and so we will try to serve those needs and um again just thank you to everything you guys done i appreciate it dr bartman thank you and your team we appreciate the hard work and i look forward to you fulfilling that dream of creating the best online school in the state thank you i'll move to item 3 3.01 is adjourning the work study portion just the work study portion we'll move to item 4 which is the brief board business meeting and item 4.01 is the call to order so we will call brief business meeting to order and we will do item 4.02 is calling the role and miss wilson would you please miss laurie wood here mr reed carr here dr charles santa cruz here michelle yujetti here ms jill humphries here mr president all board members are present you have a quorum the one omission that is not there and we'll include it as part of 4.02 and that will be approval of this evening's agenda for this brief ford business meeting so i'll entertain a motion dr santa cruz i move that we approve tonight's agenda is there a second second mr carr mr eugetti thank you any discussion seeing none then we will vote to approve this evening's agenda all those in favor please signify by saying i those pose the same motion carries 5-0 we move to item 4.03 and it's proclamation dr mccord thank you dr santa cruz governing board members we have a couple proclamations uh that we would like to acknowledge and read out loud these are from governor ducey i'll start off with school counselor week as you know we have some excellent people out there working with our students in the counseling realm and we would like to recognize them this evening whereas school counselors are employed in public and private schools to help students reach their full potential and whereas school counselors are actively committed to helping students explore their abilities strengths interests and talents as these traits relate to career awareness and development whereas school counselors help parents focus on ways to further the educational personal and social growth of their children and whereas school counselors work with teachers and other educators to help students explore their potential and set realistic goals for themselves and whereas school counselors seek to identify and utilize community resources that can enhance complement comprehensive school counseling programs and help students become productive members of society whereas comprehensive developmental school counseling programs are considered an integral part of the educational process that enables all students to achieve success in school now therefore i douglas a ducey governor of the state of arizona do hereby proclaim february 1st through the 5th 2021 as school counseling week so thank you to our school counselors thank you dr mccord and a vote of confidence to our school counselors we appreciate the work that you do in guiding students as they work through their school experience we'll move to item 4.04 another proclamation dr mccourt thank you dr santa cruz governing board members this is career and technical education month again another proclamation from governor ducey whereas february 2021 has been designated career and technical education month by the association of career tech technical education of arizona and national association for career technical education and whereas profound economic and technological changes in our society are rapidly reflected in the structure and nature of work thereby placing new and additional responsibilities on our educational system and whereas career and technical education provides americans with the school to careers connection and is the backbone of a strong well-educated workforce which fosters productivity in business and industry and contributes to america's leadership in the international marketplace whereas career and technical education gives high school students experience in practical meaningful applications of basic skills such as reading writing and mathematics thus improving the equality of their education motivating potential dropouts and giving all students students leadership opportunities in their career fields and in their communities whereas career technical education offers individual opportunities to learn new skills that last a lifetime which provide them with career choices and potential satisfaction and whereas the best education for all students is a rigorous education that blends the essential content of college prep studies with quality career technical education and whereas the ever increasing cooperative efforts of career and technical educators business and industry stimulate the growth and vitality of our local economy and that the entire nation be preparing graduates for career fields that are forecasted to experience the largest and fastest growth in the next decade and whereas deca educators rising fbla fccla ffa hosa and vica schools usa are non-profit educational student leadership organizations whose purpose is to develop the leaders of the future workforce now therefore i douglas a ducey governor of the state of arizona do hereby proclaim february 2021 as career technical education month that's it thank you thank you dr mccord to our cte educators and our cte student cadre congratulations and we only wish you the best as you move forward with your education and your chosen structured field move to item 5 consent agenda items and you've had an opportunity to review the consent agenda items is there a motion so moved thank you miss humphries is there a second a second thank you mr carr any discussion seeing none then we will move to approve the consent agenda as presented all those in favor please signify by saying aye aye all right all those opposed the same motion carries 5-0 consent agenda is approved we moved item six which is adjourning this brief board meeting is there emotion so moved thank you mr jetty is there a second a second thank you mr wood any discussion usually none all those in favor please signify by saying i to adjourn this meeting aye aye all suppose the same meeting is adjourned thank you
so a lot of hard work and effort has gone into making those corrections so a very long period of time i just think that's worth calling out i think the staff has worked tirelessly and hard to clean up some of those issues again the the findings were generally controls type issues not malfeasance but we now have addressed those issues and so as you put it i just want to proverbially and perhaps even actually applaud the finance staff for addressing that anything else you'd like to add jackie okay great thank you very much jennifer i appreciate that so as you go through the review of the comprehensive annual financial report which i know all of you are just so excited to get through but i wanted to remind you that at the very beginning of the comprehensive annual financial report is the letter of transmittal as well as the management's discussion and analysis so those two parts of the kafir do give a fair amount of information and notable things that have occurred that that if you do have the time to review them it's much shorter than going through the entire book um it might be worth maybe you need a little bit of some light reading to get you to sleep at night so anyway i just wanted to remind you of that and then in addition the way that the book is organized the financial statements start with a government-wide view so this looks at gilbert public schools comparably to a private a private sector entity that's presenting their financial results at the end of the year and then so that's where it begins and then the next step is to go into a government government wide look so looking at them the major funds grouped grouped a little bit differently and then finally at the fund level where each individual fund that you've seen every single month on monthly financials are expressed both with a balance sheet as well as an income statement so just to give you an idea of how it's organized so in tonight's presentation i just wanted to share the govern government-wide look and the governmental look and then just some notes about how how we translate those down to what what you we share with you every month to our major levy funds okay so in looking at our net position year over year so we're always comparing our current year ending results to our prior year ending results so you can see that our net position has increased by over 20 million
so it's pretty close uh to that so this blue line kind of just represents a future trend uh possibly with our assessed valuation the orange line is something that i asked them to do just in case there was a lot of unknowns there still is a lot of unknowns uh to how cobit 19 might impact impact uh property values and those type of things down the road but that blue line is kind of what the baseline is for our assessed valuation i mentioned before our assessed valuation drives our tax rates a little bit this is a historical perspective of those tax rates for msd wabash county with the breakdown to what those tax rates serviced so you can see uh back in 2019 legislation combined those bus replacement levies those capital fund levies those transportation levies into an operational fund or an operation levy which represents the entire green uh column there and then the peach column would represent your desk service so you can see we've kind of hovered around the 86 88 cent range and if you really got interested you can compare that to those assessed valuations and you can see where there were dips in the assessed valuation where your tax rates increased a little bit when there was an increase in tax or increase in assessed valuations your tax rates dipped a little bit so that's where some of that dipping and going comes and then i i get this graph off of software that i use 2021 they've just published 2021 into uh gateway so that wasn't ready for this time so that's what that bar line represents up there at the top is the 2021 um current tax rate i like to show this just to see how we compare to other corporations and statewide the average statewide is about a dollar one uh when you're looking at tax rates uh that's from 2019 haven't really found any more recent information than that at this point larry duvor i don't know many of you guys know him uh he actually retired this year and but he's still going to be giving presentations to local governments and iasbo and some of those groups so it'll be nice to have his wisdom and knowledge around uh for that uh this also came from policy annex it relates to that 2019 uh median average so at 80 cents you can see that we're right there towards the top as being one of the lowest in the state for tax rates net asset valuations like i mentioned before drive your your tax rate dollars a little bit again this was a projection that policy analytics presented to us back in october and you can see us their estimate for 2021 was almost right on to what our actuals were i think our actual was 87.77 so very close there with that and then you can see for 2022 a slight increase probably because there's a little bit of dip and assess valuation from their projection and then you can see it fall way off and the reason that it falls way off is because we would have retired all of our bonds at that point in time from our debt service which would be our last payment would come in 2022 this year we'll have one bond that will pay off at the end of the year which would leave us with two remaining bonds that get paid off at the end of this is recent information uh presented back in december uh from larry devore uh just showing that bond interest rates are at the lowest that they've been in a long long long time less than two and a half percent who knows with the new president coming in and anything that happens with legislation and so forth obviously some of those things could change uh in the future but right now uh it's pretty low lastly i like to do a comparison around our border schools just to kind of see what our our tax rates were again this is from 2020 so this isn't the most updated version because that was just released to gateway today but comparatively to last year you can see where msd of wabash county stands uh from a tax rate perspective this year that would obviously represent 80 87 88 cents we do know that just comparatively from the county because we did receive the county budget order as well that wabash city schools for 2021 will be a dollar sixty five and uh mcconaug manchester's would be a dollar six the the bar graph on the right is just a side-by-side comparison to give you how much money is uh collected based off of that tax rate so it's the levy and so for example like if you would compare msd to peru we get about the same amount of money for levy but they have a tax rate of 1.61 and we had a tax rate of 80 or 85 cents so assessed valuation really drives that again they have a lower assessed valuation we have a much higher assessed valuation and that's where that factor comes in which then leads to the money that we appropriated for the operation fund budget this is what we submitted to the dlgf back in september it gives you a breakdown of what those different categories are you can see general administration that would be like central office dealings marketing and communication technology maintenance and custodial security services would be like our sros insurance costs property insurance workman's comp auto insurance transportation costs building land those are improvements and then you have sports facilities and equipment purchases in there as well which building land and equipment purchases can also have repairs and some of that stuff in there as well as maintenance um and so with the new budget order for our operation or appropriations for operations this is the breakdown in that and as you if you compare those the biggest difference is typically when appropriations are reduced then we don't typically spend as much money on projects that's where the bonds have come in handy the past few years is that we've had bond money to be able to do those types of things any questions with the budget then break down from this from that and i put in your board packet the 1782 notice which gives you a little bit more information that's what we get from the dlgf with that did you expect a dlg to cut back operations yeah they do that every year and a lot of that is because part of the process is that we over appropriate so that we make sure that we don't put ourselves in a bind because we don't ever know what our assessed valuation is going to be and we don't want to put ourselves in a position to not receive enough money to fund our budget though 105 000 tax the last part that we have to go through is the school corporation fiscal indicators so back in 2019 part of legislation required a new entity to be created called the do ab which is the distress units appeal board and they were to come up with some fiscal indicators and share those out publicly of every school corporation to determine some categories that might end up leading a district into financial distress a lot of that has to do because of the issues and the takeover of muncie schools and gary community schools and so this is a fairly new process it's only been out for a couple years one thing to remember about this though these indicators is that they are always a year behind so these do not represent uh end of 2020 school year they represent end of 2019 school year and then next year's will represent the end of 2020 so it's always a year behind with that so one of the things they look at is your adm because that's the money that we get from the state per student and so obviously if there's a decrease in enrollment that could lead to financial distress because of the schools not getting as much revenue from the state so adm is one thing that they look at the other thing they look at are fund balances and so what i shared with this is and you can go on there on this website and you can play around with it if you choose but this represents i i just broke it down into a few categories capital funds which is the orange that represents the bond money that we've received and so obviously you can see where it's gone up and we've been spending it down because it's kind of a one-time thing that you get and you receive that money and you spend it uh so the capital funds represent those bond dollars education fund and general fund those are kind of the same thing they're not really the same thing but you can kind of equate that because we don't have a general fund anymore it's now the education fund so you can see where we were in the past with those in the negatives and obviously we've improved our balances when it comes to the education fund operation fund is the great and you can also see that our operation fund is him is getting stronger rainy day which is the yellow and you can see that we're starting to build up a little bit of rainy day reserves and then the brown is the self-insurance fund and the reason i wanted to put that on there was because today will be a day that we will celebrate for a little bit and uh we ran into some issues back in the past with our self insurance fund and we will have that paid off um after this board meeting so that will be a good thing the other thing they look at is your revenues and expenses for each year so this is an example of the education fund revenue and expenses uh from year to year green representing the revenue uh blue representing the expenditures obviously if your blue is higher than your green you're losing money right because you're spending more than you're receiving which is not always a bad thing but if it if you do it a lot then you're gonna dual down your reserves next slide they look at a fund balances as percentages of expenditures you can look through different funds this is the education i just selected the education fund so we didn't have to go through all these different slides but education shows that we have a 50 fund balance as a percent of our expenditures and i think at one point we used to have a goal of that and i think it was like 12 or 15 so we're doing well there and then the annual deficit surplus this just shows you revenues and expenses for all funds all funds that hit our banks not just the education fund the last two is revenue by type so that just gives you a breakdown of the where the revenue streams are coming from from year to year and what those look like and then the last slide is an operating referendum which mike you can go back which we don't have enough we've never had an operating referendum so there's nothing to see that i created this graph i like to see it i don't know if you guys really care to it it the blue lines represent our basic grant comparative to our adm so basic grant are the dollars that we receive per student so you can see from the line graph as our adm you can see how that has impacted or adjusted our basic grant dollars that we received from the state and then i tie that into the total revenue for the education fund and the total expenses for the education fund and then lastly this just shows you again a historical perspective or fund balances you kind of already saw that on the other graph i i mentioned food service because that's one thing that we kind of take keep an eye on because that's changes from year to year all the time and so forth and then lastly last year we we created a two-year goal so this that goal goes through this year so i'm just carrying that goal over and so we had established a goal that we wanted our education fund balance to be equivalent or better than three months of expenses and our average expenses per month for 2019 was 1.1 million and our average for 2020 was about 1.2 million so three months of that we'd be looking at about 3.6 million dollar um balance that we would like to maintain in our education fund and i believe our currently our education fund sits at about 6 million so uh that's we're good in a good direction with that our other goal was to increase our rainy day fund to up to a million dollars um i believe after we made that uh transfer back in october from operations to rainy day when we take out the five hundred thousand dollars to pay off our self-insurance uh today that will leave us just over a million dollars in our rainy day fund and then the last was to pay off that self-insurance fund uh by this year and so we'll have that done as well uh today so that being said i don't think i have to come to any more board meetings [Laughter] so that's just a financial recap then uh of 2021 leading us into 20 or 20 20 minutes in 2021 any questions with that i just want to say i appreciate your guys's leadership on being able to have us hit those every one of those financial goals when i first started on the board that seemed impossible so good job thank you absolutely so i guess that would be cool so we are adjourning the financial of the board of finance meeting so we'll move right on to the reorganization meeting and i will call that to order uh recognize the visitors in the in the room or mostly just employees no revisions to the agenda for the reorganization meeting and so we'll move on to the oath of office for the new board members and re-elected board members thank you very much we'll start with mr routine if you would stand and raise your right hand yes okay hi christian roseanne hi chris do you solemnly swear it's only for her that i will support the constitution of the united states of america support constitution of the united states of america and the constitution of the state of indiana constitution of india and the laws of the united states and the state of indiana also the united states and of indiana i will faithfully execute the duties of my office can you repeat that i will faithfully execute faithfully execute the duties of my office these are my offices as a member of the school board board of school trustees member of the school board of trustees so oh my god oh my god congratulations thank you very good mr bowman and the constitution of the state and the constitution of the state of indiana and the laws of the united states and the laws of the united states and the state of india and the state of indiana i will faithfully execute the duties of my office i will faithfully execute the duties of my office as a member of the school board as a member of the school board so help me god so help me god congratulations mr paul hi scott halpert i saw harper do solemnly swear please and i will support the constitution of the united states and i will support the constitution of the united states of america of america and the constitution of the state of indiana and the constitution of the state of india and the laws of the united states and the laws of the united states and the state of india and the state of india i will faithfully execute the duties of my office i will fully execute the duties of my office as a member of this school board because they were a member as a member of the school board so oh my god so help me out congratulations you're official all right thank you all thank you thank you later now and i will file these with the clerk moving on to the reorganization of the board of education first item is election of president finally todd any other nominations we have a motion second to elect me as the president of the of the board of education all in favor say all right election of vice president kevin i have a motion a second to elect kevin as the vice president for the board all in favor say aye aye opposed election of secretary [Music] so there's a motion and a second to elect matt as the secretary for the board of education all in favor say aye aye legislative liaison delegate to the indiana school board association annual convention is that a person this year or is that well it will be until this fall so we'll find out okay a second motion in a second to nominate me as the legislative liaison delegate to the isba convention all in favor say aye all right okay i guess i'll do it uh representative to the heartland career center board of managers emotionally second for matt being the representative to the heartland uh board of managers all in favor say aye aye next is the appointment of the corporation attorney and establisher retainer of 175 an hour and mr president i will recommend we approve the law office of downs tandy and but there we go as attorneys at the rate of 175 per [Music] superintendent's hour okay we have a function in a second to approve uh those guys to be the office of uh to be the corporation attorney and to establish that uh retainer all in favor say aye aye opposed appointment of corporation treasurer and deputy treasurer with current bonds set at 200 000 elementary bookkeeper's current bond set at ten thousand dollars and high school bookkeepers for twenty thousand dollars mr president i recommend the appointment of dr chris kin as a corporation treasurer and i also recommend laura baer as deputy treasurer and the bonds that you actually read okay we don't okay the bookkeeper bonds are yeah it's tied to a name right position right i guess i should have been sorry i have a motion in a second to appoint dr kuhn as the corporation treasurer and laura bears this deputy treasurer and to approve all of the bond amounts that previously read all in favor say aye aye opposed next is to establish the salary of board members the current salary of the board members is two thousand dollars with the heartland career center represented receiving an additional twenty five dollars per meeting not to exceed twelve meetings so the maximum salary cannot exceed two thousand dollars that's my recommendation and that's my indiana code i need to approve it more than a second to establish the salary of the board members all in favor say aye aye opposed establish a mileage reimbursement rate and i recommend the mileage rate for all school employees be the same as the amount in the current teacher master contract which is 44 cents per mile so we have a motion and second to establish a mileage reimbursement rate for the school district employees all in favor say aye aye opposed board scholarship yes since 1994 um the board has been very generous and giving a contribution for two scholarships and so each board member contributed 120 annually toward two 300 scholarships one each at northwood and southwood and so the board selects the recipients from the applications submitted each spring so that would be up to you if you would want to continue that but we appreciate what you've done in the past what did we raise that to last year it was a 200 scholarship we went to 250 i believe which i think that's what it was represented no it went from 200 to 300.
probably not but anyways o'brien with some words behind the net he must get that from liam but anyways we go back to another face-off just eight seconds later now sherwood a great no-look pass in a row chris sherwood just has been a magician with the passing tonight [Music] and now passes on to haynes haynes is hip checked and flipped he didn't like that one luke haynes has been feeling at this third period hopefully haynes can keep his head we don't need a penalty right now but he seems to be all right o'brien getting it to sherwood with chipping it up to nero nero can't touch it by the defender to himself now trying to break it up his cune i can't say enough positive things about sherwood's passes yeah he's been having an outstanding game 4 25 to go arnold pass couldn't connect with cune and now arnold trying to work at the fischer fischer avoids the hit and knocks a man down now here come the terriers the other way arnold trying to angle him out he spins it around for cune under four minutes to go shot his deflected down doesn't get to sherwood and it's cleared out to the neutral zone spartans got to make something happen we are in the hot table final five of the third period 3 40 to go what did you just say it's the hot table final five i had to plug it in i had to and now that one off the hand of colette [Music] and a great pass from the goal tender out to hulk hulk nero blows a tire and now chris sherwood spins it back to the neutral zone oh we are closing in on three minutes here spartans need some magic someone's got to step up they've had very little offense and cashed in once they have those two golden opportunities with braden delbeck and lou kane's but unfortunately nothing else almost only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades alrighty then never heard that saying yeah no i just heard it from my grandfather like a couple years ago it's a good saying man of good taste and now calogi with a little tarot spin there haven't seen that in a few years but anyways we reset and puck will go the length of the ice and we'll get nice and call with 225 to go in the third line for each longmeadow will be brayden dobeck with teddy kun at the right wing aiden fisher at the left and the defensive pairing will be chad o'brien and travis arnold puck goes in on sherwood he has to make an easy pad save no problem there now teddy kun getting it up to aiden fisher three on two for the spartans fischer shot knocked down dobeck in a fight in the boards aidan fisher comes around with it great defense from the terriers now chad o'brien a missile from the point goes wide some mustard on that one and now aiden fisher o'brien keeping the zone for the spartans carrier's just trying to get it out they can't it's kept alive by arnold dobeck working it it comes out to o'brien he can't get a good stick on it and a big hit made and we're gonna get a penalty spartans on the power play wouldn't be surprised if we see a timeout from coach reed here with 137 to go looks like sure in the third period spartans have a player down looks like sherlock medic onto the ice in a physical game oh he's going to see a few injuries here aiden fisher the freshman down holding his elbow in pain but skating off on his own power good to see and we'd like to take this time also to recognize the quetta family aj cuetta on rink two here in olympia ice center took a very scary hit into the corner boards not even a hit he did it on his own power it was a freak accident you can go help his family on the gofundme page find it but anyways we will get that time out we expected from coach reed spartans with 137 to make something happen and i mean if you're the spartans this is what you could ask for i mean the power play has not been their feng shui throughout this game but anyways they will get one more crack with a man advantage and possibly the goaltender pulled so we might even see a six on four here but spartans have had a few great opportunities in the third period i don't think we need to bring up haynes and dobeck again because they're probably already kicking themselves for it but you know they got to clear their heads 137 to go you're gonna have your best five guys out there and you know you got to make something happen all of you sticking with us we appreciate it throughout the technical difficulties hopefully we've been able to deliver you at least enough action for you to know what's going on 2-1 terrors is the score and that horn means that we'll get back underway and the spartans will come out with sherwood pulled six best skaters out there will be dobeck nero arnold along with haynes calogy and la flesh here we go six on four crunch time this is what you look for haynes ties it up now getting in there puck has cleared away and the length of the ice [Music] caloji will try and start it spartans with about 82 seconds to make something happen nero is knocked down that had to hurt dobeck but he seems to be all right must have hit him in a good part of the pad 117 to go spartans with a face off just outside the blue line go back wins a draw and it's dumped in but it'll just soar the length of the ice travis arnold flails at it left in a dangerous spot and from a low angle a terrier score travis arnold with a blunder and it costs the spartans 3-1 terriers that will pretty much be the nail in the coffin unless by some miracles small chance the spartans absolutely march but anyways the power play had been the problems for the spartans and terriers actually score more than they do sherwood will be yanked again they'll send arnold back out great shot by the terriers there to make it 3-1 very low angle you got to hand it to him incredible shot that was impressive on the empty net 102 remaining and i mean we appreciate you joining us the next game will be thursday likely an 8 40 puck drop versus miniature miniature a stellar team just defeating aguawan 13-1 spartans beat agawam by score five to one if you remember so just if you're looking ahead at what that game's going to be like it's going to be a tough test for east long meadow i mean not to knock on travis but it looks like he could have blocked that shot but that's just me that's the horn yep we've established that that is the horn thank you yeah thanks for trying to cut me off lady i'm just kidding oh she blamed it that she's not out this late anymore so cology over to arnold arnold back to cology and it's turned over 50 seconds to go [Music] now caloji gets it to cune [Music] dobeck trying to get it in front couldn't and puck comes out to haynes he gets it over to arnold arnold back down to haines haynes touches to kuhn in front looking for doveck dobeck got tied up now haynes going around the net he takes an awkward slide into the boards and he's going to be in some serious pain 22 seconds to go and i believe there's a delayed penalty there is but spartans are just going to play on can be tough to score anyway but though couldn't connect there cology throws one on net and a save made 4.6 seconds to go and another terrier i believe is going to go to the sin bin a little crowded in there but hats off to the west side goalie he's played a pretty good game tonight especially on those two chances by haynes and dobeck that hate shot looks like he got a piece of it and then dobeck he definitely got a piece of it haynes went into the boards extremely awkwardly just now hopefully he's all right he seems to be okay a little gingerly coming off the ice but that's expected 4.6 seconds to go spartans take on the falcons thursday night at 8 40.
uh donaldson with a great rebound his height definitely gives him an advantage there gave him a quick outlet to mars but the rest of spartans weren't up the court yet shaw with the three just a little bit off but donaldson almost got that he was double teamed under there yeah three dishes it off the floor back to three to ten and ten with that three that was a long three yeah just a little bit off donaldson again with that rebound he definitely oh yeah i thought i hope he did it i'm gonna say aunt thought about that passed a shot and he did it 22 playing great defense on gamara's right there he's definitely playing up a lot of bomb movement on the spartans [Music] sweeney back to gemara's kamaras with the long three just off 22 pushes that pace gets it up there trapped oh this is half four yep four is definitely that nice outlet for them right under the hoop he's always there i feel like he has to have a lot of their points it's a good question then when the spartans double that wide open under there and makes that easy bang yeah that's definitely a shot right there good cause nice pack pass can just a little bit off number 10 pushes that pace nice euro step and it's in score is now 20 falcons leading carter with the ball trying to set something up here yeah good defense with number 10 though blocked that completely all right spartans and down the ball shaw goes to carter carter with the drive and no just a little bit off that was a nice drive though he had a couple on him but still strong drive on his part yep 10 pushes that pace again leaving four wide open for that three and it's good that's another shot for four score is now 17-23 timeout called but three minutes and 46 seconds left in the second quarter spartans are right there they're just not making their shots yeah chag definitely got that good momentum going yup was hitting everything yeah it's looking like it's number 10 to 4 and back to 10 and they have a good rhythm out there yep they got their defense in control too yeah spartans just need to find that rhythm maybe it's because some of our players have vowels but you know once we get back into that rhythm we'll get it yeah all right timeout's ending players coming back on the court ball we'll start with the spartans all right let's see what the spartans got now we got three minutes and 46 seconds to make it in the second quarter see if the spartans can end the half strong yep chag pressing but masses might break that press here we go oh yeah he's got him good ball hand himself nice oh good all right that was a good look donaldson saves it nasa with the two oh just off that was good teamwork by them yup [Music] just nothing's falling for them oh 21 with the fake passes it out to four to ten ten with the fake and drive but it's off and sweeney gets the rebound dishes out to carter spartans running the floor really well yep hand off the shaw for the drive but fakes it back to sweeney back to shaw shot with the save there we go back up top to carter they have six seconds left on the shot clock do they get a shout out they do and foul on chog 21. ray went down hard he'll shoot two yep that was a nice drive on with ray definitely needed that time was running out if you can make these that'll give the spartan some momentum and now we enter one and one in the second quarter with two minutes and 48 seconds carter with a good shot score is now 18 23.
um so and and your rank is 58th so in in that scope of things they're saying we have communities that are seeing more economic distress than danbury and so ultimately the number that we got to if you recall when we're looking at that um object of like how do we how do we figure out what the state needs to pay we get to where they should be which is they should be supporting you in the amount of 56 million 458 982 dollars that's what when we looked at the grant calculation you should be getting but we are in year three of a ten-year phase-in so you can see the phase-in grow and this year danbury should be getting 37 million 698 thousand and it grows incrementally year over year and so next year you'll be getting this year you're getting two and a half million more than you got last year and you can see those incremental increases articulated i wanted to show you the flow of this which is the state sends education cost sharing dollars to the town in connecticut we have dependent school districts fiscally dependent um this this is less common um and usually school districts aren't independent the ecs grant money then goes to the town because as a board of ed you rely on the town you're dependent on the town the town takes their the ecs dollars and the local funding allocated and moves it to the school district and there are just a few notes about that local allocation right dr cell and you all are going to come up with the school district budget and essentially you know what your federal revenue is going to be you know what your state revenue is going to be and um that leaves that municipal piece right and if from a local contribution perspective the municipality says no dr sal and board of ed we are not giving you that much well you know you can't go to the federal government and get more and it it has not been working well to go to the state government and get more and so what happens is you all end up making cuts mr russo i'll get to you in one more slide i think and then i will get to you um i just want to acknowledge you so you know i'm i'm noticing and essentially the way that this happens is through property taxes um and one of the things you know is understanding that property taxes are about real property and personal property but that towns in connecticut can't tax and then again not all property in town is taxable so nonprofit organizations you have a university there you also have a wonderful hospital but those are tax exempt organizations and aren't paying property taxes so let me pop up here and stop the share and i want to facilitate a discussion about this and then we can talk about some of the other school types so mr russo fire away with your question please thank you hypothetically but the prospect charter school were to open in the city of danbury this coming year would the district receive less funding if danbury prospects started this year in in the 2021-22 school year so it opening this september um you would not but i say that with the caveat that the state is one year behind on butts and seats counts right so they measure the membership and and the enrollment count on october 1st but it's the year prior so you would have a hundred less students in your district that count would show up a year after that and you would not get the state dollars which are roughly three thousand dollars per student would not come to um to danbury public schools that said the municipal contribution cannot be lowered okay and uh would the phasing of the ecs ecs formula change from from having the charter school yes no it wouldn't okay thank you for your patience oh of course hi rachel hi erica how are you good how are you so good um so with the ecs um phase in that is based on does that change with enrollment numbers then or is that the phase-in is from old data correct or so the the phase in like when we give you the financial information on the phase in like you know if it were fully funded today you guys would get 56 million that will always that's a moving number every year because of student enrollment so you know when you get 600 students you weren't expecting over the summer that next year you'll see that count reflected but it doesn't change the timeline the the dollar amount is always going to be a moving target right up until the year before that final phase in but for danbury it should always increase right until because the state is still catching up and your enrollment is still growing so um there's no indication that that number like your your enrollment would have to decrease and um in the scope of say to to mr russo's point the charter school if the charter school starts at 100 kids um and what you're looking at is a student population of well above 11 000 it's it it's that very small amount of literally that 3 000 or so um depending on how that changes um times the number of students thank you mr janelly yes hi erica how are you good you look great it's good to see you thank you got a question on the timeline of the 56 million dollars the 56 million dollars we use the phrase if it represents a fully funded number based on is it 2017 informational prior year uh enrollment the prior year's enrollment so like for instance we can't project that full phase in you know we can only use the most recent data to make it going ahead to get the phase in in two years from now if our population increase let's assume that that number went to 60 million dollars would we forget the phasing would we be then looking to get 60 million dollars from the state or we fix that some historical number of 56 million no you're never locked into that historical number that is just giving you an update based on always the most recent data okay so then if we look at the timeline using the phase in we are fix that at this 56 million dollars based on some number of students for a period of 10 years but it doesn't take into account at the end of 10 years you know conceivably we could be at let's say 70 million dollars do we automatically get a bump at the end of 10 years from 56 million dollars to 70 and then that's what i'm not understanding because it seems like every year incrementally incrementally we're not being adjusted for any uh assuming we have an increase we're not being adjusted for any incremental increase in students relative to the dollars no you are the thing is everybody is always then showing you the the most new the the newest run of 10-year numbers so like for instance this year you're at that phase in but it's the whole thing is updated with the most current data okay so it'll be progressively going going up to the incremental increase over the period of 10 years correct all right correct can you are you allowed to offer any any advices to how we could get this incremental increase increase right i see the next year was a i think a 5 million dollar bump with my memory segment right on the slide what can we do to to request petition uh the state to to accelerate this for us it seems like you know we're being burdened or for you know for them trying to catch up some formula where they never funded before so there are a few things the the first thing um is that this year what we are seeing and experiencing with respect to the legislature is that there are two topics of conversation one is housing and the other is education and both are being viewed not solely but strongly through a racial justice lens what we also know is our our organization um has published a paper on the racial disparities in education funding in connecticut and just to be very clear there is a 639 million dollar funding gap between white students and students of color in connecticut um you are seeing legislation this year that is actually targeting all of this but through the ecs formula so there currently are two bills that have been proposed and we'll see where these move but um both look at increasing the weights particularly for english learners and for concentrated poverty and lowering the concentrated poverty threshold and then fully funding the ecs formula um beginning next year um so we actually think that's that's the best path right that um districts have experienced um so so many difficult difficulties and inequities in um covid right and just dealing with covet that at this point it's important to equip districts with the resources that they need not in 2028 but in but now um and so i think that these conversations that articulate the the urgency of full funding um in particular are important and they're they're important not just for danbury right um they're important statewide but these proposals that you're seeing um get you the dollars better understand who is in the district and um try try to be targeted around that so i think you know if you all still have your lobbyists um they need to be watching those initiatives because i think those are the ones that are actually moving in the education space so it appears to me that the thinking on the legislative side is getting to a point of being more realistic than something where you know one size fits all i mean to your point in taking care of the racial equality of districts yeah i mean you know when you think about um education funding within equity you have to think about equity as it relates to districts you all um don't have the same student body and deal with the same challenges that say um even hartford does we could compare you in hartford and say the dynamics are still different or in my community of windom and then students are are not all the same so i think you know it has come to a point in connecticut and nationally where some of this um discussion is starting to to take hold but i think in connecticut and one of the important things is getting the ecs formula phased in quicker is if i could say anything really important and it's important in part because we need to be honest with the history of the legislature fully funding ecs um and i don't have a recollection or a date as to when that would have been dr sal if you can think of a time i actually don't know that they've hit full funding and no they've never even achieved the 50 yeah you know it's it's you know in terms of their contribution uh it's it's weighing between 40 percent 45 percent um i i think for the board's information which is interesting to me is that there's only finite money in the whole pot and it goes to sped charters uh my magnet all of us this is where i think there's this i think you need to get some clarity when you put that first chart up there that's all the money spent on education now is there a separate entity for the other entities that are that are in there so i think it's important and amy i saw that you have a question or so i wish you guys yeah i think it's important for everybody to understand that that totality of education dollars that 11.4 billion dollars that's our tally afterwards but you know it's funny when i was i was just working on my annual budget for my own household right and like i'm thinking how much am i spending in medical how much am i spending for pets how much am i spending on education homeschooling my wonderful sixth grader all of those things but but that graph that we give you is actually backwards right it would be like if at the end of of 2020 i look back and i tell you how much so the way connecticut budgets is not by a kind of category right so they don't give 11.4 billion dollars to education and say this is what education is getting and you can figure out where you want to prioritize the dollars they are line item funded so um you know special ed is line item funded but will never change it can't go down it it won't go up um but whether it's construction whether it is um when they had transportation with you know magnets charters those are all line item identified and so you know the the best example as i watch this conversation in your community around the charter school is uh you know i i just put it in this kind of lens if charter schools were all shut down in this state tomorrow right and there are there are 10 000 students um going to going to charter schools and there are about 550 000 students in total in connecticut so the 10 000 students but if charter schools were shut down tomorrow that charter line item does not revert to education so what happens is it reverts to the general fund and then the legislature gets to decide where they want to allocate those dollars to so for us logically we would think allocating from education to education is just what happens um but it it doesn't and that isn't how it happens so for instance what happens on a line item in charters in a proposal whether it's the govern governors or the appropriations committee or something else does not create this seesaw effect with other school types um so i i think that's important to know it it you know for and i i respect that dialogue i think it's an important dialogue that you all are having and it's not an easy dialogue to talk about the vision of your community to talk about the vision of youth and education in your community um but i i do think it's important to know that you know if and the governor's budget comes out next week if he were to add dollars in his line item to charter schools you can oppose that and and if you oppose that that's you know absolutely oppose it but oppose it with the understanding that it is not a seesaw effect where if you oppose that school this other school or school type or education line item will get more i just think that's an important understanding amy hi erica good to see you um ask about if we expand the open choice would that affect our ecs funding so open choice is a little funky and we can talk about that i have that formula type so we can look at that a little bit um but open choice is interesting because if they were to expand and include danbury um because as you know and for those of you who don't know what open choice does is create an opportunity for students in a certain community to to move out to other communities it is legislatively only um enacted for norwich hartford bridgeport and new haven [Music] but the kicker is new london has never used it because open choice um goes through the regional education service center which for you guys i think is is that ed advance right yep um and so in new london their rest never got funded for open choice so they have no open choice students so even though by statute they're allowed to the rest gets the transportation funding to transport students and um and that that would be something that you would also have to lobby for when you're talking about open choice so there are a few more complexities with it amy and we can highlight that as we walk through it okay thank you yeah so erica i'm sorry i got my hand up but who's ever next i want to ask you here's a clarifying question that i think our board has uh always supported choice in terms of it's a public choice um the debate has been looking at the financials in terms of um what it means i i know we've had this conversation about it not being finite but that it's a line item and that lineup goes away could go to the streets and sanitation doesn't have to come to um education but where i'm getting i need some clarity on no matter what we do if it's the the because the effort is within the foundation level with idea then any money that we get is reflected for special ed in that amount but the real cost comes in for excess cost for us which has never been reimbursed to a district at 100 percent um the the weighting is very helpful to us regarding ell because um you know i always say it costs you know maybe almost one half times as much to educate a child with those kinds of needs when those are within the structure of the public school realm for reimbursement and it moves then those resources don't come back to the to the to the municipality would have to follow the money follows the child and there's where we're trying to get some clarity and right now we do provide transportation for all our non-pubs i think the board's been used to that although it you know add some to it we provide some nursing uh but in in in in the choice program we've been asking clarity on what's a reasonable cost that's what they use no one's really been able to talk to us about it and then how do the other services are supported and at what level and you know obviously if the youngster is not with you but in another school you got to provide it so those are the uncertainties that we're trying to get some clarity on only from the budgeting standpoint for us at least for me anyway when we look at these things the choice you know it is a public school it is it is what it is and it does open up a lot of opportunities it's sort of those um idiosyncrasies that i'm trying to get some clarity on you mean the least clear parts of it all you'd like clarity on well i mean that's what people have suspect about oh they're not going to get it they are going to get you know i i think shared services we understand but when they use the verbiage reasonable cost you know as determined by whom where you know all of that stuff that that's what it's at least i was trying to get some clarity on some of it so i'm not i'm not going to be able to provide as much clarity as i would wish and i have to be honest with you and that i wish i could as well and some of this is just an unknown um so there are some things that you know i think we can talk through a little first dr sal i just want to say you said you you believe it it costs about it uh one and a half times to educate a non-english speaking student and i had a conversation with dr estrella down in norwalk the other day and she was saying in new york they actually wait at one and a half times oh really yeah that would be nice to do for us spot on um so when we're talking about special ed when we're talking about transportation first of all there are some like built in you know areas that are opaque right what is reasonable reasonable services um and right from that that foundation there um it it begs a lot of questions i think from from our lens and i think there's a lot of work to be done special ed you have to understand is much like and i'm sure most of you do but it is much like the minimum budget requirement that municipalities have in connecticut where they cannot spend less this year than they did the year before on education in their community in connecticut has that same obligation to the federal government if you spend more in special ed you are locked in at that next higher rate so this explains just just to underpin it all um some of the consternation right that excess cost isn't reimbursed until four and a half times that it um is then reimbursed at something close to 70 cents on the dollar and um is not really supporting districts in a meaningful way and yet i said with a lot of confidence it would take a lot to get connecticut to start adding dollars to that bucket um there are there are districts and there are communities that do this better than others and some that just have had a terrible experience dr sal um so you know when i started having conversations particularly with to be clear people who were opposed to charter schools and for some of those additional cost reasons you know there were some communities where for instance transportation was really well aligned with the district right and you know it was done in a really thoughtful way that didn't create a significant cost burden on like well now we have to run 12 separate buses there are also communities in which the charter school works on an entirely separate schedule from the public school system so you know i can tell you that you know with confidence there are districts who do not feel like there is uh for transportation specifically uh uh much of a cost burden it's a negligible cost burden and there are districts who have had the experience that it's a significant one the second thing is with um special education because i think the thinking in uh reasonable what is reasonable is that you all are at this um ppt you all as you know you are really the ones who are running point on these students so that you can manage what's reasonable and somebody's saying let's send all of the kids to a high tuition school because it'd just be easier you're there to stop that from going off the rails but also i respect and understand that that sometimes it doesn't work that way um so i think what i can tell you coming out of this is that um the relationship between the district and a charter school can um actually create more success or it can it can be a frustrating you know struggle and i i appreciate both sides of that um and i i want to be very transparent um i think back in 2010 i was a charter school applicant um but in in my vision first of all i was applying for a local rather than a state charter and there is a difference but also i could not um have imagined doing a charter school without working with the district because they're all our kids right so i think um you know take that information for what you will um and hopefully use that it to inform you going forward um you know i think you know this is where we can get into i think it's always just important to think of the two sides of this and there are two sides of this and there is no clarity um i think from you know their their for charter school in particular there are um different reasons that people support or oppose a charter school and you know from a financial perspective from a policy space um it all depends right it all depends erica could i ask a question please sure gladys uh good to see you it's good seeing you uh just have a quick question uh concerning uh open choice what is the uh do you know the financial advantage to a district by moving to open choice and what would be the financial obligation for the school that's participating in open choice so and i'll i'll get to those slides momentarily because i think that's where we need to be um i'm not sure i mean hopefully the education funding system is designed so that there is never an financial advantage but there is always a break even um so we can look at what open choice does and doesn't do to create any challenges in a for a district but dr sal and i looked at open choice last year and really the the same the same pieces the transportation doesn't apply but special ed is still um a piece of open choice so we can look at that okay and hi kate canetta i want to give you a chance hi there thank you so much eric it's nice to see you good seeing you um it's been a few years i know i had a couple questions um and and there's sort of just more general ones that i need to make sure i understand um you mentioned that uh you know obviously for municipal um taxes you know there are certain properties that are tax exempt and i'm just wondering when you talk about the ecs property wealth the property wealth component of the formula if if that's if those hold true that you know that they don't factor in properties that can't be taxed yeah it does not factor in properties that can't be taxed okay great um and then i just want to also ask you about the state to city uh pathway for the the money now you you said something to the effect of we could not reduce the amount of education funding that we put in each year for for from the municipality correct okay is there any mechanism which ensures that whatever money comes down from the state which is marked for education and but then when it passes through the city that it it goes to education um and there and i'm asking this because um you know i'm just sort of trying to assess like obviously we could spend the same thing that we did last year in education here in danbury if we're getting a greater amount of ecs funding um you know because some of the weights change or if we're you know getting you know or that it's going up by that increment or um you know if other funding is coming through the state like i know that federal uh there's like the the second i can't remember what the name of it is you should give me thank you thanks dr um and i know that so i know that money is also going to be coming down from the state level and what i'm trying to just figure out if there's any way that we can kind of like track that process as it goes through the city you should absolutely be able to track that process and that in part and courtney certainly correct me if i'm wrong but an audit should also do that the uh the money from the feds comes categorical no but we're talking the state oh the state dollars is totally different yeah i did and i yes erica and kate and and i wasn't able to answer because i knew kate had called me earlier about this next like i was shocked but i had to think about it for a minute but it's so clear when you said it eric don there is a chart on the um city website that i can share with everybody about what's come to us from the state for what we call that traditional ecs base amount and then the alliance catch up from the ecs that's all involved in this formula that erica talked about so it's funding uh today's children with yesterday's dollars if you want to take you know it that way so to explain how just my understanding of what erica said you know there was a point where connecticut was having a really hard time and then some districts were growing and some were shrinking we're growing obviously and growing in need in terms of our l our lower income and our our sped population and so as that happened the state couldn't just take back all the money from those districts that were dropping and give it to the ones that were growing or they could have but they chose they chose not to and so they gave us this money ten years out and i think we're into the five year is that right three three we're only entering so every year we get maybe two seven it may be two eight and maybe two nine because because that formula as as erica said reassesses where we are relative to what they assumed was the need for esl in a growing enrollment population yeah but kate to your point there there is always this disparity between what the state is sending and what districts are getting and um depending on the district like districts will sometimes take out what you know if you are paying for services through them they will get some of that out so but but you should be able to still follow it all the way through and understand where where anything went okay and is that true also for um when you talk about special ed reimbursement you know that four and a half times you know that's 70 cents on the dollar past the four and a half times is there a mechanism for that as well or does that that comes categorically i mean it comes for special ed and and then it is um it's supposed to uh filter through to us but uh it really doesn't so what happens i can speak to that what happens is on all of our high cost special ed kids three times annually we submit in a report that basically is a line item by child on the cost of tuition the cost of transportation services and it basically costs out the amount of you know dollar value that we spend on that child um so anything related to educating that child tutor support services speech and language special education so forth and so we we enter that in initially on december 1st we then get an opportunity to revise it on march 1st we have to have all students in and accounted for by that march 1st deadline and then on june 1st is our final spend down for example a child that might be out of school for a couple of weeks due to a surgery or something the transportation costs may adjust down for instance so um you know we we project what it should be annually and then we adjust it the difference um in danbury is that that money so the 70 cents on a dollar that we get back um for the excess cost and we usually submit in a couple million dollars of cost of those high needs students we get that reimbursement goes directly to the city um and my understanding is that they allocate that in our general allocation and you can see that if and i can show you where you can see it in the kafir um you know it took me a little while to find all the the location of where the funds are but i'm happy to share the city's financial report with you so you can see how you know it's given to us and then how it's distributed because that is in the notes section in the financial report it's like buried so thanks one other comment that i just had sorry on special ed funding as you talked about um you needing us needing to prove that we spend more money on special education annually with a growing population we certainly don't have a hard time showing that um but there are multiple ways you can do local only state and local state funding so there there are four different ways and we do that um you know courtney and i work together when we apply for idea grant every year and we have to prove that the previous year we in fact did spend more than we did the fiscal year prior that's our effort that's called maintenance of that but i i will say that um to the board that money gets infused into the general fund then reallocated as kell said but the last two years with the help of board members and uh everyone we've been able to have some set aside which we could request which could help us kelly knows she gets all of a sudden july she's sitting here with three unknown transfer ins which really create a situation for us so we've had some relief but uh categorically um it's it's quite an effort to get that money into the district but that's where it goes so thank you kelly thank you so here what you're looking at is is a just a straight up chart explaining the the differences in funding so we can look here so the open choice state funding per pupil varies and this is what is going into a community so say ridge field took 10 kids from danbury this is what the range is on what they would get and really it's based on how many kids are they taking um they can't charge tuition and your ecs is split 50 goes to that district and 50 goes uh to you guys so um you would share that and that's in the li i apologize alliance formula that's the open choice yeah again separate um and you'll see here too i want to articulate the uh what's being proposed in danbury is a state charter school this is the funding they receive per pupil they cannot charge tuition and um the city does not or the community does not get education cost sharing so let me just show you in a little bit more detail and you'll get this powerpoint um with all of the details but um local districts are responsible for transportation and special education student learning need is not considered in this funding formula um and they cannot charge tuition so in our legislative proposal you will also see that the proposal and the two bills that are proposed right now propose collapsing all of these formulas so that all students are funded in the same manner with weighted funding um so that so that we all can have a conversation that doesn't involve 11 funding types um so this is the flow to the charter school it goes straight from the state to the charter school local charter schools just to be clear there's only one in the state of connecticut so don't worry about it because there isn't one even proposed or pending you'll have details on agriscience and the complexities of agriscience but here's open choice so that you can take a look at the complexities of the open choice dollar so the thing is um you're still responsible and i'm gonna actually stop the share and just um kind of finish with gladys's question you're all still responsible with open choice um actually you know what i want to i want to check on open choice and special education dr sal i'm i'm 99 positive that it falls back on the district but um i didn't hear the question i'm sorry open choice and special ed well that's that reasonable cost yeah and and that's what we you know no one's been able to answer that so let me let me do a little bit more digging and at least see what we can find experientially um cara you've been taking pictures too well yeah just like i like to have certain things um the can you go back to the slide about what the district is responsible for on the charter school yeah component and i i just have a question about esl services because for special education the district is responsible to provide the staffing to service students at the at another location as well as the busing but for esl you know we have we have there's legal requirements for bilingual services that we have to meet with our non-pups and so why would we be required to legally to to maintain the compliance um service provide the staffing for bilingual education at this site no and i will uh double check that in the morning and get that back to you but i am very confident that you are not responsible for the english learners essentially although it's kind of a weird blend of all of these formulas and all these responsibilities um in in this case that school is considered a separate school district and so when we look at multilingual learners and the responsibilities that actually moves to to them so let me let me confirm that for you and i will actually send an email back is that true for open choice as well i don't believe so but let me double check okay thank you um in most of the other districts right i mean it english learning is is almost twice as prevalent in danbury and wyndham as the other districts so let's just double check on that it could be a lot of that could be a lot of staffing yeah yeah erica i've got a question um the uh the terminology of the ecs money the 37 million dollars that you've mentioned does that include the component component of what we formally used to use referred to as the alliance money or is that uh just by itself and then on top of that there's alliance of grants included in other words as of a couple of years ago we used to get the city got the ecs money and the district got the alliance grant then last year i think they rolled it together it was called ecs the 37 million dollars what does that represent so so there's a funny thing um essentially where um this is this is just an interesting and again like looking at connecticut one of the things that happened was that if you look at alliance districts technically they don't get an ecs increase it all comes as an increase or it had all come through as an increase in alliance dollars um and there were reasons for that that um are are more to protect if there were say rescissions in the ecs grant or holdbacks or cuts of any kind it protected alliance districts in a little bit of a different way where that flow could still continue um so so it's kind of a messy yes and answer it doesn't help you but essentially is it is ecs and alliance okay thank you all right so right on target does anybody have any other questions for erica i don't know eric oh i'm sorry go ahead oh my god i just want to quickly say that we do have kids going to agroscience so do we have that we have that presentation right erica we can so i already sent that to kara so she can distribute that the other thing um i just did is put a link to what's called a link tree which is just really fun um and when you click on that it has a bunch of of links and it looks exactly like a tree um but but it gives you access to those tools that i use to show you the data points um so that gives you a little bit more access and then access to look at other communities as well um i'd be happy to though if anybody um wants a copy of the presentation you can reach out to me i know cara will get it to you and certainly if you want to walk through some of this or you want to reach out with more questions i'm here let me know you know i miss you all so thank you thank you very much we really appreciate it drive safely [Laughter] it's such a different thing not to have to drive you know almost two hours home dr sal this is great thank you again erica bye mrs cooper do you want to take a three or five minute break or just go right into the the budget part uh that was the suggestion if everybody's comfortable with that we could be back start our next meeting at 7 10.
i hear you correctly you want to go ahead and pull items 10.9 10.10 and 10.11 is that correct correct great thank you okay now we pulled items 10.9 10.10 10.11 can we please uh get our vote casted to go ahead and pass ten point ten sorry ten point one and it passes 5-0 moving we move to items um we move on to 11.1 which is the approval of adult education affiliation agreement with skilled nursing pharmacy and we are open for discussion i'm sorry can we get a motion to approve this that we can go ahead and move into discussion thank you we have a first by board member rodriguez pena can i please get a second second i'm sorry president ariana what is the what's the motion it's 11.1 approval of adult education affiliation agreement with skilled nursing pharmacy it was an item that was pulled um i'm not seeing that on the screen yeah board president uh we apologize uh 11.1 is what we had pulled um i'm sorry it's it's the regular board let me go ahead and and we're not that that we should uh that's being tabled to another meeting uh so that is that is not that should not be an action item um so um we are actually um if hope can't fix it right now then we're actually not actually on 11.2 okay let's go ahead and move to 11.2 and i see that the 11.1 let's go ahead and move to 11.2 let's write it by and come back to um 11.2 which is the approval of adult education affiliation agreement with skilled nursing pharmacy now can i get a motion for a first motion forward to move this forward so moved second okay we have a board member crews gonzales first we have board member rodriguez peng ii okay and it's open for discussion okay my question is it's actually on the on the three items and they're all the same um because it says no budget trees you know we're not paying anything my question is regarding the insurance who pays the insurance on the liability and um on item e on item g under criminal uh criminal screening ausd i want to know um who is paying for it for the the student to be screened because i know like parents you know they get me they need permission like to come and speak to their uh students volunteer their time in school and i want to know who's paying for these two items thank you for the question i can answer that so the the screening there's a fee for this screening and that is actually part of the student fees the students are the ones that are paying that go through the fees and then the insurance is part of our district's liability insurance okay thank you very much for the clarification thank you yeah so go to the registration correct and i have the same question in all three so okay thank you you're welcome okay let's go ahead um anyone else have questions okay let's go ahead and cast our vote for 11.2 okay let's go ahead and do a hand vote we start with board member yolanda yes board member cruz gonzalez excuse me we're oh yes yes we're voting on this okay thank you board member career board member beau yes and i vote yes and it passes 5-0 moving to 11.3 approval of adult education affiliation agreement with roland convalescent hospital can i please get a first motion make a motion to approve we have first motion by board member rodriguez pena can i please get a second second we have board member adrian career second and since it was the same question same question same answer okay great let's go ahead and cast our vote yes yes okay we have board member rodriguez pena we have board member cruz gonzalez yes board member bo yes we have board member greer yes and i say yes 5-0 it passes let's move to 11.4 which is approval of adult education affiliation agreement with citrus college citrus valley pharmacy can please get a first uh motion to move 11.4 i make a promotion to approve 11.4 we have board member rodriguez pena with the first motion can i please get a second just for transparency purposes board president i apologize 11.4 right now is uh showing approval of new and amended exhibits um if we go back to the original request by board member rodriguez pena uh the one that should have been pulled uh was 10 11 which is the approval of adult education affiliation agreement with citrus valley pharmacy and it has been corrected it's now 11.3 right there okay so it's okay and that that's what i had said right yes to go ahead and move forward so it's 11.3 and can i please get a second to approve 11.3 a second thank you we have board member cruz gonzalez seconding that and any more discussion on this seeing that there's none let's go ahead and uh cast our vote we have board member rodriguez pena yes we have board member cruz gonzalez yes yes we have board member greer yes member bo yes and myself i say yes we passes five zero thank you we'll go ahead and move to 12.1 ratification approval of change order number zero zero three field upgrade at gladstone high school can i please get a motion to move 12.1 make a motion we have a first motion by board member rodriguez pena can i please get a second second board member adrian career seconds the motion to move 12.1 any discussion seeing that there's none please let's cast our votes and the computer is ready and it passes 5-0 now moving to the item of the agenda that everyone has been waiting anxiously to get to we're moving to 13.1 presentation of the 2020 2021 parent of the year awards and i turn it over to dr mitchell thank you thank you good evening board president ariana's board member superintendent and cabinet it is both an honor and a privilege to present to you the 2021 ausd parents of the year a plethora of educational research has shown the family engagement positively impacts student outcomes in so many ways not only in academic achievement but also in the social emotional development of children you may have heard this african proverb it takes a village to raise a child this proverb means that an entire community of people must interact with children for those children to experience and grow in a safe and healthy environment in this environment of distance learning that is exactly what our ausd parents have done all of our parents and caregivers have joined us in community of partnering and supporting our azusa staff and distance learning in the midst of a devastating pandemic it's been an all hands on deck approach as our parents and caregivers are supporting the learning environment in their homes many of which support multiple grade levels at one time and for your continuous support of learning we want to thank all of our parents and caregivers for all you have done to support the children in the azusa community we're so grateful for your support it has truly made a positive impact tonight we recognize the parents selected by their schools as parent of the year these parents have been selected for the outstanding ways that they have supported all students staff and parents tonight's parents of the year are giving back to our community in numerous heroic ways which contribute to the development and well-being of all the children in our azusa community our parents of the year volunteer on school and district committees such as pta school site council boosters elac delac they lead other parents in families and schools they serve on the pac plus superintendent and parent roundtable district advisory committees wasc accreditation committees model continuation parent committees and school fundraisers our parents of the year have a strong sense of community and support all children in our district through community service such as supporting isuzu parks and recreation mentoring students church outreach scout leading youth sports and supporting after-school programming our parents give up their time and talents they participate in virtual family engagement activities attend numerous ausd online meetings and parent learning network opportunities and they are making a positive impact on our community by leading by example they have gone to extraordinary measures to take the time to reach out to other parents they have helped other parents to access resources and tools in support of student learning and well-being they have taught other parents how to help their children and made it a priority to look out for other parents to make sure their needs are being met our parents of the year are a voice for our families they are not only devoted to their own children's education but also they're devoted to all the students in azusa unified and we would now like to present our parent of the year videos to celebrate the extraordinary support they provide to our students staff and families we will also be posting a link to the transcript of the videos in english and spanish in the chat and we'll be posting the video and the transcripts on our website as well okay lika my name is laura clark and i'm the principal of dalton school it is my honor to introduce our parent of the year norma castillo her leadership has had such a positive impact on her family and community norma has been volunteering in azusa for several years beginning when her children attended longfellow school that is when her advocacy for her two boys became apparent and has inspired many since norma has become a great resource for other parents norma's helped so many teachers with hours upon hours of paperwork and making copies even when her children aren't in their class my favorite teacher comments are about how she works with people how she gives courage and strength to those students that may lack self-esteem and motivation how she has such an ability to lift people up when they are feeling down or doubting their own abilities and how normal looks beyond the challenges in life to find ways that effectively move people to action i couldn't agree more we are so fortunate to have norma castillo and her family at dalton good evening my name is dr rosinas and i am the principal of ellington's tk through 8.
that's what he just said i didn't say 300 this is the one that we did this is correct yeah correct we went from 200 to 300 so instead of a hundred dollars from each board member it's 120 donation from each board member so you want to keep it at 300 that's fine with me i have no problem i was a little disappointed that we only had one applicant in the south carolina district didn't we but it could have been a tiny thing yeah and they're only about five or six from the north i think i just realized as a project next year we'll have the senior class right one forever to send a second to approve a 300 per school board scholarship presented each group all in favor say aye aye closed appointment of the local education agency officer the lea officer and mr president i recommend that the board appoint the superintendent of the embassy of wabash county as the local education officer for the ensuring year ensuing year with authority to file applications for federal funds on behalf of the school corporation so i have a motion in a second to appoint mr kefaber as the lea officer all in favor say aye opposed select newspapers for legal advertisements so by law we are required to place legal advertisements in our county newspaper i recommend that we or you officially approve the wabash plain dealer and again just to let you know it has to be a paid subscription and that's the only paper that we have did you have traction with john you were going to do it electronically yeah there's been there's still some traction on that there's some of the requirements have been taken away but actually it's made it almost more difficult chris could talk about that you have to do a different form to advertise it in the paper and a different you stop to advertise in the paper but you have to do two different forms now instead of just doing one advertising in both places so it doesn't really help a lot a lot of lobbyists that make a lot of money to continue to do it in print so i moved and we approved the walbesh plain dealer as the newspaper for our legal advertisements all in favor say aye all right and then we need to approve the continued participation in the wmap and heartland career center and i do recommend that continued collaboration with those two entities so sure motion in a second to approve continued participation in the wabash memory area program in the army career center all in favor say aye aye anything else it says other here but i didn't know there was something we were missing okay so the reorganization meeting isn't there i guess the other thing was though you already hit the gavel but if we want to do anything else different as far as our timing with board meetings or anything like that so keep that in mind as we get to items from board members we'll bring that back up again okay so now we actually get to the regular meeting and so at that point we're going to stand and say the pledge for those of you who've been here the flag is now behind you pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all okay so future board meetings january 26th february 9th and february 23rd are all regular meetings those will be held here and on february 18th we have the public work session january january 18th we had the public work session here at one we have no re revision to the agenda and so we'll move on to public recognition we have a recommendation to approve a three thousand dollar donation for southwood high school 1500 100 of it for southwood and 1500 of it from northville high school from first farmers bank and trust a recommendation to approve a 100 donation from earnest and barbara ball for the art program at southwood elementary the recommendation to approve 1225 donation 250 from robert and claudia may 100 from jennifer and stan cox 200 from amy kuhn 50 from randolph and barbara swanson one hundred dollars from morris and carol smedley twenty-five dollars from john john and paula mcdonald 25 from billy and linda site 50 from catherine baker 25 from marley a man 250 from john and diane cauldron 100 from troy and stacey bear 50 from joel and connie roberts all in the memory of kathy seif from northfield athletic department i also have a recommendation to approve a 40 donation from wabash county farm bureau for southwood ffa a recommendation to approve you got a couple set of zeros in there is that 130 or she giving us 130 000.
i will be on the call looking forward to that one and we have to go to the social distancing laws so only one man allowed in the sin but other man gets poor man sinbin because he did just stand off to the side spartans have a six on three truck has thrown the length of the ice and that will do it final score here 3-1 terriers spartans looking to bounce back thursday night 8 40. thank you for joining us on behalf of all of us jamie rook on the camera brennan mclaughlin and myself devin dobeck the voice of the spartans we'll see you thursday
falcons leading and donaldson hop in and free throw yeah that's a good call they're both two strong rebounders carter shot a little off 22 gets that rebound spartans hold back on that press 21 dishes it out to 24 back to 21 to 10 and 10 with that drive geez there we go that's a good job for the car it's right there definitely corrected his way [Music] that can either go either way you know just the way the refs use it all right carter brings the ball down breaks that super easily way faster definitely pushing the pace yeah let's see if we can make something happen here scores 18 23 with about two minutes left in the second quarter oh good roll by definitely he could have had that donaldson with all these screens up here oh yeah that was definitely miss red i thought he was going for that shot too tough pass right idea yeah it was a good idea i just don't think he was looking for that yeah he wasn't ready definitely going in for the rebound 21 brings his body for the rebound yeah he was all right chug swinging ball around three with the drive but dishes it out to 22 22 with the three but strong very strong all right challenging bounce ball oh it in just on time and nice good d by eight yeah good watch that out of there that was good that could have been dangerous right there with the tall guy like him in there shot clutch down good evening oh god took a tumble there oh definitely good hustle by luke mazza number 22 for the falcons i love abad's energy on the sidelines he's so loud nasa definitely pushing that pace right there got an easy foul gonna enter the line with one in one score is still 18 23 with a minute 30 left in the second quarter oh bass suit's a little bit off ten with the rebound pushes that pace back up and the drive by oh travel yeah that definitely saved us he had a wide open lane right there i didn't see that call but i'm not a rep so oh child coach looks a little angry right now come on beautiful that ty brings the score to 2023 with a minute left and then second quarter definitely great effort right there by gamora's spartans can get another stop that'd be great oh 24 with the dish back out and it's going to be spartan's ball great defense by gemara is right here he's definitely feisty in there yeah definitely doing well right now gotta take a little mass break 52 seconds left in the second quarter carter brings the ball down they just need a three to tie this up and we'll enter the third quarter pretty strongly they can end the half with a basket that'll give him something to go for for the second half fast ball movement around here definitely no playing around [Music] carter with the drive and it's good that brings score 22 to 23 with 30 seconds left charging the ball down made it look so easy yeah that was a great great drive right there they're leaving that lane wide open for him good move by three and it's good little floater scores 22 25 15 seconds left let's see what spartans are going to do with the ball tomorrow's with the three and it's all fouled he's taking three to the line right now it's a shame that the quarter just ended because they would have double bonus right now but now that all gets rephrased spartans definitely being smart with their fouls they only have three yeah definitely good and i think two are on mckechnie and one's floating around somewhere i can't remember that yeah maybe yeah with the first shot just off yep he has two more to go for second basket still a little off he's right there yeah hopefully he finds out right now [Applause] make it a two-point game donaldson enters the line i just heard diane yell for aunt that's cute did he get it he did go and it's now a two-point game 23-25 and the quarter is over oh my gosh i thought that was gonna go in yeah that was a good shot all right now we enter our half time which won't be long two minutes and 30 seconds spartan's down by two 23-25 and we're back so it's going to be spartan's ball and the score is 23.25 waiting for chalk to take the court all starters are back out on the court techniques back out there with two fouls right now so he's got to play [Music] smart pressure on carter but he gets that ball in spartan setting up lots of cuts going on here oh brings us to 26.25 and now we have the lead spartans coming out strong let's get some gotta stop here oh good defense on gemara's number 11 has to dish it all the way back out oh three with the layup good rebound by number four he's definitely have all their rebounds right there though picked it off and swatted it out cam with the fake tries to go in for the drive but get stopped good pass quick into the technique yeah there we go cam wide open dishes it out to gemara's but it's just off good rebound with 30.