she was an astronaut and she served as a doctor while in the peace corps it's national peace corps month it is also the sixth anniversary of peace corps um i just learned this about this person i was a peace corps volunteer so i was like super excited to learn this so thanks to our students for teaching me this wow was this a mae jemison b rosa parks or c laura schmidt this is probably the hardest one folks some people are guessing a few different things i see i see a b and c being guests yeah yeah this is a hard one all right let's reveal that answer you got it mae jemison very cool first african american woman in space nice all right cool all right so now we're gonna shift to another kind of guessing because we have some special guests we have one special guest that i promised the kids i would give them hints and they can use the chat to try and figure out who it is so i have a slide that has some hints on it okay it's catherine runyan back there doing a fantastic job helping us all right so here are some picture hints who could be joining us in the assembly right now [Music] has anyone guessed it so miss wells are these are these four separate pictures about four different people there is that how it works nope this is just one person quinn made a guess all right quinn thinks it's miss katherine let's see let's see if they got it they were right it was me you got to see a picture of my cute cat frankie hi guys kathryn before you introduce our other guests i realize i forgot to do something we have two more readers or classes to highlight doing their reading stories so we're gonna watch miss victoria's class and a mysterious class read their original stories before we keep going special guest thanks miss katherine all right here we go this is the best class by miss victoria's class read by ella jaya and ifoma introduce miss victoria's class we are glowing to read to you or the reading assembly this is our puffer fish face one is this class sad vile we were [Music] turned into a hamster and jameson has a dog this is the best class ever [Music] we've got one more story coming up so keep those positive shout outs coming for those first grade readers and the silliest class ever by miss barrios first grade class one time we saw a puff of this and we made a puffer fresh face we didn't know what it is that um our teacher on the other hand the puffer fish was really cute were sad we missed our teacher did mrs wells quits then we were very silly because mrs wells wash was just surprising us we are h3 mrs wells made up us angry my muna and we all live crazily after after the end yay they're so awesome there's a lot of feelings in first grade yes yeah they are you're glad to have a happy ending yeah really glad you didn't quit school mrs wells that was the scary part all right miss catherine take it away all right so you may be wondering why i'm wearing these awesome sunglasses uh and i would actually like to invite all of the a team to come on if they're available hey guys hi friends so you know of disco checkout but we're gonna do a new thing hey ms cara we're gonna do a new thing dance party with the a team in music class we've been learning about the origins of rock and roll from soul and blues and learning a lot about early rock and roll legends um and so we're gonna listen to a pretty wonderful song by chuck berry called johnny be good so get up and dance get out of your seat do some air guitar some rock and roll moves and dance with us here we go oh miss kaplan you gotta unplug your headphones [Music] oh [Music] okay [Music] i'm out of breath you hate team it was a good dance party i'll kick them off it's a little dark in here all right should we move on to the last video miss wells okay so at the beginning of the assembly you got to see what all of the wildwood staff members were reading but we also wanted to know what you were reading what the students were reading so out of breath from my rock and roll dancing i want to give a shout out to mrs oh i'm so sorry i just wanted to thank catherine for helping me with flipgrid and helping me put all these videos together with catherine thank you and you can check out every week we have a new flipgrid question of the week which you can find on the choice board next week's is going to be what is something you are proud of it's the same one as this week but i want more answers so choice board flip grid question of the week do it all right we can watch the video now hello wildwood the book i'm reading right now is a cookbook it's called in bb's kitchen stella diaz never gives up live breaking news there's a book that i love reading and it's very very beautiful a book i've been reading is holes by lewis thatcher and i recommend this book my book is about a magician that magicians around and does weird stuff and defeats bad guys i love fiction chapter books i'm reading jason and the argonauts by blake kona hi i just finished a book called chirp by kate messner hi today i'm reading andy and tamika and i'm recommending this to you called a ranger in time silly cat videos breaking news this is my book wings of fire it's about um a few dragons who live in a cave and they really want to see what the world outside of their cave looks like when this is about princess who is in pink she goes to save people she this is the first one and i really like this book i really like this book it's really fun it has a bunch of recipes in it and i also love baking to buy diana f cook and it's called baking class should i share my ice cream he wants to eat the ice cream but he's not sure if he wants to share the ice cream to his to a friend hi i'm reading platypus police squad from kozovska the princess and the pit stop i am reading dog man and my sister's dog man well this is one of my favorite books it's called building big by david mccauley so today i'm reading ninth word day from dragon stairs academy series and by kate mcmullen i really like the story john was dead the kingdom of heaven i really like it this is dogma and this is my favorite i'm reading this book laura and ulysses i have been listening to this audiobook and called wings of fire i am reading this book once upon a space time it's really good and it's really good okay that's the end of my video yeah bye [Applause] looks right nick wow wow we we are definitely a community of readers and and we have a tradition at our assembly right this is will's that we started six years ago and we've asked everybody to have a book in your hand or what we call deer drop everything and read time and so if you're out there in your homes or child care centers this is the time to just find a quiet spot whether it's the whole family or you're there also with a brother or sister so that's all we're going to read for a few minutes i'm setting my timer for five minutes because that's the longest amount of time we've read as a group together so let's do this and commit to five minutes all right this is all right miss allison we all set 18 looks like they're all ready going from the dance party to quiet reading so five minutes i can't even tell you how fascinating that was i was reading about how gandhi made a mistake in his life and how he learned from it fascinating i'm gonna keep reading about this do we have to stop it's been five minutes and it is time for people to head to lunches but you can continue reading you can continue enjoying your book and we're gonna say goodbye this has been an amazing assembly thank you miss wells for everything thank you a team for all you do every single day and thank you to our wildwood family pgo and beyond because you know we are all here in this together with you have a great afternoon keep reading
you can see in 1998 there were only two women see woman ceos in the fortune whereas now in 2020 there's about 37 which is still not even close to equal but we're getting there and now we have a foot in the door we have a say next up is parenting so in the past parenting has really been seen as a woman's job and a father should be out working and when he takes care of his kids it's seen as babysitting however this is starting to change now that fathers are starting to stay home and be the stay-at-home parent while women are out working and being ceos and being even just working at a smaller job they're still working and fathers are staying home so in 1880 or 1989 10 of stay-at-home parents were men but now in well almost now in 2016 uh 17 percent of stay-at-home parents were men this means that this is breaking down the stereotype that women have to be the people to stay at home next up is education so women in education and women who are being educated has increased drastically in the past 100 years or so ever since women really got the right by society to be educated there's always been a higher percentage of women in colleges so you can see here in college and enrollment there's 43 percent men and 57 women so this means that women are becoming more educated which is leading to more of a say in everything and is leading to more equality next up is politics women have become increasingly more popular in politics recently because we can see with the female vice president we're becoming we're beginning to have more of a say and this isn't the only area where we're getting more of a say we're also being represented more in congress and in the senate in the house of representatives which is congress so you can see clearly in the 65th congress there was almost no women in it you can see it's just fairly above the gray line and now you can see how it's going up recently this only goes up to the 115th congress we're in 117th congress right now and it's just still just skyrocketing up which means we have a say and we have a place to let people know what women want and we have representatives who actually represent us finally in athletics women have always been seen as they should be paid less and you can see clearly in this chart this is for the u.s soccer teams the men's soccer team and the women's soccer team the women obviously they've been winning more games than the men have and they've been to the world championship and they've they've just they've been doing better honestly but you can see that they're still making less money far less money and since they're doing better they should be making more money so this brings me to my solutions the biggest thing you can do is speak out when you see something happening that you don't think is fair or equitable you need to speak out about it and this can be something as simple as raising your hand in class and answering a question because then it shows that we are we are equal we can do the same things we know this we just need to make it more prevalent next up is calling out inequalities when we see something happen that we don't agree with that we don't like we have to speak out and we have to say something next up is you can support non-profit feminist organizations so this means that you can either support monetarily or just vocally but by supporting organizations for women run by women this creates a this gives them more of a chance to be equal in politics vote for women if you believe what they're saying is correct then you need to vote for women and finally protest and march for equality this is a demonstration that shows that we're all together and this is how we can move forward one step at a time [Music] thank you elizabeth our next presenter is caitlyn silva caitlyn is a junior here at dartmouth high school and this is her first tedx dhs presentation caitlyn is a member of the soccer team's winter track and lacrosse additionally she's a member of the debate team political science club caitlin chose her her to look at the topic of the linguistics because she has enjoyed her studies in english and writing kaitlyn finds it fascinating by changing one word in a sentence there can be a significant change to the overall meaning of what is being said additionally caitlyn hopes that she will be able to teach people about the importance of word choice in both writing and speaking please welcome caitlin silva as she presents the importance of linguistics [Music] the first step to understanding why linguistics is so important is understanding what exactly linguistics means well linguistics by definition is the study of languages in words studying the words of different languages and what they mean but it is more than just that linguistics was first introduced in the 19th century as a way to study how languages adapted and changed especially in relation to one another many european languages have similar words have similar grammar styles because they're so influenced by one another take spanish and portuguese for example if you ever learn either or both of those languages you know that they're pretty similar and that's likely because they have they're pretty close to each other on the map they have that extreme contact that's able to allow those two languages to adapt and change together they're influenced by one another and they change together however in modern day linguistics isn't just studying how language is adapted and changed it's also studying the word choice and grammar that goes into languages and that brings me to the main focus of this talk which is what i consider to be the most important part of linguistics and that is word choice word choice can reveal a lot about you that you might not realize it can reveal where you live in the country your economic status your education level and even your age so how does it do this well let's start with where you live first of all there's accents everyone's heard an accent before that you're like wow that's really strange maybe it's the southern accent or a british accent everyone out there has an accent even if they don't realize it around here we might have a boston a boston or new bedford accent which may drop the r or the t in some words but we don't even notice it because we've grown up speaking like that and to us it's normal but to people in other places of the country that accents weird it's unusual because they don't speak like that so that's the first way you can tell if someone's maybe not from the region you're in you can also tell with regional dialects in different parts of the country they use different words to describe the same thing take a bubbler for example around here if you go to get a drink in class you're going to the bubbler but if you were somewhere else in the country you might go to a water fountain or a drinking fountain because that's what they call it in that part of the country for another example there's soda around here a carbonated drink is soda but in western parts of the country they might call it pop which sounds strange to us because we've grown up used to hearing the word soda that's our regional dialect the same can be seen with the word sneakers around here they're sneakers but like the other words in different parts of the country they mean something else they might be called tennis shoes because that's the person's regional dialect if you hear someone saying the word tennis shoes it's a good sign that oh maybe they're not from around here they're from somewhere else you can also tell someone's age based on the words they say specifically the slang they say slang is constantly changing in language it changes day to day even a good example of this would be the phrase the bee's knees i don't know if any of you have heard that phrase before but it's an older one in prior generations they might have referred to something that was cool as the bee's knees if something was the bee's knees it was really cool and exciting but nowadays we don't use that word we don't use that expression it's pretty foreign to us so if you hear someone saying the expression the bee's knees that might be a sign that they're older or they have a lot of influence from people who are older the same can be seen with more modern slang the word lit that word was used a few years ago to describe something that was cool but nowadays you don't really hear the word unless someone's saying it ironically if someone's saying it seriously it might be a sign that they're also on the older end maybe trying to fit in with modern slang but not doing a very good job at it word choice can also reveal your economic status and your education level these two go hand in hand because typically if you have more money you are able to get a better education this of course isn't always true as there are people who are in lower economic statuses who get good educations but typically that is a standard you can notice an example of this would be the word common that's a pretty normal word it describes something that happens a lot of times but if someone says something is prevalent that might be a sign that they have a higher education level and in turn a higher economic level this isn't definitive once again because you can usually tell if someone's educated but you can't tell how much money they have by the what words they say you can only get a better indication so why is any of this important why do we need to understand the words we say well when you know what the words what the words you're saying mean and what you can say better you can make your word choice more impactful make it so your sentences have more meaning behind them one way you can do this is by watching your tone everyone's heard their parents say hey don't use that tone with me and that's because there's very different tones you should be using with your parents to with your friends there's formal and informal tones formal tones means you're probably talking to someone you respect someone you're not familiar with and you're going to be a lot more formal you're not going to use words like slang when you're talking to your boss or to your grandmother but if you're talking to your friends you're going to have an informal tone you're going to use more casual word choices you have a deeper bond with these people and you want your word choice to reflect that good example of this would be why don't we hang out soon and we need to arrange a meeting soon you wouldn't say the top one to a teacher that would sound creepy because it's not the correct tone you should be using with a teacher you should show some respect you should show some formality and so you should be using the phrase we need to arrange a meeting soon but vice versa you wouldn't say we need to arrange a meeting soon to your friend that would sound a bit odd because you guys aren't having a meeting you've met before you've talked you have an informal relationship and so you want to say why don't we hang out soon another thing that impacts your word choice is filler words if i came up here and said um so um like anyway um you could tell that i was nervous that maybe i didn't know what i was saying filler words are clunky and can reduce the impact of your sentences making people think you're nervous and that you don't understand what you're talking about and so by reducing these filler words or cutting back on the ones you use you can make your words have more impact to them a good example of this is i think i saw our teacher might be absent today versus our teacher is absent this first one is clunky it doesn't really make as much impact as the second one because you're using filler words you're using words that are reducing the impact of what you mean because you're unsure you don't know for sure if this is happening and you want the words to have less impact but for the second one your words are more impactful because you've reduced those pillar words and they have more meaning behind them if someone said our teacher is absent they know they're very confident about it and they have not used the filler words another thing that impacts your the impactfulness of your sentences is connotations words have a definitive meaning that you find in the dictionary there's straight definition and they have an implied meaning because words can have a more positive neutral or negative lighting based on their connotation take for example the word skinny that's pretty neutral if someone's skinny they don't have much weight on them they have less weight than normal but if you say the word scrawny that's a negative lighting to the word skinny if someone is scrawny they're maybe too skinny or you don't like how skinny they are versus the word slender slender is a more positive light it makes the word skinny sound better maybe you like that they're standing maybe they're standing in a good way and so you're going to use the word slender to show that you have a positive feeling about them the same can be said with the word said every english teacher hates the word said because it's pretty neutral it doesn't give you any more meaning than just they were speaking but if you use the word assured that's a more positive way it has more positive meaning to the word said and it makes you feel comforted someone is assuring you of something they're trying to make you feel better and if someone is huffing something out if they huffed that's a more negative leading to the word said it means that you're frustrated that you're trying to show someone you're frustrated by huffing the words out and by using those words that have different connotations you're able to you're able to better tell people how you feel based on the words it better explains what you're thinking here's a good example saying the sunset was pretty that's pretty neutral you know that it's pretty you know that it's good but you don't really know much beyond that versus the sentence the sunset was a medley of red and orange that's much more descriptive the word choice in that is much more positive you know okay they really liked the sunset it was very pretty you can tell based on their word choice what the sunset really looked like it had red and oranges in it and you have a better image in your mind of what they were trying to say by using words with more positive connotation they were able to better communicate with you how they really felt about the sunset so modern linguistics is constantly changing as i said before slang changes on almost a day-to-day basis but there's also new forms of linguistics specifically in emojis and emojis whether you realize it or not are basically a whole new language you are communicating with symbols on what you mean how many people have added an emoji to the end of the text to be like hey that was a joke or i'm not really serious about this to make sure that they know you're being sarcastic because over text it's hard to tell if people are being literal or sarcastic but by using emojis a new form of language you can better communicate that many emojis like these have facial expressions to better communicate what you're feeling because words may not always describe perfectly what you're feeling but facial expressions and emotions can better highlight what you mean by your words and what you mean to portray to the other person and it's ironic actually because three thousand years ago when their egyptians were using similar forms of linguistics by using hieroglyphics hieroglyphics are a pictographic type of language that used symbols to show what they mean and we're almost coming full circle again by using emojis to now reflect our words when we used to use pictures in egypt as a human kind and now we're going back to that so as i said before linguistics is constantly changing i don't know where linguistics will be in the future because it's changing the slang we use is changing and how we communicate is changing in the modern world we're going toward more digital forms of communication breaking down barriers that might have stopped us from talking to people of different languages and those far away from us now there's translators and there's pictures that are able to best communicate with people who may have previously had language barriers so in conclusion linguistics is always changing but it's important that you understand how to best communicate with people and best portray what you're feeling to those around you if you understand the importance of your words and the importance of what you're saying you can make a better impact on the world around you and communicate with those you may have previously not and that is how we move forward one step at a time [Music] thank you caitlyn an important presentation especially as a language teacher our next presenter is julianna souza juliana is a junior here at dartmouth high school juliana is a member of the high school winter track spring track and cross country team additionally she's a member of the debate team and the political science club she's also a writer for the dhs practum newspaper juliana shows her topic so that she can right bring light to the issues that are often overlooked by society please join me in welcoming julianna souza as she presents the truth behind your meal [Music] the last time you ate chicken did you think of how old that chicken was or when you had a burger did you think of where that cow came from when considering one's meal most of us never connect our food to the animal only viewing our meal as well a meal and not as an animal we believe that since we are humans we have a right to do we want to the planet into other animals but it doesn't have to be this way so we haven't always eaten meat so when did we begin doing this our ancestors began to eat meat around 2.6 million years ago before this we consisted of a mostly plant-based diet with some scavenged meat due to this our digestion was a lot slower and so a lot of our energy and effort was used to digest these foraged foods once we added meat to our diet this energy was transferred to be spent in the brain so our brain grew but any calorie food at this time would have had the same effect on our brains it's just that meat was available to us so in today's society most of us no longer need to consume meat so why do we well we do so because it tastes good but is sensory pleasure from our taste buds justifiable for taking away an animal's life so as with meat we consume cow's milk but why do we consume cow's milk we begin to consume cow's milk around 6 000 years ago in europe but the dairy market didn't begin until the 1940s where the wpa works progress administration carried out advertisements under fdr's new deal they promoted the sale and the consumption of milk after this multiple acts were passed promoting the sale of milk in requiring milk and school lunches milk became subsidized by the government meaning it was partially paid for by the government in 1990 u.s congress passed the milk promotion act where it allowed the promotion of milk with this in 1993 the california milk processing board launched advertisements known as the got milk campaign which we all know very well the got milk campaign featured celebrities promoting the sale of milk it increased consumption of milk dramatically but however in 1997 harvard did a study on milk and bone health due to the rising consumption of milk in the advertisements of milk they investigated whether high intakes of milk two or more glasses a day as suggested reduced the risk for osteoporosis and bone fracture as it was claimed but the study found none of these were true so how did the milk campaigns respond they increased their ads so what do cows have to go through to give us their milk in the dairy industry cows are forcibly impregnated by humans in order to give us milk cows don't produce milk for humans they produce milk as part of their natural reproductive cycle we are stealing this milk from these cows they do not make this milk for us they make it for their calf so in the dairy industry male cows if the calf is born male they are taken away from the mother less than 24 hours when they are born and they are killed and sold for reveal or they are sent to a farmhouse where they are raised to be one to two years old and they are killed and sold for me one to two years old if they are born female they carry out the same lives of their mothers they endure a life of abuse just for us to have cheese or us to consume milk in the wild and on farms cows can naturally live up to 20 years old but in the dairy industry female cows only live up to five years old due to how tired their bodies are from constantly becoming impregnated and lactating this milk but it doesn't have to be this way this theft this murder in this abuse can easily be solved by switching to a plant-based milk we don't need to consume cow's milk human aren't meant to consume cow's milk if anything it is more natural for us to consume plant milk so why do we treat dogs and cats so differently than we treat farm animals speciesism speciesism is the different treatment of animals based off of their species for instance we treat a dog and a cat with compassion but we treat farm animals with well not we believe that since we are humans we have the right to dictate what happens to animals we believe that we can say oh well you deserve to be treated with love and well you deserve to be treated with abuse because i like the way you taste but there is no difference between a dog and a pig and if there is it's very little these animals are not meant to be farm animals cows pigs and chickens are not meant to be farm animals they were chosen chosen because they are gentle they are compassionate and they are loving you would not see a farm full of bears or tigers even though you can eat them and i'm sure that they taste good we take advantage of these animals so why love one but eat the other we don't need to treat animals so differently we can work towards a different future where all animals are treated equally no matter their species so often we talk about the abuse and the inhumane killing of animals we resort to saying we should kill them in a humane way but can you kill an animal humanely the definition of humane is having a showing compassion or benevolence you can't however show compassion to someone by taking away their life the solution is not killing these animals in a less painful way it is not killing them at all when we don't need to consume this meat you cannot humanely kill someone who doesn't want to die so moving away from cows what about pigs pigs are the fourth most intelligent animal on the planet following chimpanzees dolphins and elephants but pigs are treated very very differently than these animals if we were to eat an elephant that would be seen as inhumane but if we eat a pig well that's normal pigs are more intelligent than dogs and their cognitive abilities can be compared to that of a three-year-old child but again we don't treat them this way pigs in the meat industry are killed at six months old six months and for females they are killed at less than two years old after becoming forcibly impregnated by humans pigs are not objects they are individuals they are animals pigs are intelligent they are creative and social animals but we deprived them of all of these things for three pieces of bacon on our burger but it doesn't have to be this way so what about chickens as seen in this graph chickens have been bred to be a much larger size than they are naturally intended to be this is to increase the amount of meat per chicken which is understandable but have we ever considered the health effect that this has on the chicken as well as with meat chickens produce eggs for us in the wild chickens would naturally produce 10 to 12 eggs a year now they're forced to produce up to 300 eggs a year this has extreme health effects on chickens where near the end of their life they can barely hold up their body weight due to how fragile and weak their bones are this is known as osteoporosis so in the egg industry male chicks are killed at one to two days old because they are not profitable in the egg industry female chicks are are face the same lives as their mothers where they are locked inside of these farmhouses deprived of any humane living standards they live up to less than two years old after enduring a life of misery we do all of this for just some chicken nuggets or some scrambled eggs to have with our breakfast in the morning so fish fish are one of the most forgotten animals when it comes to meat we believe that fish are unintelligent and that they can't feel pain but they are intelligent and they can feel pain our society has shifted into an aquaculture society where our our fish industry has shifted into fish farming rather than captured from the ocean and as seen in the grass it is expected to keep growing to be this way fish farming is often thought to be sustainable which it is in some stances but we never consider the actual fish fish as i said before can feel pain but millions of them can be locked into one single farm where they barely have enough room to swim around freely just because the anatomy of a fish's body is different doesn't make them any less deserving of freedom and equality than other marine animals so when often talk about agriculture climate change is brought up and as we can see in the graph beef is the highest emitter of greenhouse gases compared to almost all of the other foods following beef is other animal products below these animal products are plant-based protein options such as tofu vegetables beans etc as we can see these these all have extremely less emitters of greenhouse gas so why do greenhouse gases even matter greenhouse gases keep our planet warm by trapping in the earth's heat but too much greenhouse gas makes our global temperature rise and become too warm with the increase in consumption of meat these greenhouse gases emitted from these animal products are growing but some may argue animal agriculture compared to other emitters of greenhouse gases have a very little effect but we never take into account the transportation effects it can take from moving these animals to and across the country the deforestation of cutting chopping multiple trees acres of trees down to make room for these land animals and the water usage it can take that all contribute to climate change as well climate change is not just greenhouse gases so in order to get our meat someone has to do the killing of these animals oftentimes these workers are migrant immigrant workers that have nowhere else to work these conditions in these factories for these workers to face are extreme and often times workers can face ptsd from the brutal killing of these animals of killing hundreds to thousands of animals in a single day workers often resort to substance abuse and can suffer from anxiety depression or dissociation from reality due to how difficult their job is we often believe that it is a personal choice to consume meat or animal products but it's not a personal choice or a matter of opinion when not only do personal choices have a victim such as an animal but a worker a human being that has to suffer for our choices as well so what is the solution what can i do now you don't have to give up your favorite foods all of your favorite foods are available in a plant-based option there is everything available in our modern day world and even foods you don't even realize are already naturally plant-based we can shift our market and our society into a predominantly animal based agriculture society into a plant-based society to create a kinder world for animals people and the environment humans need calcium they don't need cow's milk humans need protein we don't need meat every nutrient found in these animal products can be found in other plant-based foods there is no reason to treat these animals this way when we almost everyone has these products available to them and for those who don't if those who aren't the privilege do take action we can make it more accessible for those people so instead of consuming cow's milk we can opt for plant-based milk such as oat milk almond milk soy milk coconut milk and so many other more there are plant-based cheeses plant-based chicken nuggets plant-based burgers and these aren't as extremely weird as they sound because they happen to taste almost exactly like animal products it is something as simple as reaching for that product instead so we have to consider that our choices are not just personal choices they have a victim these are living beings they are animals animals that want to be free animals that don't want to die they're they are living beings so next time you're in the grocery store or you're eating out or you're going to eat for dinner think do i really need to consume this meat or can i opt for a plant-based version do i really need to get cow's milk or can i get almond milk instead little choices like that can make such a difference and can push yourself into taking a step forward the choice is up to you this is how we move forward one step at a time thank you juliana for presenting a very interesting topic these days this concludes our presentations for pierithy period one so thank you very much and we'll see you later on today [Music] do [Music] do [Music] do [Music] do [Music] do [Music] do [Music] do [Music] mmm [Music] do [Music] do [Music] do [Music] so [Music] do [Music] do [Music] do [Music] do [Music] do [Music] do [Music] do [Music] so [Music] do [Music] hello dhs and welcome back to our period 2 presentations for tedx dhs 2021 mr susan and i would like to welcome you for this next period and for third period the tedx club is thrilled to present to you this exciting event here at dartmouth high school this is an independently organized event this year it will be broadcast and obviously you know that uh via live stream here at d by dhs tv media productions this year our format has changed from having a live audience because of course we need to meet covid protocol guidelines we are also having participants wear masks to meet those guidelines our theme this year is sociology moving forward one step at a time students from cohorts a and cohorts b are presenting topics that vary in terms of their own personal passions these students have volunteered their time to this group and diligently prepared presentations to enlighten you on these various topics you may be new to ted and maybe wondering who's this ted guy well i'm here to tell you there isn't a ted guy ted is actually an acronym for technology entertainment and design the ted organization has covered many ideas that are worth spreading and does this in various fields of study you will see the same diversity today in the presentations that are about to be presented to you so let's get started our first presenter is juliana souza juliana is a junior here at dartmouth high school juliana is a member of our high school winter track spring track and cross-country teams she is also a member of the debate team and the political science club and is a writer for the dhs spectrum newspaper juliana chose her topic so that she can bring light to the issues that are often overlooked in society please join me in welcoming giuliana souza as she presents the truth behind your meal the last time you ate chicken did you think of how old that chicken was or when you had a burger did you think of where that cow came from when considering one's meal most of us never connect our food to the animal only viewing our food as well food and not that the animal that that food once was we believe that since we are human we have the right to do we want to the planet and to other animals but it doesn't have to be this way we haven't always eaten meat so when did we begin doing this our ancestors began to eat meat around 6000 years ago prior to this no 2.6 million years ago prior to this we consisted of a mainly plant-based diet with some scavenged meat because of this our digestion was a lot slower so a lot of our bodies energy was used to digest these foods but once we added meat to our diet less of this energy was used on digestion and was transferred to be spent on our growing brains because of this well our brains grew and our digestion became faster but any calorie dense food at this time could have had the same effect on our brains it's just that meat was available to us today most of us no longer need to consume meat we choose to because it tastes good but is sensory pleasure from our taste buds justifiable for taking away an animal's life as with meat we consume dairy we began to consid consume dairy in europe around 6 000 years ago but dairy didn't become a market until the 1940s where the works progress administration carried out advertisements to promote milk under fdr's new deal with this milk became subsidized by the government essentially milk was partially paid for throughout the next years there were many instances of milk being advertised and it was introduced into schools free or low of charge milk became a huge part of american culture but in 19 in 1990 u.s congress passed the milk promotion act where it allowed the promotion of milk with this in 1993 the california milk processing board carried out the very famous campaign got milk which we all know very well it featured many celebrities promoting the sale of milk however in 1997 harvard did a study on milk and bone health to see these claims that the milk companies were representing they investigated with their high intakes milk two or more cups a day reduced the risk for osteoporosis and related bone fracture the study found that it did not so how did the milk campaigns respond they increased their advertisements so what do cows have to go through to give us their milk humans are not meant to consume cow's milk cows don't milk make milk for us we are stealing that milk from cows cows produce this milk for their babies so in the dairy industry if the calf is born male they are killed and sold for veal or they are sent to a farm where they are killed at one to two years old and sold for meat if they are born female they carry the same exhausting lives as their mothers where they are forcibly impregnated and are made to be lactating this milk that is not for us in the wild cows live an average of 20 years but cows only live up to about five years due to their bodies becoming extremely tired from this constant impregnation and last hitting of this milk we are forced to view cows as only objects objects that supply us with something but cows are individuals they deserve a life of freedom and autonomy just as with a dog or a cat would so speaking of dogs and cats why do we give so much compassion and love to dogs and cats but not to other animals speciesism speciesism is the belief that certain species are superior to others while others aren't so in our standpoint dogs and cats are superior to cows and pigs but there is very little that separates these two animals they're only slight characteristics that separate pigs and dogs but their treatment is very very different so why love one but eat the other it doesn't have to be this way we can work towards a different future where dogs and pigs or cows and cats are treated equally and it doesn't matter their species so often we talk about the inhumane killing and the mistreatment of farm animals we resort to saying that we should kill them in a humane way but can you kill an animal humanely the definition of humane is having or showing compassion or benevolence you can't have or show compassion to someone by taking away their life the solution isn't necessarily giving these animals a good life and them killing them in a less painful way it is not taking their life away at all you cannot humanely kill someone who doesn't want to die in the first place so besides cows what about pigs pigs are the fourth most intelligent animal on the planet following chimpanzees dolphins elephants but they are treated very very differently than these other animals if someone were to eat an elephant that would be seen as inhumane and awful but when we eat a pig that's normal so in the pig industry if a pig is born a male they are killed at six months old for me but if they are born a female they carry out the same lives of their mothers and they are killed at two years old but it doesn't have to be this way pigs are individuals they're not objects that supply us with meat they deserve a life of freedom pigs are a creative intelligent and loving animals but they are deprived of all of these things for three pieces of bacon on our burger so as well with pigs what about chickens chickens have been bred dramatically throughout the past decades larger than what is intended for their bodies as we can see in this image we consider that this gives us more meat but we never consider how this affects the chickens themselves chickens are not able to hold up their body weight due to how much weight they are carrying as with meat chickens produce eggs in the wild chickens produce 10 to 12 eggs a year but now they are forced to produce up to 300 eggs a year this has extreme health effects on chickens and causes osteoporosis where near the end of their life they're barely able to keep themselves up due to how fragile and weak their bones are in the egg industry male chicks are killed at one to two days old because they are not profitable in this industry female chicks endure the same lives of their mothers where they are trapped inside these farms with no living no adequate living standards and they are killed at two years old just as with all the other animals i've talked about these chickens are individuals and they don't deserve to be locked up in these farms for something as simple as scrambled eggs or chicken so when talking about meat we often forget to mention fish we believe that fish are unintelligent and that they can't feel pain but they are intelligent and they can feel this pain our society has shifted into an aquaculture market and as we can see in this graph it is growing into that we have resorted to fish farming instead of regular capture fissuring we often have dismissed we often mistake fishermen for being sustainable which it isn't certain factors but we never consider the fish themselves in fish farming fish are kept inside of these farms where millions of them can be held in one single farm fish are barely even able to swim around freely fish do not deserve this as i said before fish are intelligent animals and they don't deserve to be treated any differently than other marine animals so climate change climate change is often brought up when discussing animal agriculture and as we can see on the graph beef is the highest emitter of greenhouse gases by a dramatic amount compared to other products and below beef is other animal products but below these animal products are plant-based options such as tofu nuts or vegetables which all have much less emitters of greenhouse gases but why do greenhouse gases matter greenhouse gases keep our planet warm by trapping in the earth's heat but too much greenhouse gases makes our global temperature too warm and due to increased amount of greenhouse gases being admitted this is happening so a common argument is that animal agriculture doesn't have as much greenhouse gas emissions as other emitters of greenhouse gases such as transportation or electricity but we never consider the huge climate effect it has on transporting these animals to and across the country deforestation that takes place to make room for these animals and the water usage it takes to develop these animal products climate change is not just greenhouse gas emissions it is so much more than that so we often forget that people living beings have to do the killing of these animals oftentimes the slaughterhouse workers are migrant or immigrant workers that have no other options but to work in these facilities slaughterhouse workers can suffer from ptsd due to the emotional turmoil of killing hundreds to thousands of animals a day slaughterhouse workers can resort to substance abuse and oftentimes can suffer from anxiety issues depression and dissociation from reality due to how vigorous their jobs are it is not a personal choice to eat meat it is not a matter of one's own opinion when they not only have an animal that is a victim but a human being that has to go through this for our personal choices so what is the solution what is the alternative you don't have to give up your favorite foods all of your favorite foods are available in plant-based options or there are some foods you may not even realize are already plant-based to begin with so there is so much information available there are so many recipes videos and advice available online with the click of one button humans don't need to consume cow's milk we need calcium humans don't need to eat meat we need protein all of these nutrients found in these animal products can be found in any plant-based food there is no reason for this abuse in this killing of these animals when we can get all of our nutrients in other foods that don't have this much of an impact on animals humans and the environment so instead of consuming cow's milk we can opt for a plant-based milk such as almond milk soy milk oat milk or coconut milk we don't need to consume cow's milk cow's milk is not meant for us to consume as well with meat we don't have to eat the meat from other animals we can have plant-based meat options and it is not as extreme as it seems to be in fact it makes more sense for humans to consume meat i mean plant-based options in our modern day world than meat so we need to realize that our food choices are not just personal choices they have a victim these are animals they are living beings that suffer and have to be killed for us to consume these products but doesn't have to be this way we can work towards a different future where these animals are treated equally to other animals and they don't suffer a life of abuse so the next time you're in the grocery store think do i really need to grab this cow's milk or can i grab a plant-based milk instead it is something as simple as reaching for that dairy-free yogurt or that meat alternative the choice is up to you this is how we can move forward one step at a time [Applause] [Music] thank you juliana great topic to provide your peers with alternatives all right our next presenter is cole perry cole perry is a senior here at dartmouth high school he is very involved in the theater program and is a member of our dhs football team cole is also a member of winter track and spring track and is involved in our acapella group harmonix and i've heard him sing it is wonderful cole chose his topic because he plans to join the military after graduation and believes that this is a great option for many students who want to both serve their country and obviously learn a variety of new skills please join me in welcoming cole perry as he presents military versus college [Applause] as a fellow student and a fellow senior we have lots of choices to make this year many are from college to military in family related matters especially since scovit happened this year as a student that does many activities after school as mrs true said it's important that we don't let others base our opinions and what we want to do in our future based off of theirs let's make our own decisions to advance our life it's your choice whether you want to go to the military or if you want to join college high school students have several options to consider when you are going into the military if you join the military unlike college there's different enlistment periods there's three years six years or 12 years this is different from if you want to go into the medical field when you're in college it might take eight or plus years as if you join active duty this means that you are based outside of the country or inside the country for extended amount of time as reserves are like the national guard during the capital attacks this year they were called in for more than three weeks now and once it's over they'll go back home to their families and after you do active duty and reserves you can go to the civilian life civilians are people who are after after they join the military in case of war they will be called in enlistment possibilities three years six years or 12 years three years is your basic level of entry when you join the military six years is the middle ground in 12 years is the highest amount you can serve for a consecutive amount of period 12 years and six years you all you have more benefits that you can choose from like a sign-on bonus or more more to your housing stipend and your food stiphon the gi bill stands for the soldier bill and the general enlistment bill the soldiers were called gis that's where this comes from and the bill helps veterans and active duty soldiers get their higher level education the department of veterans affairs and education benefit is the one who deals with the gi bill and you can find more on the website about their benefits as an active duty soldier or as a veteran this helps especially the medical field where tuition can go up to thousands of thousands of dollars where you can join the military and get it basically for nothing for serving your country for three years or six years or 12 years jobs for the next two slides i will be discussing the difference between military jobs and college jobs if you get out these are the same jobs and there's multiple jobs after this that we won't see today for one medics medics in the military are very important as they serve for many different branches of the military such as the coast guard army national guard air force and navy medics will receive one month out of of advanced training and learning through the coast guard this does not include the basic training which is an average of a two-month span period for all branches of the military doctors medical school which is paid for by the u.s government this is important because medical school as you know costs a lot of money to the average student pilots you need to have a bachelor's degree and become an officer and go to flight school this is also paid for by the u.s government captains get an off get officer training and you need to have a c-lift support officer which includes joining the military going to basic training and going through additional steps to become an officer engineers we are in desperate need of engineers in this country today you need a college degree and and you need to become an engineering officer compared to when you go to college college is really expensive now up to twenty thousand dollars in student debt as in college you need for a medic not just as an emt or a paramedic they're two separate things you need three months of ent school as just to become a basic emt and a bachelor's degree to become a paramedic this becomes expensive because as soon as you get your bachelor's degree it's two thousand three thousand dollars more compared to doctors where it's pre-medicine studies medical school and you need to take your board exams this could be from eight years plus compared to where you join the military it would take a year two years pilots college degrees in flight transportation and commercial flight training this means you would have to take commercial flight training with a major flight company like delta jet blue american airlines and that could take up to two years as flight as flight school fills up really fast in the united states compared to if you join with the military you get air force level training which is a higher level of training and when you get out of the military you can serve with a major flight transportation company like american airlines engineers and captains captains is anywhere from an oil vessel to a major cruise ship captains no matter where you go in the united states you have to join through the u.s coast guard to get your captain's license this means you have to get trainings on all sorts of ships engineers you need to take the fe which is the fundamentals of engineering you need to go into engineer training and have a four years apprenticeship compared to when you join the military you get a two-year education and by the time you get out three years six years or 12 years you're ready to go you're ready to join the engineering course debt student debt this is where all really comes into play according to forbes the average student debt across the world is thirty two thousand nine hundred dollars that's a lot of money that's almost like a mortgage to some people that's a house payment the u.s total student debt is an astonishing 1.56 trillion dollars for that that's more than people make in a lifetime that's a lot of money to spend on college compared to the military debt which is zero you get a higher level education for less money it's a great option to choose to get your foot in the door in the workforce rotc programs this is a major step for high school students looking to get their foot in the door if they want to see if they want to join the military if kids are not if kids are not really sure whether to join this will get them to really see what what what it's like this stands for the reserves officer training corp the rot students are for students that are thinking about joining the military and new bedford high school is the only high school in the south coast that is given the option and that runs the jrotc this is the junior version and this allows him to get advanced training and even join the military at an advanced rank like an officer what can schools do schools across america have changed their opinions about military over the years all high schools except if you want to go into the military but a lot of them are not really sure how to handle it it's mostly college and that's where a lot of students lean to well the first step is rotc programs this advances your choices in the military you can choose up to all five branches of the military and with the rotc program you can even join at an advanced rank two is the asvab test the azweb test is a military testing program that allows you to be able to pick if you get a high enough rank to join all five branches of the military in all factors of the military the azweb test is crucial because it's base if you do it in the high school it's a pre-test you can take the asvab test multiple times if you please and the higher score you get is the more branches that you can get into this allows students to see where they stand and if they want to advance into the military career or go into the college route and the third is invite military recruiters to the schools this is important because without military recruiters you won't get to know your benefits and where you stand most military recruiters they're only at lunch shifts and they don't really say much they hand out lanyards if this was available more people would get to find out what their benefits are like stipend for food stiphon for houses there's multiple benefits and sign-on bonuses you can even become a cook for the coast guard or the military and make up to five thousand dollars more a year this is how you advance advance your steps in the military thank you for listening to my ted talk [Applause] thank you cole that was a great way to enlighten your peers in terms of what options they have upon graduation okay and here we go with caitlyn our third presenter for period two is caitlyn silva caitlyn is a junior here at dartmouth high school and this is her first tedx dhs presentation and we are so happy to have her with us caitlyn is a member of the winter track teams along with being on the soccer and lacrosse teams as well she is also on the debate team and is a member of the political science club caitlin chose her topic of linguistics because she enjoys her studies in english and writing caitlyn finds it fascinating that by changing one word in a sentence there can be a significant change to the overall meaning of the entire sentence and what is being said additionally caitlyn hopes that she will be able to teach people about the importance of word choice in both writing and speaking please welcome caitlin silva as she presents the importance of linguistics [Applause] [Music] the first step to understanding why linguistics is so important in our life is understanding what exactly linguistics is by definition linguistics is the study of languages and words studying why you say what you say and what exactly it means it is also the study of how languages have evolved and adapted over time many languages influence one another especially if they're in class close proximity with another this can be seen in the case of spanish and portuguese if you've studied one or either of those languages you know that those languages are very similar they have similar grammar and word choice this is likely because portugal and spain are very close to one another so those languages were able to adapt and change together to have similarities but in modern day linguistics is not just the study of how languages changed and adapted it's also the study of word choice which is what i find to be the most important part of linguistics once you know what you're going to say you can reveal a lot about you stuff that you might not realize such as where you live in the country your economic status your education level and even your age so how exactly does it do this well first off it can reveal where you live through regional dialects starting with accents everyone has an accent whether they realize it or not you don't notice your accent because you've grown up hearing people speak like you around here we have a bossnet sent we might drop the r's or t's in certain sentences and not even realize it but if you go down south you're going to hear southern accents which are going to sound strange to us because we've only grown up hearing the accents of the people around us you might remember hearing an accent on a tv show that seems really strange to you and that's just because you are not used to it and someone from another part of the country might hear us speak and say wow they have a really strange accent because they're not used to our accent either but through word choice you can also tell where people are from based on those regional dialects because different parts of the country have different words for the same thing such as bubbler around here if you're going to get a drink in between classes you're going to the bubbler but if you were maybe down south or in the western part of the country you go to a drinking or a water fountain the same can be seen with the word soda a carbonated drink around here is just a soda but in other parts of the country they refer to it as pop which may seem strange strange to us because we don't say that we say soda the same is true with sneakers around here you just put sneakers on to go for a run but if you're in the west you might refer to them as tennis shoes word choice can also reveal a lot about your age specifically in the slang you use slang is always changing from a day-to-day basis to over the course of generations a good example of this is the expression the bee's knees for those of you who don't know what that means it was a word used in prior generations to mean cool or exciting if you hear someone saying wow that's the bee's knees it means it was good it was cool but nowadays we don't use that we use words like cool but if you hear someone saying the expression the bee's knees it's like likely an indicator that they're older or that they're influenced a lot by people who are older than them the same can be seen even with more modern terms the expression lit was popular a few years ago to mean the same thing cool or exciting but nowadays if you say the word lit it's most likely ironically or it's an indicator that someone is on the older side and they don't they're not able to keep up with the modern day slang that people are using you can also tell a lot about someone's education and economic levels based on the words they say this is not a true indicator as it's not always a tie but more often than not if you're a higher economic status you have higher education levels this is of course not always true as someone with low economic status can have a high education level but more often than not it is true a good example of this would be the word common common's a pretty normal word it just means many or often but if you were to use the word prevalent that might indicate that you have a higher level vegetation and you're more likely to have a higher level of economic success so why is any of this important why do we need to understand what we're saying and what it means well once you understand what you're saying and what it means you can make your words much more impactful you're able to better control how you say things how things come off and better tell the person near you what you are feeling and what you are trying to communicate with them one way you can do this is through tone tone reveals how you feel about the words how you're feeling when you say them and you shouldn't use the same tone for everyone how many people have heard their parents say don't use that tone with me or don't speak like that with me because maybe you're using too informal of a tone formal tones are usually used when you're talking to someone you respect to someone you might not know well or have a deep bond with so you wouldn't want to say something super casual with them well on the opposite side you have informal tones which you might use with your friends or someone you're really close with because you know them and you're able to use different words with them for example why don't we hang out soon verse we need to arrange a meeting soon the first one is much more informal it's something you say to a friend or someone you're close with you wouldn't want to say that to a teacher that would be creepy because you don't have a informal relationship with them you have a formal relationship with them so you should be saying we need to arrange a meeting soon that is much more formal much more respectful especially to people that you don't have a close relationship with but you also wouldn't want to say that to a friend because you're trying to give off an informal tone that you're familiar with them you're friendly so you would say why don't we hang out soon there's also a lot of difference in how you say words that can greatly impact the tone if i say that sounds great versus that sounds great the second one is much more negative it's not as enthusiastic it's likely sarcastic but the first one it was very happy it was in a positive light based on how you say the words you can communicate how you're feeling what you want your words to say saying something sarcastically implies that you don't really mean it but saying it enthusiastically means you do mean it you really mean it and you're trying to portray that to them another thing you need to be careful of is filler words if i came up here and said um so um like anyway um you would think i was nervous you would think i don't know what i'm talking about by using filler words you're reducing the impact of what you're saying and you're making it more clunky harder for people to understand what you mean they're just getting off all these filler words thinking oh she's nervous oh she doesn't really know what she's talking about for example i think i saw that our teacher might be absent today versus our teacher is absent the first one has a lot of filler words it's reducing the impact of what you're trying to say and by doing that you're making yourself sound uneasy unsure and you don't want to do that when you're speaking especially when you know what you're talking about so by saying our teacher is absent that is much more definitive it means you know what you're talking about you know that teacher is absent it is much more impactful you also have to be careful about word connotations words have a literal meaning their definition in the dictionary and they also have an implied meaning words can be neutral positive or negative based on what they're trying to say for example the word skinny that's a pretty neutral word it means that you don't have much weight on you you're skinny but if you're going to say the word scrawny that's a much more negative light to the word skinny it means maybe you're too skinny the person telling you that you're scrawny or describing someone as scrawny is trying to make them seem negatively skinny it's not a good way of describing someone versus saying slender while this also means skinny it's skinny in a more positive light it's saying that okay they're skinny but this is good this can also be seen with the word said every english teacher hates the word said because it's neutral it doesn't give you much more beyond the fact that they're speaking versus saying the word assured that's positive if you're assuring someone to something you're trying to make them feel better you're trying to keep them happy whereas saying huffed if you huff out a word it's not a good thing you're frustrated you're agitated and you're just huffing things out by saying huffed or assured over said you're giving someone a better understanding of whether or not this was a positive or a negative situation oh for example the sunset was pretty that's pretty neutral it's telling you basically that the sunset was good that they liked it but not much else beyond that versus saying the sunset was a medley of red and orange that is much more descriptive that has given you more imagery and so you can understand better what they are trying to communicate with you you can now know that it's oh it's red and orange it's a medley it's a very positive thing it was very beautiful so modern linguistics is always changing first i already said that the slang is moving and constantly changing from day to day but there's also new languages coming to show for example emojis emojis are a more modern formal language that uses pictures to show what people really mean how often have you put an emoji at the end of a text message to say hey that was just a joke or i was being sarcastic about that emojis such as the on the screen that show facial expressions are used to show emotion and show what the person really means something that words can't best communicate when you're just over a text by using emojis to show your emotions you're able to say hey even though the words might sound a little bit sarcastic i was just kidding this is just a joke because i was using maybe the crying laughing face emoji whereas if you just use the words it might have a different meaning by showing your facial expressions and emotions you're better able to communicate with people it's ironic actually because languages originally had similar forms to this thousands of years ago in egypt they used hieroglyphics which were pictographic forms like emojis to communicate with people and to write down what they saw it is almost a cycle that we have come from using hieroglyphics using pictographic languages to now even though we have advanced form of word-based languages we're still using emojis still using art to better demonstrate our emotions and what we are trying to communicate the future of linguistics is constantly changing i don't know what words will sound like in a few hundred or thousand years but i know that it is very important that we understand what is happening especially in modern day when languages are becoming more digital and new forms of communication are taking shape in the digital age it's easier than ever to communicate with people that you may have not been able to because of language barriers the internet has translators and emojis that are universal signs of art so that you can communicate with people who you may not have been able to in the future in the past sorry in conclusion linguistics is always changing i've said it multiple times and i'm going to say it again linguistics is always changing and you need to be aware of that because understanding how it changes how it impacts your words is the key step to being able to communicate with the world around you and that is how we move forward one step at a time thank you caitlin this concludes our period two portion of the tedx dhs conference for 2021.
good thank you for that and just curious in general like in relation to president's day do you touch on george washington at all yeah we touch on we touch on many of the presidents throughout the curriculum but we also touch on the significance of each of those presidents as well thank you elaborate on that a little bit um you know there are a lot of famous american individuals in history and certainly famous events in history and our curriculum touches on each of those throughout we don't typically like stop uh every grade level for lincoln's birthday and washington's birthday for example you know those things will receive mentions in many places but we dive more deeply into those historic figures and events within the context of the curriculum the way i like to think of it is you know if i you know if you walk through the woods and you have those those boondocks there those little things that stick to your clothes if you're walking through wearing their the raincoat they don't stick to you in when it's in the context of what you're learning that information really sticks with you if it's just a hit and run one day off it's just like wearing the raincoat and i can get away with making obscene metaphors like this because my friends that i've worked with that died for many years will laugh at me but it's a visual that you know within the context of what you're learning it's such a more powerful experience and a hook that will really um stick with kids we don't really subscribe to one hit wonders like hit it like today was this i mean the student may go home and remember that today but three days from now that boondock is falling off uh and they they've lost it but we really try and dive deep into it when we're going through those uh events in our curriculum hope that was helpful thanks adam uh you're up next and actually every board member so adam and catherine let's go through the list thank you um uh firstly i'd just like to comment on what uh what a great presentation this was the uh to see the the application of all these great technologies which i'm sure that you probably all had to learn in a very short period of time certainly uh weeks if not months to and to see you execute them at a near what appears to be a near expert level uh and to be able to to be innovative in teaching kids in this difficult time is really amazing and so i congratulate you on that and i know that the community does as well knowing the importance of being able to to keep our schools open um especially um at the middle school level um where um you know it's because of you that um our kids were able to to learn uh in a more normal way uh than they would have especially in other communities um and i just wanted to to to give a little kudos to the uh the language arts teacher um i took uh three years of french in high school and i probably probably learned more in the uh five minutes i saw uh there no i know that the teacher's no longer in the school system so it's fine but um at least i was able to to recognize uh french um at its very basic level so that that was great um and uh also i had mr sagnella for uh my science teacher in uh dot and his teaching methods were much more traditional than the hands-on that we that we witnessed uh this evening so you guys are all doing a great job thank you adam uh catherine you're up thanks thanks tony um and i just have more of a comment as well i don't really have any questions but i just i'm struck by the creativity that you all um showed in figuring out the right way to have like as as i guess synchronous you know experience for remote learners and in-person learners and because it's i'm not a teacher and you know i have teachers in my family and i know how exhausting it has been for a lot of teachers to try to sort of juggle um paying attention to the students that are right in front of you and the ones that are learning from home and i just have to say that um everything saw tonight is just such a uh fabulous you know indication of how creative you all are and i i'm just so impressed by what you've been able to accomplish and it's just another um let's see example of why our school system is so fabulous i mean it's you know you teachers and and administrators that are able to focus so you know deeply and and quickly and and you know as adam said you know get up to speed on things that were like who knew you were going to need this kind of stuff um and so i just congratulate you and i really appreciate all of the hard work that you have expanded for our kids and you're doing a fabulous job so that's all i wanted to say thanks thank you catherine ann and then andrew hi everyone and thank you for the great presentation it went across the board i have a pretty good idea of what's been going on at dodd this year uh my question is is based on because i'm an educator myself at the college level and i've been teaching um sort of online and i've done some hybrid classes last semester my question is how much of this these new techniques and these new uh parts to your curriculum will you keep even as we do move back to having most of our students if not all i don't think i don't know that we'll ever have all but um when we get back to the time when we have most of our students back in the classrooms all the time and i'm thinking specifically well different areas but i'm thinking of the pixel presentation as part of the art curriculum will that stay there as a unit and i'm also thinking of the um the go guardian um program is that something that will stay as part of the curriculum when you have uh students working individually on their chromebooks or whatever it seems to me that it's it it's a really useful tool to be able to see what all of your students are doing at a glance on on your one screen you see what all of their screens are doing and and you can sort of zoom in and out of of different students um views for feedback and um i don't it seems like there are some things i know there are some things in my teaching that i i'm not going to be letting go of because they're working for me and it's all about when something's working for you you know you got to incorporate it in and keep it keep it there so if anyone wants to speak to that i'd be very interested to know um what you're planning to keep in the curriculum these are incredible curiosities and i think what you're experiencing as as a teacher i think we're going to be experiencing as well um and as you can see if we were to take a look at the skills um that are needed in order to do those whether it be the the pixel art that shelly was talking about um or whether it be you know taking a look at video instruction and applying some techniques as we saw in the science class as well those skills are going to be throughout for these kids for the next you know five or six years um i know we're going to be taking a look as we go into our summer curriculum uh projects and those types of things these are going to be embedded if not some of these might be some standalone tools that we have in our tool chest as you heard from marsha you know if there's an injured student you know how can a student potentially keep maintaining uh some of these classes um you know shelley could utilize some of those art uh components um and and use that in a differentiated environment where some students who may not be grasping concept it may need to start a little bit more basic um and we we do this on a yearly basis we evaluate what we're utilizing in our in our classes um we you know obviously keep the the things that are working very strongly for us and we look to tweak and grow in the areas that we feel that we need to grow with our students um so like i said i i really do think as as you go through and and i can speak on a personal uh level as helping my father with some of his uh university you know lessons and lectures and powerpoints and presentations and those types of things the skills are there and and these kids are going to need these skills going forward because i think we can all agree um at least from a technology wise and how education is going to be running in the future i i think this is going to be permanently embedded and i'll just add on to mike um for a couple of months now we've been engaging at work what we're belovedly calling keep stop change activities and so lots of the folks on this call were a part of our district instructional technology committee where we did this activity a couple of months ago it's since been done with our elementary teachers and just recently it was last week with our administrative team so we've been compiling a list of all those things that we want to keep those things that we never want to see again and then those things that we we want to tweak we want to change so i'm so glad you asked the question yeah i i think it's very interesting and there will always be there are always good things that come out of even really bad situations like the situation that we've been forced into as teachers this past you know for a whole year really and but you know some good has come of it we have been forced in many ways i have been forced i know to change the way i do some things and it's not been for the bad it it really hasn't it's it's not a bad thing to shake things up a little bit re-evaluate there are some things that don't work well as you said marlene and you get rid of the stuff that doesn't work but there is stuff that we will keep and uh and i saw some great examples here tonight so thank you for for your presentation tonight everyone thank you ann andrew you're up yes thank you i'm just kind of following up on what everybody else has said here um i have watched my daughter's an eighth grader at dad until i was basically been feel like i'm part of the diet community since uh march of last year so i've seen a lot of what you folks have been able to do and so you've thanked us so i want to thank you guys for all the hard work because it's not only what you're able to provide to them but how you were able to pivot so quickly and use the technology that was afforded to you and as you know adam pointed out you you were learning right along with these kids or with these students as to how to use these platforms um so thank you for that but just quick question for miss castellano with the go guardian or maybe for for any of you really how is that used by everybody in the school or is that just being used by certain students or for as part of the reading curriculum or so i could talk a little bit just on the as the vice principal a little bit on the discipline and uh andrew obviously we know we give these kids these great technology tools and we really use them to enhance learning but it's also our responsibility to make sure they're being used responsibly so whether it's you know we start off with a responsible use policy but really you know miss castellano really was able to highlight some of the great features and how we've leveraged a pizza software that we really were using to make sure students were using technology responsibly and now we've taken that and we've really kind of developed our knowledge of that program and used it for everything we can and now we're using it to better our instruction as well so it is something that all our teachers who get training on being able to use in the classroom in in ensuring that students are you know you know they're talking around responsibly um from from class session to class session great thank you john and it is just as a quick note too it is also something that um is part of the kinetic guidelines when we do have technology we also have our students all have email addresses and those types of things we have to have some sort of monitoring software in order for us to engage students as well thank you thank you faith you had a question yeah thanks um i i echo everything my colleagues have said and i'm just so impressed at how quickly you all did get up to snuff on on all of this just your pros um so congratulations to you all and thank you um i have just uh the i think i was going through my notes and i guess the way you know your evaluation and your synthesis of census you got it of the um standards i think you called it acceleration way back in the october time frame when you were explaining it to us marlene can you give us an example anyone can speak to this where you went how you went through the standards and decided i mean give us some specifics what you kept for example in language arts what you kept as necessary and what you had to jettison and then also is that is that going to change our standards now that you've been working with them do you see you know just as we're changing technology and we're changing the the you know the methods of instruction are we going to change in some ways our method of um of establishing standards and then assessment and i don't know who wants to take that one well i i mean just from our practice that we have and marlene i know you can speak on this as well the practices that we do like i said before uh we assess you know at the end of every year i mean coming into the spring i'm sitting with my division leaders right now and we're really asking you know what's working what are the things that we need to tweak um we take a look at the needs based upon alignment we have some pieces coming right now in ngss you know we're taking a look at the book clubs and those types of things but we're also taking a look when we look at the standards when you see some of the standards we have the ability to really stress on some of these standards and we also have the ability to embed some of these standards in other places so can you give an example it just happened off the top of your head so um i will i can give you social studies ones because that's more quick but kristen kristen shanley can you uh just really quick i know there's there were some components about our writing standards that we would look to embed in other areas as well okay or i would tell you one example of things that we prioritized was students being able to cite evidence in a text that is definitely something that we want them to be able to do and that is something that applies to all the curricular areas it's not just specific to language arts whereas something like comparing text structure or analyzing the text structure that's not as important so like diving into the structure of a poem and why the poem was structured that way well yes it is you know important if you're going to end up being a english teacher or an english major in college it's probably not a skill that's going to be crucial for the average middle school student does that make sense no it does it does thanks and faith if i could i it sounds a little bit like you're asking too is something that i know we've been focused on you know for a long time actually in the district and that's providing multiple pathways for students to demonstrate mastery of a particular standard so you know as mike was saying within social studies if if you're looking to understand uh themes within the conflict you know that might be uh illustrated in a in a visual sense it may be uh shared musically it may be shared if you're measuring exactly uh the standard which is understanding those themes of conflicts there are various ways in which that can be demonstrated i'll never forget being high school principal when a student um shared an interpretive dance of a of uh the theme of a uh poem that she had read um and it was so powerful for her and the whole class it really illustrated to people that she captured i mean now sometimes students like like uh kristen just said using text-based evidence you can't do a dance for that you know but there are a lot of different ways although i have seen kristin dance because of text-based evidence before um but there are a lot of ways to demonstrate mastery of standards uh and we want to make sure students master a particular standard and there can be a lot of different expressions of that um i think you know when you say and all this does all this technology it allows us to provide students now even more paths to demonstrate mastery and i think that's really powerful for learning so you know that's one of those otherwise silver linings in this this dark period that we've been you know and what you've seen here tonight is these guys are amazing like what they've been able to learn and and share with our students in the period of now what's one year um really really powerful learning for our educators too and our students will benefit tremendously from that yeah can ask one more thank you sure thanks jeff um it's just in terms of you know i mean this those pictures of the book clubs kind of sit with me and and um i love the i seeing the kids together talking but you've got 20 percent of your students remote and how do you incorporate those remote students into those book clubs so that they feel like they're truly a part of it even though they're distant and you can't have a video on the you know on the risers kind of thing but i i you probably saw in in those photos that um students did bring laptops outside with them so they could run a google me so i had initiated the google me in the classroom uh started the meet a student logged into the meet from their laptop and then they became the laptop liaison they brought their laptop outside so then they could integrate the home learners into the book club discussion so it was um a way to integrate the in-person and our remote students the best way we could before we had breakout rooms that was early in the fall before we had breakout rooms as a free google service and now we can easily break into groups pairs groups of five six anything we can do we can any combination of group work we can do in a breakout room before that um i was running six school meets once and um making my own little breakout rooms but it was actually a pretty seamless way to integrate both the remote and in person students great okay thank you and that's across the board faith the breakout rooms was a game changer for us in the fall in order to engage the students who were learning remote yeah and if you're not familiar with breakout rooms in the meet like this right the organizer will allow for anybody who's watching the organizer will be able to break students into small groups into smaller meetings like this i know many people if you've used zoom have been able to experience that too so students still get that small group discussion and then the teacher can bring them back into the large group discussion right right okay thank you great thank you before i return back to john i know i think john wanted i think michael's going to hand out some of john before we started the comments about 10 minutes ago but i just want to just say one thing i know a lot of educators tonight and on this call i have thanked us the board administration but honestly the thanks belong goes to you because you know we we we do our share but you you folks are in the trenches you got thrown a curveball and a slider uh in a number of other very difficult pitches since since last march and i i know i it was rough going at first everyone had to learn quickly on the fly i'm just amazed at how you know our educators our staff came together i'm not surprised but but given this pandemic and how things change so much since last spring um there was always a fear that we're going to fall behind on some on some things that kids will be impacted and that that probably is happening to a very small degree but the fact that you've been able to achieve what you've been achieving so far for the last year um we have i think a lot of great feedback from parents a lot of great feedback from the community nothing's perfect but but the fact that kids are engaged and you know we we had a fear that you know being remote for so long at least those that stayed remote maybe they would lose interest it does seem the case actually soon be the opposite it's going to pick up interest so again i think that thanks goals definitely goes out to you all um not so much the board of ed but again thank you that's all i wanted to say that's not lost on us the work you're doing and continue to do so can't thank you enough uh before we turn back to john tim joe another comment yeah thank you tony uh yeah jeff i just wanted to um go back to what you had said a few minutes ago um not speaking to the curriculum and where topics are covered but uh while i recognize fully that george washington was an imperfect person uh he i i don't think it's fair to as far as i'm concerned he's not one of many famous people that is why he has a national holiday basically named after him and and so i don't think for me it's not fair to characterize him in that way i'm thinking martin luther king has a national holiday and that's probably about it um so anyway that was a simple point that i wanted to make thank you for sake of discussion i'll turn it back to the topic at hand tonight so john it was something that you wanted to talk about you know what tony i i think that hearing the comments from the board and even your summary i think the essence of what we wanted to portray tonight came through which is we wanted to really showcase you know what's going on in our building and the hard work our teachers are put in so you know i'm happy to take a back seat to them at any day of the week because they are the the lifeblood of our success and you know we're just so fortunate to to be able to work with them so i appreciate it but i think that you know we're pretty good that's great listen when i say educators includes you folks as well john administrators and support staff knows many folks but again we can't thank you enough and i know i speak for many many parents in town and students as well so when i say that uh dr sullin or marlene is there anything else to the middle middle school showcases evening no concludes our presentation yeah i was just gonna say again you know i appreciate both sides acknowledging the efforts of the other to provide the resources and the talent to really try and make the best of a very challenging situation but i also want to acknowledge our our students who it's so hard to be a 13 year old student and sit pretty much in the same desk all day and not be able to play basketball or be in the play and that is so hard i i can't imagine being in those shoes although i i try very hard to empathize with what they're experiencing and i think that's what makes our staff so special is because i know that every day they're connected to that and they know what our students usually experience and what they're not experiencing today which is why they've gone so far above and beyond what they probably thought was possible to be able to accommodate our students and why our students are are so awesome that they've been able to put all those challenges aside the best they can and make the best of a hard situation so i would be remiss if i didn't acknowledge them too so that's that's all i have for this evening all right before i uh almost missed it but brian lopez had a comment brian if you definitely i know i was going to just echo that that you know i can't say enough about the students and and how resilient they've been all year and and we find ourselves in our classrooms uh going walking in and and just saying you know we really appreciate the efforts all of you are making uh to make the class still successful with everything uh mr solon uh uh just said uh that the students have really been resilient and are working hard and uh if you ask them they're they're you know they they're they'll feel that they've had a successful school year uh you know so far even even with under all these circumstances so they're they're happy to be where they are uh learning from us and you know i can't be i can't say enough about the efforts of uh our students uh like uh mr solon said that's that's exactly what i was gonna comment on and uh you know i have three kids of my own and so they're in three levels of school here in cheshire so i i i hear the other stories about the elementary and high school and and so i'm very proud of all of the teachers on the school system and what they've done to get us through this year and and call it a successful year at the end of this that it was so i'm happy for all of that awesome thank you brian uh before we adjourn jeff was there any uh comments that came in during the meeting from when i might be watching um no there are not mr perry genie great someone could go home early tonight well being that there's no other uh items on the agenda uh we uh is there first of all before we join a meeting again behalf of the board and anyone ever watching in our in our community thank you for attending this evening to all our educators tonight and we have a very long day very long week and uh the fact you stayed here almost at 9 00 p.m again thank you uh hopefully uh get the leave and no grading due tonight may get a nice sleep and get back at it tomorrow but uh i'm sure it's not that simple nonetheless uh do have a motion to adjourn so faith is there a second i think ann got the second all those in favor raise your hand it is unanimous the the meeting is adjourned again thank you stay safe thank you
we're at 33 and we're you know every class we graduate now has got somewhere between 750 and 850 in kids the senior class is going to be probably about 8 25 by the time they all graduate but we're bringing in a class of 940 and that keeps going so if you bring in classes at 940 961 you know you're talking about a high school that's going to have 35 3600 kids in it and while the addition was was great and really needed we know we're talking about the summit project and moving for there my greatest fear is something that mayor mark has said before i know he's no longer with us as the mayor but if they follow the same footstep is i'll build you the building but i'm not going to staff it i've heard that enough times that we can't have that anymore you know we can't have that we're going to it's going to require a lot of teachers to get to where we're going to have to go requires a lot of pps staff and and these are things that we're here for when i did that back when they were doing the 25 credits in it it's got to be three or four years ago three years four years ago dr martins and i went in front of the board and showed the impact of the population growth that was projected when they gave us the the study that was coming out and that and i needed 28 teachers at that time over the next four years when they're coming out i think i've gotten you know to the best of everyone's ability probably eight teachers maybe nine i could think of over the last you know time i've been here uh so there's we're playing catch up to a problem that is going to be here in two years population and and the credits and and i looked and you know dr martin's did went through all the data that we have and she does an excellent job of keeping track of all the data that we have if anybody ever wants to know anything we have it and the improvements we've made and we've noticed where it's tough to tell where we are now because we didn't have an sat last year we didn't have you know the psat only a certain amount of kids took it this year so it's tough to compare last year's but you know it's we've done a lot of great work up there and i'm very proud of the stuff that we've done up there but i have this overarching feeling that it's going to come crashing down soon and i you know i don't want to i don't want that to happen you put a lot of time in there uh you know and dr martin's been in position what 10 years dr martin's now 12.
so those are the three the three items 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 i need a emotion who's second or second okay all in favor any opposed thank you public comments oh no we have discussion we have a discussion item right you do you have a presentation by yeah it was not highlighted i'm sorry we have a presentation on second interim 2020 2021 by matthew charlemagne thank you for the board's information um you'll see there is an accompanying item on the consent agenda for the board to approve uh the 20 2021 second in second interim report to send down to the county as i kind of cover in my interim reports just to refresh everybody's memory this report does certify the district's financial condition for the current year in two subsequent years based on the projections there are two required interim reporting periods each fiscal year this being the second so this illustrates our financials as of january 31st and the report is due down to the county by march 15th again we do have a multi-year projection as a part of this it does reflect several budget adjust adjustments that have been posted subsequent to first interim both on the revenue and the expenditure side of the budget and of course updated assumptions based on current information available which at this point seems to change hourly as we're working through our current pandemic and federal and state funds towards resuming in-person instruction there are three certifications possible the positive qualified and negative positive being the one you want as you predict or you project you will meet all your fiscal obligations for the particular reporting period we will be filing a positive certification and of course that we also that just lists some of the information we use in producing this interim report state adopted budget our current board approved operating budget the governor's recent january budget proposal school services and ficmat information for lcff and of course a newsletter from the san bernardino county superintendent of schools which gives guidance to school districts throughout the straight state based on second interim assumptions so just a couple highlights if you take a look this is our funded ada and you'll see how it's kind of evolved from budget adoption through first interim to second interim uh we we fine-tune it as we move through the year we did have some adjustments from first to second based on some adjustments we we made to our ada but you'll see for second interim we are budgeting our projected 888 12606 that's based on the ada hold harmless that's currently in place for next year we are projected at 12606 because as we get into next year it will have the prior year guarantee and we are currently assuming a decline of ada for next year so we're budgeting at this year's funded ada under that prior year guarantee in 2223 we're returning to our projections of a slight increase so what we're projecting at this point in terms of our enrollment in ada is that we're going to recapture the majority of the students that we've lost during the pandemic and continue our small moderate growth each year now that of course may change as we move forward into creating the budget for next year and update our multi-year projections arcola assumptions you'll see they kind of they really evolved from budget adoption through first interim to where we are today the budget adoption of course being a 2.31 percent colon the current year with a 10 reduction at the first interim it was 0 because that was uh what we got with cash deferrals rather than that reduction in lcf funding so we are currently at second interim again with that zero percent cola in the current year with significant cash deferrals of our apportionment which did start this last month next year we are looking at a 3.84 cola that is what the governor proposed in his january budget compounded cola it's paying paying us back for the cola that was missed this year and then the cola the statutory cola calculated at 1.5 percent for next year add those two together and compound them and then for 2223 we are aligning ourselves with the school services dart board recommendation at a 1.28 percent cola so just a quick run through of our assumptions again our funded ada arcola we do have those cash deferrals i want to point out those are the coveted one-time monies that we've received in this year we have our state learning loss mitigation fund about 1.1 million the federal coronavirus relief fund 10.4 gear is the governor's emergency education relief fund and the federal esser monies those are all one-time funds that flow to us in the current year so those are all one-time revenues that have been recognized as we move through our multi-year projection we're not getting those revenues next year so we have to remove those revenues in our multi-year projection on the expenditure side you'll see we also we we account for step and column every year we account for the stirs and pers employer contributions on behalf of all of our employees and just a little quick note on that covet spending you'll see that state 1.1 million those funds have to be spent by the end of this fiscal year june 30th and we're on the way to do that the federal coronavias relief funding that 10.3 million the original expiration date for those funds was december 30th of 2020.
flyers were sent via peach jar in multiple languages the meeting was planned to have breakout rooms with arabic and trans spanish translators commissioner abu drago made a connection for arabic speaking families to have a specific parental support meeting in arabic via a community organization vice president basford brainstormed multiple ways for advertising these parent forums throughout local community organizations a successful meeting between district administration and priests were also discussed miss rotolo shared that the special ed department created their own instagram page to distribute information to families special education supervisors plan activity nights for january and we'll be scheduled several open meetings for parent questions and then there was a quick device update from mr melvin who provided an update about chromebook distribution to date devices delivered in grades three to five were completed students in grades k through two needed devices who needed devices received them the final order of devices for the k2 will be distributed upon receipt then we had another um education meeting on february 11th the committee was held in this one um the education committee is now um separated from the technology committee we met at 4 pm attendees were myself board president jim smith and board members faras awad and lucy danny administrators included dr robertosi mrs kusalevich mrs rotolo mr mountain and mrs and mrs banning our guest um was miss rachel harrington number one we received uh miss banning gave a brief overview of our district esl bilingual program she discussed how clustering classes at magnet schools allowed students to receive additional hours of esl and bilingual instruction the district has magnet programs in four magnet schools in in spanish arabic and esl only in programs at ccms and chs she shared that clifton's bilingual and esl program has been a njdot model program for over a decade after school tutoring and summer programs are also available ms rotolo once again provided an update of many special ed initiatives taking place family involvement activities have been advertised via peach jar integral and the district website a program for behavior strategies was held on one twenty one twenty one a program for picky eaters is planned for two twenty five twenty a parent support group planned for 22 22 21 and an assistive technology training program scheduled for 3-3-21 family fun activities including a snowman contest in january in a favorite book scene project in march have been planned in collaboration with the njea and the cea pride grant program learning law support in an extended school year mrs kusalevich gave an overview of the district plans to address learning laws local assessments have shown that most typical student reading levels have remained close to expected ranges and major math content is being addressed the areas of writing and advanced programs including ap need additional support online after school tutoring has begun including for ap classes the district has applied for a grant to provide a summer learning loss program in addition to existing title 1 title 3 extended school year ic and middle school and high school summer programs a summer intervention program is also being included in the local budget if the district does not receive the aforementioned grant curriculum and pacing are being modified for september to provide additional student support all of these um there was no action taken on these uh they were also informational for uh the board members and the public and both of them are respectfully submitted by mrs janina kusalevich thank you are there any questions for mr casper mr president yes mr cordova i had two questions one was uh about peach jar i remember the last time we spoke about that they said there may be a calendar functionality i know we were talking about creating some sort of community calendar where uh all these events from things that are going on peachjar are basically events or things going on in the district and we were talking about possibly tying that into a calendar and putting it on the website do you know if if that functionality was discussed or if it's possible i don't have any other info on that mrs kusalevich would you know about peach jar i can i can look into that i remember it was discussed um and i will address it with our um pr and website um coordinators okay thanks and the other question i had was around learning loss how exactly are we determining that are we looking at things from last year compared to this year or and where students would have been this year or did we give some sort of assessment mr casper i think the best answer on that great it's an excellent question assessing learning lawsuits is a challenge but some of what people are calling learning loss is a little bit difficult to measure what we are doing is comparing trends of of the data that we do have in linkit of what students typical uh reading levels would be attaining of certain standards would be and we are doing comparisons with this year's assessments at the same time this year's assessments have been modified we have a very modified pacing and adjusted curriculum for this school year because of the situation and our scheduling uh remote instruction is different from in-person instruction so there have been changes we can't do an apples to apples comparison but we can do a standard by standard um as well as a comparison of reading levels and major math content which has been our primary focus as well as major uh science content right now we are waiting up to see what the doe wants to do they have actually asked districts including ours to submit our local data as they make their determination on what will happen with this year's standardized testing njsla which was um and one other question are we also comparing ourselves not only internally from last year to this year but uh are we comparing ourselves to other schools to see how we fared and you know if there's any areas of improvement that we could have at this time there is no comparison to other schools the entire state um suspended assessments last year actually the entire nation um and typically when we compare ourselves to others it's based on that new jersey student learning assessment it did not take place last year um and it will we don't know what's happening this year right now it is slated to take place at the end of the school year but uh that test would then be compared to the previous school year since there is a year of missing data what we can do is look internally at our own student growth and i think the vast majority of school districts given this pandemic situation have been very focused on keeping our own students engaged and measuring our own students growth rather yeah i agreed and and same like our board of ed meetings here i mean the pandemic did throw us into an environment where we're remote but i think our subcommittees have been even more effective because the amount of times that we're able to be engaged with each other grows so i'd be curious to see how that works for distance education in the future of clifton here and see you know what have we learned from going remote and what sort of nuggets can we take back and possibly integrate into our curriculum if i may there have been many very big positives the fact that they're now 100 one to one the fact that all of our teachers and students have really risen to the occasion with using all of these electronic programs that sometimes in the past were used minimally or not enough are now being used to the really to the extent that many of them were designed to be used um and we've seen quite a bit of actual of student growth internally um in the minutes it did indicate that our student reading levels are still remaining on par with what was it what would have been expected in a normal year the same with major math content now are there gaps are there groups of students who who do need different approaches and more in-person instruction absolutely but there have been definite kernels including this format of zoom meetings and google meets we have had more parent participation than ever before it's so much easier to schedule a parent conference when they don't have to leave the home um so this type of of communication i think is something we need to leverage moving forward um it's definitely a plus and just one more question you mentioned uh that the reading levels we were retained are you referring to raz kids in my own is that where that data is being derived from or is that just an assessment overall of teachers and their assessment of students whereas kids and ion are the instructional programs which then feed into the reading leveling done in the star that we measure in star and we will level students using raz kids but that data then goes um is measured and compared and collected via link it uh using our literacy assessment folder um so that's where the lit so it is standardized and individualized and that is where the data is coming from okay thank you thank you uh let's see president smith if i may ask a question um kind of going towards what mr kanoko is saying but more of the in the post part of remote learning if we're going to compare and contrast data not just today from from when we went to remote till now but um to mr slavis through the superintendent by may um are we going to compare and contrast data in terms of in class versus remote and what has benefited our district the most because a lot of kids i would assume are many students what i would assume remote learning really wasn't from them and you know just like college level some prefer the online some prefer the in class um so i'm interested to see what what that would look like if we're going to do any data any research and data collection on that um yeah we do and can see what our students which students are remote and which um which students will return in person at the same time the curriculum has been designed so that students who are at home and students who are in person are following the same pacing the same instruction the same materials the same activity thank you i appreciate you and i also want to say thank you to your staff and the superintendent administration for you know obviously went into a pandemic where this is the first for everybody right for a full school for mostly a full school year so thank you for everything you've done um you know it's not great for anybody that's what we can do and then also mr president if i may to the chair of education i know i was on education last year uh not this year uh i will speak with you and our friend the president uh president smith about um handing off my uh connections and networks of folks that you know for the arab speaking part as well so you can work along with the leviticus administration all right thank you okay thank you next uh is uh finance mr daley uh yes thank you mr smith um for numbers present was in addition to myself dana beltran joe canova and jim smith administration was dr robertosi michael yusi and eric tom cevich uh the annual audit for 2019 mr hughes mr yusi and mr birch uh district order represented the annual school audit for the 2019-20 school year ending in june 30th 2020 the comprehensive annual uh financial report and orders management report were reviewed both documents will be emailed and mailed to all board members mr lurch will present during the february 18 2021 board meeting uh to imac health insurance broker 2001 for 2022 health premiums mr murillo his team briefed the committee on the current claims the potential budget for the next year the committee will be will have the broker continue to negotiate with the district's medical providers to to ensure the best possible premium rate possible b uh chapter 44 and and for those of the public who don't know what chapter 44 is this is confusing uh we've been operating under chapter 78 law for uh paying health insurance and for the most part that's changed chapter 44.
so um you know it's it was originally a california style campus individual buildings then the buildings were tied together and joined and we added more more parts and more components and and you know that's an evolution of a building in many in many ways but um you know we still have the same rough infrastructure the windows are are the same the the electrical systems are the same the uh the size of the rooms are the same we're talking about a building for the most part where the rooms are more or less based on what a 1960s education would be which is not a 21st century uh facility so lots of things to do at the high school well mr winston you and mr sismar actually went to that school when it was a california style building right yes it was great yesterday was phenomenal yes it was yep okay uh leewoo i believe you had a question yes i do uh so bernie so i know you are really good at uh we're financing so i have question for you but you don't have to answer me now if the financial market is not in our favor we just cannot get some resources through the boundary refinancing can we still find the resource to do the roof once a at least one roof a year keep up the other roofs from leaking so what you think about this one i believe finance market is in our faithful now but i don't know but who nobody know what will be in future well this is where this is where um you know i also give uh the township a great deal of credit because uh they've been very cooperative with the board with the school district in terms of being our our financial branch if you will we have entered into agreements pretty much every year where the township exercises it's about borrowing power on our behalf and we pay the township the township doesn't incur the cost the the district pays for the cost of issuance on the loans and um the repayment and so forth and the township has enjoyed very very very favorable rates um through their borrowing power and through uh the rating that the township has so we'll continue to do that we've we've followed this process for many many years and will continue to do that uh it is beneficial to um to both the township the board and to the community as a whole because ultimately it saves money thank you good luck is there anybody else who had any questions okay see none thank you so much jerry again greatly appreciate the work and all the hard work of your entire team thank you we appreciate just the board support okay bernie what's up next next we have um transportation department and we have joyce forsberg manager of transportation uh to talk about her area's budget good evening um first of all i'd like to thank the board of education for helping to support the transportation department and everything that you do do for us um start off my budget presentation i'd like to explain a little bit about transportation that we provide a safe high quality transportation for students of the community by following the federal state local laws as well as the board of education's policies and procedures we greet the students every morning going to provide them with a good experience so that they can have a positive attitude for learning for the rest of the day this also is translated in the afternoon when we bring them home we try to keep upbeat and give them a welcoming so they understand that you know their day is good our day is good um we also this also helps to provide the parents with the confidence in their bus drivers knowing that the bus driver welcomes their students that they care about their safety and feel safe that we will transport their students to and from school safely next slide please okay i'm just going to go over a little bit on this pie chart regarding how our transportation is basically how we do our transportation okay um 51 percent of our students that are transported are students that we call regular transportation needs which are students who reside remotely from the school that they attend and their residence 39 of our students that we transport are due to hazardous conditions which for example we don't allow students to cross route 18 from the old bridge turnpike side to go to irwin elementary okay if there was a need for that or to the high school for that matter it's actually the high school hammershoven churchill where the hazardous routes are more of a need and the third largest portion that we transport are special needs students which is about six percent of the student population next slide please as you can see this is a pie chart of how we try to allocate the transportation budget you will notice that transporting the students is the largest allocation between sixty percent of it going for the special needs students because of the equipment or personnel that they may need due to their ieps the next largest portion would be the students that live remotely from the school and then we have the charter and the hazardous routing that falls into those categories at a smaller percentage the bus maintenance and repairs that we handle for the fleets takes about 10 of our budget for the bus lead alone we spend five percent of the budget maintaining and re making repairs to help to maintain a safe vehicle on the road to get students to and from school preventing breakdowns at this time at this year i also am handling the fleet maintenance on the maintenance and grounds vehicles which we have included in our schedule of regular maintenance on the vehicles and any repairs that are needed due to breakdowns basically the fuel for our budget is a small percentage too because of the fact that you know we basically all in district in town so it it's allocated for a small percentage because we don't run all over and go unnecessarily driving out of the district um let's see uh the cost that you don't see here in my transportation budget would be any staff or benefits the staff salaries or the benefits because i don't manage that within my budget that is managed elsewhere so um pretty much that explains transportation uh does anybody have any questions i'll wait till we're up in the gallery view okay uh does any board member have any questions for joyce um mark just to comment if i may um i've seen up close the transportation working with all the moving pieces and stuff joyce and your crew i just wanted to uh give you thanks for keeping the kids safe because there's so many moving parts on a daily basis i don't know how you do it sometimes but uh just a comment of thank you thank you well said mark thank you very much else have any questions for joyce um the board members who i can't see uh heather laurie uh if you have any questions um text or shout it out or okay joyce it was an excellent report and as mark said um what you you are doing can never be trivialized the the transportation of our students the safety factors is one of our greatest responsibilities and um i like mark's use of the word the phrase moving parts because no pun intended but the wheels on the bus are just part of the story here and um i i i don't i sometimes think that uh people need to see not that we're going to have guided tours don't get nervous but um your staff on when at some point in the future when everyone is back in the building the software that's involved in running the business of transporting the amount of students we do it's it's a business within itself just all the coordinating and scheduling and considering all the factors of we have transportation to the charter school transportation to out-of-district placements to non-public schools you do a fantastic job you and your staff really to be commended thank you very much anyone else before we um ask for the next budget manager's presentation okay thank you so much again joyce thank you okay bernie what community programs is next yes so um i um i will ask amri gilbert manager of community programs to um speak about her areas budget okay thank you so much good evening everyone um i'm very excited to present my second budget in this position so i want to share with you some changes some improvements in our programs um so let me start by saying that the community program's budget we prepared it of course with the thought that we're back in person learning in september at full capacity so the numbers you're looking at are where we were at in february of 2020 before we had to shut down and that is a really good estimate of where we typically are throughout the school year so that's what you're looking at here for each of our programs you know you see here we're about 1200 students in after school uh over a thousand early morning about 180 in early learning academy and then our enrichment programs are various so what i'd like to do if we can is go on to the next slide and kind of go through briefly each of the programs and you're looking at our estimated revenue here our aftercare program is always our largest kind of piece of the pie if you will so at usual capacity as we mentioned we're about 1200 students 785 attending every day and the rest are typically our occasional youth students um we're located at all eight elementary schools as well as in hammershould our typical hours are right from dismissal through to 6 p.m parents can pick up any time in between but we do have our doors open until 6 p.m um a typical afternoon and after care we have homework time with certified teachers to assist in their daily work every student gets a snack and a drink and there's lots of play time after being in school all day long these kids need a break and they need to blow off some steam so we definitely make sure their homework's done we definitely make sure we give them a snack and a drink but then it's all about play it's organized games sports crafts board games various other fun activities we want to give our students a voice to choose what they want to do not every student wants to play a sport not every student likes to do a craft we make sure there's multiple activities so they have a great time the biggest compliment we get is when a parent comes and picks up their child they say not yet mom can i stay longer it's tremendous and and that's what we strive for moving to the next piece of the pie our early learning academy preschool i am so excited to say that in september we'll be entering our 10th year of the early learning academy preschool we are going to be again located at hammershow middle school we have our own portion of the building with our own entrance and exit as well as security we typically have as we mentioned in the previous slide about 180 students and that is our maximum capacity uh we have eight classrooms in our larger classrooms we usually have 20 to 24 students we have a couple of small classrooms that were previously small group instructions so we limit there to about 11 students with regards to curriculum about back in we purchased and implemented the creative curriculum so we were very excited about that it's basically learning through play which is ideal for early childhood education another piece of that that we started was fundations foundations has extensive program materials that we use it's to give structured reading and spelling using engaging multi-sensory techniques this is something that's also used in kindergarten so these kids move on from with such a transparent transition from preschool into kindergarten so you know it's such a great variety of curriculum that we use that these kids really um do so well in our program we provide half day morning half day afternoon and full day options in addition we offer early morning and after care so some of our students are with us from 6 50 in the morning until six o'clock at night it's a long day but we love having the little ones and we love giving parents those options parents can order hot lunch that gets delivered right to the classroom and as well as those students that are in our early morning program they can order hot breakfast that also gets delivered right to the classroom for them next i'll move on to our early morning program also known as morning start in our hammer sold school we typically have a little bit over a thousand students in our early morning program 650 of which extend ever attend every day and otherwise it's our occasional youth students again we're located at all eight elementary schools as well as hammershould we start at 7am until school begins in the elementary schools and we start at 6 50 a.m at hammersold in the morning program our focus is on fun in the morning you know if a child definitely didn't finish their homework we of course give them the opportunity um they the child nutrition department is nice enough they open their breakfast line a little early so our early morning students can enjoy breakfast but it's all about fun we want to focus on giving them just like joyce had stated in transportation on the buses we want to start them off with a positive fun start to their day so they walk into their classrooms ready to learn the other programs the smallest piece that you're looking at here that usually includes our enrichment programs now you know if we have to say if we you know want to say there was a a silver lining to all of this we really branched out and did a number of virtual programs we weren't sure how it would be received because these students are virtual all day long or many of them are but that being said we had such success and we were able to reach students that previously couldn't be in our programs you know they have to take the bus home parents are working they don't have a ride to stay after school in our enrichment programs this gave all students in our district the opportunity to participate so we plan next year on not only offering it to our in-school students but continue to offer virtual programming as well that being said we not only expanded our programming but the ages we're offering programs to besides our traditional programs we always have coding and stem and sat prep robotics and sports we expanded to include world languages for our elementary students so they get a flavor for what the language was will be in their curriculum later on um and our own i'm very happy to say we have our own district teachers teaching this so they're so familiar with the curriculum um chess i think queen's gambit may have kind of trickled down to our students we never expected to have over 65 children participate so we're going to offer another round in the spring we were so excited about that we branched into piano lessons we sold out four classes cooking we expanded to as young as our elementaries of our kindergarten students uh we just offered songwriting and harmonizing for our sixth to twelfth grade students we even started to to dabble back with our adults offering enrichment program we just had the french experience learning language and culture we're offering now adult cooking classes as well as adult italian so we've really taken it to the next level and we're excited to offer all of this programming and more for the upcoming school year quickly i wanted to mention there's a big part of community programs that you don't see here it's not part of the budget and that is our adult school we offer english as a second language citizenship as well as high school equivalency all of these classes are free for all adults in east brunswick as well as surrounding towns it's funded by a title ii grant from the new jersey department of labor and we typically service 185 students we get rated every year based on enrollment and the state requires us to have a specific as percentage of students not only level up but we have to maintain a certain number of students that they um allocate us for the funds it's all kind of relative to each other last year part of the pandemic shutting down we were on target for the first time to level up a complete grade which we're so proud of um due to that good standing the department of labor increased our funding for the 2021 school year allowing us to increase to 18 additional students from where we were up to 203 in the consortium that is led by new brunswick as an average in the consortium which has multiple school districts everyone's only about 40 percent of their target and required numbers again i'm very proud to say in our program we've just reached over 80 percent of our target on a recent call with the department of labor and our consortium due to the success that we've had in our program they've said that next year they'll be reallocating additional funds to us to allow additional students so just a shout out to our amazing teachers and support staff half of our teachers are east brunswick teachers that after a long day in school are so dedicated to our adults at night so thank you for indulging me in that piece even though it's not part of the budget but i thought it was very important to share with everybody um if we can go to the next slide um very quickly our expense budget you know as always expected salaries and benefits are the largest part of what we do um everything works in ratios as our enrollment increases we need to have more staff so so this is all very um usual and proportionate to what we do that being said um the fees that we've recommended for the 2021 to 2022 school year are attached to the packet and that concludes my presentation unless there are questions okay anybody uh that was a terrific presentation anne-marie thank you so much so comprehensive anybody have any questions for emery so i see susannah then barbara then lee woo okay susanna hi um thank you henry and we heard about this in the finance committee earlier this week as well and and it occurred to me when you talked about the success of the adult education program and the fact that it's free to the students and it is free to up to the district because it's covered by by federal grant and just what amazing service it is to have you know to have this available to our community and um you know just want to emphasize that like how do we get the word out to make sure that our community knows about it to be able to go back and get your ged or you know esl or whatever it is that you know that you're looking for that this is free of charge and it's um available right in your community and it doesn't cost their taxpayers anything yeah it's an amazing program we um we do a press release every year uh we definitely i do blackboards out to our entire district so this way faculty staff parents if they know people relatives neighbors we get the word out and there is always so much interest and again being in the virtual piece i think it's allowed students that previously had child care issues as adults they're able to do it their children are running around behind them and that's okay so again where i was speaking earlier about the enrichment programs next year we're planning again to have a virtual piece almost like a hybrid type program where we can offer to students to be in person they can be fully virtual or a combination thereof and we're hoping that that will even be able to reach additional students and and that's another example of you know how you know despite the challenges of the pandemic how we've learned and grown right so now the program can be offered in ways that can reach parents that could not otherwise come parents with young children who want to go back and get their high school diploma can now do that that's that's just really great so i you know to the extent we have capacity it should not go unused and we should really look for more ways to get the word out thank you absolutely thank you okay barbara then libra i it's more of a thank you a comment than a question i just wanted to thank anne-marie and her entire team because they've pivoted so much you know in this uh similar to what susanna said the the silver lining of this is that there's opportunities that we may not have had before to reach out to folks that couldn't come or weren't able to come and the variety of programming that she's expanding to the as young as kindergarten and then all the way up to the high school is an exciting opportunity for a lot of her kids and and uh even from the range of things that that her depart you know area offers and her teachers and staff and so forth anything from chess to cooking and languages and using our own teachers is wonderful as well so thank you thank you so much for saying that and for your support libra so emery thank you very much when i heard your presentation i've i'm excited i can sense your excitement so i just cannot wait to send my voice to the programs so part of my question already are asked about susanna so my concern is oh my mike is how you spread out the world to to let people know you and your team are doing great job we have the capacity we have the program and what so we can attract more students into the programs so maybe you should do something at back to school night or parent university or whatever just let people know you are here and you are doing great job and you are willing to help and you have the capacity to help absolutely thank you great recommendation we typically do come to back to school nights and things of that nature we used to always give a community programs brochure but to your point we've never included the adult school with that as well so great suggestion and we'll continue to look for more ways thank you and thank you so much as well for your words and and your support thank you so much any other board members comments questions jeff jeff hi yeah marie uh just a real quick question i just did uh i wasn't looking at your fee schedule when was the last time you did a fee increase so what we've been traditionally doing is a very small increase each year since i've started just to cover the cost of the increase of salaries and benefits okay thank you of course anyone else seeing none again emory thank you and as everyone has been saying um you and your entire team your entire staff are to be commended for a terrific job whether it's the before care program the aftercare program the work you're doing with adults through grant programs it's it's truly engaging our community and our district and you and your entire staff are to be commended thank you and i truly appreciate everybody's i know i said it before but the support of the board has been tremendous so thank you okay um bernie that's a tough act to follow what do you have for us insurance and we have such an exciting topic next insurance gee who put the order of these topics together all right must have been jeff so and before before i proceed with this um i i do want to um express um my my thanks and appreciation to uh each of the individuals uh that preceded me here um you know to uh jerry and joyce and ann marie um they they absolutely uh love their jobs they love what they do for the district they are passionate about what they do for the district and um it's certainly appreciated those are those are folks that um into areas that you know we can have a high degree of confidence in um insurance uh this is uh certainly not an exciting uh area but it is one of the building blocks in terms of the budget and uh important that the board and the community know where our resources uh go so the first uh slide i'm going to show provides a comparative of the various lines of insurance uh workers compensation multi peril which includes property and electronic data processing general liability automobile coverage then there's a school board legal liability student accident insurance supplemental indemnity on workers comp supplemental liability insurance there's builders risk environmental liability and then the fidelity bond of these packages uh when we look at all the the lines with the exception of workers compensation these are preliminary estimates uh it's pretty right now it's projected at approximately a 9.5 percent increase in the um in the premium uh that's not that's not final at this point we won't have a final for probably uh two perhaps three months because we are engaging in the process of um securing an appropriate market uh through our broker and this is an annual process that we go through i do want to speak for a moment regardless workers compensation which is the first set of bars on the left and that is um a very substantial drop in the workers compensation costs from seven hundred and seven thousand dollar budget in the current year 200 to 451 thousand dollars budgeted for the next year uh that is the result of a very uh substantial improvement in our claims experience people being safer incurring less injuries on the job and less time lost from work so certainly a a very significant improvement and a direct impact and significant impact upon the budget next uh health benefits so um the first set of bars is for medical and prescription and that repre and medical prescription which is uh representative of a three percent uh projected increase in rates uh the next set is for dental dental rates are not changing from the current year and then the next set is for vision coverage that also is remaining flat so the composite rate is 2.8 percent uh which is um really an exceptional uh exceptional rate uh compared to uh what i would say other school districts have experienced and certainly much better than what we uh experienced last year i believe last year our rate increase was at eight point seven percent so this is uh very uh very much improved the last set of um of bars there shows employee contributions and those are the legally required uh contributions pursuant to uh chapter and chapter four and now chapter 44.
during the first few months i had an opportunity to talk with both of them shelley herbald her goals for the agency i asked her why she was a part of the board and she was giving her goals for the agency and she said as a deaf person and a mother of deaf children that she wanted asdb ptsd both schools to become more academically rigorous she wanted us to set higher expectations for our students and she was really concerned about the educational outcomes for our students and that's what she meant by her goals while she was serving on our board and that influenced me to really start figuring out how can we raise the bar and set higher expectations for our students that then started the school improvement activity secondly dr mark sims the first few months that we worked together he was president of the board and he told me his goal for the agency was to look at the early intervention and preschool programs birth to five and he strongly believed that hsdb should be focusing on the birth to five population that our deaf and hard of hearing infants and young children needed access to language to have a language-rich environment where language acquisition could happen in a first language and we did have some disagreements about that but we were on par with that goal i could agree with that as well but that also influenced me to focus on how we can work with our birth to three program and our three to five preschool program and that started the shift and that became our early learning program so i want to thank those two board members for their contribution their action and support to asdb thank you and i also want to welcome miss brittany buchanan to our board welcome thank you for joining us and i would also like to welcome mr pv dance who is a vr supervisor and now joining our board representing a cdhh it's awesome to have the two of you here today i'm sure you realize that this month is our one year anniversary anniversary of what you might be thinking the covid pandemic that's right just last year march 2020 our world was turned upside down and we went through a really disruptive change rapid changes starting off with governor's duty executive order that all schools in arizona were to close and that included asdb you recall that experience we worked hard to in two weeks to transition to a full online system to provide education on our campuses those teachers had never experienced remote education in the past and they had to rapidly figure out how to provide educational opportunities during the spring semester to our students and that included early intervention teachers providing remote opportunities to family instead of going into the home to provide services our itinerant teachers we're also providing specialized instruction and support to students across the state virtually truly changed our entire agency throughout this spring semester as you recall then we went through summer and we started planning and preparing for the fall trying to figure out how can we get back to school in person in the classroom safely for our students and for our teachers do you recall that video of the two principles showing you what it looks like to they create a safe space in the school in the fall we're trying to figure out what the classroom would look like what the hallways would look like what the playgrounds would look like what a bus ride would look like how to enforce masks social distancing hand washing and sanitizing and how do we keep ourselves safe and we thought we would be opening up the first week of august well then you know what happened that didn't happen we had to continue to provide remote education through the fall and we called it educational opportunities it wasn't actually education there were curriculum subjects so that first three weeks before august the teachers were working diligently to transfer their educational materials to a virtual platform they needed to learn new technology skills for example google classroom to provide education to their students so in the fall the students continue to stay home and access virtually their learning environments and then in october students returned to the classroom two weeks later tucson campus opened up as well and the students were back and the two campuses were able to successfully continue in person in the classroom until december at christmas break our teachers were exhausted and then looking to january we knew that with the christmas holiday and new year the spread was on the rise and our principles had determined to keep our schools closed and to continue the virtual learning through the month of january and we did that during that time the two principals and the teachers started to realize that our students were done with the virtual learning they weren't doing well those students were not paying attention they were not engaged in discussion with their teachers they were distracted and some students actually disappeared that's when the principals decided we have to get back to the classroom so the first week of february we were back in the classroom and as you just heard from dr rex most of the students are in the classroom some are still virtual and we're providing a hybrid option and the same thing goes with our itinerary services teachers are going into the school providing specialized instruction and support to students in person as well as providing some virtual and early intervention is continuing with virtual learning and we are hoping fingers crossed that as the numbers become more stable as the curve is flattened we'll be more back in person which means we can breathe and start thinking about the future start thinking about next fall our leadership team is now having conversations about what the fall will look like unfortunately we have the vaccine right so more and more of our teachers and our staff are getting vaccinated we finally have a light at the end of the tunnel and we will come out but that brings up a question so when we come out will it be normal will our normal be the same as last year before march 2020 does that mean we can go back to march 2020 and then just move forward from there hmm probably not i think you all agree we can't go back to march 2020 our world has changed we have to figure out how to adapt and make decisions with the new normal so how do we do that first we stop take a pause and think about this new normal try to figure out what the future might look like while we do that we need to remember our guiding principles remember that we have our operating principles that act accountability collaboration and transparency and we have committed to making data-driven decisions we will not make decisions without good data we have also committed to continuous improvement efforts so those guiding principles will help us to stay focused we have also gone back to march 2020 and looked over our list of projects our initiatives to look at which ones we want to implement again i'll give you a few examples we have a contract with mma to do a workforce analysis of some of our employees and we want to do that workforce analysis we wanted to do the workforce analysis in the spring but we realized that it wasn't the right time so we pushed that off to the fall but we will still do that that analysis will give us a lot of information about students needs and how we can best staff to meet those needs not over staff and not under staff we need to find the right amount of staffing to meet student needs so for example we will re-establish our language and literacy committee that we started last year but we had to put on hold in the spring we will start that up again and begin looking at how we can improve and support our students with their language and literacy skills we are going to back to looking at the bilingual bicultural excuse me the bilingual grammar curriculum or bgc we started that about a year and a half ago we provided training to some of our teachers on how to use that curriculum to align it with our national geographic curriculum and help students to acquire english literacy skills at the same time as asl that was somewhat paused last spring because of covid but now we are going back to that and reestablishing training to move forward with that bgc on both campuses we are purchasing the bgc curriculum to support the teachers in that english instruction alongside the national geographic curriculum so that gives you some examples of the projects and initiatives that we will revisit and focus on again i think dr rex just mentioned that our early learning program is looking at the future they are considering whether we will be back in parents homes to provide services 100 as we were before all of our early intervention teachers were going out into parents homes to provide direct services and support to families who have young children birth to three who are deaf or blind or deaf and blind so they're considering whether we will go back 100 in person i suspect that it will become a hybrid model where we will offer both in-home visits as we did before visiting the families in their homes as well as virtual support i do believe it will become hybrid so it will look different in the future our itinerant services are the next topic it used to be that all of our itinerant services were provided in person on an individual basis our teachers were driving all across the state of arizona going to schools physically on campus to meet with students and provide direct service to those students with specialized instruction and support as you recall prior to the pandemic we were beginning to pilot some remote or virtual services with just a few students about 20 to 30 students initially you just heard dr rex saying that we are currently serving 140 students remotely or virtually so the pandemic did accelerate the process of offering remote or virtual instruction in the future again i believe it will be a hybrid model where we offer both in person and virtual instruction depending on how we can best meet each individual student's needs i could say a lot more but i think i'm going to go ahead and wrap up now when we think about the future your role as a board and your involvement with this receipt strategic planning that you have been doing in establishing four pillars for us to follow do you remember the pillars excellence in communication and relationships outstanding student development superior organizational culture and effective resource management those are the pillars that we as an agency will implement moving forward and we will fit our plan into those four pillars i would say that right now it is more important than it has ever been for you as a board to provide us as an agency with direction so that we can move forward into the future with your guidance and we need your support thank you thank you superintendent reichman uh are there any questions for the superintendent on her report okay seeing none we can go to item 2.01 action item approval of the consent agenda consistent report policy to include items 3.01 5.06 5.07 5.08 5.09 5.10 5.11 5.12 5.13 5.14 7.03 704 and 7.05 and again for the benefit of the new board members the consent agenda is where we we put items that we can dispose of together in one foul swoop so to speak and they're items that are typically uh routine items so you'll see something like approval of renewal district agreements you know 3.01 and you'll see approval of donations and the minutes uh etc so that said that that doesn't mean that we can you know that we have to do it all at once uh if there's any board member that would like to remove one or more items from the consent agenda they can just talk about that and they can if they like uh make a motion to pull one or more items off the agenda and that would have to be voted on by the board and then we'd pick them up in uh the regular order of the agenda uh but we do this um to dispose of some of these items uh you know collectively but you know again we we're open to pulling any of them off so i see that uh pv your uh your video is open so you you'll have the floor yes um thank you for recognizing me and president nigro i would like to make a motion that we withhold agenda agenda 5.14 from the cassette consent agenda um because i have a concept of interest on 5.14 okay um i can do that uh or or if there's a second i'm sorry so i i see your motion um if there is a second uh someone would need to second it and then we would need to vote uh suitcase second uh all in favor um say aye aye hi hi hi okay hi all right um all opposed no okay uh so the motion passes um we're gonna have 5.14 is now not on the consent agenda um are there uh any other uh motions for or or comments from the board to remove additional items from the consent agenda pv hello again and thank you for the recognition president nigro i would like to make a motion um on the consent consent agenda as amended that we consent to jenna as amended that you approve it as admitted okay uh is there a second uh mike mannelly seconds uh all in favor say aye and again for the new board members you can say i you can you can hold up your your thumb uh zoom it's a little bit different than what we normally do so uh looks like we all have eyes uh any any opposed okay and the consent agenda will will pass as amended um we will go down um 3.
uh we will have three presenters presenting during period three and we hope that you teachers take a few moments to debrief with your students and talk about the many wonderful topics that have been addressed in our conference thank you [Music] well [Music] so [Music] do [Music] do [Music] do [Music] do [Music] do [Music] do [Music] do [Music] do [Music] do [Music] do [Music] do [Music] do [Music] do [Music] do [Music] do [Music] welcome to our sixth tedx dhs event mr and i are thrilled to present to you this exciting event here at dartmouth high school this is an independent organized event this year it will be broadcast via live stream by dhs tv media productions this is a change from our previous format having a live audience our live stream event along with participants wearing masks have been an update to meet covet 19 guidelines our theme this year is sociology moving forward one step at a time students from cohort a in cohort b will be presenting various topics that are engaging and stem from their personal passions these students have volunteered their time to this group and digitally prepare presentations to enlighten you on various topics you may be new to ted and you might be wondering who is this ted guy i'm here to tell you that it isn't a person instead ted is an acronym for technology entertainment design the ted organization has covered many ideas worth spreading in various fields of study you will see this the same diversity in these topics being here presented here today for this period we will have topics on stem foreign language and modern feminism our first presenter is colin zoo colin is a junior here at dartmouth high school he is a member of the speech and debate team additionally he has been a member of dartmouth deca team since his freshman year and co-founded the stock market club colin chose his topic because of his personal interest in stem and he noticed that in his ap research class he is the only person in the class who uses he him pronouns please join me and welcome colin zoo as he presents challenge ourselves and stem [Music] [Applause] currently students in modern america have the ability to choose from a plethora of different courses that weren't available to them many years ago these courses vary and range from many different topics and fields and we have many different departments at our school to handle these today i'd like to talk about the stem field and all the different departments that encompass it in stem four major topics are covered the sciences technology engineering and mathematics often times when we talk about stem it isn't very clear what the end game or point of it is in stem the major points of benefit could be that high school level students could be introduced to topics in fields that they weren't previously interested in and could find new passions and careers for it this could lead them to choosing majors for their upper level education in college that they weren't previously interested in if they didn't know what it was about jobs in stem can be more financially stable for students in the future and this is and i'll talk about that later on in the slides this year i took ap research i had the chance to survey some of my peers and what they thought about advanced and challenging classes at dartmouth high a general attitude that students at dartmouth high had were that 57 percent of friends had a friend 50 57 of students had a friend in advanced placement class or more challenging level class 63 percent of respondents said that they took an ap for a pursued career in the future and 60 of respondents to my survey said that they were not deterred by testing fees a common sentiment in interviews among students were that advanced placement computer science classes at dartmouth lacked gender diversity when compared to other classes so i sent out a survey to many of my peers in the ap english program and other students around the school nearly three in four students said that the majority of their friend group was of the same gender when i asked them about an association with a certain demographic with stem the sciences technology engineering and math departments at our school over 74 percent of students said that they had no association with any demographic this can show that dartmouth fosters a positive and equitable environment for the most part of the people that said they had a demographic association with them the vast majority of them said that there was a male association this is commonly seen in society and media i'm going to be talking about the origins of computer science and how they are mostly female this contradicts from the societal association with stem with the male gender from ap computer science enrollment nationally the vast majority of students are male around 69 percent some of the most influential women in stem history have been of a earlier time the first noble woman i'd like to talk about is ada lovelace widely considered the first computer engineer she created notes and thoughts and ideas on how an analytical engine could use repeated instructions to create processes this would become the major and founding idea of the process known as loops in computer programming margaret hamilton was a nasa engineer and she helped influentially impact the process that we sent men to the moon in the apollo missions she was very successful and influential in her field despite societal boundaries preventing women at the time from really excelling in the engineering field another woman that i'd like to talk about was marie curie she was notable in her fields in radiation and chemistry with the major discoveries of radioactive isotopes of certain elements she conduct she conducted her research despite significant danger to herself and her co-workers when it comes to stem i got to the chance to interview students as to why they chose not to take more challenging courses and why they took the courses they did i'd like to talk about the importance of suspending our disbelief in ourselves and how that can enable us to have a more productive future one of the most common sentiments that i heard as to why students avoid these challenging classes is that they avoid them because they perceive themselves as weak in these subjects they also thought that in these subjects their weekend these minimum requirements for graduation should now become personal goals this this prevents ourselves from being successful in the future by seeing these minimum requirements and not pursuing any classes or careers beyond it when we enable ourselves to look at stem beyond what's the minimum requirement for graduation we're allowing ourselves to take classes in things we're truly interested in and to excel in an academic environment by taking challenging courses in areas we feel where we can we can strengthen ourselves and create a more well-rounded student as we move on to a higher level of education next i'd like to talk about the importance of diversity in our education at a pre-collegiate level and how that impacts the stem field in the future when we place students in environments that have diverse viewpoints and people that vary from ourselves it forces us to challenge our conventional ways of thinking and allows us to think from a different perspective in the science in the scientific community and the engineering community many of the world's problems are solved by people who aren't experiencing the problem they're able to look at it from an outside perspective but still relate to how it affects people in their day-to-day lives the importance of being able to look beyond your own perspective is seen in almost every stem job in the modern world next i'd like to talk about some leading nations in gender diversity in the stem fields in china their era of industrialization and online business has recently come to a major peak we've seen major businesses such as alibaba thrive on an international scale in china over 50 percent of online business entrepreneurs are women in india we look at a study in 2011 which showed that over 42 percent of women composed computer science and computer engineering degrees as opposed to america with 18 percent of women composing computer science and computer engineering degree holders in saudi arabia women make almost women make up almost 60 percent of computer science holders computer science degree holders the connection between our courses that we take in high school and the careers we pursue in the future are significant there are many ties between what we learn at a high school level and what we choose to pursue later on in life when it comes to stem jobs and how we might advance into them after we graduate the future looks good stem jobs are expected to grow in the next decade around 13 percent as compared to the average national job growth of nine percent when looking at stem job income on average stem-based jobs earn eighty-eight thousand dollars this is significantly more than the us average national income of around forty six thousand dollars as technology engineering and mathematics become more prevalent in society the ideas of autonomous manufacturing and artificial intelligence become more and more prevalent along with it we'll begin to see that many manufacturing jobs and lower education required will crew requirement jobs become out of fashion and leave the economy by 2025 automation is expected to cost over 85 million jobs according to the world economic forum the majority of these jobs will be in the manufacturing sector along with lower educational requirement jobs and manual labor however stem jobs are looking uh some jobs are looking to have a promising future they're in ever increasing demand and are extremely uh extremely useful in the future some opportunities for us stem education uh can be costly for students these costs can oftentimes be overwhelming and many corporations and companies understand that and consider it when offering scholarship programs here i've listed some of the most major of the society of women engineers scholarship you can earn up to 15 000 and for these science ambassadors scholarship funded by cards against humanity they offer up to full tuition i have a few other scholarships listed on these slides at dartmouth high we offer many extracurricular activities which can engage students in stem outside of the classroom one of these activities is the robotics club which competes regularly at a district level to join the robotics club you can talk to mr brodsky or mr lauer as a member of massachusetts deca i've been with the club for around three years now and we have many events covering various topics some of which like accounting really incorporate mathematics to join deca you can talk to ms kane in a32 we also have the math team at dartmouth high the math team is run by mr york and also regularly competes all three of these activities engage students and allow them to be competitive with their peers and challenge themselves at a personal level i'd also like to talk about the course offerings we have at dartmouth high in the sciences we have the standard courses of biology physics and other things that students move through but we also have electives in the varying physical sciences like organic chemistry horticulture and author courses along with advanced placement courses in the technology field we have many different electives which cover different topics of computer science especially project lead the way run by the computer science department which incorporates advanced placement computer science principles computer science a and cyber security we also have various engineering courses which include drafting and robotics and our mathematics courses typically end with seniors in pre-calculus but by taking accelerated courses and other electives students can choose to learn about statistics and other advanced placement options we have many of the wonderful teachers in the art department and the business department would be gravely disappointed in me if i didn't mention interrelated courses these interrelated courses integrate stem into fields that people wouldn't traditionally think are related to stem for example our graphic design course uses computers to design art along with the digital photography course we have entrepreneurship and innovation classes which heavily use computers in the business department overall my main recommendations would be for students to incr would be for students to take classes beyond the basic graduation requirements and to explore electives in stem that they genuinely are interested in another major facet that i would think about is searching out scholarships as you approach your graduation year scholarships will make it more financially stable to move into a higher education and eventually into a stem job participating in stem-based activities at dartmouth high will allow students to really understand what they're interested in and what they might want to pursue outside of high school parents should also encourage their students to move up from higher level courses if they are using the minimum requirements as a baseline for students tasting taking ccr classes moving up to an honors level class could allow themselves to be challenged more and grow as a student by emphasizing stem in our students at a young age and promoting diversity we're able to create a more equitable and fair community this is how we move forward one step at a time thank you thank you collin for presenting such an important topic for our future here our next presenter is jennifer scott jenny is a senior here at dartmouth high school jenna is on the winter track spring track and cross-country teams and i've had the pleasure of coaching her those of you who know jenny know how that she is a quiet person but she's doing his doing this ted talk to get out of her comfort zone originally jenny was supposed to present with her friend lavender burke but they were unable to work together since they are in different cohorts jenny chose her topic on foreign language instruction at the elementary levels because she believes that everyone should speak more than one language and would like to see students get more than three years of high school instruction please join me in welcoming jennifer scott as she presents the importance of learning foreign languages earlier [Music] as i'm sure many of you here have taken a foreign language class and like me you're most likely not fluent in that language teaching kids in middle school is pushing it but by the time you get to high school it's already too late so you may be wondering what's the point then of taking a foreign language class if you don't become fluent granted there are other advantages to these classes than just fluency it's still important that students fully understand the language but there's a greater question here that should be asked why aren't students taught this at um taught a foreign language in elementary school this is what i'll be discussing today so let's backtrack a little and start somewhere simple to answer this complex question so what is a lingua franca well if you didn't have the opportunity to have ms true as a history teacher or you didn't take ap human geo which i recommend it's a great class i'll explain it here so the merriam-webster textbook definition of a lingua franca is any of various languages used as common or commercial tongues among people of diverse speech so in less words it's essentially a language that's spoken between two different countries that wouldn't otherwise communicate and a common example of this is english so about 1.27 billion out of the 7.8 billion people on earth speak english which is a fairly large amount english is the most commonly used lingua franca and that's why it's so widespread throughout the world and oftentimes people take it for granted because it's so widespread and people expect you to know english or to speak english english also takes a long time to learn i mean you've probably been learning english your whole entire life and you might not even fully understand everything throughout the language so why would you expect anyone else to accommodate them in the language they speak so the top three spoken languages in the world today are english spanish and chinese english has spread throughout the world due to britain and their colonialism um so you can see it spoken here in north america obviously in britain australia even parts of india and africa also speak english as well spanish mostly spread through spanish conquistadors back in the late late 1400s and such and that's why spanish is so widespread china mandarin chinese on the other hand um is so prevalent because of so many people that live in china today okay so foreign language in the us think about it most of us have learned english most of our lives though some still don't necessarily english properly they've been immersed in the language for years now so how could anyone believe that starting spanish in middle school would help us you can't put down on a job application that you took spanish twice in high school 78 of people speak english in the us so it's majority speak english and so if you think about it when you look at road signs or billboards or even posters most of them are in english you won't necessarily find a lot in other languages which is strange because the us doesn't actually have an official language and yet everybody expects you to speak english and because of this there's little immersion of other languages which can make learning a foreign language seriously difficult as nobody else really speaks it and you might necessarily not hear it otherwise but what puts the nail in the coffin is that learning in a new language and middle school high school is prominent throughout the us which is too late to be learning a language and this contrasts europe significantly as they start in elementary school and i've talked with mrs souza who is a foreign language teacher here at dartmouth high school about this and she has spent most of her childhood in portugal so she knows a thing or two about it she said that foreign languages often began in fifth grade back when she was there but now they can start as soon as kindergarten leaving the us falling far behind also in europe they're surrounded by many different countries that speak all sorts of different languages which can also help as you're more immersed in the language they also speak a lot more different languages throughout europe and such even just in single countries you can find a lot of people who speak multiple different languages and because there's people who speak these languages people can listen to it and they're able to better memorize it and speak it but if you don't have that if you just hear one language you're not you're going to have a very difficult time learning anything else so ever wonder why you can't pronounce certain words or phrases in another language no matter how hard you try you can get close but it just doesn't sound right some of you watching this probably can't roll your arse and no matter how many times a spanish teacher says no like this you still can't do it and this is because after the age of 12 um your tongue and your mouth shape become very inflexible and so if you aren't introduced to these sounds at a younger age you won't physically be able to make them and this is a serious problem because by the time you're taught these foreign languages in middle school at the age of like 12 or your tongue has already become too stiff and inflexible for you to say these words and at that point what was the point of learning the language which is why you should start at a younger age so you're able to actually say the words properly so and since you're not able to say the words properly because you were taught at such an older age it often gives people accents and accents are essentially when you just can't say the word right so you substitute the sound for whatever other sound that's common in your language and after just the age of one you learn to ignore most distinctions in sound so it's completely understandable that by 12 you're just too old to say it did i change it yeah okay okay so it's easier to learn a second language at a younger age i mean just think of babies and younger children they have little time to pick up a language and so they pick it up easier and they're more adept at hearing all the sounds and then being able to replicate them but the older you get the more you lose this ability so it would make sense if we started teaching at younger age ages foreign languages therefore you could speak it better also speaking as second languages have been linked with a sharper memory and better listening skills but again this only happens if you're fluent in both languages which most often does not happen because we're not taught at those younger ages we're not taught long enough so the benefits the benefits of learning a second language is it can improve cognitive functions and flexibility and this is important in school especially studies have shown that people who can speak two languages fluently score higher on standardized tests also once you know another language it can be extremely helpful to learn others more easily especially if they're in the same language family for example if you know portuguese it would be much easier for you to learn another romance language such as italian or spanish but more than that culture is super important to language and you can't really learn a language without learning the culture and this is because of slang and words that can have different meanings and words that are linked to certain cultural events and so it's important to understand the background of where that language came from as whereas where the people who speak that language come from it can also help you with your ancestry if you're learning a language that your family speaks then you'll be able to speak with them too so why is it important to learn a second language learning a second language can bring people together it's also been linked with better focus and concentration so it can help you in academic situations so learning a second language provides many benefits from mental to having a deeper understanding of other people it's important as the more we learn about one another the closer we get as a planet as a whole but these issues don't necessarily stem from the teachers themselves it goes far deeper than that change is needed on a national scale and so i'm here today talking about this to bring awareness to the subject that often goes ignored in hopes that people stand up and push for this thought to become a reality to bring people from all different backgrounds together one step at a time [Applause] [Music] thank you jennifer for a very interesting topic and of course one of my areas and definitely would agree with her a move to start earlier our last presenter for the day would be elizabeth mckinley elizabeth here is a junior at dartmouth high school elizabeth is a member of the debate club political science club and the student voice club she also loves international news and politics and enjoys traveling elizabeth chose her topic because she's very interested in feminism in the fight for equity among the genders although we have made many improvements in women's rights in the last century elizabeth would like to see more equitable change become a reality please welcome again elizabeth mckinley as she presents modern feminism [Music] so before we discuss modern feminism we have to think about the definitions that surround this topic we can't get a real understanding of the topic without knowing what we're talking about after i tell you about some definitions we're going to go into the history of feminism so we're going to talk about what has brought us to where we are today afterwards we'll go into modern women's issues which is the bulk of my presentation which discusses various aspects of modern women's issues finally we'll talk about solutions how we can help especially people who are already privileged and already have these rights so first off is definitions so what is feminism feminism has a different definition for each person but the one that i relate to the most and the one that i think is the most accurate is here feminism is the belief in equality for women of all aspects of in all aspects of life socially economically and politically up next is intersectionality intersectionality is a newer concept that people have really started applying to feminism and it means to be a part of multiple minority groups such as gender race or sexuality and this creates a different set of potential discriminating factors next is equity versus equality so equity is often not what people ask for when it's what they need equality is usually what people look for but really what we need is equity so equity is giving everybody what they need to succeed so that means that some people will often get different things however with equality it's giving everybody the same thing so even if somebody doesn't need what they're given they still get it where as if somebody were to need something more they wouldn't necessarily get that so this is a clear example of equity versus equality on the first side we see equality this is these three people were all given the same thing but they aren't all in the same position anymore the first man is too tall while the last man is not tall enough in the second picture we see equity everybody can see but they were all given different things because the first the tallest man didn't need that box so this can bring us to history so before we talk about modern issues we need to look at the history of what's brought us here so first up is the major events in modern feminism so in 1848 was the seneca halls convention and this launched the women's suffrage movement suffrage if you don't know is the right to vote so women began petitioning for the right to vote in 1920 the 19th amendment was passed which gave all women in the united states over the age of 21 the right to vote and then in the mid 1900s women entered the workforce because of world war ii you may be asking why is this important this is important because it gave women a job in the workplace and it showed people that they could do this job since men were off fighting world war ii and they were out in other countries they weren't home to help with jobs and factories and stuff like that so women stepped up and they began to work these jobs and this created a newer sense of oh look women can do this and this started a new era of women beginning to actually work in the workforce and then in the late 1900s there were attempts to pass the era the equal rights amendment this would have given women or all genders really equality in the constitution and this is this didn't get passed which was a major hit for some women and this is honestly or sorry this is a one of the ends to the third wave of feminism which i'll get into next and then in the 2021 elect or the 2020 election kamala harris was elected as the first female vice president of the united states and this is really important because it shows that we finally have the power and the acceptance to elect a woman into into the vice president's office so the waves of feminism i mentioned the third wave earlier the waves of feminism are the difference eras of feminism that all had a different goal so the first wave of feminism was focused on women's suffrage which is the right to vote that was their main focus and once the 19th amendment was passed they kind of moved on to the second wave of feminism which was focused on the personal is political this was a phrase that basically meant women's personal lives were coming politicized and for some that was a good thing for some that meant that they were getting to speak out about everything that was happening but for some they didn't want that so then we kind of moved on to the third wave which is focused on intersectionality and some believe that this wave is still going on um some believe that this wave hasn't ended yet but others believe that the fourth wave has overtaken the fourth wave is focused on the metoo movement and the the aspects of feminism on social media and on the online so this brings us to modern issues so i believe the three most important issues that we're looking at right now are the metoo movement intersectionality and stereotypes so first up is the metoo movement hashtag metoo is a concept that was created by tarana burke she began it to raise awareness about sexual harassment and show women solidarity the use of the phrase me too shows that women it shows women that they aren't alone so if a woman were to say this happened to me and then other women responded with me too that makes other women feel more more invited to speak out and it's not it's not as polarizing as it was when it was just this happened to me and no one responded with yes me too so over 262 powerful men in the hollywood industry and entertainment and politics were caught as of 2019 as sexual harassers and this this is important because it means that these men aren't loved by all anymore they're known for how they truly are and this is just the prominent men and this is just from 2019 we know that more has happened in 2020.
i can count that because it's how old my son's going to be that's right you know that that's my thought process as you know scattered as it was from where we're going so i'm going to turn it over to dr martin's and she's going to tell you because she's been here 12 years in that sitting in that chair over in the office next door and ran the majority of this stuff when it first started she started a lot of these thoughts with her and bob rossi when she came in from the state and she needs a tremendous amount of credit to when you hear the numbers she's going to go through and tell you the stuff that we've done all most of that comes from her so go ahead dr martins thanks it's definitely a group effort and um i i would echo everything that dan has said um and i think that we do have a tremendous amount to be proud of um we detract the largest high school in the state of connecticut and we improved achievement rates and we did that despite shifting demographics tripling of free and redund free and reduced lunch uh students and uh that's not typical it's not typical to see achievement move um when demographics are shifting and you have students who need more and our kids need more and so i i definitely think that the third leg of the panic stool that we're sitting on is not just the 25 credits it's not just the the growing enrollment i was looking at some projections today the higher projections have us over 4 000 students by 2029 and so we really need to be keeping an eye on that um because of this funding staffing cliff that we're facing the the third stool is the aftermath of this pandemic and we all recognize the toll is taken on the grown-ups and the students and and everybody um and we have one regular education social worker at danbury high school who's currently dedicated to working with students in crisis and she has her hands full there used to be two we used to have two psyop coaches to help our teachers work with our students who are acquiring english we used to have a dean of student support we actually had two of them who helped us to dramatically reduce the number of ninth graders who were repeating freshman year which as we know is the biggest indicator for a student to be successful when they graduate from high school and so for me over the last 12 years it's been incredibly frustrating to build systems with really very limited budget um so a lot of the work that we have done has been on the backs of the staff all of us you know to make sure that we are creating resources where they do not exist figuring out how to make google sheets work in a way that we can communicate you know real-time information figuring out how to pull out all this data from powerschool it takes a tremendous amount of capacity building it takes a tremendous amount of professional development and coaching and so i don't think that we've done everything that we can in terms of supporting staff with implementing things it's just a function of numbers but we have really demonstrated that a number of these strategies were positively impactful not just those staff positions because there were programs underneath that so the dean of student supports worked with a specific population there was a structure underneath that we had a tutoring center with nine interventionists that helped us in real time to provide students with opportunities to catch up when they needed it um and all of that has been stripped away and so when you know we were asked what would you do with this esther money sort of like dust off you know and make better the strategies that we have had in place previously so i think that we have the the the capacity we certainly have the willpower and we absolutely have the passion to get this done but we need help and we need help in a way that dan and i can't make happen we cannot conjure money and so i'm grateful for the opportunity to speak to you about some of the successes and the challenges because i do believe you're in a position to provide us um with the assistance that we need thank you sorry go ahead rich and to your point kate who says it better than both dan and and and megan in terms of the frustrations that you hear the the conditions that they work under and to your point how do you get people engaged i think just by what their needs are in terms of dan saying he needs 28 teachers and he's gotten eight and when you have one counselor two three 3200 kids that has to resonate with something but we're hearing it firsthand yes we hear this through the administration through kevin through dr sal etc you know again the passion and and the the passion and the frustration when you talk to people and who's in the front lines you know doing this work i think has a more of an impact on those listening to it so that you are in the position to convey some of that emotion and information to the outside that's the whole purpose of trying to get you know trying to get dan and and megan here to to enlighten us further um you and i had talked about and broke down with it is communications with a student body you know we have i don't think we've ever talked to the student body and here we are on the board you know pounding out chestnut and we're doing everything for the students you know what say i've never heard you know other than board meetings you know that's a good point rich yeah that's a good point i think um you know i think we have to um you know the kevin this is something that you've brought up before that we need to engage more with the youth in our community um and you know we have those the student government reps uh that come and sit at the meetings and give us updates uh and um you know i'm sure there are uh or you know clubs at the the high school level that you know having them uh learn a little bit about some of this stuff um might be helpful in being able to convey information back to their parents and for them to come to us and say you know these are the the conditions i'm struggling with the same as we're hearing it from you dan and from you megan thank you so much for for coming tonight and speaking with us by the way um you know for for us to hear firsthand from the kids who are dealing with those challenges that brings that same emotionality that you guys brought tonight because you you're caring about the whole school it helps to hear from those individuals you know that's what will resonate because they see that kid up there that's talking or saying something and that could be their child too you know so i think that's that's definitely um we're wondering then if you can help us get in touch with the kind of students who might be able to offer some feedback or be willing to speak with us and give us some testimonials absolutely you know we can set up any time you want kids they love to do this and our hatters are are very good at it they're very good at um advocating for themselves and they would love the opportunity to speak to people in power yeah we would love to do that um how do we make that happen uh let me let me brainstorm for a day with dr martin's tomorrow and we'll have a plan for you um you know it talks about you know adult availability you know like when can the kids do it and then you tell me you know um you know what who do you want you know you want we want a good cross-section of danbury high school so it'll take us a little while we will need to set up some probably some interpreters and things like that uh to get a true cross-section um of students but we can get it done okay um no no no pressure um i appreciate it though uh we appreciate being able to partner with with you on this okay yep go ahead then i just wanted to also bring up that you know the in addition to trying to present to the public you know a a a budget that engages them and has their interest you know we're trying to do this and i think this has been probably the best presentation that we've we've made in the 15 years of 14 years that that i've been uh with the board and we've gotten away from our 80 page you know exp excel spreadsheets um but we've got to make the powers that control the purse strings aware that our foundation is crumbling and if we're embarking and my frustration is and courtney you know i talked with courtney daley on this is is that when we're lacking funds to provide for current you know our current budget cycles we're looking for the city to go out and bond a 90 million dollar you know brick and mortar building for a new concept we have you know called the academy and if we can't afford the staff that like you said you know when mark gave us the addition then you know what's the purpose of it yeah no i rich i agree but i think you know this is a conversation we're going to probably have again a couple times before we get towards the uh you know the actual city council presentation part of this but for right now i think you know we really need to focus our efforts at um you know the the school community the the the students the teachers the the parents and the families of our school kids they need to hear that message from us because we need them to take action you know and reach out to city hall and then you know when we have the opportunity to go in and have that conversation um with the mayor and with the with the city council you know absolutely we're going to have to revisit that conversation and come up with a game plan to help them do exactly what you're describing which is address some of those cracks in our foundation i wondered if i could just give one little question so i really like the simplicity of the one pager and i would also credit joe and say thank you for those ideas and kevin for putting it together and i really like the categories i don't know that that like i think you would give them the feedback that it conveys a positive message do you know what i mean so i'm just wondering how we now think now that we've we're thinking in this way and we've heard from dan and megan and we know the things we know how do we craft that strategy from a marketing perspective to include that side of the because i think yeah i think that there are different stages of this conversation right like we're talking about the latter half of this conversation which is if if we don't get the money which is you know if we don't win them over with like some of the positives that we're trying to do it's like okay let us try to scare you now right that's those are the the natural human drivers um but you know i think that's that's a good question that i might have to think about it i don't know if anybody else has any anything because that's just like the the only brass and text piece i'm just wondering is how do we then like incorporate so for example if we're thinking of a presentation or a one picture how we talk to people about it in a way that's marketed um how do we then incorporate the things that dan and megan know so intimately into those buckets and are they the right buckets and how do we portray that that's and maybe that's not for tonight i'm just saying that um out loud because i i obviously haven't been able to do that yet you know yeah i wonder if that's you know to some degree if that's more about incorporating it into the presentation more than it is the visual that we distribute because the visual is just you know something that i i'm hoping we can put on social media i know the the cdypto talked about uh dispersing it amongst their their email list um you know that's that's to generate interest in it and you know try to get people you know hopefully going to some kind of presentation with us that presentation is an opportunity to like really convey the emotionality like so that's that's part of what came out of this meeting tonight and and from dan and from megan you know the emotionality of um you know the situation that that they're in and that our students are in that's that opportunity to have that that kind of exchange is through that that that medium i think um but but i'll think about that and i i hope everybody else will too about you know how we might incorporate that into the actual presentation uh the materials rather no thank you go ahead amy uh you know i hear i hear the frustration of dan and megan you know and and gosh i wish there was some way to convey that you know you know what would someone say who's not really well schooled on what goes on in in the schools you know but i mean just those few those couple of things that were you know we we needed 24 and we got eight i mean that's a big difference right uh what's that we needed 24 teachers but we we've gotten eight and that they're making these plans and these there's structure they're making a structure supposedly we're gonna get the 24 but we're only getting eight so now we have to back down i mean it's like kind of like spinning your wheels a lot right and it kind of sounds like i mean i know that dan and megan represent so many of our administrators and our staff and our teachers who are just you know so professional and you know doctors have always said and you're we're all saying it's always on the backs of the staff but how long you know and then that uh over 000 students by 2029 it's just it's frustrating you know it's just frustrating you want to say that people don't you get it you know don't you understand you know yes we have we we have so many accomplishments you know and we're so proud of our students there's so many great things going on what this is this is a big problem i i don't know how do you get that ex that frustration across well if i could jump in i don't even like the frustration part you know i want to make sure that while we're frustrated we want to be we're frustrated because we know we can do better and we know we can deliver a better product uh for saying that and you know we also we're in a tough position and it was mentioned before you know we have to respect our elders and kevin and dr sal uh that was a cheap shot kevin yes it was in what we have to do uh you know and we've never been we've never been asked to to present to the board like this before you know so you so you could hear it so you know it's hopefully a new day that goes forward but um you know i wonder if it's not a page that says we can do better and then put those as bullet points we needed 28 and we got eight we needed you know we we we had one social worker we have zero we had a sad coach we had two deans now we have zero like we can do better like that's the kind of thing that maybe i don't know whose place it is to put out there if it's ours that we can do it you know but maybe that's the kind of thing that would would grab people we can do that it's a great thought i think one of the areas that we haven't really leveraged a whole lot yet is social media and i think we have a really good opportunity to use that um i i put together a little um clip and it just kind of gives like a like a it's like a very basic like let's talk to like some of the concerns that we've heard through the emails we've gotten from parents i'm just going to share with you real quick but it's this conversation courtney is getting me thinking about that because i think we could do a similar thing you know with that content in the in the uh all right so let me see if i can go ahead and do this there's no sound on it so and so um you know the idea is just like kind of a very simple messaging you know to try to give people um something that grabs them on an emotional level and then tell them what we're doing to answer their concerns and then ask them for a direct action um i'm just wondering if folks have any feedback on that or any thoughts about how we could take for example what courtney was just talking about and put that together as a piece i don't talk to partners i'm sorry no no please go yeah in terms of incorporating the the since i'm always thinking financially is what we just heard in terms of as an analogy of the 28 to the 88 and incorporating that into our multi-year forecast so that you not only equate the the needs that we're talking about but you put a price tag on there so the community understands what it's going to cost to get to that particular place well it's you know it's a two-fold effect everything we're doing has a cost implication to it and if we build on that and take all of these parameters to get us to a better education it shows us that we have strategic thinking both in the academic curriculum as well as in the financial knowledge of it and we're putting on a table what our needs are to achieve this particular criteria whether it be just moving ahead for a better education compliances i agree with you rich i just want to right now i want to stay focused on the the social media stuff for just a minute um we can certainly come back and and talk about um the i think you know the multi-year piece of that i think is important so i do want to come back to that and talk about that um and talk about specific costs that we should be giving in in maybe the larger presentation whether that's um that that four-page document courtney that we were linking to yeah yeah yeah kate i love it i think if one slide that just says we can do better before the call to action with bullet points from dan and meg and from the rest you know that we make them pithy i love it i think i don't know what other people's feedback is but if i saw that and i had my daughter in the school district i would i would definitely get engaged in a new way if i hadn't been engaged thanks courtney kevin were you did you have something yes so um and kate i think and and thanks for sharing that uh with everyone i i appreciate it the last time we saw it and um i think it does tug at the hearts of our readers and it helps to promote um action um and and i think the action piece is my question right now i feel like um we might need some legal guidance on some of the things that we're talking about right now okay um you know because i don't want to get us in trouble um i don't you know right and i i know we had the conversation about you know potentially leveraging kid voice um in fact i initiated that a couple of weeks ago um and then offline you know i was a little concerned about leveraging kid voice um as a means to get a budget approved i just i just feel like it's a little fine line that we're walking i just want to make sure we get some feedback whether it's from kim um or from some other expertise um and it's one i you know we haven't we've been moving so fast and i think this has been amazing um the fact our community relations peace i can't believe we haven't had this for years um just just trying to think about overall goals for us as far as the budget process and i know we talked about some of these things before uh but like increasing support and credibility in the community as part of the process and so we i mean i think we we gain tremendous support just by speaking truths right and and that's what we heard dan and meg do tonight um you know that's part of the message that courtney and i were trying to convey on monday i mean courtney has tried to do in previous presentations um but continue to educate stakeholders and build trust and so you know that's one of the reasons why we're going to get into these various communities where we can you know ask mr jannelli to introduce us to that to that community ms cooper to introduce us to that community ms molina to introduce us to that community um and and the more we build you know we educate state stakeholders and build trust like tonight dan and meg spoke and like i can look at the faces and like you know just feel the emotion in the room and and yes we we want folks to take action but i just want to make sure we have the expertise and feedback what our role is and what we're allowed to do in terms of trying to get folks that promote promote action i just want to make sure we're not okay overstepping that yeah no i hear that um and i'm glad you bring that up because i'm not always clear where those lines are so right right right right and and kate i mean i although we might we may not win everything right now but if we continue to get out and and there's a level of transparency i think the community is going to continue to appreciate it um we're educators right and so we're we're fine we're going out and trying to educate the public uh but there's also opportunities for us to tap community expertise i mean throughout this process the more we go out there the more feedback we're gonna get um i've heard from several parents i've we've actually adjusted and pivoted on our presentations based on feedback from different folks um so i i think that the more we continue to do this again we may not win right now um but we will continue to gain momentum and build trust and as we continue to build credibility for this budget process yeah i think we have a lot of ask in these next couple of years um just at 912 alone yeah that's a that's a very good point kevin and we we've talked about that a little bit before where uh this is not a this is not a rate this is not a racism marathon so right i mean don't get me i still want to win don't get me wrong we're still looking at the finish line i get that um yeah no i think that's a good point finish the marathon i will uh i'll reach out to kim and and just have a conversation um you know about where what's appropriate um okay if if that last part was not in there um does that seem like something that's useful i think so i think so now of course that may leave people with well what do i do now and we don't have that page but if we don't get ourselves in trouble and we've educated everyone i mean i wonder if we could substitute that last page for instead of like a a direct action just putting like a almost like a timeline of what the budget process is people have done that i've seen that in other districts like here you know it's factual and informational here's when here are your opportunities to express your your voice yeah yeah i've seen that before in other district presentations they just don't have a date yet which is very convenient no they will it'll get calendared soon it's been a challenge all around so i get it that that's not you know high on the priority list necessarily yeah um all right anything else uh joe we haven't heard from you here tonight so i've been feverishly taking verbatim minutes oh you are good very good i just want to make sure if you had anything that yet an opportunity if you don't that's okay no no i'm good i've been i'm listening everybody's good on my end mrs cooper anything nope okay uh amy i think we're running down then um in terms of you know going forward um and we haven't heard from you i apologize dr mead um do you have uh any information for us about different groups i know you were you were trying to do a little bit of outreach there um and i'm just not sure where you're where you've landed on that yeah i do hi everyone it's good to see you i have um a whole list of potential people to go and meet with groups to meet with and i have drafted a letter already kevin i just shared it with you as well and i aimed a little bit more in this letter about home value and new businesses to danbury and how having students that are well prepared um and all these new opportunities coming up um that we would then like to be able to go out and meet with these folks to explain the budget process to them and ask for their assistance in advocating for it when it comes to be public hearing time so i can continue to work on that um if the group so desires um but i think we need to continue to get our our pr marketing materials online um before we go out and do that okay thank you ann um i think we're pretty well set on the one page or at least the last version i saw i don't know if um kevin or courtney you guys could pull that up and just show the group real quick i'm not sure if everybody's seen it here all right give me one second and see if i can i'd write this then i figure it out but i make it really small when i share it so thank you so much sure courtney i'm trying to here i'm trying to as well this new platform that i just learned hey i just want to ask you a question or someone said in the beginning that you can watch this or people or can be on this right now on youtube uh yeah i think we're streaming this committee meeting to youtube does that mean someone can watch it afterwards like some someone who couldn't be here yep absolutely on youtube yep on the hatter's tv now what was that the same for the city-wide no i don't think city i think citywide has their own account they do that's right you're right they did their own zoom or something yeah how many people around here talked about internet four cool it's probably dr sal cara me you a couple of video members watched it last night i figured it out kevin can you all see my screen oh good yes thank you so i'm not gonna please bear with me because this is a new technology that um kevin's daughter brought to us which is uh visually very appealing but challenging for me to uh display but you know kevin do you want to walk through because you you did this puppy like this is really like you're you're a baby sure sure so the the five uh the five areas of focus um i think it was our first meeting kate uh where we got feedback from the board members and we were asking for feedback on you know kind of what five what five things what four or five errors should we highlight uh for the public and for the community and so actually one of them was dhs accreditation that was one that was repeated a number of times and then special ed supports and ell supports were two other ones that were there was considerable overlapping had mentioned a number of times and so we had decided we didn't want to create confusion for the community and get too far off from courtney's original presentation the you know our original presentation to the community and so the social emotional support was certainly one of the areas of focus and highlighted in our original budget the curriculum supports in green was was another area that was part of our original budget the focus classroom instruction is a term uh that we is an umbrella term that we thought of to to to to focus on uh the interventionists that we're going to need to help mitigate the learning loss um the the additional support that we're going to need in the ell for ell staff and special ed staff and so in focused classroom instruction it also will address um i believe it was the ell special ed and interventionists were the areas that we would that were going to be parked under this focus area access to tech technology we assumed our community would would immediately um appreciate the need for access to economic technology um in this you know during this time and then underneath after we identified the five focus areas we just gave some brief information in terms of the ask we went back and forth on whether or not to actually associate a dollar amount the dollar amount when just focusing on these five areas of course didn't add up to the total budget that courtney had originally presented and so we had um really at the last minute decided to not put those numbers in um not it wasn't being it was not in an effort to not be transparent but it was more about if we put those numbers up there we're going to end up in more than a one pager in our original document uh because we would have to explain then where the red the remaining monies are are parked let's just carry forward money i just want to be clear like yeah what this is like the new initiatives and it does add up to the new initiatives but to carry forward money and we just didn't think it was important to highlight it here sorry to introduce kevin thank you thank you carl thank you carl and so those five uh focus areas that we had talked about and um pretty much agreed more because this pretty much captures the feedback uh from the committee um and we thought it was best to have to get the feedback from this group and also from folks in the community um to make sure that those positions um that we're asking for are parked under each um each each area focus and as they listen to their presentations they can understand why those positions are needed and so you know part of what we heard tonight from dan and meg um you can see um you know the dean parked the guidance counselors parked in there under social emotional support the social worker parked under there under social emotional support um the family liaison which we didn't talk about tonight parked on the social emotional support um and and and here's the high school tonight telling us um they they continue to need more resources to support the growing population at the building uh the fact that you know we've been out of school for you almost a year and a half um and you know i think all of us are bracing for additional needs um and you know and the demands on our staff are going to be considerable when we come back into the buildings um and we need to make sure our staff is is our principles a resource so we can meet the needs of the kids that are going to be walking in our buildings in september um and so the access to not to technology is also i think apparent we've asked for four additional media tech uh technicians to help to make sure we have we have the requisite number at every building um given that we're going to be a one-to-one school district our enrollment growth dan and meg talked about as well and so that's why we have those additional high school teachers uh you know park right back in the air again um to help address that growth and quite frankly the three is just addressing the minimal growth you know because they they need more they ask for positions last year we ended up not not filling those positions and so you know we continue to um to impact you know the choices and options that that kids have at that at the high school the curriculum support that is needed across the district is also here you know we continue to talk about the enrollment growth and and so with that growth comes needs for english language learning support um and that that's why the the sheltered instruction coach is parked here again and so you know part of what i tried to explain to families on at monday night at citywide pto um you know the more that we can help all learners this means all of our al all of our kids benefit um and so if i have 22 24 kids in my classroom and i need and i need um you know targeted support for some of my students and then those resources are available this helps ensure everyone gets what they need in that classroom and so but we everyone doesn't get what they need if we don't make these investments and so this was just a quick overview um you know and then at the bottom we did put in there that we need folk support and um you know we did have that that kind of call to action information in there and you know upon obviously upon reflection just wondering what that should look like moving forward absolutely thank you kevin um so just for the committee members who may not have seen that um i don't know if you uh i think it was a very strong uh a very strong graphic i think it really hones in on what we're looking for and makes it easy to you know even as you're going through it kevin make an appeal for the specific things that we need that are going to really change the uh environment especially if at the high school if we could have those supports i hope so all right um any other business that anyone wants to bring up no i just want to say one thing that document is one of the most beautiful documents i've seen in my life that was that was very good it was exactly what i had hoped it was going to look like thank you joe seriously i thought it was a great idea and i we really appreciate the recommendation absolutely very well executed all right well thank you guys for for coming tonight um let's try to set a meeting and next meeting um i just want to say thank you for having us thank you for being here we really appreciate you taking time to do it yeah and then meg thank you so much for making yourselves available tonight and that email uh with that feedback is also really very helpful thank you thank you everyone see you at pog meg have a good night thanks dan have a good night turn the heat on you
we did spend all those funds prior to that deadline but that deadline has been expended extended to may 31st but we did expend those the federal gear and federal esr funds they don't expire until september 30th of 2022 we are budgeting some expenditures in those funds but we are also carrying some of those funds into the next year and plan on spending them next fiscal year next year's revenue assumptions you'll see that we ada the cola of 3.84 does netizen increase in our lcff funding of about 5.6 million dollars that is both base grant money and supplemental concentration grant funds uh we are budgeting the federal sr2 revenue that is based on the relief package that president trump signed just prior to the new year we don't have a dollar amount yet a exact dollar amount and we we believe some of it's going to flow to us this year but we currently are budging and budgeting it all in 2122 year and again on the expenditure side step and column of course you'll see our stirs and pers employer contribution rates that we're planning on we also plan on a certain amount of certificated attrition and we do have that par supplemental retirement program we do not know the full uh extent of the of that particular program as of now we always adjust our expenditures and of course we do adjust for operating cost inflator of 1.5 currently our multi-year projection at first interim you might recall we had about 9 million dollars of line item reductions in this particular year we have removed those line item reductions out of our multi-year projection and you're going to see the impact in our multi-year projection based on the increased cola which offsets some of that but also some of the one-time funding however you'll see in our multi-year projections we still do get very close to our minimum required reserve so future expenditure reductions may still be required in fact most likely will be required in some quantity as we move through this particular budget cycle and move into the next budget cycle in our out years so i just wanted to make that just wanted to make that point as we look at their multi-year projection in 2223 you'll see our revenue again our ada the cola that school services is recommending that nets us about a two million dollar increase in our lcff that federal sr2 money that i mentioned we are budgeting to receive and expend in the 21 22 year we of course have to remove that from our revenue side and of course we also remove the expenditures from the expense side in our multi-year projection and again our assumptions there's the stirs and pers employer contribution rates that are currently projected for that year and again our our operating cost inflator and the other assumptions we use on the expenditure side so some quick numbers uh this is the unrestricted side of our fundo one general fund you'll see the revenues expenditures the sources uses that is a the net effect of the transfers out usually from unrestricted side to the restricted side of our budget to cover restricted program operating costs so you'll see on the unrestricted side we're currently projecting a deficit of about 9.6 million dollars in the current year that deficit that projected deficit will change now as we move towards estimated actuals where we get a better understanding of what budget versus actual is going to be spent over the next several months but you'll see that does have a significant impact on our unrestricted ending fund balance based on what we know as of our january 31st financials 2122 you'll see the projection that's the 144.9 million revenue that's uh the increase in that is solely tied to the 3.84 cola on the lcff and you'll see from 2122 to 2223 the increase in revenue to 146.9 again is the increase in our lcf revenue but you'll see with our current assumptions at the end of the 22-23 school year we are projecting an ending fund balance of just over six million dollars at this point on the unrestricted side of our budget and again i would like to point out this multi-year projection is built now without the nine million dollars of reductions we had built in at first in our multi-year projection the restricted side of the budget you'll see the revenues and expenditures again the revenue in the current year and next year includes significant one-time federal and state coveted relief funds that's why you see the the disparity between the current year at 39.7 to the third year out at 21.2 because we're not expecting to receive any more coveted relief funds in the third year of this particular cycle you'll see a restricted ending fund balance in the current year of about four and a half million dollars that is due to not spending all of the one-time money in this fiscal year but carrying some of that revenue over to the 2122 year you'll see we are planning on spending currently in our assumptions because that money does it all expire in september of 22.
it's uh it's reduced the amount of premiums most um employees have to pay but i'll read on here chapter 44 impact minister you see mr murillo presented the financial impact of the nj ehps new jersey education health plan chapter 44 medical contributions which are based on salary the nj ehp was mandated to be an effect uh men to be in in effect as of january 1st 2001 chapter 78 contributions are based on a percentage of the premium therefore the contributions made to the district are much lower for those who opt to enter the nj eha the impact from january 2001 through june 2021 will be uh the current budget the the administration will budget accordingly in the 2001 22 budget for those who may have switched to b may be switching to the nj ehp as of july 1st 2021 after after the opening enrollment which will take place in may 2021 anybody have any questions on the minutes from february all right mr daley you have some more of this i know yeah i'm trying to let's go you know it's not opening for me okay here we go okay uh click the board of education finance committee february 23rd 2021 5 pm to 5 30 minutes where members present including myself was mr canova miss beltran and mr smith uh administrative president was uh dr robertosi michael yousse and eric thomasevich also in attendance was rachel harrington uh updated proposal for 2122 school year mr uc informed the committee that a district's health provider aetna has provided an updated proposal for the health insurance premium cost for the 2001-2022 school year the new proposal includes a 2.05 percent reduction in health insurance premium costs from the 2001-2021 school year administration will monitor premium rates until the 20 122 school year budget is due number two 2001 2021 22 state aid update mr uc community communicated to the committee that the 2021-22 state aid information has not been released by the state the district should expect to receive the state information by this friday esser ii funds aka cares two funds uh mr uc was has informed the committee that the district was awarded an additional funds by the state relating to the elementary school secondary school emergency relief fund esser2 under the coronavirus response and relief supplemental appropriations cares act that the total amount of the additional funds is 10 million 963 dollars and six hundred and thirty nine dollars um the budget application will be available beginning march 15th in the zoo uh by may 14th the amendments can be made after the due date of may 14th the allowable users of the these funds are the same as the original esser funds plus additional allowable uses addressing learning laws preparing schools for reopening testing repairing and upgrading projects to improve air quality in the school buildings uh that concludes my notes for the um february 23rd meeting anybody have any questions okay okay uh finance minutes for february 26th uh the board of education finance committee february 26 uh 3 30 p.m to 5 50 p.m minutes uh president board members was myself joe konova dana belgium and jim smith uh administration was dr robertosi uh mr yusi and mr thomasevich number one 2122 state aid update mr uc communicate communicated that the committee uh to the committee that the 2021-22 state aid and information has been released by the state the district is expected to receive 55 million three hundred eighty thousand four hundred and sixteen dollars in the general uh in the general fund state aid for the 20th for 21 22 school year this is an increase of 12 756.
uh you'll see here that um for employee contributions it's actually going down and i will say that as a result of recent legislation where school districts were required to implement a new plan called the new jersey educators health plan uh it also had its own set of employee contribution rates that has had a direct impact upon employee contributions to the district it was supposed to save money it's actually not saving money on the whole so we're seeing a reduction on employee contributions we don't have a choice uh in that plan it is uh mandated plan by uh by law uh so um you know but that this is uh currently what the uh what the outlook is overall for health benefits and employee contributions related to that to that and that is it on insurance any board members have any questions to bernie about what he just presented uh insurance okay i don't see anyone uh thank you bernie so uh just a couple follow-ups then uh with regard to um uh with regard to what's coming up uh after this uh quickly uh march 18th we will have the budget presentation and the board will be adopting a tentative budget as a reminder the tentative budget is just that it is tentative it's not final and in the uh weeks that follow uh the board will have opportunity to discuss and potentially make revisions as may be necessary public hearing on the budget will be held on may 7th that will be the last point in time at which any changes to the budget may be made and then the final budget adoption is slated for may 13th so bernie too just to to reiterate um the tentative board of the tentative budget adopts adoption is part of the formal budget process is defined by the state but um it is certainly still a work in progress until we do the final adoption in may that is correct yes okay great so um lots of finance committee meetings to look forward to okay next we come to the good of the cause for the public members of the public may provide comments at this meeting through zoom by entering the url meeting id and password you will see before you on the screen in order to be recognized use the chat feature select the zoom meeting host then enter and send your name to the host you will be recognized to speak when your name is called and individuals will be invited to speak in the order in which we have received your request the board of education recognizes the value of public common and educational issues and the importance of allowing members of the public to express themselves on school matters of community interest to protect the privacy of all students and staff concerns regarding individual students and staff members should generally be addressed by first meeting with the appropriate administrative staff participants will be limited to speak to three minutes each and i wanted to remind the public that this is your time to come and speak to the board it isn't a time to engage in dialogue with us it's not a time for you to worry about what we're going to say this is a time for you to come and speak so if we are are quiet it is because we are listening to you and if there is um an administrative responsibility for a particular question one will absolutely be provided by dr volesky's office so again this is your time and we're here to listen so bernie is there anyone wishing to address the board tonight there are no requests to speak okay seeing none i close the public portion and we move on first item is the board of education agenda can i please have a motion to combine items one through four move by jeff second second by leewoo is there any discussion mark yeah last meeting we tabled uh policies once 152 and 165 for for full board discussion but i don't see them anywhere bernie yes um those though because they were tabled they would not be part of uh these um these resolutions that are currently before you um i believe that those uh policies um well there was one that um i believe was tabled and would not be coming back um following a discussion um and then there was another of the laws that is being remanded uh to the policy committee meeting or to the policy committee which which one was voted to not come back because i thought they were both tabled just to have full board discussion they were both tabled but uh the one had to do with the order of um uh of the call for vote so um i forget the number on that mark i apologize um it was the recommended change was for seniority alphabetical order and i don't believe that is coming back uh for further consideration but the second bylaw which is um uh had various changes in terms of the form of the vote uh it addressed um the voting for officers and there was a question i believe that you had raised on that so that paul that bylaw is going back to the policy committee for discussion okay yeah that's 152.
down to 3.02 action item approval of new district agreements uh these district agreements that are new are typically not on the consent agenda items as the renewals are uh dr rex are there any comments that you have on on this or just the board has asked in the past that we make sure that we signify when we add new agreements we have a lot of returning agreements as you saw but we do we are adding somerset academy skyway campus to our asdb family so i just wanted to make sure the board knew that when they voted on that consent item okay um do we have a motion to approve 3.02 i move that we approve 3.02 okay is there a second okay mike gordon seconds all in favor say aye all right okay all opposed none okay thank you item 4.01 information item finance report shaina cooper shayna cooper executive director of business services good afternoon board president nigro superintendent reichman assistant superintendent rex members of the board and the asdb community our most recent finance committee meeting was held last thursday on february 25th with board members manali and gordon and superintendent reichman the formats as well as more detailed information was provided and discussed with the committee and in summary we reviewed in detail and discussed the january 31 2021 and 2020 budget to actual comparison reports the available cash balance student enrollment student student-teacher ratios and filled full-time equivalents and the grant revenues and expenditure reports we also reviewed the school year 1920 and school year 1819 instruction and shared service revenues and expenditures which also included the average revenue per student average cost per student and the average voucher reimbursement per student i did note in the meeting that that specific report will only be provided prepared on an annual basis and it is difficult to do the calculations when all financial activity for the school or fiscal year has not been completed provided to each of you is the most same financial data that was provided to the finance committee but just in a more condensed summarized version but before i jump into the financial report i did want to share that the joint legislative budget committee baseline book was published in january 2021 and the fiscal year 2022 baseline report for asdb shows an estimated 928 000 increase in our appropriated funds from the fiscal year 2021 amount of 37.3 million to a tentative fiscal year 2022 amount of 38.2 million this increase is attributed to the anticipated growth in revenues within the schools for the deaf and the blind fund from our institutional vouchers which is about 667 000 in growth inflation of 240 000 as well as the state land trust endowment of a little less than 22 000 with that information the team will begin the budget planning process and this will include working with the various departments developing projections and all budget requests will be carefully considered hover with any such process there may be requests for funding which will not be approved but those items that we will be considering and will be prioritized include items that will be required by law contracts grants and or agreements items that we've identified to meet our agency's strategic goals items that result in or offset by any additional revenue to the agency and any items that provide a net long-term benefit to the agency i also wanted to point out that since our january 14th board meeting ade did award aastb about 348 000 from the cares elementary and secondary school emergency relief also known as sr2 and the allocation amount was based on our non-lea status the funds are highly flexible however they are designed to help address local recovery efforts related to responding to coven 19 and if you recall we used the cares sr1 funds of approximately 80 40 000 for items such as postage supplies for mailing out student packets the zoom video license hotspots ipads chromebooks as well as the google chrome license for each of those the team is working with our director of federal programs melissa degrees to develop the budget for the 348 000 and we will submit that to ade for approval within the next few weeks i anticipate that we will use those funds to continue to purchase computer devices software ppe and safety supplies we're also trying to identify ways that we can continue to provide social emotional learning and mental health supports for our students over the summer we will also use the funds to reimburse ourselves for already incurred coveted related expenses that were not previously budgeted for in our original budget now on to the financial report as referenced on page one for enrollment as of february 1st 2021 asdb had 2206 students and as of february 1st 2020 there were students so there has been an increase from last year to this year of about 55 students i do want to point out though that on the bottom of page 1 it was an error on my part but the school year 2021 was not updated to reflect the february 1st 2021 count of 2206 in the chart that shows the student enrollment type by disability so please accept my apologies for that on page two you will see though as of february 1st 2021 there were 549.6 field ftes and 812 staff members there were approximately 60 vacancies actively being recruited for which include teachers instructional and residential service assistants interpreters bus drivers and other various positions on page 3 you will see the financial summary based on the comparative data for january 31 2021 and january 31st 2020 our collected revenues for budget fiscal year 2021 shows 14 million dollars which is 1.8 million lower compared to last year's amount of 15.8 million and again that's primarily from the decline in the federal and state grant revenues as well as the reduction in medicaid reimbursements that we've received this year rental income has also gone down as well as the gifts and donations that we've received thus far our total obligated expenditures are right at about 35.2 million dollars which is about 1.3 million higher when compared to last year's amount of 33.9 and most of that though is due to an encumbrance of about 1.5 million dollars and again that's related to external telecommunication charges electricity janitorial rent as well as repair maintenance additionally we've worked with adot to order vehicles for our agency fleet replacement that relates to the one million dollar allocation from the governor's emergency education relief fund which was established by the cares act there is an expenditure decrease though of about hundred and thirty six thousand dollars and most of that's due to a decrease in professional and outside services travel and food and most of that is as a result of the covid19 pandemic on page three you excuse me on page six you'll see the report that shows you our budget to actual expenditures as well as the remaining balance by object class by fund as well as by each of our various programs and on page nine you will see a new report that i thought would be beneficial to everyone and that report shows you how much of our january 31st expenditures totaling 31.
so next we can talk about intersectional feminism we defined intersectionality earlier intersectionality is the the how different factors cause more discrimination potentially so intersectional feminism is the feminism that is fighting for all women for the empowerment of all women so during the third and fourth waves of feminism this has become a very important topic because in the past a lot of people have really just been fighting for white women and straight women but now we're really looking into women of color and women in the lgbtq community which adds more of a true sense of equality and equity because now we're really going for everybody to reach equality so this also is breaking down stereotypes intersectionality is an aspect of breaking down stereotypes so the first one is women in the workforce women's jobs have changed drastically in the past 100 years or so so in there were only two women ceos in the fortune 500 but now in 2020 there's 37 women ceos in the fortune 500.
so we're planning on expensing it in the 2122 school year this is merely the slide that combines both the unrestricted and the restricted in the components of the ending fund balance the most important numbers are down at the bottom what are what is our three percent required reserve for state law and what is our five percent required per board policy you'll see in the current year our combined ending fund balance is 13.1 million dollars so we do meet both the three and the five percent board policy reserve when we get into 22 and 23 we still meet our three percent required reserve due to state law but we are no longer meeting our five percent required reserve per board policy so as we work on our upcoming budget cycle that is something we will have to pay special attention to to ensure that we do have a plan in place to meet our five percent board policy required reserve and just some highlights we are currently approximately 549 students lower than we were in march 2020 across our system of course the ada hold harmless has helped us this year as it has many districts across the state but again as i mentioned in 2223 we are still projecting a slight increase in our ada so we are currently counting on getting the majority of those students back into our system when we return to in-person instruction in a hopefully normal operating scenario for apple valley unified continued deficit spending is something we always need to be aware of and of course the may revise will come up governor newsom will will probably propose some more adjustments to the state budget which will in fact affect our local operating budget and of course the long-term impacts of the pandemic on state revenues are still unknown in the short term of course the state is doing quite well but we don't know what will happen in the long term that's all i have any questions the i don't believe the uh the additional so-called illegal uh migrants have will impact up about this high desert at all right because i don't i do not see any impact rather then because if they come in they will increase the the student students i don't believe we'll experience any significant impact from that i have a question yes if we spend all the money that is allocated for um the covet relief yes if we just spend it yes uh will we still have reserve to manage to covet expectations that is put put on us by the state and the federal government the cdc if we just use the money for what they have allocated will we still be able to manage what we have well if if we did spend all of the federal money allocated to us that certainly would have an impact on our projected ending fund balance because part of our ending fund balance is that restricted balance the restricted funds that have flowed to us in the current year that we're not planning on spending in the current year would we still be able to manage yes we would but things would be very tight in the budget we most likely would not be able to expand any services and we would have to be very deliberate in any purchasing decisions that we made okay my next question is on the assumptions you had the 2021 and 20 21 22 and 22 23 assumptions and i'm paying close attention to the expenditures where you said that the stirs and pairs in 2021 despairs the the stairs was 16.15 and the paris was 20.70 but in 2122 it appears the purse went up the stairs came down and then in 2223 the stairs went up and the purse also went up that's correct how is that affecting us uh as a district because now that's about how much you put in right as a district yes that is the employer contribution on behalf of our employees and over time you've seen significant increases in the stirs and pers employer contributions if i remind the board and any of those watching the current year and next year's stirs contributions the governor the governor pledged some monies over the last couple years to buy down that rate increase that's why we're seeing a slight reduction in the current year next year's pers i'm sorry stirs employer contributions um in the 22-23 year that buy down goes away hence the increase up to 18 and that's currently the projected stirs rate for 22.23 you'll see that little note the calstrs board may adjust that based on their investment returns and and how the pool is performing as pers can also adjust those rates okay thank you thank you and then mr presentation on restart to in-person instruction under elementary waiver small stable cohorts and approved athletic conditioning and competition by mr schlosser thank you i'm uh here to the trying to connect okay looks like we're going to be able to do this thank you thankfully and totally appropriately um miss orgay and messiah pre previewed what we're going to talk about right now which is our restart students are returning to campuses for all kinds of activities school and extracurriculars and they talked about that wasn't it great to hear that i'm talking about athletics yes those kinds of things again and so and as as dr croft mentioned and kind of celebrated we've hit some important milestones one our declining case rate right that's that's critical and um our vaccination effort that was mentioned also what an important part of this puzzle to get students back on campus and so in coordination with employee associations we are happy to report to you some important new steps in reopening so the first one is athletics so outdoor sports have been allowed once we reached a certain threshold of cases which we did um we are below 14 which was what the cif placed as sort of a threshold for returned outdoor sports including football and so what's listed here our students are out preparing conditioning practicing and in fact competing in cross-country tennis is coming up with on their first competitions golf baseball and softball are getting started but they don't have competitions yet but they're coming up on those and soccer will begin their practices in earnest and in football as well football players are out there in helmets and they'll be moving forward towards practice and pads full contact and then their first week of games will be the week of february or sorry march 15.
and 42 and 421 excuse me the grammar for the 21 for the 2021 revised general fund state aid charter school aide mr uc informed the committee that the 2021-2022 charter school aide is 9 million five hundred sixty nine thousand two hundred and thirty six dollars this is an increase of one million eight hundred uh eight hundred and eighty six thousand dollars and five hundred from the 2001 2002 original charter school aid uh that concludes the notes for the [Music] february 26 finance meeting anybody has any questions i'll be happy to answer it all right thank you mr daly uh last we have a facilities committee miss beltran okay the facilities committee met on february 23rd from 4 to 5 pm myself james daly brent casper and jim smith were in attendance administration in attendance with danny robertosi mike usey eric uh thomas device and al marcion also attended was rachel harrington the first thing we spoke about was the inventory status of our ppe equipment mr marcion said the district currently has plenty of stock on ppe equipment such as mascot's hand sizing solution the second thing we talked about is the air scrubbers the sr2 funds will be paying for this administration discussed the emergent needs to place an air scrubber in every classroom and office space for the reopening of school administration is looking to purchase 1 000 air scrubbers utilizing the additional funding the district was awarded from the elementary and secondary school emergency relief run sr2 through the coronavirus response and relief supplemental appropriations act crssa uh mr marcion informed the committee that air scrubbers are available and will be arrived in time for the opening of march 8th pending and the unforeseen delivery delays the third thing we talked about was the chh kitchen renovation update from the cafeteria funds mr usi provided an update relating to this dhs kitchen renovation project with the committee the final drawings are in the works with the architects the goal is to have the renovation complete for the start of the 21-22 school year the initial phase of the project is to start the abatement of the kitchen and hood exhaust the abatement will not affect the school relating to in-person instruction and staff being present in school during the process the meal distribution location will be moved to chs from cgs to woodrow wilson for three to four weeks during the abatement process the start date for this uh change has yet to be determined and once the start date is confirmed the change will be made as soon as possible on the district's website and all district social media platforms ccnms partial roof damage mr marcion informed the committee of wind damage to the upper gym roof at ccms there are no signs of water leaks the roof damage was submitted to the district's insurance provider the insurance provider informed the district that the replacement cost to repair the section of the damaged roof is not covered under the insurance due to a 67 year old age of the roof mr marchionne received a quote through bergen uh county co-op to cover the 6 000 square feet of roof that needs to be replaced estimated cost is about 125 000 with a 30-year warranty administration will check if the section of the roof will be will get impacted by the pending bond referendum before proceeding ccms media center renovation mr marcion provided an update on the project the committee which was budgeted for utilizing maintenance reserve funds the project is underway and is going as planned the floors have been gutted and leveled by the contractor the contractor will be installing ceiling lighting new flooring painting new shelves to installing two new bathrooms and new furniture goal number 17 bms uh which is a um the management system for the air conditioning mr marcion informed the committee that the school number 17 bms staff training including the principal head custodian and maintenance has occurred the new system has been working very well club b bms update potential project administration will be looking into possibly upgrading the bms's daily b mr martian will obtain a quote for the cost of the committee to consider and that was the end of the minute i have a question yes ms spence um did the uh air scrubbers make it in in time for monday the eighth mrs basswood they're not in yet they are on a truck on their way um if if they come in this weekend we'll bring in our staff uh over the weekend to make sure they're in the classrooms uh we're looking at worst case scenario they might get here on monday thank you mr president i had two questions yes go ahead mr groom um the first one uh was also about the airscovers i was looking at the data you sent over and it looks like those are hepa filters does that then mean that we don't need to keep the windows open because we're going to circulate the air to the hepa filter or is it that that's in addition to keeping the windows open in the classrooms that's going to be in addition to keeping the windows open mr genova but we do have some offices and smaller rooms in the district that don't have windows so now while we don't have students in those rooms we have you know maybe two staff members sharing that so they'll have the air scrubbers in there which will take care of the ventilation but in the classrooms it will be the windows and the scrubbers okay and the other question i had was about the roof i think i recall reading in there that we're replacing 6000 square feet is that just a small portion of the roof or is that the entire roof i'm going to ask if money mike mike do you have more details on that about the size of that project how how big of a part of the roof that is i'm i'm really sorry i got kicked out i guess it's just really windy outside can someone repeat the question no uh so i saw on the agenda or the meeting minutes rather for christopher columbus which said that we're replacing a i don't know if it was a portion of the roof or a smaller roof on christopher columbus i didn't really understand which one it was it was six thousand square foot area for 125 000.
so 165 when it's tabled for full board discussion it can just be removed outside of a meeting and then it just disappears i guess that's my question yeah i don't uh i don't i we can bring that back if there's uh uh you know a discussion to be had but i had heard that there really wasn't a desire to uh make a change on that that was the one if you recall that was the one where there was a recommendation to to do it kind of uh in seniority order and alphabetically and if you look at robert's rules of order it says it's supposed to be done alphabetically with the chair going last that's what robert rules said so if that's something that the that the board or the paul screen wants to revisit the policy committee should then make that recommendation to the board but the other one that mr sismar had mentioned under the board bylaws that goes back to the policy committee for review and consideration i didn't think that there was any interest in changing the voting from alphabetical to seniority mark did you i guess my question would be where did it come from then someone wouldn't i don't i someone would have had to put it through policy and put it on the agenda which i think due diligence would have been to check to see if it's a violations of robert's rules before it's brought before the full board and then it just after we said we tabled it to discuss it it just disappeared so i guess that's my question how did it get to how did it get to an agenda and then disappear so let me let me address that please because um mr sismar and i think i had uh mentioned this at the prior meeting when that uh that one policy was brought up uh i presented those uh those uh recommendations over to the policy committee because one on the voting order there had been some question regarding new board members and their comfort with voting first in the order when they've had no experience on being on the board and so that was put forth as a suggestion it was discussed at policy committee the policy committee board members on policy committee um found that to be favorable and so it then it made its way to the full board then following the discussion uh the very brief discussion that took place at the prior meeting uh it was tabled and my sense was that there really wasn't any interest in having that move forward and so a tabled item remains tabled with no further action necessary uh that's pursuant to robert's rules the second um the second by-law which addressed the manner of voting for officers uh that bylaw also was brought to the policy committee i put that forth to the policy committee because there were recommended changes that came from uh strauss esme to uh further tighten uh how the uh the balloting should take place and i believe those changes were a result of a legal case that had occurred um and so it it gave some clarifying language there there was also some additional language that had been presented to policy the policy committee had a discussion uh there was a recommendation to make minor change to that and eliminate some of the language that had been there that additional language was to have a basically a bifurcated process where there was a segment of a voting uh which would be a uh voice vote uh voice roll call vote uh in cases where there was not a contested uh candidacy for an officer's position and a paper ballot for when there was a contested uh position uh uh candidacy i believe it was mr winston who suggested that we should do them all in paper ballot and there was a consensus that policy uh to proceed in that manner and that's what was presented to the board so subsequently at the last meeting i believe you had raised a question uh regarding another aspect on that um and adding another segment so that is now being remanded to the policy committee for further review and discussion i think that summarizes um the bylaws those two by-laws i hope that helps yes we'll see we'll see 152 at some point after the committee and 165 seniority voting is is not going to float that's fine it's going to it's going to it's not illegal to deviate from robert's rules but the recommendation if you look at robert's rules in the absence of of a rule they say you do it in alphabetical order with the chair going last so and that's what your policy had reflected the roberts rule so based on the fact that it was tabled there didn't seem to be any interest to deviate from that that table unless the board says we'd like to reconsider it then it goes back to policy committee and you can bring it forward but i think right now the only one that's back is the bylaw 152.
million dollars where we have spent our day-to-day functions or activities you'll also notice as of january 31st we've spent about 69 percent of our expenditures providing instruction and student support and 12 percent in agency administration the remaining 19 percent are in the areas of plant operations transportation food services as well as our two statewide deaf and blind program services and then on page 10 so far for january 31st 2021 we are still showing a deficit of about 3.3 million when you compare actual revenues to the 27.8 million again that includes what we've received as well as what we've expended from our general fund appropriations to the 31.1 million in expenditures now what does that mean it means we have to use our june 30 2020 available cash balance which was at that time 11.2 million this is not of any particular concern right now as there is a month-long delay of when our voucher revenues are received to reimburse us for expenditures we've incurred for the instructional site-based campuses our preschool program as well as our regional itinerant services we're also still waiting on reimbursement from expenditures incurred on several of our federal grants that we do have and as a reminder we do not receive all our appropriated funds of the 37.3 million dollars up front so those funds are received on a quarterly basis from the state as such i've been having to closely monitor our cash balance as well as making sure that any other funding sources are utilized prior to us getting our monthly voucher revenues from ade as well as before we get our quarterly appropriate allotments from the state based on again the review of the financial data as of right now there are no immediate material concerns based on what we do know for the remainder of the budget fiscal year and if there are no questions on any of the information that i've presented that concludes the report of our operational and fiscal data thank you miss cooper are there any questions about the financial report uh ms cooper i do have one question uh can you let me know when the uh the money from ade for the sr2 funds when was that transferred uh actually it was awarded maybe a little less than two weeks ago if i'm not mistaken and so we'll work on submitting the actual budget proposal and then we'll get the approval shortly thereafter okay do we need to enter into an iga to receive those funds no no okay great are there any other questions from other board members okay hearing done we're going to move on to 5.01 information and discussion item personnel changes of shane cooper jillian wettstein and i apologize if i am mispronouncing these names uh rosetta hicks and amber uh uh again i'm not sure i'm going to say this right unfortunately um acapenitus i believe um uh pursuant to ars 3843103a1 the board may vote to go into executive session for the purposes of discussion and consideration of employment matters uh superintendent reichman if you can uh just begin on this one if i could interrupt for a moment we will not be discussing amber appcapinnitis during the executive session uh correct she wants any discussion up about hers in the open session so you will only be discussing those three names uh uh correct well i guess uh superintendent i believe that we would just if there is discussion of her it would be in this in this item but it would be in the open session because it was her request uh so if if when we discuss the others uh we can do that under the exception um or the you know the uh the the under 38 43103 uh we can discuss the rest those folks uh in the executive session um and uh but not uh not that one individual but we'd have to do that in this item out of the open uh so if you know at this point um to discuss some of the personal to discuss some of the personnel changes uh i think it's you know typically um you know we do enter executive sessions so do we have a motion to go into executive session to discuss these matters actually oh thank you for the recognition president nigro i would like to recognize amber's request and make a motion um that amber's discussion of personnel be removed from the executive session and i also move that we go into executive session without amber's name involved for discussion okay um thank you pv i think um and the motion will uh be on the floor but uh you know from from this perspective we would go into executive session uh to discuss one or more of the other individuals uh we can come out of executive session and without moving on to the next agenda item we could discuss uh uh amber uh uh we can discuss amber anything we you know anyone has to say uh the motion that uh and i'll give you an opportunity to amend it it would just be going to executive session and we don't be limited to the discussion of uh the other uh the other folks on this agenda so again to clarify do you want me to amend my emotion now i i i think it would be helpful just to amend it to say we'll go into executive session to discuss employ to discuss employment matters okay um i will amend my emotion now i'd like to make a new motion that the board goes into executive session to discuss personnel okay uh is there a second uh great i see a second all all in favor um say hi hi okay all opposed okay great um through the magic of technology we will go into executive session do i not need to read this before we go into executive section yeah you you yes you definitely need to read that part um before we go in okay so pursuant to ars 38-431.03 a one the board of directors may vote to go into executive session which will not be open to the public for the purposes of discussion and consideration of employment matters thank you great and we are out as we've come out i don't see everyone but what we're going to do is uh we have gone 90 minutes so far so i'd like to take a 10-minute break uh to let the interpreters take a break um and make sure that they're well rested um so let's uh let's take a 10 minute break we'll come back at 5 44 and uh we'll we'll be on break be to foreign uh can you guys hear me now yes yes yes okay great uh i think my let's see let's see can i hear you can you hear me david i can yeah all right i had some okay i think my that's a i have some mic issues i think uh so now that that's resolved thank you um we are back uh in 5.01 superintendent reichman if you can have the floor and discuss anything else that needs to be discussed in this point i have nothing more to discuss okay um and the you know to be clear we do have uh amber for discussion in this 5.01 uh so and again she requested anything that uh he said uh in the open session which we're in now um is there is there any discussion to be taken on amber yeah lynn yeah i just want to make sure you know she'll be a new principal taking it and i know she's been there and and has been around courtney but i just want to make sure there's a lot of supports available for her to make sure that she can find her way down this path and that also feedback is considered and listened to from staff from community from parents stakeholders districts to make sure that everything is working and going along uh the way it should so that we can provide the supports that she needs but i just want to make sure that all voices are heard and to make sure that this school continues making progress going forward and keeping a positive atmosphere um where everybody feels good about what they're doing uh thank you lynn uh superintendent reichman yes i agree amber will be a new principal at pdsc and we would provide her with a lot of support we all want to see her succeed and because her success is our success and our students success so we will be providing her with internal supports and that includes dr rex will be there supporting her we have several other people from the odd the organizational development division team will be providing her support as well amber has been involved with the leadership training i do believe it was last year for one year she was involved with an isl the national institute of school national institute on school leadership and she did get her certification from that and i believe amber is a good choice and we will commit to providing all the supports we can okay are there other comments okay um this is more in general with all the discussions that we have held in this regard today i i am actually very pleased to see um that we are sort of looking within and looking at succession planning and moving staff up in positions i think that um is something that has been needed for a while and so i'm just in support of that so okay thank you other other comments no i certainly i i hope that we're able to give amber you know the resources she needs to be successful it's certainly a very important position and uh you know i wish her uh yeah i hope that she does really well should we uh you know adopt to offer her a contract in a later item uh okay so uh see see if there's no more comments on that uh we can move to uh 5.02 uh action item intent to offer uh fiscal year 2022 new employment contract to shaina cooper assistant superintendent operations and support services for this do we have a motion on the floor to take this action i i'm this is uk i move that we um take the action to offer the 2022 new employment contract to shaina cooper okay is there a second uh mike natalie seconds all all in favor aye aye okay any opposed okay no no opposed that motion passes we go to 5.03 and tend to offer action item intent to offer fiscal year 2022 new employment contract to gillian webstein director of business services would anyone like to uh lynn yeah i i move that we uh pass action item 5.03 and offer a contract to jillian okay is there a second um there's this i see a second brittany thank you um all in favor say uh i or raise your hand all right the opposed no okay the motion passes uh 5.04 action item intent to offer fiscal year 2022 new higher employment contract to rosetta hicks reach it to director um do we have a motion to take an action this is 2k i um proposed that earth i motioned that we um take the action on action item 5.04 intent to offer fiscal year 2022 new higher employment contract to rosetta hicks any seconds i'll second it all right uh all in favor of the motion all right okay any opposed no okay uh that motion passes um 5.05 action item intent to offer fiscal year 2022 to employment contract to amber akanetis i hope i apologize i'm not pronouncing that right phoenix day school for the deaf principal um pv i see your hands up hello thank you for the acknowledgement i would like to make a motion that 5.05 related to amber at cap nidis make a motion to assign a new contract for principal of phoenix high school for the deaf okay any seconds uh brittany seconded all in favor aye aye any opposed and that item passes um we'll go down to 5.14 agenda item which is no longer on the consent agenda item uh or on the consent agenda intend to offer uh school year 2122 teacher employment contracts pursuant to ars 3843103 a1 the board may vote to go into executive session for the purposes of discussion and consideration employment matters um you know one uh is there any if anyone would like to go into executive session please please speak now okay seeing none is the word of any other discussion or a motion to extend the the contracts as as proposed lynn i moved that we extend the the contracts as proposed and we pass 5.14 okay um all in favor i'm sorry there's a second i'll second it uh i see cck seconding uh all in favor of that motion please say yes worries or raise your hand any opposed and then then i'll ask for extensions after that for the record i will abstain okay yeah i'll just ask for any abstentions and so um pv has abstained okay great um thank you now we go on to 7.01 discussion of possible action item uh state legislature bill superintendent reichman uh pursuant to ars 3843103a3 the board may vote to go an executive session which will not be open to the public for discussion consultation for legal advice reports attorneys as it relates to this item uh so superintendent reichman um perhaps you can uh if you have anything initially to say on this matter yeah my comment will be brief it's about house bill 2863.
now you can clearly see this is nowhere near equal it's nowhere near half and half as would represent the population but you can see that it's getting better and that more women are getting to represent companies that are really influential in our society so up next is parenting there's always been the stereotype that women are the ones who should stay at home and take care of the kids and do the housework however that's a stereotype that a lot of women in the modern 21st century are trying to break so in 1989 10 of state home parents were men that is a tiny percentage compared to how many families there are and then in 2016 so more recently there were 17 percent of state-home parents as men and while this is nowhere near equal we're getting there we're getting closer so up next is education so ever since women got the societal right to be educated they began to really start to try to be educated there's a higher percentage of women in college and in graduate school than there are men you can see clearly on this graph college enrollment women are of the people enrolled in college while men are only 43 and this is important because women in college means that there's going to be more educated women which means that we can increase the number of women's ceos in the fortune 500 further and then we can also increase the number of women in politics which you can see clearly here in the 65th congress there were there were very few women representatives we're in the 117th congress now this one goes up to the 115th um so in the 115th congress at the end of the graph you can see that the number of women in congress has just spiked because women are voting for women and men are starting to vote for women too which is really important and this the fact that we have this many women in congress means that we're getting a say like we're getting a true say from women for women and this is really important because we need to have a say in order for the country to be equal and equitable up next is athletics and now women have always been seen as lesser in most forms of athletics especially in soccer however the u.s women's soccer team is far better than the men's soccer team we can clearly see from the fact that they've made it to the world cup more often and but you can see that they're getting paid almost nothing compared to the men if a man loses a soccer game he still gets five thousand dollars if a woman loses one she gets nothing and this is really important because we can see the social aspect of life with parenting we can see the political with the politics and this is more of an entertainment aspect in sports which is watched mainly by men but also by women and this is important for men to see that women should be seeing should be seen as equal but the way that this is that this chart shows it's just not and that's really unfortunate so what can we do what are solutions that we can do to help so the biggest one the most important one is speaking out whether it's just talk whether it's giving a ted talk or speaking to your family or just raising your hand in class if you raise your hand in class and give your opinion then the teachers will know and everybody will know that you're not just sitting there that you're a woman who can think and can do you can do anything a man can the next one is to call out inequalities if you see something happen that you don't think is equal you gotta say something it's really important because if you just let it go and let people keep treating women as unequal then we're never gonna see a change so the third one is supporting non-profit feminist organizations whether this is monetarily or vocally it's really important because women organizations run by women for women need more need to become more prevalent next is politics you can you saw in the previous graph that women are becoming more and more more prevalent in politics but we're still not at the halfway point that's what we need to be because that's the most representative of our of our population so we need to vote for women and finally is protesting and marching for equality even if this doesn't bring any legal change in like changing laws in the u.s constitution this shows solidarity and this shows that we're all believing the same thing so this is how we can move forward one step at a time [Applause] [Music] thank you elizabeth once again a wonderful job this concludes our presentations i would like to take a moment to thank everybody that made this day cohort be possible so we would like to thank first our presenters for cohort b elizabeth mckinley caitlyn silva juliana souza cole perry colin zoo jennifer scott our crew lea wilkins our sound tech genius mr peter chase our dhs tv productions crew mr rob ferrari along with his students landon rossi colby sylvia and nathaniel rosario additionally we would like to thank our administrators principal ross tebow ms xavier mr martin and mr gill for their continued support our library staff for allowing us to use the lmc for this event ms goodman miss pamela king our supporting staff ms donna floor miss angela english and our amazing cafeteria staff lastly we would like to thank you our viewers for your continued support of our students ms true and i hope to see you next year we want you to encourage you to join our tedx club here at dhs so that you can do your own tedx talk in the future see you next year and thank you [Music] you