um 2018 was a little more difficult to analyze because you had a third-party supplier that did not pass through their billing requirements um through the digital download and so you'll see this as we go and there's some incompleteness in the data but we do have full annualized uh baselines for all the facilities beginning from the high school um this is the all electric meter and so this then begins to point out i mean the numbers are there and so you can see the variance from month to month and across the year and graphically it's a little easier to see the trends um can you see my cursor moving okay um so 2020 is an unusual year that there were curtailments in the operations of the facilities so it's not representative as a baseline utility use year um in general energy use was reported and is averaged across 2018 and 2019.
also at oxford they were honored with the ap computer science female diversity award meaning we have taken steps towards closing the gender gap in that field of computer science which has whereas women have been underrepresented and lastly one student arnaud has taken advantage of the distance learning by creating math apps to reinforce the learning of 5th 6th 7th and 8th grade students the app is designed to challenge your friends and family to see who can score the most and is currently available for free at the google play store or apple store by searching it 365 solutions at savannah they are so sorry at savannah they are implementing a more inclusive version of homecoming and their process is by removing removing gender labels and allowing students to choose whatever they feel more comfortable with so students are selected based on the various criteria criteria such as represented representation in slc's and five c's involvement in school activities and overall character and today at savannah they're hosting discover savannah which is a showcase of their programs activities clubs for their feeder school brookhurst and they're hosting with breakout rooms and just having these respective groups show out what is savannah and we should look forward to when you come here and lastly at western the rsvp group is holding another processing circle next week and that will center on mental health and any ways to improve mental health at their school and the resources that are available to them thank you very good thank you elizabeth next we will have the reports of our associations and uh grant shuster astor would you like to give a report uh yes please i would thank you trustee piercy uh good afternoon trustees cabinet and the community joining us online i have a few things to share today and a couple of things to say about where we are this school year first i would like to share that asta members continue to meet weekly with the district through the teacher input group and that group continues to work with teachers at their sites and our auhsd education division in order to address the needs of our students families teachers and service providers i continue to hear positive responses from teachers students and parents regarding the new schedule that was collaboratively created by our members and the district to increase attendance and engagement with students it is important to remember that from the beginning asta auhsd and other stakeholders have been working together to support our students in any way we can to start the year we jointly created the compassionate grading guidelines adopted by the district we work together to create our original distance learning model and then collaborated to improve it we again work together on the new grading policy for the first semester and are continuing to look at adjustments that might better serve our students our members in combination with counselors psychologists social workers tutors and peers have also worked tirelessly to create spaces and services to support students in any way we could think of as this pandemic drags on and frustration builds it's important to remember who we are as people and as a district we work harder than any district i've seen to provide students with opportunities and support wherever and whenever they need it in their life it is also important to grant ourselves grace when we aren't as successful as we wish we could be with every single student i'm also pleased to inform the board that asta has been selected by the national education association to be part of their community schools institute we will be taking teachers community school coordinators and parents to learn more of the opportunities that these schools can provide for our students and their families as well as how to access more funding and implement services dedicated to those in need within our communities i look forward to giving future updates about what this effort that is supported by all of our stakeholders can do to support our most vulnerable students i would also like to share that asta will continue to have the honor of representation on the nea board of directors after karen ridley's term of appreciated service ends this summer i have been elected by the cta state council to replace her on the national board representing this area of southern california i'm looking forward to lobbying for increased title one funding and a full funding of the individuals with disabilities education act that will enable enable us to better serve our students from socio-economically depressed areas and our students in our pers in our special education programs i want to be sure also to recognize most importantly the daily efforts of our teachers speech language pathologists and nurses who continue to innovate support and just be there for our students as the pandemic has previously has reached previously unseen levels in our communities i hear from teachers regularly who are supporting students socially and emotionally on a daily basis as they deal with unemployment housing insecurity illness and death within their families there is currently a lot of political noise out there about what schools are and are not doing and it is being used by those looking to take advantage of a situation everyone here today knows exactly what is being dealt with in our community and i am proud of our teachers slps nurses and every other employee in our district who for what they have done this year to support our students and their families as we move into the final third of our school year questions remain about how we will finish out the term during this pandemic i am proud to have been part of a district that from the beginning has focused on what science says and how we can best support our students based on that information last summer we brought in an epidemiologist from uci to give us the most up-to-date scientific models that provided the board the district administration and our labor groups with what we needed to make an informed decision we decided that a distance learning model that balance synchronous screen time with asynchronous planning and support time was best for our students when we saw areas that could be improved we altered our schedule for the second semester during the six months we have been serving our students with this model our community along with santa ana has been hit harder by coven 19 than any others in orange county the decisions we have made undoubtedly saved lives each quarter we have looked at the spread within our community based on the raw numbers and the test positivity rate things were trending in a positive direction in september and into october when we were hit with the worst wave yet throughout it all we have stayed on a course based on science and the public health of our community we all continue to question if what we are doing is right we are all human and empathize with everyone who has experienced loss during this time as we go forward we support the district sticking with the science our current covid positivity rates across anaheim zip codes remain at twice the purple tier threshold of seven percent and our number of cases per 100 000 residents remains between five and ten times the threshold our public health metrics are currently worse than they were when the board decided not to move forward with in-person instruction for the third quarter at the december board meeting it has been terribly disconcerting to hear our governor publicly pressure school districts to reopen campuses without clarifying that most students in our state attend classes in counties where state guidelines prohibit districts from doing just that we will continue to keep our focus on our community our students our employees and the public health it is not time for politics asta has supported district philosophy from the beginning that we re-evaluate our system our situation on a quarterly basis and use our community health numbers to make decisions we continue to stand with our board now in closing i want to acknowledge the pain and loss that so many of us have experienced since the beginning of the pandemic and more specifically over the past month aston mourns the loss of leo aldean who passed away suddenly last month leo was a pe teacher at ball junior high and our hearts go out to his wife jill who teaches at juarez elementary school here in anaheim and to his children in the memory of all of those we have lost let's continue our work to support our students employees their families and our community to the best of our ability thank you this concludes my report thank you grant my next okay sylvia onopo apga do you have a report sylvia yes i do good afternoon trustees district cabinet auhsd students families and community members thank you for your time today i am excited to be speaking about all the good things our counselors are doing first i would like to recognize one of our counselors veronica alvarez she was awarded orange county school counselor recognition award mrs alvarez has been a counselor in the district since 2006 and has served at sycamore junior high school and savannah high school where she has been a counselor since 2015.
it wasn't easy and it's clear our district met all the twists and turns head on to create the best learning environment possible for the students we serve i am the grandmother of three students in this district and i want to personally thank you all csea's mission statement is to improve the lives of our members students and community this week our members along with our school district and st mary's providence have volunteered to make covid vaccines happen for our community vaccinations play a key role in returning students to school and i am proud to say our members are dedicated to returning students to a safe in-person learning environment thank you mrs nelson for asking csea to be part of this project i am encouraged by the growth opportunities we are presented with this year as forrest gump said life is like a box of chocolates you never know what you're going to get the educational process is rapidly changing on a daily basis and sometimes it's even hard to keep up change isn't always easy or comfortable however i am confident our district will rise to the occasion of every solution opportunity our csca leadership team is dedicated to a fair positive and collaborative solution-based process we look forward to working with mr conrad in this manner and ask you as school board members to provide direction based on these principles as we move forward in this uncharted territory i would like to ask everyone to turn everything into a positive please consider turning a challenge into a growth opportunity and perceived problems into solution opportunities greet all with a smile in your eyes and lift up those who are struggling thank you for the opportunity to speak to you and have a peaceful evening this was submitted by csea chapter 828 president kim calvin thank you thank you so much kim do you have any report from apple valley unified teachers association av uta i do not thank you closed session report the clerk of the board will report on any action taken in closed session yes thank you so in closed session uh the the board of trustees took action in support of the following recommendations from the superintendent the board approved on a 5-0 vote approved the non-re-election of the following certificated probationary employees identified by employee number effective june 30th 2021 and direct that the superintendent or her designee give written notice thereof required by law number three eight four five three six nine seven seven eight one one four one eight three and zero one zero six and that was again uh five 5-0 unanimous vote in a closed session the board of trustees took action in support of the following recommendations from the superintendent the board of trustees voted 5-0 in support in closed session the governing board took action by a vote of 500 to notify school site administrator employee 9754 of release from the administrative position pursuant of education code effective june 30th 2021 and madam president that was the two items that were affordable thank you so much adoption of the agenda the board may approve the agenda as is or add and or pull items from the consent agenda for discussion and or action we need to adopt the agenda as is um so move all in favor any opposed we do not have a recognition presentation at this time now it's time for discussion information from um the fit report by miss mr schulenberg thank you very much i'm going to share screen so bear with me as i work through the technical side of this make sure okay great is everybody seeing that yes fit okay some information regarding our uh facility inspection tool and the inspections that happen on an annual basis we utilize the facility inspection tool the fit because it provides a nice uniform definition of good repair to record our annual visual inspections to report on the condition of our facilities and as was mentioned by ms opara at the last board meeting that information is also contained in our school accountability report cards um published on an annual basis and this fit did come out of the williams settlement and it was adopted in 2006 and created by the office of public school construction to bring a standardized reporting tool to school districts within california back in 2017 valley unified made the determination at that point to hire an independent consultant to bring a set of outside eyes uh to assist us in inspecting our facilities standardize that procedure and again i mentioned we started in 17 so we now have four years of data based on our last inspections which were performed in october of 2020.
so moved so moved by mr casper second second by mr canova is there any discussion on the minutes corrections seeing non-vocal mr robbie drabo i believe i saw him say yes mr awad yes miss bassford no miss beltran yes mr canova yes mr daley miss danny yes yes mr casper dad mr smith yes all right communication announcements so i don't believe we have any uh no first reading of policy okay board uh committee reports uh technology joe okay uh technology committee met february 3rd 2021. uh myself miss beltran mr awad was present administration president is dr robert tosie miss kusalevich mr tegen mr mountain and guest rachel harrington meeting start time was 505 to 5 50 pm items of discussion number one website commissioners inquired about the website updates discussed at the 121 board of ed meeting related to referendum vote admin confirmed that the updates to the website have been completed the committee and admin discussed using a pop-up box on the website homepage to call attention to the initiative as we get closer to the vote number two chromebooks mr mountain provided an update of chromebooks one-to-one access the final wave of student chromebooks are on their way apps should arrive next week and the other half a week or two later this will complete the one-to-one rollout with all students k-12 having devices long-term replacement plans are discussed and budgets are being planned to address the replacements for the next school year and beyond cares and other grants funding will be used whenever possible the committee and administration discussed chromebook repairs all software repairs and approximately half of hardware repairs are completed in-house other hardware repairs are sent to third-party repair shops when financially advantageous previous analysis of chromebook insurance plans never proved to be financially worthwhile but administration will get refreshed quotes for future admin and committee discussion to make sure this is still the case local companies are still offering internet packages at significantly reduced prices for families with students admin will send out reminders to the community soon item number three staffing mr mountain requested additional technicians to assist with the chromebooks and other hardware repairs a formal request will also be submitted the 2122 budget is developed mr mountain also requested the expansion of the technology helping teacher stipend program item number four njsla mr mountain provided an update as to the preparations for the new jersey student learning assessments annual state testing for grades 3 through 11.
i was just wondering if that's a typo good catch nice nicest man i do not believe that's a typo but um if it's not um i i do not believe it's a typo if it turns out that it is we'll bring it back for adjustment then i guess the question is um why are we approving something that happened in october i don't have the answer to that right off the top so i'll have to get back to doing that as well okay we did have a motion and second is there any other discussion how do we vote but if we don't understand if it's very from the beginning of the year lori you're breaking up again lord lord turn up your camera please thanks i was asking how we vote on something if we don't understand it if we don't know if it's something that's retro without knowing that's exactly what i was going to say lori um bernie does this have to be voted on tonight um you can table it we'll move it till next okay can i please have a motion yes i think absolutely can i please have a motion table move by mark angelo second by leewoo is there any discussion all those in favor aye aye thank abstain motion carries good catches and all those years in the calendar committee sharpen your sense of date girl going okay that brings us up to committee reports information items and for the good of the cause for the board um we don't have our student rep tonight so are there any committee reports information so for the good of the cause for the board from the board uh also the finance committee meeting is on on the agenda but i i think we've heard about that this evening uh everything that i would have said has been said and i appreciate bernie and his team jeff in uh and and letting everybody know and saving me uh that effort so thank you okay uh anybody else leewoo and then barbara so last night i attended the middlesex county school board association meeting so i'm surprised it's almost 60 board members there there is a lot discussing about the legal issues about government vaccine and school district and potential liability to the school district and jonathan bush from the bush law group gave very good representation uh he i believe he represented quite a few a school district and he just gave us a very good opinions but just suggesting because he is now trying to sell his war service to to the board member but we had very good discussion such as who are the vaccine issues teacher student some people don't want it should we have mandatorily for them to do it there's all kind of discussions very good very good meeting thank you okay barbara i just wanted to uh say thank you and a shout out to the east brunswick technology education community service eb tech students they did a nice uh online meeting for parents who wanted help with canvas and google classroom and that was me so i was one of the parents on that session and it was really helpful and it's amazing how much the students know and they were super patient with us parents with us parents who are a little bit slower than them and getting uh up on pairing uh the canvas how you compare for the students and keep an eye on different things that come up so you get a notification from time to time so and especially for you parents of younger kids that they were there too because uh let's say they're in hammershow let's say they're starting with the canvas and that it would help them as well so thank you to to our high school students laurie um as i mentioned in the calendar committee oh wait i'm going to turn up my camera can you hear me yes okay sorry um as mentioned the calendar committee met last night i just wanted to say um please bear with us to parents to staff i know in the past we have done the calendar um in a greater amount of time before with everything going on it's been a little challenging so thank you for your patience and hopefully we will have the calendar done um relatively soon for everybody okay and i think there was someone else susanna um i mentioned it at the last um meeting but just to remind everybody february's black history month and february 9th the east brunswick human relations council 7 30 p.m facebook live um there will be a a celebration event and again our students will be included among those featured uh during the program so it's going to be a great program and hope you'll be able to tune in absolutely anyone else see none we do have a need for closed session whereas the board of education must discuss matters which are not appropriate for discussion in a public meeting board of education intends to discuss matters as follows those items listed in tonight's agenda the land closed session is estimated to be one hour after which the public meeting of the board shall reconvene and action will not be taken can i please have a motion to go into closed session mobility whoa that was like an everybody muba liwu second by barbara is there any discussion all those in paper abstain motion carries want to remind the board members please log out of this meeting and log into the closed session to those of you who joined us tonight thank you stay safe and be well have a good evening you
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so personally you know everyone's entitled to their opinion but we have had we have doubled tripled up on our meetings we have doubled down we have done everything possible to keep these kids in school and frankly i'm insulted when i hear something that you know we're not doing everything that's possible to keep the kids in school and to compare cheshire high school to the dodd trip i'm a doc my my daughter's going to be going to um d.c on the dodd trip we have been told time and time again that they are doing everything they can to get those kids to d.c within reason based on cdc regulations based on chest for car regulations we have been told that if we do not buy the insurance that we will lose our money on that trip there has never been one time that we are told that those kids are going to dc mike quiz is doing everything he can to give those kids hope and we're talking about may we're talking about the end of may not september of 2020 when these winchester high school reopened so again if you take that as a high five or a pat on the back to the superintendent then so be it thank you andrew any other board members with comment or feedback thank you and yeah i just want to add so dr solomon again thank you and i you know i uh actually i was reading uh mr stern's email throughout the course of the comments i unfortunately get a chance earlier um you know i agree everything into the course not and i'm certainly not here to argue with mr stern at all no one is uh but you know the only thing i can think of is there's been a lot of information that we as a board and a school district have been sharing at these meetings uh especially the beginning of school year september well actually august september october where we've had chestercock here we've had detailed diagrams we walk through what seems an endless array of state department education addendums that talks about cases per populations and green yellow red zones and when they think it's safe to have more students and that's something that uh dr someone showed a little bit earlier there's a multitude of factors and data hard data um and science quite frankly in in our health district state department health district and cdc there's a lot of factors um they're going to play on what we can and can't do with our school so you know i i certainly understand the frustration my daughter junior treasurer high school it's a very different year i tell you i haven't said this before i i was incredibly disappointed this past spring you know here i am chair finally get a chance to speak to graduation for my daughter graduating couldn't do it and she had a normal graduation it's been it just the past years it's talked about work sucked for a lot of families in town especially those that have been hit harbor coded um but i know we're doing all we can to get schools back in school safely uh you know to that end you know we talk about the uh the transfers to cafeteria it's a spacing issue um for certain you know unfortunately you know unlike my waistline uh chester high school cafeteria didn't expand over the holidays right so there isn't more space than i'm sorry for that analogy i'm trying to lighten the mood there's there's enough space there more students so we're trying to work within that but that being said uh it goes back a few meetings uh tim adam faith and everyone asks hey when can we get more students back in high school and uh the one thing i think i'm definitely proud of is consistency we are following um unmalleable facts right the data uh trespass so we're getting there um is it perfect of course not no one here is doing a high five no one's patting themselves in the back i think i said that at one meeting that was not the case but i do want to commend our staff in particular everyone every employee and contract that has been helping make our schools and volunteers by the way uh it's as special as they are should be connected they're they're more or less the front line uh doing a lot of great hard work for us so i encourage you know mr stern who hasn't taught the mayor yet or dr song please do so i'm happy to speak with you as well uh there's much more to this and hopefully tonight's update reflects some of that and that being said i think uh maybe at the future quarterback business meetings we touch upon these facts from the times i i noticed the last few meetings we there's so much going on that we didn't really talk about chesapeake and metrics but i think just having those figures out there from time to time and why we're doing things would help you know me ease on the frustration um but that being said again i want to thank everyone for feedback i agree with everyone listen we get stellar emails we get not so spelled emails and you know my mission is always to read those into the record unless there's something that's uh you know personally identifiable for students that we can't do but we'll take all feedback and uh and that's what we do is listen we not agree but we'll certainly try to help so that being said i see and hers has her hand up yeah i just would quickly say that i'm a proponent of high fives and words of encouragement we risk having a re i'm sure we have a little bit but we risk having a big morale problem among our teachers and administrators in schools and that's the worst thing for our kids when they go to school we we need our teachers need to know that they're appreciated and um i thank everybody on this board tonight who gave those kind words of encouragement because our staff needs it and they need to hear it a lot so i just want to say words of encouragement high fives whatever keeps the morale up is okay by me thank you anne what's that and uh and i just wanted to close with this doctor someone mentioned it we all mentioned it chester cotton mentions that morris you know preaches this almost every day the success of our community adhering to the rules to the safety mandates is what's going to dictate how much quickly we get students back to the high school if our community is following those guidelines and we're not tasting or taking risks we'll get the students back there faster you have to understand that despite the the cases we've been seeing over the holidays and you saw that spike that dr shawn so someone showed all the mitigating factors mitigating uh tasks that cps is doing you know i kinda wanna say it's maxed out so it's really up to the community to help cps help our teachers get us students back to school by staying safe following the guidelines and we'll get there starting to get there so please continue your support and continue your feedback that being said now we're getting more some more some more fun stuff tonight uh we're gonna move on listen under comments we're gonna move on to the purpose of this meeting which was uh fiscal year 22 budgets so that being said um mr gripple do we have a report from the finance committee uh thank you mr pergini um essentially uh what came out of our finance report uh was a motion um to uh send to the full board for consideration um essentially uh a super superintendent solon's uh budget untouched uh so far um and so that was a a total requested budget of uh 78 million four hundred eighty seven thousand and fifty two dollars for a total uh budget increase over um uh 20 budget year 2021 of three million eight hundred ninety three thousand one hundred twenty six dollars thank you adam um so before i get into the next question just for the audience watching a little background here so pretty much the entire month of january the superintendent started out the month by proposing his uh 21 22 operating budget for next school year and the board of ed finance committee met with the board as a whole and had three or four deep dive budget workshops on various sections of budget all that detail has been available on cps youtube schooltube it's on our board of our website there's a lot of data there uh that's why the committee chunked out the presentations by topic they think more digestible so what came out of the finance committee last week i believe was the recommendation to move dr stone's budget as is the full board for discussion uh tonight we'll be discussing that in more detail so mr gribble you have a motion so we can get into that discussion sure be it moved that the cheshire board of education submit to the town manager the superintendent's proposed budget for a fiscal year 2021 2022 of 78 million four hundred eighty seven thousand fifty two dollars an increase of three million eight hundred ninety three dollars excuse me three million eight hundred ninety three thousand one hundred twenty six dollars over the current budget thank you mr is there a second and uh andrew's seconds able to put faith behind them uh so motion uh discussion you're um catherine i just have a question a procedural question yes is before we discuss this motion if someone wants to make an amended motion is that appropriate now it's appropriate any time during the discussion of motion whether you do it now or later but yes yeah so the current motion is discussion in the superintendent's proposed budget as is correct okay i just it's like an amendment you certainly can motion and do so thank you sorry tim go ahead no no okay it's been a while since we went through this routine but thanks tony i i plan to support this budget it's it's a huge um it's a it's a really big number particularly relative to other years jeff what's the what are the increases been 2 million a year for years type of thing i could probably give you by percentage easier but um it's hovered in the um you know the basically the 1.17 is the five-year average so that'll give you a censor okay that's that's it yeah wait 1.17 percent or 1.17 million 1.17 percent okay this is roughly 1 million dollars just short of 1 million dollars i'm sorry this is a five percent increase this is a five percent increase this year it is 5.22 yeah so this is it's a really big um increase but i support it i appreciate everything that uh the superintendent all the staff the teachers are doing trying to work through this i've said at several meetings recently that i don't believe that you know on balance most of the kids are not getting 100 out of this year as they would relative to a normal year i said that based on my experience with my first grade daughter and that is in no way intended to be a poor reflection on teachers uh administration anything like that it's just the reality of what we're what we're facing here with covid right now trying to keep everybody safe and healthy while learning so i do realize it's a i do realize it's a big ask of the taxpayers but i also believe that going into next year this is this is a good budget part of one of the things that the superintendent previously mentioned that it's not about this is not about hiring new staff new guidance counselors new psychologists or anything like that and jeff correct me if i'm off base here but basically it's all hands on deck the way to the what what for any shortcomings that exists next year and i have no doubt there will be you know educationally students will be not up to where they would be given a normal year um the way to the way to correct it is with all hands on deck all the teachers all the guidance counselors psychologist principals working uh together with the students so i'm not sure adding a counselor to one building and thinking all our kids will be fine because we did that as fool's gold it's really going to take a comprehensive approach from every adult in the building to continue to support our kids the same way that this has taken a comprehensive approach thank you for dealing with it now yeah thank you so with that i i i'm going to i plan to support this budget uh proposed by the superintendent and i don't know what'll happen with the town council um they have a from my perspective they have they wear a different hat um but i think that this is uh i think this is a good budget all things considered the pandemic basically being it so thank you thank you tim we have a bevy of folks uh in the comments with a hands up so up next is andrew and then adam and then yeah andrew europe great thank you um i obviously i seconded the motion so i'm supporting the superintendent's budget um i think it's important to point out for those who are at home that you know 1.6 of this budget 1.6 million is contractual increases and 2.2 million is just restoring um last year's programming and there's only 12 000 in this budget of improvements over uh past years um obviously we'd like to do more and we'd like to have more improvements but in the current situation pandemic that we're in this is does not even include the covid related expenses and that's going to be an additional expense onto the taxpayers so with an average of you know less than two percent of a budget increase this budget going in over five percent knowing the council is going to have their own comments on it um i think that it's responsible and i think that it's fair and you know obviously we'd like to do more but at this time i will definitely support this um so that's it thanks thank you andrew uh adam thank you um i will also be supporting this motion um i'm sure as many of you know uh this number is you know well beyond my comfort zone as far as improving a budget um i think last year before kovid i think we had a unanimous vote on a budget increase of like it was like 2.1 million or something like that so we are uh well above that uh increase this year um and you know the way kind of way i i you know tried to to break down uh this increase is that you know when you strip out the the amount of money that which is essentially an emergency infusion into our medical benefit trust fund of i i want to say it's like one i think it's 1.8 million dollars if i'm correct when you strip that away um the budget remaining after that looks very similar to what we approved last year before kovid uh with less many less positions in it actually just two two teacher positions at the elementary level where we know we're going to have a need going forward in the future um so when you've when you take out that part of the the remaining budget uh seems very reasonable and uh i can't find a lot of fault with it though some of my friends called me last night and told me they did but that's okay that's uh why why we're elected to make the votes i guess uh so um uh so yes i will be supporting this and um uh uh van and jeff like you said it's it's almost borderline austerity budget even though it's 3.8 million so i do commend you on on making this budget um very efficient considering uh what uh we're looking at for next year which is just basically a world of uncertainty and um i know the town council will be uh looking at this budget i'm sure with a very critical eye and at the very least this budget gives us flexibility uh assuming we need to reduce the final budget it gives us at least some areas to to play with without doing severe damage to our students and our staff thank you thanks adam uh and and then faith so i have to disagree a little bit with what adam just said um i actually have a crisis of conscious going on with this budget because our budgets are always about or have been about three areas maintain restore and advance this budget has no advance in it so we're maintaining right because we have contractual obligations and that's a huge part of our budget and you know we're doing things well and we want to stay doing things well but too much of this budget is restore things that are out of sight of our control we're restoring the medical benefits reserves as people have said and we we had no control over over that going um haywire so to speak and the other uh place that we're restoring is increased maintenance to address our building and equipment our aged buildings and and aging equipment so that leaves us with advance and advance means that we have additions beyond the current budget designed to provide service and further address our goals as an educational institution as an educational district and that is where i have to take issue with this budget so because of my prices of conscience as i call it i went back to dr solon's what if list and there were 11 items and we have not discussed them at all they've just dropped off the table these are really important things that keep our school district running and provide this successful education that our students are getting these are things like a high school math interventionist an elementary tech coach this is a coach that helps teachers uh to navigate um the technology so that they can help their students if we don't need this coming out of out of covid and all this technology and having our teachers well equipped to be able to reach our students more successfully then if we can't put that in our budget then i don't i don't understand what we're doing here um we haven't talked about elementary world language which has been a goal of ours and it's on the back burner and maybe it should be on the back burner but we should be talking about these are goals of ours we are not talking about the district school security manager position which has been a goal of ours for a couple of years now there's district-wide professional development which also we've put on the back burner we've been doing a lot of professional development in-house which is great but how many years are we going to put that on the back burner because professional development is what makes our teachers the professionals that they are that brings new ideas into the classroom it directly affects our students and the education that they get we have things like administrative support which is at the elementary level assistant principles that we currently have shared positions i think at norton and do little i may be mistaken about that not even a full position for an assistant principle we have uh on this wish list a what if list reading and math specialist at highland chapman school we have interactive flat panel displays for 1.5 million that may be an item that goes on my back burner because i think as we talk about school modernization that's likely to become a part of that whole discussion and we have the mastery based portfolio coordinator at chs position so knowing that i can't have everything probably um i did come up with eight of the 11 that i felt necessary to include in the budget and from that i think i shaved it down to five most essential items that i think we need we really need to add to this budget and we're talking about a total of four hundred thousand dollars which is a drop in the bucket uh in in a 78 million dollar budget so with that i would like to propose an amendment is it is it called an amendment to the amended proposal the current motion yeah an amendment to the current motion if if this is the right time to do it yes so i would um propose it of 78 million and 52 which is an increase of four million 293 126 from the current budget to include sixty thousand dollars for the high school math interventionist position thousand dollars for the elementary tech coach position a hundred and fifty thousand dollars for the elementary administrative support eighty thousand dollars for the reading and math specialist at highland and chapman and thirty thousand dollars for the district-wide professional development thank you can you do a favor and read what the new number is against 78 million 78 million eight eight seven 052 which is an increase of four million 293 126 from the current budget thank you so to really the amended motion increases the current motion uh budget to 78 million which represents an overall increase of four million two hundred ninety three thousand dollars performance four million two hundred ninety three thousand more is there a second on the amended motion discussion so for before we get to the discussion for those that might just be tuning in uh we uh we started the discussion on the motion which was to uh move forward the superintendent's proposed budget increase uh a board member and made an amendment motion to change that number by increasing it to a total of four million two hundred ninety three one 126 with several additional items added to it that being said we are now discussing the amended motion as a board any comments thank you mr pear genie um i'm sorry i got bumped off my network here so i didn't hear everything that anne said but i i do think that the argument that we need to fund items that are going to advance our goals and the ability of our system to support our students is even more important in light of the fact that we have a pandemic that has caused a lot of disruption to all of our students um and if we are you know obviously our hope is that in september at the latest we have everybody back in school but the transition to that for a lot of kids is going to be difficult um and the kinds of things that we're talking about here the math interventionist a technology coach um additional professional development administrative support and the reading and math specialist at highland chapman are just to me kind of those are critical expenditures and i am completely aware of the fact that this is a big budget it's it's a big budget but the difference between the budget that we're we've already supported um and this you know additional fund it's a point five three percent increase over what we would have but other you know we all seem to be in support of anyway and it's time it's a it's a small increase that i think the bang for the buck kind of analysis is pretty clear that these additions will enable us as a school system to have a much more robust um you know support system for our kids and making sure that we are ready to um you know get back to where we need to be with with our kids so i completely support this motion and this these additional uh funds that's it thank you thank you catherine uh any other comment from our board on the amendment motion of faith yeah um catherine and anne i i appreciate where you're coming from um in it would be lovely i i i'll just say it'd be lovely to be able to add them um these these positions this year um a drop in the bucket perhaps but it's coming back this budget we know will be coming back at us i do not see the council approving it we're going to have to make even more cuts and so um if we put these in i put it to you where are we going to cut um one place that i would love for us to really start taking a position and i'm really trying to hold myself in here we have 75 mandates coming from hartford and from the federal government that we have to comply with they are costly they're laden with paperwork they are taking away from our programs and i encourage you both along with everybody on um you know the rest of us to begin to put some pressure on our legislators to stop we have got to get control of this um i i just i can't believe that that this is where we're losing our program we have five percent to work with we have 95 fixed costs we can't do anything with those so we need everybody's help on this one and um you know if you can if we could get some of these mandates lifted perhaps we would have more room to play with more room to get these needed positions in but right now we're stuck so i don't know um i'd love to support you but i cannot thank you faith uh mr grippel comment there we go uh thank you um firstly uh i i won't be supporting the amendment um and uh although i do agree that the uh the support that that you're advocating for um is may or may not be needed uh as as has been quoted to me several times by both of you um that we uh normally look to superintendent solon and mr maciana for their expertise when constructing a budget this year we're passing their budget untouched that they've identified the needs for next year to to have us claw out of the hole that we are going to be in uh for next year there's there's no you know two ways about it that it's not going to be a you know a perfect uh return uh to school next year uh we can you know we're certainly only hope hope for the best and even robin had said in several meetings that she believes that they have the supports in place to be able to help our students recover and marlene has said that as well so for now i think um the budget that we uh hopefully will be passing tonight um is sufficient to to get us through uh and and to get us back on the path to uh uh normalcy uh and then to begin to move forward again um because i i i think it's accurate to say that we are rebuilding because we are in in a almost a a wartime footing uh where we are doing things that we normally wouldn't have expected to do um and and use resources um uh that we uh weren't expecting to use so um i think that um although that your amendment is uh well-meaning uh i i just i wouldn't be able to support it at this time thank you thank you adam anyone else have your hand up uh so we're still discussing the amendment the amendment to the the first motion that being said i i uh i certainly agree and sympathize with dan and catherine you know for the three of us in particular uh some designs go back a few years uh in fact i remember if not mistaken uh nidaddy was certainly behind the math intervention specialist uh at fact michigan on the board in their first term the the the chat the question i have is for dr sullin i guess is you know throughout the budget workshop reviews um you know you and your team and you know we were testing this and various questions you know going back to to a normal environment in the fall we don't really know what it looks like yet we hope it's what it was two years ago or you know first day of school everybody's on the bus we're all showing up in person learning and without masks if it's safe enough to do so frankly we don't know um that being said and echo on what adam said you know we're i think you know calling back is uh we are uh we're fighting back to give it some normalcy this fall um assessing our student needs getting back into a rhythm of being in person everything goes along with that and we're assessing um not just our students but our staff you know they're going through quite a bit on this getting really reactivated getting everybody's needs and planning out success for each student and student the rest of the school year that you know itself my opinion is uh is a huge challenge um so in these times i i just wonder if these positions were added to the list can the administration even execute on them considering everything else they got to deal with to get 21 22 um up and running so i i guess jeff my question to you is um money is there wants to answer is you know these things were available to you how realistic is you'd be able to execute on them assuming everything was funded um because they were not top priority in the budget you submitted doesn't mean they're not priority but that kind of tells me that you know you looked at holistically what you needed to do um and dollars aside you know these things get in there i was just wondering the reasons why yeah it's a good question it's one of these situations where everybody's right um the everything that's identified on that what if uh slide that i think ann referenced everything there would support our school system and help move us forward um i think there are limited um areas that you know might be a little bit more difficult to intervene there you know or to interject at this time excuse me things like you know expanding spanish next year i think that would be a huge you know hurdle across but most of the things in the in the you know when we talk about math intervention certainly incredibly beneficial tech educational technology coach at the elementary level um the word on the street although i haven't heard anything official is that students will still be permitted to learn from remote next year we could have really benefited from that elementary tech coach this year to support that learning now an elementary administrator has been something that you know we want to be able to spend more time coaching teachers we've found that to be incredibly beneficial um over the last few years when we've done instructional rounds and learning walks and teachers coaching each other but somebody needs to coordinate that and it's just a piece that particularly as we almost redefine what teaching looks like would be beneficial course reading and math support always valuable and professional development is important as well the the um you know the challenge that we were up against and the design of this budget was we have a five-year history of 1.17 and you know here we are the things that are in our budget right now are critical you know typically we'd be looking at you know some more maintenance items or more um you know something else but right now i i we don't have insurance to fall back on to make any reductions our maintenance accounts have been very lean for an extended period of time and i don't really know where smc is going to go yet nobody does so you know so we had to try and strike a balance i i'm trying to be fiscally responsible but readily acknowledge that this does not move us forward in a way that would be significantly beneficial to our community it's trying to strike a balance thank you jeff sure any other comments on the board attend actually what time i gotta can you hear me i'm having some technical difficulties here tonight um i really appreciate let me just say one thing i know that all of us would like to be able to fund the school you know cheshire public schools at the highest level possible if it didn't cause pain to the taxpayers i get that and i also am a i'm a taxpayer you know whatever we do here is going to impact me into you know personally um i you know what we're proposing in this amendment is you know 400 000 of additional expenditures i understand that the town council may or may not accept anything we send over there they may cut whatever but i am not going to i have never been a fan of trying to predict what that will be i think you know the way i approach the budget is to say um what is it that that i believe is going to be in the best interest of our students our staff and and you know and then we see what happens really but you know but my job as a board member has always been to advocate for you know the best result in in my view um i i do i get it i get that this is a lot of money overall i get that we are in a bad situation globally i get that you know things are uncertain and yet i also think that you know focusing on these few additional items is not going to have the you know a gigantic impact on the town as a whole on any individual taxpayer um and it is one of those situations where i think you know this is a way of getting a much more valuable return on the money that we'd be spending um i am really you know last year we made a a decision to you know under not under yet well under fund under fund the medical benefits trust fund by a little bit because we had such a big cushion and it looks like you know we would anticipate a certain level of claims and we should be in pretty good shape because really we only need a couple of months worth of claims in the medical benefits trust we made that decision we're paying for that in a way because now you know we have these this year of really unexpected high claims we're d we're getting perilously close to um you know less than a month's worth of claim um and we have to make up for that okay that that's what we have to do and it's happened to us as vin pointed out it happens to us every several years we find ourselves in this kind of a situation but i you know so the taxpayers got the benefit last year of the fact that we cut the funding to the medical benefits trust this year we have to make up for that but it should not necessarily be at the expense in my view of these addition additional items that are directly impactful for our students um and again i get that i may be one of the two people here that supports this and that's okay you know that's okay i i'm going to support the the superintendent's budget as we you know as was passed to the finance committee if that's where we end up but i do want people to at least think about it you know just think about whether or not this is something we would at least want to put on the table and present to the town council and and then see what happens uh i'm done sorry thank you tony thank you tim that's why that's why we're uh we volunteer for these high paying positions on the board of it right is to have these discussions and i understand we all understand where we're coming from and i'm very very thankful everyone's you know has been very gorgeous in these discussions even last year so you know no worries here um i'm sorry tim you're waiting you're up yeah no i appreciate i appreciate where your motion's coming from man i i do i i do like it but at the same time i'm i still have in my mind uh that this is probably in the last 20 years the largest percent increase the largest dollar increase that the board of ed has requested uh i think we will probably end up getting whatever it is from the council it'll probably be the largest it could be reduced but it'll still be the largest increase both in dollars and in percent i i suspect um but i i i just think about not not so much i mean i've i've seen numbers unemployment is relatively low but i've anecdotally i've just spoken with a lot of people who have you know made less money this year for a variety of different reasons i do think there are a lot of people who are um you know the not just the uncertainty but actual they're going to have a lower agi just adjusted gross income for 2020.
it gives a good representative annualized it's important to get all four seasons or integral multiples of all four seasons so that you get a good representation of energy use across the year um but the cost of energy was not representative in 2018 um 2019 is more representative you can see that depending on how you use energy and what the tariff is you're paying about 15 and a half cents a kilowatt hour aggregate energy cost of that probably 11 or 12 senses related to energy the balance is related to demand or distribution and so that's important when we look at sizing systems and looking at benefits that you can expect that you'll be able to offset some amount of energy but the demand components are much more difficult to offset so i know somebody had raised a question about the possibility of using storage um these would be examples of where storage may be beneficial and right-sizing the storage may be very beneficial in leveling loads it's more apparent in looking at the billing for the regular meter this is the one that we had the full year or 12 full utility statements um what you see in particular in this representation two things the energy is fairly flat across the year so the use of the facility and this baseline period 2019 to 2020 and that's through march of 2020 so before any covered restrictions on the facilities kicked in um you've got a fairly uniform use of this particular meter at the high school but what you see is that the demand will vary across the year and where you peak will set what you pay for demand for the entire year so the cost basis for demand is this top gray line and you can see that demand will vary from 125 kilowatts to uh 225 and when you peek out that's what you pay for the balance of the year so this is where storage could be useful is in trying to balance this demand variance across the year um you don't want to put too much storage in it's expensive but right sizing the storage may be beneficial and it's something that as a next step we could take a look at um the locations that were identified for the high school and this is now looking at combining both of these meters um into the one and a half million kilowatt hours a year consumption it turns out that this area here is sufficient to meet 90 percent of the total facilities energy use for those two meters um a next step in in refinement um and depending on the path that you want to follow uh whether you want to pursue a power purchase agreement or you want to publish an rfp um would be then looking at costing this out in more detail um i have not put together budgetary cost estimates but you can expect that the cost of pv continues to decline similarly the cost of storage continues to decline um and you could expect to achieve favorable rates um so these were the areas within a fall sorry question michael yeah let him jump in with a question okay friend yeah thank you andrew uh you were talking about the demand i'm sorry no you were talking about the demand uh before do you uh do you have the interval did you get the interval demand data no we have not done that so that would be an extra refinement step so the last slide in the set or possible next week what we do have our monthly statement so that you may have this particular meter as shown here um what you'd expect to see are more excursions in interval data um um just a general note also these are the tariffs if i may just back on that last slide just really quick um which this one uh there yes so rich if i recall correctly your concern with regard to a backup generator at highland was for its use as a critical facility and that would be in august and since school wasn't in session although school wouldn't probably not be in session anyway in a situation like that hurricane or whatever school probably canceled we actually peaked out in august right there probably around 130 or 140 kw right um from this data this is for the high school um the so that's not actually that's 1920 that's not that's probably august 2019.
way to go mrs alvarez it is an honor to call you a colleague counselors would also like to give a big thanks to amanda bean and carlos hernandez for all and all of our college and community partners for putting together virtual financial aid workshops for all seniors in the district i would also like to thank all of the counselors who have graciously volunteered their time to work these events even though we are just beginning second semester our counselors are hard at work doing course selection of students for school year yes it is that time of year again we are grateful for the help that we are getting from our sites and we also would like to thank our teachers for allowing us time in their classrooms to do course selection with our students our junior high counselors are collaborating with our feeder elementary schools and our high schools are collaborating with our junior high schools lastly i would like to take a moment to acknowledge all of the school counselors out there this is national school counselor week and just want to say thank you for all that you are doing for our students you are appreciated and i feel lucky to work with such a wonderful group of people thank you thank you sylvia yes we have some acknowledgments this month of all our different uh occupations here okay alta president hilda vasquez do you have a report i do thank you madam president piercy good afternoon board of trustees superintendent matsuda executive cabinet autoc students parents community members uh it is my honor to be here this afternoon many of our colleagues have already shared some of the amazing wonderful things that our our sites are doing and i just want to reiterate some of them and and add some additional ones as we've talked about uh many of our sites are gearing up for open house i know it seems so quick but we are we want to showcase all the good work that our students are doing and so i want to encourage all of our students and our parents watching to visit their sites or maybe you're our current sixth grader looking to come to uhsd so we invite you to come visit our junior highs to check out the showcases and so really excited to be putting those on uh starting again today with savannah we also want to thank our counselors for all of their work we know has been very different than what they're experiencing but they have gone over and beyond and have really supported our students through many many many layers and they're continuing the good work and also i want to also thank our social workers as well for the team effort that they're putting together i also want to give a shout out to our district ambassadors we had an opportunity to connect with them in our last principles meeting and they are very committed to raising student voice and so we will be sending all of our sites a student survey we wanted to hear from students on our changes as mr schuster talked about and we want to make sure that it is a good fit for our students and we want to hear their voice so thank you ambassadors who are also going to be talking at our sites and connecting with parents also in terms of parents we are conducting parent learning walks i want to uh share with you that we're emphasizing three of the e-learning national standards which are course routines and predictability teacher presence and community building and connection and so we are working um with our faces and our teams to do the parent learning walks um and also really a huge emphasis on the wellness component sites are adding more and more supports for developing student wellness and connections so for example we you heard about offering spaces safe spaces for dialogue and for students to come together junior heights are starting this high schools um have been doing some of these and they are also doing them district wide and so some are not just site specifics and i know ambassadors have been doing some of this work also we are connecting uh some schools are creating monitoring systems where parents could uh sign sign up and parents and and staff can connect with students and check up on students and do an additional connection also raising awareness about our mental health and supports and the available services are on sites doing some workshops for example savannah and burgers hosted one this morning for our parents and on mental health we're also district-wide doing some site professional development around mental health and also as it was mentioned we are also adding some community school and staff to further develop those um so all in all just doing a lot of work and lastly i want to just share in terms of instructions in terms of the the things students are doing in the classrooms we are focusing this month on doing some project-based learning so some lessons revolving around inquiry and also on action civic so students will have the opportunity to connect us elizabeth talked about some lessons revolving around the 5cs empathy awareness and also we have some coveted 19 lessons and possible opportunities for students to do some solutions actions items as a result of that so we're excited to do those at the site and with that that concludes my report thank you thank you hilda very much okay next we have our parent teacher student association report do we have a representative i'm looking i haven't seen anyone did i miss okay i don't think we have any in attendance so may i ask a clarifying question certainly okay thank you hilda and sylvia and uh grant for your reports um very compelling and uh i just wanted to know if someone can give a brief explanation you mentioned twice community schools just a brief explanation of what that is to folks who uh may not know what that is um america okay community schools are um it's a a model where schools provide space on campuses where um where services that normally are provided by the county or the state at their local offices can be accessed by our students and their families who may not be able to get to downtown santa ana to an office there or um to some state office and we've already started two of them at anaheim and sycamore they have things like dental clinics medical screening facilities rooms where students and families can receive counseling or family therapy there are all kinds of opportunities and these are programs and and services that these families are entitled to but they just haven't been able to access them from the county or the state and we can provide facilities for them to do that on our campuses so that not only are the students and their families receiving these services but now they're also better able to access the education that we're providing because some of those needs that they have have been addressed in uh by our community school services so we're awaiting to hear about a grant that the district has applied for to expand this to other schools and this is something that the that our association has been pushing hard for um through our channels and the district has been pushing through their channels and we are both in a hundred percent agreement that this is this absolutely fits the need specifically in our community and we can help uh support these families and students to make their lives better and also increase their access to education because of the services they receive thank you grant i hope that clarifies it for a lot i didn't think about that thank you for thinking about that and marie okay um moving on we'll move on to public comments at this time this is open session items opportunities for public comments occur at the beginning of each agenda item as well and at this time for items not on the agenda comments may be submitted online at https you know online prior to the meeting submissions will be read aloud during the board meeting by the board president or designee and we will design we will designate mr waddell for that each speaker is limited to a maximum of five minutes each topic or item is limited to a total of 20 minutes and board members cannot immediately respond to public comments as stated on the speaker request form mr waddell would you like to take over i understand we have some public comments uh yes thank you president piercy we do have a number of public comments this afternoon uh the first comment comes from joy harper i would like to urge you to consider giving families the option for full in-person instruction besides a hybrid model which may give students only one or two days on campus the vaccine is already being administered to our vulnerable population and the time has come for students to return to school they are capable of following all safety protocols on campus i'm a teacher in the cypress school district at king's school i've been teaching full-time in-person kindergarten since september as expected children and staff have tested positive at my school but none have contracted or spread the virus at school i realize an elementary school is much smaller than a junior high or a high school however if elementary students are following the protocols that are keeping our schools a safe place to be i know that older students think my freshman son can follow them as well thank you for your time and consideration i look forward to hearing your response the next comment comes from kimberly monteleone i write this as a parent for children at two schools in the district i have three at cypress high school and one at lexington i am also in education and so is my husband we teach high school students in neighboring districts i'm writing this letter to please encourage you to try and get these kids back on campus in any way shape or form this can be done safely through a hybrid model and these kids need a purpose and something to look forward to my children are very active in sports and having the sports camps at the beginning of the school year made all of the difference in the world being able to be on campus see their friends and interact with coaches helped change their morale they were motivated and happy they looked forward to practices and actually had smiles on their faces all of that was taken from them while many neighboring schools around us continue to go on in person school and practice every single day as an educator myself i understand the difficulties that go into the planning of all of this as a parent i see firsthand how it is destroying their mental and emotional health these kids need someone to fight for them for once in the last 10 months and i beg you to please do that fight for them and get them back on campus let them see their teachers and let them start practicing again thank you for your time the next comment comes from kelly engels surrounding school districts are or will be back in school by end of this month high schools and junior high schools fullerton joint union district which pulls from similar zip codes being included do they have different funding or requirements to be back i want teachers students to be safe but the cdc has issued statements that kids should be back in school it seems that our district has never had any intention of returning to school with teachers echoing this through online learning also i would ask that every possible option is exercised to have an incorrect graduation for seniors i know other schools are already making these plans and i pray that ours is as well i understand that all reports indicate kids are not falling behind in most subjects in school but i do not need to see a report to understand the impact on mental health this is having on kids of all ages not being in school witnessing firsthand the effect this has had on our senior class is heartbreaking when they feel left behind and zero acknowledgement of what effect this year has meant for them please take this into consideration thank you for your service the next comment comes from amy zabala my children are students at cypress high school i am writing this letter to get a better understanding of what it will take for anaheim union to open its schools in order to provide our students with the in-person learning environment that they deserve and require i am aware that the stance of the school district has been that kobe case numbers high especially in anaheim however with proper protocols in place schools can open safely regardless of the coveted cases in the community i work in the health office of an elementary school in the cypress school district and have been on campus since august we have no reports of any schools spread throughout our district furthermore i have contacted high schools that are open for in-person learning and they also have no reports of school spread in an effort to keep this letter brief i did not include the specific details but would be happy to provide you with any information if you are interested in addition to safety protocols we now have a vaccine that will help protect the elderly family members of our students and our teachers who will soon be eligible to receive the vaccine with that withholding in-person learning is failing the students you are sworn to serve i understand that many teachers do not want person teaching however with all due respect that is the job that they were hired to do where would we be if our health care workers grocery workers and all other essential workers decided they didn't want to return to their jobs i do believe the teachers are essential workers too their job is to be in the classroom teaching their students in person as a classified employee of the school district my choice was to either return to work on campus or resign i was happy to return because i know with proper protocols in place school can be and has been a safe place to be i urge auhsd to open our schools in person learning for the remainder of the 2021 school year not only for our students academic needs but for their physical social and emotional needs as well i look forward to hearing from you soon the next comment comes from christy roberts distance learning has been a complete disappointment and highlighted the need for our family to find another district before next school year the children are barely in class hardly assigned homework and left to teach themselves extracurricular activities such as band drumline sports etc have completely gone by the wayside without any attempt by the district or schools to keep the kids engaged supported furthermore the lack of engagement and support or encouragement for our class of 2021 seniors is heartbreaking auhsd and cypress high need to do better many districts have been successful during distance learning and the lack of performance by auhsd in cyprus high is so disappointing considering a hybrid model where students attend in person one day a week is another slap in the face to our students and teachers at the cypress high principal advised last week during coffee with the principal the schools are ready to be open coveted measures are in place and should be utilized also the numbers aren't low in some areas so by withholding opening schools like cypress kennedy lexington etc until the entire district is in the clear you're just taking excuses that are having dire effects on the health of our children if teachers are concerned or high risk then have those teachers stay home on unemployment like thousands of other people but there are many teachers willing to return before the vaccine are implemented cyprus school district has teachers in person every day in the elementary schools and at auhsd can't find a way forward parents and students are done being silent it's time we take action and push to reopen immediately also to tell parents that our students are being provided compassionate rating is another slap in the face of further evidence that our district is failing with students rather than teach the children the curriculum and hold the students accountable our district is passing students that should be failing to keep great averages up because the district knows they're failing our students our children we keep getting further behind and dumb down if we allow this to continue it was also emphasized during coffee with the principal that ap exams will take place this year in person and will be the full exam not modified like last year if students can take the exam in person they can attend school it was offered that if our students want to withdraw from the ap exams they still can and receive a refund the schools are offering this because they know that our students are not prepared at no fault of their own again further confirmation that our students are getting shortchanged in all areas the next comment is from jody o'campbell my daughter is a senior at cypress high school i know i am only one parent but it is time the students return to campus to continue their education it is something they need for their social emotional and physical needs if some students don't want to return they can continue with business learning with vaccines now available and many persons getting them it is time for in-person learning with each teacher staff member student taking proper covet protocols i believe this is something that we can all get through please let's give all seniors class of 2021 an opportunity to finish their education with euhsd on campus thank you for your time and we look forward to the promised decision from the board our next comment comes from lauren kennedy our family currently has children enrolled at lexington junior high and cyprus high i'm writing this letter to support plans to start transitioning our students our schools to some form of in-person instruction for our students as we approach six months of virtual learning i feel that it is time to start planning to pivot to some minimum form of impersonal learning for our children i can see in my children a great need to socially interact in a school setting for their emotional and educational well-being i do understand there is a difficult balance that we all face in returning students to the classroom but i feel we need to start making a slow methodical transition back unfortunately it seems that we will be dealing with covid in the long term and i do not feel that complete virtual learning is sustainable long term in contrast to the beginning of the school year we have improved our understanding of covet outbreak mitigation we have improved access to testing and personal protective equipment which was not readily available at the start of the school year i believe we should look at best practices school districts that have returned to modified in-person learning and modified workplaces that have mitigated their coping spread successfully based on recent tragic events at cypress high school i am growing concerned that our students mental health and believe we now need to give additional consideration in offering them some form of in-person interactions with their peers to at least have the option of one-day in-person instruction for those students that are struggling with virtual learning i believe the uhsd has always had our students best interests at heart i truly understand the difficult challenge of balancing the need to protect our students from covet and meeting their academic physical and mental wellness needs thank you for your time in consideration next comment is salazar please reopen the schools with proper ppe and protocols it is possible to offer our children the in-person learning environment that they are missing failure is of epidemic proportions in the 2020-2021 school year let's combat this by reopening schools for our students other states have done this successfully it is our turn the next comment comes from raymond laws i'm writing this on behalf of my four children who attend cyprus and lexington i understand that it is difficult with the logistics of getting the kids back on campus a hybrid model and that you are doing all you can to plan that i pray that you can make that happen before this school year is over it is going to be weird and strange whenever it happens so it would be nice to work out the kinks before the school year is over but i'm begging you to at least let these kids get back on the field for their practices and activities i was just at my niece's cross-country meet today eight miles down the road at la habra high school it was amazing to see an actual live event but what teared me up more than anything was to see every single sport football soccer baseball softball track water polo you name it out there practicing this can be done in a safe way and was done in a safe way for several months these kids are sitting in front of a screen all day long and have nothing to look forward to the very least you can offer them is a chance to run around outside and condition or practice with their sports it is insane that they are not able to do that right now i ask that you please do the right thing and let them back out on the field thank you the next comment is nicole matlock our kids are already not allowed to go to school in person which they desperately need they are struggling so bad this has gone on long enough but now the kids can't even practice their sports this is no re there is no reason for that especially since tons of other schools have been practicing this whole time please let the kids go back to their supports at the very least the next comment is gretchen linder please let our kids return to school how many more kids are going to commit suicide for you to wake up they need community and normalcy and sports you've stripped them everything away from them other districts are open and on campus and not getting sick there is no reason for you to stay closed open our schools and open sports for our kids mental health please the next comment comes from candy cusamano many of the schools just down the street from us are attending school and playing sports you are damaging our children permanently by withholding their right to attend and play sports this band must stop now you are mentally and physically killing or young the madness must stop now the next comment is from tony caspano i feel that the sports need to be implemented yesterday these kids are becoming lethargic and interested in sports and in general school is not as big a priority to this to kids now it's been too long we are almost at a year of these kids not being in school let them play your elected official that can be elected out of the position my best recommendation is open the schools up and let them play the next comment riley zapano let us play let us go back to school the next comment is heist glittener i'd really like to go back to school please open up and sports let us play sports it's outside all my friends at other schools are playing and never stopped it's not right let us play the next comment comes from blake kuzamano i'm tired of being stuck at home let us play sports and go back to school let us have social interactions the next comment is let us play and do sports again please let us go back to school in person the next comment is melissa aguilar i think it's vital for my kids overall health mental and physical to return back to in-person classes as well as sports my children have failed almost every subject because distance learning isn't for them they are in desperate need social interaction with their peers i also believe they should return to sports of course still taking every precaution narration this year has been hard for everyone but most definitely has taken a toll on our children we cannot do another year of distance learning the next comment is from cole fendrick kids are not getting the right education and the real education they need to succeed not only that but online school is way more stressful than normal school the next comment is from camilla roberts i feel it is time for the kids to go back to school my kids are not learning anything and they are all athletes that need to get back to their sports please consider full studies back at school the next comment is from royce roberts i'm ready to go back to school it is very hard to study and understand online schooling plus i'm an athlete and want to get back to playing baseball the next comment comes from amber fendrick there are multiple schools surrounding our city who have returned to playing sports and to the classroom my sophomore is ridiculously worried about how far behind he is going to be compared to other kids due to the lack of learning that he's experiencing online right now not to mention how far he'll be behind athletically this needs to stop the kids need to go back to school if the teacher doesn't want to return to the classroom hire one that does there are plenty of them out there let the kids who want to go back go back what is the science behind keeping these schools closed please explain this to me my eighth grader has been suffering from depression for months now i have been worried about leaving him home alone at times he quit playing his favorite sport and rarely leaves the house kids need to interact with other kids they are being short-changed of so many life experiences right now and why kids aren't getting sick if they do it's body aches for a day or a headache or some other minor symptoms my niece and nephew both just had it one had no symptoms and the other a headache if a child has underlying issues they need to be the one who stays home not every child in the district i told my sons it doesn't start they're moving out of state this is no longer healthy or good for them or their futures the next comment is from tom matlock my public comment is to request to open up the schools again especially for this last semester in addition i request to open the athletic camps the impact to these kids has been substantial there's very little evidence that the virus outbreaks are occurring at schools previous comments by the auhsd have stated that preparations have been made at the schools to keep the students safe if this is true then the schools should be open should be able to open up i believe that the board would unanimously agree that distance learning is a far lesser form of education than in-person learning with the safety precautions made the lack of evidence that outbreaks occur at school and the evaluation that distance learning is not sufficient the school should open back up if the board still continues to keep the schools closed then at least let the extracurricular activities many schools in orange county have allowed athletic camps to start up again these students have suffered enough it's time to put their best interests first instead of our precaution at their expense please allow the students to return to school and athletics the next comment is from the ball patel as a parent of two auhsd students i believe it's crucial to the health both physical and mental safety and education of our students to be back into the physical classroom environment sooner rather than later why is our district one of the last ones to open physically when many others in our area are open already what is being done to get into the classroom soon at this point we have had ample time to prepare safe return protocols what is the delay who makes these final decisions the next comment comes from ali willis it would be completely irresponsible to move to hybrid instruction when infection rates are worse than they were when the district moved to virtual instruction last year there have been significant slowdowns in getting the vaccine to teachers who everyone seems to forget in these discussions in addition the strain on already overbought teachers have to change all of their plans to move to hybrid instruction would be immense students need consistency and throwing them into a loop by changing their routines and schedules yet again is important in a time like this i beg of you to vote against moving to hybrid instruction for the sake of our school students teachers and staff next comment comes from christine jackson i'm urging the district to look at how we can safely get the students who want to return to school to be able to do so with safe proper protocols in place schools can open safely regardless of the coping cases in the community and many have been operating with no or very little coca transfer happening at the school itself i work in the health office of an elementary school and have been on campus since august we have no reports of any school spread throughout our district it is my understanding that the high schools that are open for in-person learning also have no reports of school spread in addition to safety protocols we now have a vaccine that will help protect the elderly family members of our students and our teachers schools to be eligible to receive the vaccine withholding in-person learning is failing the students you are sworn to serve these students are not thriving emotionally physically academically or mentally look at the data that shows depression and anxiety on the rise with teenagers i myself have a daughter and i'm worried about she is mentally and emotionally hurting my son is academically not thriving you are failing my kids and their friends and there is no data showing that what you are doing is working our numbers will not go down to an acceptable level until our students are back in class and families are home to make sure they are in class i urge auhsd to open our schools for in-person learning for the remainder of the 2020-2021 school year not only for our students academic needs but for their physical social and emotional needs as well i do not want to hear any more excuses or stories of our students hurting anymore the next comment comes from emperor our kids are suffering covet is not taking their lives your decisions are the next comment is from carissa at least get us back to sports it is our outdoors with low risk we are kids with low risk let us play the next comment comes from robert our kids need to be in person learning we are jeopardizing their well-being by keeping them home they see in here of their friends getting to be in class and practice their sport this makes them mad and anger turns to depression stop picturing them already open the doors the next comment comes from ms d please reopen schools the governor of california said that schools need to open up why do our children have to pay the price because of the teachers unions this is wrong you are supposed to protect and serve the children in your district not the teacher unions these teachers obviously don't care for their children or the job just the paycheck and what is easier from them at the children's education expense maybe it is time for certain teachers to resign if they don't want to return to school and do their job that they were hired to do the risk of covid is very low and we have vaccines i have seen other schools already open nearby thank you for listening her child for children education failing though next comment comes from newman as you know the whole country is suffering from the crisis brought on by the covet 19 pandemic we hear on the news every day about schools struggling to adapt the every changing requirements to keep our students and school staff safe auhsd has adopted a 100 remote learning environment in the interests of our community unfortunately it's pushing our children to a mental health crisis while the school sites and the district work to address this mental health crisis there are things that can be done to help alleviate the situation most of the classrooms are not requiring students to turn on their cameras students have to opportunity to engage with no opportunity to engage with each other this breeds a feeling of isolation and depression further because of this camera policy or lack of policy the teachers get no way to read the class to see if they are reaching the students with their lessons which blocks the teachers from their normal communication method this is depressing for the teacher but also only provides tests and quizzes as a means for feedback as we see on the news every day we know upwards to 50 percent of our students are failing their classes thus reinforcing this feeling of depression and isolation furthermore there is little to no collaborative discussion or group projects happening in the virtual classrooms pre-covered students work in small groups to discuss problems and topics our class schedule allows 400 minutes of asynchronous learning every week this would be a great time to work with small groups of students on these collaborative lessons or other engaging lessons but that is not happening what are the teachers doing with that time i'll tell you they use it for office hours returning emails and for grading all things that are part of their normal workload pre-coping in the meantime our students are smiling spiraling down in depression another condition that causes despair in our students is the amount of work assigned for homework as a reaction to the spring semester where the visual virtual classroom was thrown together auhsd has pushed teachers to provide more rigor in their assignments teacher has therefore loaded the student with an excessive amount of work students are staying up till 10 pm 11 pm 12 pm even 3 am working on these assignments we parents wonder is this workload necessary does it really need to be so much or can auhsd look at the assignments and ask a few quick questions before signing them how does this add to the learning does it need to be that long can we do this different collaborative instead number one should be forced to sit in front or no one should be forced to sit in front of a computer for 12 hours a day let alone 20 hours just in january alone we know that at least two auhsd students have taken their own lives the first was a 14 year old boy and the second was a girl we cannot allow any more of our children to kill themselves we implore you to work with the teachers to develop ways to engage the students there are simple things auhsb can do to create engagement in the virtual classroom lastly there is software that can search the hsd computer and chromebooks and look at what students are searching and alert you to this and then you would be able to notify families of this as it is happening with approximately thirty thousand students you need the software please protect our students we don't want to see any more students the next comment comes from katie castaneda i just wish that more teachers were open to talking about race and stuff even when they do talk about it i don't want them sugarcoating it i just want honesty i love being part of a bsu club it's a safe space where kids can talk about whatever they want and not be judged for it i wish teachers could host a safe space like that or teach stuff that we really want to learn about without them getting all shy in geige i as a student at catella high school feel as though understanding the importance of all cultures is important my school is a well-diverse school that i believe as students love and get along well with i may feel as a minority outside of school however i feel at school i am one with all of my students yet despite this there are still times i feel the importance of my skin color changes i am treated by either opposing schools playing at school to staff or unknown staff at school who may treat me different due to the color of my skin i would feel recognized and loved if our teachers and students reflected on the issues of racial discrimination and fixing the stereotypes of minority races if teachers could open up about the real struggles on race and listen to the questions students may have we as a school district can create a bond and partnership with students parents and teachers that is important as our world is changing and we must talk about the issues we hear on the news and experience in our schools and communities the first step to change is awareness of the problem and from there we must ask ourselves so what must we do to create this change thank you i appreciate all that you do very much the next comment comes from ileana fernandez i am a student at catalan high school and the co-vice president of the bsu club it has come to my attention that there are teachers mainly those who are caucasian who do not feel comfortable talking to students about certain matters regarding race i do not want to talk about these matters because they feel like their opinions are invalid and that they must quickly correct manner it would be greatly appreciated if teachers were given some type of training for addressing this issue because i do believe that teachers in our district do not have any malicious intent but the improper training thank you for taking the time to do this the final comment this evening comes from amber norwood regarding the new board policy 8000 on equity that is later on in the agenda please pass this policy as a significant need in our district it will make a difference among our families and staff that concludes public comment okay that was a few um we're hearing a lot of our and ask a quick clarifying question of carl um call have we checked through to make sure that we received all the public comments yes i i am looking at the form right now i i read all of them reef okay thank you okay going moving on from public comments we will go to recognitions and the first recognition i would like to do is a donation from farmers and merchant bank as one of the last family-run independent banks in the country farmers and merchant prides itself on the communities they serve and staying true to the founders words that safeguarding our clients money is a sacred trust on behalf of the board of trustees we would like to thank you for investing in our community through your generous donation uh farmers and merchants bank uh donated 5 000 do our aim program and accepting the recognition on behalf of farmers and merchants bank is sandra ellis vice president and garden grove branch manager sandra are you with us okay i don't see sandra but we want to thank of course farmers and merchants merchants tremendously for this donation okay awards now the anaheim union high school district values and appreciates perfect attendance of our employees it has become the district's tradition to recognize and applaud on an annual basis staff members who have shown perfect attendance consequently a red apple award award will be sent to each employee of the dis district who has had perfect attendance for the 2019-20 year a gold apple award will be sent to each employee with three consecutive years of perfect attendance and the board of trustees congratulates staff that are listed on the exhibit who have earned this recognition and thanks them for their dedicated service to the anaheim union high school district students and community and i failed to count how many of them but i know there were like three pages so we have a lot of our employees who are very dedicated and who show up every single day and there are a lot of them who have three years of perfect attendance and that to me is phenomenal so congratulations to all of you um i don't have i guess i'm not having to read all the names but if you're out there thank you very much we appreciate it now our next item is a presentation and byron mata who is a student at oxford academy will provide us a presentation on climate change and its impact on society and the importance of civic engagement in the schools to face the challenges it presents byron together with 12 other students from around the united states one the inaugural equity in civics youthful citizen and funded by the william and flora hewlett foundation byron also was national soapbox speech winner and traveled to washington d.c to present a two-minute speech on climate change byron i'm going to give you the floor and let you make your presentation on climate change thank you the sun rose on a beautiful world birds are chirping breathing in the clean fresh air the dolphins and fish are playing in a beautiful blue ocean pedestrians walking down the sidewalks living the good life unfortunately the world i just described is not reality and we need to stop acting like it is hi my name is byron metta and i believe it is time for a change the world is not what we want it to be and it is only going to get worse without action we need storms have continued to rise and decimate everything in their path global temperatures continue to rise arctic sea ice is shrinking at exponential rates causing many animals to lose their homes forest fires are rapidly burning through california causing many to have to relocate we cannot continue down this trajectory we cannot hide from this problem any longer these past few years are proof of that the spike in storms annually has only been increasing hurting our economy our environment but most importantly ourselves throughout my time traveling across the country i get to i've got to meet so many students that do want to change and do wants things to happen but if the adults in our lives do not set an example for us and do not give us the opportunities and the education necessary to take that first step and create real change nothing will happen and that is why i am here today to propose a resolution that will effectively address global warming for years to come a resolution that will inform students on how they can speak out and create real change and become advocates in their communities as we become collectively a greener society our students will also learn how to speak out and be advocates and be active citizens within their communities and fulfill their role as active citizens within a democracy this is uniquely key in anaheim union high school district which is the home of 15 democracy schools and is viewed as a leader when it comes to fostering students and unlocking their unlimited potential as greta thundberg once said we can't save the world by playing by the rules because the rules have to be changed everything needs to change and it has to start today and that is why i am i implore you to support this resolution thank you veron and i apologize for mispronouncing your name no problem very well done and and you are to be applauded because you are one of our students right now and i am just so proud of the fact that you have accomplished so much uh it says a lot for our school district good job okay we will be uh bringing the resolution forward a little bit later in the uh agenda here after a couple more presentations yes all right i just wanted to um to ask a viridian sorry to put you on the spot like this but i just was thinking about what we've been experiencing with covid and then you know when everyone was home everyone was you know we had less cars on this street we had less people in the street and you saw videos of animals coming into uh you know coming out of the out of the wilderness and into the streets and i just uh i just wanted to know what covid had a beneficial impact to global warming but i think that studies have shown that even that is not sufficient right there needs to be some policy some action some realization by communities that yes this is a big issue and a possibly existential issue so i think that yes covid has uh created some change but i think we now need to integrate that within our education and also past policies to further that so that we really have a grasp on this issue uh and find solutions thank you i appreciate that okay okay um any other questions for anybody any other board members or comments okay yeah i'd like to make a comment i would just like to i'd like to congratulate you aaron on your accomplishments so far and uh if you're able to accomplish this much at your age i can only imagine what is going to be ahead of you as you as you mature and gain more knowledge so i applaud you again for for tackling this this uh issue that is in front of the whole world and that is climate change so uh keep at it where i support you and the whole board supports you and your activities and what you're what you're striving to do so thank you again okay okay thank you all right alex is so refreshing and i it's not surprising right our students from uhsd are civically engaged and talking about great topics but i i just want to say you mentioned about greta i i sit on the conference planning committee for california school board association and we had to put up people who we thought should come out as speakers for the general session and i was thinking about all the youth in our district and i proposed greta to be one of our speakers so we'll see how that how far that goes uh but if they do i want to make sure that we give you a special invitation to come to that conference so thank you for your admin this is katherine smith and i want to congratulate you thank you and i know how proud your family is of you and how proud you are of yourself and allah what uh mr o'brien said or mr o'neill that you will speak volumes for the future in a great strength thank you okay very good we're all proud of you very much so okay moving on to our next presentation this um is the resilience and recovery learning law supports now uh joe carmona carlos hernandez and scott reindell will present to the board of trustees on the tutoring and mentoring programs as well as their impact on the district's students gentlemen good evening everyone um i'll be uh sharing my screen here briefly so we have some slides that we'll be going through and again on behalf of uh the board our community uh and the uh staff and students we serve we're very excited to share a little bit of some positive things that have been happening over the course of uh the first semester so just give me a moment to share okay so um i will actually start off and then uh my colleague scott rendell will uh join me a little bit later in the presentation to share a piece of this uh so the part uh that i'm gonna discuss is academic support that our students have been receiving from uh college tutors so uh we uh have provided this tutoring at all of our school sites including cva and we hired just one just about 100 just over 100 college students to provide these services during the year half of those students 48 are actually district alumni who are attending universities uh throughout california but also some out of state the ability to work virtually has allowed us to bring in some of our student resources who are currently living in other parts of the country those students that we hired that were district alumni we we assigned them to their alumni sites and that was for a couple of important reasons one is a way to facilitate communication with staff they obviously had rapport with some of those teachers and staff members already having graduated from those sites and also to help build that trust with students when the the students know that the tutor who is there with them attended that school had some of the same teachers went through some of the same experiences that allowed the students to communicate their needs with a greater level of trust also hiring our local students and alumni alumni is a way to stimulate our local economy and support our community directly right so as we know unemployment um people's loss of job or loss of hours or inability to work because of medical conditions uh we know that this supports our families and community directly by being able to provide um paid employment to uh to our district alumni our tutors uh were trained uh by our own staff uh i have to acknowledge uh diana fujimoto who is one of our curriculum specialists who provided the training for our tutors and the training is based in inquiry learning and this approach emphasizes that the student has a serious role in the learning process so uh the tutors in in this case they don't just provide the answer to the students right their role is really to help ask the right questions uh get the students to share their idea on how they can solve this problem or how they can help themselves and that helps create a greater ownership of their own learning and along with that ownership in learning it helps those students who are receiving that support to develop agency right so in other words they they have control over solving their own problem and they have um a great deal of control in advancing their own education um our tutors worked under the direction of a supervising teacher at each school site uh these teachers were really a great asset to the tutoring program they devised the schedule they uh communicated with teachers and administrators they promoted the tutoring they solved any uh you know uh problems or or issues that that may have come up and they also were there during the tutoring sessions to help guide and support the tutors and and in many ways the they served as tutors themselves to some extent right as they were there during the sessions making sure that the students were were getting what they needed this academic tutoring was idols some was planned during asynchronous times again going back to the schedule we had in place during the first semester when we had asynchronous days this allowed for that uh tutoring to take place on those days uh and our tutors were uh even worked in class so there there were classes and teachers who uh had the tutors attend during the class session to help facilitate any tutor able to provide services to our students uh in a variety of life and so you see here right the english spanish vietnamese korean and arabic those obviously weren't provided at every single site but we did work with the school sites who requested certain languages to provide them tutors who could speak those language and this was a significant support for uh our students especially who were um english learners in eld courses those tutors who were able to communicate in spanish and korean uh were a significant support for those students lastly here i won't read all of these quotes but these are just a few um very brief snippets that that speak to the tutors were in the classroom um i i will just highlight a couple of them the second bullet down the students and parents have been so appreciative and grateful for this help all right we because we know that they were asking for uh academic assistance and so they were able to to see how beneficial uh it was uh and then uh the very bottom comment there right many students who are english language learners and students with disabilities great benefit and having additional support and this is from a teacher right my tutor is phenomenal in his role so it was a very positive experience we obviously have continued these services on into the second semester and as we are already looking and planning for the following school year uh we are considering how we might continue to um it really does um they are able to relate to our students in many ways that was a common theme also that um especially from some of the high school uh high school teachers who shared that you know i attended college 20 years ago so students about so that that really um gives the tutors quite a bit of credibility with the students um and also they're able to answer questions that uh some of us who've who've uh been working for a while right that's a little far removed from our experience and so this uh gives really access to those students who maybe they no one in their family has attended college or they don't really know anyone who's been and so this provides that direct access to them to ask questions um and to help as they look forward to their post-secondary uh careers so that is uh a very brief presentation about the academic a tutoring piece i'll turn it over now to uh scott rendell who will talk uh through uh the piece around our mentoring program and then if there's any questions i think he and i will can answer those at the end i thank you mr carmona and uh good evening to our uh excited carmona was about uh sharing a positive uh experience for our students we were able to deliver a virtual mentoring program to our students by our students this last last fall and our objective was was supporting our students a lot like a lot like the college tutoring program but we really tried to differentiate ourselves and really focus on social emotional support for our students and helping them keep that connection to their school or reconnect if they needed to reconnect in addition it was a great opportunity to to provide our youth with a job opportunity and an opportunity to support our local families and the community um so just to share a few numbers uh with you so um we had 411 mentors student mentors across 11 of our schools our our high schools and cva and uh and our even our independent learning centers had some mentors that were supporting our students and they supported an average of 40 mentees per school and we were supporting students from both the high school and junior high schools in our district our mentors worked about four five hours per week up to five hours per week and we're able to earn about fifteen dollars an hour just just below that as they were working to uh support our students and we um provided a support structure for our students through our high school coordinators which were at most of our schools were also our link crew coordinators and if you're not familiar with link crew our link crew program and at their schools and they provide mentoring and support from from this uh for the students so um teachers students that were already trained already already um understood the mentoring model and how the support students were there to support the program and in addition we had at one of our schools a cte teacher who works in an education pathway to prepare our future educators so again a great candidate to support our students in this program so in terms of training just to elaborate a little further so our mentors receive training from the link crew program which is part of the boomerang project and then we had additional training developed by our coordinators and our that cte education pathway teacher as well in addition our two of our terrific aim internship coordinators mandy johnson and eric tenorio from anaheim high school uh created a couple of webinars to support the coordinators in you know this being a brand new program what are the goals what are the logistics uh some recommendations for supporting uh our mentors and our mentees um and then in addition the aim team hosted periodic question and answer sessions brainstorming sessions to to share our ideas as you know we're developing this new program facing various challenges and and those support sessions i think really helped the coordinators deliver what ultimately was a great program for our students some of the activities that our students worked on uh with their mentees um as i mentioned we really focused on social emotional support and connection um so they worked in groups so our mentors were always in a group working with their mentees they worked on things like organization time management they did provide tutoring if acts asked that wasn't our main focus but we didn't deny students with that academic health if they ask for it our students were looking to also support our english learners and our students with special needs and then they also did fun activities to connect so besides those weekly mentoring sessions they did virtual game nights movie nights where they could get together and watch a movie together they did arts and crafts sessions um and and a lot of that came from those brainstorming sessions where we got together and looked for ways to to get the the mentees to come and connect uh with our mentors so i have a couple of just reflections to share with you um you know from straight from our mentors and our mentees uh this one one is from one of our mentors the most meaningful moment was when i got to see my mentees grow it was amazing in that such a short amount of time they were able to start changing their habits and adjust to a new system and another one some of our most meaningful moments throughout our time together was getting to bond with our mentee and seeing her improve with our encouragement she told us that we were some of the first friends that she made during the school year and it was sweet however it made me realize how difficult these times must be for the new junior high kids my partner and i tried to create a welcoming environment for our mentee where she could talk to us about anything going on and i think she was really happy to have someone to talk to you and a few uh from our mentees as well so those that were receiving the support next slide please joe so aim has helped me during distance learning because my mentors have helped me with things such as homework and have given me advice on school the do's and don'ts etc it has helped me with managing my workload completing my work and keeping me motivated it has helped me understand topics and better communicate with my teachers and that last one it helped me get better grades so that that student was happy about that so you know again a program designed to keep our students connected uh support our students during this time and uh you know we felt that like it was very successful we learned a lot and we're excited to continue the program into the spring and continue to learn grow in that and improve the program from there so yeah that concludes our presentation but if there are any questions mr camona and i would be happy to answer those we have any questions from board members no questions here just keep up the good work i like what you're saying okay thank you mr onion yes i would like to say this is a great program i mean it's just it really is superb that we are not only helping the kids but we're helping our students by having them learn by doing it's great it's just a really good situation i think the link is a great idea to help these incoming you know freshmen or seventh graders whatever you know they both need that that assistance so really good any other i would just like to say kudos for all of the backup system that you are giving these young people and it's uh duly appreciated by me thank you thank you all right anne marie did you have something good yeah i i just wanted to echo uh the sentiments uh it just seems like um you know there's a a wonderful theme with these uh both of these two um uh you know the tutoring and the mentoring um uh i didn't really think about it when you were talking about how uh you know we're providing um you know some monetary resources for our our families because you know a lot of our families a lot of our students young students have to go out and work even in this covid time but um you know this is providing them a safe uh you know way to get some extra cash um in a safe environment and so it's just a really beautiful thing i wanted to know uh scott how were the students chosen the 411 students yeah so we recruited from those link crew programs so these were kind of existing groups of students that that had that background in training so then they had the opportunity to uh to apply for the program from there and remind me uh link crew is that voluntary the students volunteer to be in the link crew um yeah it's an elective course that the students can take and and it's voluntary yes okay and so uh they they uh they had an a very interesting experience with this and made a little extra money in that i think that's fantastic thank you too for um for this wonderful presentation and also to note we didn't just throw these kids in you know they were they were well trained uh and so it's just wonderful madam president may i say something definitely yes i just like to point out to the board in the audience too that um we did not find out we had this learning loss money until the beginning of august this district was able to pivot and hire and process these students uh by october first so uh kudos to the entire team we would not be able to do it without the uh systemness internally but also the relationships we have with our college partners fullerton college cal state fullerton and uh you know the rest of the collaborative so awesome work you guys really is to first of all congratulations that it's great work that you guys did i wanted to highlight which mike just did in terms of our partners who a part of this program right but i most of all i wanted to commend that 10.2 was actually put in as resilience and recovery support and in parentheses learning loss and as a district i urge that we move away from this learning loss word and move towards talking about our kids are not losing uh learning right they're doing some great work yes there are a lot of challenges those challenges we're going to overcome but let's not perpetuate by talking about learning loss and i don't know in terms of um legally carl do we have to use it because i think the state funding comes out that way right so can we actually name it as a resilience and recovery fund or something like that to address it when we're talking at auhsd i think that's very important to change the mindset of folks i've spoken to some students who feel like hey look you know what we're learning yes we're having challenges but those challenges are put forth not because of anything else it's the system right so let's not blame our kids and uh brand them uh they're going to be one of the most resilient group of students who are going to be coming out of this covid and that i know for sure so thank you for all the work everyone's doing i agree 100 oh yes yes yes yes okay very good thank you gentlemen all right good job okay moving on we have one more presentation this is to do with our school dismissal and distance learning and dr freed will make this presentation thank you board president piercy and again good evening to our board members executive cabinet for our parents families students and staff who are out there watching on the live stream before i present i wanna make sure can you see this okay before i hit present okay perfect thank you all right so i actually have a pretty brief uh presentation with for you tonight really the intent is to share with the board um a revised uh plan or tentative plan in terms of what the return to school might look like with our hybrid uh learning and in-person learning model as the board may recall uh we have been taking um the data that we've been given and making our decisions at quarterly increments in terms of if it's safe that the data is supporting that we can bring our students and our staff back i would argue the protocols we have in place can help make it safe but again because we're in communities that have higher rates than the traditional other communities we have been really cautious as a board and as a district so tonight i'm going to be sharing with you that tentative plan you'll see a number of safeguards if you will on this tenant plan that we'll give you as a board uh cover to to really continue to monitor those rates those test positive rates and the trends we'll talk a little bit not too much about the vaccines but all things that you may factor into the decision you make as returns to our return to school so here is the tentative timeline that i want to share with you uh you'll see the first date on the timeline is march 4th this is important because march 4th is our next scheduled board meeting with that board meeting uh the idea is you will be able to as a board to review current data trends are positivity rates uh within our zip codes and our boundaries along with potentially um how the rollout of vaccines are are going in the county as you know right now we're in phase one but it is possible we don't know for certain but it is possible we could be in a phase two by the time mark rolls around so that's something that you may consider when considering if we go back to an in-person or return to hybrid model now assuming if things are safe to do so and the board is aboard you decide for us to go back to the return of a hybrid model uh what we're proposing is march 8th would be the when all employees return to the district and school sites full-time as you know prior to winter break um all of our employees with the exception of teachers and instructional aides were already back at work uh so if if it is safe to do so if the board's purview is to have us return back to um in person or hybrid model uh we would have march 8th as the target date for all employees to return back to work that would give our employees uh two weeks to transition and to prepare for that in-person hybrid model that would take us up to spring break which is march 22nd as you may recall previously part of what was negotiated with our district leadership team along with the teacher union after leadership were two flex days that were built in as you know under normal circumstances we have two professional staff development days built into the school year what we did this year because of the pandemic is we took those days and made them flex days to support that transition to a hybrid or in-person learning model should we be given the opportunity uh to return so if if we're able to return uh at the end of march like we're proposing the days march 29th and march 30th that is a monday and tuesday after we return from spring break one of the things that we would be proposing that those are the two non-student days where staff continues to come back to work and uses that time without students to truly transition to the in-person hybrid model then again it's march 31st that is a wednesday that would be the proposed day that our seventh and 9th graders begin their blended hybrid instruction according to their assigned schedules as you may recall the hybrid schedule that had been approved previously was um a 30 model where all students were synchronous on monday and then we had a cohort a b and c where they based on their last name they returned to school on either the tuesday wednesday or thursday in person while the other cohorts if that wasn't their day they were asynchronous and then we talked also about friday being a potentially asynchronous day and then finally on april 5th that is the day that is the monday that all students would return back to school in their blended hybrid instruction according to their assigned schedule again this schedule is all dependent upon you as a board giving us the direction based on the current data trends and rates uh if you deem it appropriate for us to come back to school in person so this is the tentative schedule that we are proposing two little bullets on the bottom that i also want to share with the board um mr clone and mrs guyeta have been working diligently as they've been reviewing constantly the guidance that's coming in from the cdc and the state and also the county they have recently been given clearance where we are looking to bring back our athletic and backup programs where they'll be able to reopen and resume practices on wednesday february 10th that is next week um tomorrow morning mr colon and mrs guyana actually have a meeting with our district athletic director coach olsen where they'll begin to roll back the process to reopen our athletics and then i believe early next week they will be meeting with all of our district athletic directors across the board to begin this plan and then i know subsequently after that they will be meeting with mr belski and our jrotc folks and our asb our associated student body leaders to also begin their uh reopening plan as well uh also just i think what's really important for the board to note is when athletics and bapa reopen it will be expected and it is it is um enforced that all safety protocols that were previously in place and that were established will continue to be uh adhered to when the practices do resume on february 10th so this is the tentative calendar i'm gonna finish with the thank you and the questions and comments also just so you know because this was a pretty brief presentation i do have much of our educational services team on the call as well so if you should have other questions maybe not connected to the schedule um our team is here to help support and answer those questions as well so that i'm gonna go and turn it back over to you madam president uh to lead the discussion on the dice and if there are any questions for for myself or for our team okay thank you dr fred okay um lord do i have some questions comments well i would like to respond by saying that all of the uh information and letters to the board this evening hopefully some of the uh the questions and comments that were made to us will be helped by dr fred's report i agree i know i think it's uh a couple of the last statements will you know pertain to a lot of the requests for at least the sports and activities being reopened so next week the kids can be back in the sports practicing and perhaps you know marching and what whatever so that is a good sign and hopefully if things continue we can return to some form of in-person with the hybrid model um after one another month more or less february yeah so starting in march and getting prepared okay um board members anne-marie sorry um since you were talking about the sports can we and i know diana's on can we ask diana to remind us about those the protocols for vapa and athletics yes so we're able to go right into phase two where we left off phase two required our students to still be in pods that did not exceed 10 students one coach for 10 students all of the health protocols that we had established included health screening upon arrival six foot distancing at all times mass to be worn at all times including outdoors unless there were exercises that were being um over that may over exert a child such as the sprinting and or the the fast-paced running um there was no indoor athletics no weight rooms to be used indoors they were able to move their weight and equipment outdoors um and uh we i think uh folks were very very successful in maintaining those protocols and we expect the same so for clarification um if they're running and there's no one around are you saying that they can take their mask off or only for those activities that have been approved um so it would be your very fast sprinting um but we were able to maintain for the majority of six feet distancing especially in the cross country if they're able to spread out um but in conjunction with our athletic directors and mitch olsen um we identified only those activities that caused that and of course water polo for sure okay and our coaches are they know they know which sports they can they can do uh they can do that with yes and what we're planning is a rebording of those um athletic staff as well and that's already um being looked up for next week to ensure that they're reminded of the protocols and that they acknowledge uh we're going to pick up where we left off and and hey i know what it sorry the questions are just coming uh what did um our our bands do what what were they what was what did that look like uh vapa was also in the process of restarting as well we had um their notification and approval to parents um completed they had the green light unfortunately it was right at the time that the stay-at-home orders were issued um so with the return of sports if approved we would also be looking at those other groups that were approved at that time as well which would be our vapa um and our asb students um and also our jrotc okay um mr colon am i missing any groups that were approved prior first you got them all we had already planned on having them all back and um you know we unfortunately went on to stay at home and and that put a hold uh but we are ready to implement as soon as soon as we got the green light and the guidance was clear very good so diana how does the vapor work like for choir uh you have uh you know like kennedy has 300 or so students in choir obviously they can't be all in one room together how will that work do they all go outside and stay in position and practice their singing and that so they're not inside they're outside that is absolutely important they would be outside only they would be positive 10 as well and we would actually be looking at anything uh we were actually looking at a distance that's closer to eight feet rather than six feet if they were going to be singing and um we'll also be looking at the specialized masks that are used with the intention for um singing at the time that it's allowed um i would have to look at the guidance again at the time that we um uh dismissed to return home singing was not yet allowed um so i will have to go back to see um if that was available uh an option for us mr colon unless you have that information readily available no the the primary thing that the choirs did was the um the choreographing um so they were able to get together to do choreograph for uh show choir and that kind of thing that was what was being allowed at the time all outdoors thank you okay thank you any other questions yes you're on you need you're on mute right now all right so um a couple of things well i i just want to uh reiterate that you know any decision that we make today obviously is predicated upon what we are looking at on march 4th and i know a lot of comments were made about vaccine we're still not there orange county had 3.2 million people and according to the guidelines we have like uh 65 and over and the phase one folks including our uh first line responders we have about 000 folks and we're barely getting to them with 200 000 people vaccinated i think the county is making good progress so we'll we'll get there but we need to have all that in mind before we start really looking at how we can open up and bring students in having said that my next comments that i'm going to make are literally regarding mental health and i want to make sure that i address this and i think a lot of folks might not know the context but those of you who are listening would know i was very disappointed in how we as a district as a site handle the rodney moore suicide by debt case notification and the after mark i think all the good work that we do as a district could come crashing down if we don't handle one issue right and this was that very important issue for me as a board member and i think as parents who actually met with us and talked to us and those parents who have not talked to us this was a very very important issue as a district i know we pride ourselves being the best district in orange county i've said that many times i think that we're the best district in the country the district that everyone looks up to when it's related to education but specifically when it comes to mental health we're known as one of the best districts i don't want us to be complacent i want us to make sure that we are fixing our communication issues related to that particular incident make sure that we are prominently displaying our mental health resources not only on our district website but also on our school websites make it available in all languages make sure that we are interacting with parents uh you know we had a great town hall meeting uh to address our mental health and i i mentioned that and i think a lot of them who participated knew that we had great information but that information should have been presented to our parents in a in a regular manner or in a consistent manner because we know that we're in a pandemic situation so i want to make sure that that link or at least make that information available to every single parent in our district and i had this conversation with our folks including the superintendent our mental health director our assistant superintendent so i want to make sure that i'm public with this and next time when we have a town hall let's make sure that we have the opportunity for parents to ask questions i think that's very important if we call it a town hall let's make it a town hall and let's have parents ask questions we had a communication breakdown and a system breakdown i want to tell our team and publicly that all our leadership team including our school site that it is unacceptable regardless of what the circumstance is that we do not answer emails or calls from our parents i was surprised because that's not who we are having said that i want to say i want to thank everybody who was part of the meeting when we met with the parents in anaheim i had a long conversation with our superintendent i think you heard our parents from from anaheim loud and clear and i want to see a 30-day plan include those parents when we're working that 30-day plan make sure that we're communicating to those parents on a regular basis i'm confident in all that we do and all the work that we've done some of you you know uh work i've said this in the past some of you work 24 hours a day literally not sleeping i think right but if you're a great district sometimes we need that jolt to recalibrate and get back on track i i do want to acknowledge that all you who are putting a lot of considerable amount of time you know literally making things work for our parents and our students i just ask that we are consistently keeping an eye and retuning our system so that we don't let anything fall through the cats so having said that i i do want to sincerely thank all the parents who got in touch with us to actually talk about the issue we welcome your we welcome your comments and as a board member who represents this area i've always been available to talk to our parents uh but i i and i know that all our all our district folks are the same something happened there was a breakdown we will fix it and we'll make sure that we'll get back on track so i want to thank everybody who was part of that meeting too uh that's pretty much it thank you okay any other questions or comments on the presentation um i'm sorry madame gear i had a uh so say we um go back on the uh on march 31st in our seventh and ninth graders i was trying to look at my calendar and i uh i couldn't really look at the days so um can you uh explain um why we're doing that the seventh and ninth grader i think it's really important to to point that out yeah i'd be happy to uh trustee randall trejo so so for our seventh and ninth graders as you know this pandemic began began in march of last year so as our students matriculated up to their next grade level our seventh graders and ninth graders have have really yet to step on those campuses um we've been virtual to start this entire school year so if if the board uh decides for us to go back to in-person model um this gives them at least a head start to be on that campus to familiarize themselves with the classrooms where things are at without the full crowds and keep in mind our hybrid model is 30 so there really won't be truly full full crowds but it'll make that transition a little bit easier for them as trustee just talked about the importance of mental health this was a strategic piece with our teacher input group and our district team in building that schedule to really accommodate them on that first time on campus so they get the attention they need and they deserve to be able to navigate on that campus for the first time and then the next week is when all students would return back again in that third model okay now basically you know questions and comments on the presentation also dovetail into our next item of business which is the reopening of the school sites which we will vote on now i'd like to make this comment because we are looking at you know march as our employees returning and not the students returning yet because we've still got the numbers to deal with in our area but we do have a number of parents who are real as we've heard tonight want to see the schools reopen so you know we are working with on that premise that we are trying to get our schools open and it you know it's imperative that we do it in such a way that we are still sure it's safe to open so we are waiting for the area you know orange county to to have better numbers we have a high number of zip codes in our attendance area that have high counts but we are and we are a school of choice district so our kids are all throughout the district so it's hard to try to think about opening some schools and not others we just we can't do that so i want people to understand we are trying to get the schools open if nothing else they will have two months of in person before the school year is over so they'll you know if everything goes the way you know we have it kind of planned out now but once again this school the board is going to be meeting march 4th to make sure everything is ready to go before we make and we can change our minds like we've done before we've moved things over so this is the plan and we're going to try to do this and hopefully then maybe we can and if not then we'll make changes again in march at our next board meeting so uh kathy do you have any comments or questions you'd like to post well i would only like to say i'm sympathetic and empathetic to everything you said anna and i thank you for voicing that okay mr o'neill so are we uh working on 11.1 now well basically we've been discussing it about the same i mean it's it's basically we hopped over to that so there's another question are are we do we need a motion 1.1 okay so i moved 11.1 okay do i have a second oh second okay so we have a motion in a second any additional questions or comments well i just want to make a comment as i agree with what you're saying madam president that um you know this is the preparatory stage to get ready to open the schools we all want the students and teachers back in the classroom that that that's an obvious statement but we also have to be cautious and careful as we do this so i'm looking forward to the our march 4th meeting uh when we make the final decision of what we're going to be doing all predicated upon the information we receive thank you all right and so let me ask a question do we do we need to take this vote today yes i think we do yes because as you may recall trustee javar um the last time the board had approved the schedule it was with the return of march 15th the first day of the first quarter so we're we're actually recommending to postpone that a few weeks so that way you can get the most current data to make more informed decision before um as the board knows you know as a school district we're really not able to open if we're still in the purple tier so by march 4th fingers crossed we maybe we're not in the purple tier we're in the red tier which gives you work for cover to make move in that direction so that that two week push gives you more information to make a more informed decision so yes you do need to take action because if you don't otherwise we're still on the march 15th return date which is two weeks sooner than what we're proposing right now right i i wanted to clarify with that question because of confusions right um but let me tell you the way that i vote today it doesn't mean that i am i am all on board for this and i think uh um well i don't want to speak for other trustees but anyways at the end of the day i think i mentioned it uh we need to make sure that we're looking at i think anna anna mentioned it which i want to highlight too is that we do have students who are from anaheim in these hot spot areas who attend oxford who are 10 cyprus who are 10 kennedy so we can't take a look at it and say like hey you know what you guys have the problem in anaheim let's open up cyprus and kennedy and uh you know oxford because we have students who go to those schools so we want to make sure that we are we are responsible in opening up uh and as i mentioned counties doing what they can in terms of pushing out the vaccine supply they receive if the spigots open up and we get more vaccines um we vaccinate all uh you know 800 065 and older and then we should be able to make some kind of a decision uh but until then i'm not comfortable but for planning purposes i will take the vote okay now mr jabar's is sort of like what i did on the last meeting vote in other words when we voted for march i was not i was not happy pushing it off until the fourth quarter but i voted for it you know in lieu of and something else so sometimes you may not be totally happy with it but it's you know one of those things we you know we qualify in other words i qualified when i voted i qualified i'm not happy about this but first that's right i got it right and then i just you know on that note you know who's happy about any of this you know this is exactly really uh really tough and to echo uh you know brian we all want we all want you know some assemblance of normalcy back of course we do we don't want anyone you know to feel uh discomfort or to be uncomfortable you know but um you know as as we're we're trying to uh go through this we know we're getting information daily i mean minutes sometimes you know what year in the morning uh changes or you know uh by the time you get you know you get the evening news so um i i think it's um i like this idea that we're going to wait to really make that final uh decision on march 4th um and yet we still have to plan we can't just say we'll wait till that day and not have a plan in place and that's what's so uh great about you know our district we plan we plan for this so um uh you know i anticipate march 4th we'll we'll be having a very robust conversation um we hope we hope you know the vaccines come in i think that's a very huge uh you know decision maker for me uh you know um and uh you know a lot of other variables and where we are with with the numbers and and and we have to also think about uh hospital beds i mean these are these are all the things we're not just thinking of just you know a few entities um so and being responsible as mr jabbar said we're a family in this district and with what one does we all do uh we don't separate so we can't just open one half of the district um you know versus the other uh just think about what that would bring um and and and it's not responsible we we have students that you know go to um and live and go cross-section so i think um uh uh you know i'm in favor of today's um you know uh what we have before us and that we have a comprehensive plan and uh moving forward i mean that's what we can do okay anna i would like to add a couple of points for the folks listening uh to the school board when mrs piercy mentioned that we're still in purple i think that for people that made comments before the school board from cyprus and from elementary school districts we are in an entirely different situation when mrs piercy mentioned purple we are in purple and the school board gets a tally every week of how many coped patients there are in each zip code and many of our parts of our community are three generations of family members in living in small quarters and so for the general population you don't get the same information that we do as the board and believe me if we could turn a page and get us all back in we would do it yesterday but please know that we are not doing this to harm you or your kids we take this to heart we've all raised children and i have grandchildren but they live in a different district and so their environment is entirely different in their environment in their living quarters and in their their area so i just had to add that so you would understand more fully where we're coming from thank you thank you mrs smith okay so are we ready to vote any other comment okay all right mrs trejo my voday mr o'neal hi mr jabbar reluctantly ari mrs smith aye and i voted so the motion passes next item is 11.2 this is our school-sponsored student organizations we have three clubs coming up do i have a motion so moved okay any questions or comments i love the origami club isn't that neat and the uh rest homes and and senior living quarters will be getting the products of the these club members and i think that's lovely so okay um roll call vote mr no mrs strandel trejo hi mr o'neal hi mr javar hi mrs smith hi and i'm odd what what about our student board rep oh yes elizabeth i'm neuter yourself babes you're muted elizabeth you're on mute okay now i lost elizabeth are here there she's she's signing back in okay hi hi there you go yeah sometimes you gotta go out and come back in again right okay we got you i'm sorry i almost forgot you i got to make a note of that next time so i don't forget you okay now our next item will be resolutions now on this agenda packet we have 14 resolutions coming up and so it makes it a little hard to read any resolution so what i'm going to try to do is for each resolution i will summarize and for those of you that really want to read the resolutions please log on to our our website and you know bring up the uh today's agenda and you can read the whole resolution item eleven thirteen is resolution number twenty twenty slash twenty one dash bot dash zero nine climate change and a second okay this resolution affirms the anaheim union high school district's commitment to identifying opportunities within our curriculum and providing additional learning and leadership opportunities where possible this will reflect our students environmental goals for their civic lives and their academic as well as professional careers okay mrs trejo i vote i mr o'neill hi mr jabbar hi mrs smith i and i vote i okay next item 11.4 this is resolution number 2020 slash 21-bot-10 establishing cambridge virtual academy as a new school and restoring the name polaris high school do i have a motion again and a second okay this is in order to improve and make more efficient administrative and data tracking functions of the two separate independent study options that are currently offered by the district do i have any questions or comments seeing none we will vote this is trejo i am mr o'neal hi mr javar aye mr smith hi and i vote okay number 14.5 11.5 oh 11.5 where did i get 14 i'm sorry 11.5 this is public hearing on the statutory school fees pursuant to education code section 17620 and which are level one fees um i don't have my gavel open the public hearing [Laughter] and we did not receive any comments for public hearing on this item okay uh okay due to the state allocation board reversing or reassessing the school fees the board of trustees is requested to hold this public hearing regarding the need of the district to levy statutory school fees to provide school facilities for students generated from new commercial and industrial developments as well as new residential and senior housing developments so uh no hearings no comments so close the public hearing 11.6 this is the resolution number 2020 dash i mean slash 21-f-08 increasing statutory school fees and notice of exemption so this is where we vote on whether or not we want to you know agree to this rise in the in fees okay this okay i have a motion and a second any other questions comments clarifying question okay um is this another name for developer fees or is this something different no this is part of the developer fees okay so let me read this here the the statutory school fees are the developer fees okay and you know and it's part of the residential and commercial industrial development school fee justification study that they just did and this was done and completed january 21st and they increased the existing statutory school fees for all residential commercial industrial and senior housing development and also this is to adopt a notice of exemption uh pursuant to education code section one seven six two zero in other words they went ahead and reassessed and raised the amount and uh we have to agree to that and then it is divided amongst you know between us and the elementary school districts so it's raising it a few cents per so we have to do it it's nothing it's not really open for debate or discussion about it because in the past we have been able to say you know we would give exemptions or we would wave uh wave these uh these in the past and we have so just uh clarifying questions yeah no i think you know we have to as a kind of the lead agency okay any other questions or comments okay seeing none mrs trejo lodi mr o'neal hi mr jabbar hi mrs smith hi and i vote 11.7 resolution 2020 slash 21 bash dash b-13 temporary interfund transfer i have a motion second okay this of course is going to provide some flexibility as much as possible for the 2021 uh year within the district's cash resources any questions or comments okay i'll i'll take roll call mrs trejo hi voday mr o'neal hi mr jabbar all right mr smith hi and i vote i okay that's a regular every year we do that one okay 11.8 resolution number 2020 slash 21-e-08 career and technical education month so moved and i have a motion in a second of course this is obviously you know the month of february has been designated as career and tech education month by the association for career and technical education now this school to career connection is the backbone of a strong well-educated workforce and which fosters productivity in business and industry as well as contributes to america's leadership in the international marketplace any questions or comments okay we'll go to a vote mrs trejo hey voda mr o'neal hi mr all right mr smith hi and i vote i you betcha career and technical education is so very important 11.9 resolution number 2020 twenty one dash e dash zero nine national parent teacher association founders day how about second i have a motion in a second the national park teacher association founders day honors the dedication of the parent and teacher association which was established more than a century ago and to inform the community of the efforts that the district is making to support parent involvement and working on behalf of all children and families we are proud of our pta and we work with them okay any questions or comments seeing none mrs trejo i'll just say that i am a proud uh former leader of the pta and a current member of the pca and ivan hi very very good yes mr o'neill all right mr jabbar hi and mrs smith hi and i vote i and i'd like to say this usually i vote every i've joined every pta on every campus every year i don't know if i did it this year you know usually they they're right there to get me and i write my check and they were all there i i hope i did if not pta better let me know [Laughter] okay item 11.10 this is resolution number 2020 slash 21 dash e-10 national african-american history month motion and promotion and a second now the national african american history month in february celebrates the contributions that african americans have made to american history in their struggles for freedom and equity as well as deepens our understanding of our nation's history the adoption of this resolution will provide an opportunity to inform parents guardians and communities of the efforts that the district is taking to honor the many achievements and contributions made by african americans to our economic cultural spiritual and political development any questions or comments okay all right mrs trejo just to uh say that um you know uh that african-american history is uh american history so i vote i definitely mr o'neill definitely i mr javar hi mrs smith a solid i and i vote i definitely and i item 11 11.
what the fit does and i did attach a sample form to the board agenda that you can look at at your leisure but it it establishes a good repair standard for example one of the sections is interior surfaces and the comments that are considered good repair are listed there in the presentation walls are free of hazards flooring is free of hazards tears missing floor tiles ceiling is free of hazards stained missing ceiling tiles and there are several different categories some with sub-categories and each of those categories receives a rating or each each area that is inspected each one of those categories receives a rating it's either okay meaning it is in good repair there is a deficiency and that deficiency could be anything from a missing wall plate on an electrical outlet to a ceiling tile with a stain to a slight pull in carpeting those are considered deficiencies extreme deficiencies come into play when we have a serious safety issue at hand according to the inspector and i am proud to say that no extreme deficiencies have been identified in our district in any of the fit reports by this outside agency over the last four years each of those categories then receives a percentage score and that category is graded good fair poor we did experience some poor ratings in some categories mainly interior surfaces the the most prevalent problem in our interior surfaces is our ceiling tiles either stained or cracked or broken second to that we deal with floor surfaces and next we deal with some old some aged countertops for mica sections but again no safety issues have been identified merely some cosmetic things that we do address the mitigation and correction of these deficiencies is really handled at first by school site staff typically the custodial department they have the ability to replace ceiling tiles as needed uh to perform minor maintenance and if it's something that they not they cannot accomplish on their own of course we do have our m department through the work order system is dispatched to help correct and mitigate those deficiencies so when each of those categories receives a rating those categories are averaged to get the school overall rating and you'll see the school school overall rating adds an exemplary level if the overall rating is between 99 and 100 good 90 to 99 fair and poor you see them there our most recent inspection we did have 10 schools fall into the good rating with our highest at 95.1 percent unfortunately we still had three schools fall into the fair rating with our lowest about 81.7 percent so that gives us some some goals and some targets to work especially at those three campuses because we are striving for good and exemplary as we move through these inspections has some history again our outside contractor joined us in 2017 and you'll see the 2017 scores from each school these are the overall school scores which are the combined averages of the many categories you'll see in 2017 we had 10 schools in the fair category three in the good category so now i want to move you over to 2020 you'll see we now have 10 in the good category and three in the fair so we have made significant improvement in the quality and status of good repair of our facilities over the last four years in particular i do want to note um the sycamore rocks from 83 to 90.
while awaiting guidance from njdoe the district is preparing for a range of possible scenarios from fully remote to fully on site and everything in between all required testing software packages and data submissions are up to date thank you mr canova uh next under uh we have any other committee reports now right uh under uh education administration we have um recognition of the all county football first team all uh county girls tennis first team uh girls and boys cross country first team uh all county girls and boys soccer first team uh covet vaccine front line workers to include district personnel and second arena of policy do i have a motion mr president yes we skipped public recognition we're still on the top you are correct thank you very much okay public recognition number 12. this portion of the meeting is open to citizens of clifton for the purpose of addressing any subject matter pertinent to and or directly related to the operation of the clifton public school district residents are requested to sign their new hardcore will state their name provided for the purpose and to uh state their address and subject matter comments are limited to five minutes per person issued raised by members of the public may or may not be responded by the board all comments will be cons will be considered and the response will be forthcoming if and when appropriate the board asks that members of the public be courteous and mindful of the rights of other individuals when speaking specifically comments regarding students and employees of the board are discouraged and will not be responded to by the board students and employees have specific legal rights afforded by the laws of the state of new jersey the board bears no responsibility nor will it be liable for any comments made by members of the public members of the public should consider their comments in light of the legal right of those affected or identified in their comments and be aware that they are legally responsible and liable for their comments mr mountain do we have yes mr mr smith i let the first several in there's about six more in the waiting room um max reuben is one of the the first entrances here yep we'll start off uh max uh we'll start off with you okay thank you uh can you guys hear me yes yep okay um hello everyone i'm max urban senior representative to the board of education um i just have a few points to address some that i addressed the last meeting but i found more information on them so uh first off um me um i'm if you don't know i'm the president of the student union so me and the rest of the student union uh created questions for what we want to be a potential mental health survey that we want to send out to all the students in clifton high school and if it works out at clifton high school we might even create another survey worded differently for the middle schools um in the next week or so we're going to collaborate with the student assistant counselors mr baker and miss terry and they're just going to help revise the wording to our questions before we can send the survey out to all the students and hopefully the survey can give staff and administration more of an insight onto what students are feeling what the most common um mental health issues students are facing and potentially it could lead to some discoveries of students who are really struggling and it'll just give us better guidance on how to help out so that's in the works a mental health survey uh the next thing i wanted to mention is upcoming sat testing um students should register as soon as possible um the next dates are march 13th may 8th and june 5th those are the three dates that are confirmed on the college board website i'm not completely sure if seats are still available at clifton high school you may have to go to another school close by maybe in passaic county but i would just register as soon as possible just so you get the best seat possible and if you want to do it on march you should just register as soon as possible um so that's the update with sat testing the next thing i wanted to talk about which i briefly mentioned last meeting but i have a lot more information on it now is the um oops someone came up all right the activists and academics summit it's a summit on racial equity in schools that's happening across the country and there's a lot of really big organizations taking part of it and the student union is lucky enough to have two members volunteer they're great students their names are rawan awadala and victoria olive and they're going to represent not just the csu but the clifton district at this summit if you go to their website the description they have is it's a virtual national summit focused on racial justice for uh kindergarten to 12th grade public schools planned by youth for a national audience and you will be able to learn directly from youth activists and adult leaders who have been fighting for school equity for years so it just sounds like a really good opportunity for our students to participate in and just to make a change for eagle for racial equity in the on a national basis it just seems like a really awesome opportunity so if you want to register to watch the summit or to participate in the summit you can register online at www.teenstakecharge.com summit and i have some more info the summit will take place saturday february 13th there will be sever several different presentations happening throughout the day the summit will last from 11 a.m to 5 30 p.m that seems like a lot of time but you don't have to attend all six and a half hours there's a specific schedule on what will take place during what time if you scroll down to the bottom of the web page i just provided the link for it has a schedule for what's going to happen from 11 a.m to 5 30 p.m there's like seven or eight different meetings and you can choose which one you want to attend um the last thing i want to mention during this meeting is um if you haven't been keeping up with the chs morning show i would always tune in and watch that because we're still making great content and providing updates on the school and what's going on and that's it for today's address i hope you guys all stay safe and have a great week thank you max thanks very much for your your great report we appreciate it okay thank you next up we have samantha and keith bassford hello everyone can you hear me okay great samantha basford mountain view drive clifton new jersey so i just want to start with reminding everyone that no one has been through what we're going through in the world right now as a person who's a part of opening plannings and safety measurements for college students the reality is is that we're planning to make plans to change those plans to make plans again and it's frustrating and it's draining so remember there are free resources on the internet if you need them everyone is facing mental health issues at some capacity so make sure that you're taking care of yourself but what is not okay is to bring up a board's members children in comparison and then it's morally wrong to do so so mr abedrabo i'm very sorry that your children were used as an example at the last meeting i also want to comment about zoom etiquette just like their expectations for students and teachers the same should go for the board if you want to do it in person then you shouldn't do it on zoom this is a time for you to be present 100 if you're not just excuse yourself just like you would do on the regular dais and real life taking phone calls should not happen on a virtual desk um maybe we can spotlight board members so those who have speaking roles can be seen on the youtube instead of people's heads floating in and out that might be something that could help you although my last name is vasford please do not discredit my statement tonight i am a voter of clifton and i'm very disappointed to have witnessing the othering that continues after the pleas of residents have made throughout my entire involvement as a daughter of an elected official i feel i need to come again and address behaviors which i have pointed out from the past but it seemed my voice does not matter as it depends on who is in the powers that be overall as a person i observe i analyze i reflect more than a normal person really should and to see the lack of professionalism the bantering and overall pettiness that happens on the zoom on facebook in diners need to stop besides the exceptional time when miss danny and miss basford were the women in charge there's been constant drama on a board so let's start with being a leader mr smith i'm disappointed in your comments from the last meeting you promised professionalism and in the same breath you broke that promise to say that anyone needs smoke signaling was definitely something that was petty and because you don't like being called out because of your poor time management or because of personal retaliation because of the comments that this man has made towards you is not what i expect from someone running this board i have been on executive board since i have graduated chs in 2008 ones that follow robert's rules and running an effective meeting if you are looking for your team members to reflect you should allow your board enough time to do that especially if they're supposed to be paying attention to them to the meeting and not their emails specifically knowing a request that was made because of legal matters multiple times shows that you cannot put your good cheek forward or handle negative feedback or balance a team with different opinions i won't even get into the comment from this summer that you made that you don't see color because on a diversity equity and inclusion level that is totally wrong and we should always be involving and growing as people no matter how much we are raised if you are going to be the true representative of students who are of color in this district i am a fly on the wall and i've seen letters and i've heard things so mr smith if i was miss bassford i would take that as the utmost disrespect as a colleague who despite your past history you may have not always gotten along voted for you to be back on this board and you overlook her accolades on a state level and did not want to understand her request because she just simply marches at her own beat and you need someone who marches on their own beat at every team because teams make up differences the public sees where the relationships lie on this board and i might not be the only one to come to say this and i might be the only one to say it because i'm not afraid and i don't need to hide behind a keyboard or make a fake account and i might be biased when i say this too that i'm tired of watching a woman who has poured her heart into this district to continue to get the shift mr smith that's five minutes okay thank you very much uh mr basford you're gonna speak on the same account go ahead i'm gonna turn my yield my five minutes to samantha okay she is an overly passionate and blunt and comes with a punch but the disrespect of chatter that i have witnessed by some of the board members makes me not upset but sick especially for the personal cause that people have called her through my time of her on the board when you were in need and you needed something i don't even understand how it's february board of education applications haven't even gone out and people are already trying to ice her out for next board why is it that judy basswood so intimidating to you and i'm not just speaking to mr smith i'm speaking to more i can say why on a personal level why if she could be intimidating because i live with her but on a professional level when she's pointing out facts because she has put the time to learn the things that sentence my book seems like it's reasonable for her to point out things so you don't get in trouble she has brought this up so many times so i'm gonna repeat it and i'm sorry to have to put this into public space but on my kitchen counter there is a cease and desist letter from mr abedrabo so why would you as a person who knows that there's things going on put two people together who cannot legally be working together it is not in someone's best interest on either side that makes no sense literally the most qualified board member not because of her years because she has been a master level board member educator she's been board member of the year she has tended many trainings that many of you have not attended you give her less commitments than everyone else and the comments you made said if you don't something along the lines if you don't want to be on committees and let other people be the burden that's not fair that's like creating a false narrative before you even put the committees out it's really easy to run unimposed as an uncomment so i can get the confidence that some of you may feel but don't forget that the people listen and pay attention so when you go after judy bassford you're really going after the 5693 people who voted for for her during a non-presidential election during when you can't do voting ballots they actually went to the polls you're stabbing them in the back so you're going after them have a good night okay thank you next uh who do we have mr brian montoya you have the floor are you a student uh yes i am a student okay go ahead you have the floor uh hi how are you guys um i just wanted to hop on today and just uh speak about one simple topic and it's one that has affected me personally which i think it should be focused on a lot more and that that has to speak about the diversity in our town and how esl students come to this country and come to this town and they try to feel comfortable and you know be part of this community because that's what we want to do as a town because we see how diverse this town is so on a personal level i have i was born here but i did not learn english because my parents are immigrants so i was not given the ability to learn english as quickly as others um there was a school nearby school number four where i when my parents decided to move to that house because it was convenient enough that it was nearby because my parents did not have a car now unfortunately there was no esl programs there so they had to send me out to another part school number 13.
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so i'm gonna stick with the superintendent's proposed budget thank you thanks then anyone else so you know i'll try them in i was going to comment original motion earlier but estimate comments now so yeah getting the amended motion is adding uh it's an increase of 4.293 126 million dollars roughly 400 000 additional for a few positions i'm not arguing those positions you know personally if we if we're planning on having um as many students as possible back in our schools this fall that's to be determined i hope that's the case uh we'll see our next few months play out you know then i will definitely say security management positions finally funded we thought it was a good idea three years ago two years ago and you know trying to get in at the right time i know some projects weren't you know we're playing on hold so we could you know not fund out this current school year it's unclear to me if the security manager will actually be doing anything with projects next school year um all these positions i think will have some benefit i'm gonna just go back to you know i think if you know dr solomon thought they were critical to relevant schools they'd be in there um i don't think this school year is the year to have all these positions i got a feeling that this coming school year administration particulars and had his hands full assessing the students getting back to speed uh getting reacclimated and i went surprisingly throughout the course of the next clear night i know ian i'm sorry catherine's not the not a fortune teller not that am i i can't predict this but just logic tells me that you know we may change course and couple these positions depending on what you know the school experience is next year math assessing that maybe we need more teachers for from math the foster meeting more programs um i personally want to see us get back into a rhythm or to demonstrate to the town that we have our schools back kids back in school we're assessing where they are we're getting back up to speed let's see where chips fall from there i have no doubts we're coming on top fighting these positions in particular are not as critical to opening the school year this fall speaker i think they will be nice i think they will be the next final year we got to build upon these so i'm not inclined to support them and emotionally i don't understand where it's coming from and i thank both ian and catherine for raising it um you know the one thing i want to add is i know the medical trust fund is always a it's a fun topic well you know it's a medical claims reserve account it's always a fun topic to talk about i i disagree with captain that uh we're paying for undefined the account you know the necessarily go back to whether it was reduction 400 thousand dollars 100 000 or not the exception high claim rates was unforeseen from our actuary so even left untouched we'd be in the world of hurt right now but i think the point that really could be made there is you know again especially for the the the more newer you wish members now there's been years uh budgets for the board where that medical claim reserve was either touched in some way by past town councils not necessarily the current one the town manager in some cases would take the superintendent's budget and offset part of it by undefining it so it has been used as catherine pointed out when it's very high uh rates um you know i think you know by doing that you know obviously it's you know we've learned we can't always predict when these claims are going to uh become astronomic and i still question whether there really is a cycle for this because this year seems to be a cycle of madness with these particular claims that being said um you know i think this 000 is really things that you know had those reserves not been touched over the years and we got fully funded or even you know more than 50 in front of our budgets we could have those positions a long time ago so you know 2020 is always hindsight uh but i do agree that this budget uh and even i would say even these amendments does not add anything new it does not uh advance our education curriculum does not advance what we do in the school district it doesn't mean that we're not doing anything um but you know i agree it's to maintain get back to a normalcy but i need to see that happen um and this is a very high budget i seriously doubt um again being that fortune teller i feel failed to be at i don't see how we'll get a fully funded budget we've never gotten a fully funded uh budget as far as i can remember in the best of times in the worst of times uh considering that half of this increase actually more than half is related to the reserve account um you know i would hope that you know when town council reviews this you know whether or not to decide to fully fund the 1.9 million dollars i think to the claim reserve 1.8 million increase you may do half of it i would hope that you know some of that money could be used to fund a regular increase so again we'll see where that goes that's a little too tell but i appreciate the amendment i can support it at this time but before we vote on this do we have any audience comment on this amendment motion i think i have one go ahead and you have to do it i'm sorry just i just wanted to make a point of clarification that i did not have the district's school security manager in my proposed increase because i do think that that is something that needs to be looked at and that's for down the road the same with the um elementary world language i think that needs more thought put into it but the five items that i did include i think are things that could be and should be implemented as early as next school year and that is the high school math interventionist the elementary technology coach the district-wide professional development and the elementary administrative support and the reading and math specialist at highland and chapman great thank you so i just i just wanted to clarify the ones that i chose were and i thought i thought very carefully about this because as others have said i'm conscious of creating a um going for a budget that is um responsible as well but there's there should be no denying we are in we are on the board of education we're not on the board of funding our medical benefits trust fund when it goes haywire and i've already mentioned in a previous meeting how i feel i think we should have a special account for that because that is not under our control um but that was a discussion last week so i i'm not here to rehash that but i did choose items that i think should and could be implemented um as early as this fall thank you jeff do we have any audience uh input on this amendment um we do you know one with the two comments one is really specific i think to the amendment um the other one is you know just generally related to overall spending um this is from heather cavallaro bargow first i would like to commend you on the amazing job you all do i want to share that i'm deeply sad by the state of the budget for our education and cheshire what cheshire has been able to do given the budget has been stellar however i feel that we're at a point where serious investment needs to start to happen in our education for our future our children they deserve the additional programs uh they deserve the technology they deserve the facilities continuing to slash a budget will only hurt us long term it will hurt our town long term what we spend per child compared to our peers is appalling i moved to this town for the education i need to start to see the investment in our education system and i know i'm not alone i certainly hope town council ratifies the 5 increase but i think we should uh be seeing a higher increase in order to continue to attract families to cheshire to attract talented teachers to teach around town we need to demonstrate an investment so my question are we doing enough to ensure that our town is putting the appropriate priority and education of uh over of children i think over other programs that are offered and what are we doing and are we doing enough to ensure that parents have a voice in the community given the investment in education over the past several years i'm having trouble believing that we are investing in us and the town understands the priority thanks the other question we received i couldn't make out a name from the email address but the question asked have we explored uh privatizing lunch services um the short answer to that is yes we've been you know i think you're probably better equipped to speak on that than tonight good evening everyone um yeah we we have you know talked to a couple different vendors over the years about um you know basically taking the food service operation that we have that's run in-house and it's not a cost savings it's not a matter of cost savings that you would achieve by doing that you know we have a very strong food service program we really have no issues you know keeping up with the requirements of the food service program and you know certainly i would argue that we would do a better job than bringing in a third party we'd still need a food service director and and staff to to oversee the program um it's not out of the question but you know if the question really relates to does privatizing or outsourcing it save us any money the answer is generally it does not we have a good program and we like to keep it that way is really i think the more important question for us thank you or any other audience there as there is more uh the amended motion on the table uh increases the superintendent's recommended budget the overall budget amount would increase to 78 million and eighty seven thousand fifty two dollars which represents an increase of four million two hundred ninety three thousand dollars two hundred and two thousand and one hundred twenty six dollars uh all those in favor and catherine in favor all those opposed if i'm opposed the amended motion does not pass we now fall back to the original motion on the table which i will read because it's been almost an hour uh the original motion that's on the table is that the cheshire board education submit to the town manager the student the superintendent's proposed budget for 2122 of 78 million 487 052 which is an increase of 3 million 893 126 dollars on the current budget so we're back to that motion any further comments on this motion everybody's tired are ready we've got another motion to go um in all seriousness i i do want to thank ann and catherine for that adam right adam i think catherine had one too um but uh i just forgot to to uh to to thank um the the teachers and the administration we had several uh tough uh contract negotiations this summer um and it's because of them that were even to have a a but you know a budget of 3.8 and a budget increase of 3.8 million as uh faith had mentioned you know our budget is 95 um fixed costs and most of that is uh salary and benefits and um the the teachers union administrators union that really came to the uh stepped up to the plate and uh and and negotiated um a fair contract this year that that really helped uh our budget this year unfortunately because of the uh the other uh trust problem um we weren't really to to reinvest into our into our uh our system the way we could have uh with the savings that we incurred through uh salary and benefits but i just wanted to thank them uh for for the fear negotiations this year thank you adam uh catherine i'm sorry i didn't see your hand up earlier that's okay i'm sorry thank you uh mr perginian and i just want to um say of course i will support the superintendent's requested budget um even though i wish he would have asked for and uh but i appreciate the fact that in coming up with this budget that uh superintendent solon mr maciana miss solano really you know sharpened their pencils as much as they had to and came up with you know a budget that is it's large but it is um fair and and i have no doubt and i didn't mean to suggest that our children will not be uh well educated will not have the resources that they need to um succeed next year um and thereafter so i i if i gave that impression i did not want to do that because we have an extremely talented um district full of great teachers administrators and you know and it's we're so lucky and i as as adam said um we went through some tough negotiations and and everyone has approached this difficult time with um flexibility and grace and professionalism and um so of course i will support this budget um i wish we could do more and maybe next year that will change so thank you thank you for letting me speak as if i would prevent anybody from speaking of course and i didn't take your comments says that we're not i know exactly where you're coming from catherine so thank you i know i know a penny for every word i just spewed um but i want to echo something catherine just said and we had not as a group really said this until she just did and that is um vin and marlene and jeff's work in terms of recognizing the situation for what it is they could have asked for the moon um and they didn't they were respectful um of the town um and uh you know that some of the constraints that our townspeople are are living with and um and i just it's it's hard it had to have been really hard for them to pull this together and you know to see all those line items that were zeroed out with no increase um is really almost breathtaking and um even i who you know fiscal like uber conservative um was surprised by seeing that and so i applaud you guys and what you've done and catherine and and i would as i said i would love to be able to fund those positions i really would i don't mean to come off as like this real hard you know what but um it's just an unfortunate time we're in and so um anyway kumbaya so we can count on your support next year faith oh next year's a long time man hey this meaning this is not video so you know this might be an infinite playback loop next year uh as we go through the budget discussion i just dug my grave i get it no no thank you any final comments on this motion before i comment and turn over for a vote first of all thank you for we have another motion discussion too hopefully it's uh probably just as involved and again this is a good thing for those watching you know please understand that uh this has been uh almost a month and a half and discussions in the budget a lot of deep dive you know tonight's meeting you know it's not showing any of those dozens of slides and hours and hours of discussion to come to this point but this budget as every budget has been uh looked at very very deeply many questions were asked mandy has been raised i think dr saul and his team put together a very responsible budget that needs a critical need to get up and running and restore it next year still moving the floor as much as we can i do agree that some of these positions we're going to have to fund eventually it is my hope that after this current year comes up we're in a better position because we do need to um you know either move forward on world languages and illinois schools or punt that one you know we seem to keep going back and forth on that uh with budgets but you know eventually we gotta move we know there's a benefit to our students by having that so i'm confident we can and again for board members you know every year we uh we tend to get into this routine where in the final budgets we bring up positions and so forth may i suggest that at the start of next school year that we regularly discuss these new positions and you know get the superintendent to include in his budget presentation in january so they are part of those things and you know it'd be a lot quicker and easier discussion to have so it's really i'm not saying if i'm here i'll remind us to you know to remember these positions and remind the superintendent that we want to see these added and discussed next year that being said it's important for everyone watching to know that we're not this budget does not remove overall remove positions it does not reduce much of anything in the budget is an increase of almost 4 million 3.8 million change so it is increasing the budget uh it is accounting for the fact that we're seeing a bump in kindergarten enrollment uh next school year and jeff pointed out the issues there between uh doolittle and darcy full grades kindergarten and this is just a sign of the enrollment book that's coming in the next four years that the monetization committee is discussing so we are being proactive and making sure that we have teachers funded and those class sizes stay reasonable and successful so i'm happy to see that and uh besides the reserve claim funding the rest of it is is mainly benefits and to that end usually our certified salaries is usually a large chunk of the increases this budget is not it's actually i think the lowest part of it a large success because we're starting a new contract uh with all our units particularly our teachers union um and we both worked out a very favorable agreement to to both groups uh we helped put some things in their contract to help ease the quality of life and likewise they were very very helpful in recognizing the financial hardships that cheshire is experiencing and they want to be part of a solution so i do want to thank them as well as administrators union and the other units for for being at the table because without their help and support this budget has been bigger so so again thank you for the board for calling that out that being said i am concerned of what comes back as a final budget we didn't really talk about this uh you know i think faith might ask where do we cut i'm concerned because this past spring you know we did a very good budget in my opinion uh we increased funding reasonably and then you know coveted hit and i know it's been uh it's kind of history now it's been over a year almost a year we also you know to to help the town and help ourselves we were the town council and give up i think another million plus dollars i think i want to say overall it's probably a two million dollar uh more or less reduction than we started last year uh in large priority other coveted we worked through covet almost we're not quite there yet we're unsure of what the code expenses will actually be this year if we remain the course jeff and vincent outlined those details and there was another supplemental budget of one million dollars in expenses that could be uh seen in the worst case we don't know what the funding is going to be yet uh from the state or feds this time next year and quite frankly if things get better hopefully we don't seize expenses so just want to keep that in mind because those are not part of this budget uh and i thought i mentioned earlier that when i i just speak to rob horace uh last week briefly and he said we're not sure we're not hamlets because it's a first for us we don't have a mechanism to do a supplemental uh his advice was you know we'll bring forth the operating budget by the time we get that discussion let's see whoever coded and his expenses you know there might be something to do there later on so uh i only raise this because that's not in this discussion tonight but there's potentially another million dollars plus that we have to deal with this coming fall especially if we're not getting uh reimbursement from the feds of the state so uh that being said i'm concerned that something smaller comes back particularly as it hits our non benefits of cal we don't have anywhere else to go in this budget that's remained in my opinion around the board that uh we exhausted cuts to head count in spring uh to the point that if we were to go there and you know i think mentioned to mention last name that's really the largest lion's share of budget it's going to increase class sizes there's no doubt um it's going to have an impact on our kids uh getting restorative back in school if they're gonna have much time with teachers um you know there's there's really there's no there's no reserve account to under fund this coming school year um where do we go so it is a critical budget in my mind i think it has to be funded as is and i think we've demonstrated to the best of our abilities over the years that we're very very pruning with our budgets what comes back and even though we're you know the bottom third of scoring per pupil our students excel academically and that's really unheard of you would think that the less you spend uh the least our our students achieve not just academically but holistically that hasn't been the case here uh i'm not sure how much longer for that course is going to run with all these challenges with kobit i i really hope and praying that this budget is fun as that is and at least our non-fixed cost or our destruction costs are not impacted we really need those kids back in with the full staff at hand things successful so that being said the motion on the table is that the cheshire board education submit to the town manager the superintendent's proposed budget for 21.22 a 78 million 487 052 an increase of three million eight hundred ninety three thousand or twenty six dollars over the current budget uh all those in favor please raise your hand and i can't see if you have your hand up or not uh okay all those in favor all opposed one abstention the motions the motion patches uh passes six to one thank you team next topic uh planning uh just before we get into this and andrew if i turn it over to you uh we we now do both the operating budget and capital budgets at the same time uh in the past the capital budgets will start a little later um in early spring so we're going to dive into yet another budget hopefully not as lengthy of a discussion but definitely worthwhile discussing and that'd be for a cabinet well uh andrew i'll leave it to you if you want to give an update sure i um i'm gonna give a brief update and then vin's gonna actually walk us through briefly as to what the five year the one year and then the five-year capital plan is for the district um so the planning committee has met met back on january 11th and then again on the 28th the meeting on january 11th um the first the initial proposal to the to the planning committee was an overall capital expenditure budget for 2122 and the amount of 5 million 240 thousand dollars um at that meeting catherine tim and i heard the reasoning and saw district wide where those improvements would be made um and knowing that we'd be facing various increases in the operating budget and knowing that we are in the midst of a comprehensive school modernization plan which will hopefully and will touch every school building in the district we thought that it was prudent to take a deep dive to see what was absolutely necessary for the upcoming year and then also for the five-year plan um knowing that as modernization will be submitted to the town council in march next month um that we do reserve the right to make some changes to this but we need to get something on the books now and so that's the purpose of the approval that we'll be seeking later on tonight so with that i'm going to turn it over to vin and he's going to share his screen and walk us through what we're looking for for the short term and for the five year plan for the district okay thank you andrew and can somebody confirm they could see the two pie charts on the screen yes yes yes okay so we're going to look at the left pie chart first um this is the overall five-year capital plan and you know i will reiterate you know what mr martelly said is that the the planning committee really went through you know this this um you know the overall five-year request and the one-year you know request for funding very thoroughly there's some very detailed spreadsheets that were shared with the planning committee members where they could see the details so this is a high level overview of the five-year capital plan here so the over five years the request is thirty seven million seven hundred twenty eight thousand five hundred dollars and you'll see here in the pie chart those the categories in which that money is being requested i will make an editorial comment that these are all maintenance related requests to keep our current buildings we have eight you know operational um and in in good repair from an overall capital investment point of view so of the 37.7 million 11.1 million are for window replacements most of our district schools still have original windows in them and as as all the board members certainly and and administrators on this video call and many members of the public know our buildings you know are an average of about 70 years old this year so we do need to get those windows replaced over the next five years district paving roofing sidewalk and masonry improvements is the next biggest percentage 8.1 million dollars i will tell you most of this is for roofing on our buildings where the roof systems are expiring um and you know we always prioritize worse first just because a roof warranty is expired we don't put it in for replacement but certainly when we can't repair a roof any longer and when we start to see leaks we do have to replace our roof systems district cafeteria improvements are the next largest piece 15 of the request um that's 5.6 million dollars the high school piece of that is about four million dollars we do have funding currently for the norton cafeteria improvements which i will be talking about when we go through the one-year funding request next is 3.2 million dollars for hvac improvements 2.6 million dollars for interior building improvements across the district code compliance this is primarily ada improvements 2.4 million this year we introduced the need for the replacement of three fire alarm control systems in our schools these are older systems they are working but they're antiquated and you know they really need to be upgraded and none of these are in year one but we do need to upgrade and replace those so that's 1.7 million continuing to improve the district laboratories 1 million dollars flooring ceiling tile replacements eight hundred thousand lighting and electrical improvement six hundred eighty thousand and then some uh final improvements at the athletic complex to make that um facility ada compliant is 350 000.
well these are bills through march of 2020 yes okay so i'm off it's i'm off by one year i was wondering about the august 2020 because that's when we used highland school as a critical facility well this is the high school anyway i'm sorry i'm i'm mixing apples and oranges i apologize yeah that's that's okay but just i mean just just to expand on that point a little bit um and we we're good until 7 20. i understand so i just want to make sure we get through the material um okay um just just to amplify this a little bit if you look at the one peak and off peak demand whichever is higher um over the 12 month period prior to the current billing whatever month it is sets the demand charge on about half of the demand elements on the utility statement so in this case in october the demand peaked out at about 210 kilowatts that then sets the charge for the whole next 12 months so this is where being able to manage demand through storage um can be beneficial it gives you an entire year of benefits and demand costs um so and and the rules in connecticut with eversource are it's a 30 minute interval so whatever your highest demand is in any 30 minute period in the prior 12 months set your costs for the whole next year um okay so uh we had three areas identified at the high school it turned out only one was necessary we i could certainly go back and look at these other two but the focus in this assessment has been more on ground mount than on roof mounted systems um these are the meters again at the high school on the baseline the combination of these two is the target the target for production again to try to be conservative is to pick the correct baseline and then to take 90 percent of that baseline as the amount of energy you would want to produce um as an initial design point um and these are these are typical numbers for these types of systems um a photovoltaic photovoltaic module can produce up to about 1400 or 1450 kilowatt hours per kilowatt peak rated nameplate the target set here was 13.50 to be a little bit conservative and as an initial sizing point what you'll see in these systems that we're size is we actually exceed that um and so we could size the systems down a little bit again this is a it's an iterative approach and so this is a first pass through to say does this look acceptable and do you want to pursue this um so the 90 of these annual consumptions are these numbers and then the target pv capacity for the amount of equipment would be based on this as a production number just as a as a relative number um 1350 is a is a very good number um so combined it's something like a megawatt of photovoltaic capacity would be the nominal target for the high school um a perspective view google earth and then a 2d view straight down this is the area that we're focusing on and this is the array laid out that achieves those design targets it actually over produces because of the way that it's laid out um it actually produces more than that nominal design target so 1400 instead of 13.50 which means it could be downsized in the next design pass um to be something smaller than this so as a question to you um would this be a system you would want to pursue this this array is about 2.8 acres of photovoltaics it would produce 90 of the energy needs at the high school um with this this amount of equipment so is this is this suitable is this too big um is this a target you would want to look for i have a question catherine catherine so all those trees come down i mean we'd have to clear that hole um [Music] about three acres is that right yeah so yes the trees all the trees yes yes yes now what you could do well actually on the next slide what i put up um some alternatives that you could consider if you want to isolate from the road you could leave a band of trees there if you want to isolate from the plain field you can leave a band of trees there if you do that it would have some minor effect on production it wouldn't be terrible um if you want to isolate from the neighbors and i'm not sure what what is this area um you could leave a band of trees there as well um that would have no influence on performance the solar new group coming in from southeast to the northwest so then what our yearly savings from that would be about do you have any ideas tap your head sure i was asking then what would be our savings so i mean i would bounce that back michael i mean did what would be the meetings if we were to do the array and i guess that's well i'll let you answer the question how would we calculate that um right now you are paying i would estimate uh something like 12 cents a kilowatt hour for energy if you assume you would have no benefit to demand you would not offset that cost this system would produce 90 of what you need on site um so you could go back to it's about one and a half million kilowatt hours um you would not pay the utility or your third party supplier one and a half million kilowatt hours times uh 11 cents a kilowatt hour um and you would either own the equipment outright or you would pay a power purchase agreement that would then add cost for the energy for a system of this size a megawatt is a good size system you could expect a power purchase agreement of six or seven cents a kilowatt hour most likely maybe eight cents a kilowatt hour what about cost of clear cut sorry is that what about the cost to clear cut three acres is that baked into the six or seven kilowatt cents kilowatt i i that's beyond me i don't know okay so it would be something it would be something above it yeah i mean depending on what path you want to follow um you can either issue a request for proposal and have a developer do all these details we would provide this as a starting point they could then do the design development they would put all the costs specific to themselves to this that's one path um you have to allow the time to issue an rfp and then let it stay open and then review the results and award it and then do design development along the way we need to be conscious of the z-rec auction that will be coming up in april and this system could either bid into the large or you could be a two um actually i'm not sure you could either bid in probably enter the large uh zero um and that would then have a value of about 60 or a megawatt hour um for production for 15 years these are part of the value streams that would flow so from from my perspective sitting on the board ed i think that the critical numbers to me are produces a million and a half kilowatt hours per year just ballpark it right and i heard you say that we're paying call at 12 cents per kilowatt hour we get a ppa my personal feeling is 107 is i'd rather not engage in the tax equity issues here because we're a non-taxable entity rather just my preference would be to ppa to do it simply okay a ppa that's just me but a ppa could come in at 7 cents per kilowatt hour versus the current rate of 12 cents per kilowatt hour so we're saving about 5 cents per kilowatt hour on a million and a half kilowatt hours so that multiplies out to 75 000 a year right and just as a total ballpark as to what we could save i personally am not really interested in clear-cutting that i think that's i think that's a whole other and you know the other thing on top of it is um we've got the whole school modernization going on i think for me personally i i don't really want to i realize i know the the wreck officially ends this year by law the wreck being the funding incentive um but i really don't want to get involved in i i i'm not really favorable to doing this at this moment in time even though the incentives are about to disappear i think it's a really big thing that i would definitely want to hear a lot more feedback from people in town because i'd rather hear about i'd really rather hear about like norton doolittle and highland schools that are probably less likely to be touched in the in terms of the school modernization well tim i'm glad you started the conversation because uh i i could tell from catherine's body language as well i thought we were going to have a large argument with you i mean i i did for the 75 000 a year i would rather leave three acres untouched and as we go forward with school modernization we redo cheshire high school eventually integrating this type of an array into the construction versus clear cutting with little open space we still have in town yeah we're here thank you though michael i mean this is we're here to support whatever direction you want to go on these so um i mean if you want i could try to quantify what what this savings would be if you wanted to consider it further but we can move on to the other portal yeah i think we've just moved on to the other stuff yeah quite quite the baseline utility expenditures were about 225 between two major meters at the high school um i would estimate you'd save 30 to 40 percent of that so the 75 that'd be 75 000.
this is resolution number 2020 21 dash e-11 this is read across america 2021. second i have a motion and a second in 1997 an organization known as the national education association advocated for a special day to celebrate reading throughout the united states the first read across america day was held on march 2 1998 and this nationwide observance coincides with the birthday of dr seuss who is known for writing children's books the united states particularly students parents and teachers join forces on read across america day annually hell on march 2nd and i hope everyone gets in there and reads at some classroom on march 2nd i love doing it every year any other comments or questions yeah yeah i just wanted to say yes uh please uh invite us to to to their classrooms we would love to actually do that virtually and it would be a lot easier we could get to more sites right right you know i've done it at the elementary school and i love it i've got the dr seuss hat i put the dr seuss hat on and i usually find a dr seuss boot it's fun so it is okay let's vote mrs trejo aye mr o'neal bye mr javar hi mr smith hi and i voted item 11.12 resolution number 2020 slash 21-e-12 preserve music in our schools month all right several motions in seconds okay the adoption of the resolution will recognize that music education is an important component of a well-rounded academic curriculum the skills gained through sequential music instruction including discipline and the ability to analyze solve problems create communicate as well as work cooperatively are vital for success in the 21st century workplace any comments from our singer no we just i would just add that as we've been through kovid um in this and the crisis here i would just add that music is is a healing uh aspect to our you know to all of us and you know we're talking about mental health um what music has done for all of us to soothe us to lift their spirits has just been wonderful and i'm just really proud of all the work that our district has done and to the board who has supported music programs since since you've been on the board so i applaud you for that and uh uh thank you to all of our instructors out there yes and i know i have to say this this district for as long as i've been with it has always been very supportive of music we've always had a great band program so it's it's good we well and we're good too because we've got all kinds of electives okay any other comments seeing none we'll vote mrs trejo hi mr o'neill hi mr javar hi mrs smith i and i vote i i 11.13 resolution number 2020 slash 21-e-13 women's history month so moved second all right i have a motion in a second women's history week in 1987 after being petitioned by the national women's history project was designated the month of march to become women's history month instead of week so we are now having the whole month for learning about women's history and the women [Laughter] any other comments okay mrs trejo i vote aye mr o'neill aye mr javar hi and mrs smith i and myself i vote i now you are outnumbered aren't you i just realized that it's 3-2 okay item 11.14 resolution number 2020 slash 21 dash e-14 arts education month so moved second and a second all right arts education in california is mandated for pupils in grades 1 through 12.
sandia from 88 to 94. rancho verde from 86 to 91 and you'll see a couple of our very old schools yucca loma probably our oldest school 94. uh mariana one of our older schools 90 is good and desert knows again a school we inherited from victor school district upon unification working toward that good rating almost made it this year and i'm confident we'll get them over the bar next year that's it on our facility inspection tool anybody have any questions i could address hearing now sorry no questions no questions from me okay thank you i will stop share okay and then next presentation is on the governance january budget proposal thank you again i have another presentation to share let me find where did that one go one second okay here we are come on okay i'm sorry i'm working through some issues on my desktop here i think is everybody seeing it now yes great i want to share with the board some highlights from the governor's january budget proposal this uh parts of this presentation were shared with our budget committee uh last week uh so i believe miss okpar you may have seen some of this already and of course members of avuda and csea and some of our management team did see some of these slides already i took this from a presentation that is prepared by school services of california so i cannot take any credit for the preparation of these slides but they provided this presentation as part of their update for california school districts back on friday january 15th so some of the things for the the themes uh governor newsom of course is targeting a lot of the state resources to help recover from the crisis at 19.
and it was a whole different environment because um it was a very small class there wasn't a lot of students it wasn't as diverse um i felt kind of like left out in reality i i felt like i was being pushed away from the class from classmates and friends and it was really difficult for me to have to go to a school that's so far away on a different aspect as you see there's two different sides in clifton one that's a lot lower class and the other one's a little better so i had to go to that side and everything would just made it more difficult to get there and i feel like really we should focus on that a lot more especially now especially now since we're on distance learning it's a lot more difficult like so much more difficult and i feel like this is not a focus for you guys that you guys are really focusing on and you know i came here just to give you that idea and to push that idea that you guys should focus on this more because it's not only in hispanics it's also the muslims it's everyone and it shouldn't just be looked at and be like oh that'll happen it'll get over with especially during these times where we have distance learning i have heard from a lot of family members that they are struggling kids are struggling and they're not developing and i really think that yeah you guys should just put more funding towards um more programs esl programs help counselor help any way that will benefit them yeah that's pretty much it thank you thank you very much um i see um mr limbrick and mr kuczyk i don't know if you want to speak about the athletics or if you had something else to say yep coach lemberg europe thank you mr smith um yes briefly um i'd just like to again congratulate all the student athletes for their recognition and to me this is a true reflection of the massive support we do receive from our school administration uh and all the staff coaches uh that put in the time and effort for our student athletes um and all our athletes that are recognized and all of them that do participate um i just like to make sure everybody understands how much this goes in life and how much pride and effort and time they put in and it is a reflection of our community and i'd also like to mention that i know many of these people will come back uh and help our community continue to grow and uh as far as the boys soccer team i'd also like to mention that the six uh first team all county players uh have committed to play soccer in college uh and we have eight in total right now um and the first team all county players emir lukovich will be going to rutgers university to play in a scholarship eric di mora monmouth university danny tobin rutgers university sebastian hernandez the college of new jersey danny jason suarez uh rutgers university so um i'm just so pleased and happy and proud of this program and i thank you for all your support thank you coach also i'm sorry eric p valcek is also um going to rutgers university thank you thanks again coach for all you do for the kids appreciate it next up we have dustin i apologize i don't see your last name hello my name is dustin keefer and i'm in third grade and i really think we should just go back to school because you can't really make friends at all and we shouldn't be talking about going to the bathroom right now we should talk about getting back to school before we talk about that and i just feel like it's harder to do school it's way more upsetting it's very angry and you can barely do anything all you do there is sit and do the same thing but just it's more boring so i feel like we should go back to school so it's way better than just staying home and being stuck there and doing nothing and that's my speech thank you dustin dustin you did an excellent job well done dustin can i talk for uh two minutes please sure i just want to say that i'm really proud of my son he asked me on his own he's been watching some of these meetings with us kind of over here in the background and he actually approached me so i'm extremely proud of him to step up and a lot of what i say i get from him if he didn't want to go back to school i wouldn't fight so hard and uh it's tough when when this is what's going on and when you see that you guys are going to give money to turfs and to new bathrooms like i'm not even angry i'm telling the truth man like i got my house 1940.
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so that's the full five-year plan uh however i just want to point out that the actual money being requested from the town council will be whatever the board of ed approves as a request in year one of the five-year capital plan and that's what i'm gonna you know focus a couple more minutes of discussion on so the one-year request for 19 for 20 21 is this 2.65 million dollars of the 37.7 million in other words the first year is 2.65 million as mr martelly indicated uh the original proposal that was recommended by the superintendent and myself was 5.2 million dollars but you know after reviewing that the planning committee members did ask us to go back and and really isolate and identify those projects that we really needed to do in the next fiscal year and so the 2.6 million dollars just quickly 500 000 for window replacements this has continued to just replace the windows at cheshire high school this is a multi-year project we need to continue making those those window improvements by replacing original windows you know with new windows we do get energy savings when we make those improvements uh this million 75 000 which is under the big category of paving roofing sidewalk and masonry 750 000 of it is to replace a section of dodd's roof above the gym the cafeteria and main office area we've been you know chasing leaks and making repairs there for the last several years and you know the roof system is a point at a point that it has to be replaced so that's the bulk of that million seventy five thousand this hundred seventy five thousand is additional funding needed for the norton cafeteria improvements we had a four hundred thousand dollar appropriation approved by the board and then the town council last year we hired a design professional did the legwork and the you know the bottom line is that the norton cafeteria is really very small and we can't expand the footprint but in order to make the improvements and gain some additional space that we need so we can improve the serving area for the students we needed to move the refrigeration equipment you know outside of the building and put it you know into the parking lot in a you know in a very confined space it won't create an issue with parking it's actually going to be a little bit of a smaller footprint than a pad you know with a storage unit that's already there so the bottom line is we need another 175 thousand dollars to be able to complete the norton cafeteria improvements uh this next 350 000 is for hvac improvements actually half of that is to replace the underground oil storage tank at cheshire high school which is a requirement by the department of energy environmental and energy protection when a tank reaches 30 years it needs to be removed and the other half of that is to make some replacement of ventilation equipment at cheshire high school which is necessary 250 000 we need a hundred thousand to make some continuing improvements to the utility tunnels at cheshire high school those tunnels have been you know well maintained over the last six six to seven years last time that you know we had an issue in those utility tunnels we want to keep them in good repairs um we want to continue to do the annual inspections so a hundred thousand will will fund that and another hundred thousand is requested to make some replacements of interior doors across the district on a worst first basis 250 000 to keep the district lavatory project moving and the last 50 thousand dollars being requested is to um you know replace some of the older and non-compliant uh bleacher and stadium seating over at cheshire high school at the main game field so those in total are two million six hundred fifty thousand dollars um again this was approved by the planning committee this one-year funding as well as the overall five-year plan and that what that is um what was recommended to be brought forward to the board of education i will stop sharing my screen and tune back in if there are any questions i'll be glad to address them and i i apologize advanced andrew and then but uh this was not the original proposed capital project uh capital budget was it was it was a than the initial was yes it was reduced the year one was reduced from five million two hundred forty thousand down to two million six hundred fifty thousand but the 37 million in total that didn't change what what was done is the projects that we could push into year two or three we did that but preserved the full 37 million 728 500 in the original proposal got it i i know this was discussed in planning committee meetings i'm not sure how much the public actually watch those meetings um but you know i'm sure the question in people's minds is with the modernization committee uh nearing its final options by march first you know the board of event town council start delivering those or can any of these wait uh for that or you know i know the answer is no i'm sure they could wait they probably would have but i i know we have projects that we have to do to keep things maintained that not be touched by any of those years but another question is you know are we spending money that we shouldn't be spending in lieu of a pending monetization option that will be voting on by the summer i i mean i can answer from you know my perspective and i see mr question but you know the i guess the the first point that i would make is um any school monetization plan that is approved you know we wouldn't see any if there's a building a new building approved the renovation of a building that would take you know three years before we would see any of that come to fruition in the form of a construction project you know and completion so you know that was certainly one of the things that the planning committee was was very careful as we looked at you know these requested you know one-year funding of 2 million 650.
yeah that's probably a good number okay all right um moving um total annual consumption is about 882 000 um kilowatt hours a year and you have a distribution that varies seasonally um we don't have demand data for this this was one of the digital downloads from the eversource portal but this could be taken to a next level of of detail i would estimate that um probably 40 to 45 percent of the cost here is related to demand the balance is related to energy use um the design target so the the this was a challenging design um based on this allocation of space um we can go back and look at roof mount systems if you would want to do that we could look at other areas on site um if i i didn't know where else to look um on site but we could certainly refine this this was the initial request was to look at there's an existing um roof i guess over the front door and to look at this as a location for an array um the target design this being the second highest energy consumer of the four facilities that we looked at was to try and reach about 588 kilowatt nameplate rating um or about 800 000 kilowatt hours production annual um that's the perspective view the 2d view so question for you are there other areas on site or adjacent that you'd want to consider for possible pvp tim you have a suggestion yeah the only thing what goes through my mind is basically like carports just cover some of the parking lot i mean if there's a reason you can't do it because of fire truck safety or something like that i get it but i see him around we have it right next door at the at the police station now and all right and this this this google earth photo is actually out of date yeah i know you have and we helped with that back um probably two years ago that's right yeah i mean there's surface parking in that circle that lower circle down um bottom of the image i mean that's not but that's just parent drop off over there that could be covered parking i'm sure um in this area here no and then here at the bottom of the screen yep right there um so on that one the clear cutting question are you interested in any ground now arrays um where there are currently trees i there i mean that to me is wetlands that backs up to the pond over there i think a lot of that uh improved playground area almost goes to the wetland boundary sorry okay um i mean to me to me i'm thinking like if you if you look at the the parking lot which is shaped like a d at the front of highland school if you know where that is it's shaped like a d you know anywhere there sort of on the southern part or the the vertical uh north-south parking lot basically running in parallel with the police station carports it looks to me like the shading wouldn't be that bad necessarily in all those areas so right all right so if you're interested we can we take another pass with that and do that um so are the roofs out of question here because of the hvac runs i i think it's i mean right now those roofs and rich could give you you know um some more commentary but those those roofs are not new okay so if we're going to do a solar array you'd want to re-roof and that that would add cost to the project which i think you could probably fold it in as part of the overall project cost you know the issue with roofs is always snow load as we you know go through new england winters you know we've had a couple of scares you'd want to avoid the really large spans that we have at highland over the calf and the gym in particular um you know that building was built in the 70s maybe not quite i'm not quite as confident in in some of those spans as we are on the buildings that were built in the 50s you know we were doing some value engineering already back in the 70s rich what do you think though you know roof mounted on highland well i mean two things the roof the roof has probably got about a year and a half left on its warranty um so we're you know we're at the sunset on that on the warranty um and then with the installation of the uh rooftop package units um there is quite a in as much as uh you know all the ductwork and things of that nature which were elected to run along the roof line interior of the building so i mean is it possible sure it's possible but i think as you stated uh i'd have to be you know a structural engineer would need to assess roof load you know and then uh you know how last but uh sections of the building would be uh you know would be uh strong enough to be able to handle that kind of load including you know what what code requires for snow and what have you right all right just so my two cents i think this probably you know roof for highland at least wrap wrap that discussion into you know the 10-year smc plan yeah when we get to highland because i mean walls could come down hyland's relatively new relatively but i that's my that's my take on it and the incentive i know the incentive uh you know is supposed to end sunset now but i think it's just a bigger our the smc is a much bigger question than this solar so yeah and again go back to your statement you know if you're going to renovate as new that that's the time to do it right i i think i think some carport so i just go back to we will into the future we will use these a lot these parcels we will have parking at the parcels and so a carport i think makes sense and can probably be done where it doesn't end up interfering with any serious construction that happens at any of the schools okay so in in general the next steps in actually going down through design development would be a structural assessment um even for a ground mount system um whether it's a carport canopy you still need to do the geotechnical assessment as well so there will be next steps in in structural review um as a normal course a normal step in in the process um so based based on the areas that were identified the first pass uh added two canopies over the sidewalk um our target was um second um our target because of the very high consumption was 588 kilowatt name plate pv system these two segments get you 72 kilowatts so it's it's 10 percent of the way not uh um it doesn't add a lot um i mean it's it's it it would account for about 10 or 12 percent of energy consumption it would help um but it it it takes a lot more area than that as a second step looking at the adjacent parking on the other side of the drive um that then brings you to a total of 193 kilowatt ac nameplate which is still only about a third of the way to full site energy use it's still useful um so the single canopy gets you about 10 of site and adding the additional carport on the other side gets you to a total of about one third about 34 of the total site energy use um these would be fairly straightforward the the the curvature of the road makes it a little more complicated to lay out the modules but it's certainly doable um and like you're saying we could look at other roof areas knowing that the roof replacement or roof um updating wood is is out probably two years in your future or any of the other paved areas if you want to look at um canopy type structures so any any thoughts on further refinement or other areas as a next i step if i could i would i would be interested in looking to see the the line of parking between the police station and the school property bringing extending that i guess you'd be going north on the site to see what that would add to the overall yeah okay i mean could you piggyback some of the geotech work that was already done at the police station for that let's try that say that again you piggyback off the geotech work that was done at the police station for that well you would probably have to drill you would have to do step it's a separate site you would have to study you would probably need to do that as a part of the permitting process anyway okay what i would suggest if you look at the uh on the i don't know if you have a slide here slide 21 from the the uh directly above there's uh a bump out two parking sections right directly behind the police station so as part of the project if what um what you were originally stating to put a canopy there that that's parallel to the police department that area area parking as well and extend that line versus putting it in the circle you know yeah that circle mike that's where all the buses go in and drop off so i think that if you put it on both sides you yeah it'd be if not not to mention the aesthetics yeah i mean okay the aesthetics will be terrible mike did you when you when you're when you're doing that section along it's the portico that that wraps around the front of the school are you intending that the panels would be on top of that portico uh you would probably replace the entire structure yeah okay that's what that's what i was thinking that would make sense actually yeah i mean you have to account for um it's not just the downward weight of the modules which is going to be more than than a roof by itself but there's going to be an upward um load as well yeah a lifting load that's not going to be inexpensive um no yeah in a row i'd say 20 30 premium to do ground melt or cannabis versus or flat roof roof mount systems um now depending on the path you wanted to follow that could move you from a ppa a power purchase agreement rate of um well these these are smaller systems so the rates are going to be higher but it would move you from a ground from a roof mounted flat roof system ppa typical would be 8 to 10 cents a kilowatt hour um to something maybe more like 12.