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with the game later that week we don't know the exact date of the games yet they're still working to sort out officials because they don't have as nearly as many officials for the football season as they usually do it will be a six-game season at the most but it will be a great to have those athletes out on the fields indoor sports have also been cleared to practice outside and so you might see basketball players returning to outdoor basketball practice and volleyball out there as well if they can sort out the right appropriate facilities so that is great news for athletes to be back and of course in addition and at the same time really starting on monday we are um kind of pushing play again on our students who are in school in the fall those students in the preschool program will be returning our tk through sixth grade students at the ones who are at school on the waiver in that two day per week model will be returning to that model in order to accomplish that small class size that we must accomplish for the waiver in the current tier we're in even if we go down to the red tier our understanding is that this time we must maintain that smaller class size and the appropriate spacing that allows and so but that's a great next step that day is slightly shorter in order to allow the teacher to then connect with those students who do not come to school that day in that online setting senate bill 98 does still require daily live interaction in addition um go up to the next one we will have special populations and cohorts returning special education students english language learners foster youth students who have difficulty connecting lots of different students returning including some career and technical education students returning to small stable cohorts of students on campus some two days a week in some cases they'll be there four days a week this is a great first step i'm going to pause here and let mr schulenberg talk a little bit about our restart of home to school transportation and our community meal service thank you yeah i'm proud to say and hopefully you've seen we've had buses out around the town of apple valley this week drivers getting back getting the buses out exercising the engines getting them ready for the kids for monday so we will be transporting um all of our special ed students that require transportation in their in their iep and also we will be transporting our tk through six waiver students to our elementary schools our routes are posted on our website for our families to take a look we are requiring bus passes as that is a standard procedure in our transportation department but i know our drivers are excited to get back on the road and getting our kids to school our community meal service has been very successful since the start of the pandemic providing lots of meals to the families of apple valley and that's something we will continue to do when we resume our our instruction in person instruction on monday however we're going to change it up a little bit we are going to go back to a daily community service community meal service model really this is driven by the need for us to ensure that we're not serving duplicate meals to students the state requires us to submit what's called a meal integrity plan so they want to ensure we're serving appropriate meals to everybody that can get them but not serving duplicate meals to kids so we'll be serving meals to all of our students that are in person and serving to those community members still age 2 to 18 during those days at 11 of our school sites and so that's that's an exciting next step for us to start on monday um in the weeks that follow um we will be expanding the cohorts that are considered that those at-risk groups as defined by recently signed legislation sb and ab-86 that will include more career and technical education groups seniors at risk of needing credits to graduate students who need full-time guidance or someone to help them make those next steps principles have been pro sending proposals in for groups that they can properly manage and bring under the same conditions that are required for that stable grouping but they are um everyone wants to make this expand this as as we can do so safely um now as we work out of this purple tier into the red tier then there are is the consideration for returning seventh to twelfth grade students into classrooms in some manner and so we're um in planning stages for that we're working toward how that what that might look like of course that's a different kind of thing with a master schedule depending because we know based on our last survey of families that not all families plan to return their students to school full-time and so we need to continue to offer virtual option for all anyone who wants it but also be able to bring students back and comply with the social distancing or spacing rules that will be in place for us at that time and that guidance continues to change uh in fact even today that guidance is changing we are in a regulatory web that's a little bit tough to navigate but we are being careful and working together with all groups and as we do this and so it will probably be a hybrid schedule at first of some sort um and we will be consulting with associations to make sure we do that appropriately but as soon as we can do that we'll be looking to bring students back in those grades levels as well so that we can have students returning to our systems from preschool through the adult program so this is a great next step we made the commitment to only restart once more we feel confident that the trajectory of the public health data suggests that that's where we're headed we we feel good about that and we are looking forward to seeing the smiling faces of kids getting off these buses even if they're smiling through a mask as we take their temperature it's still such a joy do the kids have to wear masks they do we still have a master requirement recess yes they do they're allowed the last guidance we had is they could go outside and be spread out and have a mask break there really isn't a lot there kind of a short time so there isn't a lot of recess time trying to make sure that they get time with their teachers while they're on campus during this at least as a schedule as it's built now so there's they still have to wear masks on campus and on buses and that is a state law that is the guidance and the mandate requirement and including our waiver as it's written i mean it's not it's not our it really isn't our choice right yeah the question that i have um because you're going to be doing that split scheduling where you have some parents who are saying they don't really want their children back do we have enough staffing to to manage that if that should be the issue we do but that is why the schedule becomes complicated and we have to make um we have to make some sacrifice in the length of time of in-person instruction in order to accomplish both okay yeah but i appreciate the question because what we can't do is ask for more we have we want to make sure we can make this an accomplishable task and the last thing i'll say is that we do know that with this new law there is a requirement for some expanded learning including summer school both this summer and next and after school and so we're um in the process of picking dates and planning our summer school program for this summer there is no reason under the current guidelines why we won't be able to accomplish a summer school for example for our extended school year students who are in a small cohort anyway and it's demanded by their iep for having and then we should be able to provide in-person instruction given what we know today given what we know today tomorrow could change tomorrow thank you we're so excited for this what uh what tier would it be that uh to get to where there is no choice for uh other than in-person learning where there is no options to do online versus uh in person i don't know that that's a tier and i'm really here but it's i guess it's gonna have to be just completely if the the way i'd answer that is this mr schulenberg made reference to the ada we've lost over time our goal is to provide education for every member of our community and so that's the program that we think that folks want to have we think if we can properly sort of build and and and plan and and train staff we can run a virtual program alongside our schools next year that are dedicated to that so that we're not trying to have teachers aren't trying to do both things so there's a possibility that even if schools and high schools go back in august which would be the 2020 21 20 21 year or two that they're still going to be doing the uh virtual there could be still a virtual school experience that we put together for students who still are students and families who still feel like they want that we may not be able to offer every single experience that way right there's it's harder to do well-being virtually but we we don't want to lose those students to programs that that say they can do that because we think we can do it better so okay um my question is that do we have some wearing um a time when the 7th through 12th grades are going back we don't know yet when that might be because we do have to be in the red tier to have them go back in anything other than a small stable cohort however if that happens in the weeks to come or or you know we have a spring break coming then it could be that they could go back if they wanted to in some kind of hybrid model but again we we don't believe we will have the kind of flexibility that would allow them to return as a full class all day on campus you follow me and if that's not the case then we have to find a way to have them partially there partially at home these are great questions thank you thanks for the presentation thank you very much do we have any public comments we do okay the first comment is from melanie edwards to whom it may concern my name is melanie edwards my children are in kindergarten and second grade my question is what is our school district's plan on reopening schools immediately i do not understand why we continue to put our children's education last our own governor has said that schools need to be open by mid-february and that we may that make we may do so in the process of teachers getting vaccinated please allow the teachers that do want to get back to work to teach our kids in the classroom we have done so in the past with safety precautions unfortunately my children have only been in the classroom for a total of four days and that is unacceptable our children are the ones who are suffering the consequences of this school closure it has been a year of distance learning and it is time to open our schools there are many frustrated parents our district has left us and our kids in the dark during this whole closure i can count on one hand how many times we have heard from our principal we have friends in orange county that get weekly emails from their principal and have been back in the classroom for two weeks now also we have family in other states who have had their schools open since last august even during times coveted cases were high this has been poorly handled by our leadership and we deserve better please open our schools the hospital numbers are down in our community you know it's the right thing to do look at the science please contact me at any time thank you sincerely melanie edwards and she provides a phone of her the next comment is from jose arredondo to whom it may concern i now have two kids that have not had the opportunity to have a senior year while i understand that last year we didn't know what we were dealing with in terms of this virus we definitely do now we have a much better understanding of it we now know what we can do to thwart the threat of this virus and the illness it causes we know that it doesn't affect and infect children like it does adults i understand that some teachers are unwilling to enter a classroom with children that could possibly be infected or have come from a possibly infected home i know that many teachers my wife being one of them are willing to assume that essential worker role and get back to the business of shaping the minds of our young americans my question is are these teachers that are unwilling to enter the classroom also unwilling to leave their homes and enter a store or a restaurant or any other place that could possibly be infected with an infectious individual i hear many excuses as to why our kids can't have in-person learning and interaction with other humans their age they all sound like excuses i know that to a certain extent we have had to abide by our county mandate but in this case they have to lift this lock down so we have if they lift the lockdown do we have a plan of action to reopen i hope we do i love apple valley high school it is my alma mater i honestly believe that it is the premier high school in high desert but public schools remaining closed definitely gives school choice a new chance in the words of other parents in the u.s figure it out thanks for your time jose arredondo the next comment is from jason rayburn my son has been an above grade grade level student from kindergarten through sixth grade at rio vista when schools closed due to covid so did many workplaces allowing parents to be home with their children to help with schooling and make sure they were staying on task i was able to work from home through mid-september 2020 before returning to my job this left my seventh grader home much of the day by himself where he was suddenly tasked to become a 12 year old college student as this was now his responsibility to log into zoom and get his work done with no figure present to make sure things were getting done just like he would do in school first trimester ended pretty well with most of his grades at an a or b level second trimester disaster all f's and one c this is his doing as he missed a lot of zooms and assignments and i made him understand that he has no one to blame by himself or does he is it fair for a child to suddenly have to turn into an adult overnight to basically homeschool themselves as millions of people have gone back to work in california since covid started and many have had to leave their child at home and as for the f's only one of his teachers reached out to us to see if things were okay this was the class he was able to get a sea in where's the accountability of these teachers that failed to call email text or use a mailbox he was failed by these teachers and they deserve an f as well so here is part of our story the social aspect and laugh lack of athletics is another void in our son's life i see private school in my child's near future as i am convinced full-time public schools are a thing of the past in california and how the infect and how is the infection rate in schools that are open low very low or they would not be open thank you for your time jason rayburn the next comment is from mr zach edwards um this one he also attempted to send to mrs nelson but misspelled her name dear board of trustees and superintendent nelson i've had a child in the school district for only three years now and is second who is just getting started almost a year has passed since school closures and the subsequent switch to distance learning that being said i'm embarrassed to admit that this is my first time participating in the board meeting even though i've been highly critical of decisions made here in apple valley i would be wrong if i didn't assume some of the blame for the continued challenges our children face my comment will be brief as i attempt to convey a constructive yet critical statement i try to understand the challenges as a public school district faces as a dire as a direction flowing from the top down in this case from the state to the county to the district no matter if you agree with the direction of those at the top or not overall survival is dependent on your ability to follow the best you can i cannot fault our district and superintendent for following county and state mandates no matter how much i disagree my concerns are directed more so at my own misunderstandings i don't understand how a population of educators who on one hand plead for the importance of their survival and the ability to thrive yet on the other cower at the thought of having to teach an environment where code 19 transmission is non-existent i don't understand how representatives can ignore the fact that we are surrounded by states and schools opened to instruction and somehow think we as parents will passively follow such a blind and misguided approach to reopening is there a member of the board willing to stand up and speak out in recognition of our faults as a state county and district will the superintendent recognize the success of local schools and counties who are open to instruction your hands are tied i understand but your mouths have not been shut your voices have not been silenced it's our right as parents in this district to know where our representatives stand i'm asking each of you as you open your eyes to the science and knowledge we've gained as you look past our borders and at other examples of success will you speak how you truly feel that is all i ask thank you zachary edwards the next comment is from danielle i am writing to give you a glimpse into one point of view my child did not get to finish her kindergarten year from march until the end of the school year we were given one assignment a week a week unacceptable on every level my child is extremely shy she is quiet and she already deals with anxiety she has now missed an entire year of very important social skills for her age group while the schools are getting a major payday by never making any marking anyone absent i can't help but wonder if virtual schooling is more beneficial momentarily for the district and this is why it continues because it's definitely not the science considering dr fauci already said kids need to be back in school coming back to october last year it took a lot of courage for my daughter to come back for two and a half days with her anxiety and somehow a few weeks later the district decided it wasn't actually a good time to be in school the anticipation of the holidays we were told these holidays do not change each year so did you forget about them a few weeks earlier when he told our kids they could come back my daughter was hysterical someone who had a tough time socially in school was hysterical because the amount of change she has had to deal with at six years old is heartbreaking the one constant in every kid's life despite home life and everything they deal with is school our schools here in apple valley have failed our children we have six-year-old children sitting in front of a screen and they call it school how is this what our school system has become how is this the system our kids deserve while most every other state is continuing to pass our kids in education as they have been in person full-time learning the entire school year our first graders have not been given one spelling test this entire year but we still but we still claim to be providing the same education more than half of my friends and family have moved for more normal and better education at the private schools i am certainly waiting for some spots myself for my children i refuse to let my kids think this is normal or acceptable how can a school a few miles away be providing a full-time in-person education without mass and we are still having small children sitting in front of computers debating on if we will allow them back for three hours twice a week with no recess or lunch does this sound acceptable to anyone here let's do what our children deserve and what science is showing us and get them back to school full time let's get our children let's get their children these childhoods back and give them the education they deserve that ourselves we were able to have get the kids back in school for time full time before you lose any more children the next comment is from lisa blackwell i am writing today to express my concern and frustration for high schools remaining closed when orlar high schools open up again why are the high school aged kids not being discussed as a concerned parent i want answers we have to do better than this for our children and community they deserve better thank you the last public comment is from krista scharnberg hi i have a junior that attends apple valley high school i am really concerned with the well-being of the junior high and high school-aged kids i have never had to do so many talks with my child over his grades in the last 10 years of his school years even the issues that have been happening with teachers not inputting grades saying they did not receive this kid's work or even teachers not reaching back out to the students when they are needing help i feel if these kids were back in school they would not be having these issues it's so easy to just not respond to them these kids need the direction from the teachers not go on soon get the schoolwork and that's it they need the social part of the teacher's appearance in person learning not to mention the attention these kids are so lonely being at home with the computer and trying to focus after staring at the computer for hours on end the lack of in-person learning is affecting their drive to succeed and complete their tasks which in turn will affect them their whole lives some teachers make such an impact on children's lives and they need in-person learning also as a parent of a high schooler i have seen firsthand and i've talked to plenty of our friends that this stay-at-home learning has affected these kids dramatically i'm talking kids that never get c's d's and even f's and now these grades these are the grades they are now getting as for the grade school kids it has affected them too but i do believe that the older kids are having a harder time than the younger kids everyone is so worried about the grade school kids well grade schoolers cannot be left alone therefore they have direction and supervision at all times with adults or someone that can help them with their schoolwork as a teacher would junior high and high school kids do not have that they are home alone trying to learn and leaning on each other to figure this stuff out i cannot help with common core math or other classes as i never learned this new era of teaching and i work full time as do a lot of the parents i know and then there is sports i have friends in texas oklahoma and kansas that have their kids in school full-time and playing sports just as normal and they have had absolutely no problems i know our governor is a big issue but so is the teachers union just let them go back to school i know sports just got started back up and i have seen happiness in my son since then but all it takes is one person to get upset and then you guys put a stop to it this isn't a game it's our children's life if people don't want their kids to come to school or to play sports then let them stay at home but the kids that want to go to school and play sports just let them attend and let them play it's been going on way too long it's time to try and get back to normal as much as we can thank you mrs scharnberg job yes thank you thank you so much superintendent's comment i appreciate all the parent comments um regarding returning to school and i also appreciate that um it followed a presentation by mr schilling or mr schlosser who followed mr schulenberg the presentation regarding resuming in-person instruction does answer some of the questions that were asked that are still guidance and requirements from our state that said several of the comments that were made i would like to indicate will be referred back to school sites i'd like some information regarding some of the d's and f's um i'll work with mr schlosser's office to look into contacts and different things like that having to do with some of the lack of contact that is stated so we'll follow through with that today at one o'clock we were notified that ab-86's the bill that was containing the school reopening package was sent to governor newsom's office um it is believed that he will sign it with the amendments that are in place and that said those amendments are are different than what was drafted in december um the set of guidance is located in multiple places different than when we started the pandemic when we started the pandemic we could go to the california department of public health and the san bernardino county department of public health for guidance regarding education today you have to filter through a january 14th guidance um that takes you to a website that's called the cce these are not excuses these are just the web that mr schlosser was indicating exists for educators at this time the questions regarding the tears of education and when we can reopen are all dependent on whatever the decision is at the state level on any given day two weeks ago we heard that it was a window of 14 consecutive days and the next statement was each wednesday you will know whether or not you've moved into a tier there is no longer consecutive days it's an announcement and on wednesday you get to make a decision as to whether you can move we continue to follow multiple guidances from capital advisors casbo csba axa cta every group that we can follow to get information so that we can try to do the best by our students and have answers that are appropriate for our community i understand that others have been able to reopen but that is not san bernardino county as as you recall we are the only large school district that reopened um under a waiver there are some small ones that have remained open and there is a charter that has remained open um the population we serve will continue to require some virtual learning regardless of 2021 2022 we know there are families that are going to ask for that that may transform what our independent study program looks like to some extent which has been an in-person once a week type program but we will take what parent need and student need is into account as we transition back to a normal educational setting and that said we have worked diligently with our partner at st mary's and i think we need to celebrate the fact that we have provided vaccinations to every educator in apple valley unified school district as well as our surrounding districts who wanted one not just their first vaccination but in many cases the second vaccination that will help us to navigate around the barriers that have been put up regarding this pandemic with that we are super excited about next week we don't plan to close again in fact we just plan to continue to add to our in-person instruction and those that want to attend thank you vote comments miss blessing um thank you first of all i attended the apple valley recital and my hats are off to that music department because you know with no children going to school that was the most phenomenal presentation they gave i also take my hats off to the granite hills uh teachers who put on that program as well as my family enjoyed both of the sessions as we watched it i'd like to also thank our superintendent for her efforts with ensuring that our staff um was getting vaccinated and to a special thanks to all of the av staff that spent the time to volunteer their efforts to make sure our children get to go to school pretty soon and especially my hat's off to um mrs nelson for coordinating all of that effort because it was a great effort um to ensure that anyone who wanted a vaccine got it and our kids are going to go back to school for that so thank you very much thank you mr so occupy short okay i think what our superintendent just stated in response after the reading of all the public comments my thinking is that maybe that those can be put in the form of a public uh letter to to to the entire community yeah we try our best i mean you know we but we have to follow the law and there's nothing we can do about it okay so that's my recommendation thank you thank you mr bender i want to concur on the role that our superintendent played he took it pulled by the horn throw any vaccines away um you got most of the teachers vaccinated anybody else that straggled in it was really uh and that wasn't just her staff members of the faculty and everything like that but uh that will help open the door to our schools we gotta get these schools off we all know that we've all raised kids in this valley it's imperative to get the schools back open the mental health that these kids are going through right now is terrible that's all i have to say thank you mr raleigh yes i like to echo again i uh what uh the other board members have said uh starting you know with this vaccination i had the pleasure of being up there a couple of times uh just uh dropping somebody off and observing and you know i want to start with uh obviously trenay got the ball rolling i was told that by many people and i'd like to thank the catholic diocese well they had a perfect place for this with that that church with the roads in and out of there the big parking lot a huge building it was like the spot to go in the high desert and uh i i saw when i was there kylie i want to thank kylie she was out there at the podium checking people in and these three gentlemen sitting here i also saw them and i want to kind of make a call out jeremiah harrison who's the principal at sitting bull uh i i was the time i was there they were running a little bit behind because they had run out of um vaccines so it was you know a little bit of a delay and there was quite a bit of elderly people that had pulled up in their cars man that guy did a really good job of uh keeping things light and and joking with the people in the cars and running up and down the the the parking lot there saying you know you're next a couple more minutes and and uh i was i was impressed and uh i don't impress very easily but i was impressed with this group of people that were working there and my hat's off uh really trine he did a good job and just like dennis said you know we've all raised kids in this valley and when i was there i was talking to a police officer that was there there was just officers from asperia and apple valley and they were telling me that the calls of kids that are hurting and that are threatening suicide has gone like one a day in up in the high desert and that's all because you know schools are a safe zone for some kids especially low-income kids um there it's it's safe there's food there's shelter and they feel secure there and without the schools being open these kids are having a trouble and i surely wish that the state government and the federal government would realize the damage that is occurring to these children because these schools are closed and i know as a district board member all about five of us sitting here i'm sorry all of us sitting here we want the schools open asap and along with the staff as well so um that's right yeah just to keep up the good work thank you and i want to thank the public for their comments too uh it's very frustrating for some of these people so that's all i have thank you i have to say though i have been listening to the comments from my fellow board members and the comments from members of the community trine was actually a maestro when it came to getting this coveted vaccine going at some point people thought she was an employee of saint mary's hospital because of how much she coordinated it but also the comment that i got from the community was that there were these three gentlemen that were always around and they didn't know who they were and i said well they were community members but above all they were assistant superintendents so they did not wear their badge while they were out there they were just members of the community helping the community i i came out really thrilled uh to know that i am part of a community that is willing to help not just the children but their families their grandparents miss nelson actually called a few people that i sent her names to on a saturday so she came into work so that she can call those people and schedule them and so she made some interesting friends from those people that are my 80 80 80 plus years old friends um but i also wanted to take this time to acknowledge all the parents who spoke today your your comments have not been um uh ignored um we are hoping that mrs nelson will reach out to the different schools that have uh that you all mentioned your children went to and and verify or talk to the people who have you you believe were left to be that left your children behind our job in the district is to do what is best for your children when we come into work or when i come into work for the district it is strictly on behalf of the families and the children and the employees so we are going to do our best to do it right um i don't want to lose one single child but we are going to do it right i will be more than glad to reach out to any one of you uh if uh that will help under you have a better understanding of what we are doing but i believe mrs nelson will handle your situation as you have stated at this board meeting thank you so much for your time okay uh discussion action session it is recommended that the board of trustees discuss and take action on the following items mutually agree on no more than six candidates for the 2021 california school boards association delegate assembly for subregion 16b if i may jump in uh these are people they're the the delegate assembly members of dividing the two groups all year even year for some next year i'll be up on that even here and the one with the asterisks are the current uh the standing members and i recommend the board support those on the asterisks oh a second uh wilson so's recommendation okay any opposed or have you i i think you all need to have a voice at least so that we don't just explain okay thank you so the the six that we are going to take will be tom courtney lucerne valley um [Music] gabe gabe stein sherry mcgall uh eric swanson mundy taylor and kathy thompson so one two three four five six that gives us our six all in favor any opposed thank you i approve the recommendation of the administrative hearing chairperson on the following discipline matters effective immediately annual review are 32.

it the the specific part of the roof is um the roof above the upper jamb of ccms so it's only that one area correct because it was nothing it was relatively easy they mentioned it was relatively old should we just look into replacing the whole thing or is that not something we want to do at this point in time there's no problems with the roof except that section yeah mr gnaw actually one of the things that came up in committee was um waiting to to find out about the referendum because when we the referendum passes we may need to be putting rooftop units up there so we want to make sure that the roof is sound in all places and we might so we we might be waiting on a decision to do the whole thing until after april 20th yeah because i wouldn't want to do one little part and then we have to find out we have to do the whole thing anyway and maybe i even have to rip up that and essentially waste money i think it was 67 years old the roof was yeah yeah but it's not covered anymore essentially so that's what i mean so i don't know or should we look at doing the whole i wouldn't want to do patchwork for a certain amount of money to then find out we're essentially throwing that out the window to redo it again that's all if we were to do it it would be a complete roof for that section but i understand what you're saying if you wanted to quote the entire yeah i didn't know if that was like a pitched portion of that was just over the gymnasium i'm not familiar with the structure i didn't know if that was its own six thousand square foot area or not it it is to my knowledge it's and it's flat oh okay so then that's fine thank you no problem you're welcome any other questions for uh facilities okay seeing none our next uh committee report is our um student representative uh always glad to have you here max so the floor is yours always glad to be here mr smith all right so um uh just a few updates for this week a lot of them are just um continued updates from last time i spoke uh first i just want to speak about the mental health survey so it was sent out last week the mental health survey that i've been bringing up for a few weeks now it was sent out last week and they were um there were announcements on the morning news advertising the survey um and as of three days ago so as of monday which was three days ago only 184 students filled out the survey which is i mean compared to the amount of students that are in our whole school that's a very slim amount of students that actually filled out the survey so because um not a lot of students filled it out it was emailed to again to all of the chs students yesterday um so i'm just asking um everyone any students who are watching this or any parents of high school students uh either remind your kids or if i'm speaking to high school students you fill out the survey it's really important um the survey is meant to give the staff and administration a sense of what they can do in regards to mental health there's only a few questions on the survey and there's also a doc that has a lot of important links and emails and cell numbers to call if you're in need of assistance from one of the members of the staff at chs so it's really important you fill that survey out so the staff can get a better scope on what they can do in regards to mental health so yeah high school students if you're watching this definitely fill it out check your email and fill it out and high school parents watching this tell your kids to fill it out it's really important next i just want to quickly talk about the referendum citizens committee so there was a big meeting yesterday as all of you know as all of you were there for members of the public who weren't at the meeting yesterday or didn't ask any questions or weren't watching it you can still watch the meeting it's on the clifton public schools tv youtube channel or cps tv um it was a community forum and it was about two and a half hours long maybe close to three hours but you don't have to watch the whole thing there's different 15 to 20 minute time slots you can skip to if you only want to hear a certain part about the referendum i was lucky enough to be able to speak at the meeting last night and i think i was part of a panel with another student and three teachers and we all shared our experiences on experiences we had in the clifton school district and i think it was a really insightful meeting and if you're on the fence about of whether you should vote yes or not come april 20th or you just don't know about the referendum and want to know more definitely watch this meeting it should be one of the last things posted on the cpstv youtube channel um also in case you don't know how to get to the referendum website um the link is at the top of the clifton schools homepage so if you go to the clifton schools website you go to the home page there's a link in red bold at the top of the page that says clifton votes april 20th you click on it and then that's the website for the referendum it has all the information you'd need to know upcoming sat testing i always mentioned this i just wanted to quickly mention it's may 8th 2021 and june 5th 2021 you should register as soon as possible spaces may or may not be available at chs i'm pretty sure that the march 13th date is no longer available it's definitely not available at chs anymore and i think it might not be available period um but chances are if you wanted to sign up for the march date you would have done so already since it's so close so definitely look out for may 8th and june 5th our future sat testing dates um one thing i wanted to mention because that last meeting i was a little bit confused um sorry i was a little bit confused when one person mentioned uh how there wasn't going to be a call in portion so i just wanted to clarify for the next board of ed meeting which i believe correct me if i'm wrong is march 18th where you where you said it's going to be in person but you could still be hybrid if you want you could still be at home so will participants in the public portion still be able to join through zoom and will participants be able to speak through the phone um are those still options or do we actually have to go to the school to speak in person so um please just answer that when you can and also i just wanted to ask miss basford because you mentioned this at the last meeting there was an eye on mental health i think was the name of the document it was new jersey school boards and it sounded really interesting so uh please send that to me or when you can um if you type in my my name on the school email and clickingschools.net my id should pop up and you should be able to send it to me um but yeah if i definitely want you to send me that and dr robert tosie if miss basford isn't able is has trouble reaching out um i'll give you can give her my email okay um a couple other things i wanted to mention um oh i always do a plug-in for the chs morning show continuing to provide great updates um and also mr stepnesski is arranging um as you know there's always a all city concert every year last year we weren't able to do it because that's right when the coronavirus happened we were actually planning on having a really awesome uh project for all city but we weren't able to do it but this year we're doing a virtual all city project with the elementary schoolers the middle schoolers and the high schoolers um so i'm not exactly sure when that's coming out but i know there um are recordings we're due tomorrow so it must be soon so i would just look out for that when you get the chance and that's it um good night everyone and um i hope you have a great week max if you could just wait here there might be some board members that have some questions i know miss bassford has her hand up yes yes um max uh through you mr uh president smith to superintendent we did i did send it to uh dr robinson he did send it out i think you sent it to the boe email i don't think max is on it so i'll resend it to you and then if you you know max we did we did try at the last meeting yeah it's a really great report you can always go on new jersey school boards association's website they have multiple reports on there for different things you may want to peruse that site and look around and get familiar with it but i'll make sure you get it tonight i'm sorry oh it's it it's okay thank you so much dr roberto you wanted to say something thanks mr smith i just wanted to take a minute to thank max for his contributions last night to our community forum i think it's great for our community members to hear from our students who really are most affected by this upcoming referendum and he he said something on i'm gonna paraphrase it but he said something that i thought was very powerful and he said look i'm not going to be here to see any of these changes i'm graduating this year but he said i wouldn't be sitting here wasting my time if i didn't have such a great experience in the clifton public school district and the and the in the clifton public school district deserves this and i just thought that was such a mature uh powerful thing for a young man to say so max thank you again and our other student miriam gabriel was just incredible also um so max thanks again and then and then finally i i saw a video might have been last week of the chs morning show where you were doing a snl skit of uh chris farley and the man down by the river yes maybe maybe next time you come on for a public comment you can you can do your impression for us i think i'm gonna save that for like one of my last uh addresses excellent thanks max all right well um and would you would it be okay if you answered the question about the um the public portion uh what it's going to be like next week or in two weeks if we're allowed to do a call-in or zoom yeah the max the board is actually going to be discussing that in executive session so we'll come out and make an announcement on that okay thank you um just so everyone uh may not have seen it if you go to uh the clifton high school morning show today you'll be in for a real treat from one of max's friends um who will uh teach you some some uh max i'm sorry i'm not putting you on the spot but you have such a great friend there and he uh he teaches everyone some great dance moves so if you uh if you have an opportunity everyone please go and check that out you will thoroughly enjoy it as i did thank you max and thank your friend uh for all that he does for the morning show i truly enjoy it and i'm sure many others do thanks again max thank you mr smith have a good week everyone you too okay uh we're now going to go into uh public recognition this portion the meeting is open to the residents and non-residents of clifton for the purpose of addressing any subject matter matter pertinent to and or directly related to the operation of the city of clifton public school district residents and non-residents are requested to state their name and municipality that they live in and the subject matter there they're addressing comments are limited to five minutes per person issued raised by members of the public may or may not be responded to by the board all comments will be considered a response will be forthcoming if and when appropriate the board asks that members of the public be courteous and mindful of the rights of other individuals when speaking specifically comments regarding students and my computer went down sorry my chromebook likes to uh act up here uh specifically comments regarding students employees of the board are discouraged and will not be responded to by the board students and employees have specific legal rights afforded by the laws of new jersey the board bears no responsibility nor will be liable for any comments made by members of the public should consider their comments in light of legal rights of those affected or identified in their comments and be aware that they are legally responsible and liable for their comments okay i believe we have uh someone labeled floor more if you would please state your name municipality and subject matter please uh caller with the name floor more okay floor more last call okay we'll move on to the next i believe uh mr mark brunsiak you were next how you doing do you hear me yes we do thank you dr robert tozie thank you president smith vice president basford at all the school board and all the members of the board of ed i just wanted to let everybody know that the u.s census bureau based on a population of 8.8 million in the state of new jersey and the cdc has just reported as of today that 2.3 million doses of the coven vaccine have been administered as of today and out of those 8.8 million residents of the state of new jersey 20 of those are under 18 years old so if you want to count to 18 year olds that means 26 over 26 percent have already had the first vaccine over 26 percent of residences of residents of the state of new jersey have already had them and i'd like to know since the government has governor murphy has already stated that as of march 15 that teachers that educators kindergarten through through uh 12th grade are eligible is there any visibility on on how we could try to get them the vaccine as humanly possible moreover that how many of the educators in the district have been vaccinated already as of february 8 2021 the number of school districts in the state of new jersey a full in-person instruction was at 95 districts out of more than 600 today is march 4th and we're supposed to start this coming monday and again like i said last time i called in is the best news we've had since november and i'm asking the board to do everything they can we heard miss beltran before stating that she's going to get a bunch of air purifiers for each one of the classrooms over a thousand that should be in place and this is one of the you know the circulation issues and and and on top of it all the other precautions are there kids are going to be able to have safe schooling and people could have argued over a month ago too that they could have had it too so i'm asking this board but please do everything you can to have the kids to have the parents who ha want their kids to have in-person schooling to keep them there as best as you can and to continue that thank you for your time thank you and god bless america have a good night everybody thank you mr brunsiak um i believe next is a student uh in our clifton schools uh chloe popovich you have the floor hi my name is chloe popos i think it is great that schools will be opening the new case is reported by the clifton board of health on tuesday it was only which gives our town a daily infection rate of 0.03 i like that we are starting to hold activities outdoors this will help students mental health along with allowing our community to heal sporosphere always held our spa as hell and now the music programs are having outdoor spring concerts and the spring musical will also be outdoors i would like to see the holding of outdoor events extend to the many academic awards programs and senior activities which normally occur donors blank there was no hope of having any indoor events for our school rsis but why can't we hold an academic awards ceremony outside even if it's in shift we could use the stadium no dental just the words same with the prom and senior world's night i know i would be willing to help and so would many parents we could use tents for class day and still have a nice to film the prom could be at the stadium and we can ask everyone to not be heroes because of the dwarf i know the students would enjoy these activities even without the food which is always a cold issue i am suggesting that we start plenty of outdoor activities and myself and many others will be willing to help thank you thank you very much uh next we have uh lori lalama all right good evening to everyone i hope everybody is doing well i have a buffet of information tonight so the first thing i want to say is that i received a phone call from the governor and i'm going to play it roy it's governor phil murphy god bless you and thank you for everything you do in clifton and for so many as an educator in technology as a union leader uh particularly in these incredibly stressful times i cannot thank you enough you have a lot of fans out there and count me as one of them god bless you stay well stay strong and keep up the great work take care all right so i was very happy hearing that from the governor and i was teaching at the time so i couldn't pick up my phone because i'm responsible to my class plus it said unknown so i usually don't pick up unknown anyway but that was a really great thing because it brings more of a positive light to our district and that's what i think is very important all right number two the vaccines teachers are happy vaccines are out i've gotten my first one because i fall under the fluffy category so that worked out fine for me all right so everybody is excited about that because at the end we all want to be in our classrooms we all want to have kids and i've been doing this for a long time but uh you know the idea is to make sure our kids are safe our kids families are safe because we can't compare apples and oranges that just doesn't work so and to maintain the staff and their families safe so that's what's important there all right so i want to thank the principals and uh school six for um supplying all the hand sanitizers measuring the the classrooms to make sure we are following the guidelines by the department of health and the cdc so i want to really say thank you the event with laura shroff by the key club and the cea was a fantastic event we could have sat there probably until 11 o'clock at night listening to her she was very personable outgoing um gave her uh her personal life experiences which the kids could reflect on because she was in a um an abusive situation so there's quite a few people that have gone through that so there was a lot of questions and answers and it was really an excellent excellent event i would like to see her come back for the elementary school book that she wrote um the other thing we belong with the school boards association the njea the principals association and the superintendent's association it's called the rutgers labor management collaborative so this year dr robertosi and i get to sit on the panel at this event and we're very excited um dr sol rubenstein from rutgers runs it but also listen to the guest of honor we have the new secretary of education ed uh miguel cardona will be there so and our own um interim uh commissioner of ed will be there and the heads of some of the unions so this is going to be an outstanding program for us um let's see i think that's about it oh no one more thing the virtual latino institute that we were trying to do last year but we had to stop it because of covid so now we'll be able to do it virtual and it'll be conferences for the parents in spanish so it'll help the um association and it'll be different topics so we just got the okay to start planning it this afternoon at 4 30.

night i just wanted to make sure 165 was gone because i don't think we should ever vote in seniority order so that answers my question thank you and mark i i think that um what bernie was trying to say is that that didn't come from a board member that he brought that to the policy committee and i think he saw that there wasn't any interest in it um and particularly once um did the due diligence and so it was against um but i i nobody indicated to me myself included that we should do anything but alphabetical absolutely in agreement with you i'm satisfied thank you and we'll see we'll revisit the other policy once the policy committee has had a chance to look at language okay yes thank you okay thank you mark following up okay so um i had a motion and a second is there any more discussion on items one through four which is a roll call vote seeing none will the secretary please call the roll uh mrs chu yes mr sismar yes mrs guass yes mr hong yes this is lacks yes this is reese yes mr winston yes president becker yes motion carries moving on to the community programs agenda can i please have a motion to combine items one through three move by leewoo second by jeff is there any discussion okay all those in favor aye aye opposed obscene motion carries curriculum instruction there is one item can i please have a motion for the east brunswick flex school enrollment so moved by leewoo second by heather is there any discussion all those in favor aye aye aye opposed abstain motion carries moving on to the facility agenda can i please have a motion for items one and two second by jeff is there any discussion i actually had a question more of um bernie if you could please speak for a minute about this power purchase agreement and the impact it will have on us and what this is going to do so the board had um previously approved a power purchase agreement which deals with the installation of solar panels at several of our facilities that project has been moving forward for a number of months we did have some uh questions and concerns with some of the installations uh on rooftops which were resolved through a couple of meetings with the company and those those issues have been addressed through the addendum to the power purchase agreement and this resolution formalizes that addendum to the agreement um that addresses the concerns that we had expressed to the company so it puts us on track to be able to continue uh the solar project uh in fact we we had um our first um uh restart of the project meetings yesterday in anticipation of being able to move forward so um we will be seeing uh solar panels uh installations beginning on some of our facilities great thank you very much for that explanation i thought it would be of interest to the public if there's uh jeff just real quick on top of that and with that change can you hear me yes can you hear me okay yeah yeah it's much better i'll i'll just keep going mr with that change that that had no impact on the cost of the program uh no i don't see anything okay that's good to know also excellent thank you you're welcome so bernie so is this only impact the uh warrants over and the central office building no it does not but this is the uh there is uh talk about the including the good to the right so so um let me let me just uh talk about that it mentions those those two facilities for a reason so first of all the scope of the um the scope of the solar project uh encompasses churchill junior high school uh lawrencebrook central i believe that's it churchill lawrence brooke and central now from there their original design on churchill had to be modified because they were designing a system that was going to be installed on the standing seam roofs we did not want the standing seam roofs to be impacted by any solar panels so they wanted to make up the um uh the amount of electricity generated by solar so um we had suggested that they might consider warren store for which has a brand new roof so we don't have any issues that might be faced at that location and we also suggested perhaps looking at the administration building if they would do a new roof for us so um so that part where you see warren storefront the administration building addressed is to be able to have that ability we're still looking at that they're they're looking at the feasibility and if it does proceed particularly with the administration building it will be with a new roof going on the administration building without cost to us but it's going it will be the roof that we want it won't be something that we don't want thank you you're welcome okay any other questions oh the secretary uh mr has her hand up oh this is true i was just gonna make a comment that that's actually a nice side benefit to get a new roof out of it if that works out so you know we're going to try that would be a real nice side benefit it is okay i see smiling widely there uh i believe this is rokovo yes mrs chu yes mr sismar yes mrs guast yes mr hong yes this is lax yes mrs reese yes mr winston yes president becker yes motion carries moving out to financial services can i please have a motion for items one and two don't move mark mark move by mark second by jeff is there any discussion all those in favor no i'm sorry this is a roll call mrs reese uh has her hand up i believe she's sorry thank you uh i have a question but maybe bernie you could explain to us number two a little more the shared service agreement between east brunswick and the brunswick board of ed uh regarding custodial services certainly um new brunswick uh has approached us for assistance they are in need of supplementing their custodial services their custodial staff and they've asked if they could utilize our contract for custodial services we have um engaged with aramark and validated that they would be able to provide the additional staffing required by new brunswick um and so um we've uh composed the costs associated with that based on what the hour mark costs would be the monitoring costs and it also has included a three percent fee that would ignore to uh east brunswick uh public schools so that's basically a um a service chart uh that new brunswick would be paying to east brunswick um and this does not impact our services whatsoever uh it is um one of the things that at the state level uh uh has been uh really promoted for a number of years and that's to enter into shared services agreements where you know governing bodies can facilitate services with each other and for each other so this really is uh right in line with what the state likes to see happen so the most important aspect in my view is that it does not adversely impact our services so and we're able to help out a neighboring school district sounds like a good partnership thank you you're welcome and we can do a roll call mrs becker that's fine we can't i don't see uh actually it's not a real quote vote um i i think uh i didn't note it on the agenda but since we do have the shared services agreement i would recommend that sure go for it mrs chu yes mr sismar yes mrs gwas yes mr hong yes this is lex yes this is reese yes mr winston yes president becker yes motion carries moving on to our human resources agenda can i please have a motion to combine items one and two so moved move by leewoo second by jeff is there any discussion will the secretary please call the role mrs chu yes is it mr sismar yes this is gloss yes mr hong yes this is lex yes this is rhys yes mr winston yes president becker yes motion carries moving on to student services can i please have a motion to combine items one and two so move mark move by mark second generation begun by jeff is there any discussion okay um well the secretary please call the roll this is true yes mr sismar yes this is gloss yes mr han yes this is lex yes this is rhys yes mr winston president becker yes motion carries and our final item on tonight's agenda is a transportation item can i please have a motion for quoted contract award student transportation services still moved move by label second by mark is there any discussion all those in favor right opposed obscene motion carries uh lou uh confirming that our student rep is not with us tonight okay uh committee reports information items and the good of the cause of the board anybody have anything uh suzanna um just wanna mention that next week on march 9th at 7 30 pm human relations council is putting on a facebook live event for the lunar new year and again they're partnering with various organizations um a lot of organizations from within the town as well as from our high school so we have um we have something from from our mandarin class uh explaining and explaining you know the program and and how you progress through the levels uh in in the mandarin classes so there's an educational aspect of just learning about uh part of our program and the high school asian club also contributed several pieces uh to provide some uh educational as well as um uh you know interesting information for for that event so i hope you guys will be able to join okay anyone else jeff then mark i just want to point out as i'm sure mr figueroa is anxiously awaiting tomorrow's big game uh with my favorite sports team in any sponsor the girls basketball team are uh advancing in their pod a watered-down version of this year's tournament but uh if you haven't watched one of the games they do stream them live and boy they are playing some basketball so um check them out tomorrow's their last game right right am i right what what's the record jeff what's your record for the season uh we try not to talk about that every every it starts all over again tournament time okay and uh tournament time says they're doing great they're doing great that i was just i was just curious but um it's uh great to give a shout out to our teams mark yeah it's march women's history month uh i think we should thank all the great women in our lives and uh this is your month so let's uh i just i just wanted to make mention of that and thank you very much all the great women in the district and in our personal lives so thank you thank you mark anyone else okay uh we do have a meeting for a closed session and a need for a closed session the board of education must discuss matters which are not appropriate for discussion in a public meeting the board of education tends to discuss the following matters those that are listed in tonight's agenda the length of the closed session is estimated to be one hour after which the public meeting of the board shall reconvene and action will not be taken can i please have a motion to go into closed session don't move mark move by mark second by jeff is there any discussion all those in favor aye opposed obscene motion carries members please log out of this session and log into the closed session for those of you who joined us tonight thank you and be safe you

on february 28 2021 the house sponsored the by house representative dual udall so that bill did pals the house passed the house and is now over in the senate i heard that the senate education committee will hear this bill next tuesday so they had passed the bill in the or you have the bill it copy of that in board docs so it it just simply states that asdb campus will be an lea for four purposes the first purpose is to receive federal education funding second for accountability and for idea for those safeguards to be in place and graduation required criteria with including diploma and transcripts so just to simplify the bill you the board members now have an opportunity to discuss this bill if you want if you have a question that you would like to ask the ag's office you will have the opportunity to go into executive session to ask questions from the ag counsel deborah sterling and you will have the opportunity to take action or not take any action it's truly up to you okay um thank you superintendent reichman and again to be clear to the board members if we do vote to go into executive session it would be limited to obtaining uh legal advice from our attorneys um any other comments you know are going to be would have to be out here uh but you know typically uh if we're going to have executive session i think we usually do it on the front end of the item so if there is are there any board members that would like to go into executive session and receive legal advice from from our outside counselor mike um i think um i'd like to get some legal advice from our council surrounding this right now pit pad okay um all right well i i will move that we go into executive session to receive legal advice uh from our council and i see lynn uh secondly uh all in favor say hi or what's up okay uh all closed all right the motion's gonna pass sue k can you read uh our statement yep okay pursuant to ars 38-431.03 a3 the board may vote to go into executive session which will not be open to the public for discussion or consultation for legal advice with the board's attorneys foreign all right now it looks like we're out of the executive session okay um excellent all right so now we're back in um it's been uh about 50 minutes since our last break so let's keep going a little more um the uh so thank you for that as we come back you know the board uh will take some discussion in this in this matter uh you know as we've you know and again just to kind of set this this up from you know historical perspective i mean we've we've had uh you know a difference of opinion in good faith i believe with ade for the over this issue for uh a while uh and you know there's there's some question as to whether there needs to be any legislative change for the agency to be uh properly characterized as an lea in certain circumstances for the campus-based programs uh so you know there's there's certainly an argument and you know likely a good argument that that you know that no legislation is needed um but there's uh you know certainly there are other sides of this issue and people who believe differently so uh you know from here and again i'd like to take some discussion on it but again i want to remind the board that we can do anything we want um but we have to proceed knowing that the legislature does what the legislature does and whether or not we like it or endorse it or make a resolution or instruct staff to support it although maybe we wouldn't do that but we would you know have some kind of resolution in support of it it may not make a difference right but whatever the legislature does we have to comply with uh but they don't have to comply with what we say uh that's that's the way that it works um so you know that's the the realm that it's in uh and and it's you know the legislature does what it does and we have to listen and they do that on many issues i mean we work with policy uh issues all the time where they make changes to uh education law and we have to change our policies in fact we do it at almost every board meeting we have we have new changes that the legislature's made and we have to adjust our policies and adjust our operations uh because of it um and we don't necessarily uh are in support of every single one or maybe we have lukewarm support on some but we we do it because we have to and that's the way that the the educational system works so uh you know with with that said um is there is there any discussion now on on this particular legislative bill uh is it so there are there any board members that would like to speak on this tv okay so i've been listening and thinking one thing i do want to say maybe what we what we think we really what is the potential benefit of the board taking a position to this bill and what are the negative consequences from and i've been weighing those out and what i've seen the board would have more benefit than more consequences and we can continue to play what if and go around and around or we can say we take no position but my in my opinion that doesn't do anything we have to do everything we can to maximize our financial potential and those federal funds will help the students receive their legal free and appropriate education especially for a vulnerable population who needs the most support and that's why idea is there to ensure that the students with sensory disabilities hearing and vision loss are receiving 100 percent full support of receiving their free and appropriate public education so i would support that so that they can become independent adults working citizens and contribute to their communities the potential consequences far does not outweigh the positives so as acdh representative we do support this bill and i think that there is a need for this board to show support of this bill as well and if there's any issues we can deal with that after legislation passes if it passes but i think that we should show that we support it um and support of the campuses having more financial support and what they need for the future uh thank you pv um for those for those comments um and just to give some of the new board members uh some context of how this board has dealt with this issue um in the recent past uh you know we we talked about a piece of specific proposed legislation in december um we decided not to move forward with that for various reasons um and and and the idea you know kind of one of the ideas is that we would begin to look at this issue uh over this you know through this year so we're nearing completion of our strategic plan which is going to guide the agency over the next number of years and after we're finished with that and again we're we're nearing the end of that uh you know by the middle of this year hopefully uh that we would be able to take some time in the second half of the year uh and determine kind of all of the i don't say hidden consequences but all of the you know what it means to to to be an lea you know for the campus-based uh uh schools and what what that means um and versus the services and operations that we have now um and what it means if we weren't an lea uh and and what that would look like and try to you know comport that with what uh you know our guidance that we have in our strategic plan and if there's any uh if we needed legislative change we would you know thoughtfully propose some uh at a later time that likely that would be uh early next session uh so that was our original kind of plan was to think about this at the end at the end of the other half of the year and we're still going to do that and i think in the legislative intent it seems the legislature is you know they've recognized that they've you know there is that legislative intent that recognizes that we're going through that strategic plan and that they're you know there may be additional changes that are needed uh next year should the board decide to go you know in whatever direction uh so that's kind of how the board is you know is addressing it this this legislation kind of arose uh you know uh it arose so it wasn't this it wasn't something the board put forth and requested uh so that's that's some other history for you but a pbsc you're raising your hand thank you again president nigro i just want to make a point of clarification my understanding the discussion from the previous meeting had to do with a different draft bill with the understanding there was some issues or concerns about that bill and this bill in discussion is completely different from my understanding of reading this bill this is more clean more direct clear transparent um and that is what is being requested with this bill now this legislation if it passes will this help the board with the strategic plan if so then the board should go ahead and support this bill um other other tv oh just real quick sorry sorry to interrupt um if we could switch interpreters okay um great and uh and people you are right that the the proposed legislation uh from the december board meeting uh was was very different uh this is this is the legislation that's now pending is uh uh is very different um and it is in board docs uh you know right now and it's it's uh it is much shorter and much different um brittany so um as i'm obviously a very new board member to all of this um i've heard the legal side of it and i've heard a lot of this discussion obviously what from a student or family standpoint um would be the benefit of having ptsd and asdb designated as an elliot what does that mean for the families and these students um if they are an lea versus if they are not in lea uh sure and i think that's a great question um you know and and i'll ask superintendent reichman to expand on that in a moment um you know there are several federal funds that flow to the agency part of those are title one funds to the campus-based schools part of those are idea funds part of those are medicaid funds i understand that there may be some funds from uh some of the various covet uh related acts that congress has passed recently uh that you know that the agency would otherwise be eligible for in some manner uh we we did hear that um ade did just a couple of weeks ago indicated that they may provide some of that funding that that had some more they had some discretion on it to award to the agency and again i i asked miss cooper about that and um she gave us some information uh on that amount uh but those are the different funding streams and i think i might be missing title four too uh but if maybe superintendent right can you maybe explain a little more detail you know exactly what those funding streams help to produce on the campuses i don't know that there's any direct benefit to the families but there is a benefit to the students um when you're talking about idea funding that provides monies for purchasing curriculum materials so for example we have used that money for curriculum with to use with the students that is what we have been doing historically in previous years we did summer school for students they were able to get we were able to use federal funding to provide tutoring to students during the summer so there certainly are benefits to the students they're not direct benefits to the families per se um when they have been designated as an lea up until this past year to my understanding on the students diplomas are they coming as an lea from pdsd asdb and now that they've lost that designation did the students diplomas come from like their school district how is that can you clarify that correct so historically asdb has been issuing diplomas for our students the certificate if you want to call it that when we were told that we were not considered an lea we had to establish an agreement with each school district and ask that school district to allow us to use our own graduation criterion um because each school district has their own district graduation criterion so we work with 88 different school districts in the state technically we are supposed to follow their individualized graduation criterion if we are not an lea so part of our agreement with the school districts um is that we ask instead of us following all of these separate criteria depending on where the student attending our school has their home district that they allow us to use our own criteria our graduation criteria is in compliance with the rules of the state of state board of education so we are complying with state law however the non-lea status did create some changes for us one that's one example of a change is that graduation criteria uh pv yes thank you i'm superintendent reichman i appreciate your comments would you mind expanding more regarding the diploma situation so if asubb is not operating it as an lea does that mean we have to request permission or negotiate with that district to provide that diploma and if they say no then um what are the consequences for the students that are trying to graduate are they not receiving a diploma so annette's saying i'm sorry providing what um providing their diploma or some kind of documentation that they graduated from high school if we're not an lea so annette is saying last year we developed a policy an agreement between our schools and the school district in that document or that policy it says that if you choose to send a student to asdb or ptsd you agree to allow us to use our graduation criteria so the school districts sign that agreement so they are then agreeing to allow us to use our graduation criteria so far none of the school districts have said no however you do need to know that with 88 school districts only 10 school districts have actually signed the agreement the other 78 have said that they're not going to sign the agreement because [Music] it doesn't um they don't agree with taking on accountability for our students or their students in our schools thank you superintendent for following up so for those students um in those 78 districts those school districts that refuse to sign what happens when those students graduate with their diploma status the diplomas are still valid the diplomas are still valid because we do follow the state board of education graduation criteria however with the lea designation officially that would make the campuses job in providing that appropriate education as the lre for these students easier which is that correct i'm sorry what was the question again sure so if um asdb were designated an lea and officially recognized as an lea by this legislation passing would that allow the two campuses um staff board superintendent et cetera to provide the most beneficial free and appropriate education to these students in their least restrictive environment and that is saying from our perspective yes i do believe so and pv is saying so regarding the lea issue and that bill before the legislature if it were to pass would it allow asdb to receive equivalent funding or or funding um i'm sorry the interpreter needs clarification if we were to receive that designation of lea by the legislation passing would that allow the schools the campus-based programs to receive funding to operate and provide education to those students or would it have any kind of negative impact on the budget in terms of providing education so annette is saying if it passes um the senate then it does become law and asdb would uh work with the arizona department of education or ade to figure out how the federal funding would work out um and we have we would have the resources to support our students on our campuses thank you okay there are other board members that would like to speak no okay um seeing none um you know i think at this point uh tv i apologize thank you president nigro for uh recognizing me i would like to make a motion that the board adopt a position in favor of this legislative bill designating asdb as an lea okay and i okay and i i see that um mike uh we can't we can't hear you uh i'm still i still can't hear you mike can you hear me now yeah now we can hear you okay i'm so sorry i need to abstain i was trying sorry my technology is i i'm not gonna call vote just yet but in a minute i will yeah i thought that the second and i was trying to my technology got it yeah no i i i understand so um brittany have you seconded that is that right yes okay um all right uh is there any before we have a vote is there any uh you know we could certainly take discussion on the on the motion as well that we have on the table uh would anyone like to discuss the motion no okay um you know this is uh this really is to be honest this isn't our issue today uh you know in my opinion uh the legislature uh you know put forth this bill uh they can you know that's they make legislation that's what they do um and uh it's no matter what we say here today they're either going to go through with this or not go through with this and then of course the governor has to sign it or not sign it uh and and we have to deal with that either way uh either either it passes or it doesn't and uh and it just doesn't matter what we say today and you know that's that's a political process that's kind of separate from from our board uh the other part of it is you know we we might come back uh later in the year and decide that we want some different legislation uh maybe some legislation that um has perhaps is better tailored uh to get a certain effect um or or not we might we might not want that um and i don't know that we know enough as an agency have collected enough data to know um what we want to do or or really more importantly how we want to do it even if we decide to be in it or to try to seek to be an lea uh is this the right vehicle to do it i think that if you go back and look at the december third meeting you know there was some discussion on that point um you know was that the right vehicle to further these ends and and i think there are some board members that thought no at least that's that's what i heard in the comments uh and i think we have to think about the same issue here is is is this legislation the right vehicle um will it accomplish what we wanted to accomplish and is that is that the right vehicle um and i think there's clearly in the legislative intent there's some acknowledgment that it might not be that it might have to be revisited next year uh with more of the board's input we've had the time to look at the facts we've had the time to make that comport with our strategic plan to see if we can if if that change again whether it's to be an lea status or not we'll further our strategic plan and help us improve as an agency you know that said there's you know what what harm is there in this in this bill this hurt the agency right because i think that's the other thing that i've thought about over the last few couple of weeks or so is you know if this bill passed and it becomes a law is it going to hurt the agency um i think it's pretty clear that walt um you know i i haven't heard any discussion that this bill would would hurt the agency or have any negative consequence for the agency it will likely allow the agency to receive federal funding from those streams that we talked about i know ade has a different position um you know which you know i think perhaps some of us here disagree with uh but you know is it would it hurt you know would this hurt the agency and again that clear answer's um so those are those are my thoughts on it i see lin and sue k i'll take you guys up but again we're you know we're discussing the motion that's that's on the table right now so uh suit you can go first oh sorry hit the wrong one um so i think in regards to pb's motion i think something um that was brought up earlier i think is worth repeating in that you know in support of this if we if we vote in support of this um as a board then does that allow us does that give us more um control is probably the not the best word but gives us more control to then um vote on directing the staff meaning annette and the administration to work more directly in crafting the rules or whatever of this legislation so that it does suit our needs better and i think pb is the one who had mentioned that before so i think that's one thing to consider my only concern um that i don't think we have fleshed out well enough is those 78 districts who have not signed that agreement are they also going to oppose um you know will they continue to send their kids with us or are they going to then pull it back and keep their kids and then this really doesn't benefit us in the way that we thought it would and those would be my only comments on this okay you had your hand up as well i did david i agree with what you've said i think we really need to consider this because being an lea does involve the funding for sure but there's a lot of other aspects of being in lea that we as a board and as schools need to consider and the responsibilities and things that go along outside of the funding the fundings you know obviously very important but there's a lot of other aspects that i think we need to look at and and be able to deal with if if this is the road that is chosen for us uh correct and uh are there other uh comments and and uh sue kate can i ask you a question and and uh pb let me let me ask okay i just want to ask a question about one of her comments we'll get to you um okay in terms of the districts that uh are are resistant um to getting the their data back i think with this bill that they would the reporting would remain with the agency so the so that so all of the students uh data would be collected with the agency so when we look at the agency we look at the campus-based students we're going to have n equals you know hundreds as opposed to sending data back out to the districts and having end be you know two or three or ten or twenty or however many uh students the district is sending so um this is you know it's it's essentially kind of going back to this i mean my understanding of it is that this would essentially go back to the status quo where the agency would own the data and have it and not send it back to the districts um but it would be you know have all of the other benefits and burdens of being an lea that's my understanding it seems that's what the legislative intent is as i read and thank you david i appreciate that um clarification i just was looking at it more from the standpoint will this in fact impact the um on campus enrollment will we see a decline in that and maybe an increase in the itinerant services that was more my my viewpoint on it yeah um thanks i i see uh you know to me it's it's not necessarily you know choosing between i mean to me that the decision between uh uh you know if a student needs to be on the campus or needs or would uh benefit from itinerant services is really based on the individual iep teams and that's really based on student need and would the student benefit from being on the campus or with the student is the least restrictive environment the campus for what those students needs are or is it their is it their school uh support in other ways via you know for example the internet services and other services the home school district may have uh so it it's uh wouldn't necessarily mean that to me anyway because that's a needs-based uh decision uh that's based on an individual student uh that shouldn't be the deciding factor whether or not they go you know people don't come to our campuses because they you know they need that that's the least restrictive environment they need the services that we have they need the campuses that we provide um it's it's uh and that's that's the reason so uh but in terms of the data reporting and uh who owns that it would be the agency as opposed to the districts that send it to us which is you know that was the status quo uh so again we may think about that and you know certainly i'm open to thinking about that later is that the right thing to do is not the right thing to do you know we all should be open to thinking about that uh but you know it would be it wouldn't be a change um and pb i think you had your uh your hand up yes thank you thank you president nigro and i agree with your comment um i think one thing for sure um is that um we are going to have to change and then move forward in some way or another as an lea or without that lea designation we are going to have to modify our practices depending on what that ends up being so my question um to you annette and for your staff is if the board were to support um this lea designation and this legislation passes would that help the campuses and in terms of the strategic plan discussion would that help develop policy or definitions help with the budget in any way susanna so there are two points here one is um what lynn was recently talking about in terms of the responsibilities of an lea we had those responsibilities um mostly and um it might change some with this bill if that if it passes there may be some additional um but broadly speaking um we have had those responsibilities of an lea prior to it changing last summer if we are an lea that would give us the opportunity to work with the school districts when they refer students to us and once the student is enrolled in our school we can take full accountability for that student for their education for their test scores and so forth and for their graduation requirements all of it we would take that responsibility back we had that responsibility historically we had systems in place we were functioning as an lea that system was put on hold because we were not considered we are not currently considered an lea we could very quickly go back to that practice we still have the staff here who have that experience and expertise and they are able to do the reporting that would be required of us as an lda does that answer your question thank you yes but the second question so to clarify um perhaps this question is um better to go to the board but as far as the board if we uh were to support the designation of an lea would that help us to kind of better establish a strategic plan with the appropriate vision in mind as in as a designated lea um if the if the question is whether becoming le first would help us inform or change this future plan uh i i think the answer is no uh to that because our plan uh is you know and again i know you're new so we haven't you know gone through this process that we've been through the last several months of developing it um but the the idea is that we're going to set forth kind of the the the map of the road map uh to achievement for the agency and the individual taxes that we take to get there might be different and in fact they might change over the time horizon of the plan but we're going to be able to ask but the plan is going to tell us uh when we get there uh so uh as as an example if we were to decide this now or take a position now and say we need to be an lea uh that that may or may not help us uh you know in furtherance of the plan at this point today that might be different in a few months after that's finished and if we have a better idea of the you know exactly in a detailed granular manner what being lea means and what it doesn't mean and what not being an alien means and what doesn't that's my perspective anyway other board members certainly can comment i appreciate your comment and i would ask um as far as this strategic plan is concerned um we as a board supporting the agency need to know what operations will look like and what our legal authority is what our funding potential is and what the educational requirements are that we're obligated to the educational needs of the students that we're serving if we are an lea it seems to me that that would help to give us a better idea um of what we're aiming toward if we're not an lea we are not operating as an lea if we are if we take a neutral position if we do nothing we're still sort of on the fence um lacking clarity as to how to move forward i believe that that legislation if it passes will make that decision for us having listened to the conversation it seems that the campuses have been operating as leas with a system in place to record data and report as required and their family campuses are familiar with lea requirements as a board member representing the deaf community and the achh representative to me it makes sense for the board to support this legislation specifically to give us back that lead as a designation because i think that gives us clarity and how to move forward being recognized by the legislature as an lea i think we can all see the potential benefits of that that law provides clarity in establishing our designation we already have the resources and the staff and the experience and the expertise who can immediately begin operating as an lna as they were in the past thank you thank you are there any other comments uh mike yeah yeah i'm gonna just just weigh in a little bit because there's so much going on um you know we're back here two months after we we voted not to go lea and all of a sudden here we are discussing it all again uh with seemingly just the fiscal intent or just the intent legal intent for to draw down federal money um we all had our concerns we continue to have our concerns excuse me this is pv point of clarification my understanding is that we had been the board had previously talked about a draft bill um yeah we already said that let me let me just finish okay we yeah there's a different bill but we did have concerns and i recognize that regardless if if uh if we vote on this or not there's a very good chance this will pass the one caveat that we do have that i appreciate is that we will have an opportunity to address this later on so uh they they clearly put that in to seemingly give us a oh seemingly they put that in to give us the opportunity to address this later on so um i just find it interesting that you know we we voted on this two months ago and now we're discussing it again at length and with a certain potential futility that it's gonna it's gonna happen regardless so so anyway i kind of like to move this on uh mike i i appreciate that and certainly you know it wasn't our intent to be talking about this today but uh there's a bill in the legislature and that's that that's really what drove this conversation now um as opposed to you know several months from now so um with that said pb and some other i understand that david i appreciate it yes mike i do appreciate your comments and i wasn't able to participate in the board meeting back in december and i recognize that you all have had this conversation before my understanding was that conversation was related to um a proposed bill that asdb decided not to move forward on however the legislature the legislators proposed their own bill um and my understanding is that this bill is to give some direct clarification um whereas the previous bill that was discussed was was was just different so my understanding is that it was a different conversation um so i believe that it's beneficial for us to discuss this specific bill um and have a clear understanding of um of what to do and if we decide i believe we should support the bill proposed by the legislature okay um thank you unless there's going to be a further discussion uh we can take a vote uh on this we do have a second emotion on the table um so if so we have that motion uh on the table if there's any other discussion i'll wait just a second uh then then we'll call that the vote there's a the motion on the table uh this is pv's motion to uh support to have the board support the bill um which has already been seconded by uh board member ken uh all those in favor of the motion okay we see pv and uh reporter buchanan okay and now there's all all opposed i'm going to say no i'm going to say i'm voting no others are there any other no's no okay um any abstentions it's okay and then mike i'll abstain also and the other mic um so we have a two to one uh so it's not we don't have the plurality uh i don't think i have my robert's rules of order at home to see if that passed um it doesn't seem that you know we don't have a majority but we have the plurality so i don't think that it does um pass but i uh looks like it doesn't um but uh thank you everyone for for the discussion um and uh that's over we're go the next next item it's going to be 7.02 information item it's i don't believe there are any um miss murphy if you can confirm that yes president nico i can confirm that we have no new policies to bring forth for a first read all right thank you uh and the next item is call to the public we're actually um the next item is 801 call the republic for non-agendized items uh it is been another 90 minutes um i know we only have probably not that much longer left in the meeting but i do want to give the interpreters a short break um so is can we take a 10 minute break is that uh we don't need a motion for this but it will take 10 minutes um and uh give the interpreters a break foreign uh hello everyone can anyone hear me yes i can david okay good um and and i uh i do before i acknowledge your pv we're gonna go to 802 but before we go to 802 which is the next item i do want to say that uh we are reviewing um the 701 vote um i think we do get a clarification on that uh you know i i briefly was looking through some of my notes and researching that um so we're i'm sorry i don't have a better answer for you right now i uh uh you know we'll uh we'll we'll look at we're gonna look into that so it either passed or didn't pass but uh we have to look at a a ruling on that um so now we're at 80201 pb yes thank you president niger for acknowledging me and i would like to acknowledge your 7.01 conversation and i'm not sure either i am not hearing oh hold on a second hold on just a second hold on just a moment i'm having some trouble getting back from break here okay uh can can you say something can you hear all right can we try that can you hear okay uh hold on now now if we try that testing yes got it all right sorry about that apologies okay did you want me to to go back to where i dropped where i am dropped off yeah i yeah no i didn't i didn't uh we're on 802 right now i'm sorry 801.

i think that's your job i know review ar 32 2021 and ar 33 2021 be re-admitted to apple valley unified school this school district students have met their terms and conditions of their rehabilitation plans i know review are 32 20 21 i need a motion all in favor all right i know review are 2021 so i need a motion so move second in the opposed approve the certificated and classified personnel actions as listed i need a motion it is recommended that the board of trustees consider approving a number of agenda items as a consent list i move uh we move uh approve items one through thirty one on consent oh second second [Laughter] um we had a motion by rick raleigh and a second by wilson so for that consent agenda is that correct yes okay i just want to make sure because we had several seconds all over the place um we don't have any staff reports um kylie do we have any additional um comments we do not yeah thank you superintendent do you have any more comments just a quick um appreciation to everybody that participated in the shock clinic we will recognize them publicly but this was a village that it took to do this and our goal had to get the 65 and over vaccinated in our community before the tier opened up the county was surprised that there are no more educators that they needed to allocate vaccines for earlier this week so we are proud of that as a community and we will continue to celebrate that and i also want to acknowledge that we have lost several family members from apple valley unified school district both past and present um more present than i think i can in my history of being in this district can remember in a short period of time and so taking the time this this afternoon this evening um to mourn with their families and to have a moment of silence um to recognize that a piece of our apple valley family's heart is gone thank you mrs blessing yes i just want to say to all of the parents that wrote their letters and spoke tonight that we hear you we've been working on it and your kids are going back to school little at a time so that everyone's safe so just realize that we have been working mr so i don't have any further comment you know uh you mentioned that i lost quite a few close friends here in the community too and but you know it's one of those things this is a terrible endemic and we just need to stick together and work hard and win this war thank you mr bender and i have nothing further signing of documents seeing that there is no further board action uh i move that we um adjourn and sign the documents all in favor any opposed thank you we need a second she miss a car made the motion um being seconded okay i need him to shut us up you

so that'll be a positive thing for our parents and uh and the topics that we'll choose um i think that's about it all right thank you everybody have a good night thank you uh miss lama you know i i was gonna call you down the road uh but it my call isn't gonna mean anything now that you've had a call from the governor so congratulations on that and uh i just wanted to say thank you um to you for the three great teachers last night that spoke um at our meeting your association be very proud of the job that they did and i just wanted to say thank you for that i appreciate that mr smith i was listening too it was really a very good uh presentation by all absolutely thank you very much uh next we have uh donna thompson hi yes good evening uh doctor wrote with josie and the boys staff i'm just gonna make it quick um we've had some time to um i guess adjust with this uh the covid and everything and i just had a question about the senior kids what's going to happen with them as far as graduation is there any plan into doing something maybe outside because it's going to be in june you know i know a lot of um schools have um drive i'm not sorry driveways have a parking where you can have something there or maybe they have like maybe a little park across the street from the school where they can maybe hold something there for the kids or you know just something for them because a lot of them haven't been in the building and they haven't been around their friends and you know it would be something special for the kids i know it would be for me and my family i mean i don't know how anybody else feels but to have something like that for my daughter who's last year for fifth grade and she's gonna be going to another school and hopefully that won't be virtual as well you know this will be something good for the kids for their mental you know for their mental health to see their friends and really connect with them before they go off in different directions to other schools and maybe even other parts of new jersey we don't know so that was my uh my question for tonight thank you very much uh mr mountain has just told me that there is nobody uh left waiting to speak seeing none uh president smith motion to close motion second second by mr casper okay all right we will move on with the agenda unfinished business i don't see any uh next we have education administration uh we have um ea 1 and ea 2.

uh 801 call the public for non-agendized items okay thank you president negro um i wanted to recognize your uncertainty about the vote regarding 7.01 and if with your permission can we go back to that agenda item i have a potential solution that i'd like to discuss i don't think that we can go back because we've already moved on um unfortunately um but we uh we'll we'll get the the issue as to whether or not past will resolve it i think our policies uh are maybe ambiguous we have to cross-check with some other sources to make sure that we um you know we get that right then um what i would like to do is to make a motion to table that conversation temporarily um and allow that excuse me table that rule temporarily and allow the motion to pass based on plurality rather than majority so i don't know that we can do that we're not at an action item agenda item right now um and and and we're not in the action item uh you know for that purpose so in other words we've already moved on we went on to 702 we talked with ms murphy about the information item and then we moved on to 801 point of clarification um i am a bit if we're not sure whether um the motion passed or failed i think that um the fact that were that we had technically moved on i'm not sure that that's uh that that's relevant at this point um you know in my perspective uh whether it's passed or failed that you know we're gonna guess we're gonna resolve that and uh uh it either passed or didn't uh uh maria oh i see marina raising uh yes uh board president nigro i don't know if this is helpful or not but according to asdb policy bedf which is voting methods all motions shall be carried by a majority of the members present who vote or is otherwise required by law yes that was the policy i looked at uh you know the questions are abstentions um you know count as voting and and there's there's that's the ambiguity that i'm concerned about i see okay thank you yeah that that's the ambiguity uh and that's um that's not in our voting policy which i reviewed during the break uh so that's the you know whether or not a past is you know you know we'll take a look at that um in uh we're now in 801 uh called the public uh on non-agendized items and i don't believe that we have any uh sue k is that correct that is correct okay and we can move on to 802 discussion accident item agenda items for the next regular board meeting scheduled for may 6 2021 and whether to meet in person in tucson or virtually um that is kind of a couple of things there uh when we ask for other agenda items that board members may want to see on the next meeting and then two uh since you know covet you know we used to meet in person and now we're going to have to discuss whether or not we would like to resume meeting a person i would say that any means we have in person are still going to be massed and socially distant in may but we can have in person we can have hybrid where some members join via zoom and some are there in person and maybe all their person depending on their preference and whether the uh the meeting is set to go in tucson uh and that's if we were to do it personally so we could change any of that so uh lynn um i would suggest that we do hybrids so you know not knowing what may brings that we have the opportunity if everyone if anyone's comfortable to be in person and those who are not to be virtual if that makes sense i i to me that sounds like a great idea um you know i think uh having we've had a hybrid before i think in the fall and then i know kind of the rates got higher but then also we have vaccine now and we see uh community transmission lower that unfortunately could change you know by may hopefully not but uh you know the situation can be unpredictable um sukay i agree with lynn i'd like to support a hybrid idea only because not all of the counties and cities have masking mandates and things like that and so i would prefer to kind of wait and see and see what the numbers look like okay so all right any others with a preference okay so mike david i'd support a virtual or hybrid model also i think this is a type of meeting meeting that certainly does uh allow a virtual participation so i'm good with that also okay all right i'll move then that we uh we schedule the the may 6th board meeting for uh hybrid in tucson second all in favor [Music] no okay great um and then the other uh we're still on this for any items that anyone would like to see at the next regular board meeting that's okay in in relationship to agenda item 7.01 um would it be possible to see some kind of um fiscal impact um on on what it would look like if we had that funding and if we did not have that funding based on the campus numbers yeah i mean we yeah i would certainly agree that we we definitely need that information you know along with all the other information talked about with regard to that issue um but in may i think that's you know superintendent recommend if you can add that to the agenda um tv similar to suitcase comment i would like to add um as well any clarifications regarding um if the passage of this law will help with policy development or if it will help with the strategic planning process and you know for reference we have a work study session scheduled for april and there again to the new board members so we'll be meeting again uh in in april for work study sessions it's not a regular meeting like we have now with this you know the agenda and kind of disposing of regular board business um this is going to be a meeting that's just focused on uh the strategic plan so uh if i were you i'd go back to board docs and take a look at some of the other meetings that we've had on this there's a a good um you know kind of the documentation how the strategic plan has been built uh over the last several months uh we're at the point now we're filling out what i like to call the bottom of the page these are the you know the particular um you know real fine points of the plan we had a meeting on that a work study session on that in february and we've made some progress but the agencies continue to make progress on that i hope to have a much closer to final version of that ready the staff will have that ready for us by the work study session in april and then once we work through that we should be able to have that strategic document almost complete for for may uh potentially uh you know there's certainly potential for that could be another we could stretch into the other board meeting depending on where our progress is but you know certainly i like to have it done by june um so that we can uh implement it for the next uh fiscal year uh and but we but uh that that's kind of where we are in terms of the strategic plan um and and uh uh superintendent right but i think at the at the success i mean we we're gonna have to start looking at the at the la issue a lot more closely uh i know that we've been keeping kind of a running list of areas to kind of investigate uh to gather our data so we can make an informed decision here uh i don't know if that's going to be ready for may because i know that a lot of your staff is working on this strategic plan but if we if we can have something to view that might be that might be helpful so not just the finances uh you know whether we're gonna lose money or not i mean um that's that's one thing but if we can look at what the the other details that it means to be an lea what are the other things that we need to do that we're not doing if anything um and what are the things that um you know other operational changes that we might have to make even things that might seem unintended we'll want to know that to the extent that we can in may and then of course the and then of course this bill will likely either pass or not pass [Music] you know by then so if there's another you know if it if it does pass we probably want to talk about what it means and we'll probably have to work with ade on that uh so we'll we'll certainly want a status update uh if it if it passes and if and you know what if it doesn't pass we'll also get a status update of how uh of how that's gonna affect the agency for the next year um until uh you know unless and until we come to the the next legislative session with some additional uh legislation if any of the board decides that okay is there anything any other item for for next next time uh pv yes i would like to add an item to the agenda that if um it hasn't uh if a decision hasn't been made then a clarification of whether that motion passed or failed i'm sorry the interpreter needs to clarify um we need clarification regarding policy as to whether that motion 7.01 passed or failed yeah so that that will uh we're going to we're going to uh the agency is gonna consult with the uh experts on that we should have that tomorrow i mean you know if not monday great thank you yeah oh yeah no that's yeah that'll get taken care of right away we just need to uh research some of our orders the the uh i think that situation's happened before uh since i've been on the board um and we need to do some more research there i'm sorry okay all right um that is uh 802 and 901 uh is our action item adjournment uh we have a motion to adjourn lin that we adjourn is there a second uh on that sukay uh all of favor hi hi uh all opposed no good all right uh that passes uh again thank you to everyone um i know this board meeting was a little bit longer than we normally have but we had a big agenda today um thank you uh thank you to the interpreters to to the media and the other staff to uh that assembled this um i think it's again you guys have gotten really good at producing this and you know certainly i think you should be proud of the work product today um and again thank you for the board um we uh uh did have quite a hefty agenda today we're gonna meet next month uh to talk about the strategic plan and get that almost to the finish line i think uh and i look forward to seeing everyone then um virtually uh but other than that have a good night and thank you very much for your time today thank you good night everybody bye-bye yeah have a good night

what's your pleasure so moved so much jasper second final is there discussion seeing none roll call mr awad yes miss beltran yes mr canova yes mr daley yes miss danny yes mr casper yes mr abedrabo yeah mr smith yes motion's carried next we have uh personnel uh p1 resignations p2 retirements p3 leave of absence p4 maternity leave of absence p5 amendment of leave of absence p6 amendment of maternity leave of absence p7 amendment of appointments p8 appointment of mentors p9 change in employment status p10 additional appointments for the 2020-21 21st century community learning center minds in motion after school program uh p11 additional appointments for the 21 after school programs p12 additional appointments 2021 pbs is team members p13 conference request p14 coaching appointments p15 reappointment of substitutes p16 substitute appointments and p17 personnel appointments so move by who was it mr vice president abu drabo second second by mr daley discussion seeing none roll call yes mr daley yes miss danny yes mr casper yes mr avadrabo yeah and mr smith yes motion scary next d we have finance facilities f1 is approval for transportation services agreement 2021 school year f2 approval to authorize the immediate emergency purchase of district-wide air purifiers using the care act funds p3 is the claims list do i have a motion so move mr smith my agenda reads one two three four f and five i have two uh one and two are transportation services agreement for the 20 20 21 year i have two of those and then my number three is the emergency purifiers and four is the claims list and five is finance i don't know if anybody else says that but that's what i'm saying under d under uh uh d yes number five i believe is just saying one through four it's just over it's an overview i believe by mistake if i'm not mistaken number two is is the same as number one and there's blank uh i could answer miss password yeah you you must have um opened it right before i changed something that they would there was a duplicate of those two and i i got rid of one of them that was the blank one so if she refreshes it it should come up it should yes so it is just the one through three that mr smith um this password you want me to wait okay all right so it's uh uh uh f1 through f3 okay so we add a motion in a second roll call please mr gerward yes miss password uh yes i vote no on check number two what excuse me two zero one nine one six thank you all the rest of the strengths yes mr kanova yes mr daily miss danny yes mr casper yes mr abedrabo yes mr smith yes motion scary all right next we have uh board member comments uh today we start with uh mr canova uh good evening everyone so to mr mark uh brunswick um munciak brunsiak sorry uh i do i do uh sympathize with you and and i'm glad that we are going back to school on monday i know my daughters are excited um they bought new masks they're ready to go new outfits um and uh they're very excited to see their friends in school there's one thing i'm being on being virtual and there's not quite another thing being in person being able to even just that time before school after school in between switching classes um you know conversating with them it's different and they were excited last time and they're excited again so i'm glad to see that um and i'm also glad to see that we have those air scrubbers going in in the next rooms and if i'm not mistaken dr robert tosi we are we are quarantining different this year right when if someone gets deal with some with the virus in the classroom it's only going to be the people they're in contact with as opposed to a whole class getting quarantined is that correct uh that's not necessarily uh correct mr canova it's going to be depend on the individual circumstance uh every single case that comes up will will be spoken about with our um the clifton health department and on a case-by-case basis the size of the room is going to matter um but yes okay the the best rule that changed was the rule that if you have two cases you have to shut down so that was really the best news so at least we won't have the yoyo effect with the entire school being in and out so that's good the only just that i could mention this more when i speak is the only you know concern is is with really with clifton high school just because of the sheer numbers uh cases and um and the number of cases and how many teachers that could affect but other than that there will shouldn't be any reason for us to have to close the school based on the current guidelines yeah okay thank you and uh so the the only uh so for me i think that's great we're offering people the ability to be in or out you know depending on on what they choose and i think really no that's the best way to go getting everyone back that's a different story we still do have six feet of distance we still do have people that need shots um so until that happens i don't know what that's going to look like but at least there's an option now where if people want to be back they can be so i think that's great and um to chloe and then there was another quality they called in about outdoor activities i think that's a great idea i think doing something outside distance um at least like i said you know gets you out there gets you speaking to your friends it gets you uh at least excited about being in a school year it may be a little different but at least you'll get through it um and it's a lot better than just sitting at home and doing nothing so i would definitely support that and uh to laurie i think that's an amazing honor to have a governor call and recognize you for all the hard work you do and you do do a lot of hard work and you most definitely deserve it so congratulations on that and i'll keep it short and sweet tonight and that's all my comments thank you thank you mr kenova next mr daley thank you very much mr president um uh i'll be very brief tonight uh thank you for all the speakers um and i i had got some feedback i don't usually get too much feedback from the public but uh last night um i did get several pieces of feedback about the quality of the teachers and the students that are in our education system um i mean we all know that but it's it's really really great that it's recognized by others who are not involved with this stuff on a day-to-day basis uh my my last comment is 55 million free money the referendum million dollars of free money referendum 55 million free dollars you can't find this anyplace else and those who are the naysayers on this and they may have some legitimate answers or questions but you're not going to the bottom line is not you're not going to find 55 million dollars to do these improvements anywhere except if you do the referendum it's a critical component thank you mr daley uh miss danny thank you um i really just want to thank the speakers and um you know i don't have much more than that because i'm just a little bit of pain here so thank you thank you miss danny mr casper okay thank you mr president um so of course i always like to start off with thanking all of our retirees uh thank you for your service to our district um one of these days i will be able to say i can retire so please enjoy yourself i'd also like to congratulate one of our own i was able to sit on the committee for the boys and girls club this year so i'd like to congratulate one of our own her name is rawan awadallah i hope i said your name right she is the boys and girls club's youth of the year this year so i just want to congratulate you if you're on i'd also like to congratulate our students of the month i was able to read i picked up the clifton magazine today and i started reading it so congratulations to all of our march students of the month um i'd like to wish everybody uh good luck on monday going back to school to our student and our our students and our staff uh please remember just to be safe um mrs lalama i also got my first vaccine and i've been in school for the past few months and then out myself so i hope everybody uh just stays and remains safe and um i'd like to thank uh three people this week i was able to get into school number five virtually this week to read so uh thank you mrs bender mrs santa suso and mrs wisnowski um mr smith i see we have matching ties on today so uh here we go happy birthday dr seuss have a good night everybody thank you mr casper uh mr awad uh my comments will be very brief first and foremost uh thank you president smith for everything that you do and all the assistance uh you mr casper do when i reach out uh superintendent robert tosi thank you very much for you and your staff i don't know if the public heard mr daily correctly but yes there's 55 million dollars of free money and i don't know i agree with mr daley i'd like some free money 55 million for this referendum uh it is basically a nice chunk of the bill that could basically modernize and bring our schools to uh up to date where our teachers and our students could thrive in a healthy safe secure environment where we're such in a competitive global market worldwide where other countries around the world their schools are way more advanced than the situation we're in and their students in their educational systems thrive so much more yet we are basically always budget cutting the teachers our schools and our facilities and we expect magic and some magical results to come out from our students sometimes we got to look ourselves in the mirror and put the blame because we allowed it to get this far so i really hope everybody did uh tune in yesterday if not to watch a youtube channel as max said earlier you know there's a lot of great things and upgrades we can do to our schools and i really hope we do get these votes for the current future generation and let's go mustangs thank you everybody and have a uh good evening thank you mr awad miss basford um yes good evening everyone uh first i'd like to say today is march 4th national grammar day is celebrated every year on march 4th because it is it is the only date of the year that is a complete sentence and it's also a very dear friend of mine's birthday so march 4th lindsay march 4th um a lot of people don't know that but that there you go a little grammar lesson so i would like to thank um the teachers from school 12 miss paisano miss gaglio miss carabello um miss uh fabiano and miss coleman from school five uh miss bosh miss nichols and miss cantonero from school eleven miss admire miss rhodes and from school eight uh miss porter for having me virtually in your classroom i i am a presenter i used to present in high schools virtually this last year um i've been a little bit um my job has been a little transitioned into something else but i have to tell you the uh the teachers do a wonderful job from what i witnessed if anybody challenges how remote learning is easy i challenge them to sit in front of a computer all day long and read a book to students the best question of the day came from school 11.

uh and the student asked me what i actually do and i had a little blurb i told them all that we are policy makers that we all there's nine of us that were all elected officials we don't speak for the board we speak for ourselves but the best question of the day was how much do you get paid and when i told them nothing they wanted to know why i did that so i was a little stumped on that answer but we all laughed and i and i told them because it's a way of giving back to the community it's a way of me helping other people that that that can't help themselves and it's a way of me being a voice for people because i i told them that the community the people elect us and it was a really it was a lot of fun they were so gracious they were so well behaved dr roberto your staff did a wonderful job and and to the teachers out there that are struggling with this platform um thank you very much god bless you all because it's not easy what you do every day i was exhausted when i got done i i was off for the day i just laid down and i i mean that was it i was i was that wiped out uh so i don't know how you do this day in and day out i i applaud each and every one of you and and i thank you from the bottom of my heart um i sent i will send max the um the mental health from new jersey school boards dr feinstein will be very happy that you uh are requesting it and if i could ever give you him as a reference i'm sorry about my dogs barking in the background uh chloe um is also doing a fundraiser for women's uh feminine products you will be receiving a donation from my house uh lorila llama wow isn't that awesome that governor murphy took the time to to call just you um he somebody must have told him you're doing a great job so thank you laurie for all you do and to the the two speakers that spoke about outside um activities for the students i hope that this information goes to the education committee and probably facilities um so we can figure out a way to do it better we have we've had a year that nobody that nobody else wants to relive i know i don't want to really reload this year so maybe we can figure a way to do it better and celebrate every single student in a better way in a better venue and give the students exactly what they deserve um with that being said i think that's it i don't think i miss anybody um but to all oh uh to my fellow colleagues if anybody has anything i will be attending new jersey school board's legislative committee on saturday there's also a sub-resolution meeting if anybody wanted to put anything on the agenda i'm on that committee as well so please reach out to me and i'll make sure that your uh your questions or concerns are asked thank you thank you miss bassford miss beltron i'll also keep it brief tonight um i just like to thank again all the callers that called in i'm really enjoying all the public participation in our meeting i'd also like to congratulate all the students of the month and also all the success that's been going on in our sports we haven't been uh so focused on all the different sports teams that are still playing but they are out there uh doing it with masks and having to practice with limited crowds and not being able to do in front of their parents cetera so i applaud them for all the hard work they're putting in as well i'm really happy that we're going back to school on monday i've been looking forward to this for a long time everyone knows that i've been a big advocate of getting the children back into the classroom so i'm really happy that those that choose to go back in are going to be going back in and hopefully we'll be able to keep them in if everyone follows the social distancing protocols and again for the referendum we really need this money i sit on the facilities and the finance committee so i see how we have to choose to do things and not do others and this will give us an opportunity to really do a lot of the things that we we hope to do um all at once to give our kids the best environment and also our employees the best environment to work in and that's all i have for tonight thank you miss beltran vice president abu drabo thank you president smith um first of all congratulations mr laura well deserved and uh noticed for hard work we have the uh cea uh lucy danny uh commissioner danny feel better i know that you had your injury and you're just recuperating at the moment so feel better and uh i'm sure i'll feed myself at least if anything let me know um you know a reminder of why we do this um from you know this past week of dr seuss's birthday as many have mentioned on the sport my colleagues i the fortune opportunity to read to ten classes at five different schools this week broken up between monday and wednesday and tuesday and wednesday and it was a privilege it was a privilege because you know they said thank you but i i returned it back so it's not about thank you to me because it's something i feel that at least i feel should be done right the students should interact should see at least who the board members are while they are were there while they were in grades kindergarten first second third and fifth uh to whom i read to um our discussions were you know what do you think board members do the underlying message of the book and tie them back into their today's lessons in class and their feelings about what school is today the safety of everyone going back and most importantly uh turning their negative thought about the next school grade level to a positive thought and i think we had a great discussion um and it was great i mean they are kids but we got to treat them you know if you treat them like kids act like kids and treat them like big boys and girls will act like boys and girls and that's exactly what they did and that's a definitely a great representation of what the school district is about they were very well composed even for kindergartners to fifth graders and they were they were awesome to speak to so um dr robertson thank you for facilitating those through your through your principles at the various locations um and the teachers are just phenomenal as well and that also speaks for the leadership of uh miss loyola as well because i'm sure she has a lot to do with the futures that needed their representation um other than that listen to school's coming up uh we had a great meeting last night i'm not gonna talk too much about that and nothing about that really besides everybody said we need the money but school's coming up i'm sure many are excited to go back many of the students i read to are very excited to go back so uh i'm confident in supernova charlie's decision to have them go back and like i said uh danny you know your great superintendent i'm behind you all the way you're the ceo of this district anything you need on there thank you good night thank you vice president abu drabo you know i uh you know some people last night were were calling we're talking about um this 55 million dollars that the state is giving us for our referendum as a as a coupon and i tried to to figure out the analogy and um after i thought about it there are many ways that this is a coupon and the biggest way that i could think of it as a coupon is coupons have expiration dates and our coupon for this referendum has an expiration date and that's this referendum because the state is not going to give us 55 million dollars or 1 million dollars or any million dollars for doing this referendum next year or any other board of education that puts in for it next year will not be getting uh this 35 percent that we're getting back from the state so this coupon does expire and um i always hate when i had a goodbye at the supermarket and i saw that the coupon expired and how angry i got and um i just asked the citizens of clifton uh don't let that coupon expire uh you know what the right thing to do is and if you have any questions um and you don't want to ask us anymore and you're you're tired of hearing the board talk about it you're tired of hearing administration talk about it please call the schools talk to the principal and if the principal allows that maybe you could you know talk to a student on the phone or something and let them tell you what it's really like if you don't want to hear it from us anymore um i think this board has done um an administration has done a tremendous job to put forth uh the best opportunity to um fix some much needed problems in our schools with this referendum and is it a commitment from the public it absolutely is it is most certainly a commitment to uh the the kids of this district in public schools and as i've said in history when we look back on the referendums in this town and when we when boards have come before and have asked the public and have put a sensible project together and ask the public for their help the public has always stood up and said yes for kids yes for schools and i know that's what's going to happen again on april 20th i know you'll do the right thing um but like i said you're more than free to continue to ask us questions but if you don't want to ask us any more questions there's many other people to talk to and get the answers from other people but please do your homework please ask questions and please be ready to go vote on april 20th um that 55 million dollar coupon is is truly something that can't be lost and i know we keep talking about it um i wish we had like uh flashing across the screen you know like uh like bob's furniture or some people like that that you you they flash sales across the screen well i wish we were flashing that 55 million across the screen because people have to remember that that should be up front in your mind that if we don't do it now and we wait we lose 55 million dollars and that's a lot of money what is it a third of the project funded by the state that we lose so keep that with you um as mr casper had stated um um i had the opportunity to do some uh reading in our classrooms and i thank all the schools for their invites um with meetings and some other commitments i couldn't get to every school and i apologize and i hope next year that i can get out in person to all the schools but i thank all the schools that didn't ask me and invited me to their to their schools um but i was fortunate to read at the school number five virtually um and i read it two classes um so i'd like to thank miss miss santa susso and miss siosi for inviting me to read for their second grade class at school number five and to miss wisnowski and her third and fourth grade special ed class i thank them for the opportunity to read to them um both of those were truly special to me a true honor and um i asked um miss wisnowski to ask her special ed classes third and fourth grade if they could tune in to uh channel 77 tonight and that i would mention them and that i would thank them for this beautiful tie that they gave me it will remind me of the time that i did spend with you and i was honored to to be able to do that um as i try to do in the community i try to help others in the community and a good friend of mine chris lisner asked me to assist her in a program of a retired phone company employees that go out into the community and help the community in various different ways and she was had two locations that she was going to the this uh program called the pioneers it may have a new name now but um basically they're a volunteer group that go out into the community to give back to the community and one of their projects was um dr seuss's birthday read across america and she asked if i would assist her and so as a good friend i agreed and needless to say the um that friendship is uh you know um what's the word uh on the rocks right now because um i had no idea um of the commitment that i was getting into in the uh the costume that i had to war and the tale that i had to have on the back of me um but um i was very fortunate to be able to go and um be with the kids at the clifton boys and girls club and i commend the administration of the clinton boys and girls club on how safe they had it set up they had me in a separate room behind the glass uh a glass wall um and the kids uh came up on a on a seat in front of the glass and i was behind it and they were able to take a picture with the cat in the hat um so it was a real uh just to see their their smiles they're waving at me um it just was absolutely amazing um and how thrilled i was to do that and i'm glad that i had the opportunity to do that and it was so good the next day the the pioneer group asked me to go to another school in fairlawn so i was able to go to the sapling school and this is a school that just has um i say very young students um there is pre-k and pre-pre-k and uh there were two uh kids there that were six months old um and seeing them and waving to them through a window and having them smile at the cat in the hat is um um it it just really touched me and i was happy to be able to help my friend and to uh to be able to do that so and i thank mr casper for helping me out with um um the uh the accessories that i needed uh so i thank you for that and uh i always look forward to uh to the first week of march because of dr seuss's birthday and um being able to connect with our schools and i remember last year going into school five and i believe it was uh you know uh eight or nine days later is when everything shut down so i was so fortunate that i was able to go in and read to them personally so i'm looking forward next year uh at this time to be able to do that uh in person so i thank everyone for that and i just wanted to um you know i know all of us the nine of us um we run for this position and we know that the commitment that's involved in this but i just have to thank uh my fellow commissioners um these past uh probably the last two weeks you saw from the committee reports how busy uh we were with committees and uh the finance committee met numerous times uh we have negotiations going on education uh facilities i think mr awad had his first experience of running his first meeting as a chairman of of residency security um uh just so all of you working we have um a municipal alliance meeting set up for uh march the 11th so this board is working so hard uh for the citizens of of clifton and we joke about it all the time about you know being paid so much money and we're not paid so much money and we know that and we know the commitment that it takes but i just want to commend all of you as as the president um setting up those committees that i knew each of you would work hard but really uh seeing that list today of committee reports really showed um how busy we've been um and not to mention last night we had a special referendum meeting we'll continue to work hard for the referendum and monday night this board will have another meeting we're asking our representative from new jersey school boards to come in and do an ethics training for the board members so we'll be virtually on another meeting on monday night so you guys have really put a tremendous amount of effort and work in and i just wanted to say thank you for the continued work you do for for the the kids of this district and the citizens of this town so thank you all very much dr robitozi please thank you mr president uh commissioners very excited that uh kids come back to school on monday i know most of our staff uh you know just can't wait to see children again to hear them running around the halls um i just want to be a realist now i expect us to open and stay open for the rest of the year and when i say i want to be a realist i want to be a realist that we will have coronavirus cases okay we may have a case on the first day back on monday and we'll follow our protocols we'll exclude the positive cases we'll quarantine the contacts but i am 100 certain that we are putting our staff and children in a safe environment not only are we wearing masks students are behind a desk shield students are six feet apart windows are open air scrubbers are flowing so it's going to be great to have kids back and i'll be visiting the schools to say hello um i just want to remind people with spring break coming up in uh three weeks that there are travel restrictions that come from the state of new jersey and so if you travel outside of the immediate area pennsylvania connecticut new york depending on the circumstances you very well may have to quarantine when you come back so that that is part of the health survey that is an absolute requirement for all parents uh and staff to begin filling out daily um and we need everyone to be honest it's not a i gotcha it's it's just to protect everyone so if you're unsure um call your child school you can speak to the nurse they can give you guidance but please answer that survey honestly please do it every day so that we can open and stay open and ensure that everybody's safe i want to congratulate our academic decathlon team under the leadership of mr matthew stewart at clifton high school the academic decathlon team has made it back to the nationals for the second year in a row uh they finished sixth place overall in new jersey and second place in all of new jersey out of the large high schools which is an incredible accomplishment i'd also like to recognize the gold medal winners in social science julian cerrone literature brian wiglinski and in the essay julian cerrone so uh congratulations to those students and mr stewart for all your hard work and good luck in the nationals uh we know that you'll make us proud i also want to take a moment to recognize one of our outstanding teachers at clifton high school jessica farrell i just learned this week that jessica started a volunteer group called vaccine angels started out as a a facebook group started out that that jessica was helping some of her family members get appointments for vaccines and realize that a lot of people were having a hard time either they didn't have the technology they didn't have the capability of making these appointments so so jessica started this this i think it started as a facebook group vaccine angels and since she started this group she has personally helped people get vaccine appointments uh in new jersey which is just incredible um she is now helping some of our staff members make appointments i think we we she's uh helped almost 100 of our staff members get appointments uh too i know she has some help so i also want to recognize laurie jaeger from clifton high school kim nicholl and danielle quinlan from ccms continue doing that great work it's it's it's about paying it forward so congratulations to you folks and great job uh finally on the uh on the referendum i just want to update uh the board about where we are in the process as you all know i thought we had a very successful community forum uh last night um which will replay again a few times on channel 77 and channel 40 for fios um we have our citizen committee which will meet again on march 16th our website is live and frequently updated our one clifton magnets have arrived and they'll be going home to students uh next week and board members will be getting theirs we just are at the tail end of finishing up uh a short video under the direction of mr mike mcconney uh and his uh excellent skills uh we're also gonna have some students do mini videos there was a postcard that was mailed to all homes in clifton uh about two weeks ago and there will be another postcard uh in early april so we're trying to get the word out to uh to get the vote out on april 20th to get that 55 million dollars in state aid to make much needed improvements in our schools the hsa leadership has been very helpful we had a meeting with all the presidents um they will be out reaching to all of their uh individual school groups and uh some of them are going to be hosting their own kind of mini referendum uh forums for people so that's really fantastic uh so if you haven't checked out our website yet please do remember the referendum date is april 20th and we have the opportunity to improve our schools for decades to come thank you and have a great night thank you dr robitazi okay we'll move on uh to uh f a new business does anyone have any new business mr president yes mr canova um since we're our referendum is coming up in april and uh i know they have they do have meetings virtually for for city council at least i don't know what other meetings are in the area just like um when people run for board of ed generally they go around to different places and they let them know that these things are going on is there a way where you as our board president can represent us and speak to the community at these various venues about the referendum to get the word out uh yes mr kenova i will gladly uh do that as well and i was going to speak to the board about the board helping out with that as well so uh we could talk about that uh further but absolutely i will uh be more than happy to speak anywhere uh to help this referendum for sure okay thank you any other new business okay seeing none um executive session um we have um a a student matter to lease anything else other than the student matter no so hopefully executive session will not take that long will uh action be taken or action could be taken no action will be taken okay so no action will be taken will adjourn from executive session then just one comment before we go in if i may um we did promise max that he would get an answer to his question about um public comment on remotely if the meetings are in person and remote there is going to be you will have to provide opportunity for public comment remotely so i just didn't want him to believe without having that question answered okay is is that legally yes legally speaking if if the board is having a meeting if it's only in person without any remote then public comment is remote i mean i'm sorry public comment is in person but if there's going to be any remote aspect to the board meeting which i think that we've already had this conversation that there's going to be it'll be a combination in person as well as with remote access for certain board members uh then the public can be in person as well as remote for public comment okay okay uh motion to uh go into executive session so moved second mr casper taken by miss basford uh mysteriously take a roll call on that or no um yes yes roll call please mr rawad yes basford yes miss beltran yes mr daley yes miss danny yes mr casper yes mr abedrabo yes hey mr smith yes okay mr mountain if you could take us in you

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i just want to honor all the women you know for me uh all those that i come from my abuelitas my dias um all the women in my life and all of our sheroes around us um that have paved the path for many of us right and actually for all of us who have given us birth um for each and every one of us to be here today so just want to honor the women in our lives you know we all have you know those women so i want you to think of them i want you to honor them um and just smile you know for what they represent in your life thank you for this time now we'll move on to um item 102. um we'll go ahead and get started we have a great group joining us today and so who are going to help us frame uh the work that we'll be doing today and moving forward in our district um dr bauer i'll go ahead and pass this over to you and then i'm sure you all have the next speakers thank you so much and good morning everybody and i believe trustee chavez is with us on the phone um just to for the records um i'm very excited today i think that this is a a great moment for alumrock in our path of resetting our narrative and moving our district forward to the next level and i'm very pleased to welcome the glenn price group uh they will be our partners in helping us with this endeavor i want to also acknowledge the santa clara county office of education who through dr the one has been a has been very supportive and uh allow us to uh through their financial support to be able to connect with uh this great group and be able to to provide for us the ability to have this kind of work done in our district just to let know ever to let everybody know that this is just the beginning this is the or the the that kick off of the effort of framing the work for the district for the next three to five years there will be a lot of work around this uh community you will be reach out people will be um part of giving the the input that we need to really fulfill the vision for the district that the board set up for us so very excited about this i'm gonna turn it over to either glenn or aaron to uh introduce the work and i'm very excited uh for this morning thank you thanks dr bauer and good good morning everybody um just a couple of of notes at the uh the beginning today and and we certainly will have much more to get into as we get to item three um but just building on what what dr emphasize that you know today we're hoping to have some time for for listening and learning and thinking together um it's not a decision-making uh time and and we really want to have some collaborative conversation discussion about guiding principles primarily as well as potentially getting into some priorities for for the for for the future work of the district and i want to just briefly look at a purpose statement and some objectives for for today's meeting so building on that as a purpose for this retreat we want to collaboratively identify guiding principles and potentially also start identifying overarching board priorities for the district's work moving forward and we also will provide more information uh kind of an overview of of the planning work ahead that dr bauer referenced and this will serve as as a key launching moment for for that more in-depth planning process coming down the line um and so that really is is the the kind of covers the objectives as as well we're going to have a focus on those those guiding principles those those uh beliefs those those tenets that should be upheld uh in all of the districts work moving forward that should be a part of every decision um that's that's being made into the future that should be embedded into into all programs so that's really going to be the primary focus for for today's work and we're really looking forward to getting into into that discussion with you all in a little bit here glenn wondering if if there's anything that you would like to to add at this point thanks thanks sarah i think you said it i guess number one i i want um uh or president herrera i also want to just especially note uh the special role that my abuela hana played in my life and uh thinking of her a lot today and your remembrance of uh international women's month uh really brought that brought that forward for me so thank you for that i also want to thank um all of the trustees for spending some time with us individually in interviews we really appreciated that time and we're going to uh fortuna due to that uh be able to draw on that data as we as we move forward today and just want to as we get started here just thank you for this opportunity to engage with you around these these critical strategic directions for alan morock we think you have a bright future thanks thanks glenn um i think that's that's all we have in terms of initial framing so uh we'll pass it dr barron a few additional comments before we close this item no i'm thinking you know totally ready for the next step i think uh board president if you want to move to i think we're ready for that absolutely thank you so much excited to move forward here so we'll go ahead and move on to public members who wish to address the board at this time any members of the public so i'll have the opportunity to address the board of trustees on the agenda items identified um in our agenda and so i know it's a little different from our usual meetings so i just wanted to um read that out loud so if we have any members of the public who wish to address us on any of the items that we will be dealing with today um let's see we have carlos actually today um mr moran who will be helping us with our facilitation of public comments um yes good morning good morning welcome do we have any members of the public we do we do have five but we don't have any with their hand raised so i don't know yeah great so at this time i know you know technology might take a little bit more time usually i wait five seconds to give you time to find the button and press on it um so i'll go ahead and count to five to give you that time any mr monon no there are none okay great uh well welcome to our general public um with that we'll go ahead and move on to item three uh 301 um and at this point uh i'm assuming i'll go ahead and pass it back to mr uh aaron or glenn price thanks for president and and um happy to get us started here on on item three i'm gonna go ahead and sharing some some slides so as mentioned earlier i'm going to provide some additional background on this planning work that is is being uh introduced and really launched today and as glenn mentioned a few moments ago share some some of the notes coming out of of the interviews that we had the opportunity to conduct with with uh board trustees uh leading up to to today's meeting so dr bauer referenced earlier with support from the county office of education we at the glen press group gpg have been engaged to support a planning process over the next nine months so this really starting in in march um is the the first month of that of that period and it'll focus on first establishing a set of guiding principles for the future work of of alum rock and then clarifying some challenges clarifying opportunities that are available to and facing the district and then based on that identification and exploration of those those challenges and opportunities thinking through what are the strategies that that the district first might pursue uh kind of getting into the realm of possibility what what might be done to maximize those opportunities to to help address some of those challenges and then uh figuring out which really should should be proposed or or put forth for serious um consideration the work is intended to provide a guiding compass for something that will will help inform and complement various other planning efforts that the district is engaged in the lcap um reopening efforts et cetera i know there are many um ongoing and and forthcoming um that that this is not intended to to be a replacement for um but rather to to have some alignment with to to be a support too the current uh vision and mission we wanted to provide a little additional context uh beyond just the the planning process itself so we want to put up the current vision and mission statements vision all alum rock students will be ready for the future in a diverse and competitive world and the mission statement together with stakeholders we provide alum rock students with high quality 21st century learning that builds upon our culturally diverse community to prepare our students to be lifelong learners and compete for the careers of the future so we're we are not having as a focus for today uh revisions to the these statements um but but there will be opportunity for that down the line as we move forward with this this planning work so for today we want to really be looking to these statements as as context uh for for the discussion around guiding principles and priorities we did also want to elevate uh some previously identified priorities and as you can see in the bottom of the slide there these kind of taken out of the 1920 lcap the the plan summary section so the three the three that are listed there are all english learners will attain proficiency in english within three years in our district redesign of middle schools with a college and career focus and third increase parent engagement so before i move on here uh that that's kind of the the basic just level setting um in a minimal level setting that we wanted to do before moving into maybe a next step of level setting uh drawing on some of the of what we heard in the interviews with with you all the the trustees over this this past week so i'm going to start this off um we're really going to focus first on on on items that we heard about alum rock's future and what it might look like then uh getting into some strengths some some challenges or areas that might be uh in need of of strengthening and opportunities so i'll start this off just with that first one and then glenn i'll pass it over to you in just a moment to take us through some of those those other other items i'll note that we did not include every every um statement um from from the interviews here but we're intending to uh bring over some some key points some of some of what we heard across uh different interviews to elevate as as a starting point for discussion today uh and after we go through this we'll have some time i will really invite reflections uh ask about things that stood out to to you trustees and um here i think that will also be a time if there are things that you feel are are notable omissions that you could could elevate at that that time as well so when we think about envisioning the the future for the district looking a few years down the line what would we we like to see some of the things that we heard were growth in in educational development of students and specifically in terms of academic proficiency enrollment being stable and increasing expanded dual language emerging capacity that's kind of building building on some of the ongoing and recent efforts there students achieving their desired college and career pathways including uh being admitted into top universities facilities all being operational and meeting the needs of the students and teachers stable finances and a proactive focus on on curriculum and teacher support so again that's again a few years down the line what will we if if things go as as we hope as we imagine um what would the district look like at that time go ahead and pass it uh over to to you to talk about strengths and challenges and opportunities great thanks aaron so once again we asked uh each trustee and thank you again for taking the time to talk to us we we understand how many incredible demands there are on your time um in your trustee roles and we appreciate the ability to have held these interviews particularly on relatively short on relatively short notice and we asked each of you what you saw as being strengths challenges and opportunities facing the the district and as aaron mentioned there was a great volume of response that came back from that so what we've attempted to do in these next three slides is summarize or theme that a little bit particularly if there were items where more than one trustee identified it if there was a strong outlier we we included that as well and it was particularly just inspiring to listen to you all talk about the the strengths of of the district and we envision this planning process being an asset based or strength based project process one that where we look to identify what are the things that we're doing really well and and build on those given all the research that tells us that building on assets and building on strengths is the way not only to further the the growth of our our children and youth but also to further the growth of us as as an organization the the diversity of the community was cited extensively and we are fully hoping that this planning process will really build on that diversity as a strength uh we want the plan that's ultimately developed to truly reflect you um as a as as the community so we're not coming into this work with a preconceived cookie-cutter notion of what this plan might look like and really hoping that it reflects that that that strength the resilience of the community um you know the the ellen rock community has has been through a lot and yet as has come through has come has come through um uh i'm thinking of uh the words of the new united states um secretary of education miguel cardona from connecticut when he said in in in la union is la fuerza uh and i think that's that's really indicated from alum rock as well the richness of culture uh with within the community uh and the ability to draw upon that as a strength the land uh or the the physical assets that you that you have um and i know when when when i served um i as some of you know from the interviews i had the opportunity to serve uh as well for nine years as a trustee within the west contra costa unified school district and i i sometimes had to step back and and and thank my my predecessors on the board over many years who had accumulated these great assets and these great sites where we had all of our schools it wasn't easy work that they engaged in to do that and it's obviously our our responsibility uh to make sure those assets are are utilized in the best way possible the uniqueness of each student and the ability of students to meet challenges was was was cited and you know that reflects back obviously to diversity and and resilience as well um the the comprehensive education program and provision of a well-rounded education for for students um many of you cited the the incredible commitment of your your teachers and staff um particularly in this pandemic period but also for for for many years hanging in there with with the district continuing to provide uh high quality work day in and day out to deliver the meals to provide the online education and everything that's come with that and then the the strong board leadership um which is meaning you as a board as a whole as you as you are now emerging as a strong voice for public education in the community and a strong lighthouse of inspiration for moving this whole enterprise of public education forward and i think that's going to be really critical as we as we move forward with this with this process so as aaron said there there were more strengths that were indicated i'm sure each of you can think of some that you may not see reflected here but i hope you see at least some of what you told us reflected in this in this in this list of strengths so i want you it was to the uh the challenges um areas for improvement so um we know that there are also significant challenges facing facing alum rock and and again using the same process uh we've aggregated some of the ones that that came up um out of the out of the interviews uh so either challenges that are coming externally or or areas for improvement um declining enrollment um obviously is one that you you've wrestled with a lot um i heard um an interesting fact in a statewide meeting that i was part of the other day which i needed to corroborate which but which indicated that either now or in the next couple of years about 65 percent of districts in california will be facing uh declining enrollment so you're not alone in that regard uh something that many districts are facing uh but it is a a deep challenge there's there's no denying that uh declining enrollment is a very difficult challenge for for any school district to face the encroachment by charter schools um which maybe links up into some extent with the declining enrollment but the the the extent to which charter schools have have um absorbed or taken part of the ada of alum rock was was cited as a challenge the a highly mobile population that you serve one that is moving around to some degree uh particularly maybe impacted in in present days in the in our pandemic period with the incredible economic pressure that our our state and many of our families are facing and is certainly present in in alum rock um you have some challenging local political um dynamics in situations um you know in which many of you cited uh and particularly during this pandemic period when so many of us uh and particularly political leaders are are are struggling to find the right role that they should play in wanting to make sure our children are safe and and back in school uh and some of the pressures that that's resulted in locally uh from local political leaders in in the area on on the board uh on district leadership and and in the community um building community trust um was cited by by many of you and and i think i mentioned in one of my interviews and and since i already brought up my abuela i'm going to bring her up again one of her favorite sayings was that trust walks in on foot but gallops away on horseback meaning it's very difficult to establish trust but you can lose it quickly um and is also something that that is built on on action it's built on on results um and going back to one of the strengths it feels like you have the leadership in place to really take that that community trust to a new level um the structural disadvantages the systemic inequities the structures of of racism oppression of economic uh inequity that are faced by many of our students uh is is clear and is is really a a a fact of life um within alum rock and it it just is a a a reality that is something that makes your work um start at at a disadvantage and provides a significant challenge um a need for stronger a stronger focus on student performance in its relationship to district staff expectations so we're are how are we focusing as a with the laser focus on performance of our students and how does that relate to the kinds of expectations we have for for our district team and then perhaps related to that into some degree but also independent uh the issue of of teacher and and staff retention the the churning of teachers you have obviously many teachers who have been here for a long time and are committed but it's also been difficult to to retain and allow teachers to get on a thriving career pathway within within alum rock obviously you know it it's it's it's always very very interesting and it's to some degree inspiring with with alemron to look at each of the of the strengths having almost this mirror image and a challenge so it goes back and forth there's a there's a strength for each one of these challenges as well but let's let's look at the opportunities that were brought forward and then we will stop talking we're getting to the close of this talking heads part of of of the day here and really open it up to to board um reactions to uh both the the kind of the outline of a vision for the future the strengths the challenges and and opportunities so when we asked you what opportunities you saw in alan rock's future these are again some of the the key pieces that came forward again not all but the ones that seem to be coming up multiple times or were really kind of inspiring outliers um the opportunity that we have now and and some of you mentioned your your excitement around this this planning process uh that we have the opportunity now to be creative and defining alum rock's future um the strategic planning process that you're engaging in is not mandated um it's it's not it's not something that someone else is telling you to do it's coming out of you know your leadership for the district and that gives you the opportunity to be creative um in defining the future and thinking about where is it that we would like alum rock to be in in three years and in next year and in 10 years um a strengthening of a college and career focus and that came out in in in a number of different ways um really looking at that that that that that cradle to college and career pipeline uh that several of you looked at it and the deep expertise that you have um gained and are continuing to gain in early learning and bringing that all the way forward into getting your students on a rocket ship career pathway to a college and career future implementing an ethnic studies curriculum and program and some of you cited the the key decisions that you've made around moving forward in that direction and really providing an opportunity again to to manifest within the district the diversity and and the voices and culture of the of the community um some strengthening of some specific programs such as the visual performing arts and also career uh technical efforts as represented by some of the outstanding facilities that you have like uh some of the metal shops and other uh facilities in particular in your in your middle schools um i think the i know that the dual immersion program came up in each of the interviews that that i uh engaged in and it's clearly from for many of you something that you you really really want to build on going forward and that's just as you indicated in the in in the interviews just a key piece of of alum rocks in california's future is is that dual and bilingual capacity you know do you think they're thinking of of all of us as being emerging bilingual or multilingual people um the better leveraging our student potential to provide a great educational experience that that potential that's within each and every student who presents to to alum rock the strengthening relationships with with parents and families you have done so much already to engage in parenting engagement and but how do we take that forward and and just make that even greater inherent part of the the dna on the volume rock is a question that you were you were posing and then um the opportunity to work with a community that's that's receptive to new ideas your community is ready uh you feel to to move forward in some new ways and to make ellen rock the district that they all can be proud of and are ready to support in many ways um to the ex according to their abilities so i feel pretty excited looking at this set of opportunities and also the the helping to think about ways to meet the challenges and and build on the strengths and we could have said a lot more obviously there is a lot more material but i think aaron now would be a good time for me to turn it back over to you to facilitate a a board discussion around these four key pieces thanks glenn for um talking us through those those summaries i know we have content on on those different slides so as we get into this discussion if it's helpful to go back to any one of those slides um just to review just just say so and and happy to to jump back there but i want to invite uh trustee reactions responses you know with this focus question here on the screen what stood out to you in the summary of of those results about strengths challenges and opportunities coming out of the the interviews erin um just real quick if i can i know uh i i was just i i believe it's important that we're all here and i know that uh linda was having um some issues so she may or may not just checking to see if she's on the phone dr bauer do you see her she on the on the audience side of this she i can't see we cannot see her in the panel um is she able to um like respond and participate she and i that's why i'm i'm concerned because she needs to be able to participate perfectly so um i'm hoping that she's listening to us because she's on the computer now okay but she's on the audience side so after in my event i don't know how to guide her to jump into this other she she's telling me that she's listening it's gonna be important for her to be able to participate thank you dr bauer uh i just promoted her she just came back in i just i'm in now perfect welcome back i'm like where's linda okay i i didn't see you in this part and i'm glad that we caught that to bring you back in this important piece of participating so i'm happy you're here thank you so much glenn for the patience and i'll hand it back over to you thanks for president and and so um that we're we're all all here i want to invite comments reactions things that stood out to you um in in hearing and seeing that summary of some of the things that we were hearing uh in the interviews with with you all so wondering what what stood out the most anything that was surprising or or anything that you want to kind of go back to to to clarify and have some further discussion on and madam president just want to clarify is it your custom for people to raise their hands or um we have been but i know it's you know it's a smaller meeting today um i'm open to you know people discussing i'm not able because the screen is on so i'm not able to see everybody so i would just invite you all to to chime in and if that doesn't work then i'll you know we'll go to the raising your hand um so yeah so if anybody has anything feel free to chime in at this time well i'll just start talking just to test out the the process here um but i guess a couple of things that i would comment on uh first of all i i thank you for for aggregating all of our well for meeting with us and and aggregating all of the the feedback that you receive from us um and i think for me it's encouraging i'm assuming you know if some things made it to the slides that you know they weren't one-offs there was at least some form of a theme i could be wrong on that but um if it's true that there was multiple people that spoke to those items i'm encouraged to see um some themes come across particularly for me um just the recognition and all acknowledgement and i think we talked about this even back when we did our vision and mission of the the strength of the diversity of the community the the challenges of it and the reality of kind of the socio-economic diversity that that we have all within our district but also you know the the strength and opportunity that that that brings to us so that i'm glad that's captured there um i'm also glad that that we captured the the college and careers thing i know that's um you know several of us have been thinking about that for a few years now and putting in some work um in that direction and i'm glad that we're continuing to move you know to kind of just have that as part of our our discussion as part of how we're framing things um there was one other thing left for a guy i might come back to me but the the only one piece that i would i don't even know if quibble is the right word but i just you know caused me to think a little bit maybe in particular just because of my own personal experience that i'm going through right now that we were talking about prior to starting the meeting there's i think on the first slide um there's a reference to the the term top universities like something about our students having the opportunity for career technical opportunities but also opportunities in top universities and i i just you know that concept of top universities i think is something that that i think about because i guess i knew before but it's come into focus more for me recently that a top university really is independent of the individual student and so you know i might get accepted to harvard and san jose state and some people might say harvard is the top university maybe that's there's some truth to that obviously that's a big thing but maybe for me that my top university for what i want to do for what my plans and vision for my future is is actually san jose state and so i think for me at this level i'm more concerned i'm not concerned but i'm more focused on like building a foundat at this grade level and at this age building a foundation of kind of like the pursuit of knowledge the pursuit of information how to learn how to think and then the focus on the university part um maybe that we we would want to lead them into that in their in their high school career so i don't know if i um expressed that how i necessarily was thinking of it but i think the subjectivity of top universities for me was one thing that uh kind of stood out i get the sentiment of why it's there but i also again from my recent personal experience maybe that's where it's coming from is just that you know that's subjective i think to to the individual student so yeah that's it thank you everyone that's very helpful um yeah i um i'm not surprised by the similarities that a lot of us had um i had obviously i shared many of those things and so i saw them and i was like all right it wasn't just me um seems like uh many of us are on the same page i share trustee behrano's concerns as well uh with that one thing um we've had because of the fact that we've had many of our competitors out here in our community use top universities as a way of of pulling in students and they'll guarantee your kid will go to harvard if you if you send them to our charter school and stuff of that sort so um yeah i believe that the focus needs to be on on building good citizens that are critical thinkers that can be successful regardless of where they are where they go um i think that needs to be the focus so those are my comments thank you mr pham or linda before i keep mine well uh yeah am i on yes yeah okay very good uh you know what i mean you know um you know i would concur with trustees quintero and uh bay hirano on you know on that point too but you know uh you know something that that you know uh stood out was the you know uh alan rock gets underestimated and in the notes you know we we we have we have one award-winning uh spanish language dual immersion program and we're embarking on the launch of a vietnamese language dual immersion program and you know it shows that you know we we are capable of putting out you know an educational program that you know that is in demand as well as something that's relevant to the lives of uh you know those we serve within our so i you know uh you know so you know as i met you know mentioned in my interview with glenn you know that's sort of something you know that i think you know where we are able to we we should be able to expand upon you know as a you know as a means to you know uh counter the message that that some of some of the charters have you know uh you know it you know i know that the choice of a college is you know highly personal and i say that as someone who works in college admissions you know uh you know as my day job so you know something that you know what you know uh something that says that you know we we have something that improves your child's chances of getting into uh the college of their choice you know i think is something that you know that gives us something to kind of fight back against you know charter encroachment but at the same time uh you know as we all know this you know allen rock has had some rough patches in its recent history and you know it's something that we we can we can promote uh to you know um build you know again build community confidence in our district once again and to attract families back to our schools thank you linda said go ahead um you know what aaron can you go back i think it was maybe the third um slide uh i agree with my colleagues you know and all the things that we agreed on um and i'm not surprised uh so thank you all for participating in those um maybe it was the next one uh uh on challenger this one this one yes um and i didn't want to you know focus on the challenges but of course our eyes just go like huh you know to that one thing um and it's not you know bad other than for me it stood out you know you asked about what stood out um so all those amazing things that my colleagues already mentioned i won't go over those so what stood out for me was that statement about the need for stronger focus on student performance and its relationship the district staff expectations um of course i don't think any of us here disagree on you know focus on student performance we get to you know lift their their grade level their grades and their test scores so looking forward to that i guess for me it was uh a little bit like the relationship and maybe i'm just understanding i'm wrong and it's not to ask any one of you guys what did you mean right it's just for me in my um observation of of how and i reacted to that comment because personally obviously i don't believe that it's you know relationship between the district staff expectations and the um student performance but more you know all those things we talked about right like inequities that we experience here in our communities um and all those things we talked about in our interviews so just personally for me that just it didn't make too much sense and i'm sure you know again you know we'll discuss a little bit more and um this is the beauty of all of us coming together maybe bringing some experiences that maybe i experienced as a you know as a student living in in an area you know experiencing inequities and how that related to my maybe performance compared to somebody else living in another area and not just i mean and i agree right like some of it yes district staff expectations that's important absolutely uh and it's not the one thing that um i think relates to student performance so anyways that's what stood out for me i i just quickly would like to um concur with that as well i that that actually was one that caused me to kind of think give a little um thought too but i appreciate thank you uh president ederlota for bringing that one up because that that one also was a a little bit of a a point of focus for me as well thank you thanks for some great great comments and and feedback and certainly some uh some some shared thoughts around this framing around top universities and while i've got the screen share up i think um just to go back to that one for a moment i think the first part of that one maybe captures not all of but some of of of the the comments that were made about achieving desired college and career pathways um which which you know as trustee vegeta mentioned you know that the top university can can be specific to um the individual so framing it in that way i think some other good good thoughts too around um building uh pursuit or thirst for knowledge and and the abilities to to realize that can i comment now please go ahead trustee chavez um i think we've been um complacent with mediocracy as far as the students achievement goes and i think that we have a board by law that says that the parents have to engage more in order to turn this district around we all have to work together especially with the parents because they're the ones they're at home making sure whether they do or they don't do their work until we really set the focus on the student and parent and get them on board with that we're all one team the teachers the administrators the everybody in the district with their child then until we really cement that in their heads that hey you have to make sure your kid comes to school prepared with his homework done until we get that desire in that parent's heart and student um then we can turn this district around but if we don't then it's gonna be the same status quo is what my belief is there's a lot of different ways that you can mentor them and it just has to take a lot of people willing to put extra time and effort into doing that and i asked before how can we haven't implemented that board policy and it just you know kind of went away there i was told that you know you can't make the parents do it but there needs to be a bigger focus on the parent making sure that the kid is doing his work at home i mean this kovid brought everything out that the students weren't logging on a lot of the teachers were telling me they gave students f's because they were logged on but they didn't participate or do the work there has to be a way to reach these people to mentor them to get them on board because they're not on board a hundred percent it's it's sad that's all i had a president yes i was going to say something no i i'd like to speak to this i think that the code pandemic did a lot of stuff it hurt people got people sick but it also opened up the eyes to many people who used to hold those same ideas that everybody can achieve oh my god you know we're all living in a ward cleaver type of leave it to beaver society no the fact of the matter is that this pandemic demonstrated that the east side lives in an entirely different world than the rest of the silicon valley and that the vast majority of the people that are out here are hustling and are exposing themselves at different levels than anybody else because we have uh the least ability to go out there and work um in terms of not not not everybody like myself i i'm able to work remotely but the vast majority of the people out here aren't and so those are things that need to be taken into account before we're gonna before anybody on this board starts making very irresponsible comments like that the fact of the matter is that um our our folks out here are facing way different things than let's say people out in palo alto and this is not to create any sort of uh you know division or whatever but it's just a fact um i can i can guarantee you that there's a heck of a lot more people out here having to deal with okay now we've moved into an rv now we're living next to guadalupe church uh a heck of a lot more than they're dealing with over there in palo alto and so to come out here and start uh you know see we got to turn the ship around and this is a we are facing some very significant issues that are very different in other places so what we have to start doing is recognizing the strengths that people are bringing already from the get-go and stop trying to have people be measured by these uh sorry about that i'm having to continue myself here um be measured by these artificial arbitrary standards created for people who are living a hell of a lot different circumstances than we are out here in the east side and so the point i'm trying to get at is we we have to start from a different angle and saying here are these strengths it's a miracle that a bunch of people kids who are whose parents are traveling four or five hours and these mega commutes are still coming to school here because they don't want to leave the place that they've known they're going all the way to to merced every morning they're coming from from other places and before when we used to be in school um people who are moving like i said into rvs and they're still achieving and they're still able to move on whenever when other people in other places would have crumbled a long time ago so i apologize for the passion um but um i think it needed to be said no it's okay mr quintero um you know i would concur for the most part with everything with trustee quintero said but what i will say um to kind of uh you know maybe approach the middle ground i i certainly do think that there is always the opportunity to to encourage parent involvement to encourage increased involvement and things like that and and having been a parent um of students who came through the district and interacted with teachers and other parents and stuff i know that there are parents who um you know i have personal relationships with who have the ability to maybe even increase what they were doing in terms of parent engagement so i think it's it's not bad to have that thought or that goal of you know doing what we can to help support parents to engage in their students education however i i do think making blanket statements about you know these people and making them accountable is is a little in my opinion a little on the irresponsible side simply because we know as trustee quintero already um stated that the socio-economic realities of the families that we deal with i think there's a reason why you know we in our district dedicate so much time and energy and and financial resources towards social emotional learning and and things like that is because unlike other districts and areas potentially we have other factors that we need to tend to with our student population and our families before we can even think about getting to you know what their math homework was because they didn't have anything to eat for a couple days or they don't have a roof or over their head or there's violence going on or things like that and so it's you know it's it is as already was mentioned a very different dynamic it's spoken to in in some of the comments in terms of the challenges of of the community that we have um and so again i just would say that i don't agree with the i mean i do agree with the sentiment of you know trying to move towards increased parent engagement and supporting that thought but but to you know state it as a blanket statement that i felt it it's kind of being framed as is um i don't think it's accurate to the reality of of what our district is is comprised of so thank you thank you thank you and i see linda you raise your hand again and mr pham i'm gonna go ahead and go with mr pram and then i'll go ahead and say something and then we'll come back to you linda go ahead mr fab okay uh thank you board president well first of all uh you know i you know uh you know parenting you know where we can engage where we can encourage parent engagement and involvement we should but you know uh you know just as i you know agree with my colleague the board vice president you know the fact of the matter is that you know our our community represents a very different social economic constituency so i i certainly think that you know uh you know uh in many cases our family should be congratulated for you know providing this far and i you know i think the focus should be on uh you know uh helping them out uh in way you know in whatever way we can you know within our available pool of resources uh you know um you know it's tough to help you know i you know it's tough to to get you know i you know i review college applications for a living and you know there are parents who you know i've seen who were you know two or three different jobs and you know when they call asking about their child's only why their child was rejected for you know admission to a state college you know you know part of the fact was you know they were so busy that they did miss a report card or two uh but the fact that you know they're still committed to making sure their their child going to school is a you know something to be lauded uh and you know and you know we we want to encourage them you know uh secondly i also kind of want you know expand on that a bit you know some of our you know many of our parents don't have the same you know uh are not we're not fortunate enough to have the opportunities to pursue higher education or a well-paying uh job into skilled trades and you know sometimes it you know without you know some you know solid educational background it is very hard for a parent to uh help their kid with the math homework or the english homework or whatever subject they're being me may be and i i kind of wanted to use a you know uh in the early 2000s when i was a teenager at independence high school you know uh you know the their you know the old valley title building off the off ramp of 680 and allen rock you know their youth you know the district had a family uh literacy center there and the whole purpose of it was to you know the you know to help you know help you know help some of our parents and actually you know uh learn how to read more effectively in order you know so that they could help their children with you know with their score and so you know i you know of course that you know was a product of a you know better economic time but you know you know and so you know those are some you know where we can we you know we we may also want to think about uh strengthening our parents capacity to participate in in the education of their children as opposed you know as opposed to you know giving them this uh well very rough pep talk thank you so much mr fam uh and the only thing i'll add is you know i think many of us here are examples of that right like my dad only got to third grade um and it wasn't that he didn't want to help but there was a lot of traumas that my dad experienced right for um his inability to really support me through school um and so anyways just mentioning that and and look at us right like i know i'm an example i mean i'm sure many of us can give several examples um and we were poor right and i say we're you know luckily i now have a good paying job and um but i experience you know poverty and all of those i mean i can go on and on of how that affected my schooling um and so linda i really appreciate your comments because it really tells us to how we all think and that you know that's important in our society we all think differently and that's a beauty right we're not all here to think the same um but it's important to know how we're all thinking because um i think that's also reflective of our board right when the majority of our board you know believes in one way what that causes for our students in our communities and so um we're at a great place right we're all here we all represent different thoughts um and so i really also want to you know bring us back to here bringing us you know even though maybe linda i don't agree with a lot of things you might say you know we're still trustees we're one of five and we get to move this district forward um and so i'm really glad that you talked you know the way you did because it helped me realize like oh that's right not everybody believes the way i do and not everybody has the experience that i do um and so but we still get to move forward on behalf of our children and our communities here in alum rock to make and continue to have uh alum rock be the best of the best and so i'm linda with that i'll pass it over i know we have a lot of work to do and then um we'll go ahead and pass it back over to mr price okay so there's also students helping students and other parents helping parents and i'm not saying that the one who can't do it um should do it it's like when my kids were growing up i would help other students they would help other students we would take in and pick up kids to go to events i'm just saying everybody working together i mean you can ask them but we i don't think we've done enough asking it's like hey you know we we've asked them but now it's like maybe we should ask what can you do come you know call them you know what do you know how to do you know and it's like well you pick up your son can you also make sure you know that this kid is taken care of and then maybe the parent can switch off i mean help each other out i'm not saying that being poor shouldn't be an excuse because you have to remember that the five strongest performing uh schools in this district are also in this district and they're on historian king which is the very economically low and very impoverished area in san jose so i have never seen i have never used not having money as an excuse because the child can apply himself whether the parent has money in the bank account or not i'm just saying that we all need to and it's not just a pep talk or a rally it is continually trying to tell these parents and students everybody work together you know if you can do something for your neighbor or your other kids classmate do it help each other out that's it thank you thank you mr price i have a question about the process not moving away from that topic uh president herrera if i can ask a different question is this to mr price yes and moving the process kind of forward to your point previously so so with regards to this process um either either of our mr first of all are we are we looking at brothers here or or brothers-in-law or something nephew uncle okay okay i thought there had to be something there it's not a coincidence [Laughter] but uh so um oh with regards to the process of what we're doing here i think a lot of our responses uh were with a few exceptions i think a lot of us are in the frame of mind naturally of like kind of um either recent past or or near future um but in terms of this process of strategic planning um i don't i'm wondering if you can help us as we move forward to clarify like in our thoughts and visions are we thinking in a time frame of like the next five years or the next 10 years or the next 50 years like how how how in your estimation should we be framing this conversation such that maybe it's not reflective of just what might occur during our terms here but it sets up um a culture or or a process that that will be reflected in in beyond when our time is up here yeah thanks trustee vegerano and and that's a great segue uh we're responding to that as a good segue into our next session here which is i think a place where some of the conversation has started to go so it's um happy to to take us there um as we'll see when we get into guiding principles and where we're starting today is you know the the intent is the guiding principles have some some serious staying power um that could they could certainly stay you know remain um they could have some changes over time overall to be to provide a little bit of a more direct answer we're looking at kind of a two to three year um period when we get more into the challenges and opportunities and the strategy development uh in in the later phases of of this planning work that's that's kind of what we're we're thinking um there's there's room to shift that there may be some stuff that comes up that feels longer term that feels like there's a ten-year area of work or initiative that needs to happen so we're not excluding that possibility but the overall framing that we're coming out with the starting point is is kind of a two to three year frame so maybe with with that uh we i'm going to go ahead and share my screen again just to to move us into talking about those guiding principles and and priorities and some great discussion um just just now about how are we supporting uh students and and parents and and families that i think may maybe something that can continue as as we move along here so i wanted to share a couple of definitions for guiding principles and priorities we're not uh we're not intending to be very strict about these definitions as we move into a discussion and and really part of our role is to help to to take what is coming out of the discussions and and provide some suggestions as to whether that might fit as a guiding principle whether that might might fit as a priority but to just be clear about what what we mean when we say those things cutting principle is an essential element or a belief that wouldn't be compromised that we we don't want to lose sight of we don't want to ignore and in in not ignoring we we really want to make sure is included in in every decision that we're making is embedded into all of our our programs all of our discussions some organizations you may place together guiding principles and and values so similar um guiding principles may be more along this this kind of belief or tenet uh statement versus values which not always but but often are more single word oriented and then priorities which maybe is is uh maybe both of these are well known to everyone but um priorities issues or areas of focus that should be addressed through specific and and targeted action and to the question uh about timeline the priorities are are going to likely change over time i think ideally if progress is being made new priorities may emerge that require the attention that was previously directed towards the earlier one whereas guiding principles again may change but kind of have longer time horizons of their change the idea is that they would would have a bit more more staying power so uh we we took again some notes to as was referenced earlier not comprehensive of everything that we heard in the interviews but some some um themes key ideas that we we thought would be helpful to provide a foundation a starting point for discussion that we're going to go into so i'll briefly go through these and then go ahead and hand it over to you to to launch us into that that discussion so some of the guiding principles and i think we'll see some connection back to some of the earlier items around what are the strengths and opportunities in particular as well as what do we think about the future alum rock what does that vision look like um alan rock is the foundational educational institution of the community it serves i think that connects in some ways to some of the comments made earlier today about uh what what resources are available to to to families that are being served by alum rock and that uh the the district and the schools uh in in some cases and maybe in many cases are that primary source of educational support support the academic achievement of students connecting back again to some of those both opportunities and challenges discussed previously supported students to achieve a high quality and dignified education maintaining the ability to provide an education in the community so some similar some similar items maybe some nuance differences here maintain control of assets for community use and benefit kind of a connection point back to those uh some of those assets like like the land that the district has for example cultural competency is something that we want to potentially be thinking about as a guiding principle nested into all work incorporated into all decision making taking care of employees i'm leading by example and being the change that we want to see i think in some ways similar to that but in some ways um has other elements to it providing leadership and then uh having respect for each other as you can see at the bottom it's kind of the starter list that we um really that we put together based on what we have heard so so far uh and hope will provide a helpful starting point for for the discussion so glenn i'll turn it over to you if there's additional comments here um that you'd like to make and then launching us into to that discussion thanks sarah and again i'd just like to congratulate the trustees for coming up with this this starter set and and this is exactly what we see is it's a starter set that we work on refining today kind of get a sense from the board which ones really resonate with you we're not looking today to make decisions about finding gundam principles we'd like to work on them based on your input today and then bring them bring them back to you there's just so much good good content here about alum rock serving as the community's essential public education resource you know i see this idea of of a cradle to career college continuum emerging growing the district's cultural competency the respect for and inclusion of all as was mentioned in the earlier discussion um student and educator well-being in utilizing our assets to sustain and grow the the district's capacity for service to the community so thank you so much for for bringing these forward you know i think as as as we go forward into the discussion uh we just want to keep recognizing that diversity of thought is is a really good thing and uh that it's just we grow and are strengthened by diversity of all kinds including diversity of of thinking and then maybe as as you provide feedback um the since these are basically statements that are taken directly out of some of your comments maybe not to focus so much on wordsmithing per se but what you see as being some of the the key ideas that you'd like to bring forward into um the the the district's guiding principles as we adopt them and i mean as you adopt them in in the future and as aaron said you know this could be one of the pieces of the plan that has a very long lifespan obviously future boards could review and modify them that would be their prerogative but they provides a great opportunity to leave them as a as a legacy a set of strong guiding principles for the future so maybe i want you to flip to the next slide with the um the the focus question uh there and the the the basic uh discussion that we we we want to have and we can pop this question into into the into the into the chat um is you know what what you see um as being the most important guiding principles for for mild marks work into the future and um i see some hands raised madam president do you want me to call on people or would you like to uh we could just go i saw uh miss chavis raise your hand first and then mr vegeta um i think we also need to put uh with under or or maybe in the same line where it says support the academic of students or maybe an additional line to also support the teachers some of them may need a pair at a certain time but they come cheaper but to move them around i don't know how that's being done and um so i'm just saying the teachers have come to the board meeting saying that they need support whether it be in a different curriculum or you know they're always have said that at board meetings so maybe we should add that as well and and have that as a focus as well that's it thanks thank you mr hedano yeah mine is i think on its face it may seem like wordsmithing but it's it's really not i hope um that's how it's taken so the in terms of the the phraseology of cultural competency so um you know i'll also recognize that this is national social worker month and and my profession is social work and so in social work um there's there's this ongoing discussion about cultural competency versus cultural humility and um and so we talk about competency suggests that you learn about a quote unquote culture you know everything there is to know and now you can make a decision or have a thought based on your complete knowledge of that culture whereas cultural humility is more grounded in the concept that um you know we don't know everything you'll you can never know everything about a culture number one because cultures are dynamic and you know there's so much to know but also cultures like that we would assume are like maybe someone might assume that trustee quintero and myself were the same culture and we even grew up like in the same neighborhood and we both attended mount pleasant high school at some point so people might assume that our experience is very similar but it's i think it's quite different from what i know of trustee quinto and so so i think for that particular bullet point um for me what i would want to see more as a guiding principle is to kind of have an ongoing curiosity about our the the cultures within our district and also recognizing that culture could be a like an ethnic culture but could also be you know kind of more subcultures whether it's uh you know maybe a recent immigrant culture or recent arrival um or you know it could be a you know there's a number of different cultures that we could define and also recognizing the fact that was already pointed out that our individuals in our district you know the population changes over time and it's a a very mobile district so i think um we need to i guess to cut it short to bring it back to the point that um that i would want us this board as a guiding principle to be curious about um our our population and not necessarily confident in our competency of what the makeup is but um continuously questioning and making sure that we understand the current cultural dynamics or whatever however you want to call that so that's it thank you uh linda i see your hand's still up i think it was from the previous one right we're good you're fine okay i was just checking um mr fam or mr quintero would you like to add anything well uh you know and uh you know what aside from cultural competency i guess uh my my bugaboo is the uh you know and i i i i think i you know i distinct you know remember sharing it with glenn in our interview but the the the the point about the alum rock as the foundational educational institution uh of the community is uh you know something that i think you know uh you know it kind of like the guide star uh for for alum rock you know as it you know as it moves into the future you know faces new situations inform its decisions and i say it because you know you know it it is an appeal to to both history and you know its long role in this community uh you know you know uh you know um you know uh was in that you know kind of like a a big twist you know uh i guess in a sense you know it may be our uh you know given our geographical location it it's kind of like our uh destiny of sources you know we've served you know the the blue and the working class we we served the working class community of san jose since our inception you know we go back to you know this district was in in many ways found founded by those who uh you know uh who worked the farms when this was still the valley of hearts delight and to this day we're still serving the the people who you know they may not work in in high tech but they're the ones who keep our infrastructure run you know keep the lights on the water and temps running you know the you know the the you know the the laborious work that you know keeps this city running in more ways than one so you know i you know you know and in you know and we've you know we've been around in you know multiple recessions a great depression a world war and uh you know now with with a pandemic and you know and you know even to this day even as we're still you know encroached on by charters you know it it is food from alum rock kitchens that you know that are feeding people and just you know feeding our students and families in their time of need so you know i you know you know uh you know we you know we've been here for so long you know for you know you know we're a community school organization we've been here for you know we've been here for this long and there's a reason we've been here you know for you know the better part of a century which you know because no no one else was willing to serve our community and so uh you know as we you know plan strategically you know we need to sort of keep in mind that you know jobs job number one is to be around because you know uh you know at the end of the day uh you know the charters haven't been around for more than 30 years you know we've been around for you know uh the better part of a century and we you know go back to the original palace school district you know that's a century and a half of local history here so uh you know what you know whatever we do uh you know my my hope is that we we take into account that you know uh you know at the end of the day you know we are still a vital service to this community and that we you know uh you know we work in a manner that preserves that you know that pivotal role as you know the the you know the the place where you know the play you know the place that ensures that our our local community can provide an education for their children thank you mr pam uh mr guiterro would you like to say anything before i speak ah go for it okay so i'm coming into this you know i i try to prepare myself and write some notes and you know i caught myself writing phrases and then i caught myself writing just one words so i'm going to kind of you know mention some of that and and what we've been talking about i think in regards to the phrases right like i really see definitely our landers as assets right financial right something that you could put value to financially and then we have our culture that there is no value that you could put to it right but it's as or sometimes even more valuable um i feel and so you know seeing that as you know believing that our community culture you know along yeah with what we have financially but just that we that's that's our valuable most valuable assets our children right like them just walking you know it's almost like that seed you know and like a tree just all the uh beauty that they carry each and every one of them you know i see that as as our most valuable asset right like our child um every child that sits in our classrooms um and of course we're all important you know from the teachers and staff and all that but i think you know really seeing that child as the most valuable and i don't know even asset is the right word but you know i think you know what i mean um and then you know working as one right like again i mentioned that tree that we all are different colors and part of different leaves and you know in branches but that we work as one um so with those things comes respect right like this is where the one words um respecting again you know each other um having compassion you know i might not understand what you're saying but i have compassion and i can you know at least empathize or um so anyways compassion was another word um integrity uh accountability accountability definitely you know in ourselves and each other um which all this obviously has a ripple effect to our entire district right we want to again um i think it was on one of the slides of um acting right acting in the way we want to see others act and i'm sure i'm not um reading it or quoting it word for word but you know that just having that account accountability um where you know maybe let me look at myself first before i point the finger and say it's somebody else's issue i think if we all come from that like where can i as a board president improve before i say you know it's that person or that person um or that's the problem or the teachers are the problem or the you know uh superintendent is a problem so we come from like starting with with oneself um to just you know have excellence right nobody's perfect and nobody's excellent but that we strive um for that especially if we want our children to be to be the best of the best um so those are some of the things that i thought about that kind of combined with what you presented aaron um yes that's my feedback for now i also i kind of wanted to um to echo trustee pham's uh comments because i do think as we're going through this process that that is an important thing to have as a kind of a non-negotiable is is that we see ourselves as the foundational educational um institution or organization in this community i think you know with external forces as we've already talked about coming at us and and different forces trying to undermine what we're doing um as a district i think that it is important that we constantly as a as a district team just recognize and reinforce that we are the foundational community educational organization and we should act in such a way we should make decisions in such a way and and you know who we are should reflect that knowledge um and then the other thing that i think i just wanted to to also in some ways echo what trusted was saying in terms of just words i think you were basically saying it but i wanted to um to put it out there also is is that word of transparency um you know it goes along with accountability i think and and some of the things you mentioned integrity um but i think um you know i think transparency is key also especially with the history recent history that alan rock has had but i think just in general obviously for good governance um with our community we we should be transparent i think you know not everyone may agree but i i truly believe 100 that in the in the very recent past we've been very transparent in everything we've done from the appointment of board members to um budgetary decisions and so i think that's um that's a non-negotiable too that that kind of ties in with integrity and accountability is is that concept of of transparency so i just wanted to throw that in there also great this this has been a really valuable discussion and i don't want to anyway cut every anyone off because i would definitely want to hear more from the trustees but maybe just to recap back some of the things that that we've heard and checked for understanding on how well we're doing as far as our our note-taking um we're hearing a lot about um as was just mentioned alum rock as as the foundational educational institution of the community and how we move that going forward that we're looking at making student-based decisions um both in terms of student achievement but also as around a successful future for our students um that we incorporate within the guiding principles around how we're providing support for our educators uh our teachers and our team that we recognize and draw on culture as a strength in getting away from the idea of cultural competency to one more of humility uh ongoing curiosity on honoring our families cultural and socio-economic assets and then a fair amount about how we how we work together as one as a board as a staff team as a community coming to the table with an open mind are respecting each other having compassion and empathy the ideas of integrity and accountability and transparency that were just articulated in this idea of being the change that that that you want to see that's a lot around what i just said is our and our hope is to distill these into a set of of concise statements but i just want to check back and see um if there's anything else that we um may want to just emphasize at this point and maybe we have we can then have a moment to think about um uh district priorities mr price and i'm wondering i know it was a three hour meeting but i know we all have bio uh break needs as uh needed i'm wondering um should we i don't know how the board feels should we take a five minute break before we jump into the next thing or should we continue and then people take a break as as we go how do you all feel uh i'm in a break i i would like i just want i'm curious to mr or mr price where we are in terms of their process and and time wise how do we look this would be a a good spot for a break um maybe we could just quickly see if there was you know anything i missed in my little recap and then we can take like a five maybe even a ten minute break and then come back and and jump a little bit into district priorities i think five minutes is good but yeah let's uh did we miss anything anybody want to add anything before we go on a break i have one thing but i don't know if trustee quintet i think he's been cut off a couple of times no i was just gonna agree to a break uh that way none of us mis missed out on anything okay so the only other thing that i will add and i don't i don't know if it gets incorporated in here but i just think um the concept as in talking about what's non-negotiable and something that always has to be there as part of our guiding principles is just to me the concept of um using our our challenges as opportunities i think you know we've talked you know fairly extensively about some of the challenges that our district has socioeconomically and and those things but you know i think the challenges of this diverse socio-economically challenged community can also be assets if we kind of flip it around and frame it in such a way and so i think it's important for us always to not um this is not the right way to say it but i'll just say it like this to not kind of victimize ourselves or put ourselves like you know make ourselves feel that we can't do anything or that we're limited but actually we should look at those challenges and and say wow this actually sets us up to do this or you know this provides the opportunity to go in this direction and so i think to me that's important that we that we look at our challenges as opportunities and you know in that way move forward with kind of always that in in the back of our mind so that's just the other thing i wanted to add excellent that's that's a great addition and then i'm ready for a break sounds good i think five minutes should be sufficient okay five minute break or we'll be back at ten uh this five and a half 10 40.

perfect okay see you at 10 40. you um so okay it's uh 10 43 um calling us back to order you can hear me yes yep okay uh it looks like we're all back mario do you want to um take roll call at this time or we need to i think that last time rogelio said that you we didn't need to okay um i see quintero back um family if you could just raise your hand let me know you're there um linda's here and i don't see vegeta here yet i just want to make sure we have quorum to continue this meeting so i know well we do we're good um details back linda's here and i'm here okay um and i see both hands raised so thank you uh mr fam i see you're back uh we'll go ahead and move forward um i know that we also need to give time for public comment mr price and so i don't know if this is a good time to open it up to see if there's anybody that has public comment or if there's anything else to discuss before we open it up what i would suggest madam president with your discretion is maybe we we tie up this guiding principles and priorities discussion and the other topic that we want to get in today just immediately following that is around stakeholder engagement so maybe between those two would be a good time for public comment perfect yeah if that works for you yeah okay thank you thank you so we we wanted to just just wrap up a little bit this discussion of guiding principles and then take a brief moment to look at district priorities as well so over the break um aaron and i took that that list that i i articulated to you verbally just before the break and made it into a document that we'd like to just maybe share and we just take a quick gander at it and see if there's um items that we that we missed again we we fully intend to um a uh better ex word these and bring them back to you this is not a decision making moment but we just want to see if there's if there's anything that that we missed out of the discussion looking at alum rock as a foundational educational institution of the community making student-based decisions supporting teachers and staff using challenges as opportunities recognizing and drawing upon culture as a strength working as one and obviously there's some sub points there uh just wanted to again see if there's some key items we miss recognizing there'll be additional opportunities to comment and modify these as we go along and feel free to jump in if anybody has anything to add to that no i think we're good i can't see your hands so i just yeah and again there will be more opportunities to look at these particularly as we as we as we refine them and thank you for that that excellent discussion around around guiding principles so let's take a moment to just think about uh how we're feeling at this point in terms of district district priorities and aaron if i could ask you to maybe uh bring about the the slide where we provided the dis priorities um identified in the in the 2017-2020 lcap again um there will be many opportunities to to revisit priorities as we go forward in the planning process but wanted to check in with with board members as you are you know currently looking at the conditions in lm rock current and potential for the future um how these priorities areas sit with you if there are modifications that you would make at this moment or other priorities that have emerged coming out of the pandemic or coming out of the current conditions or looking into the future that you think should be really prioritized as we go forward the current ones are around english learners attending proficiency in english within three years redesigning middle schools with the college and career focus and increasing parent engagement you know some of these have come up in our discussion as well as others but with this particular kind of priority area focus wondering what you would add delete or or modify around these at the present time i would like to put um number three up to number two and also i know this is going back but on the preliminary notes where it said on number three support teachers and staff could that also be teacher development during the pandemic a lot of the teachers didn't know how to do the online learning and um and and some of the areas where the kids aren't learning maybe the teacher needs more help in moving the student curriculum forward so that that's in the preliminary notes on guiding principles sorry i i put my hand up but i i didn't get called on and i didn't want to speak out no problem so just making that one inclusive of teacher professional development okay thank you thank you anybody else mr gerano go ahead no i thought you i saw a hand actually i have one more thing sorry um as far as everybody being at grade level and above uh number four thanks that's it are these trusty chavez were you indicating that as a as a as a priority or for a guiding principle guiding principle gotcha are these three items in any particular order or just we didn't have that sense that they were in prioritized order um so correct me if i'm wrong but we we took these from your from your out cap and i i assumed that they were all equal priority um but um you you all correct me if i'm wrong maybe dr bauer could clarify that what president can i jump yes please so this is these are i feel like this is something that has some of you know this this there are knowing any particular priority this was at the very beginning of my tenure as a superintendent when i went out and checked with community staff stakeholders the boards number one was very at the very front of the work and in order um to even you know begin the work on grade level to be on grade level and above we had to set up a foundation and that was something that the district had can really struggle for many many many years and so when we when when i started we had about 70 of our students a little bit less about 63 were english learners many of them long-term english learners so when you are never reclassified it's very difficult to be on grade level right you can't really attain a proficient score in reading comprehension if you don't understand the language so that was the reason that we focus our efforts academic efforts on really accelerating students in their acquisition of english that one has been institutionalized so we are now i believe short of 40 percent of english learners most of them are you know recent arrivals and students who have been with us less than three to five years in the district um so i think that as a system we understand that peace i do agree with striving to be on grade level according to the college and career milestones to to have that as a goal you know or or as a priority area in terms of third grade fifth grade and eighth grade those are the milestones in terms of college and career pathways and the whole thing around being on grade level by third grade allows us to it does the whole thing of having a very robust early learning program in alum rock just wanted to bring a little bit of context to the board we um number one is really can can be kind of moved away and and and begin to talk about being on grade level i think that that will be very helpful for the system thank you i see mr bahrano with his hand up yes actually um i'm glad thank you dr barr for saying that because i i was going to actually ask about the um i know we've had in recent years your reports about um you know the successes of our the the english proficiency of our students that are trying to be reclassified and so i was going to ask and also i was going to um talk about early learning and and having that as a priority i think we've without even having it as like a state of priority we've done a lot of work to to build that and i think uh there are opportunities in the near future um and hopefully in the longer future too of you know of resources and and the desire and need to have early learning and i think we've set ourselves up actually in a position to be somewhat of a model for other um districts to to look at and so i think i i just wonder um what my colleagues think about that as a state of priority early education again back also to the role of at least how i see one of the main um drivers or or charges of our district is to create that foundation of learners and critical thinkers and i think early education it we know so many of those later on um you know successes of students are the indicators are like by the second third grade in terms of literacy and social emotional learning interactions and so i think that's that's key for us um and then the other thing that's you know i don't know if this would necessarily be there but i think it's at least part of the converse could be made part of the conversation is the um visual and performing arts i think that you know it's another area that that we separate ourselves in many ways from other districts and and and i think that it's opportunity for children and students in our district to to get a very crucial and important type of learning that um you know that's kind of not often spoken to when we talk about areas of priority but you know i think i think it's at least part of the discussion it could maybe be woven in with college and career or i don't know if that's that's separate but anyway i think it's again another area where we have built a very good strong foundation we've put time resources efforts into that and and maybe it's something that that again is is something that we've done and we could use it as an asset or as an opportunity going forward uh with all the challenges coming our way thank you go ahead i'd like to um uh piggyback on that um that visual performing arts but also sports is something that we've maintained that other schools tend to um just completely shave off because you know it just doesn't make money or it costs too much and so i think that we could really uh call this out as a comprehensive education that alum rock still provides you'd be surprised i've been i've been to i've been in meetings with other districts where they completely got rid of music um and their you know sports are minimal or they're done on a volunteer basis and stuff of that sort so that's something that puts us in a complete um it uh it differentiates us but it's also something that i believe is super important so that our children can get that comprehensive education that goes beyond just a couple of areas that are going to be on tests and you really really want to drill on but instead keeps them well-rounded thank you i'm going to say something before we go i see a few other hands um on the increased parent engagement i feel that as of like very um just simple phrase and i would like to see a little bit more in that um and i don't know what it is yet but you know something that covers i mean i remember being a parent myself right a new parent hungry to be involved and do what i could for my my daughter thinking back when she was you know preschool and kinder and first grade um and i didn't feel like i was invited into giving um providing uh input or even participating you know again i'm remembering my early years which was a part of what encouraged me to you know be where i'm at now um so i think with that you know increased engagement but i think there's something missing right um where um we don't just you know hearing also some of our rich conversation that we had earlier that we don't just put it on that it's the parents that don't want to participate um and i don't know what it is i would cover that you know when i read it whether i'm a parent or stakeholder um where i can read it and feel like yes it feels good right it's it covers the district's responsibility as well as that parent responsibility um to bring in the parents and to have that strong relationship with our entire community um which includes the parents and so um i don't know if you can help me maybe along with that and i and again maybe we're not maybe we're even looking at this list and not going with this list you know we're creating a brand new list um if we are going with this list that would be my piece on that that would be missing and then i see mr pham and uh linda we'll go ahead and go with mr fam and then linda you can go so uh why is two parts so um you know first is to you know ask superintendent bower here so how did we so how did we develop and so how was the priority area of regarding english learners develop you know you know uh you know attaining proficiency in english within three years in our district may i respond uh board president yes i also see your hand thank you and i'm just very quickly gonna say you know these priority areas serve their purpose a long time ago right and uh it's time to revise them and come up with new ones and i just want to encourage the board to now i will never feel anything less than you know and thank you for your question trustee fam this had to do with data gathering and and uh talking to a lot of parents um and under and bringing um that parent feedback and also the board at the time um one of the things that kind of the district was stuck right in this rod of you know we we everybody kept talking about student achievement how do we improve student achievement but people were not looking into the root cause of why this was happening and you know some of our competition is very good about creating narratives right and um how do you really put aside the the negative narrative and look at the real issue academic issue for our students to be able to address the academic challenge and when you look at our data for the you know from 2000 to about 2011 12 there was a lot of efforts around reading first right and and and there was really not understanding this other piece about language development in reading is a linguistic endeavor you can't really perform in reading and in language arts and even in any other academic areas if your linguistic proficiency is not enhanced and we had we were very good we were creating long-term english learners so students were kind of always just kind of moved along without really making an effort to say you really need to learn english and engaging parents and understanding talking you know when word president was talking about giving parents a voice and giving parents the information so that parents can come back and ask us questions that was a big effort from the district part as we look for the root cause of the lack of performance in academic areas so understanding what generates a long-term english learner because a lot of our students were there a lot of our students you know they they would just come up go through the in back it was the the former eld test the celt and not really understanding you know how do we able to achieve there so that you can move on when you're an english learner and you still have that label you're not able to take a comprehensive education in middle school that you you you know you have you doubled up your english language and all of that is state mandated we don't we have very little choice so no access to electives no access to a lot of things that our students love and so addressing that piece of saying it takes about three to five years for any student to be able to learn a second language when you arrive or whatever your um your your circumstance is so we now as a district know what it takes and we know that we have to pay attention to that in order for our children to move on and that's why we have been able to reduce the number of yields so that particular one i feel that as a district as an institution we have institutionalized that piece and we can now in a better way focus on grade level achievement kind of building on the milestones of the uh that we talked about in terms of college and career um you know a trustee fam that was that was how this became one of the priorities okay well i you know so i you know thank you dr bauer and you know and uh thank you know congratulations you know for our district for you know work you know working very hard to to get to that goal there i think the second part of my comment is you know piggybacking on the board president's remarks regarding uh beefing up you know the the term increased uh parent engagement and i think uh kind of like to also you know uh address the concerns that uh trustee chavez did bring up is i think we we could kind of expand it to uh encouraging increased parent engagement by supporting organ you know supporting organizations that uh uh engage parents and you know this made my my example may be a little dated because this dates back to when i was a young child at goss and later lindell elementary but you know there used to be a thing called you know the the pta uh weeknight spaghetti dinner you know the principal used to you know we used to kind of put send out to notice with you know with the kids you know and about the you know hosting the spaghetti you know bring the parents down to dinner you know spaghetti dinner at the school cafeteria you know and you know uh you know i i know that you know there are a lot of competing demands on the time parents these days but i think that you know some you know maybe a combination of a school site council or the parent teachers association something that you know you know build some sense of community with the school you know the school you know the elementary school as a you know community unit of sort so i you know i don't know if that you know some you know but something along that lines that you know not necessarily you know say you know you have to engage because some parents can't always engage to the extent they want but something that opens the door for them to you know build up to that kind of increased parent engagement thank you mr found miss chavez i as far as the uh parent engagement goes there's already a board policy and it already has all the language we should just refer to it and then implement it um and then as far as the music goes in the teacher contract there is the language there for the music program and that's how come we have such a robust music program um so those things are already there uh we just you know need to try and roll it out to the to the kids more and also let the parents know if they do do this it also does help with their learning if they do take music and arts thank you um and and i see mr harana your hand um just real quick um just want to remind us that there's going to be a lot of strategic planning to do right even with the community this is the preliminary um talk where we get to include also what the rest of the stakeholders have to say i think um in our all and and i know mr price you know you mentioned that that this is all preliminary um trustee [Music] i can't hear you we can't hear you sorry just real quick um to trusty chavez's comments first of all um i agree you know there's there's certain things that are in that are in the contract or they're documented elsewhere but i think you also did state at trustee chavez that it's they're there but we just have to emphasize them more or or make you know encourage it and i think that's actually the purpose of this if if we identify some of these areas that already exist somewhere else sometimes but if we in terms of strategic planning if we put them in black and white in these kinds of areas then it's to you kind of reinforcing what you're saying it kind of guides us to rein to reinforce what's already written somewhere else so so that was i just want to quickly respond to that but then uh dr bauer i guess maybe kind of a question to you i know you spoke um mostly to to kind of the that we've institutionalized a lot of the processes and for english learners and the gains that we've made there i wonder um just the the number three as a whole in your estimation or obviously open to my colleagues as well here have we come to a point where parent engagement opportunities have been increased and not that we would eliminate it from what we do but i wonder if maybe some benchmarks or or some institutionalization has been achieved in that area such that we can now put it maybe in a goal or somewhere else in this process and put something else in there i know that when we you know we've had we have done a lot we've done town hall town halls that have been very successful the surveys i mean i'm halfway through reading like 2 000 comments i think that that um i think we received so i'm just wondering is parent engagement one of the core priority areas that still exists um and if so fine and if not maybe it's still it goes in a different section and we can put something else there but it's more i guess is more of a question than an opinion or a statement at this point so i just um may i respond yes please oh sorry so yes board policy to a 6020 i think is the one that um uh trustee chavez has been quoting so i'm saying that so that everybody has access and know to go back and review i think it's very useful to know you know what she's quoting and i think um we have been able to address all but one you know issue there uh the policy reads that um parents uh have to volunteer 30 hours and with 10 of those hours being in the classroom and i'm just telling you that the one all of the other pieces we have been able to implement that's you know if you read the policy uh the work that we do in terms of school site councils and the parent involvement there we have been able to bring back many ptas when i walked in we only had a handful of schools with a viable pta and now we have increased the number of ptas throughout the the the district including that the principles have a goal for themselves around parent engagement so it's kind of integrated into the district uh fabric of what we do it's it's it's a it's an expectation for everybody parent university has been a huge catalyst for parent leadership because this is a a university a parent university led by parents they the parents are the ones that design the curriculum and all of the activities around that it's easy to forget because you know we have had we have spent 51 weeks virtually but we held um virtual parent universities parent meetings parent engagement i think that i do agree with board president in the sense that parents that kind of engagement needs to go to the next level and i gave an example around the english language development piece pair we made it very clear that we um inform parents about the process of reclassification and some of you have been on the board when parents come and they ask us you know i need my child to be reclassified i need my child to need more support i don't know if you some of you remember that right that some parents come to the mic and they say i need more tutoring for my kid because my kid has not been able to be reclassified that's a result of parents knowing what their students need and how the process work and that is a result of parent training so we need to do more of that and i agree with that you know i'm not sure how the board is going to choose that but it is around parent information at all levels of district life um and also parent leadership i think that that's the the um something that when board president was talking about you know i was a new parent here and this is the way i felt so i think that us as a district being able to hear how sometimes parents feel and translate that into policy transl translate that into specific action is very important because also um our family our families evolve in terms of their needs so what was uh needed you know seven years ago might not be the kind of things that families need right now so i think it's important to kind of figure out we're always going to have to to to build a strong partnership with all of our families uh to be able to bring uh student achievement thank you uh mr brad i know anything else before we move on i did actually um the the last follow-up that i was going to say and it was kind of depending on dr bauer's response and i don't i don't know if it um well i'll just say it anyway so i think that back to my question of the time frame that we should be considering and the response was like two to three years essentially for for this part of the process and so thinking in that way knowing our current financial and facility situation that's going on um can you hear me yes okay sorry i'm wondering if an area of priority again considering the two to three year time frame is something or or additionally is something around you know responsible stewardship of our facilities or our properties or maintaining autonomy over the decision of our i mean that may be very immediate but i think even within the two to three year time frame knowing the decisions that may be coming down the pike for us that that could be more reflective of the that time frame than than maybe some other stuff that we have currently thank you trustee before we go to trustee chavez i just want to mention and i apologize i was so excited to jump into this uh strategy um or our uh retreat here today i just want to remind our public that we do have translation so um if you prefer to hear our meeting in spanish please click on the bottom world interpretation symbol there and click on spanish mosquito de carlos espana [Music] those of us who are here for english that we mark english um thank you for uh letting me do that uh trustee travis uh sometimes i guess in recruiting and you're trying to recruit these parents on but um you are i think you also have to ask them you have and and how they can help and how can you help your student the most and then we need your help and have them sign up but you need somebody actively recruiting the reason that charters are so successful is because they're always recruiting and we should be doing the same not the same but better um and but if you don't do the ask then you ain't closing the deal you need to do the ask to the parent to each and every parent um thanks that's it thank you and i'm just thinking of the strategic planning again with the entire district is this something that we will revisit uh mr price glenn or erin yes indeed and so we just wanted to have an initial discussion today we want to in a moment here recap what we heard and then we'll be bringing it back to you but then also bringing that out to the community for for feedback before it comes back comes back to you again we see it coming back to you multiple times maybe uh with your permission madam president i could recap what we've heard in this priority discussion and we could take a a a moment for for a public comment and then we have one additional piece that we want to discuss as part of our agenda today which has to do with that very topic of stakeholder engagement perfect thank you yes does that work yes thank you okay so um just uh what we heard um from you all on that very rich discussion and thank you is is thinking about um moving the the focus on english learners per se to a priority around students all students being on grade level per college and career milestones particularly third fifth and eighth grades we heard the thinking around in a new way of thinking about parenting community engagement um that that could be more of a 360 approach thinking both of the parents and the and the system side a lot of conversation that we categorized under a comprehensive education or that we might want to frame in terms of whole child development um around uh visual and performing arts sports um and uh career technical education and then we heard two other key priorities emerge around early learning uh and that linkage into a cradle to career or created a college approach and a a major focus on stewardship of your assets and and fiscal stability moving forward are some of the key themes that we heard coming out of the discussion thank you yeah um and at this point are you okay with going into public comment okay perfect so uh we'll go ahead and move on to public comment carlos moran welcome back is there anybody on public um comment anybody that's wanting to speak to us at this time yes board president we have brenda sandejas great um ms sandejas welcome and um we'll go ahead and put the two minute timer up as soon as you begin speaking uh the timer will begin give us a second i'm not sure if um there we go perfect okay thank you uh miss index go ahead and talk here you go hi i'm board um and president corinna today i heard a lot of things that are vital um in our district transparency accountability integrity um i didn't see respect towards the community in there and i think that's something that needs to be put there because we've seen ernesto vergerano attack community members create videos to depict on situations to make and defame and make them look bad and he still has not apologized or removed those things i have emailed the board president and all of you and i yet to hear from you guys he has continuously shared this and it was me a picture of me and an audio of someone unmuting me while i was in my house and using that to create a video i see no accountability and no respect towards the community abusing his power to get clips of edited videos to share i haven't seen superintendent or anybody speak about this or ask them to politely remove it so i think we should include respect towards the community um you can't hold yourself accountable if you don't want to realize you are hurting the community in the integrity of the community when you do these types of things so i think respect towards the community is something that should be there you can't have a board if you don't respect the community these are the people that put you there and these are the people that vote for you and they need a voice as well so respect to the community should be something that should be there that's the foundation that reflects you as a person ernesto vegeta thank you thank you miss mr moran do we have anybody else for public comment no board president that's all thank you so much so i'm gonna make a quick very quickly uh when you say clarifying are you just saying in general to the statement that was made yeah as long as as you know know back and forth that we're not you know legally able to do simply a clarified statement that anything that may have been referenced was with reference to a candidate um as opposed to a general community member and so that's the only clarification this was uh an election candidate related um thing that's referred to so that's all thank you trustee veterano and at this time mr price will go ahead and move on to our next item on the agenda um if that's is that correct are we ready to move forward here that's perfect okay um item three oh two correct yes our stakeholder engagement yep exactly thank you madam president and and um i'm gonna go ahead and share my screen we have a couple slides here but as as was mentioned before really moving into a focus on stakeholder engagement and thinking about what that stakeholder engagement component of this planning process should look like we mentioned at the beginning uh nine month period so we're really just at the outset of that have some fantastic ideas and um notes coming out of out of today but we're really going to be carrying a lot of this forward to various stakeholder engagement activities to bring in other voices into the conversation as well and as glenn mentioned a couple of times having touch points checkpoints with with you all to continue bringing some of those those reactions those new ideas to the table and being able to discuss those so there's a couple of specific um some specific and some more general ways that that we have outlined stakeholder engagement happening as part of this process and what we would really like to to hear uh your guidance around is the specific stakeholder groups and and to the extent that there are individual organizations or or individuals who who should be on our radar as we think about crafting a stakeholder engagement plan in more detail um for you all to take a look at that's what we would would like to hear about so before we get to that piece um as you can see up on the screen here one critical activity that we're planning and this this work really being the first and and this core planning team being the second um major activity in the in the planning process so formation of that core planning team to guide the work and and we're envisioning that that would include representatives from different stakeholder groups the board administration teachers other labor groups student potentially parents and family members other community members i think we're kind of coming at it with a fairly open mind about membership for that that team but wanting it to have a diversity of stakeholder groups represented and that group is going to be meeting throughout the process to help guide the work help review and provide feedback on draft ideas and content coming out of other activities in some cases develop some of those drafts for others to comment on so it will be pretty centrally involved in in the work moving forward uh hence since the the name around core planning team there in addition to that we're planning to do interviews focus groups and surveys or some combination of of those to inform the identification of issues and opportunities so so just jumping back for one moment framing the overall process around guiding principles and high level priorities as discussed today identifying challenges and opportunities and then thinking about strategies in relation to those so using those interviews focus groups and surveys as one key way to inform what those issues and opportunities and strategies are and then as a general principle wanting to we don't want to re reinvent wheels we don't want to bring together folks that are already meeting uh for for other purposes and just adding another thing to their calendar so if there are existing structures that we should be or could be utilizing to get that type of stakeholder input uh we would welcome those suggestions so i'll move into the next slide we asked about this as well in the interviews that we were able to do with with trustees and so have some initial an initial list both of groups and of individual organizations want to put on the screen and then take a moment to review those together and then really open it up for additions comments on those lists suggestions for how we might best engage any of those groups or individual organizations um so parents families and parent organizations um thread from from i think all of the conversations today labor associations administrators teachers support staff community organizations particularly long-time organizational partners and some of those may be the ones listed in the right column here around specific recommendations local government agencies and neighborhood associations and then as you can see in the right side the si se puede collective labor partners specifically called out somos mayfair uh first the local first five county commission as well as catholic charities so again wanting to uh hear any suggestions for additions on on either side of categories or specifically and and if there are pieces of guidance that you all would like to share with us about how we we go about engaging these different groups and entities that would be quite welcome as well can i speak now yes linda you may speak now um one of the ways of engaging the parents is when they are on the zoom right now um present that a question to the parents you know what they see you know to write down how they think that the uh school could improve and you know it's free and and and for them to come up with ways that they have seen also that were effective but they didn't cost anything and i i've talked to other board members throughout california and as well as superintendents and the key question i always ask them is uh what improvements did you see right away that didn't cost you anything and then they they've told me and they said one of them in particular down south said it was very effective when they started like some of the parents when you go to to the drop-offs in the mornings it was it gets kind of crazy some parents aren't running late they're they're rolling by faster than they should and there's a bunch of kids there so what they were doing was they were telling the parents look you can drop them off earlier and we're going to walk them around um the yard and as each one comes we keep walking with them and they'll be parents walking with them and in the meantime the parents that were there as well as some staff teachers before school started started mentoring to these kids and before you know it before they knew it they just had all these this big group coming every single morning they did that for a year and it made such a difference in the school because they all felt more connected it didn't cost them anything and the parents didn't have to worry about rushing off to work they knew that someone was there to pick up their kid and they got more involved because they knew that they were taking care of their children while they dropped them off early and they were more willing to get involved in other things because they now had more time that's it thanks thank you trustee travis uh bauer do you have something to add i was going to recommend other engagement stakeholders i was thinking about students and recent alumni people who uh have you know um maybe graduated from alam rock within the last 20 to 30 years i think that gives us a you know when trustee fam shares you know his experiences recently he remembers you know being in in an elementary campus and in a middle school campus and i think it will be valuable especially for those who have uh successfully completed their careers whether it's you know uh in a university in a technical career i think it will be helpful for the system for us as staff to hear from them and students current students you know i think fifth graders and middle school students can give us huge feedback around you know our system thank you thank you trustee vacarano uh yeah with regards to the specific recommendations um so i think in like with the labor partners um you know i think that's a given um but with uh with the specific organizations um you know we have the ones that are listed here we i i feel that we can count on their engagement already they're um very engaged already in many ways with with the work that we do and so i don't mean to to remove them from the list i acknowledge that they are you know engaged at this point and we would want to continue that but my statement is more along the lines of i think there may be other entities or or organizations in the kind of i don't know about outer reaches of the district but other areas that we haven't traditionally engaged they may be neighborhood associations or or you know smaller less traditionally connected with the district organizations but i think there are voices from other parts of our district that aren't traditionally served by some of these organizations in in us geographically at least that i think we should consider i don't have any off the top of my head to specifically recommend but i just kind of want to throw out there that if we're looking at specific organizations to to engage that we might want to at least think about and consider those organizations that we haven't either that we even don't even know that they exist but they represent our our parents our students our community and or we just haven't traditionally kind of made a connection or reached out or or whatever that may look like so i just wanted to throw out that about other um organizations that represent our students thank you trustee but before we move on to trustee travis i just want to add uh thank you um mr price and that covers both uh for creating this list you know i think uh in what trustee vegeta's stating um you know in regards to others i do believe that you are not you know i know that you're not from our community so that this helps you make sure that we engage those folks um even though you know we see and we work with them all the time you might not so i appreciate making that list and then um trustee because the rest of us right ensuring that obviously today we might not think of all them but that we come back to them with names that um eventually were like oh yeah that one needs to be a part of it um so i appreciate this list to start off with um and with that uh trusty travis you'd like to add anything yeah i think that the point that dr bauer said was excellent in asking past alumni and especially um you know just like the colleges do when after you graduated they're constantly asking the ask can you contribute you know and there's so many different ways to contribute and especially since they came from here um we should be doing that as i believe to to to whoever they are and even though yes those groups and those categories they're busy but if you ask a busy person to fit one more thing in they'll do it uh especially since it is for the for the kids that's it thanks thank you any other uh trustees who'd like to add anything yeah i think that uh we should yeah i'm uh my comments are in line with uh uh board member um that we need to view this um exercise that we're engaging in as an opportunity for outreach and so beyond the typical stakeholders that we've been engaging in there's an opportunity here there's a lot of people that because of the the covid pandemic a lot of organizations that used to not be active and not be engaged all of a sudden became um out of necessity groups that started providing resources to the community in which they're in and so these folks um are our are our organizations that we can tap into sometimes we're really large groups um you have massive uh places of faith on white road and um they the people might not all live right around the community um but they would love to come and help out if given the opportunity i'm almost sure of it because that's where their their place of worship is located and they want to be a benefit to the community so we may be able to pull in people that want to support obviously their separation of church and state and i get that i'm not i know i'm talking about that i'm talking about opportunities for partnership where it makes sense for the school district and those organizations and so just want us to view this as an opportunity to go beyond the folks that we work with because we have excellent partners we've been working with them for a long time um this is an opportunity to expand um and to bring in resources from folks that might be from even outside the district that want to invest in our community so uh thank you for bringing that up uh a board member i don't know i'm really excited about this opportunity to expand our partnerships out there thank you any others thank thank you for the the um helpful input here and i think the helpful framing of of uh we may not know who some of those or what some of those organizations are yet and certainly one thing that we could we could consider doing is as we we start with some of this engagement work in in the doing of that um you know ask about who else we should be talking to um and sometimes that can can help to to surface those organizations or or community efforts that um that maybe aren't as as visible uh at the present time i add one more to that that um trustee quintero just kind of brought to mind that i don't know if it's right for this particular list but maybe um i think we've us we've established in the past some some good relationships with kind of our silicon valley technology um partners and and and i i guess it's a matter of considering whether or not we would have hold them as stakeholders per se but i mean i'm just throwing out there i guess the the concept of of thinking about technological silicon valley type like we have you know good programming with nasa i know that that we've have a partnership there and we have a bunch of stuff google has come in and so again i don't know if it fits here but i think as we're talking about looking at new opportunities and and outreach and bringing in resources you know the consideration i think we we do have a name we do have a reputation with um some of these companies that we can build upon and and you know especially we're talking about equity and and the digital divide um those things have come up very very clearly and so again to trustee quintero's point it may be another opportunity to forge some some relationships and get engagement from those kind of business or silicon valley entities dr bauer so i wanted to share with the board and in terms of these uh stakeholder groups also um about um a year and right before the pandemic um i reached out when trustee beherano was talking about our nasa uh connection um we i gather a group of different professionals that mimic our student population to just ask them we brought to the around the table about 10 professionals most of them latinos just like our students but you know very diverse about how they have gotten to where they are uh andres martinez from nasa was one of them santiago um miguel santiago from the county uh office of the uh executive was another one a couple of physicians a couple of them leading big health organizations you know engineers lawyers uh just to say you know how what was your path and how did you just to kind of you know get that i think that they were um very useful in terms of uh sharing with a group and aaron and glenn i have not shared this with you but i think we do have some of those people um that um that are willing you know to provide uh feedback in terms of how to set up a system that creates this um [Music] you know the the the right circumstances for our students to develop their own agency and their own path in in a number of of professions um so they're all part of that group of you know connections with us the county um the nasa you know all of these major partners that uh in their staffs they have uh people who reflect the diversity of alum rock with very similar backgrounds to our kids thank you dr bauer and just looking at our time i know we have one other item left i'm not sure if there's um anything else i don't see no more hands up right now um mr price just yeah i think we're we've got some great guidance there so i think we are we are good to uh to move on great and um we took public comment uh on this we need to go into public comment thank you so carlos moran uh can you um help me identify if we have anybody in the public would like to speak to us at this time board president i'm looking after this uh actually we do have one that just put their hand up yes we do have one okay um and who is it uh miss cinderhouse great thank you uh messendejas welcome as soon as you begin speaking the timer will begin thank you i was looking at the organizations there is also an organization called city team that has partnered with some of the schools at linda vista to provide pantry turkeys and over the summer when everybody was close they were the only pantry that was providing food because everybody was scared during the pandemic and they were the only organization that was continuously working with this district and with the river of life family church that's also an organization that has worked in the school district with kids club providing free after school program for children this program has helped not only students increase their grades but mentally and behavior these kids have also improved a lot and i didn't see them there but these are some of the partners that the district has as well so i just wanted to point that out thank you sorry thank you mrendejas anybody else mr no that's it board president okay thank you um so we'll go ahead and move on to 303 closing and next steps grace thank you thank you and really wanted to just take a few minutes that we have remaining and invite any reflections um thoughts about this this process that the work that we we and most of you all have done today um and and any reflections on that work and and this process moving forward so i would like to just kind of open it up to see if any trustees would would like to um to share any any such reflections and beyond that any closing comments um adam president that you would like to share and also would like to invite dr bauer to share any closing comments uh if that that is okay any of the trustees trustee uh yeah first i just want to um thank uh oh i'll ask permission to say gp and ap just glenn and aaron price um thank you for your work thus far and for guiding us through this and i also want to thank um you know the district staff for getting this going here on a saturday and particularly my my colleagues here for for our discussion and our you know thoughtful um opinions from all different angles i think you know it's it's helpful to have that kind of uh you know diversity and thought and and see how we can bridge the those perspectives to come up with something um which leads me kind of just to my i guess question to um glen or aaron if you don't mind me calling you that um the my experience has been that um kind of you start with the vision then mission and kind of what you've been doing going down but things always like you know connect back or tie back to those top level vision mission statement things so um in as part of your process is that how you typically go about it like we'll work through this and then make sure that some of these more granular specific things then tie back to the vision and mission or or in our comments you know on going forward should we be commenting keeping vision and mission in mind um i guess the question essentially being um how how uh intentional should we be about connecting or will we be about connecting vision and mission with all of these more specific pieces of strategic planning thanks trustee bahrano great question and overall yes we want to be connecting more detailed work down the line back up to those higher level pieces like vision mission i would i would also put in guiding principles which i know we just had some preliminary discussion today about but the the intent is that those would be something top of mind and really um lifted up for consideration as part of of the discussions about those more more detailed uh components i don't know if you want to add anything to that okay well just then that being said um i think you did an excellent job like i already said but as we continue this discussion if we if in your estimation if we as board members in our comments are you know are drifting away from those vision mission guiding principles then you know i would i would appreciate your reminding us or bringing us back to that and like i said it's i think you've done a great job so far but i just want to make sure that we're staying having fidelity to that model of constructing a strategic plan thank you appreciate it thank you trustee fam okay um you know i too would like to uh thank glenn and aaron price for you know guiding us uh you know on this meeting today as well as uh district administration and members of the public you know say saturday mornings are not nor the normal time that we think as uh you know board meetings uh you know so uh you know i i certainly appreciate that you know we're all here uh to do this uh you know i think that you know it's for lack of air term it's a little bit of cathartic today you know we you know i spoke a bit about you know our hopes our aspirations uh you know our you know uh you know our the background of this district and you know in the meantime we we've had you know some spirited debate on certain you know uncertain ideas that were expressed today also so you know i you know i i certainly you know i do want to close by who you know certainly hope that you know we you know this is just the first step in our strategic planning and you know like like any you know human organization where you know we're going to evolve you know and adapt to the circumstances as they come up but it's you know important to have you know the the basic foundational plan you know as we move forward so you know thank you again for that you know i'm moderating today's board retreat and you know and hopefully we you know i you know we continue to work together to to you know uh re you know refine you know the our mission you know our vision and our mission as we you know seek to educate the children of the alan rock community thank you mr fam anybody else for president yes i just want to thank the board and i want to thank the gpg group uh for this i'm very optimistic that we're going to end up with a very solid uh document you know we're trying to be very mindful of of what needs to be created in this but in terms of leading this district into the next level i just heard uh tremendous ideas and and i think that believe it or not i do feel that we're a lot closer to each other's vision as than we think you know and i echo uh trusty fans comment in terms of being cathartic sometimes it's it's it's important you know to express um the different views but at the end it allows us to begin to galvanize and to come together and and hear each other also and i'm very hopeful and very optimistic that this is going to be very very productive for our students because this is all about them thank you thank you or president yes i just wanted to thank um everybody who's involved her staff gpg group um you know all my colleagues uh for the very robust discussion that we've had this morning that's allowed us to kind of focus on on um and how we move ahead and so looking forward to future discussions i also want to thank um dr dewan uh dr bauer correct i'm i'm giving appropriate credit for dr duan's investment yes in this process and so credit to where credit is due we have a true partner uh at the county uh office of education who's looking to support alan rock's future so i do want to express that uh gratitude uh towards um doctor one and her leadership thank you any other trustees no okay see and then i'll give my statements yeah one more trustee travis i just want to thank everybody for being here this morning on saturday and all the work that everybody's doing and i'm just hoping moving forward that everybody's going to be putting their input and everything is going to be positive and if it's negative oh well we'll still move on thanks thank you trustee chavez uh and with that i just again want to reiterate and thank uh both glenn and aaron uh for being here on the saturday morning so short notice for you as well uh we had come up with this date you know months ago and uh we told you a couple of weeks ago are you are you available and you said yes so i appreciate that and uh mr glenn price i see um the beautiful picture in your background um and i recognize it as our weedarika we chose nation medicine so i just want to thank you for that you know because this is a part of the healing and there's no accidents right in this in this work that we do and i know that you know we're all in that picture there you know it's interconnected with it all so um sometimes the most beautiful things come out of this cathartic you know uh like uh mr found mentioned work uh where sometimes it just doesn't feel good but just like a caterpillar will just grow and and continue to flourish and be beautiful um so with that um i know that we have a lot of work to do uh this is just a preliminary as we've mentioned uh you know i look forward to hearing from all the different stakeholders that we've mentioned and those that we haven't even thought about yet um in this process um including our children and our community um and all those that really care about moving this district forward um and also you know those i might not you know it's important to know it all so so we know what we're dealing with um so with that i don't know if there's any closing remarks before we move on yeah so i just wanted to echo the thanks for the board's time today really appreciate um your your uh the gift of your time for for this conversation and um and the richness of discussion that that uh that you all engaged in earlier um guiding principles and priorities and stakeholder engagement so i really just want to share our our appreciation for for each of you and in particular madam president thank you for the additional time just helping to to plan this this session out and dr bauer as well thank you for um the time spent just getting as as uh was noted uh kind of a rapid start to this work so we're just excited to be moving forward with with you all on this planning process um and really uh happy to to launch that work with with today's meeting so um just wanted to share our thanks thank you and then i know that we came up with a beautiful list at least preliminary of our guiding principles as a board so maybe if you can email that to us i love what trustee nano mentioned with regards to just returning back to that you know um you all were all here today but you might not be here for future meetings or you know discussions that we might have that we can use that to guide us here as a preliminary that we will eventually finalize so i look forward to continuing to move our work forward um have a beautiful rest of your weekend and uh with that uh we'll go ahead and adjourn our meeting at 11 57 see you all on thursday night thank you have a good weekend thank you you too thanks everyone goodbye everyone

hi i'm april and i'm cassidy and this is cat tv news school-based youth services is happy to announce that after school groups are now being held in person once again if you are not in the building on the day of the group please let sbys know and they will send you a zoom link for participation tuesday is volunteer club wednesday is open art studio thursday is gender sexuality alliance a telehealth consent form will need to be signed for resume participation last week i had the opportunity to interview some students who are involved with the recycling project now going on in the hallways of tech here's that interview hi i'm cassidy and i'm here with alexis kaeper and don pasteur and they're going to be explaining the next trex plastic challenge so how does the challenge work so you're going to recycle plastic two and four you'll find the labels usually on the bottom or anywhere on them you can get them from like the store it can be like right where your front door is from pantry no matter what are there any prizes involved oh yeah so we're trying to collect a certain amount of pounds of it every week and then we're trying to be able to get a bench for the senior class hi i'm also here with uh joel shepta jacob perez okay and i'd like to know um what the viewers can do to help with this challenge well these are some plastics you can use here you can also use shrink wrap but no water bottles okay and how does this involved with nhs so nhs really helped out with printing flyers and putting them around the school we also wrap the boxes ourselves and lay them out and yeah so we basically just helpless set up and just lit up get the word out i'm here with andrew ludley from natural sciences and i'm curious to know how does this challenge help the environment well by recycling we keep stuff like this out of the environment this is all stuff we found in the osprey nests that we have in the marsh so by recycling we keep this out of wild animals habitat and we're able to save a lot more stuff like turtles and all kinds of wildlife by keeping this way out of their reach thank you for answering my questions back to you guys at the studio nice interview cassidy seniors if you haven't turned in your senior superlatives to ms sykes please do so this week they are due for the yearbook and if you haven't paid for your yearbook yet there is still time to get the money in march is the month of caring to be caring means to be kind compassionate and show you care to others show empathy express gratitude and forgive others and show mercy to others help people in need and be charitable and altruistic any students can stop by guidance or the main office to fill out a caught in character slip to recognize any school member for being kind now it's time for question of the week if you were stranded on a deserted island what one item would you take with you what is the one thing i would bring if i was going to be stranded on a desert island a boat i'd probably take a uh axe my dog a box of cheez-its my phone i would bring a knife and i would bring all of the fast and furious movies to start a fire i would bring a phone that could call from anywhere uh i would probably bring a fishing rod so i can have food i would hate to be alone so i would bring my wife and we'd have fun together if i was on a desert island i'd probably bring a bunk knife or a belly knife because it's can you be useful for multiple different things gathering resources getting food and much a bunch of different like preparations for stuff survival and actually want something sharp with an edge that can cut down a tree or you know in the desert you got the tumbleweeds you can strip those down and make kindling start a fire with that you can also use a knife to spark like a light or anything to make it the fire and you can also just like skin animals make yourself clothing or if you take a snake and you chop the head off you get the skin from that you can make a water pouch and yeah thanks for those responses tech well that about wraps it up for this week i'm cassidy and i'm april and we'll see you next time on cat tv news you

okay can we call the meeting to order with the pledge of allegiance well good evening um and thanks for coming to the special meeting of the green castle school board on march 8th 2021.

the only agenda item we have tonight is a public hearing on a proposed project i don't see anyone that will make comments but if you're interested in speaking at the hearing please make sure you sign in out front and uh after a presentation from the administration and advisors we will give people the opportunity to speak this notice of this preliminary determination hearing was legally or was published as legally required on february 24 2021 in the better graphic this time i will ask kristin mcclellan bond council to explain the purpose of this hearing good evening pursuant indiana statutes the school must hold two public hearings and adopt a preliminary determination in order to issue bonds greater than a certain threshold these public hearings and the adoptions of any resolution are the very beginning of the legal process the hearing and the resolutions you'll see next week truly just set the maximum amount of the project okay thank you very much now we will hear from mr jeff gibney about the process of determining and communicating the projects to the community and the need for the projects mr gibbetting yes as you recall back in the fall we contracted with krm architect group to conduct a facility assessment and help us build a master plan for green castle school district facilities we realize and recognize that we have some buildings and facilities to where there are items at the end of life to where there are spaces that are not conducive for the new type of teaching and learning that is taking place and then certainly there are some access safety and security type issues as well so it's been a very extensive process they've conducted focus group meetings at each of our buildings we held a community meeting this fall for some input and feedback and then they've been meeting with the the core planning team which is a smaller team of school district employees mr cox as a board member and then certainly all of the other professional advisors as well and so there's been a lot of time and preparation in in looking into this and um with some capacity that we have uh within our debt service pro excuse me our debt service fund with some space coming off we have some items that we need to address to remain current make sure things that are safe and secure and make sure we have a safe appropriate learning environment for our students so it's a very very exciting time and without further ado i will actually let krm mike montgomery share a little bit more about these projects good evening everyone and uh i'll just say next slide when we're ready for the next one um next one [Laughter] okay as mr gibbon stated there there was a master facilities plan completed that ran starting early september through january and included educators and the other individuals that mr gibney mentioned next slide um this is an example of the the campus existing conditions we went through uh each building as well as the overall campus next slide at each building and we'll quickly go through each one but there is an identification of the greatest needs the average needs and maybe longer range needs the red is the the most most important and those were done very early in the process and then through a series of evaluation of cost as well as importance uh the projects were assembled into a priority group and those are identified in the uh the dashed line box and this happens to be the high school you can see at the high school there's uh science classrooms the media center restrooms as well as other things next slide just some examples of things at the high school right right in the center door locks those are typical of many of the things that were included in this project next slide macanally primarily the the lower level locker rooms it's a magnificent facility but the lower level just hasn't had any upgrades or the ones they've had have uh are need some additional modifications next slide some of the existing conditions at mac and alley and the center two areas are really the the highlighted at the the locker room areas where the the funds will be geared next slide uh middle school at the middle school was secure entrance science labs and also the media center next slide some of the existing conditions one of the things that's included is some of the repairs of the envelope of the original building next slide deer meadow which is a one of the newer buildings or is the newest building is in pretty good shape really the only item there is the security entrance which is highlighted in in red there next slide some examples of deer meadow again it's in pretty good shape because it's new and well done at the time it was constructed next slide ridepath elementary also was remodeled and has a new addition that was fairly recent so it's in actually pretty good condition also um it does need a secure entry and there are some components of the exterior the building next slide some components of the exterior the buildings such as some of the stucco-like efas that need some attention to detail so those are those types of things are included next slide and then finally uh tz or to zonaka's elementary proposed for a new secure entry and one of the things that doesn't show up particularly well is several water issues or drainage issues at tz that are intended to be upgraded to improve the overall site and the condition of the building um next slide uh you can see you know some of the uh just the general appearance of tz and this lower image as some soffit part of the repair of the soffit all the way around the perimeter of the building it's pretty severely degradated next slide so the summary of costs they run down with the high school receiving most of the costs and as you walk down through um at seven million one hundred thirty eight thousand for the high school and uh five million five four hundred fifty seven thousand dollars at the uh the innovation center and classroom uh renovations and i won't read each one um but overall you get a feeling of the overall uh conglomerate of the of the costs that go to each area with a total construction cost of twenty six million eight hundred seventy seven thousand seven hundred thirteen dollars and then and that is dedicated uh towards uh construction and then the soft costs as they walk down through architectural engineering fees of two million fifteen thousand three twenty eight and you can see boring surveys and others in the soft cost 161 thousand owners representative fees of 445 000 which which brings the total soft cost to two million six hundred twenty two thousand two hundred ninety five dollars and then the third component in in the budget um as presented includes bond issuance costs and capitalized interest allowance the total 2.5 million dollars so that brings the total to 32 million dollars next slide so just uh in general a summary of where these dollars are proposed to go the high school by far receives the lion's share of the budget you can also see upgrades to the baseball and softball relocation which would move to the transportation site uh the primary schools which are other than tz which are in pretty good shape but tz does receive the lion's share of those costs middle school four million dollars and then the mcinally upgrades is a little over three million dollars so the totals again by facilities is 32 million dollars so that's it i think it's mike thurber thank you very much if you have any questions i'd be happy to answer them after mike's completed here okay thanks so now we will hear from mike thuber our financial advisor from thurber and brock about how the project or the proposed project will be financed as well as information about the effect on the typical property taxpayer mr thurber good evening uh thank you i would like to share some information tonight about first of all what the school corporation's current debt service picture looks like and then how these projects will be funded and what our plan for financing is right now from the corporation's debt service fund there are five series of bonds uh being paid and over the next six years all of those bonds will have matured meaning they all will have been paid at the end of this year and then again in 2024 and then again in 2027 um those bond issues your currently outstanding issues will be paid so it's a good time um now to be planning these proposed projects because essentially the overall plan is to replace the debt that's going away with the new debt that will um will be these 32 million dollars for the proposed projects um so the a few of the well please excuse me um if you would like to see well i guess we don't need to see um financial slides but um oh thank you great are we good yep thanks so uh what's on screen uh is basically recap of um what was just stated it's a good time to be financing uh new projects because uh the current plan is to replace old debt with new debt uh and then uh next slide please a few of the characteristics of this proposed financing the projects will be funded by one or more series of bonds with as mr montgomery just stated a not to exceed total project cost of 32 million dollars and approximately 29 million 450 000 of that amount will go toward the hard and soft construction costs we have allowed uh two million two hundred fifty thousand dollars for capitalized interest on the bond issue and we have uh budgeted three hundred thousand dollars for the issuance costs that are associated with the bond issue and those costs are comprised of the underwriting fee uh the financial advisor fee all legal fees uh the credit rating fee from standard poor's the trustee bank fee and miscellaneous fees that could include recording and items associated with the closing on the bond issue so all those amounts add up to again the uh not to exceed total project cost of 32 million dollars of note is that we have set the maximum annual lease rental payment on the bonds at two million nine hundred forty thousand dollars so the payment uh the annual payment on that 32 million would not exceed two million nine hundred forty 000 a year and the estimate uh on the debt service tax rate will be 61 cents however again as as your existing debt falls away as it is being paid from now until 27 and then after 27 the increase to the debt service tax rate from these projects will be zero there should be no increase to the tax rate as a result of these projects if you were to sell bonds today you would sell the full 32 million at an interest rate roughly a little under 3 percent and that would take you 16 or 17 years to fully repay that debt again if bonds were sold today so we've built a little bit into our estimates to account for any uh potential rise in interest rates that could happen between now and the time you go to sell bonds hopefully bond rates will hold uh where they are now hopefully they'll they'll decrease a little bit but but at least we'd like them to stay the same um and again it would take 16 16 and a half 17 years to repay that debt if it were issued today so those are just a few of the financial characteristics i'm happy to answer any questions or address any other issues that that the board would like so just to make sure i understand the tax rates not going to go up for the community due to these projects and in your opinion is the interest rate good right now for us to be borrowing or doing a bond i guess uh affirmative to both those mr cox uh bond rates are really good they are at uh historic lows we've been expecting a rise in interest rates for a long time now and a a material rise in rates or a big jump or a big increase in rates just has not happened there's a lot of speculation about when that will happen it's on the horizon no one really knows when that will take place though um i would expect bond rates to stay about where they are in the immediate future um we we will have our our finger on on that on the pulse um and after we take all of the necessary legal steps before we get to the point of selling bonds we will position ourselves uh to have a bond sale hopefully before any increase takes place so and the first part of your question there will be no increase to the debt service tax rate from these projects um the effect of these projects alone will be 61 cents however when that takes place or when you feel that effect you will have no other debt so we are truly replacing the debt that will have gone away with debt from these new projects and yes the there should be no increase to that tax rate okay thank you and just to clarify again um what kind of time frame are we looking at before we do or before we're ready to sell a few more months okay um [Music] we will have the second preliminary determination hearing next week right we will have the 30-day period after that we will have a lease hearing after that 30-day period ends and then by summer we should be in a position where um if it makes economic sense uh in other words if we um if we're ready to pull the trigger on the full 32 million or any part of that 32 million we should be in position to do that by mid-year this year mid-2021 sounds great else okay thank you very much thank you you're welcome okay now we will open this hearing for public comment um if we have anyone that does want to make the comment now is the time hearing none we will close the public comment section just to wrap up here please note that this is just the first step in the legal process no board action is legally required this evening or during this hearing rather this hearing is solely to hear public comment and the board will continue to work with administration and its professionals to look for efficiencies excuse me to conserve tax dollars while meeting our educational needs the board will hold a second public hearing in this board room or this auditorium on march 15 2021 at 7 pm and that will be in conjunction with our regularly scheduled march board meeting okay can i get a motion to adjourn make a motion second okay with motion and a second all in favor all opposed motion passes thank you all for coming you

[Applause] okay of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all so i have to make a statement before the meeting starts my name is shane fafer i'm an orthopedic surgeon here in town i was asked to run this position years ago when i was first on the board i was attacked at every board meeting because of what people thought it was on the board for over time an injustice was identified was dealt with as a group i have always spoke with integrity and statements of fact to try to make points to better the system and the school district there have been numerous times where my statements have been flatly ignored but that's part of what we consider democracy i make no apologies for fighting for what i think is the best for our school our district and our family integrity and respect are two things that i hold in high regard and work with on a daily basis recent events or of where i have voiced my concerns for events that have occurred in our system have demonstrated that i either no longer have that respect or really never did i see a change in the way we deal with things that i do not agree with and i am unable to have an influence in a positive way when i talk i speak directly and i speak to the point people are changing my words and using them to imply things that really have no reasonable way to be interpreted that way there are people accusing me of being after the jobs of the administration that is someone else's agenda and i am being accused for doing it the agendas of others are now affecting my family i love my family dearly i have great children a great wife and i love them dearly i cannot and will not allow a position that i hold to affect them in their daily lives i am always ready for a good argument discussion debate but not when it starts to affect my family and friends i have had the ability to make discussions debates arguments for what it is and not an emotional rollercoaster unfortunately that is not the norm i do my best to always see both sides of every story but for the life of me there's no rational reason for what's occurring and it's causing me to lose sleep i own my patients more than that people are attacking me based on what they think they've heard or rumors or eavesdropping and claiming that i'm doing something other than what i really am unfortunately these people have never really gotten to know me my hope to all my haters is that this resolves these issues i resigned my position as board president and as a member of the board of usd 244 [Music] thanks okay i assume there's board vice president will be taking over the continuation of this meeting does anybody have any additions to the agenda as presented for the consent agenda any discussions or questions make a motion to approve the consent agenda items as presented there's been a question to say all in favor of on your computer you guys can vote mike are you online are you able to vote by proxy or my computer i'm your vote for consent agenda yes so to do staff recognition for dana the bronze award yes uh we got a nice award for and this is for uh diana hess um in regards to again a certificate of recognition this is awarded to diana hess for completion of 30 hours of professional development training presented by the child nutrition and wellness department at ksde and i want to read a quick little letter here it says congratulations for earning the bronze level award in the professional recognition program sponsored by child nutrition and wellness kansas state department of education your completion of 51 hours of ksde sponsored training is a significant accomplishment by taking classes to expand your knowledge and skills you have demonstrated your commitment and your professionalism and we are extremely proud of you and this achievement and so again diana's a wonderful food service director we are so thankful we have her on board and she's not able to be here tonight so we don't get that actually hansberger awards but we'll do that later so again congratulations to diana and her service awesome tell our congratulations yes and the man behind the camera doug's banner london [Music] i have to tell you this was hard to keep because i knew about this i want to say november late november early december and they swore me to secrecy and i i did pretty good i guess because again uh as you've seen the republican did a wonderful story on doug we've got a site the website story for doug and again doug has some uh i'm going to read the quote from doug here on the public content it says this article is much more about our district and our community and the good things we have going than it is about me it focuses on our people being willing to change and grow and adapt we have great teams of teachers staff administrators board of education members and community that have rallied behind the great things we have gotten to do with educational technology it is about the great co-workers i get to work with and the tech team we have with our adopted cousin tracy helping out a lot it is also about the hundreds of kids that i have been blessed to be able to coach over 31 years and maybe it was closer who knows maybe close to a thousand so again um again doug i just cannot thank that enough we work very closely together on a number of different things the fiberboard is just that that is the envy of everybody when i talk to my colleagues around around around the state what we have in place in burlington for our fiber connectivity and opportunities that we're able to to take advantage of again that speaks very very well and the leadership he has so again congratulations today do you have any comments no i do you read you took my comments right there i'm i i get to represent i get to represent what we've done uh and that's that's what's key um you know i i've worked with teachers i worked with a great teacher and of cadre one that that said something that impacted me greatly was we were doing one-to-one and she said this she said i don't want to lose my flavor in what we're doing with one-to-one technology and and it took a while for that to sink into me as to what she was really saying um but but what she was saying is is again we've got a lot of great teachers and we don't try to we don't try to change them as much as we try to show them other tools other things that they can do and and our teachers have bought into that our administrators have bought into that in terms of the fact that that we're not producing this robot of remote learners and an online army of remote learners we want kids in front of us uh because that's where we're our best and to to have said i would stay here 31 years i i thought this was a quick stop along the way um and to be honest i think this is the only stop along the way and so i've just been i've been blessed with your support um and there have been times i think you've you've bought into a vision that you couldn't quite see but that you bought into it you believed in it so i appreciate it greatly thank you moving on to administrative reports bds anybody have any questions or comments um um may look a little different in the future so one thing i just wanted to make sure that you guys hear it from me is that i want to make sure in the future with those grant dollars that we continue to look to fund the preschool liaison position and the parents as teachers um those things are pretty essential to the other grants that we have in place with our research programs within our school um [Music] um well the jones people said they're gonna i mean that's like your top part we're you keep fighting that however what has happened is the first we were kind of late for the game and that was kind of the year between um and craig marshall so we didn't get it on the first half of that so we got it on the second semester of the year one and so they they funded by per people district they i don't know what their formula is but that's how districts are allocated money um the second year we just got whatever amount we set our budget on that then they kind of started in year three four and five they gave us our per pupil money and then they also started giving us additional allocations um as we reached the end of that grant the per people allocations pretty well are maxed out with those two things that i just mentioned to you the parents as teachers and the video designer and the additional monies we used in a variety of different ways we met with them on the zooming a couple weeks ago they didn't tell us they're unsure that there will be additional monies like we'll get the per people funding if they are not anticipating that we'll be getting the additional gift that we've got in the last few years that we've kind of tying in um quick with that uh there was a letter of support that was going around from the area superintendents today i did sign off on that for the jones trust funds hopefully to continue if nothing else at their original rate but maybe they're a rape that they might say that they continue to increase those funds over the past five years so they've been very beneficial very very i'm just very beneficial to the early childhood learning peace the connection that we've had again with our community preschools so anyway it's been it's been a good deal we hope that that letter will have some impact with the jones trust members okay moving on to bms questions i submitted this and obviously we were presented uh julie augustine does a great job with jump dodgeball for our race close to four thousand dollars as chloe gilbert set the new individual record and so the gym will be named after her and again the kids and staff have absolute classes it's kind of funny the smack talking that happens before that happens but i did recruit a couple high school aides since they are there they helped us out tremendously and um it was it was very well received kids did a great job i mean it's just a fun environment to be in uh seeing the kids shirts that they have and things like that so that's those are a couple items that i didn't get to have because julie has to keep that very secret until old school i think they were honorary substitutes that day for a day vhs questions did we oh i was just gonna practice this started today 21 for softball fifty five ish for track they just started today uh baseball softball and going for a week now and then uh golf and you think everybody's just ready to get outside and do something i think that's a lot of us awesome did you special ed the only thing i was going to point out i'm very excited that we had interviews we had multiple candidates apply for our school psych position we although we're losing a very veteran knowledgeable valuable employee we had a very good candidate an interview and accepted the position with us so we'll be coming on staff next fall and we actually have an slp interview as well coming out this week so those both are exciting those are hard technology report has already i guess the question you have here that next month we'll have the technology capital improvement project is there anything this year that's maybe enlightened our development that going forward with what we've learned over last year is it just more of making sure we have one and make sure the infrastructure is there right right focused on the infrastructure there are some things that we're looking at potentially moving to the cloud if you if you've heard that concept before some server type things that we're looking at transitioning to the cloud at this point email mail filtering type things we very much are believers in the new line product if you've had a chance to see the new on boards in fact you know we used to have the one in here and we replaced with just a regular tv with those new line boards um we'd like to we'd like to kind of work together with with mr marshall and try to do some things with some ezra funds to accelerate that process a little bit we're just about done with the middle school we did first grade wing and we started into the high school and now we've got two staffs that are clamoring to be next the best regardless all that all that mystery and door lock work through that discussion so but you know i i think that's those it's those types of things that that and and we do focus on getting additional laptops updating the laptops uh there'll be some discussion uh soon about kind of what what does the middle school look like and i brought this up an administrative meeting the other day and what i'm talking about is is does how does that how does that one-to-one continue to look within that building now that we've now that we've had kind of almost a full year of it with middle school level kids so the kids taking them home there's other pieces that happen with them that if the device didn't go home they wouldn't have the capability of finishing up work or often we have kids that are going to do better at listening to a book and following along so diane constantly is downloading books and things like that well if their advice has to stay at school they don't have that ability anymore and honestly we've had very few repair needs very few it's i mean it's it's been minimal so the kids have done a nice job taking us back and forth yeah yeah they always have something i mean even an adult sergeant right yeah the uh you know the biggest challenge we have uh in our district and i hear the other districts the other districts are you forgot your device today you forgot your device and i happen to know kind of first hand both two of my children work in topeka public schools now and so my youngest son works actually is a building tech person at washburn rural middle school and he said the biggest part of his day is where's your where's your chromebook where's your chromebook you know our biggest challenge is you didn't charge last night you know and so that's that's that's a challenge and that's responsibility and so forth and so like i said i i'm with matt it's if you would have asked me five years ago did i see a point where five to eight would be a full a full-blown take-home i i may never have seen that we had just if you remember we were just doing the year two of a pilot for the eighth graders to go home at semester because of the computer apps class and then all of a sudden we all went home and so you know that i don't in certain cases normal look like the old normal but but i really do think those those discussions will continue on so those are the those are the big things lucas is is that the infrastructure and then new lines and then as well what do we do to continue to expand and keep that one-to-one focus and growing and and doug and i haven't had a lot of conversations because again the new lines i've shared with you in board reports pictures of the picture and you see a picture of a promethean board it's not the same that you see it in the pictures that i take and share that with you so tying in though but one thing that doug and his tech staff have done really good with new lines is that that that training piece the cadre training piece so that the teachers when they get them they are effective with them and they are useful and so for example we could probably buy some more over the summer but would we be able to train the staff in their usage if we if we bought like 10 or 12 more that's extra additional work for the tech staff to have to make sure that they're installed and usable and then them to train the staff so it's kind of a balancing act how many more can you do but also train them and then the time it takes for them to do over the summer because it seems like those summer hours go fast and summer days go really fast so that's what we're trying to figure out you know exactly how much we can do okay the superintendent's report okay the first thing i shared with you again the capital outlet working document that tracy and i continually work on as well as administrators and directors helping give me input on that document throughout the year i just highlighted and put a few different items on there tracy's pulling up the document there again this is what we're looking at during this year you can see some of the things that we've already done and completed and some of the things that we're looking at doing there's still maybe some shuffling here as time goes on so one thing that we're looking at and as the football stadium the led light project out there potentially and this was something i was hoping to be able to wait and do one more year and wait and do this next year but because in the evaluation of lighting so like about this time during spring we evaluate our lights at the baseball softball fields because we've got to make sure we're well lit there and then the football field usually in the spring just to see if we had anything go out over the winter that type of thing so fortunately softball's in good shape no lights are out baseball has about six out right now and then the football stadium has seven out and so having said that we're you keep bringing if you bring in a truck to come in and do that repair if there's a service pot i mean a service charge there for the truck to be on site then they charge you by the hour and there's two different guys there that come with that truck and then you're replacing old they're old haylights halogen type lights they are not very uh cost-effective cost-efficient as you can see obviously with our gyms in elementary middle and high school we put led lights there in those gyms and it's just made a world of difference so and it's a lot less expensive and it's a much better well-lit project so we're kind of holding off on this football stadium project to see if we can do it this year not based on we've got roof bid coming up on wednesday so cross your fingers and hope for the best for the middle school rook bit and we'll have some information very soon we may end up having a couple of one or two special board meetings between now and i'm going to say april's meeting because we've got a few different projects going on not only with the roof bid but we also have some of the daycare remodel projects going on so we're going to try to we're trying to put them together and maybe just have one meeting but it may require two meetings it will just kind of keep me informed so this before he uh resigned his position um we're getting brad griffin up to speed with that and then um with uh with dave and myself being involved in that decision and talking with you and sharing the street with the board and margarito as well margarito solano has been involved with the decision as far as moving forward with an led project if you keep bringing in a truck every year two three four years and it's a 20 25 30 cost depending upon how many likes how many hours you start to put in bad money for these old style lights and you really end up getting kind of a really let's say you get upside down with the project instead of doing it all at once so again we're working on this we've got a possible you know a i guess a an idea a possible plan and it's something that they can still do over the summer they say i mean again is it something we have to let you know now on this is no you can get your roof bed determine where you're going to be at with your financial situation and they said even if you have an approval i'm going to say at the april or may board meeting meaning then we can still come in and do the project it's about a two week project for them to come in and just redo all the lights and that's a football stadium again reason being is it could just end up being one year after the next after the next twenty to thirty thousand dollars every time and that's just again not a good financial situation questions on kind of what we're thinking about i shared this with you in friday notes and so the lights aren't just a matter of changing uh from a halogen bulb to another people yeah [Music] with that same idea and we've done a lot of the big overhead lights we've changed just change the fixture just change the light well by bringing that picture up there our contacts that build that we're doing these big overhead lights said that you'll get a inferior product that won't last as long and the retro is not going to save you money yeah they say just go ahead and do that i was thinking the same thing and and dave and stacey said in on the presentation we had a gentleman come in uh and do a presentation just on what uh you know what what it would look like how it'd be different and then the the just the project in general and it was it was pretty amazing you guys can now uh i mean it's again cost savings better well-lit product and uh yeah it's different than just changing out a wall when you're in your home there's the there's the focus and the angle now hey good question that's the same thing those are expensive light bulbs so anyway again we're going to look at this after the roof bit comes in and i'm going to give you information quickly as soon as we find out it's a busy week here with roof bid and plumbing bids for the daycare and so on so forth again there'll be some flooring and carpeting projects going on again throughout the district uh middle school library renovation we have some news and bookshelves there that are failing and falling apart and the carpet's very very very old and dated so while we're doing that we're also going to paint in there we have seen a huge increase in circulation at the high school with the new library renovation there the middle school we're going to do the same thing and most likely the elementary school at some point in time as well who knows that we have will come in the permanent wall project we're going to look to do some of those at the last i guess the second of two phases if you will we did middle school and a couple of walls at the high school two years ago we'll probably look to try to finish that up we'll do the proposal from uh on that project and go from there and again the vms roof project opens for the roof project opens on march 10.

for soccer my first time with the gavel all right we're going to read the hoax meeting statement the new jersey open public meetings law was enacted to ensure the right of the public to have advanced notice of and to attend the meetings of public bodies at which time any business affecting their interest is discussed and acted upon in accordance with the provisions of this act and board of education policy zero one six two the board of education of the borough of brook has caused notice of this meeting to be posted in the board office and at the bound brook high school and attenborough high school excuse me and mail or faxed through the courier news boundary borough clerk southbound report of education and any person who has requested individual notice and paid the required fee stand for the pledge i pledge allegiance to the united states of america and to the republic okay so i guess i get to make the president's comments this one um very quickly just want to echo everything michelle says every month um i want to say thank you to um from teachers administrators all the way up um include especially also somebody who doesn't get enough thanks um the support staff especially custodial who are i know they're working their tails off to get everything the way it needs to be so thank you to everybody in the district who's been working through some really difficult situations we appreciate you um i know my boys are loving school they're they're in both of them are in and loving it so i haven't seen nothing but positive so thank you to everybody and also congratulations again as we say every year to both basketball teams who once again i don't know that's all i got it's it's kind of a shame with our both basketball programs doing as well as they did this year that there's no state playoffs because i feel as though that both of them would have been in contention for a state playoff uh state championships at least sectionals if not overall so it's a shame that there were no state playoffs this year for boys and girls teams um superintendent's comments first off i'd like to uh mention that phyllis hayes our guidance counselor here at the high school was named um as celebrating um black history month as one of our black guidance counselors across the country uh tommy would you like to say a few words on on behalf of uh phyllis yeah uh the national organization uh american school uh counselors um association asca they put out to nominate school counselors if you're black school counselors in your school district that should be recognized so phyllis's name and photo were entered and she was recognized along with many administrators and uh college professors um many people of many different titles in the counseling profession um throughout throughout the country so she was included uh in an honor with a lot of great names and it is on our website on the district page you can see the award and tell us his picture there yeah it was it was a great award for her so i just wanted to publicly mention that for her in addition we have our last trimester last market period survey out parents for in-person instruction currently that survey will end tomorrow and uh as of right now it looks like we have an eight percent increase in in-person instruction um for our next board meeting we will have our first budget presentation for the 2122 school budget and i'm happy to report that that budget will will include no tax increase for the taxpayers that grow i'd also like to mention um that it didn't make this agenda but i did receive it and i know she's online so i definitely want to make you all aware of this um and congratulate sue del conte on her retirement uh after 30 years in the baton rouge school district she's been here for a very long time she's been a valuable staff member to the high school and she definitely will be sorely missed but i hope she has a happy and healthy retirement and my last item uh two two last items um as of today we are up to 58 staff members that are in process for vaccinations um as you should be aware that um educators have now been uh greenlighted to get the vaccine so they they are open to getting scheduling vaccines so we're working that out with our staff members who sign up to make sure that they don't use time and go get their vaccines and the last item is for the agenda item 6.3 on the agenda is being tabled this evening so item 6.3 on the agenda is being tabled with that i will move on to committee reports uh this evening we had ed committee uh camilla you want me your best to give the synopsis or do you want to give the synopsis um i can do it we are adopting for the next school year for k-8 science which is parallel to the program we're using elevate for social social studies and they're both on a similar time frame with our licensing and that has been determined through consultation with different faculty and piloting and sampling the program this year oh i think you hit mute camilla by accident [Music] program um be piloting or looking at will be for the new math um and we'll go through the same kind of process of sampling some lessons and getting some materials from different publishers and then um talking in committees and moving tours with um forward with piloting and adopting a program and then after that we'll be moving on to math of um so all of our our curriculum is kind of like a five six year cycle and we're moving forward um with all of this right now it's finding difficulties of this year and there have been purchases for guided meetings that has been requested by the teachers that hopefully will help with our reading scores we can put those into practice this summer and then they'll be adopted throughout the upcoming year we had a report on the extended school year obviously we're going to have a very robust summer school there's going to be lincoln at the end of the school year that's going to determine which the students are in the yellow or the red zone and whether or not we are going to um they're going to be requested to attend summer school we're going to have numerous sessions um a really you know good amount of teachers have volunteered to work over the summer and that's really um i appreciate that greatly but hopefully we're going to have to roll up our sleeves and get caught up in whatever the level we are whatever for teaching and other otherwise that we'll be hiring and um more google pd offerings that are well received by the teachers that have been seen as useful and there's still some programs people need to learn so we'll continue and that's what i have for my notes [Music] and then we had a governance committee where we went over a number of items of either privacy or negotiating items so we cannot discuss those in public so we are open to the public for agenda items only i have no comments online nope nope okay scene online okay then we move on to five point one of the minutes uh resolved boundary board of education approves the minutes for the following meetings uh minutes of february 22nd uh can i get a motion second discussion does anybody have to abstain thank you is that john johanna miss monson has to abstain yeah it's [Music] yes ms morris yes yes stevens yes yes yes yes yep okay moving on to 6.1 uh result the superintendent recommends for approval the resolutions as outlined in personnel resolutions under district and high school uh that would be 6.2 through 6.7 with uh 6.3 being removed uh can i get a motion on those motion second second discussion yeah i was looking at the extracurricular employment the 6'5 on the salaries yeah all the varsity coaches except for one at 7 467 000 except for the head baseball coach he was at 4 647 000.

smoother no the bolt heads for the charm i learned from from danny danny came in it happened you just gotta rip it off and get it done you know it's funny danny when i was when i was in palestine i was talking about my son so i was like you know like before we left to come back i'm like just take it off my way what are you doing what are you doing in arabic so when i was and that was just when i got back here in october you know i thought about it me two months to think about it just take it off mr russia what what is uh is it sick what's the quorum five five five okay oh yeah majority right yes there is a very very strong yeah really gosh luckily it's kathy speaking then you know some other people i you don't like hearing twice on an echo everything's all set whenever you're ready okay we have a quorum so uh it is time so um i'd like to open up this um special meeting of the board of education march the 8th if you would all please rise for a pledge of allegiance followed by a brief moment of silence i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you everyone mr uc roll call please mr allah here here miss beltran beltran mr canola here mr daley miss danny danny mr castro casper here mr abu drabo here here mr smith mr smith here we have a car uh tonight um oh i'm sorry we have to do the um mission statement mr casper would you mind the mission mission school district in an open and reciprocal community partnership is to provide all students with a quality education to develop the skills necessary to become literate lifelong learners for responsible and productive citizens contributing to a democratic society in an ever-changing world mr smith you're muted who muted me not me uh reading of the open public meetings uh statement the new jersey open public meetings law was enacted to ensure the rights of the public to advance notice of and to attend the meetings of public bodies at which any business affecting their interest is discussed or acted upon in accordance with the provisions of this act the clifton board of education has caused notice of this meeting to be publicized by having the date time and place thereof posted at the city clerk's office clifton public library administration building senior citizen nutrition center on cable tv in local press on the district's website and mailed to presidents of parent teacher organizations this meeting will be tape recorded in accordance with policy zero one six eight uh tonight's um uh board uh retreat uh we are very happy to have um from the new jersey school boards association our good friend and friend of education uh miss kathy hellowa uh who will be leading uh the knights program kathy thank you so much for being here and i turn it over to you jim it's my pleasure thank you so much for having me um i'm not echoing too much because uh um that makes it a little bit difficult to follow the program how's my audio is it is it working okay audio sounds great it almost seems like things are being repeated okay okay okay um did you say that some things are being repeated jim is that on my end i'm getting like repeats of certain things i'm getting a little bit of that too i'm not sure about the other conditioners if they're hearing the same same if if it's intelligible yeah a slight echo lucy sexy sexy nice nice nice to see your racism i so suppose we can attempt it and if it gets really bad if we have to uh redo this uh you know uh another invitation at mr mountain do you have any suggestions yeah mr smith i think it's a microphone whenever i mute you the echo goes away so i'm gonna mute you now and then whenever you need to speak again just mute yourself unmute yourself now it can't be me because you i had my mic off and you were you were echoing and repeating so i don't think that was all right we're gonna give it a shot friends we'll see if it works um it sounds a little better right now but i guess things are we learning sounds good now thank you okay eric thank you so much for all of your help um wow i miss seeing you guys in person and not just because of the technical glitches but it's wonderful to just see your faces and to have been invited to participate in your board meeting which is a board retreat but the topic is going to be something that's not the most exciting thing it's it's school ethics but it's really important and uh i'm very pleased to be able to present it to you guys we've had some really lively discussions about this in the past at our uh clifton retreat so seriously i like a participatory session you know that about me um unmute yourself and just burst on in if you have any questions friends okay um i am going to be using a powerpoint um eric i don't know if you have access to that or if you uh need me to share my screen and click on through what is the best method for uh for our training tonight if you're comfortable with it you have access to share your screen so i think that it's a more natural flow but if you need help just let me know i'm thinking that could be a more natural flow too so let's give that a shot um and what the only thing that might happen is i may not be able to see the commissioners but we will see um okay we will see if we can do this uh do hang on memento friends uh i can't seem to i'm i'm assuming that you guys can see the full presentation right yes is that correct but you can see all the little slides at the side there which is something that i want to avoid yes and i can't get to my little there's a little computer next to the minus for your view and if you click on that it shows you know what it is joe i mean my uh on the top of my screen is that uh zoom menu bar with mute stuff video blah blah blah you can move that you can just move how do i move that how do i move you just grab your mouse and move it oh joe you're so smart thank you all right let's do this slideshow um let's see from beginning all right and i can still see a few faces so this is a win this is a win um thanks for that uh before i begin friends i do want to acknowledge um i do want to acknowledge the passing of uh former commissioner agresti arlena gresti i was very saddened to hear that she had passed um and i do i offer my very deep sympathies to you all especially those who worked with her um i remember working with her on the superintendent search and um i do remember very clearly i was so sad to hear because i do remember very clearly just um during that search which we'll never forget right that was a great experience for all of us um just how much you guys took care of arlene the the commissioners who assisted in that search um it was really very nice to be a part of that and to see that kind of dynamic um so please uh my please accept my my sympathy for for your loss and also i i do honor the good work that she did during the search and all the years prior so uh so thank you for allowing me to just mention her name at the outset but you know something i think it goes to to uh as i'm thinking as i'm talking and i'm thinking about you know the team that that that work together on that and how you guys all work so beautifully part of the thing about school ethics right um is that it really is a team effort school boardsmanship like the ethics act is a piece of law all right it's a legend it's legislation that we have to be familiar with that we're all beholden to and it more or less is a job description right and you will receive if you haven't already um an electronic copy of the school ethics act it's four pages it's very dense small type legalese and all that and it can be very daunting to try to get through that and to make sure that you are in line with it as far as your behavior goes at all times that's what we have to do but the good news is that school boardsmanship really is a team sport you have a lot of resources and your board president kindly invited me to come in and talk about it so i'm part of your team i'm not an attorney but i am very steeped in the school ethics act just by the very nature of the way i do my work so if you guys have questions you are free to run them past me i will do my best to get you an answer njsba has its own legal team it's part of your dues so if i can't answer something or you want an attorney's take on it they're there for you too your board attorney is an excellent resource um you would go through uh you to get to your attorney through your bylaws probably through your your board president or danny or mike depends on what your bible say but that's another resource your board president your superintendent your board secretary all great resources for you so it really is a team sport and it's not scary that's exact i often say it really is like a school board member's best friend in a number of ways um and one of the things and well and why do i say that well one of the reasons is it's all about holding the respect and the confidence of the people who put you on the dais so that's a good thing right um and avoiding that conduct that even looks like it's avoiding the public trust that's a good thing right but what i like best about it possibly is that it's a code of uniform standards for every school board member in the state so whether you serve in montague in upper northwest sussex county or cape may courthouse at the bottom of the state and whether you're on a traditional public school board or charter school board of trustees whether you serve in paterson or whether you serve in oxford tiny town no one's heard of all of all of the board members have the same job descriptions and we are all beholden to the same law that is a very very good thing friends in my in my estimation we are you know one town doesn't get special treatment over the other right so that's that's a very important point um but you know what besides all those feel good things about the ethics act you really um do need to pay attention to it not just because it's the law and it would affect your boardsmanship but um def you know dereliction under the ethics act might cause your cusack score to go down when cusack is a factor right so we have to make sure that you talk about the school the code of ethics every year um that you do your disclosure statements which just came out am i right mike i think they just released them like a few days ago yeah sometime last week yeah it was recent yeah whoo i was so excited when i saw i was like here it is it's march right but fill those out get them in right away or else your your district's cue set well we're not getting cusack this year but you know you just just make it a part of your you know of your wheelhouse you get that thing you fill it out you send it on in um and also if a board member is found to be in violation of the ethics act your cusack points go down as well and all of the work that the district puts in to make sure its score is good um it's just such a shame to see boards falter in this particular area but you guys aren't going to do that because you guys are going to get your wonderful ethics training tonight and so we can relax right um and i know a lot of you have heard this before so please forgive me and again if you have questions unmute yourself ask uh but we'll go through the basics and the school ethics act establish all of these things right so the commission itself the code of ethics what conflicts of interests are we're going to touch on all of that um the disclosure statements that i just mentioned and your training requirements because in the law it authorizes new jersey school boards association and only new jersey school boards association to provide your mandatory training and we'd like to say that school board members in new jersey are the best trained in the nation because the training is pretty comprehensive all four years your first four years of service you need to take mandatory training i'm not going to read all of this to you save this for your reference you're getting a copy of this powerpoint ask me if you're not sure um go on our website but i mean the basics are your first year gov one i think of two gov three and gov four and every time you're reelected that first year that you are re-elected you need to take gov4 again which is a legal update so hold on to this they're all online right now of course because of the pandemic but hopefully we'll be able to offer some in-person um you know offerings when conditions of the pandemic lessen and we can you know start getting together again um the ethics commission itself was established under the act and these are the people right that uh decide whether or not you are in line with the code of ethics right these are the people who do the job when the commission is fully staffed and it's a volunteer gig no one gets paid for it they meet regularly monthly they used to meet in trenton now they're meeting remotely um there's nine people on it when it's fully stabbed it is not right now it has not had nine people on it for many many years and i am going to be honest with you friends i'm not even sure who's on the commission right now i think there's like six people because a lot of terms have expired um and the governor appoints people to be members of the ethics commission um he can only appoint uh you know five from any one political party and you know school board membership is not supposed to be political but that's the law um and if he's going to appoint well nine uh there would be five non-school officials five people who have nothing to do with school board governance or school board administration five people who do not sit where you sit that is the majority of the commission so i think that that's very interesting to note at the outset that the people who are making these decisions as to whether or not a board member is acting in accordance with the ethics act um most of them are lay people right um two people can be school administrators and two can be board members one of those board member seats has been vacant since well before i started working at njsba i'm not exactly sure how long it's been since two board members have sat on the commission but i can tell you friends it's not today right there's still one board member on it and i believe that there is still one school administrator on but it's not a hundred percent clear the ethics commission does maintain a website that has a lot of information on it it's not the most user-friendly thing in the world right but you should visit it you'll get the address as part of your materials and you should spend some time on it it is very very interesting because on the website you will find published advisory opinions and ethics complaints that's how the commission does its work but there are differences between the two um advisory opinions are just that their advice right you're thinking about doing something your board is thinking about doing something you're wondering if you're conflicted or not or a fellow board member is conflicted or not you write the ethics commission it's just a matter of sending them a letter pretty much there's no form there's no money there's nothing like that and when they get the letter at their next meeting they'll talk about it consider your situation issue decide on what the right advice is going to be write your letter back and send it to you it's as easy as that um and it's never punitive even if the advice is well you are conflicted if you were to participate in a vote like that you'll need to step away something like that never any kind of punishment involved they give you the advice and they just trust that you're going to take it um and some of those are published on their website which is a good thing because when an advisory opinion is published then your your field service representative and your school board attorney and njsba legal and njsba as a whole kind of get a read on you know what those sec's interpretation of the code of ethics and the act itself is and we can offer guidance to our school board members that we serve so publishing it is a great thing um but it needs six yes votes in order to be published and for some odd reason i'm not exactly sure why there's not a lot of them that our that are published and right now i think there's only six people on the commission at the most so i'm not sure if we're gonna get too many more um in 2021 but we will see they are useful when they come through but only one was published this year and it wasn't even that illuminating quite frankly um ethics complaints are a different story ethics complaints are the ones that you hear about all the time right because that's when someone's upset with you that's when someone's mad and they're gonna file an ethics complaint they think you've done something wrong they're very convinced you've done something wrong so an ethics complaint is about past behavior and unlike an advisory opinion which can only be requested by a board member about themselves or their fellow board members right so only clifton commissioners can ask about clifton commissioners you can't ask about patterson you can't ask about wanaku you can't ask about verona right um ethics complains anyone can file an ethics complaint could be a fellow board member could be someone who works in the district could be a parent could be someone who just lives in town could be someone who lives five towns away and it's just reading a newspaper about you could be anyone and it's about behavior that has already happened and could not be corrected right because it's in the past and the other thing about ethics complaints is that they do carry a penalty if you are found in violation of the act and this is these are the penalties um ranging from least to most severe what happens is the commission determines what the penalty would you know what they think the penalty should be if they find a violation and the commissioner of education either affirms it or kind of adjusts it right so in in ascending order a reprimand is just a real simple one between you know it's just a letter between you and the commissioner of education saying that you've done something wrong and it always cracks me up to say oh just a letter from the commissioner of education telling you you were bad like that's kind of a big thing but it's not as bad as a censure because accenture needs to be read from the deus so that's a public statement that you violated the act that's pretty bad um a suspension is even worse because yes the commissioner of education does have the ability to take you off your board for a certain amount of time especially if the ethics commission has recommended that and in severe cases you could even be removed from service and there were two decisions this year where the sec wanted to see the board members removed and we'll talk about that a little bit later on tonight but again these are the penalties they are very embarrassing all of them not not good and the other thing about um ethics violations or ethics uh filings is they go on the school ethics website no matter what and once they're decided every detail every freckle every here is on there with the ethics advisory opinions those are scrubbed you don't know who's asking for them what district there are no names attached but there sure are with the ethics violations right um and here is how the commission did its work last year they drafted 21 advisory opinions so they sent out 21 letters with all sorts of great advice i guess but they only publish one of them as i mentioned um they heard they decided upon 28 allegations of school ethics violations 28 24 of them were dismissed right four cases were recommended to the commissioner with penalties two of them were my district's friends so i hope the next time i give this uh presentation i don't have to say that any of my districts were involved here but this year fifty percent of them are um mandatory training violations look at that center tab um out of the 5 000 board members or so who serve in new jersey 22 of them did not do their training on time 22 and 8 of them were kicked off their boards four of them were suspended right 10 got the reprimand but eight were removed this is a kind of a serious deal so do your training and don't do it on new year's eve our servers always go down i can't find somebody to help you if you can't access the online training it can be a real mess do your training as soon as you possibly can um uh advisory opinions before i get into this anybody have any questions i'm doing so much talking anyone got anything for me i have it on question kathy okay what you got okay so um since we had changed our election from from november to april and then back to november yes so our two cycles um we have uh four years on one you know one term now yes i'm taking governance for this year will i take it again if i'm elected in november i believe you will yes clifton is really ground-breaking in this way you really are um but but but the rule is first year of a re-elected term so keep it clean and and do it that way all right okay i heard a blip does that mean that someone is commenting because i am not good with comments did somebody comment and ask a question all right excellent okay friends yeah just unmute yourself i'm not good with ray's hands i'm not good with chat room very bad that way so but i love to hear your voices anyway so no shame in unmuting okay any other questions okay um here's the advisory opinion you can read it at your leisure um a superintendent basically wanted to promote his sister-in-law um from cafeteria worker to secretary and the commission said in very appointed language maybe really it's that's really the only interesting part about is the language they used uh the commission said nope that would be a conflict so it wasn't all that helpful but typically when you're talking about ethics violations here's where they come from the code of ethics so we're going to go through that there are subsections from a to j um on this and there's where you know this when people do bad things a lot of times it comes from not following the code of ethics and the first subsection we'll go through all the subsections briefly but the first one is the easiest really it's that you'll obey the law right state board of education tells you to do something you gotta you know you'll do it right quartz tell you you'll do it so a is easy b is my favorite okay b is the poetry and the law really and b is why you guys are school board members right um and i and if you don't mind i'm just going to read this out loud and it is that and this is a requirement under the law to think about this that you as a school board member will make decisions in terms of the educational welfare of children and you will seek to develop and maintain public schools that meet the individual needs of all children regardless of their ability race creed sex or social standing right children all children it's as simple and also as complicated as that but this is why you are here friends and this is why honestly it is my honor to serve school board members because all my school board members want to give back to their community right um and so do elected officials right but you're not on the town council you're not in the state assembly you are not in any other elected position other than being a school board member and your work is for children and that is an honor honestly um so b is clearly my favorite part of the law and it i will also tell you this friends it's kind of hard to find a violation of b but there was one this year so we'll get to that very depressing um c continues the job description right you'll confine you can find your board action to policy making planning and appraisal that's what boards do right they also communicate with their public but the commission doesn't care all that much about that policy making planning and appraisal that's what boards do and you will help to frame policies and plans after you've consulted those who are affected by them what does that mean does that mean you have to send out surveys every time you make a decision no public commentary will certainly take care of that but it's all about those three things and you do that with your fellow board members right and the jaw and that dovetails beautifully into d which um if you have not heard this before right you will hear it a million times and you deserve to this deserves to be shouted from the hilltops this is mighty important um but this also takes a while for people to understand it gets violated all the time but simply put it's not your responsibility to run the schools but to see that they are well run together with your fellow board members okay we don't do the day-to-day friends this is another reason why it's very rewarding to be a school board member because you're the right you're the 30 000 put you you are the what are our goals for our district what are our communities aspirations for our children's right what's the best educational program that we can provide for our children within our means that's why you're a school board member for the quotidian stuff that's what your administrators do right and this is why our boards can be can be made up of lay people right i don't have an educational background i i worked in banking right my whole life but i could be an effective school board member because i didn't have to worry about running the schools right i didn't have to and also the other key phrase here my friends is together with my fellow board members because nothing happens without a majority vote right that's together with your fellow board members when you are not at the dais and you are not taking action on agenda items you have no authority right it's all about the team it is all about the body it's never about just one board member right and that slides very beautifully into subsection e which unfortunately can i just real quick oh of course absolutely is that danny i hear you it's danny uh because you can still recognize your voice even after a year thank you well you know you know my feelings for you i think you're amazing i just wanted to to stop on that last one because you know that last one is every superintendent's favorite uh favorite one and uh we don't have that issue here in clifton i'm i'm so thankful because i've been in a situation where i've had that um but and i don't want to take away your thunder but do you have that slide later on with the light bulbs i do not have the slide with the light bulb but you want me to ask the light bulb riddle danny and see i love it i love the light bulb riddle because i think it explains really well uh the role of a board member i am so happy to give that and and for your public to hear it too because a lot of people don't quite understand the board members role right but the old joke is how many board members does it take to screw in a light bulb zero frank the teacher's pet got it right zero is a hundred percent right why not frank why doesn't why doesn't it take any board members to we need light what's going on with that oh my gosh i don't know how to explain this correctly but it's um it's the superintendent that carries out the day-to-day um taking care of the runnings at the school of the uh schools right right exactly does anybody else have another take on that because he's right there's another way of putting it right it's it's kind of biblical right it's up to the board to say there be light we don't change the light but we say let there be light and it's up to the superintendent to decide what kind of lighting to use so if he wants to use led if he wants to use fluorescent if he wants to use candles that is his prerogative the board's concerned with the light now danny may say i got a great deal on candles and we're using open flames and the board may say uh i don't know about that danny is that okay could you please explain to us why we shouldn't be concerned about safety or fumes or this or that and he will do that and he will explain to you that and after he carries out his program of you know lighting all those candles and putting all you know and making the district light nice and light um he'll come back to the board and tell you how it went and he might say you know what i've decided led is really the way to go the candles didn't work out for this reason or that reason or this reason so let's align our resources more towards led or he may surprise the board and the candles have a nice glow and they're great for you know meditation and social emotional learning has taken you know a few steps up in the district ever since we've used these candles you just don't know you have to trust your superintendent to work the lights right you just say we want some lights he does everything else and you evaluate his performance in that method and we're getting towards the um superintendent evaluation season so it's important for you to know that that you do have a say in how that worked out on the superintendent's evaluation but what you do not do is you don't go to the microphone and i'm so glad it's not an issue in clifton because you're right danny it happens in a lot of places right where a board member will say will pontificate over you know what kind of choices of lighting they want or what they think is best and that's not our call right thank god thank god i love dee um did i explain that to you you know did is that making sense to everybody i know i get a little cathy judy bassford yes judy hey could you could you give us a couple ideas of um what would be uh considered running the district the daily operations do you have any like small ones there are as many ideas as grains of sand on the beach right um one of those things that i that that pops into my head because i was researching this for another presentation today is the board member who demanded that the curriculum director um give him reports that's not you know that's not the board member's job if the board wants reports they may ask the superintendent for that um but board members do not talk to staff right as far as demanding anything or checking on that we have one employee it's the superintendent it's a super that's one example um there's there's there's a hundred million but i i could be here all night and we will tell and there are some violations as we go through the uh through the presentation from last year i believe too so we'll see those i hope that answers that question um e is another problem it goes hand in hand with d if you violate this one it's very very similar um and that is as far as the amount of times that this thing gets violated and that is that you know authority rests with the board and not with the individual so you can't go around saying i'm the clifton board of education yeah we'll get your niece a job oh yeah the board's seriously we're going to close that school or yes rezoning absolutely you know you tell me what you wanted to have done and i'll get it done that is an absolute violation of e again you have no authority when you leave the board table and no one commissioner makes decisions for the board these are agenda items that you vote through i mean board membership is very methodical friends it's a lot of steps and you know but that's that's the best way of doing it that's the way of doing it um f i probably don't have to spend too much time talking about because it's pretty evident that you're on the board to use your independent judgment right you can't be the wall carrier for anyone and certainly not for partisan political groups or special interest groups you don't use the your position for your own personal gain or the gain of friends or relatives right that's not good g is very verbose but i can sum it up in two words really and that's no leaks if something is in executive session it needs to stay in executive session if you have confidential information it needs to stay confidential and not just because you want to stay in line with the ethics act right or the code of ethics but because you're a human being and because when these leaks happen they damage lives and i'm not kidding you right so g is mighty mighty important um h i love h again it speaks to the reason why we can't have boards made up of professionals and and individuals from all walks of life because our educational leader will identify the best hires for us so we need his recommendation before we vote on a personnel hire right they need to be recommended by the superintendent okay only one exception and that's a danielson hearing um but other than that thank god those are very few and far between but other than that your typical agendas you're you know when you're voting to approve new teachers new principal new business administrator you need the recommendation of your superintendent hi i love i i is my favorite right after b sorry dan i love d2 danny but i love i because i gets you out of so many bad conversations you're at a cocktail party and pete and all of a sudden you see three parents coming at you and they want to talk about the coach right you're at church and someone wants to talk about their daughter's teacher on the phone all the time right whatever it is if this hasn't happened to you yet it is going to you can't take part in those conversations my friend you bet you rely on i you need to put support and protect the personnel the school personnel and the proper performance of their duties right and it's never been more important especially in a year like this one right so i've always loved i pre pandemic i love it post pandemic but i really love it now um rely on i which dovetails beautifully into j j speaks to the chain of command um and the chain of command for all those who are listening i'm sure the commissioners know this very well is you start if there is a complaint or an issue or a concern you start at the lowest level right so that parent who was having an issue with their son's coach right take it up with the coach if not then go to the athletic director if that doesn't work then the superintendent you work your way through the chain of command you do not go to a board member right away the board is the court of last resort and notice i said the board not a board member right and a lot of our public don't understand what we do as board members and it doesn't make them bad people and it doesn't make them bad citizens but we do have to take the time to educate them what that chain of command looks like because if they try to insert board members into the process beforehand they're really compromising the whole situation right and and you may even if it ever does come before the board you may have to recuse yourself and that's just a quagmire you don't want to be in um and notice here my friends that um the board will act on complaints at public meetings only after the failure of an administrative situation solution and what that doesn't say is only it doesn't say a popular administrative solution or a happy administrative solution or an acceptable admit it's a failure of an administrative solution so just because the solution does not exactly line up with you know you know kathy q parents you know wish list um might not you know it's still going through the chain of command properly and does not necessarily belong in front of the board but in the meantime in the meantime if and when you hear complaints because you will you do need to let your superintendent know and when i say let him know i don't mean that you call him and say danny i heard this i need you to get on it danny i heard from kathy mrs hello or she's all upset give her a call and find out what she needs danny follow up with me blah blah any of that business no you just let him know what you heard and then you back away and you're in line with jay if you do it that way okay if you try to take it any further than that you may very well be in violation of the code of ethics and the ethics act so those are all of our subsections i know i've done a lot of talking but i am wondering if there's any questions or thoughts on these things from my my friends here in clifton miss hello i do have a question hey joe what's up so based on inj so when we get a lot of times when people send an email to the board and they send it to the whole entire board and while i would love to reply to that i can't so i always just tell them forward to the superintendent and say fyi and and that's it what is the best way to handle those situations and how do you communicate back to the the person who's relying on you reaching out to you saying you know here's my situation laying out in front of the board how do you get back to that person without violating these these ethics that's a great question and you know what you certainly can get back if a person is emailing you directly right you joe right if they're emailing the entire board let the president handle that okay but if they are emailing you because they will right because they know you or an individual or this or that just explain to them why you can why it's not appropriate why you can't take any kind of action but you'll ask that they move through the chain of command you educate them on how to do things right but you're just not their guy and in the time you'll tell danny but you shouldn't on it even you really as a best practice not tell them i will let the superintendent know even though you have to because it's a code of ethics only because that gives a false impression that they're jumping the chain of command or that knowing that you're telling danny about things even though you're required to is going to bump them up the ladder you know if you pump them up the priority list that's not the case that's just the way it has to be done um and it does require some finesse you know it really does it may require a couple of tries if a parent or a you know constituent is asking you the same question a lot of you know often but that really is the best way to protect school board service does that make does that sound practical to you i mean i'm just wondering so kind of anymore kind of but i i have before replied back that um you know i'm referring to this the superintendent and forward it over now is that considered a violation or is that like you say that that's like a middle ground i don't know how else i would tell the person the person reached out to me so i'm getting forwarded over do i just reply back and say thank you like i don't even know what would you even say other than i'm sending to the superintendent no don't say yeah well first of all yeah stop saying i'm sending it to the superintendent to be quite blunt because that's not that's not good that's creating the impression that hey joe's my man i'll send it to him he sends it to the superintendent boom it's taken care of when that's not the way it's supposed to be right and i will tell you that also erodes staffs trust in the board because they're skipping over a bunch of steps right i'm a school principal why is this board member referring all my parents right to the superintendent that's not the way it should be done right i'm just kind of paraphrasing here what a principal might think um so what you would do is you would explain to the person look there's a process for uh for our district to handle these things it's your child's teacher um talk to the school principal if you don't make satisfaction from the teacher and they'll take it from there and if you don't receive satisfaction from the school principle then you elevate you know you go up the line and you command but typically these complaints are solved well before or the superintendent imagine if they weren't all of the things that go on in the school district the size of clifton right problems are getting solved every minute right every minute of every day thank god we don't have to to deal with them and it's not fair to give the public the impression that we do you know that's just not our our job description does that help at all does that help yeah it does it just the only piece i don't like about that is it doesn't like nowadays people love communication they want to hear back if i send an email to the ceo of apple because my device is broke i want to hear back you know thanks for your complaint we sent it to the customer service somebody will be reaching out to you or whatever the situation is just from a customer service perspective it almost makes me feel like you're just throwing them aside you know what i mean right well you know what joe you have to trust the system too you have to trust your district from a customer service perspective and um and i get what you're saying even though we're not you know this is this is a school district right so it's not really the same exact thing but i totally get what you're saying um your customer service is educating the people who reach out to you what a board member does and what the district's procedures are kathy i have a question yes i have a question uh judy bastard i don't know if you can see me i recognize your voice my friend okay my my question i i agree with joe because we have some people in this district that will get very antsy if we do not respond back to them but also depends on the situation if we if we get an email from a parent saying that uh a principal or teacher's been abusing their child i don't care what chain of command i'm sending that to the superintendent because he that has to go directly to him well you have to look the jay says any complaints that you hear you right bring to the superintendent no matter how small so really what i do is i say to the person thank you for your concerns and comments i you know i don't speak for the board nor do i take action on to for the board on on my behalf i said and usually i write that i'm forwarding to the right person or the proper authority whatever i wouldn't even honestly judy don't forward don't forward in my humble opinion your attorneys will lead you through this i'm not an attorney but what do you do what do you do if it's like somebody telling you that there's somebody being abused or a child being molested or something like that yeah well you have to comply with the law right and i don't know the law of hand so that's a great question for your attorney but for the more mundane things right like my daughter's teacher is on the phone all the time you know uh the bus is always running behind yeah we wouldn't even respond to this disgusting my kid's getting bullied all of that business right that is the kind of thing that board members don't get involved with at the ground level you just do i usually just send it to danny i say fyi because i you know it is it is because right now we are in a very sensitive we had a lot of sensitive stuff going on the last couple of months with uh the schools being closed and i think danny wanted to hear what was going on so i really didn't get one but we got one we got one about two weeks ago and i forwarded it to danny because you know i didn't know what to do with it and i just told the person i don't speak for the board i'm not gonna i can't answer you on this i don't speak for this group so somebody hopefully you know you will be answered it was all about the referendum it was about the referendum so that's danny so um yeah you know i i just said that you know hopefully we'll be able to address your concerns as a group that's it um well i'm wondering if it would be helpful if we kind of had a draft today a response a typical response that board members could use that basically outlines what you said you know i would appreciate that because i you know you don't know what they don't know what to respond back to people yeah and you know what that's a great idea and i will tell you this my friends um veteran commissioners remember tafari anderson right and if you ever emailed tafari he had an automatic reply that came back with a version of that right i don't remember what the gee i wonder where he got that from i am telling you i could probably d i don't know though my emails only go back like a year but um i might be able to dig it out and you could use that as a template i have it i'll forward it to you all right friends you may want to build off of that that could be a good thing to do i mean automatic response just i think policy might that might be a good thing for the policy committee to do you guys have a policy committee i think right that might no we don't we just fly by the seat of our pants some boards don't have a policy committee and they put their policies in front of the different committees you know a personnel policy in front of personnel or this or that but um that might be something in some ports have a governance committee instead of a policy committee but that might be a good endeavor yeah i think that's a really good idea just the short and sweet about you know that i've read your complaint here are the steps that that you can take here's what my role is as a board member uh and judy maybe we could bring that to policy we could draft it unless yeah unless there is any uh advice sometimes sometimes the board appoints a spokesperson too for their board that nobody responds unless the spokesperson is responding i i think the idea of having a dr uh uh a template for a response is really great that way everybody's saying the same thing um and the spokesperson for the board is the board president you know yeah absolutely absolutely thanks early for for so actually can we talk about that for a second so the spokesperson for the board is the board president but if we're in between meetings how do we then as a full board discuss with the board president what our feelings are about how to reply to specific emails how do you handle the communication in between in between board meetings um i don't see i don't see a disconnect there joe because when there's communication between board meetings i mean i think you're talking about emails and and people emailing you their their take on things or this or that is that is accurate yeah so so let's say let's go back to this other case where we had a something sent to all of us if we wanted to reply if we wanted to then forward that to the um to the board president and say you know i think whatever it is you know whatever the situation is um can we have that type of communication or is that not allowed uh that kind of you know and der lee's if you want to chime in here again i'm not an attorney but what i'm hearing here is um already the the email went to the full board right right so your board president is they're on alert right they need to respond to that person not you now you could certainly call about how how would they formulate their response not knowing what the other eight members are feeling um it's kind well i will tell you this it's it's uh it's i think it's fact specific but part of these things i suppose is just to listen to what your your constituent is telling you if the constituent is asking some kind of a question about action that the board has already taken or discussions that have been in front of the board then the board president can certainly offer that information but if there's something that the you know the emailer or the constituent or whoever's getting in touch wants the board president to kind of project like which way do you think the board's going to go or has or considered this or that then that um you know then the board president certainly can't say what the board is going to do or how the board is going to consider it i mean they can say look we're listening to you thank you very much for offering this up um you know this is actually going to be in a discussion topic on our next agenda or in a couple of meetings or whatever um but i i think you know just by the very nature of board governance being so methodical a lot of the times people will email the board president and the board with questions that cannot be answered at that time you know that will require board discussion makes sense and and and i hope i'm not talking out of terms early please you are um you are a very valuable resource in this area no i agree i mean if it's something that's that big uh that's that then it would require having a meeting maybe have a special board meeting to discuss it thinking you've got um you know that requires input from everyone um like you said it's very fact specific it depends on what the particular question is yeah and again joe you know like i said this is a report so if you're getting these emails and you're not sure what to do right call your board president you know ask for der lisa's input you could call me you could call njsba we will help guide you through these things it's not all on your shoulders right it it it isn't and it is it does take time to wade through these the danger in violating the code of ethics and the ethics act is it's not something to be messed around with we want you to keep your nose clean so rely on your team you know and everyone um kath uh robin meehan wrote the actual response years ago i'm deleting myself and back in 2011 so i have it i have to go checking for it i'll bring it to policy and then we'll we'll let it run its course terrific yeah and you know what i wouldn't mind it's probably in robin's files i could probably dig it up uh but you know what you you know my email address judy where pals you can send it directly to me no i don't know your email address okay thank you i had a bad day being snarky it was rough today i mean i don't know what's going on it's it's been a reward it's been a rough year it's been a rough year for everybody and i will tell you i mean it's just never been harder to be a board member especially with um you know the school reentry plans it's been very difficult and board members have been asked to do things um you know and consider things that really have them on the hot seat you know but like i said at the beginning and and unfortunately you know the ethics commission has been very slow to issue you know illustrative guidance in the form of advisory opinions i don't know what they're hearing you what they're deciding upon with their advisory opinions but any little bit would help really so in the meantime we rely on what we have right and what i said at the outset of our presentation is that this is the same for every school board in every district every charter so although you may feel like you know but our district is dealing with this right but it's this way in our district the ethics commission doesn't care they are going to decide on an ethics complaint for clifton the same way they would for frank itty bitty franklin township where there's more corn stalks than people by a long shot right it's the same standards for everybody so um just kind of keep that in mind and and and i hate to make it seem like you always have to be careful but you kind of do you know you kind of do but the good news is that you're not alone we'll help you you know we'll help you and the work that you're doing is very rewarding because it's for kids you know so you want to do it right you want to do it right i sent it to you danny and jim smith thank you thank you any other ques thoughts or comments or this or that from for my friends in clifton okay i know i'm doing a lot of talk but i appreciate the i appreciate your time trust me and we're already and we're already coming up on an hour so i'm sorry for him if you don't get to hear all of this brilliant presentation but you're going to get you're going to get a copy of it i just wanted to go through some of the things you know judy you were asking for examples before well we could talk about um this is like my everyone's favorite part of the presentation what bad board members did last year right um and there were a few examples that are significant um one is a person who just did not fill out her disclosure form right and she got a censure um but this one speaks to that whole reply all thing joe this is a real interesting one for you for everybody right so this one i forget what district this was oh yes i do east greenwich right in south jersey um a teacher who was also a parent in the district emailed the full board emailed the superintendent and copied the full board right and the email that she sent had to do with an item that was previously dis or an instance that was previously discussed in executive session in executive session during a board meeting now this particular individual was not part of executive session and i don't know what the email said i i can't remember what it was but she was just opining on the issue right but it was executive session material sends it to the superintendent copies the full board on it a board member reads this and has some thoughts right and has some thoughts so he uses the dreaded reply all button to add to the conversation and put his thoughts out in front of the superintendent on the board now veterans know that this is just very bad behavior on a couple for a couple of reasons one is you don't use reply all as a board member it is a violation of the open public meetings act because that starts a conversation and conversations be among a quorum of the border greater need to happen at the dais whether it's an executive session or public session needs to happen at the dais and reply all is the antithesis of that right so that's a problem but that's a sunshine law and the sec has nothing to do with the sunshine law right that's superior court but the reason why this is in my ethics presentation is because the parent slash teacher was still cc'd on that email was reply when they hit reply all the parent got it so the parent slash teacher was privy to discussion that happened in executive session confidential material so that's a violation of g and um and also the commission did note you're probably you're likely in violation of opmah but we're not that's not our bag but you are also in violation of g and you get a reprimand okay so avoid that reply all you may think you're doing someone a favor or you know it's good governance it's not trust me in that situation if they just hit reply and not reply all is that okay you're not okay that is okay that is okay whether or not that's a good thing is is you know kind of fact specific but that's in line you know the initial email went to the entire board and then you replied back to the person as long as you're replying to you know an individual then that's okay okay it's okay i mean it's probably not the best thing because if you want to have a conversation it may be best for the deus but again that's pretty fact specific so you know consider that but replying is all right and sending out you know emails to the full board that's okay there's nothing wrong with that one-way stream of information that's okay and answering back one person that's okay but not a reply all you know if if somebody you know any kind of thing that looks like a conversation is no good is no good derelies i i hope i didn't i hope i made that clear and that would be in line with your advice but you know please excuse me if i overstep perfectly no no perfect thank you okay thank you thank you it's good to have you here um this decision was out of lodi and this one was horrible right i'm glad that this um this was just bad um if you read this it's on the school ethics commission's website this was a board member who maintained one of those blogs right one of those you know about town blogs or what have you and this predated his board service he was at odds with a teacher in the district so he made lots of posts um about exactly what he thought about her and he used very um intimidating language she used profanity um put a picture of her house up and named her street it was awful right it was awful it was and although he said in his blog that he was not speaking for the board he did mention in his post that he was a board member so the sec found that um you know yeah absolutely that was in violation of the ethics act it was in violation of subsection c e and i and this person did get a six-month suspension from their board well deserved if you ask me um and he's not serving on his board anymore but he still does run the blog so there's that um this one is one of my districts this is montague and this was a 29 page decision very interesting which obviously i'm not going to walk you through but basically montague um used to send its kids over the border to port jervis new york for their high school agent for middle school and high school education um but at some point uh and it's a divisive issue in the community whether they should stay in new jersey or go over into new york right they had been doing that for generations but at some point the board petitioned the commissioner of education to change that arrangement keep the kids and the money in new jersey the kids would get a new jersey public school education which we know is superior to new york's um and uh you know the commissioner agreed it took a long time but that they started sending their kids to high point not everybody was happy with that and a particular individual was elected to the board she became board president and she real and her son was going to be attending high point regional high school she really stepped over the line she definitely wanted him to go to port jervis right um if you read through that decision you'll see a lot of examples of behavior that will really curl your hair including a violation of b right a violation of b that you will make decisions based on the educational welfare of all children right not just your kid not just your kid violation of b is rare but i will tell you this friends i worked with this board member and she's not a bad person she really isn't um but she went over the line and i think that this illustrates that sometimes if you have a particular point of view you can really or an agenda it's not always a bad word right but sometimes you can really go overboard and find yourself at odds with the ethics act so just be very careful um and this one is a local case you're probably familiar with this a board member in patterson the commissioner was offered a trip to arizona by a vendor board member said look i'd take the trip but you know what that would conflict me out of the vote i can't i can't vote for your products i can't even discuss them with my board so i mean i don't know you know why you'd want me to go to arizona they said oh just go it'll be fine you don't have to participate and vote just learn more about our products and the board member went and he did he recused himself from the vote and from discussion but that agitated someone and they filed an ethics complaint and the commission did find that board member in violation of the ethics act and like the prior decision like the prior decision that i talked about from montague the commission want thought that the appropriate suspension for this board member would be removal the reason why the montague board member was not removed is because it took five plus years for that thing to be decided and by the time it was decided she wasn't on her board anymore this decision the commission really did make no bones about it i mean they wanted to make an example of this board member they wanted to make sure that other board members don't think it's okay to take trips like this right like people are always offering up strips right but they wanted to make an example of this person and they recommended removal the commissioner of education disagreed he thought that that was too harsh and he amended it to a six-month suspension the board member is appealing it because he feels that he was conflicted for sure but recusal was you know would have taken care of that and that's what he did um so he's appealing the suspension he's suspended right now he asked the new commissioner of education if he um had to sit out his suspension during the appeal and she said yes so this is still kind of developing we'll see what happens and it's local so we'll see um and speaking of conflicts of interest um those are spelled out in the first section of the ethics act and here they are right if you need interpretation on what these mean rely on you know um your attorney um you know like i said njsba legal can kind of help you with that as well you may need to write for an advisory opinion but for if you fit the description under any of these categories right you can still stay on your board but you cannot participate in the discussion or the vote leading up to these agenda items and it's not just that in case there's a benefit to you but also a member of your immediate family right so a financial involvement for you a financial involvement for a member of your immediate family what's a member of your immediate family um your mom is not unless and your grandfather is not right it's only a spouse or dependent child who lives with you right so your dad is not a member of your immediate family according to the ethics commission but your dad your mom your grandma your niece they are relatives okay this is a very wide-ranging definition right all of these people are your relatives and the reason why we need to keep this in mind is because we need to determine when we're conflicted or not if you have someone belonging to you in the immediate family realm or the relative realm who works in the district in clifton you would not be able to participate in the hiring process for your superintendent which we won't have to do anyway we got one got a good one um but you also cannot evaluate your superintendent and you can't weigh in on his contract whereas miracles or anything like that if you have someone belonging to you who works in clifton for the clifton public school district right but um i have i have a question so the infinite relationship that i have that you and i always talk about is my second cousin i can really consider my first cousin even though it's not under there i is it safe which i do all the time is i put her down anyway just to be on the safe side better safe than sorry um i would you know what faheem i and and please forgive me for not recalling that um but you know what i would ask for der lee's opinion or an advisory opinion i mean because it said you know if you feel like you're conflicted then no one can force you to participate in a vote um but you may be missing out on some important you know matters of governance uh that you might not necessarily need to so you know talk to your attorney uh or ask for your attorney's input on that thank you since because that person probably falls under the category of other if you look at this slide right let me where is it this big relative thing guess what's not on here cousin right it's not there but a cousin could qualify as another and certainly a second cousin right or his cousin's spouse or this or that i will tell you it's kind of interesting what shows up and cousin has showed up in the other category before also an ex has showed up in the other category so it can be very fact specific you know you may want to write for an advisor opinion just to make sure you keep your nose clean but if you feel conflicted right and you have a real valid reason for that which it sounds like it does then you know then recuse yourself that's perfectly fine thank you no thank you and that that was um and it's and thanks for sticking around i'm sorry this is a little longer than anticipated um but so we we talked about this business right um but also where what a relative is an immediate family member is that plays into the collective bargaining agreement um veterans have seen this before this guidance has changed over the years but this is the most recent guidance that we have this came directly this chart came directly from the school ethics commission in an advisory opinion 8 24 17 you'll find it on their website and basically what it says is that if a member of your immediate family or a relative works in the district you're out of negotiations from start to finish but if you or a member of your immediate family works for the union in another district you're out at the start you're back in at the very finish right when the memorandum of agreement is reached all your salary guides are nailed down ever you know all the total compensation packages is agreed upon you just need pretty much what it translates to is it's the final vote most of the time you're back in you're back in if you do have someone belonging to you in that wide ranging right that big relative thing who works out of district right who works in cedar grove who works in uh manalapan who works in cape may then you are in then you're in but you see those asterisks right absent another conflict you might not be completely and you have to you know make sure that there's no other conflict the most here are three of them that the commission has identified in past advisory opinions the most popular of these is the heightened union involvement thing so if my nephew works in pompton plains and he is on his uh negotiations committee then i can't participate in negotiations in warren township as a board member right if my sister-in-law is the president of her union in verona then i'm probably out but get the opinion of your school board attorney to keep your noses very clean um also you should know that if the union formally endorses you then you need to sit out of negotiations for uh you know the net until it's until it's settled right the the round of negotiations that happens after your um after your election right so you're kind of out for a year but endorsement is interesting there was that case a 10-18 from from 2018 was where a board member was running unopposed he was a member of the negotiations team and the union wasn't too crazy about him so they offered him their endorsement and they offered him money knowing that if they gave him his their endorsement and he took their money that he would be out of negotiations for a while he refused it didn't need the money didn't want the endorsement but they endorsed him anyway no money changed hands and when i say they endorsed him anyway they sent out literature to their membership endorsing his candidacy right and saying what a great candidate he was so when he was re-elected and of course he was going to be re-elected because no one else was on the ballot um they came to and said oh we're sorry board member but you're out of negotiations you're conflicted because you know got our endorsement and he said oh no no no no no gonna write to the ethics commission and they agreed that he has every right to participate in negotiations that wasn't a valid endorsement but the decision hinged if i'm remembering it correctly on money like there was no money that changed hands so it's kind of interesting and i think you should uh keep that in mind just you know and you can read this on the ethics commission's website there's all sorts of interesting nuggets on that website believe me doctrine of necessity i'm not going to waste much time on that's if a quorum of the board uh or greater are conflicted on a particular item you have this for your reference i don't think you guys need to use it in clifton much if at all um but i did wanted to mention volunteerism because for many years um volunteerism just wasn't an issue right and school board members would volunteer all the time and i do believe in fact i saw on social media that commissioners went into the classroom and well into the virtual classroom and read for read across america day right that's volunteerism is that at odds with my board membership well not that no not at all and one time non-executive kind of things where you're a chaperone or you're reading at read across america day or maybe you're helping out on field day or participating in career day that's fine you can absolutely do that but some board members in the past stepped over the line an advisory opinion was asked for and written and it does you know and it's not a bad thing because sometimes board members do get a little close to violating d right when they're in the school all the time and they're getting too close to the to the way the schools are run so we do want to keep our nose clean um so um and not you know but up against the ethics act or the code of ethics while we're trying to do something good so your friendly field service representatives have made a seven question questionnaire before you go into the district to do some volunteerism whether virtually or in person after this pandemic is over ask yourself these questions right um am i giving any kind of orders or taking orders from students or staff am i going to be doing this very often um you know back in the days when we actually walked into school buildings would it look to visitors like i worked there like i am really enmeshed in this thing um that's not good and don't touch the district's money either don't touch it don't touch it now you can volunteer for the pto or the girl scouts or the rec commission or any other kind of volunteer organization that has its own bylaws and its own bank accounts it's not the school district so you can still sit on the pto executive board and support pto activities that's fine but what you cannot do is you can't um you know decide to institute you know clifton middle school archaeology club right i think that that would be a great idea my graduate degree is in archaeology i'd love to bring that to middle school students and start a club wouldn't that be great well yeah for a lay person but not for a board member because that starts to get to that thing where you're regularly meeting with students and giving them directions and in the school ethics commission's estimation that is at odds with your board membership so unfortunately you wouldn't be able to do that um but when in doubt you know ask for the input of your board attorney and you can always run things past me to begin with if you want um so i'm just wondering before i leave volunteerism are there any questions on that or anything else that i've talked about okay all right because that's kind of a letdown for a lot of board members i know but i think we're getting used to the guidance it's not a bad thing um interview committees the board has one employee and it's the superintendent right um but this and the superintendent owns the hiring process that being said um the superintendent may want to do an interview committee and may not um so someone asked for an advisor asked the the commission you know their advice on uh interview committees and at least two separate occasions and two decisions were issued they're up here and what you can glean from those is that the commission does not like interview committees at all you know it's these the decisions are very verbose they go round around saying that they're just not a good idea but the superintendent owns the hiring process so if he wants somebody on his commission committee he needs to ask not the other way around right not like oh yes you know i asked the superintendent he said yes no he needs to ask you right you might not even want it he probably doesn't need it but if he wants it he can ask for it however the ethics commission did put very narrow um definitions on what's acceptable and what's not i mean it's really kind of micro like there can only be one or two you can only listen you can't ask questions it's kind of i don't know why they just didn't say don't but they didn't so that there's the guidance on that what is also interesting though is someone asked years prior in 2010 if the board could do exit interviews and that decision was very succinct and it was a big solid no that that's a violation of d so it's kind of interesting to contrast these but this is the guidance that we have so um you know the bottom line is the sec does not like interview committees but if you're going to be on one it needs to be at the invitation of the superintendent there can only be two of you max and you can't do much just listen really kath kathy i have a question did the ethics commission ever give any guidance or any uh any recommendation in the decision on interview committees that also included members of the general public um i don't know if they were talking if how i don't recall if they mentioned members of the general public on that um you know again that's the superintendent's purview um so i don't think that that would really come into play um what they were focused they don't have any jurisdiction over members of the general public so they were really focused on board members roles okay i was just wondering because uh yeah i i don't feel comfortable being on any of these type of committees because we're first of all we're not employees of the district and it's just this whole legal thing so thank you i'm sorry well you know remember i mean your superintendent is the educational leader of the district so i mean what he sees the district's you know administrative needs are i mean you know let him do his j he'll do his job right if he feels like the district will be best served by having two board members on an interview committee and remember this was about an interview committee right hiring then he'll do it right then he'll do it so a lot of this honestly is just letting the superintendent do what the superintendent needs to do you know and let board members stick to their job description and it's good that it's spelled out um because sometimes the word ethics is kind of gray right it really should be black and white but it's it's very gray and that's why i really do appreciate every time an advisory opinion is published we just don't have too many of them but we do have guidance on interview committees interview committees okay so thanks for asking that judy um and that kind of brings me to a close on the material that i wanted to go over with you um and just some some helpful hints really is um just make a list of where all your family members all the wide you know net all your relatives where they work right because god forbid something happens and the integrity of your collective bargaining agreement is in question you don't want that right you don't want that friends i mean i trust me trust me i'm in a painful situation now with a board that didn't realize that they had a conflict uh when they were hiring trying to hire their superintendent and i don't wish that on anybody so i don't wish that on you for your collective bargaining agreements at all um and you know like i've been saying consult with your board attorney not directly of course you have to follow your bylaws and that means going through president smith or danny or perhaps mike um to get that kind of opinion but you know ask your board attorney if you're if you're confused right if you really need an answer you may wind up waiting for an advisory opinion and always read your school board notes because if there's something new or interesting or some kind of change or something that you need to be aware of that's coming from the commission or the state board or the courts um it's going to be in school board notes so um that is that is my ethics presentation but i will kind of wrap it up with this um you know uh every year there's all sorts of um you know commencement addresses that you hear and most of them let's face it are forgettable but a few years ago um i heard a commencement address from xavier university and the speaker talked on ethics i think this was probably during that whole enron business and he said 99 of ethics is kindness and that's definitely not in the law friends it really isn't you're not going to find that in the school ethics act or anywhere else but i do think it's it's a pretty good barometer and i do think that if we treat each other with respect and if we go by you know uh we have that do's and don'ts sheet that i that i sent to you all electronically just kind of look at that keep that in mind keep that on your refrigerator if you do that and you're familiar with the code of ethics and you're familiar with the school ethics law you're gonna be fine um it is you know it is a team sport i've said it before i'll say it as many times as as you need to hear it you're not alone um we're all here to help you because you know what it's about the kids at clifton and that's just a big honor for me to help you in your governance and i can only imagine i know your board membership is important to everybody here so um if if this presentation helps to protect your board membership then i'm very pleased with that um and that's kind of all that i had to say on ethics training tonight but i'm wondering if there are any thoughts or any questions or anything you guys want to put forward because i know it was a lot of one-way talking for nearly an hour and a half never a really good thing um and this is a lively bunch i know if i were here for in in person there'd be a lot of conversation going on so does anybody have anything these ethics don't apply to the state legislature oh jim hi it's good to see you i'm so sorry i could barely hear what you said what did you say could you repeat yourself yes i said these ethics don't apply to the state legislature no comment but yes this is a school ethics act yes a school but i know what you're getting at jim and i'm not going there yeah yeah it it it's it's a it's just for school board members and school administrators and the code of ethics is just for board members obviously so it's good to see kathy i have a question i'm sorry lucy say thank you sorry judy i just want to say kathy thank you but um i'm gonna go because you know always at night my arm is like the worst so i broke my arm so i broke my arm in my right i am so sorry and i and and i'm sorry if this if just sitting here listening to this made things no i had an ice pack on but you know what it's like at night i guess just from the whole day it just it kills me and it's like you know like right in the center of my i don't know they say that's when it's healing i have no idea i never broke anything i mean maybe my commissioners have some advice i don't know but i'm so tired i'm so tired of it hurting i'm like tired of hurting i'm tired of wearing this thing i'm just tired of sitting here i'm tired of everything i'm just tired i am so i feel in your voice lucy yeah i'm just i'm frustrated i'm everything i just want to like be in school and just doing my work and you know what i mean like i you know dealing with that aggravation but that's it you know but i i just like i'm tired of i'm i'm beyond like bored and and just in pain you know bored pain and that's it so on that note because i'm just gonna stop talking at this point i'm sorry judy and i'm i'm just gonna go okay oh that's fine no you know what it was good to hear your voice i'm sorry you're in pain you know what i hope there's better days ahead stay in touch okay thank you well you did a great job very comprehensive and thank you and um goodbye good night to all the other board members you know lucy okay take care of you good night you take care of yourself all right thank you bye-bye anyone have any other pains they want to share with us yeah you know i'm telling you i have a question i really have a question i hate hearing this stuff it makes me feel awkward it's so hard and with something like that i think people don't understand how much work board members do i really don't i really don't i have a question about social media was there any decisions made on uh like because we're all virtual so i have two screens going right now i have the agenda up on one screen i have i have the board screen on the other and you know we're looking back at what how do i phrase this in the right way um were there any ethics opinions on like um social media like us being live on this but also answering questions on social media at the same time um you know not that i know of judy the only advisory opinion that was published this year had to do with that conflict right um but i will tell you that um you know one of the cases that the that the sec decided on had to do with that social media blog right which was pretty vitriolic if you don't mind my saying so that so that was almost obvious right again not the most helpful thing i think if you read that and those blog posts it's like clear like this is just not you know the way of going and that you need to go um but i will also tell you this um i was talking to one of our attorneys today um and he was opining that the ethics commission does have a lot of cases before it now that have to do with social media and and behavior on social media they have not made those decisions yet um they are not public yet i do and i've been if i if i got what john was telling me right i think that they are complaints i don't think that they were advisory opinions so eventually those are going to get published we'll see we'll see um and thank you because any time that we use any other kind of like like i said i have my two computers going one has the agenda on it and one has this because when i had to read my minutes for a policy or from another committee or we have to take a vote i can't use the one application on one device because it doesn't support it's not enough memory my worry is that um any time we use anything else such as our phones or um if we answer something or if that's creating an uh another person being in a meeting and if we're answering social media posts while we're in the meeting that would actually be creating a dialogue with other people because you're now responding to a question that somebody that didn't come to the public in this type of venue so i'm i'm curious i i when you get them if you see any opinions on this stuff i'd be really interested in why and reading that because that's one of my it's one of my big worries yeah watch your school board notes you know as soon as those things are published it's going to get into school board notes right um and social media had i mean they're kind of behind the times man we've been having issue you know questions about social media for a long time for a long time but i think just by the very nature of the pandemic and the fact that so many meetings are online and accessible to the members of the public and um the the things that boards and superintendents are deciding upon are so um critical like the reentry plan and you know virtual learning and hybrid learning and in school that it does open the door um to behavior on social media that needs the ethics commission's attention so we'll see what happens we'll see what happens thank you kathy and sorry lucy i cut you off before i don't think lucy's with us anymore i think she's uh she's you know resting at home rightfully so so um any other so but thanks for offering your thoughts judy i i appreciate i'm wondering if anybody else has any other thoughts i wish i could see everybody i'm so sad i can't see you all is there is there any other board members that might have any thoughts or questions for kathy we don't want to uh we don't want to prolong uh this if everyone's done kathy spoke for a very uh productive yes mr awad yeah i just wanted to ask one question i'll just carry out uh i'm just a little curious uh miss kathy uh first and foremost thank you very much for the great presentation i just had a small question as just as a new board member that's still you know kind of picking up the learning as i go uh is there any uh rules or regulations when it comes to ethics when it comes to like family members or uh friends or community members that kind of basically uh speak on behalf of uh people on the board that they said this and that or causing confrontation or questioning what's going on policy and stuff like that oh my goodness yeah what a wonderful what a wonderful but but sad question if you don't mind my saying i'm dealing with this in another district okay and it's here's the you know it's a great great question um the the school ethics act applies only to school board members only to school board members um so family members spouses cousins you know kids of school board members um you know anyone belonging to your friend this or that they're not school board members they're not covered under the ethics act right um you're not to violate g so if you were to give confidential information to a family member and they take off and run with it then that's a violation right you need to use your independent judgment so i mean it you know but as far as as eight as i believe it's um f goes you know that's more talks about political organizations and partisan organizations and um than individuals so it's it's messy it's messy um unfortunately and i say that unfortunately because this poor board that i am dealing with um in another part of the state um is having real issues with family members inserting their business into the board on social media by the way um and although i can't you know no one can file an ethics charge against this board member's wife or whatever um it's really damaging the work of the board it's awful um and it's not a violation of the ethics act it's not a violation of the ethics act but i did tell that board member um you know and i and i hate to like to air dirty laundry i almost feel like i'm doing that but i'm not telling you what district it is and i serve like 69 of them so you won't be able to guess but you know i said you know you got to tell your wife to to knock it off you got to tell her to stop it you know your your fellow board members are not taking kindly to this you know remember it's a team sport you're all in it together it's a pandemic you have to work together even if you disagree and this is not helping this is making things a lot worse a lot worse so i don't know if that answers your question and if you have follow-up questions please ask me but um when you talk about family members getting involved in board business it may not be something that can be addressed under the school ethics act or the code of ethics but it is very bad for board business um you know and i'm saying that as someone you know when when my district was looking to close a school right or thinking about it because the enrollment was declining you know my husband would go to all those board meetings right you know that's okay he's a member of the community he wants he wants to listen i get it you know and uh and quite frankly when i got home from board meetings the last thing i wanted to do was keep talking about this stuff so that's okay but i couldn't let him insert his opinions into my work you know it's my independent judgment that got me on my on the dais that's what my constituents want my independent judgment not his you know so although i must say i thought it was like a little bit of a funny visual to have kevin at these all these board meetings you know he could do it but he was he he was good he was he was good he didn't do anything that um that compromised my ability to work on the board and certainly nothing you know that would have me violate the ethics act so sorry if i went a little long on that but does that answer your question is that illustrative at all no it was perfect thank you so much oh you're welcome i'm never perfect but thank you for saying that all right is there any other board members have any questions if not um i would like to open this to public recognition i believe mr mountain told us we don't have anybody but i will read the the statement anyway this portion of the meeting is open to the residents and non-residents of clifton for the purpose of addressing any subject matter pertinent to and directly related to the operations of the clifton public school district residents and non-residents are request are required uh to state their name and municipality and subject matter comments are limited to five minutes per person issued raised by members of the public may or may not be responded to by the board all comments will be considered and a response will be forthcoming if and when appropriate the board asks the members of the public be courteous and mindful of the rights of other individuals when speaking specifically comments regarding students and employees of the board are discouraged and will be responded to by the board students and employees have specific legal rights afforded to them by the laws of the state of new jersey the board bears no responsibility nor will be liable for any comments made by members of the public should consider their comments in light of legal rights of those affected or identified in their comments and be aware that they are legally responsible and liable for their comments if anyone from the public wishes to speak and has a question um for miss hello we'll take all the public comments together and she will answer those that the best she can when all questions have been asked okay and mr mountain excuse me i just want to add that the link for anybody who does want a public comment the link can be found on our website okay the link can be found on the website we'll just give a few minutes to see if anyone will come in but right now mr mountain is telling us that it is empty um kathy uh on on behalf of the board i'd just like to take this opportunity while we're waiting to see if anyone from the public comes uh to thank you for taking your time um out of your schedule i know when we were going over dates i don't envy you with all the responsibilities and dates that you have but your job is so important to us and other members of other boards of education so that if we can all get on the same page education will run much smoother so we truly appreciate taking the time to be here in clifton i will be asking you again to come back possibly uh once we know we could be uh in person for uh some some time that we would like to have a board retreat uh not just on ethics um and so we'll be asking you to come back and you are a friend to clifton you're always welcome here and we truly appreciate all that you brought to uh to us tonight um just the public to know that uh ethics is not a fun subject it's it's not um it's not a a real entertaining uh topic but so necessary for us so uh we felt this was important to um educate um and i think miss basford you were you were very um uh influential you you you've asked for one of these um uh ethics training and i thank you for uh bringing that four four right to uh forthright to the board um because i think it was important and that was one of my goals that we did this as soon as possible so i'm glad that we were able to get this done so i i thank you for that and we may need a refresher course down the road and uh i know you'll be more than happy to come and do that but i think it was also important for the public to hear uh some of this um so that they understand and know the procedures many people uh don't realize that you know uh we brought in our wonderful superintendent to do a great job of leading our district and he's doing that and the board is here to support that and [Music] and to make policy and we'll continue to do the best job that we can to support him and support uh education and kids in clifton and um having those ethic reminders um you know sometimes you just don't think that you're or what's you know my opinion sometimes you don't purposely think that you're you know violating anything or that you did it on purpose and you just you have to step back and say whoa you know let me go over a b c d e and all those wonderful letters that um i will remember uh for a long time now um so it was so very helpful to uh to re-educate us and uh having served on the board previously and seeing you know ethics um was around then but some things have changed today so uh just because you sat on it later earlier there are new i mean social media wasn't existent when i was on the board previously so you didn't have ethics uh geared to that so i i just think it was so important for the board to get and i thank my fellow board members for allowing me to set this up uh and for inviting kathy in and um i hope everyone felt that it was uh helpful and uh like i said kathy on behalf of all my board members we truly do thank you for uh for a great job tonight jim you are so kind it's been such a long month and to hear something so nice um really does mean so much to me thank you and uh you know what you said that i'm important to you guys are important to me seriously so thank you for this opportunity and you're on for that retreat especially if we can do it in person friends i want to see you um i will wear a mask i will social distance we'll do the whole thing and uh and now that we got all this ethic stuff out of the way do the fun stuff okay absolutely i see frank going like this what let me just check it through mr mountain anyone uh in the public wishing to speak no mr smith no one joined okay could i entertain a motion first on the board to close public recognition since there's no one waiting i will make a motion to close public portion casper second bye who is it mr kenobi oh daley me mr won oh a what i'm sorry uh okay uh anyone else okay thank you all for attending thank you kathy uh dr roberto did you want to say anything before we leave kathy knows kathy knows how i feel about her thank you kathy my absolute pleasure danny great to see you again and before we do go kathy if we are in person i have to find those two friends that we had got to interview or uh yes you did we had our interviews and and you don't have to social distance from those two do you i know i don't even think they i'm not having any of that i'm sorry that that violated my ethics right there i don't know are you alone are they still where are they still hanging out in that library or we don't know right i mean has anyone hit them on me the pandemic jeez those poor poor ann and andy man that's uh i was gonna say somebody doesn't want to share what you're talking about here you know now we we had raggedy in and andy on all of our uh interviews for these superintendents we did they were they were special companions of franks they were really good at keeping things confidential um no no no it was about focus radiant and andy out of the equation so we could focus on the issue because we had to find the best person for the job that was it it was and you guys did great work and and if roberto deciding your fate i mean i always wondered how i was this chosen i was worried they were injustice spies you never know if there was a microphone in there oh my goodness sure we could stay here all night but uh i thank everyone for uh for attending and um motion to adjourn by mr daley second by mr casper all those in favor aye opposed so carried thank you all good night everybody good night

michael robertson of the 26th west hospital hills not to be confused with wendy robertson i'm not on the school board and i don't speak for her and she does not speak with me or individual people this is my statement arriving in 2016 my wife and i didn't choose ajo lightly we had friends here and fell in love with the place but as parents of two school-aged children our primary consideration was the school we met with them then principal dr carrier and some of her staff we talked to teachers we enrolled our daughters first semester only then did we commit to ajo and we remain committed but over the past couple of years my perception of the school has dimmed i've volunteered on campus i've come to know several teachers i've seen some of our best teachers leave aho i've heard their stories grown angry the staff at ajo unified school district are not treated like professionals many of these as many of those who stay share a discontent and however positive their intentions their poor morale lessens the classroom experience for our children the community isn't blind to this i know families leaving or who have left otto because their kids educations must come first the attrition is terrible for otto and i blame this administration and the board that enables it shame on the school board reporting to keep dr dooley in power for another year shame on this school board for going years and years without checking his power to treat staff poorly where is the employee satisfaction survey that was requested almost a year ago dr doing knows if you had a clear sense of how unhappy our teachers are you would not have predicted this contract last month but you didn't and you did and sadly you did so when there are smart eager administrators all over the state that would come to ajo for the opportunity to lead our district that's what our kids deserve and that's what this board has denied though and i fear the extent to which that decision will harm otto another thing we're all aware of the 500 000 district budget shortfall that will further diminish our children's school in the months and years ahead i urge the board to be clear about something dr dooley is to blame for this shortfall not coveted as he would have you believe what did dr dooley do to encourage parents not to unenroll their kids i never read an op-ed in the copper news explaining the importance of keeping students enrolled urging the community to stay unified during this crisis pledging to do whatever was necessary to keep kids enrolled presenting a non-ingenuity option anything he should have been on the phone personally to every single family because it was that important he failed and now we're in dire financial straights i'm worried for ajo worried about this board's ability to do what's necessary to save our school and all right the next daughter is informational items and the first is discussion of personal items 8a for the regular board meeting are there any questions about any of those all right yes please thank you madam president um looking at the agenda for march 10 personnel the first time on the personnel agenda is administrative regulation this is something that has been discussed in-house for a period of time and as [Music] resignation uh the second agenda under personnel uh contracts uh for teachers for 212 school year uh last month we approved uh several a number of i forgot to how many were the number uh teacher contracts for 2122.

everyone i'd like to call tonight's meeting to order welcome all of you good to see your faces i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all as most of you are aware we have had a tragedy in our school district over the weekend and our hearts and our prayers go out to that family and if you would let's let's have a moment of silence to remember christopher thank you very much item number four is the adoption of our agenda this evening if i could get a motion to adjust to adopt tonight's agenda please i'll make a motion tonight any discussion questions comments we'll be talking about this in a second however may i have a second for this motion thank you all in favor item number five is a review and possible revision of our board procedures um it's been brought to my attention that you know there's a couple of things that we could be doing not that we're doing it wrong but that we could be doing that just to enhance everything that we do so for your information in front of you on the back page of your agenda item is just kind of a cheat sheet if you will for the robert's rules of order and then there's a lot more that for those of you that received your tactic before now could go over or you might fire and run over no and like you said a lot of this is it's really up to the board uh because years past we did usually in fact when i was first done i made a second on the motion and we said well we're not doing that so that is very standard procedure so you know that i would suggest might be a good idea mike in the comments i would second um i would also suggest that when a motion is on the table inspection or debate around the merits of that before a vote is asked for i think that that uh in every case in other words what you're saying right exactly and so that's immediately and then more discussions so there's no discussion before the motion yeah you have to have the motion on the floor somebody has to move to make the motion and then attack it then then the discussion occurs uh before then you you call for any votes or amendments or anything like that so there are two discussion sessions that they said that you know i think what mike is saying and this is fairly normal uh roberts but the motion's not on this on the floor or the session you don't poke it off right so if you wait until you have a motion and a second then it's on the floor for discussion then you can call the chairman then can call for a vote at the close of the discussion no doesn't i think what you may be talking about penny is there's going to be a presentation by usually me or somebody else as there are we are a small group there's five of us there's a very small group of people in this room when you give a presentation i don't want anyone on this this panel to feel that they have to wait till a motion is made before they can ask you questions so there may be some clarifying questions and then based on the discussion the motion and the second is a debate which is how many boards and committees that i'm on does larger awards committees for sure any questions or comments okay so we had discussion which we weren't going to until we had a motion made but i don't know that emotion could have been made without discussion on that one so with that being said this is an action item to adopt whatever it is the board deems necessary there's not an action requested on this agenda item so whoever chooses to make the motion please make it very clear what your proposal is for the elements of the proposal yeah i'd like to make a motion that that's a motion to be seconded and that once it is seconded then we will have uh before a vote a request for debate or discussion and if there isn't any then of course maybe all you need to do is say after the presentation of the matter then he asked for motion and a sentence to make sure that we know that the staff presentation is heard after the agenda item was called and before emotion is made to put it on the quote is that clear sort of what john just said so what we might do the main the way in which we might say it is of course the way in which to proceed on an actionable item is to give opportunity for seeking information an informational phase if you will part of a uh an item that's on the agenda collecting information a motion then based on that and then if there needs to be a call for discussion before the vote motion second call for discussion debate is that clear for everyone before i ask for assignment yeah karen you got that i think i'm wondering we'll get there in a second after we have more discussion i think i want to absolutely make sure you all know it is okay to ask a question anytime during the presentation exactly otherwise this motion is going to take 20 minutes and we're going to forget what the motion is right so just to feel comfortable in like what you're doing and you know we will mess up at some point it's okay all right we have a second on the floor all in favor aye aye aye aye thank you item seven a super attendance report i think there's a six that you still need to do yes i don't know if we have it either oh i'm so curious to tell you more people standing there is there anyone here that would like to speak all right so um there is a superintendent's report on your at your um care so we're going to start with enrollment there's actually two papers two pages attached to this that have the enrollment um as of last wednesday um the district is down just over 147 adm where the 100th day compared to last year's hundredth day um pretty much evenly between the schools our hundredth day was march 2nd and you might have seen kids dressing up at territorial they they dressed up like um seniors will say with gray hair and canes and everything else was kind of amusing to see those tiny little kids on their 100th day celebration but um it was also really across america day so there was uh celebrations of just reading so that was exciting to see but our 100th day was march 2nd so now it's just a matter of taking those numbers and tweaking it shouldn't change a whole lot so that's kind of where we're at and we still think that otherwise we should be okay um questions on rolling no but i that really was fun and i bet that uh there was a good picture of a young lady on facebook that i think matt took that was really good a trans western pipeline this is something that i think peter that you might have been dealing with when you were on the board um so again for those that don't know trans western pipeline is the gas natural gas pipeline that goes from actually along the 40 and tees off in ashford and comes through our district and humboldt and mayor and then also it impacts the county and the library district and kafma and all these districts and um public entities that collect taxes collect taxes from transwestern for property tax for several years transwester has been fighting their assessment in court with the state the department of revenue does the assessments for pipelines since it crosses multiple uh counties it's called a centrally valued item centrally assessed items the count the uh trans question is saying that the state is giving it too high an assessment they won every time in court however the estate just keeps doing the same asset our same calculation that they've always been doing and losing in court and what that means is we collect money from them we collect too much money and end up having to give tax money back to them uh because they are being over taxed by not just us it's also ash fork and seligman and all these there's again dozens of municipa of um government entities that are collecting taxes from transwester so um in january you all approved a resolution to request a recalculation of our state aid so we should be getting some of that money back and then the rest of that assessment that we have to pay the transwester gets passed on to the remaining taxpayers and actually including transwester has to pay a little bit of that back but whatever they get back and we don't get from the state goes to our taxpayers so a couple things have happened one is that there was a the legislature passed a law saying that the department of revenue has to use the assessment that the court says so if there's a court case and the department of revenue loses they have to use the assessed evaluation that the court says is appropriate so that means we no longer will have this happening in the future which is a good thing the second thing that may happen and this hasn't happened yet but there's also a bill still alive in the legislature that would pay districts back the money that they had to pay back to transwestern so that would not be passed on to our taxpayers so that would be a good thing so that um it would not increase our tax rate for the district we would get that money back from the state and um you know we're actually in a pretty good pretty good shape we owe a lot of money in the hundreds of thousands of dollars but there's some districts like ash work that owe a lot more than we do and are much smaller than we are and it's it's really a hindrance to their um tax rate and things like that so um this is actually a good thing and i know i'm hoping i never have to talk about transwestern again to be honest but because it's been several years that we've had that we've been dealing with this questions a quick asa update asa is arizona school administrators i've volunteered to be the secretary treasurer for the superintendent's division and i just want to let you know it's not going to take any hardly any time away from my superintendent's position but i just want to let you know that that's going to be out there in your book there is the brand new district spending report looks like this guy right here and this gives you some information about how the district spends its money on it and uh this is for fiscal year 2020.