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i don't know as what it is as of today but the last time i checked really okay thank you sure um were there any other questions uh andrew the in the 20 classrooms that are going to be outfitted with the technology have those rooms been identified they have not yeah they have not um you know and that's something that we would you know make a determination over the summer you know and try to get those installed for the start of the new school year but um you know we may have some variations to how we originally designed those rooms and you know i know that marlene has been gathering feedback you know from the teachers um that have been using them to see if we make some tweaks to the next round of installs to make it better got it thank you are there any other questions on this section of the presentation seeing none then continue on brace yourself i'm going to bring up the medical benefits report so for um the month of april the claims were about well not about a million 32 000 so you know we did see claims drop january and february is expected but unfortunately they've come back up in march and april to the million dollar level this month we did receive an additional seventy three thousand one hundred twenty two dollars in stop loss reimbursement so the total stop loss reimbursements we've received for the year are four hundred sixteen thousand dollars just under that um and so the net decrease to the trust fund balance in april was two hundred twenty eight thousand nine thirty six as of month end in april the medical reserve fund balance stood at just lost my screen there on second um 996 706 dollars so we've got you know around one month's worth of you know total reserve left we have two months remaining in this fiscal year um you know the the claims they are what they are we're we're hoping that they they do subside um and we know that as we enter the 21 22 fiscal year you know we've we work with the board and the town council on increasing that budget line so that we're funding um our claims you know and our contributions are in line with the claim funding for next year there's been discussion of although the town council hasn't approved their budget yet you know the plan is to uh essentially contribute 1.5 million directly to that reserve fund balance to shore it up so that as we go through next year you know if claims you know our meeting budget or above budget you know we will have an adequate reserve to work against um and you know we we are having some analysis done at year end uh by cigna and by usi our um broker um to take a look further into you know what what drove the claims this year we knew you know from the analysis that i've done and presented to the board that we've had an inordinate amount of claims over 25 000 that didn't meet that 175 000 threshold where we would get money back and stop loss reimbursements so unfortunately it was another million dollar month and we just hope it subsides and i'll stop there and see if there are questions um tony you had a comment yeah uh faith couldn't be here seeing i did talk to her today i was covering you know some things for me tonight one thing that uh i discussed i don't know if it's a political here vincent i know several years ago when the affordable care act was passed that the then board and town council got together and we uh with you and i believe our actuaries i don't know if it's the actuaries but our insurance broker potentially they want us through the whole myriad of fees and potential future costs that is there anything is there something similar that we can do with them to kind of walk us through this analysis uh so we have more detailed questions for example faith was asking about cpi percentage being utilized and other things i know it's um it'll keep bombarding you on this i uh i think the board may feel a little better you know hearing from them and you know taking them to task on on that but if it's an option we take it offline but this one put it out there was some an idea that faith and i had tossed around sure we could certainly bring you know a representative from usi's tom qualcek and i can actually bring um anna from cigna who's the account representative as well so you know we can make a presentation you know either directly at a board meeting you know or finance committee meeting that's easily arranged you know i would suggest we wait till we get to the urine numbers this way we have a comprehensive look at you know where we wound up for the year compared to last year and they'll identify and they they do this for us every year they do it internally you know to myself and you know the hr manager here angela latch we work with the town we do that together there's no reason we can't share that information yeah and have a presentation for the board i think it would be helpful yeah thanks for i didn't mean like anytime soon i'm thinking after the dust settles you know the uranus there's some questions for cigna um based on my healthcare background and um you know a few weeks ago you know the town council on budget we had a lot of discussion on this and we've seen the focus in the reserve amount but you know the reserve not not being touched the reserve amount is not driving these million dollar claims so eventually it's gonna get depleted so uh i know i'm talking to some colleagues in the town council you know still a little concerned about the the trend you know and uh as i understand that i think the town side is seeing a different trend i think might be slightly lower if at all so it's you know seems very applicable to us only not sure why yeah i know that i was talking to sean kimmel the town manager and you know there they started the year off in in very rough high claim territory and their reserve balance dropped to somewhere you know around two months but they've had you know very very good claim experience and their reserves are back up to five months now now they are smaller in terms of total employee size and claim size but they're in they're in really good shape right now okay that's all i had thank you vincent okay and you had a question yeah thanks um and before i forget then i would really appreciate some sort of presentation on that because i find this information a little convoluted sometimes but um also i know it's been mentioned several times but i'm a little uh unclear on how that infusing fifteen hundred dollars and taking it from where and and taking it out of our budget so i guess my question is so what does that do to our budget process next year okay so as as discussed at the town council what they want to do and i'll kind of make the numbers high level so we've requested two million dollars to be used to increase our our contribution for claims next year what the council is planning to do and they're going to reduce that by one million dollars i'll just put the caveat out there that you know the council can't control any individual line item so what they would ask that the board to do is when they reduce the budget that one million dollars that they are reducing our budget by for medical benefits that the board of education follows their lead so they're going to reduce our 2 million 2 million dollar request down to one million dollars so the impact of that is to make it easy we're funding a million dollars less than we need to keep up with our expected claims next year to offset that what the town council is going to do is take 1.5 million dollars and contribute it right to the reserve fund so our operating budget is going to go down from what our request is and so we won't be funding contributions to equal claims we're expecting claims of 900 000 per month next year we'll be funding about 825 000 a month but the reserve balance will increase by 1.5 million dollars so to the extent that the contributions don't cover the claims we're going to be dipping into the reserve that's been increased so the fast forward in the following year if claims are 900 000 per month again we're going to have to ask for an additional million dollars in next year's budget request so that contributions will equal claims so we're going to have pretty much the same discussion next year if the council does it this way it's not a bad solution but it does force us to have the same conversation again next year i know one of the things that the council expressed is you know they're hoping that our claims don't come in at 900 000 per month next year if they come in at 825 000 per month then we won't be eating into any of the reserve so they're basically buying a year to see what happens and that 1.5 million dollars you know is being funded um through the use of the funds that the town is receiving for you know all the different grants which is about eight and a half million dollars related to covet that was my next question so what's the advantage of doing it this convoluted way and you just answered that right well it's not convoluted if you think about it two and a half two and a half million dollar infusion in one year is pretty large so i think they're trying to fuse over two years but you know you know basically when asked is i'm thinking as you were talking about hey if we stayed in a hundred thousand dollar level which i'm skeptical of that until i see a trend we may be talking middle next year and with town counts about hey the trend hasn't changed we're still dipping to the reserves um you know finding that money sooner or later hopefully we'll get there but if we're gonna if the town sticks the course of fully funding the reserve for two years that's great um i i think we gotta get the root cause and these claims to really be sure of a ultimate plan that's my opinion yeah and and tony now you know add some information the town council did acknowledge that you know if if the 1.5 million dollars you know isn't sufficient and there's an additional infusion that's that's needed you know there you know there is the town's reserve fund balance that can be tapped hopefully we don't need to do that you know and then and to answer your question part of the the strategy is you know by doing it this way it does enable the town council to keep you know the budgets down on the mill rate lower thank you van you're welcome seems like catherine's question has been answered sounds like good um your question was convoluted or are you still would you still like to ask a question kevin you're also that's from ann that's not from me oh i'm sorry i'm sorry bye my apology uh for me uh i i'll just say that i'm i'm sad that uh the the claims continue at the million dollar level there was there was hope for a moment there i'm not sure how much hope there is now and um and i'm in agreement i think with with the rest of the board that uh we really need to get to the bottom of this to find out what what's going on if this is gonna continue if there was some sort of uh substantive uh change to the the demographics or to the cost structure um that we are completely unaware of and that the actuaries have not acknowledged or something uh to find out what uh our uh new normal will be for our our medical benefits so um i think that'll be great uh since it appears that perhaps our um uh cost allocations may ha may be determined already for next year but i think we'll come to that final determination um uh but to really get a handle on it um tim you had a question thanks adam do we so the new the new uh teachers contract which is what 350 400 out of 6 or 650 so maybe two-thirds of your staff right yeah okay so that starts july 1.
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we can start using it now through this summer through the school year and through next summer and the ending date is august 30th um 2022. thank you for clarifying that i'll open it up um for any questions comments uh trust me with haranno yes i just had a kind of random question i think but um on the your first page of the budget stuff that you presented i think it was the second item i think almost all of the items have a round number but there was one that that second one is like a specific number ends in like 288 or something i was just wondering is there a is there a certain dollar amount for that category that we need to spend or just was that the remainder that you just needed you couldn't round that number and no that's a that's a great question no actually what i did was um just in thinking of the proposal i actually got some um i actually got some quotes from some of our aces providers to see what it would cost to provide additional services during the school day and also what it would cost to hire some paras and just all of those different costs so it's just a round number it's and it's not a number that you know it is a definite number if they're all estimations um that's why that number came out that way so it's just a little more specific because you actually were able to do some work and okay thank you thank you trustee chavez you're on mute thank you i have a question on the um diagnostics progress monitoring um isn't that done by the teacher and bringing in somebody else would it be as accurate if somebody else is doing it versus the teacher doing it and could we save more money putting that money to mental health because a lot of the kids have a lot of issues there is what i've been hearing from the community thank you and thank you for the presentation sandra you're welcome um so so the progress monitoring would would be done by um staff at the school site uh it's more of paying for the services like the materials or the service that would actually be the diagnostics on the students and um all these monies are movable i mean it if we do see that we need funding in certain areas we we can move the funding but um we would need to explain why that funding was used in other areas yeah i like i like that idea that it's not solid it can be moved thank you i appreciate that thank you um and since i don't have to see any hands yet i'm gonna go ahead and ask her make my comments right now and then uh give my peers here and that's our fam a couple of minutes to see if you guys uh want to raise your hand before we go on to the next um thing so i'm glad that i heard in regards to moving um because well first i wanted to ask on on page on slide seven um and maybe i missed it in your presentation what the highlighted when you highlighted those areas out of the ten what the highlight what the highlight mean um so the ten areas came from the actual um lcap sessions the um i guess my question is you're highlighted yellow so the ten areas came from that and then we actually sent home a survey asking families to prioritize the areas and the the highlighted yellow are the areas that came out the highest in the service from the surveys on the service yes okay do you know how many people were in the first category the 10 and then how many people did the surveys um i want to say let me see i don't have the exact numbers i can get those for you but um so these are this information is from our lcap sessions and our expanded learning listening sessions so overall i would say about um maybe 180 parents took part in all of these sessions but we also had the different stakeholders we had students we had teachers we had principals we had our aces partners all of these different stakeholders also provided input that's great and i guess um the only reason why i noticed that the social emotional learning programs were not highly highlighted so then that explains why um but at one point it was you know people thought and and it sounds like you said it was an order initially that that was second to the highest at some point by some of our um areas where i can see the need um and so with that you know just in regards to the numbers on the um on our on the what you're proposing in regards to the budget um you know the 200 000 on the bottom is where i see the the social emotional learning programs more you know that fall under there um because you know even though like you know let's say the short-term counseling positions you know that's that's more one-on-one that can maybe address some of those needs but i think that social emotional learning you know which our community also thinks is important um you know it's least heavy on there and so just you know just some thoughts in regards to you know our partners and what they can provide because i am thinking of some of our students and you know when we provide summer learning recovery you know when we provide all these other areas for them to learn or to test and to see where they're at and to get them more help you know those social emotional needs aren't met then we can't really expect them to focus on the other things right it's like there's some basic things um and then those things so anyways like a match right um or when when you talk to some of these partners and we can keep some of those things in mind and i'm sure you are but i'm just looking at what's highlighted in the and the bullet points that are um outlined there um and i only see more of the social emotional learning highlighted more at the end which is a 200 000 so maybe you know shifting some of that money and providing our students with that um that need um so that was my thought um for now and i see trusty pam if i if i if i can clarify real quickly um christie um so so yes you're correct that at the end is the 200 000 for the training but um the the two million dollars in the integrated student supports would include um support for social emotional learning so that's through the um these two things aren't the only things that would support that area the mtss support multi-tiered systems of support which and sel would fall into this area as well i just want to reassure you that that that is a priority area and and because it was number two on the list in the forums um we made sure that we uh put that as a priority in the plan great i mean i look forward maybe i can learn a little bit more about that specific um you know the integrated student support um i look forward to you know reading more about about it and learning more about the programming that would be available for our students um because definitely the training is important for our teachers and counselors available you know but i'd like to see you know what else it includes um so thank you for pointing that out uh trustee pam ah thank you madam president uh and thank you sandra for putting this together uh you know uh i'm intrigued about the after school and the saturday academy because i realized that you know one of the concerns throughout this pandemic was learning laws and you know and i get it that it is sometimes very hard to learn through zoom and through the computer so you know if you could explain you know for us in an in a nutshell uh what what does so how what does the the after school and the saturday academies entail so uh the after school would be more we already have our um after school programs which provide a robust you know kind of homework help enrichment program right this is in addition to that for years we've heard parents asking for a place where kids can go and get some tutoring support or homework support on their school campus and so we found that this is an opportunity to do that that where you know um it could be a drop-in um where kids can go and it's staffed by a certificated teacher and or you know some para support um and we can have kids just be able to drop in or or parents come in with their kids and say you know we need some help on my child's homework you know can you help us and um it wouldn't be a full-fledged program like a three-hour after school program like our after-school programs you know maybe run for an hour hour and a half after school to provide that opportunity for students who need it the saturday academies would be more geared towards as i said is preparing our our 8th graders or even 7th graders if we find that some are at risk of not promoting that additional support in maybe they're just behind on assignments right or they um they're not passing their tests so they need support on passing a test you know so that they can bring their grades up so it definitely would need to be um something that we work on structuring because i don't have all the answers or structure right now but that's what the intent of the saturday academies would be okay and i think that's that's a great idea to fill in those gaps that we've had throughout this pandemic you know it's a you know a further opportunity for for students and parents to have that in-person support so thank you so much sandra thank you thank you uh trustee chavez and then trustee so um when i went to the lcaps that was like before the cove so when did this stakeholder input take place could you tell me the dates um that they took place please and then i have a follow-up question so this year um the lcap sessions happened in march march 2nd and march 9th and then more recently we had um two parent meetings for the expanded learning opportunity grant and those were um i don't have the dates for those but i can get them for you it was more recently this past month so march 2nd and march 9 2021 okay um because what i keep hearing from a lot of the parents is that um there was a lot more depression and a lot more need for the social skills um do you have you heard that as well recently yes and they were number one and number two in um the input sessions so yes absolutely we did hear that thank you mm-hmm yeah thank you sandra so um essentially i think what i'm hearing is these monies this is an opportunity for us to supplement or to add to existing services that we've had whether it's homework or um scl or whatever correct okay because i had some similar questions i think to also um trust and some of the other questions specific to social emotional learning and i know some time back for something else we had looked at the number of what we currently spend on social emotional learning so dr barr i don't know if you remember roughly is that like three or four million dollars i think was the budget that we currently have for all the programs that we do were social emotional learning right if you remember we presented that to the board with specifics and it's about four million dollars okay so we do so we to kind of address some of what i was thinking and it sounds like others too we still have those significant funds that we've been dedicating towards that and these are on top of that additional based on the feedback that we received to supplement those services yes so so so thank you for making that comment because um if you remember in the one slide i said that part of the plan is to talk about how we coordinate between funds so this is as you said in addition to what we already do and we already do a lot in all of these areas um but yeah it's an opportunity to expand and provide additional support okay thank you for clearing here thank you trustee chavez you're on mute i didn't see it allocated for um special ed is this money also going to be distributed amongst special ed students well they're not a specific um dollar amount for special ed but definitely our special ed students fall within these categories so they will be served i think dr bauer wants to add dr barr thank you for president i just want to remind everybody that these are this is the second part of the funding which is above and beyond is covet funds uh the elk cup is going to be brought to the board in june so you will see the bigger part of el cap in june to be brought to you where these monies are going to be integrated also but we need the the board support uh for this six million dollars before we're able to app to receive them so hopefully tonight the board um supports our report so that we can move forward requesting from the state uh applying basically for these funds from the state just the one you know wanted to remind everybody that that's how this work this is not the complete el cap thank you thank you um if i don't see any other hands up if i can call for a motion and a second motion to approve thank you and second by mr quintero and so now we'll move on um if i don't see any hands uh to public comment before we go to our vote yes madam president we have uh one speaker first speaker uh or our only speaker is miss brenda sandecas miss endeca so you have two minutes your time will begin when you start speaking hi everyone thank you so much sandra for this presentation i appreciate everything that you are doing i did want to piggyback on a comment that was said on mental health i think that um i can tell you firsthand experience how much our kids and i know you know this have been suffering um not only mentally but also socially i think that these programs will be really great for our students and um i just had a question for the summer school programs uh support service are we using well you can't answer but are we using uh think together and you know programs that we already use or are we bringing in new programs because i would love to see new programs um especially with homework and tutoring support because i know that a lot of parents do have comments with these programs that um predominantly have younger kids and usually they are overly packed in these after-school programs and they're not able to support all students so i just want to ensure that if we do provide any support for summer that it's hopefully something new we're bringing or more help um and also for communication i did have a comment i know that you used webpage email parent square but we're not using facebook a lot of our parents use facebook um a lot of the times they don't check their email or parent square and i think that we are not using the biggest uh source that we have which is facebook and even possibly instagram i haven't seen our lmroc open uh instagram which would be nice to have or even a twitter um to use these methods to communicate with parents because we do need a lot of parent participation 180 is really not much and i would have loved to see more parent participation in these important because this is important these are services for our students and thank you so much for everything that you're doing thank you jose do we have any others yes we have miss veronica miss veronica please submit yourself and you will have two minutes to speak great thank you um and i also um i want to thank santa for having the town halls and really providing um a space for parents you know to go into those breakout rooms to talk about with others um and here are parents and even some staff members were in in size different stakeholders um talking about the uh what our students needed and so i thought that was very helpful and definitely we need more of that but i also want to urge that we continue on funding uh you know the social emotional the trauma and form um the trauma and form uh just completely uh we become a trauma and form schools and district um many of our students are also not just facing with covid many of them are facing displacement um and many of the families don't i again staggering and moving into other people's homes um you know the movements that on stability that there is currently um so i definitely want to urge that we focus on the uh and that we also put our focus on the english learners um as well as students with in special education um that they become our front four and um that we see schools that have been struggling that we you know prioritize or make our decisions equitable in a way that reflects um who our most marginalized students are and our schools and that they're getting the forefront support that they need and that they deserve thank you thank you is that it mr uh yes at this time we have no more speakers thank you so much um and at this time go ahead and call for the vote um and i'll call your name as i see it trustee chavez hi hi trusty fam hi vice president quintero i and myself i passes unanimously thank you so much yes um there was no motion and there was no second that i this time there was there was yes so mr trusty pam motion and i believe vice president keep that all second yes that's that is correct thank you no problem thank you again um and with that we'll go ahead and um adjourning this meeting at 7 10 p.m thank you all have a good night thank you thank you
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and we must coordinate those with some of the federal coven relief funds the esser funds the most recent round of funding we must offer supplemental instruction and support to students foster youth homeless students low-income english learners and others that we designate as in need of service so our outreach to parents for this will come in three main phases it's already begun for the summer program that will begin here on june 7th um then of course there'll be a whole host of school site offerings that you'll see in a moment and then of course the summer of 22 will be the kind of third phase of the plan our plan development actually began in earnest with our lcap district advisory committee we were able to get the information from the state just in time for our last district advisory committee meeting we put a thought exchange into the field and got excellent feedback from parents and and committee members uh we did uh talk to an employee association about this and got some input on the learning components and their preferences there and had a chance to have an outreach with our district english language advisory committee who asked outstanding questions about these funds this is the general wordle of the comments we got back from parents and and staff members about what to do if we were to put together learning and supplemental they wanted to make sure that it was enriching and yet fun i was so glad to see that because this wasn't totally in keeping with the way our district advisory committee also was building our lcap meaning they were attentive to what some of these very same comments we heard tonight from the podium and that is the need for social emotional support for these students but also to do that in a manner in which help them re-establish uh a sense of just love of learning and so with that in mind our plan has 10 main elements like i mentioned expansive summer programs our summer offerings this year we have almost 900 students registered for five summer school offerings at the k-8 level and both comprehensive high schools will be having uh in large summer programs when compared to years prior with all kinds of creative activities included these feel like camp we're talking about a week that's themed kind of a beach theme rainbows science fun um we expect lots of messes to clean up but we've heard how awesome the maintenance and operations department is so they can handle it and we're just so excited to bring back those elements to summer and learning and so that's just wonderful starting the fall we'll be able to supplement our reading intervention plan this plan does allow for supplements during the school day so we'll be doing that at the k8 level in addition at the high school we will be adding some extra certificated staff so that the two new high school principals in the room are excited to know that they'll have some flexibility to make sure and offer those ninth grade students who need more intervention and feedback the opportunity to do that um and then extensive before and after school programs for credit recovery for the kinds of things that we know that teachers have passionate about but haven't been able to do because they haven't had the ability to have the students stay with them have the materials and have the time and so we're excited to have the kinds of things we had a teacher the other day say i want to teach a class about world war ii and and really offer that kind of excitement and enrichment and we'll be able to do those kinds of things um we will be bringing field trips back lots of schools have have told us they haven't been able to fundraise but now they don't have to worry about that part as soon as things open back up we'll be able to send students and have experiences out in the larger world we will continue to work on outdoor wireless access points for students to use common areas to get internet connection if they need it and we're actually working on an lte network across apple valley so that we will have an apple valley system for our students and staff to access wireless wireless network all our own in the last couple of things we'll be also augmenting our professional development to make sure that social emotional learning and this those skills are presented in a coordinated and careful manner to all to really continue the work we've been doing but with a focus that comes from the one that demonstrated need and the demands of our families and again we'll finish with the summer of 2022 informed by what we learned this summer and we'll buy the kinds of things we need for all those programs to occur so that's a real quick outline of the plan these are the general categories we have great flexibility to move these dollars as the need arises but as you saw we must report the actual expenditures to the state and so i wanted to go through that quickly for you and then answer any questions you might have well i just have a comment yes maria go ahead you know i will ask a question anyway um i'm just glad that uh this uh elo addresses mental health uh we have kept our kids indoors for a full year so it's very important that we take the time to reach out to them and know exactly how they're feeling let's let's deep dig deep into their feelings i think what schools have done systematically is to go straight into testing testing testing the children need to get back and get used to school again before we start testing again so i'm glad that this elo is um it is is capturing the essence of why we go to why do we go to school clearly is this so that we can pass a test or is this so that we can understand how what life lies ahead so thank you so much for bringing this up to us and we'll be paying attention to how that fund is spent thank you thank you any other questions of uh staff okay pat thank you thank you thank you yeah okay with that uh do we have a motion to approve the elo grants what'd you say we have a motion by blasting game second by maria yeah yes okay is there any opposition to the motion no that'll be the order moving on to jay consent we have 20 items one through 20.
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the other union contracts are they're not changing on july 1. right or administrators would so it's another 20 people something like that would adam just mentioned the cost structure do you have any do you have any sense right now does should is there anything you can anticipate based on the new contracts relating to changes in the cost of medical benefits no in any significant way no in fact you know the new contracts you know do call for an increase in the contribution that the teachers and the administrators make for the purchase of their medical benefits there is no there's no change in the core benefits we provide they have an increase the only thing that's changed is the contribution the employees make to have their insurance and what is that what does that multiply out to it's if it's even if it was 100 000 which would be on the high side times four hundred ten bucks a month or something it's a million seven for the year across all our employees that's the money that we will collect from them that offsets you know the cost of the medical benefits that we provide okay so two-thirds of that would be a million and then you're talking about going from what 13 to 14 for the first year yeah i'd have to look up because i don't want to call you the wrong percentages but it's it's 14 or 15.
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um if there's no items be pulled we have a motion to approve i have a motion to approve second emotion by maria second by blasting game is there any opposition to the motion hearing none that would be the order we have no staff reports that need any action taken kylie we have any more public comments do we not go do we not have anything on the police department reports it's a staff report miss okara okay so we don't have anything there it's just no action on it it's just a review okay uh any more comments from uh trenay yeah everyone comments yeah i just um want to follow up on the graduation we do have um the class of 2020 graduation occurring before the class of 2021 graduation um we will host an unusual event our kids that wanted to walk across the stage from both granite hills high school and apple valley high school will do that in a united fashion we are going to celebrate them as they want to be celebrated which is across the stage in person we are excited to offer that to them on monday may 24th it's been nothing but a feat of a lot of people agreeing to do what i thought was right for these kids and i stand back and let them make it happen so i just appreciate the entire staff on both campuses the cabinet zoe our pio and so many people behind the scenes that are going to make this happen and people stepping up to show up another night to support the right thing for these kids and then we move on to tuesday morning with high desert premier academy high desert premier academy will graduate both the class of 2020 and 2021 because of the size and they have the highest number of graduates this year and we're excited to celebrate that on tuesday evening we will graduate apple valley high school the 2021 graduation and then um granite will complete our tour of the stadium on wednesday the 26th this is a different event this year we are following all the guidelines we had to move the stage to the end zone kind of the end zone and use both sides of the stadium in order to accommodate assigned seating and spacing so that our families could each student could have four tickets that presents a problem because in the past people have bartered and exchanged tickets but because they're assigned they won't necessarily it wouldn't be appropriate for them to go sit with another family to to deal with it so um we're hopeful that this gets us closer to a normal event a year from now but for now we're we're excited about this um or i apologize miss calvin i cannot either it's been a pandemic it's that's what i'm going to blame it on um miss calvin indicated that it was classified employee week as you all know we took resolutions to the board a couple months ago to to deal with both certificated and classified appreciation um it was great to um identify some classified managers tonight and their work um but we did an ice cream social in a different fashion as a drive-through yesterday with ice cream sandwiches and we had fun with it and we appreciate that staff drove through and grabbed an ice cream sandwich and other than that i just appreciate everybody and the school year that we've had and um we're gonna keep going and be stronger for what we've gone through thank you thank you trini uh any other comments from board members adeline wilson i don't have any dennis no maria yes i do for those graduating students there is a great graduation higher learning option that is out there from victor valley college i'm hoping that they will all tap into that to um see if they could go to college for free at victor valley college if the other options are not available to them okay thank you maria i have nothing further we have no further uh close to go back into closed session uh so we'll go on the closing items any future agenda items that any board members want to bring forward no okay uh with that i'll call for the german at seven oh wait a minute the next meeting uh will be thursday june 3rd at 1 pm in the multi-purpose room there you go 7 40.
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okay so it'll probably be in my mind i'm thinking that's probably somewhere in the ballpark of 100 to 150 000 in a year 10 000 bucks a month okay so it's it it's different it's better from our perspective from management's perspective but it's not in the hundreds of thousands of dollars okay thank you you're welcome um i see no other questions in the chat um let's see uh vin were you going to report there's an agenda item for grant activity well did that we go through that already no no we didn't but the next item on the agenda is the town audit report um student activity operational review and then report on grant activity so yeah i skipped over all that stuff oops uh leah let's let's stay in order van let's stay in order all right so i'll give you an update first on the uh result of the town audit uh which is annual um this year though we do have new auditors the uh previous auditors for the town rsm um when we went out to bid they actually did not submit a proposal they're exiting the municipal audit business so bloom shapiro were appointed as the new auditors and they're auditing or they audited the 1920 fiscal year boom shapiro is is now called clifton larson allen cla for short so we'll start talking about cla in upcoming years um the town council met on may 11 and voted to accept the audit report for the 1920 fiscal year and i also wanted to mention that the town council also on may 11th voted to appoint cla as auditors for the 2021 fiscal year uh which was which was fully expected the first year audit um you know whenever you change auditors it usually takes a lot more time because the new auditors are not familiar with the procedures and the practices you know that occur on the town and the board of ed side so quite a bit of staff time you know on both sides was expended to complete this year's audit next year's audit should be more streamlined again that that was all expected overall you know the town did receive a clean audit opinion there were no material weaknesses or significant deficiencies identified you know which is great news there were two findings that i did want to mention to the board members in the federal grant audit that was completed on the board of ed side the um and there were two recommendations that came out of it one has to do with the audit of the idea grant which is roughly a million dollars per year that we receive to provide services to our students with special needs the way that grant is allocated for the most part is it's used primarily to pay salaries of special education teachers staff the secretaries who provide special ed support which we have in each school so one of the findings was that the allocation the formula that we used for the allocation needs to follow some universal guidance they didn't find that we were not compliant but they wanted us to look at our procedure have a periodic review done by the special the director of pupil personnel just to confirm that you know the employees that are providing services are providing them based on the allocation percentage special education secretaries 50 of their salary is allocated to this grant so the auditors are just looking to confirm that we review that periodically and sign off on it so that's one thing that's easy to implement and we've we've already you know essentially you know prepared google spreadsheet so we'll be able to comply with that and the audit is will look for this in next year's audit and the second item had to do with procurement procedures that have followed there was some new uniform guidance that was passed which frankly we weren't aware of um this applies both to the board of ad and town side so we've received a list of you know the guidance rules that we need to follow so we'll be implementing that you know working with the town staff as well and then the management letter that was issued there was some additional recommendations that were made by cla one is to have a fraud tip hotline um and we're working with the town on establishing that it's actually there's a company called frogtip hotline that provides you know a service um and it's it's pretty moderately priced so we'll be implementing that they also recommended a fraud risk assessment across the town and board of ed and the development of an accounting procedures manual you know so all three of those items the four tip hotline whether or not we're going to do a fraud risk assessment and the accounting procedures manual we'll be working with board board event and town staff you know to determine what we're going to do and how to do it so that is the update on the 1920 audit and i believe if it's not already posted the um the comprehensive annual financial report for the town you know which which includes the findings um and the letter of opinion from the auditors you know is posted annually on the town's website and that is the update on the town audit thank you mr massiana are there any questions about the uh audit itself the town audit not seeing anything here um we can oh today sure go ahead yeah vin you had mentioned that you were uh unaware of new procurement guidance yeah there were uniform guidelines that were passed that took effect in 20 20 19 20.
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we opposed to the adjourning video thank you thank you for showing up tonight you
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so you know we we got some of the base details on what it is they they advise that this is a common finding you know as they're as they're doing reviews of towns and boards of that yeah it's i mean that you missed it i mean i i get that but i'm just wondering about um who would normally give you like give you a heads up on that guidance because that's the bigger issue from my perspective yeah and normally you would we actually probably would get something like that from the audit firm um okay so it wouldn't you it'd be more from the auditors than from cave yeah most something like that most likely it's just like compliance with you know gasby rulings um you know and i i attribute some of the findings to you know a new auditor new set of eyes so there is you know logic in and changing auditors and this in this case oh yeah no absolutely priority firm didn't engage and you know i don't think the i don't think there's anything that we're doing that's incorrect in fact there's you know a lot of language about micro purchases that might streamline the procurement process for us so you know as as we delve into the details we'll be um you know incorporating that so that you know we are compliant yeah no i mean i'm confident that you're gonna figure this one out it's just going forward you know whatever we can do to try to get better guidance so we don't miss things because something could be a bigger deal that we miss yeah so yeah that's it thank you okay um seeing no other questions uh then um i guess uh could you move on to the student activity operational review yes so at the board's request um i did speak to um with jeff sullin jeff ziplow from cla so this is the audit firm although it's not the auditor partner it's an a partner that does more consulting and does a lot of internal control and review consulting work so we talked to them about the scope of of what a student activity review would look like and just to remind the board when we went out to bid they did provide a quote of twelve thousand dollars not to exceed twelve thousand dollars to complete a student activity review here for the cheshire public schools so what they explained that they would look at it would be a review of policy and controls they would review the controls on how we do our bank reconciliations you know they would look at the school size the size of the bank balances the number of transactions they'll confirm how funds are collected tracked and monitored they would test some transactions as part of the review um they would estimate that it's about a four week process to complete the review the first week would be you know basically interviews you know walk-throughs you know at the schools with the individuals that are responsible for the student activity management um and then the the balance of the engagement would be to do you know testing and further review so in terms of their availability they said that you know they can be engaged and start within a couple of weeks after they're engaged to do the internal review um jeff ziplow was the lead but also from cla was lindsey donato and you know the two of them would be the individuals that would be conducting this internal review so you know that kind of gives an overview of what the discussion was and really it's a question to the board on on how you want to proceed at this point in time okay um that's great news um so uh vin do you know do we have the authority to engage the auditors to do this audit or do we need to approach town council to get them to engage the auditors to do the audit i believe that the board of ad can you know conduct can arrange to have this done and and the report would ultimately go back to the board of education this doesn't have to be a town initiative at all great so um uh mr chair i ask you um do we uh do we need to can we make a motion or what would be the there's no motion on the agenda for this so um two things so here's what i suggest uh so vince thank you for following up on this i just want to refresh the board and and those that are watching very briefly what this is so i know for board members recall last school year just before the pandemic and the finance committee meeting were talking about this and moving it forward it came to a full board for a bulk to move forward but we didn't know what was going to cost or to scope the services covert hit and you know this was put in the backbone or some other things about some porn it's not that important here we are um trying to get this resurrected again and the the question of who pays for it's come up we can certainly pay for it certainly if money is available um so my question would be do we have the budget to do this it seemed to me that well we being the audit firm do this as soon as the summer months may be the best time because there's less noise going on and you know less impact and if we don't have the funds i have no problem asking talent if they can give us some but i don't know if that's necessary and ultimately it's not not a forensics transaction you know it's process because we have policy number 3453 which is 25 years old if any board member actually read that policy you know why we have to update it so the sooner we do this the better we can address this next school year and get that policy refined so i would suggest you know um maybe have a their next meeting or maybe a year-end meeting or whatever is coming up next let's have a vote on this and get it done and the question i have is then do we have to vote on a 12 000 expenditure you don't have to vote on the expenditure right you know i'll what i will what i could do is just encumber the twelve thousand dollars and we do have that availability so you know i would suggest that i know our next business meeting is actually june 3rd um you know i i would think that you would want to vote on the engagement of cla to provide the uh review of student activity and i didn't mention this but you know one of their starting points will be to take the current student activity policy and regulation and that they will use that to determine are we compliant with the regulation and then they'll give us what are the best practices that aren't included in our current policy and regulation yeah and that's the whole point of this um again i we we judge ben and i we've talked a lot about the school year there were deficits we're going to approach it timing but um so let's plan for the june 3rd meeting i'll when agenda is being drafted i'll remind us to have it on there and uh get it done and we can head into the next school year with if there are any recommendations we can modify that policy and be done with it because that is the very last policy i believe um that has to be revised and hopefully that stops us from touching policies for a while the one thing i will add on this is i have a long history relationship with bloom clr jeff in particular in the private sector in fact uh uh many assessments uh financially and technically so uh when it comes to a vote i'm gonna have to stay myself now i don't support it but just for uh but i will say that they are more than capable yeah it was a good conversation with with him um and lindsay and you know i've certainly felt comfortable that they have the wherewithal to get through you know this review good i'm sorry and that's that's all i have thank you mr chair i appreciate the enlightenment there um it's good to see that we'll be able to move uh uh at least attempt to move forward uh on this and uh i i did have the opportunity to read that policy um and it uh it feels very familiar to me of course my finance degree was from 1996.
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uh right around the time that policy was made so i'm guessing there's probably a lot of changes since then so i'm happy to hear that um we have the potential to to have the firm come in and really uh do a great assessment on that so that we know for the next uh 25 years that uh we'll be uh uh have a great set of uh of policies and procedures uh for our uh our our student volunteers and parent volunteers who who do a lot of the work in those student activity accounts so based on my experience i'm hopeful that what's gonna come out of this is it'll give the board um facts and um facts to potentially help vincent and his team perhaps upgrade software and put things that help make their jobs more efficient and could be an impetus to for our budget next year so i think there'll be some good that comes out of this um are there any uh comments or questions on this section tim i say you wrote comment but i don't know when that was in reference to just now just now yeah no i just i i think this is really important uh this review of the financial accounts what is it a million dollar balance typically that's in there a million or a million a half or something like that across all the schools it's about a million dollars yes okay yeah and it's from what i recall what you said is the board has no responsibility for this i don't know if that's the right wording but i just however whatever the right wording is it's important to me because i have a feeling that if something ever did go wrong the voters would look at the board and say what's going on i think we should i think we should have a better idea and then also i just want to add um the uh the sports part of it and coaching permits that's something that jeff had even mentioned i think was last september just keeping that sort of in the same conversation in terms of the audits not to get into a discussion about it but just to mention that too so two different things that the i don't talk about tonight but the other audits on their policy so that's probably forthcoming i just want to clarify something um as board members i encourage you and we always have professional development opportunities but it is the board's responsibility to adhere to the policy concerning student activist accounts we are the ones responsible for the upkeep of those accounts to meet the policy the what i think what the not responsible means is we don't dip into those accounts to pay for operational other that's controlled by the administrators in schools but cave state regulation our policy we're responsible ensure that those processes are being followed first accounts we don't spend the money as we should just so we're clear thank you mr chair um if there's um no further comment um then i guess we can move on to the report on grant activity actually marlena's going to cover that marlene if you want i could share my screen to show the information it's up to you sounds good and everyone has this in their linked agenda as well so this is the grant report for this current year the total grant awards last year were 1 million 591 276 this year is a little over 2 million so i'll start with the consolidated grants and just sort of give you an overview of what we use some of this funding for so title one we use that to pay for can everyone see it so everybody i don't don't want to rush ahead too fast um this these funds cover reading and math support personnel some instructional assistance and materials to support struggling learners in title ii that pays for salaries and supplies for reading teachers and reading support personnel title three that money supports the things that we do for our english learners that includes professional development for our teachers we typically although it changes from year to year work with a consultant at aces to provide professional development for our teachers who have english learners in their classrooms title four that this year is paying for the summer curriculum writing training that about 70 or so of our teachers will be getting at the end of the school year and has also um will be used next year to pay for ngsspd that was unable to occur this year due to substitutes and just the whole covid pandemic our ability to do that uh title let's see the perkins grant i think you are familiar with that we've had sean mcewen a report on some of the ways in which we use that money um the enhancement grant is used to purchase some manufacturing equipment its training its equipment etc the career and technical education department which includes business um and our um i'm losing the name but our family consumer science and and tech ed departments uh really supports a lot of their curriculum changes etc the idea grant then has alluded to before and he spoke to a little bit earlier about special education pays for a lot of staffing needs and helps with supplies open choice grant is typically used for ia support adult education pays for both training publicizing materials applications and supplies you've heard us speak a lot about the peck jones grant which this year paid for reading texts and previously had paid for ngss training smart start the smart start preschool that pays for salaries and employee benefits and then really went into some detail earlier about the esser money and how that's used with the cares the cares act and also the sr2 funds that we're using that's the thumbnail sketch if you have any questions are there any questions i don't see any anyone in the chat here okay marlene uh thank you uh well actually i'll ask one question um the idea grants are those state grants federal yeah federal okay is everything basically federal that that were federal and managed by the state oh uh through block grant or some other form okay thank you sure oh i lost my microphone there we go um okay seeing uh no other questions or comments um and marlene i don't think you had anything additional to add then that concludes the finance committee report mr chair thank you adam up next is planning committee uh andrew good evening um since our last meeting we've had two planning committee meetings i'm going to do a recap for the benefit of all of us and a for those who are home who have not heard and did not watch the meeting uh we had a plan coming to the hold on the 29th at the meeting the first item that was discussed were capital improvement projects that are scheduled for this summer i'm going to run through these quick for those listening at home over at doolittle school there'll be bathroom renovations underground storage tank removal and boiler replacement as well as main entrance and step replacement outside of the school gymnasium and some classroom renovations site-wide over at cheshire high school the ada door replacement project that was put on hold last summer is going to go get underway this summer as well as some security upgrades and the thorpe auditorium trophy play trophy showcase replacement as well as underground storage tank removal um that's about at cheshire high over at highland school boiler replacement security various classroom and select window and millwork replacements nor in school there was going to be the kitchen modernization project which was scheduled to take place which was reported at the meeting but has since been put on hold until next summer by the town council at dodd hvac replacement roof repairs acoustic tile replacement and some of the sludge classrooms and sidewalk enhancements in the exterior i mean all these projects were previously approved capital projects by the district any questions by board members on the first part of that meeting i know we heard all this collectively but for those listening at home they might not have seen this so seeing none second item that was discussed which was the extension to performance environmental contract for 2021 2022 performance has been in our school system since 2014 um they performed excellent service throughout the pandemic as reported by vin and others in the district um the increase for the contract is a 38 increase or a 5.3 percent over the existing contract um and this is reflected by because of minimum wage increases as well as the increase in cleaning supply costs to the company because of some savings there though the net increase the district will be the net contract will be seven hundred thousand and nine hundred and ten dollars um that motion did pass six one there was one abstention which was faith um and tim and faith both asked vin to go back to performance about potentially doing instead of it being a one-year contract extension being a two-year contract extension or potentially going back up to bid so i think vin has um has reached out to performance and has an update on that just very quickly yes i did speak to um president of the company and i do expect to bring forth a proposal at the june 3rd board meeting so we are negotiating if there will be some kind of a price break if we extend to uh the second year so it will be 2122 is already approved by the board if we extend to 22 23 what would that look like so more information to follow next business meeting all right great thank you ben um the third item that was discussed at the planning meeting on the 29th was the school modernization and what those next steps were to be or should be we talked about having a series of public outreach to kind of gauge the community to kind of explain to where we are with the process um i have more information on that under the school modernization but essentially since that meeting there's been an approval of a contract extension for colliers by the town council for an additional 25 000 um to help guide the next steps for school modernization but more under school modernization later on in the agenda any questions on the meeting on the 29th by any of the board members before i move on to the may 6 meeting seeing none on may 6 we had a presentation vin actually ran the presentation from ecg engineering who's our consultant unfortunately michael michael sam who's been working on assessing the district and potential solar installations fell ill was unable to be at that meeting um so catherine tim and i as well as vin and um mr clavette and mr bambero from the town were all on that call um essentially we walked through the different sites a potential ground mount installations no roof mount on at any of the sites any of the buildings in the district um focused mostly on we looked at a lot of different ones but the ones that we really focused on were carports over at highland school essentially along the border between the police station and the front of the school and then also doolittle along the driveway coming in off of oak avenue i have my own opinion on it we went through and looked at the different potential installations and then from there um it was decided that we would look at to see what what installation we can do and what would have the greatest benefit to the district um catherine had suggested potentially putting on rfp just kind of take a look into that and then vin actually had a site walk yesterday with um our energy consultant so vin do you want to touch on how that turned out yesterday yes so the week following the planning committee meeting at the direction of planning committee i did contact jk energy solutions and they've done you know two you know pretty significant projects in our schools to upgrade the led lighting you know and so we're led lit now in all our schools um and i reached out to them and as it turns out they do have quite a bit of experience with solo projects and so the upshot of the site visit yesterday we walked at the site at highland where we would potentially install a carport solar array and also at two little school they're going to come back to us very quickly within the next week or so with a total cost to install those solar arrays again solar car ports so they will cover a portion of the parking you know and provide some protection from the elements they will show us how much electricity would be generated from those solar arrays and also more importantly they will show us what a 20-year power purchase agreement would look like and what our cost you know per kilowatt would be if we entered into this 20-year agreement which is important because you'll know financially what that array at highland and what that array at doolittle you know would generate in terms of electricity and you know either electricity savings because the cost is lower than we could buy on the commercial market or if the cost is higher than the commercial market you know what the investment would be you know to have those arrays installed so you know the good news is we'll we'll have a financial sense you know within the next week or so and you know whether or not we'll go forward with a an application through the z-rec program uh will be something that the planning committee will determine so what i envision happening is when i get the information pass it along to the planning committee and the planning committee can decide if they want to have a meeting to take it to the next step and that application is june due june 14th correct due june 14th and the these gentlemen from jk energy explained that they could certainly do all the prep work submit the application there's no cost to submit the application there's also no obligation with that application being submitted so you know again i think it's a question of what do the financials look like and do we want to go this route there's also as tim and mentioned during the planning committee meeting that's only if we do a an installation that's over a certain size um that june 14th date applies if it's smaller than a certain size then you actually don't have a deadline if they're they're taking application there's not really a process it's on a rolling basis so it's a lot more complicated than i could articulate but we're you know following the request you know that came out of the last planning committee meeting great thank you and i think we look we look at the aesthetics of what's installed along with the finance and does it fit the character of the school and the environment you know these are all there's a lot to obviously be evaluated in that process absolutely um see adam question yeah um so i'm guessing in in all of this analysis that had you chosen uh this uh maybe you mentioned already that the sites where these solar panels would go these carports would go it was was it along that like i'll call it the for highland would it be the property that that lines up along the police station that's kind of where they built theirs yep so up here you go so here it is oh yeah so this is the yeah this is highland that's the front of highland right yep yep that's the cafeteria right where you're cursing yeah and then so there's the array now again this is not final this was what our consultant from ecg had put forth so that's that's highland and then let me just show you do a little [Music] yeah there you go okay so this is this is cornwall right yes and this is the sidewalk there's a sidewalk beneath this you know array so it would be from somewhere as you enter the driveway to do a little moving towards the school so this array we talked about would cover the sidewalk as well as the first row of car park car parking along um that sidewalk um so just from a practical point of view two two questions uh firstly just looking at where the one for doodle is uh do we know would they be impervious to uh foul balls uh coming off of the uh the baseball fields i'm sure quite a few come down uh over there uh and then the second we did i'll just answer that we did talk about that you know these are designed to withstand you know impact like they'll they'll survive a hail storm um you know the way a ball would typically travel it would just skip right off the top of the solar cell so that you know the power purchase agreement essentially would mean we don't own these a third-party company owns them and would be responsible you know for the maintenance you know and if one breaks then they'd be responsible for the replacement yeah they're they're essentially sort of leasing our land right um so the second question is uh in your estimation uh vin if we were to say do renovations on doolittle school um which uh uh area would you estimate that heavy equipment would have to enter from from the same area or where we would put those up or from the the drive that comes off of oak you know i mean listen that's certainly one of the key considerations that the planning committee talked about you know the planning committee can speak to it but that is you know concern you know are these installations these sites were selected because we think it would have the least impact um you know right now we do believe based on discussion that we would keep to a little school and we would keep highland so but that is you know certainly one of the questions that's a great question i think we could still get heavy equipment into the site if we installed this one at too little but there's plenty of consideration and thought that has to go into making the decision ultimately and adam so this is we're looking to see what this is going to cost and what the benefit is going to be so we we've reviewed several larger installs one note notably in the back field of highland elementary school and we decided although it would generate 80 of the power for the facility it we would lose the rear field and it would encroach on the outdoor classroom and take away from the aesthetic of the pond and there's just so many other issues that you know at what point are we at what point are we encumbering so much of the property for power generation and will it make sense financially right so sure and also notable and tim don't don't kill me it's um it's a 20-year deal um and if you watch how much things change in 20 years um like me i graduated from high school 20 years ago um you know there's no you did it no way um what we don't want to be stuck with is 20 years from now people pulling into highland elementary school saying what the heck is that thing and what was that put there as well as for doolittle school um so we're on it we're assessing see what's going to come out and the next planning committee meeting we'll have another report to report back to the full board so looking forward to it thank you um tim yeah i just wanted to say i so i i've tried to do a little bit more uh research on this and i in the when we met the planning committee met we [Music] my view is that if we can save that we need to consider i said that um the incentives are different smaller the incentives and the ultimate cost savings for the schools would probably be better with smaller arrays when i say a smaller array just so people at home can visualize this it's 100 kw 100 kilowatts of power and you could sort of say that's like 300 solar panels so it's a big stretch but you could probably you probably could do that in that stretch along highland uh adjacent to the police department um what i've come to realize based on the last conversation with the that we had we probably would want to have decking more raw materials for the solar array because snow lands on it it melts it falls through cracks we don't want that that turns into ice and it may not go away vermont's anyway that decking costs more money so that increases the cost of these of any installation but it's borne out or uh better distributed in a larger array because there are certain fixed costs as an example you have to have a cement truck come to do a con to a construction site the cost of getting the truck there is a fix it's basically a fixed cost it's not the cement going in the ground but getting it there for a day is basically a fixed cost so to a certain extent it may actually make sense economically to do a larger array with lower incentives that may ultimately give us a bigger price that may not work for uh any of the locations of the schools um nonetheless i i do think getting more information about it besides just what i'm saying here i think that could be i think it'd be good i think it'd be worthwhile to just continue exploring this without admit and without making any commitments right that's exactly hopefully we'll have that information back from vin um from ecg shortly correct they're from jk energy i mean yes they've committed to do this uh very quickly for us great and what tim's for those of you who didn't hear the planning committee meeting um there is an array at cheshire police station and it is not a continuous deck and so what i've heard from friends who are on the police force is they're very unhappy with that install because what's happening is the snow is melting off those solar panels coming down the sun's not hitting it and it's just creating an ice skating rink out there in the winter time so they wish that they designed that one a little bit different so what we're trying to do is avoid that if we are going to do an install of a carport at highland or do little school so with that that concludes my update on the planning committee unless there's any other questions and had a comment i believe in yeah i really love the idea of solar i just think that we really we're trying to get a what a 20-year school modernization plan going and it really it just seems to me to make the most sense to incorporate the solar part of it as we are working on the schools and updating them in general but i'm really glad that we're doing um the research now and getting some idea of what could go wrong and it just it strikes me looking at those maps and and the blue swatches where the where the solar panels are it's it's a lot of area and you know i'm concerned with how it's going to make all of the properties look aesthetically so i'm i'm glad we're looking into it carefully yes we you sure are well thank you that concludes the planning committee update thank you thank you everyone um i'll just add that the you know as part of uh sms as far as memorization plan um i think when we do designs we're starting to incorporate green energy and solar so there's opportunities there at the very least so keep that in mind that being said we're gonna move on to policy uh adam it is back to you again thank you mr chair um we had a policy meeting on may 4th uh 2021 um [Music] where we uh for a first reading reviewed our student health services policy policy number 5141 um where we where dr solon noted that this policy would need to be reviewed and again reviewed again in the future because of recent rulings regarding mandatory vaccinations and the elimination the religious exemption but also that our uh nurse district nurse coordinator um boy i'm missing the entire thing let's see hold on uh i'm missing the change hold on a second dr song can you remind me because i am i'm missing it here why are we oh the budget yeah uh um this is for sports physicals right okay so we discussed many weighty issues that uh that could also be uh uh that could also be affected that could also affect this policy but the main reason why we were reviewing this policy was that we were going to uh change the policy so that you uh students could have a sports physical for i believe up to 30 was it for 13 months was that correct yeah the marquee piece of this is that we're you know yes but we're requiring sports physicals uh that last the entirety of the season so a student would have to have a physical that would last them to the entire season oftentimes we were finding not often times but there was a concern about physicals lapsing in the middle of the season and then that not being caught which creates problems uh a medical potential liability for the player uh a legal liability for us and a real headache for the parent mid-season or problem for the team if the child's got to sit because they don't have a physical so we're really just trying to make sure that all of our student athletes have been evaluated for the full season yes and um and so we had a discussion about that and uh we uh it was unanimously moved uh uh for a first reading um next we um moved policy number 6159 instruction individualized education programs slash special education program for a second reading and this is where we are we changed the the age according to state statute of students receiving special education from um up up until their 21st birthday to up and up until their 22nd birthday and we move that for a second reading with no changes um finally we moved many uh policies to a for a third and final reading and i have a uh i'd like to make a motion for that if i may um move that the cheshire board of education give a third and final reading to policies 3170 budget implementation 3300 expenditures expending authority purchasing guides policy number 33 3326 paying for goods and services policy 3326.1 business dash payroll procedures and authorized signatures uh policy 3541.45 student transportation insurance and and directly superintendent to put said policies into immediate effect um do i have a a second on that uh anyone yeah i got it i missed the who who was the second on there uh cat who was the second thank you tim okay um is there any discussion on those policies uh perhaps just for uh review i believe that was uh just uh changes in titles uh there there are antiquated titles um for i believe the business officers uh especially uh vin massiana's title and some other uh titles that work in his office is there any other is there any other further discussion um seeing none uh all in favor of the motion as read it is unanimous thank you um let's check the rest here um i believe that concludes my report mr chair thank you adam and i just want to thank the policy committee for helping get the third and final reading of the policies uh done this this year and uh actually all the work the policy committee does and um i'm sure just about everyone well pretty soon without certain policy but for those that have you know that folks may not know a lot of work happens there uh between the administration and legal teams just keeping up to speed with changes state regulations which seems to be endless and the work this committee does it's a lot of work so thank you uh that being said we're moving on to another very important committee which is the school monetization committee update all right thank you so much um so big thanks to the town council um obviously they know how important this is to the to the community and they extended coliers who is our consultant's contract by an additional 25 thousand dollars that was approved at their meeting on may the 12th so we're waiting for a date to have a kickoff meeting as to next steps with that um it's going to be a joint meeting between certain members of this board as well as the town council one of the major items that we need to do is the test fits for the properties as we discussed at our planning committee meeting back in april um so that needs to be done that will not be done by coliers but that would be done by another consultant but overseen by cole ears with collaboration between all parties um i did just receive some late breaking news from superintendent solon that coliers is going to be scheduling a series of community engagement events or sessions rather about school modernization the process where we are today um before school gets out which i know is something that we all desperately want to do before people start going on much-needed vacations after the pandemic um so those are going to be on evenings on june 7th june the 8th and june the 9th um that's the only details i have on that jeff i don't know if you have any additional information um on those i do um i have them here in the my update for a little later all right do you want to just hold on to it okay um i guess most importantly is is that cole ears is working we're on it um to get this to keep the momentum going and moving forward um i don't know if anyone has saw on monday i've started a series of facebook posts cross posts on all the different social media outlets called modernization monday um where i'm going to be sharing the 68 page document and every monday around noon time putting it out there paragraph paragraph and a half just touching on various points to try to get some interaction i could post a picture of my daughter playing the trombone and get 300 likes i posted it i got about 13.
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um so feel free to share that feel free to reach out to me i'd be happy to have anyone's assistance on that um to try to get some people talking i mean we're talking a huge potentially the largest capital expenditure ever coming to the town um so i'm thinking about next time leading off with panera's coming to cheshire and see if maybe that will start more people being interested in the post um it's just a little bit of a joke but andrew just tag each of us on the board will do yes that's it i should have done that the first time anne and um that's a great suggestion so i'm gonna do that and i'm gonna just keep it very simple in these posts and so this one it was just school modernization what is this all about and it's just a paragraph and a half about what we where we were and where we're going um and then next week i'm gonna just highlight the preferred option and then the following week i'm gonna do secondary option and then just kind of keep it like that so hopefully people will read that and so when it comes down to um a few months from now people don't say they know nothing about it so don't get me wrong andrew i'm all about um using your children as let's get some puppies and kittens too whatever you get the word out there you know and i've seen people and i've talked to people in the community um at the wonderful band concert that they held outside of dodd the other day i was talking to a group of parents and they had no idea and i said i know we're friends on facebook go on there and click on the link um because it is a 68-page document but really there's about 15 to 16 pages that you have to actually read read read and then all the backup is there for any questions so anyone's home listening to this i know it's you know it's late and you have a lot of things on your plate but just please take a minute to read the report thank thank you andrew uh we're all chuckling because in the comments uh dr solomon post to be fair savannah is an excellent trombone player so i appreciate it uh the golden retriever does not agree but i i do um yeah and again this is just an attempt to get the word out there uh some board members asked hey we have a communications committee uh we rarely use we can start up throughout the course of this as we move forward and of course we'll look at that the other thing i just want to be careful uh you know we're maybe tagging these posts whether you're mindful that can't turn to legal meaning by commenting so we get a quorum on there could be an issue but certainly you know hey chime in if you see three or less board members and you know share where you can i try to share them and you know i was quitting earlier maybe you know andrew you guys start off with you're putting a new medical building on route 10 or another drugstore or yeah so i said panera said panera's coming to cheshire and then put the link for the school modernization you know a school closing tends gets people attention um i i quit but thank you for for being proactive on that yeah definitely i think tim has a question yeah this is probably a question from marlene or vin i don't see jeff here right now do we have um so i i mean i want outreach to the whole town everybody votes on this timewide referendum but at the same time a smaller subset uh i'm thinking uh preschool do you have a connection with any of the preschools where it would be appropriate to let them know about the meetings we will definitely make everybody in the community aware of the meetings these are just the locations scheduled for the shootings um and to be fair darcy's probably not space-wise and location-wise the best location to hold it but we will definitely notify everybody so to be clear i don't mean i'm not talking about preschool darcy i'm talking about you know doodlebugs oh yeah certainly yeah we have great connections with all those uh private providers we will definitely we can get information out to them no problem okay i think that could be that could be a good thing okay yeah that's a good suggestion thanks thank you um adam oh yeah i i was just wondering if we had a twitter account or instagram you know to get to get to all the folks of all different ages and all that stuff for we were just uh going on facebook because if i don't if i recall your your post was on the education forum which i don't think is shareable i it's on the education forum my personal one cheshire community forum and cheshire unplugged oh okay so all right so if you do tag us then we can share in our personal accounts at that point right if we get tagged in it okay okay facebook lesson yay i know the district does i don't know i mean i'm happy if you guys want to put it on the district's social media i don't know how all that works um so so so jeff i just realized part of your job role now is influencer your social media influencer it's like stupid human tricks from david letterman now available online we'll do what we got to do there's no other questions that uh concludes school modernization update thank you angel i i i do want to add a chance to talk to andrew and ben and jeff and a couple colleagues of town council i the town council is wrapping up their budget i think i think this week if not tonight i forget the timing of it so i know they're going to start ramping on bringing them back up on this next week starting with the preferred option and they're doing some analysis there and we're doing our analysis so you know we all thought it makes sense if we got together um a small group and talk about how you know how to move forward i think we all recognize that um as we talk about last time kind of be good to know what land is available and that may actually dictate how we proceed forward so uh and then we'll have a broad broader combining meeting with both bodies right after that as we move forward so uh thanks jeff finn and team for helping move this forward and hopefully we keep the community engaged as june comes in the summer summer days are here but thank you moving on we are going to correspondence madam secretary do we have any correspondence we do not have any correspondence mr chairman thank you thank you catherine uh seeing there's no correspondence we're gonna move on to the much anticipated superintendent's report again thank you tony i know this is the highlight of every board members month uh in their service to the board my my uh report uh we may not have correspondence but we i did receive an email uh through the covid hotline trisha rowald was asking about the 80 minute periods at cheshire high school whether or not that would eliminate need for science labs it will you know an extra period scheduled for science labs and the answer short answer is yes dr gatt i know we'll put that in her correspondence out to the community in most cases the answer is yes for ap and some advanced ece coursework there will be additional lab periods but uh thank you for the great question and we'll get that information out i hate to start on a solemn note uh but this uh past week or two we saw the passing of two prominent cheshire public schools former educators one is judy d dimizio she was a cheshire public schools teacher of the year actually in 1991 and dr jim trafon uh was a long-standing biology teacher who i had the pleasure of working with at cheshire high school and uh both of them lost their battle with cancer recently and i know our hearts and our deep sympathies and prayers go out to both the trafona and the dimizio families both also residents of cheshire so um shifting gears uh to our our usual uh more enthusiastic presentation i will try and be uh as quick as i can with you here there we go let's see uh to just run you through the report uh you've seen this before kovit it's it's kind of a lands long-standing slide for us going through the process but you haven't seen numbers like this in a long time these are our current uh covet impact on the school district of course the vast majority of our staff are vaccinated so limited quarantine issues now more of our students are corn excuse me vaccinated not fully yet so we anticipate that number to come down once they are fully vaccinated but even now the student quarantines are quite low on that bottom line relative to what we had seen well we acknowledged uh in a meeting a couple of months ago the emotional impact of coving 19 and my real trepidation that we had 700 students who could potentially have not stepped foot in a school building for 17 months if they didn't return before next year and so in january if you recall we had a thousand remote learners 25 of our student body in april when i recently was reporting we had 740 and our our team was very diligent about reaching out to families encouraging them to return we're down to 497 or 12 percent so uh kudos to our administrative team and for reaching out encouraging families to come back and they they've done so and i'm excited that uh the the more students that we can get to kind of reacclimate to school before they return next year i think the better off that they will be spring events i know you know we've heard about a variety of things from our our student reps and whatnot uh uh the dodd trip will be departing next wednesday i'm very excited to be going on that trip with the the minor reservation about cicadas but other than that i'm excited to go um sports have been fantastic this spring as you heard from our student reps the promotions k8 will be slightly scaled back a little bit different for example uh then marlene and i typically travel to each one because of the scheduling and being a little bit different i'm looking forward to doing a video for our sixth grade promotions our eighth grade promotion i will be in person for the morning of monday the 14th i believe it is of june um and that will be held at cheshire high school the high school graduation ceremony i did mention earlier uh in the meeting that we are we met this morning with maura esposito from chesapeake she reviewed our plan and gave us the endorsement it'll be held outside 6 p.m june 16th uh one ceremony for all students everybody will receive four tickets every graduate and that will provide seating on the field there will be additional seating in the stands but you can't have access to the field without a ticket if you're not a graduate masks are required for the event unless you're on stage so students walking across the stage will not be required to wear a mask um in the event of inclement weather we will be holding a ceremony inside uh with details to follow and then you know the all-night grad party will follow that event or the graduation whether indoors or outdoors so just to provide a quick visual on how this uh ceremony will look this is the stage at the north end of the field where uh our teams generally enter that north end this is closest uh to the high school with the baseball fields being over here so our students will enter this is the stage these are 12 foot aisles uh that you see the 12 feet in width and our students here in red are graduates these are all parent seats with a jumbotron here for enhanced viewing behind the stage this will be musical performers students and then our staff are aligning on either side of the field so more to come on this uh we're very excited to be able to go in a more traditional format what you'll notice is each seat is set about four and a half feet apart on center uh so we could have uh clustered them in groups of four or something like that uh but we didn't want to have empty seats necessarily you know if my my party only had two in it you know we don't want two empty seats just taking up space we want people seated as close to the front as we can and so that is our current arrangement cps vaccination progress uh just another shootout shout out excuse me to maura esposito and the team at jesper cot we've vaccinated now more than 500 employees we had 100 students 16 to 18 received their second dose at cheshire high today many of our 16 to 18 year olds have been vaccinated through other means by the time we were the state allowed us to run the clinic many of our students already had been vaccinated uh we vaccinated 500 approximately 500 students age 12 to 15 already last weekend and they're slated to get their second dose on june 15th and if you're curious the state has developed the vaccination website and i can show you the most interest at least to me the most interesting part if you come down here and hover over cheshire you can see that 67.9 of residents aged 15 to 44 year old 44 years old have received at least one dose of the vaccine and of our 45 to 64 year old population 76 of our population has received that vaccine and so that was updated on may 18th they update these things weekly generally so you can always check back for more information i'm a regular if you will on the site anyway um so some cps highlights this week uh i know lucy mentioned my jump roping there's actual proof of that uh i am a bit of a double dutch master amongst other things and then um one of the uh real highlights of the week and i appreciate andrew and and uh ann attending our school business partnership meeting uh earlier this week where we had the real pleasure uh to recognize jill silverman and jason vanes they are the leadership team at richard chevrolet they are so deserving of the cast connecticut to school schools distinguished friend of education award for their tireless work with our school system they are always there to answer the call whenever we ask for anything and oftentimes they they just offer but my favorite project we've done with them is a couple years ago at dodd middle school we had two different groups design vehicles from start to finish jason worked with them he usually does the design and ordering he worked with them they designed classes or designed um two different cars they marketed the vehicles and then the winner uh the group got a pizza party whichever vehicle sold first and jason made a very funny comment the other day about the fact that it was kind of humbling he's the person who desi designs and orders the vehicles and our kids did just as well as he did if not better so uh it was funny for him to share that with the group but uh he and jill deserve all the credit in the world uh for what they do for our kids in our community so thank you to richard chevrolet uh as andrew had mentioned we do have three engagement sessions scheduled and we will upon your blessing publicize these broadly i know that you're certainly comfortable with us um publicizing them but just want to make sure the dates and everything are okay for you uh june 7th 8th and 9th not that this is a required all of these are required for all of the board members but you know if our plan is to try and follow this we wanted to vary the locations and the times a little bit to provide some flexibility for families and so we have monday the 7th at 6 p.m at norton tuesday the 8th at 6 30 at chapman and wednesday the night at 7 p.m at dodd middle school so that concludes my uh superintendent's report uh and certainly i'm happy to answer any questions that anybody may have andrew just on the on the forms um we don't know what the program is yet for those that are listening that's to be determined so the program will be a an overview of where we are tonight today right and what our our next steps will be basically what has the school modernization committee done in the last year and changed that they've been working and so we'll hit the real highlights it'll be a bring you up to speed so that when you read uh the monday modernization minute you're you're connecting with that and makes a lot of sense to you perfect thank you and i know you got a question yeah i just i'm wondering if there's a way to see those forums if are they will they be live streamed or something if you um or do you have to go in person well i know that um unfortunately you know we mentioned earlier that that mike salamini has wasn't available today i know uh mr bargini mentioned that so uh i will have to confer with him about how we might be able to record these things uh we're likely to hold them outside under tents and that's another variable that mike would have to you know manage and certainly you know being there in person is great but we want to be able to provide access to the same information for those who can't be thank you sure i believe tim had a question and yeah um yeah thanks for the tent possibility um and i'll say i mean if if not all three of these get televised if it just becomes too complicated i'm not that concerned about it i mean we wanna my feeling is we just wanna offer as much opportunity to the public in general i mean if they're all televised that would be great if they're not you know one would be one would be great the my goal is to just offer people we had i haven't heard from people nearly as much as i wish i had in the past year for obvious reasons and it's this is this is an important topic so i i just want to give people the chance to come talk yell at us if we're doing something wrong whatever it might be um with regard to uh the covid vaccines so you're basically as far as you're concerned basically any of the kids who've gotten them or their families or parents want them they've probably gotten them at this point um if the age drops uh goes further down to nine six whatever over the summer would you think you'd be doing something some outreach to parents even in in anticipation of school opening you know in september right we've been incredibly committed to working with chespercott to provide access to vaccines because we believe it it increases the likelihood that kids can attend school and it improves the general welfare and safety of our community and so that's not going to change over the summer the only thing that would perhaps be a bit of an impediment for us as a school system offering them in our buildings is uh construction work so if there's abatement by law under 18 you can't be in the building so we'd have to work through that but we would certainly offer uh clinics in conjunction with jesper cot if they had the capacity to do so but to your point i mean there's so much availability now through a multitude of resources that um the the state may opt to go in that direction in that case it's out of our hands okay okay um and then my last uh point grad party donations they're looking for him they didn't have much time to fundraise so that's it thank you thank you i think it's adam thank you um firstly um jeff was that you in the picture jumping rope i know it yes hard to believe that was not a photo shot that was because that looked like you had a good at two to three feet vertical there i can elevate that yeah wow impressive impressive um uh sec i guess secondly on the outdoor meetings um i know i've noticed just from like uh just seeing teachers in action a lot of times when they do a video stream they just use a laptop and turn the camera around uh for remote students i i saw that with my own son when he had the isolate a while back and um i don't know it could just be a simple solution of having an internet source and just doing a you know a low res stream because i don't know how good the audio would be but you know that could be just you know if it's a real technical challenge that it could be something as simple as that i guess i've been told the worst the resolution the better i look but that i still think it's a great idea to have mike be there if we can do it like you said for the audio sure and so we'll see what we can do yeah um and lastly um if if i recall the governor's executive orders at least this time are set to expire in july and if vaccines are extended down to potentially two years old well is there a possibility that we would have to make a decision on masks on our students wearing masks or would that is that just going to be uh you know we just won't have to worry about it there will be no masks next year yeah i would not rule out the possibility um you know i think right now our our intense focus is on the next you know 20 days or so for our students um but i think when we you know retool and and get ready for august we'll follow a very similar process that we did this year and that's engage our health professionals listen to the data and information from dph and collaboratively with our families and our health professionals try and establish a plan that makes sense for the school system and so the state may require them i i don't know um but like i said i we're we're committed to continuing to work with that group to make a decision that's best for our community great thank you uh unless i'm missing someone has anyone any other questions for dr sullin's superintendent report seeing as there are none i just want to just take a moment to record to uh to uh give the board of condolences to julie dimizio and and mr trefone i know uh since i've been on the board i've always heard great praise for them uh both and i didn't come through chester's school system but um to this day i still hear from uh past students and you know somewhere on this board on their contributions so uh please exit that condolences from the board of ed uh moving on i inadvertently skipped an agenda item i'm sure i will be uh reminded of it tomorrow but the agenda item was approval of minutes that was number five so i like to go back to that before we move on um in our packets we have uh meeting minutes of the meetings held april 22nd and may 6th uh does anybody have a motion on the meeting minutes let me get back here uh adam um mr chair uh i move that the board of education approved the minutes from meetings held on april 22nd 2021 and may 6 2021.
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thank you there's a second oh and seconded katherine you were about 10 sec a tenth behind um any edits or changes to the meeting minutes seems we have none uh the the motion is that the board education approved the minutes from meetings held on april 22nd 2021 and may 6th 2021 all those in favor please raise your hands it is unanimous thank you team um all business we have no business um audience will check one more time jeff has there been any new comments or questions come in since last update no sir thank you new business very quickly um chairperson update is very brief upcoming cab cabe webinar for board members as a legislation wrap up on june 14th this is where we'll uh get the summary of any new laws which seems to be many and regulations updated [Music] registered please do it's free um we've been talking dr solon uh throughout the course of this year of doing a board of ed retreat uh after the school year and most boards of vets do this to do a little bit of team building but also work with the administration team and setting uh goals for next fiscal next school year so uh i think over the next couple weeks we'll uh talk about that and try to send the date um culinary oh i just went ahead i have the honor of um going to mrs uh miss wildeman's class tomorrow chapter high school in culinary and uh doing a class on uh schnitzel uh these are the fillets of um various cuts of meat that is very famous in germany and in austria so uh if folks smell schnitzel throughout cheshire tomorrow that is why and i'm gonna be surprised if we get some visitors from in and around central office to stop by which is good because there should be plenty so look forward to that should be a lot of fun other than that i don't have any other updates we have no new business before we adjourn to an executive session i don't read the upcoming meetings if i can find my agenda so upcoming meetings uh tuesday june 1st 6 30 p.m policy committee will be meeting it will be virtual thursday june 3rd at 7 30 pm there will be a board of ed business meeting and now meeting and they'll be live in town council chambers monday june 14th at 7 pm is current committee meeting it will be virtual and uh tuesday june 30th at 7 30 pm is our end of the year fiscal meeting location will be uh to be determined uh that being said um we do have a motion to adjourn an executive session and just for folks that may be watching this evening if you are thank you for sticking around um so long uh but we will once we go to executive session we will not be coming back to this meeting because there'll be no action so you don't have to stick around wait for us to see what comes out of that that being said do we have a motion from the board to adjourn into executive session catherine makes the motion is there a second andrew uh the motion is that the meeting be adjourned into executive sessions include dr sullen to discuss discuss the superintendent's evaluation with no action to follow all those in favor thank you this meeting is adjourned we are now adjourning to executive session and for board of education members a reminder that there is a separate link for that executive session in your
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[Music] do high school as we celebrate the graduation of the students of the class of 2021 at this time please stand for the processional as the band conducted by mr justin smith plays pomp and circumstance and please remain standing for the pledge of allegiance and the national anthem [Music] you [Music] you [Music] [Applause] dr thiele members of the board of education faculty and staff parents families and friends welcome to the graduation commencement ceremony for the downers grove north high school class of 2021 my name is janice chores and i have the honor of being the principal here at north high tonight's ceremony is part of a rich history as we gather this evening to celebrate the graduation of the 93rd class from north high school and the 143rd class in the history of downers grove high schools to begin our ceremony emily coors will lead us in the pledge of allegiance while at north emily played on both the golf and soccer teams all four years she also attended elite and snowball and won the super science award emily will study psychology next year at the university of tennessee the pledge of allegiance will be followed by the star-spangled banner performed by our north high command combined bands under the direction of senior owen nystrom owen is a member of national honor society tri-m music honor society and math team he has participated in nearly every band at north is president of the band board and performed in the spring musical owen has earned numerous awards for his musicianship and plans to study mechanical engineering at purdue university next year gentlemen please remove your graduation caps 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 [Music] [Applause] [Music] now [Applause] [Music] [Applause] please be seated graduates please replace your graduation caps my name is reese isakson at this time it is my honor to introduce the platform guests as i introduce each guest i would ask each of them to stand and for you to hold your applause until all guests have been introduced dr hank feely superintendent board of education members mr michael davenport vice president mr christopher espinoza miss jenny hagstrom dr nancy kupka president mr daniel nicholas miss teresa pavich ms joanna vazquez drexler as long as as well as faculty members mr demetrious papa george english and drama teacher and mr brayer teague fine arts department chair thank you for your participation in tonight's ceremony [Applause] it is also my pleasure to introduce our first student speaker delaney durbin delaney has been an executive board member on the student advisor council to the principal a change-maker leader and an elite leader she participated in drama club french club national honor society and choir and has received state recognition for for her participation in choir delaney has been an active member of the theater department at north including both acting and directing and recently received the grove players scholarship next year delaney will attend new york university as a music business major hi everyone i'm delaney durbin and it is such an honor and a privilege to be here at the finish line with such an impressive accomplished and esteemed group of people and also with my classmates just kidding you guys are great as far as you know i think it's fair to say that most of us had some idea about what senior year might be like we knew the vibe what we were going to get up to how it was generally going to go we'd spend our first three years training for senior year like it was a 5k maybe even one of those charity 5ks where you can walk it and still claim victory for finishing so we headed into the summer all hoping for the easy 5k we'd prepared for and we show up to the race all excited only to find out it got changed to a triathlon through the himalayas wait a minute nobody asked us about this nobody consulted the seniors where did that slow dog around downers grove go we say we've never done a triathlon through the himalayas before i mean where is the swimming portion even going to happen did you guys bring bikes we look to the people in charge and they say this is our first time too what come again this is all new to you guys too perfect just perfect so we all set off together into the himalayas without a map on a bike with questionable internet connection and we hope for the best and it turns out we didn't need to be handed a map we made one together the students and the faculty we wondered how will we have plays put on musicals perform bands and orchestra concerts we found a way we wondered how are we going to play football soccer lacrosse we found a way we wondered will our teachers ever remember to unmute themselves before they talk eventually they did sometimes and we wondered how will we learn how will we prepare for whatever is next in our lives work college professional wrestling and most of all we wondered how will we do this without getting lost hurt or sick along the way alone in the mountains and sure some of us got lost and some of us got sick but we were never alone there was always someone there to point us back in the right direction or nurse us back to health and those people are sitting all around us right now and even right next to us and in the end we found a way true it was up a big hill but we carried on we forged a path mapped the uncharted not this year especially but over the past four years we have faced challenges that no group of high school students should have to face and we've done the work that we would rather not do but all of that struggle and hardship has led to this moment a moment where doing the work we'd rather not have done means something a moment where i can look around and say honestly that you are the most inspiring group of people that i could have had the pleasure of working and growing with we might not know what's ahead but what we do know is that whether it's a 5k or a triathlon thanks to the people sitting around us and more importantly what's inside us we are ready thank you [Applause] thank you delaney the north high a cappella choir will now sing two short selections the first is love psalm arranged by darman meter the lyric speaks to the importance of deliberately letting love into our lives after that the choir will sing our school's alma mater at the end of the first selection we will ask you to stand for the alma mater and for the men to remove their graduation caps both selections will be conducted by ms beth o'reirden and dr frank p cars and accompanied by miss elizabeth vaughn [Music] dad [Music] yourself [Music] is [Music] is [Music] is [Music] is [Music] we is [Music] do [Music] oh please now stand for the alma mater gentlemen please remove your graduation caps this oh [Music] is [Music] r [Music] oh all these [Music] is please be seated gentlemen you may now replace your caps it is my pleasure to now introduce our second student speaker syed farhan next year syed will attend benedictine university where he will major in biochemistry and preparation for medical medical school while at north syed ran cross country and track and was a member of student council north stars change makers spanish club all-access choir and deca he also served as a tutor and aide in the attendance office [Applause] hello everyone i'm sad farhan and originally i was a little worried about coming up here tonight it's a it's a special occasion and i didn't want to mess it up at all but after hearing that applause i'm i'm all ready for it so to start off i would like to thank north for allowing me the opportunity and honor of being a speaker for this incredible moment in our lives this is something i've wanted to do for a long time coming and it's just unbelievable to see that dream finally come true thank you to all the teachers and faculty who made the last four years possible you put up with us even when we didn't make it easy looked out for us even when we didn't ask or deserve it and most importantly guided us even when we didn't know what to do it's kind of funny what you actually taught is probably only fifty percent of what we learned the other fifty percent is the culmination of all the life lessons and morals you guys embodied and for that i along with every other graduate here tonight am forever grateful another thank you to all the families that helped us get to where we are we don't nearly say it as much as we should but we love you guys and trust me one of the greatest things about tonight is that we get to make you guys proud with all the formalities out of the way i finally turned my attention to the guest of honor tonight's beautiful stars and people i can proudly call my friends the class of 2021 i was tasked with giving you guys some final advice about the future so as i've done my whole life and in true north high graduate fashion i sat there at three in the morning the day before wondering how to make this work and what to say and so i reflected let me quickly go over to you guys exactly what we've survived a pandemic that literally kept us locked in our houses online learning a school year without normalcy and sometimes being unable to see friends and family and that was just in the past year alone well my reflection made me realize is that we truly truly are the best not everyone could adapt the way we did persevere the way we did or thrive the way we did but now we all know better than most people how unexpected life can be hardship is commonplace and tragedy occurs but if nothing else i want you guys to take the last year as a representation a symbol on how to handle the coming chapters of your lives handle it with determination and grit we all struggled with something this year but tonight every single one of us is wearing a cap and gown so never lose that mindset handle it with positivity despite everything going wrong we found the bright side to things so that's the attitude we should always keep handle it with kindness and love we were there for each other during some of the boring zoom classes there for each other during our darkest of hours and there for each other to just have some fun together we all made high school memorable and i can give you the syad farhan promise that this kind of unity and this kind of compassion can get you farther in life than anything else who we are as people is simply a mosaic a mosaic of everyone who has ever been in our lives so with that in mind leave a good impression on all the souls you touch and as much as i want to keep talking to you i'm running out of time so i'll leave the stage with a list of short advice a couple of quick reminders never forget your time here the lessons and experiences we gained are good for a lifetime never forget that we're trojans through and through never hesitate to ask for help and never give up on yourself or anyone else never be afraid to be yourself and never be afraid to fight for what's right never be afraid to love and so for the last time you'll hear it as dgn trojans i hope you remember to always stay respectful responsible and engaged i love you all thank you syed on behalf of the entire student body i would like to take a moment to honor staff members who are retiring this year mr antonio mercado has worked in our building and grounds department for 23 years mr steve ruffalo has worked in the science department for 18 years and ms janet schwarz has been in the district for 14 years and has served as our very own principal for the last five years we are grateful for all of these steps for all that these staff members have done to support the students staff and dgn community please join me in a round of applause in recognition of their efforts the class of 2021 is grateful for the guidance and support all of our faculty members have given us during the past four years for their dedication to providing us with the best possible education and for preparing us for the road ahead i ask the faculty members who are here with us tonight to stand for recognition including those who are seated with our graduates please join the students in giving our faculty members a round of applause [Applause] thank you faculty thank you reese in his time at north reece has played football and was one of the captains was an elite leader and a positively north leader he also was a member of the national honor society spanish honor society change makers radio club and investment club next year reese will study economics at the university of illinois please give a round of applause for rhys i am honored to have the opportunity to speak to the class of 2021 this evening before i share a few thoughts with you i want to recognize our 2021 graduates who are entering the military will thomas barron kevin calvinis anthony franchi melissa jacob raynard tipton and luke wilson please rise so we can recognize you for your commitment to our country [Applause] thank you as i look out at our graduates i see young men and women who have accomplished a great deal both individually and as teams i see students who have meddled at state and even national competitions students who have received awards for writing art speech music sports chess and many other activities 297 students achieved a gpa after seven semesters of 3.4 and above 38 of those students earned a 4.4 or above on a 4.0 scale there is certainly an abundance of talent within the class of 2021 and i am incredibly proud of all of you for what you have accomplished during your time at north however i've been most impressed with the character of this class both as individuals and as a collective as we've heard from delaney and syed you were faced with many challenges in your four years at north some that were unique to you as an individual and some that were universal such as the pandemic and while the pandemic has greatly impacted all of you and forced you to learn differently and miss or reimagine the many traditional high school experiences i'm not going to spend my limited time talking about everything that you lost because quite frankly just by being here tonight you have shown that with perseverance and resilience you have won you have shown that you can overcome challenges don't forget this because well i certainly hope that we never experience a pandemic again i know that you will face challenges again and when that happens remember the words of roman emperor and stoic philosopher marcus aurelius look well into thyself there is a source of strength which will always spring up if out will always look there you are strong believe in yourself work hard and you will succeed but class of 2021 while i admire you for what you did and how you responded to the pandemic this is not your legacy the pandemic might have shaped who you are but it does not define you i've known you are a special class way before the pandemic never before have i seen a class who is so committed to improving school culture our community and our world at large this was evident in large gestures such as fundraisers and rallies and creating clubs like the empowerment club but this was also evident in your everyday behavior the way you treated others in classrooms in the hallways in extracurricular activities and in sports one of my favorite sayings is in a world where you can be anything be kind thank you for prioritizing kindness i hope you always will continue to do so similarly thank you for modeling the behaviors described in the lyrics of lovesome which was sung so beautifully tonight by our acapella choir as delaney said you have supported your friends and you have been deliberate about letting love in you could have been bitter and angry after this year but instead you turned toward love thank you for staying positive and hopeful especially when things got tough my wish for you is that you will always be deliberate about choosing to love and as such you will live a life you love class of 2021 many of you know of my fondness for starfish because of the story of an ordinary person making a difference i want you to know that not only have you made a positive difference for your classmates and for dgn as a whole you have made a difference for me personally as well i feel incredibly fortunate to have known you and i am a proud member to be a class of 2021 and i wish you all the best congratulations and now dr thiele and members of the board of education it is with great honor and pleasure that i present to you the north high class of 2021.
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as principal i certify that the graduating class of 2021 has met all of the requirements as set forth by the state of illinois and the board of education of district 99 and are hereby granted all the rights and privileges that correspond accordingly it is now my pleasure to introduce the superintendent of community high school district 99 dr hank thiele thank you principal shores i'd like to start out by congratulating the class of 2021 on all of your accomplishments during your entire high school career culminating in today's graduation celebration it really took three core groups to bring you to this moment first we should all recognize the family members that have helped you make it to this point in your lives many of them are here today you can point and wave this is the time to recognize that you know where they're at thank you mom and dad thank you family second there's been a great number of teachers coaches sponsors and other trusted adults in your lives they've all guided you to this point i'd like for you to just take a moment remember who those adults were in your life that really made an impact on you leading up to today and finally thank you graduates for all the years of hard work at school and in your own lives to arrive at today this marks the next step in your progression through life it has been an unforgettable four years here in district 99 i appreciate all that each of you has contributed to our school and to the greater community the district 99 legacy or the district 99 community is a legacy community many who walk our halls return to raise their own families here in fact many of them are probably here tonight if you're an alumni of either north or south high are two schools in district 99 please stand and be recognized [Applause] graduates regardless of what comes next in your life i want to remind you that this will always be your home you will always be welcome back here and i encourage you in the coming years to please come back and share your successes with us i for one can't wait to hear about your adventures and to learn about the difference that you make in the world it is now my privilege to recommend to the members of the board of education the north high class of 2021 to move forward as graduates of community high school district 99 congratulations graduate is graduates it has been my honor to serve you for the past four years i wish you the best in your future i now welcome forward dr nancy kupka board of education president to accept this year's graduates everybody's so tall congratulations what an accomplishment we are recognizing tonight and to echo uh ms schwarz comments not only have you completed your high school education but you have done so during a pandemic requiring grit and drawing on resources our past graduates have never had to draw on speaking for the board of education we are honored to accept and recognize the downers grove north graduating class of 2021 and wish you success in wherever your life takes you thank you [Applause] thank you dr thiele and dr kupka at this time we will begin conferring the diplomas i ask that our line leaders move into place and prepare the graduates for those in the audience i respectfully request that you remain in your seats and hold your applause and other acknowledgements until all students have been awarded diplomas in order to provide the appropriate recognition that each student deserves just as you want to hear the name of your child read so too will other parents and families any loud noise can drown out the reading of the next student's name please do not be responsible for preventing a student's name from being heard we thank you in advance for your appropriate and respectful behavior will the class of 2021 please come forward to receive your diplomas joshua agnoli elise adams mayor john achmann nathan ahern vincent oximet bisma ahmed christopher allen jillian anthony victor antonio tessa ahrens jillian aquila nicholas attension simone balarzon samuel baker ellie bakshas vana balawing daniel bonkaro nevaya banks piper baron marcus barkhaul edith barlin thomas baron jacob berry dean bacius erin beatty anthony bel castro alan belly rachel bender brian benton justin berghorst ann beda drew biolosky tyrell bittner adam blair smith carissa blemka renee boone liam bohr olivia bouvier mia bowers caitlin boyle kevin bozeman mega bradburn blyth brawn niall brennan elise brenner nolan brazino artemis brogan michaela brown emma budnik samuel bull jonathan bunniales amanda birdo evan burns angelo buscemi evan bustos sloan buxton carol cabrera alyssa cafferty kevin calvinis caitlin campbell william karlberg amelia carlson chloe carlson stephen carlson harold carlstead john carroll elijah carter samuel carter margaret casey nathan cerney elijah chen patrick chen sophia excuse me sophia shirelli emma cho michaela cicci mckenna chanot brando cividentova michael coleman melanie contreras cole cook ariana corona ryan cree claire creeden elizabeth cramer catherine crisp gavin croson madison cochran evan cummins orelli davalos samuel david savannah davis kenneth de guzman madison delgallo cj delorto nathan demos jessica de paul jake demos carolyn daring deepak dasor gabriela devitt brittany de bartolo raymond dixon agnesa de cana alexander dilkovsky garrett daberton theodore dobres molly dougherty alan dorantes emmy dolan nicholas dorantes noah donnell drew driscoll carrie dropnick jacqueline doolman cassidy duffield faith done delaney durbin maximilian dvorak caleb deuter tina ebel colin eber daniel ekman maxwell ein molly ellingson evelyn elstrom christopher emmert alice emmett elena and cena tyler andres kyle angstler farhan charles ferris mason farron catherine filiomani john philopolis emmett flannery ellison finley nora flannery julia fisher michael flavin maya fleener jackson flynn emma fodor maxwell foleys abigail falconing michael foreseppi renee force lily ford morgan fox anthony franchi franklin ryland gaspar giovanni free us trevor gaspar cole fulton zachary gayton rhianna garner ainsley glenn john gebby parker glenn jacqueline gomez jack goddard francisco godins romy gonzalez aponte lindsay good abigail goodman claire gorey aiden grant houlihan matea greeny justin griesbaum emily grayfon aiden grisenthwaite franklin griffin kira gruber devin gross vitter gunda ryan guerin eby hottie emily guy nia hattie melena harris henry hagen gracie guads benjamin hallberg aiden hall quinn hanley sean halloran david hansen trigvy hanson connor hana tia hengels asriel henriques paige herbert amaya herrera cesar hernandez patrick heverin nicholas hinkle lamar hinton alexander hoffman kyle hopkins maxwell hopkinstead megan horsley grace jose joseph hudec edward wren jacob hurtado pedro ibada emily igo jared imperial ava irving elena isaacson julia isaacson reese isaacson melissa jacob patrick jackson emma james lauren jenkowskis andrew janowick conrado javier uzair jahwed daniel jelinek maya jennings matthew jezek kyle jillick jesus jimenez daniel jobe amelia johnson hayley johnson genoa johnson lillian johnson mark johnson mihail jovanov megan joyce samantha joyce edie jurassus mila karnakanova jillian cartoonist casco quinn kavanagh ashling care liam carney searsha care kellnar nathan kerr miranda king patrick ken andreas clattus emma klonowski john william newton timothy cook thea excuse me theo keister emily coors jonah kopecky jacob kaczynski angelica kovara bogdan kozag alexander kozaritz colin lolly noah lamantia lauren laper william larkin paige larson eliana leskowski julia lotocha thomas lawrence john leonard dominic leone mary lurch boyan lee sean lifka may lindell tara liska william lloyd kyle lockman henry locker grace lockerbie finia loftus adil lokenduwala nora long carlos lopez vanessa lopez jacqueline lucas jeremiah lorgio lapescu quinn mckenzie matthew lapescu harrison maher brian mesh emma mazzasius nicholas macrovic noah majerzig stephen mackerzak davion mallory abigail manik eduardo marquez lucas mara david marshall jr patrick martens elise martin sophia martinez claire matthews brian martinez zach masoriagos joseph martinez alexa mccartney william mcgary christopher mcguire mackenzie mcguire alexandra mcmillan colin mcnulty grace mctigue haley mendez maximus manzuni nicholas mezes elliott michaels john milkey imelda mikash [Music] alyssa miller micah miller nur mirza casey mitchell thomas mooney demarier moore christine mora patricia moran carlos moreno jacob morgan david morgan emmett morgan [Music] christian morris alexa moy catherine murray elena myers reagan myers hemani nye madeleine nesbitt nali waikita morgan naylor david nelson luke nelson angus nemeth joshua nicholas lucas nielsen julia nemec manu akash nathia suthan luk nosich thomas nottleman reagan novak jocelyn novieli marr avery noka owen nystrom eamonn o'connell molly o'toole caitlyn oak emma olson jackson omori annika oplanek maxwell or nick christopher ortega lauren ortega alison ostrowski luke orrada ryan pedovani william palmer lucas paulshmitus gaia polabinskis zachary pantuso noah perdue michael parsons annika paskowitz siobhan patel julian patino caden patrick jack paul nathan pouch joseph pavilik edward payne brian perez cindy perez karen perez aaron peters justin peters abigail peterson paige pettit ali petkova brook pettit ethan petro eric petrick andrew pitts caroline plume jason pluster maxwell pulaski anastasia polygonides eli polowski ethan pombert corrina pope pounds greta prepachal kevin radoski ryan quinn gabriella raymond chloe radicky jordan randall rohit rajput madeleine redpath tressa raypack danielle reyes amron rexhappi gusta ribochiti guillermo reyes william riemer annalise richardson rachel rios lindsey ringbloom zen roberts mason roberts sean rodriguez joshua roddy jasmine rosales sophia rodriguez connor ryan matthew rowley madeleine sorry emily reimers maya roman alexis saba david roman paige sadler victoria sanchez joshua solomon lucas saranecki arnapop sancia madeleine schallmoser matthew shelbach anya shu hannah schultz jalen shumpert griffin scofield aditya sethi benjamin zachary shanley sarah shake zachary shipinski olivia shirk charles seibert jalen sims grant sukis zane sedopkin antonio smith lydia smith liberty solberg clerk soma roy southworth jessica spahn taylor spear matthew spencer annelise spinozza amy spritzer sarah stanley william stanissick alexandra stankievich gabriella stellato aiden stevens wilson stein nolan stevens samuel grace sweeney andrew swenson lillian sweeney julia shawstack ashley schwooski kai takadina mason taft nathan talag kaylee terhar gianna thayer jane tyson ty thiessen christopher thulin alyla tingson reynard tipton jimmy torrios ashley torres savannah toth ronnie torres ryan trausch jackson travers cindy trejo brendan truitt kyra trujillo hope chosick lucas turk joshua oblies [Music] lucas utterback simus alison van de wetering isabella vangel ryan barcelona irving vela jordan vicenzio alexa wall michael wallen kaden walter jesse way douglas westberg megan wachowski autumn wilhelm francis wilson luke wilson sydney wilson daria whitsack austin whittam michael wojcik marcelo tosic william ray nathan yee brandon youngfeldt anthony murkowski arden zajac isabella zamora justina zindal lucas zeleczewski sydney zuniga liliana schmer how about a round of applause for our graduates [Applause] students please rise [Applause] if you have not already done so you should remove your move your tassel to the left side of your cap to signify your graduation from high school at this time i would like to dismiss the faculty members to form the staff receiving line during the recessional the combined bands will perform under the direction of senior carissa blumka karissa is a member of the trojan marching band and has served as drum major the last two years she also is co-president of the dgn ukulele club and is a member of the tri-m music honor society and the math team karissa is a national merit finalist and has received numerous awards including several from the illinois music educators association during her time at north next year she will study instrumental music education at the university of northern iowa graduates during the recessional please wait for the section leaders to dismiss you by row to the field house or to the purple gym to receive your diplomas thank you to all of our guests for joining us tonight and for being such a gracious audience we ask that you remain in your seats until the conclusion of the recessional congratulations class of 2021 you are now proud alumni of downers grove north high school [Applause] [Music] mm-hmm [Music] so [Music] time [Music] so [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] so [Music] you
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we're good [Music] i'm just giving the translator a moment to make sure know [Music] okay all right okay the new jersey open public's 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 interests is discussed and acted upon in accordance with the with the provisions of this act and board of education policies 0-162 the board of education of the borough of bound brook has caused notice of this meeting to be posted in the board of office and at founder of high school and mail or fest to the courier news foundry clerk south boundary board of education and any person who has requested individual notice and paid the required fee please stand for the pledge i pledge allegiance here okay um i did before we started the meeting um i just wanted to know is mr minhas and mr januzzi here mr januzzi uh okay because um we are going to take the beginning of the meeting to ask any questions that we have um mr uh del vecchio has removed himself from consideration so it's uh the two of you um if you'd like to come forward um so that we can answer if you can answer any questions that we might have uh just to let the public know these two gentlemen are um and so tonight is the night we're gonna get a chance to ask questions discuss it with the board two children so thank you first of all for applying for the for the open seat um like i said in the last meeting i'm very happy to see that there are people that are looking to get on the board because there's been some years where it has not been the case all right um so is there anyone that's on the board besides myself that has any questions that they would like to ask these gentlemen hello gentlemen how are you well how are you uh jay tomasuli 616 thomas place bombrook new jersey um so you're and you you've applied to to come to the school board what do you think the school board does you can go first sure uh you know my expectation is that the board of education is responsible for overseeing uh the education and administration of all of uh what's happening in baton rouge so setting policy reviewing the operations making sure that everything's working the way it's supposed to uh and advocating for the community to make sure that our children are getting the best education possible okay sir um so the bamboo board of education is supposed to serve the entire school district of bomb books not just only from an administration perspective in terms of also hiring and overseeing the their teachers the performance of the teachers and also enabling the teachers to perform at the best of their capabilities now that also means you have maintenance equipment and many other other factors that come into play and it's a synergy of finding out what works and what does not work and the board i feel can provide those opportunities to allow students in this district who is to excel at the best of their capabilities okay so my next follow-up question is um what is the number one controllable expense that the board has i would go with probably the personnel sir the combination between personal and technology it's actually personnel on insurance so um my next question is director music so you're the chairman of rec is that correct correct how long have you been in that position uh i believe as chairman the last three years three years so it's been it's been posted on social media that the only two sports that we actually pay attention to is wrestling with basketball in this town what are the sports that are failing in this town and what is your job as director or rec commissioner is that right how are you what sports are failing in this town and how are you in charge of wreck trying to alleviate that well it's a great question and similar to the role that the board of education plays with education the recreation commission takes it upon itself to oversee all recreational activities within that now sports and programs for the youth is a big part of what we do certainly not the only thing that we do um but in terms of what sports are currently succeeding versus failure that absolute close with the enrollment so it depends on what the kids are interested in but the community wants and then that's what we provide at the same time as the recreation commission we feel that it's really important to make sure that everybody has an opportunity to try different sports because if you don't try then who knows what you're going to like what you're not going to like so right now soccer is very strong has lots of enrollment our wrestling program continues to be very strong at the youth level as well as all the way through high school as you rightly pointed out uh basketball still very good the places where we struggle right now football and baseball our little league in town folded a few years ago and as a recreation commission we decided that it was important for balboa still out to have baseball opportunities so with the help of coachella point of view and his staff uh we brought that back uh we have five baseball teams uh i should say based on softball teams combined and some of my parents in the audience have been generous enough to donate their time and attention to help the kids learn the game and to bring that forward on the football side we're a little bit further behind similar circumstances we had a private organization that was running football in town uh that ceased to be a viable going concern so as a commission we're trying to bring that back to the field in the fall of 2021.
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caroline lopez rolando sanchez flores jazlyn taylor gersh maris spiotic tyler arland miller emily mariah marie schaefel tatum rose heinrich [Music] r.j hernandez jonathan giovanni calderon ashawn jerion mitchell jaime cantu skylar rihanna montano victor adrian cantu ruiz [Applause] morgan garrett macmillan isabel aguayo william wyatt nard [Music] jada iona baskin clayton wade stry kylie alexia dominique bazaan [Music] shepherd allen carlos renee rodriguez ortiz [Music] taryn sage emery esidro perez barraza jayden ray emery jacob tyler smithson anya jade hefley tai din when [Music] lucas mayhem grubert consuelo vasquez diaz joseph tyler snapp annae via senor pereira anna bella hardy juliana velasco lopez haley rhianne hetherington martha juliana natividad [Applause] [Music] emily gene bragg george shaheen tome isabelle alexandria grisalgo minor orlando rueda micah renee espinoza gabriel josiah ochoa [Music] matthew david broshears sydney nicole wolfe aaliyah iman haines davis romero molinares [Applause] salvador de luna isaac john ramirez jennifer jocelyn guerrero vasilio xerath carolina sandoval bernardino lopez salguero bridget faith mullings [Applause] freddie non-young armor percy williams ali anasari jazlyn michaela walcotti evan ira huskin [Music] lovely chinea princess mecker daisy michelle herrera flores samantha marie melchor kirtana krishna kumar jutu daniela morales gregorio brook rhiann hughes rachelle navarro [Music] orion keith steller [Music] isaac glenn barr taylor samantha swayze [Music] bailey ann defour edwin nathaniel alexander pearson norman dale hefner louis joseph picard the fifth tevin raylan anthony michael robles alexis marie gomez robert rock romero valerie boo brandon alexander woodland akil akabi jose carlos valenzuela [Music] helena gene hunter samuel wong mungaro miriam shirak isho connor anthony novak gabriela deutsch angel eunice saucedo jesus adolfo gonzalez pina malaysia ann white [Applause] dominic geiger jordan damani strickland [Applause] jaden jacinto joseph andrew simmons will christopher perkins furman cruz benito cazares jocelyn diaz gonzalez diacia chantel marie jennings joshua duncan redwood devin jacob lieber justin santos lily anna levins christopher james shaver paige diane lyons-wade minerva siddarthan kylie sage hewitt michael vincent seaverhoose brian ray havens congratulations graduates thank you very much and great job well done [Applause] so ladies and gentlemen as we begin the recessional the graduates will be escorted out the facility through the tunnels that they entered then they're going to go grab diplomas and then i hope you've already made arrangements to meet them somewhere where they dropped you off or you dropped them off they will meet you back up at the parking lot where they entered the arena so graduates now for the moment you've all been waiting for will you please stand for me and you may move your tassel from the right to the left ladies and gentlemen i'm very proud and pleased to present to you the graduating class of 2021 [Music] they like [Music] so [Music] so [Music] day despite the challenge all you gotta do is leave it better than you found it it's gonna get different
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[Applause] so this brings us to our first speaker for you this afternoon would you please join me in welcoming mr gavin richards [Applause] good afternoon thank you to mr barnes and my fellow graduates for the opportunity to speak today swedish singer and actress agneth falzkog once said my path has not been determined i shall have more experience and pass many more milestones so far in our lives especially over the past four years our experiences have slowly melded together to make us into the people we are today when we fully examine ourselves we can see unique patchwork created by the people and experiences that have mattered to us each of us has collected little snippets of life that will carry with us for a lifetime you are a living collage of every person and experience that has ever mattered to you even if only for a moment when you leave today take a close look at your collage see what you've created recognize the people and work it took to make it then allow it to keep expanding although we've passed a major milestone we must let our experiences continue to shape who we are the sum of our years thus far should not and cannot on its own determine who we are don't fool yourself into believing that you peaked in high school know that you have more to learn and more to experience history continues around us at every moment and science never ceases to advance so why should we stop if the world doesn't a collage that limits its colors or subjects quickly becomes dull and boring continue to design a collage that you are proud of and most importantly seek to be an inspiration in the collage of others thank you now i'd like to introduce our next speaker miss abby rafael thank you gavin let me set the scene for you winter time sophomore year the science building stairs there was this girl who was three quarters of the way up the stairs and she tripped and fell all the way back to the ground pretty embarrassing i would know because i was that girl but i would argue that while i might fall down the stairs at graduation i'm a completely different person than that girl who fell down the stairs sophomore year i mean look at us we are completely different people than we were back then i mean we've been through so much together whether it be the walk out our freshman year or the pandemic during our senior year but we wouldn't be here without our families whether they consist of blood friends or teachers our families have supported us through those late nights and stressful times our families have helped us de-stress and taught us lessons that last a lifetime our friends and teachers and admin made sure that we would be able to have this graduation today but most importantly we are one the graduating class of 2021 who has supported each other through thick and thin and while it may seem that our journey is coming to an end i would argue that we are a work in progress in this arena we have future lawyers neurosurgeons veterinarians mechanics and so many other diverse careers in this arena we have the future of the world each and every one of you is so unique and diverse like your interests and beliefs this diversity is what's going to have a large impact on the world especially as we continue on our journey as we move into the next stage of our life i would like to leave you with the reminder to dream my favorite musical waitress reminds us that dreams come and they go but we hold them and keep them and we know that we need them dreams are the foundation of our future and they encourage us to continue to grow as long as we keep reaching for our goals the future can only get better so while i might fall down the stairs at graduation at least it was here with my greenway family thank you [Applause] i'd like to introduce to you our next speaker mr logan roper good afternoon thank you abby today is the end of the beginning we have finally finished high school summing up 13 years of going to school from this moment on we are truly free to pursue our dreams and do what we want in life thank you greenway for preparing us for the world to be honest i did not go to school to learn i never liked sitting in classes except for maybe a couple of them throughout the four years i did however love to go to school to see my friends coming into greenway i only knew a handful of people and i was not very good at socializing with strangers i came from an elementary school that promoted about 60 people in its ace so when i started i was a freshman i had no clue what to do i was terrified i still remember shaking uncontrollably on that first day of school i went months keeping to myself and only spending time with old friends but then my friend gavin invited me to young life where i found so many friends that would eventually become family and after that i joined the soccer team where i met even more strangers that would end up becoming family as time went on i met my friend's friends and before i knew it i was looking forward to going to school we all bonded and i realized how truly lucky i was to be surrounded by so many friends that love me i have learned so much from my friends these last four years talking to strangers dealing with conflicts relaxing having fun you name it eventually i noticed these changes reveal themselves as i became a new person who was preparing for the real world to all of my family and friends thank you god thank you standing here today i am overwhelmed graduating high school does not feel real i'm scared i promise you that i am shaking whether externally or internally just like my first day at greenway because of this i know that i am now entering a new chapter in life a chapter where i will again meet new people and grow this applies to all of you sitting there in front of me as well today is the end of the beginning but is more importantly the beginning of the rest of our stories thank you greenway high school and friends please join me in welcoming our next speaker miss mikayla tang thank you logan charles swindle once said life is 10 what happens to you and 90 how you react to it there's no doubt that this year has been crazy however that has never stopped our class from success from adjusting to new safety measures and finding new ways to connect with friends and family to juggling school work sports and a part-time job we have shown that we have the skills to tackle whatever life throws at us in these last four years we've built the high school experience we've wanted whether it be on the stage the field or in the stands we will warmly look back on events like friday night football games lunch with our friends club meetings long practices and the notorious all-nighters with the dedication of our teachers staff and coaches we've been able to thrive both in and out of the classroom and make the most of our time here at greenway although these times weren't quite as we had planned we embraced our new challenge our senior year may have been cut short but we made it here and get to share this in-person experience with our loved ones who have supported us along our journey just as we entered as wide-eyed freshmen eager to take on the new experience of high school we leave here today excited and ready to take on the new chapters of our lives our strength comes from the memories we have made the friendships we have built and our drive to excel in the midst of hardship life hasn't been easy but we have come together grown learned and made the right choices to reach our current destination and although we will no longer be part of the same student body we will forever be part of the same resilient class of 2021 demons so as swindle states 10 percent of life that we cannot control but there is also 90 percent that we can so no matter what circumstances we may face in the future we have the ability to choose our response and continue to succeed just like we did to get here today thank you i now like to introduce our principal mr ed barnes thank you michaela and please join me one more round of applause acknowledging our four top one percent students the leadership displayed on our campus begins with our students i'd like to introduce you to two young ladies who've displayed great character and leadership while on our campus or virtually attending our school they have done an exceptional job leading this senior class it is my pleasure to introduce our student body president miss rebecca wiedman i turn the page thank you mr barnes before i start with the whole moving on to new chapters in our lives talk i want to acknowledge all the adversity our class has faced we are once in a century class that has spent a majority of our senior year in an online learning environment across the country kova 19 forced millions of students off of campus and onto computers not only was this a challenge for our education but also for our social lives we are robbed of experiences like student sections homecoming and even just walking in the halls i can personally say that the last quarter school gave those of us who went back on campus the opportunity to squeeze in last minute memories our class has gone through many hard times but that has made us more adaptable and prepared for the real world online school was a struggle for some but for others you learn how to thrive in your own way high school has a different impact for everyone but for most we made lifelong memories that we will never forget life life has different plans for everyone but through our struggles we have learned how to persevere and become the best version of ourselves high school isn't perfect you aren't meant to love every second high school throws us hard times and that's how we're meant to learn greenway has prepared us for what comes next in our lives and i was proud to represent you as the greenway student body president and although each of us has headed off in our own directions to lead our own lives wherever we go we will always be the graduating class of the 2021 demons thank you [Applause] i'd now like to introduce our senior class president miss maddie donner thank you becca good afternoon beloved friends and family of our graduating class my name is matty donner and i am your senior class president for the class of 2021 today it is my honor to be able to share this year's senior gift class senior class gift with everyone i ask at that this time mr barnes joined me at the podium it is my privilege to announce that despite the tough year the senior class was able to raise the funds for a new upgraded speaker system for all of our lively school events such as assemblies dances and other community bonding gatherings we hope that as life goes back to normal our gift is helpful to reuniting the greenway community and keeping demon pride high thank you mr barnes and greenway high school as your senior class president and fellow student of greenway high school i have one request for our audience members when names are being read aloud i ask that parents friends students and family refrain from cheering whistling or yelling this is a big moment so let's look out for each other and show our graduates the respect they deserve staying quiet and respectful to make sure that everyone gathered here can cherish this special moment is crucial seniors congratulations through all the troubles you made it as you enter a new chapter today and say your goodbyes take a moment to be proud of yourself and all of your accomplishments thank you [Applause] i would like to now once again introduce our principal mr ed barnes thank you maddie and all of our speakers and again all of our students congratulations on reaching this milestone i'd like to take the opportunity to introduce our next speaker as i mentioned earlier mrs patty kennedy is a longtime resident of the glendale union high school district as i mentioned she was elected to the governing board back in 2010 and since that time she has held the position of a board member the board president and currently is holding the position of clerk for the glendale union governing board please join me in welcoming mrs patty kennedy good afternoon greenway high school graduating class of 2021.
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you gotta wonder if i got a problem [Music] i can't help baby but it doesn't oh scratching on my back [Music] time [Music] baby i've been seeing lonely people in crowded rooms covering the old heart breaks with new tattoos it's all about smoke screens and cigarettes looking through low lights at silhouettes but all i say is lonely people the city's gonna break my heart it's [Music] she's always gonna break [Music] and i remember nights when i didn't feel like work she wakes up at noon and she's out two three she leaves a perfume all over me [Music] oh this city's gonna break my heart [Music] stuff [Music] she got me fingers [Music] is yes [Music] but i don't know what to say cause you let go [Music] just [Music] baby please don't let me break it i knew i should have stayed cause now you're moving on and i don't know what to say [Music] cuz until it is [Music] sometimes so [Music] me [Music] you gotta lose somebody i'm from the east side of america where we choose pride over character and we pick sides but this is us this is us this this is us this is i don't believe the narcissism when everyone projects and expects you to listen to them [Music] is [Music] and i'm from the east side of america [Music] when [Applause] mistakes is this is good afternoon ladies and gentlemen as principal of thunderbird high school i welcome you to the commencement ceremony for the class of 2021.
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you you go there something i could have said to make your heart be better is how you doing buddy i've been hiding yeah i don't need you to save me crazy oh crazy think about it is could be is um so and we're just hanging on feelings for me in this whole and what could world be yes bring me lady vibes quite the same way is sometimes me to admit is [Music] so keep it up tell each but with other i'm in the zone is sorry it yeah a great way for us tell me baby is oh tell me baby is one more time oh is expensive let me is [Music] let me dancing bye let me show you if you know what i is foreign oh foreign is um foreign i'm so tired [Music] everybody around me [Music] oh i need you now i am gotta say it uh baby tell me me tell me miss me so much uh stay up at night don't waste a minute call me is watching movies is i is just i know is [Music] is trying to be honest with my happiness me last night was the last time i never let you figure me out sitting last here was the last time me good morning i'm brooke parsons the very proud principal of apollo high school on behalf of the entire staff and administration i would like to welcome you to the commencement exercises of apollo high school which celebrates its 51st year with the class of 2021.
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test clear okay good evening welcome everybody to the may 24th 2021 regular business meeting of the board of school of trustees with a start time six o'clock if it may all rise we're gonna ask mr hoffman to lead us in the pledge of allegiance 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 may be seated okay to start this evening we have item two board of school trustees resolution accommodation awards we have 2.01 the 2020 2021 macarthur math bowl team for winning second place in the state in the red class at the elementary math bowl competition i'm going to go ahead and read through the names we have the team ivy anderson cody ball landon bishop colin brown madison duffy christian farmer caleb fralick xavier garcia quinn johnson landon we'll get this straight when we actually hand out the award laban lightning good live and good keep uh caden meese piper parsnaut killen ii leah sterick thank you cayenne thank you thank you leah starrick connor wolf and the coaches joe bisek and lauren brinner or briner uh 2.02 we have the crown point high school 2020 2021 academic super bowl team for being named state champions in the fine arts category and third place in the social studies and interdisciplinary categories in class one at the indiana state academic super bowl competition the fine arts team was maya emils and greg abby nemegada and the social studies team was daniel sabinczyk jeremy kwasney an interdisciplinary team jason tong daniel sabinczyk abby nemegada maya amos and the coaches jason mcgee and john lombercy item 2.03 we have our 2022 teacher of the year administrator of the year and employee of the year award present presentations to jeremy walker teacher of the year secondary level jennifer teacher of the year elementary level dana toriano employer of the year employee of the year and the teacher of the year finalists were jill wagner from colonel wheeler scott reed taft sarah fritz eisenhower daniel moulder lake street melissa donaldson macarthur katie rice from solan robinson amanda cosiba winfield nicole sekulowski jerry ross jamie edgington learning center and the employee of the year finalist chantel pierce from the administrative service center and mike carnahan mcarthur do you have a motion to approve approved accommodations that's presented moved by mr angel in second by mr babjack any questions comments before vote all those in favor signify by saying aye hi opposed motion carries five zero and i will begin presenting the accommodations just quickly before we begin the presentation of the commendations for those of the teachers of the year and employees of the year who are here we ask you that you stick around wait until we get through all of the others we're going to get pictures with them so if you can remain in the audience or go back to the audience seats once your name is called and you're given your certificate or accommodation and then once we get through everybody else then we'll have you guys step out and do the pictures for those awards or accommodations as well all right thank you let's get started thumbs up we're good i hope so all right excellent um it's my honor tonight to give the award to the 2020-2021 macarthur math bowl team for winning second place in the state in the red class at the elementary math bowl competition uh with the coaches would you guys like to join me up front uh coaches joe bisek and lauren breiner [Applause] okay [Laughter] all right first we have ivy anderson cody ball [Applause] landon bishop colin brown madison duffy christian farmer [Applause] caleb fralick xavier garcia [Applause] quinn johnson [Applause] landon libengood liebengan caden miese piper park parzignot [Applause] cayenne sachin [Applause] and leah starrick [Applause] so let me actually read the resolution of commendation the crown point school board of trust of school trustees is honored to commend the 2020-2021 douglas macarthur elementary math ball team for notorious achievement be it hereby resolve that the school board of trustees for the crown point community school corporation wishes to express sincere congratulations to the 2020 2021 douglas macarthur elementary math bowl team for winning second place in the state in the red class at the elementary math bowl competition the school board of trustees publicly recognizes this achievement and renders it permanently to its minus minutes to be preserved for public posterity dated this 24th day of may 2021 congratulations i'd like to give the coaches an opportunity to say something about your team and have the kids turn around and show the show the audience their t-shirts this is pretty cool up here we got potato god axe pumpkin pie check out those names what is the story behind the t-shirts they get to pick their own nickname uh they design the front so whatever they come up with so that we let them collaborate for a little while look at inspiration from online and things like that and they wanted to have a calculator this year and so we have a calculator with fun nicknames on the back okay all right turn around together then we'll squish oh i think so congratulations macarthur thank you parents after we're able to settle down mr smith will read the accommodation for the academic spell bowl team give everybody a minute to get situated all right very good well i have the honor of presenting our academic super bowl team for the crown point high school their their accommodation this evening and uh our coaches uh jason mcgee and john lembercy here today excellent come on in coaches thank you [Applause] congratulations coaches on your state championship and third place finish in the social studies and interdisciplinary categories um we'll uh we'll announce the name of the students and um give them their accommodation award and then we'll read the accommodation okay so uh super bowl competition the fine arts team maya melsie is that correct [Applause] anna greg congratulations abi nimagada for the social studies team daniel sabincik congratulations and jeremy kwasney interdisciplinary team jason tong uh other individuals on that uh interdisciplinary team daniel cebenczyk again [Applause] avi nimagada [Applause] and maya and elsie again coach i need the accommodation back i forgot to give it to you i need it back so i can read it let me read the accommodation i appreciate it the crown point board of school of trustees is honored to commend the team for meritorious achievement be hereby resolved at the board of school of trustees for the crown point community school corporations wishes to express sincere congratulations to the members of the 2021 crown point high school super bowl team for uh receiving third place in social studies category and at the 2021 indiana academic super bowl state finals and first place for being named state championships in the fine arts categories the board of school of trustees publicly recognizes this achievement and renders its permanently to its minutes to be preserved for public posterity this 24th day of may 2021.
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okay can we call the immediate order with the pledge of allegiance please [Music] congratulations [Music] good evening and welcome to the [Music] may regular meeting of the green castle school board first thing on the agenda tonight is adjustments to the agenda mr gibney yep i don't have any adjustments to the agenda tonight okay next item on the agenda is public comments regarding tonight's agenda items are there any public comments regarding the the agenda this evening okay hearing none next item on the agenda is recognitions mr gibboni yep so if we want to start with uh mrs muncie and dear meadow hmm good evening for our may student of the month we have rozzy nip and her teacher mrs weeks she said rozzy will be will be a rozzy will be a second grader dear meadow teachers staff and students will miss okay her heart of gold helping hand and kind nature will take her far in this world razzi is a dependable student who brings a smile to anyone's face and spreads cheer and kindness to all i'm so thankful to be her teacher this year and this morning at plc when mr mchugh was announcing who our student of the month was every teacher had something positive to say about rozzy and how she is so helpful to everyone so let's give her a round of applause i switched the order this month on you mrs johnson so now we're up for rid path yep redpath has two students we would like to first celebrate our april student of the month as he's making his way here all right clayton come right here buddy this is clayton fleshman and his he was nominated by two teachers in the building his classroom teacher mrs miller states that clayton has been working very hard at home and at school he has made strong academic gains he has improved in spelling and reading mrs seaver states that she is very proud of the effort clayton has put into his school his progress shows just how hard he has been working so congratulations clayton our may student of the month is right or right writer has matured tremendously he was nominated by his classroom teacher mrs dibble who is sitting over there he has shown an excellent work ethic and he's also grown in collaboration with his peers writer is often seen talking calmly within his peer groups his problem-solving skills have increased for the best solution or outcome writer celebrates and praises his peers she is very proud of him so congratulations writer so tz's student of the month is mr cooper landry cooper is a third grade student in mrs terry's class and mrs terry says about cooper he is a kind and compassionate young man he has a big heart and a strong passion for sports i.u not purdue so he's on my list but that's okay his great personality and sense of humor are also two qualities that make him so likable to both staff and classmates mrs terry says congratulations she was not able to be here something else about cooper that i think everybody should know is that he is a very quick thinker and he is quick on his feet a few weeks ago we had a situation in his classroom where a student became upset at the teacher and cooper did not hesitate to run from the room to the office to get assistance for his teacher and to make sure that everybody was safe in his room and that the student that was upset got to to talk about his needs and cooper just reached out and made sure that that again that his teacher and his classmates were safe and so he he got this honor for both being likable and also being very responsible so congratulations to cooper [Applause] good evening our student of the month is ella tischer and mrs meyer says ella is a kind and inquisitive student who is a pleasure to work with she asks thoughtful questions and always has a kind expression word to share with others mrs isaac says ella is honest in the truest sense of integrity taking responsibility for her actions on days she had to use online school she worked hard to make sure her work was complete best of all ella always remembers who she is no matter whom she's around she's true to herself always congratulations ella at the high school our student end of the month is olivia monet and um i am olivia's english teacher and i wrote this this is um olivia try as hard at everything she does during class discussion she always puts herself out there and isn't afraid to share her ideas even if she isn't sure about her answer every day she tries her best and she encourages her classmates to do the same and she pushes herself to tackle challenges and doesn't give up when it gets difficult she adds so much positive energy to everyone's morning in our class i've been so lucky to have olivia as a student this year [Applause] and then we have a couple of other recognitions the high school mrs phillips good evening i'm here to recognize a couple of outstanding science fair projects students have completed um the first person is not able to be here is casey crary he again qualified for the state science fair which is no small feat he also was awarded third place by the american statistics association his project had to do with the correlation between risky behavior and future drug use with students using cdc data the other student i have to present here is maisha rasheed she not only qualified for state science fair but this year she qualified for the international science and engineering fair which is just an outstanding accomplishment and not only did she qualify for the international science fair she interviewed for special awards and one honorable mention from the indiana again no sorry the american statistics association which she also won an award at state for first place which was a 500 award and i'm gonna let her speak for just a few minutes about our oh project okay all right hello good evening um my name is maisha rasheed and for my science fair project i also analyzed um a cdc survey and that survey basically looked at children it actually it asked adults about questions about their childhood um about instances they went through such as abuse neglect etc etc so things that are probably some of the worst experiences a child could have and then their later life health implications and overall what i found was is that children who went through emotional physical abuse were often likely to experience negative health outcomes in the future um also this isn't necessarily related to my project but i do want to give a big shout out to mrs phillips last year i had a goal to get to the international science fair and i didn't get there which is fine i mean it's a big goal and i was just about to give up this year until a conversation was like eh i might do it this year and mrs phillips just gave me that little nudge and she helped me achieve one of my biggest high school goals so thank you mrs phillips thank you it's a really amazing time great time to be a green castle tiger cub from the science fair to our students of the month to our state championship math bowl team science team uh to the over 80 000 in local scholarships there's a lot of great things um taking place here in the classrooms on the athletic fields um just all the way around so thank you to our students and teachers and coaches and everybody and parents for supporting our kids in these endeavors we set up the photo backdrop out in parker lobby everyone is more than welcome to stay for the full meeting but i understand if you have little ones on a school night you might need to get home by all means feel free to do whatever what you need to do but again you're welcome to stay and attend the rest of the meeting as well that always not you mr wilson you have to stay okay well the next item on the agenda is the approval of the consent agenda which consists of the meeting minutes from april 26 the regular board meeting and the allowance of claims and financial report mrs romer hello everyone hello okay first in your packet for the finance packet you'll see a couple of payrolls the first payroll was dated april 9th 2021 for a total payroll of 383 000 and 61 cents along with that payroll came some accounts payable again that would be for payroll taxes and insurance excuse me uh payroll taxes and retirement total on that accounts payable for the april 9th payroll 107 000 58.33 the second payroll for april was dated april 23 2021 for a total payroll of 418 632-26 along with that payroll came the accounts payable for taxes and retirement total accounts payable one hundred sixteen thousand nine hundred eighty dollars and thirty six cents did anyone have any questions about the payrolls for april okay we'll just go ahead and move on to some prepays that should be next in your packet dated um april 1 through april 30th 2021.
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